Note: After James and his chapter we have Rachel. The epic battle onboard the Pool Ship between the Yeerks and the Animorphs is coming to a climatic end. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will survive? But first, your responses.

Elwing: Excellent writing! Good pace, good length, good suspense!
You thought I left? Why would I leave such a good story? But the reason is because on the weekdays, I have school, and so I don't come to FFN. I need to budget time for homework. But I always return on the weekend.
Did James die? I remember in Book 54, Rachel ddidn't get to finish her sentence when she died.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm glad…no, make that ecstatic that you liked it. I should probably spend more time on my homework, as well. But sadly, yes, James did die. Personally, I loved him. Hey…hey, put away that tomato! I'm sorry! AHHHH!

Tiamath Noo! James! Well, you may have just torched my favorite Animorph, but your story still gets a five-star rating in my book. :)

I'm sorry, over and over again. But hey, maybe I will write a story where he comes back and makes everything right. That sounds like an awesome and completely original idea!

LittleMidgett: You killed him?
Or is he just out cold..but I think he's dead...AH!
Excellent chapter though...poor poor James...
What else is gonna happen!

Yes, James is dead. The Dracon beam incinerated him. Not trying to sound harsh. What else, you ask? Well, you see, soon…well, just read the story.

LilManiac: Ahh! This was magnificent!
And that took a while to spell! Hehe!
Great! Poor James...
But good! WOW!

Thank you. What I was afraid of was making James look like a coward in the story, and right before he died for the cause, too. That isn't why I killed him though.

SilverHawk27: wow, James isn't as cool headed as the books made us think. great chapter. he's dead, isn't he?

Yeah and yeah. And thank you. He is dead.

animorph19: i never really liked james, but i enjoyed this chappie. he seems kinda panicky and doubtful for a leader...

You didn't like James? Well, I'm sure you had your reasons. He is, but he hides it well. It's called being brave, you know.

Early: ((Can no longer speak and is reduced to gutteral cries))
"UGH! Urgh!"
((Takes chapter 11, frames it and mounts it on the wall))
Great job! You've got the formula down and now it's cake!

Wow. I laughed really hard when I read that. I'm flattered. And thank you. Judging from your other reviews, I take that as a huge compliment.

ss4rycol: very well done, one of the best i've read, continue soon please

If I'm not mistaken, you are new. Hello. Now that's out of the way, thank you for the review. One of the best? Wow. Thanks.

Rachel

I saw the lion soaring through the air. Then a bright flash and he was gone. I stared dumbly. No, no, no, no, NO! James! In mid-charge, I ran unseeing into some control panels, but I didn't care. NO! James!

Visser One was shouting something about shooting in the bridge, then somebody yelled louder than him. They kept on yelling James name out, and I idly wondered who it was. A Hork-Bajir sliced a chunk out of my face and I back handed him in the gut, almost automatically. Who was yelling?

Then I saw a tan and yellow blur race from one end of the bridge to the other, to where the Visser and Ax were still fighting. Cheetah! It was a cheetah!

Then the cheetah pounced. I quickly went through the list in my head of who morphed cheetah. There were four. Steve, Ashley, Juan, and…Pedro!

(Pedro, NO!) Pedro was a very close friend of James, and now he was charging the Visser. But it was too late. Pedro latched onto the Visser's tail and worried it vigorously. The Visser tried to shake him lose, but only succeeded in breaking the cheetahs back leg. Ax stepped closer and started to whip his tail faster and faster. The Visser blocked maybe half of his strikes. The rest left deep gashes.

Movement! I turned and gutted a Taxxon, who was intent on feeding off of my many cuts. He screeched, spilling his guts all over me and the helm. More Taxxons came over to feast and I fought them off even as I watched the fight between, Pedro, Ax, and the Visser.

Then, suddenly, the Visser's tail went limp! Ax hit the Visser across the face with the flat of his tail blade. (Leave that body, Abomination, or I will slice you from it.) Almost all other fighting had ceased. Everybody was looking at Ax and the Visser.

The Visser nodded and bowed his head. He was going to surrender! After these long months of fighting, we have finally won!

But then the Visser started morphing. I heard Ax yell. (For my brother!)

FWWAAAAPP!

The Visser's half-morphed head hit the ground with a sickening thud.

We all looked around dumbly. Visser One…was dead. Dead? Dead. Years fighting him, trying to survive him, outsmart him, and he's dead? Just like that?

Cassie whispered, (We've won.)

All of the sudden, happiness, glee, and delight all welled up inside of me. We had won! (We've won! I can't believe it, we've won!)

Cassie spoke up again. (But for what price? Jara Hamee? James? Every controller we have ever killed?) She fell silent. I couldn't believe her.

(But we've won!) I suddenly felt embarrassed. I sounded like a pouty child, whining to her mother. After all of this, I was pouting?

"You haven't won yet, bandits." It was another Yeerk. Probably second-in-command. "We can still fight you and kill more of you."

Jake gave us a private order. (On three, everybody lay down.) What? (One, two THREE!) Everybody fell flat on the ground as the free Hork-Bajir from outside the bridge entered and shot over our heads with low-level Dracon beams. They kept on firing until all of the Yeerks were unconscious.

(Okay, stop. Ax, try to take control of the helm. When you do, send Rachel to get me. Everybody else is to come with me. We are going to clear the rest of the Pool Ship of Yeerks. Let's go.) The free Hork-Bajir and the rest of the Animorphs left the bridge, leaving me and Ax in silence.

Ax let out a long breath. He eyeballed the spot where James had been killed and shivered. I raised my eyebrows. (Something on your mind?)

He looked at me. (Just old superstition.) He walked to the helm and started to push buttons.

(Like what?) I casually swatted a Yeerk who wascoming to. He had only been partially stunned by the Dracon. He blinked and slumped back down.

Ax swiveled an eyestalk on me, keeping the other three on the control panel. (It's said that if a comrade is killed in battle, his dawem haunts the ship until his fellow warriors avenge him.) Ax glanced at an unconscious Hork-Bajir. (James has not been avenged.) He shivered again.

(Dawem? What's that?)

(A dawem is what makes any Andalite – or human, I suppose – what he or she is. It makes them sentient. A life-force, I guess. It is very difficult to explain. But without it, we would be nothing.)

I nodded. (What we call that is a ghost, or spirit. We also believe that if the person who died was unfinished with life, or if something was extremely wrong when they died, their spirit would still roam the earth, haunting everybody who disturbed their resting place.) I paused. (We have hundreds of ghost stories. I guess it's because we wonder what is beyond life.)

(We do too.) Then we both fell silent. I felt uncomfortable. The bridge was eerily silent, and I shivered. I lumbered over to the nearest panel and saw a window-like projection of earth.

What were we going to do? The war was finally over, and what has been a large part of our life will soon be merely history. I laughed, thinking about the previous battles and random antics that made our Animorphs life both horrific and bearable. The Andalite toilet in Area 51, the Iskoort that were symbiotic Yeerks (we had saved them, despite their history). Even Marco's annoying jokes helped keep us sane during this long war.

What would we do after the war? Jake would probably do something in politics, or something were he can help thousands of people. Cassie will definitely keep on helping animals, perhaps opening a large clinic for sick and injured animals. Marco might end up doing stand-up comedy, performing for humans and Andalites alike. Ax will be some huge hero on his planet, revered as the destroyer of Visser One. Me? My future was hard for me to see. I definitely couldn't go back to my old life. There's just too much out there. Maybe my future will hold something important for me…and Tobias.

Musing, I almost missed Ax's warning. (Rachel! Ships approaching!)

What? (It's the Yeerks. They probably think we are the bona-fide Pool Ship.)

(No, it's not the Yeerks. Those are Andalite ships!)

I felt a swell of joy and rumbling explosion all at once. (We've been hit!)