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Imagine a picture of Santorelli turning into a rhino.
57: The Weapon
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I'm bored, so I'm posting more fan fiction.
Here it is: the first EVER book staring Santorelli. Be warned, I was mostly playing around with this. It’s a little loopy. Especially once the time travel starts.
This book isn’t for everyone, since I doubt most of you care what happened in 2nd century China.
But I’ll warn you that it is important for the rest of the series. The next book won’t make much sense unless you read this one first.
I’ll also warn you that this one is a little more adult than the others. It’s got some pretty heavy stuff. If, for some reason, you’re a kid who likes Animorphs but can’t stand deep thought or violence (I don’t know how you can like the Animorphs but not stand deep thought or violence) you might want to skip Chapter 16.
Enjoy or go to hell.
If I owned the Animorphs, you wouldn’t be reading this for free.
And if I owned Streetlight Manifesto, I'd have better things to do than write fanfiction.
Chapter 1
My name is Santorelli. I’m not your typical Animorph, if there is such a thing. I wasn’t one of the originals, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Ax, Tobias, and Rachel. I’m a new recruit, a greenhorn. But that isn’t even half the story.
To begin with, I’m old enough to be the father of any one of them. Funny thing is, there are times when they seem a lot older than me. Times when they make me feel like a kid playing at war.
Then there’s my name. The other Animorphs won’t tell you their last names. But I grew up in a military family. I’m not used to hearing my first name. So I go by Santorelli.
Wondering what that business about new recruits is all about? Here’s the short version. Three years after the first war with the Yeerks ended, Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, Animorph, was captured by the Yeerks. Long story short, they made him a Controller and now they’re back to conquer Earth.
The Yeerks have new allies this time. A powerful being called the One. A race of superpredators called the Kelbrid. All the power and memories of Prince Aximili. And they’ve got the mind of the Yeerk leader Esplin 9466, the Yeerk who tried to take over Earth the first time.
I used to work at an air force base called Zone 91. The Yeerks wanted to break in and find out what was inside there. They infested me as part of the plan.
For the next two years, I was a Controller. I was a top army sniper, so they sent me to work as a bodyguard for a powerful Yeerk, Visser Six.
When the Yeerks were defeated, I was freed. I wanted to make up for the time I spent protecting Yeerks. I know I didn’t have any control over my actions, but I still wanted to do something.
Then the International Invasion Investigation Force was created. It was a global network of agents, both public and secret, who monitored activities around the world to make sure nothing like the Yeerk invasion happened again. I signed up on day one.
I worked for Tri-I, as we call it, for two years. Then the Andalites traded mankind some morphing technology for some cinnamon buns. Jake, the leader of the Animorphs, was offering training courses for government operatives. I had some pull with the higher-ups at Tri-I and managed to get myself in.
Then Prince Aximili got kidnapped. Jake asked for volunteers for a hypothetical mission. Again, I signed up on day one. The next thing I knew, I was on a ship hurtling into a foreign part of the galaxy on a desperate rescue mission.
Then we found out that the whole thing was a trick by the One to get the attention of something called Crayak. I’m still not sure what that’s all about except that Crayak is very powerful and seems to be on our side.
We found out that the One was helping the Yeerks to invade again. So we’re doing what we can to put a stop to it before it gets too out of hand.
Who are we? First, there’s Jake, our leader. There’s Marco, a smart guy who’s good at planning and Jake’s best friend. And there’s Cassie, an ecology nut and a pacifist who wants nothing more than to be rid of this war and the Yeerks forever. Those three are all originals.
Tobias is one of the originals, too. He’s probably my closest friend among the Animorphs. He’s been through more in his life than I can even imagine. He’s stared into the eyes of Lucifer and spat in the devil’s face. All because of stuff the Yeerks did to him. Too bad for them, Tobias isn’t letting that go. He’s out for blood and I’m in for helping him.
The last member other than me is another new recruit. Her name’s Jeanne. She’s a sweet girl, even if she is French. She was recruited from Jake’s program, too. Sometimes, I feel like the two of us have something to prove to the rest of them. The other four are living legends. We’ve got to do our part.
That was why Jeanne and I were up at 0400 hours. One of the biggest problems we faced with this new invasion was that we didn’t know where it was happening. We had a plan to find out.
We stole a list of suspected voluntary hosts from Tri-I’s world headquarters. I memorized the list and transferred it to Marco’s computer. Now Jeanne and I were busy Googling them, trying to find out if a bunch of them were moving to the same place.
Know what? It turns out they were. “Another one relocating to that city,” Jeanne said to me as she highlighted another name on the list.
I checked out my guy. He was clean. The last guy on the list. I turned to Jeanne. “He’s clean. That’s the last of them. How many do we have going to the same place?”
“One hundred and twenty seven.”
“Out of how many?”
“Four hundred.”
I nodded my head. “I’d call that pretty conclusive.”
“Really? It’s less than half.”
“Yeah. But do you really think everyone on that list is actually a voluntary? Not a chance. I’d put the real list at about two hundred. And some of the voluntaries probably didn’t agree to go, not now that they really know what’s going on. I’d say one twenty seven is a large percentage. More than I’d have guessed, anyway.”
“So you think we have the location?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So we should tell the others.”
Again, I said, “Yeah. But not now. Don’t wake up Marco. You know how he gets.” In the morning, we’d give him the biggest news update since he wandered through an abandoned construction site and stumbled across Prince Elfangor. In the morning.
Chapter 2
I took the dropshaft to my room. Marco’s the richest guy I know. He’s got a mansion with five floors above ground. I don’t know how deep the thing goes.
In the hall, I heard a window open. It was unusual for someone to be walking about at night. I dropped into combat stance and pulled out my Shredder. I thumbed the setting to stun. I could switch it to kill in the time it would take an Andalite to twitch his tail. Which is faster than you could hope to see.
A dark figure climbed through the window. Then he turned to the wall and keyed in a code to shut off the alarms. He turned and I could see his face in the moonlight. Tobias.
I straightened up and put my Shredder away. “Why up so late?” I asked.
He looked at me. His eyes looked even darker than usual in the moonlight. “I was visiting my father.”
I nodded and turned to leave. Tobias’s father had been dead for years, but I didn’t think anything of it. I could relate. My father had been murdered by the Yeerks just like Tobias’s was and I spoke to mine every day.
What he said next surprised me. “Where are the Yeerks attacking?”
“How do you know I figured it out?”
“Because I know you.”
I started to leave but then I turned and took a look at him. Something was bothering him. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“What’s right?” he answered. “But I don’t mean that in some abstract, philosophical term. I mean, what’s the right thing to do?”
“Depends on the situation,” I told him.
“Let’s say I had the power to save someone’s life. That I could save millions of lives. Should I do it?”
“Even if it costs you your own.” I could talk to Tobias like this. He wasn’t one of those people whose feelings you had to consider. I could tell him what I thought and not worry about offending him.
“The thing is, to do it, I’d have to use power that no mortal should ever have.”
“Is this a hypothetical question or do you really have this power?” I asked. In this kind of universe, I never knew what someone was capable of.
He turned to the window. “There is a device, a weapon, called the Time Matrix. It can move someone through time and space. I know where it is. I could get to it tonight.
“I could stop the Yeerks from ever coming here. I could stop the Yeerks from ever coming to power in the first place. Maybe I could even go all the way back to the beginning and stop the One.”
I shook my head. “I doubt the One would be vulnerable to something like that. But that’s a tall order, Tobias. You could do a lot of good. Or you could screw everything up.”
“Yeah. Someone used the Time Matrix once. Visser Four. We chased him through time and stopped him. Thing was, he made some stuff better. In his reality, the holocaust never happened. I killed Hitler.”
He sat down and leaned against the wall. “I wouldn’t stop the Yeerks from ever coming here. That would be going too far, changing too much. But I could go back and save my father. I could bring Rachel back, too.
“I’ve thought about it every day since the end of the first war. I could save everyone I cared about. I know there are some powers no one was ever meant to have. But how can I sit by when I could save them?”
I sat next to him. “It seems to me that what’s been done has already been done and should stay that way. It isn’t our place to change the past any more than it’s that of the One or Crayak. God doesn’t change the past, what right do we have?”
He looked at me. “God? With all you’ve seen, you believe in him?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’ve seen only a fraction of the power of creatures like the Ellimist and Crayak. Enough to say that they can do all the things we’ve attributed to God.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. The way I see it, though, I’ve seen creatures with the same kind of power I’d say was that of God himself. If beings like them are out there, why can’t God be, too?”
“Then why does God let them run around doing what they’re doing?”
“The same reason you don’t use the Time Matrix. No one, man or God, should play with the universe like that. Then again, who’s to say He doesn’t? He could change everything all the time. We just don’t remember what the universe was like before this.”
He stood up. “Man, it’s too early for this. I’m going to get some sleep. See you in the morning.”
Chapter 3
Tobias saw me long before that. I was woken up by him shaking me by the shoulders. I glanced at the clock. I had gone to sleep only half an hour ago.
I rolled out of bed and grabbed my Shredder. Tobias isn’t the kind of guy to wake you without a good reason. “What’s up?” I whispered.
“The Time Matrix.”
I rose. “What about it?”
“I just realized that Ax knows where it is, just like I do. And if he knows ”
“Esplin knows too. So what do we do?” I asked.
“It’s only a matter of time before Esplin realizes that he could have that power. Only a matter of time before he goes after it. We have to beat him to it and move the Time Matrix.”
I was awake in an instant. He took off down the hall to find Marco. I went the other way, to wake up Jeanne.
I practically kicked in her door. No time to worry about being polite. Esplin probably hadn’t gone after the Time Matrix yet, but speed was the best policy.
“What is wrong?” she asked, bolting upright and grabbing a Shredder out from under her pillow.
“Tobias just remembered a superweapon the Yeerks could reach out and grab at any moment. We’re going after it. Now.”
She nodded and came with me. Tobias was dragging a bleary-eyed Marco into the dropshaft. They shot up, out onto the roof. I dashed in after them with Jeanne.
We reached the roof and almost bumped into the two of them. “To the basement,” Marco told me. “Lowest level.”
I shrugged but did as he said. We were all assembled in the lowest level of Marco’s mansion, waiting to see just why we were there.
Marco dashed into the darkness. I turned to Tobias. “Why are we here? We have to get Jake and Cassie and flying would be the best way.”
“That’s why I went to the roof,” he said. “But Marco has a better idea.”
Suddenly, floodlights snapped on. Marco was leaning out the side of a ship. A ship I recognized. It was a little transport cruiser from the one we had used to make the journey to Kelbrid space. I guess Marco managed to talk someone into letting him keep it.
We jogged to him. “I thought the ship was lost when Crayak yanked you back to Earth,” Tobias said to him as we boarded.
“I found this down here a couple days ago. Thought it might come in handy,” Marco answered.
Jeanne shook her head. “This will attract a lot of attention. Flying would be much more covert.”
“Yeah, but a bunch of birds can’t move the Time Matrix,” Marco explained. “The thing is a big sphere, about six feet across. I’m not sure how much it weighs, but I’m not going to touch that thing. That’s how you work it.”
We went to the controls. And just sort of stared at them. Menderash, a former Andalite, had been our pilot the first time around. None of us really knew what we were doing here.
I turned to Tobias. “You spent some time on the Andalite homeworld. They show you how to fly a ship?”
He shook his head. “Yeah, but Andalite ships aren’t anything like this one. Too many buttons, moving parts. Andalites use a simple thought interface with only a few levers. All have emergency controls under the dashboards, but I never learned how to work those. Only old pilots really know how to do it anyway.”
Jeanne sat down at the controls. She searched for something. Finally, she pushed a button. The engines roared to life. She pulled a lever and the ship stated to lift off. She grabbed some sort of shaft and twisted it. The ship turned until it was facing a very large shaft kind of like Marco’s dropshaft.
“What is that?” Tobias asked.
“That?” Marco answered. “That’s how I get these babies in here. From the outside, it looks like a water tower. Just fly this thing straight up. The top will retract and we’ll be home free. Assuming you can work the cloaking device, of course.”
Jeanne looked at the controls for a moment. Finally, she selected a button. “It is working,” she assured us. Then she lifted off. A moment later, we were soaring the night sky.
“Let’s go to Jake’s first,” Marco decided.
Tobias shook his head. “Going to Jake’s and then Cassie’s will waste a lot of time. How about you go and get Jake while we fly to Cassie? We can meet up back here as soon as the two of you can get here.”
Marco thought about it. “This ship can get you there and back in a couple of minutes. That’s probably how long it would take me to get to Jake. Alright, go for it. See you in five, guys.”
Chapter 4
We landed the ship in Cassie’s yard. Since he knew her better than either of us did, Tobias got out to get Cassie. I stayed with Jeanne in the ship.
I took a seat. “So,” I began in a conversational tone, “how do you know how to fly this thing?”
She shrugged. “Most of the controls are redundant, Yeerk inefficiencies. It isn’t that hard.”
“But not so easy that just anyone could grab a seat and take the ship,” I told her. “You learned to fly somewhere. Why not tell me?”
“Why should I?”
“Because if you do, I’ll tell you a neat little secret.”
“You must go first.”
“Okay. I’m married.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And why have you not mentioned this? Why do we not know about your wife? Where is she?”
“She was another host, another of Visser Six’s bodyguards. A lot of times, it was just the two of us. Things just sort of happened. One day, we just decided we were married. There were no priests out in Yeerk space. None that we met, at least.”
“What happened to her?”
“Visser Six was very displeased when our Yeerks told him what we had decided. She got a slow death. I got to watch her die.”
“Why was she killed and not you?” Jeanne asked. I could tell she didn’t completely buy my story.
“I was more useful than she was. He had to punish someone, so he made the choice that would cost him less,” I told her.
She was silent for a while. Finally, she answered, “I was an assassin.”
“For the French?”
“For the Council of Thirteen.”
I whistled. The Council of Thirteen was the head of the old Yeerk Empire. They were led by an Emperor and twelve other guys. No one knew who the Emperor was, so it would be really hard for someone to assassinate him.
“So the Council trained you to kill their enemies.”
“No. The former Visser One trained me to kill the Council of Thirteen,” she told me. “I was supposed to begin taking out her opposition. But then the Council began to grow suspicious of her actions. She had my memory wiped for her own protection. Then, she released me onto Earth.”
“So how do you remember any of this?”
“Things have been coming back to me since I re-learned about the Yeerk invasion. Mostly, I recall bits about my family. I’ve a few relatives, a couple aunts and uncles, but no one closer. Ever since this war started, I’ve started to remember some of my training.”
I nodded. “Who else knows?”
“Jake. You. A few people in the French and American governments. Cassie.”
“You told Cassie?”
Jeanne nodded. “She has this way of speaking to you that makes you want to tell her everything. Like she won’t be ashamed of anything I tell her. Like she couldn’t care less if I was an assassin or a ballerina.”
“I knew there had to be a reason Jake picked you. Must have been a rough life, working for Visser One. I never heard anything but scary stuff about her.”
“I don’t remember much of it.”
“That’s probably for the best. Do you remember much about her?”
Jeanne shrugged. “I recall her more than I do most others. She was a smart Yeerk, and cold and ruthless. She thought she respected her enemies, but there were many times when she didn’t.”
“That was a mistake,” I noted. “Visser Three was the one who brought her down.”
“She hated him more than anyone in the galaxy. She often thought about having me kill him just for the fun of watching him die.”
“I think a lot of people have underestimated Esplin,” I said to her. “Jake told me once that he was a fool. But he still rose to be one of the highest-ranking Yeerks. And he killed a lot of better men.”
I heard a noise behind me. Tobias and Cassie entered the ship. She looked around. “This is one of the weirdest wake up calls I’ve ever had,” she commented. Then she sat down, perfectly content to let us handle things.
“Let’s roll out,” Tobias said. “The longer we wait, the sooner Esplin realizes he could go after the Time Matrix.”
“The Time Matrix.” Cassie shuddered. “That didn’t go too well last time.”
Tobias almost smiled. “Don’t worry. This time, we have the power. If anyone screws up history this time, it’ll be us.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 5
“The Time Matrix,” Jake moaned. We were in the ship, flying to the place the others said the Time Matrix was located. “The last time we messed with that thing, I died.”
“Technically,” Marco reminded him, “that never happened.”
“That whole episode will haunt me forever,” Cassie said, shivering. “All the death we saw. It seems like human history is nothing but death and murder.”
Tobias shook his head. “Only the parts worth altering. I mean, why would Visser Four have wanted to mess with the Renaissance?”
“He wanted to kill Shakespeare,” Marco reminded him.
Tobias nodded. “Yeah, but that was personal. That was to shut his host up. Plus, I don’t think Shakespeare counts as the Renaissance.”
“Agincourt,” Jake muttered. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. It was inhuman, seeing those knights cut each other down.”
“You’re wrong,” Tobias disagreed. “That was the most human thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Which is kind of disturbing,” Marco stated.
“It was terrible to see those men die,” Cassie murmured. “To watch them get run through with swords and arrows? It was horrible.”
“Better than any of the other wars we visited,” Tobias said to her. “So much better to be able to look into the eye of the one who takes your life than to be killed in the dark before you can react.”
Marco smiled at him. “That’s a grim way of looking at it.”
“I’d say crossing the Delaware River with George Washington was the worst,” Jake said to them.
“That’s only because you got killed there,” Marco pointed out.
“I’d still say it’s a good reason to hate the place.”
“D Day gets my vote,” Cassie said. “Most of them were our age. If we had been born a generation earlier, any one of them could have been one of you.”
“Not me; I’d have been in Canada the moment the war started.” Marco, of course.
“We’re coming up on the site,” Jeanne alerted us.
The place we were going to used to be a construction site. There were a bunch of half-finished buildings and stuff. But that was years ago. Now, it was the most famous monument in the galaxy.
It was here that the Animorphs first learned of the Yeerk invasion. It was where they were given the power to morph and told to fight the Yeerks. It was also where Prince Elfangor, the Andalite who told them about everything, was killed by Visser Three, now known as Esplin. Elfangor was Tobias’s father.
I noticed immediately that something was wrong. “The lights are out,” I said. The other nodded. There were always floodlights lighting up a giant statue in the center of the monument. The statue showed five kids holding onto a cube that an Andalite held in one hand. Now, the statue was dark.
Most people wouldn’t have been more than curious about that. We were in full-blown paranoia mode. I gripped my Shredder. “Yeerks?” I asked.
Jake shook his head. “We can’t tell form up here. Jeanne, set us down as near as you can get and as close as you can get. If the Yeerks are here, we want to surprise them, but we also need to get down there as quickly as possible.
She put the ship down in a patch of shadow near the dark statue. Right next to a Yeerk Bug fighter. Jake looked at the thing. “Not good,” he said.
We hustled along the paved paths that led to the statue. We passed several men in security guard uniforms lying on the ground. No time to stop to check for vitals. Or even to harvest a weapon. My Shredder would have to do.
We slowed when we reached the statue. There was a door in the base. It led to a patch of bare earth under the statue. The spot where Elfangor had died. The door was usually locked and sealed by several systems. Right now, it was thrown wide open.
We dashed inside. I guess the Time Matrix was hidden beneath the statue. Jake signaled for us to slow as we neared the end o the short hallway behind the door. It came to an abrupt corner. It should have been too dark to see but something was giving off light.
It was just like Marco had described it. A sphere about six feet in diameter. It was white and shimmering. That was where the light came from.
It silhouetted an Andalite. He stood before it with his tail raised and his arms outstretched. I looked at Jake. “Take the shot?” I barely whispered. He glanced at Tobias. Then he nodded.
I raised my Shredder. I was one of the best snipers Earth has ever seen. I can fire a Shredder in either hand with near perfect accuracy. I wouldn’t miss. But just to be safe, I aimed at the center of his torso rather than his head. No reason to get overambitious.
My thumb turned the dial to the highest kill setting. I would get only one shot and I wouldn’t blow it. I felt bad that I had to kill Prince Aximili, but I knew he’d rather be dead than a Controller. I fired.
I don’t know if he heard the blast or if he saw it with one of his stalk eyes, but Esplin knew it was coming. A Shredder fires in the blink of an eye. Faster. No time to dodge, no time to run. But there was time for him to bring his Andalite tail between his body and the beam. The tailblade flashed and disappeared.
I opened fire again. But by this time, he was able to get out of the way. Shapes surged out of the darkness. Only then did I realize Esplin wasn’t alone.
Chapter 6
They were Kelbrid of course. A little over seven feet tall from end to end. Cats’ legs beneath a gorilla’s chest. One long arm ended in a ten-fingered hand. The other was massive with a foot-long stinger at the end. I knew the stinger was retractable. And that it was poisoned. Black, leathery flesh covered their bodies.
Their heads reminded me of an alligator’s. They had the same flat jaws and little noses. Cats ears, swept backwards, were on the sides of their heads. Their heads were eyeless. Thin whiskers dangled from beneath their powerful jaws, probably sensing vibrations in the air.
Cassie was already morphed. A polar bear. Tobias was rapidly becoming one as well. Jake was turning into a tiger. Marco was almost completely gorilla. Jeanne was slowly becoming a leopard.
But even the others weren’t morphing fast enough. The Kelbrid were almost on us. Only Cassie was in a position to fight. And me.
I opened up on the Kelbrid. The problem with Andalite Shredders is that they don’t cause pain. So the Kelbrid didn’t stop coming when I shot them. It only made them angry. They came on faster.
The first one to reach us was met with Cassie’s claw in his face. The blow knocked him off the ground and through the air. He hit the ground and didn’t move.
<Cassie, get to Esplin. Don’t let him reach the Time Matrix,> I heard Jake call. Cassie took off. I stayed where I was, shooting Kelbrid.
Tobias rushed past me, then Jake then Marco. Soon the ground beneath the statue was covered in blood. But the fight was eerily silent.
Maybe Kelbrid didn’t feel pain or maybe they just didn’t have the ability to speak because they never made a sound. Not even a roar of battle. Just totally cold silence as they slashed and stabbed and bit their enemies.
The Animorphs were silent, too. Occasionally, Jake’s tiger gave a roar or one of the polar bears would shout, but there were no human sounds. No cries of pain or battle directions given. Not even any warnings.
It was the Kelbrid poison. The stingers had an anesthetic on them. I guess it kept enemies fighting longer, hurting themselves more. It also made the place too quiet.
The Kelbrid seemed to be everywhere. One would be knocked off into the darkness beyond the Time Matrix’s glow only to see another one emerge to take its place. There could have been five Kelbrid. There could have been fifty. It didn’t matter.
Jeanne rushed past me, a leopard eager for a fight. But I couldn’t stand there and morph. I’d be a sitting duck, an easy target for any Kelbrid. I stayed where I was and looked for a clear shot.
It wasn’t easy. The Kelbrid kept moving and moving fast. The only time they stopped was when they attacked one of my friends. I couldn’t take the risk of my shot hitting one of my allies. I felt pretty useless.
A third polar bear emerged from behind the Time Matrix. I heard Tobias give an enraged shout. <ESPLIN!> A polar bear threw its arms open wide, scattering four Kelbrid. He charged at the Yeerk.
That was when the screaming started. Tobias hit him hard. The two of them fell to the ground. Tobias was on top, hammering Esplin’s face with blows that could probably shatter concrete. Esplin screamed. Tobias laughed.
I saw the Controller’s hand stretched for the Time Matrix. I shot it off. A bunch of Kelbrid mobbed Tobias. They dove on him, biting and stabbing. He cried out and was pulled off of Esplin.
The Yeerk rose and turned towards the Time Matrix. Tobias surged at him again, taking the Kelbrid with him. He hit the Yeerk and both of them fell onto the device. I didn’t have time to think. I ran towards them.
I slammed hard against the Time Matrix. It felt like the world was spinning around me. I could feel Esplin and Tobias. I could feel their wills like a tangible presence. Now it wasn’t only the world spinning, I was time itself.
The world disappeared. Time no longer had any meaning. My mind spun into oblivion. Minutes, seconds, hours, they all streaked by just as quickly. Or slowly. Not like it mattered.
I heard a voice. I think there was a face to go with it. Bigger than anything my mind could understand. The color…there isn’t a human word for it. It looked at Tobias.
He was there but not himself. His body was human. Most of it. But he had wings. And an Andalite’s tail. And a Hork-Bajir’s blades. Where his face should have been, there was an expressionless steel mask.
TOBIAS. YOU HAVE COME…RIGHT ON TIME. I felt the presence turn to look at me. SANTORELLI. INTREIGUING. LET US SEE WHERE THIS LEADS. And then everything I thought I understood was shot straight to hell.
Chapter 7
The first thing I noticed when I came to was that the ground was red. It felt like soil, but it was the color of blood. I was in some sort of canyon with obsidian walls rising all around me.
Tobias was standing next to me, feeling the walls of the canyon. “Some sort of metal,” he told me. “I have no clue where we are.”
“Maybe we should go hawk and take a look around in the sky?” I suggested.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
He morphed in about fifteen seconds. It took me about three minutes. The feathers came first. They appeared like tattoos all over my body. Then they exploded into three dimensions.
Next came the talons. My toes squished together until I only had three of them. Then a fourth shot out of my heel. My nails turned into sharp claws.
Then I started to shrink. It was like the ground decided it didn’t like me anymore so it was coming up to hit me in the face.
My jaw bulged out and turned into a beak. My ears got good enough to hear my organs twisting, changing to the hawk’s digestive system. My new eyes could see every inch of the alien ground.
Then came the hawk’s mind. I was hungry. I wanted prey. It wouldn’t be hard to find. All I needed to do was get some air and take a look.
There was another hawk next to me. Smaller. Tasty. It wouldn’t be hard to take him. I just had to get my talon around his head and squeeze…
The other hawk took off. I was about to follow him when I heard something that didn’t make any sense to me. Some sort of sound. Not a bird sound. And not in my ears. It was right in my head. What…?
I heard it again. <king Christ! This is impossible! Santorelli, we need to find a way out of this place right now. This isn’t right. It isn’t right at all!>
I snapped back to myself and was shocked that I had considered eating Tobias. I would never have been able to take him. He knew his morph in a way I never would. If I was lucky.
I flapped my wings, going up to join him. <What is it?> I started to say. I stopped because I knew.
Beyond the canyon walls was an enormous tower. It was miles tall. Too tall to have been built by anyone who ever lived. It hardly seemed possible that it existed. But there it was.
The whole thing was black. Darker than midnight. Darker than the Blade Ship. It was a darkness that absorbed light. I bet that’s what a black hole looked like.
Only after a minute of staring did I see the top of the tower. At the top was some kind of creature. It had no arms or legs. Its head was a single eye. I knew that eye would see us if it turned this way. No one could hide from that gaze.
That wasn’t a tower. And this wasn’t some planet. It was a throne. <Tobias, what the in the name of God is that thing?>
<Crayak.>
My blood froze. I think I might mean that literally. That kind of thing could probably happen when you’re on the body of one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
<How are we here?> I demanded. <Why? Did you bring us here? Esplin?>
<I don’t think this was anything any of us decided. Not even Esplin would want to come here. It had to be who or whatever it was who spoke to us a moment ago. We have to get out of here.>
<But how?>
<The Time Matrix. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure it’s some kind of test. It always is. The key is to get to the Time Matrix before Esplin does.>
<You think Esplin’s here?> I asked.
<Yeah. If we are, so is he. I don’t know what the deal is, but we’ll have to be careful.>
<Crayak likes you, right? I mean, he made you human, after all.>
<Yeah. So?>
<Why not ask him for help? He’ll notice us soon.>
<Maybe. But I don’t know what he wants to do or what he’s planning. For all I know, Esplin did bring us here to get us killed. I don’t want to bring the big eye into this unless I have to.>
<So what do we do?>
<We go back into the canyons and make our way to the Time Matrix as fas as we can.>
<Do you see it?>
<It’ll be at the base of the tower.>
<You’re sure?>
<I’ve done this kind of thing before. Trust me.>
Chapter 8
There’s something really creepy about wandering around on someone’s body. Especially when that body isn’t even vaguely human. Not even close.
We were wandering through canyons. That was what I tried to tell myself. Just a hike through a canyon. Not something alive. Just a part of nature. How well do you think that worked out?
“Is this a maze?” I asked Tobias. “I feel like we’ve passed this…thing…before. Did we go in a circle?’
He shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t know any more about this than you do.”
“I thought you’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“Never on Crayak’s body.”
We walked around for another couple hours without finding anything. Then we turned a corner and screamed out heads off.
Around the corner was a creature that made me think of Darth Maul. It had red and black flesh. Its eyes were a pale blue. Sharp claws came out of its wrists. I don’t know what its face normally looked like, but I think it was surprised to see us.
Tobias reacted a lot quicker than I did. A Hork-Bajir blade shot out of his wrist. He swung it through the air. The next thing I knew, the alien’s head was lying on the ground.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded, pulling out my Shredder.
“Howler,” Tobias answered. “Crayak manufactures them here. I wasn’t expecting to run into one, though.”
“Did you make that blade come out on your own?” I asked. “I didn’t think you had that kind of control.”
“It was a lucky morph. And a lucky shot. The Howler must have been ten times as surprised as I was or I’d never have killed it.”
“Are they good fighters?”
“One once fought Jake, Marco, Ax, Rachel, Cassie, and me to a draw. Then it walked away.”
I whistled. Tobias smiled. “At least Esplin isn’t going to have an easy time of it. The Howlers will tear him apart. They’ve got this howl that the Andalite brain is really sensitive to. For all I know, it could blow a the Yeerk right out of Ax’s head.”
“And probably take Ax’s head with it,” I added.
“Probably.”
“You sound happy.”
“We’d be better off with him dead than with him as a Controller.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I just thought you might want to save him.”
Tobias shook his head. “Back during the first war, Jake thought he could save Tom. That was his goal most of the time. We both know how that turned out. I’m not going to be that foolish. If I ever have the chance, I’ll kill Ax and Esplin both.”
“You’re a cold dude, you know that?”
“It’s a cold world.”
I nodded. He was right. Working for Visser Six, I understood just how bad the world could be. And I knew I would rather have had someone kill me than be a Controller.
I liked how Tobias didn’t have the illusions a lot of people had. We were in a terrible war now. One where death was one of the more pleasant options. Most people couldn’t handle that.
Tobias knelt down next to the Howler. He held two fingers to its throat for a moment. Then he stood up. “Can you acquire something that’s dead?” he asked.
I shrugged. “What you need to acquire is DNA. The DNA probably dies in the cells once the body dies, but there’s probably still some in his body, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He nodded. “I think I just acquired it. I’m going to give the morph a shot. Stand back. Jake told me these things aren’t inherently hostile, but I don’t want to take a chance.”
It took less than a minute. First, his stomach clinched like he was getting cut in half. For a moment, I could see his spine. Then veined flesh covered it. His skin turned red like a really bad sunburn. Black lines like cooled lava drew across his body. Steel claws came from his hands. His eyes turned a beautiful shade of blue.
Tobias nodded. <It’s…it’s like being a dolphin. I want to play with you. Of course, that would probably end with you dead. It’s weird, though…>
“What is?” I asked.
<The last time we beat the Howlers, the Ellimist said we broke them. Jake put the memory of love into their collective. I was told they would never be the same, but I can’t find that memory anywhere.>
“It must have gotten erased.”
<Must have. We should find you one of these. Then we could move around without much difficulty.>
“You think a morph will fool that big eye?”
<No, but it will fool the other Howlers. Set your Shredder to stun.> He gave me the single scariest smile I’ve ever seen. <We’re going Howler hunting.>
Chapter 9
We didn’t have far to go. The place was crawling with Howlers. I don’t know how Crayak could stand having them all over him like this, but he obviously didn’t mind. If he had cared, he had more than enough power to do something about it.
I was a fly on Tobias’s Howler body. He walked calmly through the canyons of Crayak’s body. He walked past several groups of Howlers. He didn’t want to try fighting more than one of them.
We came across a lone Howler almost an hour later. Tobias approached him. <Get ready,> he told me. I buzzed off and started to demorph. I could sense the vibrations of a struggle. My fly eyes saw a thousand images of two Howlers grappling. One had its claws in the other’s throat; Tobias trying to make sure the other one didn’t sound an alarm.
I was human now. I needed to be human to acquire the Howler. But I didn’t dare to get close. Tobias and the other one were far too dangerous for me to mess with in any morph.
The blades of their wrists clanged off one another. Tobias still held one claw in the Howler’s throat. His other hand held one of the Howler’s claws immobile. The Howler’s other claw slashed Tobias repeatedly.
His wounds healed almost instantly. No wonder Tobias kept his claw in the Howler’s throat. Tobias wasn’t losing the fight. He wasn’t winning, either. He needed help.
My shredder lay on the ground where Tobias had dropped it; far too close to the Howlers for me to get it. I needed to help Tobias and that meant a morph.
The problem? I had four morphs: fly, cockroach, rhino, and hawk. Flies and cockroaches wouldn’t do anything to a Howler. A rhino might, but then I’d be back where I started.
The whole reason Tobias was fighting the Howler instead killing it was because I needed to acquire it. There wasn’t enough time for me to demorph and acquire it if he killed it. Then I had an idea.
I morphed again to hawk. I could hear Tobias and the Howler grunting, now. They were both in a lot of pain. It seems even Howlers have their limits. It took me maybe three minutes to become the hawk; three more minutes of pain for Tobias.
I could see him slowing. The Howler was getting the upper hand. In its collective memory, Tobias assured me, it has never once remembered losing. The thought of defeat never entered its mind. Not so for Tobias. He knew he could lose; he knew he could die.
I took off and gained some altitude. Tobias glanced at me. He pulled his claw out of the Howler’s throat and started to sag to the ground. He was tired and hurt. Or so the Howler thought.
My hawk eyes caught the sight of a fly buzzing along near Crayak’s body. I don’t know why, but it struck me as odd. I didn’t think Crayak would let bugs live on him. But I had more pressing matters to worry about. I was dive bombing onto the Howler’s face.
I raked my talons across the Howler’s eyes as it advanced on Tobias. I wheeled around in time to see Tobias plunge a claw into the Howler’s spine. The creature stopped moving.
I demorphed. “Dead?” I asked him.
He shook his head. <Paralyzed. Good thinking. Taking my old job?>
“Not yet,” I answered as I acquired the Howler. Tobias finished it off with a claw to the brain.
“You sure it’s dead?” I asked.
<Probably not dead,> he answered. <Doesn’t matter. Let’s get going. I don’t want to stick around until Crayak notices us.>
“I don’t think he’s paying that much attention,” I answered. “He didn’t notice the flies on him.”
<He’s got flies?>
“Just one that I saw.” It’s hard to read a Howler’s facial expressions, but Tobias was surprised. Then angry.
<That fly was Esplin.> That made sense. Tobias continued. <He didn’t want to be seen. Instead of running around playing tag like us, he’s been buzzing around where the Howlers couldn’t see him. Come one, we’ve got to get out of here.>
I morphed as I ran. It wasn’t hard, since I kept the same basic body shape. It was weird, getting faster as I ran. Howlers are bow-legged, so running seems like it should be awkward. It is, but Howlers were still faster than most humans.
It was odd when my vision suddenly turned to Howler sight. I could see faint lines of heat where Tobias had moved. I could see the outline of his beating heart. I realized for the first time that Howlers were even more dangerous than they appeared.
What shocked me the most were the instincts. I didn’t feel the rage and hatred I would have expected from a race built and owned by Crayak. I felt playful. I wanted to play the game we had been designed to play.
It was surprisingly easy to overcome the Howler mind. Maybe it was because only other Howlers were here. Still, I felt an odd reluctance as I did it. The Howler was happier than I was used to being.
Tobias and I followed the faint lines of heat Esplin had left. It’s hard to hide from a Howler. We were getting closer, I think. Closer to Crayak’s body, at least.
Then, everything stopped. I heard that massive voice again. IT IS TIME FOR THE TEST TO BEGIN.
