Three Years Later…

Alan Fangor, known as 'Al' to his friends and Elfangor to Loren, walked home with a contented smile on his face. He had married Loren as soon as the laws of her species would permit him to. He had gone to a standard college and a university. The classes were almost mind-numbingly easy for him, of course, but it was still a chance to spend time with Loren.

They had settled in a smaller suburb of the state where Loren and her parents lived, a place called California. Alan had gotten used to not being able to see behind himself, mostly. He still tended to whip around fast when someone came up behind him.

He sometimes missed his tail, since humans didn't possess any particularly dangerous natural weapons. Although, fists and feet could be quite painful if used properly, as his fellow Karate student had demonstrated. Alan liked learning Karate, since it amazed him that a creature that looked so unsteady could perform those kinds of precision moves.

The human he was closest to in his Karate class was a man about his age, who was a first degree Black belt. Alan himself was only a Yellow belt, but Grant didn't look down on him for his lesser skills. That was his name, Grant Goddard, who often joked that he was related to Robert Goddard.

For all Alan knew, he was.

As he came up the path to his and Loren's shared house, Alan reflected on a rather unsettling occurrence that had happened about eleven months ago. Hedrick Chapman, who Alan had assumed was dead since he had been aboard the Jahar when it had been sucked into the black hole, had been attending college with Loren and himself.

Alan hadn't quite believed it was him at first, but then he had turned toward them. Alan had recognized him then, since they had spent two and a half days together on a somewhat crowded spacecraft. Chapman, for his part, didn't recognize either of them. Loren had even asked him, purely for a laugh, if he had heard from his old friend Visser Thirty-two lately. There had been not even the slightest sign of comprehension on Chapman's face after she had asked.

Alan tried not to worry himself too much about that. But, he was also a bit apprehensive of a creature that could rewrite someone's memory like that. Since the only race he knew of that could do that were the Ellimists. He had often tried to tell himself that Chapman had a twin, or that it was some as-yet-unknown aspect of black hole physics.

But, deep in his single heart, Alan didn't quite believe any of the theories he had come up with. He knew, somehow, that he would someday have to come face-to-face with the Ellimist. He had no way of knowing that today was that day.

As his palm touched the knob of his front door, Alan was struck with a feeling of deep foreboding. Alan tried to tell himself to calm down, that there was no way that anyone could have gotten into his house without a key. And, only he and Loren had keys to the house. But the feeling didn't go away.

If anything, it seemed to intensify as he came inside. It was probably only because Loren had gone off to see the doctor, he told himself. After all, human medical science was several centuries behind the rest of the galaxy. But, he still couldn't get the uneasiness in the pit of his stomach to go away.

That was when he noticed the other person in the living room. He was human, or at least he seemed to be. Gray hair, gray eyes, and an unnaturally pale complexion, as well as the fact that there was no sign of forced entry, tipped Alan off that he was something else.

"Yes, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. I'm no more human than you are."

What?! "My name is Alan Fangor. And what are you doing in my house? For that matter, who are you?"

"You know that, or at least you think you do."

"The Ellimist?"

"Yes, or at least, an Ellimist."

Alan turned away from the Ellimist. "I saw you," he muttered. "When I first used the Time Matrix."

The Ellimist came over and put his hand on Alan's right shoulder, then gently turned him so that they were facing each other again.

"What do you want with me?" Alan asked, knowing that the Ellimist wouldn't have appeared in his house, in his living room no less, unless there was something that the Ellimist wanted from him.

"That is not the issue her, Elfangor. The real question is, what do you want?"

Alan's head snapped up, locking eyes with the Ellimist's human form. What did he want? That wasn't even a question worth considering.

"You know what I want, Ellimist."

The Ellimist, that mighty creature from a race that could alter the fabric of spacetime just by thinking about it, smiled.

"Would that be the same thing you wanted when you, Loren and Visser Three made a universe together?"

"Visser Three?"

"Yes, your old friend Visser Thirty-two has been promoted."

"He should be dead!"

"Should be dead? Do you honestly think you can play games with the fabric of time? Do you think that you can twist and break one thread, and that it will not have unforeseen consequences in a thousand other times and places? Are you so naïve, Elfangor, that you don't see that the past is not a simple progression of events, but the interaction of an uncountable number of beings?"

"The Visser, he's still alive?"

"Yes, the Visser is still alive," the Ellimist sighed. "Visser Three still inhabits Alloran's body."

At that moment, the walls and ceiling of Alan's house seemed to vanish entirely. What he saw instead was the clear blue sky of his adopted homeworld. Just as Alan was starting to enjoy the view, a bright flash of sunlight on sharp metal split the air. Alan jumped backwards, blinking as he was suddenly back in his home.

"What did you see?" the Ellimist asked, seeming to know that Alan had seen something.

"I… I don't know."

"Look again…"

And suddenly Elfangor was back outside again. This time, when he saw the flash, Alan managed to stand his ground. Without a sound, but Alan suspected that if there had been one it would have been loud, the metal object was blocked by something that looked like half of a silver spear. There was a sharp, jagged serration on both sides of the spear. Holding it was something that looked robotic. The metal was white, and the hand wrapped around the shaft of the spear was black.

Alan was back in his house in less time than it took to blink, and he wondered if he had ever really left.

"What did you see?" the Ellimist asked again.

White metal, black metal, green eyes. "What was that?" Alan asked, not knowing what else to say.

"It was the future," the Ellimist said solemnly, pinning Alan with his calm gray-eyed gaze.

"That didn't look like Visser Three."

"No. The Yeerk called Visser Three is a terrible enemy to your people. But he is not the only one."

Alan shook his head, still wanting to deny the Ellimist's words. "The humans are my people now."

"Really? Even humans like Hedrick Chapman? The man who first told the Yeerks about the human species?"

"You. It was you who brought Chapman back to Earth. You erased his memories."

"I merely corrected an error in the spacetime continuum. Chapman still has a part to play in future events."

"I don't care anymore," Alan spat, angry that the Ellimist was playing games with him. "I don't care about wars in far-off space."

"Far-off? Elfangor, do you really assume that you are safe? Do you honestly think that the Yeerks will never come to this planet, knowing that there are so many potential hosts?"

Alan felt his throat start to close up. He knew, he knew that he would probably never be safe anywhere, after the things he had seen and done. But Alan had wanted to believe that he and Loren could have a normal life among these humans.

"Will they come here?"

"Elfangor, the first Yeerk advance-scouts are in low-earth orbit even now. And there is another threat, maybe even greater than the Yeerks."

"What?"

The Ellimist shook his head. "That is not for me to say. But, if you decide to return to your place in the universe, there is a chance that this threat too, could be countered."

Alan grabbed his short-cropped, midbrown hair and pulled, hard. He did not want to go back into that war. Not when he had failed so deeply the last time he had tried.

"There's nothing I can do," Alan said, lowering his eyes and letting go of his hair. "I tried my hand at being a hero. I failed."

"You failed? You kept the Time Matrix from falling into the hands of either side, Yeerk or Andalite. You saved the galaxy."

"I failed to save Arbron. I was too late to save Alloran," Alan said, beginning the litany that he often repeated inside the privacy of his mind. "I helped to destroy Alloran, by delivering him to the Yeerks. I abandoned Arbron to live as a Taxxon. I was unable to kill Alloran once he became Visser Thirty-two. I was weak. I was a fool."

"You refused to slaughter defenseless prisoners. You refused to compromise your integrity to win a battle. You are wise, for a primitive creature. But you have also altered the flow of time when you used the Time Matrix. And that has created many problems. For both your peoples. Your peoples need you now, Elfangor."

Alan barked a laugh. "Need me? No one needs me, Ellimist."

"You are not where you are supposed to be, and you are not when you are supposed to be."

"The galaxy will have to get along without me," Alan said, crossing his arms, thinking that that had ended the discussion.

The Ellimist shook his head, stepping closer to Elfangor. Staring into the transformed Andalite's eyes, the Ellimist leaned forward so that he was almost nose-to-nose with Elfangor. "No, it won't," he said with deadly certainty.

"What the hell do you want with me?!" Alan demanded, enraged at being manipulated.

"We want nothing."

"Liar! Why are you here if you don't want anything?!"

"We do not interfere in the affairs of other species."

"Then go away! Get the hell out of my house! Leave me and Loren in peace!" Alan turned away, disgusted and angry.

"We do not interfere with other species, but sometimes we repair what has been shattered."

Alan spun around to face the Ellimist again, pinning the other with a glare that could have frozen boiling water. What in the hell does this interloping bastard want with me?! Alan thought venomously.

"Want? I don't want anything. Nor am I an interloper. But I can tell you that you have altered the flow of time. You have changed the outcome of thousands of events. What should be safe is now in danger, battles are lost that should have been won."

"I can't go back," Alan said, his voice starting to sound like he was pleading for mercy. "I have a wife, I have a home here on Earth. I'm not an Andalite; I'm not Elfangor anymore. My name is Alan, and I'm human."

"Your life, your place in human society, and even your place here on Earth are all a product of your tampering. The human woman named Loren was meant to marry a human. You yourself were meant to be a warrior, a hero and a mentor to your brother."

"I have a brother?" Alan asked, surprised. "He was born? I know my family had been preparing…"

"In this broken timeline? No. But you should have had a brother. He has an important task to fulfill. As does someone else, someone you don't even know exists yet. As does another you have only heard second-hand accounts of. Elfangor, without you, both of your peoples will be slaves."

Alan was about to ask what exactly they would be slaves to, since he had a feeling that the Ellimist was not referring to the Yeerks, when he saw… it. At first he thought his vision had gone black for some reason, but Alan realized that he could still see something, he just didn't know what it was. Finally, Alan started to make out details. Whatever it was, it seemed to be wearing a kind of black armor that Alan had never seen before.

Just before his sight returned, Alan saw a pair of bright red eyes flash at him. For some reason this unnerved him, though Alan had seen stranger things on his journeys through space. This creature seemed… wrong, somehow. Alan shook his head as his vision cleared; he didn't have time to think about things that made no sense.

"You're lying, manipulating me. Trying to get me to agree, to let you use me," Alan said flatly, not sure if he really believed that anymore.

"We do not use. We do not interfere. But, if you asked me to undo the damage that you have done… To repair the timeline so that you can return to your destiny… that, and only that, I could do."

Alan's fists clenched, he wanted so much to demonstrate his newly acquired martial arts skills on the Ellimist. He was sorely tempted to forget about his sensei's teachings that martial artists were never to be the aggressors and beat the Ellimist into submission. Alan took a deep breath, using the techniques that Grant had taught him to calm himself down.

"There is a battle, Elfangor," the Ellimist continued, waiting until the Andalite nothlit was calm to speak. "A turning point. Visser Three is there. You are supposed to be there, Elfangor. Right now."

"I can't leave Loren," Alan said stubbornly.

"Listen to me, Elfangor. Visser Three will come to this planet someday. He remembers her, he still remembers the way she mocked him. And Visser Three is not one to forgive easily, or ever, as you might remember," the Ellimist paused a moment to let this sink in. But, before Elfangor could speak, he continued. "Do you know what he will do to her when he comes? And will you be able to stop him, when he is surrounded by a thousand of his loyal lackeys? And you are simply a human?"

Alan felt hot tears coursing down his face, but he didn't take the time to wipe them away. It was, to him, just another reminder that he was human. Andalites couldn't cry real tears; they had no concept of the substance.

"And - and if I go back… if I ask you to repair the timeline… will it save Earth? Will it save the Andalites? And my Loren?"

"By itself alone? No. But what was once impossible will become possible again."

Something, some nagging instinct, prompted Alan to ask his next question.

"And Grant Goddard, my friend. What will happen to him?"

Alan thought that the Ellimist looked sad for a moment, but it could have been just a reflection of Alan's own deep sadness.

"Your friend has a role to play as well," and that was all he would say.

Alan looked at the Ellimist, that inscrutable creature who had the power to make entire planetary systems disappear just by wishing it. Others might see him in this form and think that he was no more that a mere human, but Alan knew the Ellimist could appear in many forms.

"What game are you really playing, Ellimist?"

"Will you take up your time cross-examining me, Elfangor the Andalite? Or will you ask me to undo the mess that you have made?"

"And, Loren… ?"

"Will never know that you existed. Nor will Grant. But you will know, you will still have all your memories."

Alan smiled, but it was a twisted, bitter parody of a real smile. He felt no happiness at this moment.

"You said something about a battle, Ellimist," Alan said, almost sneering.

"Come," the Ellimist said, ignoring Elfangor's tone and focusing on his words. "I will undo what you have done. I will repair the fabric of your fate, Elfangor."