by Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: The literary series The Animorphs was created by K.A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. I own none of these characters. I have merely written a fanfic for my own perverse enjoyment. Anyone else who enjoys it just has very good taste. (Modest, aren't I?)
I freeze, my hand mere centimeters from the controls that will send us crashing into the last remaining Bug fighter in the Universe and end everything, as I hear a familiar voice. A voice that should be a trillion miles away, saying something much different from what it is currently articulating.
"So this is the true end of the Animorphs. We finally get the glorious death we should have had with Rachel and the others."
I turn and stare at her. Cassie. Cassie, who should be on Earth, getting on with her normal life. Well, as normal as life can get for someone who saved the world. I try to speak, to ask her why she came, but I find that my voice isn't working.
"Don't act so surprised Jake. You should have known that I would come." She sighs, a sigh that makes me realize that I was wrong for trying to leave her out of this final mission. "Morphing really is very useful . . . Why did you want me to stay behind?"
My sigh echos hers as my voice returns. "I thought you'd want to live out your life, Cassie . . . I was trying to protect you..." But I know she is right.
Cassie smiles sadly at me. "Jake, you know better than anyone that we've only been pretending to live." She shoots a look at Marco. "All of us. Our post-war lives have been lies." She looks at my hand, still hovering uncertainly over the controls. "Now we can join Rachel. And James. And the others." She glances at the screen, where, moments before, Ax's body had been. "And Ax." She flashes me a Rachel grin. "Let's do it!"
I glance at Marco as he mutters, "Great . . . Another Xena . . ." But his voice is different, more nostalgic than anything else. He catches my gaze, holds it for a moment, then grins and nods.
Then I notice that Tobias has morphed to human--to the body he held the night this whole thing began in the construction yard all those years ago. So many years later, he grins at me akwardly and nods. "This is what we are supposed to do."
My gaze returns to Cassie and I pull her to me as I set the controls with one hand. I kiss her forhead just before impact, holding on to her tightly as we are thrown to the hard floor. Then the Universe disappears in a bright flash.
I blink as I open my eyes. Looking around, I see . . . everyone . . . All the Animorphs, nearly thirty of us. Ax. Rachel. James and his crew. All as they looked during the was, minus their disabilities. Tobias as a human. Cassie and Marco as teenagers. I look down to see that I, too, look as I had during the war. I look up again to see them all looking at me, smiling, Ax in his weird Andalite way. All of my dead friends. Then I hear a familiar voice. Someone who I should have guessed I would see.
"Assembled at last." I look up to see the Ellimist in the form that he has always shown us, be it his true one or not, hovering above us. "A very impressive bunch. Who could have guessed that such frail-looking creatures could have so much will. You have won. I congratulate you."
The silence is nearly palpable for a moment. "Until your next 'game' with Crayak," Cassie sneers, startling all of us. "Then all our pain, all our suffering, our lives, our deaths . . . will mean nothing!" Slowly, we all nod, knowing it is the truth. Chaos will inevitably break out again with the next 'game.'
The Ellimist seems to smile sadly. "But that is what life is. That is what the Universe is. It is a constant struggle between Good and Evil. Each battle won in the name of Good has great meaning and is forever remembered, just as each battle won by Evil is remembered in a different light. Your pain, your lives, your deaths . . . they have meant the saving of thousands of souls, souls that can make a difference in future battles in this war. Innocents always suffer. It has been so since the Beginning. It shall be so until the End."
We struggle to take this in. Rachel speaks, her voice soft and heavy with emotion. "Then it doesn't matter. This war . . . is pointless. When the End comes, the victor will not matter."
The Ellimist turns his sad, ancient eyes toward her. "Yes . . . but how can one turn one's back on suffering? You knew, when you accepted the morphing power and began the battle against the Yeerk Empire that a loss was probable. In fact, it was far more likely than victory. Why, if it seemed so futile, did you try? Why not escape and become an animal of your choice and continue to live your lives unaffected by what was happening?" The Ellimist turns to Tobias. "Why did you choose to continue fighting when you hadn't the ability to morph?"
Tobias looks away, his eyes filling with emotions that have been uncharacteristic to him since his entrapment as a hawk. "The suffering, the enslavement of innocent people who wanted nothing more than to live their lives in peace."
"You could not bear to see the suffering of the innocents." The Ellimist seems to nod knowingly. "How, then, can I turn my back on Crayak, allowing him to cause a Universe of innocents to suffer?"
We are kindred spirits, I realize. All of us, and the Ellimist . . . We are cut from nearly the same mold. I speak, my voice stronger than I feel. "You can't, just as we couldn't. Because to turn your back on suffering is just as bad as inflicting it yourself, if not worse." I pause, more to gather my thoughts than to be dramatic. After all, who needs drama in death? "It may be a pointless war in the End, but here and now . . . it's what exists. Who knows how far off the End is? We can't let the innocents suffer for that time." I smile ruefully. "No one will remember us, just as no bystander remembers the casualties of any war. But we made a difference. We saved people. We saved future generations so that they may regain the innocence that so many races lost because of Crayak. We don't know how long that innocence may go unshattered . . . but there will always be others who will fight to regain the innocence. It's the noble . . . No . . . It's the right thing to do."
Marco nods. "I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hadn't helped. Not that I'll be doing much living anymore." He grins, but quickly becomes serious again. "If I had to go back and choose, I'd do the same thing over again. We know what would have happened otherwise. I guess we were destined to do this, to walk the path we walked. And I'm proud to have successfully walked it."
After letting that sink in, the others slowly nod, one by one. Last to nod is Cassie, but that is to be expected. Of all of us, she is most like the Ellimist, the most compassionate, the one who wishes the most for innocence to be preserved and for life to be without suffering. The Ellimist nods again. "You have done well, my Children. It is time for you to rest." With his words, my senses seem to fade, and I panic, only to quickly realize that they are not fading . . . They are going everywhere at once, becoming one with everything, and becoming part of the intricate Tapestry of the Universe. In this moment, I lose my individuality forever, but gain oneness with everything--time, space, my friends and comrades, and . . . the Ellimist. I cease to be.
The End.
I decided to release an alternate version of this fanfic because I have been taking many literature classes and I have learned many things. I didn't want this to be another good ending. I wanted to take a leaf from Tolkien's book and leave a bittersweet ending. I've realized why I so love the Animorphs series, and that is because it is not a typical series. It does not have the "And they all lived happily ever after" ending that is typical of such literature. Instead, it has an ending like The Lord of the Rings, with none of the characters feeling as if they belong in the world they have fought so hard to create. It has a bittersweet ending, which is not often found in literature. This makes it true to life. Yes, you may survive a war, but you must then wrestle with survivor's syndrome, forever asking "Why me? Why not him/her?" That is what good literature is. It is for that reason that this series will forever remain close to my heart.
There may be a bit of confusion over the last sentance and how that ended the story. The answer is simple. If you cease to be (and I mean that literally, hang on for the explanation) then you no longer have the ability to think or refer to yourself or anything at all. The sentance may seem like a big grammatical error, but I meant for it to read exactly like that. Cease to exist is not what I was looking for. Jake and the others still exist, just not in the forms that they were once in. In fact, not even resembling what they once were or recognizable from anything in the universe. They cease to be as in they cease to be individuals. They are part of One--the universe. It's a Hindu concept, if I recall correctly. The Tapestry of the Universe is a Buddhist concept of sorts (though it's more a tangled ball of yarn in Buddhism). Kudos to anyone who can figure out who or what I compared the Ellimist to and who or what I compared Crayak to. Thus I end The End.
Thank you, Oedipal Kat, for catching my spelling mistake. Love the pen name, by the way.