Chapter 26-Cassie
"You're screwing up the best day of my life!" Rachel screamed at the ugly creature in front of us. "Do you take some kind of pleasure in messing up our lives?"
SNAP! SNAP!
Ax's tuxedo and pants snapped as he continued to demorph.
The Drode raised his hands. "Calm down. I'm not delivering any bad news, no speech." He turned to Rachel. "Don't you look beautiful. Still as malevolent as ever."
Rachel just glared.
Why was the Drode here? We hadn't heard from the Ellimist, much lest the Drode, since the end of the war. Even though he said he wasn't here to deliver bad news, I didn't trust him. Something didn't feel right.
"Any reason why you have to show up?" Marco piped up. "I mean, I'm enjoying myself here, and now you show up. Just the mere fact that I have to look at you ruins my whole day."
The Drode walked up to Rachel. "Ever wonder what it's like to be dead? To not be here on this planet, full of life?" He snickered. "This planet Crayak would have exterminated sixty million years ago, if that meddling Ellimist hadn't been around."
Rachel raised her fist, but by the time she swung, the Drode was staring at Jake.
"You want to know why your parents are gone, Jake the mighty Yeerk-killer? It was no accident that they happened to be on a shipful of hostile Yeerks."
"Don't say another thing about my parents," Jake said through clenched teeth. Flashes of orange and black kept wavering on his skin. Jake was barely controlling himself from morphing to tiger.
"You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you, but I will, anyways. It was…" The Drode raised his voice. "CASSIE!" he cried, pointing a stubby finger at me.
All eyes turned to me. Jake looked shocked. My knees were weakening. Such a false accusation, and Jake thought I did it! "No!" I cried out, having to say something. "Rachel, Tobias, Marco, I was with you the whole time, looking for Jake, right?"
"Yeah, she was, Drode," Marco said. I blew out a sigh of relief. "Nice try, but not quite."
"Do you think that your life is wonderful?" the Drode said in a low voice. "Do you think that everything could have possibly worked out as well as it has?"
"We were lucky in the war. Who says it can't spill over?" Marco opined.
"No. The dice never landed on seven. The cards weren't stacked in your favor. This past year, right up to the moment where Rachel 'miraculously was saved," the Drode said, waving his arms, "was preordained. By Cassie." He smugly crossed his arms.
"News flash: Cassie's God!" Marco.
"Not the time, Marco," Tobias said, speaking for the first time.
"Rachel, you never were saved. The Yeerk killed you. The remaining Animorphs negotiated a truce with the Andalites. Your parents were still alive, Jake," the Drode said mockingly. "Tobias, without your vicious girlfriend to be your companion, you ran away to a park named Yellowstone. Lived your days out as a hawk. Not too different from the years during the war."
"I don't want to hear anymore," Jake shouted out.
"Three years passed after your victory," Crayak's minion droned on, ignoring Jake's request. "Your pet Andalite was captured by the Yeerks on the Blade ship and assimilated into 'The One'."
"The who?" I blurted out.
"It's a long story, but I'll make it short. Like me, he's an associate of Crayak's. In the other timeline, Crayak seeded him onto the Blade ship, shortly after the war ended. Once there, he controlled the Yeerks and their hosts. He traveled across the galaxy, assimilating various aliens and technologies into his being. But what he craved most was an Andalite. And when he captured Aximili and his docking crew, The One assimilated you, Aximili, in front of your horrified comrades." The Drode giggled. "Then he killed them, one by one, torturing them to the end."
FWAAP!
Ax's tail flew at the Drode. No use, though. The blade cleaved through empty air.
"Somehow, the Andalites got news of this and told Jake. Always playing the heroic rescuer, he brought back lonely Tobias and spoiled Marco to go after Ax."
"Spoiled? Nobody calls me-"
"Jake left you behind, Cassie, to protect what was here on Earth." The Drode waddled over to me. "Actually, he didn't think you were good enough," he whispered in my ear.
I rolled my eyes. "Quit beating around the bush."
"They found the Blade ship about six months later. It was quite a showdown. You know how it ended? Suicide. With your stolen Yeerk ship, you rammed the Blade ship. Jake, Marco, and Tobias, it was fun to watch you suffocate to death in the vacuum of space!
"The Ellimist tells Cassie what happened to the others. And in the midst of his utterly pathetic speech, he drops a hint. He revealed the secret of the Time Matrix to her."
"Oh, my god…" It was all coming back to me now. Engaged to Ronnie, digging a hole in the construction site…
"She used it to blackmail the mighty Crayak and the Ellimist! Said she'd go back in time and kill both of them if Rachel wasn't saved."
"I had my own TV show…" Marco's voice trailed off.
"What does that have to do with my parents?" Jake demanded.
"Ah, yes, of course," the Drode said gleefully. "My master and the Ellimist agreed to do this, but with one condition: that Crayak would be allowed to alter space-time in any one way he wished."
"That wasn't one of the conditions!" I strained to recall that time. It was such a long time ago, in a completely different situation.
"You don't remember? 'There may be some unseen consequences due to your actions'? Ring a bell? You said you'd take your chances."
I put my face in my hands. "No…" How could I have not seen that? Had I been that selfish, to want my friends back so badly that I would doom somebody else's life?
"Well, I'm sorry to have interrupted." A watch appeared on the Drode's wrist. "I really must be going now." He gave a wicked grin to Rachel. "Rachel, you know how to dial up Crayak."
"Go to-"