What if…
This all started when I wondered what Rachel would do if she found a suicide note from Marco. It took it's own path from there, as stories tend to do.
---- is a break in scenes. It can go forward, backward, or stay the same place in time but with different characters. If that confuses you, don't read this.
The…ahem, lack of plot will eventually be fixed. I promise…
Also, this was written about a month ago, I'm just now uploading it. This isn't done yet, but I'd like some opinions before continuing.
----
*BRING! BRING!*
Rachel tapped her foot impatiently. Where was that idiot when-she stopped herself. He wasn't an idiot. Just an annoyance. But one she would treasure from this day on. Now she knew how quickly a friend could be snatched away…
She had to talk to Marco. He needed to know.
*BRING! BRING!*
*BRING-*
"Hello," said the gruff voice on the other end. He sounded like he had just waken up. She looked at her watch. 3:52 PM. Must be Marco's grandfather.
"Hello," she said as pleasantly as she could. "Is Marco there?"
"Uhh…," the voice muttered. "He's uh…upstairs."
"Could you please get him?"
"Yeah…MARCO!" Rachel winced at the loud shout.
"COMING!"
"He'll be right here," Marco's grandfather added as if Rachel wouldn't be able to hear him thundering down the stairs.
A sound of a shuffle, then Marco's voice.
"Yeah?"
"It's me, Rachel. I need to talk to you. At Cassie's house. As soon as you can possibly get there."
"'Kay, I'll see you at the mall, John. Bye!"
"Bye."
Then she heard a click and sighed. Jake- dead. No one had expected it. Not even the doctors…
----
"Jake? Jake!" his mother shouted. "Wake up!"
"Mmhmm…" came the mumble from the crumpled body at their feet. No- not body. Can't think that way. Their son, not some lifeless being.
"Call 911." Words she had always dreaded speaking. The only time she had before was when Tom had nearly drowned as a small child. Now, it was her other son, Jake, who needed the help…
It had started almost a half hour ago. Jake had gone up to him room to work on homework. A typical activity for him.
Twenty minutes later, Tom had offered a trip to the Sharing. He said that they were having a fun get together today. She hadn't been able to go, but she told Tom to check with his brother. Jake needed to get out more with people she could trust. Too often lately he had been disappearing early morning and coming back at night, sometimes early the next morning, exhausted.
Tom had returned downstairs quickly. Later she would realize that it was too quick for him to have consulted his brother.
"Mom," he had gasped, "something happened to Jake!"
She ran upstairs to discover her youngest crumpled on the floor next to his bed.
Dozens of thoughts had ran though her head. The only one she could hope to concentrate on was her plea: "Call 911!"
From then on, it became a frenzied rush she would only remember in her darkest dreams. The doctors had rushed around like mad once they arrived at the hospital.
"Has this happened before?"
Hell no, what did they think, that this was a regular thing?
"No," was her semi-frantic answer.
"Could he be on drugs?"
"NO!" she should know-she was his mother, after all.
"Now, I know it's hard to consider, but think about it-does he ever leave for days at a time, then offer no explanation for where he was or what he did? Does he-"
She had cut him off there. "Y-yes, he does…frequently…"
He nodded curtly and rushed off to his fellow doctors with this new nugget of information.
She had turned to her husband.
"Jake couldn't be on drugs, could he?"
"No, no, of course not," he reassured both her and himself. "Not Jake."
The doctors, on the other hand, were absolutely sure that drugs were the trouble. They had tested him so long, grilling him with every question they could think of once he woke up, that he had finally screamed, "Leave me alone!" and refused to communicate to any of them.
Later, a sickness had been obvious. An illness that could have been prevented if the doctors had thought of something besides drugs as the cause. As it was, it could have been cured, even if it would have taken a while.
Jake had been found stabbed to death with a surgical knife that was found to have Jake's finger prints on it.
That much his mother-or at least his mother's subconscious-knew. The rest was a mystery to her, just as it had been intended to be.
What she didn't know was that Jake's illness had caused him too become feverish. And in his fever, he worried about the Yeerks. Luckily, his worrying was confined to that the Yeerks would get him as he lay helpless. Nothing about the Animorphs, nothing about how he, a mere human, could morph. Just that he was afraid of the Yeerks. As he had right to be.
It was the Yeerks who had killed him. It would not go documented to the Visser, as the ones who committed the crime later realized it would have been wiser to keep him alive and infest him. Upon hearing his ramblings, they panicked and grabbed the closest weapon to kill him with.
In hospital records, it said "suicide: over dose of prescription, death by self-inflicted knife wound." Because traces of some powdered drugs were found in his blood stream, as if they had been administered a day or so before, no doctors were questioned.
Jake's shocked parents had panicked and phoned the first person they thought of-Rachel's mother. Rachel and her sisters were told soon after and they rushed to the hospital, as relatives tend to do even when they know they can't do anything.
Rachel had sat over Jake, muttering something that no one else could hear. If they could have, they would have taken her upstairs to the psych ward immediately.
"Jake…you didn't kill yourself. I know you, cousin, and you would never do that," she murmured to the body of her cousin. "Just know…that we all love you. And we'll miss you. And we'll get those Yeerks for you. Every single last one." If she had been thinking clearly, she would have excluded those in the Yeerk Peace Movement. But she wasn't and she didn't. It didn't really matter, anyway.
"Don't worry, Jake. We'll win this war for you," she whispered, then stood up, concealing the tears
"Poor human race," she thought. "This war's not near over and the best-freaking-general you've ever had is dead. Killed as he lay sick. But we'll win. We have to. For Jake. Those Yeerks deserve worse than we can give for what they've done."
"Rachel, hunny, we're going home now.." her mother said shakily.
"Yeah. Fine," this was the most she could manage without crying, and she Rachel. Zena. She didn't cry.
Now at home, she managed to make a logic decision: call Marco. He was Jake's best friend. He needed to know.
----
Rachel looked at the clock: 3:11. She had better hurry. She opened the door and yelled.
"I'm gonna take a walk!" she hoped someone had heard her. Then she turned around and slinked upstairs. There, the she morphed bald eagle, the only thing she thought of then. Minutes later, she was among the animals who took residence in Cassie's barn.
Marco, Cassie, and Tobias were there. She saw a movement and noticed a large blue shape in a dark corner. Aximilli also. Cassie must have told them when she had called.
Someone was missing. Not her…Jake. Jake was missing. Jake would always be missing.
Somehow, that snapped her anger and changed it to sadness. She nearly collapsed on a hay barrel as she demorphed, startling everyone.
Cassie was, unsurprisingly, first to her side.
"Rachel! What's wrong?" there was a sense of urgency in her voice that Rachel could not ignore.
She moaned. "Jake…"
"What about him?" Cassie frowned.
"D-de…'ead."
They all looked shocked. "NO!" came the collective cry.
She nodded and then laid against the hay, just accepting it herself. She could hear Marco's ranting in the background, Cassie's crying, and Tobias's urging for more details. Only Aximilli was silent.
How, Rachel?
"Yeerks…leaveme'lone," she muttered to him from her mind. It was a talent they had only recently discovered-that morphing humans could use short-reaching telepathy to other morph-capable humans. This ability was enhanced when the receiver was in morph.
The short message was conveyed from Tobias to the others as Rachel fell into a deep sleep.
She awoke hours later in a strange house. As she looked around, she realized that it was not strange at all. It was the house of her friend Cassie.
Cassie….Jake…Jake's dead. Yeerks got 'im. Gotta kill the Yeerks. Now!
She looked around and saw Cassie staring at her. She realized that she had spoken out loud.
Cassie looked quite bad. Like someone had spent the night beating her over the head with a club, then rubbed off her skin with sandpaper.
Sadistically, Rachel found that funny.
"You're messed up. She's your best friend. Say something," her mind told her.
"Cass…"
She looked up and seemingly through Rachel.
"It's true. He's dead." Simple words, yet they were obviously forced to sound calm, not like she belonged locked up somewhere.
"Cassie…I don't want to say it's alright, because it's not, and it will never be alright, but you have friends still here. And we're gonna win this war."
She nodded.
"Yes, we have to. For Jake."
Rachel forced a smile.
"I'm going over to Marco's to check on him. Want to come?"
"Oh yes, so we can recruit him to help carry our bags at the mall, right?"
They both smiled, and this time neither was forced, even if they were strained.
"Let's go."
Both were happier for the time being. Unfortunately, they got a very unexpected surprise upon arriving at Marco's home.
*DING-DONG! DING DONG!* said the annoying doorbell. Rachel despised those doorbells. She was sure that Marco had installed that kind of doorbell just because she hated them. She rolled her eyes. The door opened. Inside stood a zombie. Upon further inspection, both girls could see that it was their friend, Marco.
"Hi," he grunted.
"Hello," both said.
"What d' y' want?" he said, slurring the words.
Cassie raised an eyebrow at him. Depressed or drunk? Did it matter?
He seemed to catch her implication.
"'M not drunk…"
A wind flew by them and they shivered.
"'M sorry. Come inside."
They stepped through the doorway and into a living room crowded with odds and ends. Marco led them upstairs to a small attic room.
"Now we can talk."
"Alright…" Cassie said slowly.
The shadows of two large birds were displayed on the floor, followed by rapping on the window.
"'Ello Tobias, Ax."
Greetings, Aximilli said.
Hi, added the boy trapped as a hawk.
Both morphed human, one behind the other has he had an extra step to go through. Finally, they were of normal size and easily fit into the room with the others.
"So…" said Tobias. Not surprisingly, he had ended up sitting next to Rachel. On his other side, Aximilli sat. To Aximilli's right was Marco. Sitting next to both Rachel and Marco was Cassie. Their little group formed a loose circle.
"So," Marco repeated. "So, Jake is-" his voice wavered, "-dead."
He was rewarded with silent nods and glares from the people in the group.
"'E's dead, man. Dead. Gone. No more…Jake. Who'da thought? Not Jake. Not my buddy. No. Can't be…no!" he was babbling now. He didn't care. "Jake never dies, remember you stupid idiot?! REMEMBER THAT?!" He was now screaming to the ceiling. Presumably trying to talk to the Ellimist.
"Shut the hell up, Marco," Rachel said coldly.
"No!" he was nearly sobbing now, "you, Rachel, Zena, who EVER you are, YOU shut up for once!"
She glared at him and looked ready to knock him over the head with some large, blunt object.
Cassie looked up finally and put a hand on both of their arms.
"Pax." Somehow, the calmly spoken word got through to their angry brains. "The last thing we need to do now is fight."
"Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Rach."
She nodded, "Me too. Sorry, that is."
"What? Zena has lowered herself to apologizing to moi?" he smiled then, not wanting his words to anger her again.
She gave him a confused look, like she didn't really know what to do, nor did she care, even though she felt that she should know and should care.
Then Rachel stood up slowly as not to hit her head on the low ceiling.
"Now. 'M sorry to have to say this, but what're we gonna do? We can't just sit in Marco's attic and let the Yeerks take over, you know."
Tobias nodded slowly. Then he looked at her.
"You lead."
She raised an eyebrow, but the others all nodded their agreement.
"I can't," she whispered.
"You can too, Rachel," came reassurances from all of her friends.
"You people are all insane," she commented.
"My line! No fair!" Marco exclaimed, now having some his old humor back.
She grinned, then stood up.
"I motion for this meeting to be adjourned. Seconds?"
"Aye!"
"'Kay then, good bye, see you all in school tomorrow."
They groaned at the reminder of unfinished homework, then left.
Marco was alone.
He sat down and began, for no real reason, to giggle insanely. Then he walked downstairs, wrote a short note, and took a walk.
A week later, his body-or at least the body of a boy halfway morphed into gorilla, was found by the remaining Animorphs at the bottom of the valley of the free Hork-Bajir. A message was clutched in its hand, written in Marco's near-chicken scratch writing.
To my friends, the Animorphs. You know who you are.
I don't know why I'm writing this, nor if I ever plan to carry out what it is intended for. But I guess that there's no point in not. Jake is gone. No matter what we do, we can't touch what he could do. The Yeerks are gonna win. Face it. Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, Ax, face it. We won't win. Might as well give up. Free or dead, right? Well, I can't be free. Not now. My dad is one of them. I can tell that. Jake knew. He was the only one holding me here. Now he's gone too.
You guys are all very, very good friends and I'm sorry to go. Maybe we'll meet again.
Rachel, warrior girl, I know you won't give up, even against impossible odds. When you die, may it be defeating the Visser. I have this feeling that you'll get that done before you die.
Cassie, peacemaker, as you said, pax. No more fighting. No more of this stupid war that we all know you hate. It's obvious that you didn't want to stay before, and now you hate it, don't you? I do…just quit while you can. Before you become addicted to the adrenaline rush.
Tobias, bird-boy, as always. I don't know what to say to you, man. Just…stay with Rachel, alright? She needs someone to balance the violence. Is she looking mad as she reads this? I hope so…remember that, even in death, Marco has the power to make Mighty Zena mad.
Ax-man, go knock Gates out of business, alright? I know you can, just prove it. Monopolize the world's software industry. You'll enjoy it. And forget the Andalite laws and junk. Elfangor did, and he seemed to enjoy himself.
And Jake, wherever you happen to be, you're my best friend forever. Nothing will change that.
All of you, thank you for being my friends. Now I shall go…Good-bye.
-Marco the Marvelous Idiot
As Rachel finished reading that, she passed it to Tobias. Then he to Cassie. Finally, Ax got it. They all looked stunned.
Finally, Cassie spoke up.
"He's right. I DON'T want to be in this stupid war. Never have wanted to. I was just afraid of what would happen if I said no…"
Tobias nodded his human head. He seemed to be staying human longer and longer these days, Rachel noticed. Unknown to her was that Jake had made this same observation, only about his hawk morph, before Tobias had been stuck.
"Cassie," he said, "we respect that decision. I know that it's not exactly fun…"
Rachel glared at him, but upon seeing his sad expression, softened her own and tried to hug him and Cassie at the same time. She settled on just Cassie for the time being.
"Cass, you're my best friend, but if that's what you want to do, go ahead. Don't become…me…if you don't want to."
They all nearly heard Marco commenting, "In fact, I advise against EVER becoming Zena."
Cassie smiled and nodded. "Yes, Rachel, I want to quit. This time for real." Rachel accepted that, as her best friend knew she would.
Then Cassie walked a short distance away and morphed Osprey. As she flew over the forest, a gunshot was heard.
"Noooo!" moaned Rachel, who was quickly morphing grizzly. She thought better of it and hurried into her bald eagle morph instead. Moments later, a bird with a six foot wingspan was attacking a small group of hunters. That attack was paused for a second as an Andalite and a Hork-Bajir raced up to join. The bald eagle left, only to be replaced with a grizzly bear. The hunters became something closely resembling raw hamburger.
CASSIE! Rachel shouted in her mind. They found the crumpled body lying among the skins of other animals. Red fox, bear, wolf. Many others that Rachel and Tobias didn't care to look at and that Ax didn't know well enough to identify.
Rachel ran. She wasn't running just from the scene of her best friend's murder-she was running from all that had happened to her. Three deaths. All because of the Yeerks in some way or another. How many more would there be?
The shadow of a large bird of prey floated over her. She slowed down and allowed Tobias to land on a near-by stump without her killing him. They both morphed back to human.
As they sat shivering against the cold darkness of the forest, Tobias looked into her eyes, trying to see her thoughts. He knew his. Anger, something he had become far too used to. Anger at the Yeerks, at himself, at all of his friends. Anger at his father even. His father whom had, in his dying moments, given them this gift. Gift?! What a deadly gift…
Aximilli tromped up. He was still in his natural form.
Rachel! You are supposed to be the leader! Leaders cannot run away like that!
She made some rude-sounding noise.
Aximilli walked up to her.
By the laws of the Andalites, you have committed an awful crime! Betraying those you were assigned to command.
"Then I'm glad I'm not an Andalite if your stupid laws say I have to stand there and stare at my best friend's dead body.
Aximilli seethed with anger. He raised his tail and was about ready to kill the girl sitting, depressed, on the forest floor when Tobias jumped on him, knocking him off balance.
"You may be my father's brother, but that does NOT mean I'm gonna sit here while you rip off her head!" he said, hitting the blue Andalite with more force than he had thought he had.
Aximilli looked shocked.
Tobias! I'd of thought you beyond human-
He got no further.
"You thought wrongly, Ax," Tobias hissed. "Jake is gone, Marco gone, Cassie gone, and I am NOT losing Rachel. You of all people should know that."
The arrogant Andalite came as close as he ever had to sneering. Then he slumped.
You are correct. It was very wrong of me to act in such treachery.
Tobias nodded curtly and kneeled next to Rachel, hugging her the best he could. Unnoticed by them, Aximilli was busy punishing himself for what he had nearly done in typical Andalite fashion. Only, this time there was no superior to divvy out the punishment. He would have to do it himself.
Slowly, he carved out portions of his back, careful to leave enough muscles to move his tail but not enough for him to stand. He would need his tail. He legs he would not. He toyed with the knife he had found at the hunter's lodge. It wasn't very big but anything was large enough to inflict what harm his tail couldn't or wouldn't do slowly enough.
He took the knife that he had found in the hunter's camp and carved away from around his right stalk-eye. Suddenly, part of the world was lost to him. It didn't matter. He was loosing enough blood to render himself unconscious in a few minutes anyway.
Then he gorged out his lower left eye. It plopped with a sickening thud on the ground at his feet. Through his hooves, he could vaguely taste his blood. He slipped his fingers behind his remaining lower eye and pulled.
Aghh! was his semi-muffled cry.
The eyeball ripped from his head, leaving him holding the bloody mess. He was blacking out now, he thought. Or maybe that was just from his lack of three of his four eyes…he would never know. He turned the one remaining stalk-eye to look at his long tail. Then he took the knife and began slicing at the bass. He knew this ritual well, he realized. Too often had he seen it…
He got down to the bone and used what remained of his strength to cut, with his tail-blade, through that. His tail fell, lifeless, to the ground. He moaned silently.
Then he took the now-bloodied tail-blade and put it in front of his neck. He let the lack of blood take over and fell, slicing off his own head as he did.
Tobias and Rachel heard the crashing of small planets and stood up to see what had happened.
Only then did they see that the brave young Andalite cadet had killed himself within twenty feet of them. Rachel collapsed against Tobias who quickly sat down, understandable, considering that he could barely support himself, let alone another.
They began sobbing. How long they sat there, they never found out. It could have been weeks before the young Tobi Hamme came up, searching for a special tree bark for an elder, and found them sitting there.
"Tobias? Rachel?" she had said in her Hork-Bajir way. Although she was much smarter than her fellows, there was no mistaking her for a human. Or a typical Hork-Bajir, for that matter. No, Tobi was special. She was a seer. And what she saw at this time was two of her friends, huddled together, all together too close to the death sites of three of their four now-dead friends.
They looked up. Both looked half-dead themselves.
"Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Ax are dead," one of them said monotonously.
Tobi merely nodded, then sat beside them the best that her Hork-Bajir body would permit.
Rachel looked up. She ran a finger across one of Tobi's blade, drawing blood. She looked at her finger blankly. She then repeated the action many times before anyone noticed her.
As Tobias was attempting to pull her away, she kept reaching back for Tobi's blade, blood running down her arm, dripping into her hair. Some part of her realized that if she managed to pull free, the first thing that would happen was that Tobi's elbow blade would nearly slice off her hand. She stopped pulling.
She turned and embraced Tobias, blood now clotting slightly.
Tobi regarded her warily.
"I love you, Tobias, I really do. Thank you so, so much. I won't help anything by dying, will I?"
He didn't say anything, only guided her back toward the city, prepared to walk if necessary.
She gasped. "We can't go back. Cassie's and Marco's parents…well, grandparents in Marco's case…"
He shook his head. "Controllers. I've been watching them. All controllers."
"Oh…shall we morph then, instead of walking?"
He smiled.
"Of course."
They morphed their fastest bird morphs, bald eagle and red tailed hawk, and flew back as fast as they could, hoping that Rachel at least would not be missed.
They made a stop at the park to allow Rachel to find clothing in the lost and found box, then walked to her house.
"Goodbye, Tobias," she said about a half a block away from her home.
"Bye…"
They parted, him back to his meadow, her to her home where an impatient mother awaited her.
----
"Hello," the girl whispered to the ladybug on her windowsill. "Is that you, Tobias?"
The others in her small room ignored her, just as she ignored them when they babbled on about meeting George Washington and what not. She had really met the man, after all. Well, not met, but seen in life, at least…
She turned to the ladybug again.
"Tobias?"
She had done this to every animal she had seen in the last two years or so. If she was in her right mind, she might have been worried about the Visser being one of those animals, but then, if she was in her right mind, she wouldn't be in an asylum. Which she was. And had been for the last two years. She still waited about Tobias to come and somehow get her out.
She was convinced that she couldn't morph. Or rather, she pretended so long that she was convinced since that's what made the doctors happy, that she started to believe it.
"TOBIAS!" she suddenly shouted. A nurse came running.
"Tobias?" she asked again, knowing full well that he could be anything she saw that had DNA.
"No, Kay, not Tobias. Tobias isn't real. Kay, remember? Remember? I'm Nurse LaHagon. Remember me?"
Rachel refused at acknowledge the nurse. She knew him just fine, but he refused to call her Rachel. He always said that her name was Kay and that Rachel was imaginary. She knew that many things about herself were odd, but she knew her name. And that name was NOT and would never be, Kay.
The nurse looked ready to smack her. But then, he always looked like that when she ignored him…
She turned to her roommate, a girl who called herself Lessa. She was continuously raving about someone she called Ramoth. That's why they were roommates. Similar problems, similar rooms, the doctors had figured.
Except that their problems weren't similar. Hers were real while Lessa's were a result of a troubled life and overdoses on sci-fi books. But then, Lessa insisted that hers were real too, that somewhere a great golden dragon was waiting for her, and that if they would only let her out of this stupid place, she could go to her beloved Ramoth.
Rachel smiled at the girl and shrugged as if to say "What're you supposed to do about them when they won't even use your real name?"
Lessa called her Rachel. Rachel called Lessa what she wanted to be called, which was Lessa, regardless of the fact that she had a feeling it wasn't her real name. Both were allies in this place and it would do no good to fight amongst themselves.
The nurse turned toward Rachel's other neighbor, James. They didn't believe that James was his real name either. No one really knew why James was there, nor did they ask, nor did he offer any explanation. He was just an accepted part of the group.
"So, Bob, have you learned anything today?"
Despite being remarkably bright, James forged mental retardation to the doctors. He grinned in a stupid-looking way and nodded.
"What did Bob learn?"
James was one that allowed them to call him Bob, although he did not encourage the girls to do this.
"Let 'em call you Kay and Natty and they'll call it progress and act like they're wonderful people," he had warned. "I only let them call me Bob to keep them thinking I'm an idiot." He had grinned then, clearly pleased with himself.
"Bob? What did Bob learn?"
"Ah leawned dat da pencil macks a mark on da p'per," he said in the slurred speech he took on whenever the doctors or nurses were around. He 'learned' this same thing every day, but so far the doctors had said nothing about this fact.
"Good! Bob is a good boy!"
Then the nurse brought his wrath to Lessa.
"What is your name?"
"Lessa, rider of golden Ramoth."
James stood up and pantomimed a soaring dragon. It made the girl giggle.
"Now Natty, you know that Ramoth is just imaginary."
"She is NOT!" Lessa then laid back in bed, pulled to covers over her head, and hummed loudly.
Got the doctors to leave every time, Rachel thought, grinning.
The nurse, as expected, turned and stalked out of the room. The occupants all laughed as he did, mimicking his actions in exaggerated ways.
"Bob, Kay, and Natty. Where DO they get those names?" James asked after Nurse LaHagon was gone.
"From those baby name books, most likely. They just open 'em up and stick a pin in."
They all agreed on this idea.
----
"Tobias?" Rachel whispered again, this time to a seagull perched on her windowsill.
Surprisingly, it answered.
Hello, Rachel.
She grinned as widely as she could and pried open the window. The bird quickly demorphed to red-tailed hawk and then to the human she knew so well.
"Tobias! It's really you!"
"Yes, hush now, don't want anyone to wake up."
She nodded and said, "Can we leave now, please? I hate this place so, so much."
He smiled, "Of course we can, Rach."
As they were morphing, Nurse LaHagon stepped in and saw them.
"AHHHHH!"
"Shu-"
-t up! Rachel yelped at him during the switching of her mouth to an eagle's beak.
"HELP MEEEE!"
Lessa and James quickly awoke and sat staring at the spectacle of the morphing creatures.
Hospital staff rushed in just after Tobias and Rachel flew through the open window. A hysterical Nurse LaHagon told him about the encounter, which Lessa and James helpfully denied.
----
"Kaayy! Evil bird person! COME BACK HERE! NOOOW!" a drenched Nurse LaHagon cried to the seemingly deaf forest. He was no longer really a nurse, but had his first name changed to "Nurse" long ago and refused to change it back now.
Nurse heard a sound. He glanced around him, holding up his water pistil as protection, despite the pouring rain.
"I know you're here! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he screamed in a singsong voice.
Suddenly, a girl stepped out of the shadows behind him.
"Well, hello, Mr. LaHagon," she said, sounding exactly as he remembered her. Despite, or perhaps in spite of, the pouring rain and the flooding river, she was completely dry without a speck of mud on her. Every hair on her head was in place, and a spotlight seemed to shine on her. Yes, this was Rachel. Or rather, as Nurse thought of her, Kay.
"KAY!"
"Rachel."
"Kay?"
"Rachel."
"IMPERSONATOR!" then he took his water pistil and shot her square in the face. It was obvious that he had not missed, yet the water seemed not to destroy her image in any way.
But then it did…
"AHHH! I'm melting, I'm melting!" the girl yelled. She slowly, well, melted into a puddle of Jello, much like her friend, Alex, could.
I'm coming, Rachel! Agh, this water is just awful…no wait, I'm not coming, alright? I'm sorry, but my feathers will get wet…no, I AM coming, oh, I'm all confused…
A minute later, a Hork-Bajir leaped into the small clearing that held a water pistil-welding former nurse called Nurse and a Puddle o' Rachel.
Blades flashing, the Hork-Bajir turned to Nurse.
What. Did. You. Do to her?! it yelled at him.
"Um...er…that is…I just sprayed her with this…"
DDIIIEEE!
"Yessir!" the odd little man said before he dropped over dead.
Oh gods, I've killed him! And he killed Rachel…they're all dead. All but me…
Then, with fractured Hork-Bajir vision, he looked down at the dead man. Something slimy and gray was crawling out of his ear.
Well, well, who do we have here? Tobias asked, not daring to hope it was the Visser.
Andalite! the Yeerk sneered at him. Kin of the beast Elfangor, at that!
Tobias shrugged lightly and pulled a can of salt out of the pocket in his suit [AniTV reference there, people. "Elfangor" pulled the "Blue Box™" out of a pocket in his shag carpet suit]. Then he held it above the Yeerk and shook it, letting the particles inside fall on the slug.
It works on leeches, why not Yeerks?
AHHHHHH- the screams suddenly stopped as the gray slug-like creature shriveled away and died.
Tobias then looked down at the Puddle o' Rachel. He took his wrist blade and stabbed it into his own chest.
*Free or dead, and Rachel m' dear, I could never be free without you…* he seemed to whisper as he fell to the ground, already dead.
----
The Ellimist giggled insanely. It was working out JUST the way he had planned. The idiots that had called themselves Animorphs had all successfully been killed off in one way or another and that jerk or a Yeerk, the Visser, had shriveled up.
"Ooh, it RHYMES!" The Ellimist thought, giggling harder.
"Jerk of a Yeerk! Jerk of a Yeerk!" he crowed, delighted at the rhyme.
"Well, hello there…cousin," the Crayak said icily as he entered the weird realm that the Ellimist called home. "Feeling alright today, I trust?"
"Just…hehehehe…just dandy!"
Crayak nodded in a greater-than-thou attitude that usually annoyed his cousin greatly. Today, however, the Ellimist merely giggled harder.
"Your Animorphs are dead," he said, trying to get some reaction.
"That's right! So kind of you to notice that, dearest cousin."
"You sound pleased…Why?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet?" suddenly the Ellimist changed moods. He was now pressing, looking for answers.
"Figured out what?"
"I planned it that way, of course. They HAD to die."
"Oh really? How do you arrive at this answer?" Crayak said, his voice still as icy as ever.
"Well…quite frankly, they're getting in the way of everything and they'd be better off in…other places."
"Like where…?"
"Oh, with you and myself…," he suggested, clearly having of planned on this.
"WHAT?!"
"The way I see it, Rachel would do wonderfully for you as a warrior. Aximilli and possibly Jake as well…" he said, sincerely hoping that Jake would be protested against.
"Rachel and young Aximilli, yes. But not that child!"
The Ellimist smiled.
"So be it. Marco as well?"
His cousin considered this.
"Yes, Marco as well. You may have the other three."
The Ellimist grinned and giggled again.
"Good. They are awaiting you in the drawing room."
When Crayak gave him a look of pure confusion, he giggled and gasped out "Mirror room" before collapsing helplessly in a pile of giggling Ellimist.
----
"A'right, what the hell am I doing here?!" Rachel screamed, not expecting an answer.
"Rachel!" Tobias yelled, rushing up to her and hugging her tightly. "I thought you were dead!"
"Rachel? Tobias? Where are you?" a voice called, echoing on the slanted walls.
"Oh gods, it could take forever to find who said that," someone commented warily.
"It was Rachel and Tobias!" now they could place Cassie's voice. They didn't dare to hope that it was really her, but they acknowledged that it was her voice..
The images of someone running bounced off mirrors until it reached them as a mere blur.
Rachel turned to Tobias and said, "What do we do? We can't find them, but shouting won't help either.."
"I hear her!" a voice sounding like Marco's cried. He and Cassie were obviously not together, to judge by the directions their voices had seemed to come from. They could have been communicating like this for years…
"CASSIE?" Rachel yelled, not daring to hope that it was really her long-dead friend.
"Rachel! See, Marco, I TOLD you it was her!"
"If we're dead, then this sure ain't Heaven," Tobias muttered to Rachel. "I mean, look at this. All of our friends near by, but it's impossible to find them and we can only catch little bits of what they say. "
"'Heaven don't want me an' Hell's afraid I'll take over,'" she quoted, then grinned since it so aptly described herself and most of her friends.
He smiled.
"Well, shall we look for them?" he said, all humor gone from his face.
She nodded. "Yes. Of course."
----
It took each about the next half day to find the other. During that time, they nearly gave up multiple times, only to be encouraged by a shout from the other group. The only reason that they ever found each other was the fashion supplies Rachel miraculously had with her.
"…Rachel, why are you hulling around nail polish and spray-on hair dye?" Tobias asked her.
"I dunno. I just though it would come in handy. And I guess it did." With that, she sprayed a dark green X across a mirror.
"Well, why dark green?"
"No reason…Oops!" naturally, her arm had 'slipped' while painting the mirror, turning Tobias's hair a lovely dark green color.
"Hey! Give me that!"
"Yeah right!" she laughed and ran off, helpfully marking a line of mirrors while she went.
"Stop it you two and do something productive!" [A/N: Funny, if a bit inside joke in there. Can ye find it?] Marco yelled at them. So far, none of them had mentioned that they had yet to hear Jake. Ever Marco, who had been there over two years, had never heard from his friend.
"Productive, eh?" Tobias mumbled to himself. "Maybe they should have their hair dyed green!"
Rachel heard his comment and laughed. Then, tauntingly, she pulled out her bottle of purple.
Tobias ran up to her and snagged the container out of her hand. Then he turned and depressed the button on top, efficiently coating her hair with purple. Here and there the original blonde could be seen, adding a nice effect in Tobias's opinion. Rachel didn't think so.
"You! Lemme have that bottle!"
He shook his head and ran quickly, his now-green hair being pushed back by the wind he was creating. He wondered if he could morph bird while running. Then he wondered if he dared to fly with the mirrored ceiling above him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly crashed into a short Hispanic boy without noticing.
"Hey!" yelped the boy. Instinctively, Tobias attempted to fly. Noticing that he could not do that, he raised the only form of defense he had -the bottle of hair spray…
----
"Why, hello, my friends," Crayak said rather menacingly.
The Animorphs looked around in confusion. One minute, they had been running around in the Not-So-Fun House, the next they were standing in front of Crayak, Jake tied to a pole that seemed to float about fifteen feet above their heads. No one had noticed Jake yet.
"What're we doing here?" Marco asked while trying to remove the purple from his hair before it dried.
"Don't bother, Marco," said Rachel, ignoring Crayak. "That's the quick dry kind. It comes off in about…36 washes."
Marco just glared at her.
"You are here," commented Crayak, "because I want you here. You're all dead, by the way."
Tobias looked at him curiously. "Are we, now. Can you prove that?"
"I could, son of Elfangor, if I so chose. But I shall not. I've other things more pressing to 'prove' to you all."
"Like…?" Rachel asked coolly.
"Like…how about your cousin, dear Rachel?"
"Where's Jake?" "Where is he?!" Rachel and Cassie shouted at nearly the same time.
The Crayak gestured upward, pointing out what they had missed.
"Oh gods…" commented someone slowly.
"Why is Jake tied to a pole fifteen feet above our heads?" Tobias calmly asked.
Crayak seemed to shrug. "Would you rather he be twenty feet up?"
"On the ground and not tied to that stupid pole would be nice!" Cassie shouted, surprising everyone with the sudden noise.
"As you wish." With that, Jake dropped from the pole, quickly approaching the ground. Then, it seemed as if his left arm had been grabbed by something invisible. He jerked back and stopped falling. The invisible…thing…twirled him around over their heads before tossing him at the ground from only about four feet up. Jake ended up in a crumpled heap at their feet, thankfully unconscious.
----
"What the hell did you do that for?!" Rachel screamed, thinking of stronger words she would have used if Tobias hadn't pulled her back from ripping off that eye of Crayak's.
"Just what your friend wished to be done."
Cassie looked very angry. She also looked like perhaps she needed a haircut to get rid of all that silver-gray fur.
"Get 'im, Cass," whispered Rachel. Marco looked at her as if to say something that she refused to understand.
"Now, now, no need for fighting. I get Marco, Rachel, and Aximilli, my good cousin get the rest. Including him," he added, indicating Jake.
"You're just divvying us up?!" Rachel yelped. "You can't do that!"
"Oh, can't we? You're dead. We can do whatever we want to you. Remember that."
If looks could kill, Crayak would also have been dead then.
"T-tell mee who yer cousin is…" Jake murmured slowly, always trying to get what information he could.
Cassie hugged him tightly as if she were afraid Crayak might throw into the air again.
"Why, Jakey, you've woken up!" Crayak exclaimed.
"Yes," was all Jake hissed out in answer.
"About your question. My cousin is…an acquaintance of yours, I believe."
Jake let his head fall down and he said, not as a question but more of a statement, "Ellimist."
"Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner. Tell our winner what he's just won!"
The standing Animorphs just stared at Crayak.
"Are you telling me you get cable in wherever this place is?" Marco said finally.
He was rewarded with nervous laughter.
"Yes, and yes the Ellimist, as you call him, is my cousin. He…shall we say…arranged this whole meeting."
"He would," was the statement loudest heard. No one knew exactly who said it, but they all agreed.
Crayak concentrated on one thought alone, and suddenly Jake, Cassie, and Tobias were in another, completely different, room.
Crayak chuckled. He just loved what you could do when you were one of the rulers in a place like this.
----
Cassie, Jake, and Tobias stood staring up at the Ellimist. Friend, annoyance, puppet master, all of those he had been. Now he seemed like the greatest of foes, rivaled only by his cousin, Crayak.
"I'm willing to bet that I owe you apologies and explanations," he said upon their arrival.
Once more alert and none-the-worse from his prior injuries, Jake spoke up.
"That would be highly appreciated," he said, matching the Ellimist's tone almost perfectly.
He merely nodded.
"You see, it has been…fixed, if you will, that Crayak and I are cousins. This was accidental at first. A bit too much of a twist on just one little thread-the one of your friend's mother, incidentally, and strange things happen. Such as he and I becoming cousins." The Ellimist paused, as if is were a typical tale and his audience should be restless for more.
"Now, Crayak and I are allied in a way. Not totally, but more so than before. And-" he started giggling then, ruining whatever effect he was looking for.
"And," he gasped, "so we allowed you to be…killed off by whichever means presented itself."
"So…now what happens?" Jake said, once again taking on the I-am-the-leader status.
The Ellimist shrugged and giggled. "I dunno. I was hoping that you'd have some ideas."