INTERESTING CHOICE.
I feel numb. I should have...hit. Should have crashed something. It's blurry now, I feel like I've forgotten something. But I should have crashed into something and hurt or something, and not feeling anything at all seems strange.
"I...what?"
DO YOU REMEMBER?
I remember lots of things.
WE HAVE MET BEFORE, JAKE BERENSON.
Not Crayak. Crayak would call me Big Jake-he was playing games. So was I. This...whoever this is, sees through me. Sees that I've left my childish secrets behind, I've grown up-
grown up. A flash of myself, years older, with a beard I hadn't grown, waking up in a bed I hadn't fallen asleep in.
DO YOU REMEMBER?
Yes.
YOU CAN FIGHT AGAIN.
A spaceship was nothing-I had blown up the moon once! But I hadn't gotten to follow through. The war wasn't over, there. They didn't even need people to rebuild, yet-they needed people to finish fighting.
Hadn't I wanted another war, wanted to get back in the fight? I could have one. Ax was-maybe dead, maybe infested, but he could be freed, not part of something I didn't even understand. Rachel was alive, maybe even Tom too! I had to go back.
But Cassie...
Cassie was lost.
A Controller, though. I had left one Cassie behind on earth, in part to keep her safe. Like I'd failed at that time. But also because she could have gotten in the way. Maybe there wasn't a morphing cube to give away, but...
What about the others? Are you giving them choices, too?
THEY FOLLOW YOU. YOU KNOW THAT.
Tobias would go to his-to Ax's Andalite body. Something he could survive in, into the future. Marco would be a Controller.
Menderash? Santorelli? Jeanne? They had healthy bodies and minds, the Yeerks wouldn't have passed them over. But they would probably be alive. I could save them, me and Tobias and Rachel. Icouldn't say no, couldn't let her die again.
We would have a chance. The Yeerks would be weakened. We could fight them.
The Yeerks have already been defeated, here.
Are you waiting out in space, in the other world?
THOSE WHO KNOW ME SAY I KNOW ALL. THAT I AM ALL.
I had gotten another war, even if this enemy seemed impossible to defeat. I had gotten another war because we'd already won the first one.
I can't. I...I have to stay here. It had been a hollow victory, yes, but it's finally seeming a little more full. Now that it doesn't matter anymore.
INTERESTING, INDEED. SO BE IT.
The voice fades away and I'm on the ship where I belong. And then I feel nothing at all.