Author's Note: Okay, so it has been forever since I've worked on this, or even read an Animorphs book, so this chapter (which is very short, I know) may be just awful. Please- give me your honest opinion of this and tell me if I should continue this story or just let it go the way of the dodo.
War kills all things.
War is the ultimate destroyer- everything it touches dies. And our war was no different. Humans had died, Yeerks had died, Andalites, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons… And the greatest friendships I had ever known, my first love… those had died too, because of the war. And even though I survived the war, I died too. The person I had wanted to become, the person I used to be… I didn't know that person anymore.
I was bleeding, tired, and angry. I had started the day waking up next to my husband, taking care of my children, and now I was back in battle morph, fighting again. I had thought that the fighting was finally over. But now I was in the middle of the worst fight yet- because I was fighting my friends.
Erek stood at my side, untouched and unscarred. He was still a Chee, after all, even after years of living as a human, and so he couldn't fight. Not for the first time I felt an odd sort of jealousy; it would be nice, to not be able to fight. But I did not hold it against him- he was who he was.
Toby, bleeding but never broken, slammed into Marco's gorilla, sending him flying. If she had wanted to, she could have driven her wrist blades into his stomach and taken a chunk of him with her. I knew that because I fought as a Hork-Bajir before. But our fight was not with our friends- it was with the One.
Jake leaped on me and I dodged to the side and right into Ax's tail. I cried out at the sharp Andalite blade sliced my side. I ignored the pain, ignored the blood- and kept my eyes on the prize.
The One.
He made no effort to move out of the way as I used all the strength I had left to lunge for him. Toby at my back deflected Tobias as he dove towards me. I flew at the One and landed on him, claws out. Together we stumbled back into the vortex and everything else faded away. My wolf body began to grow older around me, but if the One and his mix-matched body was changing too, I couldn't tell.
I was about to charge the One again when I suddenly saw it. White, gleaming, and perfect. The galaxy's greatest invention- and its greatest weapon.
The Time Matrix.
It hit me then. I could use the Time Matrix! I could go back, and save the others from the One, save Rachel from her fate… or I could go back to that day, the construction site… the possibilities were endless! It didn't have to be this way.
The One laughed, and this time I was sure I heard Marco's voice in there. "Isn't it beautiful? There is so much good you could do with it, Cassie- and so much evil. But that line is blurry to begin with, isn't it? Maybe the line doesn't even exist." He reached out to touch the machine, but dropped then suddenly dropped his hand.
I watched him closely as he stared at the Time Matrix with hungry, eager eyes. Hawk eyes, I realized after a second. Tobias's hawk eyes. I expected the One to close the distance between himself and the Matrix, but he never did. Why?
Was he afraid to use it?
My initial excitement had faded with the One's words. I knew I couldn't use the Time Matrix. I couldn't mess with time, I couldn't go back and change things, no matter how much they needed changing. I knew that. If I messed around with time, who knew the consequences would be?
But oh god, there were so many things that needed to be done, or undone, so many mistakes that needed correcting...
"Did you know that the Ellimist considers this his worst mistake?" the One asked me, his eyes still on the Time Matrix. "Creating this... you have no idea the chaos it caused, and how Crayak laughed with delight when he learned of it." The creature sighed longingly. "There is so much I could so with this, so much I could destroy..."
Then why don't you? I couldn't stop myself from asking.
Jake's sad smile spread across his Andalite/Hork Bajir face. "Because there is so much that could be saved in the process. It cannot be risked."
How ironic. We both dared not use the Time Matrix, but for opposite reasons. I was afraid of what I might ruin in the process of fixing the past, he was afraid of what he might save in the process of destroying it.
I suddenly felt very lost, and very small. Time was so big, so infinite, and I was so small and insignificant. What did my suffering matter to the universe? What did the suffering and the deaths of my friends matter in the scheme of things?
It wasn't fair! What was I supposed to do? I couldn't use the Time Matrix, and I couldn't defeat the One. That was obvious now and, in a way, it had always been obvious. I could try to kill the One, but would it die? Or would all the goodness of my friends, the things I wanted to save the most, die instead? It was a risk I could not take. I could fight the darkness of each of them, but I could not risk hurting their goodness. Their love.
There was no way to win.
If I was human, I would have cried. I would have broken down and given up right there. But the wolf did not understand my agony, did not even know what it was. The wolf's only thoughts were of survival. Was this strange smelling creature in front of me a threat or not?
Fight or flight. Those were the only choices.
I couldn't fight anymore, so maybe... maybe flight really was the right response.
It would be wrong to use the Time Matrix, but suddenly I didn't care. What was right and what was wrong? My ideas about the right thing and the wrong thing had changed so much over the years… and I didn't care anymore.
Maybe another part of me died right then. Maybe it was an important part too, but now, now it was just another casualty of war.
Maybe the One was stealing my goodness too, right in front of me. Fine. Let him have it- it's done nothing for me over the years.
I began to demorph, reaching out a hand towards the Matrix and I began to change. My hand touched the smooth white surface and then the universe around me faded away-and I was back.
At the construction site.