M3C3 - Grizzly Bear

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” I said.

“Well … No. Not in this life, perhaps.”

“Yeerk,” Melissa said. “Some new host body.”

“Marco,” I said. He nodded. He began to slowly morph to grizzly bear, his favorite morph.

<Who are you?> Ax demanded. <Or should I say, what?>

The creature grinned. “You, at least, are no different, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Still the arrogant Andalite.”

“Shut up, Ax,” I snapped. “I am Supreme Leader here. I’ll ask the questions.” Having put one pushy alien in his place, I moved back to the other. “What do you want?” I demanded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marco changing.

The creature sighed. “Well, as much fun as it is to see you all this way, I suppose for us to move on I’ll have to return you, temporarily at least, to your usual condition: sanctimonious, self-righteous, and utterly tedious.”

There was no flash of light. No bang. Nothing changed. Except that everything changed.

I changed.

Suddenly, instantly, I was a different person.

I stared at the Drode. I knew now who he was. What he was.

Whom he served.

I shot a look at Cassie. Then at the girl standing beside her. Melissa was gone. Rachel was there.

“So glad you’re back with us, Rachel,” the Drode leered. “You know you’re still my favorite Animorph.”

“What was all that?” Marco demanded mid-morph. “Some kind of hallucination?”

“No, no, no!” the Drode said. “It is glorious reality. Big Jake, Jake the perfect leader, Jake the compassionate, nothing more than a jumped-up little dictator with delusions of grandeur who insists on being called Supreme Leader!”

“No, that was not reality,” Cassie snapped. “I do not own a slave! That’s sickening! What are you talking about?”

“And where was I?” Rachel demanded.

“I was thinking how I’d have to turn Cassie in for not approving of some war down in Brazil,” I admitted. “That’s not reality.”

“I will tell you about reality,” the Drode said eagerly. “Your country is an empire, ruled by terror and torture. It has made war on the nations to the south. It slaughters peoples it calls ‘Primitives.’ It enslaves anyone with an IQ below eighty, as well as anyone born with what you call defects. All in all, it’s my kind of place.”