Animorphs Alternate Universe Series

Book 1: The Difference

Prologue- Worlds Apart

(Sarah)

"Ahhh!" thud. "Alay!" No sympathy. She's laughing too hard. Along with her Groupies. Stupid Casters.

My name is Sarah. Plain and simple. Nothing complicated, a good Earth name. But that is all I can tell you about me. Not that I have a last name - Weapons trainees are numbers, not people - but if I did, I still could not tell you. I can tell you about me, though, who I am and what I am like. I am average height, average brown hair color, average blue eyes. At least, in my world that is average. For a Weapon, that is pretty damn average. But that is beside the point. I enjoy writing as a hobby, hanging out on the net and also reading. I am just... average. Well, not entirely, but... Average.

Speaking of Alay, she was still laughing, the little cheater. See, she is a Weapon trainee too (although I am actually a Cross) and fights dirty. Really dirty. She was raised in Old New York, before Visser One had it destroyed, then came to the Academy when she was about twelve - same year as me. But while I was trained in the long range weapons of my home - staves, glaives, halberds - she was trained in street hand to hand combat - vicious, deadly, merciless. Street orphans do not care who they are fighting, they just fight to win. But Alay and I are actually really good friends, though, in all honesty, sometimes she really annoys me.

I should explain a few things...

Weapon - Creature trained in all forms of fighting. Used as soldiers for the human Yeerk army. 9 times out of ten, are free of being controlled. (Alay and I are fifth years - almost done)

Caster - Creature capable of harnessing the energies of the elements, Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. It takes a lot longer to train as a Caster then as a Weapon, mostly because they come into their power later, while Weapons have to start training young.

Cross - (That is me!) People who are trained in both. I have a small amount of Caster strength in me, barely enough to do anything useful, so I train as a Weapon as my sister, Emily, trains as a Caster. I have taught her a little about fighting, enough to keep her alive in a tight spot, so technically she is a Cross too.
That should be of assistance. The Weapon-Caster-Cross system has been in use for a really long time, centuries even, since the first Caster made herself known way back when. We train hard from a young age and protect the people of the world who live their lives outside of the Academies. There are, in total, seven Academies for the training of Weapons and Casters. We attend the New World Academy in Sun City, in the United States of America, the oldest school of the seven. We live on campus, train on campus, and enjoy all the perks of being grunts to the some of the most difficult people to walk the planet. We train on Earth time, twenty-four hour days broken down into a sixteen-hour training day that has half hour breaks every three hours to eat and cool down. The other eight are sleeping, and, occasionally, we do actually sleep the whole eight hour span, but most of the time we sleep five to six, using the left over time to be with our friends and to get something more substantial to eat then the healthy crap they feed us. Most of the other students do the same, getting good food at night, and we basically hang out and be... teenagers. It is funny, really, how little life has changed since the Yeerks took over. Some laws are changed, and Hork-Bajir and other things we had not seen before are all over the place now, but for the most part, for kids my age, it has not changed. I can imagine life is very different for Controllers and their families but... not for me. Given, I was not born yet, so I do not know how life was for older people before then, but it has not been too grandly difficult for me.
"Yay Alay!!" Beh. Alay's nec'rin groupies, cheering on the cheater. All Casters, all female, all nec'rin - that is what my people call men and women who like people of the same sex - and all disturbingly cheerful and adoring of mi itala.

"Had enough?" Alay had finally gained a breath between her laughing and came to help me to my feet. Well, help me after she stood over me gloating. "Come on, Sarah. That's the second time I've used that move this week. I would think you have it covered by now."

"Bite me, 'lay," I forced out mock smile, getting to my feet of my own will. "You know you fight dirty. How can I even guess what you will do?"

"Oh, I dunno, because you and I practically think on the same wave length by now?" I laughed and picked up the practice sword from where it had landed after Alay's little knockdown.

"Not quite so much, itala nec'rin. For one thing, my groupies are not drooling over me in my training clothes." Not that I have groupies... guys are not as weird as girls... But Alay only smirked evilly and the pair of daggers she had pulled on me as a surprise attack both disappeared again.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. You happen to have quite a few admirers among the Casters." I rolled my eyes. Casters always ogled Weapons, it was pretty well the way of the Academy, but that was because in us they had protectors and guardians from when they left the school and struck it out in the world. And for Weapons, we had a way to travel unscathed and something to do with our lives by protecting the Casters. Unfortunately for the group ogling Alay and I, we were pretty well chosen. Emily, my twin sister, needed me from the first day and I need her as much, and Alay and Sadie were best friends before they even came to Academy, so they are paired off as well. But Casters do not easily take "no" for answer, and thus, every time Alay and I grappled out of a class situation, we were watched.

"First of all, itala, I do not like girls like you do." I dropped the practice sword on the pile by the door as Alay waved good bye to her faithful followers, and we left the practice room. It was actually one of those eight hour spans when we were supposed to be sleeping, but Sadie and Emily were holed up in our room, working a joint Cast of something or other. All I knew was that I had had dinner - pizza with Alay and Laurel down at Gino's - and then when Laurel went off to bed, Alay and I went to have a practice fight. And damn her, I had been doing good until that little stunt with the daggers.

"I know, I know. You play for the other team." I laughed as she paused at a beverage vending machine and raised an eyebrow. "You know, would it kill them to put something in these things that isn't good for us?"

"No, but they think it would kill us." I leaned against the wall and raked my fingers through my hair, separating the sweat soaked clumps into smaller sweat soaked clumps. I closed my eyes and took a slow breath to calm my nerves and slow down my circulation. The translator chip that the Council of Eleven had had installed in the part of my brain that controlled language shut it self down, assuming, in its useless little microchip brain, that I had died. It shut down, allowing me to talk freely in my own language. "Itala, hei na Animarpha?" Alay shook her head, causing the braided, blonde section of her hair to swing about her head.

"Jess hasn't been able to find the next ones. And she's backing off a little on the searching - Polizei have been asking questions."

"Mei?!"

"Yeah... I know." I frowned and chewed my lip in thought. This was not good...

When the Yeerks arrived, they took over about half of the population - no one, supposedly, was a Controller. Instead, all of the hosts were taken over of their own free will. Again, supposedly. There are some of the free humans who know that there are Controllers. One of these humans wrote a series, based on a team of fictional people who fought a Yeerk invasion with the aid of Andalites. The Council of Eleven banned these books, but could not destroy them. They replaced the books with a version where a group of free humans and Collaborators who fought an invasion of Andalites. Completely opposite versions, similiar plots. The Council of Eleven's version only helps to spread the hatred of Andalites that the Yeerks brought with them, and, with so few Andalites left in the universe, there is no opportunity for anyone to meet the hands on thing. I love Animorphs, both series, so does Alay, and while we can get the latter easily enough, the former is much harder to obtain.

"Shanka," I spat and rubbed my forehead. A few quick, shallow breaths, and the translator clicked back on. Stupid technology, translator chips. But it allowed for non-English speaking people, such as myself, to easily converse and understand other people. Without it, I could easily understand English, but not speak it. "Did you find something you like yet?" She shook her head and sighed.

"No... it's all too healthy for my liking. Come on. Let's go kick those witch girls out of our room."

"Technically, 'lay, it is their room too," I commented. She shrugged.

"They locked us out. We have a right to do the same. Let them sleep on the benches this time." I gave a small smile and chuckled. Alay was Alay and would be that way for a long time...