ANIMORPHS #13: THE CHANGE

"i am as peeless as you, tobias, my friend."

hi hello everyone and welcome BACK to serial season four: animorphs weekly. i know i said last week that we’d be reading the andalite chronicles next, but that book is three times as long as a normal animorphs book, and frankly, i don’t have the time. between crying on company time and staring wistfully out the window wondering if catelyn (my cat) is proud of me, i’m booked! (that last part is obviously a bit; i know catelyn is very proud of me.) i will save the andalite chronicles for a different time, perhaps as a fun gift when we hit fifty subscribers or i finally beat animal crossing.

wanna read a book?

BE AFRAID . . . .

i am!

readers, there was a version of the cover where the tagline was not “BE AFRAID” but rather “WILL I EVER BE NORMAL AGAIN . . . .” and i have to say, those are two different sides of the very same coin. today, readers, i’m a two: bird on the top, denim on the bottom.

it’s a tobias book!!!

SUMMARY

tobias opens this book with an absolute show of power.

the other animorphs can’t tell you very much about themselves, but i can. see, i don’t have an address. i can’t be found. i live in an area of forest by a meadow. that’s my territory.

cool!

we get a little description of tobias huntin’ breakfast. he drags an unsuspecting field mouse (rip) over to an area where some litterer has abandoned a magazine. the wind flips the pages until it lands on a photograph of a school classroom. a normal classroom, like tobias used to attend. but not anymore.

now the world is his classroom

tobias doesn’t mind being a bird! not really. he soars over the meadow, and then the woods that house his meadow. he catches a glimpse of ax - “my friend. or as much of a friend as you can be, when one of you is a bird-boy and the other is an alien.” - and soars over some homes. he takes a turn and heads for the school. he’s feeling a little nostalgic. through one window, he sees jake falling asleep in class. cassie pokes him to wake him up. according to tobias, the future of the human race rests in jake’s hands. no pressure! tobias flies past another window, where he spots marco cracking a joke. but he’s not here for jake, or cassie, or marco. he spots the last member of the animorphs moving between buildings when she should be in class.

she stepped out into the sunlight, and her blond hair became a flame of pure gold.

rachel.

damn, birdboy, that is beautiful

he reaches out to rachel in thought-speak, making a joke about her cutting class, and because she can’t respond to him also in thought-speak, she opens up her binder and reveals the note she’s delivering for a teacher. but tobias has the eyes of a hawk, and he can see something underneath the note. it’s a letter, addressed to rachel, congratulating her for being an outstanding student. there’s an awards ceremony on monday. today’s friday. tobias realizes that rachel didn’t tell him about it because he couldn’t have come. because he’s a bird. he gets a little bummed about this, but then he tries to perk up. he tells her his yeerk pool mapping project is going well and invites her for a fly after school. she agrees, and he’s off again, trying not to dwell too hard on the fact that he’s trapped as a bird, probably forever.

sometimes i asked myself if i had to do it all over again … if i could never become tobias the hawk, and only be tobias the boy, would i actually do it?

i didn’t think about that often, though. maybe i didn’t want to find out the answer.

cue the theme song

(indulge me in a brief tangent: i miss theme songs. i know the cool thing now is to like, have a killer opening line and then just like, flash the title of your tv show with a quick little tune, but?? you can bet your sweet ass when hbo calls me to write this mini-series we are getting a full on anime intro. i’m talking a two minute theme song. i’m talking clips of all the animorphs, doing their animorphs things. it’s gonna be awesome.)

it turns out tobias has been spending his free time following confirmed controllers, trying to map all of the entrances and exits to the yeerk pool, which lurks under the city. tobias explains what the yeerks are and is like, and if you think that’s crazy, well, i don’t blame you.

this book opened with you hunting a field mouse, dude

i’m in

he’s flying over the mall later that afternoon when he spots a bald eagle. he’s like, ah, i know that baldie. he tells rachel while she and the other animorphs have been busy saving the world, he’s also been hard at work doing just as important things. rachel’s like, you know, just because you can’t come on every mission doesn’t mean you have to do extra work. tobias is like, that feels like some character development i’m actively working on, rachel, and we’re not gonna get there until we’re at least in book 25. tobias has been following around everyone’s favorite controllers: assistant principal controller chapman, mrs. assistant principal controller chapman, a report, a cop, and big brother tom. he’s found four separate ways into the yeerk pool, which is really great work! good job, tobias!

he then congratulates rachel on winning her outstanding student award. rachel’s like, you know i wish you could be there, but, you know. bird. tobias is like, yeah, bird. he asks her not to hide things from him like this. he doesn’t like when it feels like rachel is pitying him. she lies and says she doesn’t feel sorry for him, and tobias gets a little too real.

good. because, you know, how you think of me is sort of important.

i winced. i’d sounded way too sincere.

i mean, what was i thinking? rachel’s a human. a real human. i’m a hawk. you think romeo and juliet were doomed, just from being from families that didn’t like each other? well, you can’t get any more doomed than caring for someone who isn’t even the same species.

too true, birdboy. too true.

he tries to play it off by being like ANYWAY let’s go check out those yeerk pool entrances!!! rachel says, verbatim, “on a day like this, i’d follow you anywhere,” which will be going in the script adaptation of this episode. the shippers will love it. it’ll be the caption on every tumblr gifset of tobias x rachel. (tochel? rabias?) tobias tells rachel they’re heading to car wash, and off they go!

except, they don’t end up at the car wash. they end up near cassie’s farm. tobias is like, huh. this isn’t the car wash. this is cassie’s farm. sorry, let’s try again. they flap away, but end up right back at the edge of the forest. rachel is like …are you lost? tobias is like me?? lost?? i’m a predator! i’m a bird! i’m not…..i’m never lost…….not physically, anyway….

and that’s when i saw it happen.

down below, tobias watches a huge oak tree slide to one side, revealing a hole in the ground beneath it. a man-made hole. or rather, a not-man-made hole. a hork-bajir emerges. rachel and tobias are like, oh shit, a hork-bajir!!! what the hell is this knife-dino doing emerging out of a hole in the ground in broad daylight? and then, a second hork-bajir emerges. and they look scared.

an alarm begins to blare from the hole in the ground. the two hork-bajir embrace for just a moment, and then they’re off, running through the woods. rachel has about an hour left in morphin’ time, so she and tobias decide to follow them. out from the hole, twenty or thirty human-controllers emerge, armed with various guns. the hork-bajir are fast, but they’re literally slicing a path through the forest that anyone could follow. and then, the yeerks start shooting dirt bikes and motorcyles out of the hole. sure! the human controllers hop on their bikes and rev their engines. the bikes take off after the hork-bajir and there is a lot of gunfire. rachel turns to tobias and is like, we’re gonna help them, right? the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

i would have smiled if i’d had a mouth. rachel is so brave she is just short of being reckless.

i like that about her.

a whole book of yearning

tobias reaches out via thought-speak. he’s like if you want to live, come with me. meanwhile, more yeerks are pouring out in pickup trucks, coming from the opposite direction. these yeerks are everywhere! but tobias has one advantage: this is his territory. he swoops down and has the hork-bajir follow him. rachel stays above to let him know about the yeerks whereabouts. they are booking it through the forest, cutting it close, when rachel notices a helicopter coming from the south. up ahead, there’s a stream. tobias checks in with the hork-bajir - y’all swim? - and once he gets confirmation, he takes a hard turn. there are two trucks headed his way, and there’s only one way to get rid of the gunmen so it’s safe for the hork-bajir to cross. timing it just right, he and rachel swoop down from the air and cut out some eyeballs. the hork-bajir come sprinting across the road. the first one sails over the truck with ease. the second isn’t so fast. the second hork-bajir gets slammed by the truck, and the first hork-bajir screams.

“kalashi! kalashi!”

there’s a swarm of commotion. more yeerks are flooding in. tobias goes to lead the first hork-bajir away, and he’s like, no! my kalashi! my wife! (don’t. don’t do it. not even in your heads. don’t. please. i’m begging you.) tobias is like wife??? w i f e??? no matter, dude, you gotta get out of here! tobias leads the hork-bajir to the stream and watches him swim away.

we cut to the animorphs all in cassie’s barn, including ax in full andalite form. tobias is keeping watch, but still. feels super risky. anyway, tobias is relaying the story from earlier to the rest of the team. they’re unsure of the wife’s whereabouts - they only saw her get knocked into the ditch by the truck - but the husband they were able to lead to safety. marco thinks it might be a trap, but rachel points out that these hork-bajir were most likely not controllers. why would all those yeerks come after them if they were? cassie’s like weird coincidence that y’all happened to be in the area right around the time they escaped. tobias is like, yeah, it is weird, because i was actually trying to take rachel to the car wash!

(tangent: once a boy took me on a date to a car wash. we just got his car washed! we didn’t even hold hands in the car!)

ax and cassie are interested by this, but rachel cuts in. there’s an immediate problem: they have a hork-bajir, mourning his wife in a cave somewhere, who potentially escaped from the yeerks. they aren’t just gonna let him walk away. what are they supposed to do with him? everyone turns to ax. he’s never known a free hork-bajir. that’s how long they’ve been enslaved by the yeerks. but if this hork-bajir, and his wife, were able to escape, it would make them the only two free hork-bajir in the universe. a truly dark and haunting thought, applegate. grapple with that, youth of america! ax turns to rachel and tobias and is like, well, what does the hork-bajir want to do?

rachel and tobias are like, uh

we didn’t even think to ask

jake’s like, okay. there’s step one. let’s go find this hork-bajir and ask.

everyone agreed. but i saw that cassie was still troubled. under her breath she muttered, “and then let’s find out why tobias was somewhere he didn’t mean to be.”

yeah!

let’s!

it’s agreed that tobias and ax will approach the hork-bajir. in case this is a trap, they still want the yeerks to believe that they are a group of andalite guerillas, and not a handful of human kids and one birdboy. rachel and cassie are above as a bald eagle and an owl, keeping watch, and for some reason jake is a tiger?? in the woods?? like, you have a wolf morph? i know he probably wants to be as ferocious as possible in case of a possible attack, but a tiger kind of stands out. whatever. i’m not the strategist here. clearly. if i was, both jake and marco would be wolves, and not a fucking tiger and gorilla. it’s not a circus!!! it’s a forest!!!

tobias and ax approach the hork-bajir carefully. upon seeing ax, the hork-bajir kind of freaks out, and tobias has to play peacemaker. he asks the hork-bajir to step outside of the cave so they can talk. the hork-bajir reveals his name is jara hamee. fun! jara hamee is like, andalites kill hork-bajir. hork-bajir kill andalites. ax tries to defend his race - the andalites tried to save the hork-bajir from the yeerks! - but jara hamee is having none of it.

“you darkap. you fail.”

slam dunk’d!

ax is like, ok, fair point. but this andalite is not going to kill you. not unless you’re working for the yeerks. jara hamee is like i have my own head! i am free! ax is like, how can we know that to be true? and then jara hamee slices into his own head

metal

ax and tobias stare into jara hamee’s brain (m e t a l) and confirm: no yeerk! just brain. jara hamee, satisfied that he has proven his yeerk-less state, simply presses his head back together and the wound heals. fuckin’ rad. jara hamee is strong, he says, speaking in third person, but jara hamee needs help. he needs help getting his wife back. he tries to communicate his emotions towards his kalashi, and ends up making a gesture as if his own heart is being pulled out of his chest. tobias knows all about that kind of pain.

you love her, i said.

jara hamee agrees: he loves his kalashi and he would do anything to get her back. ax and tobias are in. they believe him. before they can communicate this to the rest of the group, cassie calls down from above. company’s coming. there’s a line of people coming from the northwest, there’s a line of people coming from the southeast, and a troop of hork-bajir coming along, too. they’re all about five minutes from converging on the cave. bad news bears! the yeerks really want jara hamee back (or dead). the animorphs scramble for a plan, and it’s tobias who comes up with the obvious solution. he has a little moral dilemma about even suggesting it - “it makes me sick when other people take risks that i can’t take” - but if the yeerks want a hork-bajir to chase through the woods, the animorphs could give them a hork-bajir to chase through the woods.

there’s a minute moral outcry from cassie - jara hamee is a sentient being, not just an animal - but tobias is like, literally last week you morphed into rachel. cassie acquiesces, so long as they get jara hamee’s permission. rachel is immediately like DIBS dibs DIBS i’ll do it i’ll morph the hork-bajir. she needs to morph out of her bald eagle, anyway, and this is right up Pretty/Tough rachel’s alley. this, of course, makes tobias feel worse. his idea putting golden flame rachel in danger? the guilt! tobias asks jara hamee’s permission to acquire his dna, and jara hamee agrees. he turns around, so as not to see rachel’s true identity, and she approaches and acquires his dna.

i have got to say, this fucking rules

a hork-bajir morph??? are you kidding me??? fuck the grizzly bear! rachel’s seven feet tall and made entirely of knives!

cassie calls from above. they’ve got maybe two minutes until the enemies are on them. tobias tells rachel she doesn’t have to do this. marco chimes in: it’s what rachel’s good at, and what she wants to do. rachel says nothing, because she doesn’t want to reveal to the hork-bajir that she’s a human, but she does wink at tobias. and then, she starts to morph. as soon as she’s done, jara hamee whirls around. they bellow in each other’s faces and start slashing at each other, but none of the blows hit. before jake can intercede - “that was all we needed - a three-way fight between two hork-bajir and a tiger” - tobias points out that it’s a dominance ritual. a nature thing. he checks in with rachel, who was having a little trouble with the hork-bajir instincts. (she also says that she doesn’t get any of jara hamee’s thoughts or memories, which is good to know, just for future sentient-morphs.)

jake snaps into leader mode. he checks in with rachel, to make sure she’s up for the job. he tells jara hamee to go back into the cave and to not come out under any circumstances. their mission is to lead the yeerks away. they are not looking for a fight. he repeats it for rachel’s benefit, but like, rachel is always looking for a fight. there’s another moment where tobias is like, rachel, you can still back out, and marco jumps in.

i’ll bet you ten bucks she says, “let’s do it,” marco said quickly.

rachel turned her snakelike head toward marco and grinned what i think was a hork-bajir grin. let’s…go for it.

oh man! marco complained. she cheated!

obvs marco is poking fun at rachel here, and i do think i like these two better as short king/tall queen brotp solidarity, buuuut i will say that it it would be interesting to watch this unfold as our love triangle (if we end up getting one). the juxtaposition of tobias caring for rachel but being nervous about whether or not she should do things against marco’s egging her on yet consistent belief that rachel can do anything is………chef’s kiss. like what st*phanie mey*r tried to do with twilight’s edward and jacob, but with more than one morph.

anyway

four armed human controllers and two hork-bajir come crashing into the area just as jara hamee ducks back into the cave. marco literally taps one of the hork-bajir on the shoulder, waits until they turn around, and then punches them so hard they keel over. classic comedy. the controllers turn and make a run for it. tobias flies over and lands on rachel’s forehead horn blade (forehead horn blade band name called it) and is like, i’m not gonna be left out this time. rachel’s like, sick. let’s ride. she starts sprinting through the woods. from above, cassie is like, stop chasing those controllers! they’re leading you into a trap!! rachel’s like no problem. she makes a hard turn and starts sprinting in another direction. she trips and stumbles and tobias goes flying into a bush. rachel slices him out - “all right! i like these blades!” - and tobias flies up to land on her horn once more.

except, he’s suddenly nowhere near rachel. he’s high above the trees. he’s not sure how he got there - he was just on the ground! he looks around. he can see cassie - but she’s a quarter of a mile away. what the fuck? there’s loud gunfire right below him. someone shouts “freeze or i put the next shot in your second heart!” he looks down to see three armed humans surrounding a hork-bajir. it’s not rachel; rachel is back where tobias should be. is it jara hamee? before tobias can really figure out what’s going on, one of the human controllers begins to morph into an andalite

SOUND THE ALARMS

IT’S VISSER THREE

so early!!! i feel like his reveals are usually saved for the latter half of books, but i guess his reveal with jeremy jason mccole was about halfway? still, it’s only chapter 11! anyway

visser three addresses the hork-bajir in front of him as ket halpak. this is jara hamee’s kalashi. they have her surrounded. tobias knows he has to do something, but what can he do? he’d have to take out visser three and his lightning fast andalite tail, and there’s no way he can do that alone. he’s too far from the other animorphs to thought-speak to them. but, tobias knows these woods. the clearing they’re standing in is the territory of a swainson’s hawk. maybe, just maybe, if he has a distraction…

tobias shoots down from the air, screaming in his little hawk voice. thankfully, the swainson’s hawk is home and ready to defend its territory. visser three, a terrifying yet bumbling fool, believes the swainson’s hawk, ron swainson, is the animorph here. it’s all the distraction tobias needs. he swipes down and slices at visser three’s stalk eyes. he tells the hork-bajir he’s a friend of jara hamee’s, and they need to run, now. ket halpak doesn’t hesitate. she follows tobias out of there admist the gunfire. (ron swainson also escapes, for those of you keeping track at home.) he is able to successfully lead ket halpak to the cave, where she is reunited with jara hamee.

all the animorphs regroup outside the hork-bajir cave. it’s late, everyone is nearing their two-hour time limit, and they all have to get home soon so they don’t get grounded. except for tobias, who no longer has a home! jake tells the hork-bajir they’ll need to stay in the cave until the animorphs come back for them tomorrow. jara hamee is like, what’s the plan stan? jake is like, my name is jake, and i don’t know yet. but i’ll figure it out! everyone demorphs (except for tobias, who is permanently trapped as a hawk) and starts the walk home. on the way, they talk about what they’re going to do with the hork-bajir. it’s not like they can trot them out to newspapers - it’s impossible to know who in the media is under a yeerk’s control - or like, buy them a house and get them jobs. but jara hamee and ket halpak are the last two free hork-bajir in the universe. they’re like an endangered species. what are you supposed to do with an endangered species? of course, cassie knows the answer: find them a safe, protected environment and hope they have little hork-bajir babies and let the race continue. marco isn’t sure such a place exists on earth, but tobias is.

there’s a place way up in the mountains. it has caves and fresh water streams and it’s well-hidden. he can see the images so clearly in his mind - down to the trees and the wildflowers. jake’s like, okay. tomorrow, we’ll try to lead the hork-bajir to the valley.

i could see the place as clearly in my mind as any place i had ever been.

there was just one little problem. i’d never been there. i’d never actually seen it.

and i had no idea where the lovely pictures in my mind had come from.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

much like me, tobias feels fine about himself during the day. it’s only when the sun sets and 11:49 rolls around that he begins to have an existential crisis about who he is and what he’s doing in the world and whether or not a great horned owl is seconds away from snapping his neck. #justbirdboythingz he doesn’t even have the comfort of his normal perch and his normal tree, because he’s standing guard over the hork-bajir cave. he tries to remember what it was like to sleep in a bed. but he can’t. not really…

ax comes to visit. it’s nice having ax in the forest, tobias tells us, even if it’s not the same as sleeping in a real bed. at least he has someone to talk to. tobias tells ax that the hork-bajir were speaking to each other earlier, mostly in their own language, but with a few english words sprinkled in. why is that? ax shows some classic andalite racism and calls the hork-bajir’s language primitive. perhaps, he muses, the yeerks thought they should be able to speak some english words. tobias says they repeated a hork-bajir word a lot. it sounded like kawatnoj. ax doesn’t speak hork-bajir (snob) but maybe he’ll ask them tomorrow. but the hork-bajir don’t really like andalites. ax bristles at that. he knows the andalites failed to save the hork-bajir from the yeerks, but they tried. shouldn’t that count for something?

tobias asks ax if he’s ever had information just…pop into his brain. ax is like, uh, sometimes i remember things? tobias is about to explain when it happens again. he can sense taxxons crawling through the woods! he looks around. there’s no sign of them, but he knows they’re coming all the same. not only that, he knows that they’re tracking the hork-bajir through scent. ax is like, well, taxxon trackers are a special breed of taxxon that do just that. but how would you, a birdboy, know about the intricacies of taxxon tracks? tobias doesn’t know, but he’s growing more frustrated. something - or someone - is using him. and he doesn’t like it. that doesn’t change the fact that the taxxons are coming. there’s no time to wait. the hork-bajir need to be moved now. tobias tells ax to go find jake and the others. but how will we find you, ax asks, if you’re busy hiding from yeerks?

you all have birds within you, tobias says. “take to the air.”

nice

tobias wakes the hork-bajir pair and tells them it’s time to go. but it’s slow-moving. tobias can’t see in the dark, and the hork-bajir aren’t much better. tobias rides on jara hamee’s forehead horn blade (new single coming soon), and jara hamee asks tobias how he knows where they’re going. tobias is like, ugh i guess the weird little voice in my head will tell me. jara hamee is like ah yes, i have had a voice in my head too. it told me when to run from the yeerks. tobias is like….was it a voice or an idea? jara hamee is like ?? idk man something popped in my head and told me it was time to grab my wife and run. they said they’d send a guide.

tobias is like………am i the guide???

jara hamee has no answers. this frustrates tobias beyond belief. he calls hold. no one’s going anywhere until he gets some answers!!!

well

suddenly he’s no longer in the forest. he’s not flying, he’s just floating. there’s a beautiful blue-green light surrounding him. his body is once again his human body. it’s also his hawk body. he can see the human boy beneath all of the hawk boy and it is very unnerving.

H E L L O T O B I A S. W E M E E T A G A I N.

the ellimist is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or, as it specifies, an ellimist. the ellimist appears in front of tobias as a blend of many types of birds. it is as beautiful as it is terrifying, made only more so by the fact that the ellimist is like I C H O S E Y O U R S H A P E. tobias is like i’m not a bird!!! the ellimist is like, u sure??

well

tobias is like what the hell is going on? what do you want from me? the ellimist shifts from blendbird to human with wings (eyeball emoji @ god) and stands in front of tobias. the ellimist speaks with a human voice, and is like, once i helped you and your friends without directly interfering. i’m just doing the same here with the hork-bajir. do they not deserve the same chance as you? tobias is like hmmm. well. the ellimist tells tobias that they’re not going to force him to do anything, and they also can’t guarantee success. the hork-bajir and tobias might die. but this way, they have a fighting chance. tobias asks the question we all must ask ourselves at one point or another: why me?

“tobias, you are a beginning. you are a point on which an entire time line may turn.”

cool

honestly fuckin’ rad

tobias is like >:( you want my help? fine. i want to make a deal. i will help lead these hork-bajir to the place in the mountains. but i want to get paid. the ellimist is like, what do you want?

“you know what i want,” i said, almost choking on the words. “you know.”

“yes. but do you know what you want, tobias?” the ellimist asked. “and if you get it, will you still know?”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

before tobias can respond, he’s back in the forest. he and the hork-bajir continue their journey slowly through the woods. there’s a brief encounter with a skunk (fun callback) and then they have to take a break. everyone’s hungry. jara hamee slices some bark off of a tree and hands half of it to ket halpak. tobias is like, y’all eat trees? jara hamee and ket halpak are like hell yeah we eat trees. kanver, lewhak, the tall fit fit (opening for forehead blade horn next year at lolla). earth trees are good, though. tobias suddenly understands: all of the blades on the hork-bajir are intended to harvest wood from trees. the hork-bajir, jara hamee reveals, have no natural enemies. no prey. each blade has a special purpose, but it all points back to cutting bark.

reader, i’ll be totally honest with you: this made me tear up a little. they’re naturally peaceful!!! they just want to eat trees and chill and instead they’ve been thrust into a war with no control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tobias, like me, needs to take a moment, so he tells the hork-bajir he’ll be back in half an hour. he flies off to do some hunting and ruminates on his new discovery. it makes him feel sorry, because he used to hate hork-bajir when he’d come across them in battle. and he knows that he will still have to fight against them in the future. major fuckin’ bummer. he spreads his wings and flies, wondering idly if he’ll be able to keep his morphing powers once the ellimist turns him back into a human. he goes to dive for a nearby mouse but gets hit by an air pocket. eating as a bird is hard!! but no worries, soon he’ll be able to eat wheaties and sleep in a real bed!

maybe. when he was a human, his parents left and he was shuttled back and forth between aunts and uncles. he doesn’t even know if they looked for him after he turned into a hawk. dark!

he doesn’t have a lot of time to think about this for long, because WHAP! he gets smacked out of the air by a BOBCAT. he’s like, aw fuck! i’m gonna die because i was thinking about my shitty home life! (been there.) he’s only got one shot to escape the bobcat’s lightning fast reflexes, and he takes it. using a stick on the ground, he manages to poke the bobcat’s eye, giving him enough time to fly up into the air. the bobcat takes two steps after him, when suddenly, SLURP!

A TAXXON EATS IT

tobias is like, aw, FUCK! he flaps up up up into the air and turns to survey the scene. there are a dozen taxxon crawling through the forest, followed by a fuckton of hork-bajirs and armed human controllers. the yeerks have run out of fucks to give. these aliens are out in BROAD DAYLIGHT hunting down our peaceful bark-eating pals.

this was an army. an entire army against me and two decent, simple, and not-very-bright hork-bajir.

and i still hadn’t had breakfast.

aw man

tobias gets back up into the air and spots a peregrine falcon. at first, he’s like, nuts! this is the last thing i need! but then the peregrine falcon thought-speaks. it’s jake! the other animorphs are close behind, in various bird forms. the calvary has arrived!! the other animorphs have been musing about tobias’s predicament, and tobias reveals that the ellimist is back. cassie tells tobias that ax warned them all about the ellimist. they’re tricky creatures who play games. tobias thinks over his conversation with the ellimist — and realizes the ellimist never actually promised to make him human again. rachel checks in on tobias privately. he tells her that the ellimist said they’d make tobias human again. rachel is so jazzed, but tobias is a little nervous. he wants it badly - but at what cost?

doesn’t matter now. they still need to keep up their end of the bargain: getting the hork-bajir to safety. and there’s a more immediate issue. all the other animorphs are coming up on their two hour time limit. they need to morph in and out, but the only safe place to do that is in front of the hork-bajir pair. obviously, that’s complicated. if the yeerks do recapture jara hamee and ket halpak, they’ll get all their memories, including the one where a bunch of kids revealed themselves to be animorphs. tobias is like, let me talk to them. they’re my friends.

aw

he swoops down and has a brief chat with the hork-bajirs. he’s like, so, if the yeerks were to capture you again… before he can even finish his statement, jara hamee slashes the air and points at the healing scar on his head. “free or dead,” ket halpak says. well! good enough for me! the animorphs all float down and morph back into their human forms. the hork-bajir get a big kick out of that. they laugh! heehee! humans! jara hamee looks at tobias and is like, u 2?

tobias is like i was

once

ax meets up with them, carrying a large bag of shoes (nice). he points out that letting the hork-bajir see their true faces is dangerous, but like, we already had that chat. jara hamee yells “free or dead!!!!” which rachel obviously loves. she repeats the cheer, and then cassie and jake and tobias join in. marco is like well if you keep shouting with all those taxxons nearby i’m gonna put my money on dead!! rachel runs over to him and literally shakes him by the shoulders until marco joins in on the chant. it’s fun!

they start to make their way up the mountain. ax is in front, scouting ahead, while tobias flies above, doing a little rotation to ensure that there are no surprises. there’s some fun banter between marco and cassie — marco hates being outside, cassie thinks it’s nice, a good little back and forth — but mostly, everyone’s hungry. the hork-bajir can’t strip bark, because it will lead the yeerks right to them, and tobias still hasn’t eaten. which is why, when he spots a mouse down below, he goes for it. which is why, when he goes for it, he completely misses the helicopters.

aw man!!!!!!!!!

tobias starts screaming out in thought-speech, but he’s too far away. he flies as hard as he can back towards his friends, but the wind is working against him. if those helicopters fly over their marching party, everything is lost. they’ll see the hork-bajir and they’ll see that the animorphs are just a handful of kids. tobias keeps screaming out in thought-speak, telling his friends to get off the path and morph. because they’re all in human form, they can’t thought-speech respond. (ax could, but he’s even further away than the kids.) tobias is flying as fast as he can, but one of the helicopters flies over him. the gust of wind sends him spiraling. he hits a branch and hears a loud SNAP. he tries to fly, but he can’t! the snap was one of his bones! he can’t fly!!!!

and then a fuckin’ raccoon rolls up!!!!!!!!!!

the raccoon grabs tobias by the broken wing and starts dragging him towards a river. apparently, raccoons will hold their prey underwater to better dig through the body to find the good meat. brutal! tobias is screaming out, but no one can hear him.

well, almost no one.

Y O U A S K E D M E F O R P A Y M E N T I N E X C H A N G E F O R U S I N G Y O U. W O U L D Y O U L I K E Y O U R R E W A R D N O W?

the ellimist!!!

tobias is like YES, NOW WOULD BE A REALLY GREAT TIME. the ellimist is like. K. D O N E. tobias is like ?? done ?? i’m still a fuckin bird ??? the ellimist is like U S E UR M O R P H I N’. tobias is like, you promised you’d turn me into a human!!! you lied!!!!!!!!! but the ellimist is gone. and the raccoon is still trying to crack tobias open like a hot wing. so tobias focuses. he acquires the raccoon’s dna (!!!!!!) AND THEN BEGINS TO MORPH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

he turns into the raccoon!! the real raccoon, a wily bitch, knows better than to stick around when birds turn into raccoons, and scampers away. tobias starts booking it, but raccoons are pretty slow. he doesn’t have a difficult time with the raccoon’s instincts - after all, most animals are just out for food and safety, and since tobias has been a birdboy for awhile, he knows that better than anyone - but the raccoon is just too damn slow. he thinks about it. all the other animorphs have been able to escape their injuries by demorphing. if he goes back to his red-tailed hawk body, will he no longer have a broken wing?

only one way to find out

he manages to morph back into his normal redtail body, complete with unbroken wing. he soars back into the air, grateful once again for the ability to fly, but his joy is short-lived. the yeerks have created a well made trap. ahead, far past where the animorphs would be, the helicopters are flying low to the ground. they shoot dracon beams at the trees below, starting a forest fire. their plan is to smoke out the animorphs (and not in the cool way) to drive them and the hork-bajir couple back towards the awaiting yeerk army. tobias feels hopeless. how is he going to get out of this? he spots ax below, and drops to regroup with his friends.

they have about five minutes before the fire and the army reach them. the yeerks won’t stop until jara hamee and ket halpak are free. if two hork-bajir escape, it’ll set an example for others. the yeerks can’t have that. but that gives tobias an idea. it’ll require marco in gorilla morph. there’s a deep ravine nearby. rachel’s already morphed jara hamee once. jake is like, okay, i’ll acquire ket. tobias is like, no

i’ll do it

everyone’s like tobias!!??! u can morph?!?!? rachel’s the first one to figure it out. she’s pissed. the ellimist was supposed to make tobiais human. instead, they just gave tobias the ability to morph. everyone has a moment where they feel a little bad for tobias, but also, the forest is on fire, so save it for later.

tobias fills them in on his plan. everyone gets their role. jake will morph a bird and be the eyes in the sky. (“my old job,” tobias says.) cassie will stay in wolf morph, ax will stay andalite and watch cassie’s back. marco will be a gorilla. tobias acquires ket halpak’s dna and begins to morph. morphing from a birdboy to a hork-bajir is gross! lots of talk about digestive systems. but he does it. cassie and ax take off with the real hork-bajir, marco rumbles off to get into position, and jake takes to the air. it’s just tobias and rachel now. there might be something romantic about morphing a married pair, but there’s truly no time to touch on it. lives are in danger. rachel tries to check in with tobias before they head out.

well, you haven’t exactly had a great day, she said.

i laughed grimly. i’m a freak of nature, rachel. any day i stay alive is a good day for me.

new mantra

tobias and rachel take off towards the ravine, guided by jake from above. it’s a weird bit of role reversal for tobias, who is used to being the eyes in the sky. hork-bajir have bad eyes! you can’t blame them, they just need to see trees! jake warns them: up ahead, two taxxons. it’s time to get noticed. rachel and tobias step out of hiding, and tobias is overcome with blinding rage. he wants to kill the taxxons — which is not part of the plan. he lunges, but rachel stops him. she holds him by the shoulders and stares into his face.

look, tobias. you’re mad. but it’s not the time or place. the person your mad at is beyond your reach. you can’t get back at the ellimist for betraying you…stick to the plan, tobias. don’t get us all killed because you’re mad at the ellimist.

wise words!!!!

tobias is like, u have soothed me. thank u. it’s a nice and tender moment, interrupted by the arrival of a handful of hork-bajir controllers. it’s definitely time to stick to the plan. rachel and tobias are off! they’re slicing their way through the forest. the yeerks are gaining on them. jake is having a little trouble adjusting to being the eyes above, but he manages to direct them to a small gully. they duck beneath the low-hanging vines and lose the small army of hork-bajir, but the worst isn’t over yet. the fire is sweeping down the lip of the ravine from the north, and the yeerks are closing the gap from the south. in between is a line of hork-bajir. rachel looks to tobias.

hope you haven’t lost all that anger, rachel said to me. looks like we fight after all.

CUE THE MUSIC

rachel and tobias emerge from the underbrush. straight ahead, the ravine waits for them, blocked by two taxxons and six hork-bajir. they rush forward into battle. there’s a lot of blood. tobias gets sliced up pretty bad, and knocked onto his back. an enemy hork-bajir is seconds from tearing out his heart, when, WOOSH! in comes jake, the peregrine falcon, pulling another classic tobias move. he scratches out the hork-bajir’s eyes and flies away, giving tobias and rachel the advantage they need to take out the remaining enemies.

jake? i said. that was one sweet save back there. would it be wrong for me to say i love you, man?

no! no it would not!

the ravine is straight ahead. rachel, with her unharmed legs, is a little faster than tobias, but that’s okay, because having them leap one at a time is part of the plan. the smoke from the fire grows thicker, and tobias can barely see rachel as she dives off the edge of the ravine. it’s a hundred feet to the bottom. tobias readies himself and begins to charge, but then jake, from above, shouts out, “tobias! it’s him!”

SOUND THE ALARMS AGAIN!!! FINISH YOUR NEW DRINK AND TAKE A SECOND SELFIE

VISSER THREE IS BACK

he’s standing on the lip of the ravine, in andalite form, just waiting for tobias to approach. (obvs, he doesn’t know it’s tobias, but still.) tobias hesitates for a second. he knows the andalite tail is faster than he is. but…visser three is standing on the edge of the ravine. with a hearty cry of “ket halpak free!!!” tobias charges at visser three. at the very last second, visser three steps aside, figuring getting a good slice in is not worth the price of getting smashed over the edge. tobias leaps over the edge of the ravine and WHAM gets caught by marco. marco pulls him into a small cave cut into the side of the ravine, where rachel is waiting safely. down below, far far down below, the real jara hamee and ket halpak pretend to be dead at the bottom. jake and cassie, both in wolf morph, pretend to be eating at their corpses. all part of the plan. visser three peers over the edge, and then in that absolutely asshole reply-all thought-speech, cackles.

fools. no one escapes the yeerk empire. certainly not a pair of idiot hork-bajir!

you’re the fool!

the plan worked!!!!!

the animorphs wait until all of the yeerks have left, and then they continue their hike up the mountain. they find the valley the ellimist promised. it’s beautiful, and perfect, filled with all kinds of trees — and well hidden behind a barely visible entrance, one you’d miss if you didn’t know it existed. it’s the perfect place to hide two hork-bajirs. jara hamee and ket halpak approve. it’s a good place for kawatnoj, ket halpak says. kawatnoj means bone. they’re gonna make little babies!!!! the other animorphs (including ax) head back home, but tobias sticks around for awhile to make sure the hork-bajir are fully settled - and understand that they can’t leave the valley until the yeerks have been defeated.

and then tobias flies home to his meadow.

the next day, rachel tries to visit tobias, but he flies away, pretending like he can’t hear her. he’s not ready to deal with her pity - even if pity isn’t all rachel is bringing. instead, he flies around, following controllers, observing the sky. ax stops by, for a moment, but he can tell tobias wants to be left alone. that night, tobias settles into his perch in an old oak tree, and thinks about what life as a human was like. still, he knows the rosy images he’s thinking about never really belonged to him, not even when he was a human. he shakes it off, closes his eyes, and tries to sleep.

when he opens them again, he’s not in his tree. he’s in a room. in a house. below him, in a familiar bed, is a young boy with messy blonde hair and bad dreams. he knows that boy.

he was that boy.

tobias lands on the nightstand. the fluttering of his wings wakes up his former self, and tobias the bird reassures tobias the boy that it’s just a dream. tobias the bird notices the calendar hanging on the wall. it’s the day before they all walked through the construction site. the day before tobias’s life changed forever. tobias the boy sits up in bed. he recognizes this bird, somehow. tobias the bird stares at tobias the boy and tells him to walk home with jake. walk through the construction site.

he realizes that the ellimist was right. even if he desperately wishes sometimes that things were different, tobias is no longer totally human. he’s something else. he is a beginning, a point on which an entire time line could turn. but not this one. tobias the bird tells tobias the boy to go back to sleep. tobias the boy worries he won’t be able to fall asleep after having this wild dream, and so, tobias the bird offers to help. he lands, very gently, on tobias the boy’s arm. acquiring dna always puts animals into a sleepy trance. people are no different.

tobias blinks, and he’s back in his tree, as a bird, with his human dna inside of him.

D O N ‘ T F O R G E T, a huge voice said. T W O H O U R S , T O B I A S…H A V E I K E P T M Y P R O M I S E?

yes, i said.

A N D A R E Y O U H A P P Y , T O B I A S ?

that’s how the chapter ends

if i could write endings like this i would never shut up about it

the next day is monday. it’s the awards ceremony for outstanding students. tobias times it out carefully, but manages to slip into the auditorium just in time to watch rachel accept her award. at the end of the ceremony, rachel and the other recipients file out. she passes cassie, who winks with pride, and marco, who pretends to bow. and then she walks right in front of tobias. she glances over at him, looks away, and then stops.

she turned to me. her eyes were wide.

“hi, rachel,” i said with a human voice.

AND THAT’S HOW THE BOOK ENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

REVIEW

17/10. hork-bajir escapees? the ellimist returns? tobias gets to MORPH AGAIN??????? i love these books. i love these books. all hail applegate, queen in the north.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• well? tochel? rabias? xena: warrior birdboy? something else?

• what do you think tobias is going to do??? will he ever trap himself in the morph of his boybody, or will he stay a birdboy forever???

• would you date someone that could only be a human for two hours at a time

• trish are you ok

PREDICTIONS

• charlie’s prediction of animorph death before book 20

• matt’s prediction of animorph love triangle before book 20

• tobias’s parents have to make a reappearance at some point, right? i might just be paranoid, but you can’t tell me his parents just left him one day and expect me not to think they’re out there somewhere with little slugs in their brains!!!

that’s all i’ve got for you this week, folks!! i might take the next two weeks off because of my ~holidays~ but we’ll see. i make no promises i cannot keep, just like the ellimist!!!!!!!!!!! ok see you next time BYE