List of Animorphs books (11-20)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Animorphs 11: The Forgotten 2 Animorphs 12: The Reaction 3 Animorphs 13: The Change 4 Animorphs 14: The Unknown 5 Animorphs 15: The Escape 6 Animorphs 16: The Warning 7 Animorphs 17: The Underground 8 Animorphs 18: The Decision 9 Animorphs 19: The Departure 10 Animorphs 20: The Discovery

[edit] Animorphs 11: The Forgotten

• Copyright date: 1997
• Number of pages: 162
• Cover art: Jake morphs into a jaguar.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Nothing is what it seems...
• Narrator: Jake

After watching a boxing match with his brother and father, Jake leaves for the grocery store, where a new prototype Bug fighter has crashed. After Ax manages to reconfigure the ship's controls, the Animorphs escape, pursued by Chapman and the other Yeerks. The children plan to fly the spacecraft to Washington D.C, in order to convince the American government that Earth is under attack by extraterrestrials. After being intercepted by two U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets, Cassie notices that they are over the Red Sea in the Middle East - far from their intended destination. Flying above the atmosphere, they are picked up by Visser Three's Blade ship sensors. The Animorphs, knowing they can't escape, try to fire on the Visser's vessel. Both Jake and the Blade ship fire their Dracon beams at the same time, and, coincidentally, their projectiles intersect, and are blown into another dimension.

The kids wake up in their wrecked Bug fighter. They look around, noticing that they've crash-landed in a rainforest. The children assume they're in the Amazon rainforest. Ax takes the ship's computer, and the group ventures out into the hostile wilderness, constantly plagued by flies, giant ants, poison frogs and piranhas. They're pursued by the Yeerks, who ruthlessly destroy the animals and trees around them - desparate to retrieve the precious computer. The children acquire jaguar and monkey morphs. They eventually stumble across a group of Amazon Indians, lead by Polo, their tribal chief. Marco translates the natives' Portuguese, and Jake and Polo agree to assist one another in eliminating the strange invaders. Polo and his men kill the Hork-Bajir with poison-tipped spears, leaving the Animorphs with Visser Three, who morphs an amphibian-like Lerdethak. Just as Jake was about to be eaten, however, he wakes up back at the grocery store. He calls off the operation, and the Animorphs all go home. Jake asks Ax what had happened. Ax tells him that the intersecting Dracon beams created a 'Sario rip' where an implosion in the space-time dimension leads to the duplication of the universe. The rip effect then snaps back to the primary universe. The Jake in the tangent universe had to die, or else both Jakes and both their universes would collide and cease to exist. In addition, Jake and the other Animorphs do not have their Amazon animal acquisitions in the primary universe.

Trivia

• After writing this book, Applegate almost gave up writing the series, fearing that she'd run out of ideas.
• After capturing the Bug Fighter, Marco says, "If the Borg want a fight we'll give them one!" in his 'best English accent', an obvious reference to Patrick Stewart and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[edit] Animorphs 12: The Reaction

• Copyright date: 1997
• Number of pages: 152
• Cover art: Rachel morphs into a crocodile.
• Cover artist: Damon C. Torres/The 1-Way Company
• Cover quote: Trust no one...
• Narrator: Rachel
• New Morphs: Rachel- Crocodile, Marco- Llama, Cassie- Human(Rachel)

Rachel and Cassie are on a field trip to The Gardens zoo. Cassie bemoans her mother's imminent oral presentation, fearing she might embarrass her. She wouldn't have to worry about that, though, because a little boy falls into the crocodile enclosure. Rachel, with all her bravado, jumps into the pit with him. She acquires a crocodile morph, morphs it, and leads the boy to safety. The boy is hailed a hero, while a disgruntled Rachel becomes known as "the girl who fell in the crocodile pit".

One school night, Rachel looks up her favorite teen superstar, Jeremy Jason McCole, most famous for his co-star role in the TV sitcom Power House. She discovers that he's coming to town to recruit girls into The Sharing - on Barry and Cindy Sue's talk show. Rachel is disturbed, because a man with such cultural influence could greatly expand the Yeerk front's ranks.

Suddenly, she finds herself morphing involuntarily into an elephant. Her floor collapses under her weight, and crashes into the kitchen. Fortunately, her two sisters were not in the room. Once again, Rachel makes a media spectacle of herself, now the "the girl who fell in the crocodile pit" and the "girl who had her house fall on her". She meets up with her father, and he takes her to his hotel. Rachel asks Dan to let her on Barry and Cindy Sue.

Rachel and Cassie try to figure out what's been going on, but instead tell the other Animorphs of the Yeerk's intentions with Jeremy Jason. They spy out his yacht, but Rachel finds herself falling into the ocean, morphing an elephant, an ant and then a crocodile. Visser Three is alerted, and morphs a Lebtin javelin fish. The other Animorphs morph dolphins, and the Visser is thrawted when Rachel uses her powerful crocodile jaws to bite through the alien fish's soft skin. The Animorphs then discover that McCole has become a voluntary Controller - in exchange for 'more serious roles' and greater wealth and fame.

Back at the barn, Ax diagnoses Rachel's condition. She is allergic to crocodile DNA, which explains her involuntary morphing (which only happens when she is emotionally stressed or otherwise exicited). Ax tells her that she needs to expel a full, live crocodile, a process known as hereth illint, roughly "DNA burping" in English. Rachel pretends that the process occurred, and fools the Animorphs into letting her on the talk show with Barry and Cindy Sue. Rachel and Cassie meet Jeremy Jason in the dressing room, but realize what a jerk he really is off the camera. Also on the show is Bart Jacobs, the animal handler. Rachel gets nervous, and the real hereth illint begins. Cassie rushes her to the bathroom, and Rachel vomits the crocodile there. While Rachel does this, Cassie morphs a squirrel in another stall. The new crocodile becomes wild and runs onto the stage with Rachel and Cassie, causing great commotion with the cast and the audience. Cassie is flung off-stage, where she later turns out all the lights. The crocodile tries to attack Jeremy McCole, and the Animorphs are unable to match the crocodile's sheer power and armored scales, until Ax decapitates it with his tail. (Remember, everything is dark.) Rachel steps on McCole's Yeerk, which tried to escape its host.

Rachel's quest to stop McCole is a success, and the young actor retreats to Uzbekistan, a sparesly populated country of deserts and plains - far away from the Yeerks - and crocodiles.

Trivia

• When Applegate was a budding writer, she derided the way the characters in books like Sweet Valley Twins referred to fake bands and TV shows. She broke her own rule in this book.
• Jeremy Jason McCole is a plainly obvious take on Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and the show Power House is a parody of Home Improvement.
• Barry and Cindy Sue takes after Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.
• Bart Jacobs is a take on either Jack Hanna or Steve Irwin.

[edit] Animorphs 13: The Change

• Copyright date: 1997
• Number of pages: 162
• Cover art: Tobias (red-tailed hawk) morphs into a human.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Be afraid...
• Narrator: Tobias
• New Morphs: Rachel- Hork-Bajir (Jara Hamee), Tobias- Raccoon, Hork-Bajir (Ket Halpak), Human(Tobias)

Tobias takes Rachel on a tour, showing her the Yeerk pool entrances he'd mapped out. Soon, though, he finds he is not where he was heading; they're now over the forest. They try to fly away but discover that they are still in the same spot. A pair of Hork-Bajir come up from a secret hatch in the woods. The two aliens are promptly pursued by human-Controllers on dirtbikes and jeeps, bristling with shotguns and automatic rifles. Tobias and Rachel decide to help the supposed fugitives. They lead one to safety, but the other trips over and falls. The first Hork-Bajir screams for his wife.

The other Animorphs supect a Yeerk trap to lure the freedom fighters, but they return to the cave the Hork-Bajir is hiding in. He calls himself Jara-Hamee. Ax isn't convinced he's not a Controller, so Jara pulls his head open. Horrified, but seeing no Yeerk, the Animorphs have some peace of mind. In order to help Jara-Hamee escape, Rachel morphs him. Tobias is worried about the one he loves, and so he hitches a ride on one of her forehead blades. However, the human-hawk slaps into a branch, is knocked off, and finds himself in a Swainson's hawk's clearing, where another Hork-Bajir is cornered by a group of human-Controllers and Visser Three himself. The Visser calls this Hork-Bajir Ket Halpak. Tobias provides a distraction by drawing out an aggressive Swainson's hawk, providing a distraction. Tobias rakes the Visser's stalk eyes, allowing Ket Halpak to escape.

With Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak reunited, the Animorphs now need to decide where to hide them. Tobias suggests a hidden valley with fresh streams, a meadow and tall trees. But he'd never seen the place in his life, even though the images are clear in his mind. Tobias now suspects foul play - and that someone or something is manipulating him.

During the night while he is guarding the Hork-Bajir along with Ax, Tobais suddenly has visions of tracker Taxxons. He and Ax take the Hork-Bajir and retreat further toward the mountains. Jara Hamee tells Tobias that a "head voice" told him to escape from the Yeerk Pool and that it would send a guide. Frustrated about being used, Tobias stops everyone and demands to find out what is happening. Tobias then finds himself in another plane, and sees himself as both human and hawk. He encounters the Ellimist, who explains that while his species does not interfere with other peoples' lives, he wishes to save the Hork-Bajir. Frustrated, Tobias wants to be made human in return for his efforts. The Ellimist says that he knows what Tobias wants but asks Tobias if he himself really knows what he wants.

Tobias and the Animorphs take the Hork-Bajir to the mountains, pursued by Yeerks in Dracon beam-wielding helicopters, Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. Tobias, out hunting breakfast, is caught in the helicopter's rotor vacuum, and breaks his wing. He is immediately discovered by a raccoon, who prepares to eat him. At that moment, the Ellimist makes Tobias able to morph again, but does not return him to human form. Tobias is enraged, accusing the omniscient being for not keeping his promise. Tobias escapes by morphing the raccoon, and rejoins the others.

The animorphs realize that the Yeerks will not give up until the Hork-Bajir are dead because if two escaped safely, others would try. Tobias comes up with a plan. He morphs Ket Halpek and together with Rachel, go over to the ravine. The jump over and are caught by Marco who is in gorilla morph in a small cave right below the top of the ravine that is not visible from the top. At the bottom, the real Ket Halpek and Jara Hamee are pretending to be dead, while Cassie and Ax are in wolf morph pretending to eat them. Visser 3 is convinced and the Yeerks give up searching. They take the Hork-Bajir to the valley which is mysteriously difficult to locate from a distance unless you knew it was there.

The human-hawk Tobias has his morphing power back. He thinks about what the Ellimist had said, and laments that maybe he didn't want to be a human again. Tobias falls asleep, and wakes up in his old bedroom. The human Tobias wakes up, and the hawk Tobias acquires his DNA. He can morph his old self, but only for two hours at a time. The next day, he shows up at school for Rachel's Packard Foundation Outstanding Student award ceremony as a human.

Trivia

• Applegate chose a red-tailed hawk for Tobias, because this species is very common. "I liked thinking that kids driving with their folks across Kansas or wherever would daydream about seeing Tobias," she said, according to the Anibase Animorphs book database.

[edit] Animorphs 14: The Unknown

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 166
• Cover art: Cassie morphs into a horse.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Never underestimate the power of a morph...
• Narrator: Cassie
• New Morphs: All- Horse

Cassie and Rachel drive with the former's father, Walter, to the Dry Lands outside of town. 'Crazy Helen', a client of Walter's, has informed him of a sick horse stumbling about the plains. Helen rants on about Martians while Walter and the girls search for the horse in the dark. Rachel spots it trying to make a call at a pay phone. The horse then tries to escape, but is too weak to walk, and falls over. Cassie and Rachel notice a Yeerk falling out of the dying horse's ear. Cassie, getting a bad feeling, tells Rachel to run. A second later, they're knocked over by an explosion. Cassie wakes up in Crazy Helen's caravan, who insists 'it was the Martians!'. Cassie and Rachel decide she is half right - and assume that the Yeerks were trying to keep them away from the horse.

The other Animorphs are skeptical, though. Rachel and Cassie are frustrated, but Jake allows the group to go back to the site and investigate. Cassie, Rachel, Marco and Tobias travel in bird morph, and land in a rocky outcrop. They're promptly arrested by soldiers, and taken to the Air Force base - Zone Ninety-One. There, they meet Captain Torelli, the chief of base security, who is incredulous by the kid's lack of shoes. Cassie, Rachel and Marco, fearing being grounded, or charged with trespassing, give the captain fake names; Marco calls himself Fox Mulder, Rachel Dana Scully, and Cassie Cindy Crawford. Marco and Rachel stare at her. Marco gives the number for the sports scores recording, Rachel Pizza Hut, and Cassie one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight! Cassie earns more stares from Marco and Rachel. The captain leaves, and the kids escape via cockroach morph. They escape outside, but Cassie is nearly crushed by a tank. Tobias picks her up, and airlifts the trio to safety.

Cassie decides on a new plan. They need horse morphs from the racetrack. They're nearly caught by the staff, and Cassie morphs Minneapolis Max - a champion stallion. The animal's jockey, assuming Cassie is the real horse, takes her to the starting gate, and she is caught up in a race, which she wins. The Animorphs are now ready to infiltrate Zone Ninety-One.

Back in the Dry Lands, the teens morph their respective horse morphs. They join the alleged Yeerk herd, and trot directly into the base. They hear the horse-Controllers speak Galard - the interstellar lingua franca. Ax translates for them, telling them that the Yeerks are planning to complete their mission tonight. The Yeerks promptly break into a run, and rush into a hangar. There, the Animorphs see what the government's been hiding. They know it's not human, but they don't know what it is. Neither do the Yeerks. The Yeerks are depressed and afraid, aware of the consequences for failure. They rendezvous with Visser Three, who decapitates the Yeerk 'responsible' for the failure. The Visser then orders his Hork-Bajir to eliminate the suspicious-looking horses standing close by. Cassie knocks over a Hork-Bajir, and the rest make a break for it. It is then that an embarrassed Ax tells them what the humans have been guarding: a disposable waste module from an Andalite Dome ship; an alien toilet. The disgusted Animorphs decide they've been wasting their time, and head home.

At home, Cassie berates herself for wasting her team's time, but then realizes the significance of the Andalite toilet; it's proof that sentient life exists beyond Earth, and that Visser Three needed humanity to know as little as possible in order for the invasion to continue to run smoothly. Cassie then remembers a pin-up board for 'Gondor Industries'; a dummy corporation employee's day out. Cassie takes the Animorphs to The Gardens amusement park. Cassie figured that Visser Three planned to kidnap captain Torelli and other Air Force staff at Zone Ninety-One. The Animorphs, chased by Captain Torelli, end up in the horror house, where the Hork-Bajir waited. The children morph, and a battle ensues. They wound the Hork-Bajir and rescue the captain from Visser Three. The Yeerks escape in their vessels, in front of totally oblivious humans at a night parade.

[edit] Animorphs 15: The Escape

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 163
• Cover art: Marco morphs into a hammerhead shark.
• Cover quote: The Yeerks are out there...
• Narrator: Marco
• New Morphs: All-Hammerhead Shark, All except Ax and Tobias-parrot

Marco's old acquaintance, Erek King, has some disturbing news about his mother, Eva, aka Visser One. She's returned to Earth, overseeing a Yeerk bioweapons program to allow them to venture deep waters - a requirement made by the Yeerk command for the invasion of Leera, a planet covered almost entirely by oceans. The research is conducted in the waters around Royan Island. The Animorphs infiltrate the facility, and discover that the Yeerks are trying to create super-intelligent sharks that can be infested and controlled by a slug. The animorphs are captured, and have devices installed in them. The only way to remove them is to destroy the facility. They attempt to do this, and during the battle, Marco reveals to Rachel and Ax that Visser One is his mother. Visser Three storms in, angry that Visser One would do this without his knowledge or consent, and they have a verbal argument. Even worse, the Yeerks have just captured some new specimens of an aquatic species - known as Leerans. The Leerans are capable of telepathy and unlimited mind-reading capacity. The Animorphs know that the Yeerks must be stopped before they can utilize two new powerful living weapons. They destroy the factory and escape unscathed.

[edit] Animorphs 16: The Warning

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 146
• Cover art: Jake morphs into a rhinoceros.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Now it'll take more than the truth to set you free...
• Narrator: Jake
• New Morphs: Jake-Rhino, Tobias-fly

Jake discovers a Yeerk website, but is it what it seems? It looks like a crazy mix of fact and fiction. He's not sure if it's a Yeerk trap, or a place for potential Yeerk-fighters to meet. Jake and the Animorphs decide to travel to the Web Access America headquarters, a two-hour flight from their own city. The kids can't afford plane tickets, so they morph flies. After Marco dabbles in a first-class passenger's Salisbury steak, and the occupants on the plane are alerted. A flight attendant swats Jake, nearly killing him. A shaken Jake survives and tries to hide his fear, but Cassie takes notice.

At Web Access America, Marco and Ax hack into the WAA records and discover the identities of some of the screen names on the Yeerk website. They need a distraction, so the children morph and create a spectacle for anyone working in the offices. One of them is the founder of WAA himself, Joe Bob Fenestre - the second richest man in the country. Marco also discovers that his online girlfriend is in fact a seventy-three year-old retired postal worker. On the way back to the airport, Cassie objects to Jake morphing the fly again. Jake disagrees - arguing that a leader needs to help his subordinates to be brave - rather than giving in to it. Their relationship is strained for the time being.

Back home, Jake needs to form a new plan to infiltrate Joe Bob Fenestre's multi-million dollar compound. Cassie objects, wanting to save Gump, a Yeerk forum regular, from confessing to his Controller father what he knows. Jake and the others, though, decide Fenestre's the centre of the issue. Jake, without any prior intelligence or preparation, sends the Animorphs to the billionaire's property. They are immediately attacked by gun-toting humans, pack hounds, and Rachel is shocked unconscious by a bug zapper. Ax is captured by the dogs. Jake and the others, shaken, need to find another way to break in. Jake travels to The Gardens zoo complex, and acquires a rhinoceros morph. He morphs and breaks through the entrance to the Fenestre mansion, impervious to human shotguns. The others follow, and morph their standard battle morphs.

They find Fenestre, along with Rachel and Ax in a suspended time state known as 'biostasis'. Fenestre explains to Jake, Cassie, Marco and Tobias that he is Visser Three's twin brother - Esplin 9466 Lesser. Visser Three, unwilling to share his power with his sibling, banished him to Earth as a lowly telephone operator. Fenestre, combining his Yeerk technical knowledge with his host's human knowledge, created a web service that would serve as a vast pool of information for the Yeerk invasion. The Visser was enraged, and has been plotting to kill him.

Jake asks Fenestre how he survived without a Yeerk pool. Fenestre, his eyes void of emotion, tells him that he finds human-Controllers on the Yeerk forum. He has them kidnapped, splits the hosts' heads open, and feeds on the Yeerk inside. "One every three days. Ten a month." Fenestre admits that he is a cannibal serial killer. A horrified Cassie tries to attack him, but Jake stops her. He'd rather allow Fenestre to kill as many Yeerks as he could - even it means sacrificing the host. Cassie is enraged. Jake threatens Fenestre, and they leave with Rachel and Ax.

Jake later meets with Cassie, who'd been talking to Gump at his elementary school. The saddened Cassie tells Gump never to trust his father. Jake tries to comfort her, but to no avail. Later on, Jake watches a news report that Fenestre's house had been burned down. He hints that he may have burned down the house out of disgust for the cannibal killer.

[edit] Animorphs 17: The Underground

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 164
• Cover art: Rachel morphs into a bat.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: There's nothing to fear but the Yeerks themselves...
• Narrator: Rachel
• New Morphs: All - Mole, Tobias - Bat

The animorphs see a man jump out of an office building and save him. Then Rachel finds out he has been talking about Yeerks, so the Animorphs go to talk to him. He tells them that he is a controller, and the Yeerk inside him who doesn't need Kandrona Rays because he ate Maple and Ginger Instant Oatmeal, which seems to give Yeerks to ability to survive without Kandrona Rays. However, there is a downside. The Oatmeal is extremely addictive and makes the Yeerks who eat it go crazy and are only able to control their host some of the time. The animorphs decided to dump a bunch of oatmeal into the Yeerk pool, which would cause thousands of Yeerks to go insane.

Unable to enter the Yeerk Pool the normal way because of a new invention called the "Gleet Bio-Filter", which doesn't allow creatures besides Humans and Yeerks to enter the Yeerk Pool, they spend a week digging through the ground as moles. Upon entering the Yeerk Pool, they are attacked by two hunter robots and Rachel falls into the yeerk pool. She morphs an ant, gets out, steals a dracon beam and disguises herself as a human controller. She learns that Ax and Tobias have been captured and there is a large amount of Maple and Ginger Instant Oatmeal near the yeerk pool.

When Visser 3 comes, she throws the oatmeal into the pool and gives the dracon beam to Marco who is a gorrila and has hands. Visser 3 decides to sacrifice the Yeerks in the pool in order to catch them, so Rachel throws him in too. Visser 3 starts to morph giving them no chance to escape, so Marco shoots open the barrels of Oatmeal in the pool. Then he collapses the tunnel and the animorphs escape as moles.

[edit] Animorphs 18: The Decision

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 161
• Cover art: Ax morphs into a mosquito.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Change a little. Change a lot. Just change...
• Narrator: Ax
• New Morphs: All - Mosquito, Jake, Ax, Marco, and Cassie - Leeran.

The Animorphs discover that Hewlettt Aldershot the Third has been run over by controllers and is being kept secretly in a hospital where he is heavily guarded. They decide to morph mosquitoes with the theory that they can acquire him by sucking his blood without being in their natural forms where the yeerk guards might notice them. When they do, they are somehow transported to Z-Space. Right before they suffocate, they are rescued by an Andalite ship heading for the Leera where there is a Yeerk invasion underway. Unfortunately, the commander of the ship is a traitor and the ship gets blown up. The animorphs head across the major landmass of Leera to try to find friendly Andalites. Tobias mysteriously disappears and the rest go over the ocean. Rachel disappears and the rest meet some Leerans who they acquire. Then they get told that the Andalites have planted a bomb but that they need to go to activate it and Cassie disappears. Marco dispears and they meet a Leeran-Controller who reads their minds and discovers their plans. When they get to the bomb, Jake disappears leaving Ax alone. He activates the bomb but a bunch of armed Hork-Bajir appear to disarm it. The Hork-Bajir fires at him but he disappears right before the beam hits him. The bomb goes off right after he disappears. Somehow all the Animorphs arrived back to the hospital where they were before they got sucked into Z-Space.

[edit] Animorphs 19: The Departure

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 159
• Cover art: Cassie morphs into a butterfly.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: There's always room for a little change...
• Narrator: Cassie, with the final chapters by Jake
• New Morphs: Cassie-Caterpillar

The Animorphs attack the Hork-Bajir bodyguards at a Sharing meeting. The very second Jake ordered his team to break off, Cassie tore the throat out of a Hork-Bajir. Cassie, ridden with guilt, runs away. She senses someone watching her, but doesn't pay much attention. She demorphs, and has a nightmare (a scene from Megamorphs #2). She wakes up, and begins scrubbing her teeth and gums until they bleed. The next day, Cassie meets the others at her barn. She explicitly declares that she's fed up with all the violence, and quits being an Animorph. The others are disgusted with her scrupulous behaviour, and brand her a hypocrite. Marco makes a sarcastic remark about Cassie "going back to playing with her animals". Cassie then tells them that her father lost the much-needed funding to keep the Rehabilitation Clinic open. A distraught Cassie goes on a horse ride to calm her nerves.

Cassie suddenly spots a girl being chased by an angry bear. Cassie pursues them, but is knocked off her horse, and falls into the icy river. When she wakes up, she realizes she'd been saved by the little girl. The girl introduces herself, calling herself Karen. Karen tries to force Cassie to reveal her true identity. Cassie laughs and pretends the girl is mistaken. Soon it is apparent that the girl is a Controller, Aftran 942, watching her own father, the president of UniBank. It also becomes apparent that Cassie had killed Aftran 942's brother. They're both lost in the forest, and Cassie knows that a leopard that escaped from a private zoo is lurking about. During their time together, Cassie reveals her identity when she fends off an attack by the leopard.

Cassie begins to discuss the morality of enslaving another creature, while Aftran defends the Yeerk's right to experience life as a human or an Andalite does. Cassie tries to turn Aftran against her own people. Aftran tells Cassie that to preserve the freedom of one species, she must surrender her own. Karen presents Cassie with the following scenario: if she were Karen, would she stay in the Yeerk Pool forever? Cassie is uncertain. She allows Aftran to enter her brain, thus freeing Karen - and putting the life of the planet at stake. Cassie convinces Afran that what the Yeerks are doing is wrong. In return, however, Aftran compels Cassie to morph to a catepillar, and to live life as a helpless worm. Cassie reluctantly agrees, and morphs, staying beyond the two-hour limit.

Jake and the others soon find Aftran back in Karen's body, and Cassie now a catepillar. The Animorphs are enraged, and are more than willing to kill the Controller in revenge for Cassie, and to keep their identities a secret. Jake hears her out, though, and lets her live. Cassie spins a cocoon, and stays dormant for a couple of days. Cassie emerges as a butterfly, and the Animorphs are overjoyed, but saddened, as well, certain that Cassie would spend the rest of her brief life as an insect. Ax is puzzled, explaining that Cassie's process is a natural form of metamorphosis, and that she is able to morph back to her old self. Cassie does so, and is willing to be an Animorph once more. Aftran keeps her promise, freeing Karen, and the Yeerk establishes the Yeerk Peace Movement; Karen compels her father to fund Cassie's father's Wildlife Clinic.

Trivia:

• There is a KASU in this book: Karen/Aftran says about Gedds "But they have eyes. Oh, you can't imagine!," while in The alien, Ax says they are <Blind, clumsy, not very useful.>

[edit] Animorphs 20: The Discovery

• Copyright date: 1998
• Number of pages: 153
• Cover art: Marco morphs into a cobra.
• Cover artist: David B. Mattingly
• Cover quote: Get ready. There's a brand-new Animorph...
• Narrator: Marco
• New Morphs: Marco- Cobra, David- Golden Eagle, Cockroach

After failing miserably to chat up a girl at his locker, Marco is stymied to find a boy carrying a blue box. Elfangor's blue box. The morphing cube. The Escafil Device. Marco introduces himself to the new boy, David (named for the cover author), and lamely tries to buy the Box off him. He fails. Marco tells Jake about it, and they both appreciate the seriousness of the situation. But that's not the only surprise in store for them. Erek the Chee tells them that a group of G8 representatives are gathering at the Marriott Hotel resort on the city coast to discuss the problems in the Middle East. Erek also tells them that the Yeerks are plotting to infest each leader, and soon the most powerful nations in the world would be under Yeerk influence. The biggest problem is that one of these heads of state is already a Controller. Now the Animorphs need two plans: one to retrieve the Blue Box, and another to stop the Yeerks from taking over the world.

Marco, Tobias and Rachel try to raid David's house in bird of prey morphs. Tobias flies into a window and is knocked unconscious. Marco fights David's cat, Megadeth, and Rachel is forced to abandon the Blue Box while being shot at by David with his B.B. gun. The operation is a humiliating disaster. The next day at school, David tells Marco his seemingly ridiculous story about trained robber birds, and discusses his plan to sell the Blue Box to the highest bidder. Marco immediately knows who will be David's first client: Visser Three. Marco is uneasy with David's strange personality, but decides that he must be saved, and that the Blue Box must not fall into the Visser's hands.

During school, Marco takes Ax with him to stop David's e-mail from being sent. Unfortunately, they're too late. Marco acquires Spawn, David's contraband, defanged cobra. Visser Three storms into David's house with a team of Hork-Bajir. A fight ensues between the Yeerks and the Animorphs, destroying David's house. Rachel, in bear morph, rams David out the window, and the Animorphs retreat. The Yeerks withdraw with David's mother and father.

The Animorphs are unsure of what to do with David. Marco and Ax decide that they cannot spare David, given his strange behaviour. Tobias votes to take him in out of moral concern, while Rachel and Cassie decide that David might be their ticket to recruiting more Animorphs. With Marco and Ax outvoted, they reveal to David the Yeerk invasion and give him the morphing power.

From the very beginning of the debacle, David displays his eagerness to kill, and disobeys Jake's orders. David also does not seem concerned enough about his parents being Controllers. On the way to the Marriott resort, David indiscriminately kills a crow.

As they near the resort, they spot the Blade ship taking the Marine One helicopter hostage. The Animorphs, fearing that the Yeerks have captured the President of the United States, enter the Visser's ship. There, they realize that the Visser had not captured the President, but the Chief of White House Protocol, 'Tony'. The Visser plans to morph him. The Animorphs are then discovered in cockroach morph, and end up falling out of the Blade ship, down into the ocean...
(To continue reading this 3-book series' summary, click the "21-30" link in the box below.)

Full List of Animorphs books