- Narrator: Marco
Marco finds that Visser One has returned to Earth.
Tropes:
- Awesomeness by Analysis: A few minutes of interacting with Marco, Tobias, and Ax gives Visser One suspicions that something is off with the Andalite bandits. She notices that the gorilla (Marco) and hawk (Tobias) stay in morph while Ax, who is noticeably a teenager by Andalite standards, does most of the talking. Then she notices that the Andalite bandits have refrained from killing human-Controllers while causing huge casualties to Hork-Bajir and Taxxon-Controllers, which is out of character for the Andalite military, who would kill human-Controllers as easily as the rest. Eventually, Marco makes a reference to The Prince of Egypt, something no Andalite would be caught dead doing.Visser One: Andalites don’t make jokes. Let alone human popular culture references. No, you’re a human.
- Catapult Nightmare: The book opens with Marco having one where he sees his mother swept away by ocean currents, but being okay with it because she no longer has a Yeerk in her head.
- Chameleon Camouflage: Visser Three's alien monster morph is come kind of giant bug-crab that can camouflage itself like a chameleon.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- Visser Three expected a dogfight between his Blade ship and whatever Visser One brought to the table. He didn't expect a Nova-class Empire ship that could tear his Blade ship apart.
- Marco in mountain goat morph has Visser One dead to rights, only for Jake, who Marco thought was dead, to pounce on him in tiger morph.
- Disney Death: The car Jake and Cassie are hiding in is blown up by Visser Three as soon as he arrives. They survive, but both were knocked unconscious while mostly in cockroach morph, making it look to the rest that they had died.
- The Dreaded: Chapman's reaction (read:running away in terror) to seeing that the lady he just helped is Visser One speaks volumes of how she got her rank.
- Drives Like Crazy: The other Animorphs make the observation that Marco gets his driving skills from Eva. He can't deny it.
- Enemy Mine: Marco, Ax, and Tobias negotiate a deal with Visser One to have both sides take out Visser Three, then turn on each other.
- Faking the Dead: The Animorphs do this for the free Hork-Bajir, leading Vissers One and Three to an empty valley where Erek projects a hologram of several dozen Hork-Bajir living peacefully. The Vissers use their warships to scour the area, never realizing it's all fake.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Ax grumbles about being forced to play the role of "arrogant Andalite" in the same smug, condescending way he usually acts around humans.Ax: <It will certainly require good acting skills to imbue the fundamentally humble and dispassionate Andalite character with a taint of arrogance.>
- I'm Not Doing That Again: Marco, Ax, and Tobias use their cockroach morphs to scramble down a stairway railing for several stories, which, to the cockroach, feels like a roller coaster. They agree that it was cool, and to never do it again.
- Kill the Ones You Love: After much internal debating, Marco's ruthless pragmatism wins out and he tries to kill Eva to kill Visser One. The other Animorphs are concerned with what Marco would do when confronted with Visser One, but all of them privately agreed that letting him kill his mother was not an option.
- Mêlée à Trois: The climactic battle is between the forces of Vissers One and Three, followed by the Animorphs and the free Hork-Bajir arriving to take both Yeerk armies out.
- Never Found the Body: Visser One falls off a cliff and into a valley that's being bombarded with Dracon cannon fire. Rachel later comes over to Marco's to tell him that Eva's body wasn't found, meaning she could still be alive.
- Punched Across the Room: Marco successfully acquires a drowsy mountain goat, only for another mountain goat to take exception to his presence. He gets headbutted pretty hard as a result.Marco: And let me just say that unless you have been butted down a fifteen-foot-high cliff by a two hundred-and-fifty-pound angry male mountain goat, you have not experienced true humiliation.
- Series Continuity Error: At the start of Chapter 8, when climbing down the stairs in cockroach morph, it's mentioned that falling off the railing would mean certain death - except in "The Threat", it's established that cockroaches cannot fall to their deaths.
- Shoot the Dog: When all the concerns about Marco getting face-to-face with Visser One come to head, Marco chooses to use his mountain goat morph to knock her off a cliff in hopes of a Mercy Kill for Eva.
- Somebody Else's Problem: Marco gets flattened by an oblivious Visser One on a sidewalk downtown, which triggers his fight or flight instincts. When he realizes there's no danger, he also notices that no one stopped to help him.Marco: And they say my generation has no manners.
- "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot: Marco exploits this by acquiring a middle aged man and passing them off as father and son so he can infiltrate the building that Visser One just walked into.
- Villains Want Mercy: Marco and Ax bluff Visser One into thinking they'll kill her, to which she begs for her life.
- Wham Line: Marco's only line of dialogue to Eva, confirming something Visser One had started to suspect.Marco: <I love you.>
Visser One: The boy! It’s the boy!
