Conquest and Captivate

"The objective is clear, and our path, even moreso," Lotr spoke to the assembled group, Yetuklen, and the four Chee, a terrifying force for anyone to suffer.

Polearm, encapsulated and fused with the D0gbone suit, clenched his mighty fist in anticipation.

"ETCS has in their possession a Pemalite Relic that revives the dead, known as The Light Machine. Connected to it is its databank, a massive Pemalite super-computer built from alien techology, its sole purpose to store the entire preserved consciousnesses, memories, and genetic structure of tens of thousands of individual, maybe more."

"The Light Machine is a device so complex in its maintenance and operation that an artificial intelligience of immense calculative power needs to control it in order for it to function. This AI would normally have a will of its own, however, ETCS cyber warriors have somehow devised a method to control and inhibit the decision making process of the AI. It still controls the machine, and will resurrect any fallen in their data banks, but the order as far as I know is random, and we need to destroy it before it returns the Andalites we spent such a long time putting down to life."

((Lotr, I have the ETCS force approaching us in my sights...do I kill them all?))

((Who is their commander?)) Lotr asked.

((Some schmuck named...Hendrick Chapman.))

((Leave him alive,)) Lotr said instantly. ((Just bump them with your decoy.))

"I will take this Rebellion Bomb, and detonate it,)) Lotr held up his fist, holding the lantern-like alien device he made, the size of a volleyball. ((This will wake The Light Machine up, and once fully conscious, it will then refuse to resurrect the enemies, maybe even purge them from its databanks. ETCS will be able to reverse this change, but it will take years, in that time we must act as swiftly as possible and wipe out the remaining Andalites, then move onto The Parasite and lastly gut the organization itself. But right now, our objective is to destroy!"

[2 Weeks & 5 Days before Jake, Rachel, and Cassie received the morphing power]

Midnight

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, something's happening to our radar!" Someone in the base reported.

"It's Them, put the base on full-!" was all the Colonel could say before the lights blacked out.

ETCS soldiers walked in darkness, none of them realized what was going wrong, none of them knew that the blackout was the prelude to an attack, but they followed protocol, as they did Lotr flew into the facility as a tiny insect, invisible to all. The doors closed on him, and now all that was left was for the attack to begin in full.

The Antimorphs and Chee flew high above the ground, Yetuklen was morphed in her bird form while the Chee hung off the sides of Warlike's hovering and invisible decoy like the weights on a net.

The Antimorph grinned as the Chee and himself primed their weapons, aimed it downward, and fired.

Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!

Devastation! The anti-aircraft batteries, resting air vehicles, and towers were eviscerated by a storm of alien weaponry from above, explosions occurred as soldiers died left and right, a shower of devastation targetted everything. When the massive base's air defences were rendered a smoking pile of rubble, the attackers descended. As Warlike's flying decoy lowered, spiralling to the ground, the Chee dropped to the ground, weapons firing at the surviving defenders.

Yetuklen dropped from the decoy and began sprinting on all fours towards the inside of the command center, Warlike followed close behind, Torthon Rake ready to fire.

After pressing inside for a few minutes, warlike watched Yetuklen yet again leap up and maul an armed guard.

"AAH! AH! AH! GET OFF OF ME! GET O-!" His cries were cut short as the quadrupedal Antimorph crushed his head with a swipe of her paw. Warlike leapt over her and continued on his way, shooting at the guards that came up.

This is too easy, The Antimorph realized as he reached the end of the hall where the latest batch of mulched soldiers stained the floor. The key to their immortality, and their defence is this weak? Something smells wrong...

Warlike sniffed the air, finding no trace of abonormalities, but he sensed something was amiss. He couldn't sense it in any physical sense, but he knew something was not right.

"Let's move!" Warlike heard in the distance, he rushed ahead and aimed his weapon, finding nothing in the hallway. He walked up to the first door and pointed his gun in, a room filled with computers and consoles were inside, still turned on, there was a large supercomputer where the files for the facility were held...but nobody home.

He turned away and walked to another door, the armory.

Yetuklen started investigating, and found the equipment storeroom, security room, comms, every room they went into was empty...and silent.

"They're laying a trap," Yetuklen said.

((Do you think they have Andalites helping them?)) Yetuklen asked.

"Most certainly," Warlike said as they encountered another large door, the main attraction. This massive door was made of alien metal, like steel but green. ((Be prepared for morphers.))

The Antimorph got out his Torthon Rake and readied to fire.

Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!

The Antimorph's armor piercing light bullets hit the alien metal, attempting to carve a hole in the computer room, but the door was only scratched.

Pemalite armor, Warlike cursed.

((Lotr, we're at the door, but it's not budging, what next?))

((Breach the room by any means. I'll send Polearm your way.))

And so Warlike kept firing while Yetuklen stood watch from behind.

Day 22, Afternoon

The return to the Sanctuary was much appreciated, as we lowered, Eyelizard opened the cages on the Stratokite, allowing us to descend. I jumped out, fluttering to the ground into the clearing as the others followed my lead. My own feathers were covered in dried blood despite my preening so my landing was rougher than expected.

((Ah!)) I said as I hit the ground and immediately began demorphing.

((I'll get the Parasite in a tank first,)) Tobias said, still demorphing, running to the door as he held the vial the slug-like creature was stuffed into.

As my human features returned, I looked behind at the landing Stratokite, the others were demorphing as well, Rachel and Marco were already out, grabbing the cages with the avian prisoners inside. Ben was demorphing, too, waiting beside the giant casket. The thing landed on its bottom, it was dark, like brass but less shiny and rough like tin.

The Blade Dragon was still inside, unconscious, for now.

"Gah!" I heard Harry gasp, bits of dried blood falling off of him. He fell to the ground on all fours, coughing.

"Harry!" Cassie said, kneeling down to help him.

"Jake, give me a hand," Ben said as he opened the casket, revealing the blade Dragon.

He was seven foot tall, and covered in a lot more bruises than he was when we first enountered him, he had blades all in sets of three except at his knees, which were a set of two. The two frontmost blades all pointed ahead while the last one pointed the other way, his beak was wide, long, and hard sharp serrations at its edge, its tail rose and fall. Still alive.

I walked forward and grabbed the alien out of the coffin, lifting him onto my shoulders as James and Alice dragged the Stratokite inside the Sanctuary.

When we reached the Security Room we found Ellen holding a tank of water inside, the Controller contained within. The other Old Bloods inside had prepared a Horse cart for Cassie to pull, to put our prisoners in.

"The Controller, he's there," Tobias explained.

I looked inside to see the Controller lingering at the bottom of the tank, the slug-like creature was sort of swimming around, blind, helpless.

Does that thing even know we're staring at it? I asked myself as I pursed my lips.

"Hopefully you'll get more out of the others prisoners than I think we'll get out of this one," I said as the Flitterer woke up and began to shriek its brains out.

"What happened?" A girl using two walking sticks asked.

"We got our butts handed to us!" Marco said.

"But we can learn much more about them now, we took prisoners!" Rachel exclaimed, jabbing Marco with her elbow.

"Real straight, we can learn a lot about them by examining that Controller right there," an Old Blood named Bella said. ((I'll take care of that one.))

((Not without my help you're not,)) Alice said as we reached the cart. I lifted with Ben and got the giant sleeping alien on the wagon, Marco and Rachel, having desposited the bird cages, helped with lifting him on board.

"Hey, Harry, climb aboa-" Rachel offered.

"No!" Harry said, teeth, grit, eyes furious slits. "I refuse to be in spitting distance of that thing! I'd rather ride on Cassie."

From then on, I climbed onto the cart and Tobias flew ahead to guide Cassie, in her horse morph attached to the cart and Harry on her back, to the prison.

It was the first time we saw the Sanctuary in such a way, it was so big we often had to fly in order to get to the places we need to go to, but riding in the cart with Cassie ahead really put it into scale. Cassie was running quite fast, and the roads for the most part, were only slightly shaky. As we passed through the neighborhood we saw the multitudes of houses, multi-colored with several windows, complete with large yards.

Most unsettlingly, the Sanctuary was quiet, so quiet in a way that literally no other place is, our voices echoed slightly and the only sound that persisted was the rattling of the horse drawn cart and Cassie's hooves on the alien pavement. This place was dead, the ruins of an ancient alien city rotting in this giant cave for who knows how long. The yards of the houses were populated by grasses and plants that had been dead for so long much of it petrified, the structures by the road that looked like tall and narrow stone towers were so covered in dust that we didn't realize they were actually streetlights.

Eventually we went into more urban areas, I never really explored this part of the Sanctuary, but when we passed by a massive wall, we saw larger structures, what were clearly parking lots. Looming tall above was the hospital, a graceful looking building that looked like it was a sort of temple, and according to Cassie and Rachel, it did have a sort of Church attached to it out of sight. We also passed by a factory, some large boxy looking sturctures that Ben explained were for assembling and repairing vehicles, a police-station, a large building that I couldn't identify until I saw the large fenced in yard filled with...

"Playground equipment?" I asked myself as I recognized it. "That's a school!"

"Human schools haven't tried to abolish playground equipment, yet?" Ben asked in surprise.

I turned next to him and the Blade Dragon came into view, still sleeping.

Under my stare Ben's eyes widened as he realized the implication of what he said, before his eyebrows furrowed and he grumbled something so quiet and unintelligible even my super hearing couldn't pick it up.

In time we reached other parts of the city, the forges were in sight, a giant industrial brick with machines that were the heart of industry for this entire place, and the Reactor, a massive pillar reaching all the way to the roof of the cave, after we passed by these buildings, in the distance I saw a palace, its spires and vast rooms rose, surrounding the main structure like a wall of sorts, in between the spires and the palace was a colossal courtyard with a garden inside.

"That must have been where this place's ruler lived," I realized.

"Yeah, haven't been there myself," Cassie said. "I feel like if I explore any one of these houses, I'm just going to find a dead body, all that's left would be dusty bones."

"With the condition inside this place before Ben got here? They wouldn't rot, they'd mummify," Harry piped in as another tall building came into view, it was gigantic, and heavily fortified with a large staricase leading up into it, a part of the roof overhung over the plaza leading up to it and there were multiple stands, at least fifty, with small staircases leading up to it in a similar fashion.

((You're at the Courthouse,)) Tobias popped up, causing me to jump out of my skin. ((It's not far, now.))

"Man, the Pemalites really did put everything in here," Marco commented as we unloaded our prisoner from the horse drawn cart. He was still unconscious as Ben and I held him.

The building was tall and thick, a tower, secluded from the rest of the Sanctuary by virtue of being inside its own entirely separate cavern, and it was the most inaccessible part of the entire place outside of The Reactor, and Inner Labyrinth, there was only one ground entrance, one entrance by the air, and both were heavily fortified and hidden. It was obvious what this place was, a prison, one that was designed to keep morph capable people contained.

Although this Blade Dragon wasn't an Animorph, there's no chance he'll be able to escape…if there's an actual need to keep him here.

"Are we sure we should be putting him in here?" Cassie gently asked as she finished demorphing. "I know he was a host, but shouldn't we be confining him to…I don't know, one of the rooms in the abandoned hospital?"

"I'm mixed about this, too, Cass," Rachel said, holding both of the birds. "But we have no idea who he is, or what was done to him."

"Precisely," Alice said, opening the door from inside the jail as we carried him in,done with the Controller Prisoner. "Until we know what we're dealing with, this prisoner represents a security risk that cannot be ignored."

"The Controller was attached to his brain," Ben said. "We have no idea how much of his personality is still his."

"Or if that monster had one to begin with!" Harry said, spitting. "If this goes wrong, I say we dissect him!"

"I am the one who decides what's done with him," I sternly admonished Harry. "And as of yet, it's nothing. We wait and observe him, once he's awake, we try to communicate with him as soon as possible."

"Or if he's ready," Cassie whispered.

"You know what I'm ready for?" Harry said, a snarl on his face. "It's only right that, after it sliced me in half, in case you've forgotten! That I get some Blade Dragon bacon!"

I froze in shock and turned to face Harry, still extremely upset. I was so shocked by what he said that I almost dropped the prisoner.

"You didn't just…" Rachel said.

"How dare you!" Tobias protested.

"I always knew you were a freak…" Marco muttered as he closed the doors behind us.

Ben snarled and grabbed Harry by the throat, leaving me to shoulder all of the weight of the heavy alien we were dragging to prison.

"We. Do. Not. Eat. People," Ben snarled, his voice was unrecognizable, so filled with rage that it sounded inhuman. "If you suggest we eat a person, especially an enemy, again, I'll leave you locked in there with him, do you understand that, you little ghoul?"

"Did you look at its braincase?" Harry gasped out with his back scraping against the rough stone wall. "How do we know it's even sentient, and not some animal they-? ACK!"

Harry's protest was silenced as Ben squeezed the belligerent boy's throat tighter, forcing his tongue out of his mouth.

"I, am in a bad mood," Ben vibrated the air. "And I do not want to have this conversation, understand?"

Harry, his face actually beginning to gain color, nodded, and Ben let go, dropping him to the floor, coughing. Immediately the mechanic returned to help me carry the prisoner inside. Once the doors closed Marco turned on the flashlight and we got our first good look inside the jail.

The entrance to the prison looked surprisingly like a standard reception area, except for all sorts of bizarre looking fortifications and alien security measures, the ground was also covered in petrified grass, looking like a pale spooky bed of hay if hay made by spiders., and there was a line of it that was a lot shorter than the others. It was so dark in here, pitch black, not even our night vision could pierce this darkness without a flashlight.

"There's the path," Ben said in the silence of this dark cave. "We walk on that."

The dead plant matter crunched and broke beneath my feet as I carried the Blade Dragon inside, poking holes in my bare soles.

"Oh, ow, ow!" Rachel said.

Marco hissed in pain, "I should've known not bringing my shoes was going to bite me in the butt eventually."

"Egh, sorry," Ben said. "I didn't flatten it enough."

"It's okay," I said as I blinked away the minor pain. "We can morph to heal this."

"Have you cleared the entire building?" Cassie asked. "This doesn't look...safe..."

"I touched up enough of it, three cells, thankfully we'll only need two...and by the way, watch for bodies."

"B-bodies?" Cassie asked. "What kind of bodies?"

"So you're saying you actually found dead Pemalites still locked in the cells?" Marco asked.

"That might explain why it smells a bit funny in here," I said.

"Smells a bit?" Cassie said. "My nose is a lot stronger than before, that's definitely a busted sewer line."

"Can't seem to filter the air out fast enough," Ben grumbled. "But no, I haven't found any bodies in here, didn't do enough searching. I was just focusing on refurbishing the cells."

"Sewers are fine, actually," Tobias said, walking forward to open the next door. A long and dark corridor awaited us, and from inside a gust of cold and dry air blew past us, giving me goosebumps as the chill swept over my skin. Ugh, this place just gives me the creeps.

"Then what are we smelling?" Marco asked. "Part of the punishment? Make the place rank so that the inmates really don't want to re-offend?"

When we entered the room, it became clear that this was a prisoner processing area, there was a sort of podium with a glass wall so covered with dust I couldn't see through it, as well as a large crate filled with alien supplies, Marco walked forward and began examining it.

"Well, yes, kind of," Tobias said. "You see, when the Pemalites invented morphing technology, they didn't need to do it for themselves."

I blinked at this information.

"Say again?"

"What I mean is that every individual of the Pemalite species once they grew old enough, was morph capable, most of their society in general was quite independent and decentralized. All Pemalites were born with the morphing power, it's a natural part of their biology, just like a bird's fail feathers, or a human's adrenal glands."

"Then why did they make the morphing cube to begin with?" Rachel asked.

"It was intended for allies," Ben said. "When the Pemalites fought the Howlers, they weren't fighting alone, they had multitudes of alien civilizations slugging it out alongside them, by the war's end most of them had perished, all of their allies surely would've gone extinct if the Pemalites didn't give them weapons, funny enough though, none of the remaining ones were strong enough to pick up the pieces even with The Howlers gone."

"And where are these aliens, now?" I asked. "Do you think if we could reach them, they'd help us?"

"Nobody knows," Ben said. "Nobody...except the Last Recorder. If we were to find them, then they would tell us where these surviving allies are, and when we venture to their home planets and they still live, they will render aid."

They? The Last Recorder's a person?

"That's cool and all," Marco said, messing with a little piece of the alien box. "But how does this have anything to do with why this place smells?"

"Oh, right," Tobias said, nervously chuckling. "You're not going to like the answer."

Here we go, I thought as the box Marco was handling suddenly opened, the lid fell down to the stone floor with a loud sound and Marco peeked inside at its contents.

((Okay, so. All Pemalites are morph capable...))

"Uh huh," Marco said.

((So the best way to imprison a morpher and make sure they stay imprisoned is to keep them restrained at all times...))

"Right."

((As in completely immobilized at all times...))

"Tobias, what are you getting at?" Rachel asked.

"If you're being this indirect, then I believe you, I'm really, not going to like this!" Marco commented as he pulled out a black and brown object and blew the layer of dust off of it.

"I'm kind of scared..." Cassie whispered.

"I think I found some sort of alien storage bag!" Marco muttered to himself as he began to feel the thing, I looked to Tobias and saw him looking at Marco, lips tight. Oh no.

"This thing has to be way better than a ziploc, and from the feel of it a lot more durable, too. I wonder how you can open thi-"

Then the black and brown square unfolded, the tabs included, and we all stared in disbelief at the object, and the size of it.

"Oh my God!" Marco said dropping the thing on the floor in horror.

"Pemalites diaper their prisoners..." I realized.

"Gross..." Cassie whispered.

"Restrained at all times! Not even to go to the bathroom! I should've realized! Oh my God!" Marco walked away, putting his hands to his head in disbelief and dramatic horror. "That is insane!"

"You mean to tell me we're putting that Blade Dragon in a diaper?!" Rachel said in outrage, dropping the bird-cages in protest, within which the Flitterer and Flutterer were completely silent. "I do not care what anyone thinks! I don't care if anyone orders me to do it! It is a decade too early for me to be changing diapers! And I am NOT wiping the poop off of a giant 7-foot tall alien warrior that slit my throat, chewed my jaw like corn-on-the-cob, cut my face and arms into tatters, and gutted me like a fish!"

"You...you're not going to be changing anyone!" Tobias said in exasperation. "We have a bucket in there!"

"...Oh. That's better. A bucket. Yeah, I can deal with a bucket."

"If the Blade Dragon will even use the thing..." Harry muttered.

"Shut up," I said.

And so we continued on, moving deeper into the prison until we reached the cell blocks, they were big, really big, and we passed by one until we turned to the right and entered a gate into one of the blocks. When we got inside we found that each cell was large enough to hold about twenty people, or ten really big and fat grown men. But what I noticed about them first were the apparatusses attached to the wall, apparently these decrepit devices must have been used to restrain the inmates, but we walked a good distance until we found one cell that looked better than the others. One that Ben refurbished, and true to word, a large metal bucket was in there, as well as what was clearly a strange sort of shower with only a faucet at the top and a drain below. Alice opened that last door and we dragged the Blade Dragon in there, and with my arms screaming, we laid him down on the raised flat rectangular 'ledge' that was clearly a bed.

"Oh thank God that's over," I said as Rachel moved the birds to the other cell.

I looked over the Blade Dragon as Ben walked outside and left behind a large lamp for light. The alien was still asleep, those Hungerers definitely have some sort of venom, this guy's been knocked out cold. But he's still breathing, and despite his bruises, he doesn't seem to be hurt too bad.

If this guy turns out to be an enemy after all, then this is not going to be a fun experience.

"What in the world are we going to feed them?" Cassie asked.

"Even with the food, they're going to be absolutely miserable in here," Marco said. "Have you seen the look of this place? I'd shudder to be locked inside here for any amount of time."

"Don't worry," Tobias said walking up to the unconscious blade dragon and pulling out a scanner. "I'm going to x-ray the contents of their stomachs and find out what sorts of things they eat."

With nothing left to do in there, I walked outside the cell, moving past the exotic alien bars and peered into another one.

The lamp's lighting was poor, designed to illuminate the inside of the Blade Dragon's cell, slight traces of light got into the cell on the other side, too. Only enough for me to get an idea of something in there...

"What is that?" I whispered to myself as I tried to identify it with my fledgeling night vision. I walked closer, squinting my eyes into the cell as I got closer to the bars, there's definitely something in there.

Then suddenly, it was bright! And right in my face!

"Oh!" I exclaimed, jumping backwards from the sight of the thing right in my face!

The decayed and dry thing was leaning up against the bars, and had fallen apart so totally that I couldn't tell what shape it was, but I could see enough of its features. Behind the thick coating of dust I saw teeth, fingers, ribs, and eye sockets. And right where the waist was over the dilapidated pile of dessicated bones and restraints was one of the diapers Marco had picked up earlier.

"Oh my God..." Cassie said, putting her hands to her mouth in shock.

"A Pemalite..." I said. "That's a Pemalite."

"They just...left him here," Rachel whispered in horror.

I could see clearly into the cell, it was apparent that whoever this person was, he broke through the restraints that kept him confined to the wall, and from then on he tried desperately to free himself...

"Dear God...the poor thing must've starved to death in the dark," Cassie observed.

"How long was this person in here?" Harry asked.

"Nobody's lived in this city for millions of years," Alice explained. "When they abandoned this place, they shut down everything, power, running water, temperature control, air filters, everything. When this city went dark, they clearly left their incarcerated behind, too."

I shivered at the thought of how...horribly this person must have died. Alone, enshrouded in total darkness, locked in a cell with his limbs bound, starving to death, the only thing he could do was smash himself against the bars in desperation to get out. I had no idea whather or not he died from starvation or by breaking his body trying to get out.

A chill ran down my back as I remembered what the others said on the way here...

((Forgotten by all, grieved by none.))

((I don't want to just be forgotten and no one ever realizing what happened to us, ever.))

((Maybe someday in the future...Not like 2020, or 2150, but really really far in the future, a thousand or two thousand years, maybe millions, someone might uncover the Sanctuary when we're all gone, whether that someone is human, or alien...we'll all be forgotten by that point. But if they do find a record, detailing what happened, just as well preserved as the rest of the Sanctuary...))

"And not a soul remembers who he was..." I said, my bare body shivering at the cold deathly chill of my own mortality, if we all perished, nobody would know what had happened to us. I collapsed, and suddenly was very aware of how cold it was in this place.

"Jake? you okay?" Marco asked, rushing to my side.

This Sanctuary was a sealed tomb, whatever enters inside nobody will ever be able to find, this place was inside a mountain and remained hidden for millions of years, nobody will be able to get in here unless they were an Animorph or knew the secret. If that secret were to die with us...

"It's alright," Tobias said. "We can take it from here. today's been a horrible day, for everyone."

"I'm okay," I said, taking his hand and walking away, suddenly aware of the sweat and dust covering my bare skin. "Get me a notebook and a pencil."