#LOOK I JUST REALLY WANTED MORE AX AND ELFANGOR INTERACTION OKAY

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

An Animorphs AU, just because.  The idea hit me and I rolled with it.

The black hole looms on every side, swallowing the horizon.  Elfangor presses cold-numb fingertips against the Time Matrix.  Loren’s floating beside him, the thing inside Alloran watching them both with terrible intent.  He thinks get me out of here.  Thinks I want to go home.  His last thought, before consciousness closes away from him in a black void, is of his family.  His scoop.  A wish flower.  A hologram.  Hope.

A being like nothing Elfangor has ever imagined sees the andalite aristh.  It sees inside his mind.

And it laughs.

Elfangor comes awake on the med table of an andalite fighter.  Not what he had expected, or intended.  There’s no sign of the humans, or of Alloran.  Instead, three andalite warriors stand over him.

«Vitals are normal.  Heartbeats are synchronized, but elevated,» the female warrior says.  She has a kit of medical supplies slung over her shoulder, and she’s watching Elfangor with the kind of naked curiosity that directs all four of her eyes his way.

«Thank you,» the captain says.  «That’ll be all for now.  I’ll let you know if anything changes.»

There’s no doubt that he’s the captain.  Nor that the other male warrior is the Tactical Officer.  It’s clear from the way that the medic salutes with her tail blade as she walks out the door, and from the slight tilt that the T.O. gives in return.

That’s all Elfangor knows.  How he got here... Where here is...

«Please identify yourself,» the T.O. says.  The use of please doesn’t disguise the sharpness of his tone.

«Aristh Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,» Elfangor says.  «Formerly of the StarSword, although my most recent posting was aboard the Jahar.  Sir, where are the aliens who were with me?»

The captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, just a single stalk eye each.  «What was the nature of this mission, P— Aristh Elfangor?» the T.O. asks.

There’s something they’re not telling him.  It’s obvious there’s an entire conversation happening in thought-speak right now, one to which he is not privy.

«We found two aliens that had been kidnapped by skrit na,» Elfangor says, because he can’t exactly refuse an officer’s direct request.  «Arbron — my fellow aristh — and I were supposed to help Prince Alloran return the aliens to their home planet.»

«Then the Time Matrix was on Earth when you found it?» the captain asks.

Elfangor freezes.  He didn’t mention the name of the planet the aliens had come from, and he definitely didn’t mention the Time Matrix.

Several other details hit all at once.  The captain — if he even is a captain — looks barely older than Elfangor himself.  The T.O.’s posture is too close, too casual, and the captain is allowing it.  Neither one of them has introduced himself yet.

Elfangor has been trusting the captain automatically so far because — he loathes admitting it — because the captain has the same accent as Elfangor’s hometown and the same cowlick in his fur as Elfangor’s own mother, and Elfangor is so desperately homesick that he seized upon these hints of familiarity without ever thinking about why.

«Just answer the question,» the T.O. says.  The captain places a gentle hand on the T.O.’s arm.

«Sir. I...»  Elfangor rolls to stand, taking several steps away.  He salutes with his tail blade by way of apology, and then quickly drops it in submission.  His hearts are pounding.  He could be anywhere.  Anywhere.  «The humans who were with me...»

«They’re both safe on Earth,» the captain says.  «As is Alloran.»

Elfangor’s main eyes shut in shame.  «Sir.  There’s something you should know about Prince Alloran.»

Again, the captain and the T.O. exchange a glance, definitely whispering to each other in thought-speak.  «Yes?» the captain says at last.

«I failed my prince,» Elfangor says, opening his eyes, «and I failed my entire people.  Alloran has been infested by a yeerk called Esplin nine-four-six-six.»

«Oh, good,» the captain says.  «We were hoping you’d say that.»

Elfangor has jumped back, clear across the room and crouched with his tail blade snapping at the ready, faster than conscious thought.  He’d thought that Alloran’s paranoid mutterings about traitor andalites were just that, but now—

«Hey, hey, sorry, there’s no need for that.»  The captain holds up both hands in placation, a strangely humanlike gesture.  «It’s cool, Elfangor, it’s all cool.»  Now he even sounds like a human.  «I only meant that we’re glad you told us.  It means we can trust you.»

The captain takes a step forward.  Elfangor tenses to strike, and he stops moving.

«When I said Alloran’s safe, I meant that he’s no longer a controller,» the captain says.  «The yeerk inside him has been neutralized.»

«Who are you?» Elfangor demands, not lowering his tail.  «How do you know all this?»

Again, the captain and T.O. look at each other.

«Stop doing that!» Elfangor snaps, too overwhelmed to care about etiquette anymore.

«We were just deciding whether it would distress you less, or more, if we were to answer your question,» the T.O. says.  «And also debating the merits of calling Prince Estrid back in here so that she can sedate you for your own well-being.»

«Menderash is telling the truth,» the captain says.  «You taught me everything I know about tail-fighting, and half the Academy besides.  So if you chose to fight your way out of here, I doubt either one of us would be able to stop you.»

«What...»  Elfangor feels his tail lower slightly from sheer confusion.  «What...»

«You’re on board the Dome ship Intrepid,» the captain says.  «Twenty-three standard years have passed since the mission you just described.  Our Tactical Officer is Prince Menderash-Postill-Fastill.  My name is Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.»

Menderash leaves them alone.  Before he does, he presses the palm of his hand very briefly against Aximili’s cheek, an andalite kiss between lovers.  Elfangor gets his third or fourth shock of the past five minutes.  Normally a warrior, even the significant other of a captain, wouldn’t dare to show affection so openly.

Aximili registers him staring, of course, and tenses.

«You’re... not like other captains,» Elfangor comments awkwardly.

That gets Aximili to smile, eyes crinkling in a way that strengthens the resemblance to their mother.  «I served under two war-princes, both of whom taught me well.  One was considered wildly unconventional by andalite standards.»  He tilts a stalk at Elfangor.  «The other one wasn’t an andalite at all.»

Elfangor blinks.  «Things really have changed while I was gone.»

«Not that much, it would seem.  Prince Jake is...»  Ax makes a see-saw gesture with one hand, still strangely human in his mannerisms.  «The War Council does not officially recognize his position.  Any warrior who has ever seen him lead tends to hold a different opinion.  Alloran himself risked a challenge against a superior officer on Prince Jake’s behalf.»

«Alloran.»  Elfangor’s head is going to fall clean off if things get any more confusing.  «Challenged an officer.  For an alien.»

«In a way, it’s all your fault.»  Aximili’s smile turns fond.  «You’re the one who gave Prince Jake — and four other humans — the ability to morph.»

«I... why?»

«The yeerks were on Earth,» Aximili says simply.

And yes, that really does explain it all.

«The Electorate officials were angry at first,» he continues.  «But you did so much good for the war effort, it wasn’t long before they were putting up statues and naming Dome ships in your honor.»

Elfangor laughs, but stops abruptly.  «I’m dead, then.»  They don’t name Dome ships after living warriors.

Aximili goes still, realizing his error too late.  «Not before ensuring victory over the yeerks,» he says at last.  «You died honorably, doing battle to your last—»

A shudder wracks Elfangor’s body.  Of course there’s no escaping the war.  Of course not.  Of course they’ll make him fight and keep fighting, down to the very last heartbeat.  No end point.  No reprieve.  No other way.  Just a killer.  Just a tail blade and a trigger finger, and nothing in between.

Even after death, they wouldn’t let him be.  Named their war machines after him.  Taught their children to kill and die in his name.

«Elfangor...?»

«I’d like to be alone, if that’s all right,» he says.

Aximili nods.  He salutes briefly — one war-prince to another, this time — and leaves.

The next time they talk, there are a million questions.  Elfangor doesn’t know how he got here, or why he showed up without the Time Matrix.  Aximili can’t explain anything Elfangor saw before losing consciousness, but he does have more firsthand experience with time travel than Elfangor himself.  Haltingly, in fits and tangents, Aximili does his best to catch Elfangor up on everything that has happened in the years he missed.  Some of it makes no sense — Elfangor was a nothlit, and then he wasn’t — and some of it, like Arbron’s rebellion against the Yeerk Empire, fits perfectly.

Aximili gives Elfangor the free run of the Intrepid, and finds him a spare room to get him out of the med bay.  Warriors salute as they pass and call him “Prince Elfangor,” or “sir.”  The official story as recorded in the ship’s log is that he’s a castaway aristh rescued from a damaged fighter.  But the other warriors figured out Elfangor’s identity the moment he appeared unconscious in the middle of their dome, and now gossip follows him everywhere: he’s a war-prince.  A relic.  Most importantly: he’s Aximili’s little brother.  Yeah, the Aximili.

«Am I a prince?» he asks Menderash once, in a moment of weakness.

Menderash has been teaching Elfangor how to pilot.  Ten years ago, Menderash learned how to pilot by watching Elfangor.  They both try not to think about this too hard.

«Why would you ever think that you are not?» Menderash says, and then, «Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»

Elfangor sighs.  He has once again allowed his eyes to drift away from their proper position — one on the altitude, one on the engine lights, two on the viewscreen — to look down at his hands on the controls.  «I barely have any flight experience, for one,» he says.  «And the person who killed all those yeerks, won all those battles... He’s not me.  Not yet, and now not ever.  I think not, anyway.»

Menderash considers.  «You’re asking if our experiences make us who we are, or if we are born the way we will always be.»

«Um, yes.»

«I have no idea,» he says immediately, «but if you don’t stop accelerating into every takeoff like you’re being chased, then I will throw you out of the airlock.»

Elfangor flushes.  «Are you this mean to Aximili?»

«You mean when we’re alone together?»

And now Elfangor is flushing even more, half-hoping the floor will open and swallow him.

Menderash laughs.  «If I am, then I suppose you’ll have to throw me out of the airlock.»

«I’m a powerful war-prince, I guess.»  Elfangor dares to glance over at him.  «So you had better treat him right.»

«Eyes, Prince Elfangor.»  Menderash is still smiling, though.  «I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.»

There are a lot of long conversations with various authorities.  The Andalite War Council’s official opinion is that Elfangor might be the real deal but that they still refuse to acknowledge his existence, and will consider anyone attempting to use Elfangor’s identity an act of treason.  The Electorate defers to the War Council’s insistence on Elfangor’s death, but the representative they get on the phone asks for Elfangor’s autograph anyway.  The Galactic Union of Sentient Species has entirely too much interest in time travel, and also in pretending that time travel doesn’t exist and therefore Elfangor doesn’t exist.

«What are they so afraid of?» Elfangor asks Aximili, after their seventh or eighth attempt at contacting a real authority meets a dead end.  «I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about the Time Matrix, and I mean it.  If I just said it was a sario rip from the Jahar’s engine exploding, no one would ever have to know.»

Aximili looks Elfangor over, clearly deciding how to explain something he worries Elfangor is too young to understand.  «I believe they’re most afraid of you being yourself,» he says at last.

«What?»

«You are a person,» Aximili says.  «You love human rock music.  You have more tells than a ten-day aristh when you tail-fight, and nevertheless manage to win every fight in spite of, or perhaps because of, your unconventional technique.  You almost whacked your own stalks on a low branch yesterday while feeding in the dome.  You fell in love with a human.  You snore.»  He looks out the viewscreen, sighing.  «Elfangor... War-Prince Elfangor... is a legend.  A Dome ship.  An inspiration.  A statue in our shipyard.  Prince Elfangor isn’t clumsy, or nerdy, or anything.  Because he’s not really a person at all.»

Elfangor digests that for several minutes, staring out at the stars.  He thinks he’s a little afraid of this legend.  That he’s afraid of the implications, if the legend really was just a guy like him.

Elfangor doesn’t ask what are you going to do with me.  Doesn’t tell Aximili I want to go home.  Aximili knows, and he can’t do anything about it.  He has an entire ship to run, and almost a hundred warriors to look out for.  Babysitting an aristh is no job for a captain, especially not one on perhaps the most dangerous mission left to the entire Andalite Navy.  They’re hunting an entire ship’s worth of morph-capable controllers, dodging norshk pirates, skirting the hairy edge of kelbrid space.  The other warriors on the ship, even Aximili, seem to consider the whole thing a grand adventure, and everyone seems to expect that Elfangor will want a piece of the action.  Elfangor wants to be done with the war.  It already killed him once, destroyed his life a dozen times; he wants nothing to do with chasing the last of its ragged edges.

Almost a week later, Aximili drops a call invite to Elfangor’s quarters.  It’s a z-space comm link between the Intrepid and a distant planet.

Elfangor feels a chill of unease when the link lights up.  One holo shows Aximili, but the other shows a male human with dirty-blond hair and soft grey eyes.

He doesn’t need the identifier at the bottom of the screen.  He knows who Tobias is, and Tobias knows him.  They stare at each other, at a loss.

«Why don’t you explain what you were telling me,» Ax says at last, breaking the moment.

“Oh yeah, funny story.”  Tobias shifts, shoulders hunching.  Birdlike.  “Prince Elfangor’s still legally dead.  But Alan Fangor, Yale graduate, former Microsoft programmer, resident of the state of California?  We looked into it, and that guy’s still got a Social Security number, a bank account, and a slightly-expired driver’s license.  He owes some back taxes, but we could handle that.”

Elfangor looks at him and Aximili both.  «You’re suggesting...?»

“Only if you want to,” Tobias says quickly.  “And only for as long as you want.  And obviously there’s no reason you would want to.  It was just a suggestion.”

I want, Elfangor thinks, to be anywhere — anywhere at all — that isn’t a sunsforsaken battleship.

He looks at Aximili.  «How far are we from Earth?»

In the shuttle on the way down to the planet, Elfangor thinks he can see some of his own bad influence.  Aximili’s piloting technique is atrocious — he looks at the controls, ignores warning parameters, uses incorrect commands — and yet the inter-atmosphere transition and eventual landing are some of the smoothest Elfangor has ever experienced.  Aximili is talented, even more so for being halfway self-taught.

There are over a dozen humans standing on the landing pad when the ship sets down in the courtyard of the military base, but two step forward from the crowd.  Up close, Tobias looks to be about Elfangor’s own age in human years.  The woman beside him is familiar and yet not, wearing the middle-aged version of Loren’s features.  Elfangor feels his knees lock, and almost stumbles in the doorway.  He’s not sure he can do this.

“Ax-Man!” Tobias says.  “Only gonna be gone for six of our months, huh?”  He spreads strong human arms.  “You haven’t forgotten what an Earth month is, have you?”

Aximili steps past Elfangor, rushing to perform a human embrace with Tobias that involves briefly squeezing their arms around each other.  «You are at greater risk of such an error than I am, my friend.  You know perfectly well that the delay was unavoidable.»

“We’ll overlook it this time.”  Tobias smiles.  “Anyway, welcome to Zone 91, a place that you have definitely never been before under any circumstances.”

«Of course not.»  Aximili is smiling as well.  «Entering Zone 91 without the proper human authorization would have been illegal, and also ill-advised.»

Shorms, Elfangor thinks, watching them.  He’s surprised by a pang of envy.  They’re so clearly family to each other, his son and his brother, and he’s only just met them both.

Loren’s watching them both from across the way.  The longing on her face, he realizes, is just the same.

There’s paperwork.  A surprising amount.  The human authorities are apparently willing to tolerate his existence on Earth, but only after a frustrating amount of documentation. Tobias opts out of all of it, simply disappearing into the sky above during a moment of distraction.

It’s strange, doubly so, when Elfangor remembers that Tobias is demorphing rather than simply morphing to become a bird.  He’s heard what everyone says about nothlits on the homeworld — and he’d believed it, too.  Believed that Arbron was better off dead than taxxon.  And yet Arbron had outlived him by over five years.  Had done more to end the war than Elfangor himself had ever accomplished.

And Tobias is... Not what he’d expected, once he’d gotten over the triple surprise of you have a son — he’s an alien — he’s a nothlit.  Tobias acts as ambassador between the hork-bajir and human authorities.  Tobias has lives in two worlds — three?  Four?  He has a house in a human city, and a meadow out in the wilds.  He becomes an identical copy of Aximili and they race each other across the desert outside, arriving wild and breathless as children while Elfangor and Loren take the far more sedate ride back to civilization in the Army transport Jeep.

For the first time — or maybe the second — Elfangor thinks he can see the appeal in giving up andalite shape forever.

Tobias becomes human again once they’re dropped off, morphing with the same breathtaking speed that Aximili demonstrates.  He leads them through the downtown of a city that has skrit na hawking exotic wares on street corners, gedds shouldering through its crowds, hork-bajir hopping between the roofs of skyscrapers, andalite tourists clustered outside an establishment called Krispy Kreme.  Elfangor looks in all directions at once like a tourist himself, startled that such a place could exist.

“Alientown, California,” Loren comments, when she sees him looking.  “Not its real name, but that’s what everyone calls it.”

«We don’t have anything like this.  Anywhere in the galaxy,» Elfangor says.  «Not where — when — I come from.»

“Blame the Animorphs,” she says, raising her eyebrows at where Tobias and Ax push ahead.  “Although I guess Alloran was pretty instrumental in negotiating the treaties as well.”

Elfangor shakes his head.  He’s never going to stop being surprised, he’s concluded.  He’ll just have to get used to a state of perpetual shock, because this is his life now.  Or he’d like it to be.

When they reach the house, Tobias barely have time to pull the front door open before two different quadrupedal aliens rush outside.  Loren laughs as the larger one rears back and starts licking her face.  Tobias dives to catch the smaller one, scooping it into his arms.  “Dude, Dude, we’ve talked about this,” Tobias croons, cradling the creature.  “You eat birds, birds eat you, it’s a bad deal all around if you don’t stay inside.  You’re an invasive species, bud.  And also really easy to spot from overhead.”

“Down, Champ.”  Loren gently shoves the other animal back onto all four paws.  “You know, I had to have an entire mostly-civil conversation with my skeevy sister’s even skeevier ex to get you that cat,” she tells Tobias.  “And this is how you repay me, by teaching my dog bad manners.”

“He’s retired.”  Tobias buries his chin in the cat’s fur.  “Bad manners and lapsed training are his prerogative.”

“Sorry,” Loren tells Elfangor, shooing both him and the dog inside.  “It’s not normally this...”  She shrugs.  “Chaotic?”

“Since when?” a different human asks, as they step inside.  She’s female, if Elfangor reads her hair and clothing correctly, and moves around using a wheeled apparatus with a small motor.

“This is Kelly,” Loren says.  “And Erica —”  A different human waves from the next room over — “And Elena’s visiting her boyfriend last I heard, but she’ll be back soon, and she also has a dog.”

“I’m with Kelly on this one,” Tobias says.  “Never not chaotic.”  He smiles at Elfangor, still holding the furry cat-thing.  “We didn’t mean to start a collection of stray Animorphs and veteran pets, honestly.”

Loren brings Elfangor through to a room that has screened windows on three sides opening onto their backyard, most of the human furniture pushed to one side.  “The room’s yours for as long as you want,” she tells him.  “We put Ax out here, but he’s away a lot, so it’s yours.  Everyone else tends to go in and out, so I’m afraid there’s not much quiet, but...”  She shrugs.  “Welcome.”

He’s a long way away from the scoop where he grew up.  He’s half-forgotten already what he’d wished for, shaking palms pressed against the most powerful machine in the known galaxy.  He’s in a strange house, a strange city, surrounded by aliens.

«Thank you,» he says, and, «If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay.»

[hermitknut]

Animorphs: The Musical

Okay first off, a disclaimer: I outlined this originally not as a musical that would exist as an adaptation of the books, but as something that is created, maybe ten-fifteen years post-war, within the universe of the books (or more precisely, within my own post-series AU that I roughed out here - TL;DR is that Rachel’s alive and the animorphs as a group aren’t big fans of the spotlight). This affected things in specific ways, but most importantly:

Ax doesn’t want to be focused on - he doesn’t like earth music, and he doesn’t understand this form of storytelling. As such, he plays a smaller role in the show than he might deserve to. 

I can’t imagine them ever telling people on earth certain things (David will be a secret taken to the grave, for example; Aftran/Karen’s involvement may have been kept quiet to protect the (still a tiny child) Karen; and while the role of the Ellimist has been shared with the Andalites it’s not exactly a well-known thing on earth because seriously can you imagine the amount of scepticism)

That said, there’s no reason this version wouldn’t work as an adaptation, it just leaves out certain things that I think we’d all miss if we were watching it IRL. I was thinking more about how the actual Animorphs would feel about their lives going on stage. 

Notes:

1. I’ve used songs from actual musicals as stand-ins, and none of them are exact fits. Mostly they convey the right kind of feel and pace for the moment.

2. Each animorph has a ‘keynote’ through the show; something life-changing that they volunteered. Jake’s and Marco’s were easy; Cassie, Rachel and Tobias elected to keep their real life-changing moments to themselves (Aftran, David, and Elfangor respectively) and so theirs are a little different. Ax asked not to be given one.

3. The morphs are done with puppetry, with little emphasis placed on the transition. For small morphs (bugs and birds), the child actors can operate the puppets themselves; for battle morphs, adult puppeteers form the shape of the animal around them. This means you can see the child actor performing/emoting even within a fight scene. For the style of puppets I’m thinking of, check out the stage adaptation of His Dark Materials that was done a while back by the national theatre (some images here and here). 

4. I’m also working under the assumption that we’re using pretty minimal sets, so big set changes aren’t hugely necessary.

This got SUPER long, so I’ve put it under a cut.

Act 1

The house lights go down. Over the speakers we hear a confused buzz of communication: some thoughtspeech (Marco! On your left! Keep moving!) and some radio communication (military instructions and people panicking). This cuts when the lights slam up, and we’re on the bridge of the Yeerk mothership; everything is frozen; Tobias speaks up, asking how everything came to this? [feel of Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening]

A quick shift takes as back three and a bit years, it’s a busy mall. We see the kids as they are that night: Jake and Tobias bickering over the arcade games; Tobias tagging along; Rachel having dragged Cassie out shopping. There’s a chorus number here to set the mood [feels a little like Hard-Knock Life from Annie, upbeat but work-a-day], interrupted once for each animorph as they explain who they are. Tobias tells us about Jake; Jake tells us about Marco; Marco tells us about Cassie; Cassie tells us about Rachel; Rachel tells us about Tobias. They’re just one-two line descriptions (‘that’s Cassie, who Jake fancies but won’t admit it. Animal nerd.’), just enough to get a feel for who these kids are. The kids meet; decide to walk home together through the construction site.

The whole scene at the construction site has the kids at the front of the stage, looking out into the audience. We never see Elfangor (Andalite diplomatics felt it would be disrespectful to hologram him, so the director worked around this). But Tobias speaks to the audience, narrating the events of the scene (it stays fairly brief, but meaningful) and speaking Elfangor’s words (after all, he’s the one who has the right to). As they flee the scene, Chapman (whose name is changed for the show) is identified as a controller, and Tom with him. 

The next day the kids end up at Cassie’s barn. They’ve all tried morphing, and now it’s time for the debate about what they’re going to do. The song of this argument is reminiscent of My Shot from Hamilton, but less solo and more alternating between the characters. Marco cutting in (like ‘Geniuses, lower your voices’ and later ‘I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory’ in the original) in counterpoint, arguing to protect themselves and their families, Tobias impassioned, Jake mediating, etc. They conclude, of course, that they’ll fight - and Marco will be with them, for now.

The first keynote is Tobias’s, opening when he comes to Jake after their first mission (not seen on stage) and can’t change back from hawk. He sings us through his journey from book #3, describing his first kill and the mall fly-through as the chorus shows us it in freeze-frame behind him [my closest match is with Deep Into The Ground from Billy Elliot, but it needs more fear/climax in it to work].

Montage time! The fighting and spying begins in earnest [Solidarity, from Billy Elliot]. As the music shifts between its two threads, we have quiet moments that continue the story - Ax is rescued in a brief scene, and Eva is revealed as the host of Visser One - but the fight returns and there is no time to stop and recover. Marco’s character shifts towards the end of the song and Cassie remarks on how much more dedicated he is now.

Rachel’s keynote now [imagine something similar to Your Obedient Servant from Hamilton, but sung all by one person swinging between aspects of their personality] consists of some emotional elements of #32 blended with #12; no plot as such, just Rachel trying to establish herself as rightfully furious with the world as it is as her father moves away and her life becomes more violent.

Go straight to Cassie’s keynote, which incorporates parts of #29; her friends are no longer there and she is going to the Yeerk pool alone, cooperating with the Yeerk Peace Movement (her interaction with Ilim standing in, in the show, for the big shift of perspective in #19) and struggling between not wanting to hurt anyone and not wanting to abandon her friends [feels like Burn from Hamilton].

The build of the end of Act 2 is largely instrumental [feels very like Angry Dance from Billy Elliot] - it’s another montage sequence, but this is darker and faster and much more violent. The kids are thrown about, they lose limbs in morph and get back up; the stage is relatively dark with flashes of dracon fire; hologram hork-bajir and taxxons storm across the stage; Jake comes within an inch of having to kill Tom only to be pulled away by Cassie. Human controllers are out in force, trying to hunt them down. Visser Three is heard over the speakers. The final moment of the sequence sees the kids crawl, exhausted, into bed (the beds are a level up, right at the back of the stage), only to jerk awake; their parents call out and ask if something’s wrong; the kids reply together ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ Lights out. End of Act one.

[interval where the actual animorphs in the audience eat way too much ice cream and cling onto each other a lot]

Act Two

A startlingly bright open [think The Nicest Kids In Town from Hairspray [warning for racial slur in that song], and even some of the lyrics work] - it’s the Sharing, posters and flyers everywhere, full on Disneying it up with upsetting cheerfulness as the Animorphs slip between them at school, battling exhaustion and deadlines. We see Marco forcing himself to grin at the mirror; Cassie pick out a sliver of Hork-Bajir flesh from between her teeth; Jake trying to act normal around Tom; Rachel flipping off someone trying to flirt with her. 

We ease straight into Marco’s keynote as he skips school to get away from all of this stuff, ending up in town where he sees Visser One. Marco’s keynote is then #30, compressed into one song [feels like The Room Where It Happens from Hamilton, with the idea of the ‘bright clean line’ of ruthlessness repeating through the song]. When the song stops we get the ‘Mum’ ‘It’s the boy’ exchange; Eva falls and all the lights cut except a spot on Marco, who tells us that he doesn’t remember how he got down from the mountain. Cut to Marco and Jake in the forest when Marco comes back to himself. They part.

Some indication that time has passed, then we move on to Jake’s keynote - which is, of course, #31. Jake walks in on Tom and his father arguing (Tom: ‘FIVE DAYS?!?!’ Jake, aside: ‘...Five days?’), slips the other animorphs and we have the build to the scene on the docks - use a stage-revolve to show Jake frozen and Tom with the knife behind his back. It ends in chaos, and Jake pulling Tom out of the water; and meeting Marco’s eyes from across the stage, a nod of acknowledgement. [I have And All That Jazz from Chicago as a stand-in for this because of the way it builds, but really I need something with more spirals of desperation and less pizzazz].

We then move quickly through the big reveal - rescuing all the families except Jake’s - and go to living in the Hork-Bajir valley. The kids decide to recruit the auxillary animorphs, and go to the hospital [Right Hand Man from Hamilton]. For logistical reasons, James is the only one you actually see on stage.

We have a moment of peace/tension on the brink of the final mission [Who Wants To Live Forever from We Will Rock You, but probably shorter].

The final fight is shown in glimpses and flickers, until we’re on the bridge of the mothership again where we started. The Blade Ship goes down but Rachel and Tom survive (I’ll write why into an AU one day, but for now I ask you to just go with it). The six kids end up on stage, pulling close together, holding hands, frightened of the world to come [probably an unholy mix of Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story from Hamilton and Stay I Pray You from Anastasia. Everyone is sobbing]; the lights narrow until only they are lit, and they’re asking if they’ve done enough...

Lights down. End of Act Two.

~

So uh. Yeah. That was super long and now I’ve got to dash, but please do let me know what you think XD

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What if Ax joined the team in the first book?

[Someone asked me what would happen if Ax joined the team at the same time as everyone else.  Whoever it was: sorry that I lost your ask; drop me a line so I can credit your idea.]

When Aximili asks to come along for the fight, Elfangor — against his better judgment — relents.  «Stay close,» he says, and «Don’t touch anything.»

«Yes, Prince Elfangor,» Aximili says.

Elfangor flashes him a quick smile, stalk eyes only.  The use of the title shows that Aximili understands the seriousness of the situation.  This is no driftball game where they can argue over the rules.  This is combat, and thus Elfangor’s word must be law.

Elfangor knows he made the right call.  That Aximili is mature enough to be cabin boy (as the humans would say) for the GalaxyTree.  He was right to insist to his captain that his little brother is ready for combat, aristh or no.  And he proves to be right in letting Aximili come along in his fighter.  Otherwise, Elfangor is reasonably certain, Aximili would have perished along with the rest of their crew.

It’s mere seconds into the battle that the Blade ship’s dracon cannon strikes the Dome ship square in its broadside.  Mere minutes that pass between the T.O. first spotting the yeerks and a thousand warriors crying out in a single thought-speak shout of despair, only to be horribly silenced.

In that moment, Elfangor’s mind races in a dozen directions at once: Andalite fighters aren’t equipped for planetary landfall.  The Time Matrix is down there on that planet.  The G-force of attempting to reach it could kill them both.  There’s an Escafil device stored in his fighter’s center console.  The yeerks are on Earth.  Loren is on Earth.  Tobias is on Earth.  Aximili is right here in the fighter with him, sharing the risk and the blame if anything goes wrong.  The Time Matrix... The G-force... The Blade ship... The humans...

Elfangor makes an impossible choice, because all the choices are impossible.  «Strap in,» he tells Aximili.  «Brace for impact.»

Aximili doesn’t ask.  Doesn’t point out that Elfangor’s out of his mind.  Instead, he scrambles for the crash harness.

A nudge of the controls.  Almost slowly, almost gently, the little fighter surrenders to the planet’s gravity well.  It tilts.  It slides.  And it starts to accelerate.

Elfangor yanks back on the thrusters with all his strength, even as the hydraulics scream at him and the craft judders with hull-cracking force.  They are become a meteor, arcing across Earth’s sky in a jet trail of flames.

Bracing all four hooves against the floor, Elfangor struggles for fast calculations of half-remembered geography.  That’s North America... That’s the west coast... No, no, further south, struggling to force the craft to obey... That patch of light must be Los Angeles... That satellite is San Diego...

Aximili is whispering the oaths to prince and people and honor, the oaths repeated before death.  He does not have to do it so that Elfangor can hear, and yet he seems to want to share this small comfort before the end.

Elfangor slams the secondary braking system into place.  The craft goes from thousands of miles an hour to mere hundreds in half a second.  Gravity flips sickeningly.

Aximili, safe in the harness, gets jarred but nothing else.  Elfangor, who had no time to join him, slams into the far wall with a breath-destroying crunch.  He staggers to his feet, weak gasps of pain escaping without his permission.  He’s bleeding internally, ribs broken, his lower heart sending out horrible judders of pain with every beat.  He remains hopeful, however — until he looks down and sees a wasteland of concrete and half-finished buildings where an empty field should be.  «No,» he whispers, helpless.  «No.»

«Elfangor...?»  Aximili’s voice is so tentative it verges on inaudible.

Elfangor is staring at the nav screen showing a familiar set of coordinates and also at the fifteen feet of solid cement between him and the Time Matrix.  Still, a part of him refuses to believe.

He lands anyway.  Stumbles out, just to be sure — and finds himself face-to-face with five human children.  Five children on a planet on the brink of subjugation.  Five children surrounded by threats on all sides and yet unknowing and defenseless.  Five children, one of whom has Loren’s wide grey eyes and soft yellow hair and the round-shouldered build of a long-lost human named Alan Fangor.

«Aximili,» Elfangor says.  The yeerks are coming.  Visser Three will kill him, either now or after the kind of hunt that will tear this planet apart.  Better to let it happen now.  Better to use these last moments to give Earth a fighting chance.  «Come out here.  Bring the Escafil device.»

Ax is reeling, spinning, too far into shock to take it all in.  Elfangor is dead.  Dead because of Visser Three, the Abomination.  Dead partially by his own choice, as well.  Because when Ax tried to insist that they stay and fight, or that they morph and run, Elfangor held up a hand to stop him.

«Aximili, I can’t explain everything right now, but this is what has to be done.»  His private thought-speak was rushed, harried.  «I need you to go with Tobias and the others.  They’ll keep you safe.  And they’ll need you to guide them.»

«I can’t do this,» Aximili had whispered.  «I don’t know enough, I don’t know how...»

«Aristh Aximili, formerly of the GalaxyTree, formerly of Mother and Father’s awful lopsided scoop they’ll never get around to fixing.»  There had been a catch of emotion to Elfangor’s voice, thought-speak letting more leak through than the words alone.

Aximili felt himself go cold all over, knees locking, breath struggling with unshed tears.  He understood a field promotion when he heard one.  He knew what was coming.

«I hereby relinquish my command to you, Prince Aximili.  I do so in utmost trust that you will serve our cousins faithfully, both on the homeworld and here, though we are far from home.»  Elfangor bowed his head.  «I am the servant of the People. I am the servant of my prince.»  He lifted his eyes to look straight at Aximili, leaving no chance that he could be referring to their captain.  «I am the servant of honor. My life is not my own, when the People have need of it. My life is given for the People, for my prince, and for my honor.»

It went against everything they’d been taught, but Aximili allowed the tears to fall then.  He’d listened, one last time, when Elfangor told him to take the humans and run.  To flee this place and not look back.  To avoid knowing what was going to happen next.

They take Ax (they call him Ax; he doesn’t care) back to the house of the human called Jake.  Ax staggers along, awkward on two legs.  He acquired the human called Tobias, for now.  Later, he will have to make himself a properly unique human morph, but for now he’s too sick at hearts to perform a proper frolis maneuver.

The humans were very concerned with putting artificial skins on Ax’s human shape; the two females refused even to look at him until he wore a windbreaker from the human called Jake and the human called Rachel had fashioned him a sarong of sorts from her overshirt.

“My parents are going to think that Tobias is a raging nutjob, but that’s okay because they’ve never met him before,” Jake says, by way of apology.

“Nutjob.  Nut.  T-t.  T-job.”  Ax understands most of the words, but for those two.  It’s comforting, even in this strange shape, to allow the dual click of his human tongue: once at the very front of his mouth for T, once further back for J.  “T... Tuh.  Juh.  T’Juh.”  The repeated motion calms him, keeps him from thinking.

“Yep, you’re really proving my point right about now.”  With a sigh, Jake pushes the front door open.

Jake shepherds Ax up to his room after a bare minimum of interaction with the rest of the family.  He offers a padded tube known as a sleeping bag (Ax declines) and assures Ax more than once that they’ll work out a better solution tomorrow.  Ax finds the human dwelling strange and uncomfortable; it is all blocky angles and enclosing walls.  He cannot even see the stars, and the thick fabric covering the floor proves to be inedible.  After demorphing, he folds himself into a  corner to try and sleep.

At first Jake asks many questions: about Elfangor, about morphing, about yeerks and controllers.  Ax does his best to answer without giving too much away.  Finally Jake’s voice tapers off, his breathing becomes slow, and he starts to make a steady noise that Ax will later learn is called snoring.

Ax tries to sleep.  He lists z-space theorems in his mind, breathes slowly, tries to think of nothing.  He recites the ritual of death.  Recites it again.  Continues to turn the phrases over in his mind.  Hoping that soon they will take on meaning and cease to be mere words.

They are both awakened the next morning by a staccato tap tap tap against Jake’s window.  Jake sits upright, rubbing at his eyes.  “What the...?”

There is a small quadruped balancing on his windowsill, batting at the glass with one front paw.  «Let me in, would you?» says the quadruped, in a voice that Ax recognizes as Tobias’s.  «I’m still learning how to balance as a cat, and it took me forever to get here.»

With an ease startling to Ax, Jake rolls to his feet and shoves the window open with strong human arms.  “How are you doing this?” he asks.

��How long have you been in morph?» Ax says over him, alarmed.  Elfangor told the aliens about the time limit last night, and Ax emphasized it again after they left the construction site.  This kind of behavior — morphing unsupervised, using an untested animal, failing to track the time — is shockingly careless.

«Not sure.»  Tobias drops lightly to the ground.  «This is hands-down the coolest thing I have ever experienced.  I don’t know how you andalite types ever get anything done, with this kind of fun to distract you —»

«Demorph immediately!»  Ax speaks so sharply that both Jake and Tobias stare at him.

«Okay, but I’m kinda naked—»

«It is imperative that you demorph!  Do you wish to become a nothlit?»

«Fine, fine,» Tobias says.  To Ax’s enormous relief, he is resuming his human form as he speaks.  «What’s a nothlit?»

Jake removes some artificial skins from the much smaller room adjacent to his desk and hands them to Tobias.

«A nothlit is a person who has become trapped in morph and cannot resume andalite shape,» Ax says.  «The process is irreversible.  Fifteen percent of andalites in the first generation ever to morph suffered this fate.  It is the terrible price of this gift.»

“Huh.”  Tobias finishes pulling one of Jake’s garments over his head.  “And then what happens to them?”

«They are trapped.  Unable to demorph.  Forever.»

“Yeah, but I assume you, like, accommodate them as animals or whatever, right?  You said fifteen percent of some groups.  So there’s probably a lot of people like that, and you probably have some fancy tech to help them do stuff, right?”  Tobias’s eyes are wide in what Ax is beginning to recognize as a human expression of hopefulness.

Ax shifts position on the carpet.  «No.  Not really.  They are usually secluded from society.»

“What, just because they’re stuck as cats forever?”

«They are vecols.»  Seeing Tobias’s confusion, Ax clarifies, «warriors who are permanently wounded.  It is best to allow them their privacy, apart from mainstream andalite society.»

“Separate but equal, huh?” Jake says, a darkness to his tone that Ax does not understand.

«Yes, exactly,» Ax says.

Tobias and Jake look at each other.  Tobias makes a wordless sound in the back of his throat.

“So much for the superior alien society coming to enlighten us,” Jake mutters.

«It is for their own good,» Ax tries to explain.

“Oh, so you polled every single one of them, and they prefer the ghettos to —”  Jake cuts himself off.  “Okay, this is not what we need to talk about.  Aliens.  Yeerks.  Let’s go get the others, yeah?”

The next few days are... overwhelming.  All of them assemble near the home of the human called Cassie, in a space filled several other species of Earth animal.  They have questions for Ax, dozens of questions, and they talk over each other in their eagerness to learn about andalites and thought-speak, interstellar travel and dracon beams.  Marco and Cassie want to recuse themselves from the war entirely, while Tobias and Rachel want to throw themselves headlong into the fight with an eagerness that shows they don’t truly understand how hopeless the fight will be.

Ax does his best to tell them what he can, while keeping state secrets to himself.  He reminds them time and again to be careful when morphing, because it’s the only thing he knows that they must be told.

He doesn’t know how to lead them.  He’s not qualified to be a war-prince.  He has no idea how to balance Seerow’s Kindness against their demands to understand why their home is being invaded and destroyed.

In the end, Tobias helps Ax set up a scoop in the woods.  Jake’s appalled at the idea of Ax being alone out there with no human domicile, but eventually Ax succeeds in impressing on him that this is what he wants.  Finally he wins them over.  It’s a relief, to be out in woods that are not quite familiar but nevertheless closer to what he knows from the homeworld.  It gives him the chance to be alone, away from the aliens and the infinite answers he doesn’t have for them.

All of the humans come by with gifts for his scoop: books, a small television, magazines and newspapers, a material called plywood that keeps out the rain.  Marco provides several cans of a delicious substance known as Spam, and an even more delicious condiment known as kerosene.  Their worry is... touching.  But Ax also suspects it is not right.  A prince should look after his warriors, not the other way around.

At their next team meeting, Ax walks in to find an ongoing argument between Marco and Jake.

“You don’t have any proof,” Jake is saying.

“That cop knew him.”  Marco crosses his arms. “That cop, who was definitely a controller, was like ‘oh, you’re Tom Berenson’s brother?  Never mind then.’  Not to mention the fact that you said yourself he’s been acting weird.  And yeah, him deciding to give us the ninth degree about UFOs and how we know Tobias was really fucking weird.  So you just don’t want to admit that your brother —”

Which is when Jake hits Marco across the face with a closed fist.  Marco staggers back a step, cursing and cupping his jaw.

“Stop!” Cassie shouts.

Marco presses the heel of his hand to his swelling lower lip.  “Tell me I’m wrong,” he spits.  “Tell me the Sharing isn’t sketchy as hell.  Tell me the way he talks about it is totally normal.  Go ahead.  Look me in the eye and tell me you actually believe that.”

Jake is gasping for air, face flushed, staring around himself as if lost.  His knuckles are bleeding.  “Ax,” he says.  “Ax, I’d know, right?  I’d be able to tell if — If —”

They’re talking about Jake’s older brother.  Ax briefly met the human in question on that first night, and didn’t get much of an impression one way or another.  “I don’t know,” he says at last, very slowly.  “I have not known... nnnnooonne... any controllers.  Oll-lers.  The yeerks can access all the memories of their hosts, so it would be possible... ssssib-bble...”

“Possible.”  Jake takes a breath.  “Possible.  But not guaranteed.  So we... we use this morphing thing.  We go to a Sharing meeting, and we prove that there’s nothing wrong with the Sharing, because Tom would never get involved with a yeerk organization.  In the process, we prove that there’s nothing wrong with Tom.”

It occurs to Ax that he shouldn’t allow his team to take this kind of risk, especially not for the sake of a single human who is likely lost to yeerk control already.  He knows, too, that Jake may even be right about his brother being unlikely to join the yeerks willingly, but that it makes little difference if so.

Only, the thing is, it occurs to Ax as well to wonder what he would do if it was Elfangor who’d been taken.

“We can do this,” he says aloud.  “Th—ssssss.  But we must be careful.”

Ax’s suspicions about Marco’s suspicions prove to be correct.  Tom, and most of the Sharing’s other full members, are in fact controllers.  Jake proves to be right as well that Tom isn’t voluntary, sparse consolation though it is.  Ax doesn’t like Jake’s plan to go charging down to the yeerk pool to free Tom and the other hosts, but this is a human affair and perhaps a human decision.  So he goes along with them to acquire DNA — and when Cassie gets taken, he commits fully to leading his first-ever battle.

“Tobias has been in morph for kind of a while, right?” Jake asks Ax as they walk to the middle school.

Ax has warned Tobias already about timing; he doesn’t feel capable of doing it again.  “I am sure that Tobias knows how to be safe,” he says.

Ax has read about battle.  Studied it extensively.  Listened to Elfangor’s stories, asking incessant questions.  Learned all the theories.  Even watched holos of famous fights.  In short, he is as prepared as it is possible for an untested aristh to be.

He knows nothing of war.

The battle happens all at once, from more directions than even he can watch with stalk eyes scanning frantically all around him.  Humans and animals and hork-bajir and taxxon clash and scream, shoot and claw and die.  Blood slicks the floor, spilled kandrona slopping over the sides of the pool as bodies crash down among the yeerks.  He doesn’t know who is a controller, who is a host, who is a friend or an enemy.

Hork-bajir charge him, dozens of blades at the ready.  He bashes them back with frantic graceless tail swings.  A taxxon is already down, intestines spilling across the floor, before he has time to plan the strike.  No time to think.  No time to feel.  Exhaustion and foreign gravity drag him down.

He’s going to die down here.  He’s going to die like his brother, slaughtered on an alien planet and devoured.  He’s going to die, and his parents will never learn what happened to either of them.

«Ax! Ax!»

He strikes at the shape.  Luckily fatigue slows his swing.  Luckily Jake ducks with cat reflexes.  Too late he registers blood-matted orange fur.

«We’re losing ground,» Jake says, gasping for air.  «Time to get the hell out of here while we still can.»

«But...»  Ax is crazy; why is he objecting?  «But we haven’t saved anyone... We haven’t...»

«This is— Ax, we stay, we die.»  He’s right.  He’s right.

«We go, then,» Ax says.  He’s a failure.  A coward.  He’s running from his duty.  If Elfangor knew— «Everyone!  We have to go!» Ax shouts.

Rachel raises her trunk, bellowing.  She shoulders aside controllers and hosts alike, clearing a path for the rest of them.  She’s not going to make the stairs, not with that bulk.  Marco is loping behind her, but Cassie is pinned down by three hork-bajir clear across the room.  There’s no sign of Tobias.

His warriors are dying around him.  He doesn’t know what to do.  All the choices are wrong.  Enemies are on all sides, far too many to fight.

«Help Rachel and Marco!» Jake calls.  «I’m going for Cassie.»

Ax doesn’t question.  He leaps, clearing the heads of a dozen human-controllers, and lands next to Marco.  Together they brutalize their way forward, cutting down or shoving aside anyone that gets too close.

The battle swells and screams and roars around Ax.  It’s too much to keep track of.  He loses Jake and Cassie, still hasn’t found Tobias.  All he can do is keep swinging, keep yanking his tail back bone-sore and flinging it gore-slick into yet another hot sick piece of flesh.

He stumbles over a small protrusion in the floor.  Marco steadies him roughly.  It’s the first stair.  He struggles up the first several too-small steps, hooves sliding on the blood-slick stone.

Rachel is shrinking, half-crushed by the crowd of fleeing hosts.  She goes down.  Marco and Ax haul her upright.  They pull her forward with unforgiving speed in spite of her many injuries, trying to keep the mob from eating her whole.  Ax feels the strange sizzling non-pain of a fourth-degree dracon burn along his left hind leg.  His collapse halted by the press of the crowd, he shoves onward.

Ax bursts into the bizarre empty quiet of the high school hallway.  Marco is just ahead of him, carrying Rachel with her face hidden against his dark fur.

Half a dozen hosts are fleeing in every direction.  «Godspeed,» Marco murmurs, looking after them.  His thought-speak is shaky with unshed tears.

It’s nearly a half an hour — long enough for Ax to show Rachel how to morph to be rid of injuries — before there’s a clatter of hooves.  Cassie, still in horse morph, bursts through the doorway.  Jake is slumped across her back, clinging to her mane with the arm that isn’t severed at the elbow by a hork-bajir blade.  His right side and Cassie’s entire flank are soaked with blood.  He slides off the moment they’re safe, green-white with shock.  Ax rushes to his side to tell him to morph.

When Jake has morphed and demorphed, he slowly sits up.  He looks from where Rachel is punching a locker door repeatedly to where Marco crouches over the custodian’s sink to vomit.  Finally, he looks up at Ax.  “Where’s Tobias?” he asks, soft and hoarse.

Rachel whirls away from the locker she was abusing.  “We thought he was with you!”

They all stare at each other in silence for several more seconds.

Jake curls forward to bury his face in his hands.  “We have to go,” he says into his palms.  “If... if I don’t get home before Tom does...”

There’s another long moment of silence.  Marco becomes the first to turn and walk away.

Tobias finds Ax, later that night.  He’s not dead, anyway.  And he’s not a controller, not in that form.  Ax knows better to voice such sparse consolation.  He can’t offer hope, not really.  Instead he does his best to listen, and to let Tobias say what he will.

Their next meeting in Cassie’s barn is... tense.

“How could we let this happen?” Jake demands.  “How could we have done this?  I should have known—”

«Jake...» Tobias says.

“Anyway, I’m out.”  Marco stands up.

“Fine, then get out!” Rachel shouts.  “What are you waiting for?  Go run home to Daddy!”

“What I’m waiting for is to see if I can convince any of you people to come with me!” Marco says.  “Because, for the record, we should all be out.”  He takes a breath.  “Ax... Jake... I know you both have more of a stake in this.  But...”

“It’s your call, dude,” Jake says.

“Okay, but back to the real problem,” Rachel snaps.  “How do we fix Tobias?”

Ax takes a step back.  She didn’t look directly at him, but both Jake and Cassie did.  «I... I wish that I had more answers... Escafil’s paradox of zero-space delay...»  He has no answers.  No words.

«In short: we don’t.»  Tobias jerks his head.  «So.  Guess I’ll be hanging out with Ax a lot more in the future.»

“But even if we can’t demorph him...”  Cassie is definitely looking at Ax.  So is everyone else.  “There has to be something we can do, right?”

Ax’s tail hits the stall door behind him.  He’s been backing away from them the entire time.  His chest heaves with panic, eyes skittering from one target to another.  Except Tobias.  He can’t look at Tobias.

“Ax?” Jake says, and then, “Hey, Ax, hey.  Just, just, take a second, okay?”

“Take a second?”  Rachel crosses her arms.  “He’s the one who got us into this, and now Tobias—”

«I’m a fraud!» Ax bursts out.  He’s shaking, still gasping.  «I don’t know what I’m doing — I’m just a stupid incompetent kid.  I ran last night, like a coward, and I left Tobias to be killed.  I’m not a war prince, I’m a fake!  A stupid, useless fake!»

Tobias flutters down to land on the stall door across from him. «There’s a big difference between being inexperienced and being a liar, Ax-Man.»

«You don’t — You don’t understand.»  Ax wraps both arms around himself.  «I can’t lead, I can’t do anything right. I have less than four months of training from living on the Dome ship, and even that was only because of being Elfangor’s brother.  I never should have tried to pretend to be a war-prince, because I’m not.  I’m not even a warrior.»

“And, what, you think any of us are?” Jake asks quietly.  “We’re all dumb kids with even less training than what you have.  But we all went down there anyway.  Not because you told us to.  Because I asked for it.”

«I still had responsibility for you all,» Ax says miserably.  «And I failed you.»

“You screwed up, yeah,” Rachel says.  “So do better next time.”

“Next time?” Marco demands.  “You saw that place— You heard— Are you out of your mind?”

She rounds on him.  “You’re right.  I saw.  I heard.  There are little kids down there right now, Marco.  My cousin is down there.  And so are thousands of other people.  If you’re too much of a coward to do anything about it, that’s your problem, but I’m not letting that stop me.”

«I’m still gonna do what I can to help,» Tobias says.  «So count me in.»

“I’m in too,” Jake says.  “Ax?”

«I can’t lead you,» Ax insists.  «I can’t.  It wouldn’t be right.  It’s not my place.»

“Hate to say it, but we need a leader,” Cassie points out.  “Ax, we can’t make you do it if you don’t want to. Tobias, should you lead us?”

«What?  No!  I’m nobody’s leader.»

“Okay, okay.”  Jake looks around.  “We don’t have to decide this right now.  We’re all tired, so let’s just take a breather and meet back here tomorrow when we’re clearer headed.  Yeah?”

None of them argue.  Cassie and Marco murmur agreement.  Rachel’s already turning away, asking Tobias where he plans to stay tonight.

Interesting, Ax thinks.  The vote isn’t until tomorrow, but he suspects he knows already who they’re going to choose.

Jake is not what Ax would’ve expected from a prince.  He calls for a vote any time there’s a major decision to be made.  He always explains himself to his team, after the fact if not in the moment.  He becomes the first one to admit when he made a mistake, and sometimes even when a mess wasn’t his fault at all.  He asks Ax questions.  A lot of questions.

But he leads them.  He makes the calls in the battles.  He takes responsibility for them all, and he carries it well enough to get by.  Unless, of course, the situation calls for an official chain of command.

«Prince Elfangor asked me to lead in his stead,» Ax tells the andalite commander on the long-distance call.  «I accepted the honor, and was humbled by it.»

«Very well, Prince Aximili.» Ithileran’s expression is stiff, but he doesn’t argue.  «We would like to discuss the nature of your strategy for leading the Earth resistance.»

Throughout the conflict on Leera, Commander Galuit seems to be almost bemused by the Animorphs.  «I’ve heard a great deal about you, Prince Aximili,» he says.  «What do you suggest we do about these explosives?»

«I wouldn’t dream of making such a decision without consulting my warriors,» Ax says diplomatically.  It’s Jake’s cue to make a polite suggestion, but that Marco can also be expected to weigh in with an opinion.

«Yes,» Galuit says, as much to himself as anyone.  «You’re an interesting one, indeed.»

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Tobias says loudly to the security forces.  “He’s visiting royalty, you see.  Extremely important prince.  From a place you wouldn’t have heard of.”

Ax has consumed what is, perhaps, slightly more than a typical quantity of mini quiches at what is supposed to be an all-you-can-eat banquet.  He fails to see why this is an occasion for law enforcement.

“Anyway.”  Tobias is now shepherding Ax out of the room, which is unfair because he has only made it halfway through the platter of crab rangoon.  “It’s considered a compliment where he’s from.  And if you even think about filing a report, you will be hearing from the rest of his majesty’s security team.”

“We will not be falling in line,” Jake tells Arbat, chin lifted, eyes narrow.  “We will not be deferring to your command.  We will do what Prince Aximili tells us, and I suggest you do the same.  Because you can either help us, or you can get out of our way.”

Standing on the bridge of the Blade ship, hand resting on the pad that broadcasts footage of the Animorphs to the entire Andalite Electorate, Ax does his best to look confident.  «We have won a great victory this day, but now is the time for peace.  Now is the time to work with the humans to help them rebuild.  Now is the time for forgiveness, for yeerks and taxxons alike.»

«Who are you?» the Technical Officer demands.

Marco opens his mouth to make a smart comment, but refrains.

«I am War-Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill,» Ax says.  «And as of this moment, I am officially ceding my position to Prince Jake Berenson, Commander in Chief of the Earth Resistance.»

Jake steps forward.  Grieved but unbowed.  Nervous but resolute.  All eyes are on him.

So no one notices when Alloran nudges Ax gently in the side.  When he says in private thought-speak, «I can say with utter certainty that he would have been proud of you.»