Chapter 1

Several Years Later...

RING!

The alarm pierced the air. It was time for those brief moments that come along every 3 days. It was time for my tormentor, Visser Three, to leave my body and feed on Kadrona rays. Kadrona rays are what keeps a Yeerk alive, they will die of Kadrona Starvation if they don't feed every three days.

Several Hork Bajir gathered around me as Visser Three's slug like body exited though my right ear. Hork Bajir on either side of my grabbed my arms while one behind me detained my deadly Andalite Tail. In my brief moments of freedom, I shifted my stalk eyes around, observing my surroundings. As I swept the area, I caught sight of something amazing. The Hork Bajir detaining my Tail had several scars on his wrists. It may not seem like much, but when your recent existence has been as dreary as mine, it's a golden sliver of hope. A sudden jerk of my tail and I'd be free.

(It's now or never.) I said to myself.

In a quick, upward thrust, my tail broke free and knocked the rear Hork Bajir upside it's head. It was too easy. Next I swung my deadly tail in the direction of the right Hork Bajir. My tailblade severed the tips of his fingers before he could administer a knockout toxin used to put hosts in a deep sleep while their Yeerks feed on Kadrona.

The rush of combat filled my body. It felt so nostalgic, I felt like I'd never even used my tail before, yet it moved like I had used it all my life.

I made a fist with my right hand and struck the remaining Hork Bajir with it. To my surprise, he fell over with little resistance. Visser Three had clearly found more uses for Andalite arms than the Andalite species itself, as my arms were much stronger than I remember.

I swiftly made my way down a corridor, fleeing from the frenzy at the pool. I put my tail blade to my neck, finally, the sweet release of death would end the torture that has been my life, and remove the thorn from the side of every race in the galaxy still fighting for justice.

(No.)

Never did it occur to me in my countless but suppressed thoughts of escape, that I would have a chance survive after freeing myself from my captors. I would have to blend with the Controllers in the underground Yeerk hideout, a monumental task, but less daunting when you have the Andalite morphing technology.

I had two choices, two morphs. I could morph a Hork Bajir, or I could morph a Taxxon. I morphed a Taxxon once long ago, and quickly decided it was something I'd never want to experience again, so the choice was clear.

In moments I was several feet taller with blades everywhere on my body, from on the usual tail, to my shoulders and elbows.

I navigated the underground pool with ease, as I had seen Visser Three and the other Yeerks do several times. I approached the exit, which consisted of a shaft leading to an unassuming two story building on the streets above. I turned the corner to enter the shaft when I was confronted by several Taxxons.

"Hisssssssss!" One of the Taxxons spoke to me using it's various mouth sounds. I didn't hesitate, 1 Hork Bajir against several Taxxons might sound like bad odds, but in reality, all I really had to do was to defeat one of them. One of the Taxxons threw it's body at me.

SLICE

With a quick jerk of my arm, the large blade on my Hork Bajir elbow nearly cut the Taxxon in two. That's when the hunger set it, Taxxons are cannibalistic by nature, they are driven by an undying hunger, even the Yeerks inside them couldn't stop their Taxxon bodies from gathering around their dead comrade to tear him apart and ingest him through their giant, red, mouths.

I entered the building above and began to demorph. I noticed several insects an arachnids on the floor of the building and scanned the area for a suitable subject. I spotted a rather large arachnid with tiny hairs all over it, I placed my hand on it and began the process of aquiring it for the purpose of morphing.

I began morphing as quickly as possible, I heard footsteps approaching. 5 Hork Bajir Controllers barged into the room just as I had completed the process, they used a various hand signals that I was unfamiliar with and began searching the room. I scurried through the shadows and up a wall. Everything was very dark, there was no windows and only a very small light at the top of the room, I found a set of stairs and began climbing them, not an easy task when you're, well, whatever I had chosen to morph. Two steel doors were at the top, lying parallel to the floor of the room, I saw a tiny opening, sunlight was pouring through. I tried to squeeze through, but it was much too small.

I felt the footsteps of the controllers racing up the stairs, I knew my only chance was to escape through this hole. A terribly sharp pain shot through my body, I managed to push my way through, but in doing so, I had torn off 3 of my 8 legs, and my movement was extremely impaired.

Somehow, perhaps by the grace of an Ellimist, the Hork Bajir Seers, or a primitive human 'god', I was able to crawl to the back of the building, I had one choice; wait out the controller patrol. Only 10 minutes later did the patrol give up their search, however, it seems like days when you're trapped and panic stricken in a tiny, mangled, arachnid body.

While I waited, I contemplated what I would do once I got out of this mess, I thought of several options, but they all lead back to one solution. I would rendezvous with the "Andalite Bandits", the secret task force of Andalites that survived the crash of the Dome Ship Galaxy Tree, defeated in the space battle that was the Andalite's last ditch effort in stopping the Yeerk invasion of Earth. If I could reach the bandits, we could contact the Andalite fleet and I would tell them everything I had learned and it would be our greatest intelligence victory of all time.

When, at last, the coast was clear, I began to demorph, and enjoy the freedom of the Andalite body that was once mine several years ago.