Disclaimer: I only own Julie. Nothing else. (My friend came up with Hanna.)

A/N: Well, I'm just going to warn anybody reading this that it's going to be quite long. And that it's Cassie/Jake, Rachel/Tobias, Ax/Melissa and Marco/OC. It is NOT a Mary-Sue. Um, just read it. Then I won't have to say anything else. Oh, and the beginning is a little choppy, because I started it when I was in fourth grade and I had to excise that part and rewrite it, because I couldn't actually write when I was in fourth grade.

Cassie

They wanted me to start this one off. I don't know why. Jake says I have this touch for writing. I don't really know what he means. But, anyway--here goes. My name is Cassie. And I'm not going to say I can't tell you what my last name is, because I can. Now. But I'm not going to tell you until the end of this. After all, what would a story be without suspense? Okay, granted, this has more than enough suspense. The whole Marco thing and all. But you don't know about that yet. So I guess I'd better just start the story and stop stalling.

We were walking home from school. Jake was really tired; he'd had a couple of tests and not a lot of sleep the night before. I told him he should start studying earlier, but he wouldn't exactly listen to me. But when we were walking home this time, I heard Jake sigh.

"What's wrong, Jake?" I asked, putting my hand on his arm.

"Oh, it's just Tom," he responded glumly.

"Oh," I answered, trading looks with everybody else. We all knew how hard it was on Jake that his admired older brother was trapped as a Controller. "I wish we could do something. You know, like we did when you were a Controller. Tie Tom up and put him in a shed for three days."

"Why couldn't we do that?" chipped in Tobias, who was in his human morph, a blond, slightly nervous-looking boy who now had a disturbing habit of never blinking.

"I am afraid it is quite obvious why not. Not-tuh. Tuh. Not-tuh," said Ax, who was in his disturbingly handsome human morph.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because--b-b-b-because--buh! That is a wonderful mouth-sound. Buh!"

"Get to the point!" Jake yelled. That startled us all. Jake never yells. But I guess having a Controller as your older brother is a little stressful.

"Because," Ax continued. "No one knew that Jake had been infested. In-FEST-ted. Infest-TED. They were not expecting to see him appear at the Yeerk-KUH! Yeer-kuh! Pool every three days. ZZZZZZZ."

"He's right, Jake," Marco said, dispiritedly.

It's been hard on Marco, too, but at least he doesn't have to live with a relative he knows is a Controller.

"I guess so," mumbled Jake. We continued our walk.

That was when Marco had the brain wave. His eyes lit up and turned green. Literally.

"Hey, guys," he said.

"What?"

"Why shouldn't the Yeerks see Tom turn up at the right time?"

"You mean, morph Tom?" Rachel asked doubtfully. "I guess it would work, but without a Yeerk in his head--"

"No, no, no, I don't mean morph Tom. Not at all."

"Well, then what do you mean?"

"Erek," Marco replied. Erek is one of the Chee, a group of androids created by an extinct race called the Pemalites. He is very, very old (centuries), and he and the other Chee can make holograms of just about anything. So obviously he could do a hologram of Tom.

"Yeah, but what about when Tom isn't infested anymore?" asked Rachel.

I looked at Jake. "Jake?" I asked.

He nodded. "We need more Animorphs--there's not enough of us--and we know that Tom won't be another David."

Rachel

I don't really know why we did it then, as opposed to earlier or later. We could just as easily have done it any time over the years we'd spent fighting the Yeerks. I guess we did it then, because, well, we were all getting restless. We couldn't think of anything else to do. We had to do something. So we did. In morph, we basically ambushed Tom while he was walking to school, since his car had broken down, mainly because Jake rammed a nail through the motor. But, hey, it was an old car. It would have broken down soon anyway.

So we grabbed Tom and dragged him to that hut in the woods. Then we took turns guarding him. Unfortunately for me, it was on my shift he decided to make a serious break for it. He'd somehow managed to wiggle his slimy way out of the ropes, and then he pulled something out (I'd frisked him, but I guess I need to practice) out his belt; suddenly I couldn't move a muscle. Then he grinned and jumped out the door laughing, "Four humans and a bird! Wait till I tell Visser Three!"

I confess, I was worried. For about ten seconds. Then I heard, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAH!", and Ax's calm thought-speak voice, Four humans, one bird, AND an Andalite.

We've never really been sure whether or not Ax has a sense of humor. Humorous or not, however, when I heard his remark, I practically collapsed with relief. If that guy had gotten away--I shuddered at the image; it was as clear as day. It rose up in front of my horrified, bewildered eyes; I couldn't blink it away. The shack was gone, and all I could see was the Tom-Yeerk laughing, laughing. Was Visser Three sneering cruelly, as he looked down at the boy's limp form that lay in front of him. Was the dark hair matted with half-clotted blood that trickled from a wound in the head to glimmer in a dark crimson pool collecting beneath it. Marco. Dead? I couldn't tell.

So sorry, Rachel, Visser Three said, smiling coldly. But you were all trying too hard to resist. I had to make an example of someone.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I heard the thought-speak wail. And I knew it was Ax. The wail was cut off abruptly. I turned, saw him, head dripping, pulled up from the sludgy Yeerk Pool. A Controller. Tobias. Jake. Controllers. Then Cassie was dragged up the pier. "Rachel! Rachel!" Cassie's voice was distant and far-away. The Yeerks dragged her forward and--

My eyes snapped open. Cassie was shaking me, her brown eyes full of worry. I saw Jake. The Tom-Yeerk, dumped unconscious against a wall. Tobias fluttering down from the rafters. I sprang to my feet. "Ax! Marco!" I cried in total panic. A tousled dark head peered round the door. Marco. And from behind me, a delicate blue-deer shape emerged.

We are here, Ax said, sounding puzzled and faintly concerned. Marco was staring at me with his mouth open.

"Wh-what happened?" I asked.

"Ax?" Jake said. Ax approached me. Gentle Andalite fingers probed my skull.

It was a Yeerk Dracon beam, set on stun, Prince Jake. But it has not caused permanent damage, he answered.

"He shot you with a Dracon beam," Jake explained, "Stunned you. Then you went into a kind of coma-like trance. You didn't wake up until Cassie called you."

"It was the Ellimist," I said, with sudden conviction.

"The Ellimist!" cried everyone.

"It had to be," I continued. "He gave me a vision."

"What was the vision?" Jake asked.

I gulped. "I don't know exactly how to put this, but--Marco was--well--" The silence stretched for several minutes before Jake said, "Uh-huh. Go on."

" I heard Ax cry out in thought-speak, and I turned around, and then he was a Controller and so were you and Tobias--he was in human morph--and then they brought Cassie up and you people woke me up."

"Uh-huh," Jake replied, sounding slightly confused. "So what does this have to do with the Ellimist?"

"Well, it left me pretty edgy about Ax and Marco, as you saw when I woke up. I mean, I guess if it had been an ordinary dream, it might have got me worried about Marco--though that's not particularly likely--but why Ax? Especially, that is? And the other thing is, Ax caught him, didn't you? The Tom-Yeerk? And said, Four humans, one bird, AND an Andalite , right?"

Ax nodded, still concerned.

"But that should have been after I was stunned. I had just thought, 'Hey, does Ax have a sense of humor?', when it started," I explained.

"Uh-oh," said Jake.

"Oh dear," said Cassie.

Good grief, was Tobias' comment.

"Ellimists are just sneaky and weird people." Marco, naturally.

A sense of humor? asked Ax.