I flew over Ax's meadow that morning to watch with pride and joy, the four andilite figures below. Ax and Ezimili moved with grace. Judy had morphed andilite and was guiding Max through the morning ritual. I saw her eyes glowing with pride.
//From the water that gave birth to us
From the grass that feeds us
For the freedom that unites us
We rise to the stars…//
I circled out of range and I saw the two groups moving through the woods. The first consisted of what looked like four humans, two hork bajir, two wolves, and a peregrine falcon. I knew, however, that they were the yeerk nothlits. Didlit would guide them into the mountains to where they'd join the free hork bajir colony and help them as guards and guides.
The second group consisted of the new recruits. Steve, Gary, Dunga, and Eddy were carrying the cages with the birds of prey in them. Both groups were coming over to Ax's meadow for the meeting.
//I Max ____, aristh, offer my life…//
I smiled, it must seem kind of dramatic to him. Tyson would have laughed.
As both groups converged on the meadow, Max and Judy demorphed. I sailed down to the trees below and landed on my usual branch. //Hi! We're all clear!// I told them.
"Right. You guys are here to acquire your first two morphs." Jake said with a nod.
//It was unanimous then?// I asked.
"You bet it is!" Joseph, Kevin, and Mariah chorused.
"Right. Group by group, come up and place your hand on the blue box." Marco said, holding it up.
This took about half an hour, not bad considering the sheer numbers…
"Right." Jake said calmly. "It took a lot of research to find morphs that would fit in your respective countries, but we think that we've found some; Golden Eagle and Peregrine Falcon are two morphs whose ranges are pretty much world wide, so you'll be picking from them. Red Tailed hawks come from America, so does the bald eagle that we're setting free today, so you All Starz will pretty much have your pick of the litter. Judy, I think you should pick a new morph. Cassie looked up your White Tailed Eagle. It's native to Siberia and Eurasia, not north America, and trust me, you'll be flying a LOT." Jake said with a smile.
Judy nodded. "I can't wait to get flying again!"
"But we only have the golden eagle and the bald eagle." Michael pointed out.
"You can acquire a nothlit." Cassie allowed. "Didlit and Tobias are a Peregrine Falcon and a Red Tailed Hawk. That's also why the others are here, so you can acquire a wolf morph. Can you imagine having to lug the wolf's cage out here?"
"You've got a point." Lee nodded. "Okay, who goes first?"
"I will." Ozuma said calmly. "Ready guys?" He asked the Saint Shields.
"We are!" Ozuma moved for the Golden Eagle. Dunga did the same. Miriam and Joseph both chose peregrine falcons. They finished that up by acquiring the wolf morph.
"I'm next." Kane motioned his team forward. He and Selima chose the peregrine falcon. Jim and Gouki chose the Golden Eagle. They moved on to the other wolf-morphed yeerk.
Lee went next. He and Mariah chose the golden eagle. Kevin and Gary chose the peregrine. The Majestics went next, with Robert and Johnny as eagles and Oliver and Enrique as falcons. After them came the Demolition Boys, Tala and Spencer became eagles. Bryan and Ian chose falcons.
Finally it came to the All Starz. Michael stubbornly chose the Bald Eagle. Emily chose the falcon. Eddy chose the red tailed hawk. Steve chose the golden eagle, which Marco joked about being like giving a two year old a time bomb. Zeo and Wyatt chose falcons. If they were normal birds of prey, it would have been my worst nightmare. I felt proud though. We took them up in teams and lead them in a circuit of landmarks. First we went to my meadow, then Ax's scoop, skirting his grazing grounds north to the Grotto.
We arrived there group by group before morphing wolf and heading northeast towards the hork bajir valley with the morphed yeerks. We spread out over an area of ten miles, one blade breaker and one animorph per team until we came to the valley.
"Okay, I'm going to warn you about the hork bajir." Jake said calmly as he addressed the rest of us. We were demorphed in front of the entrance. "They are normally very gentle. However, the yeerks use them as their shock troops for two reasons, they aren't very smart, and they have blades, enough to make the most powerful bitbeast you've seen look like a kitten." Jake explained.
There was a collective shudder from those who had been down to the yeerk pool. I looked over the assembled groups. The captains all had similar stances, arms crossed over their chests, skeptical eyebrows, meaningful looks. Some of the smaller, more energetic bladers such as Kevin and Joseph were tapping their feet in impatience. I caught Emily giving Mariah's hand a reassuring squeeze.
I giggled mentally, they reminded me of when we had first started, eager to please, nervous about making a mistake.
"The hork bajir have the mentality of a four year old. They speak a sort of Pidgin English. However, they are very good-natured. They are willing to fight for their race's survival. Do not underestimate the will of the hork bajir. The yeerks did/do, but in spite of this they continue to harass and humiliate the yeerks. What does that tell you about them?" Jake asked rhetorically.
Robert nodded. "My mother once told me that the size of the brain is no measure of its capacity."
"Exactly." Jake said with a smile. "The hork bajir are pretty good people. The most often used word among them is friend. Since we are their friends, let us proceed."
I sailed over the barrier and watched as one by one they filed through. I watched their eyes brighten as they saw the valley.
I heard a noise, "twangangangvllaweee! Tumvlumblumtwanangweee!"
"What is that?" Selima asked.
"Over there." Miriam inclined her head. Up in an enormous oak that had been stripped of leaves and extra branches was what looked like an enormous harp made of a bent branch and different widths of some kind of bark rope.
"It looks kind of like a harp." Mariah said, craning her neck up to see it.
"Sounds like a cello." Oliver blinked.
"No, it's a code, see? They're all coming out of the woods, hundreds of them." Emily said with a smile.
"It's a speaking tree," Said one of the morphed hork bajir. I think his name was Kiro. "They use it to communicate long distances."
Toby and Saro made their way through the crowd of hork bajir. "You've brought them?" Toby asked.
"Yes." Jake answered. "The nine yeerks were trapped on the way." He said with a smile. "They want to help you as watchmen/women and help fight."
"We spoke on this before Jake. I told them about it. They don't mind, although some of them are skeptical." Toby explained.
"What was the final count after last night?" Rachel asked.
"Two hundred hork bajir, thirty leerans, over a thousand humans." Toby answered. "Of the hork bajir there was another seer. I have two lieutenants now." She said proudly. "The leerans are spending the water time that they need in the lake. They all agree that the ocean is too dangerous for them."
Jake nodded. "I've got new teams too." He said smugly. "We're here to get them used to dealing with aliens."
Toby chuckled. "Over thirty new Animorphs will definitely make a difference. Are you going to try and invade the yeerk pool again?"
"No." Jake answered. "I don't think that we'll be able to train them in time, and Visser 3 will probably be down there for the rest of the time. We'll have to think of another first combat mission."
"I know of one. There's a hork bajir breeding base that the yeerks use to breed new hork bajir hosts. They call host breeding bases biobases for short. Remember the hammerhead shark base? That was a biobase type two. This is type one, for breeding their alien hosts."
"Eeeww." Marco commented. "How do they do that? Intro? Yeerks falling in love? Eeewww!!"
"Marco!" Cassie whacked him over the head.
"And the first words out of Rachel's mouth will beeee…" Marco swung his arms in a circle and stopped them pointing at Rachel.
"LET'S DO IT!"