| #39: The Hidden |
Detailed Plot: Cassie's trying to heal a mouse in her barn when Erek the Chee shows up and tells her they've got a BIG problem. The Yeerks have managed to repair the Helmacron sensors from the ship they encountered in a previous book, and this is a problem because it can sense morphing energy. Yeerk helicopters are zeroing in on the signature energy of the blue box, which is hidden in Cassie's barn. She asks Erek to warn the others while she gets the box out of there, and off she goes with her mom, who's running an errand. The helicopters keep following them. Meanwhile the other Animorphs get themselves in place, and Cassie ends up having to hide in a delivery truck. The truck has a buffalo in it. A very aggressive buffalo. To keep it calm, Cassie acquires the buffalo, and the truck begins to go down the road. The Yeerks have created a roadblock to search vehicles in the area, and Cassie has to morph the buffalo to hide. When Visser Three insists on looking in the truck even though the driver says it contains an aggressive animal, Cassie and the other buffalo run out and rampage, and she damages the visser's car and Chapman gets injured. The real buffalo runs off while Cassie guards the morphing cube. Eventually the others are able to draw the helicopters off, but Cassie's stuck wandering around with the cube. Then something terrifying happens: she comes upon the other buffalo, and it's apparently both made contact with the cube and made contact with Chapman, because the buffalo is now morphing into a human without knowing what it's doing. The Chee figure out a way to draw the helicopters with a fake generating device, leaving them some time to figure out how to destroy the Helmacron ship. They also worry about the so-called "buffa-human" which they've had to abandon, because if it is caught or infested its memories could provide information to the Yeerks. But before they can make much of a plan, Taxxons attack them, and they morph to battle morphs--Cassie morphs a buffalo. They attack and start getting overwhelmed, but the buffa-human shows up and starts attacking too, turning the tide. They temporarily win, and the buffa-human copies them in morphing to human, but it can't talk though it tries to make sounds. Cassie is so creeped out and confused by what to do with a buffalo that's able to become human, but then they have to run again. Cassie, as a wolf, holds the morphing cube, and ends up putting it down to fight a Taxxon only to get reprimanded by Jake. They can't put the morphing cube down and let the Yeerks get it. Cassie runs with the cube, and Rachel stays behind for backup. They get through the battle and send any enemy that wasn't killed retreating, but then they have to figure out how to get across a road choked by Controllers. Cassie decides they should all fly over as flies except for one of them, then have whoever is still behind throw the morphing cube over the road to be caught by the others. Then the thrower would morph to fly and join them. Marco decides to be the thrower, and it works out fine, with Cassie catching the cube as a wolf. Marco comes to join them, but then they notice . . . that the buffalo caught up to them and quickly gets stopped and surrounded by Hork-Bajir. It looks like it's going to fight, and they can't allow it to be captured; it is probably going to be assumed an Andalite in morph. What if it gets infested? They're going to have to destroy it. Before they have to deal with that, a helicopter comes after them. The visser has arrived, and he acknowledges the "Andalite scum" and asks them where the morphing cube is. They don't answer (and Cassie doesn't let him see that she has it with her), but the buffalo attracts Visser Three's attention and ends up rubbing up against him long enough to acquire him. Then it morphs into the visser and begins attacking. His troops don't know who to shoot at, so they all escape and the buffalo follows. Hork-Bajir are chasing them as they retreat, so Cassie and the buffalo stay behind to fight. She brushes an ant off the morphing cube before giving it to Jake for safekeeping. When Visser Three comes in with a lethal morph, Cassie runs with the buffalo. It takes its cue from her and she jumps into the ravine below, which damages both of them mortally. She is able to escape death by demorphing, but ends up encouraging the buffalo to do so too, and it also survives. She meets up with her friends at the beach, with the buffa-human in Chapman's body following. They get to the beach, with helicopters following, and they leave the buffalo behind. But Cassie runs into something scary: the ant she'd brushed off before had gotten morphing powers and acquired her, and now it's become a copy of her but with an ant mind. It freaks out because it doesn't like having a human mind, and when Cassie asks it to stop it attacks her. Morphing uncontrollably, it sometimes has ant mouthparts and bites her with them, and she doesn't know what to do as she's being attacked and destroyed by a copy of herself. Then the buffalo arrives yet again, and attacks the ant-Cassie. But the ant-Cassie demorphs and presumably heals itself, and so Cassie runs over and stomps it because she doesn't want such a thing to be alive. She hears the helicopters coming, and morphs to an osprey . . . and thanks the buffalo for saving her life before the helicopter beams fry it and destroy it. Cassie flies up, positions herself over the helicopter that's targeting her friends (as dolphins below), and begins to go through her morph to herself to become a whale and smash them. But a couple of her friends have been wounded and sharks are coming, so she has to hurry. She messes up her morphs a bit and falls too fast, and then the helicopter pilot sees her falling so he moves the copter and she's going to miss him. She knows the mission is going to fail. But then a seagull gets sucked into the engine and blows it up. The impact knocks Cassie out. When she wakes up, she finds that her friends have saved her and they're fairly certain the exploding helicopter destroyed the Helmacron sensors. Jake still has the morphing cube and they're safe. Cassie still thinks about the buffalo that was sacrificed, and counts herself lucky that she's got friends who look out for her no matter what. Narrator: Cassie New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: Buffalo Marco: None Rachel: None Ax: None Tobias: None Notable: This book is ghostwritten by Laura Battyanyi-Weiss. Her name's misspelled in the credits page. It makes no sense that an animal like a buffalo could "accidentally" morph since it's been said many times that both acquiring and morphing take concentration and intent. How could a buffalo do it randomly? Best lines: Cassie: So you can see why I need to work with wounded animals. To help heal them. In some way, I think they help heal me, too. Rachel: "While you do the right thing, I do the necessary thing. Get it?"
Marco: "Your wish is my command, Prince Jake."
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