DISCLAIMER:
Freak Apple: Ms. Applegate, you killed off Rachel and you ended the series. Why can't I have the Animorphs now?
K.A.: Because you've trapped me in electrical cages, you've forced sugar down my throat causing me to sing horribly outdated disco songs, you've tried countless times to break into my strangely well-protected office and STEAL from me, and you called me OLD!!!!
Freak Apple: Wait, when did I –
K.A.: You said I was 30 years older than you in chapter 5.
Freak Apple: Aren't you?
K.A.: STOP BOTHERING ME OR I WILL KILL OFF AX AND MARCO!!
Freak Apple: **whimpers and walks away with her tail between her legs**
NOTE: Um, I do not in any way, shape or form mean to seriously imply that Katherine A. Applegate conducts herself in that manner. Thank you.
**stares at Triple Point's question and puts on the "dumb face"** Uhh. . .**decides to take the easy way out** I'll leave it to the reader to decide. It all depends on who the reader thinks I'm talking about. Host or yeerk? Heh. . . One more thing, this chapter is relatively long so yay!
F-RECAP-le: The 'Morphs try and fight the Nesk. They lose (aww. . .) and are taken captive. They find out the controller in the red shirt is also being held captive too. Um, yeah, I think that's it. Alrighty, time to start the show! It's about damn time too, ain't it?
Ax –
I was again feeling especially useless to my human friends. It did not matter that I could sever away a limb; the Nesk could just crawl back up and reform it. After my first attack I was certain I would not be so lucky as to strike again.
Tobias sat quietly in Rachel's arms. Prince Jake walked ahead of us with his forehead crinkled and his mouth a thin line. From his human expressions I could assume that he was either greatly worried or he was having problems containing a bodily excretion. I suspected that latter. Cassie walked by his side. She seemed to be lost in thought. Marco was behind me, humming to himself every couple of minutes.
"Human! I knew it all along. They dismissed me as an idiot!" the controller raved.
"Excuse me? Ant people? Can we please gag the big annoying red guy?" Marco asked. I sympathized with Marco; this yeerk filth was disturbing me. The Nesk said nothing in reply. They were ahead of us, but there were no telling how many others were littered on this island. Their tiny bodies had the advantage.
We had been walking for about 27 minutes westward when we reached what looked like a small human sewer lid. On either side were two holes. It had a strange symbol on it that resembled the T-Rex, although it looked more like the large purple dinosaur-like monstrosity used on early morning television to entertain human children.
"Were does that lead? Barney's Magical Land of Sharing and Caring?" Rachel asked, eyeing the symbol.
Suddenly one of the Nesk-creatures disbanded, and each insect filed into one of the holes. Then the symbol on the lid glowed a bright green.
"Whoa." Prince Jake commented. Then the lid slid into the ground, revealing a dark hole. It was about 6 inches in diameter and lined with what looked like metal sheets. It was like looking down a pipe.
We cannot fit in there. I stated.
"Gee, Andalites sure are intelligent. We can't fit in a tiny hole. They truly are a race of geniuses." The controller taunted me. I considered silencing him with my blade.
WAIT. one of the Nesk said. It was impossible to say which, because there had to be thousands of them.
There was a soft "click" and suddenly the hole began to expand, as if the ground were alive and it were opening its mouthparts.
"I, uh, I have a butt joke." Marco broke the awed silence.
Rachel did not have the chance to reply her usual "Shut up."
THWAAPP!
Without warning, a long, thick, reddish-yellow tentacle whipped from the hole and wrapped itself around Rachel's waist.
THWAPP!
A separate tentacle shot out and grabbed Tobias away from her.
"HEY! WHAT THE-"
AAHH!
"Rachel! Tobias!" Cassie cried.
The tentacles lifted them high in the air. I saw Tobias nipping the thing with his beak in vain. Rachel was completely immobilized and upside down, her blond hair dangling under her now-purple face.
Instead of marveling again at how the human face is able to change color under certain circumstances, I jumped forward without thinking and struck one of the tentacles with my tail. Nothing! My blade did not even leave a scratch.
THWAPPP!
A third tentacle reached from the hole and grabbed me around my middle. It yanked roughly and I soon joined Tobias and Rachel in the air.
"Ax!"
Two more tentacles darted from the hole and grabbed Jake and Cassie. The third wrapped itself around Marco's ankle, because he had tried to dive out of the way. One more wrapped itself around the controller.
"WHAT'S GOING ON!?" Prince Jake yelled at the Nesk. They said nothing. I noticed Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie had stopped struggling. My tail was free and I was still attacking the thing with no effect. But it was human nature to struggle, why had they stopped. . .?
Then my stalk eyes caught sight of something behind me. A tiny tendril was growing from the tentacle. The tip looked very sharp and glistened as if it were coated in liquid. Before I could raise my tail and slap it away, it bore itself into my shoulder and pulled away. There was a sharp piercing pian, then I felt my body seize up. I was paralyzed. The others must have been paralyzed too, including the controller. He had stopped screaming out human obscenities and was now reduced to throaty gurgles.
All of the Nesk crawled into the hole and disappeared.
Where are they going? I asked.
"Mmmmph. Uhhhhhh." Prince Jake answered. His muscles were not moving and unfortunately muscles were required to make mouth sounds.
They're going to meet their master. And it looks like we're about to follow Tobias said.
What do you mea- I was interrupted as my tail snapped back and I was pulled swiftly down the hole.
AAHHHHHH!
AAHHHHH!
It was as if we were free-falling. My stalk eyes were blown backward and slapped against the back of my head. I instinctively shut them. It felt as if the skin was being tugged off my face. Tobias's screams of terror and the others' muffled screeches bounced all the way down the metal-lined passageway.
After what seemed like an eternity, our fall screeched to a bone-breaking halt. My neck almost snapped from the backlash.
I opened my eyes and nearly screamed. The others would have screamed to, if their mouths had been working. I did hear a squeak from Cassie.
Before us was an enormous lump of a beast. It was glowing red, covered in disgusting folds of skin, and it didn't look like it had legs. At its center was what I assumed to be the stomach, which glowed yellow through its skin. The thing resembled a small hill. There were four eyes, each a sickening green and it had a large gaping mouth that lacked teeth, but seemed to be filled with bluish pus. Coating its skin was a thin film of mucus. Several Nesk seemed to inhabit it's body. The tension in the air surrounding the monster led me to believe that this creature held some enormous power. It had us wrapped in each of his tentacles.
MOTROVELD! a voice declared. It radiated from the monster and sapped every emotion I was feeling and changed it into one.
Fear. I do not know what that word meant, but I was afraid. Even the Nesk seemed to tense after that word was spoken.
Then a yellow gas wafted around us from an unknown source and I lost consciousness.
---
A hand shaking my shoulder forced me to wake. It was the controller.
YEERK! I cried. I quickly assumed my fighting stance and prepared to remove his head.
Ax-man, relax. We're all in the same boat here. We don't need to kill him. Tobias said. I looked around.
We were all in a very bright white room. There was absolutely nothing in the room except whiteness. It was a large white cube. The controller was untied and smirking at me from a safe distance in a corner. I felt the awful feeling of claustrophobia beginning to clog my senses. The whiteness was blinding.
No. You must keep calm, Aximili. I told myself.
"So this is what a nuthouse is like. . ." Marco commented.
"Like you never been in one before." Rachel retorted.
"We have to get out of here. Ax, how much time do we have until the Sario Rip ends?"
I paused for a moment. A little bit less than 8 of your hours.
Marco was about to lecture me on how they were everyone's hours when a small square opened in one wall, behind Cassie.
"What's that?" she wondered.
"Back away from it." Prince Jake warned.
Cassie did so. But a small tentacle grabbed her arm.
"Hey!" she yelled. She tried to pull away. I went towards her, but before I could reach her a second tentacle shot from the opening. It held what looked like a syringe filled with green liquid.
"Let go of her!" Prince Jake roared. Another tentacle whipped out and held him back. The tip of the syringe was plunged into Cassie's forearm.
"Ahh!" Cassie cried. Then both tentacles threw her into Prince Jake and withdrew back into the square opening. The opening closed up.
Rachel ran to Cassie.
"What was that!? Are you okay!?" she asked anxiously.
"I-I. . .uh. . ." Cassie seemed to be dazed. Then she realized perhaps she might be hurting Prince Jake because she was lying right on top of him, so she got up quickly. Prince Jake's expression was unreadable.
"I think I'm okay" she said, looking either ill or embarrassed. She held up her arm. A large purple bump was forming were the green liquid had been injected.
"I'm gonna kill them." Rachel said.
"Good luck with that." Marco said dryly.
Prince Jake looked at the inflammation on Cassie's arm and then looked at me.
"Damn. Any ideas what this is?" he asked.
"I have an idea." A voice said. I swiveled my stalk eyes. It was the controller. He was looking from a far corner. I realized that he was fairly young, no more than 25 human years. His short blonde hair was slicked flat onto his head, reminding me of an unpleasant human food called "lemon". He was still smirking as if he were superior to my friends and I. I wanted to hurt the fool very badly.
"Well?" Rachel asked impatiently.
"Why should I tell you?" he said indignantly.
"Cuz I'm gonna rip-"
"Rachel calm down. We're going to have to cooperate to get out of this." Jake told her.
"So, what's your name, dude?" Marco asked casually.
The yeerk thought about it for a moment. "Kevin. Kevin Wagner."
I glared at him. That is not your name. You are a yeerk.
He seemed to laugh at me with my eyes. "Does it matter? Just call me Kevin."
"Well, Kevin, my names Jake. That's Rachel, Marco, Ax, Tobias, and Cassie." Jake introduced us. They each acknowledged him stiffly. I refused to make eye contact with the yeerk. "Anyway, what were you saying?"
"It's some sick Jurassic Park." He sneered at us. "Where did you think they got all the dinosaurs from?"
"We just saw a T-Rex." Cassie said vaguely.
"There's more. Lots more dinosaurs on that island. I saw them hatching new ones in a lab on that island. They were in test tubes. They're CLONING them."
What does that have to do with Cassie? Tobias asked.
Kevin just smirked again.
I swung my tail and touched the blade on his neck. Speak, yeerk!
"Well, I saw them subdue a T-Rex with some gun with invisible bullets and lift it toward the lab. They stabbed it with a needle and extracted some stuff from its leg. Then they took the sample and injected it into a severed human-looking arm."
I remembered the green-clothed controller in the forest. He was missing an arm.
"After a couple minutes the arm suddenly grew all pebbly and greenish, like the Rex's skin, but then it changed back and promptly melted into a neon green puddle." He continued. "Obviously they are experimenting with mixing genes and such."
I suddenly got a very bad feeling.
"Jeez. . ." Marco probably realized what Kevin was getting at too.
"So?" Rachel said.
"So, the stuff they extracted from that dinosaur's leg was the same stuff they just injected in your friend over there."
End of Chapta 12. Okay I'll make up for my obscenely long disclaimer/note/recap by making this short. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Please review with any comments. Hehe, it'd be funny if made myself a Cassiesaurus! Cassiedactyl. Casseratops. Hmmm. . .or maybe. . .nah you'll see. Don't forget you could also give me ideas. Earlier when I said I'd planned this out I'd pretty much planned it up to this point. . . so yeah. Buh-bye.