The ground seemed to shake beneath the group, and the sound of a crash could be heard for a distance. For Josh, Zasha, Clay and Keira, who were already much further into the site, the crash was almost deafening, and the tremor nearly enough to throw them from their feet. The damp air had suddenly turned hot, and steam radiated from the crash site -- just behind the unfinished school's frame.
Whoever reached it first would see that it landed, thankfully, in a small clearing that might have been something like a courtyard, had the construction of the school not been halted. No structures had been damaged any further by the crash. Even the object hadn't been completely destroyed, as it logically should have, by the crash; it had certainly seen better days. It was in a smoldering crater, with a long trail of dirt to where it had originally hit the ground.
It was about as long as a bus, and a few feet taller. The front of the vessel was an egg-shaped dome, made from what appeared to be translucent, iridescent glass. Protruding from one side, sticking up into the air, was one crooked, stubby wing with a cylinder that seemed to be some kind of thruster at the end. There was a once a similar wing on the other side, but bits and pieces of it seemed to have been melted my some unknown force, or been irreparably warped by the sheer force of the crash. Near the end of the craft, on the top, was a large, arched protrusion. It had what almost resembled a wide scythe on the end, made of a metal much shinier than the rest of the hull.
Most of the craft had burn marks or holes where smoldering wires now spilled through. The entire thing was smoking, partially from the crash, and partially from damage sustained before it. Lights dotted the craft; some shone brightly, while others blinked with desperate urgency before flickering into darkness. No creature could have survived the crash. And yet, it occasionally rocked, as if something were trying to get out.
The group of teenagers descended on the crash abruptly, kicking up clouds of dust as they sprinted. Adrenaline coursed through each of their veins like never before, sending them flying to the crash site with and unprecedented speed. The quickest was Josh.
"Holy crap! That's the weirdest plane I've ever seen!"
"It looks like a spaceship."
"Think Nasa went and crashed something?"
The craft shook once more, prompting the group to collectively take a few paces back. A beam of light, not unlike a laser pointer, appeared at the center of the egg-shaped dome. It split into four separate beams, spinning around the rim of the dome, before returning to the center. It was scanning. After a few beeps and strange whirrs, something happened that none of the group expected. It opened.
The dome slowly split down the middle, slowly sinking into the rest of the vessel like curved automatic doors. It let out an audible hiss as a rush of cold air escaped from the hull. It had a strange smell, not unlike the recycled air in planes, but more metallic.
Light, mostly red and flashing, poured out. Then, in this light appeared a silhouette that seemed not unlike a centaur. A six-and-a-half-feet tall, slim shouldered centaur. It stood for a moment, surveying the debris in front of it-- in front of what must be its ship, before jumping down; the creature crumpled under its own weight rather than landing.
In the light of the full moon it was clear that the alien was far more bizarre than just the standard high-fantasy centaur. He was almost completely covered in blue fur, for one; it grew sparse only near the series of odd slits in his face-- which must have been a nose-- and on his relatively small, seven-fingered hands. His chest was almost human, sleek and well muscled, though with two arms that seemed oddly weak compared to the rest of him. His body was about the size of a small horse, and nearly identical save for the fur color and long-- at least half as long as its body-- whip-like tail, which ended in a long, incredibly sharp, blade reminiscent to that of a scorpion's. One of the more distinctive features of his face was the complete lack of mouth. His ears were pointed and set high upon his skull. his most human feature was his pair of bright blue, almond shaped eyes. Though pained, they moved carefully between the faces around him.
The alien had another set of eyes, each at the end of the snail-like stalks on the top of his head. One darted every which way; the other seemed to have been nearly crushed in the crash, and hung limply to the side. The destroyed stalk seemed to be the barest extent of his injuries.
Large patches of his fur were matted with brown-black blood-- one of his hind legs seemed twisted at a rather unnatural angle. Whether the injuries came entirely from the crash, from the creature's gauche exit from its craft, or something else entirely was difficult to discern from the its state alone; despite his injuries, the blue creature still stubbornly attempted to pull himself back to his feet.
Gili and Kimmy trudged down the loose dirt encircling the courtyard-- the gentle slopes that one day might have dreamed of being stairs-- just in time to see the creature fail. Gili rushed forward, pushed past the other teenagers in an instinctual bid to ease the creatures fall.
Kimmy snatched Gili back by the hood of their jacket-- yanked them back hard enough to make them stumble. "Don't get near it."
"Don't get near it," Gili mocked, rubbing their neck. They'd be lucky if their neck wasn't bruised, tomorrow. "What if they're hurt?"
"What if they hurt us?"
<I am not here to harm you.>
"What the fuck?"
<This is... Thought Speak. There is no time for me to explain.>
<I am War-Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul... And I have come to warn you... That your planet... Your people... Are in danger.> He tried and failed standing back up, collapsing rather pitiably back to the ground.
"You're hurt," Gili observed, voice softening. Kimmy kept her hand firmly on their hood.
<Yes,> the alien said. <I am dying.>
"Well with that attitude... We can bandage that wound." Keira grabbed Kimmy's arm-- dragged her back a bit, away from her grip on Gili. "Kims, give me your jacket. We can rip one of the sleeves--"
<No,> Elfangor said, his voice low. <My wounds are fatal.>
"Fatal? No! You can't die!" Gili protested, looking around desperately for someone to agree with them. Zasha championed the cause. "You're, uh, a Big Deal, dude. Like, the first alien to come to earth. Probably, anyways." Gili nodded, for once foregoing their favorite Roswell argument. "You're not allowed to die."
<I am not the first.> The edges of the alien's eyes seemed to soften-- as though offering a quaint, sardonic huff. <There are many... Many others.>
"Other aliens? Like you?"
The alien shook his head slowly. <Not like me.>
Then he cried out in pain, a silent sound. The sound-- the feeling-- of his death echoing gravely through their minds.
<Not like me,> the alien repeated, his thought-voice thready. Fading. <They are different.>
"Different how?"
<They have come to destroy you.>
The six teenagers hadn't needed to exchange disbelieving looks to know they'd all heard the same thing in the alien's voice-- that grim and honest certainty. No one felt the need to disagree-- to say no way, or you're fucking with us. They all... knew.
This alien was dying; he was using his death throes to warn them of something terrible.
<They are called Yeerks. They are different from us. From both of our species.>
"Aliens? In my planetary vagina?" The edges of Keira's voice were warbled and thin. Her laugh nervous: fake. She swallowed it. Cleared her throat. "You're... you're saying they're already here?
The alien nodded.
<Yes. They are here. Many of them. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.>
"That's all?" Kimmy's dagger of an elbow cut the rest of Zasha's comment off. Josh cleared his throat. Better to stop the in-fighting before it began. "And nobody noticed?"
<You do not understand,> his tone expressed all the nose-bridge-pinching his biology didn't seem to accommodate. <Yeerks are different... They have no body. Not like yours or mine. They are...> The alien looked beyond the adolescent humans who had come to circle him-- the hatch of his craft-- then closed his eyes tightly.
It hit them simultaneously: an image in their heads. A... bug. A slimy, gray green thing. It looked like a garden snail without its shell, and... bigger. Big enough to stretch all the way across the broadest part of one's palm. The thing had no eyes, no visible mouth. It curled back and forth, in and out of itself, as if it could wiggle itself into a less offensive state.
"That thing doesn't look like it could hurt a paper bag, much less another species." Zasha snorted.
Kimmy retched for a moment, grabbing her stomach and doubling over slightly -- It seemed that her phobia of frogs extended to other slimy creatures. Clay patted her on the back as the images began to fade from their minds. "You're okay, c'mon." He said, gently pulling her back up. Kimmy sagged into his side once she was back on her feet-- too focused on her rolling stomach to focus on the contact, or thanking him.
"Not on it's own. I... don't think. They're parasites," Keira said around the lip she was chewing. "...Right?"
<Yes, parasites... They are Yeerks.> This was the first time Elfangor's general benevolence slipped. He seemed to loath even saying the word; his hatred crashing against the teenagers in waves.
<Without a host, they are powerless... They enter the brain through an orifice such as the "ear", and spread themselves over its surface. They then connect their own nerve-endings with the neurons of the host.> The alien paused, for a moment, a distant look coming to his eye, as though he were no longer there.
He shook his head, though, and brushed the look away as suddenly as it seemed to strike him. <Once spread across the brain, Yeerks,> his voice flared in their mind with vitriol, his sinoatrial openings flaring with a sharply exhaled breath, creating a rather dissonant snort, compared to his otherwise mental communication, <Yeerks have... Total control over their host. Access to their thoughts, their feelings... Their memories...>
"Ahah, Body-Snatchers, gotcha."
<It is a fate worse than death.> His eyes lowered, tone serious but soft-- Zasha had half expected some sort of irritation at his flippant handling of the situation, but the Alien seemed determined to stay on track.
<We-- my people-- had hoped to stop them,> the alien continued. <Swarms of their Bug fighters... They were waiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mother ship and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us... They had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought but...> the alien trailed off again. <We... lost. Now, they have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me. Of my ship,> a shudder wracked Elfangor's shoulders-- interrupted an already thready breath. The others could sense it from him, in the same way that they 'heard' his voice. His pain, urgency, and sincerity poured through their link and, in some inexplicable way, they could feel it.
<Of resistance.>
<I sent a message to my home world, before I crashed... Andalites fight the Yeerks all throughout the universe. My people will send help. But it may take... Several Earth years to arrive, and by then...> the alien trailed off. <You must warn your people.>
"Warn them?" Keira quirked a brow. "About an alien invasion?"
"You said it yourself-- they're going to eliminate all traces of you." Kimmy's hands were on her hips. Lip half-curled, but only for a moment. Kimmy fidgeted with the waist of her dress. Sucked her teeth. Cast her eyes to the dirt, and said, reluctantly: "No one will believe us."
Elfangor's expression fell.
"So what? We sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting to be invaded by an obviously hostile force?" They sounded like they were reciting some noble speech from one of their sci-fi novels. Gili stood and took a confident step toward their compartiarts. They turned their eyes on no one in particular while making grandiose gestures with their arms. "We won't just do nothing! We can't!"
A thought came to the Andalite, unbidden. Sudden as the distant-flicker, before <Perhaps...> His thought-voice shook, now. Whatever sorrow his impending death was feeding through the link between the Andalite and the teenagers was corked. The alien's eyes brightened.
Gili spun to look back at the Andalite. They tilted their head and knelt down, back to his side. "Perhaps what?"
<My ship... Go into my ship. You will see a small blue box, very plain. Bring it to me, quickly. The Yeerks will be here soon.>
As the moments passed, a stirring slowly but surely came from within the ship. Between the bridge and the rest of the feusilage, where several beams had collapsed, lay another alien, similar to Elfangor outside, her fur of a more greenish tint, and a slighter build- at least, with what could be seen of her. Most of her body was caught under metal panels and miscellaneous debris. She could feel her flesh being torn by the wires and beams of what should rightly have been her weapon should she take a deep breath, causing the pool of orange fluid beneath her to spread.
<I am going to die...> she thought to herself, unaware if she could be heard or not.
With her head pressed to the floor, she could only just make out the sounds of a conversation outside, in words she did not understand. Above it all, however, she heard the voice of Prince Elfangor, weak, fading... He was close to death, too.
She would be alone in her final moments.
Thoughts of her situation flooded her mind as her fingers dug fruitlessly against the smooth, hard floor. <I am going to die... alone,> she affirmed grimly to herself, her mind beginning to drift off.
The teenagers eyes flitted between each other and the mangled ship. Everyone save Gili, who took the distraction as an opportunity to edge in and kneel beside the alien.
"You're serious?" Zasha was the first one to break the silence-- a nervous sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh, but sounded more like a hiccough as he eyed it warily. "That thing looks the aftermath of a DUI prevention commerical or, uh, something..."
"Gili?" Zasha's joke-fumbling trailed off into silence. Kimmy was looking at Gili, who was by now had gently lain their paint-streaked hand on Elfangor's shoulder. The mechanic waved toward the ship.
Gili shook their head. "Go ahead." They hadn't looked at Kimmy when they'd spoken-- they'd only glanced in her direction-- apparently loathe to tear their eyes away from the alien. "I want to stay with him."
Kimmy nodded. She shoved her bag into Clay's hands.
The interior of the ship was shiny and metallic, with flickering lights obscuring most of the detail. Most of the brushed metal walls had been burned black with soot, and bits of metal and shattered glass covered the floor. The interior seemed to have held up better than the outside, at leas; it didn't look like anything was on fire.
Still, Kimmy rubbed an elbow as she glanced around the craft. Parts of her itched for a wrench-- a soldering tool. To take the viscera of the ship that had been turned outward, undone, and weave it back together.
The rest of her itched to turn around and back out of the ship. The mechanic stepped forward, running a hand along what she could only assume was an informational panel, now flickering and dead. Kimmy grimaced. The craft was a mess. How was she supposed to find anything?
A lump of debris on the other side of the room heaved. Kimmy rubbed her eyes. It moved again-- seemed to shiver. Kimmy stepped toward the lump. A large, flat piece of paneling slid down the far end of the pile, and she jerked back at the clattering sound. Then she saw it. The bluish fur of the alien dying outside.
An Andalite.
They were trapped, Kimmy could tell as much as she scrambled toward the pile. Thier body broken and slashed by the vessel that until only a few moments ago must have been their weapon. A clattering sound came, as something hard seemed to meet an item of rubberized metal. Weakly, the alien reached out to Kimmy.
<Please... Closer.> The thought-speak was so light, Kimmy could have brushed it off as her own imagination. Instead, the teen pushed another lump of metal from the edge of the pile.
"Yeah," the mechanic murmured, voice gentle. She used it as a ramp to better leverage herself as she reached out to try and pull the Andalite from the wreckage.
As she took the strange alien's hand, she did her best to smile. "I've got you," she tried to assure the alien, but her voice drifted as wave of tranquility washed over her, unlike anything she'd ever felt. It was over in an instant, and when she opened her eyes, the Andalite pinned under the rubble was... Changing.
Her fur was retreating into her body, as her pink skin slowly turned paler. The creature appeared to be in pain, and yet, its wounds were closing up. Hair began to sprout on its head, almost like Kimmy's. It was Kimmy's, right down to the haircut. Within moments, the creature on the ground perfectly resembled Kimmy. It had turned into a naked Kimmy, but nonetheless, the resemblance was identical.
The alien stood up, staring at Kimmy for a moment in a strange sort of mirror image. As quickly as she transformed, she started again. Her skin quickly began to sprout blue-green fur, and he spine stretched unnaturally backwards, with a second pair of legs coming out of her pelvis like roots.
<Do not be alarmed.>
"Don't be alarmed?" Kimmy repeated, voice shrill, overlaying a rattled laugh. "Don't be alarmed?"
<That is what I said.> The alien seemed fully healed, if a little winded, as it began to dislodge itself from the rubble. <You must leave. It is dangerous-->
"Yeerks, right?" Kimmy spit-- these things were trying her patience. The Andalite stilled, stalk eyes training on Kimmy-- making her feel like a barn owl's dinner. Kimmy straightened her shoulders under the gaze. Narrowed her own eyes. The alien's bladed tail twitched, and Kimmy found it at her throat.
<How do you know of the Yeerks,> the alien demanded.
"Elfangor" the mechanic said, craning her neck upward, mercifully managing not to stumble over the name, "told me." God willing that would be the right answer.
<Elfangor?> The alien repeated. <Prince Elfangor?> Her tail didn't move.
Kimmy gulped. She didn't want to die, not here-- not at the hands of this alien. She didn't want to die at all. But least of all here, in this ship that was going to be "eliminated", with her corpse still inside of it.
Her sisters would never know what happened. Her mother, the twins... They'd all think she left them. Kimmy felt her lips tremble when she swallowed, hard. She closed her eyes.
Kimmy nodded-- she could hear the sharp, metallic looking edge of the tail-blade scrape against the turtleneck of her dress, so loud in her ears it might as well be thunder. "Yes." she said, voice cracking. She cleared her throat. Tried not to shrink away from the subtle bob the blade made, because of it. "Prince Elfangor."
<Where is he?>
"Outside. He pulled himself out of this wreck earlier. He sended me in beca--"
<Why did he not return himself?>
Kimmy felt her eyebrow twitch. "He sended me in because he was too weak to come himself." The alien was slowly lowering her weaponized tail; and while Kimmy was a fan of not being threatened bodily harm, it wouldn't kill the to stop interrupting her. "He is..." Kimmy clenched her hands. Looked away from the alien. Swallowed, hard. "Prince Elfangor is dying."
Kimmy half expected the alien to slit her throat-- at the very least, to accuse her of lying. But she did neither. A moment-- a moment that Kimmy wanted to iterate not having-- passed before the teenager braved a glance back toward the alien. It was hard to tell without a mouth to read, but she found more or less what she expected.
Eyes squinted-- corners pulled together in an effort to stem the flow of what Kimmy would only imagine would be tears. The alien didn't say anything as she lowered her tail from Kimmy's throat-- the whole appendage seeming to sag under a suddenly insurmountable weight-- as though this planet's gravity was at once too much.
<He sent you for what?> The alien's voice was monotone, and sounded far away.
"A plain blue box."
<He told you...> the alien repeated. Kimmy didn't move. The alien blinked. Refocused her far-off gaze-- trained it on the teenager in front of her. <The Escafil device...?> it was a whisper; one Kimmy hadn't thought she was meant to hear.
<No.> The alien shook her head. She glanced toward a panel and display on the far side of the ship with both her stalk eyes and her head-- as if she'd forgotten Kimmy was there at all. <He... Prince Elfangor would never...>
Kimmy followed the aliens line of sight to a display panel. Caught the faint, blue glow underneath. The alien's head whipped back toward the teenager. Eyes narrowing when she caught the human's line of sight.
<He would never tell you to come for the device.> She sounded so certain.
"He already did."
<You are lying.> It was amazing how much of a snarl the alien could pull off without a proper mouth.
Naliele moved forwards as if to gallop, but with frail, shaking legs. She stumbled to her knees, desperately trying to put her body in between the device and Kimmy. All four of her eyes centered on the intruder, squinting in the flickering darkness.
<You cannot have it.> The alien squared her stance in front of the display; her breathing was still ragged. She leaned on a wall for support.
"That's well and is dandy." Kimmy brushed past the alien, skirting under the arm she was using to prop herself against the wall, and snatched the cube from under the display. "But I wasn't asking your permission."
The mechanic sprinted back toward the entrance of the craft as the alien turned to face her-- scorpion-tail too unsteady to raise effectively. <Stop!>
Kimmy didn't bother glancing over her shoulder-- just raised her free hand over her head and gave the alien a thumbs up.
<It is a piece of Andalite technology... That the Yeerks do not have,> Elfangor explained. His body barely moved beyond breathing at this point, and he had been slumped onto the side of his ship for some time. <A technology that enables us to pass unnoticed... The power to morph. We have never shared this power. But your need... Is great.>
Kimmy barreled from the mouth of the rubble, only skidding to a stop once she was in front of the dying alien. She passed the cube to Gili, who set it next to Elfangor.
"What's morphing?" Gili prodded, gently.
<It's the power to-- to change your bodies,> the Andalite said. <To become any other species. Any animal.>
"Damn, I was hoping for power rangers when he said that." Zasha muttered under his breath, but his obvious curiosity betrayed his faux-disappointment.
<You only need to touch the creature, to acquire its DNA pattern, and you will be able to become that creature. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are... limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But there is no time to explain it all... no time. You will have to learn for yourselves. But first... Do you wish to receive this power?>
Kimmy brushed her bangs from her face. Grimaced down at the dying alien. That's what she'd risked her life for? "You're kidding, right?" she breathed, between pants. "We ca--"
<No, Prince Elfangor, you can not!> a weak, fading voice reached out desperately to the Andalite's mind, making Kimmy snap her mouth shut.
Naliele came out of the ship, leaning on the wall for support, her legs still shaking. <What of Seerow's Kindness? What of our people?>
<Our people,> Elfangor repeated, a gentleness creeping around the edges of his thready voice, <our people go where we are needed, Naliele. We go so that we can do what we must. So that we can do what is right.>
<But the law,> Naliele's voice was closer to pleading than imploring. She didn't understand. Elfangor's half-lidded eyes had their edges soften, again-- his breath fond, rather than sardonic, now.
<The law has nothing to do with righteousness. I don't expect you to understand.> Elfangor hadn't said patronizingly, but the alien near the craft still seemed to shrink at the words. <Naliele-Antrothir-Entuinal,> the alien prince urged, <these "humans" will need you. They will need your guidance.>
Elfangor held the Escafil device in his outstretched hand. <I know that you are young, I know...> the alien trailed off again. Winced, as if wounded. <I... I am sorry. There is no more time.>
<I know that you have no power with which to resist the Controllers. But... if you do this, you may...> He paused, staring down the line of youths as if they were cadets. Lowered his eyes to the device when he realized the more apt word was child-soldier. <You will not be helpless. If you wish to defend your planet, if you will fight for it, press your hand against the cube.>
"You can't expect--"
<There is no time.>
"I'm in." Josh said, speaking for the first time since the alien's landing. He placed his hand on the front of the cube, dead center.
The Andalite raised the cube higher. Zasha nodded at Josh, and pressed his hand to another side with a quick comment of "Ditto". Eventually there were six hands, each pressed against sides, and edges, and corners. Then a seventh hand, different from theirs, with too many fingers, pressed against Elfangor's wrist, holding onto him.
<Where we are needed most,> the Andalite repeated, her eyes closed in a sense of solemn acceptance.
A shock went through them, rippling and reverberating through each of their bones, for a split second. It was over as quickly as it began -- no decoder rings, no suits, no warning.
A pair of red lights congregated in the sky, drifting in jerky, erratic patterns. The sound of their approach caused the raucous calls of fleeing crows to sound from the trees -- louder than the Andalite ship, but only because the wind rattled against its hull.
<Yeerks.>
<Go now,> Elfangor said. <But remember this-- never remain in animal form for more than two Earth hours. Never.>
Naliele froze. <Hide, quickly. Quickly.> The alien urged everyone backward, toward the building Kimmy and Gili had run through, earlier. Over the lip of an unfinished windowsill, they saw a spotlight shine down on the alien.
"So, any chance this is just a really trippy dream I can wake up from now? Cause that'd be just peachy." Zasha commented quietly, barely even a whisper.
Outside of the building, Bug fighters descended in line with it. They were smaller than the Andalite's ship. They were shaped like legless cockroaches and hey had long serrated blades on either side of what looked like their heads. One touched down on either side of the Andalite's ship.
Then they saw it. The ship-- the Blade Ship-- slowly crawled into view. It was built like some ancient weapon, a battle axe for the body, a scimitar for the wings. The ship was massive-- easily eight times as big as the Bug ships preceding it. It landed. A door opened.
Clay jerked back from their vantage-point, arms splayed behind him as he fell onto the dirty cement. He opened his mouth-- started to scream; Kimmy threw herself back. She straddled Clay's sides and covered his mouth with both hands.
"I do not want to die here," she hissed.
Outside, creatures leaped from the ship. They stood on backward-legs and had two long arms, each with a curved horn-blade growing from elbow and wrist. The creatures looked like walking weapons.
<Hork-Bajir.> It took them a moment to realize that it was Elfangor's voice in their heads-- weak and quiet. <That's what they are.> The alien was still trying to prepare them, even now.
"What's going on," Josh whispered, words so fast they seemed to crash together tumbling out of his mouth. He brushed tepidly against the alien's shoulder in a bid for her attention. The alien didn't look at him.
A figure appeared from behind the other aliens-- the Hork-Bajir.
<Visser Three,> Naliele sneered.
Visser Three was an Andalite.
<Well, well, well.> The Visser's booming thought voice projected to those in the construction yard, drowning out any other sounds. Instinctively, Gili reached up to cover their ears-- a futile attempt to both shield themselves from the noise, and potentially prevent anything from sneaking its probes into their mind.
<He can't hear you,> Elfangor's thought-voice sounded more like a whisper. <He wants you to hear him. He...>
<He is an overweening boil,> Naliele finished. <He is vaunting,> her thoughts slid across the teenagers' minds: so venomous it seemed it might brand them, giving physical form. <He thinks he has won.>
<War Prince Elfangor. What a funny coincidence, running into you here, of all places.> He barked a cruel, gravelly laugh. The sound was blustering-- it echoed in the ears of the fallen Andalite-- of the children hiding just yards away. <Oh, but where is your ship? Surely it's not this mangled husk of metal.> The Visser rapped on the hull with the edge of his tail blade. Then slammed the blunt side of it with his blade so hard it crumpled. He laughed and turned back to the Andalite. Naliele's own tail-blade twitched.
<A War Prince would never allow himself to crash so pathetically, hmm? Where are your soldiers? Where are your friends, here to comfort you in your last moments?>
Either out of pain or pride, Elfangor remained silent. The Visser continued, seemingly indifferent, circling his fallen foe. <Ah, yes.They're dead! All dead, if I remember correctly, except for you.>
Silence.
<What? No response? How unlike you, Elfie. You've been so chatty, up to now.> Elfangor remained silent. The Visser's stalk eyes narrowed-- a crack in the faux pleasant veneer he'd wrapped around his voice. He raised his tailblade to the War Prince's wound. Let the threat of it hover, but didn't press. <Perhaps seeing all of your men killed has broken you?>
<Perhaps...> The Visser leaned down. He leveled his gaze-- brought it square across from the War Prince's. He lowered his tail blade gently-- smeared the blue fur around Elfangor's wound outward. Elfangor met the Visser's gaze. Did not so much as flinch when he leaned even closer and all but purred: <Perhaps it's made you useful?>
Naliele's too-many-fingered fists tightened at her sides. The Visser brushed the fallen War Prince's fur with a meticulously gentle movement. Brought the edge of the blade to the edge of the wound and pressed, just so, cutting a surgically smooth line into the skin. Brown-orange blood welled up. Elfangor clenched his eyes shut, but still made no noise.
<You've got nothing to say to this?> he hummed, holding his tailblade up to catch the yellow sodium-light streaming over an unfinished building, admiring the stain. The Andalite forced his eyes open-- and this time didn't waver.
<Fight back.> Naliele hissed. <Do not let him... do not let him humiliate you. You're a-- you're a Prince.>
Elfangor said nothing.
The Visser brought his tailblade down again. Made another cut, the same as the first. Two. Three.
The Visser turned away from the Andalite, and splayed his arms wide the small group of subordinates still watching from near the ship. <He's gone mute!> he cried. There was a rumble. Laughter-- strange, only for its familiarity.
"That's..." Keira whispered, face washed white. "That's a human laugh."
Gili swallowed the bile that rose in their throat. "They have humans-- controlled." They covered their mouth with a hand. Looked away from the scene outside, for the first time. "They have human Controllers."
The Visser turned back to the War Prince. Lowered himself into Elfangor's field of vision-- his personal space-- again. <You could morph, you know. Heal yourself.> The Visser's tone would almost have been conversational, if not for magisterial tinges embedded in every word. <If you want to join us-->
It happened too quickly for the any of the teenagers to actually see, but it made the Visser stand upright and pull to the side. Elfangor had struck out, but he was wounded. Dying. Elfangor wound up burying his tail in Visser Three's shoulder.
Visser Three laughed.
Eflangor lashed out with his tail blade again and again-- each time too slow to matter. The Visser was ready for it, and danced out of the way. There was no hope of a real fight. The War Prince was too weak to stand.
This was nothing more than the Visser playing with his food.
<Hold him!> he commanded.
Hork-Bajir rushed forward, capturing Elfangor's arms-- his tailblade. They forced him to his feet. Visser Three snickered at the strained noise the Andalite made-- his weak protests.
<Since you're so quiet, I'm sure you'd like to hear about our plans for this world?> The Visser didn't wait to be denied an answer. <Humans,> the Yeerk practically purred the word. <There are so many, and they are so weak.>
Clay struggled under Kimmy's weight. She pressed her hands against his mouth, harder. "You are not going to fight the alien overlord," she hissed, shoving his head against the concrete a little harder, to emphasize the point.
Zasha had himself better controlled than Clay, but the hardened expression that formed on his face and the tightening of his hands into fists made it clear he empathized with the desire to go show the alien overlord exactly how 'weak' humans were.
Clay could remove Kimmy from her position pinning him to the ground, of course-- she wasn't really trapping him. Not physically. Kimmy added, severe hiss dropping from the bottom of her voice: "I don't want you to die here, either."
<Billions of bodies! And not one of those has any idea what's happening. With this many hosts we'll be unstoppable. Billions of us. We'll have to build a thousand new pools just to raise Yeerks for half the number of human bodies we'll have.>
<This world is going to be my contribution to the Empire,> there was an edge in the Visser's voice-- something if not unhinged, then unhinged's cousin. It made disgust and disconcert crawl up the hiding teenagers' backs. <This world is going to be mine. It's going to be the Empire's greatest conquest. And then I'll be Visser One.>
<And once it's conquered? Once we have these billions of bodies? We will move against your home world. I will personally hunt down your family. I will personally oversee the placement of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. I hope they resist; I can't wait to hear their minds scream.>
The Visser's eyes were wild-- blown wide and giddy in the wake of his own voice. <Do you still have nothing to say, Prince Elfangor?> he half sang.
<You will never be Visser One.>
Visser Three's expression came crashing back downward. His eye stalks trained on the slumped Andalite as though they might burn right through him. <What?> he demanded. His tailblade shot out, digging in to Elfangor's neck. The Visser forced the Andalite's head up by the chin; he could not force the Andalite to meet his eyes. <What did you just say, former War Prince Elfangor?>
<You will never be Visser One,> the Andalite repeated, just as simply as he'd said it before. The Visser dug his tailblade further into the War Prince's throat; he went on. <You will fail. If not in this invasion, then in the eyes of your superiors. You will never be Visser One.>
Elfangor raised both sets of eyes to Visser Three's. <You are not good enough.>
Naliele unclenched her fists. Gili and Zasha shivered, a smirk of approval at Elfangor's expert taunting coming to the latter's face.
Visser Three's eyes were wide and dark-- vicious. Feral. He did not laugh, this time; his sadistic mirth burned out all at once by Elfangor's even repose.
And then Visser Three began to morph.
His Andalite head grew large and larger, and much larger, still. The front and back pairs of the four horselike legs merged into two, then expanded. Each leg became as round as a redwood's trunk-- too muscular and thick to have been equine, seconds ago. Delicate andalite arms spindled out, becoming tentacles.
A mouth split open on the hideously bloated head, already filled with bright white teeth as long as a human arm. The mouth grew wider and wider, tearing across the molted greens and browns that were supplanting what had been blue fur.
The beast Visser Three had become roared. The sound was piercing-- made the chunks of dirt and rock scattered across the cement floor around the teenagers jump and skitter. The sound made the cement walls of the building shudder-- dust falling from the ceiling, infrastructural dandruff.
Visser Three reached out with one thick tentacle and ripped the Andalite from the Hork-Bajir Controllers by his neck.
Josh found Zasha's hand and held it fast. He threw his own arm over his eyes; Zasha looked on, eyes wide, mouth half-open.
The Visser hoisted the Andalite straight into the air.
"No," Gili whispered, pleading. "No, no, no."
Kimmy drug Clay up from the floor and drew Gili into her arms. "Don't look, Gills," she whispered into their ear. She pressed her back flush against the wall the window was cut into. "Don't watch."
She cradled their forehead to her neck with one hand, muffling their objections. She towed Clay to her free side with the other-- circumventing his monster-pinned gaze with physical force.
The Prince's body swung loosely, tailblade limp, dangling at eye-level with the monster's molted, pockmarked face.
Keira slid to the ground and buried her face in Clay's back.
Visser Three unfastened the beasts maw, so slowly it seemed as though it ought to creak. Thick, globular threads of muted-yellow saliva stretched across its mouth-- caught the sodium-light as they traipsed from fang to fang. It was a show, of course. One just for Elfangor.
The Visser hoisted the Andalite higher and higher until the War Prince hung poised above his abyssal mouth.
<Goodbye, Elfangor,> Visser Three said.
The Andalite fell into the Visser's waiting mouth. The mouth closed. It's teeth ripped the mangled, bloodied body between their jaws apart.
Naliele stood unflinching as War-Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul died.
At the very end, he cried out. He screamed. An anguished, heartsore, scared noise. It was a death wail. A sound that would echo in their dreams, in their nightmares.
It would always be in their heads.
Josh dragged Zasha to his feet, first. Then, gently, tapped Kimmy's shoulder. Wordlessly, shakily, they all rose. The teens took off, muffling their heaving cries and breaths through shirt sleeves and scarves. Their desperation the only thing keeping them silent as they sprinted through the dust.
