Prologue
The Ellimist was not happy. He wasn't exactly angry, either. A being such as the Ellimist was too big, too complicated, for the simple emotions of happyness or anger. But, if there was an emotion that could appropriately describe the state of most of it, it would be sadness. It had once been called a brilliant looser. That had been a long time ago, back before it was an it, when it was still a he. It still considered itself a brilliant looser, although nowadays it often won. But right now it felt like the dimmest of winners. And it had won, it could see it now. Victory was right there. But it knew the cost. "Well played, Crayak" the Ellimist said. Sacrificing a pawn to win a game. Sometimes it was unavoidable. "You know what the price is" Crayak responded. The Ellimist remained silent. There was only one way for the Dlind to survive the attack from the Bhanders. An attack on the Bhander base. Situated on an island, with anti air railgun defences, and being masters at manipulating any kind of metal through the use of magnetic fields, the Bhanders were very close to annihilating the entire Dlind species with a single, bur very powerful, nuclear explosion. Only a small team of experienced warriors, capable of infiltrating and destroying said base could do it. They would need to be able to go on air, land and water. And they would need to be able to do it without a single piece of metal on them. Which meant there was only one group of people in the galaxy that could do it. And they would not do it for free. And what they were going to ask for was going to destroy them.
A/N Welcome! This story diverges from Animorphs right after Visser Three's trial. Basically, ignore the second half of the last book. It also changes a few things from the later books, but nothing major. This story is a bit of a remake of one i started right after finishing the series for the first time, but I felt I was missing something. So I have now reread it and I now have a bit of a plan. I will also try to make this story's chapters somewhat larger than I did. Anyways, I hope you liked the prologue, and let's get started!
Chapter 1: The professor.
"Good morning." the child said.
Alex looked up from his phone and exchanged looks with his friend, Jacob. They were both quite confused at the sight of the boy who had walked on to the stage and had started turning on the computer. Alex didn't consider himself that smart, but he was pretty sure that university teachers were supposed to be old men with white hair and bad manners, not twelve year olds who could barely reach for the screen.
"Oh he must be one of the super smart kids trying to play a joke on us" Jacob reasoned. Alex agreed with him. That child surely was one of those geniuses who skipped all of high school and got straight into university. Why he would choose ornithology, if he was so smart, escaped Alex's comprehension.
"Welcome to North American Ornithology" the boy said. "My name is Tobias, and I will be your teacher for this semester", he continued.
"Is this some kind of joke?" a girl in the front row said.
"What is your name?" the boy asked. He had big, expressive eyes, but he managed to not express anything with them. He was also wearing the strangest outfit, a skin tight brown shirt, and some dark jeans that were just a bit too small for him. He was not wearing any shoes, which Alex found unusual. Perhaps he was emulating Andalites, who didn't wear any shoes.
While Alex was thinking about the boy, the girl responded . "Rachel García" She said. For just a second the boy's expressionless face showed a glimpse of shock, but quickly he regained his previous expression and answered "Well, Miss García, I can assure you this is not a joke. Now, back to the class…"
While Tobias got started with the class, the students began whispering among themselves. It was not a very large class, only about twenty students in total were present. Alex didn't really know most of them, except Jacob. They had started university together a couple of years ago, and had managed to stay together ever since. They had started in a larger group, but slowly the group had drifted apart. While neither he nor Jacob were excellent students, they had managed to pass all of their subjects so far, although there had been a few close calls. And they had seen a lot of weird teachers. However, this teacher, Tobias, who was currently rambling on about how the class was structured, was the most unique. Alex was still not convinced this wasn't a prank, but this Tobias guy had been talking for almost ten minutes now and no teacher had shown up yet. Well, maybe Tobias was older than he looked and he just had some kind of illness that had prevented him from growing or something, Alex thought, and once he shared his idea with Jacob he also agreed. So, while Jacob started making some origami figures, Alex began taking notes and paying attention to Tobias. He was not that bad of a teacher actually, he was managing to make the first class entertaining, and he was getting them excited about some trips to the woods he said he was planning.
"Ornithology is the study of birds, however there are many birds in the world. Even here, in North America, there are many different species, and we don't have time to talk about all of them. So we are going to focus mainly on raptors for the first half of the semester, and then we will talk a bit about the other families", Tobias said. All of the students were excited to hear this, as most of them had grown up hearing about the legendary Animorphs, who some thirty years ago had defeated the Yeerks and opened humanity to interstellar travel with the aid of the Andalites. It was still extremely expensive, so most of humanity lived on earth, but still, it was due to the legends of these heroes that most of them were in ornithology, studying the very animals they had used in their war effort. And raptors had been among the most used, so everyone was very excited. Most of them were here due to what was known as "The forgotten Animorph". The only Animorph whose name had never been revealed to the general public, the only one of the still living that had never made an appearence on television. The last time the red tailed hawk had been seen had been in Rachel's funeral, when he had landed on the empty tomb for a few minutes. It was assumed that, if he was still alive, he was living somewhere in the middle of the American forests, perhaps with the Hork-Bajir, perhaps not.
It was Friday night now, the first Friday of the semester, and Jacob and Alex were meeting with their friends, Cassie and Jaime. There were a lot of Cassies, Rachels, Jakes, and Marcos, and even a few Axes, in their generation, as the people who grew up hearing about the originals named their kids in their honor.
Alex hadn't known Cassie or Jaime before Jacob introduced him to them, but now they were good friends, and they met every Friday for some drinks. Cassie was studying law, and Jaime had been working as an independent programmer for some time now. He was actually a pretty good hacker, self taught as he had never received formal education, but he rarely ever used his abilities. Cassie wouldn't let him anyways. While she didn't believe the justice system was perfect, she did believe in following the law, even if the law was stupid, as she argued that there are mechanisms to change stupid laws within the system, which is why she was studying law. She hoped to be an important lawyer some day. Meanwhile, Jacob and Alex were studying ornithology because they liked birds. Good enough reason, they always said.
That night they were exchanging impressions on their first classes, and the conversation quickly turned towards the weird new teacher, Tobias.
"He moves weirdly, like he doesn't have a lot of balance. He constantly bumps into things." Alex said.
"Maybe that's related to why he looks so young, he must have had a hard life if he is as old as you say he sounds" Cassie said.
"He's like, totally not normal, dude" Jacob said, who had somehow managed to turn his napkin into a school bus. His ability to make literally anything out of any piece of paper never ceased to amaze Alex.
"Yeah"-Alex agreed-"all the other classes are three hours long, but his are only an hour and a half, divided on two days. However, it does seem like he knows his birds, I'll give him that". Jacob nodded at this, making the bus roll over the table, the wheels actually turning.
"By the way, Cassie, have you seen Marco's latest film?" Jaime said.
"Jaime, you know I don't watch that kind of action movies"
"Yes, but this one is different. It's about Visser Three's trial, and they say there are new images never before seen. Apparently, they have even managed to convince Jake to appear in it, the real Jake."
"Maybe we can all go see it tomorrow" Alex said, not wanting to miss out on what would probably be their last chance to hang out together before everyone (except Jaime, he thought with a bit of jealousy) started having exams. He hoped they would still meet every Friday though, but outside of that, they would be too busy.
"Yeah!" Jacob said, wearing a top hat made with Alex's napkin. "I'm a bit low on the economical side of things though" he continued, looking at Jaime.
"We are not pirating the movie, that is illegal!" Cassie exclaimed, before Jaime could say anything. "No way! I will lend you some money, if you really need it, but I am not watching a pirated film."
"Chill, girl, it was just a joke" Jacob quickly responded, tipping his hat, which undid the sculpture and covered him, making everyone laugh.
The movie ended up being a bit boring. It was more of a documental than an actual film. It still made about a bazillion dollars, of course, like all of Marco's movies before it. Fortunately through the film Cassie would explain all the little dettails and important stuff the others had missed, which made it much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been, so in the end they had quite a bit of fun. The next few weeks passed by swiftly, without anything worth mentioning. Alex made a few friends in other classes, although none as close as Jacob. Tobias was still as weird as ever. Always squinting, as if he needed glasses, always barefoot, always wearing the same unusual clothes. Now only about half the people actually went to class, but that was still more, relatively speaking, than most other subjects. Professor Smith's class, for example, had started with over fifty students, but only about half a dozen bothered to show up. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that professor Smith was, in fact, an old man with white hair and bad manners. The only reason Alex still went to that class was because it was one of the few he shared with Jacob, and although Jacob looked like the kind of student who would always be high on something outside the class they were supposed to be in, Jacob never missed a class, and the only thing he was ever high on was his own imagination. In fact, Alex had never seen him drink any alcohol. He always had the weirdest drinks, but never anything with alcohol. Coke with orange juice? Sure. But never anything intoxicant.
A few weeks after the beginning of classes something unusual happened. That morning, unlike all other Thursdays until then, when the door opened, it wasn't professor Tobias the one who walked in. Instead, a middle aged woman did. She seemed to be in her early thirties and was wearing a lab coat and, as Jacob pointed out, she was indeed wearing shoes. She also wore glasses, and had her red hair in a ponytail. That day there were only about ten students in class, the rest having decided they didn't really want to spend a wonderful Thursday morning listening to a boy talk about birds. Even if the boy was kind of interesting to listen to. But the few students who were actually there were all focused on this new person.
"Maybe she's here to tell us that the Tobias dude was never actually our teacher" Jacob said. Alex smiled, although he didn't think that was the case.
"Hello everyone, my name is Sarah" the girl said. "I am Tobias' assistant, and I will be the one teaching today"
"What has happened to him?" the same girl who had asked wether it was a joke the first day asked. Alex thought her name was Stephanie, but he wasn't sure. Maybe it was Rachel. Yeah, Rachel, like the Animorph.
"He's just busy at the moment, but he will continue with the classes tomorrow. Today is going to be a special class. You over there, what's your name?" she said, looking at Alex. "Alex", he responded. "Ok Alex, could you open the window?". Alex did as he was told, and before he had completely opened the window, a bird flew in and landed on the screen projector. It was a magnificent red tailed hawk, with beautiful feathers and fierce, brown eyes. The bird looked at each of the students, and then at Sarah.
"As you can probably tell, this is a red tailed hawk." Sarah said. "Today we will be studying this particular bird, which is one of North America's largest hawks. Now, can anyone tell me what genus it belongs to?"
The class remain silent, not wanting to risk getting it wrong. The only noise came from Jacob, who was, as usual, making something out of paper. "Anyone? How about you, Alex?" Sarah continued. "Uhm... is it Accipiter?" Alex answered. "Close, but no. The red tailed hawk's scientific name is Buteo Jamaicensis. The birds in the Buteu genus, while also called hawks, are quite different to those in the Accipiter genus. The easiest way to differenciate them is their size, with Buteo being larger. They also behave differently, with Accipiter flapping more, while Buton more usually use thermals to gain altitude, and then glide. There is also a big difference in the wings, with Buton's being much wider and complex". As she said that, the hawk extended its wings, allowing the students to see their size and complexity. It was truly a magnificent specimen. Its feathers were very well taken care of, and it didn't have any scars, or at least none that Alex could see. In addition to that, it seemed very calm to be in a closed space with relatively many people, so Alex thought it had probably been raised in captivity. He wasn't very happy with that, as he had chosen the university specifically because of its fame of treating well animals, but he reasoned it had probably been rescued from somewhere else and couldn't be released back into the wild, for whatever reason.
"Now everyone, please get close. We are going to take a closer look at the hawk so you can see all of its characteristics, Now, these feathers here at the edge are called "remiges". They are used for control during the flight, and..." Sarah continued. For the next hour, the class took notes, except for Jacob, who was working on another paper sculpture. Sarah explained what the different feathers were used for, how the talons were kept sharp, and in general everything about red tailed hawks. As she explained, the hawk extended its wings, turned around, or moved, to allow all of the students to see exactly what the teacher was talking about.
Finally, as the class came to an end, Sarah asked everyone to pay attention, and all of the students (except Jacob who was still working on what seemed to be a wrinkled piece of paper) came closer. "The red tailed hawk's cry has several uses. It can be a warning to other birds in the area, or it can be a mating call, it depends on the context. It is an important part of this bird's life, as it is one of the few ways of communicating it has. Now we are going to listen to it." she said. As she did, the hawk let out a piercing scream: "Tseeeeeer!". To Alex, that scream sounded like liberty, like freedom, but it also sounded sad. Like the freedom it celebrated had come at the cost of loosing everything that mattered, and that made the liberty void, empty.
Once the class was finished, the bird flapped its wings and took off, flying out the window it had come through. Alex followed it with his sight until it flew into the nearby treeline, where it was hidden by the shadows of the forest.
Alex and Jacob lived relatively close to each other, so they both took the same bus. They didn't usually talk much, but today had been an exciting day, with the opportunity to examine a live specimen, so they were more talkative than usual."Hey Jacob, did you finish that paper thing you were working on in class?" "I totally did dude! Look at it!" Jacob responded, pulling out his work. It was an impressively realistic red tailed hawk, made with nothing than a piece of paper folded many times. It was extremely detailed. Every feather was represented, the talons were sharp, and he had even managed to capture the intensity of the hawk's gaze. "Wow"-Alex said-" and here I thought you were not paying attention. Are you going to use it for studying? It is truly impressive.". "Nah dude, once I have done one I can remember the shape, so it is the act of making it that really helps me study." Jacob responded. "Hang on"-Alex interrupted him-"I think you made a mistake here. Let me look at my notes-yes, see? This is different to how Sarah explained it." "Nah dude, your notes are wrong. The bird looked exactly like this. Wanna bet anything?". "Five dollars says it is how my notes say it is!" Alex exclaimed. "Done dude! Let's ask professor Tobias tomorrow, before class, and we can settle it then."