#drode

And she's not the one who will sacrifice her own cousin, even though it could save the humanity.

                                                  Cassie

My name is Cassie.

The last name doesn't matter. Hadn't mattered for nearly three years. For three years, my friends and I had fought a secret war against the Yeerks, a parasitic alien race that took control of your body by entering through your ear and wrapping itself around your brain. They could be in anyone: your parents, your mailman, your teacher anyone. We called them Controllers. The only way we had been able to fight them was through Andalite technology that gave us the ability to morph into any animal we touched. I had been a dolphin, a horse, a orca. It was amazing. The battles… not so much. My friends and later the younger brother of the Andalite who gave us the power became the Animorphs.

The technology that gave us this power had been lost until a kid named David found the blue box. We gave David the ability to morph and he was one of us until he betrayed us and we had to take care of him. The morphing power was our only advantage against the Yeerks. That and the fact that until very recently they didn't know who we were. They had thought we were rogue Andalite bandits. When they found out that we were human, we had to get our families out. We were successful...except for Jake our leader. We had been too late to get his family out and his brother Tom, who had been a Controller since the very beginning, infested his own parents. None of the Yeerks had the ability to morph except for one: Visser One, the only Yeerk who had ever taken an Andalite host and with it the power to morph. Until now. Because of me.

In our most recent battle, in an effort to stop Jake (my sorta boyfriend) from killing his brother Tom I had allowed Tom to get away with the blue box. I don't know why, I just knew that I couldn't let Jake kill his own brother. After all that we had been through, the countless battles, the countless deaths, this last one seemed to monstrous for even us. I couldn't let Jake do it. So in order to stop him I had bit him while I was in my wolf morph, resulting in Jake hitting me across the face… as a tiger. With tiger sized paws. 

I knew why he had done it. Surprise. Anger. Now he could barely look at me. In his eyes I was a traitor. I wasn't so sure, but I knew that I didn't  want to be around him or any of the other Animorphs. When we got back to the free Hork-Bajir valley, I split off from the group, avoiding my best friend Rachel’s eyes as I headed for the tree line.

“Cassie!” I heard her yell as I ran further into the forest. As I ran, a certain picture floated to the top of my mind. I could feel my nails start getting thicker and longer as fur sprouted all around my body. Ax, our only actual Andalite member and the younger brother of the Andalite who had given us the morphing power, had told us that I was what the Andalites called an estreen, someone who could control how they morphed. When my friends morphed, it was not a pretty sight. Legs exploded out of them, eyeballs formed, beaks appeared on human faces. As the wolf whose DNA was apart of me rose out of my human body, near the end of it, I looked almost like one of those old Hollywood werewolves until the morph finished and I became a complete wolf. 

I ran, pushing my legs to the extreme as I ran away, jumping over fallen trees, making hairpin turns as I let the wolf take me over. I reached the top of a hill, coming to a dead stop as I let the moon wash over me, feeling the cool wind blow through my fur. 

Why had I done it? Why had I given Tom the morphing cube? With it, our only advantage was gone. If this fight had happened a few weeks earlier, we would have lost the cube before we ever created the Auxiliary Animorphs. 

The Auxiliary Animorphs. Another one of my ideas. When our backs had been up against the wall, when we needed more warriors, more Animorphs, we had the dilemma of not knowing who was or wasn't a Controller. We couldn't recruit our parents. They had to be kids. Kids thay the Yeerks would never touch. Kids that the Yeerks believed to be powerless. That's when I had the idea: we would recruit disabled kids. 

What was wrong with me? The Cassie that had entered this war would have never done this. When my father found out about this plan, he looked at me like I was a stranger, someone he didn't even recognize. To be completely honest? I wasn't so sure I recognized myself. I had done so many things in this war, killed so many people, all in the name of defending my planet. No one forced me to. No one held a gun against my head and told me I had to be an Animorph. That had been my choice. I had quit once, when I wasn't sure if I had killed a Hork-Bajir before or after Jake signaled the retreat. I could have ended it then. Been a normal girl again.

But then came Karen and Aftran. Aftran had been a Yeerk in the head of a little girl named Karen. She had found out our secret, and began stalking me. After a few days in the woods together, in exchange for Karen’s freedom, I agreed to morph a caterpillar permanently so long as Aftran never took another host again. See that's the drawback about morphing. If you stayed in the morph for more than two hours, you were stuck permanently. A nothlit. It had happened to Tobias, one of the members of our group, and it had happened to me. 

Why wasn't I still in the body of a caterpillar though? Well according to Ax, since the caterpillar naturally morphed into a butterfly, it reset the morphing clock, allowing me to escape the blind fate of the caterpillar. I eventually saved Aftran from the Yeerks themselves, giving her the power to morph as long as she chose one morph and stayed in it forever. She was still out there, swimming in the ocean as a humpback  whale.

She had finished her fight. I was still in it. As the Drode had once called me, I was Cassie, the Killer with a Conscious. What would I give if this stupid war had never happened, if my biggest problem in the world was still feeding the ducks their pills or wondering if Jake liked me back? I would give anything.

“Anything, you say?” a voice behind me drawled.

I turned around quickly, losing balance as my now human legs tangled around each other. When had I morphed back to human? 

“Who’s there?” I called into the forest, trying to peer into the darkness with my weak, human eyes.

“It is I Cassie. Do you not recognize me Cassie the hypocrite? Never a killer… except for when she is.”

Immediately goosebumps popped up all over my skin. Only one being had ever called me that.

“The Drode,” I said calmly, my terror hidden beneath my calm exterior.

“Yes, it is I,” it said, bowing before me with a flourish. “My master, the great and powerful Crayak heard your wishes and sent me down here to grant it. Unlike that meddling twit, the Elimist, the great and powerful Crayak can grant you what you most truly desire.”

   He began circling me, whispering to me all of my most secret desires.

“No more lies Cassie.”

“No more death Cassie.”

“No more wondering whether what you just did was right and wrong.”

“No more wondering whether Rachel will die in a future battle.”

“No more of Jake feeling like you betrayed him.”

My breathing was coming out rapid and shallow. Yes I wanted all of this. How many times had I woken up, a cold sweat covering my skin from the nightmares. From seeing Rachel, fierce, loyal, brave Rachel, devoured by Taxxons, not even in her human form. How many times had I lied to my parents and they never questioned it because to them I’m their sweet innocent Cassie. Or rather, I had been. Until very recently, I had lied to them almost every day for the past three years. 

My father thought I was a monster. I didn’t know if any of the other Animorphs had told him it was my idea to recruit James and the other disabled children. When we had left for that mission though, he had stared at me as if I was a stranger, no longer the sweet innocent Cassie. That Cassie had died the first time we went to the Yeerk pool. When I had taken my first life. I had been just thirteen. 

What if the Drode could do as Crayak promised? Change everything so this war never happened? So that Jake, a man trapped in the body of a sixteen year old boy, could grow up without the weight of the world hanging around his neck. Rachel would never have to feel as if we were using her to clean up our messes. David would have never happened. Marco would have grown up with his mother. Ax would still have his brother. Tobias--

Tobias. If the Yeerks never came to Earth, that would mean that Elfangor, Ax’s older brother and the one who gave us our powers and told us about the Yeerks, would have never come to Earth and he would have never met Loren, Tobias’ mother. Tobias would have never been born. I opened my mouth to protest. The Drode cut me off before one word even passed my lips. 

“Do not worry, Saint Cassie. Your feathered friend will still be born. The all powerful Crayak will see to it that the deceased prince becomes a nothlit. Tobias will have a loving father and mother and never want for anything. He will never know hardship, never be afraid, never wonder why his mother left him. He will be happy.”

I almost cried. When he had been human, Tobias was trapped in between two homes that had made it clear he would not be missed if he disappeared. As a matter of fact, when he had become a nothlit, Neither his aunt or uncle cared very much. I don’t think they even put in a missing persons report.  Didn’t Tobias deserve this? 

“Why did Crayak send you to me,” I asked, my voice thick with emotion. “Why didn’t he go to Jake? I know he hates Jake, but Jake should be making this decision. Not me.”

The Drode smiled, his odd bird shaped head almost trembling with glee.

“Therein lies the catch, Horsewoman of the Apocalypse,” the Drode said, turning Marco’s one-off name for me into something cruel. “In order for Crayak to do this, Jake the Yeerk Killer must be sacrificed.”

The blood drained from my face. Jake wouldn’t be there. He would be dead. No. I would never let that happen. Jake was my-- I mean Jake was the one thing that made sense in this world. I lo--.

“And you must be the one to kill him.”

I turned on the Drode, my fist hurtling towards his face. Except that there was no fist. It was a paw, half morphed and quickly completing the transformation into full wolf.

“Before you say no Cassie the Hypocrite, let me show you something.”

The sky above me bloomed into images. I saw myself, my thirteen year old self, laughing, clinging onto Rachel’s arm as she dragged me across the mall, her eyes searching for the words “sale.”. Marco, funny Marco, pointing at me as his mother dragged him into their car, the words “tree-hugger” forming as his mom slammed the car door. 

“He’ll be by tomorrow Cassie,” Eva laughed, her eyes kind and empty of the harsh truths that the former Visser One had left her with. “Thank you again for tutoring him!”

Another image, this one of Tobias and I, bloomed. We were camping, his father telling my father and us about planets far away. Planets that held giant bladed gentle creatures who peeled and ate bark. Of carnivorous worms that ate everything in sight. Finally, with a gentleness in his eyes, he told us of four legged beings who had four eyes and a blade at the end of their tail. “Gentle creatures,” he seemed to say. “Kind of uppity, but in a lovable way.” I was the only one who noticed the tear slip out of his eye. 

“All of this could be real Cassie,” the Drode whispered in my ear. “You know what you have to do.” He waved his hand towards a dark spot in the clearing. 

Jake appeared. He seemed confused at first, scanning the area. Then he saw me. His eyes narrowed, his mouth twisting in an ugly snarl. 

“Cassie.”

<Get out of here Jake,> I said, my thought-speak filled with worry.

“Don’t worry. I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” he said, his voice filled with derision. 

<Jake. Please. Get out of here.> I could not stop the fear from entering my voice. 

He must have heard it because instantly his eyes softened, the boy general forgetting his current anger. For right now, he was my Jake again.

“Cassie? What’s wrong?” he said, his voice filled with concern.

“Casssssiiieeee… all of that can be yours. Just tear his throat out out. Don’t let him morph.” The Drode’s voice tangled all around me.

“Cassie,” Jake said again, this time dropping to the ground to be eye level with me. I could see the black stripes rippling across his features, his face bulging and eye color changing as he began morphing into the tiger I had seen him become so many times.His hand dropped as it became a paw. I felt that paw striking me across the face. His anger. 

“One life for everyone else. A free galaxy. No more slaves. No more Yeerks. Just kill Jake Berenson and all of this can be yours.”

Suddenly Jake was human again, frozen aside from his eyes, which looked around, the panic settling in his eyes. 

“KILL. HIM.”

Never. No matter what had happened between me and Jake, I could never kill him. I loved him. Nothing in this world was worth Jake’s life. Even if what the Drode promised was true, it came at too horrible a price. The price would be Jake’s life… and my humanity. 

In an instant I turned on the Drode, my jaws aching for his throat. He disappeared, his laughter filling my ears as Jake also disappeared. 

“Oh Cassie, too good for even her planet. One day soon you will wish for the great Crayak to offer you this again. When a friend falls in battle… you will wish for him. And he shall not appear. He will let you enjoy the spoils of your kindness.”

Interesting. You're right that Marco has that almost excessive concern for order. Like, he claims to be chaotic, but a few pranks in a classroom do not a chaotic character make. He enforces Jake's leadership more than any other character, he turns the order structures of the Yeerk Empire to his advantage, and he understands the importance of learning the rules so that he can fuck with those rules. Having him be countered by an agent of chaos has some interesting potential.

That said, I do like that his primary nemesis is Visser "I make the rules work for me" One, and that he's the only one who wins a major victory in the war through politics rather than force. To me, Rachel fits as the counter to Drode because she's defined (and helped, and threatened by) her chaotic nature. She finds the crazy solution, she cuts the Gordian knot rather than trying to unpick it, she wins victory by simply damning the social norms and running at the problem with a knife, and she almost gets her friends killed with her refusal to follow orders. Drode feels like a natural counter to her.

I think if she told anyone, it'd be Cassie and Cassie alone. Reason being, Jake (as MM3 shows) is far too willing to sacrifice himself to Crayak in exchange for trying to win the war, and far FAR too willing to take Crayak's word for this kind of thing (see MM4). So she'd never tell Jake, and wouldn't tell Marco either. Cassie's the one she trusts with this kind of conundrum. At which point Cassie would probably go, "Okay, this offer sucks for a whole other set of reasons beyond not wanting Jake to die."

What Cassie would certainly spot that Rachel is too freaked-out and pissed-off to consider: the offer itself is vague as hell. "Your cousin's life" for "salvation in the arms of Crayak"? Okay, how specific does "cousin" have to be? Would killing David while he was being Saddler count (the ideal version)? Would killing Tom count (second-best)? Would killing Justin count (sucks, but at least better for humanity than killing Jake)? Earlier Drode did mention Jake by name, but how much wiggle room is there on that idea?

More importantly, what does "salvation" look like? Does it mean Crayak ends the war with humans ahead? Does it just mean he ends the war, however he thinks it should end? Is there any guarantee humans will still exist once andalites are done "saving" Earth in the most likely "win" condition? Does it mean humanity is "saved" in the sense of being alive, just yeerk-controlled? Does it just mean that Rachel and her loved ones get evacuated, like the Ellimist's earlier offer, while the rest of the species gets left to the yeerks?

Love it/ Hate it/ Tolerate it/ Would write it/ Have written it/ Would never write it/ Would read it/ Have read it/ Would never read it/ That would be a TRASH FIRE (affectionate)/ That would be a TRASH FIRE (derogatory)/ Squick/ Yay/ Fits with canon (affectionate)/ Fits with canon (derogatory)/ Makes no sense with canon (affectionate)/ Makes no sense with canon (derogatory)

Tobias' the badass hybrid species ever, and that's why we love him that much: who else can curse to the god and said he was baloney and lunatic directly