Animorphs: The Second Coming

New Friends

By:Forlay

Chapter 1

    My Name is Tom. I guess it's a normal enough name--if you're from Earth. But here, it really sticks out.
    'Here' would be the Andalite Homeworld. How did I end up here? Well, I'm sure you've heard of the Animorphs, five human kids and one Andalite kid who had the power to morph into any animal they touch and used that power to fight brainstealing slugs called yeerks? Well, once they were finished fighting the yeerks on Earth, for some reason unknown to me, they came to live here.
    Now, after they came here, four decided to get married. Namely, Jake and Cassie then Rachel and Tobias. Of course, prior to the marriage, Tobias relinquished his hawk form for good and became trapped in his human morph.
    Now, skip ahead a couple years and...voila! They have kids. Jake and Cassie have twins, me and my sister Catara-Fitalia-Goroara. At about the same time, Rachel and Tobias have their first kid, the infamous Ritora-Fuloa-Maheen. She and Catara became fast friends, leaving me out in the cold. Boo-hoo.
    Alright, two years later Rachel and Tobias have another kid! Yes! A friend for me, right? Wrong. It's Ritora's highly insane and annoying kid sister, Jordan. The kid's a nutcase, believe me.
    Now you may be wondering whatever happened to the last two members of the Animorphs. Marco's living next door to me by hiself, but visits Dad practically every day, so he might as well be a member of the family.
    Now, what happened to Ax? Or Prince Aximili, as I know him. Yep, that's right. The council decided that he wasn't such a bad guy, restored his honor, and he's worked his way up the ranks to become Prince Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill.
    And so the Animorphs and Andalites lived together in a happy, utopian society for a while. Us kids grow up to be teenagers who have also been given morphing powers so we'll fit in better. Then, insert dramamtic music here, disaster strikes. Turns out, the Andalites and Animorphs didn't totally destroy the yeerks as originally thought. Nope, now they've decided to come wreak havoc on us over here at the Andalite Homeworld. So, guess who're the new recruits to fight? You guessed it, the only humans on the planet with the power morph. Us. Why wasn't the military drafted? Their forces are spread too thin just trying to protect the planet from an all out invasion to worry about ground troops. But, we do get help from Prince Aximili, not as much as we used to, but some. We have to be careful now, yeerks are taking Andalite hosts now. Meaning, any one we meet could be a yeerk. There is one Andalite we trust though. Prince Aximili's younger brother, Abata-Elfangor-Aximili. He's one of us. Slightly weird at times, and highly annoying with his Andalite superiority complex, but he's pretty cool.
    But, we also have an informant who can't be taken by the yeerks. Tellay-Mator-Calla of the shape shifting race, the Zupas. A very odd group of aliens, of course, I probably shouldn't be talking since to the Andalites I'm a very odd alien, that were practically destroyed when the yeerks attacked their planet.
    We've done a pretty good job fighting the yeerks so far. We've destroyed their first ground based kandrona. We've found 'good yeerks' on Earth and used a weapon they gave us to fry a bunch of yeerks. And we've met our handy informant, Tellay. So, we figured we deserved a break. But could the forces of the galaxy leave it at that? Could a bunch of human kids just sit back and relax for one weekend? Of course not. A major war just had to break out, didn't it?

Chapter 2

    I was lounging on the couch, snacking on some pop corn, watching a really cheap movie from Earth on our TV. We, Mom, Dad, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Tobias, Marco, Ritora, Jordan, Catara and me, visited Earth about a month ago and we picked up a TV while we were there. Due to highly advanced Andalite technology, we can pick up Earth TV channels, and no monthly fees!
    Anyway, I was relaxing on the couch watching the cheesy movie. Mom was out with Aunt Rachel and the girls doing...someting. Girl stuff. I don't understand it. Uncle Tobias and Marco were upstairs with Dad in his study doing...something. Again, stuff I don't understand. They're adults, they don't care if I understand what's going on or not.
    Suddenly, when I was about to fall asleep from the sheer boringness of the movie, I heard my dad and the guys start shouting upstairs.
    "Oh, my God!"
    "How the heck did it happen?"
    "How long has it been going on?"
    I leapt from my place on the couch and ran up the stairs two at a time. I put my ear to the door to listen.
    A feminine voice: "We need your help, guys."
    Uncle Tobias: "What can we do? We're billions of miles apart!"
    The woman: "A few of us who oppose the war, and even some of us who are for it, have decided that this is no place for the children. We want to get them to safety, but there's no place for them on Earth. We've managed to obtain a small ship we could use to send the kids away from here, but we need to be sure they'd be welcome where we want to send them. Can we send them to you?"
    Dad: "We don't have much room here. But I'm sure Rachel and Marco would be more than happy to take some kids in as well. We should have enough room for all of them."
    The Woman: "Thanks alot, Jake. Speaking of Rachel, how's she doing? I tried reaching her at her house, but nobody was there."
    Marco: "Oh, she's as crazy as ever," he laughed, "She's out with Cassie and the girls doing...stuff. What're they doing again, Tobias?"
    Uncle Tobias: "I'm not exactly sure. Rachel rarely ever tells me what exactly she's doing when it involves her and the girls."
    The woman laughed, "That sounds like Rachel. Will you tell her I called?"
    Dad: "Of course, Melissa. Should I tell her to call you?"
    After a moment the woman, Melissa, answered, "Yeah, it should be alright. Communications aren't being monitored too heavily in this area."
    "Alright, Melissa. Talk to you later," I heard the sound of a communication panel being flipped down. Then Dad spoke, "Well, I guess I'd better go tell Tom we'll be having house guests soon."
    Before I could move away from the door, Dad opened it and I fell forward onto his feet. I looked up, embarrased, "Um. Hi, Dad! Uh, What's up?"
    Dad glared at me, but Marco just laughed, "Eavsdropping again, young Tom?"
    "Um. No?"
    Uncle Tobias laughed, "Yeah, right. Get up, Tom."
    "So, how much of that conversation did you happen to over hear, Tom?" Dad asked as I got to my feet.
    "Some woman named Melissa is gonna send a bunch of kids from Earth over here to escape some war thing. Why's there a war on Earth, Dad? I haven't read anything about a war brewing in news pads lately."
    "I'll explain it when your mother and the sister get home."
    "Hey, Guys! We're back!" Mom shouted up the stairs.
    "Hey, Mom!" I jumped down the stairs. "Everybody go sit on the couch, Dad's got some stuff ta' tell ya' about."
    Mom looked concerned, "What's going on, Jake?"
    "Bad news," Dad said as he sat down on the couch next to Mom.
    Everyone looked at him expectantly, except for Uncle Tobias and Marco, who already knew what was going on.
    "There's a sort of war going on on Earth."
    " 'Sort of' war?" Aunt Rachel asked.
    "Well, it's more of a world wide protest right now, but it's going to be a full scale war soon if something isn't done about it."
    "Get on with it, Uncle Jake," Jordan said impatiently. "What's this thing all about?"
    "Alright. A new leader has come into office in North America. He's not on the World Council, at least not yet. But he's started an "Earth for Humans" movement. Apparantly, a minority of people on Earth, North America, especially, have become nervous about the growing Andalite population. Now, with this power hungry guy in control of North America, he's raised the practically miniscule ammount of Andalite Protesters in North America to a world wide protest."
    "What's so wrong with Andalites being on Earth?" Ritora asked. "Everyone seemed fine with the Andalites when we visited."
    "As I said, only a small ammount of people had a problem with the Andalites untill recently. What people are upset about are rising prices on food, and a few radicals are saying that if the yeerks could have infested people by the handful and infiltrate our society with ease, why couldn't the Andalites do the same?"
    "That's outrageous!" Aunt Rachel shouted. "The Andalites wouldn't do that! Those people are idiots."
    "Anyways. Melissa Chapman called me today and said she and a few other people are gathering some children together and want to send them someplace safe untill all this blows over. She wanted to know if the kids would be safe here."
    "How many kids?" Mom asked.
    "Let's see...There's Melissa's son, her neice and nephew and her friends two daughters. Five kids all together.
    "We could take two, Rachel and Tobias could take two, and Marco could take one," Mom suggested, " It shouldn't be two much trouble. After all, how long could this last?"
    "Hold it," I interupted, "Has anybody thought about asking us about this? I mean, we're the ones who're gonna be affected by these new kids."
    "Alright, Tom. Catara. Ritora. Jordan. What do you guys think about bringing the kids here?" Mom asked.
    "Sounds cool to me," Ritora said. Jordan and Catara agreed.
    Everyone looked expectantly at me, "I don't have a problem with them coming. I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget about us."
    "Alright, then," Dad said, "Rachel? Why don't you call Melissa back. She wanted to talk to you in the first place. Find out when they'll be coming and stuff. We'll meet back here in an hour and make the plans for them."

Chapter 3

    "A week?!" Dad asked when we were all back in the living room.
    Rachel nodded her head, "Yep. One week. It's a slow transport, by our standards, and they've already been on there for two days. Things have been kind of hectic around Melissa's and her communications network was just repaired today, but they couldn't waste anytime in getting the kids away."
    "How come?" Marco asked, "I mean, didn't Melissa say nothing really bad was happening in her area?"
    "Not much is going on around her house, but her neice and nephew are from out of town. From a big city. And the riots are awful in big cities like New York, San Francisco, Paris, London." She pulled a couple pads out of her pocket, "She sent me some pictures of the riots, take a look" She handed one to Dad and Mom, one to Marco and one for both Catara and I.
    The scenes were awful. They were digitized newspaper articles, so there were captions under the pictures.
    "Outraged mobs outside the North America Capitol Building beat anyone thought to be an Andalite in morph," I read.
    "The death toll from such beatings are over 100," Catara read in shock.
    "Those are some of the nicer pictures Melissa sent," Ritora said quietly.
    "There are worse ones?" Dad asked in disgust.
    Jordan nodded grimly.
    Mom quietly set down the pad. "Well,then. I'm glad Melissa did send the kids quickly. Let's get those rooms ready."

    Mom, Dad, Catara and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up one of our two spare rooms. When Catara and I were younger, it was our playroom, but now it was just a room where a bunch of old toys were getting dusty. We were going to clean our so called "guest room" tomorrow. It really isn't a guest room. It has a bed and a chair in it. The floor isn't even carpeted. But it'd due for awhile.
    The living arrangements were going to be as follows: We would get Melissa's neice and nephew, Ritora and Jordan would get Melissa's son, since Melissa was one of Aunt Rachel's close friends, and one of Melissa's friend's daughter, who fortunatly is one of her son's best friends. Marco would take Melissa's friend's last daughter.
    The week seemed to fly by. We were all busy, either cleaning or the adults were sending us kids out to find some food--either getting berries and junk from the forest, or flying out to see Prince Aximili to give him our food order. We have to give him a list of the food we need once a week since there aren't exactly any grocery stores here. Andalites eat by absorbing nutrients through there hooves, which explains the lack of McDonalds'.
    After a week of nervous anticipation, the day had arrived. The cupboards were stocked to the brim with various food items and our hoses had never been so clean--especially Marco's.
    Ritora, Jordan, Catara and I strained to see over the crowd of Andalites at the spaceport before we saw a glimpse of long red hair.
    "Hey, Dad? I think I might have seen one of 'em," I said.
    "Where?"
    "Right over..."I pointed where I had seen the red hair, "They were there just a second ago. I saw somebody with long red hair. And last time I checked, the only species around here with red hair were humans, unless some Andalites grew their hair out and dyed it red."
    "Um. Excuse me? Would any of you happened to be Rachel?"
    We turned around to see a group of five kids, all about Catara's and my age, except for one girl, she looked to be about Jordan's age.
    "Yeah, I'm Rachel," Aunt Rachel told the group, "Would I be correct in assuming that you're Sondra?"
    The girl--Sondra--nodded, "Yep, I'm Sondra, this is Lindsey," she pointed to the younger girl, "That's Julie and Kevin, the twins, and lastly David."
    Both Catara and I arched our eyebrows, "Twins?" we asked in unison.
    Julie and Kevin were giving us the same look.
    "Well, why don't we introduce ourselves, then we can head home," Mom said, "I'm Cassie, this is my husband, Jake. Catara and Tom are our two kids. You've already met Rachel, Tobias is her husband and their two kids are Ritora and Jordan. Jordan's probably about your age, Lindsey."
    Lindsey smiled shyly.
    "So, how we gonna get to your house?" David asked, "You gonna morph somethin' and carry us there?"
    Dad shook his head, "We're close enough to walk."
    Besides I added silently, as far as you know, they're the only ones who can morph. We'd decided not to let on to the new kids that we could morph just yet. Security precaution and stuff.
    We walked most of the way home in silence. The adults tried to get us into a conversation, but they always ended after a couple sentances.
    Us kids were trying to size each other up.The new kids were very suspicious and kept giving us suspicious glances. Except Sondra. Sondra was very bouncy tried to join in conversations.
    I'd pretty much figured out who was related to who. David was Melissa's son. Sondra and Lindsey were the kid's of Melissa's friend. Julie and Kevin were Melissa's neice and nephew. Interesting how that worked out, huh? The twins end up staying with us, and the girl who's the exact same age as Jordan gets ta' stay with her. Normally, Sondra would have stayed with her sister, but David wanted to get to know Rachel, and Sondra thought Marco was interesting, and somebody who'd get most of her jokes.
    Once we were back to our houses, we worked on getting everybody settled.
    Julie and Kevin hadn't brought much stuff, just one small bag each. They each had a couple changes of clothes, and a book each, so it didn't take long to get their stuff unpacked.
    After unpacking came the real test. Dinner.
    We were eating dinner by ourselves for once. Just Mom, Dad, Catara, Julie, Kevin and I were there. Mom had made pizza. Not as good as the stuff we had on Earth, but it was decent. Julie and Kevin didn't say anything, but you could tell from their expression that the pizza didn't live up to their expectations.
    "So. Why don't you two tell us a bit about yourselves and how stuff's going back home," Dad said, trying to start a conversation.
    Kevin was busy trying to disconnect a string of cheese from his pizza, so Julie answered. "It's horrible back home. We were shipped out of a space port near Aunt Melissa's, and it was amazing how calm it was out there. We're from just outside New York, and it's absolutly horrible out there. Mom made us stop going to school about a month ago.
    "Darn," Kevin said sarcastically after finally breaking the cheese string.
    "And we couldn't even go outside of our house to get the mail. We had to stay inside, and away from windows whenever possible."
    We were all shocked.
    "But, on a lighter note, not every place is that bad. It's only really bad in big cities."
    "What's this whole revolution thing about?" Catara asked. "Don't tell me it's just about rising food prices."
    "It's not," Julie replied. "At least, I don't think it is. I'm not quite sure what's going on with some of those people. I don't see what's wrong with having Andalites back home. But, I suppose all it takes is one person to have a grudge against Andalites to set off these riots."
    "Anyway. Enough about the riots and such. Tell us about yourselves," Mom said.
    Kevin finally looked up from his pizza to answer. "We're 14 years old, live just outside New York City, and I'm older than Julie."
    "You are not!"
    "Am so!"
    "Are not! I was born a minute before you!"
    "Yeah, right."
    Over their arguing, I heard Dad whisper to Mom, "Remind you of anybody you know?" Mom smiled. I stuck my tongue out at Dad so he knew I'd heard him.
    "ANYway," Catara interupted. "What kinda stuff do you guys like?"
    "Julie's into Dinosaur music," Kevin said.
    Julie sighed, "I can say stuff for myself, you know. And it's not dinosaur music you skalop. It's called classic music."
    I raised an eyebrow at Julie, "Skalop?"
    "Skalop. Idiot. Dimwit. Jerk. Younger Brother," she explained, glaring at Kevin.
    Catara laughed, "Yep, those sound like good definitions of a younger brother. Hey, Classic Music wouldn't happen to also be called oldies, would it?"
    Julie wrinkled her nose, "Yeah, but it sounds so dumb that way."
    "I love that music!" Catara explained.
    "You have some?" Julie asked incredulously.
    "We have been to Earth before."
    "Cool! Can we listen to 'em later?"
    "Sure!"
    "What kind of stuff do you like, Kevin," Dad asked.
    "Eating and watching TV," Julie answered.
    "I can say stuff for myself you know," Kevin replied, imitating his sister. "I like to watch TV, play sports, video games, stuff like that."
    "What kind of TV?" I asked.
    "Anything. But especially sci-fi and sports."
    Now it was my turn to be confused, "Sci-fi?"
    "You've never heard of Sci-Fi? Science Fiction?"
    "Our lives are sci-fi, Kevin," Mom said gently.
    Both Catara and I were confused, "What the heck is Science Fiction?"
    "It's...It's...fiction that has some stuff rooted in science," Kevin explained weakly.
    Both Catara and I nodded, as if we understood, but I don't think either of us did. "Well, we've got a TV, maybe we could find some...sci-fi," I suggested.
    "Cool!"
    We spent the rest of dinner telling eachother about ourselves. Kevin and Julie weren't that bad. In fact, they were practically perfect matches for us. Same age, same likes. Yeah, they're cool. I could get used to living with them.

Chapter 4

    The next day, Catara and I went over to Ritora and Jordan's. Ritora had called a meeting of some sort. When Ritora calls a meeting, that usually means we're gonna do something stupidly dangerous.
    I hate danger.
    We were all up in her bedroom. We still weren't completely trusting of our new arrivals, and the less they knew about our fight, the better.
    "What stupid, dangerous, suicidal thing do you want us to do now? As far as I've heard, the yeerks have been quiet. No more kandronas, no more yeerk pool entrances, no more blowing up ships in space. What's the problem?" I asked.
    "The problem is, is that the yeerks are too quiet," Ritora answered.
    "What? How can they be 'too quiet'?" I asked, probably louder than I should have.
    Catara grabbed my arm and told me to be quiet, "We don't need our guests hearing you sound like an idiot."
    "Too late," Jordan taunted, "He's opened his mouth around them. They already know he's an idiot."
    "Ha ha."
    "The point is," Ritora continued, "is that the yeerks are still here. There are ships in orbit, and there's machinery way back deep in the forest. Meaning, that they're still here. And quiet yeerks equal trouble for us."
    "So everytime the yeerks take a breather, we're going to jump them?" I asked.
    "Yep."
    "I hate my life."
    "No you don't," Jordan said. "Without the yeerks, all you'd get to do is sit around in front of the TV all day."
    "That wouldn't be a problem for Tom," Catara said with a laugh, "Definetly not a problem." She turned to Ritora, "So, what're we gonna do now?"
    "Just some night flying over the forest. Just trying to see if we can find signs of the yeerks."
    "Oh, yeah. Our new friends aren't going to think it's too weird for us to be sneaking out in the middle of the night."
    "That's why we're going to be quiet about it," Ritora told me.
    "Uh-huh. Sure. Then I guess the kid's gonna be staying home through all these missions?"
    "Ha ha," Jordan replied.
    "We're all going on every mission. First one's tonight. We're going to morph owl about midnight, fly out a ways, maybe even morph agbs and see if there's anything going on below the trees. We'll cover one section of the forest each night untill we've either found yeerks, or can confirm the fact that the yeerks have moved out of here." Ritora said.
    "Oh, joy. Another late night mission. How am I supposed to get my beauty sleep?" I complained.
    "You'd have to sleep a couple millenia to see any improvment in your 'beauty'," Jordan teased.
    Ritora threw up her hands in exasperation, "Can we say two sentances with out you two picking on each other?!"
    Catara calmed her best friend, "They're both younger siblings, Ritora. They feel they need to do something to get attention."
    "I do not!" Jordan and I said in unison. Ritora and Catara broke into a fit of giggles.
    "Alright, that's it. I'm not going to stay in a room of giggling girls. I'm going back home, maybe Kevin's found something good on TV," I said as I left the room.
    "Remember, midnight!" Ritora called after me.

Chapter 5

I spent the rest of the day watching TV with Kevin. Not much was on, but watching TV was better than hanging out with the girls.
 At exactly midnight, I crept out of my bedroom and out the front door to meet Ritora and Jordan. As I was walking down the stairs, I could have sworn I heard the door from one of the bedrooms open and close, but it must have been my imagination. Catara was already out there, and Kevin and Julie were out cold.
 Still, I kept looking over my shoulder all the way across the lawn untill I was over in Ritora's front yard.
 "What's the matter, Tom? Boogey Man after you?" Jordan teased when she saw me look over my shoulder for the fifth time in as many minutes.
 "No, it's just...never mind," I said.
 "Can we get on with this?" Ritora asked crankily. She gets cranky when she loses a bit of sleep. Yet she's the one who makes us go on these stupid late night/early morning missions. She's as nuts as her sister.
 I concentrated on the owl morph I'd acquired early on. I felt the familiar shrinking sensation. My eyes grew larger till they took up most of the room on my face, except for where my nose and mouth were melting together to form a fierce beak.
 My skin became brown and gray, then formed feather paterns. But they didn't become actual feathers not yet. First my arms lengthened. My fingers melted together to form wings. My toes melted together, then split apart to become talons. After I was totally owl, the drawn on feather patterns became real feathers.
 I streatched my wings a couple times, ready to take off. Just beneath my conciousness, I felt the mind of the owl. It wasn't full of fear, like an agb, but it wasn't cocky like a kafit bird. It was just sort of there.
 < Let's fly, > Ritora said.
 I flapped my wings, and flew off above the houses, over the forest.

Chapter 6

    We spent almost our full two hours scanning an area of the forest approximatly 3 miles square. No sign of the yeerks. In other words, a totally pointless mission when I could have been sleeping.
    Once again, as I crept up the stairs as quietly as I could, I thought I heard one of the guest rooms being opened and closed quickly. This time it probably was just Catara going into her room.
    What felt like way too early that morning, Dad was knocking at my door, telling me someone was here to see me. I was too asleep to hear who.
    I smoothed my hair into place, got dressed, and walked down the stairs slowly. Ritora was standing with Catara in the living room.
    "Oh no," I said when I saw her there.
    "Hey, Tom. Wanna go out with us?" The tone in her voice was to light and cheerful to be serious. Something was up.
    "Sure. Why not?"
    I followed them out the back door and a little ways into the woods where Jordan and Abata were waiting.
    "What's this all about?" I asked when nobody volunteered any information.
    "They're on to us?" Ritora stated.
    "Who's on to us?" I asked, still too tired to have my brain function properly.
    "Lindsey and David and the rest of the new kids."
    "How do you know?"
    "Well, we don't," Jordan said, "But both Ritora and I think we heard them opening the doors of their rooms, and then they closed just before we got there."
    I nodded, "The same thing happened to me last night, but I figured it was either Catara or my imagination."
    "We can't cancel our missions. We need to keep looking for the yeerks, but we need to be extra careful tonight," Ritora said. "Maybe later we'll be able to tell them who and what we are, but I don't trust these guys yet."
    I yawned, "Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Can I go back to bed now?"
    Jordan stared at me in disdain, "It's almost noon. You're still tired?"
    "Well, I seem to remember having to stay up untill two A.M. to look for non existant yeerks."
    "Oh, stop complaining, Tom and go back home to bed," Catara told me. "Tell Mom and Dad I'm gonna hang out with Ritora and Jordan for awhile. And if you see Sondra or Julie, tell them to go over to Ritora's. Us girls are all gonna hang out this afternoon."
    "Yeah, sure." I turned around and went back home.
    I spent the rest of the day zoned out in front of the TV. I faintly remember Kevin coming in and trying to get me to talk, but I guess it isn't much fun to talk to a zombie. I wouldn't know. I've never tried.
    Against my better judgement, we went back out at midnight to look for the yeerks. We stayed out for almost four hours this time. Of course, we demorphed after about an hour and a half.
    And, probably just to spite us, there weren't any signs of yeerks in the forest.
    Around noon, both Catara and I came stumbling out of our rooms for breakfeast...or lunch. But before we could make it to the dining room, Julie and Kevin stopped us and wouldn't let us pass.
    "Before you two do anything, you're coming outside with us," Kevin stated.
    "Why?" I asked, stifling a yawn.
    "Just do it," Julie said. "Jordan's already out there, and Ritora's getting your Andalite friend. Abata, right?"
    Catara and I just stared at each other. The new kids had definetly been spying on us. We hadn't told them about having Andalite friends, much less Abata's name. If they knew we hung out with Abata, they probably knew we could morph too.
    We obidiently followed Julie and Kevin out into the woods where Jordan, Sondra and Lindsey were already waiting.
    "Catara? Do you have any idea what's going on?" Jordan asked.
    Catara wiped some of the sleep from her eyes. Normally I would have been glad to see somebody else suffering from our constantly interupted sleep, but I was just confused right now. "I know absolutly nothing. I just woke up about five minutes ago."
    Just then, Ritora came walking up with Abata.
    "Now would you mind explaining what's going on to us?" Ritora asked in a voice clearly saying she was ready to morph her chatma, her power morph, and teach these kids with way too much attitude a lesson.
    "We know you can morph," Julie stated simply. "And we want to know why that was kept a secret from us."
    One by one, we all looked at Ritora. She was probably the only one who knew why we had kept it a secret.
    "Because...we had to," Ritora said after a moment.
    "Oh, yeah, that explains alot, Ritora. 'We had to,' I'm glad we have you here to explain things so clearly for us," I mocked.
    "I'm afraid I have to agree with Tom on that one, Ritora," Sondra said, "What's the real reason you never told us?"
    "It wasn't safe to," Jordan said.
    "Why wasn't it?" Lindsey questioned.
    "Because if we said one wrong word, made one wrong move, we'd be hosts right now," Ritora said.
    "You thought you couldn't trust us?" Julie asked.
    "It was an extra precaution. We were going to tell you after a couple weeks, maybe sooner if the need arose. We knew we wouldn't be able to keep sneaking out of the house with out you guys knowing it forever," Catara said, seeming more awake now.
    "Was I the only one who didn't get this?" I asked in frustration.
    Jordan grinned at me mockingly, "Yep."
    "I think it was an aragat reason not to tell us," Kevin said.
    "Aragat? Oh, no, not more Earth slang!" I moaned. "Aragat would mean what?"
    "Stupid."
    "You people come up with the strangest words for simple phrases."
     "How come you guys have been sneaking out around midnight every night? Where are you going?" Julie questioned.
    Ritora gave her sister a momentary helpless look,"We...well...look, can we talk to our parents first? They're the experts on this sort of thing."
    The new kids all looked at each other, and, in silent agreement, agreed to let us talk to them.
    As we walked back to the house, Animorphs walking a couple feet ahead of the new kids, we whispered back and forth to each other.
    "Did anybody else feel like they were being interogated for a major trial?" I asked.
    "Yeah, you'd think we'd done something wrong," Jordan whispered back.
    When we got back to our houses, we met with Aunt Rachel, Uncle Tobias, Mom, Dad and Marco in Ritora's and Jordan's house. The other kids went and hung out in our house.
    "What's up?" Rachel asked when she saw the worried looks on our faces.
    "They know," Ritora said simply.
    "What?" Dad asked.
    "They know we can morph, and they know we hang out with Abata," Catara explained. "They've seen us the past two nights when we've gone out yeerk hunting."
    "That's why they wanted to meet all of you out in the woods?" Mom asked.
    We all nodded our heads.
    "What are we supposed to do?" Jordan asked, "Are we supposed to tell them our life story? Say, 'Nope, sorry. The yeerks aren't gone, they're alive and kicking and trying to take over the planet. You're not any safer here than you were back on Earth,'?"
    Marco got up and brought back a personal communications panel. He pushed a few buttons, and soon Prince Aximili's face appeared on the screen.
    "Hello, Marco. Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias. Is something wrong?" The communications panel translated Prince Aximili's thought speak into regular speach.
    "Hey, Ax-Man. You know those kids that came here from Earth? Remember how you warned us not to let them onto the kid's secret? They found out on their own," Marco said.
    "This is a problem."

Chapter 7

"Yeah, you could say that," Marco said.
 "What are we supposed to do?" Ritora asked, stepping up behind Marco. "They've seen us the past two nights going out on spy missions. They've seen us with Abata. They've seen us morph, and now they're demanding to know why we didn't tell them."
 "Bring the children here. I shall help explain to them why the could not be told."
 "Thanks, Prince Aximili."
 "Alright, let's go get those pain-in-the-butt new kids," I said.
 Half an hour later, Ritora, Jordan, Catara and I were all morphed and carrying a kid. It would have taken forever to walk as humans to the base, and it would have been much quicker to fly, but they were all too big to be carried by birds. So, we morphed our power morphs and were running towards the base.
 Ritora, in her lion-like chatma morph was carrying David. Jordan's morph was a day glo orange and yellow spiked gorilla sort of animal called a kear, she was carrying Lindsey. Catara was this huge blue reptile called a meader and carried Kevin and Julie. I was carrying Sondra in my vuri morph. It's kind of like an Earth wolf, but shorter and stockier. It makes up for that by being incredibly fast and a really long snout with hundreds of sharp pointy teeth. Not an animal you want to get in a fight with.
 After running for about half an hour, we entered the perimeter of the military base where Prince Aximili was waiting. Sondra juped lightly off my back and started looking around in awe while I demorphed.
 The green fur melted together and became my own skin. The sharp vuri eyes dimmed and became my pathetically weak human eyes. My ears slid down the sides of my head and went from being pointy and furry, to being round and smooth. My snout started to melt back into my face. My mouth became itchy as teeth disapeared or became blunt.
 Finally, I was pretty much human, except my knees were the wrong direction. With a sickening lurch, they switched directions and I stood up.
 < Follow me, > Prince Aximili said simply when every one was demorphed, with the new kids looking slightly green. Morphing is always weird, and I imagine it always will be, and even I become slightly sick at the sight of one of my friends morphing. But you get kind of used to it after awhile. No more nightmares about morphing any more, at least.
 Prince Aximili led us through the base to his office. There were 9 chairs in there for us humans to sit in, a shelf where Prince Aximili kept some stuff, I don't know what, and Abata was in there, too.
 "Hey, Abata," I greeted him.
 < Hello, Tom. Hello, Catara and Jordan. Hello, Prince Ritora. >
 Behind me, Lindsey giggled, "Hee hee, Prince Ritora. But you're a girl, Ritora!" I gave her a shove to get her to shut up. It's obvious Ritora's a girl, but even female warriors, once they reach prince or war prince status, are called 'prince'. And it makes sense. I mean, in the Earth military, are female generals 'generalettes'??? I didn't think so.
 Prince Aximili stood in front of us as we all sat down. < You children are wondering why Ritora and her friends kept their secret from you, correct? > They all nodded. When he said yeerk, you could practically feel the air vibrating in hatred. The new kids looked shocked when they heard this news.
< Apparently, you've heard of these vile creatures, > Aximili noted.
 "Heard of them?" David asked, "At least once a week we have to learn about them in history at school. I've heard of them waaaay too often." The others nodded in agreement.
 < As I was saying, the yeerks are attacking this planet and have attacked many incoming transport ships. We were afraid that perhaps you had been attacked while on your way here and were now controllers. It was for the entire planets safety that you were not told. >
 "So how come they can morph?" Kevin asked, pointing at us.
 < They are a part of the resistance. They are defending the planet from the yeerks. >
 "Why isn't your big, bad, superior Andalite military taking care of it?" Sondra asked.
 Prince Aximili looked down with his main eyes as if this was a subject he didn't like to talk about. But he did, < Our military is spread to thin trying to defend our borders from the yeerks. They have grown powerful during their years of hiding. That and our military has grown slack in recent years from under use. But these four humans, and Abata, are in prime condition to defeat the yeerks. >
 Lindsey got a serious look on her face as if she were thinking very carefully, "Could we help them fight the yeerks?"
 I looked at her, "Fight the yeerks? You guys? All you know of the devastation the yeerks have caused is from pictures in your history books. We've all witnessed it first hand."
 "Oh, yeah, we've led a really sheltered life back there on Earth," Julie shot back. "Let's see, our parents cry at least once a day remembering loses from when the yeerks were on Earth. Loses that could have been prevented if your parents had--"
 Ritora, Jordan and I jumped up from our seats at the same time and glared at Julie, "Leave our parents out of this," Ritora said through clenched teeth. "If it weren't for our parents, you wouldn't be sitting here this very moment. Although perhaps that would be a good thing."
 < Ritora! Jordan! Tom! > Prince Aximili said loudly, < Resume your seats! > We reluctantly sat down, but continued to glare at Julie as Prince Aximili stepped forawrd and stood in front of her.
 < Yes, I know it took longer than anticipated to emancipate Earth from the yeerks. But that was not the Animorphs fought. I was there, also. And all five of us fought our hardest to rid Earth of the vile slugs. > His face got a shadowed look, as if remembering horrors from his past. After a moment, he regained his composure,
< But we are not here to relive the past. > He looked to Lindsey, Prince brought down a plain blue box from a concealed place in the wall. The new kids wouldn't recognize it, but I knew instantly what it was. The blue box, also known as the Escafil devise, also known as the morphing cube. In short, Prince Aximili was planning on giving these inexpirienced, pushy kids the power to morph!
 < But, > Prince Aximili continued, 
 We watched as the new kids, first Sondra, then Lindsey, then David, then Julie and finally Kevin, each placed a tenative hand on a side of the cube. It was weird watching them get that power. I mean, I was sure that they weren't responsible to use this power. Perhpas Sondra was, but the rest of them would probably go run off and try and defeat the yeerks single-handedly with kafit bird morphs!
 And yet...I don't know, some weird, irrational part of my mind thought perhaps maybe we'd be able to call on them in a pinch. As I said, it was an irrational part of my mind. there was no way we were going to ask these guys for help.
 After a moment, all five of them pulled back from the cube simultaniously, all looking kind of dazed. < Now you have the power to morph as they do. Although your powers have some restrictions they do not have. > Everyone except Abata seemed confused. We were all wondering what Prince Aximili meant by that. Either Abata knew what was going on, or I'm just not really good at interpreting Andalite facial expressions.
 Prince Aximili promptly left the room.
 Ritora sighed and looked at the new kids dejectedly, "C'mon, let's go get you new kids a morph to fly home."

Chapter 8

We walked out of the base single file, Abata in the lead, Kevin bringing up the rear. When we were just outside the base, Ritora stepped out in front, "Okay, you can have an osprey, bald eagle or peregrine falcoln morph."
 "How can we get those morphs?" Sondra asked. "Those are all Earth birds, and in case ya' haven't noticed, this ain't Earth."
 "Hadn't noticed that yet, thanks for pointing that out to us," I said sarcastically. "You can acquire morphs from morphs."
 "I'll take a bald eagle," Kevin and Julie said in unison.
 "I'll have an osprey," David announced.
 "I'd like a peregrine falcoln," Lindsey said quietly.
 "I'll do that one, too," Sondra said.
 "Okay. Um, Tom, why don't you morph osprey. Both you and Jordan don't need to since only David is going to be acquiring the osprey."
 Jordan smirked at me as I concentrated on my osprey morph. My hair suddenly sank into my head, which was turning snow white and was being decorated with feather patterns. My nose and mouth hardened and started to push out into a hooked beak. My legs narrowed untill I could barely stand on them and my feet split into talons. Just as I was about to fall forward since my legs were too thin to support me, I shrank all the way down to the osprey's height.
 I was totally osprey, except for my wings, which were still human arms, really small arms, but arms. As everyone else finished morphing, my fingers quickly melted together and grew feathers. I was fully osprey.
 With my amazingly sharp osprey vision, I saw David step towards me and bent down to put his hand on my head.
 "Okay, now concentrate on acquiring the DNA. Concentrate on the bird you're acquiring. They'll go into a trance, and the DNA of the animal will become part of you."
 I watched as David closed his eyes to concentrate. I looked around and saw Lindsey standing in front of Catara, her eyes closed and concentrating. Kevin was do the same by Ritora.
 I waited to go into the acquiring trance, but it never came.
 < Um, David? You sure you're concentrating? >
 "Of course I am!" he snapped.
 < Anybody else not going into the trance? > I asked.
 < I'm not, > Catara said.
 < Neither am I. Abata, any ideas why not? >
 < My brother did say that the power they received had some restrictions that your morphing capabilities did not have, > Abata said. < One of them could be they're unable to acquire DNA from a morph. >
 < Oh, this is great, > I said as I started to demorph. "So we have to go catch them a kafit bird so they can fly home," I continued as I changed from mostly bird to mostly human. It's not fun to catch a kafit bird. They're huge birds with wickedly sharp beaks. These are birds who spear they're prey as they're flying through the air. You do not want to get on their bad side.
 Ritora was thinking the same thing. As she emerged from her Bald Eagle morph, she asked, "Do you think you could get us one of those, Abata?"
 < Of course, Prince Ritora, > and he ran off into the near by woods to catch a kafit bird.
 "What's a kafit bird?" Julie asked.
 Catara looked up over the woods, "See that bright bird with six wings over there?" She pointed. "That's a kafit bird."
 The kids stared in awe as the bird speared a small bird in mid air, "You're sending Abata out to catch one of those things?" Kevin asked skeptically.
 "Hey, Abata's a lot tougher than he may look," I said. "Those birds know to avoid an Andalite with a tail. And they know that if one sneaks up on them, they do not move."
 Moments later, Abata returned with a surprisingly passive kafit in his weak Andalite arms. 
 One by one, each of the kids acquired the bird. David, the last one to acquire it, finished just in time. The bird came to just as David was pulling his hand away and started snaping at him. Abata brought him back to the forest as we watched the kids start to morph. We wanted to watch them to be sure that the kafit bird's instincts didn't get the better of them.
 So we stepped back and watched the kids start their first morphs.

Chapter 9

We each chose a person to watch. I watched Kevin, Catara watched Julie, Jordan watched Lindsey, and Ritora watched both Sondra and David, since Abata was returning the kafit bird.
 Kevin suddenly started turning bright red and shrinking. As he shrank, his mouth hardened and pushed out to become the long, piercing beak of the kafit. Four extra wings bursted out of him as his arms melted and withered and became wings. His feet split and became talons, and his legs became yellow and scaly.
 After almost five minutes, everyone was finished morphing. They all looked at each other, then started screaching and flapping and trying to spear each other.
 "What the...hey, cut it out!" Jordan shouted. No response.
 "Hey, guys, you are human, remember that? Remember being human?"
 < Kevin, Julie, David, Sondra, Lindsey. You must regain control of your morphs. You must reassert your individual conciousnesses. >
 "Um...what he said. But in english. Meaning GET CONTROL OF YOUR MORPHS!"
 < What happened? > one of them asked as they slowly remembered that they were human, not kafit birds.
 "All of you got lost in the instincts of the kafit bird," Ritora explained, "It happens sometimes. Even if you're prepared for the instincts, sometimes they're so strong they over power your human conciousness."
 < What? > David... I think it was David, shouted. 
 "David," Catara soothed, "It's alright. Everyone was overpowered. We were overpowered the first time we morphed kafit birds. Kafits are very hard animals to control, that's why we wanted you to have Earth bird morphs. You know them, and they're much easier to control."
 < Yeah, whatever. >
 "Don't try flying off just yet. Wait for us to morph our birds and then we'll head home," Ritora instructed. I began to conctrate on my osprey morph again.
 The changes happened quickly, and soon all ten of us were in the sky.

Chapter 10

< Yes! Oh, man, this is flat! > Sondra shouted.
 < Flat would mean...what? > Ritora asked. This was getting annoying, we couldn't understand what these kids were saying half the time. They might as well be speaking a foreign language!
 < Cool, right? > Catara asked.
 Julie laughed giddily, < Yep. You been studying, Catara? >
 We flew around for almost an hour and a half before heading home.
 Catara, Kevin, Julie and I demorphed on the front lawn and thundered into the house, laughing and talking, untill we saw the serious look on our parents' faces.
 "What's wrong?" Catara asked as Mom and Dad ushered all four of us into the living room.
 "Abata wouldn't happen to be with you, would he?" Mom asked, looking out the window.
 "No...he went home...why?" I asked.
 "Oh, nothing important. I'll leave it to his mother to tell him the news."
 "What news?" Julie asked impatiently.
 "We've been called to Earth," Dad stated simply.
 "Oh cool! We get to go back! That's awesome! Now, why do you two seem so tense?" I asked.
 "We're not all going, Tom," Mom explained gently. Catara can calm people so easily because she inherrited that talent from Mom. "Just the adults, and Abata, are going."
 "And why?"
 "The leader of the Earth government contacted us this afternoon, just half an hour ago," Dad said, sitting down across from us in a chair. "We're going to help convince the rioters in North America that the yeerks aren't going to attack again, and that the Andalites aren't going to try and take over Earth society."
 "And why's Abata going?" Kevin asked.
 "The government wanted Ax to go, but he was too busy holding off the yeerks here, so they asked for his younger brother."
 "And nobody bothered explaining that he's needed back here?" Catara asked.
 "I'm afraid he's needed more back on Earth. Ax is going to be coming to, as soon as he can get some time off. The people of Earth need to see taht Andalites and humans can live in peace, and have been living in peace for years."
 "How long you going to be gone? Are we going to be here by ourselves?" I asked.
 "We'll be gone anywhere from six months to a year, and yes, you'll be by yourselves. But, we'll be contacting you every day to talk to you guys," Mom said.
 "When're you leaving?" Catara asked.
 "On the next transport. We have to go get packed. We have about three hours, and we need to walk over to the transport base since Tobias can't morph." Mom and Dad hurried up the staris to their bed room to start packing.
 "Tobias can't morph?" Kevin asked. "I thought your parents were the Animorphs. Animorphs are humans who can morph animals. What's up with Tobias?"
 "Early on, Uncle Tobias was trapped in his red tailed hawk morph. Then, this all powerful being the Ellimist gave him his morphing powers back, but he stayed in his hawk body. When the war ended, he became a nothlit again, in his human morph, so he could marry our Aunt Rachel," Catara explained. We'd heard the story dozens of times. The girls all found it romantic. I found it weird. Flying is the best thing in the world, I don't think anything could keep me from flying.
 We sat around in the living room for awhile, talking and adjusting to the idea that we weren't going to have our parents for a year. Niether Catara or I had been away from Mom and Dad for more than a day. This was going to take some getting used to.

Chapter 11

    An hour later, everyone was collected in front of Ritora and Jordan's house. We were almost lined up in two rows. Parents opposite kids. Even Abata's parents came, a very odd occurance. I don't think I've ever met them outside of their scoop.
    We said our final goodbyes, and stayed outside as our parents and Abata walked towards the transport base. Once they were out of sight, we said goodbye to Abata's parents, and then we all went inside Ritora and Jordan's house.
    We had a party that night. Not like the huge parties that Kevin, Julie, David, Sondra and Lindsey described, but big by our standards. We were free of our parents for the next six months, maybe even a whole year.
    Yeah, it was going to be weird at times. But hey, we're all teenagers, and with our new friends, I think Catara, Jordan, Ritora and I will be able to handle not having our parents for awhile.

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