Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

So far the Helmacrons really only did so well against the animorphs because they had the blue box to use as a shrink ray. Without it, how are they going to do anything but annoy Visser Three?

# ? Jul 5, 2021 10:29

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 07:53

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

I genuinely don't remember, but im looking forward to it!

# ? Jul 5, 2021 10:36

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 17

quote:

�We�re going to lead them to Visser Three?� Marco asked me in a voiceless whisper.

�You have a better idea?�

�No.� He shook his head admiringly. �It�s just so � sneaky. I didn�t know you had it in you.�

Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, is the only Andalite-Controller in the galaxy. The only Yeerk ever to acquire the morphing power.

�Just one problem: Where do we find Visser Three?�

Marco considered. �Chances are he�s on board his Blade ship. Or on the Pool ship. Or down in the Yeerk pool. Or -�

�Do you think these guys could find the Blade ship?�

Marco shrugged. �Bigger question: What do these little guys do when they find Visser Three? Sting him with their tiny little Dracon beams?�

<You will lead us to this person who has the transforming power!> one of the Helmacrons yelled.

�He�s on a spacecraft. In orbit,� I said.

<Lies! Are we fools, or are we the very epitome of Helmacron courage and wisdom?> the Helmacron demanded. <We know that your pitiful species is not capable of real space-flight!>

�True,� Marco said smoothly. �The person you�re looking for isn�t a human. See, you guys aren�t the only aliens trying to conquer Earth. There are these guys called Yeerks.�

This news caused a total sensation. There had been a half dozen Helmacrons in the room around their dead captain. Now many more came rushing in, all jabbering wildly in thought-speak. Some were hauling what seemed to be computer consoles of some sort. Others dragged in oversized
weapons.

There was a lot of yelling, but one thought-speak word I heard again and again was <Yeerk.>

�They know the Yeerks,� I said.

�Oh, yeah. They know them, all right.�

The yelling and gabbling and wild gesticulating went on at a furious pace for quite a while.

Suddenly, without warning, there were steel blades flashing! Where the blades had come from, I couldn�t say.

It was a sudden, violent onslaught. But not against us. There were four or five Helmacrons surrounded by all the others.

<Die, fools!> the mob cried. The swords flashed and the little gaggle of Helmacrons disappeared from our view, hidden by the wall of screaming, enraged Helmacrons.

Calm descended as suddenly as the violence had been. Through gaps in the crowd I could see Helmacrons lying dead, pierced by swords.

It was a shocking thing to experience. But the Helmacrons didn�t seem very upset.

�Maybe we�d better get out of here,� Marco muttered. �These guys really are insane.�

�I don�t think they mean to hurt us. Not yet.�

One of the Helmacrons turned to face us. <Where is this Yeerk with the power source? Tell us, lowly one, or be crushed beneath our feet!>

�The Yeerks have a Pool ship and a Blade ship in orbit,� Marco said. �The Blade ship is the place to start. But it�s shielded, you know. Invisible to radar and sensors and all.�

<Fool! We are the Helmacrons! Primitive Yeerk technology means nothing to us!>

�Of course,� I said soothingly. �But you know what? Now that you know the Yeerks are here, you probably want to focus on them, not on us. So you could just let us go.�

<We will drive the Yeerk usurpers before us! We will grind their flesh! They will wail in terror! The humans are ours to enslave! We are the mighty Helmacrons! Rulers of the galaxy!>

�Fine by us,� Marco said.

The Helmacron shouted a command in shockingly loud thought-speak. <Male! Male, here!>

A hatch in the floor opened. And up through the floor poked a trembling head. It was like the other Helmacrons, but smaller. The flat head had a forward slant. The mouthparts were less horrifying. Still insect-looking, but smaller, gentler. The entire bearing of this creature was humbler.

<Male, take these aliens. Instruct them in the ways of obedience!>

The Helmacron shoved us toward the hatch.

�Male?� Marco wondered. �Did he� I mean, was that � is this ��

�I think so,� I said. �The loud, hyper ones are females. This one is a male.�

�Oh, man. Now I�m really scared. It�s an entire species of Rachels."[quote]

So, the Helmacrons are matriarchal, and more importantly, have encountered the Yeerks before.

Chapter 18

[quote]

We had been taken to a small room. Well, of course, everything was small - the room was probably about the size of an aspirin. But I mean it seemed small to us.

There were no chairs or other furniture. I guess the Helmacrons didn�t mind standing. And neither did we, actually. I still felt weirdly strong because of my size.

�What�s your name?� I asked the male Helmacron.

<Name?>

�Never mind.�

Marco said, �How about if we call you �wuss�? Listen up, Wuss -�

�That�s not very nice, Marco,� interrupted.

�He doesn�t have a name, and let�s face it: He�s a wuss. So, Wuss, tell me: What�s the deal with the captain? He�s dead.�

<She. Yes, of course she is dead.>

�And why do you want your captain to be dead?�

<How else can you be sure she will not make a mistake?>

That seemed to stymie Marco. But the patient male who even I was now thinking of as �Wuss� went on to explain.

<Those who make errors must be eliminated. It is inevitable that a captain, who would make many decisions if she were alive, would therefore also make many errors. What is the point of a captain who must be killed for error? In this way we have a captain who may be respected and revered by all.>

Marco looked at me helplessly. �What�s sad is that it makes a certain bizarre kind of sense.� He turned back to Wuss. �How about your other leaders? All dead?�

<Yes, a Helmacron female may not ascend to a position of importance in our society unless it is certain that she will not cause problems. She must be a symbol that all can admire.>

�Kind of like our society,� I muttered.

�Well, Wuss, aren�t you supposed to tell us how to behave?�

<Yes. You must obey all females. You must wash your food before eating it. As males, you must be quiet and calm at all times.>

�I�m not male,� I said. �I�m female.�

<No, you are a slave. Thus you are male and must do whatever a female tells you to do.>

�Kind of like our society,� Marco said, mimicking me.

�Is that it? That�s all the rules?�

<Yes. If you fail to obey the rules, you may be killed. In fact, you may even be made captain! You will stay in this room until summoned,> Wuss said calmly. 

A door opened, the Helmacron male left, and the door closed behind him.

Marco and I looked at each other. �These people are nuts, and this is a nuthouse, and we need to bail. I don�t want to be captain.�

�No. No promotions, please. But we need to think. These guys are going after Visser Three, which means they�ll leave Jake and Rachel and Ax and Tobias alone. All that�s good. On the other hand, it seemed to me like they need the blue box to create their shrinking ray. So maybe they need it to unshrink us,� I reasoned.

�If they can unshrink us. Maybe it�s a one way thing. Did you ever think of that?�

�I don�t want to think of that,� I said. �I have a family I have to get back to. A life.�

Marco nodded, obviously deep in thought. �If we were small like this permanently, we could grow old, have kids, and populate the world with a new race of tiny people.�

�Marco, would you mind helping? Think of what we should do.�

�Okay.� He squared his shoulders. �Okay.� He blew out a loud sigh. �What should we do? I don�t know. Here�s one thing I know: These guys are nuts. They hacked those guys down. They put dead guys in charge. They are nuts, pure and simple, Looney Tunes, whack jobs, freakazoids. They could go off on us for no reason at all. So priority number one is to not help them get Visser Three. Priority number one is let�s get outta here.�

�I have to agree. First chance we get. But right now we�re probably in space on our way to find the Blade ship, so there isn�t exactly anywhere to go.�

The door opened quite suddenly. It was a swaggering female. <Come with me, insignificant aliens! Obey me!>

�Yes, ma�am!� Marco said.
We were led back to what had to be the ship�s actual bridge. There was no captain, dead or alive. The Helmacrons seemed to do their jobs without being told. Although obviously there were occasional disagreements, as we had seen.

<Screen on!> our Helmacron guide snapped.

A video display showed a flat two-dimensional image of Visser Three�s Blade ship.

�Wow,� Marco said, genuinely impressed. �You guys are fast. I mean, you ladies. You found the Blade ship!�

<We are the Helmacrons! Yeerk pretenders and usurpers will beg for their lives as we march over their groveling, prostrate forms!>

I formed a mental image of a Yeerk I�d seen in its natural form. And then of an army of tiny little Helmacrons marching over it. It would look roughly like ants on a dog doo-doo. I barely stifled a giggle.

<We have found the weak and pathetic Blade ship! But a smaller Yeerk craft has detached and is heading toward the planet surface. Our sensors show a person aboard that smaller vessel, a person who carries the distinctive sensor signature of the transforming energy!>

�Visser Three,� I said. �He�s heading down to the planet. Probably heading down to take the blue box. I mean the power source.�

The Helmacron ship was obviously in hot pursuit. We could see a Bug fighter dropping down through blue atmosphere. Our own familiar coastline was recognizable below us.

The sun was going down. The line of darkness was marching across the earth, getting nearer to my own home.

It suddenly hit me just how far away I was from the life I knew. Not just in miles, but in feet and inches, too. My parents were gigantic, skyscraper-tall behemoths. Marco and I, and maybe Tobias, were alone in the universe.

<Tell us of the place the Yeerk Bug fighter is landing!>

I peered at the screen. �Can you make it bigger? I mean, you know, magnify it?�

The screen jerked as the picture refocused closer in.

�Hey, look!� I said. �Very interesting.�

I could see a stretch of the boulevard that ran by our school. It was one of those commercial strips with tons of fast-food restaurants and muffler shops and banks and Blockbusters.

An empty, abandoned restaurant - I think it used to be a Denny�s or something - stood by itself, surrounded by a weed-grown parking lot.

The Bug ship, invisible to humans thanks to its shielding, was settling down toward the empty restaurant. As we watched, the roof of the restaurant split and opened, drawing back like a pair of sliding doors. The Bug fighter containing Visser Three slowly, carefully, landed in the interior of the building.

The roof closed behind it. And at that moment a long, black limousine came tearing into the parking lot.

�Very clever,� Marco said admiringly.

�It�s an empty building,� I told the Helmacron. �The Visser will morph to human form and leave in that black vehicle.�

<Then we will crush him there! We will annihilate him! We will humble his pride till he weeps and begs for an honorable death.>

�Uh-huh,� Marco said dryly. �We�ve tried that before.�

I agree with Marco here. The Hemacrons do not seem to be all that stable or pleasant, and I worry about Cassie and Maro in their clutches.

# ? Jul 6, 2021 04:53

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

Okay, this is absolutely absurd, but now that I'm well over my teenage "I'm too cool to enjoy things" this is actually pretty great and incredible. this is a true and perfect farce

and, to be honest? one of the worst situations they've ever been in. This is pretty tense

# ? Jul 6, 2021 05:18

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

This is so loving good.

# ? Jul 6, 2021 05:24

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

FlocksOfMice posted:

and, to be honest? one of the worst situations they've ever been in. This is pretty tense

If they weren't already thoroughly grounded in the body horror of morphing, being shrunk would be sickeningly terrifying.

# ? Jul 6, 2021 08:34

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

the helmacrons are the best, I love this book

# ? Jul 6, 2021 14:44

Rosalie_A: Oct 30, 2011

quote:

<Yes, a Helmacron female may not ascend to a position of importance in our society unless it is certain that she will not cause problems. She must be a symbol that all can admire.>

�Kind of like our society,� I muttered.

there's something you don't feel the impact of when you're reading this at eight or nine.

# ? Jul 6, 2021 15:08

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 19

quote:

O Great One, Most Bold of Leaders, we grovel before you, though we are light-years away. It is our sad duty to report that the treacherous jackanapes of the Galaxy Blaster have run away! They have seized two alien prisoners that were rightly ours and run away! Leaving us, your loyal warriors, to battle the large aliens as we search for the blue box of transforming energy.
- From the log of the Helmacron ship, Planet Crusher

�It�s like Lethal Weapon 5,� Marco said. �This is cool! This is the ultimate weird chase scene.�

Visser Three had morphed to human and entered the limousine. We�d seen him do this before. I guess he liked limos because behind the blacked-out glass he could morph or demorph without being seen.

And there might be other, crueler things he did in there. Visser Three was not exactly kind to his underlings.

The limo glided down the boulevard. Night was coming, and already the neon lights were lit.

Reflections of golden arches and big yellow mufflers slid over the oily black curves of the limo. The word Mobil slithered like a blue-and-red snake.

An ambulance went wailing past. Minivans full of parents and kids kept pace with the long black car carrying the most dangerous creature on Earth. Or any other planet.

We saw all this clearly because the screens were on all around the bridge. And we were flying right along, just slightly behind and beside the limo. We were maybe four feet from the back right-side window.

Suddenly, the Galaxy Blaster took a hard jerk left and fired.

TSEEEEW! TSEEEEW!

What looked to us like huge, thick beams of light lanced toward the window. But of course the window was a smooth, black cliff to us. The Helmacron viewscreens didn�t magnify - they shrank. They diminished. So as the beams traveled, they seemed to shrink to bright, insignificant hairs.

<Ahhh! Die, Yeerk! Feel our might!> The Helmacrons yelled like fans at a football game whose team had just scored a home run. Or whatever it is they do in football.

<Again! Again! Punish the arrogant Yeerk usurper!>

TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

Once more there was giddy cheering and excitement. And then the window of the limo began to lower.A puzzled, human face looked out at us.

Visser Three! We knew his human morph. It was Visser Three, unable, even in human guise, to conceal the dark evil within.But right now he didn�t look frightening so much as puzzled. I saw his huge human mouth form the word �What?� And then slowly the expression turned to amazement.
�Helmacrons?� the mouth said silently.

<What words is the creature speaking?> the nearest Helmacron demanded of us.

�He said �Helmacrons?��

<Ahhhh! Yah-haaaah!> the Helmacrons crowed in thought-speak. And from their nasty little insect mouths came �Neep! Neep! Neep!�

<Now feel your terror grow, Yeerk!>

TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

The Galaxy Blaster fired, point-blank, at a face that could have been King Kong looking in the window of a skyscraper.

Visser Three�s human hand slapped his face and came away with two little spots of blood. He stared at the blood for a few seconds, and then his eyes, seething with rage, glared at us.

<See the helpless, quivering terror in him!>

�You see any helpless quivering there?� I whispered to Marco.

�No. That is one p.o.�ed Yeerk.�

And that�s when the chase scene turned deadly.

The limo took a sudden swerve. The wall of steel and glass and the huge malevolent face all came flying toward us, irresistible as a tidal wave.

The Galaxy Blaster reversed and pulled away, but it was a close call.

I saw the bizarre sight of a human the size of the Matterhorn rising from the roof of the limo.

�Sunroof!� Marco said. �It�s a human-Controller coming up out of the sunroof.�

In the Controller�s hand, a gun. And I hate to keep obsessing over size, but the gun he leveled at us was not like a cannon. A cannon would have been a BB gun compared to this thing.

You have to understand, we were a sixteenth of an inch tall. The bullet that would have come flying from that gun was probably ten or twelve times longer than we were tall. I�m a little over four feet, so the equivalent would be a bullet like forty or fifty feet long.

A forty-foot-long bullet.

BOOOOM!

Flames exploded from the gun barrel. Flames like a volcanic eruption. And that bullet the size of a Greyhound bus came flying straight for the Galaxy Blaster.

The Controller tried to shoot the little spaceship with a gun. I'll say that again. The Controller tried to shoot the little spaceship with a gun. I hope he has great aim.

Chapter 20

quote:

The Galaxy Blaster jerked with lightning speed. The biggest bullet in the universe blew past, leaving a brief tornado in its wake.

<He dares to attack us! Unprovoked attack! The foul beast will curse the day he was born!>

Marco looked at me. He was shaking. So was I.

TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

BOOOOM! BOOOOM!

The limo swerved madly. The little ship swerved even more madly.

We lofted up over the top of the limo. The human-Controller was directly beneath us, raising his gun.

TSEEEW!

We fired and the man slapped his head in annoyance.

BOOOM!

Another sperm-whale-sized bullet went rocketing past.

Of course, throughout all this, the Helmacrons kept up their lunatic cheering and yah-hooing and neep-neeping. The extravagant threats and insults flowed constantly.

And then things got bad. The ship went over to the far side of the limo.

�No, you idiots! Oncoming traffic!� Marco screamed.

Through the screens I saw the horrifying sight of a car coming right for us. It was a sport utility kind of thing. Each of the bright, polished bars of the grill could have been an Empire State Building.

�Pull up!� I screamed.

<Up! Up! Up!> some of the Helmacrons shouted.

<Down! Down! Down!> others shouted.

The Galaxy Blaster shot downward. But the four-wheeler was coming at us at an incredible closing speed. A bumper the length of a coastline filled the screen.

And then, by a millimeter, we slipped beneath it. Wheels flashed by. Wind whipped at us. We blew out beneath the back bumper.

Another car was right ahead of us. But the Helmacrons had decided the disagreement over �up� and �down� required some more correction of error. The long swords flashed.

I shrank back against the curved bulkhead and hauled a horrified, fascinated Marco with me.

�We have to get out of here,� I said. �Now.�

�I�m with you. But how?�

�We have to morph.�

�Morph? These guys see right through morphs. We morph wolves or whatever, they�ll just shoot us!�

�It�s all about size,� I said grimly. �We can�t get big enough to fight them. But we can get small.�

�No, no, no, no,� he said, shaking his head.

�No other way.�

�We don�t even know what�ll happen!�

�We have to find out.�

He shuddered. �What, flea?�

I shook my head. �Flea is too out of control. Besides, their senses are weak. I think fly. Very, very tiny flies.�

He nodded reluctantly, clearly afraid. It�s not like I could blame him. We�d morphed flies before. But we were going to be going to a dimension neither of us could even imagine.

Our baseline size was a sixteenth of an inch. If we morphed flies, we�d be smaller in proportion.

And that was very small.

I focused my thoughts, even as another idiotic cheer broke out from the Helmacrons.

I looked at Marco. He was shrinking. So was I.

I saw the spiky hairs shoot from his back. I saw a middle set of legs sprout from his chest with awet sound. His mouth twisted and began to push out. Out and out, into the long, sucking, sponging mouthparts of a fly.

I was still looking at him when the bulging, glittering, multifaceted fly eyes popped out of his face.

Just then, the nearest Helmacrons noticed what was happening.

<You will cry for all eternity for this!> they yelled.

They closed in around us. But now the Helmacrons were big, clumsy, slow-moving behemoths.

They reached for us and missed.

And still we shrank.

I don''t even have the words, honestly.

# ? Jul 7, 2021 04:26

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

I'm absolutely dying at "UNPROVOKED ATTACK!!!"

# ? Jul 7, 2021 06:19

Bibliotechno Music: Dec 30, 2008

Loving Cassie�s �sportsball� comment here.

I know it�s pointless to try to apply logic to this book, but wouldn�t morphing something tiny while shrunk down cause some MAJOR Z-space problems? Wouldn�t their original mass already be in Z-space? At what point does the sheer tininess of this fly morph just �SHNK� them into the void?

And again, I simply cannot emphasize enough how much I love this book.

# ? Jul 7, 2021 16:38

gourdcaptain: Nov 16, 2012

I think the best part is Visser 3's "wtf" reaction followed by "oh god, those jerks" when he recognizes the Helmamacrons? It's a level/type of off-balance that's incredible to see from him.

# ? Jul 7, 2021 16:53

feetnotes: Jan 29, 2008

Seems like there�s some history there� when do we get to the Helmachronicles?

# ? Jul 7, 2021 20:39

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

feetnotes posted:

Seems like there�s some history there� when do we get to the Helmachronicles?

Its a very short book.

# ? Jul 7, 2021 21:08

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP

# ? Jul 7, 2021 21:14

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

quote:

Minivans full of parents and kids kept pace with the long black car carrying the most dangerous creature on Earth.

Epicurius posted:

The Controller tried to shoot the little spaceship with a gun. I'll say that again. The Controller tried to shoot the little spaceship with a gun. I hope he has great aim.

Living in this town must be loving nuts.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 01:54

Pwnstar: Dec 9, 2007; Who wants some waffles?

Its always fun when a serious(ish) series with dangerous antagonists has an episode where the characters have to deal with just a bunch of complete loving idiots.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 02:33

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 21

quote:

We shrank down toward the seemingly smooth deck. But just as the dirt had become rocks and boulders the first time we shrank, the smooth metal floor was now becoming a rugged plain of weird shapes, upjutting points, and cauliflower extrusions.

I was seeing it all through fly eyes. A hundred TV sets, each seeing the same scene from slightly different angles.

The colors were weird. They always are when you�re in fly morph. But now I was seeing things not even flies see.

A huge Helmacron hand came reaching down from heaven to grab me. But as it neared I shrank faster and faster. And by the time it came its closest, I wasn�t looking at flesh anymore.

I was seeing individual cells.

<Aaaahhhh!> I yelled in shock.

<Oh, man!> Marco yelled. <Biology class!>

The wall of cells seemed to be moving in slow motion. Slower and slower. As we got smaller, we got faster. Faster and stronger, relatively speaking. Just as we had when we�d become humans a sixteenth of an inch tall.

The Helmacron hand moved through molasses. The cells of the finger were like irregular bricks in a wall. But these bricks were bigger than we were. A lot bigger.

Some were clearer, more translucent than others in the bizarre light. Some I could see right into.

They were like clear plastic trash bags stuffed with faintly pink Jell-O. Suspended in the Jell-O like so much fruit cocktail were all the cell structures: a big nucleus, only slightly darker than the protoplasm, mitochondria, vacuoles �

<So, that�s what a ribosome looks like,> Marco said. <They aren�t all different colors, like in the textbooks.>

<Who knows what color anything is with these eyes and in this light?> Slowly the wall of cells receded, leaving us as the smallest flies anyone had ever imagined. We were flies smaller than a skin cell.

<Well, they can�t catch us,> Marco said. <But now what are we supposed to do?>

<Get away?> I said doubtfully.

<If we fly for a few weeks we can probably make it two or three feet,> Marco said grimly. He was right. Maybe. <On the other hand, this ship can smash into a brick wall and it probably won�t hurt us.>

<We still have a two-hour limit on this morph. And there�s no way we�re staying in this morph!>

<Hey! We hitch a ride!> I suggested. <Grab that Helmacron finger.>

We fired our wings and took off. I don�t know how far away the finger was in actual distance, but it seemed near enough to us. We flew at shocking speed and caught the wall of cells. My fly feet grabbed on easily enough, and then slowly the cell wall continued to rise away from the floor.

But now, with the cell membrane directly beneath my feet, I noticed something very unsettling.

<It�s � like vibrating,> I said. <The ground. I mean, the cell wall. It�s � vibrating.>

<Yeah. And I don�t even want to tell you why.>

<Tell me.>

<I think those are individual molecules we�re seeing. I mean, not actually seeing, but the way it looks like on a TV screen up real close? All the tiny, shifting, vibrating dots? I think those are molecules.>

I felt sick inside. Fascinated, amazed, but sick. <We�re small.>

<Oh, yeah. We are seriously small.>

<And that�s not the only problem we have. The cell we�re standing on is about to divide.>

Looking down through the buzzing surface of the cell, I could see the nucleus beginning, oh so slowly, to pinch in two.

<Look! The sky!>

From above us a new wall of cells was approaching very slowly. It was coming down toward us at an angle. But a line of darkness was moving across the landscape.

 I said, trying to make some logical sense of the direction of the light. 

<Let�s get off this finger.>

<Why?>

<Because human or Helmacron, you just never know where a person�s gonna stick their finger next,> he said.

I took about three seconds to think about that. I shuddered. <Thanks for that image, Marco. Let�s try for that surface up there. Or down there.>

I fired my fly wings, and even this tiny, the fly could live up to its name. It flew. And it flew like a rocket. A fly is always acrobatic. But now it seemed amazingly fast as well.

Maybe it was all an illusion. Who knows? Nothing made sense at this scale. But I felt like someone had tied rockets onto our hairy thoraxes and lit them up.

We blew through the air, heading up, down, sideways, whatever direction it was.

We flipped in midair and landed on the new surface. It was much like the finger. But we could hope it was safer in the long run.

As the finger slowly pulled away, we looked around our new location. It seemed to be an endless, flat plain. But towering impossibly high above us was a globe the size of a green moon. We could only guess at its extent because it stretched away in all directions. All we could tell was that the wild, rough surface, made up of extravagantly colored cells, was spherical.

<Eyeball,> Marco said. 

We were gazing up at this sight when the eye blazed a brilliant red. I could see the individual eye facets close in rapid response.

But it was more than light.

A wave of heat propelled on a hurricane came rolling across the Great Plains of the Helmacron�s head.

And across the flat head of the Helmacron came something no human eye would ever see. At least not in all its horrifying detail.

I think we both knew right away what it was. But your mind doesn�t want to believe what it�s seeing.

The flash had been the light of a Dracon beam. Light is light, of course, and is equally fast whatever size you are.

But as the wave of energy spreads through the body hit by a Dracon beam, the physiological reaction of cells blowing apart happens more slowly.

Ax explained to us once that this was a unique Yeerk technology. The Andalite shredder whose technology the Yeerks used in developing the Dracon beam kills instantly, painlessly.

The Dracon beam is specifically modified to destroy more slowly. The Yeerks want their enemies to feel the agony of cells exploding.

And now, standing there on cells whose molecules vibrated beneath our fly feet, we saw the line of destruction advance. Cells erupted, exploding like mini-geysers, swelling with steam, blowing nuclei and mitochondria and flaming cytoplasm like shrapnel.

<MOVE!> Marco bellowed, breaking me out of my horrified trance.

I fired the fly�s wings and rose off the skin just as the line of explosion rolled beneath us.

I think it's very much like the Yeerks to take a deadly weapon that will vaporize its victims and say, "You know, this weapon just isn't unpleasant enough.

quote:

Tornado winds, so hot they singed our wings, caught us and threw us through the air. We slammed into each other and instinctively grabbed hold, fly feet clutching fly hairs.

We were thrown like meteors, rolling and tumbling out of control through the air.

Everywhere there was fire. Everywhere there was deep, pounding bass drum noise. We were in a whirlwind that moved with weird slowness and impossible-to-resist force.

We must have been knocked unconscious. Because it felt like much later when I next heard Marco�s thought-speak voice.

<Dracon beam!> Marco said. <The Yeerks must have hit the ship.>

<We were in the middle of a busy highway,> I said, still clutching tight to a fly and thinking its foul body was all the salvation in the world.

 Marco observed.

Still we held tight, till slowly, slowly, the wind did die down, the blast furnace heat lessened. The mad chaos subsided.

We separated at last and flew side by side through the air. Were we still in the ship? Was there a ship? There was no way to tell. Nothing was close enough to see.

We could be anywhere. We could be an inch above the ground or a hundred miles up. We could be within six inches of a person or the last creatures left alive in the universe.

<We have to demorph,> I said.

<We could be anywhere,> Marco said. <We could be in the middle of that highway with a truck bearing down on us.>

I tried to look around, using my fly eyes. But fly eyes aren�t great at distances. Flies have no need to see far. I tried out the sense of smell, but it was like it had been turned off. The scent molecules I would normally have �tasted� were probably too large, relatively speaking, for me to make sense of.

<If we demorph slowly we�ll settle toward the ground as we gain weight,> I said.

<Unless the truck hits us.>

<I�ll go first,> I said.

<Don�t go all heroic on me,> Marco said with a laugh. <If we�re gonna get hit, we�ll get hit together.>

I focused my thoughts, fighting down the fear. And fighting down, too, the urgent desire to get as large as I could as fast as I could.

I felt the changes begin and I backed off. I was larger, three or four times what I had been. And now I could better feel the direction of gravity. But even with my wings held immobile, refusing to answer the instinct to fly, I floated through the air.

I demorphed a bit more. I was now dozens of times larger than I had been to begin with, but not all the way back up to the sixteenth of an inch size.

I was definitely dropping now. I could feel the direction of gravity. I knew up from down. I fell, but slowly. The air still buoyed me up, as well as the most wonderful thermal.

Now, however, my human eyes began to replace the compound eyes of the fly. I saw Marco, like me, a hideous mix of fly and human, half-falling, half-drifting, on the breeze.

Then, far beneath us, I saw the ground. Or at least what might be the ground.

I felt like a parachutist in free fall, spinning and falling, spinning and falling toward the ground. Only instead of a square patchwork pattern of cornfields and roads, I saw what looked like a nest of gigantic snakes reaching up out of the distance.

<Oh, that looks good,> Marco muttered.

But now the breeze was blowing us across the huge snakes toward an area that was more open. It was like an endless pink plain, curved away toward the horizons.

I let myself demorph some more. What other choice was there? I fell faster, but still slowly. I could see the snakes were a bit smaller, though still monstrous. And rather than being snakes, they looked like unbelievably long palm trees.

They were planted in the ground a few miles down. They had rough, slender, waving, bent trunks. And at the top they split in two or three and became rougher.

<Oh, my God, they�re hairs,> I said. <We�re landing on someone�s head.>

<Or armpit,> Marco said.

We came down at the edge of what seemed like a forest on one side and an endless plain on the other.

We fell down through a widely spaced thicket of the rough-textured hairs, down, down toward the scalp below.
It became darker down in the hair forest. And we were not alone.

There were no bright eyes blinking at us from the dark, like in some cartoon jungle. No, the creatures we passed had no eyes. They clung to the scalp at the base of the giant hairs and almost seemed to be waiting for us as we fell.

Eight-legged, clumsy, clanking, awful beasts. They were there by the hundreds. Everywhere around the base of the hairs. In the normal world they were too small to be seen. But to us they were as big as dogs.

<Mites,> I said, fighting an urge to throw up. <Everyone has them.>

<Let�s get big, right now!>

We demorphed the rest of the way, rocketing back to our sixteenth of an inch height. Just as we landed between a pair of mites.

We were now far bigger than the mites. They were like rats to us. And they were not aware of us, interested in us, or able to respond to us.

Still, those hideous mechanical things scared me down deep inside. Fully human once more, we ran at full speed toward the line of hair and scalp.

<Thank goodness they haven�t totally cured baldness yet,> Marco said as we rushed, panting, out onto open, pink scalp.

We could see again. Like humans. And we could hear.

What we heard did not make us feel any better.

<A Helmacron ship,> Visser Three said. <It�s almost � cute � what�s left of it. Hah hah HAH!>

Then a human voice vibrated up through the scalp, resonating beneath us like the biggest sound in the world.
�Congratulations on your defeat of them, Visser!�

<Pah! Defeating Helmacrons is no great honor, Chapman.>

I looked at Marco. He looked at me. �Chapman?� we both said at the same moment.

We were on Chapman�s head. Chapman, our vice principal. Chapman, the head of The Sharing.

Partly bald Chapman.

<Oh, there you are!> a thought-speak voice said.

I jumped about three feet. Or maybe a thirty-second of an inch. My heart was in my throat before I registered the familiarity of that �voice.�

<I�ve been looking all over for you guys,> Tobias said calmly as he swooped down from the sky an inch above us.

It's good to see Chapman again! Even if it's only his head and him being obsequious. Been a while.

But also mites. Everybody has mites, of the genus Demodex, and they live around hair follicles. As much as the idea of them might be creepy, they're actually usually harmless, although in some people they can cause skin rashes. As for what they do all day, Discover Magazine described it thusly.

quote:

How do Demodex mites spend their time? They eat! Some say they eat sebum, but Nutting thought that such a diet wouldn�t be nutritious enough. Instead, he said that they feast on the cells that line the follicle, sucking out their innards with a retractable needle in the middle of a round mouth. On either side of the mouth, D. folliculorum has a seven-clawed organ (a �palpus�) for securing itself to what it�s eating. �All of the structures formed a sharp, offensive weapon,� writes Xu Jing, who first looked at them under an electron microscope. (D. brevis, with its five-clawed palpus, was branded as �less offensive�.)

They crawl! They move about in darkness and freeze in bright lights. The fact that mites have been found on the surface of the skin suggests that they emerge from follicles at night for shadowy strolls across our faces. With their stumpy legs, they�re hardly fast. It would take almost half a day for Demodex to cover the distance from your ear to your nose.*

They don�t poo! The mite has no anus, and stores its waste in large cells within its gut. Nutting saw these as adaptations for a life spent head-down in a tightly closed space. When the mite dies, its body disintegrates and the waste is released. More on this later.

And they have sex! On your face! Their favorite hook-up spots are the rims of your hair follicles. Males outnumber females by three to five times, but this detail aside, Demodex sex lacks much of the horror found throughout the arachnid clan. No traumatic insemination. No cannibalism. The penis and vulva are hidden within the pairs of legs. (Jing wrote that D. folliculorum�s penis �looks like a small candle when it was elongated�. He failed to see D. brevis�s.)

After sex, the female buries into the follicle (if it�s D. folliculorum), or into a nearby sebaceous gland (if it�s D. brevis). Half a day later, she lays her eggs. Two and a half days later, they hatch. The young mites take six days to reach adulthood, and they live for around five more. Their entire lives play out over the course of two weeks.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 04:06

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Yeerks 1, Helmacrons 0.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 04:38

von Metternich: May 7, 2007; Why the hell not?

"Ax explained to us once that this was a unique Yeerk technology. The Andalite shredder whose technology the Yeerks used in developing the Dracon beam kills instantly, painlessly.

The Dracon beam is specifically modified to destroy more slowly. The Yeerks want their enemies to feel the agony of cells exploding."

True? Or Andalite propaganda? The Yeerks have cruel tendencies sometimes, but deliberately causing pain, to the point of making their weapons less effective, sounds a little extreme even for them.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 07:32

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

The Andalites also named their weapon the "shredder" so I don't know how much it painlessly kills/stuns things...

# ? Jul 8, 2021 08:08

Bibliotechno Music: Dec 30, 2008

quote:

I was definitely dropping now. I could feel the direction of gravity. I knew up from down. I fell, but slowly. The air still buoyed me up, as well as the most wonderful thermal.

Ugh, finally. It feels like forever since we heard about THERMALS

# ? Jul 8, 2021 13:34

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Is it weird that I'm now thinking that the existence of the Helmacrons implies some really interesting things about how science and technology work in this setting? They've pulled off some amazing feats of technological miniaturization (no pun intended) to get a working starship that small.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 14:46

Malpais Legate: Oct 1, 2014

The Helmacrons are dumb as hell but hilarious and I love that Visser 3 recognized them. They're basically galactic cockroaches that scream about being CONQUERORS when you can solve them with a can of Raid.

# ? Jul 8, 2021 16:28

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 23

quote:

�Tobias! What are you doing here?� I yelled in sheer joy at seeing him. I also yelled because although hawk hearing is better than human hearing, we were still very small.

<You�re standing on Chapman�s head and you want to know what I�m doing here?> He laughed.

<You had us worried.>

�How did you find us?�

<The other Helmacron ship. The Planet Crusher. Rachel managed to smash it with a tire iron. Knocked it down. Jake grabbed it and clamped it into that vise in Cassie�s barn.>

He landed beside us, sinking his talons into scalp.

�The one my dad uses to hold wood he�s working with?� I asked. My father has a small tool bench in the back of the barn. He uses it to repair cages and fix the barn itself. There�s a large vise mounted on the tool bench.

<Yeah, he got �em in the vise and kept squeezing till they agreed to help us.>

�You didn�t trust them, I hope,� Marco said.

<We�re not idiots. They gave us hostages. Their captain and a bunch of other high-ranking->

�NOOOO!� I yelled.

�You are idiots!� Marco cried. �All Helmacron leaders are dead! They don�t trust anyone living, so all their leaders have to be dead!�

<Say what?>

�Just go with it,� I said. �Are Jake, Rachel, and Ax here, too?�

�And where is here, by the way?� Marco asked.

<Yeah, they�re all here, but in morph. It�s a meeting of The Sharing. Visser Three is here at the secret part of the meeting. You know, where only the leading Controllers attend. He�s playing show-and-tell with the Galaxy Blaster. He smoked it with a Dracon beam, I guess. He�s holding it up and
babbling about the Helmacrons. Chapman is applauding.>

Now that I thought about it, I could feel a sort of concussion that translated up through Chapman�s head. It might be clapping.

And if I looked hard toward the horizon, I could see the tops of other heads. Kind of like a chain of mountains in the distance.

There was a continuous rumble of noise. Speaking voices and occasional applause.

Suddenly, I had a terrible premonition. �Where�s the blue box?� I demanded.

<Well � Ax has it. We�re in that old meeting hall The Sharing uses sometimes,> Tobias said.

<Ax is outside in human morph. He�s waiting till we rescue you guys. Then we�re going back to the Helmacrons to get them to unshrink you.>

�Why would you bring the blue box here?!� Marco raged.

<The Helmacrons want it bad. We couldn�t be sure we could hide it well enough from their sensors. So we had to bring it with us. We can�t lose it. After all, the Helmacrons need it to unshrink you guys, which they�ve promised to do, and ->

�Oh. NO!� I said. �The Helmacrons tracked the Galaxy Blaster and told you where it would be. Then you guys came here with the blue box? Don�t you see? The Helmacrons are going to try and take the blue box! They figure we�ll be too busy fighting Yeerks to stop them!�

<But they�re back at the barn � and � oh, man! Ax! We have to get to Ax! He�s in human morph with human eyes! He doesn�t even realize he has to look behind him!>

Tobias flapped his wings and caught air. He began to fly away, leaving us stranded on the vast, mostly empty plain of Chapman�s head. But Tobias didn�t get far.

<Now we shall destroy all who oppose us!> the familiar, blustering Helmacron voice shouted. <All will cringe and cry and wail and rue the day they first drew breath!>

It flew in low, skimming just a few inches over Chapman�s head, I looked up and saw it zip past.

It was the Planet Crusher.

And it was carrying the blue box.

<Now shall we avenge our bold and brave comrades of the Galaxy Blaster who died like great heroes!>

I looked at Marco. �Brave and bold? They despised the Galaxy Blaster and vice versa.�

Marco roiled his eyes. �The Galaxy Blaster has been destroyed. Now they�re cool. I�m telling you these guys are nuts.�

The Planet Crusher, straining to carry the blue box, stopped and hovered just a few inches over Chapman�s head. Chapman�s head began to turn, following the ship.

The scalp dome tilted down. Down till we could see over the edge of our little world. And there stood a vast, dim, but unmistakable figure.

Visser Three.

Looking unhappy, as well he should. Because the Planet Crusher was aiming right at him.

They fired! The green flash beam bathed the Visser in its light, and as we watched, he began to get smaller.

Of course he did. Of course they decided to shrink Visser Three.

Chapter 24

quote:

O Most Magnificent and Omnipotent One! We have taken the blue box of transforming power! Though the blessed and glorious
heroes of the Galaxy Blaster are gone from us, we of the Planet Crusher shall avenge them!
- From the log of the Helmacron ship, Planet Crusher

Visser Three literally began to shrink from sight.

Chapman immediately made a mad grab for the little ship, but it skipped away easily from his groping fingers.

There was a lot of loud yelling, but no one stopped the little ship from firing again. Again and again. <Jake! Rachel! Ax!> Tobias yelled in thought-speak. <We have problems here! Like right now!>

But I guess they already knew about it. It was hard for me to make sense of what I saw, since I was watching the movement of shapes so vast they might as well have been planets.

But I did make out a humongous wall of gray and pale feathers go flying past, shockingly close to Chapman�s face. It was a peregrine falcon that could have swallowed a blue whale, from my perspective. Talons so big it would take me five minutes to walk from end to end of them came
flashing out, reaching for the Helmacron ship.

It wasn�t about saving Visser Three, of course. It was about the blue box. That box could not fall into Yeerk hands. Indeed, as he shrank, becoming an ever smaller and smaller Andalite-Controller, Visser Three cried out in anguished thought-speak.

<The blue box! The morphing cube! Get it! Get it you fools! Nothing else matters, get that box!>

Total pandemonium followed as huge, shadowy creatures rushed to and fro around our perch on Chapman�s head. There was Jake in his falcon morph, dodging and swerving at incredible speed (although it seemed pretty poky to us), trying to snatch the box from the Helmacrons.

There was Ax, back in his own proper, monstrously large Andalite body, his stalk eyes looking like big, green swimming pools.

And Rachel, so big it looked like her shaggy bear head must be scraping the stars out of the sky.

Human-Controllers ran here and there. I even thought I saw a flash of Hork-Bajir horn rushing past.

It was like this awesome dance of giants. A titan hoedown. And everyone was yelling.

<Rachel! Grab it!> Jake yelled.

�Get the box! Get the box!� various panicked Controllers yammered.

<Get the box or I�ll make every one of you suffer!> Visser Three yelled in enraged, impotent thought-speak.

And of course, the Helmacrons would not shut up. <Scurry in heedless terror, pathetic weaklings! It will not save you from our righteous wrath!>

Everywhere hands and talons and claws were grabbing at the ship. But nothing seemed to connect. Even slowed by carrying the weight of the blue box, the Helmacrons were faster than the blundering mob of Controllers and morphed Animorphs.

<Struggle in vain, pitiful, inferior creatures! All will serve to burnish the everlasting glory of the Helmacron Empire and its mighty warriors!>

Jake, Rachel, Ax, and Tobias were thought-speaking so that only we and they could hear. What they had to say wasn�t encouraging.

<Rachel! Look out behind you!>



<Prince Jake, it is coming your way!>

<Aaaahhhh! No! No! No! They got me. I�m shrinking! The treacherous little ->

�We have to help,� I told Marco, grabbing his shoulder.

�Help? What are we gonna do? We couldn�t beat a mad mitochondrion!�

<Oh, man! I�m getting small!> Rachel cried. Then, a few seconds later, <Okay, now this is way small.>

�They�re going to get all of us!� I cried. I have seldom felt so desperate and helpless. What could we do? What could a pair of ant-sized humans do?

Then I had a brilliant idea. Or at least an idea.

�Marco, I have to morph! I have to be able to thought-speak. And you and I have to get even smaller!�

I focused as well as I could and began to morph to skunk. It was plenty small without being subcellular like a fly. As soon as I was able, I cried out frantically to Tobias.

<Tobias! You have to come and get me and Marco!>

<Why not? I can�t do anything else,> he cried in utter frustration. <The Helmacrons are busy trying to shrink everyone they see. And the Controllers are all chasing them around, trying to grab the blue box. They�re ignoring me! I�m not a threat! But you guys are too big for me to carry.>

<Not anymore.>

I was shrinking rapidly, shriveling from a sixteenth of an inch to something far smaller. But at least I couldn�t see the buzzing of individual molecules at this size.

That was way too creepy.

Marco followed my example, morphing rapidly to mole. Tobias came swooping down to us, himself a sixteenth of an inch long, but now quite large compared to us. He took us up, one in each big talon, and flew away.

<So do we have a plan?> he asked.

<Yeah. It�s all about size, and we keep forgetting that,> I said. <We were shrunk to Helmacron size. A sixteenth of an inch or so. And when we morph something smaller, we shrink from that base height, right?>

<Either that or I�ve been having a really bad dream,> Marco said.

<Okay then. How about if we morph something bigger? Shouldn�t we get relatively larger?>

<Hey, yeah!> Tobias said. Then, <So what?>

<So you said the Helmacrons are ignoring you, since you�ve already shrunk,> I said.

<Yeah. Again, so what?>

<So � do you think you can land on the Helmacron ship?>

This whole thing escalated very quickly.

# ? Jul 9, 2021 03:52

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

This is utterly absurd and amazing

# ? Jul 9, 2021 04:00

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

I can't believe so many people were hating on this book, this is incredible :allears:

# ? Jul 9, 2021 07:26

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Guilty. I remember it being awful, this is the best book of the series

# ? Jul 9, 2021 08:14

Grammarchist: Jan 28, 2013

I'd honestly be okay if every now and again we get a book with random alien hijinks. Like, Visser 3, his minions and the animorphs get abducted by the aliens from Space Jam to compete in a high stakes basketball game.

# ? Jul 9, 2021 08:29

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Yeah, like I remember bits and pieces of this book. Not this ridiculous climax, or whatever way it ultimately gets resolved. (Or that the Escafil cube was involved, for that matter.) But I didn't remember this book as being terrible. Some of the bits, like the microbiology and strange alien culture, were interesting.

# ? Jul 9, 2021 09:15

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

It's definitely not awful. It's weird tonally, especially coming where it did. I don't love it and it was one of the first I started skipping on rereads, just because the jokes aren't as funny the third or fourth time. But it's not nearly as bad as 32 or some of the ghostwritten crap.

# ? Jul 9, 2021 13:00

Pwnstar: Dec 9, 2007; Who wants some waffles?

The Helmacrons are just so good.

* Tiny people who hate anyone bigger than them
* Absurdly violent but incapable of actually harming anyone normal sized
* Complete idiots
* Think they are actually extremely scary and powerful
* Don't trust authority figures so they pre-emptively kill them
* Number one enemy is other Helmacrons

# ? Jul 9, 2021 16:01

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Guilty. I remember it being awful, this is the best book of the series

This 100%. It's such a perfect loving farce and I keep wondering how are they going to undo all of this!?

# ? Jul 9, 2021 17:56

e X: Feb 23, 2013; cool but crude

Isn't there a second Helmacron book, that is a lot worse?

# ? Jul 9, 2021 18:20

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

e X posted:

Isn't there a second Helmacron book, that is a lot worse?

There is a second Helmacron book, yes.

# ? Jul 9, 2021 21:19

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP

# ? Jul 9, 2021 21:21

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 25

quote:

We clung to Tobias�s legs, crawling up into his lower feathers so he�d have the use of his talons. And then we flew.

It was still a melee. Human-Controllers were chasing the Helmacron ship, trying to grab the blue box. The Helmacrons responded by firing their ray and shrinking anyone who came too close.

But they didn�t fire at Tobias. He was no threat. Or so they believed.

 Tobias yelled as the ship came swerving toward us. It shot beneath us, then paused to aim and fire.

In that few seconds of hesitation, Tobias went into a stoop, folding his wings back and dropping like a stone. Or at least like a large grain of sand.

He landed on the top of the seemingly huge Helmacron ship. The surface was encrusted with tubes, equipment, sensor arrays, and various other details, so his talons found a hold.

Then the ship was off again, zipping wildly through a forest of reaching hands.

<See the pitiful efforts of the Yeerk usurpers! They imagine that they will be masters of the galaxy. Hah! It is we, the Helmacrons, who must rule all!>

And frankly, they were pretty pitiful efforts. No one was going to shoot as long as the Helmacrons had the blue box. Everyone was focused on it and it alone.

<Okay, now what?> Tobias asked me.

<Now we morph. You morph to human. Your human morph should be in proportion to your natural hawk size. You should be at least a quarter inch tall! That�s a lot of extra weight for this ship to carry on top of carrying the blue box.>

<It may slow �em down,> Marco said. <But will it stop them? And even if it does, the Yeerks will be able to grab the blue box.>

 I admitted. <But my morph will. Let�s see how well they fly with a humpback whale sitting on top of them!>

<Um, Cassie?> Marco said. <How is a three-or four-inch whale going to hold onto a ship?>

<I�ll wedge myself between the engine nacelles. The bigger I get, the tighter I�ll be wedged.>

<Let�s give it a try,> Tobias said. And he began to morph to human. Morphing is always frightening and disturbing and nightmarishly weird.

But this was a new experience. I was on someone morphing. I sat there, clinging with my little skunk paws to Tobias�s feathers as they began to melt away.

I slipped and landed on his middle talon as it swelled and grew and became smooth in texture. I was right there, inches away, when the toes began to grow. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake. The �ground� rumbled and shook.

Tobias rose, taller and taller, but as he grew he bent low, clinging with still-forming hands to the ship beneath us.

Marco and I began to demorph as well. We would have been a very odd-looking mess if anyone had bothered to look. A nearly invisible hawk, morphing into a boy smaller than a toy soldier, while from his legs there grew two much smaller humans.

The Helmacron ship was still dodging and weaving madly, but we were able to hold on. Our small mass meant that our muscles were more than strong enough.

Tobias, with the two of us on his back, went crawling hand over hand toward the engine pods.

Meanwhile, of course, the Helmacrons kept up their inevitable bombast.

<We will achieve the greatest victory since the dawn of time as the Yeerk usurpers, humans, and Andalites all come to grovel before us! Yeerk and human and Andalite will compete to see which can abase himself further!>

We reached the engine nacelles. They were warm to the touch but not painfully hot. Tobias helped us down off his back. Marco and I just looked up at him and shook our heads.

�Well, this is definitely it,� Marco said. �We have at last achieved Maximum Weirdness. We�re the size of pimples, looking up at a bird-turned-boy who looks huge because he�s maybe a quarter of an inch tall, as we fly around on the back of a toy-sized spaceship, which we hope to crash by having Cassie turn into a whale the size of a baby mouse, so we can defeat a race of lunatics with brains the size of bacteria. That does it, the votes are in, the Oscar for Absolute Insanity goes to us. Everyone go home. We rule the lunatic world.�

Tobias helped to hold me in place. His arm was huge and comforting to me. I don�t know, maybe it was the size of a piece of spaghetti. Probably not that big. Marco was right: We were taking up permanent residence in bizarro world.

�Okay,� I said to Tobias. �Just hang on till I�m wedged in.�

I began to morph. I began to grow. The biggest morph any of us had ever done: the humpback whale.A real humpback is maybe fifty feet long. Maybe twelve times as long as I am tall, give or take.

My baseline now was roughly a sixteenth of an inch. Twelve times a sixteenth of an inch is less than an inch.

But you have to realize that the ratio was for mass, too. In other words, saying �inch-long whale� doesn�t really get across the reality. Because in the real world, a humpback might weigh sixty tons.

So as I grew, the Helmacron ship began to feel a weight on its back. A very large weight � for them.

I grew and grew and grew, feeling massive, despite the fact that I was no bigger than a goldfish.

It hurt a little, being wedged in between the engine nacelles, but at least I wasn�t going to fall.

And then, to our utter shock, a hatch opened in the top of the ship. A pair of Helmacron eyes popped up. Then another.

They climbed out and onto the exterior of the ship with us.

<Stop what you are doing and accept your fate as our everlasting slaves!>

<No,> I said. <I�m going to keep morphing and keep getting bigger �till I drag this ship down.>

<We are the Helmacrons! We are the rulers of the galaxy! All who oppose us will be utterly annihilated!>

�Oh, shut up,� Marco said.

The two Helmacrons gaped at him.

�Just shut up. I mean, shut� up. Shut up! You aren�t the masters of anything! You�re lice, for crying out loud. You�re fleas. You couldn�t go mano a mano with a maggot and hope to win. And that�s sad, because a maggot has no manos.�

Tobias grabbed the two Helmacrons and held them up in the air. Their little legs kicked wildly.

<Bow before us and beg for your lives, abject, insignificant specimens of an inferior species!> the Helmacrons yelped.

�Cassie, morph some more,� Marco said.

I resumed morphing and grew still larger. The Helmacron ship wasn�t dodging and weaving as well as it had been. It was slowing. It was sagging to the rear.

And it must have been losing altitude as well, because the reaching, grasping hands were all around us.

Huge fingers like the columns of Greek temples stabbed the air. Nightmare faces the size of Great Lakes were all around us.

The green ray continued to fire, but now the hands and faces were closing in and the little ship was slowing.

�Give it up, you idiots!� Marco raged at the Helmacrons. �Give it up and Cassie will demorph. Surrender so you can get away!�

<We are the Helmacrons! We will never surrender! All will exist only to serve us! All will be our ->

And that�s when the really, really, really large hand slammed into the side of the ship.

Marco is right. This is the most bizarre adventure so far. I do like the fact that, even though their ship is immobilized and they're being held in the air by Tobias, the Helmacrons are still demanding their surrender. They've got moxie, if nothing else.

Chapter 26

quote:

WHAMMMMM!

CRRRRRRRUNCH!

Gigantic fingers rose above the edge of the ship. Slowly, slowly, they closed around it.

I could see the swirls of fingerprint. Could see the huge, creek-wide creases and folds in the hand. The ship should have been able to get away, but it was too overburdened. The Helmacrons would not release the blue box, and they would not surrender to us.

My plan was looking like a really bad idea. �Demorph!� Tobias yelled.

�He�s right, demorph!� Marco agreed. �Better the Helmacrons than the Yeerks!�

I started to demorph, shrinking as fast as I could.

Too late!

A thumb the size of Manhattan rose from the far side of the little ship. We were caught!

�I have it!� a monstrous voice bellowed, very close by.

And then, from above and behind the thumb, something that looked exactly like a crescent moon - and was just about that big - came swooping in.

Even to us it seemed to be moving fast. It sliced down and down and down!

FWAPPPP!

Ax�s tail blade hit the thumb.

The thumb suddenly disappeared. I heard a world-shattering bellow.

The ship tumbled, out of control, around and around. Tobias let go of the Helmacrons and grabbed the first thing he found to grab. Marco was still so small that he held on with ease, and I was still wedged in place.

A different hand, with more numerous and more slender fingers, reached up and snagged us out of the air.

 Ax cried.

<Then let�s haul!> Jake yelled.

<Jake! Where are you?> I yelled in thought-speak, glad to hear his �voice� again.

<I�m about halfway up Ax�s leg. I don�t know which leg.>

<You�re safe!>

<Not hardly. Rachel and I are not alone. Visser Three and about twenty Controllers are coming up the leg after us. We�ve got a very small tiger and a very small grizzly bear here against Visser Three, who has morphed into some kind of bizarre monster!>

<Ax!> I said. <You have to put us on your leg so we can help Jake and Rachel!>

 Ax said tersely.

He was in a full, all-out run now, clutching the Helmacron ship and the blue box in his two weak Andalite hands. One of his fingers was pressing down on me, so I began to demorph to release the pressure.

Tobias crawled back and grabbed me as I shrank far enough to unwedge myself. He pulled me up to sit on his knee like a toddler. Marco was on his other knee. Tobias was leaning back against one of Ax�s fingers.

I saw the tops of a row of pinball eyes go marching past, just beyond the finger.

�The Helmacrons!� I hissed, now human again. �They�re bailing!�

Tobias twisted his head and caught sight of them, too. He crouched down and motioned Marco to be quiet. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of Helmacrons were abandoning ship, just over in the next space between Andalite fingers.

Tobias was the most visible of us, so he began to demorph back to hawk, making himself much smaller and less obvious to any inquisitive Helmacron.

Marco shook his head and in a voiceless whisper said, �Okay, I admit it. I was wrong. We had not achieved Maximum Weirdness. Now we are at Maximum Weirdness.�

 Ax said, <but I am entering areas where I may be seen. I should morph to human. But if I do, the Controllers chasing me may catch up. Also, they would learn that I have a human morph!>

<They know you have a human morph,> Rachel said. <Or at least they could assume it.>

<Rachel�s right,> Jake said from his distant location on one of Ax�s legs. <You have no choice,

Ax. Morph to human.>

<Yes, Prince Jake.>

I was waiting for Jake to tell Ax not to call him �prince.� But the next thing I heard from Jake was very different.

<Rachel!> Jake yelled. <It�s the Visser! That tentacle! Look out!>

And then Ax began to morph.

<Where should I go?> Ax asked, sounding as frustrated as I felt. <Tobias! Cassie! Marco! Where should I run when I have formed my human legs?>

I tried to stay calm, but now the shouting between Jake and Rachel told of a fierce, deadly battle taking place amid blue Andalite fur.

Where? Where could we go? What could we do? How could we defeat an enemy small enough to be an ant colony? What weapon could we �

And then, with utter simplicity and complete perfection, the answer came to me.

�Tobias,� I said. �Tell Ax not to morph to human. We need to fly.�

<Fly where?>

�To the zoo. We have to go to The Gardens!�

<But why?>

�To reload,� I said grimly. �To reload.�

Cassie has A Plan. Which is good, because Ax just seems flustered, Rachel and Jake are fighting a mini-Visser, Tobias seems vaguely stoned and out of it, and Marco is freaked out.

# ? Jul 10, 2021 05:21

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

quote:

�Okay, I admit it. I was wrong. We had not achieved Maximum Weirdness. Now we are at Maximum Weirdness.�

This is correct for the time being, but I would argue only the fourth weirdest thing that ever happens to them. The third weirdest is the next time the Helmacrons show up, the second weirdest is when they go to Atlantis, and the weirdest involves, among other things, Tobias cutting Hitler's throat.

# ? Jul 10, 2021 05:38

Terror Sweat: Mar 15, 2009

Rosalie_A posted:

there's something you don't feel the impact of when you're reading this at eight or nine.

Thus to all leftists

# ? Jul 10, 2021 06:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 29, 2024 07:53

QuickbreathFinisher: Sep 28, 2008; by reading this post you have agreed to form a gay socialist micronation.
`

Terror Sweat posted:

Thus to all leftists

shut up shut UP I only like this series because I wasn't provided Zoobooks as a child and somehow became a gay ecology Marxist by other means IT'S NOT ABOUT MARCO AND AX'S RELATIONSHIP OR THE BODY CRITICAL PACIFIST THROUGHLINE OF THIS SERIES AT ALL shut UPPPP

# ? Jul 10, 2021 08:55

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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