MEGAMORPHS #3: ELFANGOR'S SECRET

"yeah, george, national daddy, that's me-on-the-dollar-bill-with-a-city-and-a-state-named-after-me washington."

hi hello and welcome back to my gender identity, animorphs weekly. this week is our third megamorphs book, and like its predecessors, it is thirty pages longer than the typical animorphs book. it’s also titled elfangor’s secret, which like, which one?? his son? his secret human life? the location of the mother of his child? does he have other children???

wanna read a book?

tag yourself!!!!!

SUMMARY

we start with a rare third person POV prologue and learn some Wild facts right out of the gate:

• elfangor is the reason visser three has an andalite host

• he lost his friend arbron to a taxxon

• tobias’s mom’s name is loren

• elfangor once had the time matrix, a device that could allow someone to travel backwards through time

• elfangor buried the time matrix at the infamous construction site (way before it was a construction site)

• he tried to return it to it only once, but yards away from the time matrix, his time…ran out

• B)

tobias kicks off the book proper. he’s like hi, my name’s tobias, and i’m a freak of nature. half-bird, half-andalite, half-human, all-mess. he asks himself if the glass is half-empty or half-full. depends on the day.

depends on whether i’m with melissa, wanting to make her happy, wanting her to hold my hand, wanting to be able to take her to a movie and a burger afterward like any other guy can do with a date, maybe even hold her, maybe kiss her, maybe…

…melissa?

tobias keeps going. on a day like today, when the sun is shining and the wind is beneath his wings, he loves being a bird. it’s awesome! he flies over the beach. sure, the earth is being invaded by the yeerks. but today is such a beautiful day, it’s hard to think about that.

even the slaves, standing by to attend to their masters and mistresses, seemed to be having a good time.

…slaves?

tobias flies to the barn and gives jake the all-clear. jake nods, but says nothing else, because cassie’s slave girl is still in the room. cassie grabs the girl’s arm, calls her september twelve, and tells her she’s dismissed. finally, the animorphs are alone: jake, tobias, cassie, marco, ax, and melissa.

melissa???

it quickly becomes clear that Something Is Amiss. marco mentions playing pong with his mom, who in our known animorphs universe is infamously visser one. america is at war in brazil and the yeerks are targeting american soldiers.

“but most of the troops survive the war, they come back home, and the Empire rewards them with homesteads, slaves, cars, and so on.”

………the empire ?!? !? ?! ?!? !? !?

applegate you tricky bitch

it’s a dystopian book!

not only is it a dystopian book, but it’s a dystopian book without metaphor. america is the empire. their enemies are referred to as “Primitives;” there’s a secret police called the triple s. cassie makes an off-hand comment about how it would be a pity if Primitives escaped alive, and jake spends three paragraphs wondering if he should turn her in as a subversive or not.

i say this a lot, but for a book series written in the late nineties by a white woman, the animorphs do not shy away from repeatedly being like, racism is still a huge issue. (understatement of the century.) this chapter is super uncomfortable to read and that feels intentional. seeing our heroes behave and think like people in the q-anon documentary is clearly Wrong!

to hammer this point home, as the animorphs are discussing how badly they need to support their troops, a voice chimes in.

“wonderful! wonderful, i love it!”

standing there, in the center of the barn, is a wrinkled creature with many-jointed hands and a humanoid face. jake demands to know what it is.

“me? oh, i’m hurt. evastated! you don’t remember your old friend the drode?”

andy serkis is going to kill this role

jake motions to marco to start morphing into his favorite morph — the grizzly bear — and then stops ax from speaking out of turn. he refers to himself as supreme leader and then addresses the drode.

in order to “move on,” the drode says, they need to return the animorphs (temporarily) to their usual condition. there’s no flash, but suddenly, jake remembers the drode. and himself. melissa is gone and rachel is back. the animorphs are like, what the FUCK is going on? was that some big hallucination?

the drode is delighted. no! not a hallucination. it’s all real. as it stands:

• america is an empire, ruled by terror and torture

• it has made war on nations to the south

• slaughters people it calls “Primitives”

• enslaves anyone with an IQ below eighty “as well as anyone born with what you call defects”

• the yeerks are within months of winning

• there are few books, two radio stations, and a single television channel, all of which are highly censored

• poverty is widespread, curable diseases run rampant, “some women are forced to breed to repopulate the dominant white race while at the same time, in the major cities the poor and homeless are rounded up and shot—”

this is a children’s book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is also the plot of the handmaid’s tale!!!!!!!!!! and also VERY close to reality today. this is. dark shit.

of course, this all comes back to the time matrix. the former visser four, who was defeated on the planet leera by the animorphs, found the time matrix. he’s going back through time to rewrite the past so as to bring about a yeerk victory. and of course, the Other animorphs have no idea that there was ever a different kind of world. and the drode is here to offer the animorphs the chance to undo what the former visser four has done.

cassie laughs. if the drode “wants to help,” that means their master, crayak, sent them. crayak, the omnipotent nemesis of the ellimist. both crayak and the ellimist are agreed: a yeerk cannot have control of the time matrix. so the drode comes with a deal.

the six animorphs will be allowed to track down the time matrix. they’ll be taken back to the point where the former visser four began his journey, and tuned to the time matrix’s movements. if and when it’s used, they’ll automatically be able to follow. and their memories and personalities will be protected from any changes.

of course, this deal comes with a price. crayak demands payment.

“one of you,” the drode said. “you can attempt to save your reality, put everything back where it belongs, end slavery, replace tyranny with democracy, millions of lives saved, let freedom ring, glory hallelujah in exchange…in exchange for one, single life.”

“a life?” i asked.

“the life of one of you. that is my master crayak’s price: one of you must die.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

here we fucking go

marco, of course, is like this sounds like a y’all problem! the ellimist and crayak have the power to fix it and they should. cassie’s like but if we do nothing we just go back to the other reality where jake is a junior nazi, i’m a slave owner, and rachel is — where was rachel?

“a violence-prone sociopath like you, rachel?” the drode said with a happy laugh. “you were in a reeducation camp. this world has little room for bold, aggressive females. you were being taught your place.”

christ

the drode says they have two minutes to decide and blips out. jake’s like, well, this is obvious. we have to do it. marco doubles down: this isn’t their fight. rachel’s pissed, of course. cassie, though, understands why marco doesn’t want to play — if there’s a life to be traded, jake isn’t going to let it be anyone else. and marco doesn’t want jake to die. cassie gets it. jake means more to her than almost everyone in the world.

but not more than the world itself.

cassie and marco make eye contact and share a Moment of Understanding. as much as they don’t want to lose jake, they know what the right thing to do is. jake puts it to a vote. it’s unanimous: they’re going to find the time matrix. there’s a nice, private moment where cassie takes marco’s hand and promises him that crayak will not take jake. it’s sweet.

but then. who will crayak take?

rachel declares they’re unanimous, and instantly, she’s transported. it’s dark, it’s raining, and there’s a french soldier riding a horse pointing a sword at her and cassie. the others are nowhere to be seen. the french soldiers accuse them of being english spies. another soldier, in green, rides up. rachel’s like, well. what else is there to do but morph?

rachel starts to morph elephant. the soldiers do Not like that! the green soldier charges. cassie throws herself towards the spear. (i’m lOOOKING AT THE CAMERA!) she misses the spear, but manages to knock the horse off-balance. the green knight misses rachel, giving her enough time to finish morphing. it gets bloody. cassie starts to morph wolf, the two soldiers charge at rachel again. rachel gets stabbed in the flank with a spear, cassie gets sliced with a sword, and then jake and marco arrive, smelling like taco bell.

not a bit!

jake is like, rachel, for once, could you try the subtle approach?? please??? put the red knight down and demorph, please! tobias and ax join. the team’s all here! rachel demorphs, and jake approaches the green knight to ask where — and when — they are. turns out the drode dropped them in 1415. the french and the english are at war. and former visser four is nearby, fucking with time.

jake gives clear orders: everyone is to do their best to not cause a butterfly effect. time travel is tricky business, and they don’t want to do anything that could leave them with more problems than they started with. they’re to find former visser four, get the time matrix, and make sure he doesn’t fuck anything else up.

i tried to make eye contact with each as i repeated. “fast and hard. you understand? this guy has the most dangerous weapon ever created. we can’t let him get away. his personal history ends here.”

rad

we switch to marco’s perspective. the animorphs fly over the two camps all night, searching for visser four. marco takes note of everyone’s smallpox’d face — and then it hits him! duh! visser four wouldn’t be riddled with smallpox or lice because he has a twentieth-century body! find that clean man!

they spot him. he’s posing as an archer in the english army. as they try to subtly approach him, the animorphs try to figure out what exactly this moment in history has to do with the yeerk conquest. there’s not a ton of time to think about it, though, because the battle commences with two thousand arrows flying into the sky. you know what else is in the sky? the animorphs!

marco gets hit with an arrow and flies out of the way. and then the animorphs just watch a massacre. there’s description here of men and horses screaming as they get just filled with arrows. marco looks around for visser four, but instead only sees a new wave of archers, pointing their bows right at him. he gets hit in his other wing and crashes into the ground.

rachel wastes no time — her bald eagle morph is the only bird big enough to drag marco’s osprey out of the mud. she dives in, avoiding the arrows, and sinks her talons into marco. but he’s too heavy. there’s no way they’ll get airborne, and now, both armies are charging towards one another. rachel and marco are seconds away from getting trampled.

horse girl cassie to the rescue!!!

cassie runs past them in horse morph, and marco and rachel cling to her legs with their talons. but the melee is bad. even as a horse, cassie isn’t fast enough to get out of the way of the two armies. cassie gets stabbed, and rachel falls from her leg. she gets stepped on. she can hear her spine snap!!!

ax, jake, and tobias watch in horror as their friends get dragged into the mob. (sidebar: getting trampled in a mob is a big fear of mine. fun fact!) tobias is screaming for rachel, but jake doesn’t let him go down there. they don’t need another body getting lost in the fray. ax, ever the logical one, keeps his eyes out for visser four. and then he spots him, loading an arrow and aiming it towards the english king. but ax is too far to stop him!

the only animorph close enough is tobias. he’s panicking about rachel, but ax and jake point out visser four. the mission, tobias!! stay focused!! visser four shoots his arrow — and misses! but he quickly loads another one! tobias CATCHES THE ARROW MID-AIR WITH HIS TALONS!!! it’s fucking awesome!!! but visser four is like holy fuck, that’s an andalite!

we cut to cassie. she is currently dying, shielding marco and rachel from the battle that surrounds them. from above, jake asks cassie if she can stand. she thinks so. jake’s like, good, because the calvary is coming. you know how everyone in the fifteenth century is superstitious? well.

suddenly, both armies are screaming and backing away as a creature appears on the battle field.

am i seeing a hork-bajir riding a horse? marco asked.

you are!!!

tobias’s bladed body gives the other animorphs enough room to stagger off the battlefield. rachel asks where visser four is. jake (the horse) tells her that ax is keeping him busy — but they don’t have much time.

drink every time they talk about time

jk please don’t do that you will perish

we switch to ax. he’s currently chasing after visser four, who is running through the forest to a nearby village. ax swipes at him a few times, but in harrier morph, there’s little else he can do. he chases visser four into the village. visser four runs into a church and slams the door behind him. birds, famously, don’t have hands, so ax is stopped at the door! there’s only one reason visser four would run into this building: the time matrix!

ax starts to demorph, so he can have hands and open the door. he starts yelling in thought-speak for prince jake and the others, but they’re too far away to hear. bad luck, too. as ax slowly changes back into his andalite form, the villagers surround him with pitchforks and swords! they attack!

tobias and jake hear ax’s faint cries for help. jake tells cassie, rachel, and marco to get clear and get wings ASAP, then he and tobias are running towards ax. tobias leaps over the angry mob and throws the church door open. he and ax stagger inside, scaring the shit out of a priest. an andalite and a hork-bajir walk into mass…

the bell rings from the bell tower! visser four! tobias and ax run up a set of stone stairs, scrabbling and scraping their knees. ouch! tobias smashes through a trapdoor and finds visser four holding a “shimmering, featureless globe.” the time matrix!

visser four gives a mini-villain monologue and then activates the time matrix. mamma mia two: here we go again!

jake blips into the middle of a group of men, all gathered around a riverbank. it’s cold, it’s nighttime, and now they’re somewhere else in time. one of the men uses the term “hessians,” which vaguely pings something in jake’s memory. jake reaches out in thought-speak, but can’t connect with the others. and then all the men fall in line as their general approaches.

GEOOOORGE WASHINGTON

we are outgunned (what)

sorry ok enough

but seriously, it’s george washington! marco sidles up to jake’s side in his human form. he stole george washington’s spare boots! rachel’s above in owl morph, and she knows exactly where they are. the delaware river! george washington’s about to cross — which makes him the most probable of visser four’s targets.

we have to get out of here. i have to demorph. rachel? find washington. he must be the target. whatever you do: protect george washington.

“there’s three words you never thought you’d say,” marco said with a laugh.

rachel’s like sure! protect george washington. i’m an owl! she flies overhead, keeping ol’ george in her sights. and then she spots cassie blip into existence! she fills cassie in on what’s going on AND refers to george washington as “national Daddy.” cassie tells rachel she’ll morph into dolphin to be her eyes in the river. tobias and ax blip into existence, then, on the other side of the river. ax says there are armed men on that side — rachel assures him that they’re the good guys.

who, truly, are the good guys

meanwhile, marco and jake (after morphing back to human) climb aboard one of the boats and head down the river. they’re pretty close to washington’s boat. marco admits he’s not a big “wave the flag” guy — so say we all — but it’s Weird to stand so close to The George Washington. as they’re thinking about how Weird it is, there’s a flash of noise and sounds. bullets! it’s an ambush!

“aaahhh!” i yelled.

thunk!

an oar was blown in half.

thunk!

a hole appeared in jake’s forehead.

from above, rachel can see jake collapse into the boat. the back of his head is gone. marco’s fully jackie onassis’d, clutching at jake’s dead body.

uh

jake

died?

jake dies

jake’s dead

but there’s no time to mourn. the ambush continues. marco tries to hold onto jake, but the other men on the boat toss him overboard, lightening the load. rachel tells cassie to get jake out of the water. a cannon booms. it’s chaos. and not how history is supposed to happen. washington’s men were meant to surprise the hessians — but someone told them where to wait. someone, probably, named visser four.

tobias asks what to do. rachel, being rachel in grief, yells to attack the hessians. ax tries to talk her out of it, but:

they killed jake, i snapped. and they’re trying to get washington. they could kill marco. they die! do you hear me, andalite? they killed your prince. do your duty.

damn

ax understands orders. he’s the only one in a position to attack. as he runs through the woods, he thinks. crayak has taken his payment.

so jake’s like, dead dead???

anyway ax is like, do i kill these humans? and cause chaos that ripples throughout time? but also humans are already dying that aren’t supposed to. and if he doesn’t stop this last volley, marco will surely die, too. so. FWAPP FWAPP! ax starts knocking soldiers unconscious with his tail. he has a stand-off with the commanding officer. ax has no choice.

FWAPP!

cassie is in the river, swimming through so many bodies. she finds jake’s and — gotta give her credit, since he’s her boyfriend and also she’s maybe thirteen — she only kind of screams. she carries his body to the riverbank, and then suddenly: sunshine. jake’s body is gone. time jump! visser four escaped, and so the animorphs follow. cassie cries now, for real.

marco and i were going to save [jake] from crayak. we were going to keep him alive. but in a flash, in a battle that should never have happened, in a war i hadn’t even paid attention to in school, he’d died.

fuck dude

i can’t believe we are here in animorphs book 29.3 and jake is dead!!!!!!!!!!

tobias is still in early american wartime. he sees ax standing off with an office below. he yells for crayak or the ellimist to get them out of there. and then: blip! time jump! tobias is flying over a huge ship. below, men in gold-braid uniforms and boots stand over men with no shirts or shoes. there are more ships in all directions. tobias calls out for his friends. no response.

tobias flies down and lands inside a little office-cabin. there are papers and pens and leather-bound books. they’re in the atlantic ocean, close to spain, near to trafalgar. tobias swoops under the table and starts to morph.

if i was going to find visser four i needed to be able to move around the ship.

and i was going to find visser four. crayak might be the great evil, butu it was this one yeerk who had killed jake.

and i was going to find him and see how well he could swim.

f u c k

marco and ax blip somewhere on the ship, down below, trapped behind coils and coils of rope. marco apologizes, and then vomits. understandable! he cradled his best friend’s dead body and then had that dead body ripped out of his hands and thrown overboard. he peers through a narrow gap in the rope. he can see two men. one clubs the other — visser four!

ax starts hacking away at the rope with his tail. once there’s a section wide enough to escape through, marco moves. he tells ax to catch up once he’s human, and he follows the bloody footprints after visser four. he finds visser four laying a gunpowder trail. marco morphs gorilla and takes a swing. the deck jumps — a cannonball hits the ship! marco misses visser four, and visser four takes the opportunity to run. marco chases after him. there are only two ways off the ship: swim, or the time matrix.

he could lead me to the time matrix, or he could die trying to outrun me.

yoinks! yoinks yoink y i k e

rachel has blipped right onto the upper deck of the ship. a gaggle of men has gathered around. she’s a stowaway! but the lieutenant is like, you’ve all seen a girl before! get to your guns we have frenchmen to smoke! then the cannons strike the side of the ship. rachel falls to the ground, her ears ringing. then: a man runs past her, chased by a gorilla! she knows that monkey!

rachel runs after visser four and marco. visser four climbs up a rope ladder, leaving marco and rachel below. rachel starts to morph.

not grizzly. not elephant. marco had chosen the wrong weapon. this wasn’t a job for brute force.

growth!

there’s only one morph meant to swing through trees: a chimpanzee. rachel swings right up into the rigging, chasing after visser four. she loves the fear in his eyes. she’s so close. she and visser four start talking: he tells her she’ll never find the time matrix without him, she says he killed someone she loves so his death is imminent.

and then

rachel gets blown in half

i could not make this up if i tried she gets blown in half

tobias screams. rachel falls to the deck, no head, no arms. tobias and marco scream some more, and then they chase after visser four.

two animorphs down????

is this like one of those things where they’re all gonna die one by one???

we have like, twenty books left!!!!!!!

tobias and marco chase visser four. ax joins in, in andalite form. they chase visser four into a cabin. he’s holding the time matrix — and a gun!!! he shoots the gunpowder trail! the three boys scramble to stop the bomb, but then:

quiet. that’s what i noticed first.

tobias sits up. he’s under a tree on what looks like a college campus. it’s swarming with white men (typical). but that’s going to make things harder. up until now, they’ve been able to pick out visser four based on the clean cut of his teeth and his distinct lack of lice. now he’ll blend in just as easy.

tobias calls out first for jake, then rachel, then he remembers. he calls out for marco, ax, and cassie. he starts to worry: he hadn’t even seen cassie in the last time blip. and marco and ax were seconds away from getting blown up by the visser’s gunpowder bomb.

still: the mission. tobias finds some clothes in a nearby dorm room and morphs to human. he grabs a few textbooks and starts walking around princeton’s campus, hoping nobody notices his shaggy haircut and the fact that he’s thirteen. one of the books he’s carrying is a history book. he flips through it, looking for anything on the revolutionary war.

but of course, there isn’t anything.

just a page about the colonial rebellion. washington died after the ambush on the river.

they didn’t mention the death of an unknown rebel. a boy with a bullet in his brain.

y’all even if by some applegate-miracle the animorphs do come back to life (and i feel like they will, because we have twenty books left and this wouldn’t be the first time applegate pulled some trickery), there is just No Way to quickly recover from the sight of your best friend and leader getting shot through the forehead. no way!!!

tobias looks towards the flag pole. there is no US flag. instead, it’s pale blue, with a small british union jack in one corner. the united states doesn’t exist.

and then, cassie in dolphin morph blips into an alleyway.

cassie, of course, is in the middle of some deep emotional turmoil. she spent the entirety of the last blip giving in to her dolphin instincts, trying to bury the guilt and pain of losing jake so brutally. tobias runs over and tries to get cassie to morph before anyone notices the strange half-dolphin, half-girl blob. it’s slow-going. tobias has to break the news about rachel — and has to keep cassie focused. they have a mission to complete.

but cassie is grieving. first jake, now rachel?

a group of princeton racists approaches. they’re like wOAH whaT IS HAPPENING!!! cassie finally demorphs, standing on shaky legs, and then one of the princeton racists calls her the n-word.

children’s book!

(applegate doesn’t type out the word, nor does she even refer to it as the n-word. but she calls it “vile punctuation,” and “a word i won’t repeat” and cassie/tobias’s reactions lead me to believe it can only be that word.)

(anyway)

cassie is easily the most terrifying of the animorphs. she knows tobias can’t really help her in his human form, and he’d have to pass through hawk to get to any strong morphs, but she can handle this one on her own.

“you don’t like Black people, mr. davis?” i said pleasantly. “no problem. i can turn white. watch me.”

she starts to morph polar bear

SICK rachel would be SO PROUD

she slams one paw onto the wall behind davis’s head and cages him in with her other leg. and then she roars in his face. davis probably shits himself. he babbles an apology and sinks to the ground.

“woah, cassie! that is so rachel,” marco said. i recognized the voice immediately. he’d come up behind us.

and that was surprising enough. but then…

“really,” rachel said. “what are you doing? stealing my act?”

“rachel!” tobias yelped. and a millisecond later he had spun around, grabbed her, and kissed her. then he held her back at arm’s length. “you’re dead!”

rachel! you’re dead, i agreed.

rachel!!!!

robias kiss!!!!!!

our second animorphs kiss!!!!!!!!!!

trish are u ok

ax approaches in full andalite form to confirm that rachel isn’t dead. rachel remembers climbing into the rigging, and then nothing, and now they’re here. which. where (and when) is here?

the animorphs start interrogating the princeton racists. we’re in tobias’s perspective now. (sorry, there was no clever way to make that clear.) they’re at princeton in 1934. it takes them a few minutes to puzzle out what exactly visser four expects to do here. cassie points out that visser four might have written himself into a bind: by changing so much of the past, whatever he expects to be happening now isn’t happening.

“my head is going to explode,” marco said. “you need to be einstein to figure this [out]!”

aha! one of the racists like, the german physicist (a horrible word to spell)? there was a man raving in the dean’s office about einstein earlier. he had a big scar up the side of his face. marco snaps his fingers: of course! visser four is here to kill einstein! he isn’t here, but he should be. tobias turns to one of the racists. “what does ‘e’ equal?” he asks.

the racists have no idea

(and honestly i can’t blame them)

but, the point is this: no one knows e=mc squared. and if no one knows e=mc squared, that means there’s no atomic bomb.

the animorphs are like, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

i feel like it’s a good thing

call me crazy

it’s a marco chapter now. the animorphs let the racists go. they need to formulate a plan to catch up to visser four. not to mention the mystery of rachel getting blown in half and then surviving. ax points out that crayak and the ellimist struck a deal — perhaps the ellimist made sure that only one life could be taken. makes sense! rachel and tobias want to go after visser four, but marco says no. it’s not visser four they need to focus on. it’s the time matrix. they need to be able to fix all that visser four has fucked up.

and, if they get the time matrix and go back, maybe…maybe jake has a chance.

ax looked doubtful. crayak demanded a death.

“he got a death,” tobias said. “jake died. is there a lawy that says he has to stay that way?”

before they can explore that delightful topic of conversation, they start time-hopping quickly. one second they’re on campus, next they’re in a mall, then in ancient greece, then the civil war, and then somewhere on boats.

d-day!

marco knows d-day from the movies, except in this universe, there is no “america” to lend the british troops aid. there are just bullets flying everywhere. marco starts to morph fly. he’s watching men die all around him.

ding ding ding: it’s time for another ya tangent! applegate spends four or five paragraphs describing the horrors and uselessness of war through marco’s perspective. he watched his best friend get shot in the forehead; he’s seen soldiers get gored by swords and cannonfire; his own mom is a casualty of the war they’re fighting in their own timeline. it’s brutal. and pointless. i think most writers desperately want the world to be better, and ya writers most of all. why else write for children if not to hope they make a better future? you know?

anyway

ax blips into the ocean. he scrambles onto the beach and connects with tobias via thought-speak. ax starts to morph bird — no one wants to be on the ground right now. tobias, marco, and cassie are accounted for. before ax can finish morphing harrier, a dying human soldier staggers on top of him. the human calls out for his mom. ax witnesses a doctor arrive only to get shot through the throat.

ax wonders if this is visser four’s doing, or simply human nature. question of the century, my dude!

cassie says via thought-speak that she and tobias can see visser four in a jeep, leading a column of tanks. instead of answering, ax starts to morph and dig beneath the sand.

cassie follows the jeep — and the trailer hitched to the jeep, carrying the time matrix. if the tanks reach the bluff above the beach, it’s game over. the germans win the war, and the future the animorphs started this book in will be the future they live in forever. cassie and tobias aren’t 100% sure about what to do — neither of them know how to operate the time matrix, even if they could get close enough to use it — and the others are too far to help.

cassie and tobias soar down and start to morph, tobias to hork-bajir and cassie to wolf. they both talk about how rachel came back, and how knowing they won’t stay dead doesn’t lessen the blow of dying.

they’re kids!

they both say, “for jake,” and then start sprinting towards the jeep as it curves around the bend. tobias gets shot by machine guns, and cassie flies towards visser four. she closes her jaws around his arm.

we tumbled out of the jeep, onto the ground. only then did i see the handcuffs that held the visser’s wrists.

what does it mean!!!

ax is now with marco and rachel. they’re in the air, following cassie and tobias. ax sees the time matrix. he thinks about how it came to earth — how elfangor had known it was on earth. all he knows is the ellimist was probably involved, and if they survive, he’s going to have some questions.

marco and rachel explain to ax the significance of world war two. we learn that rachel’s dad is jewish as she explains what the holocaust was. ax notices that rachel, who’s normally quick to anger over small things, is seemingly cold and emotionless as she talks about it.

but then what emotion could possibly be sufficiently intense to encompass the crimes she described?

damn

ax is, of course, furious. the wars humans fight seem very different than the wars andalites fight (though, i’m sure his opinion on that will change as the books continue). particularly the senseless killing of innocent people. marco’s like, yeah, humans recognize that, too — hence the war, and the people fighting against nazis. rachel points out the nazi tanks driving below.

we are after the time matrix, marco reminded her.

maybe you are. you and ax go get the time matrix. i’m getting a nazi.

atta girl

cassie rolls over the visser on the ground below. she yells for tobias to demorph, but to her amazement, he sits up. the bullet holes in his chest are gone. their theory is true: only jake died. the rest of them can’t be killed.

which is good news, because they are suddenly surrounded by soldiers! french and german soldiers, to be specific, each wearing an insignia that’s “a shield, slashed down the middle at an angle, half of it the french tricolor, blue, white, and red, the other half a stylized black eagle.”

one of the officers shoots cassie directly in the head. she rolls over and stands right back up. everyone’s confused. including cassie! the soldiers agree to wait for their captain. one of the soldiers kicks visser four. nice!

visser four asks cassie and tobias how the andalites have been following him and why they don’t die. tobias says, “visser three’s been trying to kill us for some time, now. we’re hard to kill.”

cue the csi miami scream what a sick fucking line

the captain arrives. he clearly knows about visser four and isn’t surprised by the time matrix - but the hork-bajir and tame/unkillable wolf are certainly new. he approaches and tries to talk to them first in german, then french, and finally english. he asks for an explanation. cassie starts to talk.

but then, i saw the old man who’d been driving the captain’s jeep climb down from behind the wheel. he was in his fifties, at least, although his uniform indicated a low rank. he was stocky, not very tall. his black hair was parted high on his head. his eyes were dark and intense. he wore a small mustache.

a style of mustache known everywhere as a hitler mustache.

if you had told me

when i sat down to start this blog

that the animorphs would come face to face with hitler

i simply would have not believed you!!!!!!!!!!

from above, rachel and the others watch cassie and tobias. as long as they’re safe and unkillable, they’re problem number two. problem number one is stopping the tanks from reaching the beach. if they could kill the lead tank, the others wouldn’t be able to go around them. but none of their morphs stand up to a tank.

ax suggests dropping a hand grenade into the lead tank, instead.

sure!!!!!

they spot a dozen soldiers huddled together beneath the bluff on the beach. their commanding officer is handing out hand grenades. perf. they start to fly down so rachel can snatch one when a mortar shell lands right in the middle of the soldiers. ax and marco go flying.

meanwhile, cassie and tobias are still face-to-face with hitler!! NO hesitation tobias is up, pressing one of his arm-blades to hitler’s throat. it’s t-t-t-t-t-t-tiiiiime for a brief moral debate! tobias is like, it’s hitler. he dies. cassie’s like, is this hitler the same hitler?? he’s just a driver in this universe! in the other reality, was jake still jake? marco still marco?

he’s not evil for who he is, no one is. you can’t be evil for being someone. it’s what you do. and this guy’s just a driver!

and then a lot happens at once. visser four goes for the time matrix while everyone is distracted. cassie leaps after him. the german captain shoots tobias, who jerks forward, slicing hitler’s throat. and up above, a bald eagle soars, six feet wingtip to wingtip.

rachel grabs a grenade as marco and ax recover from getting killed. how many birds does it take to set off a hand grenade? let’s find out. rachel holds the grenade in the air and ax flies towards her to pull the pin out. she’s got about three seconds. rachel feels an incredible rush of adrenaline (holding a live grenade!!!!!!!!!) and she soars towards the first tank. she drops the grenade as tobias kills hitler.

cue huge explosion

a piece of the tank’s turrets falls off and pins visser four to the ground, crushing him from the waist down. hitler’s dead and so are most of the soldiers. cassie demorphs to help them, revealing her human identity to visser four. yikes!

still. there’s very little time to worry about that. the animorphs are still trying to piece together what exactly’s going on. this is not the d-day from their history books. no one is wearing a swastika.

what exactly have the animorphs done?

visser four crawls out of his host’s ear. tobias catches him and passes him to marco. they know that they can’t let visser four find a new host: he knows they’re humans now. none of the animorphs want to be responsible for killing, though, so marco takes the burden onto himself. he yeets the yeerk into the burning tank.

there’s still more to think about. how do they go back? how do they rescue jake? do they use the time matrix? ax says they should cut the chain early and try to stop visser four from ever finding the time matrix in the first place.

cassie approaches visser four’s human host. he introduces himself as john berryman. he asks if the yeerk is dead, and cassie confirms. john talks a little about visser four’s plans. he was angry, bitter. he wanted to replace visser three, but of course, everything got kind of fucked up. he wanted to kill washington, change trafalgar, kill einstein, ruin d-day. tobias asks why agincourt with henry and john laughs.

“that was for me. it was to shut me up. i never gave up, see. i fought him. all night i’d keep it up. keep it up in his head.”

“keep what up?” marco asked.

“shakespeare. i played exeter in the play. but i memorized all the lines…henry the fifth. i know it by heart. shakespeare wrote a play about henry at agincourt. visser four couldn’t figure out how or when to intercept shakespeare. so he was going to kill henry to silence shakespeare, to silence me.”

this is so fucking funny to me this is exactly how i would drive my yeerk insane except it would be episodes of glee

but cassie isn’t here to talk about shakespeare. she’s here to make sure visser four never gets his hands on the time matrix. she cries as she asks where his parents met. john understands. he tells her: san francisco, 1967. his dad’s name is john. his mom’s name is teresa. he wishes them good luck.

ax operates the time matrix and takes the animorphs to san fran in 1967. they’re met with a hippie chick fascinated by the time matrix’s colors. at least there are still hippies.

focus: all the animorphs have to do is make sure john and teresa never meet.

but is that the right thing to do?

it’s time for another mORAL DILEMMMMAAAAAAA

tobias is like. we want to change history so the holocaust does happen? cassie’s like, you saw our future. we still had slaves. (we do still have modern slavery, but. i understand what applegate is trying to do here.) tobias is like, maybe we take the time matrix to our own time and see what visser four’s meddling did. marco’s like, if we do that, we’re definitely going to screw something else up.

“we do that every day,” rachel said. “every time we do anything, or do nothing, we change the future. why is this different? look, let’s just go see. maybe our own time is great now. i mean, maybe, right?”

“why are we here?” a voice said.

suddenly, blip! we’re back in cassie’s barn. and so is jake! he’s alive!

turns out the hippie chick fascinated by the time matrix was teresa, john berryman’s mom. she was distracted and missed meeting john sr. so berryman was never born, visser four never had him as a host, they never found the time matrix, and the animorphs never went gallavanting through time. (“except in our memories,” applegate writes, so. they do remember all the trauma they saw.)

“oh my god,” [jake] whispered. “did … i mean, in the end, did we do it? did we put it all back right? did we make it right?”

i went to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“no. we didn’t make it right. but we put it back, jake. leave it at that. we put it all back.”

damn

REVIEW

5/5. what a fucking wild ass ride. the megamorph books are really where applegate comes to flex her fucking muscles. i kept trying to tell everyone IRL about this book and nobody cared. but i know y’all care. right?? wasn’t that fucking wild???

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• wasn’t that fucking wild??

• do you think lin manuel miranda has ever read the animorphs?

PREDICTIONS

• can one ever truly predict the future, ever-changing as it is?

that’s all i have for you this week, folks! go drink some water and stare forlornly out a window. bye!!