Disclaimer: Um, hmmm...must think up original way to do disclaimer. Am bored. Oh well. --The Animorphs troop out holding signs. Cassie is first. Hers says, "Alenida does," followed by Rachel, whose says, "not own." Then comes Jake, "Animorphs," Ax, "They are," Tobias "the property of," Marco, "K.A. Applegate."--

A/N: Here's a nice long chapter to make up for the relatively short one from last time! Please, please R&R and many thanks to everybody who has so far! I love reviews! I love my readers! I think I'm a little hyper! Wheee! Oh, and I'm going to try doing thought-speak in parentheses, now, like (this,) since I think that's a bit clearer.

Melissa

Philip and I were thrown into a small, gray room, a sort of metal box. I hadn't been completely acting when I had my hysterical screaming fit. I felt completely confused-I didn't know what was going on. My--"boyfriend"--was an alien. We had just been kidnapped by evil aliens. That was about all my mind could get a grip on. Oh, that and the fact that Marco had turned into a fly.

"Um…Philip?" I said in a quavering voice as we were thrown into the room.

He sighed. "I believe I have some explaining-Xplaining-X-to do."

"Yes, I'd say you have," I agreed faintly.

"I am an Andalite," he began.

"What is an Andalite?" I asked weakly.

In answer, his body began to melt and change, as Marco's had done, as, earlier, "my cat's" had done. In a very short time, he was a blue deer-like animal with a curving scorpion-shaped tail. I yelped and pressed myself backward against the wall.

"But-that's what-the person who kidnapped us is. Is there a civil war going on or something?"

(No. Although the-) his jaw tightened. (-Abomination who has captured us wears an Andalite form, he is no true Andalite, but a Yeerk.)

"A Yeerk."

(Yeerks are parasites. Small, gray, sentient slugs who take over the minds of those they infest. As a matter of fact, Melissa, both of your parents have been taken over by Yeerks. They-and the Abomination you have seen-are what is known as 'Controllers'.)

"M-my parents are…what?"

(I am afraid that they are Controllers, Melissa. That is why it seems as if they no longer love you. Controllers can imitate the way their host would act, for they have access to all of their host's memories and feelings, but their imitations can be-flawed-in some respects. When it seems to you that they do not love you, that is because the Yeerks who control them do not love you, but I know for a fact, Melissa-Rachel has told me-that they love you a great deal more than you may ever know.)

He reached over with what was now a thin, delicate, blue hand with too many fingers and touched me softly on the cheek. I didn't know how to react. I just accepted it; everything else felt so weird.

"What's your real name?" I asked. "It's not really Philip, is it?"

(No. My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.)

I simply stared.

(Most of my human friends know me as "Ax". You may call me the same.)

"Ax," I tried it out. The letters seemed odd, foreign to my tongue. I started giggling, almost without knowing why.

(Melissa?) His voice in my head was concerned.

"It's just-Marco turned into a fly, Phili-Ax! A fly! He looked so weird!" And all of a sudden I was laughing and crying at the same time and Philip-Ax looked extremely worried and came over and laid his hand gently on my back.

(Melissa? What is the matter?)

"He turned into a fly! First he was a bird and then he was Marco and then he was a fly!"

(Melissa, please do not say this out loud. The Yeerks may be listening.)

I raised my tear-stained face to look into his. It was totally changed, but somehow I could see the Philip I knew behind the alien face of Aximili. "Why not?"

(I am one of a small band who resist the Yeerks. There are only me, Marco, Jake, Cassie, Tobias, and Rachel. The Yeerks must not discover that the other five are humans.)

It was at this point that I gave up trying to understand and just started bawling into Ax's shoulder.

Julie

To wake up and find yourself staring at a gorilla is quite shocking. But to wake up and find yourself staring at a talking gorilla which says it is an Andalite which will rescue you is quite a bit more than just "shocking". My name is Julie. I am not going to tell you my last name. Not yet, anyway. The last four years of my life have cured me of over-hastily revealing personal details.

I live in Minnesota, most of the time. At least, I used to, before the Yeerk in my head managed to get herself promoted, which led to her spending more and more time on the blade ship, and me with her. I used to be a normal girl, with a fairly normal life. Like I said, I lived in Minnesota, and I went to school there. I was a bit of a loner throughout my school career. I didn't get close to many people-just my one best friend, and then, when I was eleven, my cousin, Hanna. Hanna's parents were killed in a car crash when I was eleven and she was four. She had no living relatives but my family, and she came to live with us. Hanna was always a smart kid, a bit like me, my mother says, though I never saw the resemblance.

When I was thirteen years old, I of course started middle school. I hated it. I was lonelier than ever; most of my friends went off and became friends with other people. Eventually, the only friends I had were Hanna and Evan, a boy who was nice, but not very bright. I had so much homework that I didn't get to see Hanna all that much of the time, even though I was living with her.

I suppose you think that I became a voluntary Controller. I suppose the set-up is perfect: lonely girl with no friends finds out about Sharing, joins, and eventually becomes a voluntary Controller, which she later regrets. But it didn't happen like that at all. I never was a big one for that kind of social group. True, the Sharing did try to recruit me several times, but I wasn't interested. No, the reason I became a Controller was because I left a book in my locker. That sounds a little silly, doesn't it? The only thing that really explains it is what has recently become my favorite proverb: "For want of the nail, the shoe was lost; for want of the shoe the horse was lost; for want of the horse the rider was lost; for want of the rider, the battle was lost; for want of the battle the war was lost; for want of the war the kingdom was lost; and all for the want of the horseshoe nail." Well, that book I left was the horseshoe nail.

It was an English book. I didn't really need it; I had finished to the assigned place in class, but I was quite interested in it, so I decided to get a head-start by finishing it. The only trouble with that was that I left it in my locker. I realized that I had left it in my locker after I had completed the rest of my homework, by which time it was about five o'clock. Fortunately, we lived within walking distance of the school, so I just strolled over.

The school looked dark and forbidding and gloomy with no one inside it. I was half-hoping the doors would be locked, but they weren't. I pulled one of them open and peeked inside. There was no one there. I slipped in and looked around. All the lights were out. I could see the inside of the main office, as the windows were glass. Someone had left a stapler lying out on their desk, and there was a pencil on the floor, next to the wastebasket. Someone had probably tried to throw it away and missed, not bothering to pick it up. For some reason, there was a prickling feeling on the back of my neck. I was scared, well and truly scared.

If I'd had any sense, I would have turned around then and left my book until the next day. I didn't, though. Instead I tiptoed nervously over to my locker, which was near the door. I was just twiddling with the combination (wouldn't you know, my locker was stuck again), when I heard footsteps. Footsteps in a deserted school is not something you ever want to hear. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Instead of being a sensible girl and just running away, screaming, I pressed myself against my locker, trying to quiet my breathing so I wouldn't be heard.

The footsteps came down the corridor, but in the semi-darkness whoever it was didn't notice me. I turned my head a little and squinted; my eyes had had time to adjust to the light, so I could see the person. It was a girl in my grade. I didn't know her awfully well, because she was one of the popular crowd, and I--wasn't. She came down the row of lockers and, as I watched, opened a locker I was sure didn't belong to her.

That was where I made my second mistake. Instead of being a sensible girl and assuming she had permission, or running off to the police, or even just confronting her, I snuck over behind her. She reached into the back of the locker and pulled it open. I stared at the golden light that streamed out. The girl nonchalantly stepped through and closed it behind her. I didn't move; I was too stricken. For about five minutes, I stood there, goggling. Then I made my third mistake.

I don't know what I should have done at that point, but I do know what I should not have done, because it was what I did. That is, I felt the back of the locker, found a knob to turn, turned it, opened the back of the locker, and went through, feeling very much as if I had suddenly stepped into the Chronicles of Narnia. The feeling didn't last too long.

I made my way down a flight of rickety iron stairs and through a door, and then I stopped, aghast. Horrified, I stared around. There was a huge, gray pool in the middle of the floor, teeming with slugs. Disgusting, green-and-gray slugs, the kind you might avoid because squishing them would be too nasty to contemplate. And around the edges of this pool, there were cages. Hundreds of them. And inside each one, several people were sitting, or standing, or lying. Some of them sat staring blankly; others were crying or screaming or yelling. I stood and stared for a minute and clapped my hand to my mouth. I was sure I was going to be sick.

I dropped to my knees, before realizing that it might behoove me to leave rapidly, but when I looked up, there was a huge dinosaur-like creature standing over me. Blades sprouted from its head and limbs. I screamed and tried to run. I ran straight for one of the cages and cannoned into it, so hard that I knocked the door off the hinges. The people inside reacted immediately, scattering like rabbits, running for the exit. I was up again in a moment; for a miracle, I hadn't been caught.

I kept running and those dinosaur-things and some people not in cages kept trying to catch me and the other people who'd gotten out. It was mayhem. My head was buzzing with shock, fear, and curiosity. I didn't know what was going on. Only five minutes ago, my life had been normal. Now, it would never be the same again.

None of the runners lasted very long. I was the last to be caught, because I hadn't ever had a Yeerk in my head, and I was completely in control of my own body. I was, that is, until Visser Three himself came in and ordered me straight to the Yeerk pool. I screamed and tried to struggle, but it wasn't any use. Two dinosaur-creatures (or Hork-Bajir, if you prefer) grabbed and held me in grips of iron as they forced my head down into the sludgy Yeerk pool.

For one horrible instant, I thought they were going to drown me. Then came the even more horrible sensation of a slimy slug reaching into my ear and squeezing down into my brain. I tried to jerk my head back, but I couldn't move. I tried to look somewhere else, but I couldn't move. I tried to scream, but the only place my voice sounded was in my head.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)

(Be quiet,) said a bored voice right into my mind.

I screamed again.

(I said, be quiet. I realize you've never been infested before, and I'm sure it's a traumatizing experience. But I don't have time for this. Shut up.)

(Who-who are you?) I choked out--well, maybe 'choked' isn't the right word.

(I am Renor-2-5-7,) the voice replied.

(What are you?)

(A Yeerk. Much superior to you pitiful little humans on your little backward planet.)

(A-a Yeerk? What have you done to me?)

But Renor was done talking to me. As the days went by, I pieced it together, as Controllers do. Gradually, I retreated farther and farther into my own head. I suppose I was a bit of a wimp. I felt so sorry for myself I didn't bother thinking about what could happen to the rest of the planet. But that all changed the day they infested Hanna.

She wanted to tag along with Renor to the Yeerk Pool, which turned out to be a big mistake. The Yeerks dragged her, kicking and screaming, toward the Pool, while her beloved sister stood and watched. Well, not quite. As a matter of fact, the minute they put their hands on her, Renor was out of there. As a matter of fact, I had control in an instant. I don't know how I did it, but maybe it was my complete lack of rebellion until then. At any rate, I shook Renor off like a dog shakes a flea, screamed at the Yeerks not to touch Hanna and ran and tackled a Hork-Bajir who had dared to lay his hands on my little sister.

Then I grabbed Hanna and started running for the exit when my brain caught up. I remembered that Renor would be coming back any minute, and I tried to yell at Hanna to run. Except she wouldn't. Not without me. She kept saying something about me coming too, and I kept trying to explain why I couldn't, but by that time, it was too late. Renor finally managed to wrest control of my body from me, and it was back to the Yeerk Pool for Hanna.

I suppose it's a testament to my newly-awakened spirit of rebellion that tears ran out of my eyes for a solid hour after that, and Renor couldn't stop them.

That was when I became a 'difficult host'. I resisted every hour of the day, and often the night. Renor got fed up. I sensed that she wasn't the most brutal Yeerk, and I went for her even harder. She had to spend an hour a day meditating, just to keep me from gaining control. Eventually, it began to look like I was going crazy. Renor had what I think was the Yeerk equivalent of a nervous break-down. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to grapple control from her before the Yeerks found out and rushed me off to the Yeerk Pool for a new host.

I gained quite a reputation in the next several years. Hardened Yeerks, the best in the business, begged not to have me as a host. I believe I was scheduled for termination because Visser Three was so desperate, when along came Drinid-328, my worst nightmare.

Drinid somehow had an uncanny knack of knowing whenever I was going to try something--and forestalling it. At the very worst, if she knew she wouldn't be able to control me, she would make a quick break for the bathroom. Eventually though, she became so used to me that no matter how hard I tried, she was always one step ahead. It was really that that got her the promotion, I think.

When she got her promotion, that was that. I could disappear. I was "killed" in a car wreck when I was trying to get my license. I kept trying to resist, but it was all to no avail. Although Visser Three still had me kept in a solitary cage to lessen the likelihood of my escape, it was more a courtesy to Drinid than anything else. Finally, after years of unending rebellion, I was beaten.

I was on the Blade Ship for about three weeks before the Andalite came. I had been left in my cage once again. By this time, I was so despairing that I went straight to sleep. I didn't think I could deal with being awake and thinking, really thinking, about where I was. So I went to sleep. I was awakened by a boy's voice--at least I thought it was a boy's voice at the time.

(Uh…would you like me to rescue you?) he said.