A/N: New chappie! Yay!

And a short author's note, which is probably a relief.

Nogard – Yes, I meant Taxxons. And I changed it. Thank you for pointing that out. Probably the Honey Puffs again.

Stupid fake cereal . . . I can't remember what the brand-name version is called, but I think it's Honey Something. Oh well. Shutting up.

Korean Pearl – Thank you for reviewing! *hands KP an "I'm special" sticker* Take good care of it, that's one of the pretty-colored ones! And yes, I do try to not only make the story fit in with the books, but my other stories as well (which is why it sometimes takes me a while to update, added to the fact that I'm extremely lazy) . . . although I had to change things a little, so this doesn't exactly fit with The Companion in IEH. I really should change the first few chapters of IEH . . . ffnet messed them up . . .

OH! And I fixed the first chapter of AniTubbies! It's readable now and it doesn't have all those stupid funky symbols. Third chapter of AniTubbies will be up soon . . . I know I promised that a long time ago, and it didn't happen. But this time I'm going to really try to get that posted!

Oh by the way, in the last chapter when it says "the Andalite responded," it was supposed to be "My name is Elfangor, Yeerk, the Andalite responded. Remember the name. You'll be hearing it again. But you will never take me alive." I'm too lazy to go back and fix it.

So much for a short author's note. Argh. Here's the story noo.

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Chapter 11

WHUUUMMMPPPFFF!

The Taxxon burst open. The other Taxxons rushed at him eagerly.

Hurry up, Esplin thought. Hurry, before he demorphs.

Yet the Andalite — Elfangor — was demorphing. Blue fur was replacing Taxxon goo. Then something growing at the back. Not the tail. Not the tail, Esplin said silently.

Fwapp!

Esplin groaned. The Andalite's tail had appeared. Oh, well. The Yeerks had their Dracon beams. Elfangor didn't have a chance.

Fwapp! Fwapp! Fwapp! Several Taxxons were now incapacitated. The other Taxxons decided to eat them instead of the Andalite.

Esplin laughed. Then he said, "Kill him. Shoot the Andalite scum."

TSEEWWW! TSEEWW!

Elfangor took cover among the hungry Taxxons.

Esplin glared down at the Andalite. "Go in after him. Cut him to pieces!" he screamed at the other Hork-Bajir.

They immediately jumped into the Taxxons, slashing frantically.

"Back, you Taxxon hogren kalach!" Tarak ordered.

"He's morphing again!" Esplin whispered. "Kafit bird. Shoot it! Shoot it!" he screeched at Sub-Visser Twenty-five.

"But the Taxxons may be hit!" Hekliss protested.

This only angered Esplin more. "I really don't care, shoot! Shoot! Kill it! SHOOOOOOT!"

The kafit bird disappeared down the tunnel.

"That was brilliant," Esplin heard Tarak mutter.

Back on the mag-lev car, Esplin immediately started yelling at Tarak and Sub-Visser Nineteen. "You!" he raged. "You could have gotten the Andalite. You idiots!" He whirled around and slashed at the other two sub-vissers with his wrist blade before he knew what he was doing.

Blood sprayed.

Thud. Thud.

Their detached heads hit the floor of the car.

Tarak, Hekliss, Esplin the secondary, and Sub-Visser Nineteen backed away very slowly.

Esplin the primary glared at them, but said nothing.

The train car came to a stop at the platform where the Yeerks had first embarked. The remaining five Controllers stepped out and immediately saw an Andalite ship descending.

The ship landed. The hatch opened slowly and something stepped out. Esplin could tell it was some kind of creature, but it was not one he had ever seen before. He stared.

The Yeerks instinctively trained their Dracon beams on the creature.

It held up its hands. "Hey, hey. Relax. You can put down the weapons. I'm not here to fight. I'm here to trade."

Of course, none of the Controllers could understand him until he used hand motions.

Esplin was the first to get it. He walked over to the creature and said, "It wants to trade. This strange creature wants to trade. So. What do you have to trade, alien?"

The creature didn't understand Esplin either, but he knew what the Hork-Bajir-Controller had asked. The creature went back into the Andalite ship. When he came out, another alien of the same species was with him. This new creature was bound with wire.

The first creature shoved the second one forward, announcing, "That's what I have to trade. A whole planet full of . . . that."

"You will trade this species for what?" Esplin demanded.

The first alien said something else.

"What do you want from us?" Esplin repeated.

Obviously, the creature could not pantomime this.

Esplin turned to the other four Hork-Bajir-Controllers. "This bound-up creature needs to be infested. I will interrogate the other. Take that one" — he indicated the alien who was tied up — "to the Yeerk pool." He looked at the other alien. "You!"

"Yes?" The creature knew Esplin was talking to him.

Esplin motioned for the creature to come with him. "Come on."

When they reached the Yeerk pool, Esplin tried to get the creature to talk about his planet and people. Yet it was hard to communicate using only hand movements. Esplin gave up after awhile.

Instead, he outlined his plan for Tarak. "Once we have infested these two aliens, we may know more about what we need to do. We can adjust the details as necessary," Esplin concluded.

"What?" Tarak replied. Then, seeing as Esplin was annoyed at his response, he added, "Kidding, Esplin."

"I will take the creature who is attempting to bargain with us," Esplin continued. "You can have the other one, Tarak."

Tarak's head jerked up. "I can?" Then, just to be a pain, "What?"

"Tarak, shut your beak or I will personally kill you. Then you WON'T be getting that host body."

"What?"

"You are pushing it, Tarak."

Tarak shut up.

Esplin was nervous. By now, the process of infestation was familiar to him, but this was a new host species with a new type of brain and unfamiliar physiology. He had observed that the creature was physically weaker than a Hork-Bajir. Yet he had no way of knowing what the mind, the emotions, were like.

Memories first, Esplin thought to himself as he made contact with the creature's brain.

The host's name was Hedrick Chapman, although most of the time it was reduced to Chapman. He was a human. A young male, from the planet Earth.

That's what I am, Esplin thought. A human-Controller. The first human-Controller. And Tarak will soon be the second.

He looked through more of the memories. Especially the most recent ones. The early memories were of life on the human's home planet — Earth — unimportant.

Yes, Chapman had come here with three Andalites. Elfangor . . . and another aristh named Arbron . . . and a war-prince named Alloran.

That one's mine, Esplin decided. Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, you are mine. The Andalite's name sounded familiar . . . but oh well.

Okay. Anything else he needed to know? Chapman and the other human, Loren, had been captured by Skrit Na. Then they were rescued. By the Andalites. The Andalites were going to transport the humans to their home planet, but ... something had come up, and they had had to come here instead. To the Taxxon home world. Why? Why?

Esplin searched frantically through the memories.

The Time Matrix!

‹Yahh!›

‹Whoa, whoa, what the heck?› Chapman demanded.

‹The Time Matrix!›

‹You know about that?›

‹Yeah, I know about that,› Esplin sneered. ‹I see your memories, human.›

‹Hang on. I never said you could look at my memories!›

‹Deal with it,› Esplin said shortly.

‹So you aren't going to kill me?›

‹No. At least not yet.›

‹That's comforting,› Chapman muttered sarcastically.

‹Yeah, it is, isn't it? Now shut up if you're going to be a pain.›

‹Fine, fine, I'll shut up.›

Esplin ignored him. A plan was slowly forming in his brain. "Hey, Esplin!" he yelled to his brother. "Leave your host body and infest my former host!"

"What?" Esplin the secondary twin demanded in Galard.

"Oh. Duh." Esplin the primary had automatically used the language his host knew best — which the Hork-Bajir had never heard before. He repeated his request in Galard.

"Why?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Tarak, infest the other alien now."

Tarak complied.

When he was sure Tarak had complete control of the human called Loren, Esplin smiled with his new human mouth. "Another female host, huh Tarak?"

"Not funny, Esplin," Tarak replied grumpily.

"I like this host. Not exactly an Andalite, but hey, you take what you can get."

Esplin noticed the other Hork-Bajir-Controllers giving him and Tarak weird looks.

"We weren't saying anything important," Tarak reassured them in Galard.

As soon as he had filled his brother in on the details of his plan, Esplin said, "Come on, Tarak. We have to go back to the Andalite ship."