main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Story [Animorphs] Diary of a Free Hork-Bajir (Dear Diary '09) (update 12/28)

Discussion in 'Non Star Wars Fan Fiction' started by DaenaBenjen42, Jan 12, 2009.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    mavjade: Very glad you like the shifting POVs, mav. Thank you. :)



    Entry eight?



    Melissa again. He tried, at least. I should have known better than to ask him, but I just didn't think about it.

    So where was I? Oh, right... those first couple of days, right after we saw the nice blue person who looked like a cross between a centaur and a deer killed, those were hard. I remember being so spooked that I nearly went to Lauren and Rachel's house with them instead. As it was... probably better that I didn't. Why? Because that's when I started to figure it out, that my parents... weren't.

    My father got in late that night, and in his muttering, I heard the magic word: "Andalite." Laying in the dark under my blankets, I nearly didn't hear it. It saved my life.

    The next day was a Saturday, so I didn't have to pretend that everything was normal for anyone but my parents. It's weird enough that my father is the Vice Principal, but... to have to be on guard every minute of every day... actually, it's not that weird, come to think of it. Just one more layer of oddness. Or maybe I've just gotten used to it. I don't know, really.

    I want to hear how the seven of you ended up going to the Yeerk pool.

    We went to free you, Tom.

    Is that all?

    All right... you and others. You really want me to tell it?

    Yes.

    Okay then. After we figured out that you and my father and my mother were controllers, one of us, I forget whom, decided that in order to at least be a threat in some way, we needed to acquire some serious firepower. So we went to The Gardens, the combination zoo and amusement park where Cassie's mom works as a vet, and did just that. As for how we ended up with the name Animorphs... I think the conversation went something like this:

    "Just tell them we're Animorphs."
    "Tell them we're what?"
    "Idiot teenagers with a death wish."

    It was Marco who said it, of course.

    So who acquired what? Rachel acquired an elephant, Jake somehow ended up in the Tiger enclosure and... you can guess. Marco got a gorilla. Hmmm... did Tobias acquire anything at The Gardens? I'm not certain... I know he acquired his cat, but after he got trapped in Red-Tailed Hawk morph, I thought it best not to ask him.

    I'm getting ahead of myself, though, so... I got a Jaguar, and Lauren acquired a Snow Leopard. Unlike Jake, we had the added advantage of the animals we acquired being sedated at the time.

    My first morph was my cat, Fluffer McKitty, not the Jaguar. He was on my bed the morning after... the construction site, and I wanted to see if what the Andalite had said was true, so I acquired him. I didn't try it there, because my parents were home. No, I went to Rachel's house. Why? So much weirdness in less than twenty-four hours, and... just needed to see someone who had been through the same thing.
     
  2. mavjade

    mavjade Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 10, 2005
    Another great update! =D=

    blue person who looked like a cross between a centaur and a deer
    :eek: Very interesting, it looks very strange in my mind but interesting to say the least!

    I got a Jaguar, and Lauren acquired a Snow Leopard.
    Oooo very nice!

    "Tell them we're what?"
    "Idiot teenagers with a death wish."

    [face_laugh][face_laugh] I think they are!
     
  3. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    Funnily enough, the idiot teenagers with a deathwish line was verbatim from book one.

    Thank you, mav. :)
     
  4. DarthXan318

    DarthXan318 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 12, 2002
    OMG Animorphs! Wow, I was so obsessed with that series ten years ago, this is like a blast from the past...

    Anyway it's really cool. :D You've captured the Animorph-ness quite well, and I like how you've got Tom free, too. That was what I hated most about the ending.
     
  5. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    wow, i remember book one so well! but how did melissa get in there at the construction site? did i miss something? or did the ellimist mess with the history farther down the line ....

    anyhow, i love what you're doing with this. next question, after we get to know the characters, are they gonna see some action ...??[face_dancing]
     
  6. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    DarthXan318: Another fan? Awesome. Thank you. :) (Glad you like Tom here. Was waiting to see who would notice...)

    ratna: No, you didn't miss anything. This is an AU where she was there. Funny you should mention the Ellimist, though... Thank you, ratna. :) (As for action? Eventually, yes.)


    Entry nine...


    But getting back to that night. When we met up to go down into the Yeerk Pool cavern, Cassie was nowhere to be found, and Tobias was already morphed. I don't know how long he was in morph at that point, but it couldn't have been that long.

    Wait... I left something out here, didn't I? I keep mentioning Tobias getting stuck in morph. The reason he's stuck as a bird is because there's an odd drawback to the morphing: a two-hour time limit. As in, you go over that time, you're trapped. The others were nearly trapped as wolves once fairly early on, and Marco nearly got stuck as a flea. Yes... a flea.

    Where was Cassie? Well... there was this police officer who was a controller. He'd seen her in one too many places, got suspicious, and apparently decided to haul her down there. With the mission already starting badly and us getting the willies, seeing her in the hallway hardened our resolve. The mission was a go. Succeed or fail, we were doing it.

    The entrance was in the janitor's closet. No, I'm not joking. I really wish I were.

    I remember that entrance. They moved it later on.

    You wanna tell this?

    No. Please do.

    I remember Marco making some joke as we started to descend the stairs... and I nearly expected him to be prophetic. As it was, he wasn't that far off. It kind of was like entering into hell, in a way. People were screaming to be let go, others were crying... all right. I'm weirding myself out. Must not do that.

    So we were going down those stairs, and the size of the cavern was... they could have fit an olympic-sized swimming pool in there, had room left over for a competitive gymnastics arena and several malls. That's how big it was. Is. The place is huge and it's underneath the town.
     
  7. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    I love the voices of the characters. Very teenage and authentic. Very much what I remember from the books, too.

    Ahh, memory lane ... not exactly strewn with daisies for these kids, though, is it.
     
  8. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: Nope, not strewn with daisys at all... Thank you, ratna. :)


    Entry ten...


    So in we went, down the stairs and discovering a whole new reason to fight. Not that we hadn't had reasons before, but it hadn't quite felt real until we were standing there, listening to people cry and yell and scream.

    Standing there in the midst of all it, the clear and present evidence of an invasion, it was hard to believe that no one knew. That the danger was under the radar, so to speak.

    We made a mistake that night... Visser Three showed up in the middle of our rescue attempt and morphed this thing that had a thing for the number eight and spit fire. No, really: it had eight heads, eight arms, and eight legs, and it was huge. I had nightmares about that morph of his for weeks afterward. And we failed in our objective, which was to free as many people as possible. Tom stayed in captivity for a long time after that. Sorry, Tom.

    Don't worry about it, Mel. I'm free now and that's what counts.

    We did get away with one person, however: the woman who rode out on Cassie's back. Um... Cassie was in Horse morph.

    For every positive, there is a negative... Tobias was trapped in morph. He hid in there and it took too long to escape.

    And that's why the most-looked-for sign of the Andalite Bandits became a Red-Tailed Hawk?

    Yes.
     
  9. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    under the radar and under their very feet, to be precise.

    lovely little chapter. love the aside to Tom, and his answer. Love the last lines:

    AAnd that's why the most-looked-for sign of the Andalite Bandits became a Red-Tailed Hawk?

    Yes.

     
  10. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: I figured, if he knew they?d tried, and knowing what they were up against, that he?d at least be grateful that they did try, even if they failed. Thank you, ratna. :)



    Entry eleven...



    Andalite Bandits. That was what the Yeerks thought we were, and still do, to some extent. We didn't try to convince them otherwise because it's just one more layer of protection and if they're looking for Andalites, that means they aren't looking for humans that are morph-capable.

    That's another thing.

    What is?

    How did you end up with two Andalites if their ship was destroyed in orbit?

    Oh, that... Not all of the ship was destroyed. According to Ax, the main section of the ship was destroyed while the dome crashed and settled at the bottom of the ocean. Two months after we got our morphing power, invaded the Yeerk Pool and failed miserably, Rachel helped me to figure out that both my parents were controllers by infiltrating the house as my cat, the others nearly got trapped in Wolf morph... Cassie started having dreams about the ocean. She had them first, anyway. Tobias, because he was stuck in morph, had them, and to a lesser extent the rest of us had them as well.

    You weren't there when they nearly got trapped as wolves?

    No, I wasn't. Not that time... I was parent-controller-sitting, for lack of a better way to phrase it. Did you know that it's hard to sit still in fly morph on someone's head? It is.

    But getting back to the dome at the bottom of the ocean... it was a mirror-wave call in thought-speak. Which was why Cassie, our best morpher, could hear it, and it knocked Tobias cold. Me... well, I was startled out of a sound sleep at least once by visions of water. Found out later that it was due to having a natural empathy which was heightened by experiencing thought-speech.

    Because it was based on thought-speech, that meant Visser Three knew. So we had to find a ship at the bottom of the ocean before they did. This... was not easy and involved the use of Dolphin morphs and an instance of us fighting sharks to defend a whale. And flying in Seagull morph... they're scavengers, so they notice trash and food everywhere.

    Example of a conversation held in Seagull morph...

    <Hey! Look! French fries on the ground.>
    <Woah! There's half a 3 Musketeers bar by that car!>
    <Oooh, ooh! Look at that dumpster behind that McDonalds!>

    Gross, but at least one is not bored as a Seagull, right?

    It was a very cold hour or two on a container ship to get us close enough to where we needed to be. To where the whale said the dome was. Yes... the whale. Once we were close enough, we... well, first we had to fall off a ship, but after that it was relatively easy. Relatively.

    And that, plus some wildly adventurous fight with a morph of Visser Three's that I never ever want to see again, was how we found Ax. It was just our luck that he acquired a shark while he was down there... And, though they don't look like it, Taxxons can swim really really well. They weren't, however, any match for Dolphins or Sharks. Also, Visser Three's giant red-and-purple monstrocity? No match for the Whale who had given us directions and two of his friends. Not at all...

    What about Tara?

    Tarvina? That's a whole other story having to do with how we got our back up when we least expected to get back up. Six or seven months passed before that happened. You... want me to tell it, don't you?

    Of course. I'm as interested in hearing it as Toby is. Probably more so. And... you didn't realize it was both of them?

    My parents, you mean? No. Not until Rachel took a cat's eye view on things and saw what I didn't. We knew about my father, but my mom was a complete and total surprise. So was the intergalactic phone thing in the basement.
     
  11. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    Oh, god, i remember sea-gull morph, yes i do!

    We knew about my father, but my mom was a complete and total surprise. So was the intergalactic phone thing in the basement.[face_laugh] [face_laugh]
     
  12. mavjade

    mavjade Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 10, 2005
    Ack! I got way behind!! :oops: Sorry! [face_blush]

    They've all been great but I especially liked the last entry!

    And flying in Seagull morph... they're scavengers, so they notice trash and food everywhere.

    Example of a conversation held in Seagull morph...

    <Hey! Look! French fries on the ground.>
    <Woah! There's half a 3 Musketeers bar by that car!>
    <Oooh, ooh! Look at that dumpster behind that McDonalds!>


    [face_laugh][face_laugh] Oh how that cracked me up!

    =D==D=
     
  13. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: Aside from Dolphin, it's my favorite. (Um... and Bat... and Trout, but let's not go there...) Thank you, ratna. :)

    mavjade: Glad you liked the Seagulls, Mav. Thank you. :)


    Entry twelve...


    So let's see, here. Other things that happened during those months...

    Oh, I know. Tobias talked Rachel into launching a rescue to free a car dealer's mascot. Only problem with this was that they did it on live TV... and Rachel stomped a bunch of cars due to being the distraction. Also, the mascot was a Red-Tailed Hawk, so it was personal for Tobias. He'd been stuck for a month or so at that point, and I think Marco said it best: "Don't say the word 'cage' around Tobias. He'll do some guerrilla-commando-Ninja-SWAT-team-hawk-from-heck attack on the center, and he'll talk Rachel into stomping your house flat." (Cassie's father runs a Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic out of their barn, Cassie had mentioned cages. At least I think that's what it was...)

    Then there's Marco's mother, Eva, whom everyone thought was dead. She'd died the year before in a boating accident... only that's not what really happened and she didn't really die. Technically, she was kidnapped. By the Yeerks. Specifically by Visser One, who took her as a host. A week or so after rescuing Ax from the bottom of the ocean, he decided he wanted to try to go home. It failed spectacularly badly with us ending up prisoners on the Yeerk mothership... which was how Marco found out about his mother. Aside from Jake, who was and is his best friend, I was the only other person to recognize her. My father is an assistant principal and we went to her supposed funeral. Though, really, I'm still surprised Lauren didn't, seeing as she's dating him... or was she by then? It was probably after that when they started dating... Anyway, it seems Visser One and Visser Three never saw eye-to-eye on anything, and in an effort to smear his reputation, she freed us. Or, rather, her Hork-Bajir guards left the door open, gave directions in fantastic English, and told us to skedaddle. Some war they've got going on, these Yeerks...

    I'll say.
     
  14. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    Entry thirteen...


    Some other things I'm forgetting. Oh, right... Jake ending up with a Yeerk in his head for three days. Not just any Yeerk, but Tom's Yeerk. Your first one, in fact.

    So that's what happened to Temrash. I'd wondered about that. How long did he last against people who knew what to look for?

    About five minutes. Lousy actor, that one. But really, I shouldn't be laughing about Temrash. Those couple of days were downright scary and we had to be on guard every minute, and someone had to be with Ax when he was in morph as Jake, or at least close by. One Yeerk with a morph capable host who wants to kill us on a weekly basis and can turn into something that spits fire is one thing, but Jake? He turns into assorted dangerous animals AND he knows our identities.

    Wait a minute. Ax stood in for Jake? And no one noticed?

    Your parents did. He got sent to a therapist afterward due to Ax's odd behavior. You've met the therapist, Tom. Eventually... and by that I mean more than six months went by... eventually, we found out that she, the therapist, was part of our back up. I don't think Jake, Marco, and Ax have lived down ending up as lobsters on a trip to the radio shack at the mall for parts and her nearly cooking them yet, even. Poor Jill.

    Shouldn't that be the other way around?

    Think about what a lobster looks like and then imagine what the morph would be like. As you were about to cook them.

    Ah. Lots of screaming?

    Yes. It's also on the list of morphs never to do again.
     
  15. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    omg, yes! I think lobsters would be on my list of morphs never to do again, too!

    great updates, Daena.
     
  16. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: Thank you, ratna. :) (and here be some more...)



    Entry fourteen...



    There's a list of those?

    Yep. On it are Ant, termite, and lobster. The ant... let's just say that if they had nuclear weapons, it would NOT take them a week to end the world. They hate rival colonies that much.

    Will probably regret asking this, but... termites? And why aren't flies on that list?

    Being a fly is fun, even if turning into one isn't. As for the termites... the Yeerks took an interest in logging. As in, they wanted to find the Andalites who had been causing them so much grief and were convinced said Andalites were hiding out in the woods. So they set up a fake logging company named Dapsen. Only way to get in was to morph termites due to energy shield thing they had protecting the complex.

    Was this when Visser Three got sprayed by a skunk and was told the cure for the stench was grape juice instead of tomato juice?

    See? You're not as out of the loop as you think you are. Yes, it was. Due to trying to infiltrate the place earlier on, a female skunk ended up being singed by a dracon beam. Cassie found out from her father that the skunk had kits, and we... took care of the kits while also dealing with Dapsen. That's how Visser Three ended up being sprayed by Cassie in skunk morph. Not because he was after the kits, though. The day that happened, there was going to be an inspection to make Dapsen legal. Due to our attack, the Yeerks did not get their logging company legalized.

    And the kits?

    Were named after the Ramones by Marco and taken care of until their mother was healed from her burns and freed. Score one for Mother Earth, you know? Or maybe two... logging companies count, too. Bonus for us was turning Visser Three a lovely shade of purple.
     
  17. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    Yes, Virginia, there IS a list!!!

    Wow, how do you remember all this? Do you have the books with you? We had to give ours away (to our local library) when we moved -- we were going across ocean and had to let go of a lot of stuff. Ah but it's all coming back to me now!

    Lovely post.
     
  18. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    Oh, yeah... there is totally a list of "morphs we'll never ever do again."

    As for how I'm remembering it this well? I had to get my books back from my nephew (who made it to about book forty-five, I'm so proud), read up some on a wiki or two to get it more firmly in my mind because it's been a while, and looked in on some message boards. (The message boards didn't really help much but were kind of entertaining.)

    Thank you, ratna. :)
     
  19. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    Entry fifteen...


    After Jake got the Yeerk out of his head, we... didn't exactly get a break. Or rather: I got a break and no one else did. There was this gymnastics camp that Rachel and I had signed up for... before. Before Elfangor landed in front of us and changed our lives. In all the hub bub, I forgot about it until one of my parents mentioned it a week or two weeks beforehand.

    I wasn't going to go, but after we destroyed the Kandrona and tried to take up the Ellimist on his offer...

    Ellimist? What offer?

    That is where this gets complicated, Tom. The Ellimist, who appeared to us as an old and somewhat translucent man, gave us an offer after he stopped time and showed us a possible future where the Yeerks won. The only one of our group that we saw there was Rachel... and after he showed us that possible future, time resumed and we got out of the Yeerk pool because he gave us an edge: there was a dropshaft leading to the surface.

    I'm confused. This was another trip to the Yeerk pool?

    It was the second trip we took... the third involved the Yeerk's allergy to oatmeal. Instant Maple and Ginger Oatmeal. I'll get to that later... getting back to this one: what we were there to do, which I don't remember now, we weren't able to because a Taxxon tried to eat us. While we were in Cockroach morph. Which was when time took a time out.

    And the offer was?

    To be evacuated with those we cared about, or stay. In the middle of all that, Rachel's Dad got a job in another state and tried to convince her to go with him. She didn't, obviously, but for a while, it sure seemed like she wanted to. Maybe if things had been different, she'd have gone. I don't know.

    The Kandrona, right... because the Yeerks need to feed every three days on radiation from the Kandrona, there has to be more than one around, right? The one we destroyed was on the top floor of a high rise building.

    I remember that. When it was destroyed, the secret invasion nearly became public because Yeerks started dying in public.

    Right, only it was weeks after that, that we saw even one happen. In the meantime, I went to the camp for two days in order to not arouse suspicion and the others got to wash Visser Three's dog.
     
  20. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    Washing Visser Three's dog! [face_laugh]

    I wonder what's going to happen to Toby and the gang once she's done recording up to the present.

    [face_thinking] For that matter, just when IS the present for her in this story ....? Only our author knows for sure!
     
  21. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: Well... forgive me if I don't give a straight answer for a little while. Thank you, ratna. :) (When's the present? We'll get to that...)


    There shall be post in a bit...
     
  22. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    Entry fifteen...


    Visser Three's what?

    The Veleek. Some kind of dust creature that the Yeerks found in and around the rings of Saturn that fed on energy. This one had been modified to hunt for morphing energy but eat another kind.

    From what I was told upon returning from the camp, I missed out on plenty. Rachel was going to the camp with me, got all packed to go, and then didn't. Instead, she flew out to see Tobias in his meadow, got attacked by some birds, and ended up with amnesia temporarily due to trauma. That's what they were able to piece together later, that is. Tobias didn't know the Bald Eagle he saw get swarmed was her until later on.

    And the Veleek made it's first appearance at a pool party because Marco had wanted to go, wasn't invited, and snuck in as a mouse instead. The girl whose party it was... her house was reduced to rubble. The reason it was reduced to rubble? Ax and Marco demorphed in the basement... and the Veleek destroyed the house to get to them. It didn't get them then, because at the last minute it was distracted by another morphing person. Rachel.

    As the others told me later on, it was a very busy couple of hours whilst they tried to find her with little to no success, Marco demonstrated just how amazingly bad he could drive (Jake still thinks he dislikes trash cans), and the Veleek kidnapping Marco after he plowed into Rachel in Elephant morph with Cassie's father's truck.

    And the amnesia?

    Actually got better due to truck accident. Don't ask me how that's possible. They, or rather, Cassie, 'washed' the Veleek the next day by morphing to whale and falling from a high altitude. Turns out that the Veleek couldn't lift Rachel in Elephant morph, let alone a tons-heavy whale. And it was vulnerable to water, so when she hit the water, it got 'washed.'

    In a way, I'm sorry I missed the team-building experience of nearly dying multiple times in one weekend. In a way, that is. Gymnastics is still more fun than running for ones life in wolf morph with a dust cloud that devours trees whole on ones tail.
     
  23. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    *takes moment to shake fist at quote feature...* Totally did not mean to do that. Oops... [face_blush]
     
  24. ratna

    ratna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2007
    It was Cassie who missed gymnastics camp, right ...?

    Nice post!
     
  25. DaenaBenjen42

    DaenaBenjen42 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2005
    ratna: Nope, it was Rachel who missed Gymnastics camp. Far as I know, Cassie never did Gymnastics. Thank you, ratna. :)


    Enrty sixteen...


    Morphing energy. That reminds me... I skipped over something here. Toby mentioned having the morphing cube in her possession, right? Well, the reason she has it is because I found it in the construction site. I went there looking for answers three weeks after our lives were irrevocably changed for good or ill.

    It had been lodged in a wall, somehow, when Elfangor's ship was destroyed. It may have been the only thing that survived aside from us that night.

    Sitting there, surrounded by construction debris... I didn't know what to think. Here was evidence that something happened there that night. It had survived, just like we had. I had been ready to come clean to my mother about the whole mess because I didn't know what I knew three weeks afterward... seeing that blue cube hardened my resolve to keep on fighting. Someone had died giving us a chance to hit the Yeerks where it hurts: when they least expect it, from any direction, any time, and any day.

    It was hard, wasn't it?

    Looking back? Oh yes. It was. I took the cube to Cassie. If I'd taken it home, I don't know what would have happened... other than getting myself and the others captured, that is.

    Cassie hid it... I think the first place she hid it was under a water pump in her yard. That's where the Helmacrons later found it the first time. Might not have been the first hiding place she tried, though. There is a lot of places to hide things on that farm.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.