~Marco~
I was torn apart, I didn’t know what was happing; I didn’t know how much I had spent suffering in this little box.
David would be out for most of the time.
Urchin, his dog would be in most of the time, looking at me like I was liver jerky.
Urchin is a dog that makes Euclid lovable.
And that’s a lot to ask for from a dog like Euclid.
I didn’t know where my friends are, why they didn’t come to my rescue, I know that I’m annoying at times, but come on, I’m not that annoying.
My insulation against society had driven me mad, so mad that I started to talk to Urchin.
“Hey boy,” I said, “I know a boy that would love to spend time with, his name is Euclid. And he loves to watch cartoons. Actually, that’s why I started to miss some of my favorite shows. Hey, don’t you realize something about cartoons?”
Urchin would watch me from far away, like he didn’t understand what I was saying.
“So I realize there is a new form of physics, a Cartoon law of physics. And it goes like this,” I paused and rotated my head to stop the numbing sensation on the back of my neck.
“Cartoon Law number one; any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.”
“An example of this is Daffy Duck, Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second takes over.”
No laughter, I continued, “Cartoon Law of physics number two. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.”
“Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely.”
Again, no laughter, “Cartoon Law number three. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.”
“Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the specialty of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often speeds up this reaction.”
I didn’t hear anything howl in laughter so I continued, “Cartoon Law number four. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it is unavoidably disastrous.”
I am so unsuccessful as a comedian, but I decided to go on, “Cartoon law of physics number five. All principles of gravity are negated by fear.”
I paused and thought some more, “Physics forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Said a voice, “I’ll laugh even more when I finish with you.”
“Oh no,” I moaned, I was really sick of his company.
“Your friends have decided to double cross me,” He said, angrily. “And now-I am going to get rid of you, and.”
He left it hanging in the air.
“And what?” I asked with a bloody lip. I tried to focus on him but I was so tiered, from the moment that I came in, until now, I had no sleep, no food. And the position I was in had half paralyzed my arms, shoulders and neck.
He un-cuffed my hands and they fell to my sides,
“Ow!”
I couldn’t feel them, I rubbed over them, “How long have I been here anyway?”
“Two days,” He replied.
“Ohmygosh!” I gasped, suddenly wide awake, “ My dad!”
“Uhuh-”
I slammed my body into him, he fell, I had caught him off-guard.
I planted my fist in his left eye and…
ARFF!
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed. Something grabbed at my leg.
“Urchin, back off!” David said.
“Ugh.” I moaned.
David grabbed me roughly and slapped me, “Don’t you ever do that again! EVER!”
I said a word I couldn’t repeat, although I would have liked to.
I received a foot in my mouth.
BONK!
My head cracked at the floor.
I yelled, trying to cling onto consciousness.
I was grabbed up….actually lifted and placed on something that looked like a metal table, I felt the prickly sensation of a needle entering my skin.
Then I blacked out.
* * * * * *
I walk up feeling woozy, I was outside, in a filthy alley. Graffiti covered the walls. Beer cans littered the ground.
Where was I?
< Don’t do anything stupid Marco. > David said, he was a golden eagle.
My eyes searched desperately for an escape. < Morph to sea gull. >
< Do it. > He hissed, < Now. >
“Or what?” I asked.
< Or that little girl has it.> He replied.
He was standing on a girl’s stomach, she was about five years old. I don’t know what he told her to shut her up, but I knew that he could kill her, easily.
< Her mother is not far away. She’s looking for her. >
“You sick-”
< Hush now, complain later. >
I morphed, he told the little girl to close her eyes.
Fully seagull I took to the sky, David was not very far away. He had more altitude over me.
I had no idea where we were.
He told me to land, He stood over me, pinning me down with his huge talons.
I couldn’t move, he demorphed, grabbed me up and entered into a dark corner of this building we were in front of.
I saw a staircase, I heard screams.
The Yeerk pool!
< David. > I pleaded, < Don’t do this man, don’t sell out to the human race. >
“Too late Marco,” He said, “I all ready have.”
He walked down and with my seagull eyes, I saw him.
Visser Three, standing on this raised platform, terrorizing any poor soul who happen to pass him.
David approached.
< Ah, David, we meet again. > The evil cold voice reported.
David nodded, “Yes Visser, and I have a gift for you.” He laughed when he said gift.
< Which is? > He asked.
“This,” He said triumphantly, “An Andalite Bandit.”
< How do I know that it is one? > He said, suspiciously.
“Demorph.” David said.
The Visser laughed. < It takes a lot more than that to make an Andalite Warrior demorph. >
David ignored him, “They’re going to know anyway. Why hide. Because if you don’t demorph now, I’ll tell him.”
I started to demorph. Slowly, as about twenty Hork-Bajirs surrounded me and pointed their weapons at me.
They were not coming to come and get me, the Animorphs I mean, and, I was in no position to fight.
I stood, fully human in front of the Visser, tried not to tremble.
He stared at me, not knowing what to say.
< A human!? > He chocked out.
“Yes,” I said boldly, “A human, what? You got a problem with that?”
His tail blade was at my throat before I got to finish my sentence.
So I take that as a yes, he had a problem with that.
“Is that all you could do?” I laughed. “Come on, I know you could do better.”
I had no idea what I was saying, no idea what was I trying to get at.
< Brave human boy, > He mocked, < Let’s see if you could laugh after I finished with you. >
“Is it just me or do I hear the same phrases going around here?”
A pair of Hork-Bajir grabbed me and roughly dragged me away.
David was walking side by side with the Visser, talking, laughing, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, as I was taken out of the room I started to scream, “They’re going to get you man! The others will make sure you’re dead! I swear-”
I was shoved in a dark steel room and the door shut behind me, no one was there, silence.
Too much silence.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed, and punched the steel walls of my cell. I sat down leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
“You’ll pay for this David.” I muttered.
“I’m sure he will.”
My head snapped up, I stared at a silhouette of a human…it was a woman, I was sure of that, from the voice and the shape of the body.
Then I saw…someone who actually looks better than Rachel?
A girl slightly older than me walked in the room, behind her were a couple of Hork-Bajir.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Taylor.” I flinched at the name, Tobias’s torturer.
“Your Andalite friend told you about me?” She chuckled, “Good to know that I am famous between Andalites.”
“Yeah, well, I believe that Chapman is a lot more famous.”
Her eyes darkened at his name. “He might as well have been the luckiest Yeerk alive, he escaped his fait as death from an Andalite. He said the Andalite tortured him.”
I rolled my eyes, “Come on, Ax isn’t that scary.”
“Is that what you call him?”
I said nothing.
“Your life must be pretty weird,” She laughed, “Little human boy with the power to morph, fighting aliens when his Principle is an alien himself.”
I realized that Visser Three was in the room, but he hadn’t made himself heard, not yet. Taylor seemed to know this.
“Yeah well, even if my principle isn’t a real alien I think he still would have acted like one even without that Yeerk in his head.”
“Who else do you know is a controller?”
No answer.
The Visser stepped in, < Human, > He growled, < I want to know, why are the Andalites very interested in saving Visser One? >
I was quite, there was no harm in telling him.
“We aren’t very interested in saving the Visser’s life.” I commented coldly.
< Then why do you do it? >
Should I tell him? Why not? It’s likely that the news had reached Visser One already.
< WHY DO YOU DO IT?! > He exploded, the mask of fake friendship fell off his face.
I trembled. I would have done better in morph.
“Because,” I said angrily, “She has the host body of my mother.”
This seemed to surprise the Visser.
It also made him smile.
“My Visser,” Taylor said, “Can we start to torture hi-”
< No, > He said, < Not yet. >
I breathed I sigh of relief. Turned out to be too soon.
< Have him to the infestation peer. >
Chapter Thirty-Two
~Ax~
Prince Jake was tense, he was worried.
I can only guess at what was going through his mind. He must have been worried about Marco, his best friend.
I worried, but not as much as Prince Jake, Marco is Prince Jake’s greatest friend. Cassie said that these two were best friends way back.
I have a friend like that, on my home world, his name is Delhi, he lives in the scoop next to mine, so we see each other regularly.
Delhi’s dreams are different than mine, while I had dreams of become a warrior, a hero like my bigger brother, Elfangor, Delhi wants to become one of the top exhibition tail fighters, I believe he watched every fight Ajaht-Litsom-Esth fought. I too had been a person who watched the Andalite tail fighters in fights (you know, as a sport). I do not know what he accomplished, although I would very much like knowing.
I also wonder about my parents, it would be very unlikely that they had been told that I am alive. Communications between Dome Ships and the Andalite home world are brief, and something like calling my parents is not considered as top priority.
Rachel paced angrily, “What do we do now?”
Cassie shrugged, she too looked upset, then she looked at Prince Jake.
“Jake?”
He looked up, “We wait for his phone call, he said he was going to phone us.”
< And then what? > Tobias wondered.
“Then we act.” He replied.
We were back in Marco’s home, his old one, no one had lived in it recently, so it was all right for me to stay in my Andalite body.
It was disturbing, watching Prince Jake lose his temper, he did that the first time David called, when he heard Marco’s screams, actually, he had been so angry that when David ‘hung up’ he had grabbed the telephone and sent it crashing to the floor.
We had double crossed David, we told him we would give him the box in exchange for Marco, he had lied, and so had we.
For him, that didn’t change the fact that we deceived him.
Rlilim had gone back to the dome ship. No doubt to check on his friend, also, I was betting that he would report to the captain what had happened, to the very least, Prince Berit.
Which is why had had asked me to bring ‘my humans’ to the dome ship whenever they were ready, he said he had news.
Erek was with us, he would try to trace back the phone call.
RING! RI-
Prince Jake had grabbed the receiver on the second ring.
< Jake put him on speaker, > Tobias said.
Prince Jake pressed a button, a light shone and we could hear David’s voice.
“Hi guys, having fun?”
“David!” Jake hissed.
“That’s right. You want to know what I did to Marcoroni?” Prince Jake managed to keep ‘his cool’.
“What?”
“Visser Three, the magic words Jake, I gave him to Visser Three.”
Prince Jake clenched his fists, if David were to see the expression on his face I would believe that he would have stopped lying and handed Marco over.
Unfortunately, unlike our communications, it is not possible to see your caller on the other end.
Blame that to the human’s inaccurate technology.
“Jake. Jake. Jake-”
Erek walked over to the phone and hung up.
“Hey!” Rachel said angrily. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I just received news that Visser Three had been given an Andalite Bandit. I believe it is Marco.”
“How did you-” Rachel started to say then stopped and grinned sheepishly, “I forgot; Chee-net.”
He nodded “Go my friends, the Visser had ordered to have Marco infested.”
We morphed to birds of prey, Tobias flapped away. < Catch up when you can. >
The Chee had pointed out a Yeerk entrance which we could access easily.
My friends morphed into there battle morphs and I stayed as I was, waiting.
< Ax, go! > Prince Jake yelled.
I ran into the Yeerk complex, the first thing that greeted me were cheers from the caged hosts, that was comforting, what wasn’t were the Hork-Bajir war cries from the Hork-Bajir controllers.
I saw Visser Three.
I saw Marco being led to the peer. The Animorphs cover is blown!
The Visser knows that there is at least one human in my little group. I saw Tobias skim the roof of the Yeerk Cavern.
“TSERRRRRR!” He cried, then he took out the Hork-Bajir guard that was holding Marco.
Visser Three grabbed Marco’s arm.
Mistake!
For any Andalite readers, I should point out that human arms are a lot stronger than our usually Andalite weak arms.
Marco’s other arm swung, not fast, but unavoidable.
BONK!
< Ahhh! > The Visser cried.
He stumbled, off balance.
Marco spun to face him and delivered a kick. Hitting the Visser in the belly. The Visser groaned and crashed to the ground.
I needed a few minutes to assist Marco, the Visser was not going to be on the ground for that long.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAR!
Prince Jake!
A muddier roar followed Prince Jake’s angry tiger roar.
Rachel lumbered behind him.
I saw a wolf zip between Hork-Bajir’s legs, a forest of bladed legs! Cassie was in morph, biting here and there.
Tobias was laboring for altitude.
I was alone.
I ran ducked and leapt over a Taxxon, and ended face to face with the Visser. Marco couldn’t get past us, the only way out was from the peer, and that wasn’t a way out.
I stood tall on my hooves and tried to look a lot lighter than I really was.
I saw the Visser’s stolen body -heavily muscled- take the battle stance.
He waited for me to make my move.
Marco watched, frozen with terror.
FWAP!
The Visser ducked, pranced back and delivered a lightning blow, I felt his tail bite, my chest felt as if it was on fire.
FWAP!
I hit home! My tail blade sliced his shoulder.
< Argh! > I hit deep.
FWAP!
My tail came up to block the blow that was aimed for my throat.
A Hork-Bajir shoved into me! I stumbled a few steps forward.
< ARGH! > I yelled. His tail blade sliced at my eye’s stalk, it cut in, not very deep, but deep enough to send a painful sear through my body. My left stalk eye was blinded.
And I was still off balance, I desperately tried to regain my poster.
Too slow! The Visser’s tail blade had doubled back and it’s sharp point was rocketing to my exposed neck.
I am most certainly dead.
WAP!
Marco!
He was a few inches away from the Visser, and at the ground, he had kicked one of the Visser’s rear legs sending him sprawling into me.
I shoved him off me, my body vibrated with hatred and disgust.
Rachel must have demorphed and then remorphed at some time, because I saw an elephant come and back me up.
< Marco! >
The Visser jumped away.
That’s when I noticed how badly hurt Marco was, he jumped off the ground and limped our way, grinning.
It strikes me as strange how easily Marco finds it to laugh in situations like these.
“So, Rachel, how about a date? Next time choose something other than the Yeerk pool, I’m sorry but that’s out of my budget.”
< And to think I even felt sorry for you. > Rachel answered.
Rachel extended her trunk and picked Marco up.
“Hey! Easy on me!”
Perhaps a little too roughly.
< Shut up, I’m trying to save your sorry butt. >
“Uh, Rachel?” Marco said, “How can you do that with them.”
That’s when I saw what Marco was fussing about.
A battalion of Hork-Bajir formed a sea of angry faces. There most have been two hundred of them.
< Uh-oh, >
I believe that was an understatement. One can expect so much when dealing with Rachel.
Visser Three laughed, < Do you like my fresh recruits? Andalites? >
He sneered when he said the word Andalites.
Prince Jake laughed, < So you found out that two of our morph capable warriors are humans, so what? >
His eyes darkened, < Two? >
< Yes, that human and the traitor David. >
< What did you expect when dealing with a human? > Visser three laughed, < Anything but treason, eh? >
We were trapped, no way out.
The Visser was standing in a far corner, in a balcony. The army of Hork-Bajir where in front of us, in ground level.
Coward! He would not come down to face us!
< Kill th->
< I suggest that you reconsider. > Said a strong an Andalite thought speak voice in my head. One that I could not really recognize, I had heard it once before…but not this way.
In the shadows of the balcony an Andalite arm reached out. In it was a Dracon beam.
Who was that? My mind raced. It was…it was…
< WHAT? > The Visser yelped.
The Andalite said, < Hello Aristh Marco, we meet again. >
“Wha?” Marco said, frozen in mid-morph, “How did he know my name?”
I had the same feeling as well.
< Visser Three, > The Andalite said, < Call your men off. >
He did not need to threaten him. The Visser muttered something.
< Louder, > The Andalite laughed, < They can’t hear you. >
< Retreat. > The Visser yelled.
“It’s him.” Marco whispered.
The Andalite, the one who had arrived to the scene backed away and retreated in the shadow. I saw a faint outline… It was…
The vecol!
Impossible! What was he doing here? How is it possible that a mere vecol was able to penetrate Yeerk security?
I ran to the balcony, jumped up and pressed my tail-balade against his throat.
I enjoyed the look of terror that passed across his face.
The Animorhs and I walked out of the Yeerk complex, without any single Yeerk following us. The vecol had disappeared.
< There, you are out, > The Visser snapped, < Now can I go? >
An Andalite ship landed.
< No, > I said, < You are still coming with us. >
I kept my blade to his throat. The rest of followed in. The hatch closed.
We were in an Andalite war fighter. It was just about big enough to fit us. The others started demorphing.
The Visser watched in fascination as four humans appeared before him, and a bird.
< You! > The Visser cried aguishly, pointing at Prince Jake.
He laughed, “I believe the Visser recognizes me.”
And of course he should, Visser Three had met Prince Jake’s family and shook hands with them, even with Prince Jake.
Ugh. I can’t understand how he could stand so much as touching him.
The Visser looked at Rachel, then Cassie, then Marco, Tobias and me.
His eyes stared at me, < So, you are the Andalite bandits. Not so Andalite now. >
Jake sneered, “It had been child’s work figuring out your motives and manipulating your rage so that you turn a blind eye at us, from the moment we saw you until now, we believed if you thought of us as Andalite Warriors you would simply start to look in the wrong places, as you had when you tried to cut down the forest.”
The Visser ignored him turned on Marco, < You told me that your mother is host body to Visser One > -I saw the Andalite warriors flinch at that- < That still didn’t explain why you spared the Visser’s life. When you interrupted the council’s meeting and made a grab for her. You didn’t even take your mother, what happened? You had trouble with Edriss? Was she still ‘in love’ with the human brain? You felt sorry for her? >
The Visser’s laugh was ended by Marco’s shallower harsher laughter, “Feel sorry for her? Me? I’ve made enough cold decisions and calculations to make me sick, speaking of which.”
He paused looked out of the windows then looked back at the Visser again, “I talked to Edriss, I also forced her out and talked to my mother.” Marco’s voice cracked only slightly when he said ‘mother’.
Marco pointed a human finger at the Visser, “It didn’t take me a while to see that if Visser One was kept alive you would try to fight her to the top, we used Yeerk politics and analyzed your motives. We heard from the Visser that you wanted an all-out war, we didn’t want that, nor did the Visser. By keeping the Visser alive, I keep Earth in hope.”
Through Marco’s little speech, all the Andalite Warriors aboard the ship had turned eyestalks and as they fulfilled their duties, they listened. I noticed Prince Berit looking at the Visser then at Marco, then he said, < What do you mean that Visser One didn’t want to throw an all-out war? >
Marco laughed another shallow laugh, “The Visser knows this.” He looked jeeringly at Visser Three. His face was tight, he was trying with all his power to not lose his self control.
Visser Three is very easily moved by his own rage.
“No?” Marco said, “Then I have to explain.”
He looked at Prince Jake with a shrug. “The Visser didn’t want to have an all-out war because a lot of human would have been killed.”
Then he smirked at the Visser.
< It does not make any sense, > War-Prince Dorrath said. < Why would a Yeerk Visser care how many of you humans die? Your population is astonishingly high in numbers. >
< Brutal, reckless, insane, lunatic, mad and completely foolish, > Visser Three said suddenly, < That’s how you describe a human. And that’s what Edriss found out as well. She said that humans as a species were mad, but she also implied that humans alone, as an individual was something worth of prize, sure, one could laugh at there biological structure, but we Yeerks cannot be ignorant of the fact that these human, these lunatic weakling, have the power to think like an Andalite. And even, at a level higher. >
War-Prince Doorath snorted, < Impossible. >
My humans were being very quite about whatever had been said, I didn’t know why. I knew that the first two who would object or cut in were Rachel and Marco.
That was to be expected…but…they would say that the things that were said about they were not true, as an Andalite would have stood up and spoken when a Yeerk attempts to spew lies and say that the Andalites are < The true fools of the universe. >
But they were not saying anything, what was wrong with them?
Did they…no surely, they agreed with what the Visser was saying?
Why wasn’t Rachel speaking up? Like she always does?
I found out very soon, the humans that I were looking at were not the same as the ones I had met a few years back in one of Earths massive oceans.
I know I had not changed, but them?
I realized that war had changed them, all of them. It made me shudder. War had changed them, but that still didn’t explain why they were not speaking up for behalf of their race, why?
I noticed why, if Rachel would have talked about humans not being insane Marco would have just laughed and would tell her to ‘wake up and look at yourself.’
Yes, Rachel was a true Warrior, but she had always seemed happy in a fight, I understood that, I was always happy when I was destroying Yeerk efforts from endangering the lives of sentient species.
But I would also feel a little bit ill, almost, reluctant to draw blood.
Rachel was never reluctant to draw blood. In fact she was always angered when we try to run away from battle, not because we were cowards, no, because she couldn’t kill?
I felt a shiver race up my spine as I realized exactly how dangerous Rachel was, she was the most violent of all the humans in my group. Always the first expected to be seen in a battle and the last to withdraw.
And if Marco tried to use lies as to mislead the truth and say that humans are not insane, brutally, cold and reckless, then Rachel would counter him and tell him who fitted that description.
Marco was a cold blooded killer, a calculated one.
Prince Jake had shown tremendous displays of loyalty and responsibility, I would have to admit that an Andalite youth his age, not trained for war would not have done so much as a twentieth of what Prince Jake had done.
And what about Cassie? She was more and more shattered by this war, she doesn’t want to hurt anything, what about Tobias? He remains a mystery to me, always unpredictable…
I realized exactly what I was saying, stared at my human friends; every single one of them was different completely from the next.
Andalites aren’t like that, we have similarities in our personalities…Like? Ah well, Arrogant? Vain?
Was that why humans were mad as a species, they can’t fit?
I didn’t think so, I think the answer was a lot deeper than that.
< Humans are complicated, > The Visser was saying, snorting, < If you ask me I wouldn’t have asked for this much trouble, even for a level five species, we should have just left the to sort things out with them selves, their usually ways, maybe have another ten wars here and there, but the affairs of humans are driving me mad. >
< That’s enough talk, > Prince Berit sneered, < Why don’t you just slither out of that brain and let us kill you, it would be a lot easier than what we have in store for you. >
That was why the Visser was talking so much, he was stalling, but for what? < And what if I don’t? >
We were in space now, The big dome ship was cloaked. So the Visser didn’t know it was there.
< Then you die out of Kandrona starvation, and, you do it in an Andalite dome ship. >
He glared at us.
“Yeah,” Marco said, “And don’t think that morphing one of your alien nightmare of the day morphs is going to save you.”
Rachel grinned savagely, “You’re beat.”
The Visser turned to Prince Jake, < I promise your brother a slow death, Jake, your brother is a host to a Yeerk, did you know that? >
“Yes I know,” He hissed, “And that’s why I was looking for the day you were going to be destroyed, today that is.”
< David will still help us, > The Visser said, < Visser Two is coming to Earth. And I had made him aware of this little situation. >
< Release our brother Andalite. > Prince Doorath said, his thought speak voice dark with anger.
< Why? > The Visser said.
War Prince Doorath stepped in, < Do it Yeerk, or you will not live to tell this tale. >
< What makes you think that I thought I would? > He muttered.
He started to release his hold, I saw a slimy body push itself out of the Andalite ears, I couldn’t help shuddering.
Half way out Alloran’s hand went up and grabbed the Yeerk, he yanked him out and threw him, evidentially, he hit the steel wall of the fighter and it dropped by my hooves.
< May I avenge my brother’s death? > I asked.
War-Prince Doorath nodded.
I killed the Visser, I was happy that he was dead. I felt the heavy weight of a burden drop off my tail.
I had avenged my brother’s death.
To be continued.........
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