This story was 3-4 months in the making. I started it in late September/Early October '98. I would appreciate any and all feedback. Since I'm striving to make this the best story I've ever written, it may go through a few re-writes as people give me more feedback.

Warning:This is a very dark piece, especially the begining. If you're offended by the death of your fav characters, you may want to avoid this story. The rest of you, enjoy!!!

  The Final Animorphs

By:Forlay

    Chapter 1

    I looked back behind me. Were they still there? Where's Cassie?
    "Cassie?" I yelled, "CASSIE!"
    "AHHHHHHHH!" I stopped running when I heard the scream. I turned all the way around. And I saw one of the worst sights I'd ever seen in my years as an Animorphs. The huge Hork-Bajir had Cassie. And who was standing beside him? None other than Visser Three.
    < Ah. Cassie, isn't it? > Visser Three said.
    I was frozen with fear. They couldn't take Cassie! I'd lost too many people already, Jake, Marco, my entire family...Tobias. I was not about to add my best friend to that list.
    Then I noticed Cassie was trying to tell me something. She was mouthing something  to me. Something like, "Run, Rachel, Don't let them catch you. I'll be okay."
    I wiped tears from my eyes and nodded. I had to get out of there before Visser Three or the Hork-Bajir came after me. I whispered goodbye to Cassie and flat out ran, crying silently. I had lost everyone.

    The next day, I found myself back in Tobias' old territory. I'd been wandering around for the last day, switching between crying relentlessly and staring off into space. I was always moving, I didn't dare stay still and have the yeerks find me. For all I knew, I was the last free human on Earth. The yeerks had been openly attacking Earth for almost a year now. And every day of that year, we had been fighting them, trying to stop them. But, one by one, we were captured.
    First they took Jake. From Jake, they got Marco. They got Ax, too. Then, when we were attacking the yeerk pool once, trying to free Jake or Marco or Ax. They...they got Tobias. At least he wasn't a controller, I could rest easy knowning that. He'd been shot down by a dracon beam. Every day since then, I'd replayed the last conversation we'd had in my head.

    The flash of a dracon beam lanced out in front of me.
    I swiped my huge bear claw at the Hork-Bajir who had fired, knocking him out, but just barely. I was weakening.
    < AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! > Tobias!
    I looked to where the dracon beam was pointed, and I saw Tobias fall, his left wing singed off.
    < TOBIAS!!! > I screamed, and lumbered over to him. I picked him up in my clumsy bear claws, < Tobias! >
    < Rachel... > he moaned weakly.
    < Come on, Tobias! Hold on! Don't give up! I'll get you out of here, just hold on! >
    < I'll...I'll try...Rachel... >
    < Cassie! Come on, we're not going to win this one, retreat! > I watched as Cassie, in wolf morph, deftly dodged the paw of a tiger. The former leader of the Animorphs, Jake. My cousin. Marco's best friend. Cassie's boy friend.
    < Ha ha ha. Did your little bird friend get hurt? > Marco's thought speak voice thundered in my head. The anger I used to feel when I heard Visser Three's thought speak voice was nothing compared to the anger I felt when I heard Marco's or Jake's.
    I gently carried Tobias out of the hell hole known as the yeerk pool, cradling him in my one good arm. Cassie was covering my back.
    As soon as we were a relatively safe distance from the pool, Cassie and I demorphed.
    "Tobias, hold on. Do NOT die on me!" I yelled. Then, suddenly, an idea! "Tobias! Morph! Morph now! Morph anything! Just do it!"
    < Rachel...I...I've tried...I can't. Just too tired. So tired. Must...must sleep. >
    "NO!!!" I picked Tobias up and held him directly in front of my face, "You are NOT going to sleep. Sleep now and you never wake up!"
    < I'm...I...Rachel, It's...it's time, I think...I...I love you. >
    I gently laid Tobias back on the ground, tears flowing down my cheeks, "I loved you too, Tobias. Please, go to a place where there won't be any yeerks to fight. Go to a place where there isn't any hurting. And remember, wherever you go, I love you."

    I suddenly looked up. I'd been sitting on a rotting log, resting from all the running I'd done the past day. I had the feeling I was being watched. I crouched down behind the log, trying to hide from whoever-or whatever-was watching me. Of course, I could just be really paranoid. I've become an expert at paranoia lately. Marco would've been proud.
    Speaking of Marco...please don't tell me that's a gorilla over there! I thought to myself. Unfortunatly, it was. Marco, or Marco the Controller I should say, had been hiding in the shadows of the forest in gorilla morph while I had been resting.
    < Heh heh heh. I see you've found your way back to your bird friend's medow. Still in mourning, Xena? >
    I felt a pang of pain in my heart. As much as the nick name had annoyed me, it burned me up inside to hear the name coming from that yeerk.
    I started to morph grizzly bear. If I was going down, I would go down with a fight.
    < That bear won't do any good here, Xena, > the yeerk mocked in my head, < I have hundreds of Hork-Bajir warriors surrounding you as we speak. >
    < Go ahead and call them, > I said defiantly. < I don't really care. >
    Suddenly, the gorilla started going into convulsions. Was Marco rebelling? The real Marco?
    < Rachel!...He...Bluff...Attack...end...cycle... > Then, suddenly, the yeerk was back in control again.
    I felt a renwed strength inside. The real Marco had broken through! What had he said? Bluff? Could he mean that the yeerk was bluffing? I looked around with my pathetic bear vision. I couldn't see anything but shadows. But were those shadows from the trees, or Hork-Bajir warriors? I tried my keen bear sense of smell, the only scents were those from me when I had been human, various wild animals, and the gorilla. End cycle? what had that meant? Could it be the yeerk was at the end of it's feeding cycle and that's how Marco had gotten through to me?
    No time to wonder, I had to guess. So, without warning, I lunged at the gorilla that had once been my friend Marco.
    The yeerk must have still been trying to control Marco. I had knocked him senseless easily. I half carried, half dragged the huge gorilla to a delapidated shack way back in the middle of no where in the woods. I hadn't been back there since Tobias had died, but it was where Tobias, Cassie and I used to sleep and such. There was rope and food and an old dracon beam that hardly ever worked back there. What I was going to attempt to do was practically impossible, especially since there wasn't anybody there to help me, but I was going to try and starve this yeerk.
    As soon as I had the yeerk securely bound with the rope-a special knot Cassie, Tobias and I had devised that was practically break-proof, I couldn't break out of it as a grizzly bear, there was absolutly no way the gorilla would be able to break out. But, just to be safe, I demorphed, and aimed the dracon beam at him before I hit him a couple times in the face to wake him up. This yeerk wasn't a dumb yeerk, although it didn't know that the dracon beam probably wouldn't work, it knew that when you have somebody threatening to shoot you with a dracon beam, you stay very, very still.
    "Okay, yeerk, here's the deal. You're going to demorph now, or you're going bye-bye, comprende?"
    He understood, he immediatly started to demorph. He didn't want to get shot with a dracon beam, and he probably didn't want to risk getting trapped in morph. Fortunatly, rope was tied in such a way that it stayed tight around Marco's wrists.
    "What do you hope to do, Rachel? Starve me? You don't know how long it's going to take me to die. For all you know, I just got back from the yeerk pool and it'll take me three days. And I'm sure you don't want to stay in one place that long," 'Marco' said once he had demorphed.
    "Ah, but that's where you're wrong, yeerk," I countered, "From your momentary lapse in control back there in the forest, I gathered from Marco, the real Marco, that you're at the end of your feeding cycle. So I'm guessing that you're gonna be gone in a few hours."
    Judging from the dark rage on his face, I had guessed correctly. He started squirming where he was sitting, trying to slip out of the rope.
    "It won't do any good to do that, so save your strength," I said, while opening a can of pineapples to eat, "Cassie and I perfected that knot a long time ago. I can't even get out of it in grizzly bear morph." I sat down beside him and offered him a spoonful of pineapples, he declined. I shrugged and ate all the fruit as fast as I could. I hadn't eaten in three days, I was ravenous.
    The yeerk spent the next four hours trying to get out of the rope. He tried everything, from morphing back to gorilla to force the knots off, to wolf trying to chew his way through the rope.
    Finally, after four hours of struggling. The fugue began.
    It was horrible to watch. Marco's face kept contorting into different looks of pain, and all I could do was hold his hand and assure him he'd get through it.
    Finally, after an hour, it was over, and the yeerk crawled out of Marco's ear and fell onto the dusty floor of the shack. After a minute, you couldn't tell where the dust of the yeerk had been from the rest of the dirt.
    Marco, now fully in control of himself, just sat on the floor of the shack and kind of silently cried. I sat next to him and cried with him.
    Finally, after sitting like that for nearly half an hour, I wiped away my tears, and tried to get Marco to talk.
    "Hey, Marco. It's good to see you again."
    "It's...It's...good. Good-duh to see you too. Tooooooooooo, Xena. Zzzzzeeenaaaa." He stuttered when he talked, trying to get used to having control over his self again. Then he laughed a very week laugh, "I sound like Axxx."
    I laughed, "Good to see you can still call me Xena."
    He smiled this sad, far off smile. He might still be able to call me Xena once in awhile, but he'd never be the same.
    "Hey, do you think you could get these ropes off me?"
    I giggled hysterically, "Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry, I forgot about them." With a few deft movements of my hands, I'd removed the course rope from Marco's arms and legs.
    Marco rubbed his wrists, "You and Cassie created that knot?"
    I looked away, "T--Tobias. Tobias helped, too."
    Marco gave me a sort of awkward hug, consoling me. Everyone in the group knew the me and Tobias were close. Just like we all knew Cassie and Jake had liked eachother even before we started fighting the yeerks.
    "So, Xena. What are we going to do now? Where's Cassie?"
    "You mean you don't know?"
    "Know what?"
    "Yesterday...yesterday Visser Three and this monsterously huge Hork-Bajir...well...they were chasing us and..." I started sobbing.
    Marco patted my shoulder, "It's okay. It's okay. We've both seen our share of horror. You don't need to talk about it. I get the picture." He paused for a moment, "But, what are we going to do?"
    "Why're you asking me?"
    "Well, you've been in the good guy side of this fight for longer than I have. I'm not any good at this leadership stuff."
    "I don't know what to do!" I cried out, "I just want to dig a hole in the ground, crawl in and die. I'm in absolutly no shape to lead anybody. Not even myself."
    "That's where you're wrong, Rachel," Marco told me gently, "You are in great shape. Maybe you need a little rest, but you have been an awesome leader. After...after they took Jake, you became our leader. And you did a fantastic job while I was with you guys. And from what I saw through my eyes when I was a controller, you were an awesome leader to Tobias and Cassie and Ax. And I can't think of anybody else who would have been strong enough to take me here and kill that yeerk."
    "Yeah. You do. Any of the others would have been able to. But because I was too weak to stand up to the yeerks, they're all gone!"
    "Rachel!" Marco yelled at me, taking my face in his hands, "You did all that you could! Remember the night they took me?" I nodded, "Nobody could have stopped that. We were covered on all sides. The same thing on the night when Jake was taken."
    "And how about with Tobias?"
    "Nobody could have stopped that either. I didn't see all of it, but I did see the Hork-Bajir fire the dracon beam, and I did see you take him out after he fired it. Tobias was trying to get away from the beam but he couldn't."
    "I could have saved Cassie. I could have taken Visser Three and that Hork-Bajir. It would have been no problem."
    "I seriously doubt that, Rachel. I know the hork you're talking about. I think that even Visser Three is afraid of him. That guy is practically invincible. You would have been pulverized if you had gotten in a fight with both him and Visser Three. Besides, you wouldn't have been around to save the cute, lovable me." He grinned at me.
    I shoved him playfully, "You know, you haven't changed much. You're still annoying."
    He grinned at me,"Yep."
    I stood up and looked down on him. "And short."
    He pretended to fall back as if I had punched him or something, "Augh! She got me again!"
    I laughed, "I'm glad you're back, Marco."
    "I'm glad I'm back, too."
    "Now, you're probably hungry, so, help yourself to a can of food, and then let's go see about saving some of our friends."

Chapter 2

    We spent the night in the shack. Under thread bare blankets. But that's not the worst part, it ended up raining that night. We woke up in the morning tired, cranky, and wet. Not a good combination.
    Marco seemed kind of shocked when he woke up. It was the first time in months he'd been able to open his own eyes.
    "What's for breakfest?" He asked crankily when we were both up. We were both wearing our morphing suits, although his was much better than mine was. I was wearing a black unitard that was in shreds. It had been turned into a midriff to and shorts from having pieces ripped from it to serve as bandages. Marco's, on the other hand, was a pair of tight black spandex pants with a black T-shirt. If he hadn't been so tired, he probably would have made some crack about us finally getting uniforms.
    "Well, when me and Cassie stayed here, we usually split a can of something or cooked a packet of oatmeal. We did't know how long we had to make this stuff last, so we ate as little of it as possible. There's also a blueberry bush and raspberry bush outside where we can pick some berries."
    He nodded and walked outside. Five minutes later, he returned with an old plastic sand bucket filled with blueberries and raspberries. I took hot water off a fire I had started in an old stove and poured it over two chipped bowls with oatmeal in them. We each poured berries over our plain oatmeal, sat down on the floor and ate in silence for a few minutes.
    "So, where do you think they would have taken Cassie?" I asked.
    "It depends on how high ranking the yeerk they give her is. I was given Visser 10 when I was first infested, but Jake was given Visser 6, and Ax was given Visser 4."
    "But we can assume she was given a Visser?"
    "Yeah, pretty much."
    "Let's just say she was given, oh, Visser 5. Where would she be taken?"
    Marco thought for a second, "High ranking Visser's like that would probably still be down at the yeerk pool. Or maybe meeting with Visser Three on his blade ship."
    "Do you know why he was never promoted? He's done a pretty good job at capturing his "Andalite Bandits", shouldn't he be promoted?"
    "He doesn't want to leave Earth," Marco explained, "If he's promoted, Earth goes to the new Visser Three. He wants to hunt down each and every one of us before he leaves."
    "So he's made his fight with us personal?"
    "Yep."
    We ate in silence for a few more minutes, "What if she was given a lower ranking Visser?"
    "My guess would be she'd be down at the yeerk pool. Wait!" He suddenly shouted, "There's this huge room that was built off to the side of the yeerk pool, it's where I was taken when I was first infested. The yeerk's given the oportunity to try out morphing. I was there for three days, untill my yeerk had to regenerate."
    I shuddered, "So, I guess if we want our friends back, we have to go back to the yeerk pool."

    We spent the morning planing our attack. We didn't want to travel there in bird morph, or anything conspicuous like that. According to Marco, the yeerks have been steadily killing off any animals not necesary to the survival of humans.
    "So, what, flies?" I asked after a morning of planning.
    Marco nodded, "Yep. But we'll have to be careful not to get too near anybody. I'm not exactly sure how many flies are left but..."
    "Not many," I cut in, "I don't remember the last time I saw a fly."
    "Okay then. Shall we go?"
    I grinned my slightly insane grin. I hadn't felt like smiling in ages, "Let's do it!"

Chapter 3

    Niether of us had morphed fly in awhile. It took a minute for the changes to begin. But once they did, I started to morph rapidly. First my skin got hard and plastic like and turned gray. Before I had even started to shrink, my mouth suddenly burst out into the complicated mouth parts of the fly. Only after that did I start to shrink and grow the extra legs.
    Once both of us were morphed, we took off.
    < Umm, Marco. One quick question here. Where are we going? I'm in the lead and I don't know where we're going. >
    Marco laughed, < Oops, kinda forgot that. Umm, we should be able to get in at the old middle school. You know, that place we went when we first got our morphing powers? >
    I thought back through all the memories I've made since becoming an Animorph, < Oh, yeah. They re-opened that entrance? >
    < Yeah. They were running short on places for putting entrances to the underground yeerk pool, and they've only just started builing an above ground one. >
    < Where's the above ground pool going to be? >
    Marco was silent.
    < Marco, where's the pool going to be? >
    < The woods aren't going to be safe for you to hide in anymore. They're gonna use the open fields around Cassie's old place, and knock down most of the forest. They know the woods would be the only safe place for any free Animorphs. >
    I was quiet for a minute, < Well, then. Let's go kick these slimy slug's butt. >

    It took most of the day to get to the pool. We had to guess when it had been an hour and a half so we could find a place to demorph, which is no easy task when you have a fly's compound eyes. But, we made it to the school and down into the yeerk pool. It was almost midnight, but we were there. And perhaps it's better that we came late, less yeerks would be there to resist us.
    We flew down the long staircase leading to the yeerk pool in silence. After almost ten minutes of flying we made it to the end of the stairs.
    < Okay. We've been in morph for probably an hour and fifteen minutes, > I said,
< Which way to this training room? >
    < Ummm...fly to the right. There'll be a large door, but you'll probably barely be able to recognize it with these lame eyes. Man, I'd forgotten how lame fly eyes are. Anyway, once we get to the door, unless we're lucky enough to get there at the same time a controller is going in there, we're going to have to walk under the door. >
    It took another five minutes of aimless flying to find the door Marco was talking about. But we did find it, and we had to walk under a door with an area only about the width of a nickle to get through.
    < Okay, now what? > I asked once we were in. < Where can we demorph at? >
    < Fly straight up to the ceiling. Once you're there, fly left untill you hit a wall, then land on the floor, but it's not really a floor. It's a storage container for something that has an open top. >
    I flew as fast as I could to the ceiling and then to the storage container. We had very little morph time left. As soon as I felt my fly legs hit the dirt floor of the storage container I started to demorph, Marco was right behind me. 
    Once I was completly human, I pressed my ear up against the wood slat wall to hear what was going on in the room. I only heard the slow, regular breathing of a person asleep. I assumed it was Cassie. Well, Cassie's body anyway.
    "I hear her sleeping," I whispered to Marco. "Do we just bust in here, take her away, and hold her for a day or two?"
    "We should probably be a bit more subtle than that," Marco whispered back. Suddenly, we heard a soft hum, "Quiet!" He whispered urgently, "Somebody's coming in!"
    We both strained to hear the conversation that was going on in the room, it wasn't too hard though. Considering neither Cassie or the newcommer were being too careful to be quiet.
    "Get up," The newcomer growled. It's was a he. And his voice was familiar.
    Cassie yawned, "It's the middle of the night, Visser Four."
    "That's of no consequence. That pig Visser Three wants to see you." It was Jake! I hadn't heard him talk in so long I had actually forgotten what his voice sounded like!
    "It's Jake!" I told Marco. He nodded grimly. "C'mon, let's do something."
    Marco shook his head no.
    "Hurry up!" Jake/Visser Four hissed. "I need to get back in the pool, but Visser Three will remove my head from my shoulders if I come out of here with out you."
    I looked at Marco. We could capture both of them and have most of the Animorphs free! He nodded, and I began to morph.

Chapter 4

    The familiar shaggy brown fur sprouted all over my body, and I began to grow taller at a shocking speed. My fingernails, short, rough and ragged, turned black and grew into the claws of the grizzly bear. My sight grew weaker as my sense of smell grew stronger. Before I knew it, I was a full grown grizzly bear standing in a cramped box with a gorilla beside her.
    < Let's do it! > I shouted, and busted out through the wall of the storage container.
    Both Cassie and Jake freezed. Actually, the yeerks in their heads were startled by suddenly having a full grown grizzly bear and a gorilla burst out of a storage container in their secret room.
    "Rachel!" Cassie hissed. "And...Marco too?"
    I didn't bother to explain it to her, I tapped her lightly on the back of the head and she was out cold. Of course, the tap was light by bear standards, by human standards, it was like getting hit in the head with a wrench. I threw her over my shoulder, Marco did the same with Jake.
    < Let's get out of here! > Marco shouted, loping towards the door.
    < Right behind ya'! >
    We quickly ran out the door of the room and headed for the stairs out of the yeerk pool at top speed. We were halfway up the stairs before the controllers had a chance to react.
    Once the controllers had a chance to react to us storming out of the training room with two high ranking visser's over our shoulders, they started shooting.
    I was nearly hit twice by Hork-Bajir who had run to catch up with us, when suddenly he appeared in front of us.
    No, it wasn't Visser Three, it was another Andalite I knew well.
    Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill, other wise known as Ax.
    < Ax! > I shouted in surprise.
    < Ah, Rachel. Marco. Good to see you again. And, as much as I'd like to  stay here and chat with you, I'm going to have to request you put down Vissers Four and Five and come with me. >
    From behind me, I heard the sound of a dracon beam firing. The world seemed to be going in slow motion for a second. I quickly stepped to the side to get out of the dracon beam's way. I saw the dracon beam light up the dim passage way. I sliced through the air right between Marco and I and hit Ax right in the chest.
    By some miracle, Ax was only stunned by the blast. I quickly picked him up too and carried him in my arms out of the yeerk pool.
    < Y'know something Rachel? > Marco said as we made our escape from the yeerk pool, < This is absolutly insane! >
    < Insane? > I asked, confused. < We've just saved every surviving Animorph! >
    < You didn't let me finish. I meant insane in a good way. I mean, we came with the insane idea that we'd just be able to walk out of the yeerk pool with Cassie, and we end up walking out with Cassie, Jake and Ax. >
    I laughed giddly, < You're right, it is insane. Now hurry up, we need to get to the shack and tie up these three before they wake up. >
    After half an hour of endless walking, trading Ax back and forth between us every couple minutes since we had to carry him in our arms, we finally made it to the shack.
    I quickly tied up everybody's arms and legs with my special knot, and Marco and I managed to find an old canvas bag we could use as a sheath for Ax's tail.
    Just as we sat down to rest, Jake went into the fugue. We sat by him and talked to him for an hour, before we watched the yeerk, formerly known as Visser Four, crumble into dust.
    Jake started sobbing uncontrolably. Me and Marco held Jake in a hug for hours, nobody saying anything, just the occasional sound of a sob from one of us. And once Cassie and Ax revived, they threw in their two cents whenever they felt like it.
    After nearly three hours of silence, I tried Jake to see if he could talk. "Hey, Jake?"
    He looked up at me with hollow, empty, tear filled eyes, "Yeah, Rachel?"
    I smiled crookedly, "Welcome back."

Chapter 5

    We went through the same process with Cassie later in the evening. She didn't cry as much though. She had only been a controller for three days. She hadn't had time to witness the horror Marco and Jake had.
    Two days later, Ax also went through the fugue. It was odd watching him go through it, he didn't handle it the way humans did. He just sat there and stared off into space, occasionally wincing in pain, and even when the yeerk was out, he was quiet.
    "Ax?" I asked tenativly after he hadn't talked for fifteen minutes after the fugue ended.
    < Yes, Rachel? >
    "You alright, man?" Marco asked, "You're awfully quiet."
    < Yes, Marco. I'm fine, > but clearly he wasn't. He was staring at a point somewhere above our heads. Like he was somewhere far away. We let him sit there, wrapped up in his own thoughts. Each of us handled the situation differently, we were going to let Ax handle it his.
    We were quiet most of the day. It was really awkward, almost as if we were meeting for the first time. Jake was still getting used to the idea of being in control of himself again, and Cassie was trying to help him through that. Marco and I talked to eachother alot though. We had been talking for days, we could carry on a conversation. With me and him, it was like old times. We were picking on eachother constantly. I think that helped the others get through their expiriences, seeing that although we may have all changed a bit on the outside, and changed drastically on the inside, not everything was different.
    The next day when Marco, Cassie, Jake and I were sitting on the floor eating breakfast, we finally seemed to get over the awkwardness and became friends again. Ax was off in the woods grazing, so just the four of us were in the shack.
    "Y'know, it's about time it happened," Marco said.
    "What?" Jake asked, still a little shaky.
    "We've finally got uniforms! Sure, Rachel's is a little ragged around the edges, but we're pretty much all the same!"
    I looked around at my friends and myself. I was still in my ratty unitard/midriff top and shorts. Cassie was in a black unitard, and Jake was in the same black outfit Marco was in.
    Cassie laughed, "You're right, Marco. Does this mean no more complaints about looking like 'The X-Men' or whatever?"
    Marco considered that for a moment, "Maybe. I'll just get on Rachel's case for sticking out."
    I flung oatmeal at him, "You guys are the ones that stick out. Haven't any of you read Seventeen lately? Grunge is back."
    We all laughed. It was exactly like old times again. Well, exactly except for our two missing members. One was going to be back in a few minutes, but the other was gone forever.
    I must have zoned out or something, because the next thing I new Marco was waving his hand in front of my face, "Earth to Rachel, come in Rachel!"
    "Huh?"
    "Jake's talkin' to ya'."
    "Oh. Sorry, Jake."
    "'Sokay," Jake stood up, holding a chiped glass full of water in one hand, "I'd like to propose a toast to the two who made this reunion possible," He raised his glass, "To Marco and Rachel, the best friends anybody could ask for."
    I stood up and raised my glass too, so did Cassie.
    "Wait, nope. I'm gonna counter that toast," Marco said, standing up, "I'd like to toast Rachel. This entire couple days has been made possible by her. It was her quick thinking that kept me from a life of eternal controller-ness, and if she hadn't acted so quickly back at the yeerk pool, both her and Cassie would have been toast."
    I smiled sheepishly, "It was nothing. I wasn't even thinking either of those times, it was suicide..."
    Marco stepped back, shocked, "What? Rachel? Talking like what she did was actually crazy? That's my job, Xena. I've finally got a chance to do it again, don't take it away from me."
    "And Rachel, what you did wasn't suicide or stupid or anything. It was truely heroic. Marco's right, without you, none of us would be standing here today." Cassie said.
    Jake raised his glass high in the air, "To Rachel!"
    "To Rachel!" Marco and Cassie echoed.
    "To All of us," I said, raising my glass.
    We all laughed and drank, when suddenly, Ax came thundering into the shack,
< The yeerks! They're starting to clear the forest right now for the new pool! >
    Jake immediatly lept into action, "Everybody, split up. We can't let them capture us again. We've worked too hard for our freedom to have it snatched away again."
    Marco and I ran out the back door of the shack, actually, it's a hole in the wall, but it serves the same purpose. Jake, Cassie and Ax ran out the front door.
    Once we were past the clearing around the shack, Marco and I split up. We didn't say where we were going to meet, we'd have to guess where the other was heading. We couldn't risk one of us being captured by the yeerks, and having the yeerks meet us wherever we had planned to meet.
    I ran through the forest. Dodging trees, jumping over logs, looking behind me every couple seconds to see if anybody was following me. Suddenly WHUMP! I slammed into something and fell backwards.
    I looked up to see what I had run into, and there, towering above me, was the monsterously large Hork-Bajir.

Chapter 6

    I couldn't scream, that'd lead the other's here so the yeerks could capture them again, I couldn't run either, I was paralyzed with fear.  I could only meekly comply when the big Hork-Bajir ordered me to stand up.
    This can't be happening! I moaned silently to myself as I followed the Hork-Bajir, I work so hard to free my friends and now I'm the one being captured? I don't think so! I concentrated on a morph I hadn't done in ages. We've always had a rule, we won't morph sentient creatures. But I think this was a time for an exception to that rule. I concentrated on the Hork-Bajir morph, one of the first free Hork-Bajir Jara Hamee, that I had acquired so long ago.
    The next time the Hork-Bajir looked back, I was completly morphed. < Hello, > I said when his eyes widened in surprised, then I jerked my arm forward quickly and sliced right through the Hork-Bajir's neck. < Oh gross! > I shouted, jumping back.
    After a moment, I started running through the forest again. I had to get away from the yeerks. If Visser Three was out here, and he got a good look at me, he'd know I wasn't another one of his Hork-Bajir.
    Through the woods, I saw a flash of orange and black. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but it was too fast. I started to run towards it, hoping to at least meet it somewhere. I just hoped that it was the real Jake in morph, and he hadn't been recaptured.
    I followed the tiger to a clearing with a waterfall. He looked around desperatly, looking for an escape. He must have thought I was a controller! Before I could tell him who I was, he turned around and jumped over the waterfall!
    < NOOOOOOOO! > I shouted and ran to the edge, and saw Jake splash down into the shallow river below.
< JAKE! >
    I started to climb down the rock face, demorphing as I went. Before I went down so low I couldn't see over the edge, Cassie in wolf morph and Marco as himself came running into the clearing. < Jake jumped over the
falls! > I yelled at them, < I'm going down to get him. >
    Once I was only five feet away from the ground, I jumped and ran over to the river, looking for any sign of Jake.
    < Rachel! He's on the other side of the river bank from you! > Cassie shouted down from above, < Behind some rocks! >
    I jumped into the freezing cold water and half swam, half waded accross the river to find Jake. Behind an outcroping of rocks, I saw a soggy orange and black figure.
    "Jake!" I shouted, no longer cold.
    I ran to him and started to shake his massive head to get him to wake up. "Cassie!" I shouted up the waterfall, "Get down here! He's hurt!"
    Thankfully, wolves have excellent hearing, so while a human may have had trouble hearing me with the waterfall, Cassie heard me clearly. She was jumping down from rock to rock a split second after I had shouted at her.
    Once she was down on the ground, she started to demorph. She did't bother controlling it, she just let it happen as it happened. It'd be quicker that way. The pointy wolf ears on the top of her head slid down to become her normal human hears. Her knees reversed driection so they faced the correct way. Her tail schlooped up into her spine as her wolf muzzle shrank back into a normal human nose and mouth.
    As the last of her gray wolf fur was melting away, Cassie was bending over Jake, checking his injuries.
    "Looks like his right foreleg is broken, and he's unconcious. Might even have a concussion," Cassie said, mostly talking to herself.
    "Is there anything we can do?" I asked.
    "Well, we need to get him to wake up. Splashing water on him probably won't so..." she took Jake's broken leg in her hand, "Sorry, Jake, but this is the only way." She yanked violently on his leg and Jake woke up. Very quickly.
< AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! > he shouted in thought speak as he roared with the concrete-splitting roar of the tiger. I covered my ears to block out the sound, it didn't do much to help.
    < What'd you do that for? > Jake yelled.
    "Jake, you were unconcious. And you were already soaking wet, so splashing water wouldn't have helped you. Yanking your broken leg was the only way to get you to wake up," Cassie explained. "Now, demorph."
    Jake looked at his mangled leg. It looked pretty disgusting. He started to demorph.
    Once he was human again, Jake moved his arm up and down, making sure that it was healed, "Ow, Cassie. Next time you have to revive me, think you can find someway that doesn't involve carrying pain over from one morph to another?"
    Cassie got a mischevious gleam in her eye, "You mean, like this?" She leaned over to Jake and gave him a long kiss.
    I looked away, embarrassed and started to climb back up the rock face to Marco. I always feel weird whenever I'm around Jake and Cassie when they get all lovey-dovey like that. Makes me feel kind of left out. I lost the only one I've ever really cared about.
    "Hey! You two love birds down there!" Marco shouted, "If you don't mind me interupting, we've got a world to save here!"
    Jake and Cassie looked up at us, "We're on our way!" Jake shouted up, and started to climb up the rocks. Cassie was close behind.
    Once we were all up on the top, I began to notice somebody was missing, "Hey, where's Ax?"
    Cassie looked around, "I don't know. Last I saw him, he was heading in the opposite dirrection of me when we left the shack."
    "Come on, let's morph birds and fly around looking for him," Jake suggested.
    "No," I said, stopping him. "There are zero birds left in this forrest. Haven't you noticed yet? The way there were no birds singing this morning? No bugs buzzing around your head? No fish in the river? The yeerks are working on destroying all the animals unnecesary to human survival.  We can not morph anything that'd look out of place. Which leaves out pretty much everything except really small animals. Every once in awhile, small birds like robins and sparrows come through here, so they won't look out of place. I acquired one so I'd be able to travel throughout the forest unnoticed. I don't know what morph you guys have, but if you have anything, use it. We have to find Ax!"

Chapter 7

    I started to morph the robin I had acquired shortly before Cassie had been captured. Cassie started to morph the sparrow she's acquired at the same time. Neither Marco or Jake had a suitable morph, so they were going to look for Ax on foot.
    Compared to being a bird of prey, robins are pretty dull. They can't fly nearly as fast, and the eye sight's only half as good. But it was enough for what I had to do.
    Beating my stubby wings as fast as I could, I zoomed over the forest, looking everywhere, but I didn't see any trace of Ax. I also didn't see any yeerks. This could mean one of two things. 1. The yeerks had given up on us and Ax had found some place to hide, or 2. The yeerks had captured Ax and had dragged him off to the local yeerk pool for re-infestation. I prayed that it was the former, although I knew it was doubtful.
    < Anybody see Ax? > Cassie asked. We all answered no.
    < Ax? > I called out, < Ax? Where are you? >
    Below, I heard Marco and Jake calling for Ax. Either he had chosen not to answer us, or he was unable to answer us.
    Suddenly, I had this strange feeling I had to go back to the shack. It was a ways back, so I turned around and started flapping as fast as I could to get to the shack.
    < Rachel? Where are you going? > Cassie called after me.
    < I'm heading back to the shack. I--it's too hard to explain. I just need to go back to the shack. >
    After a few minutes of power flying, I was at the shack. I landed in front of it and demorphed as fast as I could. Once I was finished demorphing, I ran into the shack, not knowing what to expect.
    There, sitting in the middle of the floor of the shack was Ax, in human morph, just rocking back and forth humming to himself.
    "Ax?" I asked gently. "Ax?" I walked over in front of him and waved my hand in front of his face, "Hey, Ax. It's Rachel."
    "Hello, Rachel," Ax said in a totally flat tone of voice that kind of scared me.
    "Ax? What's up?"
    "I can't do it any more."
    "Can't do what, Ax?"
    I finally got him to stop starting off into space. He looked directly at me, "I can't continue on. I did too many things when I was a controller. It was wrong. I shouldn't have let myself be taken."

    We were running from the yeerks, they were right behind us! Hork-Bajir warriors, Taxxon Trackers, Even Jake and Marco! Of course, they weren't themselves anymore, they each had a yeerk in their brains, taping into their memories. Tobias was flying overhead, none of the controllers were looking up there, so he was safe. Cassie and I were running as fast as we possibly could. Ax was running fairly fast too, but he was falling behind.
    "Ax!" I shouted back to him, "You have to run faster!" I wanted to run back and help him, but I couldn't risk it.
    "Ax, faster! Now! They're right behind you!"
    Suddenly, one of the Hork-Bajir caught Ax, holding a dracon beam to his head. I heard Jake's thought speak voice, he had morphed tiger for the chase, < Ah. Rachel, so good to see you again. It seems you have a choice, Save yourself, Cassie, and Bird-Boy up there, or risk your life to save this Andalite scum. > He laughed. Not the laugh he had when he was an Animorph, but an evil, cynical laugh. < Either way, you lose, Animorphs. >
    < Rachel, you must save the others, > Ax told me privately. < Go, now. >
    I shook my head no. I couldn't let them take Ax!
    I looked around for Cassie and Tobias. Tobias was way ahead, and Cassie had hidden in the shadows of some trees. I could faintly make out the shape of her morphing to wolf.
    I couldn't risk it, I had to save Cassie and Tobias. None of us would be any good to Jake or Marco if we took a stupid chance to save Ax.
    "I'll save him, yeerk," I said, glaring at the tiger. "You may have won the battle, but I will win the war." I turned back towards the forest and started running towards Cassie.
    < What about Ax?! > she cried as I ran past her.
    "We'll get him back next time."

    "Ax, that was so totally not  your fault. It's my fault they got you. I could have pressed the fight, Cassie was ready to take on all of those controllers. It would have been nothing for me to morph grizzly bear and take them all out."
    Ax looked back at me with his sad human eyes, "Maybe it wasn't my fault that I was taken. But I could have rebelled. I have broken free from the yeerk!"
    "No, you couldn't have," Jake said, walking up beside Ax. While we had been talking, the others had come to the shack to see why I had come. "Ax, we all tried to rebel. I think Marco was the only one who came even close to breaking through. Remember, I was there when they captured you, and there was nothing that could have been done differently, except maybe Rachel morphing grizzly and charing the yeerks like an idiot, and then none of us would be here today."
    Ax didn't seem to want to believe it, he just went back to rocking back and forth, in his own little world.
    "How much time do you have left in morph, Ax?" Cassie asked after a minute.
    "Less than fifteen minutes."
    "Then morph out."
    "I can not."
    "What?! Why?!" I asked.
    "I do not wish to."
    I squatted down in front of Ax and grabbed both of his shoulders, "You listen to me Ax. This is not the time to be wallowing in self pity. We've all just gotten over terrible expiriences with the yeerks, but do you see any of us getting trapped in morph? No. You want to stop morphing? Fine, but wait 'till the yeerks are gone. We can not afford to lose anybody else in this war. Nobody is going to quit fighting as long as I have something to say about it."
    Ax didn't say anything, "Don't you have to avenge somebody's death anyway? You can't do that as a human. Would Elfangor want to see you like this? Would...would Tobias?" I looked away as I said his name. Tobias and Ax had been really close friends, even before we'd found out that Ax was in fact Tobias' uncle.
    Ax looked at each of us in turn with his sad human eyes. We each had the same pleading look on our faces. We couldn't lose Ax, we couldn't lose anybody else. One lost member was one lost member too many.
    Then, without warning, Ax began to demorph. I nearly fainted with relief. I don't think I'd ever seen a sight as beautiful as Ax demorphing. Now, if you'd told me I'd be feeling this way a year ago, I'd have laughed in your face and told you you were crazy. Morphing is never a pretty process, unless you're Cassie, so it's always weird to watch someone demorph. But it's especially weird with Ax, since instead of losing legs, or a tail, like we do when we demorph, he gains and extra set of legs, a deadly tail, and loses a mouth.
    We all breathed heavy sighs of relief as the last of Ax's human features disapeared. We had Ax back with us again, but who knows for how long. And he'd retained that far off look in his eyes. Maybe Ax would never be totally back, but always somewhere, in a dark corner of his mind, replaying the dark events that had plauged him for months.

 To chapters 8 through the end 1