#peter animorphs

(partly inspired by the line in your fic where Jordan mentions she was older than when Rachel was when she started)

Peter: The best morpher. He understands how the technology works, better even than Ax does, and he can follow orders like a champ. Though he's no andalite when it comes to tracking time, he seems to have better numerical estimation abilities than the others and that'd serve him well. On the parents' auxiliary team, I could see him in a role similar to Cassie's (being able to do partial morphs) or Tobias's (the first one to try the weird alien morphs).

Naomi: The diversion expert. She's good at getting and keeping attention, and pretty dang fearless. So she'd take on a role like Tobias does sometimes where he flies around drawing fire from the others by keeping just out of range. If she could find a bird of paradise morph that might suit her, but I could also see frilled lizard or blue-spotted monitor working well in that role since reptiles can be a little hardier than birds and survive a hit or two.

Michelle: The one evacuating civilians. She abhors violence, but she's also hard to scare. So I could see her morphing elephant, or another people-mover giant herbivore, and rushing in to grab bystanders out of the line of fire and carry them away. If she grabs a few human-controllers in the process, that's fine; once word gets around that she is actually willing to return any surrendered yeerk to the pool in exchange for keeping the host, lots of yeerks would be willing to work with her after being accidentally captured.

Eva: The leader. She'd acquire the biggest baddest hork-bajir whose permission she could get, and she'd put herself at the vanguard of the team. She'd also default to leading the auxiliary family team due to wealth of relevant knowledge and tactical experience. This would naturally lead to a lot of clashes with Michelle, but I think they'd be able to find common ground on wanting to save humanity more than any other priority. Plus...

Walter: The peacekeeper. His role would be sort of like Jake takes on during the downtime, working to smooth over conflicts between teammates and make sure they all keep their eyes on the ball. If Eva's the tactician then he's the strategist, thinking long-term about what kind of Earth they want to have left when all the dust clears. In terms of fighting style he'd be the versatile support person, maybe elephant morph as well since it can serve as a diversion or a people-mover or a tank depending on who must needs backup at any moment.

x x x x x

I'm stuck on this one because I think there's a reason that in canon we never see an Animorph have a custodial parent who's a controller. And that is the fact that, in the U.S., kids are legally treated as being basically the property of their parents. There would be nothing stopping a yeerk who has custody of a kid from just infesting the kid for the sake of convenience (Chapman's deal with Iniss 226 being the rare exception). Like, you're legally allowed to drag your kids to meetings they don't want to attend, hold them in places they would rather leave, and even subject them to medical procedures or cult initiations they would rather avoid. So if Edriss has sole custody of Marco, there's nothing to stop her from just infesting him by force.

...which then means Elfangor accidentally recruits a yeerk among the Animorphs, which is a very short path to a total party kill.

I guess I don't really find it telling. The Animorphs cast gets huge after #49, and with over 50 surviving named characters, it makes sense that the less politically significant ones get de-prioritized. Given the story #54 is trying to tell — of how the entire world changes and how the Animorphs cope in the aftermath of the war — Eva and Peter are simply less important than Toby or Arbron or Erek. We also don't get any mention of Cassie's, Ax's, or Tobias's parents in the final book, even though Ax's parents especially are a massive open question in his post-war life.