Prologue: How the West was Won

[Suji]

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In the months after Cassie started the first two non-NYC Factions (Chicago and Vancouver), the Animorph forces experienced stable, and sometimes even extreme growth. Teenagers who had slipped through the cracks when the all-out invasion began weren’t hard to come by, and more often than not they were eager to fight back against the Empire that had turned their families into slaves. Factions sprung up in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Las Vegas, Ottowa, and Dallas; each with its own distinctive style, and its own unique complications.

In last few months of 2008, the Las Vegas faction became aware of a project in place that would turn the Hoover Dam into a giant Yeerk pool. As the invasion primarily began on the East Coast and worked its way west, this would be the largest pool on the West Coast, and possibly in the world. It wasn’t simply designed for every-day use by Yeerks in the area, but would also be a waypoint for Yeerks as they were transported from space. This would make it a major foothold for Empire activity in the area.

A reservoir with over 200 square miles of a surface area, hostless Yeerks had been shipped in by the hundreds of thousands, likely totalling over a million in the final count. Questions of morality aside, it presented the perfect opportunity to cause massive casualties to Yeerks in their natural state -- meaning minimal human loss. Together, the Las Vegas faction devised a way to take down the Hoover Dam on the day of its grand opening.

In the first half of a two-part plan, one team set charges along the Dam in critical areas. The other team passed off homemade bombs to a couple of Animorphs with stronger bird morphs, who in turn dropped the bombs into the pool, essentially dynamite fishing. Yeerks not killed by the concussive forces of the blasts were boiled alive as the temperature of the water skyrocketed.

In the second half of the plan, the charges placed along the Dam’s structural supports were blown. Though the Hoover Dam withstood the initial blasts, Lake Mead’s enormous pressure overcame the architectural wonder. With cracks splitting through the concrete wall, the Dam crumbled, sending any surviving Yeerks plummeting to the ground far below. With potentially millions of Yeerks slaughtered, at the cost of less than a hundred of human deaths, it was an overwhelming victory for the Animorphs.

The Las Vegas faction went into deep hiding after the Hoover Dam win. The Empire cited “faulty human construction” as the reason for the project’s failure, rather than attribute the disaster to the Animorphs. For this reason, they also could not hunt the Las Vegas faction publicly; but that didn’t stop them from privately sending in their best scouts and bounty hunters to try to find the individuals responsible. The attack on so many defenseless Yeerks put a great strain on the Faction’s relationship with local Yeerk Peace Movement members, as well.

Shortly after, the Dallas Faction was created. Several members that joined this new Faction, including its leader, had participated in the Hoover Dam mission. Less than half a year into the Faction’s history, catastrophe struck.

It began with a mission to rescue several captured Yeerk Peace Movement members from a research facility built under the city. Things escalated quickly when the Dallas Faction Leader and another Animorph were killed in combat. During the chaos of the escape, one Animorph disrupted several Controller scientists working in their lab. The Controllers had been working on a virus that would target any uninfested humans, requiring them to seek out the antidote from the Empire; an process that would, of course, end in them becoming a Controller.

The virus released, however, was a protoype: it attacked Yeerk and human alike, indiscriminately killing either species within hours. The facility immediately went into lockdown, during which time one of the Dallas Animorphs was taken captive. The lockdown wasn’t fast enough, however, and the virus began to spread topside.

It progressed slowly at first, and loathe to admit any lack of control, the Empire officials in Dallas tried to cover up and explain away the rapidly spreading epidemic. In a display of bravado, the Subvisser overseeing Dallas broadcasted the news of their live Animorph captive -- as well as the deaths of several of the Dallas Faction members -- across the country. At the last, the dead body of one of the Animorphs was gruesomely displayed as a trophy. Unfortunately, the Subvisser’s moment of triumph was extremely short-lived. He fell dead upon his own podium, blood seeping from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The collected crowd, which had already been rumbling with the rumor of an extremely contagious, completely fatal virus, broke into hysterics. There was no hope of concealing the true danger of the situation any longer.

Within minutes, perhaps even during the Subvisser’s speech itself, a forcefield was placed around the perimeter of Dallas city, including much of its outlying suburbs. The mass exodus on the ground was effectively curtailed; cars going 70 or 80 MPH crashed into the invisible walls, while those on foot found themselves trapped in a cage they couldn’t see. Those that tried to escape by air -- in crafts either human or alien made -- were met with heavy Dracon cannon fire by Empire ships lying in wait. The smoking metal carcasses of the spaceships and helicopters plummeted, destroying skyscrapers as they fell. Fortunately, a handful of the remaining Dallas Faction Animorphs were able to escape by morphing birds and flying over the edge of the forcefield.

The final stage of the quarantine was the cleansing. The Empire carpet bombed Dallas. If the assault of the bombs hadn’t been enough, the enclosed space within the forcefield made the destruction even more complete. Nothing was left standing: even first story buildings were leveled down to the soil. The entire city, and all its inhabitants, were reduced to a hilly region of ash. From above it appears as a perfect circle of destruction, surgical in its exactness.

The losses were unfathomable. The entirety of the Animorph forces felt the blow, disheartened. The end of Dallas marked a dark turning point in the lives of many of the war’s soldiers and survivors.

There was, however, a silver-lining. Coupled with the recent take-down of the Hoover Dam, the loss of Dallas convinced the Empire that it was too risky to continue major expansion across the mid-West and Western areas of the United States. Even if the resources were available to construct the massive pools needed to service all the Controllers in those regions, the political climate was too volatile for reconstruction to gain any backing. The Animorphs had made those areas too unstable, which was bad for big investments. It would be many years before any ambitious Subvissers could legitimately suggest another move towards the West.

In the aftermath of Dallas obliteration, two Dallas Faction Animorphs were discovered to have made a successful escape, fortunately ruling out the possibility of an Animorph Controller. Cassie called together a meeting at the newly-founded Academy, selecting Animorphs from across the country to lead Factions elsewhere. Sometime afterwards, the famous Las Vegas Faction was dissolved: its members were either dead, had been called to Cassie's meeting, or had simply moved on to other cities with greater needs.

With the onset of globalized Factions, the world had suddenly become a lot bigger for the Animorphs.