Chapter 11
quote:
We were all pretty messed up. So with Ax and Tobias keeping a lookout and the buffalo following doggedly at our heels, we demorphed.
The buffalo watched us, then began its own morph.
Once again, unnervingly, the head developed first.
"Of all the people around, it just had to acquire Chapman?" Marco joked lamely, turning away. "That is so not cool."
<I don't think there was a lot of choice involved there,> Tobias said.
"It's becoming human," I said quietly, watching as the buffalo's skin faded and lightened, as the coarse hairs were sucked back into its body.
<It doesn't know what it's doing, Cassie,> Tobias said.
CCRRACK!
The buffalo's legs reversed, stretched, and hinged into human knees.
"There's something really gross about this," Rachel said, shaking her head. "It's so, I don't know, unnatural."
"So are we," I said, watching as the buffa-human wobbled up onto two feet.
Jake shot me a concerned look.
"That's different," Marco said. "We morph consciously. This buffalo's just mimicking what it sees. It doesn't know what the heck is going on."
"But what if it could learn?" I said. "What if now that it has a human brain, he learns to use it? What if it learns how to reason, or -"
"Nuh," the buffa-human grunted. "Guhhr-nuh." It looked up at me and blinked.
"It's learning to talk," I said, feeling a mixture of hope and nausea.
"No way," Marco shot back. "That was just some kind of weird, random firing of neurons in the speech part of its brain."
'You're wrong," I said, stepping slowly toward the buffa-human, who went very still. "Hi. I
know you can't understand me yet -"
"Nuh," it grunted, tossing its head. "Uhh-hhnnn."
"Hi," I repeated.
"Heeeeehhhhh," it said, looking puzzled.
"I wouldn't push too hard to teach it to talk, Cassie," Jake warned. "If it becomes too human, it's gonna be a problem."
"Trust me, Jake, it's not gonna live that long," Rachel snapped. "I'm not being handed to the Yeerks by some lame Chapman mutation."
Thwok thwok thwok!
<Helicopter,> Tobias said tensely.
"We'll have to morph," Jake said, running a hand through his hair. "We don't have a choice. Everyone use your wolf morphs."
Thwok thwok thwok!
I concentrated on the wolf DNA. Immediately, a ruff of thick, lush fur sprouted around my neck. My legs dwindled in size but didn't weaken. My chest and shoulders swelled, and my face began to bulge. My teeth grew into long, deadly fangs.
The buffa-human was morphing, too. Watching me as its defenseless, human body beefed up until it was a dark, massive rock. As the rolling, deadly horns sprouted from the center of its skull.
Mimicking.
THWOK!THWOK!THWOK!
The trees whipped wildly and dirt flew. -
I scooped up the blue box in my mouth.
<Let's haul!> Jake ordered, streaking out of the clearing.
We dashed after him, slipping away into the darkness just as a blinding shaft of light pierced the clearing from above.
<Wait!> I shouted. <The buffalo!>
<We can't wait!> Rachel said, tearing past me.
<But we can't leave it!> I cried, pacing anxiously in the dense shadows. <Come on, Cassie! It's not in morph. If it runs away, it won't draw the Helmacron sensors. We will, so let's go!> Jake said.
The real buffalo bellowed and snorted and barreled after me, bringing the searchlight with it.
I couldn't kill it and I couldn't let it reach me. If it did, the Yeerks would see the morphing cube in my mouth. And that just wasn't going to happen.
Whirling, I shot off after the others.
I could hear the buffalo crashing along behind me, snapping trees and crushing anything in its path.
The helicopter blades sliced through the air but I was already pulling ahead of the buffalo, dodging and racing through the woods.
TSSSEEEWW!
A pine tree behind me exploded.
TSSEEWW!
KA-BOOM!
A huge boulder blew apart, winging fragments like shrapnel.
<Bug fighters,> I heard Ax say grimly.
<No kidding,> Marco said.
"SSSSRRRREYYYAA SSSEEWWWITT!"
A pair of Taxxons burst through the bushes in front of Tobias.
"Grrr GrrOWWWRR!" I dropped the blue box and launched myself at the closest one. Felt its rows of tiny legs scrabbling through my fur. Sank my teeth into its disgusting body and twisted, yanking and tearing its flesh.
It screamed.
I bit it again, sinking my muzzle into its guts and ripping them out of its body.
I left it dead, and helped Tobias finish off the other one. Trotted back and picked up the blue box.
<Thanks,> Tobias said, running alongside me. <I didn't even see them coming.>
<Don't do that again, Cassie,> Jake called back sternly. <Don't leave that morphing cube anywhere. There could have been another Taxxon waiting to grab it! And then what?>
He was right, but his scolding tone still hurt.
<Sorry,> I mumbled.
<Rachel, drop back behind Cassie,> Jake instructed. <And if there are any more attacks ->
<I'll handle it,> Rachel promised, circling back around me.
I felt like a total idiot. Like I should have known better. Only I couldn't have stood there and let the Taxxons rip Tobias apart, could I? No.
<He's worried about you, Cassie,> Rachel said to me, in private thought-speak.
<He should trust me to do the right thing,> I said.
<He does, or he would've made somebody else carry the cube. That's why he put me back here. While you do the right thing, I do the necessary thing. Get it?>
<Well, when you put it that way,> I said, mollified.
SLASH! CCRRAAAAAAAACK!
Hork-Bajir exploded out of the woods around us.
And somewhere up ahead, I heard Jake howl in pain.
I love how quickly this just turned into a disaster.
Chapter 12
quote:
It was total mayhem.
Screams. Shouts.
Grunts of pain.
Snarling.
Rachel shot past me, a lethal blur of fur and teeth. Launched herself at the closest Hork-Bajir and ripped its throat out.
That's when the buffalo came up from behind me and charged into the fray, slamming and trampling Hork-Bajir, mindless of its own open wounds.
TSEEEEW TSSEEEW
The clearing lit up with a blinding flash and another tree exploded.
I couldn't drop the blue box, so I couldn t fight. Couldn't help my friends. I was glad the buffalo had followed us, glad to see it take my place in battle, but I was afraid, too. If the Hork-Bajir- Controllers noticed I wasn't fighting, noticed my jaws weren't free to defend myself ...
I hunkered down and belly-crawled under a thick bush.
THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!
The helicopter hovered directly above us. The downwash pounded us with dirt and pine needles and rubble. The spotlight flooded the clearing. There really was no place to hide.
It was a bloody, gruesome scene.
Severed Hork-Bajir arms and legs twitching in the dirt. Growing pools of blood. Taxxons feasting, drooling, like something out of a slasher movie - only this was real.
TSEEEWWW!
I bolted out from under the bush.
The spot near where I'd been hiding exploded in a shower of rocks and dirt.
<Run, Cassie!> Jake shouted. <Just go! Head for the beach! We're right behind you!>
Leave them and run? I paused in the shadows, torn.
THWOK! THWOK!
TSEEEW!
A pine tree shattered.
The spotlight shifted toward me. Searching for the morphing energy.
Searching for the blue box.
We took off, zigzagged, and somehow managed to lose the helicopter. The Bug fighters swooped and zipped through the sky, blasting anything and everything that moved, but at least they were still focused on the woods behind us.
<For now I guess they think we should be too beat-up to run,> Marco said, limping.
<Good,> Jake said, padding along beside me. <Let them keep thinking that.> He glanced at me. <You okay?>
<Yeah,> I said shortly, tightening my jaws around the blue box.
He must have noticed my tone, because he said in private thought-speak, <I'm sorry I yelled at you before. It kind of came out wrong.>
<That's okay,> I said, too weary to hold a grudge. <I understand. We can't lose the blue box, no matter what.>
<The forest is thinning and there is a road up ahead, Prince Jake,> Ax said, slowing. <Should we keep going?>
<Yeah, we're going to have to cross it to get to the beach,> Jake said.
<There's probably going to be a whole mess of them patrolling the road,> Tobias said quietly.
<Controllers,> Rachel sneered.
And probably even more Hork-Bajir, I thought.
We crept beneath huge clumps of sticker bushes lining the edge of the road.
<AII right, I'm open for suggestions,> Marco said. <How do we get across without being seen?>
<Morph to flies,> Rachel said immediately. <Flies can't carry the blue box,> Jake pointed out.
<Okay, so I'll morph elephant, kick some butt, and carry it across myself,> Rachel snapped back.
<Not a good idea,> Marco said. <We've been doing okay so far because the goon squad's been so spread out searching for us. Now they know we're in the area and they're gonna swarm us. We don't need to advertise exactly where we are. Yet.>
<Do you have a better idea?> Rachel said sweetly, which for Rachel usually means she'd like to punch you in the face.
We shrank back from the road as a patrol car cruised slowly past, shining its spotlight into the woods.
<Well, we'd better think of something because the longer we stay here, the better our chances of getting caught,> Jake said. Especially if that buffalo catches up to us again.>
<But when it's not morphing, it's not giving off any morphing energy,> I said.
<No, but it's not exactly the quiet type, either, Cassie,> Marco said. <It just charges in like ... well, like a big ole buffalo.>
<Don't worry,> I said, with a confidence I didn't really feel. <We left it way behind us.>
Marco looked at me. I turned away first.
<We could break down the cube and each carry a piece across the road,> Tobias suggested, getting us back on track.
<No, because we'd still have to use morphs big enough to be seen,> Jake said.
And then it came to me. Pure. Simple. Ridiculously simple.
<Throw it,> I said.
<What?> Jake said, startled.
<Rachel said it before. It's like playing Keep Away,> I said. <We morph into flies, cross the road and demorph. One of us stays behind, demorphs, and throws the box over the road when nobody's looking. The rest of us get it, the thrower morphs to fly, buzzes over, and we're gone! Simple.>
<That's a lot of morphing energy in one place,> Tobias said uneasily. <We're bound to draw the Helmacron sensors and the helicopter. And then come the ground forces.>
<But staying here will also allow the Helmacron sensors to determine our location,> Ax pointed out.
Thwok thwok thwok!
The helicopter.
<Okay, let's do it,> Jake said. <Sorry, Rachel. That's your line.>
<I'll let it slide this time,> she said. <But don't let it happen again.>
It was a simple plan and it should have been easy.
I should have known better.
I'm thinking given that the ground forces are right behind them....that they had to fight their way through them to get this far, it's not like they don't have a lot of time to carry this out.
So when the buffalo morphs to human, are they just standing there staring at their vice-principal buck naked?
So when the buffalo morphs to human, are they just standing there staring at their vice-principal buck naked?
Probably, but that's pretty low down the trauma pole at this point.
I don't think it has every fully morphed to human, the first time they specifically mention that it's still covered in buffalo hair and not naked
Either that or Chapman is a really hairy guy.
I'm sure Visser 3 is going to make Chapman forklift it home and bury it in his back yard if they do kill it.
And of course the buffabomination shows up in the book narrated by the strongly empathetic animal-lover who is also an artistically skilled morpher.
The others probably didn't care enough about it for it to make it into their memoirs.
Edit: Although, it would actually be a really funny late Animorphs book premise for the plot to be happening to someone else and the title character be worrying that their friend is going to crack under the pressure.
I'm sure Visser 3 is going to make Chapman forklift it home and bury it in his back yard if they do kill it.
forklift?
Chapter 13
quote:
Demorph.
Remorph to flies. Marco to human since he'd decided to be the one to toss the cube. Exhausting.
But necessary.
Huge, glittering, bulging compound eyes popping out of my sockets.
Legs sprouting from my chest, gauzy wings tearing through my back and unfurling.
Crunching, mushing, gurgling gut-shifting.
And the long, tubular proboscis stretching out of the middle of my fly face.
My wings beat two hundred times a second. I gave into the rush, zipped up, and landed on Marco's nose.
"Hey," he whispered, swiping at me. "Who's the wise guy?"
<Sorry,> I said, buzzing circles around his head.
<Okay, people,> Jake said. <Marco, I'll let you know when we get across and demorph. Then you throw the cube to us. We'll grab it, you morph to fly, and then we're out of here.>
"Aye-aye, Captain," Marco said quietly, hunkering down in the bushes.
<Spread out, guys,> Jake called, buzzing away. <Meet you on the other side!>
I shot off after him. Now, a fly can only cover about four miles an hour, but when you're only an eighth of an inch long, that's like major warp speed. I stifled the urge to dip and dive, and powered in a straight line across the road.
Patrol car headlights cut through the darkness.
I shot straight up about a millisecond before the lights swept past.
<Made it,> Jake called, zipping down into a thick stand of weeds.
<I think I'm right behind you,> I said, landing and immediately beginning my demorph.
<We all here?> Jake asked, when he'd finished demorphing and had remorphed back into a wolf.
<I think we are all here, Prince Jake,> Ax said, joining the rest of us.
Morphing is tiring and doing rapid morphing, like from a wolf to a human to a fly, then from a fly to a human to a wolf was more than we've ever had to do. But the wolf's sleek, powerful body was fresh and its senses keen, so the weariness wouldn't catch up with us until we were human again.
And when that happened, we were all going to sleep for a week.
Thwok thwok thwok!
<Okay, Marco, come on,> Jake called. <Wing it!>
Marco couldn't respond because he had demorphed.
<Two more patrol cars are coming,> Tobias said. <The helicopter must be picking up the morphing energy and radioing down to the cars.>
<We'll have to chance it anyway,> Jake said. <Throw it high, Marco, and then get over here!>
The blue box soared out of the bushes, up, up, up, arcing high over the center of the road.
Thwok! Thwok! Thwok!
The treetops began to sway in the downwash.
<The helicopter's coming!> Jake yelled. <Get over here, Marco! Hurry!>
A spotlight split the darkness, only feet from the soaring blue box.
I held my breath.
THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!
The helicopter hovered above the trees, kicking up whirling dirt devils and whipping the bushes into a frenzy.
The human-Controllers piled out of the cars, heads bent and eyes scrunched against the battering downwash.
<It's blowing the box right toward us!> I watched as the cube picked up speed and hurtled toward the ground. And then I bunched up my muscles, took a flying leap, and snatched it in my powerful jaws right before it crashed.
<Whoa! Nice catch!> Tobias said.
<Ow,> I mumbled, my tongue numb from the impact.
<I'm impressed,> Jake said. <Next time we play Frisbee, you're on my team.>
And then, everything fell apart.
The buffalo, nostrils twitching and head held high, stepped onto the road.
<Guess it can run faster than you thought, huh, Cassie?> Marco said dryly.
The buffalo gazed at the knot of human-Controllers gazing at it.
One of the cops made a quick motion and four or five Hork-Bajir stepped out of the woods and around the patrol cars.
The buffalo snorted and tossed its head.
I now knew what that motion meant. I had experienced it firsthand. Aggression. It was going to fight them. Defend the herd it'd been following all night.
<Prince Jake, this buffalo is quickly becoming a huge problem,> Ax said, his voice firm.
<Look at it,> Rachel said. <It's surrounded by Hork-Bajir? And it's going to fight them. I know a battle stance when I see one.> Grudging admiration tinged her voice. <It's going to fight them to the death.>
<Wrong,> Marco said. <The human-Controllers won't let it be killed. Not if Visser Three thinks its an Andalite.>
No winning this one. If the buffalo was killed in battle, we'd be safe. And our hands - my hands - wouldn't be stained with blood containing human DNA.
But I knew Marco was right. The Controller who caught a live "Andalite bandit" would probably be well rewarded. The Controller who killed it would be, well, probably dead himself.
We were going to have to destroy the buffalo. If we we're closer to home, we might have been able to do it humanely, to euthanize it using my father's vet supplies. But I wasn't home. And now I didn't know when the chance would come, or what morph we would use to destroy such a powerful animal, but my stomach turned at the thought of pitting buffalo against buffalo.
<Cassie? I am sorry. But we cannot allow it to be captured,> Ax said quietly.
<Okay,> Jake said wearily. <Let's go rescue a buffalo.>
Yes, this was a horrible plan.
Chapter 14
quote:
The helicopter was coming straight toward us.
The fighting stopped.
<Watch out!> I yelled. I shot beneath the skids and head-butted Jake with everything I had.
Which was just enough to make him stumble out from beneath the rapidly descending helicopter.
<Oof!> he grunted. <Uh, thanks, Cassie. I think.>
<We're trapped,> Rachel said bitterly. <And all because of that stupid buffalo!>
I looked at the buffalo. Its flanks were heaving. It stood, head high, and stared at the figure emerging from the helicopter.
<Visser Three,> Ax announced coldly, in public thought-speak, as the leader of the Yeerk
invasion leaped nimbly from the helicopter.
<Ah, Andalite scum,> Visser Three said almost graciously, glancing at us and chortling to himself. <How thoughtful of you to group together so that the Helmacron sensors would have no trouble locating you!> His gaze lingered on the buffalo standing nearby. <You have caused me much inconvenience this day. Now, let's make this simple, shall we? Where is the device?> He stepped up to the buffalo and jabbed a slender finger down into one of its gaping wounds. <Answer me, Andalite!>
The buffalo snorted and swung its head, its horn narrowly missing Visser Three. The visser moved away slowly, his main eyes half-mast. Almost as if he were drugged.
<Figures,> Marco muttered. <That big boy's got more lives than a cat.>
<Tell me where to find the morphing cube!> Visser Three roared. He'd obviously snapped out of his funk.
The Hork-Bajir cringed. So did the. human-Controllers left standing. So did we.
I didn't look around. I stood with my head down, hiding the cube that was still tucked into my mouth.
<Or perhaps one of you has it with you now,> Visser Three said, in a suddenly low, silky voice.
He turned away from the buffalo and glared at each of us. <Give it to me now or I will make you beg to die,> he said.
<Prince Jake, the buffalo is morphing,> Ax said urgently. <It acquired the visser!>
<Oh, man, this is too good!> Marco crowed.
While the real Visser Three was raging at the Hork-Bajir for not finding the cube, the buffalo was turning blue, growing eye stalks, and thin, almost graceful arms. Turning into an exact replica of the visser's stolen Andalite body. Including a curved and lethal Andalite tail.
<It's probably now or never,> Jake said tensely. <When Visser Three turns around and sees that buffa-Andalite, we get out of here! Head straight for the beach!>
<What about the buffalo?> I asked. I watched as it experimentally flicked its tail, severing the arm of a Hork-Bajir in the process. <He doesn't know how to use that body!>
<It'll learn fast,> Jake said, as the Hork-Bajir cried out in pain.
Visser Three turned toward the sound.
<Now!> Jake shouted.
"Grrr GrrrOWWWRR!" I plowed through the terrified human-Controllers.
TSEEW! TSEEW!
<Get him!> Visser Three commanded, pointing imperiously at the buffalo in Andalite morph.
The buffalo pointed back, mimicking.
The Hork-Bajir-Controllers hesitated, torn between the two.
Visser Three's Andalite tail came up.
The buffa-Andalite's did, too.
FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lopped off one of the buffalo's Andalite arms.
The buffalo bellowed in open thought-speak and charged. Slapped and whipped its tail with little skill but with major fury. Drove Visser Three back.
The Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers milled in helpless confusion, not daring to attack the wrong visser.
<Now, now!> Jake yelled, charging into a knot of Hork-Bajir and plowing open a huge hole. He ran into the woods with us behind him, trampling anything that got in our way.
I wished I could call the buffalo after me. It had actually helped us fight and I didn't want to leave it behind to be killed. Or worse.
FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lashed out again.
One of the buffalo's eye stalks fell to the ground.
The buffalo's tail jerked forward, more of a pain reaction than anything, and the dull side of his tailblade whacked Visser Three on the side of his head.
He dropped like a stone.
The Hork-Bajir stood silent, uncertain.
The buffalo in the Andalite's body galloped through the Hork-Bajir and into the woods.
Following us.
Can I pount out that the buffalo has injured Visser Three more in one book than the Animorphs have in 39?
buffalowned
they're the animorphs they might as well recruit an animal into the team
it's doing very very well like lol, mvp of the mission so far
It would almost be worth it for the Buffalo to be exposed just so the Yeerks find out that a wild animal not only acquired Visser Three but beat him in a straight up fight.
And not even a particularly smart animal at that!
friendship ended with the animorphs, now Morphing Buffalo is my best friend
Plus the Chappalo has no crises of conscience and no family ties to entangle. All it needs is a weird connection to Elfangor and we'd have the ultimate animorph.
Chapter 15
quote:
The beach was getting closer but we were wounded and tired.
I could hear the Hork-Bajir behind us, not right on our tails but gaining fast.
<Okay, guys.> Tobias had already demorphed and taken to the sky. <We're very close. We should hurry.>
Jake sighed. <Okay. This is it. It's almost over. Is everyone ready? Cassie?>
I shivered. So many things could go wrong.
<Visser Three knows for sure now that we've got the morphing cube with us,> Jake continued. <And when he wakes up he's going to be on us like white on rice.> He looked straight at me. <We need someone to hang back here in the ravine and buy us some time.>
<I'll do it> Rachel - of course.
<No, I will,> I said slowly. <I'm pretty sure the buffalo will stay and fight if I'm here in buffalo morph.>
And probably be killed. I felt like the worst of all traitors.
<Right,> Jake said. He nodded. <Okay, guys, we're out of here. Cassie?>
<Yeah?>
<See you at the water.> He took the cube in his mouth.
I hope so, I thought. But I didn't say it, not even in private thought-speak. Instead, I watched as they took off through the thinning forest.
The buffa-Andalite shifted.
I turned back to face it. It was wounded and bloody, its lone eye stalk drooping. Somehow, I had to get him to demorph back into his true buffalo self, where he was at his most lethal.
Where I could use him most effectively.
And I had to use my own buffalo morph so we could fight side by side with full power.
I focused on my human DNA. Demorphed as rapidly as I could, trying not to give the buffalo time to mimic me. I went from tired, wounded wolf to puny, human girl and then bulked right back up again, growing a fresh, thick hide and sharp, curving horns.
The buffalo began to darken and swell, mimicking my shape, demorphing back into his true form.
It eyed me warily for a moment, then the tension eased. It had followed me as a Cape buffalo before and by doing so, had already established our hierarchy.
A twig snapped.
We both lifted our heads, noses twitching. Caught the scent of approaching danger. And knew to protect the herd.
I snorted.
It snorted.
We tossed our horns and I lumbered into the tall bushes, the buffalo following.
We would wait. And then we would ambush the Hork-Bajir. That's when I noticed the drop-off on the edge of the ravine. Not too far down but definitely far enough down to hurt.
They started to come at us quietly, cautiously, and within minutes.
We waited until they were almost equal with us and then ...
I bulldozed out of the bushes, knocking down trees, goring and slashing as I allowed the buffalo's defense instincts to kick in and send me into a wild, raging fury.
And still more Hork-Bajir fought their way through the narrow ravine.
<Get out of my way!> Visser Three thundered at his troops.
My blood ran cold.
He was morphing. His stolen Andalite body bulging and melting, turning black and gooey.
Oozing forward and tainting everything he touched. Making the nearby Hork-Bajir's skin sizzle and bubble like it was being dissolved with acid. Short, thick, dripping tentacles shot out of his body, and a huge, wet, red mouth with buzz-saw teeth chomped and smacked, drooling the same smoking,
sizzling acid.
Time to go, I thought, as Visser Three pointed a tentacle at me.
A stream of acid flew through the air. It splattered the Hork-Bajir in front of me and sent it howling and writhing to the ground.
The holes in its skin bubbled and stank.
I wheeled.
Powered up my short, muscular legs.
And with a loud, snorting call to the buffalo, barreled to the edge of the drop-off and jumped.
The Holding off the Yeerks plan did not go according to plan.
Chapter 16
quote:
Terror. Sheer panic.
Falling was nothing like flying.
No control at all.
My buffalo instincts went insane.
I bellowed, legs scrabbling for something, anything, to hold on to. My heart slammed into my chest and panic froze my blood.
I crashed down through a thick, brittle layer of scrub bushes, falling ...
The rocks shot up at me, hard and cruel and -
WHUMPRCRRUNNCH!
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Pain was everywhere, pounding and tearing at me.
WHUMPF! CRRAAACCCKKK!
The ground shook when the buffalo landed beside me.
I opened my eyes, dazed. And through a hazy mist of agony saw the buffalo raise its head and look at me. It bawled piteously and struggled to rise.
It couldn't. It had snapped a couple of legs; the bones jutted out through the torn, ragged skin.
Blood pumped and stained the ground.
It was in agony, but it wasn't dying. Yet.
I was bleeding, too, from the branch that had speared into my stomach on the way down.
Infection's going to set in, I thought dimly. Someone had better cleanse this wound really thoroughly or -
No. No one was going to cleanse my wounds.
No one was going to save me.
The world got smaller, then expanded. I blinked, fighting the wooziness.
My blood was pumping out of my chest with every beat of my thundering heart. I would probably die before the buffalo did. If it did.
The buffalo bawled again. Its unbroken legs churned the dirt.
There was only one way to save us.
<Watch me,> I said to the buffalo.
Its head jerked and he focused its eyes upon me.
I began to demorph, slowly at first, then gaining speed.
My shattered bones ground and reformed.
"Come on," I urged, as the buffalo groaned and began to shift shape.
I crouched beneath the bushes beside it. Sickened by the transformation, yet unwilling to leave him there to die like this, or live on as a crippled bloody mess. Or be captured by the Yeerks.
A human head. Nose stretching, slimming. Eyes crawling from the sides to the front of the face. Teeth shrinking, ears popping out.
The buffa-human opened its eyes and looked at me.
"Come on," I said, when the morph was complete. I stood up.
The buffa-human - Chapman -got to his knees. Shakily, he rose onto two feet and swayed. Took a wobbly step toward me. Snorted.
I snorted back. "Come on."
We traveled slowly, keeping close to the dropoff base where the Hork-Bajir couldn't see us. We were safe for the moment. They weren't-coming down the same way we did.
Visser Three knew it, too, and his enraged shouts echoed through the canyon.
The buffa-human stiffened at the sound. Tossed its head.
"Don't listen," I said, motioning it on after me. "Come on, we have to find the others."
But even as I said it, I was filled with a sick mixture of hope and dread. What was going to happen to this sad, messed-up creature when we did meet up with the rest of the "herd"?
We couldn't let it live and yet everything inside me rebelled at the thought of killing it. I could have let it die back there - Marco and Rachel would probably say I should have and Jake had expected me to - but I just couldn't. And I was at least partially responsible for its awful situation. To have walked away and left it when I knew a way to help it ... Well, I just couldn't.
If it had to die, it had to die fast, without excess pain. Not lingering. Not inhumanely.
"Guuuuhhh," it said, stumbling along behind me on its tender, human feet. "Goowwww."
"You have to walk carefully," I said, pointing down at the smooth patch of rock I was standing on. "See?" I stepped on another smooth surface, avoiding a tangle of sticker bushes. "Like this."
The buffa-human frowned but stepped where I'd stepped. Its face cleared. "Guuhh."
"Yes, that's good," I said, my heart sinking right down to the bottom of my stomach. What was I doing? I shouldn't be talking to it - but I always talked to the wounded animals in my father's Wildlife Rehab, especially when I was changing their bandages or cleaning their cages. Calm words seemed to
soothe them - But this was different and I knew it.
"There she is! Cassie!"
The shout was faint.
I looked up and saw Jake waving.
My spirits shot up and suddenly, buffa-human or no buffa-human, I was glad to be reunited with my friends.
No matter what happened in the end.
The Chappalo is learning how to speak.
Chapter 17
quote:
How could it have survived that fall?" Marco asked, glancing pointedly at the buffa-human and giving me a hard look.
"It was pretty bad," I admitted, avoiding his cool gaze. "It saw me demorph, though and mimicked me. I guess that saved it." Sure. I guessed. How about I knew?
"I just can't get right with this," Rachel said. "I mean, it's bad enough that we have this mutant thing following us around, but did it have to go and acquire someone we know? I know I'll never be able to look at Chapman again without freaking out. It's too weird."
The buffa-human had hunkered down at the edge of our circle. Its eyes were disturbingly blank, absent of human recognition and intelligence. It was watching us, though, and warily sniffing the air. It was listening, too, gauging the tones of our communication and on the alert for any type of alarm call.
A buffalo in human skin.
It was unnerving.
"It's gross," Marco said, looking away.
<It is dangerous,> Ax looked at me with his main eyes while the ones on stalks surveyed the area.
"Yeah," Jake said, weakly smiling at me as I sat down on the rocks next to him, keeping the blue box between us. "Glad you made it."
"Me, too," I said, smiling back, faintly. "That drop-off was pretty bad."
"Guhhhhd," the buffa-human said, tensing when all heads swiveled in its direction. "Guh-hhd?"
"No, not good, bad," Marco said, scowling.
The buffa-human frowned and pressed its lips together. "Baaaaadd?"
"I'm teaching my assistant principal to talk," Marco said. "Is this whacked or what?"
<It's not Chapman,> Tobias said. <Remember that. It's not Chapman.>
<It's learning,> I said, absently brushing a black ant from the morphing cube. It hit the ground and ran up my leg.
"No, it's not, Cassie. It's only mimicking," Rachel insisted, shaking her head. "Don't make this more than it is. It should have died a long time ago."
"She's right," Marco said, giving me a knowing look. "You didn't do it any favors by keeping it alive, Cassie. Now one of us is going to have to ... "
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Well," Jake said, rising. "I think we'd better get moving again. The Yeerks are going to find us, no question about that, but we want to be in place when it happens."
"Mee-meep," Marco said, jumping up. "Anvil time."
I rose slowly. The buffa-human did, too.
"You have to get it to morph back to buffalo," Jake said, avoiding my eyes. "It's probably safest that way. The rest of us will head out. We'll move slow enough for you to catch up, Cassie."
And the buffalo? I wanted to ask. What about it? Am I supposed to lead it off another cliff, or out into the dangerous undertow and abandon it? What was I supposed to do with this poor, mutated animal that never should have existed? And why was I the one who was going to have to kill it?
But I didn't ask that last question because I knew what they would say.
And they were right, only ...
I turned away as the others began their morphs.
"Ready?" I said in a low voice to the buffa-human, blocking his view of the others.
It cocked its head. "Guuuuhhhdd."
"Yes, you're good," I whispered, closing my eyes and concentrating on the buffalo's powerful DNA. "Now, pay attention."
I felt the changes begin. The usual. Bones grinding, contorting, wrenching backward and forward, stretching and disappearing. The feeling that your entire body is shot full of Novocain, so you're aware of the impossible crunches and gurgles, but you don't actually feel them.
I opened my eyes and saw the buffa-human finishing its morph. Thick horns were crawling out of the center of its massive head, slithering down past its tufted ears, and curving back up with deadly accuracy.
SPRROOT!
Its tail sprouted and it flicked it.
<Good,> I told him in thought-speak, watching his ears flick and twist, disturbed at the sound that made no sound outside his head.
Thwok thwok thwok!
Jake picked up the blue box and held it tight in his jaws. <Cassie?>
I moved behind a huge clump of bushes, where the buffalo couldn't see me. Demorphed and remorphed into a wolf.
I felt my teeth shifting in my gums, sprouting into long, gleaming fangs. Felt my body stretch and grow sleek with powerful muscles. Felt the thick ruff of fur ring my neck and ripple across my body.
Thick pads bulged and hardened on my hands and feet.
My skull cracked and remolded, expanding into a canine muzzle.
<Ready?> Jake called impatiently.
<Ready,> I said, as soon as the morph was finished.
<Then let's-> Rachel began.
<Do it!> Marco said in his best "superhero voice."
The air stirred as the others raced out of the clearing.
I smelled the buffalo's confusion. Heard the dull clop of its hooves against rock as it hurried after them, snorting and calling, puzzled at being left behind.
And suddenly, I was overcome. Fear. Frustration. Panic. Exhaustion.
Why had this happened! To us? To this poor creature?
I didn't know and would never know. And I was tired of not having the answers.
With a whimper I bolted into the woods after the others. Bulleted past the lumbering buffalo. Ignored its plaintive calls.
Ran and ran and ran until the faint scent of the salty ocean filled my nostrils. Ran until the buffalo's cries had faded to whispers, replaced by the dull, insistent throbbing of a distant, but approaching helicopter.
I mean, "Why did all this happen" is really a question I'd be asking myself.
Chapter 18
quote:
I could hear the others padding swiftly through the woods in front of me and the faint crashing of the surf against the shoreline.
I didn't want to think about the buffalo lost somewhere behind me.
<There's a helicopter doing a zigzag search back over the ravine,> Tobias called. <It's definitely tracking us, Jake. Coming fast!>
<Time for Operation Anvil to kick in,> Jake said.
Thwok thwok thwok!
The helicopter was getting closer.
The plan had to work.
I started to demorph.
Something was moving in front of me.
"Uhhh!" I backed up.
Gaped at the ground in front of me.
Something was growing. Fast! Black.
Bulging. Three inches. Eight inches.
Now it was a foot high.
It was an ant, antennae waving and pincers snapping.
And it was getting bigger.
Two feet high. And counting.
Demorph, I thought frantically, trying to scrabble away from the ant's sharp, snapping pincers. Demorph!
And the ant was still growing, its arms and legs waving, hair sprouting from its bulby head -Hair?
The tips of its top pair of legs swelled and fingers erupted.
Its segmented body melted and ran together, reshaping into a sturdy, human form.
Wide, human eyes popped out of its head, flanking a strong, familiar-looking nose.
SCHWIPP! SCHWIPP!
Its pincers were jerked halfway back into its head, leaving the lethal tips spasming, and in between them, in some horrible, terrifying morphing disaster, the ant's face split vertically and lips formed.
Opened wide in a silent scream as gleaming, white teeth erupted from the pink gums. Please, no.
I was gazing at myself.
First a buffalo and now an ant. Cassie really needs to be more careful with that morphing cube.
"I just can't get right with this," Rachel said. "I mean, it's bad enough that we have this mutant thing following us around, but did it have to go and acquire someone we know? I know I'll never be able to look at Chapman again without freaking out. It's too weird."
Ideal scenario: The real Chapman gets killed during all of this, and the Animorphs somehow install the buffa-human as his replacement as vice principal.
Def kill that ant though
Ideal scenario: The real Chapman gets killed during all of this, and the Animorphs somehow install the buffa-human as his replacement as vice principal.
<Chapman! The Andalite bandits have struck again. They've attacked the lab where we were building the mindwiping ray and destroyed it!"
"Baaaaadd"
<But I have a plan. We'll create rumors of a false weapon we're using, lure them back to the lab and ambush them>
"Guhhhhd"
<Yes, very good! We'll get those Andalites once and for all.>
Chapman starts chewing on a plant in Visser Three's office.
Chapter 19
quote:
Somehow, and I don't know how, maybe through my own human survival instinct, I finished demorphing, shooting back up to my full height. Now I was looking the ant-Cassie square in the eye. It was horrible. Terrible.
It writhed and jerked, body parts melting then hardening from ant to human and back. Antennae burst from its human skull, were sucked back in, then shot out again.
It looked around, eyes bulging with panic, and opened its mouth in a scream straight out of my worst nightmares.
"AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!" Raw torment.
I staggered back, clapped my hands over my ears, tried to shut out the unearthly shrieks. How had this happened? Where had this second abomination come from? How could an ant have gained the power to morph!
There was only one way.
The blue box. The ant must have touched it.
Yes, it had, back when we had been resting on the rocks. The ant had been crawling on the box and I'd flicked it off. Then it had crawled up my leg. It must have acquired me without having any idea of what it was doing.
I glanced back at it, watching it scream and writhe like it was in mortal agony.
Why would it be in pain? Morphing didn't hurt ...
And then the memories I had of being an ant resurfaced and I knew why the ant-Cassie was so terrified. For the same reason, except in reverse, that I never wanted to morph an ant again.
They were all part of a collective. Mindless, soulless beings without wills or thoughts of their own.
When the ant had morphed to human it had become an individual with the freedom to choose.
With free will. The human brain, with all its diversity and innate curiosity, must be completely overwhelming it.
Logically, I knew that. Emotionally, I was watching myself twist and squirm and double over in agony and I couldn't take it.
"Stop it!" I shouted.
Bad move.
It reared up and focused on me.
And then its pincers sprouted full-length on either side of its human mouth, and it attacked.
I stood, frozen in horror as it flung itself at me, stumbling awkwardly on two legs.
Pincers snapping. Grazing my leg.
The pain woke me up.
"No!" I screamed, darting sideways.
The ant moved with me, waving its arms, smacking and slapping at me.
"No! No!" I sobbed. I tried to run, to get away from this hideous mutation of me, from this insanity. But I tripped over a branch and went down hard on my back.
Instantly, the ant sprang. Landed on top of me.
Reared up, pincers opening and closing. Arms melting back into spindly ant legs, then remorphing into human ones. Blocking my frantic punches and kicks. Growing shiny white teeth in a wide, wet, keening mouth and then shifting back into ant mandible.
The pincers clamped down on my arm. Squeezed hard. Harder.
It was going to snap my arm and the pain was unbearable.
"NO!!" I screamed.
That's when I heard the now-familiar bellow. The ant-Cassie jerked upright, dragging me with it.
"Here! Here!" I cried hoarsely, kicking at the ant as the buffalo charged into sight.
Thwok thwok thwok!
The buffalo lifted its head and scented the air. Tossed its horns.
"EEEEEEEE!" the ant-Cassie screamed, dropping me and wheeling to face it.
Crying, cradling my torn and bloody arm, I dragged myself out of the way.
The ant-Cassie, antennae waving madly and pincers snapping like the jaws of a steel trap, ran crazily at the buffalo.
THUNK!
The buffalo twisted its horns and gored it right through the stomach.
"EEEEEAAAHHH!" it screamed, arching backward, beating on the buffalo's head with its fists and finally, with a wet, popping sound, pulling itself free.
It staggered backward, clutching its bloody abdomen, pincers snapping weakly and human mouth opening and closing.
I was watching myself die. Not as a human or an animal, but as a terrifyingly mindless drone.
A nightmare.
I threw up in the bushes. Sat up and wiped my mouth.
The buffalo cried out, in triumph.
But it wasn't really triumph, because instead of dying the ant-Cassie was shrinking. Demorphing into a vile jumble of ant and human parts. Growing tinier and tinier.
"No," I croaked.
I staggered over. Stomped the ground. Stamped and crushed everything and everywhere.
Slammed my bare feet down again and again and again until it had to be dead because such a hideous abomination could never, ever be allowed to live.
Thwok thwok thwok!
The helicopter was closing in, drawn, undoubtedly by all the morphing energy.
I had to go right now or our plan would be ruined.
The buffalo had relaxed a little and was eating the sparse grass at the edge of the woods.
I stepped beneath a tree. Focused on the osprey DNA.
Instantly, I was yanked down toward the ground, falling at a dizzying rate of speed and then stopping short like a runaway elevator slamming into its next floor.
A lacy, dappled pattern etched across my skin and rose into feathers.
My face stretched out, pursing my lips into a beak and hardening like quick-drying cement. My eyes crawled to either side of it and my vision sharpened.
My bones ground and hollowed out.
Tail feathers sprouted.
The morph was completed.
I flapped my powerful wings and hopped up onto a rock.
The buffalo looked at me, puzzled and uncertain again.
I looked back, not knowing what to say or do.
It gave a questioning snort and stepped closer.
THWOK THWOK THWOK! <I have to go now,> I said, knowing it couldn't understand me. <Thank you for saving my life.>
The buffalo's ears twitched.
And then I knew what to say.
<You are good,> I said softly.
Its ears came forward and it made a soft, almost friendly sound.
The helicopter buzzed into sight.
TSEEEEEW!
And then the Dracon beam blew up the buffalo.
I have to admit, I laughed at the last line of this.
Chapter 20
quote:
I shot out of the trees with dozens of other frightened, fleeing birds, flapping my powerful wings and fighting frantically for altitude against the helicopter's fierce downwash.
The helicopter circled the clearing where smoking pieces of the buffalo lay.
They had killed it and yeah, okay, they'd saved me from having to come back and do it myself.
But that still didn't stop the feelings. Not at all.
That buffalo had trusted me and for reasons it didn't understand, maybe would never have been able to understand, I'd let it down.
Or maybe somewhere in its developing, learning human mind, it had understood.
I would never know.
I escaped the helicopter's swirling air currents and headed out over the ocean in the dull, gray half-light of the approaching dawn, fighting to go higher and higher.
Far below me, I could see five identical dolphins swimming out to sea.
And now, not so far below me, swooped a Bug fighter followed by the helicopter.
I was fighting to rise, flapping hard against the dead air. If Operation Anvil was going to work and we were going to destroy the Helmacron sensors aboard the ship aboard the helicopter, I had to be high enough to drop the anvil.
TSEEEW TSEEEW
The Yeerks were firing Dracon beams at the dolphins.
The dolphins dove, but I couldn't tell if they'd done it in time to avoid getting hit.
Higher, Cassie, higher, I told myself, struggling.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
<I'm hit!> Tobias cried faintly.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The Bug fighter swooped and dipped, closing in, almost like it could smell blood.
<Dive! Dive!> Jake yelled.
The dolphins disappeared again.
They were deliberately drawing all the fire, distracting the Bug fighter and the helicopter so I could put the plan into effect.
But was it going to work?
While the Bug fighter swooped and buzzed low over the ocean, the helicopter was hovering like a giant dragonfly in one spot - directly above where the dolphins were last seen.
In order for me to drop this anvil, I had to be directly above the helicopter. If it moved, the whole plan would be wrecked.
A helicopter could outrun an osprey, no contest.
But I couldn't think about that. If I did, I'd think even harder and see all the other things that could go wrong. And then I'd think about what would happen once everything did go wrong and I'd be lost.
The dolphins resurfaced farther out.
The helicopter moved again, hovering over them while the Bug fighter blasted away with the Dracon beams.
<Jake, can you hear me?> I shouted, flapping and straining for altitude. <Don't move anymore! Stay where you are!>
<Hurry, Cassie,> came his faint reply. <Tobias and Marco are hit and there's a lot of blood in the water!>
My heart skipped a beat.
Blood meant sharks and they were the last thing we needed right now.
<I'm going to drop the anvil, Jake!> I yelled back, leveling off high above the helicopter. <Just stay where you are! If you guys move then I'm going to miss the helicopter!>
His answer was too faint to hear.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The dolphins surfaced and dove again. I followed it until I was once again directly overhead.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
<... losing a lot of blood ...>
<... Cassie ...>
The thought-speak was faint, fragmented, and broken.
I'd just have to risk it. Risk it all on this one, insane plan modeled after an old cartoon I didn't even like.
And I'd have to do it fast because still distant but speeding closer and closing the gap, came the sharks.
So there, way up in the vast, cloudless sky over the enormous ocean, above a Bug fighter teeming with Yeerks and a helicopter with lethal, slicing rotor blades and a deadly, sucking engine intake, I demorphed.
Without a net.
So weird thing about sharks and blood. Tobias and Marco, in this chapter are dolphins, bleeding from their wounds, and are attracting sharks. But, dolphins are mammals, and sharks aren't generally attracted to mammal blood, although they are to fish blood. Also, even if they did some, sharks tend to be wary of dolphins, even wounded dolphins, and, if given the chance, will keep their distance. In other words, the sharks aren't the Animorph's main concern right now
This one's got an unusually steep ratio of trauma to whacky teen hijinx. The last three chapters will need to be an extended food fight scene to balance things out
RIP Chappalo:(
Chappalo was a good boy and a true Animorph
Is Cassie about to perform another high altitude whale drop? After the Hork-Bajir homeworld, this kind of thing is becoming her Special Attack.
The buffalo and ant stuff is interesting but it's a shame this is just a re-tread of the first Megamorphs book.
Also you'd think they'd use Tobias this time, since he could go straight to whale without being human first.
The buffalo and ant stuff is interesting but it's a shame this is just a re-tread of the first Megamorphs book.
To be fair, I'm not sure how many people reading these books also read the non-series books, especially one released three years earlier. The Megamorphs in particular occupy a kind of iffy place in the chronology and canonicity of the series.
Jesus, ant-Cassie was terrifying.
Jesus, ant-Cassie was terrifying.
kid's
books
The buffalo and ant stuff is interesting but it's a shame this is just a re-tread of the first Megamorphs book.
I'm not sure it is. In both cases, the Yeerks have a way to sense morphing energy and the Animorphs have to stop it, but the books are tonally and thematically very different.
Chapter 21
quote:
The demorph should have been smooth.
I should have been able to hold on to my wings until the last possible minute. But I was completely burnt out.
The demorph went weird and instead of becoming an osprey-sized Cassie with wings, I lost the wings first and began plummeting down through the air, streaming and rolling head over heels, desperately trying to finish the demorph.
I was rushing down, the wind sharp and hard, making me gasp for air.
Concentrate!
The feathers faded and skin spread across my body. I grew in one overwhelming surge to human size. My beak shriveled and disappeared. Arms and legs shot out.
Frantically, I focused on the humpback whale DNA coursing through my bloodstream.
Yes, that was our plan. That was it.
I'd morph to a gigantic whale - the anvil - and drop out of the sky down onto the helicopter, crushing it and sending it crashing down into the sea. It was sort of like an idea we'd used once before- and it had worked then. I was hoping it would work again.
And hopefully, I wouldn't get sliced to ribbons in the process.
Or trap the other Animorphs beneath the wreckage.
But I was falling too fast, I could feel it. Not even my expanding mass could slow me down.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
I was bloating, bulging up and out. I was as big as a minivan but it wasn't big enough.
The skin on the top of my head crawled and opened into a blowhole.
My bones crunched, ground, and knitted into a small but stretching whale skeleton. My arms flattened into flippers.
The roar of the chopper was numbing my brain.
I could feel the air trembling each time the slicing blades revolved.
I wasn't going to make it!
I wasn't big enough and I wasn't going to be by the time I hit the helicopter.
I was going to be sliced up like deli lunch-meat and flung far and wide across the ocean to feed the sharks.
That's when a movement caught my eye.
At first I couldn't tell what it was.
Then I realized it was just one of a few of the gulls frightened by the helicopter's downwash. And then the helicopter pilot below me glanced up. His eyes bulged and with one swift jerk, he yanked the helicopter out from under me.
I was going to miss him! Even at my ballooning rate I was still going to miss him! The mission had failed!
I'd failed.
TSEEEW! TSEEEW!
The Bug fighter swooped in below the helicopter, blasting the wounded, surfacing dolphins again and again.
It was all over now.
Within seconds the others would be dead. If the Bug fighter didn't get them, then I'd end up crushing them to death. The Yeerks would have the morphing cube and the human race would be finished.
SCHWOCK!
I couldn't believe it.
One of the gulls had been sucked into the helicopter's powerful, jet engine intake like a hair-ball into a vacuum hose.
KA-BOOOOM!
The helicopter exploded in a raging ball of fire.
The impact hit me like a warp-speed eighteen-wheeler. Sledgehammered the air from my lungs. Stunned me into shocked, deafened numbness.
Then came the scorching heat from the explosion, and the agony.
I was flung away from the burning wreckage, down toward the ocean.
And the last thing I thought in the millisecond before it all went black was, After all this, all it took was one poor seagull ...
In case you missed it, in Chapter 9, Cassie mentions that birds get sucked into jet engines and cause crashes all the time, so that's 'a nice touch.
Chapter 22
quote:
<Cassie? Cassie? Can you hear me?> Jake said urgently.
"No," I mumbled, shaking my head and immediately breathing in a noseful of salt water. "Gak. Ugh." I coughed, floundered, and when I couldn't get a handhold, panic set in. My eyes popped open.
The first thing I saw was a dolphin with the blue box in its mouth.
The second thing was miles of choppy, gray water with a far-off outline of land.
No wonder I was wet, shivering, and pruny. I was human again, and floating on my back in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by dolphins who were gently supporting me with their snouts and nudging me along toward the shore.
My brain kicked in and it all came back, the buffalo, the ant-Cassie, and the humongous, teeth rattling explosion. Panicking, I started to thrash and sank like a stone.
<Easy,> Rachel said, dipping down beneath me and pushing me back up to the surface. <What're you trying to do, drown yourself? It's all over now. We're okay.>
"How?" I managed to croak, still hacking up bitter salt water and trying to get control of my normal, human brain long enough to calm the billowing fear. I mean, let's face it, the ocean was vast, deep and had swallowed hundreds, no thousands of better swimmers than me. Not to mention being home to sharks.
So, of course, I mentioned this fact.
<Oh, them. You missed all the fireworks, Cassie,> Marco said, swimming circles around us.
<One minute we're watching this whale the size of a FedEx truck dropping out of the sky and we're thinking, Uh-oh, she's not big enough to take down that helicopter and live through it ->
<You weren't thinking it, you were screaming it,> Rachel said sweetly.
<Screeching like a bad set of brakes,> Jake teased.
<Emitting a loud and continual series of high-pitched shrieks similar to an unauthorized entry into a Dome ship air lock,> Ax added.
Silence.
<Well, it was an accurate comparison,> Ax said defensively.
<Yeah.> Marco giggled. <But it sure wasn't funny, Ax-man,> he said, poking his sleek head up out of the water and giving one of those crazy, Flipperesque cackles.
<Your humor is highly overrated,> Ax muttered.
<It certainly is when Marco uses it,> Jake said.
<Anyway,> Marco said loudly, <here you are, falling through the sky, and all of a sudden BOOM ->
"A gull got sucked into the helicopter's engine. But that was nothing compared to the ant-Cassie that almost killed me back in the woods with its pincers." I stopped. "The buffalo saved my life."
<You had an aunt who tried to kill you with her pincers?> Rachel said, giving me a playful nudge. <Boy, and I thought Tobias's family was bad.>
"Not that kind of an ant," I said crossly.
<I know,> Rachel said. <Geez, Where's your sense of humor?>
<Probably caught back in the Dome ship's air lock with Ax's,> Marco muttered.
I zoned out for a minute while they bantered back and forth, thinking of the buffalo and how bravely it had fought side by side with us. Had it done it because the human DNA in his veins had stirred and somehow linked us together? Or had it simply been following his buffalo instincts and done whatever he had to do to protect its adopted herd? Or had it been a little of both?
I'd never know for sure, but I did understand the buffalo better. Its survival and protective instincts were strong, fiercely and powerfully strong, and in that way, we were the same. How many times had my friends and I fought to protect our species from the Yeerk invasion? And how many times would the buffalo fight to protect its own from other predators, including humans?
<Hey, you'd yell, too, if sharks were eyeing you up like sushi,> Marco retorted.
<We were all in the water, remember?> Rachel purred.
<But you weren't pumping out blood like a fire hydrant,> Marco said.
"The helicopter blew up," I interrupted, teeth chattering. "The Helmacron sensors are destroyed, right?"
<Well, we're pretty sure they are,> Jake said slowly.
"So, you're pretty sure the sensors are DOA," I said. Say yes, Jake, I begged silently. Say yes. Please don't tell me the whole mission has been in vain. That I had to confront my physical self as an ant, as a mutant, a thing ...
<Yeah,> Jake said. <We're ninety-nine percent sure, Cassie>
Oh, great. That left a one percent wild card.
<Cassie, you did great,> Jake said, in private thought-speak. <And I have to tell you, when I saw you heading for that chopper's blades, well, Marco wasn't the only one freaking out. We moved out of the way and dove deep when you all came down, but when you hit the water you were burned pretty
bad ->
I closed my eyes, remembering the searing pain and the stench of sizzling whale blubber.
<- and we were going crazy trying to get you to demorph. You were only, like, half-conscious but I guess that was enough. I'm glad,> he said simply.
"Me, too," I said.
Survival instincts. Funny, how our own genetic programming would automatically kick in when our logical, reasoning, conscious human brains weren't around to jam them up.
<Me, too, what?> Tobias asked.
<It's private thought-speak, Bird-boy,> Marco said. <Jake's getting all Dharma and Greg on us with Cassie.>
I laughed but I was shivering so it came out ratchety and harsh. I wasn't embarrassed that Marco had guessed what was going on. Jake and I like each other a lot and that's no secret.
<Cassie, why don't you morph to dolphin and let's all get out of here> Jake said, noticing my quaking. <I'm done with this day at the beach. Hew about you guys?>
<Your wish is my command, Prince Jake,> Marco said.
<Then I wish you'd be quiet,> Jake drawled.
<Ha-ha!> Ax said. <Ha!>
We all looked at him, amazed.
<That was, I believe, the appropriate response to human humor, correct?> he said calmly, then dove and, within seconds, had powered his sleek dolphin's body up out of the water and high into the air.
<I quit,> Marco said, groaning. <If Ax is gonna "ha-ha" after all of Jake's feeble jokes from new on, I swear I quit.>
But he wouldn't and we knew it.
None of us would.
No matter hew bad the odds.
Or the humor.
So that's the book. It was, admittedly, a weird one, but I don't think it was bad, really. I actually liked it.
Next up is a Marco book, book 40, "The Other", ghostwritten by Gina Cascone., This was her only book.
quote:
But he wouldn't and we knew it.
None of us would.
No matter hew bad the odds.
So at this point, they're all pretty much inured to the war, huh?
So that's the book. It was, admittedly, a weird one, but I don't think it was bad, really. I actually liked it.
Gonna have to disagree, I hate it and nothing that came up in this reread made me feel any better about it. I'd rather reread the starfish book.
Next up is a Marco book, book 40, "The Other", ghostwritten by Gina Cascone., This was her only book.
This, on the other hand, is a good one.
Gonna have to disagree, I hate it and nothing that came up in this reread made me feel any better about it. I'd rather reread the starfish book.
Fair enough. Why don't you like it?
Helicopters, uh... don't have jet engines. As far as I know.
I didn't like this book. The concept is interesting but, I dunno, the ghostwriter just really fell flat. The voice felt wrong and I was bored most of the time. That final chapter full of ~banter~ really underlined it, it just didn't feel right. Somebody mentioned a while ago that some of the ghostwriters had probably never even read the previous books and were just given a brief, which definitely feels true here. Especially coming on the heels of the last Ax book, which if I didn't know otherwise I would've said was written by KA.
I also remember the next book being good, though. But books about the Andalites are always interesting so that might be biased.
Small helicopters don't have jet engines, but I think larger ones do.
Fair enough. Why don't you like it?
The word that occurs to me is "unearned." It wants to tell this interesting Cassie story, but can't figure out a way to do it other than retconning a bunch of things (how the box works, how acquiring works, how the Helmacron sensors work, morph timing [but every ghostwriter fudges that one, to be fair]) to get the plot points it wants, and then it doesn't really explore those points the way better stories would. The buffalo and ant turn out just to be gimmicks that get cleaned up nicely in the end, and once the buffalo gets killed, Cassie jumps right into the Action-Packed Ending after five lines about how it was sad.
Granted, it could have been worse. It could have been
Cassie's next book.
I'm willing to cut some slack about the box because the box is basically magic, and the kids don't really know how it works.
Yeah, the plot has to go a mile a minute to cover the ground it needs to, but that's hardly anything new at this point in the series. There's always a little clunkiness between the monthly kid's book format and the weightier topics they want to tackle. I can roll with it as long as they're yada-yadaing to get to some good stuff. And - at least for me- that was the case for this book.
The morphing buffalo was the centerpiece here, and he really worked for me as a reflection of the animorph gang. Like them, he is an earthling imbued by chance with advanced alien powers beyond his understanding and drafted into the war against the invading yeerks. Like them, he takes on new forms and experiences new types of cognition that raise all kinds of questions about what kind of creature he actually is anymore.
In the end, Cassie muses on whether he dedicated himself to the Animorphs as his herd and their fight because of his innate nature or his newly expanded consciousness, and decides it was a combination of all of the above. He in fact fits right in with the gestalt weirdness of everyone else. Is Tobias Andalite, human, or hawk? How much of Rachel is grizzly bear at this point? The war has blurred all kinds of lines as to who and what any of them are now.
Ant-Cassie works as the dark reflection of this concept. Just a completely horrifying mutant abomination. I thought it was great as a bit of poetic continuity in the return of their most traumatizing morph, but in reverse.
The setup is nonsense but I'll accept it for the fun times with weird new buffalo friend and the ant body horror, which set a high bar. Overall it's better than the Rachel as leader book, which had an interesting setup but absolutely garbage writing across the board.
The word that occurs to me is "unearned." It wants to tell this interesting Cassie story, but can't figure out a way to do it other than retconning a bunch of things (how the box works, how acquiring works, how the Helmacron sensors work, morph timing [but every ghostwriter fudges that one, to be fair]) to get the plot points it wants, and then it doesn't really explore those points the way better stories would. The buffalo and ant turn out just to be gimmicks that get cleaned up nicely in the end, and once the buffalo gets killed, Cassie jumps right into the Action-Packed Ending after five lines about how it was sad.
Granted, it could have been worse. It could have been Cassie's next book.
The buffalo conveniently being killed by the Yeerks feels like the biggest cop-out. I would've expected Cassie, or at least one of the other Animorphs, to have to look it in the eye and do that.
I liked the last two books. The last book is a pretty good Cassie book for me, despite its flaws.
The buffalo conveniently being killed by the Yeerks feels like the biggest cop-out. I would've expected Cassie, or at least one of the other Animorphs, to have to look it in the eye and do that.
Agree with this. I was expecting some other solution like getting it to nothlit as something. Or it lives in the Hork Bajir park maybe.
Animorphs-Book 40: The Other
Gina Cascone is a scriptwriter and novelist. Sh'e's written two memoirs about growing up Italian Catholic, "Pagan Babies and Other Catholic Memories" and "Life al Dente: Laughter and Love in an Italian American Family", but she's also written a bunch of books for middle schoolers, most famously, the "Deadtime" series, which she cowrote with her sister. These are basically knockoff Goosebumps....horror stories for kids, and wrote a script for a movie called Mirror, Mirror, about a teenage girl who has a demonic mirror that lets her do magic. So, she's written a lot of horror. Will "The Other" be horror? Lets see.
Chapter 1
quote:
Who am I?
Marco.
Not Tuan or Kevin or Rasheed. You know, "Hi, I'm Marco."
If you yell out, "Hey, Marco!", chances are good I'll turn around. Respond. "What?"
You could also say that who I am is far more than a name. That who I am depends on your perspective. On where you're standing when you yell out to me.
Like, if you're standing out in the everyday world - in Red Lobster on all-you-can-eat shrimp night, on a downtown street corner, or in the mall - you'll see that I'm slightly less than tall, brownhaired kid. Come a little close, like into my home, and you'll see that I'm also a son. A friend. And, on a very rare day, a decent dogsitter.
If, however, you're standing in a very particular, very up-close-and-personal spot - like inside my head - you'll see that I am, in addition, a few other, less ordinary things.
Defender of Earth, Civilization's Last Chance for Survival.
Stuff like that.
Generally speaking, I make it a policy not to let people stand in that very up-close-and-personal spot. Superheroes tend to rack up a lot of dead friends and seriously damaged sidekicks.
That is one reason it's not a good idea for you to know much more about me than my first name.
The other reason for anonymity is a good thing: the Yeerks.
The Yeerks. If it weren't for Elfangor, an Andalite war prince, I wouldn't even know about the Yeerks, aliens from a far distant planet. Wouldn't have been enlisted - me, four other kids, and another Andalite - to fight them. To try and stop their slow but constant infestation of Earth.
See, Yeerks are like slugs. On their own they're blind, deaf, and mute. But in the brain of a host body, they've got eyes and ears and mouths. They're parasites, the Yeerks. Living off the minds and bodies of any creature they deem worth controlling. Gedds. Hork-Bajir. Humans.
And one - only one - Andalite.
Yeerks wriggle their way through the ear canal and into each nook and cranny of the brain. Open memories, raise hands, move legs. Once a Yeerk is in you head, you're totally and completely at it's mercy. Saying what it wants you to say. Going where it wants you to go. Listening, silently, as it mocks your every desire and dream. Watching, impotently, as it enlists your mother or father or best friend into a life of slavery.
The right to privacy? Gone. The privilege of freedom? Gone.
What Elfangor did was give us access to Andalite morphing technology. this is our weapon, the ability to absorb through touch the DNA of a living creature and then become that creature. We morph to fight and to infiltrate. To spy on the Yeerk cover organization, The Sharing. And occasionally kick Yeerk butt.
We become whatever we need to become. Elephant or gorilla or grizzly. Tiger or wolf or cockroach. Cheetah or polar bear or even Hork-Bajir.
All of which makes that "who are you" question a whole lot more complicated for me than for say, about 99.9 percent of folks on this planet.
That remaining .1 percent - those would be my friends. The other Animorphs. Jake. Cassie. Rachel. Tobias, the guy who lives as a hawk. Ax, Elfangor's younger brother.
Obviously, there are a lot of issues we have to deal with. Issues far too complex for the six of us to waste a lot of time thinking about. Or maybe we've become far too complex for them to matter too much anymore.
In almost every way you can imagine, we've pretty much been there. Done that and bought the Tshirt and poster. If anyone from Guardian or Prudential knew the truth about us, we'd never, ever get health insurance. Forget about life.
Me and my friends, we are the definition of extreme living.
We are the definition of high risk. We don't need to sign up for a class at the local community college or pay some slick shrink 150 bucks an hour to tell us we're not realizing our potential. Our potentials have been realized up the wazoo.
See, this war comes down to life or death. Freedom or slavery. Dignity or abject humiliation. Failure is not an option.
Bottom line - we're here to serve. It's not only about us. It's about you, too.
That's why, every once in a while, it's real nice to be alone. Shut out the world and do something just for me. Something totally and completely self-indulgent and soul-numbing. Something that requires almost no effort, physical or intellectual.
The house was empty. Dad and Nora were at a PTA meeting. Euclid was spending the night at the vet, recovering from some minor doggie surgery. Jake and Rachel were off at a family thing.
Cassie and her mom had gone to some big veterinary conference at The Gardens. And I guess Ax and Tobias were doing whatever redtailed hawks and aliens do on an off night. I just knew I was blissfully alone.
I lay back on the living room couch. Stretched like a lazy old cat. Reached for the remote on the coffee table.
Nothing good on the tube. Perfect. I channel surfed, past SpongeBob SquarePants and a minor league baseball game. Past Two Fat Ladies on the food channel. Past a documentary on beetles. Ah! Unsolved Mysteries. Cool. The Loch Ness Monster. Bigfoot. Aliens from outer space ... Mr. Fake-Spooky Host looked wide-eyed into the camera. "When we come back after these messages, we'll continue our in-depth investigation of legendary creatures with an amateur video made just weeks ago, right here in ..."
I hit the mute button and waited. Hummed some Kid Rock. Yawned. Bit a hangnail. Seven commercials later, the show was back.
And then the world fell apart.
Doesn't it suck when you're just hanging out, watching TV, taking a break from defending against an alien invasion, and then your world falls apart?
Chapter 2
quote:
It was just a blue blur moving across the screen. Not much more than that. A small piece of videotape taken with an unsteady hand in terrible light conditions.
But it was enough.
My foolproof danger alarm went off. Loud. "Could this be proof positive of the existence of the magical unicorn of medieval lore?" the host intoned. "Or could this strange blue creature be the mighty centaur of Greek mythology? Let's take another look."
I hit the power button and the screen went gray.
One look had been more than enough. The image was blurred but unmistakable.
Andalite!
I scaled the stairs to my bedroom two at a time.
This was bad. Really bad. A serious breach in security. The beginning of our end ...
A good bazillion citizens of the United States of America, and who knew how many people in how many other countries, had just gotten their first glimpse of a bona fide alien.
Eighty, maybe ninety percent of those viewers would be excited for about thirty seconds - at least until the next silly monster after the next silly commercial.
Ten, maybe twenty percent of those viewers would recognize the blue blur for what it was. Not a unicorn or a centaur.
An Andalite. Here. On Earth.
And it could only be Ax.
Okay, Visser Three and every other Yeerk with a host knew of the "Andalite bandits." The ones who formed the small but unrelenting resistance to the Yeerk movement.
But others - humans not controlled by Yeerks - didn't know. And they couldn't. Shouldn't. It was too dangerous, too risky. Bad for Ax to be taken prisoner by the visser. Worse for him to be taken for study by the government.
Not everybody in "the agency" was as fair-minded as Scully or Mulder. Some were even Yeerks.
Ax would not be taken. I would make sure of that.
A thousand fears and anxieties ran through my head, almost as quickly as I ran up the steps and into my room.
I had to get control. Focus. Maintain that focus.
I went to the bed. Arranged the pillows under the blankets to look like a sleeping kid. So my dad and my stepmother wouldn't know I was gone. Again.
I stripped down to my morphing suit. Tossed jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers into the pit that is my closet. Tore open the window. And began to morph.
The goal: rapid transportation.
PING! PING!
I winced. The beginning of talons, where my toes had been only a few seconds ago. I watched as the rest of my feet and ankles withered, shrunk, and suddenly became the bird's incredibly strong,
gripping feet. Three long fleshless talons facing front, one facing back.
No way those feet could support my thick human legs. I was going down.
THUMP!
I was definitely down. But I'd fallen on my back. I lifted my head and watched as my legs blackened and shriveled up into my body like two sticks of beef jerky being sucked up by a gnarly old cowboy.
Right then I vowed never ever to eat a Slim Jim again.
In spite of what you might think, morphing doesn't hurt. It's just disgusting. But still, I watched. As if I could hurry the process by witnessing it. Fingers - curling into my palm. Tanned human flesh lightening to gray and then disappearing under a flat, three dimensional tattoo of feathers. Then arms sprouting feathers in a fury. At the same time, arm bones shrinking, hollowing, reshaping. Becoming wings.
My mouth and nose melded together, hardened to form a curved and deadly beak. Internal organs? I felt approximately twenty-five feet of human intestines smoosh and squish down to a bird's tiny digestive tract. My slow and steady human heart surge into the manic, pulsing
heart of the bird of prey.
No longer human. No longer tall enough to see the unopened notebooks scattered over the desk.
The handful of empty bubble gum wrappers I should probably throw away. Close enough to the carpet to see boulders of cookie crumbs and single strands of curly poodle hair. Ugh.
I was an osprey. The animal that had become one of my earliest morphs. Not a bird with the greatest night vision but vision a heck of a lot better than a human's. Vision good enough to get me where I was going.
Ax's scoop.
I hopped up onto the windowsill. Glanced sharply around with beady eyes to be certain the house wasn't being watched. And flapped into the night air
So for all they've been trying to hide Ax, he's now on tape, which is bad. (Although, I will say, like Marco said, the Yeerks already know there are Andalites on earth, and if you look at previous blurry pictures of crytids, they're not generally taken seriously.)