Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

hang on, how can Ax use his stalk eyes to watch the ship when he's already morphed to bird

# ? Mar 24, 2021 05:01

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# ? May 20, 2024 17:12

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Thank gently caress Tobias likes dinosaurs, or we'd have a very weird alternate timeline.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 05:17

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Soup du Jour posted:

https://twitter.com/chrisgrine/status/1374422958001713165?s=21

I would have assumed it would have been embodied by a spectral human Tobias that actual bird Tobias would imagine into group meetings with the other Animorphs as means of deluding himself (and for the sake of just simple scene blocking), that turns increasingly hostile and more menacing as the book goes on and Tobias's psyche unravels... but the sock puppet is good too.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 07:43

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs, Chapter 36
Jake

quote:

We flew. Up through the force field just as the doomed saucer lifted off.

The Mercora were all out to watch the ship take off. The ship that carried all their hopes with it. They didn�t see us in the darkness.

I was mad at Tobias. I was mad at Ax for helping him. But I knew they�d done the right thing. My being angry was the proof of that. See, even though I knew Tobias was right, I could get mad at him. I could try and blame him for the tragedy that was about to occur.

Which meant I didn�t have to blame myself.

We flew, up and up. It was dark and we swept past so quickly that the Pteranodons didn�t even notice us. They were day hunters. Actually, so were we, in our bird-of-prey morphs. Our eyesight was not much better than human in the darkness.

We flew up and out of that valley where the funny crab creatures grew their broccoli. Up into sky untouched by any artificial light, and toward the ocean.

The comet was amazing, and I guess it would have been beautiful. If we hadn�t known what it was. If we hadn�t known what it meant.

We flew for close to our two-hour time limit. We demorphed, then remorphed as quickly as we could. This time Cassie and Rachel used their owl morphs, so they could guide us all in the darkness.

<How big a boom will this thing make when it hits?> Rachel asked.

<That depends on the speed of the comet and its size,> Ax said. <The Mercora have observed the comet. They say it is approximately five of your miles across. It is approaching at a speed of fifteen miles per second.>

<Per second?> Marco asked.

<Yes. When it hits it will release as much energy as, say, a million of the nuclear weapons on that submarine.>

<Excuse me? A million nukes?>

<Well, assuming the �nukes� are reasonably well-made examples of primitive nuclear technology. I am being very approximate,> Ax said. <There will be shock waves. One shock wave will go forward into and through the earth. It will compress the rock beneath it, which will release all the carbon dioxide trapped there. There will be a huge fireball from the exploding gases and from the vaporized comet itself. Everything within a hundred miles or so, every animal, every plant, everything, will be incinerated. There will be a huge crater, maybe ten, twenty miles deep.

<The second shock wave will bounce back from the impact. It will blow massive quantities of burning rock all the way out into space. These burning rocks will fall across a wide area. As they reenter the atmosphere they will probably cause a massive heat wave, so hot that trees and grass will catch fire and burn. Any living thing out in the open will be cooked alive as ->

<Enough!> Cassie cried.

<Yeah. That�s probably enough information,> I agreed. <The question is, how do we live through this?>

<And are we sure we want to,> Tobias said darkly. <The next few years on planet Earth will notbe fun. First fire, then darkness. Darkness and cold and death everywhere.>

<Look, I�m interested in surviving,> Rachel said. <Period.>

<The shock wave is the first threat, then the intense heat,> Ax said. <When the comet strikes, perhaps we should be in the water.>

<We�re better off flying till the last minute,> I said. <We�ll make more distance. We follow thecoast north, then, at the last minute, we head out to sea.>

We flew. All through that night, only stopping to demorph every two hours. The sun rose over ascene of breathtaking beauty. We were over a river delta. A hundred glistening streams all heading for the ocean. And in that lushness, the dinosaurs. Slow Triceratops, and herds of huge Saltasaurus, the
long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs we�d encountered before. There were hadrosaurs and gigantic crocodiles and Pteranodons diving for fish.

Great, lumbering giants. It was a world where elephants would have seemed only average in size. Hundreds of species of dinosaurs, each a miracle of nature.

And yes, here and there as we flew we saw the tyrannosaurs and the other great predators. For some reason, although Tyrannosaurus had repeatedly tried to kill us, it was the Big Rex I pitied most.

They were so sure of their power. So confident. This was their planet and they were the kings. I wondered if they ever looked up and noticed that something was different in the sky. I wondered if they, too, saw the comet and felt a quiver of fear.

The comet was visible even in the brilliant daylight now. And it was beneath that comet, and above the teeming life of the Cretaceous, that we flew.

We rested at last in the high branches of a tree. All except Ax, who stayed below. Tobias was right at home there in the trees. And we humans could hang on and feel somewhat safe.

Cassie laughed a sad sort of laugh. �Well, here we are, just a few tens of millions of years early. Primates will evolve, and they�ll learn to live in the trees, running from the saber-toothed cats and other predators. And here we are now, just a little early.�

�By now they know,� Rachel said, looking back in the direction we�d come from.

�Who?� Marco asked her.

�The Mercorans. They know the nuke didn�t go off. They know it�s all over for them.�

Marco nodded. �Yeah. I wonder if they know why? I mean, that we did it. I wonder if they�ve figured out that we didn�t come from some far-off place, but from some far-off time on this planet. I wonder if they�ll figure out why we � you know, why.�

A Saltasaurus came by and stuck his snake head up into the tree, indifferent to us, and munched some leaves.

Night came again, and now we flew on urgently, desperate for every last mile. And finally, Ax said it was time.

We veered out to sea. We landed in the water, hoping that we could avoid being eaten in the few minutes that remained. We morphed to dolphin, and waited for the world to end.

<sigh>

Chapter 37
Cassie

quote:

I stayed on the surface to watch the end.

The comet was a blazing torch as big as a mountain. It hit, and the entire planet shuddered from the impact. You could almost imagine Mother Earth crying out in pain. But you know, Earth is just a big ball of dirt and water and air and life, spinning through space. It�s only important because it�s ours. The universe didn�t care that the orbit of Earth and the trajectory of a comet would intersect at this time and this place.

And yet in my mind, in my heart, I cried out for Earth.

The explosive power of a million nuclear weapons went off all at once. It was as if a giant had swung a hammer the size of the moon into our planet. I felt the impact in my insides.

The explosion seemed to rip the universe apart.

But I never felt the concussion. Because suddenly, I was no longer in the ocean watching the doom of the dinosaurs.

I was floating above it all. Floating in air, but not really. In space, only I could breathe.

<The Sario Rip!> I heard Ax cry. <The impact of the comet is collapsing it!> But this time the travel through time was different. We weren�t suddenly back where we started. We were hurtling through a void, hurtling past a videotape set on fast forward.

I saw the crater. It was a hole big enough to lose a dozen cities in. Flaming hot debris exploded outward. A red-hot fireball rolled across the landscape, burning everything, a blowtorch on dry grass.

Trees exploded into flame. Dinosaurs crinkled and blackened and fell dead where they stood, no time even to cry out. The burning wind expanded outward. The sky itself seemed to burn! But then the fireball weakened and from the wreckage rose smoke and dust. Earth was hidden by a blanket of
smoke and dust. The sun was blotted out.

Earth began to freeze, and still more creatures died.

It was all passing before my eyes now, faster and faster. The sky cleared as acid rain fell, disintegrating many plants and starving the remaining dinosaurs. The plant-eaters were too few now. The herds were gone. Only a few pitiful remnants were left, then even they were gone.

I saw, in a flash, the last Tyrannosaurus, wandering hungry, thin, weakened and alone, across a blasted landscape. It was looking for the prey that was no longer there. And then it fell.

Time sped up, and the continents floated across the surface of the world. I watched Antarctica slide to the bottom of the planet and grow icy. I watched the Atlantic Ocean appear where only an inland sea had been. India broke away and then slammed violently into the bottom of Asia, rippling up the Himalaya Mountains.

Ice sheets advanced and retreated. Forests spread and withdrew and spread again. Mountains rose up sharp and craggy, then crumbled slowly to softer, smoother shapes.

And everywhere, the small, brown, fur-covered creatures increased in number. They filled the land the way the dinosaurs had. They migrated into the seas. They became plant-eaters and meateaters.

Big and small, cute and deadly, slow and fast. And suddenly, there they were in the trees, swinging from branch to branch. And an instant later, some were banging rocks together and forming tools of bone and wood.

They walked erect, on two legs. They built huts and villages and cities. But all of this passed in a flash. Because in the long, long history of Earth, the entire history of Homo sapiens is not even the blink of an eye.

The dinosaurs ruled for a hundred and forty million years. Humans have existed for less than one million years.

I was in water again.

My friends were there, too.

I fired my dolphin echolocation clicks and �saw� ships in the water. And I felt the last, dying echoes of the underwater nuclear explosion that had first opened the Sario Rip.

<We�re right back when we began,> Ax said.

We demorphed near the beach and when we climbed out, there was the boardwalk. It was still raining. There was no volcano. No giant footprints in the sand.

We went to our homes, dazed, awed, and watched the news reports of the terrible disaster at sea. A disaster that, fortunately, had not resulted in any deaths.

The Navy diver who was the hero of the rescue swore she�d been led to the submarine by dolphins. Some people suggested maybe she was suffering from hallucinations brought on by the depth and by breathing the wrong mix in her scuba tanks.

I returned to my life, feeling strange and out of place. That night Jake came over. We went outside.

�I tried morphing the Tyrannosaurus,� he said. �Nothing. Didn�t work.�

�You could ask Ax. He may know why.�

Jake laughed. �Yeah, but even if he explains it, I still won�t understand it.�

�Maybe it was all just a dream,� I said.

�No. Not a dream,� Jake said. �But it all happened a long time ago.�

�Were we always there? I mean, were we meant to be there? To do what we did? Was everything supposed to happen a different way? Should this planet be ruled by the Mercora today? Or the Nesk? Should there still be dinosaurs stomping around? Did we make it all right or mess it all up?�

Jake didn�t have an answer, so I slipped my arm through his. We looked up at the sky for a while.

�No comet,� Jake said.

�Not today, anyway,� I said.

So, I'm adding the Mercora to my list of genocides in this series. Man, it's kind of a gut punch, and I can't stop thinking of those dumb, vegetarian, broccoli-growing space crabs.

Afterword

quote:

A note:
<Hi, it�s me, Tobias. After we got back from our adventure in the late Cretaceous, I looked up some of the dinosaurs we encountered: Tyrannosaurus, Deinonychus, Saltasaurus, Spinosaurus, Elasmosaurus, Kronosaurus, and Triceratops. All of them were around during the Cretaceous Age. But paleontologists seem to think some of them, like Spinosaurus, were extinct by the middle Cretaceous, whereas we were in the late Cretaceous. All I can say is that I was almost eaten by a supposedly extinct Spinosaurus. So who are you going to believe? Me, or a bunch of scientists with some old fossils?>

Screw you, science, I'm going to believe my bird friend. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the Cretaceous was a long period of time, and just because two animals lived in that period doesn't mean that they lived anywhere near each other in time. If you're curious as to what animals there "mainstream" scientists (who don't even believe that earth is under attack by alien parasites) believe were extinct by the time the comet/asteroid hit, it's Deinonychus, Spinosaurus, Elasmosaurus, and Kronosaurus. Only Tyrannosaurus, Saltasaurus, and Triceratops probably survived to experience the end of the world.

So what did you think about the book? It's, in my opinion, much better than the first Megamorphs. The author's hit her stride and knows her characters better, and even though this book also separated the characters, it's much more tightly put together, and everyone had something to do, unlike the first one, where Rachel spent the entire time wandering around with amnesia. It's also more....poignant, I guess. Ax and Tobias realize that the comet has to hit, and the Mercora, who are complete innocents in the whole matter, have to all die so that humanity can have a future. It's one of those sad inevitablities. You're mourning both for the Mercora but also for the entire, destroyed world of the dinosaurs. So, I liked it.

Next book is going to be a Cassie book called "The Departure".

# ? Mar 25, 2021 05:06

Shwoo: Jul 21, 2011

(Edit: This was a response to the previous update. I'm slow)

Tobias has a lot less information about this than he thinks. He doesn't know for sure that nobody ever found a Mercora fossil, just that it wasn't obviously alien if they did, and it's possible for them to prosper without fossilising at all, especially if they have the technology to recover their dead. Fossilisation is actually really rare.

They don't know that they're right at the end of the Cretaceous, either. Or that time travel works they way they assume it does. The Nesk could have redirected Halley's Comet to crash into the planet for all they know.

Obviously by the rules of drama, any travel back to dinosaur times will be right at the end of the Cretaceous, and anything strange in the sky is definitely going to hit the planet and kill everything, but Tobias is working off a lot of flawed assumptions for his Hard Decision here.

Mazerunner posted:

hang on, how can Ax use his stalk eyes to watch the ship when he's already morphed to bird

I want to see Ax morph a bird with stalk eyes.

Shwoo fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Mar 25, 2021

# ? Mar 25, 2021 05:14

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

They should have kept the dino morphs :colbert:

I really like this one, and it has a different tone of grimness to most of the darker books. I guess that's what happens when you have to commit genocide to keep the timeline on track.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 06:34

Rochallor: Apr 23, 2010; ふっっっっっっっっっっっっｃｋ

This was the first book of the series I actually bought, as opposed to getting them from the library, and it's the one I read the most. I agree it's a lot better than the first Megamorphs; that one felt full of padding, while this one justifies its extra length really well.

Next one is a goodie, too, although it has maybe the biggest moment of bizarre logic in the entire series.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 07:55

dungeon cousin: Nov 26, 2012; woop woop
loop loop

When I first read the book I had wondered why the gang couldn't have told the Mercora to leave the planet knowing that there's no sign of them in Earth's history and that it would be glassed pretty soon. They could have told them that they might have found somewhere else to settle since humans have no knowledge of the Mercora in the present. But I've realized that if they did that the Mercora probably would have just resettled on Earth since there's no guarantee they would have found another suitable planet. Then from there, they would have drastically changed Earth's evolutionary history.

Also, it's interesting that broccoli survived the extinction event. The Mercora settlement was right at ground zero and they probably didn't travel too far to expand their fields once the Nesk had fled.

GodFish posted:

They should have kept the dino morphs

At least it's consistent with the Jake's experience in The Forgotten.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 08:00

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Epicurius posted:

The Navy diver who was the hero of the rescue swore she�d been led to the submarine by dolphins. Some people suggested maybe she was suffering from hallucinations brought on by the depth and by breathing the wrong mix in her scuba tanks.

I've never been in the military but I imagine she's going to be in a lot of trouble with her CO for immediately fronting the media!

quote:

So what did you think about the book? It's, in my opinion, much better than the first Megamorphs. The author's hit her stride and knows her characters better, and even though this book also separated the characters, it's much more tightly put together, and everyone had something to do, unlike the first one, where Rachel spent the entire time wandering around with amnesia.

I like the first one a lot more than everyone else seems to. I dunno... this one is fine, but clearly a gimmick book to capitalise on the dinosaur craze, and weirdly a lot shorter than I remember - they wash up on shore, encounter some T-Rexs/Deinos, meet the Mercora and the Nesk, go grab a nuke and... that's it?

The thing that really sticks out to me now is the paucity of morphing. If I were writing a book about teenagers with the power to turn into animals and blasted them 65 million years into the age of dinosaurs, I'd feel obligated to make them acquire more than just two fairly similar dinosaurs. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have any morphing of pteradons or ichthyosaurs or sauropods. Especially when there's six of them, this book's just a bit of silly fun, and none of their morphs end up being canon anyway.

I think on the whole Megamorphs 3 is the best of them, and Megamorphs 4 is the weirdly haunting one that I don't remember liking much but is probably still better than the first two. It's a bit ironic that Megamorphs 1 is the only that that "actually happened," as it were.

edit - also, I never really noticed it as a kid, but the series really embraces the characters' differences and the narrator of any given book is usually really important. i.e. 18 was very much about Ax and his torn loyalties, 15 was very much about Marco and his mum, 13 was very much about Tobias - despite being happier as a bird - feeling frustrated he can't contribute as much. It's not always front and centre but it often is. And with Megamorphs it's neat in theory that you're cycling through multiple narrators, but I think it actually robs the story of a thematic focus. It's no coincidence that the Megamorphs books are generally the weirdest, most plot-driven stories of any of them.

Rochallor posted:

Next one is a goodie, too, although it has maybe the biggest moment of bizarre logic in the entire series.

I found 19 really dull as a kid but way more interesting when I re-read it in my late teens. It's arguably the most important character book for Cassie; the only other real contender is 29.

freebooter fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Mar 25, 2021

# ? Mar 25, 2021 09:38

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

19 is one of the best books in the series for what it does for the Yeerks. I''ll just leave it for that.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 10:21

dungeon cousin: Nov 26, 2012; woop woop
loop loop

One of the covers was pretty misleading.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 10:32

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

The end of this book is one of the scenes from fiction that stuck with me as a kid: the Animorphs desperately flying and swimming as far away from the comet's impact site as possible, an impact they engineered after misleading their allies and condemning them to extinction for the sake of preserving the timeline, hoping that they'll survive the apocalypse they unleashed.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 14:22

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

freebooter posted:

I dunno... this one is fine, but clearly a gimmick book to capitalise on the dinosaur craze, and weirdly a lot shorter than I remember - they wash up on shore, encounter some T-Rexs/Deinos, meet the Mercora and the Nesk, go grab a nuke and... that's it?

The thing that really sticks out to me now is the paucity of morphing. If I were writing a book about teenagers with the power to turn into animals and blasted them 65 million years into the age of dinosaurs, I'd feel obligated to make them acquire more than just two fairly similar dinosaurs. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have any morphing of pteradons or ichthyosaurs or sauropods. Especially when there's six of them, this book's just a bit of silly fun, and none of their morphs end up being canon anyway.

I think on the whole Megamorphs 3 is the best of them, and Megamorphs 4 is the weirdly haunting one

Yeah, this is about where I fall on them. I think Megamorphs 2 is actually my least favorite because it's so gimmicky that it having a better actual story than Megamorphs 1 isn't enough for it to hold my interest.

Books 19�23 are going to be interesting to get through. Quality-wise, they're all "fine" to "great," but they're a lot of darkness and a lot of gut punches all in a row.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 14:35

ANOTHER SCORCHER: Aug 12, 2018

Animorphs rarely presents the opportunities for truly alternate or counter-text readings, though it does an adept job of merging the saturday morning cartoon vibe with serious moral issues as we see in this very book. The kids go back into the time of the dinosaurs - where they maybe commit genocide. However ultimately the villains are evil and the cause of our heroes is just so whatever they do is justified despite handwringing. I don't think this is what K.A. Applegate intended but I do want to float the following idea:

Why Tobias Was Right to Blow Up All the loving Mercora

Almost everything we learn about the Mercora or more importantly, the Nesk, is simply told to us by the former. The first time the Nesk openly encounter Tobias and Rachel, to its knowledge aliens with the power to change form actively in the process of fighting a dinosaur, it stuns the creature attacking them (rather than killing it) and asks Tobias and Rachel who they are. It does project some possessiveness over the dinosaurs and "things" but there may be a justification for that possessiveness. Additionally, the Nesk admit they were listening to Tobias and Rachel and thus could have killed them in their sleep if they wished. It requests that Tobias and Rachel demorph, and only threatens them after they repeatedly refuse. Once Tobias and Rachel have refused to demorph as it asks and actually attacked one of them, the Nesk use their spaceship to herd the kids toward a group of them rather than simply killing them with their weapons. The Nesk do not want to kill the kids, they want to take them prisoner and find out who and what they are. An objective view of the Nesk is that they are: inquisitive, value Earth's fauna, communicative with other intelligent life, somewhat wary, and possessive of Earth.

Meanwhile, what do we know about the Mercora? They admit that they are not native to Earth and that they have not encountered an intelligent lifeform there before - except we know they have. They've encountered the Nesk. Maybe the Mercora meant they have not encountered an intelligent lifeform from Earth before but the text is ambiguous. Possibly the Mercora mean they do not consider the hivemind Nesk to be intelligent at all. The Mercora admit that they control their single outpost, while the rest of the countryside (continent? planet?) is controlled by the Nesk. The Mercora claim to these outsiders that they have no aggressive weapons, but the Nesk do and these outsiders should go grab one. According to the Mercora, the Nesk are scavengers who steal from other races (Ax later seems to gather this impression when raiding the base), believe the dinosaurs and planet are theirs, and cannot tolerate the existence of other sentient races. Except they tolerated Tobias and Rachel for a while, and did not seem intent on killing them. Tobias even calls out Mercora hypocrisy right before the kids raid the Nesk base, as the supposedly peaceful Mercora are sending them on a violent mission.

Upon reaching the base, the kids see that the Nesk have substantial perimeter defenses and later have thought-speak detectors. Weirdly, the Nesk are very prepared for an attack from the famously peaceful Mercora. As I mentioned, Ax sees that widely different technologies are in use and determines that the Nesk as scavengers and thieves. Using diverse technologies could also suggest technology trading, especially for a species that probably finds advanced industrial manufacturing difficult due to their form. Of course, once the alarms go off the Nesk attack the Animorphs who are already in the process of destroying the Nesk base.

Upon return, we are just told the Nesk are abandoning the planet due to a single defeat at a base. Someone diverts the comet (I presume this is objectively true as Ax's previous calculations suggested it would not hit Earth) and now the Mercora need a nuke to prevent it from hitting the base. As we all read, Tobias and Ax modify the device and ultimately the Mercora are destroyed and everyone is sad about it.

Let me take a moment to discuss ant evolution. Ants evolved from wasplike insects during the Cretaceous period, probably linked to the spread of flowering plants. They became ecologically dominant (ants constitute 15 - 25% of all animal biomass on the planet) shortly after the Cretaceous. While we have seen plenty of alien species that resemble Earth animals - Hork-Bajir are saurian, Taxxons are centipedal, Yeerks are sluglike - none seem as similar to their Earth analogue as the Nesk. Rachel says the Nesk smells familiar and even describes them simply as ants when she kicks the one investigating her and Tobias. We know they are possessive and protective of Earth and the animals living on it. This leads to a simple conclusion - the Nesk are indigenous to Earth. They evolved from the ants which were diversifying in this very period of time.

Unfortunately for this burgeoning civilization, Earth was being colonized by the Mercora who have advanced technology including impenetrable force fields and are slowly terraforming (Mercora-homeworld-forming?) the planet by introducing and growing alien flora. The Nesk, who have traded technology with visiting aliens or taken from those attempting to colonize Earth, cannot penetrate Mercora defenses to protect their world and now the Mercora have allies who can disguise themselves as other living beings. Diverting the comet reads better as an act of desperation or miscalculation on the part of the Nesk. It is the only thing that can eliminate this threat to their people and the planet. Unfortunately, it also collapses the biosphere for a few thousand years. Partially due to that and partially due to the lack of visiting alien species (Ellimist reveals himself to Crayak right around this time, so presumably the nature of intergalactic politics changes substantially) to provide technology, the Nesk diversify into the various non-sentient but biologically and socially advanced ant forms that now comprise most life on the planet. Ultimately, a victory for humanity and antkind. Too bad about the dinosaurs though.

EDIT: K.A. Applegate did actually once imply to a reader who asked about the Nesk that they became modern ants.

"Scholastic's According to KA posted:

Hi K.A.
I LOVE your books. I have a few questions.
1. I was wondering if you think you are going to not write Animorphs as much because of your new series Everworld. Are you worried that people will stop reading Animorphs and start only getting interested in Everworld? I'm worried about this!
2. In MM2 the Nesk got off the planet before it got hit by the comet. Will they ever appear in another book?
3. At the time of say, book 30, how long has it been since the Animorphs got their powers?
PLEASE answer me. I LOVE YOUR BOOKS
Your #1 fan,
Justin

Hi, Justin:
1) I actually think the two series work to make each other better. Because I'm trying to write EVERWORLD in a different way, using a different style, I think I'm learning and adding skills. I do not think ANIMORPH readers will defect en masse to EVERWORLD. The two series are very different. Really. Trust me on that. I think some people will like one and not the other, and others will like both. And, of course, some poor, benighted souls won't like either. The heathen.
2) What happened to The Nesk? Been to a picnic lately?
3) At that point it's been, oh, let's see, about 30 books.
--KAA

ANOTHER SCORCHER fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 25, 2021

# ? Mar 25, 2021 20:13

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

freebooter posted:

I've never been in the military but I imagine she's going to be in a lot of trouble with her CO for immediately fronting the media!

I like the first one a lot more than everyone else seems to. I dunno... this one is fine, but clearly a gimmick book to capitalise on the dinosaur craze, and weirdly a lot shorter than I remember - they wash up on shore, encounter some T-Rexs/Deinos, meet the Mercora and the Nesk, go grab a nuke and... that's it?

The thing that really sticks out to me now is the paucity of morphing. If I were writing a book about teenagers with the power to turn into animals and blasted them 65 million years into the age of dinosaurs, I'd feel obligated to make them acquire more than just two fairly similar dinosaurs. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have any morphing of pteradons or ichthyosaurs or sauropods. Especially when there's six of them, this book's just a bit of silly fun, and none of their morphs end up being canon anyway.

i agree, megamorphs 1 is a better book than this. but then i have a soft spot for the wacky teenage antics side of the early books and a gorilla driving a truck is peak wacky antics for this series

# ? Mar 25, 2021 20:22

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

I think I loved this megamorphs because I was super big into the dinosaur craze at the time, but going through it all now it's really hard for me to be invested at all. The premise is so... bizarrely out of left field and so detached from the actual main conflicts of the story (other than at the end having to make a Big Decision) that it feels like it's a fanfiction. Who didn't write fanfiction when they were 12 where their favorite book characters end up in X universe and have to save the day?

As a kid I really liked the "change into cool animals!" and "secret heroes saving the world and no one can understand!" themes which yeah those resonate with kids because they're going through weird changes and don't fit into society meaningfully so those are big cool themes that let you escape or feel important, and dinosaur adventure was fun.

Reading this as an adult though it's just so completely non-sequitur. I think what I like about the animorphs these days are seeing them struggle with very unfair odds against something too big for them to meaningfully defeat while it slowly destroys their sanity, because, well, that's the theme that resonates with me as an adult, lol.

I like at least you do get to see the animorphs address the absurdity of the plot? "So what, we spend the rest of our lives 65 million years in the past trying to survive the aftermath of the k-t extinction event? Battle with the yeerks over, this is it??"

Which sure yeah! It does have a good sense of things being so far beyond their control and sometimes life just ignores what your main "plot" is and goes "anyway, now your life is dealing with this unrelated disaster" which has been the theme of basically everyone's lives the past year and change.

Still feels like it's just a really on-model written fanfiction though.

# ? Mar 25, 2021 22:16

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

disaster pastor posted:

Books 19�23 are going to be interesting to get through. Quality-wise, they're all "fine" to "great," but they're a lot of darkness and a lot of gut punches all in a row.

I think they're all great! And I definitely think 20-22 being the strongest books in the series is a widely held opinion.

23 I don't remember much but recall people speaking very highly of it; then it's kind of weird that such a strong sequence runs headlong into a very silly and wacky book in 24. (Poor Cassie cops some of the silliest books.)

# ? Mar 25, 2021 22:43

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Ok, this is:

Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 1

quote:

My name is Cassie.

I am an Animorph. That�s the name we made up for ourselves. Or actually, it�s the name Marco made up for us. I�m not that clever with words.

I wish I was more clever with words. I really do. Because the story I have to tell is too strange, and in some ways too beautiful, for me to tell very well.

But I�ll do the best I can. And later, when I can no longer tell the story, Jake will take over.

Here�s what you need to know to begin with: We are not alone in the universe, we creatures of Earth. We humans are just one of maybe thousands of thinking, reasoning species. There are seven or eight that I know of for sure, ones that I have personally seen: Humans, Andalites, Yeerks, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Leerans, Gedds, Chee. And the Ellimists, if you can call them a species.

Among these species, the Yeerks move like a virus. They are parasites. Like intelligent tapeworms. They enter a body, wrap themselves around the brain and take over complete control.

Complete control. The poor creature who has been infested loses all power over his own actions. He loses all privacy. His memories are like a bunch of videotapes that the Yeerk can play whenever he wants.

We call a human who has been taken over that way a Controller. The Hork-Bajir have all been made into Controllers. Well, almost all. The Taxxons, too. The Gedds.

And now the Yeerks are after the human race. They have invaded the body of the human race like a virus. Like a cancer. Unseen, unsuspected, growing, spreading, enslaving� .

I guess you�d call them evil. I always did. An evil race. An evil species.

And I guess you�d say the Andalites are the opposite. The Andalites fight the Yeerks. It was a brave Andalite prince who broke his own laws to give us the power to morph. It�s the only power we have to fight the Yeerks.

This is what I believed: that the Yeerks are evil. That the morphing power is all we have.

So I should have been glad to be able to fight the Yeerks. I should have been glad to have the morphing power.

I should have been glad� .

<Cassie! Behind you!>

It was night. I was the wolf. I spun with far-more-than-human speed. I saw the Hork-Bajir�s clawed, bladed foot slash toward me.

I jerked aside.

The foot landed in the dirt beside me, missing me by a hair. One inch to the left and it would have opened me up like a sardine can.

The Hork-Bajir was off-balance now. All his weight was on that foot. I could see the muscles rippling. I could see the tendons straining.

I lunged. I opened my jaw wide. I closed my teeth on those muscles, on those tendons, and I clamped with all the shocking power the wolf possessed.

I twisted my head savagely, ripping, tearing, trying to do damage.

�Rrrraaawwwr, raaawwrrr, rrrr!� I vocalized as I bit down. I repositioned, bit down again, and twisted and twisted, shaking my shoulders to help rip and tear.

The Hork-Bajir screamed in pain.

He tried to slash at me, but now he was off-balance in the other direction. He was falling back, thrown off by his own wild flailing.

He fell. The sound of his fall was sharp and clear and full of details to my incredible wolf hearing. My wolf sense of smell recorded the panic hormones, the Hork-Bajir equivalent of adrenaline that flooded his system.

My wolf ears could even hear the machine-gun pounding of his hearts. And the pulsing throb of the big arteries in his neck.

All around me, the battle raged. Jake, our unofficial leader, in tiger morph. Rachel as a huge, rampaging elephant. Marco, like me, a wolf. Tobias in his own hawk body, soaring and diving, attacking eyes and faces. And Ax, the Andalite, his sharp tail flailing like a bullwhip. A razor-tipped bullwhip.

We had been on a simple reconnaissance mission. It was a meeting of The Sharing, the front organization for Controllers. They were having a party for �new members.� New members who thought they were joining something like the Boy or Girl Scouts, but would soon be dragged, willing or not, to be infested by Yeerks and be made slaves.

It was a cookout in the park. A bonfire blazed. People ate hot dogs and coleslaw and slices of pie. The adults drank beer. The kids drank Cokes. The night sky was full of stars.

We had sneaked up close to the meeting in various morphs. We had identified a dozen people we did not know were Controllers. Including a radio deejay who did one of those �wacky� morning shows, a state highway patrolman, a TV news reporter, and a substitute teacher who I had for
homeroom for two months while my regular homeroom teacher was having a baby.

A simple mission. Nothing too dangerous. Except that it had all gone wrong.

Far from the main meeting, off to one side, out of sight of the innocent, naive people who wanted to join �for the fun,� the �executive meeting� had gone suddenly weird. One of the human-Controllers had made a mistake of some sort. A serious mistake. And suddenly, she was being hauled off toward a
waiting Bug fighter by Hork-Bajir warriors.

They wanted to take her to Visser Three, the leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth.

She knew what that meant. If she was lucky, her death would be quick. She started to yell. �But I didn�t do it! I didn�t do it! You have to tell the Visser I�m innocent!�

That�s when we changed our plans. That�s when we decided to get involved. See, we figured if we saved the woman, the Yeerk in her head might cooperate with us. Might reveal secrets to us.

And we only saw two Hork-Bajir and a gaggle of human-Controllers, none of whom had a weapon.

So we�d morphed into battle morphs. And that�s when the other five Hork-Bajir had shown up.

We fought. Not exactly for the first time. And we were winning.

�Aaarrrggghhh!� the Hork-Bajir cried in panic and pain.

The Hork-Bajir�s leg was in bad shape. I let go of it. I leaped up the length of his body. He slashed at me, but weakly. His night-sight was not as good as mine. He didn�t see me as clearly as I saw him.

I saw his throat, unprotected.

<Okay, they�ve had it, back away! Back away!> Jake yelled.

But it was too late for the Hork-Bajir. Too late to keep the wolf that was me from doing what its instincts taught it to do.

Too late.

We backed off. We stood for a moment, glowering at the battlefield. I could clearly hear the main group of The Sharing laughing and singing and having fun, off beyond this dark, bloody field. They were oblivious. They�d seen nothing.

But just beyond the battlefield stood a handful of human-Controllers. They stared at us with hatred. We stared back at them.

And then we turned and melted away into the night.

<Okay, everyone, let�s get outta here,> Jake said wearily. He�s always depressed after a battle.

<Seven of them, six of us, and we ruled!> Rachel said. She�s usually up, almost giddy, after a battle. Tobias was silent, as he usually is after a battle.

Marco looked for a joke. <You know, I was gnawing this Hork-Bajir�s arm and I just kept thinking mustard. It would go so much better with mustard.>

Marco jokes after a battle. And before. But the jokes afterward are always kind of strained.

Ax calmly wiped his tail blade off on the grass as we walked.

And I said, <I�m never doing that again.>

<Yeah, it was not a smart fight. But hey, we won,> Rachel said.

<No. I mean I am never doing that again,> I said. <Never. I quit. I quit this stupid war. I quit the Animorphs.>

I turned and walked away from the others.

I felt their eyes following me.

Maybe if I hadn�t felt so hollow, so weak, so sickened inside, maybe I would have felt the extra set of eyes on me.

But I wasn�t paying attention. I was done being afraid. I was done hurting other creatures.

I was done, done, done being an Animorph.

You know the drat thing about the war for the Animorphs? They just fought a bunch of Hork-Bajir, and Cassie killed one of them. None of these Hork-Bajir wanted to fight them, though....none of them had any control over what they were doing. If it were up to them, they'd be like Jara Hamee and Ket Hapak, hanging out in the forest, with the intelligence of five year olds, stuffing themselves on bark, without malice towards everybody. To win the war, they have to kill innocents.

Chapter 2

quote:

I demorphed as I headed toward home. It started to rain a little, just a drizzle. Just enough to turn the leaves wet, to make the grass squishy as I walked across the field.

The lights were bright at my house. Through the family room window I could see my mom sitting at her desk going over paperwork.

I couldn�t see my dad. But I knew where he was: in his big easy chair watching TV, the remote practically glued to his hand.

Our big barn was dark. Just a tiny, bright white light to mark the door so we could find it if one of the animals needed care in the night.

The barn is also the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Both my parents are vets. My mother works with the exotic animals at The Gardens, which is a zoo-slash-amusement park. My dad runs the clinic, where he takes in injured wild animals: squirrels, geese, voles, foxes, deer, rabbits, bats, raccoons, hawks. You name it.

I help my dad in the barn. I give meds - medicines - to the animals. I clean them up and change bandages and feed them.

I headed for the barn to get the change of clothing I keep hidden there. See, when we morph, we can only morph the tight shirts and leotards we call our morphing outfits. I couldn�t exactly show up back home wearing just that.

I didn�t turn on the lights in the barn. I knew my way around. And I could see a red �Exit� light and light from the computer we used to keep track of the animals� progress.

I passed by the cages. Most of the animals were quiet. But not all were asleep. The nocturnal animals were pacing to and from - those that could pace.

I walked by a fox. Its tail had been hacked off. Probably by some troubled kids. It paced and stared out of the cage and paced some more.

It looked at me. It had very intelligent eyes. It looked right at me.

�It�s okay,� I said to the fox.

I found my clothes in the tack room, changed, and walked to the house.

�Cassie! There you are.� It was my dad. He was kicked back in his easy chair, just like I knew he would be. �You didn�t walk home, did you? It�s raining.�

�No, Rachel�s mom gave me a ride.�

�I didn�t hear a car pull up.�

I forced a laugh. �You were probably watching TV.�

Lies came so easily. I had become an expert at lying since becoming an Animorph. But now there would be no need for lies.

�Yeah. This news story. A leopard�s escaped from some fool who keeps exotic animals. They think it may have made it back up into the mountains. Clawed a man pretty badly. It�ll be a tough job recapturing a leopard. Honey?� he yelled in a louder voice directed toward the kitchen. �Cassie�s home.� My dad seemed way too perky. Way too cheerful. It was an act.

I went into bright light and gleaming linoleum. �Hi, Mom.�

�Hi, sweetheart,� my mom said.

Now my radar really tingled. My mother isn�t one of those �honey-sweetheart� kind of people.

Something was wrong. I felt my dad coming into the kitchen behind me.

�What�s the matter?� I asked.

My parents sat down at the round table. I sat down, too. I was expecting a lecture about staying out too much. I was ready to promise not to do it again. I was ready to mean it, this time.

�There�s no easy way to do this,� my mom said. �Cassie, we�ve lost funding for the clinic. We just got word this evening.�

I shot a look to my dad. He looked away and down and up at me, then away again.

�What do you mean?� I asked stupidly.

My dad muttered, �The, uh � the pet food company that�s been paying to support the clinic is pulling out. I am trying to get a new company to help us out, but it doesn�t look good. It looks like we�re going to have to shut down the clinic.�

I should have had something to say. They were both looking at me like I�d have something to say.

But I just didn�t.

�We know this will upset you,� my mom said.

And I just stared blankly.

�We�ll keep trying,� my dad said. �In fact, I�m leaving town tomorrow to talk to a vice president at this new company.�

I tried to find some words. But nothing. It was like every part of my life that mattered was being taken away in a single night. No more Animorphs. And I knew what that meant: Rachel would pretend to still be my friend, but she�d never really forgive me. Jake would still like me, but his life was about being leader of the Animorphs.

And now this. I was even losing my animals.

My mother was peering closely at me, looking bothered. �Um � honey, you have something in your teeth. Right there.� She pointed to her own teeth.

I felt with my finger. I pulled out a small shred of something green and gray.

Somehow, while morphing from wolf back to human, it had become lodged between my shrinking teeth.

A small sliver of Hork-Bajir flesh.

So, yea. This has been a pretty horrible night for her.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 04:30

WrightOfWay: Jul 24, 2010

I think this is one of the only Cassie books I remember liking as a kid.

Also, wow, that's an even worse souvenir of morphing than Marco finding the ant mandible in his side.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 05:24

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

That is an impressive Chapter 1. The usual overview of the series premise, whatever, but then it effectively sets up the main conflict of the book with an understandable inciting incident. Megamorphs weirdness aside, it definitely feels like Applegrant are at the top of their game in this period.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 05:53

Zonko_T.M.: Jul 1, 2007; I'm not here to fuck spiders!

I was reading the description of the clinic and started thinking, wait, how does her dad get funding? I guess the answer is: he doesn't!

Thanks for setting up this thread. I've been binging it for the past couple of weeks and loving it! I never cracked one of these open because all I knew about them was the goofy covers. I read a bunch of other sci-fi as a kid. It's ironic because I thought this series would be dumb power rangers style junk and it turns out it's way better than a lot of the stuff I was reading at the time. I don't know if I would've appreciated it back then though. They don't even get to keep the dinosaur morph?! I would not have been ok with that at 13.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 09:04

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

WrightOfWay posted:

Also, wow, that's an even worse souvenir of morphing than Marco finding the ant mandible in his side.

Thank you, I was trying to figure out what this bit reminded me of.

Is this the first book that's begun in media res, sort of thing? With them already on a mission that doesn't even get drawn up as exciting or important, just a horrible and horribly tedious regular part of their lives? It really underlines how the war is just a constant feature for them now.

quote:

I walked by a fox. Its tail had been hacked off. Probably by some troubled kids.

It's a really nice small touch that even in this circumstance, Cassie is such an empathetic and sympathetic person that she subconsciously assumes the hypothetical kids in question are "troubled" rather than just writing them off as assholes or whatever.

Zonko_T.M. posted:

I was reading the description of the clinic and started thinking, wait, how does her dad get funding? I guess the answer is: he doesn't!

Thanks for setting up this thread. I've been binging it for the past couple of weeks and loving it! I never cracked one of these open because all I knew about them was the goofy covers. I read a bunch of other sci-fi as a kid. It's ironic because I thought this series would be dumb power rangers style junk and it turns out it's way better than a lot of the stuff I was reading at the time. I don't know if I would've appreciated it back then though. They don't even get to keep the dinosaur morph?! I would not have been ok with that at 13.

It's awesome to have people on board who've never read the series before, especially since some of the best stuff is yet to come!

# ? Mar 26, 2021 10:36

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Is this the first ghostwritten book?

# ? Mar 26, 2021 19:27

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

HIJK posted:

Is this the first ghostwritten book?

No, that's 25.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 19:31

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

disaster pastor posted:

No, that's 25.

And, interestingly enough, #26 is the last non-ghostwritten book in the main series until the last couple books (with a single exception).

# ? Mar 26, 2021 22:39

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Fuschia tude posted:

And, interestingly enough, #26 is the last non-ghostwritten book in the main series until the last couple books (with a single exception).

Wait, which one's that? I thought it was straight ghostwritten from 26 all the way to the first book in the 10-book conclusion arc.

# ? Mar 26, 2021 23:23

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

If it's the starfish book I may lose my poo poo

# ? Mar 26, 2021 23:45

Shwoo: Jul 21, 2011

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

If it's the starfish book I may lose my poo poo

I have some potentially poo poo-loss-causing news.

freebooter posted:

Wait, which one's that? I thought it was straight ghostwritten from 26 all the way to the first book in the 10-book conclusion arc.

Most of the conclusion arc was also ghostwritten. After #26, only #32, #53, #54, and the Megamorphs and Chronicles books were written by the original authors.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 00:18

Level Seven: Feb 14, 2013; Wubba dubba dubba
that blew.; Megamarm

freebooter posted:

Wait, which one's that? I thought it was straight ghostwritten from 26 all the way to the first book in the 10-book conclusion arc.

The one where they get introduced to the Crayak and some of its homegrown aliens on the planet of shopping malls

# ? Mar 27, 2021 00:19

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 3

quote:

It took a long time for me to get to sleep.

I just kept thinking: It�s all gone. Everything that was big and important in my life. All of it gone. My best friend. The guy I � that I liked. The animals I loved.

What was I going to do now? What was I going to be? I was just another short, slightly chubby girl now.

I had to tell Jake it was all a joke! I couldn�t quit. Was I crazy? I couldn�t quit!

But then, in the darkness, I saw that Hork-Bajir. I felt my powerful jaws grinding �

I�ve met a couple of free Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir are a ferocious-looking race. Seven feet tall, with razor-sharp blades at their wrists, elbows, even on their legs and tail. But sometimes looks are deceiving. The Hork-Bajir use the blades to peel bark from trees back on their home planet. It�s what they eat. They are peaceful herbivores.

It wasn�t the fault of the Hork-Bajir. He never did anything to me. It wasn�t him trying to cut me up with his blades. It was the Yeerk in his head. That poor Hork-Bajir had no control of anything.

But he felt the pain. He suffered. He suffered because of what I did to him. And now, whatever hopes he might have had of someday being free, well, those hopes were gone. Because of me.

�It was battle,� I whispered into the sheets drawn up under my chin. �It�s a war.�

I hadn�t heard Jake call us off. I hadn�t heard in time. If I had, the Hork-Bajir might still have his dreams of freedom. And yet � when had Jake called us off? Before I lunged or after? It was all confused in my mind.

Confused �

I guess I drifted off to sleep, because I started to dream.

I was huge. Huge! More than forty feet long from my tail to my blunt, roaring head. Eighteen feet tall. With teeth that were seven inches long.

I was the most dangerous predator the world has ever known.

I was Tyrannosaurus.

In the dark I saw the Triceratops slam its huge horns into another Tyrannosaurus. It was Marco, in morph just like me. He was on his side, his belly exposed to the horns.

I flexed the huge muscles in my tree trunk legs. I dug my massive bird-talons into the dirt. And I leaped!

Tons of muscle and bone soared through the air. I landed beside the Triceratops. I lowered my head, and opened my mouth and bit down into the exposed spine of the Triceratops. I sank my teeth into it and jerked back with all my might.

I felt the big dinosaur come up off the ground. Marco was safe. I knew that. But I was caught up now in the rage of battle.

I roared.

�HoooRRROOOOAAARRR!�

And the Triceratops screamed. �Rrrr-EEEE-EEEEEE! Rrrr-EEEEEEEEEE!�

I shook my Tyrannosaurus head, worrying the screaming Triceratops like a dog worrying a bone.

And then the Triceratops stopped making sounds. It hung limp. I dropped it and stood over the fallen creature. And I bellowed.

�Huh-huh-huh-RRRRRROOOOOAAAARRR!� I roared in triumph. The sound shook the leaves in the trees. It seemed to shake the distant stars.

�Huh-huh-huh-RRRRRROOOOOAAAARRR!� I screamed again.

I felt within me all the violence of nature, all the ruthlessness of the survival of the fittest, all the power of muscle and bone and claw and tooth, all the ageless, never-ending lust for conquest wrapped into one awesome roar.

Obviously, these dreams are from the last book...which is the last time Cassie killed something in combat by letting her morph's instincts take control..

quote:

I woke up.

I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom in the hall. I closed the door and turned on the light.

I sat there on the closed toilet for a while, shaking and holding my face with my hands.

I brushed my teeth.

I kept brushing my teeth till my gums were bleeding. With pink-stained toothpaste foaming around my mouth, I looked at myself in the mirror.

Was this what it was like to go nuts?

I opened the window. Cool night air flowed in. The rain had stopped. From here I could see the barn, quite close by. Soon it would be empty. No more animals.

I saw a flash of movement. Just a patch of darkness that shifted out of sight behind the barn.

Probably an animal drawn to the smell and sounds of prey in the barn.

Only the eyes, the faint glimmer of eyes, did not come from low to the ground. It came from higher up. Like human eyes.

I stared for a while, and had the feeling that someone was staring back.

Then I closed the window and went back to bed.

In a way, this almost reminds me of the earlier book about Rachel and her dad, where she's trying to decide whether or not to move east with him and give up the fight to just be a normal kid.

Chapter 4

quote:

�You weren�t in school today,� Jake said.

They had me surrounded. At least that�s how it felt. We often met at the barn. It was one of our regular places. But it felt so different this time.

They were all there, all but Ax.

Jake stood, arms crossed over his chest. He was trying to look calm and relaxed. He wasn�t succeeding. Something has happened to Jake during the months we�ve been Animorphs. He used to be just a normal kid. Good-looking, but not the kind girls got all giggly over. He had always looked solid and reliable and decent. The kind of guy to whom you wouldn�t even suggest doing something wrong.

But even though there had always been something �adult� about Jake, there was always still the kid underneath. That had changed. He had faced too many dangers. Worse, he had made too many life-and-death decisions.

That shows up in your face after a while. In your eyes. It showed up in the way Jake stood taller than before, and yet somehow a little worn-out. There was a ragged look to him.

�Yeah, I wasn�t feeling well this morning,� I said. �So I stayed home.�

�Maybe it was something you ate,� Marco suggested with a smirk, laughing at his own wit.

Rachel snatched a towel off one of the cages and threw it at him. �That�s not exactly helpful, Marco.� She turned to me. �Look, everyone gets down about all this, okay? So take a couple of days to get your brain straightened out, take it easy, watch some tube, eat some cookies, and then you can come back.�

Rachel had not been changed. Not that you could see. Rachel is one of these people who can walk through a hurricane, followed by a mud slide, followed by a flood, and come out clean, dry and with every hair in place.

She is still the tall, blond, perfectly-accessorized girl she�s always been. But inside, she, too, is changed. She�d always been bold. Now she was reckless. She�d always been aggressive. Now there were times when she scared me.

This war against the Yeerks had been a gift to Rachel. She�d found her true place in the universe. The world would probably never have allowed pretty Rachel to become the warrior she was meant to be. But being an Animorph, she�d become all that.

�Look,� I said, �I know what you all think. You think I�m just upset because of one battle lastnight. But that�s not it.�

I opened a cage containing a goose whose wing had been mauled by a wildcat. I began to cut away the old bandage.

<So if it wasn�t the battle last night, what was it?> Tobias asked.

Of us all, Tobias has suffered the most. He is a red-tailed hawk. At first he was trapped in that form, unable to escape, unable to morph at all. But then the Ellimist gave him back his power to morph. Even to morph into his old human body.

There was just one catch. If Tobias stays in morph again - any morph, even his own human body - he will be trapped again. And this time the Ellimist will not save him.

Tobias could become human again. But if he did, he would lose the ability to morph. He would be out of the fight against the Yeerks.

I don�t know why Tobias has chosen to remain a hawk. I guess he wants to stay in the war. Or maybe the truth is, he�s happier as a hawk than he was as a human.

I looked at him, sitting with his talons gripping a wooden cross beam high up toward the slanted roof of the barn. �I guess I�m not you, Tobias. I guess I�m not willing to make the sacrifices you�ve made.�

�What sacrifices?� Rachel demanded, getting angry now. �We have the chance to save the planet! How can you talk about sacrifices? There are thousands, maybe millions, of people still enslaved by the Yeerks. Who�s going to save them if not us?�

�I don�t know,� I said. I finished removing the goose�s bandage and began cleaning the wounds.

�This is bogus,� Marco said bitterly. �You know, back when we started all this, it was me who didn�t want to get involved. And you all acted like I was a big coward, or else selfish.�

I shrugged. �So I�m a coward. I�m selfish.�

Marco practically leaped at me. His eyes were blazing. �What�s the deal with you, Cassie? Half the time you�re giving us all crap over being too ruthless or whatever. It�s always, �Oh, is this right?� and �Oh, should we do this?� I mean, you�re Miss Morality, and then when you have a bad night you just bail on us?�

�That�s not what it�s about,� I said. I could feel something like pressure on my heart. Like something was pushing to get out of me. Something explosive.

�Oh? So what then? You just want to spend more time playing with your animals?�

�The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic is going to be shut down,� I said. �No money.�

I guess that just puzzled Marco. He fell silent.

�So no, I guess I won�t be spending my time playing with the animals,� I said sarcastically.

�Cassie, we need to understand this,� Jake said wearily. �We need to understand you.�

�She�s scared,� Marco sneered.

�Marco, shut up,� Rachel snapped. �She�s not scared.�

�Yes, I am,� I said.

�You are not,� Rachel said, waving her hand like I was some annoying fly. �You�re as brave as any of us. Just because you have all these moral qualms and feel bad over stuff, that doesn�t make you a coward.�

�I destroyed that Hork-Bajir,� I said.

Rachel�s blue eyes went cold and seemed to look past me. �It�s a war. They started it. Of course you feel bad over -�

�No,� I said. �I didn�t feel bad. I heard Jake say to back off. And after he said that, after he said that, I did it.�

I wasn�t sure that was true. But I needed to say it. To make them understand. No one had anything to say for a while. I started putting the new bandage on the goose.

�So you feel bad about it,� Rachel said with a shrug.

�No. I feel bad because I felt nothing. I felt � nothing, Rachel. At that moment I felt like I was just doing my job, you know? And now they�re shutting down the clinic, and my dad tells me and I feel � nothing. It�s been going on for a long time. Each day, each battle, each mission, I just feel less
and less.�

I looked at Rachel. She looked away. I turned to Jake. He made the ghost of a smile and nodded his head. He understood. He knew. It was happening to him, too. But then he looked away as well.

I spread my hands, open, helpless. �I can�t not feel anything when there�s violence. I can�t notcare about living things. I can�t be like that.�

Marco laughed a short, brutal laugh. �Fine. You have your morals and your fine feelings and all that. We�ll go off and risk our lives to save the world. You just sit here and feel righteous.�

He left. I heard the flutter of wings and realized Tobias was gone, too. Rachel had an expression I�ve almost never seen on her face: She was hurt.

�Rachel, we can still be-�

�No, we can�t,� she said, cutting me off. �See, you�ve just said the whole world can drop dead, so long as you, Cassie, don�t have to end up turning into me.� She stormed from the barn.

I should have said something. But it was true. It was true I didn�t want to turn into Rachel.

Jake and I were alone. He looked down at the ground. �Don�t morph,� he said. �If you�re not an Animorph, don�t use the power.�

�I won�t.�

�You�ll want to,� he said. �But if you do, you run the risk of getting caught. Those risks are acceptable if you�re going to help us. But if you�re not in the fight anymore, you can�t use the weapon.�

�I said I wouldn�t morph anymore, Jake. I�m not a liar.�

He left. I stood there, all alone with the animals. The goose was still half-bandaged. Animals needed their meds. Some needed feeding.
And I didn�t care.

So I think there's a good point in this chapter. It's not just the killing the Hork-Bajir that made Cassie snap....it's the realization that this war is changing all of them for the worse. She sees herself changing, getting desensitized, and she's scared of what she's turning into.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 03:29

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

It strikes me here that part of what makes it so hard for them is that it all has to be a secret. It's one thing to go over to France to fight the Nazis when everyone else your age is being conscripted too, and it's all anyone in the world is talking about, and you can write letters home, etc. Whereas for the Animorphs, it's like... you're literally saving the world (or trying to) and never getting any recognition or credit for the sacrifices you're making except from each other.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 07:35

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Cassie is right. The only way to get out of this unscathed is to get out.

Shame about that whole alien invasion, I guess.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 07:46

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Rachel cutting her off and saying that no, they can't be friends because they clearly have different morals and values was...remarkably insightful for some teens.

Also obviously a giant blow to Cassie.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 12:51

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Ravenfood posted:

Rachel cutting her off and saying that no, they can't be friends because they clearly have different morals and values was...remarkably insightful for some teens.

Also obviously a giant blow to Cassie.

I don't know. It seems to be a very teenage thing to do. Your teenage years are when you start working out your own beliefs, and realize that your friends don't always share yours, and the whole "I can't be your friend anymore if you believe that" seems very adolescent.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 16:10

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

Holy hell after a kind of a snooze with the weird loopy dinosaur time we start off with THIS heck yeah this is what Animorphs is about.

# ? Mar 27, 2021 19:15

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 5

quote:

I had fallen behind on a lot of my chores. One was the water trough made of an old claw-foot bathtub that we kept in a far corner of the pasture for the horses. It had gotten overgrown with algae and was crusted with windswept leaves.

I rode one of the horses out there. Riding a horse has always made me feel better, and besides, I�d gotten slack about exercising the horses. I took my favorite mare.

It was a cool, gusty afternoon with clouds rolling in again, threatening an early sunset. I rode at a trot most of the way, feeling chilly air on my face and trying to think of nothing.

But when I got to the old tub, I found it perfectly clean. No leaves, no algae. It had even been propped up to sit more level on the ground.

I swung down out of the saddle and looked around for an explanation. I found it in the mud: a narrow hoofprint, not much different from a deer�s. You�d think it was a deer print if you didn�t know to look very carefully.

It was an Andalite hoofprint. Obviously Ax had seen that the trough needed work and had taken care of it.

You know, we don't know what Ax thinks about Cassie quitting and all that. He wasn't at the meeting. I mean, I assume he's not that fond, but...

quote:

This part of the pasture was right up against the forest. The grass stopped just a few feet past the fence, and there the line of trees began. I looped the mare�s reins over the fence and looked around.

Grassland sweeping back toward my house, which was invisible from this angle. And trees which I knew swept all the way back to the distant mountains.

I hadn�t thought about not morphing anymore. I hadn�t realized I�d be giving that up. The ability to become a bird and fly. The ability to become all the animals I had loved for so long. To see the world through their eyes and hear with their ears.

I sighed. Jake was right, of course. I couldn�t run the risk. Not now. Not if I wasn�t going to contribute.

�Who cares?� I asked the breeze.

But as much as I didn�t want to care, I did. About this one thing, I cared. Life just seemed so cramped and small without being able to morph ever again.

Then I saw it. Just a movement behind the front row of trees. I didn�t see what had moved, just that there was a movement.

Was it Ax?

�Nee-EEEE-he-he-he!� The horse whinnied. She tossed her head.

My mind flashed to the escaped leopard. Could he have made it this far? No. Not likely.

Besides, what I�d seen moving in the trees wasn�t a leopard. You didn�t see leopards unless they wanted to be seen. And whatever I�d seen, or almost seen, had not moved with the liquid grace of a leopard.

�Ax!� I yelled.

No answer.

I mounted the mare again and tried to ease her into a trot. But she reared up and neighed loudly.

Something was bothering her. But what? And where was it? I licked my finger and held it up to feel the breeze. It was blowing from the direction of the trees.

�Easy, now. Easy,� I said.

The wind shifted direction. The mare calmed. This just worried me more. It confirmed that she had smelled something in the woods. Now that the wind was coming from a different direction, she no longer smelled what had been bothering her.

Then -

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

�Aaaaahhhhh!�

A flash of red hair, running.

And behind it, a much bigger creature, running like a bowling ball, almost seeming to roll.

A bear!

A black bear was chasing a girl with red hair.

The girl ran, but the bear was far too fast. The girl leaped toward a low branch, snagged it and scrambled wildly up into the tree.

But it wouldn�t help. If the bear wanted her, it would climb right up the tree after her!

Before I knew what I was doing, I tightened my grip on the reins and urged the mare forward.

�Giddap! Hah! Hah!�

We ran along the fence, hooves pounding. I could see the girl dangling, barely holding on. And

then I saw what I had feared: Behind the black bear was a cub. Bears are seldom aggressive toward humans. Unless the human makes the big mistake of somehow getting too close to a cub.

The black bear was ripping at the slender tree. The girl screamed in terror.

I yanked the mare away from the fence, backed off a hundred feet, then said, �Hee-yah!� and dug my heels in, urging her to run toward the fence.

We galloped, tearing up clods of damp dirt and grass behind us. I tucked down, held on tight and hoped the mare knew how to jump, because I sure didn�t.

Up! Up! We sailed high -

WHAP!

Her back hooves caught the top rail and then landed hard but safe. �Come on, girl!� I yelled, and we raced toward the tree.

The horse was terrified, eyes wide, mouth foaming. But she was in a panic run now, and horses never have been the geniuses of the animal world. So she ran straight for the bear.

The girl was hanging from a branch by her fingertips.

�Hang on, I�ll get you!� I screamed.

Thirty feet more � twenty feet � ten feet �

The girl screamed.

She dropped.

The bear roared.

I grabbed at the air. One hand found the front of a Levi�s jacket. I held on, yanked her toward me, and sped on.

Twigs whipped my face. One foot was out of its stirrup and I was gasping for breath.

I scrabbled desperately, trying to find the stirrup without being able to look down. The girl was strangling me, holding on for dear life. I dropped the reins. The mare was in a blind panic.

And with good reason. Because the bear wasn�t done with us.

The bear was chasing us.

In open country we�d outrun the bear easily. But in the brush, the bear was keeping up.

Then, quite suddenly, the bear gave up the chase and calmly walked back to her cub. The mare, however, was not ready to stop running. And I could not reach the reins. All I could do was hold on.

Hold on to a handful of mane and the girl�s jacket.

Suddenly -

No more trees ahead of us. The river! White water, swollen by the recent rains, bounding and crashing over rocks.

The mare was pelting toward it. I tried once more to reach the reins. I slipped. I grabbed a handful of mane and yanked myself back up.

And in a split second I saw the low branch.

WHAM!

I felt myself flying, flying, flying �

But by the time I hit the water, I wasn�t feeling anything at all.

Ouch. But yea, mother bears are very protective of their cubs. The whole quote "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." comes from a Kipling poem that that includes the example, if you're walking and see a male bear, he'll generally get out of your way, but if it's a female, you're dead.

quote:

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Don't mess with bears, especially bears with cubs.

Chapter 6

quote:

�Aaaahhhh!�

I woke up screaming.

I was in a boiling, mad, lunatic current. Water rushed around me, over me. Water filled the air. It twisted me over and over like a corkscrew. I flailed my arms, but they barely moved. I couldn�t feel my hands or fingers. My legs felt dead. I was freezing. Freezing to death.

THUMP!

I hit a rock and barely felt the impact on my side.

Then � falling, falling! I saw trees that seemed to fly up and away from me. I saw a glimpse of explosive white water beneath me. I was falling, the water vertical around me.

PAH-LOOSH!

I was all the way underwater, and being pounded viciously by the waterfall. It sounded like some monstrous engine, throbbing, beating, hammering at me.

FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!

I tried to swim, but my arms were made of jelly. My fingers were stiff as sticks. Morph! I told myself. But I couldn�t concentrate. Couldn�t hold the thought in my brain.

Suddenly, I shot clear of the beating waterfall, but I was still underwater. Far underwater. Too far.

I tried to hold my breath, but I was becoming more and more confused. What � where � which way should I � arms �

I sucked air into my burning lungs.

Only it wasn�t air.

I gagged and writhed, helpless. Suffocating! My head bumped on something. A rock? The surface! I could see it. Now it was just inches over my head.

Just inches of water separated me from the air.

But it was too late. I closed my eyes. My muscles relaxed. I went to sleep.

I didn�t feel the arms that hauled me up out of the water. I didn�t feel the mouth that breathed air into me.

�Hah! Wah?� I woke up! Then instantly felt my insides heave.

�Buh-buh-leaaahhh!�

I threw up. I was on my back in the dirt. I vomited all over myself.

I rolled my head to one side and sucked in air, coughed, breathed, coughed some more. I hacked away for several minutes, gasping for a good clean breath with lungs still wet from the river.

A sharp pain in my side. A splitting headache. Pins and needles in my frozen hands and feet so intense it made me want to scream.

But I was alive!

Only then did I notice the girl. She was squatting just a couple of feet away. Her red hair was wet and bedraggled, plastered against her forehead and hanging in long, soggy curls.

She had brilliant green eyes that seemed unnaturally large. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a jean jacket. She was shivering.

�You saved my life, didn�t you?� I said to her in a hoarse, raspy voice.

�You saved mine,� she said. �That bear could have killed me. So now we�re even. I don�t owe you anything and you don�t owe me.�

It was a strange thing to say. Too mature � I don�t know, too old to be coming from someone so young.

I sat up, fighting the urge to cry from the pins and needles feeling. �My name is Cassie.�

�I�m Karen.�

�Where are we?�

She shook her head. �I don�t know. We were in the river for a long time. I was knocked out, too. But I came to sooner than you. And I was able to grab onto a floating log for part of the time.�

I looked around. The trees were very tall, mostly pines. I saw no obvious trails. No trash or other signs of humans. We were deep in the forest.

I tried to form a mental picture of the course of the river. I knew it came down from the mountains, fed by melting snow and rain. It swept very near our farm, then doubled back, heading toward the mountains until the slope changed again and turned it at last toward the sea.

But that didn�t tell me where we were. We could be a mile from civilization, or we could be ten miles. But more troubling was that I didn�t know what direction to go. If we went the right way, we might hit a road pretty soon. If we went the wrong way � well, the forest was very large. You could be lost in the forest for a long, long time.

�Did you ever read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen?� I asked Karen.

�No.�

�I did. I wish I�d paid more attention. I�m not exactly an expert on wilderness survival tactics. Besides, we don�t seem to have a hatchet. Guess we�ll just have to take our best guess and walk out of here.�

Karen looked solemnly at me. �My ankle is hurt. I can�t walk.�

I took a deep breath. I was mostly revived now. I could feel my hands and feet again. And my brain was starting to work a little better, too.

�Karen, what were you doing there in the woods to begin with?�

She didn�t answer. She just looked at me.

I felt a new kind of chill. �The other night, someone was behind the barn, looking up at my window. That was you, wasn�t it?�

She said nothing.

I felt an awful dread begin to well up inside me. I felt like I couldn�t breathe.

�Why were you following me? Why were you spying on me?� I demanded, trying not to panic, but already feeling the terror growing inside me, churning my stomach, squeezing my heart.

Karen sighed. Then she cocked her head and looked at me quizzically. Like I was some interesting specimen of insect and she was an entomologist.
�You interest me,� she said.

�There�s nothing interesting about me. Really.�

�Sure there is. See, if I�m right about you, then you can fly away from this place anytime you want. If I�m right about you, you can also � let�s just say, make a few changes � and kill me.�

I forced an awful fake laugh. �What on earth are you talking about?�

�Oh, nothing on Earth,� Karen said. �At least that�s what everyone believes. Humans can�t morph. Only Andalites can morph. Only an Andalite could become a wolf and rip the throat from my brother�s host body and leave him dying.�

Cassie is like 2 days out of the Animorphs and she already saved the life of a Yeerk.

# ? Mar 28, 2021 04:02

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Epicurius posted:

quote:
�Did you ever read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen?� I asked Karen.

I did, and in nearly this same era. It's pretty good, and similarly brutal and unforgiving. For some reason I always kind of merge it with The Giver in my mind, even though they're nothing alike. I must have read them around the same time.

# ? Mar 28, 2021 06:09

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Book 19-The Departure, Chapter 7

quote:

I guess Marco would have been cooler, more glib. Maybe Rachel would have just attacked. I don�t know. But I�m not Marco or Rachel.

I stared, breathing stopped.

�I have no idea what you�re talking about,� I said.

Karen smiled a small, triumphant smile. �I followed you after that battle. You separated from the others and went your own way to that farm. I saw you loping along as a wolf one minute, then I lost sight for a few minutes. But when I caught up again, there was no wolf. Just you. Seemingly a human girl.�

�What do you think I am? A werewolf or something?� I asked, trying out my desperate, fakey laugh again.

�I don�t know what you are,� Karen said. �Not for sure. That�s why I followed you. See, everyone knows there�s a band of Andalite warriors here on Earth. It makes sense that they would try to pass as humans. But everyone also knows no Andalite can stay in a morph more than two hours.

And I�ve seen you in this human morph for more than two hours at a time.�

I shrugged and put on a baffled expression. �Okay, whatever. Maybe the cold water messed up your brain a little or something. Maybe we should just focus on getting you some help.�

�I know you�re not an Andalite who�s been trapped in a morph because you morphed that wolf the other night. So that leaves two possibilities. Either you are an Andalite who has somehow figured out how to defy the two-hour limit. Or ��

�Or what?� I couldn�t help asking.

�Or what some of us have suspected for some time is true: There are humans who can morph.�

I shrugged. �Are you like one of those X-Files people?� I asked.

Karen smiled. �If you�re an Andalite, you�ll just demorph and kill me. This little human body would be defenseless against your tail.�

�Now I have a tail?�

�If you�re a human who can morph, then you�ll morph something nasty and kill me that way.�

�So, wait a minute. Let me get all this straight. In this little fairy tale of yours, I�m capable of destroying you either way, right?�

She cocked her head in a very human gesture. �You�ll think you can,� she said. �And whatever you do, I�ll have proof.�

I stood up. I�m not exactly tall enough to tower over anyone or look very threatening. But still, Karen should have looked just a little bit nervous. Instead she looked smug. Cocky. Like she was just waiting to see what I�d do.

I stuck out my hand. �Come on, crazy girl,� I said, �let�s get started. It may be a long walk back.� There was a flicker of doubt in those cool, green eyes. She ignored my hand and tried to stand.

Halfway up, her left leg buckled and she fell back heavily.

�My ankle is badly injured,� she said. �I�m afraid I can�t walk.�

I looked down at her and ran through my options.

In this forest there were bears and wolves. The bears wouldn�t attack her as long as she stayed out of their way. But the wolves might, if they were hungry enough. The woods around us looked empty, silent. But I have been a wolf. I know the awesome power of their senses. I was willing to bet that at least one wolf pack already knew we were there. They�d heard us, they�d smelled us.

If they were hungry enough, they�d come by to check out the unfamiliar smell. If they came and saw a helpless kid, unable to walk, defenseless � well, wolves aren�t man-eaters by nature, but they are programmed to take down the weak and sick.

And if the wolves didn�t get her, there was the cold night and the hunger. If I walked away now, the human-Controller named Karen could very possibly not survive the night. Killed by nature�s hand.

One thing was certain. If Karen made it back to her fellow Controllers, knowing what she knew, none of my friends were safe. She knew I was an Animorph. Or had been one. It would be easy for her to find out who my friends were. To take them, one by one, and make them submit to infestation.

Make them into Controllers.

All it would take was one: me, Jake, Rachel, Marco. It didn�t matter. If the Yeerks controlled one of us, all our secrets would be theirs.

They would learn of the hidden colony of free Hork-Bajir up in the mountains. They would learn about the Chee - the peace-loving androids who sometimes helped us with information.

If Karen came out of this alive, Jake, Rachel, Marco, Tobias, and Ax would all be caught and made into human-Controllers or be killed. The Chee would be annihilated. The Hork-Bajir would be recaptured.

All hope for human freedom might die. Unless � unless Karen was destroyed right here, right now.

I turned away and walked to a dried-out, fallen tree. I grabbed a long, forked branch. I levered my weight against it and worked it till it splintered and cracked.

It was a strong, stout branch. Three feet long, thick, with a fork at one end. I gripped it tightly and carried it back to Karen. One swift, sure blow to the head. That�s all it would take. I could knock her out and leave her tied up with her own shoelaces and let nature do the rest.

I saw the apprehension in her eyes.

�Here,� I said. �This will make a good crutch. Wait here while I find some smaller sticks to make a splint.�

I actually think it would be pretty hard for the Yeerks to annihilate the Chee. They're pretty resilient, they have over fifteen thousand years of experience, and their holographic technology is beyond what the Yeerks can detect.

Chapter 8

quote:

We were not in a good position. Night was falling. We were somewhere in a forest. We had no tools and no matches. Everything around us was damp, maybe too damp to burn. And what I could see of the sky, looking up through the trees, was filled with dark clouds scudding on a stiff breeze.

�This will hurt,� I said. I had found some sticks the right length. I had removed my belt. Fortunately, I never listen to Rachel on matters of fashion, so I had a good, strong, practical leather belt.

�Your pants will fall down,� Karen said, sounding like a kid again.

�Yeah, right. I seem to have gained a little weight since I bought these pants. They�re plenty tight. Or maybe they shrank. That could be it.� I placed the sticks carefully around her lower leg and down over her ankle bone. Then I wrapped the belt loosely. �Okay, I�m not going to tighten it a lot, because your ankle is going to swell up. But I have to tighten it some. I want to keep your ankle immobilized.

On the count of five, okay? When I get to five, I�ll yank it. One ��

I yanked the belt.

�Aaahhh! Hey! What happened to five?�

�You would have tensed up on five,� I said. �This way I caught you while you were relaxed.�

�A trick.�

�For your own good.�

Karen snorted. �Now I know you�re an Andalite. Typical Andalite arrogance. The only race in the entire galaxy that makes war �to help people.��

The Andalites are very much the galactic policemen. In addition to the Yeerk War, we saw in the Andalite Chronicles that they go after raiders like those Skritt-Na.

quote:

I stood up again and stuck out my hand. This time, Karen took it. �Come on,� I said. �We have to get moving.�

I helped her to her feet. She winced in pain as she placed weight on the bad ankle. I leaned overawkwardly to grab the crutch. �Here. Try this.�

She stuck it under one arm. �Which side? The side with the bad ankle, or the other side?�

�I don�t know,� I admitted. �I don�t work with humans much.�

�Ah? Ready to stop pretending and admit what you are, Andalite?�

I laughed. A real laugh this time. �I work with animals. I know how to set a broken leg on a deer or a raccoon or a wolf. I�ve never done a human before.�

Karen peered skeptically. �Ah, yes. The barn full of animals. Of course. What a perfect cover for an Andalite. All those animals right there so you can acquire their DNA for morphing.�

�Whatever you say, kid,� I muttered. �Let�s try moving.�

�Where are we going? Which way is civilization?�

�I don�t have a clue. But it doesn�t matter. We�re not trying for a way out, not tonight, anyway. We need shelter.�

�What? If you�re going to try to kill me, go ahead and do it. No need to drag me off to some secluded spot.�
�Karen, what could possibly be more secluded than this?� I waved my arm around at the tall
trees.
�Okay, if you don�t have the stomach for killing me, let�s walk out of here. My leg is fine.� She took a couple of wincing steps.

�Look, I�m sorry you think I�m some space alien. I�m sorry you think I want to kill you. But the truth is, if we try and walk out of here tonight, we could end up dead. It�s going to rain. Maybe even storm. You ever been in a forest in the middle of a storm? The ground will be mud. Lightning hitting the trees. Flash floods in the gullies. Cold. No way to build a fire. You wouldn�t like it.�

Suddenly Karen erupted in a rage. �Why do you keep up this stupid game? I know what you are capable of! I know what you did. You could morph to that wolf and easily kill me and then run out of these woods. Why are you playing this game?!�

I waited till she was done yelling. Then I said, �I see higher ground over that way. Maybe low hills. I can�t tell, peering through these trees. Maybe we�ll find a cave over there. At least we�ll be away from this river. It could rise during the night, with rain and all.�

But Karen wasn�t listening anymore. She was staring up at a tree.

�What is that?� she asked in a worried voice.

I followed the direction of her gaze. There, lodged in a crook of an elm tree branch, was a crumpled, ripped body. The sweet face with the big eyes was lolled to the side.

�It�s a young deer,� I said.

�What�s it doing up there?�

�The animal that killed it put it there for safekeeping.�

�What kind of animal does that? A wolf? A bear?�

I shook my head. �No. But a leopard does.�

If you remember, this is the leopard that escaped earlier.

# ? Mar 29, 2021 04:37

Time Trial: Aug 5, 2004; A saucerful of cyanide

Ugh, Karens

# ? Mar 29, 2021 15:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 20, 2024 17:12

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Time Trial posted:

Ugh, Karens

"Excuse me. I want to infest your manager."

# ? Mar 29, 2021 17:06

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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