Chapter ?: The Game
I cursed under my breath as I climbed down the hill. I saw them all looking at me, wondering, watching, and waiting. A look of remembrance crossed their faces as I made my final approach down the hill. I walked up to them, Marco was closest. He looked at me as though he was about to say something but then stopped himself as a sudden blank expression overtook his face.
The others slowly made their way towards me. I looked at them and had to stop myself from crying. My eyes swept over each of them and then stopped at Tobias....
"Rachel Berenson." The voice said as I got up and walked toward the edge of the stage. I made my way around, looking at all of my friends. Marco bowing at me, funny Marco. Cassie smiling and Jake. Everyone, all of my friends were there. My eyes swept around the back of the auditorium. I saw a boy, he looked familiar but I didn't think anything of it...
I immediately looked back at that boy, the one with the wavy blonde hair and the crystal blue eyes. He squinted as he looked at me, he looked like he needed glasses but that wasn't it. Those eyes were so familiar, so intense. "Hi Rachel." He waved at me as tears swelled in my eyes. "Tobias..." I was suddenly back in the valley with the others. I took my eyes off of Tobias as Marco walked up to me.
"Now whom do we have here?" Marco asked as he bowed. Marco...typical Marco.
I looked at him, uncertain then passed my eyes over the rst of the Animorphs, stopping at Tobias. He had gotten older, and squinted more than I remembered. "Hello? Who are you?" Marco said slowly like he was talking to a child. I looked at him again and was surprised. "Yes, I'm talking to you." He said, getting impatient.
" Oh...I'm...ra...uh...I mean Gabrielle." I finally said with a sigh. I had never imagined how much I would want to talk to them, how much I would want them remember...
"I'm Marco"
"Do you know where we are?" Jake cut him off, Marco looked at Jake like he was going to say something but then let it pass.
"It's where we need to be." I replied swiftly, getting out of a trance. I couldn't feel bad for myself now, not after all we had been through. I had to survive so I could once again live as Rachel Berenson...or perhaps even as Rachel Fangor? "Congratulations ladies and gentlemen you have been chosen to participate in a lovely array of events leading up to the death of Crayak the birth of a new civilization yadayada, I'm Gabrielle, I will be your host for the time being so follow me and don't get in my way." I looked at them, still hoping against hope that they would somehow remember.
I looked at Cassie and saw her smile. `The Anomaly will know.` I looked at everyone else, wondering, waiting but it was obvious that they knew nothing.
I started walking back up the hill when Marco ran up and tried to stop me.
"How do you know that's where were supposed to be going?" Marco asked as I turned around and realized that no one was following me so I walked back over to us and sat on the ground.
"Do I really have to tell the whole story?" Marco nodded so I walked back down and found a nice big stone to sit on. "You can sit down, I'm not going to bite." I had forgotten that I needed to regain their trust.
"Once upon a time there was a small little universe off in the middle of nowhere. That was the universe that Crayak escaped from and now the people want him back." Marco raised his hand like a child would in class.
"Yes..." I asked, irate he had interrupted me.
"What does this have to do with us? Well I can imagine what it would partially have to do with us, but have no idea about why you would be here." He smiled, thinking he had caught on to the game.
"They chose six champions..." I said quietly.
`Yes, we chose five humans and one Andalite.` Aquaris appeared beside me, glowing with energy.
She looked at me with a smile on her fake face, it was probably a fake smile also… `Hello.` The others looked at her, wondering what was happening. `My name is Aquaris, I am the head of a peaceful people, a people from a galaxy far, far away.` I could see Marco trying to hide his laughter as he covered his mouth. `A long time ago something happened, brother Crayak left me and now I want him back, he had trapped his true self within a series of memories, memories of his own and of those that he has captured, destroyed, and loved.` Silence covered the valley as she stood there, floating.
"Alright." Jake finally said. "I understand you want Crayak back for some reason that we'll regret later but I need to know two things first." He said, starting to stand up as he spoke. "The first thing is why did you pick us out of everyone else in the galaxy? And the second is, what's in it for us if we get you Crayak?" I looked at Jake and noticed a change. Over the last 4 years that I was gone, he had changed dramatically, I now noticed that his face was almost emotionless as he spoke. I was so sorry that I had done this to him, in a way I felt that it was my entire fault even though I knew that war had changed all of us, most of the changes weren't good…
`I play a game with brother Crayak…`
"Wonderful!" Marco snorted. "Another game…"
`I play a game with brother Crayak, a game where I am the only known player.` She continued, totally ignoring Marco. `I have chosen the six best warriors possible, I have chosen those who have affected and destroyed so much of brother Crayak that he is now weak enough to be killed with the blow of a human first to his gut if he was met by someone in his true form.` Her eyes swept over all of us, trying to avoid mine. I knew more than she was saying…I knew that she was still hiding something from us, something that she didn't want us to know until it suited her.
`If you help me, when you help me.` She corrected herself. `You will receive the thing you have secretly and not so secretly wished for, for the past three earth years.` She looked at Tobias as she said that, she had an evil glint in her eyes…
Rachel… Toomin froze time and took me out, took me to his domain and appeared to me as a ketran. I looked at him, wanting to speak, wanting to tell him about Crayak, about his true past but I knew he had been watching, that he already knew of Aquaris's presence. If I keep you longer than I have to, they will know. So I will make this as short as possible. He looked at me with pitiful Ketran eyes, already knowing what I was thinking, my self-pity, and my determination. Aquaris is 5 times as horrible as Crayak ever could be, once she gets Crayak, she will cause chaos all over this galaxy. You see, unlike Crayak Aquaris is a being that lives off of death, you could say that "she" is suicidal, wishes to no longer be but as long as Crayak lives, Aquaris will be, Aquaris will continue to exist but when she is merged with Crayak, she will destroy everything that I have tried to protect with the game. Everything that you know will be gone. She will use Tobias to get what she wants, she will use every ounce of self pity, depression, sadness, everything that she can find inside of him, she will intensify it, she will turn him into her slave. Tears swelled up in my eyes as I looked at the Ellimist, saw the future I knew that was to come. Be prepared, help him, and help them. Ellimist's words echoed through my mind as he restarted time…
"Protect him…protect the son of Elfangor." I repeated as I found myself once again standing next to Aquaris who was still telling her story.
`I chose the Animorphs as my champions, they are the key to defeating Crayak.` She smiled at tobias who looked at her with a pained expression on his face.
"All of the Animorphs?" He questioned her, walking closer and closer to her. "You chose all of the Animorphs?" He again asked. "I don't see Rachel here! If you want the Animorphs bring Rachel here!" He screamed as Aquaris changed form. The others couldn't see this, Ellimist was showing me, giving me some of his power, his strength, and the ability to see through time. I saw Aquaris taunt Tobias in my form, talk to him, persuade him.
"The Ellimist once said that you were a new beginning, the beginning of a new time entirely." She had stolen my voice, my hair, and my body. Even though I still possessed all of those features, they didn't see it. Something clouded their minds, I had asked for that and Aquaris had known I would. She knew that I would ask for her to make them not remember me, I was once again just a puppet within the game.
"Aquaris…" She looked at me with my eyes, with my skin. She looked at me and turned five shades whiter as Tobias gazed towards me, still a zombie under the witch's spell. "Aquaris, how dare you bend the rules of the game." I smiled, I felt like laughing, like jumping up and down like a child and screaming "I win I got you!!" but I was smarter than that…I wasn't Marco. "We had a deal."
She regained control, with a single glance you could see the intensity of her insanity. It showed in her eyes, or perhaps that was how they had always looked. Perhaps those were my eyes, the eyes of an insane warrior, a child caught up in the luxury and appeal of battle. Either way, I wasn't that person, those were not my eyes anymore. I was Rachel Berenson, I wasn't a crazed warrior out to kill herself in battle. I wasn't this lunatic, I might have been once, long ago. But not anymore, now I could finally say that and not have a voice in the back of my head nagging me. I had won my battle, now it was time to win this one. "Yes human." She smiled. "We did have a deal, we had a deal that you wouldn't be known to them, that the humans wouldn't know of your true, disgusting form. That was our deal, nothing else." I felt like I had been slapped. Tobias looked at me, rage in his eyes.
"Stay away from Rachel…" He said quietly as time once again restarted.
`You will depart for Crayak's domain in the morning, Hope will be your guide.` She said pointing to me.
"I thought she said her name was…" Jake started to say.
`Her name is Hope and she will be your guide.` Aquaris once again stated, fading away into the darkness.
"Strike One." I said to myself.
"Who else thought that that was just a little weird?" Marco asked, laying down on the grass, putting his hands underneath his head and staring at the stars.
The stars are different here. Ax said, mystified at the alignment of the stars.
"We must be far away from home, wherever that is." Tobias said, he was oblivious to the position that he was in. Brainwashed and yet had no idea of what had just happened. What was it I had seen? Tobias had looked so angry, so different I felt as though I didn't know him. Had I looked that way to him? Had I looked like the monster I thought myself to be? I was Rachel the monster, Rachel the warrior without a soul that would be what I was called. Jake the yeerk killer, Rachel the warrior without a soul, Rachel the monster…Those thoughts echoed through my mind as I tried to get to sleep under that beautiful alien sky.
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A/N: So what'd you think? I need to come up with more but I'm gonna be working on a couple of other stories for a while (The forgotten timeline, and In Life, IN Death, For eternity.) R & R!!!!!!!!
