For the mall from the TV series, see Woodbine Centre

This unnamed mall was a shopping mall in California that was often frequented by the Animorphs and housed hidden entrances into the Underground Yeerk Pool Complex.

History

Prime Timeline

This mall, situated in California,^[2] was the local mall in the Animorphs' hometown.^[3] It contained four major department stores, with a food court on the second floor.^[4] In 1995,^{[note 1]} the Yeerk Empire began their invasion of Earth.^[5] By 1997,^{[note 2]} the Yeerk Empire successfully constructed an underground Yeerk Pool Complex underneath half of the city^[3] and added a handful of secret entrances within the mall, such as a secret passageway behind the mirror of the last dressing room inside The Gap and one inside the mall's movie theater.^[4]

One Friday night in 1997, five thirteen year olds^[6] – Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco – were at the mall. While Jake and Marco played video games at a store that sold games and comic books^[3] Cassie accompanied Rachel as she went shopping.^[7] The five teenagers, now known as the Animorphs, revisited the mall on Monday after school, sitting at the food court and discussing their plans as Jake ordered and ate nachos.^[3] Due to the mall's concrete, buildings and cars, the parking lot gave off good thermals, which was useful for Tobias as well as the other Animorphs when they were in bird morphs.^[8] Less than a month later, Rachel's gymnastics class was holding an exhibition at the mall, where a crowd gathered to watch the girls in leotards perform. Tobias, who had been trapped as a red-tailed hawk, tried to commit suicide by diving down and hitting the glass doors of the mall's entrance, although he survived as someone opened the door. Flying through the mall and taking stock of its many stores, Tobias shot past Rachel, who recognized him. He attempted to collide with a wall but flared his wings at the last second when Rachel called out to him. He then shot up towards the skylight in order to hit the glass and end his life; however, Marco, who was on the second floor of the mall near the gymnastics exhibition, threw a baseball at the skylight, shattering it and allowing Tobias to survive and escape.^[9]

On a Saturday, Jake and Marco went to the mall, bringing Ax, an Andalite who had joined them, with them. The plan was to go to Radio Shack, as Ax needed parts to build a Yeerk Distress Beacon. Ax's first visit to the mall caused him to be overwhelmed by the sense of smell that he was receiving in his human morph. As Jake and Marco entered the mall, they wondered where Radio Shack was and contemplated looking at the map. Ax, unable to resist the smells, took off from them and got onto an escalator, which took him to the second floor. Jake and Marco then spotted him and gave pursuit; Jake initally ran, but Marco advised him not to run since the mall police would think he had stolen something. The two slowly made their way to the escalator. Upstairs, Ax had followed a strong scent and arrived in front of Starbucks, where he saw people waiting in line. Mimicking them, he waited in line patiently and overheard a person in front of him ask for a double latte. The clerk then asked Ax what he wanted, and Ax repeated the order he had heard. Jake and Marco then caught up with Ax and Jake paid for the latte. They then guided Ax towards Radio Shack, where he found most of the parts he needed. When Jake went to pay for it, Ax began to smell another strong scent and told Marco that he believed it was connected to the sense of taste he had just experienced. Ax then threw his Starbucks cup at the Radio Shack cashier, and when Marco ran up to apologize, Ax ran out of the store to follow the scent.

He made his way to the food court, where he began to eat other people's food off their tables in a mad rush. This caused the people eating to leave, although Ax's antics caused other mall-goers to surge towards the food court to watch him. Jake and Marco followed the surge and arrived at the food court, where they saw people point and laugh at Ax. A mall cop then tried approaching Ax as Ax bit into a cinnamon bun from Cinnabon and relished how he had finally found the source of the scent. As more mall police arrived, Marco yelled at Ax to run. While trying to flee from the mall police, Ax, who struggled with the two legs he had in human morph and the inability to look behind him without turning his head, began demorphing. This caused many mall shoppers to scream and run as they saw him; while some mall police were stunned as well, at least one of them recognized him as an Andalite, causing Marco to realize that some of the mall police were Controllers. Marco and Jake then ran with Ax as they escaped from one of the mall exits, with mall police still behind them. As city police officers sped up towards them, the three ran into a nearby grocery store.^[10]

On a Friday after school, Jake went to the mall with Cassie and Rachel in order to buy his mother a birthday gift. Rachel redirected them to the second floor of a department store, where she found a silk blouse that was originally thirty-three dollars but was on sale for $17.50. As she celebrated the savings, Jake inquired how he was saving when he was only planning to spend fifteen dollars, to which Cassie responded that Rachel used a different math when it came to shopping. Rachel then left them to check something in the Juniors department and told them that she would meet with them later at the food court. Jake and Cassie discussed their upcoming plan to morph into flies to infiltrate the Berman Clinic^[11] before Jake paid for the blouse^{[note 3]} and the pair went to the food court to meet Rachel.^[11]

Marco later discovered about the entrance to the Yeerk pool being situated withing the dressing room at The Gap. On a Tuesday evening, the Animorphs, minus Tobias, went to the mall, with Jake and Ax going as one group, Rachel and Cassie as a second group, and Marco by himself, as they did not want any Controllers to spot them as a group. Jake and Ax went to play video games, where Ax ate a cigarette butt out of an ashtray. Rachel met up with Cassie at the food court and the two groups slowly made their way to The Gap. Rachel and Cassie went into the second last dressing room, where they morphed into cockroaches before Marco entered and morphed as well, followed by Ax. Jake then entered the dressing room and picked up the discarded clothing and left The Gap in order to place the clothing into a rented coin locker; he then returned to the dressing room and morphed into the cockroach, sacrificing his outer clothing to be found and discarded by employees. The five of them then made their way to the last dressing room and waited for a human-Controller to arrive, who then revealed the passageway to the Yeerk pool hidden behind a mirror, which the Animorphs used to follow him and enter into the pool complex.^[4]

Shortly after, on a Saturday, Cassie went to the mall to look for Rachel. At the same time, Iniss 226, controlling Chapman's body, went to the mall in order to meet with two Controllers, one of whom worked for the police and the other for a newspaper. Iniss purchased something from a department store before he walked into B. Dalton, unaware that Cassie had followed him. Cassie retreated into the storeroom's employee bathroom in order to morph into a housefly in order to spy on Iniss. The two other Controllers entered B. Dalton to meet with Iniss before the three left the store, with Cassie following them, where the Controllers discussed the Veleek being a morph-hunter. The three Controllers then left the mall while Cassie flew back to the B. Dalton bathroom to demorph and obtain her shoes and outer clothing before she left the mall as well. That night, a mall crew was painting new lines in the parking lot when one of the workers spotted Marco and Ax, in their osprey and northern harrier morphs respectively, flying past their heads.^[12] Very shortly after their defeat of the Veleek, the Animorphs went to the mall so that Jake, Marco, and Ax could watch a movie at the mall theater; Rachel and Cassie waited outside of the mall, while Tobias flew above the mall parking lot. When the boys exited the theater, Tobias informed them of a man screaming about Yeerks headed their way, whom they discovered was a former host whose Yeerk was dying. As the man leaned against a store exterior and yelled about the Yeerks, police and paramedics arrived, and one police officer, who was a Controller, injected a steel cylindrical device at the base of the man's neck, killing the freed host.^[13]

On a Saturday, the Animorphs decided to meet at the mall to discuss their plan to infiltrate the Dapsen Lumber Command Center. To avoid suspicion, Rachel and Cassie went to the mall first, where Cassie followed Rachel as she visited The Limited, Banana Republic, The Gap, and Express. At Express, Cassie discussed what insect morph they would be using and hoped that they would not be revisiting the ant morph. Meanwhile, Jake, Marco, and Ax in his human morph went to the arcade before getting nachos at the food court. As they sat at a table, Ax ate all of the nachos. Rachel and Cassie then approached the boys, and as per their planned charade, Marco exclaimed at the "surprise" of seeing the girls there and pulled out a seat for Cassie. The team discussed their next move as Jake notified them that Tobias had learned that termites lived in the wood of the command center and that Tobias had taken a termite from the colony from some wood that the Yeerks had cut through. Jake kept the termite in a vial in his shirt pocket, and Rachel and Cassie acquired the termite before the five of them left the mall.^[14]

This section requires expansion

Alternate Realities

Dark Timeline

In an alternate future timeline where the Yeerk Empire defeated the Animorphs and succeeded in conquering Earth, this mall was converted into a large-scale Taxxon colony. A Yeerk pool specifically for Taxxons was built on the roof on the mall, above where the second floor food court was. Several holes were drilled into the sides of the mall's four major department stores, including Sears and JCPenney, where Taxxons slithered in and out of these holes carrying boxes they retrieved from a spacecraft that had been parked in the mall's parking lot. A dropshaft was also added near the mall to allow Controllers to use the high-speed transit system.^[4]

History Altered by Crayak

To be added

Known Stores

This section requires expansion

• August Woman^[12]
• B. Dalton^{[9][12][note 4]}
• Banana Republic^[12][14]
• Benetton^[9]
• Casual Corner^[12]
• Cinnabon^[10]
• Circuit City^[10]
• Easy Spirit^[9]
• Express^[9][14][7]
• Foot Locker^[15]
• Godiva^[12]
• JCPenney^[4][15][16]
• Kinney Shoes^[12]
• Mrs. Fields^[9][12]
• Nine West^[9]
• Nordstrom^[13]
• Radio Shack^[9][10][12]
• Sam Goody^[7]
• Sears^[10][4]
• Spencer's Gifts^[17]
• Starbucks^[10]
• Taco Bell^[18][7]
• The Body Shop^[10]
• The Gap^{[9][4][12][14][17]}
• The Limited^[10][12][14]
• Unnamed shoe repair place^[10]

Appearances

This section requires expansion

The Invasion The Visitor (mentioned) The Encounter The Message (mentioned) The Predator The Capture The Stranger The Stranger (alternate timeline) The Andalite's Gift The Alien (mentioned) The Secret The Unknown The Underground The Decision

The Threat The Solution The Exposed The Experiment The Separation The Arrival Back to Before (alternate timeline)

Trivia

• The mall is located only a quarter mile away from the Animorphs' middle school.^[4]
• In the 2011 Relaunch reprint, B. Dalton is replaced with Barnes & Noble. This is because the reprints attempted to modernize the setting and references, and B. Dalton had since gone out of business.
• In the original version of The Predator, released in 1996, Ax's double latte from the mall's Starbucks costs $2.95. In the 2011 reprint, Ax's double latte costs $3.55.

Gallery

"Someone took a picture of me? Not cool. Do you see what I'm wearing? I'm Spandex-boy. Totally not cool." The image gallery for Mall may be viewed here

Notes

References