Every book that K.A. Applegate has ever written starts like "Hi. My name is Tobias," then tells about how the animorphs - Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias - recieved the power to change their DNA by way of mental concentration from a dying andalite prince, Elfangor. The animorphs can stay in this form for a limit of two hours before they are permantly trapped. Unfortunately, Tobias exceeded this limit while in the form of a hawk. It tells about how the yeerks are slug-like parasites who crawl into the minds of host species and thereby control the host, the host-parasite becoming what some call a controller. Tom, Jake's brother, is a controller. Marco's mother is a controller. And their enemy, Visser Three, whom the andalites call "the abomination", is an andalite controller. Of course, now I have to tell you that an andalite is a blue-tan centaur-like creature with a long tail ending in a scythe blade, seven fingers on each hand, and two stalk eyes above two halfway down its face. The andalites came up with the technology that allows the animorphs to change form. Ax, who is not truly an animorph, is Elfangor's younger brother, and is therfore an andalite. Tobias himself is actually Elfangor's son. I could explain how this is possible, but it would be very hard to fit the contents of the Andalite chronicles into one sentence.
Whew! Now that I have that finished, I can get on with the story. It starts out with a great presence in the fabrics of time and space; the mysterious Elimist. He focuses himself on one small dot of his vast comprehension and sees the animorphs. They have helped him as he has helped them. And their coexistence, he thinks to himself, is one he can keep as it is. He sees them, from his perspective, as they fight the evil that is called the yeerks. He sees them in the years after their childhood, still waiting for an andalite backup, still beating back the yeerks, still keeping their great power secret. He closes this away from his view somehow, and continues his great understanding and oneness with the universe that is his home.
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ch 1
My name is Tobias. After more than ten years, we are still fighting the yeerks. We all have our own secret identities which are sort of ironic, now that I think back on my youth. Jake is a basketball coach at our old middle school. Rachel is a reporter for one of those fashion magazines. Take a geuss what job Cassie ended up with - yeah, she's a vet. Ax designs video games for Gametech. He and I make more in one month than the rest of the animorphs combined make in a year. I myself am a psychologist. Marco sort of watches out for Ax. Officially, he's a secretary. Six years ago, Jake and Cassie and Rachel and I got married in a sort of double wedding (Ax was my best man). Now, Rachel and I have a son, Ryan. Jake and Cassie are the proud parents of twins named Kate and Michael. Marco prefers to stay single. He makes sure that Ax stays single too - nobody can tell who is or isn't a controller.
About three days from the present, we discovered a secret task force looking for the supposed free Hork-Bajir habitat. They probobly wouldn't find it, since the Elimist had it hidden in some way. We wanted to make sure that they didn't get close so that they couldn't use some yeerk technology to find it later. We ran into Visser Three in the woods. We were startled, but we were ready for an ambush. It looked funny, a sort of medly including a wolf, a bear, a gorilla, a tiger, a red-tail hawk, and an andalite. To any one else, we would have looked like the zoo had trouble changing their security system. On land, I don't think we could have found any more damaging morphs. Except for me. I don't think I could do a lot of damage as a hawk - no offense to hawks, I mean this morph is totally cool. It's just that I can't do as much damage as a tiger or a bear. Besides, a hawk is not actually a land morph. But enough about me, back to the meeting with Visser Three in the woods.
I was a little behind everyone else, but I could see what was going on from the air. Visser Three was behind ten Hork-Bajir (By the way, Hork-Bajir are aliens that are controllers, covered in blades. The blades are for scraping bark, but are useful to the yeerks as weapons). The Visser ordered the Hork-Bajir to attack. Two Hork-Bajir to an animorph. I swooped down and slashed a Hork-Bajir's eyes. Tseeew! A dracon beam came so close to hitting me, I felt the heat through my feathers. Marco was slashed across the shoulder, then pushed back one of his attackers with so much force, he must have killed it. A flash of orange and black caught my perfect eye, and I saw Jake, our great leader, on a Hork-Bajir, having just ripped its torso like tissue paper. Then a roar-like shriek came as a huge claw dug into his hind leg. I heard a yelp, and saw Cassie hit the ground with a painful crunching of bone. And then, Rachel, with her amazing prowess, threw off her second attacker with a single swipe of her massive bear paw, and pinned a Hork-Bajir while swinging at Cassie's other attacker. While I had been watching, I forgot to keep an eye on my own Hork-Bajir. I remembered in a painful flap of my smoking wing and felt myself falling forever. The last image I saw was a half of a Hork-Bajir fall to the ground, and Ax's blood-stained tail blade.
It must have been only a few minutes later, when waking, I saw Rachel facing Visser three. Marco, Jake, and Ax stood behind her, all of them torn and bleeding. Cassie lay unmoving where she fell before.
I asked, fearing she . . .
came a weak response, I saw the battered form move slightly, quivering, pain showing through the caked blood.
A slow growling sound reached my good ear. Rachel. My beautiful Rachel. The one we called "Xena." She played the part of an andalite warrior well, but she didn't have to feign her hate for Visser Three. Unwavering, she confronted him.
my weak words trailed into nothingness, she did not hear them.
I don't want any surrender, Rachel growled, blood and hate in her respond to the contemtous remark.
he teased. Rachel's constant stance buckled slightly. A trap! I felt like a cartoon, falling into the same net, being defeated the same way by my nemesis, again and again. The hair raised on the other's backs.
I yelled, before I could stop myself. I saw the Visser's face loose its taunting scornful look. He was greatly suprised, and so was everyone else. I glazed over my "dead" eyes, even as Rachel's fell on them. After gaining his senses the Visser shot back an insult.
he nugged his head in the direction of Rachel, Instinctively, I tried to get up.
I heard Rachel's voice say, even with her gaze intently focused on Visser Three.
Visser Three continued, unaware of the secret comment.
Jake calmly ordered, Visser Three looked around.
At this distraction, Rachel leaped tward Visser Three, but he saw the attack. The sound of ripping flesh echoed in my ears. I felt the pain, the blood. The defeat. And I wanted to throw up. Rachel, my wife, my friends. Why did we have to do this? Why did we risk family, life, everything, for a war that we should have won long ago? Why did we still wait, as if help was still coming, as if we could be saved? And not a sound, silence, held in my defence. Why didn't she scream in pain? The Visser aimed a dracon beam, no, it was something different. I was hardly conscious, dreaming, trying to stay awake. But I saw it hit Rachel. And then, to our horror, fifty, maybe more Hork Bajir came up in back of Visser Three. We were all doomed.
Whew! Now that I have that finished, I can get on with the story. It starts out with a great presence in the fabrics of time and space; the mysterious Elimist. He focuses himself on one small dot of his vast comprehension and sees the animorphs. They have helped him as he has helped them. And their coexistence, he thinks to himself, is one he can keep as it is. He sees them, from his perspective, as they fight the evil that is called the yeerks. He sees them in the years after their childhood, still waiting for an andalite backup, still beating back the yeerks, still keeping their great power secret. He closes this away from his view somehow, and continues his great understanding and oneness with the universe that is his home.
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ch 1
My name is Tobias. After more than ten years, we are still fighting the yeerks. We all have our own secret identities which are sort of ironic, now that I think back on my youth. Jake is a basketball coach at our old middle school. Rachel is a reporter for one of those fashion magazines. Take a geuss what job Cassie ended up with - yeah, she's a vet. Ax designs video games for Gametech. He and I make more in one month than the rest of the animorphs combined make in a year. I myself am a psychologist. Marco sort of watches out for Ax. Officially, he's a secretary. Six years ago, Jake and Cassie and Rachel and I got married in a sort of double wedding (Ax was my best man). Now, Rachel and I have a son, Ryan. Jake and Cassie are the proud parents of twins named Kate and Michael. Marco prefers to stay single. He makes sure that Ax stays single too - nobody can tell who is or isn't a controller.
About three days from the present, we discovered a secret task force looking for the supposed free Hork-Bajir habitat. They probobly wouldn't find it, since the Elimist had it hidden in some way. We wanted to make sure that they didn't get close so that they couldn't use some yeerk technology to find it later. We ran into Visser Three in the woods. We were startled, but we were ready for an ambush. It looked funny, a sort of medly including a wolf, a bear, a gorilla, a tiger, a red-tail hawk, and an andalite. To any one else, we would have looked like the zoo had trouble changing their security system. On land, I don't think we could have found any more damaging morphs. Except for me. I don't think I could do a lot of damage as a hawk - no offense to hawks, I mean this morph is totally cool. It's just that I can't do as much damage as a tiger or a bear. Besides, a hawk is not actually a land morph. But enough about me, back to the meeting with Visser Three in the woods.
I was a little behind everyone else, but I could see what was going on from the air. Visser Three was behind ten Hork-Bajir (By the way, Hork-Bajir are aliens that are controllers, covered in blades. The blades are for scraping bark, but are useful to the yeerks as weapons). The Visser ordered the Hork-Bajir to attack. Two Hork-Bajir to an animorph. I swooped down and slashed a Hork-Bajir's eyes. Tseeew! A dracon beam came so close to hitting me, I felt the heat through my feathers. Marco was slashed across the shoulder, then pushed back one of his attackers with so much force, he must have killed it. A flash of orange and black caught my perfect eye, and I saw Jake, our great leader, on a Hork-Bajir, having just ripped its torso like tissue paper. Then a roar-like shriek came as a huge claw dug into his hind leg. I heard a yelp, and saw Cassie hit the ground with a painful crunching of bone. And then, Rachel, with her amazing prowess, threw off her second attacker with a single swipe of her massive bear paw, and pinned a Hork-Bajir while swinging at Cassie's other attacker. While I had been watching, I forgot to keep an eye on my own Hork-Bajir. I remembered in a painful flap of my smoking wing and felt myself falling forever. The last image I saw was a half of a Hork-Bajir fall to the ground, and Ax's blood-stained tail blade.
It must have been only a few minutes later, when waking, I saw Rachel facing Visser three. Marco, Jake, and Ax stood behind her, all of them torn and bleeding. Cassie lay unmoving where she fell before.
I asked, fearing she . . .
came a weak response, I saw the battered form move slightly, quivering, pain showing through the caked blood.
A slow growling sound reached my good ear. Rachel. My beautiful Rachel. The one we called "Xena." She played the part of an andalite warrior well, but she didn't have to feign her hate for Visser Three. Unwavering, she confronted him.
my weak words trailed into nothingness, she did not hear them.
I don't want any surrender, Rachel growled, blood and hate in her respond to the contemtous remark.
he teased. Rachel's constant stance buckled slightly. A trap! I felt like a cartoon, falling into the same net, being defeated the same way by my nemesis, again and again. The hair raised on the other's backs.
I yelled, before I could stop myself. I saw the Visser's face loose its taunting scornful look. He was greatly suprised, and so was everyone else. I glazed over my "dead" eyes, even as Rachel's fell on them. After gaining his senses the Visser shot back an insult.
he nugged his head in the direction of Rachel, Instinctively, I tried to get up.
I heard Rachel's voice say, even with her gaze intently focused on Visser Three.
Visser Three continued, unaware of the secret comment.
Jake calmly ordered, Visser Three looked around.
At this distraction, Rachel leaped tward Visser Three, but he saw the attack. The sound of ripping flesh echoed in my ears. I felt the pain, the blood. The defeat. And I wanted to throw up. Rachel, my wife, my friends. Why did we have to do this? Why did we risk family, life, everything, for a war that we should have won long ago? Why did we still wait, as if help was still coming, as if we could be saved? And not a sound, silence, held in my defence. Why didn't she scream in pain? The Visser aimed a dracon beam, no, it was something different. I was hardly conscious, dreaming, trying to stay awake. But I saw it hit Rachel. And then, to our horror, fifty, maybe more Hork Bajir came up in back of Visser Three. We were all doomed.