IMPORTANT: This story contains major, major, MAJOR Order of the Phoenix spoilers. If you have not finished it, do not read. I'm not one to ruin the end of a book for someone. This tells who dies and why Voldemort offered to spare Lily and kill Harry. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
Wizards and Controllers
By Meagan, a.k.a. Padfoot
Chapter 1 Sunny Side Down (Jake)My name is Jake.
You may not know it—and if you do, it's probably too late—but the world is being invaded by a parasitic alien race called the Yeerks.
Yeah, you're probably wondering where my straightjacket is now, but first let me explain.
It happened two years ago, when the others and I were thirteen. We were walking home from the mall when an Andalite ship landed and we met a person who changed our lives forever: Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. He explained to us the Yeerk threat and gave us the power to morph just before he died.
Ever since then, we've been saving the human race.
Who are we, you ask?
We are the Animorphs.
There are six of us: Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, Ax, and me.
Rachel is our warrior and my cousin. She isn't afraid of anything and fights valiantly. Sometimes this makes me worry, because she seems to enjoy it a little too much. I guess you can say she's pretty: she's tall, blonde, and has big blue eyes.
But don't get her wrong.
She's not your regular mall-rat. Besides having looks, she has brains too. She'll kick your butt if she wants to.
Tobias is our resident nothlit, which means he overstayed the two-hour morphing limit. He's a red-tailed hawk and will always be a dreamer.
I guess you can say that he was a geek when he was human. He was a fully-fledged bully magnet. He was a dreamer, too, before he got stuck. Now he's a hunter.
Cassie is the sensitive one. She's a tree-hugger, as Marco would say. She loves all types of animals and helps her dad in their barn, a.k.a. the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. And I guess you could say she's… um… kind of my girlfriend.
Don't tell anyone else that.
Marco is the joker and—as Rachel says—a whiner. Well, he does actually whine a lot. But he's my best friend and has been since we were little. He's fighting because his Mom is Visser One, and he wants to save her.
And we had all just met two amazing people: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. They had helped us save the magic school Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Yeerk invasion a few months ago. Harry and his friend Ron nearly died, but we all got out alive.
So now I sat in my room, doing my Algebra homework.
Yeah, it stinks, doesn't it? We save the world and we still have to do our homework.
I was toying with the chain around my neck. The necklace that hung around my neck was the only way for us to communicate with our wizard friends. It wasn't a very complicated process: all I had to do was squeeze it and concentrate. Not that I had tried it yet. I was actually afraid that I would break the lightning-bolt charm if I squeezed it too hard.
The phone rang. I pushed myself up and ran to the door, but it stopped ringing. Heart thudding, I stared at the phone, which rested on a table down the hall. What if one of the Animorphs was calling me and they had just been taken captive without finishing the call?
The phone rang again, twice this time, and stopped. Tom came down the hall. I quickly shut the door so that it was only open a crack. The phone rang for a third time, and on the third ring Tom picked up.
"Hello?"
An indistinguishable voice said something on the other line.
I frowned. I peered over the edge of the door. Tom wasn't facing me. I opened the door and darted across the hall to my parents' room. There was a phone in there.
I looked out again to see if Tom had seen me.
He hadn't.
I carefully picked up the receiver, eyes glued to the door. No Hork-Bajir ran in, wrists blades flashing. I pressed the receiver to my ear.
"—is sure to stop them."
I didn't know the voice on the other line, but I knew it belonged to a Controller.
"Has it been finished? Tested?" demanded Tom.
"It's been finished. He even brought some in for testing."
"So it works."
"Yes."
"Will it work against the target, as well as others?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Click.
The dial tone came on the receiver. I stared down at it, not knowing what to think. They were doing something, which meant something was going to go horribly wrong for us… and possibly for Harry and Hermione. They Yeerks don't take defeat lying down.
I hung up the phone and looked out into the hall. Tom was gone. I ran to the phone and dialed Cassie up with trembling fingers. To my relief, she was the person to pick up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Cassie. It's Jake."
"Hi, Jake! What's up?"
"Oh, I was just thinking about writing our pen pals. You know, the ones over in England. I wanted to know if I could come over so we could write them together."
"Sure!"
"Could you call the others, too? They'd like a say in the letter, too."
"Okay. Bye!"
And moments later, I was soaring my way over to Cassie's barn.
Tobias and Ax were there when I got there. I landed and quickly demorphed, beak and talons melting into mouth, nose, and toes. I sprouted a few more feet. My feathers turned waxy and smoothed out into skin. My senses dulled. I blinked a few times to readjust.
Seconds later, a bald eagle and osprey swept into the barn. In moments Rachel and Marco were standing by my side. Marco collapsed on a bale of hay. He closed his eyes and just sort of lay there, as if he were dead.
Rachel wrinkled her nose in disdain. She strode over to the other side of the barn and leaned against the wall. Marco's eyes popped open and he sat up, grinning brilliantly at her. "It's not contagious, you know," he said glibly.
Rachel cocked a golden eyebrow. "I'd rather not take any chances." She replied.
He winced. "Ooooh. Rachel, one. Me, zip."
This is all very fascinating, Tobias said, But I really don't think it's why Jake called us together.
I shook my head. "It isn't, as a matter of fact. I just eavesdropped on Tom and they were talking about some sort of weapon. From the way they said it, it sounded as if they were talking about wizards or at least Voldemort. You could tell that when they said he they were talking about Voldemort."
"This is going to be as fun as a barrel of monkeys," Marco said, swinging his arm in mock excitement.
"You're bad enough," Rachel replied, batting her eyelashes at Marco.
Marco grimaced. "Two-nothing. Owie." He wrinkled his nose and lightly changed the topic. "So are we calling in the cavalry?"
I rubbed my forehead. I could feel a headache coming on. "I think we better have. This isn't a thing I can just decide by myself, though. We need a vote. All in favor?"
Five of the six hands went up. I looked at Ax. He was outnumbered five to one. I knew why he didn't want any wizards involved. He'd had three werewolf transformations in the past two months. I wouldn't have liked wizards all that much if I were in his shoes—um, hooves.
"All right," I said, swinging my arms, "I guess we're giving Harry and Hermione a call."
Everyone watched as I pulled at the gold chain that hung around my neck. The intricate, pure gold lightning-bolt charm fell against my shirt, as warm as always. I looked at the others, all with expressions of dead seriousness. I held my breath and held the charm in my palm. I wrapped my fingers around it.
And concentrated.
A/N: Okie-dokie! Sorry this took me so long, people. Same old, same old excuses I've got going: school, homework, extra curricular activities, homework… yadda, yadda, yadda. I've also been reading a lot more than usual lately and I was writing in my other stories. (BTW, The Elvenbane is one of the best books ever!! Not as good as HP, though…) Stick around for "Chapter 2: Call Me, Beep Me (Harry)"!