The Rachel: The Blade Ship I

by Lilac Solanum

A series continuation that takes off right where the series ends, exploring the results of Jake's decision and digging into who and what of The One.

Thanks for reading my series continuation! This particular installment was written in the beginning of my fanfiction journey, so uh. Oh boy are some of these writing choices suspect. I hope you like em dashes! Stick around though! I eventually use less em dashes and more semicolons. The true mark of a distinguished writer.

Marco

"Ram the Blade ship."

I looked at Jake and suddenly regretted my choice to jump on what was apparently The Space Titanic.

People are going to miss me, you know. My work was more important than people think. I'd never say so myself (except for the hundreds of times I've said so myself, typically tongue loosened by a few Captain and cokes- oh, and the four separate books written about my influence) but the world needed my humor. I didn't step into the limelight just to save my friends from the sort of public speaking they weren't suited for. I looked at that spotlight, looked past it, and saw an entire world on the brink of panic.

So let's say you live in the midwest. Chicago, maybe. Which, apparently, is not a state but actually a city in Illinois. Your book learnin' bits go a bit askew when you spend your teen years sleep deprived and fighting for your life only to become an overnight worldwide icon. Anyway, you're from rural Chicago. Maybe you heard tell of a city in SolCal exploding and you thought to yourself, wow! That's crazy! Then you sipped your "pop" and milked a cow and scratched your ass- I don't know, I have no idea what exactly goes down in the midwest and honestly it scares me. So you're done scratching your ass and then all of a sudden news comes out that aliens were slowly invading the country for the past decade and that's why that California town blew up that one time.

Your brain goes a little weird, right? Maybe you don't believe the invasion really was over. Maybe you believe in the aliens but not the media. Maybe you think it's all a cover up. Maybe you get scared and paranoid and shoot your husband right between his eyes, point blank, confident and sure. His blood sprinkles on your face in Jackson Pollock shapes and you stand proud because you knew, you knew, that he'd been acting different and he had a Yeerk in him. You knew.

I told you the midwest scares me.

America got tense for a bit. More than tense. America got battle-ready and it's whole body went taut. It went looking for a fight, needed a fight, and there was no fight to be had. The fight was over. A bunch of teens and a ragtag collection of aliens and a mere one thousand U.S. soldiers had already won.

What do you do with all that energy? Where does it go? How does an entire country deal with the aftermath of a war it never really knew was happening?

You laugh at it. That's what you do. You insert Marco Ruiz-Champlin and you laugh. Look at that awkward kid. He just got braces. Look at his terrible frosted tips. He was in the front lines. He was there with Jacob Berenson. He taught Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill the macarena. Cassandra Gardner seems to at least somewhat tolerate him. He knew Rachel. He even knew that weird bird one. He held the world on his shoulders and he's on The Tonight Show and he's laughing. Look at that ridiculous teenager. It's okay. We can laugh too.

Without me the Yeerk aftermath would have been even more violent, even more volatile, even more divided than it already was. America wanted me. America needed me.

Then America got kind of bored and that's when the fun really began.

Strategizing during the war? I can't say I enjoyed it, but at least I was good at it. Strategizing how to stay relevant in Hollywood? Now, that's entertainment. Playing with audience expectations. Keeping my choices sharp. Knowing when to do something new but knowing to never go too fast. Marco Ruiz-Champlin can be in movies, but not star in movies. You see? He's not exactly a trained actor. Starring in my own movie would come off as self-serving and capitalizing off the Animorph sensation, kind of like how they keep making really terrible video games based off of popular movies just to dig into people's wallets. But hey, if the kid wants to experiment with acting, then why the hell not. So you watch me in What's This Now? as Kirsten Dunst's best friend and you're like, okay, he's good. Not staring in his own movie good, but good. Fine, let's let him be in a TV show. If he's still acting in three more years, maybe we'll forget about the whole Animorph thing. See, America doesn't love the multi-talented. It's taken my boy J-Timbies years to even be taken slightly serious as an actor. I couldn't just ask America to accept me as a respected actor after saving the whole world, even if I had the clout (and offers). America wouldn't let that happen. Too much success. Too much talent. Seasoned warrior and a charming thespian? Please. Start small. Pace it out.

See? This? A much better use of my talents. Planning and strategy but no one dies. They just become hosts on E! talk shows which, honestly, IS a fate worse than death.

Finances were fun, too. Tucking my money away in stocks and bonds. Figuring out how to make my money grow without me having to do any actual work. That was very analytical and tricky with real, tangible risks that excited me. I woke up one day and had lost a cool million. A million entire dollars. It poured cold water on my face. It froze my bones. It was scary. I loved it. Dear God, there was a little Rachel in me after all.

But just like Hollywood, I figured it out. Maybe I could have continued to take bigger and bigger risks, invest in stranger and stranger things. I could have been wild and reckless. I could have given all my money away, all at once, and tried to rebuild it from scratch, just to see if I could. Sure, it'd be hard without the initial bumps of government issued grants and grandiose gifts given to us Animorphs out of guilt. But I could do it. I could use the altruistic angle- but that does run the risk of becoming too phony. Just look at how the media portrays Bono. I could fake a rehab stint and come back a changed man. The media likes that a whole lot more than someone earnestly doing philanthropic work. I can't blame them.

I formed a few plans for Operation Ground Zero, just to make my life more interesting. I even started to set some in motion. Eventually, I bailed on every one of them. Not because I was worried, but because I have a particular vision for the Animorphs' public image. I want to make sure the Animorphs stay clean in the eyes of the public. Give them hope. Make America feel less guilty about us fighting a war while they stayed warm in their houses.

I couldn't do anything to make my life more interesting, not without letting down the very country I sacrificed both my childhood and sanity to save. So I sat in stasis. Sometimes I'd try to see exactly how much money I could spend before it starts to make a serious dent and my accountant calls me in a panic. Not enough to become a national embarrassment, just enough to cause a stir among my team. And that's why Marco owns every single Batmobile ever built for film. Every. One.

They sit in my hangar and collect dust.

So yeah, I was bored. Bored out of my skull. Turns out you can't go on wild, insane adventures once a week as a kid and then be satisfied with a ton of toys.

Sometimes I wonder if the boredom was my own fault. I've built a career out of sanitizing those stories. The Helmacron stuff is hilarious when you leave out the actual mind numbing terror. Ax teaching me to hack at the Andalite level and me using that skill to change my grades and get a ton of free magazine subscriptions is a cute story. Flying into the sunset as an osprey is three different kinds of majestic. Battles sound thrilling and heroic when certain details are left behind.

But I know it's not that. I could never convince myself that those years were a romp. I can't forget. I've smiled with blood stained teeth and flesh on my lips. I've seen my own bone glisten beneath my muscles. I've left my friends for dead just because the odds were more favorable somewhere else. I watched Rachel's last stand.

I nearly killed my own mother.

I don't forget.

So why was I standing on the bridge of a spaceship that may not- and in this very instant, absolutely will not- make it back to Earth? What could possibly be so terrible about boredom that you abandoned it to, once again, feel fear sing in your blood?

Well, I heard that space is great for your pores.

"Hey, Big Jake," I said, my voice coming out a bit higher than I wanted, "When I said 'trust your instincts' I meant, you know. Different instincts. Smarter instincts. The instincts that tell you to drop a hot potato before it burns your fingers off, not the instincts that say 'Hey! Hold on to the hot potato for a very long time and then deliberately crash into a much bigger spaceship!'"

Jake was already shaking his head. Menderash was manning the controls with a strange kind of fervor, clearly locked into something I was not. "No. No. While you've been memorizing literally every word in Young Frankenstein, I've been studying the enemy."

"That has been an amazing use of my time and I do not appreciate your cavalier rejection of my choices."

Jake looked up at the screen. The One still stood there, his deep evil radiating through the comm screen. "Listen, the Blade ship was designed for Andalite warfare. Straight-forward and by the book. Us? We're humans."

I glanced at Menderash. His hands were flying over the cockpit. He looked like a pianist deep in concerto, his face a picture of complete serene discovery. "You know something I don't, Mendy?" I asked.

Normally he refused to answer me if I called him Mendy, but circumstances were different. "This has been done before. Prince Elfangor saved the dome ship StarSword with this strategy. Prince Elfangor was, as we now know, more than a little influenced by humans."

I stared at Menderash. Not for the first time I thought about how beautiful he was. Something happens when Andalites perform the Frolis Maneuver that takes the most delicate and elegant features of the people it's mixing, almost as if Mr. Frolis was trying to make something as similar to an Andalite as possible. It was one way to spot an Andalite tourist. That, and the elaborate "artificial clothing" outfits they thought were artistic, but actually looked more like Dr. Seuss's frilliest nightmare. Oh, and the crumbs on their chins. Menderash himself looked to be in his mid-twenties, like Sergeant Dean Santorelli, and was tall and lithe and elegant. He had giant gray eyes, silver eyes, storm eyes. They stood out against his warm bronze skin. He'd grown his black hair out long and had a tendency to put it up in feminine styles, another odd Andalite quirk. Right now he wore it in a crown braid with the rest of his hair curling softly behind him, rippling down his back.

I swear. If Jeanne Gerard continued to resist my infectious charm then I might just have to focus on Menderash. Hey, desperate times, my man. Desperate times. It's not like I've never known the touch of a man. Shit gets weird backstage at the VMAs.

We really were an attractive crew. Jeanne Gerard, a half-Vietnamese, half-Italian girl raised in France who could whisper sweet nothings in your ear in six different languages and was working on a seventh just to show off. Santorelli, a chiseled being with soft eyes and an even softer smile. I liked Santorelli. I called him a chocolate war-god, once, and he seemed mildly offended, so I told him I'd be his personal pint-sized glass of midnight horchata. We'd been good friends ever since. Even Jake was getting pretty svelte off of our steady diet of nutritional pills and freeze dried strips of color. Well, comparatively.

"You understand what I'm trying to do, Menderash?" asked Jake.

He nodded.

"Can you do it accurately?"

"We will find out, Captain."

"Good enough."

I glanced up at the screen. There was that creature, that Ax-but-not-Ax, that thing that was in Ax's body. It kept sliding and shifting, looking like a dancer beneath a strobe light only nothing in the room changed but him. I'd see Ax with his wound of a mouth and then I'd see the rat trap android and then I'd see blackness and then I'd see everything at once. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my throat, like it was trying to escape my body. I took a few deep breaths then pushed my body aside. I was used to pretending as if I was fine and my heart wasn't trying to rip itself in half.

Hey Jake, a little more explanation would be great, said Tobias. I feel pretty in the dark over here. Also pretty terrified. Won't crashing into the Blade ship, you know. Kill us a lot?

"You have to think like a human," he said, his eyes locked on the calculations dancing across the control pit. "Intergalactic warfare is — elegant, compared to Earth tactics. People fight with a certain set of rules. No one goes off book. We're going off book. These ships aren't designed for blunt force impact. They're designed to withstand energy rays. If we want on the ship — if we want to level the playing field and fight hand-to-hand, which is what we're good at - we do this." Jake grinned. It was a little weird to see so much emotion on his face, especially considering the circumstance, but I'd take it. These past few months on the Rachel was the closest Jake had been to the guy I remembered.

"Okay," I said slowly. "What do we do when we're on the ship? Because that — whatever that is —" I waved toward the communication screen, which still showed the monster's flickering face, "Seems more than a little thought control friendly. Full on Jedi mind tricks. Professor Xavier, eat your heart out."

"I'm not exactly prepared for a scenario like this," admitted Jake grimly.

"I'm not, either. So what do we do? We did a lot of dumb shit back in the day but we never marched in without any kind of plan at all."

Jake looked at me through the corners of his eyes. "First time for everything," he said flatly. "This is our chance to go in and take Ax back, so we're taking it. That's all. Crazy, reckless, ruthless."

"I so regret saying that."

Jake put a hand on Menderash's shoulder, looking over at the navigation screens. "You got it?" he asked.

"I am ready," said Menderash. He looked to Jake. I couldn't help but notice his hands were shaking. It hit me all at once - there was going to be a lot of impact. Like, the worst car crash of all time. The rest of us could morph something small and armored. Menderash? I had a feeling he'd come out of this with a little bit more than whiplash.

"Go," said Jake.

"All thrust to the engines," boomed Menderash, his voice sounding so much more confident and sure than his shaking hands betrayed. "Set speed to Ilvis ten."

The ship launched itself forward, racing toward its goal. I shut my eyes. I felt my stomach knot and my heart race and my body go weak. I knew I'd be sick if I didn't start morphing. Just as roach pincers were erupting from my face I heard Jake yelling, "Jeanne, Santorelli, go insect!"

Ah, the adorable newbies, still learning. If only I didn't have the sort of instincts that told me 'Hey, you're about to die, better turn into a disgusting nightmare creature in order to possibly maybe survive!'

My eyelids sucked back into my rapidly hardening skin. Great. Now I had to watch. I saw Jake shoving a pilot helmet over Menderash's head, still completely human. Half of me wanted to scream at him for not morphing himself, the other half wanted to bask in the image of Jacob Berenson, President of Earth, leader of the Animorphs and Big Jake the Yeerk Killer making sure everyone was safe before taking care of himself. That's why he's the big guy and I just provide the quippy one liners.

My eyesight started to go while I shrank down. I thought, desperately, about how to fight The One. There had to be something. Some detail, some thread, some morph. All I'd done for the past three years is comb through and sanitize my traumatic youth, pulling Hollywood-friendly anecdotes out of the steaming wreckage of pain and loss. Where was the right precedent? The right story? The right -

Jake, I said, much more roach than human. Through the awkward haze of my roach eyes, I could see Jake was almost there. Almost there wasn't as good as finished, but he was at least small and armored. He might get a bit beaten up, but he'd be fine.

Menderash, I couldn't say. I didn't want to think about it.

Yeah? answered Jake with expectant patience, as if he'd simply been waiting for me to come up with a dazzling, brilliant plan. Tough luck buddy, this one's wasn't great.

I thought of something that could maybe break us out of any mind control attempt and possibly stand its ground against- whatever is going on with Ax. Do you remember the Iskoort homeworld?

Yes, he said.

Do you still have that morph? I asked.

Jake paused.

Oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Just then, we rammed into the Blade ship.

Jake

Chapter Notes

Thank you to Cavatica for the lovely beta work!

Howler.

I had assumed I wouldn't have the morph when I returned to Earth. I never looked for it. At least, not for the first year or so.

When things started to get dark, when I got tired and old and just wanted everything to be done, I looked for it. It wasn't like the dinosaurs we acquired in the Sario rip. This was something different. We'd actually gone to Iskoort. It had actually happened. The fact it was a real and tangible effect was kind of the whole point.

I morphed it, alone, at 3 AM in the free Hork-Bajir valley. I'd had my own cabin. Lots of privacy to test out alien morphs. No family in there to ask questions.

I found I could control the morph and I couldn't. The instinct for death was so deeply ingrained in the Howler that it was all it knew. If I started battling as a Howler, I would kill. Not my friends, but definitely my foes. There would be no temporary maiming or loss of consciousness. Just ugly, gruesome death. That was not okay when my worst enemies wore the skins of innocents.

That's still not why I didn't touch the morph. Frankly, at that point, it wasn't about winning individual battles anymore. It was about ending it all. I would have used the Howler but the tiger suited for all things, in the end. It was vicious enough and I was much more comfortable using it.

The Rachel hit the Blade ship.

We hit when I was still too big to grasp on-to anything, but by that point I had my exoskeleton and was missing most of my nerve endings. I'm sure I was hurt, but I felt nothing. I'd only heard a vague crunch. Didn't matter. I'd morphed enough and I was conscious. I started turning back into human. Everyone but Santorelli, get into battle morphs as quickly as you can, I said while I still had thought-speak. It was a rough command to give. When we were kids and constantly going out on missions to hurt the Yeerks, we morphed back and forth with unheard of frequency, barely registering the exhaustion because we couldn't do anything but move forward. Now, out of war time, asking someone to morph, morph back, and morph again was like dropping someone off twenty miles from their home and telling them they had to get back in an hour or there would be no dinner. It was a lot of physical exertion.

I made my class morph and remorph at random to make sure they were prepared for this. Jeanne Gerard I didn't worry about. She was already sprouting jaguar fur. I looked for Marco and Tobias. Tobias was taking a moment between morphs to survey the scene and Marco was sucking in air and mentally preparing himself.

"No," I said, pointing at both of them. "No breathing room. Just do it. Battle morphs. Now."

Marco's eyes flashed with anger and I looked away. I didn't have time for his readjustment period. He countered back with something petulant and I ignored him. Tobias cocked his head at me. I'm staying hawk, he said.

"There's not going to be a lot of altitude," I said, my skin already turning black.

I know, said Tobias. I'll be okay.

Part of me wanted to keep pushing him, get him to morph Hork-Bajir, but I dropped it. It'd become clear over the past six months that Tobias really didn't want to be anything but a hawk. It was a detriment in a lot of ways. This ship was designed for humans, not birds, and his complete refusal to morph human made assigning him training and chores difficult. Plus, birds didn't love enclosed spaces. There were days where he was so irritable it affected the whole team. He and Marco got into a pretty intense shouting match over it a few months back. Eventually, we all decided to never ask Tobias to morph human, but we could suggest morphing Champ if we felt he needed a break from the claustrophobia. It was one of the weirder fights I'd had to mediate.

In the end, I trusted Tobias enough to let him fight however he felt comfortable. Besides, I could always use his eyes. "Tobias, what do you see?" I asked, my body bubbling with changes.

Menderash is still breathing, he said. But he's bleeding. A lot. Took the brunt of the crash on his left side. Probably protected himself with his left arm. Saved his organs, mostly, but he doesn't look great.

I nodded. "Santorelli, go to him."

Sergeant Dean Santorelli had been an Army Ranger medic before coming to my class. I hand picked him out of all the other applicants specifically because of that training. I feel sometimes morph-capable people forget that the body is weak and fragile. A medic would respect that in combat. Last longer. Not depend on constant demorphing then remorphing to brute force his way through battle. My Animorphs could never demorph in front of Yeerks and we learned to respect our bodies and fight past the pain. It was better to keep a dying body then to waste energy with constant morphing. Plus, the morphing left you vulnerable. Many of the morph-capable controllers we fought did not understand this and they died because of it.

Santorelli knelt next to Menderash. "Tobias is right. I don't think he hit anything major but the blood loss will get him, and quickly. Professor Berenson, man, I don't want to argue with you but if you let me-"

"No," I said, my voice growing lower and more gruff. "We need you up with us. If only four of us go, our odds of making it back are that much lower. If we don't make it back as four, Menderash dies. If we don't make it back as five, Menderash still dies. When we go down there, I want all five. The odds for Menderash are the same either way. Get him to where he'll survive for a few hours."

"Okay," said Santorelli slowly. He was already digging into the First Aid kit all ships had up front for reckless pilots. He looked a little shaken by my rough decision but he wasn't shocked by it. He was an army man, after all. He understood. "What if we make it back, but not on time?" He asked. He was challenging me, but not harshly. He was more curious than mutinous. I liked that. I liked soldiers that would speak up.

"If that happens," I said, quiet and firm and calm, "Then we learn to live with ourselves."

He pulled out a tourniquet and laughed, more to himself than anyone. "That's poetic," he said. "That's pathetic." Then he started singing something to himself, some song I'd never heard, which meant that he was working. Like Marco defusing situations with comedy to calm his own nerves, Santorelli sung to keep himself even. It was fine by me. I didn't know much about music, but I know I liked the sound of his voice and it soothed me and my team.

"Three minutes," I repeated. "Stop the blood, then hands off."

I focused on finishing my morph.

It took a minute before the Howler brain started to speak. I wished it didn't.

It saw Menderash's meticulously braided hair peaking out from under his body and it and wanted to rip it off his skull just to hear what noise it made. It wanted to see what the bones looked like inside Tobias. It wanted to squish Jeanne's muscles, because soft muscle oozing from its palms was an interesting sensation.

I shook my head. I pushed the feelings down. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

Everyone, turn and look at me, I said. They did. I am a Howler. It is - was - the single most destructive force in the universe. It's a long story and when we get through this, I'm sure Marco will entertain all of you with the telling of it.

I am the Mother Goose of alien war tales.

Until then, understand I don't want to be this creature. It is disturbing, terrifying, and if I lose control of this morph, we are all dead.

He's making it sound like such a downer, drawled Marco. It's actually one of our more positive stories, believe it or not.

Well, I remember it being terrible, said Tobias.

You're not putting the ol' Ruiz-Champlin spin on it, then, said Marco.

I held out one lava-cracked hand to silence them. If it starts to look bad out there, I'm going to emit a Howl. It won't be pleasant.

Basically, what he's saying is 'Sorry about the torture. Hope you enjoy the future nightmares!' said Marco.

In a sense, I said. Now, we drop through the engineering hatch and hope Menderash did everything right. How is he doing?

"He's still bleeding," said Santorelli. "But not as much as he was before. His arm -"

Your three minutes are up, I said. I knew all about his arm. I didn't want Santorelli focusing on it. If he went into battle running all that he could have done for Menderash over and over in his head, he would slip up, and he would die. Just start morphing. Everyone else, get ready.

I made my way to the engineering hatch. I knew that opening it was opening Pandora's box. Anything could leak out and into our ship. The not-atmosphere of space, poison sent by the Yeerks. There were a thousand possibilities but the only one with a 0% chance at bringing Ax back was staying inside.

I opened the hatch.

Nothing happened. Nothing strange leaked into our ship. We didn't get sucked into the vacuum of space.

Okay, I said. Go.

I watched everyone jump. The hatch was designed for Hork-Bajir and Taxxons so even Marco made it down easily. I waited until Santorelli completed his komodo dragon morph, then watched as he, too, disappeared down the hatch.

I took one last look at Menderash. He was too pale and the dressings Santorelli applied were already soaked through.

I took a deep breath. Crazy, ruthless, and reckless.

Ruthless.

I jumped down the hatch.

The Yeerk ship was dark. Depressingly dark. I'd noticed that in our own The Rachel, the tendency toward maudlin and moody interior lighting. It was a misunderstood quirk of Yeerk technology. When I was a kid, I thought all the Yeerk tech was evil and sinister, almost to an excessive amount. Now, I realize they were just chasing the warm darkness and comfort of the Yeerk pool. It didn't make it feel any better, but I at least liked understanding.

Marco was beginning his pre-battle chatter, distracting and calming my men.

This better go smoothly, he said. I refuse to allow my last meal to be three pieces of flavorless jerky and a glass of stale ship water. You know, one time I flew a girl out to the middle of no-fricking-where for a night just to go to a restaurant she saw on Food Network. I used to eat good. This can't be it.

Damn, Marco, said Santorelli. And here I am, thinking Olive Garden is pretty high class. Sometimes I put on a tie and everything. Maybe order a glass of wine. You know, get very fancy.

Did I say I was insulting Olive Garden? I would never insult Olive Garden. I would kill for some Olive Garden. Don't assume I'm above Olive Garden. I mean, I am, but I still choose to enjoy the simpler things in life. I'm still, I'm still Marco from the block.

My God, Marco, even in thought speak you are tone deaf as hell, said Santorelli.

At least you guys get to actually eat food, said Tobias mournfully. I've just been swallowing those bird vitamin pills for the past four months. God, what I would do for a warm, squirming, freshly killed mouse.

Charming, said Santorelli.

I looked at Jeanne. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I could read her expression or body language. She was currently a jaguar. Still, I worried for her. Training is different than experience. After a few moments I decided she would be fine, had to be fine. Instead, I focused on pushing down the urge to shove blades down her throat and watch her blood make patterns in the sky.

I hate this morph.

A heaviness laid over all of us no matter what Marco and Dean did to relieve the tension. As we got closer and closer to the bridge the heaviness grew. It was thick like fog, and I knew instinctively the hopeless mood settling over us was emanating from The One. In time, we found him.

First, we saw the renegade Controllers. Ten of them, that I could see. They were all manner of beasts — some from Earth, some they must have picked up while exploring Kelbrid space.

I saw a polar bear.

The polar bear looked at us and had the audacity to wave with one massive paw, as if it were greeting an old friend.

I knew from experience that polar bear eyes were useless. I also knew there was no way the Yeerk inside the bear could possibly know the history between Tobias and the beautiful warrior they had unceremoniously murdered. Still, I would swear on my deathbed that the bear was looking straight at Tobias. The wave was for him.

Not now, I said to Tobias in private thought-speak. I didn't even need to look at him to know he was staring right back at the polar bear.

Tobias didn't answer.

Tobias, I pushed. If you try anything we could lose all of us. If —

I know, he snapped.

I'd accept that for now.

The menagerie parted. He appeared. The One.

Ax.

He smiled at us with his borrowed wound-mouth. The red lining on his teeth glowed. When I closed my eyes I could still see the outline of them, drawn in white against my eyelids.

He kept shifting forms. Ax, void, nothingness, rat-trap mouth, Ax. Blink, blink, blink. Something new every time.

"Jacob Berenson," he said. "Big Jake the Yeerk-Killer."

Would you guys stop calling me that? I said.

Or at least give me a cool nickname, said Marco. Like Marco The Magnificent. I've been trying to get that going for years.

The One smiled even broader. Too broad. His mouth opened and stretched and I could see the openness behind it, his maw filled with black emptiness rather than flesh or lungs.

A thick, black fog was rolling from his mouth. It smelled like something rotten and too sweet, like long forgotten fruit. I recoiled from it, physically stepping backwards, but the Yeerks all drew in deep breaths and drank in the stench.

There's our mind control, said Marco.

It was rolling toward us, black and thick. There was no way to push it back.

So I howled. Something was better than nothing.

KEEEEEEEEEEE-ROW!

I wasn't sure what happened next. There was a lot of noise. More noise than even the Howler could parse. I heard my own people bellowing, both with animal throats and thought speak cries, and the sound was echoed by the Yeerks. I saw Santorelli snapping his jaws at the air, capturing nothing. Tobias was bleeding from his eyes. One of the Yeerks in lioness morph lunged forward and tried to attack The One, only to be foiled by another Yeerk in crocodile morph senselessly running back and forth and tripping the lioness.

The One swayed.

Just like when we were on the Iskoort homeworld, Marco kept his sense of self. I'm not sure if it was the gorilla morph or if Marco himself was somehow able to stand against the howl, but he started rushing forward toward Ax. I followed him. I wasn't sure what our plan was, exactly. If we could neutralize The One's body we could figure out what was making him tick, separate him from Ax, we could-

He can only inhabit an Andalite body! came a voice in clear and panicked thought speak. Ax. Ax had gained control. You must kill us. Do it. Please, do it. You must do it. If you do not kill us he will —

Ax shook his head, sudden and violent, as if he were trying to shake his very brain out of his head. Then, he smiled. Not the Andalite smile. A sick, tar-black smile with his borrowed mouth.

While everyone else shook with the effects of the howl The One was back and in control.

Big Jake the Yeerk-Killer, he said, mocking and all simmering evil, You destroyed 17,000 Yeerk lives on a whim. What's one Andalite?

Everything slowed down all at once, and all color and sound and sight leaked from the world.

I had made so many calls up to this point. So many. So many dangerous, terrifying, terrible —

Menderash —

I froze.`

Marco

Chapter Notes

Thank you to Cavatica for the lovely beta work!

Well, fuck.

Even in his inscrutable and nightmarish Howler morph, I knew Jake had slipped. I couldn't deal with him hesitating right now.

No time to dwell. My mind started reeling, jumping into overdrive. Ax had just given us two pieces of important information. One, The One needed an Andalite host. That was interesting. That I could use. Two, Ax would rather die than let the creature continue existing.

Look, I trusted Ax with my life. Had trusted Ax with my life. But it's been three years since I last had a meaningful conversation with him. At most it was "Hey, how are you, you still super into the military and cinnamon buns? You are? Okay, great." I didn't know him quite like I used to. But I still feel like I had a pretty good read on every Animorph and Ax, man, the kid had honor issues. Back in the day, he would basically offer himself up as sacrifice if he so much as ate the last Pop-Tart. Self flagellation was a go-to response. I don't know how cognizant Ax was underneath The One's thrall, but something told me he didn't feel real great about it and didn't want it to continue. Maybe he was willing to die just because he thought it was the only way to stop it. If there's a way out of a situation that's also involves being a martyr, an Andalite will take it.

Only, I could feel the presence of The One. Shifting, melting, flickering. Something told me that, this time, Ax wasn't asking for death because he ran away in the middle of battle or didn't listen to Jake all the way. Ax must have more information than we did. Maybe killing Ax, thus killing The One, that would be just another painful, wretched, awful death the Animorphs facilitated that would ultimately save the whole galaxy. You know. Our schtick.

I looked to Jake, who was silent and small, all while currently embodying the most destructive force the universe had ever seen. It had taken six of us to draw even with just one Howler. If Ax wanted us to kill The One, Jake could do it, and we'd take care of the rest of the crew. It would be brutal, but it could be done.

Jake, I hissed at him through thought-speak. Come on, man. What do we do?

I — he said. He stepped backward.

I huffed, involuntarily, the gorilla apparently just as pissed off as me. Jake. Jesus Christ Jake, be present.

"I don't know what to do," he said out loud with his coarse and gruff Howler voice. Even through the Howler's lack of expression I could read his tone as flat.

Yeah, Jake had completely deflated. Great.

It was everything I'd feared, everything I warned him about before agreeing to this insane suicide mission. Jake was a greater man than me. He'd already gotten us this far. I was no Jake, but Jake had left, just like I knew he fucking would. I'd make a plan. I'd make the call.

The shifting, stinking, seething abomination in front of me could not be allowed to live.

I felt a cold numbness spread inside me, a terrible and familiar thing. If killing Ax was what it took, so be it. I had already done so much damage. Maybe this is why Jake shut down. He felt it, too. The pure evil radiating off of this thing. He threw the ball in my court, knowing I'd take it.

Fine.

Fine.

Jeanne, disable the magnetic fields, I said to the team in cool and even thought speak. Get all the screens to fall. Get everyone to look up at the chaos. Dean, you're low to the ground, so I need you to —

To do what, said Tobias. It wasn't a question. It was a warning.

What needs to be done, I said.

No, said Tobias, simple and matter of fact.

Do you have a different plan? I snapped.

Jake? said Tobias.

Jake blinked and looked at the group. I don't have a different plan, either, he said.

Tobias turned his terrifying, emotionless hawk eyes and stared right through me. No, he said. I have two family members in the whole galaxy and we're not murdering one of them. No.

Because it'll make the big happy warm family reunions so different, I snapped, baring my teeth at him. The Fangors all gathering, having a good time. You, alone in a tree, somewhere states away, abandoning all responsibility and making the people who care about you worry because you're too selfish to deal with reality. You won't even notice a difference!

Tobias started walking toward me. Fuck you, you little psychopath —

The One yawned with the air of a bored prince who was growing less and less amused. "Do you think I cannot hear your private thought speak?" he asked.

Then, without warning, without even a twitch of his tail or a tensing of his muscles, The One cut me into pieces.

It was fast. Impossibly fast. Andalite tail blades are just blurred motions to my eyes but this, somehow, was even more devastating. In the space of a breath I was lying on my back.

I was only a head and a back and a stomach.

I had no arms, no legs, nothing attached to me that wasn't a torso holding vital organs that were rapidly leaking and deflating. He'd cut just above my eyes, too, just for good measure and more pain. I watched my vision fill up with my own blood. It looked like someone else was closing my eyes for me except it was red at the edges and I felt wet warmth on my eyelids. I screamed with my still-intact gorilla lungs and blood gurgled in my throat. I started to dim. I knew this dimness, remembered it, had enjoyed its many appearances in my nightmares over the last six years. My body was dying, and it was dying rapidly. Too rapidly. Some part of me grabbed at my human self, clumsy and grasping, trying to draw the fresh body back out of the void but I was slipping so, so quickly —

And then I was demorphing.

I was not controlling the morph. It was being done to me.

Hell, I was demorphing faster and more smoothly than I ever had in my life. I was Marco again, healthy and whole, lying in a thick puddle of my own blood, my hair matted and soaked with it. I gulped in air like a suffocating fish trying to find water, too shocked to do anything else.

"I nearly took your life, Animorph," said The One. I didn't reply. Couldn't reply.

An overhead lamp was lazily spreading its light directly into my eyes. I closed them. I could still see the light's oppressive brightness through my eyelids. I heard The One's hooves clatter toward me and saw a shapeless form cast a vague shadow. I opened my eyes again, still breathing without breath, and saw The One looming over me. The rotted fruit smell poured into my lungs and I gagged.

"I chose to save you. Why would I do that?" he said. I started coughing, not because my body was in pain, but because the smell was too much. I wanted to curl up on my side, close my eyes again, and disappear, but I couldn't. Not now.

The latent warrior part of me forced my body to stand. My mouth opened and said words. "Because someone needs to teach you the value of Tic Tacs, that's why. I'll do it. I will. Let me change your life."

I almost wanted to cheer. You've been sitting around for the past three years, eating grapes fed to me by supermodels while half naked male dancers fan my body with giant leaves, but you've still got it. You still have the ability to stand up to an enemy that could snap you in half on a whim and tell it a joke. Congratulations.

The One ignored me. All four eyes were pointed at Jake. "I am letting you go because I need to learn. I want to absorb so much from you, Jacob Berenson." He held out his hand, as if to shake Jake's in a friendly gentleman's understanding. "I lured you here, to meet me. To teach me. I have so much more room to grow."

Jake didn't take The One's hand. Behind him, I noticed Santorelli and Jeanne had demorphed. Considering I hadn't exactly chosen my current form myself, I had a feeling they hadn't demorphed just to experience the thrill of being fleshy humans stuck in the middle of the world's most messed-up zoo.

The One cocked his head at Jake. "I possess all of Prince Aximili's memories — a trick I learned from my Yeerk friends. You are inhabiting a Howler. You are wielding unimaginable power, Big Jake the Yeerk-Killer. Why do you not use it?"

I could feel my own frustration with Jake mixing with the fresh memories of dying limbless bubbling up in my chest. "You know," I snapped. "Space Satan asks a great question."

Jake didn't say anything. Then, with a voice much too small for his current form, he said "Please let me demorph."

"Please?" I asked, my voice cracking with anger. "Did you just &i&implore&i& this steaming pile of shit?"

Marco, said Tobias warningly. I had gotten in Jake's space without realizing it. I was inches away from his sapphire blue eyes. I swallowed my anger down hard and stepped away. He said the Howler instincts were mild and easy to control but maybe me and my 5'4" self didn't want to piss him off in the moment.

The One inclined his head at us. "I admit I am surprised. These are not the Animorphs I expected. Where are the maverick teenagers that stopped an intergalactic war?"

I stared at Jake. "Fuck if I know," I said.

The One pressed the skin of his lipless wound-mouth together in an all too human gesture of contemplation. I started to morph again, instinctively, but his left stalk eye turned right toward me and then I couldn't morph at all. Great. Just great. Terrible breath, faster than light tail-blade, and the power to control my morphing. This guy had it all. And he can make julienne fries! "I have learned very little from this battle. I must do more research. I must grow. I am only thirteen Earth years old, did you know that? As old as all of you when you began. I must learn. I will allow you the return of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill on one condition."

The One paused, waiting for a response. We didn't give him one. He smiled. "I wish for you to chase me."

What? asked Tobias. The One turned from him, a plan already in motion.

"Efflit 1318," The One said. "Step forward."

A polar bear lumbered out from the lineup behind The One. My liege, he said.

I saw Tobias move forward out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't help but tense up, myself. You know, The Yeerks could have taken Rachel as a host. It would have been heartbreaking and it would have been messy. It would have given us all that terrible half-hope Jake and I had concerning our own Controlled family members that made life so fucking heinous, so goddamn difficult — but she would have lived. Then, we would have been sloppier when we fought them. It would have been smarter to imprison her, from a tactical standpoint, and it would have given her a chance. The polar bear — Efflit 1318 — had killed her out of nothing but pure spite.

It was a selfish thought. If I had to choose between death or a Yeerk, I'd want death. Rachel would, too.

I said nothing. I knew neither Jake, Tobias, or I would give The One the satisfaction of breaking our resolve. Well. Me and Tobias wouldn't, at least.

"You have a secondary host, do you not?" The One asked Efflit.

My pet? Yes, I suppose I could use her as a host once again, said Efflit. Sir, her body is-

"It is suitable," said The One. Efflit opened his mouth as if to protest. The One stepped forward, inclined his head toward Efflit, and breathed right into his mouth. It reminded me of shotgunning smoke into Mila Kunis's mouth backstage at the Kid's Choice Awards last year, only it was less sexy and more terrifying and disgusting. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe it was never sexy and we were just very stoned.

Efflit's body went slack. Slowly, he demorphed, back into the human host we'd seen back on the bridge with a lazy smile and gentle eyes. He moved a hand out to acquire The One.

My swallowed, hard. I knew moving to stop Efflit was stupid. I knew it wouldn't end well for him or me. Still, I couldn't help but feel a tidal wave of rage. The human Efflit had stolen seemed like someone who was warm and happy. Someone who would always have your favorite brand of beer in his fridge, you know? He probably had a family. A wife or husband, maybe some kids. A family who was forced to assume that their loved one had been incinerated in the war, forced to assume he was dead. Only they held out hope, sometimes, because occasionally the human Controllers out on interplanetary missions would come back to Earth, and return their stolen body in exchange for becoming a nothlit. That hope was merited by this man's family. That hope was earned and should be rewarded.

The One was about to rip away that man from himself, forever.

I swore to get his name. I swore to find his loved ones.

The One didn't seem affected much by the acquiring trance. He turned all four eyes toward Jake, lazily, and looked him up and down with his stalk set.

"Go and prepare Efflit's pet," said The One, turning to a Yeerk who had never morphed.

I felt sick. A pet? A Yeerk with an extra Host? What did that Host do when it wasn't used? You could lock the host in a room but you'd have to make sure there was no way to escape, both traditionally or by darker methods. You'd-

Jesus Christ. Sometimes my brain's tendency to plan things out scares even myself.

Efflit started to morph. It was a slow, ugly thing. More disturbing than most morphing, really. He twisted and bulged and burped into his new form with erratic awkwardness. Blue fur appeared in pre-teen facial hair patches and legs remained half grown out of his chest. I looked away, focusing instead on The One. He had all four eyes focused on Jake.

"You don't have to bring me armies," said The One. His twisted vocal chords sounded too-close to my ear, like he was shouting directly at me. The sound dug into my skull. "I only wish to study you. You fascinate me, Jacob Berenson. Big Jake the Yeerk-killer. You are the plaything of the Ellimist and the Crayak and I wish to know why. Please. Teach me. I want to learn."

Efflit was finally a fully formed Ax. He strolled to The One and inclined his head, his hands up to his ears. A Yeerk slid from the morphed human's brain and plopped without ceremony into the Controller's open palm. A different Controller took the Yeerk away, apparently to bring the Yeerk to his "pet". I looked to Tobias. His feathers were puffed up, like he wanted to move and follow her but was restraining himself. Good. At least he knew that much.

I knew we'd find Efflit again.

The now-free Andalite moved, slowly but deliberately. He did not run and He did not scream. He had breathed in The One's smoke when the Yeerk had and it was fully under its thrall. However, the controller did experimentally move his front hoof up and down, as if just checking to see if it could.

The One turned to the new Andalite, his identical twin save for the lack of wound-mouth. The new Andalite held The One's face in his open palms.

The One breathed the blue-black smoked into the new Andalite's pure face. The smoke drew to the space underneath the new Andalite's nose like a swarm of steel shavings easing toward a magnet. Ax's mouth began to disappear, to sew itself back up. As Ax's mouth healed, the new Andalite got a mouth of his own. First, a horizontal line appeared. Then, it got darker, thicker, and blue-black blood began to leak from the opening. The new Andalite pried open new lips open with a wet sound, like the smacking of a tongue. Blood now dripped steadily from his new mouth, staining his fur, like a paint can spilling. The smell emerged from him, more powerful than it had ever been. Bits of skin stretched between the opening, dangling uselessly. The One smacked his new mouth together, twice, while red rimmed teeth tore through their way up his mouth. He stretched his jaw, experimentally, and then began to gingerly pick off the errant skin flaps with his delicate Andalite fingers.

Someone behind me threw up. I was too frozen to register the churning in my own stomach.

The One pushed Ax toward us. I felt myself changing, again out of my control. I grit my teeth against it. Morphing against my will felt deeply twisted. Morphing was already sacrificing so much of what was familiar and was so violating and strange that having it done to your own body was one of the worst experiences of my life. At least he managed to make me morph quickly. In no time at all, I was a gorilla. The message was clear. Ax was dazed and unresponsive and I had to carry him back to our ship.

"Go," said The One. "Go and arm yourselves and come back to me. I wish to learn. I must learn."

You didn't need to tell me twice. I turned and hauled ass.

Tobias

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

We raced back to our ship, all in silent agreement that The One could change his mind at any moment. We could all hear our ship before we jumped back up through the hatch. There was a cacophony of angry electronic trills, broken only by the computer's voice issuing multiple warnings. We could see it, too. Not the ship itself, but a warning red light glowing through the engineering hatch. It flickered. Blinked.

Red light, blue light, red light, blue light-

Taylor loomed over me, her blonde hair brushing past her shoulders and hitting the glass box. I'd been in the box for maybe an hour and a half by now, possibly, maybe. Everything was blurred together. Everything was red light, blue light, red light.

At this point, her hair was lank and greasy. I could see that the mascara on her left eye had clumped together, making her look feverish and sick. Should I tell her? Should I tell her to fix her make up, to make herself beautiful again? Would that get me the red light, or the blue light?

I said nothing. Couldn't. Too much. It was too much.

She smiled at me with two rows of perfect teeth and she hit the red button.

Pain. Pain from the inside, pain like all my organs grinding.

Then — memories.

"I got a letter from school," I said to my aunt. She sat at her kitchen table, her face obstructed by the beautiful centerpiece she'd bought. Her whole house had a carefully constructed grown-up-hippie feel, like she wanted to say she was fun but still had money. She smiled at me and it made my heart seize. She was easier to deal with when she was in a bad mood or ignoring me. Her good moods made me like her, almost. Sometimes I could get stuff out of her good moods. New clothes, maybe. Or something nice that was just for fun, like the set of art pencils she got me. They had all these weird numbers which meant something, like, this pencil is softer for shading, this pencil is meant for cleaner lines. I didn't really get all of it but I liked using them. They made me feel professional, kinda. Like maybe I could take these pencils and draw something that looked really cool. Probably not.

She'd only gotten me those pencils because Mr. Piersdorf called to talk to her about my "talent" or whatever you want to call it. Really, she just wanted to impress him and get him to date her. She liked dating older men. She said they had good savings accounts.

"What's it say?" she asked.

"Um," I started, looking down at it. "They want to hold me back a year."

"Really?" she said, frowning. "Did you fail your classes?"

"No," I said defensively. She looked at me like she didn't believe me. A part of me wanted to push it, show her all the tests I'd brought home with good marks, but I dropped it. Wasn't worth it. Didn't want to ruin the good mood. "They said I missed too much school."

"Oh," she said dismissively.

She looked back down at the table. She was reading one of her dumb magazines. She was subscribed to so many of those things that she got a new one almost every day. It was as if she was hunting through articles on wedding dresses and new make up and furniture arrangements to find the secret to happiness. It didn't work. She never found it.

I pushed. "I'm already older than everyone because the mix-up when I was supposed to start kindergarten. I just - I really don't don't want the other kids to know I got held back. Maybe you could talk to them, say you've been tutoring me or somethi-"

"God dammit Tobias, can't you see I'm busy?" she shouted, shoving the magazine aside. Oh. I pushed too hard. Here comes the bad mood.

She stood up so quickly her chair fell behind her. "I work so hard, every fucking day, to achieve this life and achieve my dreams and you never help me. You are such an ungrateful little brat! Any other child would be thrilled to have the things you have. You-"

I zoned out.

This was going to go on for a while.

I was back in the bridge. I didn't really remember how I got there. It happens to me, sometimes. I go somewhere else but my body keeps moving. Flashbacks, I guess. Hallucinations or something. Not a lot of owl therapists in the forest ready to diagnose me. Turns out, they're not as wise as the cartoons would lead you to believe.

Sometimes it's just for a few minutes, sometimes it's for a lot longer. I'll lose myself in the morning and come to at night, inches away from an angry falcon pissed off I was in her territory. Maybe it was a little dangerous and maybe I should tell somebody but I never did. It's not like the rest of my life is so safe.

I shook it off. I didn't really register these things anymore. They used to freak me out, but it's just how my brain works now, I guess.

At least somebody turned off the warning noises and blinking red lights. That helped. I wouldn't disappear again as long as I didn't have to deal with a flickering red light.

Jake was standing in the middle of the room, silently watching everyone with a blank expression. Santorelli was kneeling next to Menderash, whispering to him softly. Jeanne was at the at the controls. Good. She was the best pilot after Menderash, after all. I kind of thought I would be, but I don't really get how everything is supposed to come together. It's really all really convoluted when clearly flying should just be straight forward and instinctual. Even the thought-speak only settings Menderash and I use are pretty dumb. You'd assume all you'd have to do is think "Go forward, ship! Now, bank a hard left!" but the ship doesn't respond like that. There are all these terms you have to use that I think are really unnecessary. Andalites just like making things extra complicated, sometimes. Jeanne could fly the ship, I didn't really care.

Marco was standing in front of Ax, who was still pretty dazed. I don't think Marco shouting at him to morph was helping.

The ship shook violently. I almost lost my balance. Ax's hooves slipped on the floor and he slammed into Marco, pinning Marco to the wall. Marco yelled out in pain, then pushed Ax away violently. "Shit, Jeanne!" he shouted. "Warn us!"

"If you would like to try," said Jeanne in an eerily calm voice, "You are welcome. However, as you spend most of your time in any given piloting shift playing video games or bothering your shipmates, I believe my skills will suffice."

"Sorry I appreciate frivolous things like 'enjoying myself' or 'having a personality'!" Marco hissed.

Jeanne didn't respond. She didn't even turn her head to look at him. Good. Don't take his bait. I could see she was stung, though. The corners of her eyes glistened and she blinked.

"Jeeeesus," whispered Santorelli under his breath. He stood up and put a hand on gently on Marco's shoulder. "Menderash is in pretty bad shape. Marco, man, can you help me move him to the infirmary? It's going to take too much time to get a stretcher and your gorilla morph will be perfect."

"I can't!" snapped Marco. "Someone needs to bring Ax to the surface and apparently it's got to be me, the guy who ate Cheetos next to him while he hacked into secure government databases, because his Prince is standing slack jawed and useless in the middle of the fucking room and his shorm has, once again, completely shut down! Tobias has left the building, folks! Oh, but don't worry, he'll be back as soon as things get easy again."

I'm here, Marco, chill out, I snapped. I wasn't going to explain myself. The last person I wanted to have that conversation with was Marco.

"Great!" he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Welcome back!"

I bristled. Good to see Marco hadn't matured at all from his teenaged tendency to take his own anger and fear out on everyone else.

Jake blinked, as if waking up, and he rolled his brown eyes toward Ax. "Sorry, Marco," he muttered. He walked over to Ax slowly.

I guess I never realized just how bad Jake had gotten. He'd been doing pretty okay up to this point. I could see he got distant sometimes and there were days where he didn't leave his cabin, but otherwise he was pretty normal. Not now. Jake's eyes always looked haunted but now they looked muddy and murky, like the old man who lived behind them had simply left. He glanced at Marco. "We're trying to get him to morph?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess," he said, motioning toward Ax. He was slightly subdued now that Jake was active. "I can't think of anything else."

"Morph, Ax. That's an order from your prince," Jake said with a dead, dry tone.

Marco blinked at Jake, his face perfectly blank, his mouth agape. He quickly turned to me, snapping "And you? Are you going to make any effort?"

Yeah, I will, I said tersely. I'll deal with Ax. Go help Santorelli with Menderash and cool off.

Marco looked like he was going to say something else but Santorelli spoke before Marco could even open his mouth. "I need you. Now." He stood up, looming over Marco with all his formidable height, all six feet and five inches of muscle and military training. Santorelli had started out his time on this ship somewhat shy and reserved. Over time, he'd soften, often pairing up with Marco to pull some kind of prank or initiate something fun for the crew. I'd never really seen him as an experienced and intimidating soldier before. I liked it. He really won me over with that. Anyone that can shut up Marco is a friend of mine.

Marco started morphing without comment. Good. They left.

I flew over to Ax. Hey man, I said softly. How's my grandma and grandpa?

His stalk eyes whirled endlessly, unseeing. His main eyes were focused on some imaginary point far away. It was the sort of thing that, if I had been human, would have filled my eyes up with tears. It was a really sad sight, like someone had completely broken Ax. My shorm. The entire reason I had agreed to this mission.

He'd offered to take me back to Andalite with him, after the war. He said he and Cassie had flown all around the free Hork-Bajir valley for weeks to find me, both knowing I would never settle down far away from Toby and the others, just to make sure the offer was made. At the time, I wasn't really ready to be around other sentient beings full-time, human or Andalite or anything, but I do wonder about what could have been.

I hated what had been done to him. I hated The One. A possession like that- that's going to leave a mark a permanent mark on Ax. In that moment, I hated The One more than I've ever hated anything in my life.

The ship jerked again.

"That should be the worst of it," Jeanne said.

I looked at the comm screen. It was pretty frustrating. When I look at a screen I can only see the amount of detail and definition provided to me by whatever tech put the monitor together. Turns out, not even Yeerk technology could match hawk eyes. I saw what was happening on the screen very well, but I also saw the lack of dimension and individual pixels. It sucks. It's another reason why I'm bad at flying the ship.

There was still no sign of whatever "pet" Efflit was using as a host. In fact, the Blade ship's bridge had disappeared from view entirely. I only saw the Blade Ship from space. I guess that made sense. More useful for Jeanne that way.

I'll find you in your new host, Efflit. One way or another, I'll find you.

I saw the gaping hole we'd forced just underneath one of the Blade ship's cockroach wings.

"Okay," Jeanne muttered, hitting some controls. "The hard part is over. Now, we have to figure out exactly how much power we have left and then figure out exactly how to get our ship repaired before we end up dead in space. You know, the other hard part." She paused, then muttered "See? That was a joke. I have a wonderful personality."

"Marco didn't mean anything by that," said Jake, sounding worn out. "He just —"

Whoa! I said. I fluttered closer to the monitor, like that'd help me see any better. Is their ship repairing itself?

Everyone leaned in. I guess we all thought getting closer to the pixels would make them clearer.

It was true. Within minutes, the hole we'd put in the ship became smooth, unbroken metal. Like nothing had ever happened.

A sense of doom fell over the room. The One was so much more powerful than any of us thought.

"Okay," I heard Jake say under his breath. "Fine." He breathed in deeply and breathed out. "Jeanne, I'm — I'm going. You're better at this than me. Just try to get us to the Andalites as quickly as possible, okay?"

"Yes, Captain," muttered Jeanne while she poured over calculations on a nearby screen.

Jake looked at me, then at Ax. He vaguely waved his hand in the air. "Do what you can," he said, then left.

I flew back to Ax. His eyes were still spinning on top of his head. It was like he was a old toy with a dying battery. I blinked at him.

You can't hear me, can you, I said.

No response. Just whirling and staring.

I glanced over at Jeanne. She was deeply focused on the numbers in front of her. I looked back at Ax.

Maybe he couldn't hear me, but he could see me. And so far, all that he'd seen on the ship was grossly unfamiliar. Marco and Jake were totally different. Jake, for one, was a lot bigger than he used to be. It was all part of what made him look so middle aged and exhausted. Marco's face had aged, he'd fixed his teeth, and he'd managed to gain about two entire inches. Me? I guess I looked the same. I knew I had aged as a hawk but it was hard to tell unless you lived in birdland 24/7. If he focused on me, he'd remember his past, he'd remember us, and he'd find himself.

Sometimes, when one of us was too lost in a dying battle torn body, Cassie would demorph along with us to help our subconscious mind remember our natural form. Maybe if I morphed something personal and specific, Ax might instinctively start morphing along with me.

I fluttered to the ground.

It'd been a while. Normally, I only did this for my mother, and even then I'd stopped a while back when it became apparent what was happening.

My feathers sucked into my skin and I turned pink. I was a naked hawk, terribly exposed.

My eyes changed to blue and tapered off at the edges. Eyelids and eyelashes sprouted. It tickled.

I grew, bigger and bigger, until I was almost face to face with Ax.

My beak sucked into my rounding face. I felt the presence of a voice box. "Come on, buddy," I whispered. "Cassie just got her allowance. She's taking us to Cinnabon."

Ax, for the first time, blinked. I smiled with my still-lipless mouth. "Yeah. We gotta morph human, quick. She's coming in like thirty seconds. She's got clothes for us."

Ax's fur started to turn a dark sienna. His back legs began to shrink.

"Okay. Okay, great. Keep going. She's coming soon, okay? Better morph faster." I took his hands in mine and I kept talking to him until our morphs were completed. Soon, we were two young teenaged boys, awkward and gangly in skintight spandex.

When you acquire a morph, the DNA doesn't really sit around in your bloodstream and age along with you. That's not how it works. Ax and my human selves were as they always were — not even allowed to watch Rated R movies.

I shot a glance at Jeanne. She was too absorbed in her calculations to notice us. Good. I didn't want her to say anything, especially not to Marco or Jake. That's why I didn't morph human in front of them. It's not just because I hate it — and I do — but it's mostly because I don't want them knowing. Knowing for sure that it wasn't really just a choice anymore, that I'd long since left the point of no return.

Ax probably wouldn't comprehend. He might know something was wrong, vaguely, but it wouldn't register until later and even then he wouldn't dwell on it. To Ax, I was always a hawk. That's why he's my shorm.

Either way, I looked exactly the same, and so did he. If this wouldn't jog him out of his fog, nothing would.

"Hi," I said to him.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then looked down at our intertwined hands. He let go of mine and touched his lips and his hair. "Tobias?" he asked. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then experimentally made the "S" noise a few different times, as if he was grounding himself in this body and this situation.

"Yeah, it's me. Let's morph back."

"We are not going to Cinnabon," he said, still sounding dazed.

"No," I said, already growing feathers. "Cassie's, uh. She's pretty far away right now."

We morphed back. Now, Ax's stalk eyes were moving at a pretty normal rate, though he still seemed really edgy. I would be too. He probably didn't have any idea what was going on.

Hey man. I know this looks like a Yeerk ship but — well, it is, but we made it into a human-and-bird ship. Menderash-Postill-Fastill survived the attack on The Intrepid and he —

Survived? Ax said, looking surprised. Where is the Intrepid? Where am I? Why are you here?

Jeanne was looking at us unabashedly now, her calculations forgotten. "Ah. He does not remember."

Remember what? Ax said. Where is the Intrepid? Where is my crew?

I could tell from his panicked tone of voice.

He already knew. In his hearts, he already knew.

Let me explain everything, I said, slowly. It's not pretty.

—

Jeanne figured out we had enough power to contact the Andalite homeworld and meet a rescue ship at a coordination point that was two days away in Z-space. According to her, we should make it pretty comfortably, barring any shifting in Z-space or other disasters.

Ax went to see Menderash. Jeanne went back to her cabin. I stayed on the bridge to monitor the auto-pilot.

At least, that's what I meant to do.

Morphing my old human form had dug up a lot of memories. Things my brain really wanted to show me, I guess.

We were flying. The day was warm, unseasonably warm, the sort of day I would have found muggy and disgusting as a human but really loved as a hawk. Thermals and clear skies as far as my eyes could see — and my eyes could see a lot. The Earth was beautiful and magnificent and I had the best seat in the house.

She was a little bit ahead of me. We were maybe flying too close for comfort but we didn't care. Jake wasn't here.

Take me to school with you, I said. I didn't miss school, not really, but sometimes I like to hear about what she did all day and imagine that I was next to her. She likes it more than I do. Well, sometimes she gets bummed out, but when the day is perfect like this and she's in a good mood, she likes it. She gets all excited and starts talking really fast.

Okay, she said. I mean, it's hot as balls, so I was pretty dressed down. Gotta stay cool. I wore just a simple white, high waisted skirt with that pink top with the beading- do you remember? You were there. Last week. I got it at The Limited.

I just remember going from store to store for almost two hours, I said. An endless parade of stores.

Just because you're a nothlit doesn't mean you get to skip out on your girlfriend dragging you around the mall. It's required.

That's not why The Ellimist gave me my own body back.

Yes it is. Anyway, so white skirt, pink top with the swirl beading, and then my white gladiator sandals with the kitten heel. And Ms. Paloma tried to get on my ass about it, like they were stilettos or something, when it was just the tiniest little bump of a heel. She threatened to call my mom and I told her to go ahead and do it. I mean, mom's not gonna be mad. She's deep in this case and she doesn't have time to stress about some old lady freaking out about dress code. So you're wearing —

I'm wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. You don't get to dress me.

Oh, I do. You can still wear jeans but because I picked them out they actually fit you. And you can wear a black t-shirt but same rule, actually has to fit on your body and not just kind of wave around you like a blanket. And you're wearing a denim jacket. I like you in denim. Brings out your eyes.

It's way too hot for that outfit today.

Too bad. You're wearing it and you look super cute. So okay we go to first period where we deal with the Ms. Paloma situation. And while she's getting on my case you're rolling your eyes at her. And you point out that the soles in your boy shoes are just as tall as my tiny little barely-an-inch kitten heel. It's sexist! Whatever. And then we go to second period. Spanish. Which, by the way, Marco is taking, and that shouldn't be allowed. Oh, he says he only knows the food words but he's always done with every worksheet in, like, five minutes and then he starts passing me really dumb notes. Like the last one said "Is Marco cute, Yes Yes, circle one.

If I'm in the class then I sit behind Marco and hid his pencil.

No need. I've dealt with it. I reminded him I know he can morph out of injuries, meaning I can give as many as I want.

That's dark.

He's fine! He told me he'd stop sending notes and instead fold his paper into throwing stars and chuck them at my neck.

Your friendship with Marco is weird.

That's his fault, not mine. I'm perfectly normal. So anyway, the next period was pretty uneventful and then I had lunch with Cassie. She still won't sit with Jake, you know. They're all like oh, we can't show ourselves as a posse, but it's been like two years and they've gone to dances together and everything. The four of us can totally sit together. It's fine. Really, they're just avoiding the realities of being a couple. Like, they can do all these sweeping gestures after a battle but eating together? Oh no! That's the scary part. Hey, Tobias, let's land down there.

She swooped downward, heading toward a hidden alcove. I followed her. It was a spot we'd used before.

I knew what she wanted.

We swept downward. Even my hawk nose could smell the salty sea spray.

Be you, she said as soon as I landed.

I am me, I said.

No. The real you, she said.

Today, it was fine. Today, I didn't need to explain to her how bulky and blind and uncomfortable I felt as a human and how that had not been the real me for two years. Sometimes, human was okay. There were certain advantages to my human body and today? This day? It was sunny and warm and we had had a win, dammit, we had defeated The Crayak's Howlers and won the game. She was already becoming herself, her beautiful self, her strong and tall and gorgeous self. Morphing is never attractive but it's powerful to behold. With her, it was always alluring. She wore it well. She morphed not with beauty but with confidence and strength.

I morphed along with her. When we were finished she looked at me and smiled, a smile I recognized and both feared and craved. She cradled my face in her hands and looked deep in my eyes. "Okay?" she asked.

"Okay," I answered, breathless. She stepped toward me and this body set itself on fire and I sucked in air. I closed my eyes.

"Okay?" she asked again. She'd learned to ask and to check in. I loved her for it. I loved her less when I said no and she got frustrated, which was more often than not, but whenever I did say yes she was patient and gentle. I took a moment, and then I nodded. I remembered to connect. I remembered to be present. I remembered to ride this body's sensations like a thermal, to rise above it and enjoy it.

She kissed me. After a moment, I kissed back. We took it slow. Had to take it slow. I got too overwhelmed if we didn't take it slow.

Then —

"You vile little bird!"

I was back in that underground cavern, back in that box, and Taylor was grinning over me.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you, as always, to Cavatica for the beta!

Jake

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

I smoke.

I try to hide it. I guess I don't want everyone to know I have a bad habit. A lot of people look up to me, apparently, and those that don't seem to pity me and I don't really want them to know, either.

Besides, it's not like I smoke consistently. I'm not really into taking grim-faced breaks every two hours, just so I can sneak away and light up. Morphing pretty much takes away the physical risks of addiction anyway, so it ends up just being a kind of comfort. A sometimes-thing. Lock myself in my cabin, put a towel down between the door and floor to stop the smell, and break into one of my American Spirit blue packs. Light one up, draw it in my lungs. Breathe out. Feel the smoke sear my throat. Know that ash is piling up inside me, staining my body, drawing black lines against my pink tissue like spider legs. Knowing it means nothing. That I'll reset it, all of it, all of me, next time I morph.

I go through half a pack in quick succession until I feel dizzy and sick. I take a break, take a breath. Lie on my bed, and wait until I calm down. Then I go back to smoking, filling the air with nicotine and tar.

I don't watch anything. Don't read anything. Just smoke. The curling tendrils is enough entertainment. Voices just get noisy. Words fall and melt into each other, becoming a meaningless language I don't understand. Just smoke. Bring the plant and the paper up to your lips, breathe in, breathe out, and feel your body sag under the weight of poison, bit by bit, nail by nail, cigarette by cigarette.

I call it a cloud. That's what it feels like to me. A thick, cottony cloud that fills my chest and absorbs everything. All my thoughts, my joy, my sadness, my laughter, my tears. The cloud comes and replaces the sentient, thinking Jake and I just become a blurred thing, obstructed by fog and water, dewy and heavy. It carves me out, like I'm a cheap sculpture that might look impressive but is secretly hollow on the inside. I become a trick to save money and materials. A figurehead, a person that represents myself, but not a person at all.

One pack down. I opened another, but I didn't take one out. I wanted to walk. To listen at doorways, to analyze my team — the team — some sort of team that no longer belonged to me.

I played that moment over and over again in my head. You must kill us. Couldn't. Couldn't think. Couldn't be fifteen again, leading with my instincts and my heart. Didn't know what call to make. Then the cloud came, filling my body with emptiness. The pressure of the cloud thrummed at my ears, like bass from a house over, making it hard to hear. Everything became slow syrup, thick dripping molasses, and I couldn't think. Still couldn't think. Could only replay. A song on repeat.

You must kill us.

You must kill us.

You must kill us.

I changed my clothes. I would probably still smell like smoke, but maybe not so strongly. Besides, I didn't want to be in my morphing suit anymore. I had insisted that we wear them at all times because the tight pressure of morph-ready outfits constricting your body was a constant reminder of vigilance, and we never knew when we would find Ax. I guess we'd found him. So now, I wanted to be in sweat pants and an old, soft t-shirt; my uniform for the past three years. Clothes that were old and worn. Clothes that were much too loose and and had more holes than fabric.

I walked out into the halls. They were dark, dimly lit only by a soft glowing line that ran down all the hallways, making occasional geometric shapes at random junctures. The dim lighting was yet another artifact of this ship's origin. Yeerk ships were so damn dark and claustrophobic. It really got to some of us. Tobias, namely. I don't think Jeanne loved it. Marco, sometimes, when he was in one of his moods where nothing was good. I hated it too. I used to hate being inside in general. Always wanted more space. Wanted to run and play, push my body to physical exhaustion and then push it even further, just for fun. I wasn't that kid anymore. Hadn't been that kid in years. I hated the dark and dim halls of our repurposed Yeerk transport ship but I accepted it. It was fitting for me. Fitting for all of us.

I wandered to the bridge. I saw Tobias. He was sleeping or gone, I wasn't sure which. I'd noticed Tobias would grow silent for hours, even days, his eyes open and reacting to something that was not happening in this world. He tried to hide it, but I saw. I wasn't sure who else had noticed. Probably most of them. Marco, for sure. Maybe Jeanne. She never stopped observing. She was possibly even more observant than Marco, who would take breaks from his cautious military mind to joke with everyone. I envied Marco's ability to do that. Maybe Jeanne did, too. She reminded me of myself, sometimes. She'd be a good leader if something happened. I hoped it didn't. I wouldn't wish leadership on anyone who didn't ask for it.

I walked past her cabin. There was light coming from underneath her door which meant she was inside, wide awake, not sleeping. Couldn't blame her.

Walked past the infirmary. It had a large glass window in front of it, allowing for easy monitoring. The infirmary itself was too large and too well stocked for five morph cable beings, which felt like a waste, but I wasn't upset about it. It was, at least, well lit and spacious. Sometimes Tobias perched in there. Not today. Today, it was Menderash and Ax. Ax slept standing up next to Menderash's bed. If I know him — and if I know what it's like to be a leader who had lead a team member to tragedy and felt responsible — he hadn't meant to sleep at all. He was waiting for Menderash to wake up so they could talk. I didn't pity Ax the oncoming conversation.

I saw that Menderash had one sleeve pinned up to his shirt.

His left arm was completely gone.

Menderash had never taken well to his human body, and the loss of a limb was only going to make it worse. Vecol. That was the word, right? Vecol. Menderash was now a nothlit and a vecol. So many sad words used just to describe one very brave Andalite.

Menderash was connected to two IV drips. I guessed at what they were. One had to be for intravenous rehydration.

Another for morphine.

There was only a small amount of liquid hanging from that bag, releasing just the tiniest of drips every now and then. I watched it, transfixed. It didn't drip often. It would take so long I'd lose track of the last drip and be surprised. I couldn't figure out the rhythm of it. I watched with a nicotine-dry mouth and heavy lungs, waiting for another drop to fall.

I heard a door open behind me. Santorelli. His cabin was closest to the infirmary as per his loose position as ship's doctor. Most of us rarely needed medical attention but he was still on hand, just in case. His cabin was almost as big as mine. I instinctively started to morph- something small, invisible- but then I remembered I was wearing worn sweatpants and a faded mock-jersey. Santorelli would know something was up as soon as he stepped into the infirmary hallway and saw a pile of old clothes. I reversed the morph.

He turned the corner and saw me. He raised his eyebrows, slightly surprised. "Hey," he said. "Can't sleep?"

"No," I said.

"Good," said Santorelli. "I'd be greatly disturbed by someone who could have sweet dreams after a night like that." He punched in the code to the infirmary. The code was simply 0 four times- none of us, not even Menderash, could figure out how to let some of the restricted areas simply open without some kind of code input. Requiring clearance for areas seemed silly with a crew of seven people, all of whom (more or less) trusted the others implicitly.

But after watching the IV drip for so long, I was beginning to understand the insistence on restricted access, even in a small cruiser ship like Rachel. It never occurred to me just how many dangerous chemicals were in that room. Chemicals that could poison a body if the dose was too high.

Santorelli dipped into the infirmary. Ax stirred awake, his stalk eyes moving instantaneously. One rested on me for a little longer than it needed. I nodded to him, then left.

I walked to what we called the rec room. It had what passed for a kitchen, a few sleek couches that were more fashionable than comfortable thanks to the Yeerks obsession with elegance and excess, and a ping-pong table for whatever strange reason. I'm still not sure who put it on the ship, the Yeerks or the Andalites, but we held tournaments sometimes. Santorelli would always lose first and start a very intense commentary, often times joined by Marco. Jeanne, who had a habit of being effortlessly good a everything, always won with either myself or Menderash as her final opponent. One time Tobias tried to play with the paddle in his talons and had still managed to beat at least Santorelli, who swore he hadn't been trying to lose. Those nights were fun.

Tonight, the ping pong table looked out of place and cold. It wasn't even a new table. It was used and worn. The green plastic covering was unstuck from all four edges. It was just a cheap table with a net in the middle.

I hovered in the doorway, out of sight but listening.

Marco was awake, lying on a couch and watching a screen flicker in front of him. I wasn't sure what movie was playing but he had it on silent. Maybe he was wearing wireless earbud speakers, a piece of Yeerk technology for long distance communication that humans now used to privately listen to entertainment, but I doubted it. He'd probably couldn't sleep, moved to the rec room, put on a movie, and then decided the scripted banter wasn't exactly helping his mood. He must have turned off the sound and let the visuals keep going to keep his eyes awake. Staying awake was why he was in the rec room and not his cabin. Those couches were not designed for sleeping.

I stepped forward. Within seconds Marco was upright, facing the door, rapidly growing and covered in black hairs.

"Sorry!" I said, holding my palms out before me. "It's just me. Just me."

Marco blinked, then melted back down to his regular size. "Say something next time," Marco muttered. "I almost ruined my clothes." He leaned down, grabbing the remote and turning off the television screen.

"Yeah," I said sheepishly. "I should have known better. I do that too."

"All of us do that," said Marco. He started to walk past me, drawn to his full height, on his way to a clear and concise exit- then he stopped next to me, breathing in deeply. He rolled his eyes and kept walking past me.

I should have let him leave. I didn't. "You made the right call," I said, the words leaping from my throat.

Marco pivoted. It was like I'd flipped a switch and turned him back on. Gone was the tired, battle weary boy fighting off nightmares on a couch. He'd been replaced by a Marco who was on high alert, who was tired and afraid and upset, and wanted to lash out at the closest person. "Don't tell me that," he said, his voice not quite shouting but not quiet either. "Don't tell me that like I'm some kind of protege that impressed you. I told you, I told you there'd be no way to win clean, and the second it got messy you just left. You shut down."

I heard hooves in the hallway. Ax. He must have heard Marco's voice. Marco was too upset to notice. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking at me up and down.

"Cassie never gave up on herself, not once, not in all three years we fought. She never gave up her morals or the idea that all creatures were good and had worth. But even she gave up hope that you'll ever get your shit together."

Marco stomped toward the door.

"You smell like my dad," he said, right before he left.

This time, I didn't say anything. I'd gotten exactly what I wanted from him.

I saw Ax peering into the room. He looked hesitant and unsure. I blinked at him and swallowed. "You're Captain."

Ax didn't say anything. I wasn't sure why. Maybe he was still shocked from his time on the Blade ship, even if he couldn't remember anything. Finally, he inclined his head toward me. "Of course, Prince Jake."

I closed my eyes. "Just Jake. Okay? It's not a joke this time. We're not playing back and forth. My name is Jake. That's it."

I left.