Disclaimer: I only own Casey and his family. All other characters are properties of K. A. Applegate and/or the other authors who are with me in this roleplay/collabfic.

A/N #1: {{}} = Thought-speech.

A/N #2: Personal thoughts are italicized.

*~*~*| Chapter 6 - The Cube |*~*~*

We need to do SOMETHING about Al.

"What do you mean you're 'one of them'?! Do you work for the Yeerks?! Are you trying to kill us, you son of a bitch?! Are you even human?! WHAT ARE YOU?! ANSWER ME!" William, in his frustration, picked Al up and bodily flung him into the nearest wall.

…not quite the "something" I would've done. Though I couldn't have done much better - I didn't even have any idea of what to do, honestly.

Also, note to self: Holy crap, DON'T piss William off!

"WHOA, whoa! Let's think about this calmly! Violence isn't going to get us anywhere!" I protested.

Before anyone could reply, Elfangor's thoughts made themselves known once again. {{We are out of time. Visser Five is here. She is a sort of Yeerk War-Prince. What would a human word for that be? General. Yes, general. She is ruthless, and far more dangerous than she may appear. I will buy you all as much time as I can, but I can take you no further in your escape. You must go on without me.}}

The "conversation" from then on turned into an unnerving one-sided, multi-threaded conversation, as Elfangor alternately spoke to us and the Yeerks. The influx of information was confusing – and hopefully the enemy wouldn't be able to hear what Elfangor was telling us! Was this thought thing directional? Was he thinking to us on different frequencies? Despite the immediate danger of the situation, I couldn't help but ponder the usefulness of such biology... or was it technology?

{{Visser Five. Come to take the credit for the work of your Hork-Bajir? How typical of a Yeerk…}}

{{DNA is acquired by touch. Focus is the key! Once DNA is acquired, then focus your mind on the creature you wish to morph, and the process will begin automatically. It will not hurt, but may feel strange.}}

The ship bustled with activity as everyone started searching the area for Elfangor's cube. The tension skyrocketed; this was the calm before the storm, and it was not a question of if, but when, the fighting would begin again in earnest. Elfangor was buying us time - we had to get out of there before then!

{{Is that Sub-Visser 54 I see cowering over there? Hedrick, it's been a long time! Tell me, how did things go on the Taxxon homeworld after we left?}}

{{Never stay in a morph for more than two Earth hours! If you stay too long, you will be trapped in morph forever!}}

There! Erik had found it!

It was a glowing blue cube (Blue again? Eiffel 65 were more correct than they knew), sat on a pedestal that was slightly hidden from view. It was quite small, with faces as large as an open palm. On its surface were strange glyphs – perhaps the written Andalite language? Erik reached out and grabbed it, transfixed. He took a deep breath, then entered a strange sort of trance – his breathing evened out as he absorbed whatever powers the box was giving him. The rest of us crowded in, waiting for our turn.

{{I had heard you preferred to command your troops directly, but even I am surprised that you'd come here to try and kill me yourself. And with a human host no less!}}

Host?

{{Yeerks are parasites, in the literal sense. They burrow into the brain and hijack the neurons, taking complete control of their host body. We call hosts controllers. Unfortunately, it is highly likely that the human or Hork-Bajir element of the controller was taken against their will, but is powerless to stop the Yeerk in their head.}}

When Elfangor thought… thought-spoke? to us, it was with the gentleness of a father to a child, and the patience of a teacher to a student. However, when he spoke to the Yeerks, it was with a well-honed blend of condescension and mockery, every word dripping with overwhelming sarcasm. The difference was astounding and extremely jarring. He must really hate these Yeerks, I realized as Anna took the cube from her brother. He's fought them for years, and probably even lost close friends in the war.

{{You Yeerks have taken everything from me. My colleagues, the ship that I for so long called home, and even my brother, Aximili - just an aristh! He was a CHILD!}}

Oh.

Oh no.

I think I was starting to understand the depth of his hatred, now.

{{You are standing over the top of an entrance to a Yeerk Pool. Yeerks must leave their host every three Earth days to feed in their pools, or face starvation. A scan of your planet from orbit found this to be a likely location for an entrance to one of these pools.}}

I started as Anna offered the cube to me. Holding it gingerly, I imagined the power the cube held flowing into me. I'm not sure what I expected, but when focusing on the cube, I could almost feel the cube pulse against my palms, sending a wave of calm sweeping through my body. It soon ended, which I took to mean that the transfer had completed.

Wait, I realized as I parsed what Elfangor had said previously. What about Al? The real Al? He's trapped in there against his will and this Yeerk, whatever it is, has stolen his body and is masquerading as him?!

Al, or the Yeerk, is on our side, though, I thought. Elfangor let him go.

He's a double agent! You just THINK he's on our side! How would you know for sure?

But he distracted that Hork-dino thing for us.

Maybe he distracted the Hork to get the morphing power! What's stopping him from running back to them once he can morph?!

Worried, I avoided passing the cube to Al, instead choosing to hand it to William. "I'm not so sure if Al should take this," I said aloud. "How do we know you won't run back to the Yeerks and give us all away?"

"Because I'm already dead if I go back there. I'm going to be dead in three days anyway. If they find out who I am, they'll make an example out of me. Besides, you need me. You cannot win this fight alone, none of us can. I'm rebelling."

That… didn't really help. It was all words and no way to show action. Why would he be dead? The Hork-thingy clearly listened to him. Nothing he said made sense, and that made me even more worried about trusting this alien!

"The things I need to win are also the things you need to win. I'll help you, if you help me. It starts with that cube, and a little bit of trust. I've already put a lot of trust with all of you, I only hope you also do for me. My name's Alazar. No bullshit numbers anymore, I'm my own free agent, no longer a numbered slave."

Oh, the irony.

"How are we supposed to trust you? Before today we didn't even know aliens existed. Now we discover that you guys, Yeerks and Andalites and Hork-Bajeezus or whatever exist, and you've taken over some poor guy's body? I don't know what this feud is about or why it started, but you're kind of on the wrong foot if you're taking humans as slaves! Why would you do that if you yourself were one?"

"And you KNEW! You already knew Elfangor, didn't you? You also knew Elfangor was going to offer us the power to morph, didn't you? 'Do you have IT on you'? Were you after the cube this whole time?" I could hear my voice rising – a product of all the stress we'd been through today, no doubt.

"You say we should trust you. How can we trust whatever you're saying now?" I crossed my arms and glared.

He's part of the invaders. He's a soldier. No, he's a spy. A double agent.

You don't give power to double agents.

"I don't like it one bit, either, but Elfangor let him follow us. Maybe he saw something in him that we can't. We don't have time to argue right now, though. I… I say we let him use it and figure out the rest once we're out of here," William pointed out. He glanced over at the siblings. "So what's the verdict? Should we let him use it?"

"I don't think he should use it. Yet. Maybe if he helps us get out of here we can consider it, but based on the noise and flashes outside, I don't think we have much time," Erik replied. "We should probably take that with us." He gestured at the glowing cube.

I was perfectly fine with that. I certainly didn't trust Alazar, and the fact that he had enslaved a fellow human rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn't about to let him get the ability to betray all of us without first knowing that he wouldn't, and as it stood, I knew nothing about him.

If Alazar was angered at my suggestion, he certainly made no outward indication of it. I couldn't make head or tail of his expression – it looked like he was internally at war with himself – but there was no protest for the moment.

Score one for him, I grudgingly conceded, calming down somewhat.

The shouting outside the spacecraft had gotten louder. Whatever Elfangor was doing to buy us time, it certainly wasn't going to last much longer.

"Look, Alazar. We want to trust you, but this has been too much to handle for everyone tonight. You'll have to forgive us for being overly-cautious, especially given the circumstances of your… uh… former employer," William diplomatically pointed out, in a stark reversal of his earlier demeanour. "Help us save Elfangor and get out of here and I'm sure nobody would object to giving you access to the cube… Please… I- I think we do need you. What do you know about this ship? Could-... could you fly it? Would there be weapons on-board that we could use to escape?" It's either that or we just run for it and pray we don't get atomized or infested… no offense…"

Anna, who had been silent for a while now, piped up with an interesting insight. "Your… your host," she began, "He… didn't want this, did he? What does he want now? Because I think… I think he needs to get a vote, too. We can't just - if you want me to trust you, alien punk, then you're gonna have to start telling us what your real-you thinks. If you wanna fight this war, you have to start by freeing the only person you've got a chance of freeing. And I know you can't do that right now, not properly, but all the same - I want to hear what your - your host has to say."

Ah.

I hadn't even considered if Alazar's prisoner could speak to us without being controlled. Yeah, if we could listen to the human, whatever his name was, speak, and he trusted Alazar, that certainly sounded like something, or someone, I could work with. If he was trustworthy, we'd have someone on our side who knew the Yeerks. If he wasn't trustworthy, we'd… well… I don't know, actually. It's not like we could just kill him or something.

A chill ran down my spine.

He knows who we are now, and he knows how we look like. If he's on our side, he needs the power. If he's on their side, and he runs back to them, they'll know who we are, whether or not he has the power, and some alien empire with freaking SPACESHIPS is not going to have any problems tracking us down. So we can't piss him off, and there's no way we can avoid letting him use the cube.

"As for getting out of here… I don't think flying is the best option. We're in suburbia, and I don't know about you guys, but a UFO? Pretty noticeable. By the time we landed we'd be surrounded by conspiracy nuts and journalists wanting our pictures. If any Yoghurts saw us, we'd be dead before dawn. If we're going to do this right, we need to do it sneakily. And that means getting out of here, with the cube, now."

And at that point, I heard – or thought-heard – the most terrifying, horrifying, blood-curdling scream.

*~*~*| 6 |*~*~*

As always, thanks go to /u/Shiiang (Anna), /u/mrmrspears (Erik), /u/tman008 (William and Elfangor) and /u/deadbravo (Alazar/Al) for allowing me to use their words in my retelling of the story.