ANIMORPHS #7: THE STRANGER

"it's time for yeerk pool two: animorphs' revenge, right?"

hey everyone and welcome back to animorphs weekly, the only thing tethering me to this green earth. i wanted to write something kind of nice and inspiring here, but tbh, i’m exhausted and all i can offer you is a tired shrug.

wanna read a book?

THIS TIME THERE MAY BE NO WAY OUT….

this time?? this time??? listen applegate you’ve put me and the ‘morphs into a lot of life-threatening situations and you’re telling me this time? in book seven? there may be no way out??? honestly readers, today i’m a five. full girl. staring blankly into nothing. preparing myself to turn into a giant bear.

we’re back to rachel!

SUMMARY

“my name is rachel. and you know the drill.” you’re right! we do. no last names, the yeerks are here, anyone can be a controller, we are the animorphs (we are the animorphs), etc etc. rachel does say “anyone can be a controller. you might be a controller” which is the kind of distrusting animosity we haven’t yet encountered from any of our narrators. look, i don’t blame her. she’s right! the yeerks have access to the public library. (readers, i’m not a yeerk. i understand your doubts on this, as i’ve mentioned many times how susceptible i am to joining a cult, but i don’t do well with bugs and if i was a part of a cult i would not shut up about it.)

anyway

rachel and cassie are at the circus! rachel is mad because the circus employees were cruel to the animals. cassie’s also mad—she doesn’t even like circuses! but it’s rachel’s dad’s weekend with the girls (her parents are Divorced) and going to the circus is such a Weekend With Dad thing to do. normally, rachel tells us, they’d go hiking or go to a ball game, but jordan and sara (rachel’s little sisters) don’t really love those things. they love the circus. freaks! so rachel begged cassie to come, and cassie obliged, because that’s what best friends are for.

we also get a little glimpse into rachel’s relationship with her dad. they don’t get to see each other very often (hence the every other weekend thing) but they are very much alike. both kind of reckless and sure of themselves. rachel’s dad also did gymnastics! he almost made the us olympic team! (readers….is rachel’s dad hot?) obvs rachel hasn’t told her dad about her other life, but sometimes she wishes she could, because she thinks he would be proud of her. “that would be nice,” she says, “feeling like my dad admired me.”

aw

rachel and cassie sneak back to where the elephants are being kept. as we know, rachel has a ~special connection~ to elephants. rachel’s like keep a lookout for me!! cassie’s like, jake is going to rip you a new one for this. please don’t kill anyone. rachel’s like me?? kill??? i’d never kill i’d simply step on someone while in elephant form. cassie gives rachel a Look (“her sorrowful look. like she was ashamed of me”) and rachel immediately backs down.

(camera)

rachel sneaks into the elephant cage and morphs into an elephant. she trumpets in the air, summoning the elephant trainer. of course, he comes running, because you don’t ignore the call of an elephant, and rachel wraps him up in her trunk. once she’s got him off the ground, she starts to thought-speak to him. again, i am simply SCREAMING at my computer. we don’t! know! who’s! a controller!!! you can’t just go around telepathically berating people!!!! anyway, rachel’s like stop using violence on the elephants or i’ll come back here and “squeeze you till you pop like an overcooked hot dog.” the imagery!! then she fucking yeets the elephant trainer on to a nearby tent.

“now can we go home?” cassie asks, sounding like a real arnold from magic school bus.

we cut to the animorphs tromping through the woods the next day. it’s after school. the whole team is there and they’re headed to visit ax, their andalite friend. jake is giving rachel a little shit for turning into an elephant and then yeeting a man and rachel reveals to us that she and cassie decided not to tell jake that cassie was involved in rachel’s plan. all good relationships are built on trust! the animorphs are going to visit ax because marco has A Story To Tell, and he doesn’t want to have to tell it twice. we get very brief descriptions of the animorphs (and i will say that i’m excited to see how these change over the course of the series—how everyone’s perspective shifts based on events and time bringing them closer). jake is the leader because he’s good with responsibility and he can tell people what to do without sounding bossy. marco is funny, dark, skeptical—but that makes him intuitive, and he’s commited to the cause. (a recent shift, rachel notes, though she doesn’t know why. we do, of course. VISSER ONE BABY!!!!!) cassie is rachel’s best friend forever. (i ain’t never seen two pretty best friends…) tobias…well. tobias used to be a sweet, poetic kind of guy. he used to have messy out-of-control hair and dreamy eyes.

used to…

now he’s a hawk! forever!

honest to god this bit never gets old to me i think it is funny every single time

the animorphs meet up with ax, who regales them with a tale of how he defeated a cougar in combat the day before. “not fatally,” he reassures cassie. marco makes a joke about how ax and rachel are meant to be together because they both love adrenaline and rushing into danger, and rachel squirms!

not because i minded marco thinking i was bold. but because i really was not interested in ax that way.

(C A M E R A)

they all circle up. jake asks marco what his Big Story is. marco says, well friends, tobias and i have found a way into the yeerk pool.

it turns out that marco and tobias have spent the past week following assistant principal controller chapman. tobias followed from the sky, marco followed when he went inside buildings. it’s honestly a good plan and it paid off! they learned that the entrance to the yeerk pool is in the DRESSING ROOM OF THE GAP. people enter into the dressing room and exit through the movie theater. that’s right folks, we’re going BACK TO THE MALL!

but, rachel points out, last time they tried to attack the yeerk pool they got their asses handed to them. (tobias was permanently turned into a hawk!) so a full-on assault is out. there is another thing, though. rachel asks ax about the kandrona. it’s a mini version of the yeerks’ home sun, and it’s what powers the yeerk pool. rachel points out that they don’t need to blow up the pool if they can instead blow up what makes the pool special. they could spy at the pool to get info on the kandrona’s location. a kandrona, ax reveals, could be as big as a barn or as small as a car. if they were to destroy it, it wouldn’t totally take the yeerks out (they could have a backup kandrona at the ready, and they definitely have a kandrona on the mothership) but it would deliver a serious blow. they couldn’t just shuttle human-controllers from earth to the mothership and back again—at least not at the rate that they’re doing it now. so…it’s back to the yeerk pool.

yikes!

rachel heads home for dinner, but when she gets there, her mom delivers some strange and nerve-wracking news: her dad is coming over for dinner. as a child of divorce, this would also totally freak me out. rachel’s mom is like, well, your dad has some news he was supposed to tell you at the circus, but i guess he forgot. before rachel can get the news out of her mother, the doorbell rings. it’s dad! we find out that rachel’s dad is an investigative journalist. (i could be wrong, but i feel like in the last rachel-book we found out he was a weatherman? maybe he just shifted positions at the news studio. whatever.) he’s an investgative journalist and he is a news anchor on saturday and sunday.

he’s always wearing nice clothes, and always has great hair, and he looks tan even in the total depths of winter.

is he hot??

rachel’s dad has brought pad thai. dinner is tense until finally rachel’s mom (naomi) bursts out, “dan, just get it over with.” damn naomi! straight to the point! but she’s right. dad sits up straight in his chair and tells the kids that he’s been offered a really bomb journalist job—a thousand miles away. rachel gets angry. she tells her dad congratulations and then simply excuses herself from the table. she doesn’t slam doors or throw anything (though she obviously thinks about it). she just wants him to know what it feels like to have someone just walk away.

ice cold!

once she’s locked in her room, her dad knocks on the door, and she lets him in for a one-on-one conversation. this is when rachel’s dad drops the other bombshell: carla belnikoff, a renowned gymnastics coach, trains in the city dan is moving to. because rachel is older, she gets to choose who she wants to live with, and the offer to go with dad and potentially train under coach belnikoff is on the table. it’s a bigger city, there are mountains, they could spend a lot of time together hiking and rachel could really start to pursue gymnastics. plus, money will apparently not be an issue, and if rachel wants to fly back once a week to visit her mom and her sisters, she totally can.

rachel, of course, is torn. she loves her dad. but she also loves her mom, and her sisters, and there is the small detail of being an animorph, one of six who stand between the yeerks and total world domination. she asks her dad for some time to think. he’s like, of course. just think about it. he says that he loves her, and rachel starts to cry.

once her dad leaves, rachel has a brief converstaion with her mom, who basically says, it’s your decision, i trust you, i want you to stay but ultimately i will support you no matter what.

up to me. great. i could hurt my mom and sisters, or i could hurt my dad. perfect. isn’t divorce fun?

damn

rachel, overcome with emotion, does the only thing a teen animorph can: turn into a great horned owl and fly out into the night. of course, she’s struggling. she wants to be the strong and tough animorph. she wants to be brave for her friends. but suddenly, the opportunity to have a “normal” life is in front of her. she could go to ball games with her dad, train for gymnastics, just be a person instead of a warrior. it’s tough! she’s just a kid and life is a nightmare!

of course, she flies to find tobias. after giving him a small heart attack (hungry owls are known to kill hawks), she settles onto his little branch. he’s like is there something you want to talk about? rachel’s like NO. internally, of course, she wants to talk to tobias about her problems, but she feels silly dumping them onto her friend who is forever a bird. tobias is like, you can always talk to me. rachel softens a little. she asks if tobias ever thinks about the future. what’s gonna happen when they all graduate high school and it’s time for college? tobias is like, tbh rachel, i obviously haven’t thought that far. either we’ve won by then, or we’ve lost.

rachel is suddenly really upset with herself. she feels cowardly and insensitive. how could she even consider leaving all of her friends to fight alone?? she’s like THANKS FOR THE PEP TALK TOBIAS I GOTTA GO. he’s like rachel go home! she’s like u can’t tell me what to do, birdboy! i’m going to the gardens

rachel is on the hunt for grizzly bear DNA. she wants power. rachel lands inside the grizzly bear exhibit and morphs back into a human. she reaches out, admiring how calm the bear is in the face of a little girl who couldn’t possibly hurt it, and she’s like must be nice. she gets that bear dna and commits herself to never having a normal life. girl power!

next we see the animorphs meeting at the mall. it all has to look accidental, in case there are any controllers watching, so cassie and rachel “bump into each other” at the food court. ax is with jake in human form (trying to eat cigarette butts out of ashtrays, because he’s obsessed with having a human mouth), and marco is around here somewhere. rachel notes (again) how weird it is that marco is suddenly super into being an animorph. the gals make it to the gap and meet up with jake and ax. rachel describes ax as “…a guy, but sort of pretty.”

(camera)

cassie and rachel crowd into a dressing room and start morphing into roaches!!! we get another terrifying description of what it looks like for two teens to transform into my living nightmares. marco is next, and then ax. jake is last. he hides all of their clothes in a coin locker somewhere in the mall and then morphs into a roach with the rest of them. smart! nothing is weirder than finding five sets of clothes inside a gap dressing room. you hope it was a miracle…

they follow a controller into the yeerk pool. as roaches! rachel relives the haunting memory of discovering how the yeerk pool works. pier one involves controllers dipping their ears down near the pool so the yeerks can plop out into the water; and pier two involves the hosts either voluntarily kneeling down to receive their slug, or being forced to. fun! the kids decide to follow their sense of smell. if they can just hang around a building, they might discover the location of the kandrona. they find what sounds like the break room, and are discussing hanging around to eavesdrop on some conversations when a taxxon rolls up. and then??? the taxxon shoots out his tongue and sucks up all the roaches!!! in one fell swoop!!!! the roaches are being sucked back into the taxxons mouth when suddenly

everything stops

the animorphs start demorphing. but they aren’t really in control of it. nothing around them is moving!! they’re in some sort of lunch room with hork-bajirs and taxxons, but none of the aliens are moving. the taxxons tongue is stuck in midair. it’s definitely weird, but marco is the first to spring into action. they need to get out of there fast. they dart out into the large cavern, where everything is also frozen. there is a haunting description of a woman frozen over yeerk pool pier two, and then, suddenly, rachel does see some movement. it’s a boy. tall, gangly, messy hair.

“oh…” i whispered. “oh…look! it’s tobias!”

tobias’s human form!! he holds up his hands to stare at his very human fingers. rachel rushes him. he gets a little startled but she throws her arms around him and hugs him. (aw.) rachel is like what happened?? tobias is like i have no idea??? i was flying one minute and then the next i’m here?? and i am no longer a bird??? ax points out that time has stopped (he can tell, because he’s an alien). cassie’s like, is this a yeerk trick? ax is like nah, this is far advanced, even for us andalites.

AND THEN A NEW PLAYER ENTERS THE GAME

in a new font a voice appears. “what? humility? from an andalite?” the voice comes from everywhere. it’s not even really thought-speak. it just is. rachel looks around for the source, ready to fight, and the voice addresses her directly. “no, rachel. there is no threat.” it knows her name!!! rachel looks to ax, resident alien, and he looks frightened. rachel’s like what??? and ax says “ellimist!”

D O N O T B E A F R A I D. I W I L L A P P E A R I N A P H Y S I C A L F O R M Y O U C A N U N D E R S T A N D.

i’m sorry, are we about to get animorph versions of biblical angels???

rachel’s brain cannot comprehend what’s going on. neither can mine!!!

the air directly in front of me … no, not in front, behind. beside. around. i can’t explain it. the air just opened up. as if there was a door in nothingness. as if air were solid and … it is just impossible to explain.

reader i think we’re about to get the animorph version of biblical angels!!!!!

he was humanoid. two arms, two legs, a head where a human head would be. his skin was glowing blue, as if he were a lightbulb that had been painted over so that light still shone from him. he seemed like an old man, but with a force of energy that was definitely not frail. his hair was long and white. his ears were swept up into points. hi eyes were black holes that seemed to be full of stars.

“i am an ellimist.”

y’all!!!!!

i cannot believe i don’t remember this

ax is literally shitting himself. the ellimist is like C H I L L M Y C H I L D , A L L I S W E L L. rachel is like will someone pLEASE tell me what the fuck is going on. (IF this were an hbo mini series but it had to be rated pg-13 i know for a fact the f-bomb would be given to rachel.) the ellimist literally says “you cannot begin to understand what i am.” WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. ax is like they’re all powerful. they can jump a million light years in a single second. they can make worlds disappear. they can (obviously) stop time. marco’s like this one doesn’t look so strong which is the stupidest thing to say to a creature that can obviously stop time

don’t be a fool, ax snapped. that’s not his body. he has no body. he is … everywhere at once. inside your head. inside this planet. inside the very fabric of space and time.

i cannot stop quoting the book

reader

what is HAPPENING

jake is like, ok so why are you here?? and why did you bring tobias?? (which is a little harsh, jake, he is a part of the team.) the ellimist is like Y O U M U S T D E C I D E T H E F A T E O F Y O U R R A C E.

no pressure!! but also no shit what do you think these teens have been trying to do???

“that’s all?” marco asked. “just the fate of the human race? don’t you have something more challenging for us?”

but the ellimist wasn’t paying attention to marco.

harsh

the ellimist is like we don’t interfere with other beings, but when some beings are in danger of becoming extinct, we step in to save a few members. “this is a very beautiful planet. a priceless work of art.” i’m starting to sense a theme here. i don’t know for sure yet, but this is a nice parallel to rachel’s personal problem. the ellimist could offer to step in and take the animorphs away, thereby saving the human race. they could lead different lives. but is that the right thing to do?

ok anyway

the ellimist then takes the animorphs underwater. because the ellimist is a biblical angel, none of them have to worry about breathing or the pressure of the ocean. they just get a good look at a beautiful coral reef. L O V E L Y says the ellimist. then: pop! now the animorphs are in the african savannah looking at some more beautiful animals. L O O K A T I T commands the ellimist. then: pop! now we’re in a jungle. more cool animals and plant life. and then: pop! they are drifting through places where humans live. new york city, small riverside villages, an open-air market in the phillipines, a political meeting in seoul. then they pull a full doctor who and stop in front of a painting of purple irises. it’s beautiful. the kids are all really deeply moved. and then: pop! we’re back in the yeerk pool.

rachel’s like ok cool campus tour but what was the point??

the ellimist is like lemme be real with you: i am obviously some sort of immortal being. the humans are in danger of going extinct. the yeerks are too advanced for you. the andalites will try to come help, but they will fail. the only humans left will be what you call human-controllers.

rachel, naturally, starts to have a panic attack.

and then the ellimist puts his offer on the table: there is a planet the ellimists can put a small sample of the human race (and some non-human species as well). the ellimists will save the animorphs, some members of their family, and a few other handful of humans (to get a good gene pool). everyone has a different reaction. cassie laughs and compares him to an environmentalist. marco references noah’s ark. tobias calls it a zoo. the ellimist is like, you’ll have free will. we won’t interfere. you’ll just save the human race elsewhere. oh, also, you have to decide right now if you want to go.

in unison the animorphs are like RIGHT NOW????

the ellimist is like yep. decide to go and y’all will be transported to your new home. say no and everything will go back to the way it was. you will be little roaches getting ready to serve as a taxxon snack. cassie’s like “and tobias?” who, just to remind you, is back in his human body after being told he would be a bird forever. the ellimist is like everything back as it was. including your bird friend.

marco is like this isn’t fair!! jake is like yeah we shouldn’t be the ones to decide, this is bonkers!! ax is like i tried to tell y’all ellimists are fucked up!! they pretend like they’re giving you a choice but really it’s not a choice at all. rachel’s like yeah, this is kind of rigged. the ellimist wants us to say yes and give up the fight against the yeerks. obviously living in peace would be awesome. but at what cost?

“i vote no,” tobias said, with sharp angry defiance. “you’re using me. you’re using my friends’ affection for me as a tool. and i’m not going for it.”

so brave

but also cassie is like, hold on, we have to at least consider the deal. humanity is in danger. marco’s like, ok, two votes no from rachel and tobias, one vote yes from cassie. rachel’s like i didn’t vote…but marco is right. rachel knows that if tobias is willing to go back into hawk form and fight the yeerks, she has to do the same. rachel checks in with jake and marco, the two who haven’t voted. they are staring at a tall column. it’s a dropshaft, like the one they found on the yeerk mothership. there’s a human controller frozen inside. rachel realizes that the human is going up, not down. i’m sure this will become relevant in a moment.

marco votes no. (he calls the ellimist “mr ellimist” which obviously i find very endearing.) that leaves cassie alone in the yes column. to her credit, she sticks with her decision, reminding everyone that she works with sick animals.

“they’re always afraid of me, even though i am trying to help them. are we being brave saying no? or are we just being foolish, resisting someone who is trying to save us?”

rachel’s like ok good point. what would my mom do? and my dad? if we suddenly appeared on a new planet, how could i explain to them what happened?

it’s jake’s turn. he looks at the ellimist and very calmly for a teen explains that the ellimist obviously can’t tell the future, or else the ellimist would have known how they all would vote. jake believes the animorphs can save the world. honestly? so do i.

ZAP

suddenly the animorphs are back in their roach form. they get one final message from the ellimist: “I F Y O U L I V E , I W I L L A S K O N C E M O R E.”

not now! we have bigger things to focus on! literally!

the animorphs are suddenly in the taxxon mouth. they’re DEMORPHING. hell yeah kids blow this thing up from the inside!!! ax gets his tail back and slices the taxxon open, giving the half-bug half-human animorphs the chance to escape. they’re standing in the break room of the yeerk pool, covered in guts, with a bunch of frozen (in disbelief, not in time) controllers staring at them.

SCATTER!!!!

the animorphs bust out of there. jake tells everyone but ax to morph again—they need firepower as they run towards the dropshaft. rachel’s like, oh hell yeah. i know i didn’t fly to the gardens for nothing! she starts to focus on that grizzly bear, but before she can start morphing, WHUMPF. she’s on the ground. a human-controller has tackled her. he starts to choke her, but ax cuts off one of his hands. (yikes!) rachel scrambles to her feet. up ahead, about two hundred feet away, the other animorphs are shooting up the dropshaft. between rachel and ax and the dropshaft stand a small army of human-controllers and hork-bajirs. rachel screams at jake to GET OUT OF HERE.

and then she morphs into a bear

every time one of the animorphs morphs, i truly gain a healthy, fearful respect of nature. i don’t know how applegate knows the inside of animal brains so well, but once rachel is inside her new grizzly form, she says, “i was an animal that had never, in a thousand generations of grizzly bears, known an instant of real fear.” could you imagine

she goes into a rage. she lets the bear instincts take over and just starts fucking annihilating hork-bajirs and humans. jake morphs into a tiger and joins the fight. they make it to the dropshaft, but jake has to scream at rachel in thought-speak to demorph—she’s lost control of the bear, and the bear is trying to kill tiger!jake. rachel snaps back into herself and starts to demorph, exhausted. they meet up with the other animorphs at the top of the dropshaft. they’re in the base of the water tower behind the school. neat! the kids drag themselves home. rachel is fucking wiped.

the next morning, rachel crawls out of bed. she staggers into the hallway and runs into her mom, who takes one look at her and is like something is up. rachel’s still wearing her morphing outfit, she’s delirious and exhausted. as far as rachel’s mom knows, rachel is just really stressed about the decision her dad placed in her lap. she tells rachel that she wants her to stay home tonight so they can have a talk. honestly? good mom move. check-in with your kids.

rachel goes to take a shower and remembers everything from the day before: exploding out of the taxxon, seeing tobias in human form again, and the battle in which she turned into a grizzly bear and fucking chomped her way through some hork-bajirs. rachel’s sister, jordan, knocks on the bathroom door and rachel’s like make sure sara (other sister) gets to school okay. i’m taking a personal day

and then rachel skips school!!!

she spends part of the day watching trashy daytime tv. but she can’t stop thinking about everything that happened. the ellimist’s offer, her dad’s offer, her two lives disconnected yet inseperable. she has a minor breakdown while making a sandwich (been there) and decides she can’t think anymore. she needs to get out of the house. she morphs into a bald eagle and flies out of the window.

later that afternoon, all of the animorphs meet in cassie’s barn. marco’s like, what have you been? cassie’s like, didn’t see you in school today. rachel’s like oh well i wasn’t feeling well. jake’s like ok, but you were feeling well enough to morph? twice? tobias is like yeah it was twice, i saw a bald eagle flying on thermals earlier acting real weird. rachel’s like nice to have some privacy in this town

jake is like ok cut the crap rachel. what the fuck is going on. you acquired a grizzly on your own—which could have gotten you killed. now you’re being rude to us, and morphing willy-nilly, and skipping school. what’s next?? cigarettes??? rachel’s like what does any of it matter?? you heard the biblical angel!! we’re fucked!!

and then responsible leader jake reminds us all that he’s just a kid. life is a nightmare. he gives up. he’s like, fine, rachel. i don’t want to argue with you. he looks exhausted. and rachel just spills everything. she reveals that her dad wants her to move out of state. cassie asks what she’s going to do, and then rachel truly starts to have a panic attack. she’s yelling out all the questions she’s been wrestling with. she confesses that she’s scared. she wants to be brave for them all, but she’s terrified, and having people offer her new peaceful lives (either in a new city or on a new planet) makes her feel more terrified. there’s a long silence, and then marco speaks up.

he’s with rachel. he’s fucking exhausted. if the ellimist comes back, he says, he’s going to vote yes. tobias is trapped in a morph, rachel is using morphing as a coping mechanism, sometimes marco wakes up and he doesn’t even know what he is. “all we ever do is lose,” marco says. all their victories have been minor and every time they barely escape with their lives. jake is like, we can’t just give up!

cassie points out a scar she received from a raccoon she was helping free from a trap. the animorphs are the racoon here. the ellimist might just be trying to help them. it’s now two for leaving (cassie and marco) and two against (jake and tobias). they all turn to rachel. she opens her mouth to answer.

I P R O M I S E D Y O U I W O U L D A S K Y O U A G A I N.

the ellimist is back!!

pop! the kids + ax are now standing in an empty field. tobias is human again. (truly cruel.) they’re staring at an old dilapidated building. slowly, they start to piece together where they are. the trees are dying. the air is a weird yellow color. the building in front of them is their school, now destroyed. the ellimist is nowhere to be found, so the kids decide to walk to the mall. they pass the destroyed school and discover a skeleton slumped over a desk. on their way to the mall, they discover that something has built a high-speed monorail system. when they reach the mall, it’s obviously no longer a mall. it’s a hive for taxxons.

after a brief discussion, the animorphs decide to ride the monorail. if it really is the future, anyone who spots them will believe they’re just human-controllers. (ax morphs into a human, just in case.) they hop on the monorail behind a taxxon and learn about the wonders of well-funded public transportation. what is normally a thirty minute trip from the mall to downtown takes a minute and a half. y’all know i love a good train!!!! still, though, the sight of downtown is disturbing. more buildings have been turned into taxxon hives. and where the arena once sat (where cassie and rachel saw the circus) is now a huge, huge yeerk pool. there are cages around it, filled with various humans and hork-bajirs, but none of these people are screaming for help. they’re all defeated. they know no help is coming. there’s a large building called the “egs” building. the top two levels have been cleared away, and now the building is topped with a glass dome.

a human-controller brushes past them and bumps into rachel. she can’t help but say “excuse me” in a sarcastic tone. the human-controller whips around and is like what did you just say?? hm?? what’s your name?? rachel knows the woman wants to know her yeerk name, but before she can make anything up, tobias steps in.

“her name is not your concern,” tobias repeated. “his name is your concern.” he jerked his thumb at ax. “because his name…is visser three.”

QUICK thinking, tobias

ax catches on fast and morphs back into his andalite body. the human-controller starts to tremble, and she reveals that in the future, only visser one has an andalite host body. (which raises a lot of questions! how did visser three get promoted? what happened to the other visser one? who is visser two??) but the woman is too terrified to investigate any further, and ax pretends to be a visser and dismisses her. she scatters off, but now they have more problems. word is definitely going to get around that a visser is visiting earth, and they don’t know how to get in touch with the ellimist to pull them back to the present. cassie points out that there must be something specific the ellimist wants them to see.

a yeerk bug fighter swoops down and lands on the other side of the yeerk pool. rachel feels drawn to it. she and the others move towards it. everyone gives them plenty of space, as no one wants to accidentally annoy visser three/one. the doors of the bug fighter open and out walk an andalite and a human. the andalite is, of course, the real visser three/one. the human?

she was a pretty young woman, maybe twenty or twenty-two years old. she had blond hair, cut short. she wore no makeup. her clothes were plain. i had stopped breathing. my heart had stopped beating. i tried to swallow but couldn’t.

“hello, rachel,” the woman said to me.

“hello, rachel,” i replied.

Y’AAAAAAAALL

every time i think how could these books POSSIBLY get any more WILD and every time applegate bonks me on the head with some shit like THIS

AAAAA

ok

future!rachel is like, i knew you’d be here. obvs. i once stood where you stood and saw myself as i am today. rachel is like, you’re a controller. future!rachel is like you betcha. the yeerks won. marco is like, okay, how did we get here?? visser three/one says that the ellimist has brought them here, six humans — well five humans and one andalite — and will soon return them to their own time to make a decision. rachel asks what choice they made. future!rachel says “the right one, obviously. everything has worked out perfectly.” jake, of course, is like well maybe not. we could go back in time and accept the ellimist’s offer. then rachel will be on the new planet and won’t be able to become a controller. rachel is studying future!rachel. future!rachel is hiding something. she can’t tell what yet, but she knows herself.

we get into some weird time travel questions. rachel is like, okay, you (i) know what we decided, and yet here you (i) are (am). so either you (i) want me to change my (our) decision—or not, because it would change everything here. or you (me) being here influences my decision and you (i) want it to stay the same.

are you following this??

cassie, logically, is like let’s get the fuck out of here. i don’t like this and i don’t like them. she turns to go, and trips over something (been there) and falls into rachel. future!rachel steps forward and keeps rachel balanced. but ax thinks future!rachel is trying to attack, so in a blink, his scary ass scorpion knife tail is at future!rachel’s throat. visser three/one is obviously confused, and it clicks for rachel.

“this wasn’t in the script, was it?” i asked him. “this wasn’t supposed to happen. something has changed! it’s ax, isn’t it. you said ‘six humans’ before. that’s what you expected to find. that’s what rachel told you would hahppen. but the future has changed, hasn’t it? something is different.”

visser three/one drops his smug attitude. he leans in real close to rachel and in a disturbing turn of events, describes what happens once he capture all the animorphs. he put a slug in each of their ears, and then they roasted and ate tobias. as a hawk. they slathered him in barbecue sauce and ate him. this is a book for children!!!

ax points out that visser three/one can’t touch them. it could affect the past, and visser is not willing to risk it. the reverse, however? well. the animorphs have no problem fucking with the future. rachel starts to morph into a grizzly. visser three/one tries to retreat, but bear!rachel tackles him to the ground. she rears back a paw and swings for his head.

her human hand slaps against the trunk of a tree.

pop! we’re back in the present.

rachel, rightfully, is pissed. she had visser three right underneath her bear hands!!! cassie points out that that visser three doesn’t exist yet. but it’s not a great comfort. they all sort of collapse onto the ground and try to grapple with the future they just saw. a future in which they all lost. (and all, again, ate tobias with barbecue sauce.)

rachel, wearily, is like ok. i change my vote. i don’t want to end up as a controller. i accept the ellimist’s deal. tobias points out that maybe, if they escape, they can one day return stronger and help take back earth. jake is outvoted. he calls out for the ellimist and says that they’ve decided. their answer is yes.

and then

nothing happens.

the next day, rachel is sitting in history class. ms. paloma, the history teacher, is talking about the second world war. she says that if the united states had stepped in sooner, the war might have ended earlier and fewer people would have been killed. but the us was devoted to peace (lol) and that may have made the war worse. we’ll never know for sure, of course. you can’t really second-guess history.

cassie pipes in. but why not?? she asks. ms paloma sits on the front of her desk like a cool history teacher and explains the butterfly effect. events are intertwined in ways we can’t see. a single butterfly, beating its wings, can make a tiny change that leads to a tornado. the world is complicated.

and then the oddest thing happened. ms. paloma looked right at me. right into my eyes. “much more complicated than that,” she said. “a single butterfly … a single butterfly … a single butterfly …”

the hair on the back of my neck was tingling. everyone was looking at her like she was crazy.

suddenly, ms. paloma shook her head, like she was popping out of a trance.

ok trelawney!!!

rachel and cassie meet up in the hallway to discuss ms. paloma’s prophecy moment. also, why hasn’t the ellimist popped them out like he said they would? rachel doesn’t understand. she thought by saying yes they were giving the ellimist what he wanted. but maybe…that wasn’t it. when he popped up in the yeerk cave the first time, he gave them a glimpse of the dropshaft that helped them escape. but why? why show up when they need an out most, show them an out, and then dip? why show them a future where they lost? and why, when they said yes, did he not take them away? what are they missing?

the warning bell rings and the girls go their separate ways.

a single butterfly, i thought.

but how is the butterfly supposed to know when to beat her wings?

deep

we cut to rachel having a dream. she’s back in the yeerk pool, stuck as a tiny human against the taxxon’s tongue. voices are floating in and out of her head. ax, saying yeerk pool. it’s the center of their lives. almost a religion. cassie, talking about how the ellimist showed them the dropshaft. rachel is now a butterfly, flying towards a light that never seems to get closer. the center of their lives. almost a religion. the kandrona. that is the center for them. that is their light.

BAM

rachel snaps awake with a rush of adrenaline. she’s figured it out. she slides out of bed and throws on her morphing outfit. she scribbles a note for her mom to find: gone for an early morning run. might go to cassie’s after. she catches sight of a picture of herself on a balance beam at three years old, being held up by her dad. she decides that she isn’t going to let the others in on her plan. if she tells them, it might affect their decision to go with the ellimist, and she doesn’t want to burden them with guilt, fear, and uncertainty.

here’s the thing, y’all: please, for the love of god, communicate with your team. please. i am begging you. this goes for animorphs and humans like—we are not monoliths.

also it’s just straight up irresponsible to try to go after the kandrona alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rachel turns into a lil owl and flies to find tobias. ok so she’s not going alone. but still. she wakes him up and drags him to cassie’s barn. rachel knows where the kandrona is. and they’re going to fucking destroy it.

i am screaming

we’re now in cassie’s barn. all of the animorphs are there (thank god) including ax. rachel’s like i know where the kandrona is. the ellimist showed it to us. there’s a brief discussion on the ellimist’s intentions. if their choice didn’t matter, the ellimist would have never offered it to them in the first place. he took them to the future to see something, much like he brought them out of the break room to show them the dropshaft. when he took them to the future, he waited until they had mdae it to downtown. rachel points out the egs tower. why leave it standing? why put a glass dome on top of it? because it’s a shrine. a holy place. it’s where the center of the yeerks lives is. in the future they didn’t need to hide it, so they put a glass dome on it. but now? in the present? the kandrona is hiding in the egs building. the ellimist didn’t want them to leave earth. he wanted to give them a better chance at saving it.

of course, they aren’t sure that destroying the kandrona will change anything. but a butterfly doesn’t know if flapping its wings will cause a tornado. it simply has to flap. the animorphs have to try. it’s what they do.

it’s five-ten in the morning and the animorphs are standing outside the egs tower. there’s a sleepy guard inside. tobias is getting some serious heat signals from the top of the building. it’s time for action. rachel morphs into a bear, jake into a tiger, marco into good ol big jim the gorilla, and cassie into a wolf. ax resumes his andalite form. marco knocks on the door and thought-speaks to the guard, who reveals himself to be a controller. that makes punching him a no-brainer. (we punch controllers in this house. just like we punch nazis.) jake, marco, and rachel take the freight elevator up. cassie and ax wait below.

inside the elevator, the animorphs press the button for the top floor. as they slowly rise up they have a very delightful conversation about a new keanu reeves movie coming out. jake asks if keanu is supposed to be cute, rachel replies duh, there’s elevator music. it’s fun. they reach the top floor (top floor. ladie’s shoes, children’s apparel. everyone out. marco says) and are greeted by three humans and two hork-bajirs. no problem for a bear a tiger and a gorilla!! BAP BAP BAP the hork-bajirs are down. the humans bolt. jake is injured but is able to press on. in the meantime, cassie and ax are riding the freight elevator up and now the whole team (minus tobias) is reunited.

bears can’t see well, but they sure can smell. rachel follows the scent trail of the human-controllers and barrels down a door. there are eight hork-bajirs waiting for them, but rachel knows NO FEAR and just slams into them.

later, everyone thought i was being brave. but you know what the truth was? the truth was, with my weak bear eyesight, all i could see was a blur. i thought they were human.

i wasn’t brave. i was just blind.

me, acting without my glasses

it’s a bloodbath. the hork-bajirs are slicing through the animorphs, the animorphs are slicing through the hork-bajirs. at one point rachel sees marco holding his stomach to keep his gorilla guts from spilling out onto the floor. it’s brutal. rachel is losing a lot of blood. in a desperate attempt to free herself of a hork-bajir, she barrels forward and successfully smashes him through a window. now that the window is open, tobias can join the fight!! he swoops in with his lil hawk talons and blinds a hork-bajir. this turns the tides. the remaining hork-bajir runs. marco is able to put the door back in place and bolster it with a nearby desk. they’re all bloody and beaten. rachel is missing a full bear arm. they demorph! and take in the carnage of all the bodies around them.

trauma!

there’s a door in one remaining wall. they all walk through it into a bare room with a large platform in the center. on top of that platform is a machine the size of a small car, glowing and humming. gals gays and theys, it’s the kandrona.

they all stand for a moment just sort of staring at it. finally, jake speaks, asking rachel to morph into her elephant. slowly, slowly, slowly, elephant!rachel manages to push the kandrona from the center of the room towards the windows, where it falls sixty stories and smashes into the concrete below.

rachel demorphs. the ellimist pops back in with some information. a replacement kandrona is on the way—it will be there in three weeks time. but three weeks with only the kandrona on the mothership is definitely going to do some serious damage to the yeerks. many will die. jake asks the ellimist if it’s enough—did they change the future? the ellimist doesn’t answer. probably, rachel points out, because he doesn’t know. but wherever he is, he has butterflies. a great and wonderful laughter echoes through them, and the animorphs fly out of there.

we cut to rachel showing up at her dad’s apartment. it’s time for a Big Goodbye. rachel is not moving away with her dad. they have a final moment together, and rachel sees her dad drive off in a cab to the airport. up above, tobias flies, asking if rachel is coming. she nods her head. of course she is.

THIS IS ONLY BOOK SEVEN

REVIEW

how in the world am i going to rank these books. how. this is a 5/5. stellar work. yeerk pool?? biblical angels?? TIME TRAVEL????? THEY FOUND AND DESTROYED A KANDRONA!!!!!! future rachel has the bisexual bob. great work, everyone. so proud of us all.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• well?? is rachel’s dad hot??

• in the future they visited, visser three was promoted to visser one. does that mean that marco’s mom was killed? or freed?

PREDICTIONS

• i don’t really know what to say here

• what are your predictions???

that’s all i have for you today folks. thanks for ur patience in my slow moving this week. next week i hope to be back to our regularly scheduled tuesdays. til then, animorphers!!!! be a butterfly!!!!