The Pretender (Animorphs)

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Animorphs 23: The Pretender
Author	K.A. Applegate
Cover quote	Tobias is about to discover the secrets of his past...
Illustrator	David B. Mattingly
Narrator	Tobias
Pages	154
Release date	1998
Previous Book	The Solution
Next Book	The Suspicion

The Pretender is a science fiction novel by K.A. Applegate.

• New Morphs: Tobias- Rabbit, Visser Three- Human(Aria, mixed DNA of random Controllers), Kaftid

Tobias has been having bad luck with his hunts. Every time he'd dive on the rabbit litter to pick off a hapless youngster, he'd suddenly envision himself as the prey with the shadow of death swooping at him. To make his situation worse, another red-tailed hawk is aggressively moving in on his territory. He doesn't have the will to deal with the threat once and for all. So he resorts to picking dead carcasses off the road.

He stops by at Rachel's house. She tells him that a long-lost cousin, Aria, has been searching for him. Chapman, too, is interested in his whereabouts. Tobias suspects a trap. Rachel tells him that his father had left him his will, which was to be read out on his birthday. Tobias meets his father's lawyer, DeGroot. The lawyer tells him the father he knew may not have been his real father. Tobias is puzzled. He also tells him that Aria wants to meet him at the Hyatt hotel. Tobias left the practice, and found himself being followed by a Yeerk agent. Rather than meeting with the Animorphs at the barn, he flies to the Hork-Bajir colony.

There, Toby Hamee, Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak's seer daughter, tells Tobias that a baby Hork-Bajir, Bek, is missing. It is then that a disbelieving Tobias discovers that the Hork-Bajir regularly leave the valley to free more of their kind. Back at the barn, Tobias must deal with his friend's thinly-veiled pity for him, and decide to pair him with Rachel to inspect Aria. At the hotel, Aria leaves in a cab, and stops over at Frank's Safari Land and Putt-Putt Golf, a dodgy roadside zoo-slash-amusement park. It's there that they find Bek, locked in a miserable cage alongside a bunch of very depressed animals. They find Aria talking to the owner, Frank, who wants to make money of his 'alien freak'.

Tobias and the others storm the place and try to take Bek, tearing down that miserable little place in the process. But the Controllers were ready for them, and Tobias encounters Visser Three in a hideous Kaftid morph, who thinks Tobias is Ket Halpak. The Visser assails Tobias with an acid attack, forcing him to release Bek in pain. The rescue fails, and the Animorphs and the Yeerks withdraw.

Tobias constantly wonders if he could ever live life as a human - with Aria. He wonders if she's a Controller. He and Ax return to the Hyatt, and witness her saving a little girl. Tobias assumes this means she's not a Controller, but Ax is doubtful. Tobias swings by Rachel's that night, and engage in a hot debate about Tobias's humanity. The next day, the Animorphs and the Hork-Bajir plan their attack on the new Yeerk Dracon cannon facility out of town.

The Animorphs and the free Hork-Bajir allow themselves to be captured. Tobias, in flea morph, jumps out of the cage, morphs a Hork-Bajir, and opens the cage. A quick fight between the Hork-Bajir-Controllers and the freedom fighters results in the latter's victory. As they climb up to the Yeerk Dracon cannon, Tobias spots Aria in a helicopter. Only then does he make the connection. He faints just as the Animorphs and the free Hork-Bajir escape, having pointed the weapon at the ground, with minutes remaining to fire. The facility is destroyed, and Bek is saved.

Now Tobias must engage Aria on his own. He goes to the testament-reading, and discovers that his father was in fact Elfangor, the Andalite prince. Tobias gives nothing away, instead jeering that he was left no money and accusing Aria of merely seeking his inheritance. Only after he returns to his hiding spot does he break down. Later that night, he flies to Rachel's where she lights him a candle on a birthday cake.

The next day, Tobias kills the mother rabbit, morphs her, and brings the baby rabbits under his protection from the rival hawk.