Author's Note – This is another fic modeled after the normal books in the Animorphs series. Just like The Champion, this one takes place in between Book 13 and Book 19. It is after Tobias regains his morphing ability from the Ellimist, but before the Animorphs encounter David and the morphing cube. As always, reviews are sincerely appreciated. All that said, enjoy!

The Weapon

Chapter 1

My name is Jake.

I won't swear to that. I'm not going to tell you my last name, or even promise that Jake is my first name. I'm not going to tell you where I live. You'll just have to trust that it's a decent-sized suburban town, just like a thousand others. Well, it's different in one vital way – the Yeerks are here in force.

Yeerks. Aliens. Invaders. They're thieves, but they don't steal your car or your money. They want you. They look like giant banana slugs in their natural state. Nothing scary about them. It's what they can do that's horrifying.

They slither into your head through your ear. It doesn't hurt – they spray a chemical anesthesia that prevents you from feeling it. Once they're inside, they connect their nerve endings to your nerve endings. They can access your memories. They can read every thought you've ever had. As awful as that is, it's not the worst part by a long shot.

They take control. Not of your mind – that would make things easier. You are still you, still able to think and feel, as the Yeerk takes control of your body. You can be starving, but you can't eat unless the Yeerk makes you eat. You can have to use the toilet, and you would just have to suffer unless the Yeerk takes you to the bathroom. You might be thinking, 'Oh, I could be strong enough to resist. I could control myself.' You'd be dead wrong. It's not a matter of willpower – it's simple biology.

Well, not simple biology, but biology. Ax could tell you exactly how it works. Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is an Andalite aristh who was stranded on Earth and fights with us. With me, and my four human friends – the Animorphs.

Marco, my best friend since childhood. If I'm the leader of the group, Marco is the comic relief. The guy can grind your nerves with his constant joking and puns. But he can also keep you sane right when you think you're about to lose it.

Rachel, my cousin. Marco likes to say Rachel is insane, that she's happy the Yeerks are here so she has someone to fight, but that's not it. Rachel didn't go around looking for fights before the Yeerks arrived – as a matter of fact, I've never seen anybody cut through life so easily as Rachel. She had looks, brains, a take-no-crap attitude, and an adventurous nature. It's corny, but I like to think that Rachel was born in the wrong time period. She's a warrior, and the fight against the Yeerks is what she was meant to do. They say that JFK was America's last gunslinger, and when he died, so did the gunslingers. Rachel is proof that whoever said that was wrong.

Cassie. She's sort of my girlfriend, although we hardly ever talk about that stuff. We know how we feel about each other, and we don't have to put a label on it. I think she's beautiful. When most people look at her, they just see a short, plain, black girl who, depending on the time of day, is probably covered with a variety of animal excrement. When I look, I see the kindest, most gentle soul I've ever met. Both of her parents are vets, which allows us access to animals we can morph.

That's right, morph. Ax's big brother Elfangor is the one who got us involved in all of this. He was dying, and all he could offer us was the power to morph. We can absorb DNA from any animal we can touch, and then we can turn into that animal at will. It's the only weapon we have to fight the Yeerks.

And morphing brings me to the last human member of our group, Tobias. I say he's human because he was born human. He can talk, read, write, and reason. He's brave and even noble sometimes. He's also trapped in the body of a Red-tailed hawk. If you stay in an animal morph for more than two consecutive hours, you can't morph back. A super-powerful being known as the Ellimist gave Tobias back the power to morph. He even gave him a way to morph himself, the human version. But he also gave Tobias an impossible choice – live as a hawk and retain the ability to morph, or live as a human and have no way to help us fight. Tobias made the choice I don't think any of the others could have made – he lived in a meadow in the forest. He didn't go to school, or have a family or a job. We Animorphs are his family. The war against the Yeerks is his job.

Tobias isn't totally alone out there in the woods. Like I said before, Ax is an Andalite. He lives in the woods, because we couldn't exactly rent him a place or get him a job. The second you see him, you know he's not from around here.

Andalites are a lot like centaurs. I've even thought that maybe Andalites visited Earth a long time ago, and that's where the legend of the centaur came from, even though Ax assures me this wasn't the case. He's covered with blue fur. He has a long, powerful tail with a blade on the end, and he can whip that thing with more precision and force than you'd think was possible. For defense, he's got an extra set of eyes on top of his head. They're on stalks, and he can point them in any direction. Even though he's just an aristh – a young rookie in the Andalite military – he's a huge asset. Besides being extremely dangerous without having to morph, he's our whole encyclopedia when it comes to knowledge of the Yeerks.

Anyway, so that's us – the Animorphs. We are the only known resistance to the Yeerk invasion. It's a lot like having to finish out a football game when you're getting beat a hundred to nothing. It's hard to stay motivated, to stay hungry, when you're so far behind. But we fight, and we fight hard. We don't know what else to do. There isn't anything else to do. Giving up isn't an option. If the Yeerks are going to take this planet, we're at least going to make them pay for it. And sometimes we do hurt them, set them back.

This particular fiasco started on a sunny Saturday morning in my kitchen. I was arguing with my brother Tom, who, unfortunately, is a tool of the Yeerks. He is what we call a controller. I spend every day pretending not to know that an alien slug has hijacked my brother's body.

The argument was typical. Tom was trying to push the Sharing onto me, which is a Yeerk-controlled organization through which they get more controllers. I shouldn't have let it get to me. But I went through it with him at least three times a week. Even if I didn't know he was a controller, I would have gotten bent out of shape with his pestering. That's really the only word for it – Tom had given up trying to talk me into joining. Now he was trying to annoy me into it.

"I just don't understand why you won't check it out," Tom said. "One meeting. It wouldn't kill you."

"No, it wouldn't," I agreed. "It also wouldn't do me any good, since I'm not joining."

Tom threw up his hands in frustration. "How can you judge it before you know anything about it? You're so closed-minded!"

I tried to ignore him as I ate my late breakfast. He came and got in my face a little. "One meeting. If you don't like it, you'll never hear the words 'the Sharing' out of my mouth again."

"Tempting," I said, and it almost was. "But I'm not caving, Tom. You say I'm closed-minded. You're the one with the thick skull. You'll get it one day. I. Will. Never. Join. Your. Club."

A sneer that was very unlike my brother flashed across his face. That look was pure Yeerk, and it spoke to me clearer than words. It said, "You don't get it. The easy way, the hard way, doesn't matter. We'll get you one day." As quickly as it appeared, the expression disappeared, leaving something like anger behind.

"If it weren't for the Sharing teaching me life skills, I'd be pounding your face right now," Tom said. He tried to make it sound funny, like a joke, but there was nothing funny about the way the vein in his temple was pulsing. "I'm just trying to help you. You might be grateful."

"Ha!" I almost choked on a mouthful of egg. 'Grateful? Oh yes, thank you so much for taking away my free will,' I thought. "Give it up, Tom. You're just being obnoxious, now."

Tom seemed like he wanted to say something else, but I guess he figured he'd pushed it far enough. For now. Because if there was anything in life I could count on, it was death, taxes, and Tom pushing the Sharing. He snatched the plate of food my mom had left out for him and threw it in the microwave, not bothering to look at it. A few seconds after he started the microwave, loud pops starting coming out of it. I saw the sparks and realized Tom had forgotten to take the silverware off of the plate before he'd put it in.

He stood there, staring blankly into space. "Yo, Tom!" I said loudly. "You gonna take the fork out of the microwave, or just let it explode?" He didn't answer me, and a tendril of smoke curled out of the appliance. "Tom!" I yelled, a little freaked out, as I jumped up and pressed stop on the microwave. Tom still didn't move. "Quit playing around, Tom, you're really starting to creep me out."

Instead of replying, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the kitchen tile. His leg was curled underneath him in an extremely unnatural way, and I winced as I straightened it out for him. By this point, I was really losing it. "Tom! Tom! Quit fooling around!" Even as I said it, I knew this wasn't a prank – the way his leg had been caught up underneath him after he fell was too gruesome.

Things only got worse. Eyes still rolled back, Tom's tongue lolled out of his mouth, and his whole body started to go into convulsions. Violent convulsions – I could hear the rapid click clack of the backs of his shoes hitting the ground.

"Oh, God!" I yelled. My parents were both out running errands. I didn't know CPR or anything, even though I could tell he was breathing. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't even sure if I should call 911 – would the doctors find the Yeerk? And if they did, what would they do to Tom? What would the Yeerks do to Tom?

The seizure intensified, and that did it. If I did nothing, Tom was going to die right here. If I got help, he at least had a chance. I grabbed the phone to call an ambulance.