Sub-temporally Grounded
**Part 5**
* * *
I stared down at the golden line I once had belonged to. Stared, helpless, as it began fading, curling into itself, twisting, the golden glow diminishing and about to disappear completely.
I waited in terror, every part of my existence shivering, ultra focused to feel any change, any start in my own death.
Although 'death' was the wrong word. I had lost all connection with my body, my human, living, breathing, existing physically in three dimensions form. I was far from alive. I was as dead as anyone could ever be.
I knew that well. My body was an empty shell, already growing cold, already limp and powerless. I could see it through the other lines. I touched my mother's line, only to find her weeping, crying, clutching the more than dead form that once had been me. My dad was standing next to her, staring emptily at something only he could see, hands shaking. I looked for Jake…
But pulled away before I saw him, not wanting to see.
I waited for my own annihilation. Every moment I regarded as my last. Every thought was treated as if I would never think another.
The last of my golden line vanished, being pulled away into darkness.
I waited.
But nothing happened.
Except this: Where the six lines of the Animorphs had flown, strengthened by each other, shining with the power to crush any empire, shining with force to overcome any difficulty, one had curled away and died.
My line had curled away and died.
There were four left.
I looked again.
Yes. Only four.
However I looked, I only saw four.
Marco.
Tobias.
Rachel.
And Ax.
Where was Jake?
Of course, I knew. With bitterness and grimness, it was as clear as crystal before me.
I tugged at the by then familiar strand of space-time to give myself a voice. I took the shape of my just as familiar wolf morph, teeth already bared, head lowered, and my fur bristling with fury.
"CRAYAK!" I roared.
The sound that met me was very much the feeling of a giggle. A giddy, jiggling giggle.
"What have you done?!" I demanded. "What have you done to Jake?"
The giggle became full-out laughter, and Crayak took his red-eyed form in front of me. I screamed at him, but found myself forced to wait until he had stopped laughing. He looked at me with an evil twinkle in his one red eye.
"I did nothing," he said.
"DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO ME!" I snarled.
"I am really proud of you," he said, the feeling of an evil grin making the wolf mind in me want to pull back, whining. "Also, I am grateful, although I doubt you will believe me on that. You solved my biggest problem, anomaly. You removed Jake for me."
"WHAT?!" I shrieked.
"Have you not figured it out yet?" he said, giggling again. "Poor anomaly. I have to explain everything to you, don't I? Let me show you."
* * *
I saw us. In the past, not that long ago. The six of us, all together. We were in the woods, and I remembered that we were trying to make a distraction from where we had hidden the free Hork-Bajir in the hills. There were us, a band of Taxxons, and two or three Blue-Banded Hork-Bajir-Controllers.
We were winning. Which was no surprise, since after Ax, Marco and Rachel took care of the Hork-Bajir, there were only Taxxons left. Taxxons are disgusting, revolting, but they're easy to kill. But this time, they had dracons.
I saw as the wolf that was me snatch her head around and again I saw that fateful dracon being aimed. I knew I had heard Jake's voice in my head.
Concentrate, he had snapped from where he stood, close to the side behind me. I could still hear his voice. You get one chance. Attack on three. One… two… three!
I didn't doubt. I never doubted Jake. I flew up towards the Taxxon. His careful aim was wasted! I smacked the dracon to the side with my shoulder and landed on the Taxxon's ugly face, teeth and claws first. But…
Tseeew.
The dracon, now smacked a bit to the side, hit Jake straight in the face.
* * *
I had let go of my wolf shape. Somehow, without thinking about it, I had taken my own form. A short girl with short hair, standing on nothing, floating in nowhere, eyes wide with fear, disbelief, face streaked with tears as well as anger, hate and sadness.
"That's… that's… that's not what happened," I managed in a weak voice.
"Did you ever see what that dracon hit, Cassie?" Crayak demanded.
"They said… it ALMOST hit Jake…" I recalled. "But he was unhurt."
"But he was not really there," Crayak corrected. "Remember when you first came here. The golden line you saw dying. Jake's line. At the same time as that dracon had been fired. Then you woke up, and you immediately knew that something was wrong. I spoke to you for the first time; I told you that you were right. You had the correct conclusion; they were not really there. They were faded. And Jake…"
"Was the most faded of all." I whimpered, a whimper that was only a sense, a feeling - that Crayak interpreted as a weakness, and he swelled up with hostility, trying to use my emotional distress as far as he could. "No…"
"Do you know why?" Crayak snapped.
"It… can't…" I shook my head violently. But I knew. I understood, then.
Crayak, enjoying all of it, told me anyway. "Because of you. Jake was part of our deal. The Ellimist gave him up, and I agreed to tutor you. I never do things for free, as you know. But when the first demand was about to be fulfilled, you intervened. You're a natural, you little freak. You came over here, and without even knowing it you tied Jake's line to your own, keeping his alive." Crayak smiled cruelly. "But now, you, Cassie the Irregularity… you are dying as well. And as far as those dimensions you lived in are concerned, you are already dead. And thereby, so is Jake."
"They were all faded," another voice said to me. "Because you forced them into a new timeline. A timeline where Jake was alive. You forced the dimensions to adapt after your will. You did it without complications. Without help. And you were not even tutored yet."
Ellimist.
I was not happy to see him. I melted back to wolf, pulled back and curled my upper lip; at both of them. The Ellimist smiled you sadly and moved closer. I moved back again, keeping the distance between us at a standard.
"I am sorry, Cassie," the Ellimist said. "For your loss. But… sometime, in the future, if such a notion can exist about a reality such as ours… if you exist that long… you will understand. And accept."
But I didn't want to understand. I didn't want to accept. I didn't want to be in this reality. Not now, not in the future, not in the past.
I wanted to be back home. With my family. With Jake. I wanted Jake alive, I wanted everything back to normal. I wanted… I knew exactly what I wanted. And it was not this.
But I also knew I would never again be able to have any of what I wanted. Because if my golden line was gone, so would I be. I was still puzzled about why I still existed at all. But I would use the time as well as possible.
I turned to Crayak again. "You. You evil, stinking collection of filthy space-time entrails. How much did you intervene?"
"I only made sure you pushed that dracon just far enough."
"He has been trying to make you let go of Jake's line since you took hold," the Ellimist added lowly. "Cassie, your line was strong enough to keep the new timeline strong until it had stabilized, stopped being faded. As well as to keep both you and Jake alive. Your line, Cassie, still is strong enough. What Crayak has refrained from telling you, is…"
"Do not speak another word," Crayak warned in a growl.
The Ellimist smiled. "See? Crayak does not want you to know."
"What?" I demanded. I could feel anger growing. And anger is very powerful.
"You old cheat!" Crayak shrieked. "You cannot tell her!"
"Crayak did that on purpose," Ellimist continued. "He was not allowed to interfere with you line. So, instead, he interfered with you. He… slapped, to put it in easy terms… slapped you, knowing that you as well as anyone else would do anything to get away. Knowing that would mean you came here. Knowing it would mean you came here in a way that was too brutal for the weakened connection to your line."
"Ellimist, say no more! You cannot! You are breaking our deal! YOU ARE BREAKING THE RULES OF THE GAME ITSELF!"
The Ellimist ignored him. "He knew you would part with your line. And that Jake's line would collapse as the last of yours did."
"You did that?" I said to Crayak, barely concealing my rage.
I wanted to hurt someone.
I had never had that feeling before.
But these two had ruined my life. Even ended it. Taken me away from everyone and everything I had even held dear or loved. Snatched me to this horrible place of nowhere, this thing of nothing, this time of nowhen. And trapped me here for the last moments before I would cease. Cease to be, cease to exist. And then they told me that Jake was dead. Because of all that.
Because of their game.
Because of them.
Crayak sneered at the Ellimist. "You broke the rules. And I always believed I would be the one to do so. The Game is shattered, old cheat, the pieces broken and roaming free. The Rules no longer hold any of us. And now I will do what I should have done a long time ago."
"What, Crayak?" the Ellimist asked calmly.
"I shall destroy you. And, when I have done that, I shall destroy your pet human freak."
I wasn't afraid. I was beyond feeling fear. Fear didn't exist. I was consumed in rage, hate, and growing power. I could feel it grow. I could feel it seep into me, from all around me. And however much it was, I knew I could hold much, much more. Space-time shivered around me.
"Why not start with her?" the Ellimist laughed. "There is another thing I need to inform you about, Cassie. Crayak was planning to… what do you humans call it? Kill two birds with one stone. He not only wanted Jake dead, he wanted you destroyed as well. He is frightened of you."
"I FEAR NO-ONE!" Crayak roared.
"He is afraid of what you might become," the Ellimist said quickly. "he saw how strong you were in your own dimensions, and feared the strength of your gift unleashed here, freed from your worldly existence, unhindered by being held back by your body. As it now is."
Crayak's darkness threw itself over the Ellimist, who shook himself free and put up a barrier of time-area around him. Time in seven dimensions curled to form a pattern, shimmering with colour and light and flashing with the silver glow of time, all bending into an unbreakable sphere, protecting him against Crayak's cold attacks. The lines of suns blackened and faded away to nothing around them with the force that suddenly was set free.
Crayak roared and set up a similar sphere around himself as the Ellimist smiled a horrible smile and unleashed his own attack.
As Crayak's sphere made it shudder and disappear, the universe shook around us. Far away but still close by, the lines of a few hundred galaxies shuddered and began curling away. I held out my hand and stopped them; let them continue their lives for yet another few moments.
Those two, still attacking each other relentlessly, trying to budge the other's spheres of time, trying to break through, were going to destroy the entire universe. The dimensions themselves.
But the Ellimist spoke to me again. "One more thing. It is not too late. You can still save Jake. You can still make sure he lives. Your line is not done disappearing, that is why you still exist at all. Jake's line is intact enough to be saved, like the ones of the galaxies. The remaining fragment of your line still protects it. Use that fragment, Cassie. Otherwise, you will both be gone."
"Where is it?!" I cried. I searched around, with all my senses, finding nothing. I felt the weaves of the reality itself, scanned golden line after golden line, and found nothing.
"Crayak has it," the Ellimist said.
And I knew he was telling the truth. All the dying lines I had seen had curled and twisted around themselves and faded. Mine curled and twisted and finally been 'pulled into darkness'.
And Crayak was, as he had shown numerous times, the absolute and final darkest of darknesses.
"Crayak is trying to break it down. Your line breaks slowly, because of what you are, and Crayak is trying to speed it up. If he succeeds, you will end."
"And so will Jake!" Crayak laughed triumphantly, protected in his shimmering sphere of time. "Giving her impossible chores, Ellimist? You know what she has to do if she wants her fragment back."
"Yes," the Ellimist replied simply. Both of them had stopped their attacks, watching me, one with trust and hope, the other with hate and… concern? "Cassie. Crayak has your line. Your existence, and Jake's life, and in that also the future of your people, your planet, the ones you love on its surface, and a great part of the remaining galaxy. The remaining universe. Take it back. Take it all back, save it all. You know what to do."
The power in me welled up, bubbling, steaming, mixing with rage just as forceful and determination just as great. Seething, storming, and still growing and swelling with every moment. I felt it, savored in it, and hurriedly gathered more.
Yes.
I knew what I had to do.
I bared my wolf teeth. Just an empty threat, a meaningless symbol in that dimension, that reality, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I had nothing left to lose.
If Rachel had seen me, she would have been proud of me. If she even had recognized me.
Because yes, I knew what. And how.
Backed by all my fury, all my determination, all my growing power, and without another hesitation, I attacked Crayak.
* * *
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Author's Note;
Next part will most likely be the last part. Review this one and I'll put it up as soon as it's written.
**Part 5**
* * *
I stared down at the golden line I once had belonged to. Stared, helpless, as it began fading, curling into itself, twisting, the golden glow diminishing and about to disappear completely.
I waited in terror, every part of my existence shivering, ultra focused to feel any change, any start in my own death.
Although 'death' was the wrong word. I had lost all connection with my body, my human, living, breathing, existing physically in three dimensions form. I was far from alive. I was as dead as anyone could ever be.
I knew that well. My body was an empty shell, already growing cold, already limp and powerless. I could see it through the other lines. I touched my mother's line, only to find her weeping, crying, clutching the more than dead form that once had been me. My dad was standing next to her, staring emptily at something only he could see, hands shaking. I looked for Jake…
But pulled away before I saw him, not wanting to see.
I waited for my own annihilation. Every moment I regarded as my last. Every thought was treated as if I would never think another.
The last of my golden line vanished, being pulled away into darkness.
I waited.
But nothing happened.
Except this: Where the six lines of the Animorphs had flown, strengthened by each other, shining with the power to crush any empire, shining with force to overcome any difficulty, one had curled away and died.
My line had curled away and died.
There were four left.
I looked again.
Yes. Only four.
However I looked, I only saw four.
Marco.
Tobias.
Rachel.
And Ax.
Where was Jake?
Of course, I knew. With bitterness and grimness, it was as clear as crystal before me.
I tugged at the by then familiar strand of space-time to give myself a voice. I took the shape of my just as familiar wolf morph, teeth already bared, head lowered, and my fur bristling with fury.
"CRAYAK!" I roared.
The sound that met me was very much the feeling of a giggle. A giddy, jiggling giggle.
"What have you done?!" I demanded. "What have you done to Jake?"
The giggle became full-out laughter, and Crayak took his red-eyed form in front of me. I screamed at him, but found myself forced to wait until he had stopped laughing. He looked at me with an evil twinkle in his one red eye.
"I did nothing," he said.
"DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO ME!" I snarled.
"I am really proud of you," he said, the feeling of an evil grin making the wolf mind in me want to pull back, whining. "Also, I am grateful, although I doubt you will believe me on that. You solved my biggest problem, anomaly. You removed Jake for me."
"WHAT?!" I shrieked.
"Have you not figured it out yet?" he said, giggling again. "Poor anomaly. I have to explain everything to you, don't I? Let me show you."
* * *
I saw us. In the past, not that long ago. The six of us, all together. We were in the woods, and I remembered that we were trying to make a distraction from where we had hidden the free Hork-Bajir in the hills. There were us, a band of Taxxons, and two or three Blue-Banded Hork-Bajir-Controllers.
We were winning. Which was no surprise, since after Ax, Marco and Rachel took care of the Hork-Bajir, there were only Taxxons left. Taxxons are disgusting, revolting, but they're easy to kill. But this time, they had dracons.
I saw as the wolf that was me snatch her head around and again I saw that fateful dracon being aimed. I knew I had heard Jake's voice in my head.
Concentrate, he had snapped from where he stood, close to the side behind me. I could still hear his voice. You get one chance. Attack on three. One… two… three!
I didn't doubt. I never doubted Jake. I flew up towards the Taxxon. His careful aim was wasted! I smacked the dracon to the side with my shoulder and landed on the Taxxon's ugly face, teeth and claws first. But…
Tseeew.
The dracon, now smacked a bit to the side, hit Jake straight in the face.
* * *
I had let go of my wolf shape. Somehow, without thinking about it, I had taken my own form. A short girl with short hair, standing on nothing, floating in nowhere, eyes wide with fear, disbelief, face streaked with tears as well as anger, hate and sadness.
"That's… that's… that's not what happened," I managed in a weak voice.
"Did you ever see what that dracon hit, Cassie?" Crayak demanded.
"They said… it ALMOST hit Jake…" I recalled. "But he was unhurt."
"But he was not really there," Crayak corrected. "Remember when you first came here. The golden line you saw dying. Jake's line. At the same time as that dracon had been fired. Then you woke up, and you immediately knew that something was wrong. I spoke to you for the first time; I told you that you were right. You had the correct conclusion; they were not really there. They were faded. And Jake…"
"Was the most faded of all." I whimpered, a whimper that was only a sense, a feeling - that Crayak interpreted as a weakness, and he swelled up with hostility, trying to use my emotional distress as far as he could. "No…"
"Do you know why?" Crayak snapped.
"It… can't…" I shook my head violently. But I knew. I understood, then.
Crayak, enjoying all of it, told me anyway. "Because of you. Jake was part of our deal. The Ellimist gave him up, and I agreed to tutor you. I never do things for free, as you know. But when the first demand was about to be fulfilled, you intervened. You're a natural, you little freak. You came over here, and without even knowing it you tied Jake's line to your own, keeping his alive." Crayak smiled cruelly. "But now, you, Cassie the Irregularity… you are dying as well. And as far as those dimensions you lived in are concerned, you are already dead. And thereby, so is Jake."
"They were all faded," another voice said to me. "Because you forced them into a new timeline. A timeline where Jake was alive. You forced the dimensions to adapt after your will. You did it without complications. Without help. And you were not even tutored yet."
Ellimist.
I was not happy to see him. I melted back to wolf, pulled back and curled my upper lip; at both of them. The Ellimist smiled you sadly and moved closer. I moved back again, keeping the distance between us at a standard.
"I am sorry, Cassie," the Ellimist said. "For your loss. But… sometime, in the future, if such a notion can exist about a reality such as ours… if you exist that long… you will understand. And accept."
But I didn't want to understand. I didn't want to accept. I didn't want to be in this reality. Not now, not in the future, not in the past.
I wanted to be back home. With my family. With Jake. I wanted Jake alive, I wanted everything back to normal. I wanted… I knew exactly what I wanted. And it was not this.
But I also knew I would never again be able to have any of what I wanted. Because if my golden line was gone, so would I be. I was still puzzled about why I still existed at all. But I would use the time as well as possible.
I turned to Crayak again. "You. You evil, stinking collection of filthy space-time entrails. How much did you intervene?"
"I only made sure you pushed that dracon just far enough."
"He has been trying to make you let go of Jake's line since you took hold," the Ellimist added lowly. "Cassie, your line was strong enough to keep the new timeline strong until it had stabilized, stopped being faded. As well as to keep both you and Jake alive. Your line, Cassie, still is strong enough. What Crayak has refrained from telling you, is…"
"Do not speak another word," Crayak warned in a growl.
The Ellimist smiled. "See? Crayak does not want you to know."
"What?" I demanded. I could feel anger growing. And anger is very powerful.
"You old cheat!" Crayak shrieked. "You cannot tell her!"
"Crayak did that on purpose," Ellimist continued. "He was not allowed to interfere with you line. So, instead, he interfered with you. He… slapped, to put it in easy terms… slapped you, knowing that you as well as anyone else would do anything to get away. Knowing that would mean you came here. Knowing it would mean you came here in a way that was too brutal for the weakened connection to your line."
"Ellimist, say no more! You cannot! You are breaking our deal! YOU ARE BREAKING THE RULES OF THE GAME ITSELF!"
The Ellimist ignored him. "He knew you would part with your line. And that Jake's line would collapse as the last of yours did."
"You did that?" I said to Crayak, barely concealing my rage.
I wanted to hurt someone.
I had never had that feeling before.
But these two had ruined my life. Even ended it. Taken me away from everyone and everything I had even held dear or loved. Snatched me to this horrible place of nowhere, this thing of nothing, this time of nowhen. And trapped me here for the last moments before I would cease. Cease to be, cease to exist. And then they told me that Jake was dead. Because of all that.
Because of their game.
Because of them.
Crayak sneered at the Ellimist. "You broke the rules. And I always believed I would be the one to do so. The Game is shattered, old cheat, the pieces broken and roaming free. The Rules no longer hold any of us. And now I will do what I should have done a long time ago."
"What, Crayak?" the Ellimist asked calmly.
"I shall destroy you. And, when I have done that, I shall destroy your pet human freak."
I wasn't afraid. I was beyond feeling fear. Fear didn't exist. I was consumed in rage, hate, and growing power. I could feel it grow. I could feel it seep into me, from all around me. And however much it was, I knew I could hold much, much more. Space-time shivered around me.
"Why not start with her?" the Ellimist laughed. "There is another thing I need to inform you about, Cassie. Crayak was planning to… what do you humans call it? Kill two birds with one stone. He not only wanted Jake dead, he wanted you destroyed as well. He is frightened of you."
"I FEAR NO-ONE!" Crayak roared.
"He is afraid of what you might become," the Ellimist said quickly. "he saw how strong you were in your own dimensions, and feared the strength of your gift unleashed here, freed from your worldly existence, unhindered by being held back by your body. As it now is."
Crayak's darkness threw itself over the Ellimist, who shook himself free and put up a barrier of time-area around him. Time in seven dimensions curled to form a pattern, shimmering with colour and light and flashing with the silver glow of time, all bending into an unbreakable sphere, protecting him against Crayak's cold attacks. The lines of suns blackened and faded away to nothing around them with the force that suddenly was set free.
Crayak roared and set up a similar sphere around himself as the Ellimist smiled a horrible smile and unleashed his own attack.
As Crayak's sphere made it shudder and disappear, the universe shook around us. Far away but still close by, the lines of a few hundred galaxies shuddered and began curling away. I held out my hand and stopped them; let them continue their lives for yet another few moments.
Those two, still attacking each other relentlessly, trying to budge the other's spheres of time, trying to break through, were going to destroy the entire universe. The dimensions themselves.
But the Ellimist spoke to me again. "One more thing. It is not too late. You can still save Jake. You can still make sure he lives. Your line is not done disappearing, that is why you still exist at all. Jake's line is intact enough to be saved, like the ones of the galaxies. The remaining fragment of your line still protects it. Use that fragment, Cassie. Otherwise, you will both be gone."
"Where is it?!" I cried. I searched around, with all my senses, finding nothing. I felt the weaves of the reality itself, scanned golden line after golden line, and found nothing.
"Crayak has it," the Ellimist said.
And I knew he was telling the truth. All the dying lines I had seen had curled and twisted around themselves and faded. Mine curled and twisted and finally been 'pulled into darkness'.
And Crayak was, as he had shown numerous times, the absolute and final darkest of darknesses.
"Crayak is trying to break it down. Your line breaks slowly, because of what you are, and Crayak is trying to speed it up. If he succeeds, you will end."
"And so will Jake!" Crayak laughed triumphantly, protected in his shimmering sphere of time. "Giving her impossible chores, Ellimist? You know what she has to do if she wants her fragment back."
"Yes," the Ellimist replied simply. Both of them had stopped their attacks, watching me, one with trust and hope, the other with hate and… concern? "Cassie. Crayak has your line. Your existence, and Jake's life, and in that also the future of your people, your planet, the ones you love on its surface, and a great part of the remaining galaxy. The remaining universe. Take it back. Take it all back, save it all. You know what to do."
The power in me welled up, bubbling, steaming, mixing with rage just as forceful and determination just as great. Seething, storming, and still growing and swelling with every moment. I felt it, savored in it, and hurriedly gathered more.
Yes.
I knew what I had to do.
I bared my wolf teeth. Just an empty threat, a meaningless symbol in that dimension, that reality, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I had nothing left to lose.
If Rachel had seen me, she would have been proud of me. If she even had recognized me.
Because yes, I knew what. And how.
Backed by all my fury, all my determination, all my growing power, and without another hesitation, I attacked Crayak.
* * *
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Author's Note;
Next part will most likely be the last part. Review this one and I'll put it up as soon as it's written.