Animorphs Forever 8: Wheel Turns

Disclaimer: Not mine, and I plead insanity.

Taylor looked up at Ax, but it wasn't Taylor doing the looking. The gestures, the mannerism, as different as they were, could not have been any more different from the habitual ones of Taylor and a mongoose.

"I hoped this would happen," Methos mumbled, relief making him almost sag.

Taylor, or rather, Morgan smiled back at him.

"What happened?" shrieked Jake, who was plain confused.

"So, the Quickening was so powerful that it killed Taylor?" asked Marco, later, when they were back in the barn. The clean up from the fight they had left to the Chee.

Taylor/Morgan shook her head. "She's still here. If she ever accepts that she was wrong, and if she truly changes, she can have her body back. Until then, she has retreated totally into her own mind, leaving Morgan the only soul available to control the body."

Silence.

"I ain't touching that one," Marco commented.

"What now?" Cassie asked, looking at the immortals.

"I would think that Morgan, or what are you going to call yourself? Should get back to school, and try starting a new life. Since she is in an adult body, she won't have the same problems as before," said Methos.

Ax was looking at his former friend in a new body cautiously. He still wasn't sure that it was really Morgan.

"I guess that I can stay Morgan, at least for now. I think that I will go back to school…" she shook her head softly. "Then, join a holy order."

Huh? Ax asked, confused.

"I'm, not all Morgan. This is sort of a blending of Morgan, Darius, and a few others. Morgan the most, but still, I need to go and work for peace. This is a task that I don't believe I will accomplish in this life, but, maybe the next-"

Morgan stopped. She sighed, and turned. "I don't know."

"You're not making any sense," complained Rachel.

"Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die," Morgan responded cheekily.

"HEY, EVERYONE!" screamed Erek, rushing into the barn, where everyone was seated. "They Andalites, THEY'RE HERE!"

The war was over, and the mopping up action was less than pathetic.

It had helped that the main leader of the enemy was now on their side.

Morgan, posing as Taylor, helped the scars left by the invasion heal more easily. Then she demanded that the yeerks be spared.

Indeed, some yeerks chose to live peacefully. They were monitored, and then left on a planet, with no way off, with those hosts that chose to stay. Strange, but true.

Then came the last day that the Andalites were on earth.

Ax had chosen to go back with the other Andalites, at least for a while.

He stood with his friends, and said good-bye.

Tobias was in his human form, and Ax gave him a human hug, his best friend, and almost-brother.

"Here," said Cassie, handing him a wonderful smelling bag. He gave her a grin with is eyes. The bag was full of a baker's dozen cinnamon buns.

Turning and eyestalk, Ax saw his Prince, his forever Prince, no matter how high in the ranks he got to be, or whatever else befell him, Jake would be his leader. Always.

He shuddered to himself. Always would be a very, very long time.

Rachel turned her eyes away. He could hear the sounds of her tears, though she would never show them.

Marco cracked lame jokes. It was good to know that there were some constants in the universe.

Ax's eyes searched in vane for the one person that he wanted to see the most. He had wondered if the Chee would be able to find her after the clean up in time to tell her of his leaving. He thought about her wondering why it seemed so important to him.

It was hard with her stuck in Taylor's body. The memories of the tortures inflicted on him haunted his dreams, and seeing her face, even with a different person looking out of them, hurt him dearly. She had seen that, and disappeared after the mopping up action was over.

Then, a soft, familiar surge rang through his mind.

Turning his entire body, he shouted with glee, Morgan!

Then he gasped, as did everyone else.

It was Morgan; or rather, it was as close as Taylor would ever get. Hacked off green hair, nose ring, long coat, multiple ear piercings and all.

"What, don't you like my new look?"

Everyone gawked for a moment, and they started laughing, although Rachel sniffed and said," I would have hoped that you would have learned some fashion sense by now."

"Well, you gotta go with what you know. I was uncomfortable with the preppy look that Taylor favored. Besides, who would recognize me like this, eh?"

Ax went over, and Morgan hugged him tightly, planting a quick kiss on his face. The other Animorphs stared.

"You do realize," she said softly in his ear, " that you will have to come back, eventually."

Ax nodded.

I would like to see my parents first, and do some more learning while I'm there. I would like to see if there are other immortals out there, but I will come back.

He pulled away from her, but brushed his fingers across her face in an Andalite kiss.

They looked at each other for a long time, but then Jake coughed, breaking the mood.

"Uh. Yeah, well, I wanted to give you something before you left."

Handing Ax a bag, he pulled out a gorgeous katana. The light rippled over the Damascus steel, making it look smooth as water.

Then he noticed something else in the bag.

Laughing mentally, he pulled out a comic book.

"I couldn't let you get bored on the way back home, now could I?"

The Animorphs and Morgan watched at the ship with Ax in it lifted away.

I never thought this day would come, said Tobias, back in his hawk form. Many of the others nodded. They felt the same thing.

"I wonder if we will ever see them again?" asked Cassie, her voice and face reflecting her emotions.

"Things always come full circle," Morgan told her, following the ship with her eyes, then her other senses as it cloaked. "He'll be back; he's part of the Game, now."

The other Animorphs watched her.

"We have a present for you, too," Jake told her, and pulled something out of his pocket. It was the morphing cube.

"We think you should have the power again. You may need it, because in the Game, we want you to win."

"I'm not playing the Game that way, but never look a gift horse in the teeth," Morgan answered, touched. Then she pressed her hand to the cube.

She smiled as she felt it take effect, somehow even affecting the cybernetic parts of Taylor's body.

Silently, she memorized the faces in front of her, and the feel of them.

"Even if we don't meet in this life again, I have a feeling we will see each other in the next. Things will come full circle."

Then she left.

The Game will be played, the Wheel will turn, and things always do come full circle.

The End.

(A/N: I am thinking of writing a sequel to this, and crossing it with Gundam Wing. Anyone interested?)