Animorphs: The Diamond Chronicles

Prologue


Blood splattered everywhere. My blood. The wolf's blood. They were now one in the same, as I was the wolf. Don't worry, you read it correctly. At this particular point in time, I was a wolf. Jake was a Siberian Tiger. Rachel was a grizzly bear. Tobias was in what has come to be his natural form – a red-tailed hawk. Marco was a gorilla. And Ax was... well, Ax was himself. And I was a wolf. All thanks to a little blue box.

My name is Cassie. Just Cassie. All I can tell you is that my name is Cassie, I'm a girl, and I love animals. I'm short, with short black hair and brown eyes. I am proud to be of African American descent. Enough about me. Now, about you. You are in trouble. We are in trouble. We – Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Marco, Ax, and I – are the Animorphs. Which is why I can't tell you more about myself. Same with my friends. None of us can tell you a great deal about ourselves. We can't tell you where we live, go to school, or anything too personal. If we did, we'd run the risk of getting caught by the Yeerks. They're everywhere these days. And if they caught us, it'd be over. Not just for me and my friends, though. For you, too. The Yeerks would win. But we aren't about to take any chances in letting that happen.

The Yeerks are parasites that look a lot like some nasty underwater slug. They aren't pretty, believe me. I've been one. They're parasites that get into a host's head through the ear canal. Then the Yeerk takes control of the host by wrapping its slimy slug body around the host's brain. If you've never been infested by a Yeerk, you'd better start appreciating freedom while you have it. When you have a Yeerk on your brain, you are no longer in control. Their control is complete. They control your movement, your voice, even where you look. They can even read your thoughts like an open book. You feel so disconnected from the world around you that it's like watching your life pass you by through a TV screen. Except you can't adjust the volume. You can't change the channel. You can't change a single thing except your own level of despair. Just for the sake of playing the Devil's advocate, I'll give you their side of the story. Yeerks, without a host to infest, are blind, deaf, and mute. Without a host, they miss out on sight, sound, and speech. If you were in their position, what would you do? I only wish that there was a peaceful way to resolve this war…

This all sounds like something from a science fiction horror story. Or a nightmare. Or both. The truth is that it's very real. And the Yeerks are here, on Earth, in our city. What? You haven't seen the spaceships and explosions anywhere? Trust me, I've seen enough for the both of us. The reason that the world isn't in a state of panic about these alien invaders is because it's a silent invasion. Think about it. What would be the smart thing to do? Take over Earth with brute force and use up a large percentage of their resources in the process, or sneak in through the back door? Ax says that they probably don't have the resources to take over Earth in open war. While that made me feel sort of proud to be a human, it really doesn't matter now.

Galactically speaking – yes, the Yeerks are a problem throughout the galaxy – the main resistance to the Yeerk forces is the Andalites. Physically, Andalites are some of the weirdest looking creatures I've ever seen. They have a an upper torso of a human, and are generally very skinny. From the waist down their body resembles that of a deer. Because they're blue-furred, and have no mouth, at first sight one may be tempted to laugh at them. But then one might see the scythe blade attached to the end of their scorpion-like tail. A tail that can strike quicker than a cheetah. It's amazing to see them strike with their tails; so speedy and deadly that it can awe and frighten you all at once. Nothing else about them is very charming at all though. You have to give credit where credit is due; as a species they're brilliant. But the fact of the matter is that they are the single most arrogant species I've ever come across. Just because they have technological advances that humans haven't yet dreamed of, we humans automatically are so inferior that we aren't worth saving? It was because of such technological advances, and one very kind-hearted Andalite, that there is now a resistance to the war here on Earth. The kind-hearted Andalite went against the laws of his race, and shared the Andalite morphing technology. He gave us the power to morph – become any animal whose DNA we could absorb through physical contact. It was an awesome gift, but nothing is without limits...

It all started on a dreadfully ordinary night, a couple years ago(Wow, has it already been a couple of years?). I was at the mall with my best friend Rachel. Rachel's somewhat of a mall rat, yes, but she has a much more masculine side to her personality. Her looks are incredibly deceiving. She looks like a typical super model – tall, thin, blonde, and beautiful. Every girl wants to be her, every guy wants to date her, you get the picture. To be true to the definition of "deceiving," her personality would have to different than she appears. Her personality is very different. She isn't the slightest bit ditzy or clumsy. In fact, having been in gymnastics since Kindergarten and now being in high school, she is quite cunning and agile. She is so brave that my friends and I almost consider it a flaw. But without her, I really don't know where any of us would be right now. Probably six feet under.

Anyway, Rachel has this cousin named Jake. Jake was at the mall too, with his friend Marco. Back then, I had a crush on him, but now we're unofficially "together". We get a lot of odd looks when we hold hands in public, and for obvious reasons, too. Jake is Caucasian, and while it doesn't bother me in the least, the rest of the world seems to think it's wrong. He's tall, handsome, and very cute. His hair is short and brown, very complimentary to his brown eyes. Perhaps best of all, he's very responsible and caring. Mature, but not so mature that he can't have fun. Jake is the unofficial leader of our little ragtag army of six. He makes a very good leader, too. He's conscious of himself as well as the rest of us, and is able to make important split-second decisions. Without him, I think a lot of us would be dead right now, too.

His friend Marco, who was also there that night, is a different story. Marco and Jake are very opposite both mentally and physically. Marco – like me – is what he refers to as being "vertically challenged". He's pessimistic in a sarcastic sort of way. When he isn't being pessimistic in a sarcastic way, he's being outright sarcastic, or maybe cracking a joke. He's got a great sense of humor. A lot of girls would label him as immature, but he really knows when to get serious.

Jake and Marco had a tag along that night. Tobias. Tobias was a real loner, and got bullied a lot. I guess one day Jake stuck up for him, so that particular night Tobias hung out with Jake and Marco at the mall. I don't remember what he looked like, honestly. So there must not have been anything outstanding about his looks. I don't remember, because physically he's not himself anymore. Remember the morphing technology and it having its limits? Well its main limit is the two hour time limit. You can only remain in morph (the body of another creature) for up to two hours if you hope to demorph, or return to your own body. After two hours is up, you're stuck in that body for life. That's what happened to Tobias. He remained in the body of a red-tailed hawk for over two hours and was permanently stuck as one. He had a bad life, as a human, and I've often wondered if he did it on purpose – trapped himself in the hawk's body, I mean. Either way, he got a second chance, more or less. The Ellimist (an all-powerful being) gave him back the power to morph. Except now, his "natural" form is the hawk. If he is in any form other than the hawk's, he will be trapped in it forever. If I were him, I'm not so sure that I wouldn't morph to human and wait out the two hour time limit. It'd be an easy ticket out of the war, but I guess maybe he likes the action. Or perhaps he just enjoys the freedom of being a wild animal.

The story starts out with just us five. Ax wouldn't come into the picture for quite a while. We were all at the mall that night. It had been getting late, and when we met up, we decided to walk home together. Rachel, being the bold one that she is – Marco calls her "Xena: Warrior Princess" sometimes – proposed that we take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site. It'd been long vacated, and there were a bunch of homeless people living in the half-finished building that was erected there. We took the shortcut, and it changed our lives forever.

Elfangor, an Andalite Warrior Prince, was heading for Earth at that very moment. He had no reinforcements with him, because the Andalites refused to believe that the invasion on Earth was as bad as it really was. He was coming here in hopes to show the Andalites the magnitude of the Yeerk invasion. He wasn't alone though. Visser Three was on his tail.

The Yeerk system of government has four levels, to the best of my knowledge. The Council of Thirteen is the highest, and like the name implies, there are thirteen. "Visser" is the next most powerful title in the Yeerk community. There are fifty, and they're ranked by number. Visser One has the most authority of the Vissers, and Visser Fifty has the least of Vissers. Under Vissers are Sub-Vissers. Typically not too threatening(We've killed quite a few of these guys.), they are in charge of less important tasks in the war. Lastly are millions, probably billions, of average Yeerks that hold no authority whatsoever. So now that you know, you can deduce that Visser Three isn't any pushover. In fact, he's the first Yeerk ever to take control of an Andalite host. That makes him especially dangerous for two main reasons: He has the knowledge and skills of an Andalite, and he can morph. Unfortunately for us, Visser Three is the one in charge of the Yeerk invasion of Earth.

As Elfangor drew nearer in his spaceship, we were walking through the abandoned construction site. That was when I spotted Tobias stopping to look up at the stars. He pointed out a strange shimmering up in the sky, being followed by another shimmer. The shimmers were spaceships, one belonging to Elfangor, the other to Visser Three.

To make a long story short, Elfangor landed on Earth. He was injured and weak, but he managed to give us the lowdown on the invasion, and the power to morph, so we could resist until the Andalite army came. We had just enough time to hide before Visser Three landed his ship. He came out, morphed into a freaky alien monster, and ate Elfangor.

We managed to escape. After that was when the real action started. We found Ax, a child Andalite. He joined us in the resistance and now fights alongside us. We have made other allies, enemies, and become many creatures. We'd survived several very intense battles, as well.

This battle was different though. We had severely underestimated the amount of Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and human Controllers that would be here. A Controller is anyone or anything that is controlled by a Yeerk. Hork-Bajir are seven-feet-tall aliens that Marco has dubbed as "Walking Salad Shooters". They have dark green skin, and harp blades at the wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles. They look fierce, but when they aren't being Controlled they're actually very peaceful. Taxxons are a different story. They look like giant centipedes, with pairs of small legs all along their 10' long, 4' wide bodies. At one end is a large opening that is their mouth with rings of teeth inside it, like a savage blender.

A week ago from tonight, Erik gave us a bit of interesting information. Erik is our inside source, sort of like an undercover secret agent or something. He brings us information about supposed-to-be-secret Yeerk activity. The information he brought us this time was about eight kids.

Some random Controller stumbled upon a website that had a Role-Playing Game on it, with a theme "astonishingly similar" to the invasion that was taking place. Visser Three suspected that the humans in this RPG may have at some point been in contact with the "Andalite Bandits". In reality, my friends and I are the "Andalite Bandits". We're all human, but it's better for us if Visser Three didn't know that. Anyway, word on the street was that Visser Three was planning on hunting down these eight humans to infest them.

After the experimental infestation of five of man's best friends. Yeerks had infested several different species, but until now humans were the only Earthlings. Now they would add dogs to their list. That's right, they were planning to infest dogs. Why? 60% of American homes have a dog in them. 80% of American idols, including the past umpteen presidents, owned dogs. What better way to infiltrate security? Personally, I was especially hyped up for this mission, due to my love of all animals. If we let them get dogs… If there were any species that deserved to be infested, it certainly wasn't dogs.

So we, the Animorphs, came up with a plan. Five of us would go in and morph to Yeerks beforehand, while the other served as surveillance. It was risky, but we were confident we could pull it off. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

Apparently, an experimental infestation is extremely important to the Yeerk community. It's a very big event, so naturally there were thousands of Controllers there. There being the Yeerk Pool. It's a giant – and I mean giant; it's the size of four football stadiums, at least – underground city, practically. Yeerks need to feed once every three days in large pools that have been blasted with Kandrona Rays. The Yeerk Pool is the Yeerks' main spot of gathering here on Earth, and because it is so important, security is tight. Getting in is tough, getting out is nearly impossible. Unless you don't get caught. We were hoping to go in stealth mode, with the help of some old friends. We got in alright, and even went along as planned for quite some time. Almost too much time.

Erik had never witnessed an experimental infestation. He assumed they just put selected Yeerks into the dogs and then the Yeerks communicated whether they could successfully control the creature or not. But it was longer than that. They ran tests. It took about twenty minutes before they determined that Yeerks were not compatible with the dog's brain.

My friends, in the bodies of five different Yeerks, left the dogs' heads expecting to reunite back in the Yeerk Pool. Instead, they put each of them in a different dog. They ran the same tests, and it took the same amount of time. It dawned on me that they were going to rotate them so that each one of them had been in each dog, to make sure that it had nothing to do with the individual Yeerk. At twenty minutes each, it would have taken one-hundred minutes. That was twenty minutes shy of the two hour time limit. Add on the thirty minutes they spent in the Yeerk body before it all started, and you have one-hundred thirty minutes. Meaning my friends would be stuck in the body of blind, deaf, and mute slugs for the rest of their lives. No doubt about it, I had to pull the plug. I had to create a diversion… But I needed to wait for the order, otherwise I could put my friends in danger. Luckily somewhere near the beginning of the fifth set of tests, Jake gave the word for a distraction. Before hand, we had drawn straws to see who would do surveillance. I had gotten the short straw. And so it was up to me alone to create a diversion.

When I got the word, I turned to the person next to me. It was a tall, slightly pudgy male, watching it all like the rest of them. It struck me then just how many there were… I started to back away from the person next to me with a horrified look on my face. "ANDALITE!" I screamed, pointing at him. As my mother always told me, when you point a finger, you have three more pointing back at you. I realized now just how true that was.

Sure enough, pandemonium erupted. The tall, pudgy male was undoubtedly killed because of my false accusation, but I couldn't afford to care right now. I had to get to the meeting spot. The meeting spot was behind a large storage shed along the wall of the large dome shaped cave called the Yeerk Pool. I got there to find five growing messes. It was incredibly disgusting, to a point where I wanted to vomit. You see, morphing isn't pretty. It's not some magical "Poof!" and you're automatically in another body. It works much slower and more detailed than that. It can be gut-wrenching, breath-taking, or both. Once we were humans again, with the exception of Ax and Tobias, we all went to battle morphs. A Siberian tiger, a grizzly bear, a red-tailed hawk, a wolf, a gorilla, and an Andalite all charged out from behind that shed.

The battle began, and now only minutes later it was drawing to an end. We were losing. Even Rachel was staggering at the wayside. She was missing a paw. Jake was limping weakly. Tobias fluttered about with a damaged wing. Marco had gashes across his chest and was missing an entire arm. Ax was holding his own, but you could tell fatigue was setting in on him. Me? I was too dazed from loss of blood to even know where the cuts were.

One thing I did know is that we were losing. We'd killed maybe fifty between the six of us. There had to be hundreds to go. We were going to die here, in this cave of despair that smelled of mold. We were going to lose this battle. But then, they came.