New Animorphs

The Newcomer

By: Forlay and Jonat-Tron-Ather

Chapter 1

    My name's Angela. Just Angela. I have a last name, but if I told you, I'd be dead, or worse.
    Yes, there is something worse than death, it's called being a controller. A Controller is a person that has been taken over by a yeerk. Yeerks are a parasitic species that are attacking Earth. They already control numerous races. The Hork-Bajir, seven feet tall walking razor blades, Taxxons, overgrown canabalistic worms. And now, they're trying to take over humans. And just who is trying to stop these yeerks, you may be asking. Well, just me and 4 of my friends,Jon, Cam, Mary and Loren. Kids really, kids forced into this horrible war. But, we aren't just any 5 kids. We were given the power to morph, to turn into any animal we touch, from an odd alien. An Andalite, Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill. We've taken the place of other Animorphs that fought before us. We don't know who they are, we were only told that they were also called Animorphs.
    Now you know why I can't tell you my last name. I'm also not going to tell you where I live. Not even which state. I can only tell you that's it's a real place. Maybe even your hometown. I've changed little details here and there, but none of the major stuff.
    Me, Mary and Loren were walking home together from the mall. We had just had a quick meeting about the yeerks, and were going to meet the guys at my house where we could talk more freely.. We were all curious as to why we hadn't seen yeerks dropping left and right. We knew of one controller that hadn't been heard from in awhile, we guessed either he failed Visser 3, or he'd died from lack of Kandrona rays.
    The Kandrona is a replica of the yeerk's sun. They need to return to the yeerk pool every three days to soak up Kandrona rays in order to survive. A few weeks ago, we went on a major mission and destroyed the yeerks main Kandrona, and their backup.
    We would have been walking home with Cam and Jon, but we were careful to reveal only the relationships we'd had with eachother before we became Animorphs. Me and Mary have been best friends forever. I didn't know Loren too well before we all became Animorphs, but she's been Mary's friend for awhile, so Mary pretended to introduce us one day so we could all be seen together.
    On the way home we talked about normal stuff, like any normal teenage girls would talk about. The latest movies, movie stars, whats on TV tonight, that sort of thing.
    Looking at the three of us, you probably wouldn't think we'd hang out together. We look so totally different from eachother. I've got red hair that goes down to the middle of my back, but it's not a bright red, more coppery. I also have these deep green eyes. I'm kind of short, but have these insanely long legs that don't quite match up with the rest of me, but it makes me look graceful. People who don't know me think I should become a model, but people who know me know I can't stand the thought of doing something sissy like that. I'll never be a model, or a cheerleader, or something like that.
    Mary's about my height, but has short brownish/blond hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. She's the joker of the group. And, I hate to say this about my best friend, but sometimes the jokes are really lame. If anybody else was telling some of the jokes she tells, I'd probably hit 'em. Our only simalarity is our dislike of sissy "typical" girl things. Neither of us can stand the dippy cheerleaders that populate our school.
    Loren is taller than either of us. She has reddish brown hair, and playful brown eyes. She's our source of many of our animal morphs. Her mother works at a clinic that takes care of wild animals that are injured, but they also take care of your normal house pets. There is always a wide variety of animals there.
    We finally arrived at my house and walked up the staris into my bedroom. Mary and Loren sat down together on the bed, I sat backwards in my desk chair. We talked for about 10 minutes before Jon and Cam arrived.
    "Oh Angelaaaaaa," my brother, Dan, shouted up the stairs in the sing song voice he uses to annoy me. "Cam and Jon are here!" That kid can be way too annoying for his own good. He thinks any time a boy comes over, I'm going to go boy crazy, when I've never even had a real crush on a movie star, let alone a real person.
    "Shut up, Dan. Send 'em up here." I shouted. I rolled my eyes at Mary and Loren as they tried to stifle their giggles.
    I heard feet thumping up the stairs. Jon and Cam walked into my room, almost running, probably trying to get away from Dan. Jon sat on the edge of the bed, Cam leaned against the wall.
    Jon's our so called "leader." He's pretty solidly built, and tall. He looks like he'd be a leader of something. He has glasses, serious steel blue eyes and braces. He's what alot of girls would call "cute." But, since I'm not the kind of girl who goes boy crazy at the drop of a hat, I don't really care.
    Cam's the dreamer of the group. He's kind of spacy sometimes. Not ditzy spacey, just like he's day dreaming or something. He's quite shy, tall and blond.
    "So, what are we going to do next?" I asked once everybody had gotten settled in.
    "What do you mean, 'what do we do next?' Haven't we done enough?" Mary asked.
    "The yeerks are still out there, it's been what, two weeks? And nothing's happened to the yeerks." I replied calmly. No sense getting mad at my best friend.
    "Angela's right," Cam said, speaking up for the first time since he got to the meeting, "We need to strike at the yeerks again. We need to do something while they're still week."
    "I've got a compromise," Jon said, breaking up our debate, "We go spy on the sharing. There's gonna be a big campout in the woods this weekend."
    "Oh, yeah. And become controllers while we're asleep?" Loren asked with uncharacteristic sarcasm in her voice.
    I sighed, "Then don't go to sleep if you're worried about becoming a controller."
    "We should get some morphs that have good sight and good hearing at night." Jon turned to Loren, "What do you think we could get?"
    "Well, we should probably have a variety of different morphs. One or two of us could go as owls, they have excellent night vision and pretty good hearing. Cats also have great night vision and awesome hearing, but I don't know how out of place cats may be in the woods at night. How far back in the forest are they going?"
    "You know that Wildlife Rehabilitation Center place that's right by the edge of the forest? Not to far back from there, so for all the yeerks know, the people going as cats could belong to them."
    "Okay, so say we have two owls to cover the air, two cats to cover the ground and...we need one more morph."
    "There's mountain lions in those woods, right?" I asked Cam. He's our large wild animal expert.
    "Yeah."
    Mary knew what I was getting at, "One of us could either morph a mountain lion, or I could go in my lioness morph. From a distance it would look like a large mountain lion."
    "Sounds good." Jon said. "Mary's morphing lioness, what does everybody else want to morph?"
    "I want to morph an owl." Loren said.
    "Me too." Cam chimed in.
    "Cool, I'll go Catwoman." I said.
    "Okay, Loren, can you get you and Cam the owl morphs?" Jon asked.
    "Yeah, there's a pair of spoted owls that were poisoned at the clinic. I'm sure Mom will let us touch it."
    Jon turned to me, "You got a cat you can acquire?"
    I heard a meow at my door as if on cue. I opened it and in ran my cat. A siamese named Zorro. I looked back to see why she was running, there stood Dan with a water gun. "Jerk." I muttered under my breath and closed the door. I picked up Zorro from the floor, "Yep,sure do." I started to acquire her while I petted her. She calmed down and got kind of spacey. That's what happens to animals when they're being acquired. For about 10 seconds after you acquire them, they seem to be in a trance. A very good thing for when you're acquiring dangerous morphs.
    "Okay, then we all know what to do. Everbody, meet at my house on Friday around 5:30. We're gonna go there with Josh." Jon said. He, Cam and Loren got up to leave. Mary was gonna spend the night at my house tonight.
    We watched TV and movies for the rest the evening. Dan was at a friends house so we didn't need to worry about him, and my parents were out at a play for the evening, so we could talk openly.
    "What do you think goes on at that Sharing thing?" Mary asked during a comercial in our favorite show, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
    "Well, according to what Jon says Josh has told him, it's like a boy scout slash girl scout thing. They go camp out and stuff together and have fun, but they also do community service work. Like clean up all the trash on the beach."
    "Yeah. I saw them doing that on the news once. And guess who's one of the coordinators?" She didn't wait for my answer, "Ms. Ranavick."
    "No way."
    "Way."
    "This is bad. We already know that she's a controller, but now she's a coordinator for the yeerks front organization? They wouldn't put a low yeerk in such an important position."
    We talked about it a little bit more, then moved on to other stuff. We didn't want to focus too much on depressing stuff like that. After Star Trek was over, we went up to my room, changed into our pajamas and went to bed.

Chapter 2

Me and Mary just hung out around my house all day. We packed our backpacks with clothes for that night and the next day. I ran out to the garage and grabbed the pup tent that I could carry on the carrier on the back of my bike. We left for Jon's around 5:00, even on our bikes it would take awhile to get to his house.
 We got there at 5:30 on the dot, we were the last ones to arrive.
 "About time you two got here," Loren said as we parked our bikes near the garage, "We've been waiting forever."
 "We have not, Loren." Cam said in our defense.
 "Shut up." I hissed. Josh was coming out the door.
 "You midgets ready?" he asked in a totally normal big brother type fashion. I don't know what Jon thinks, but I beleive that behind that totally normal big brother face, in his head, lay a yeerk. Jon would probably kill me if I told him what I thought, but he was a full member of the Sharing, and he went to "important meetings" every three days, I couldn't help but be suspicious.
 Josh got on his bike and started pedaling. It's imposible to get to the campsite by car, so we had to ride our bikes. Josh led our little caravan. Cam and Jon were right behind him, me, Mary and Loren were in a row behind them.
 It took almost an hour to get through the woods to the campsite. We had to get off and walk our bikes a few times, there were fallen logs in our path. We were some of the last to arrive.
 The scene was normal enough. There was a cmapfire going, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Several tents had been pitched. There were kids and adults sitting around the fire laughing and talking. There was a small stream not too far away, and in a still part, a few people were swimming. And others still were laying on the sand and rocks by the stream and just soaking up sun.
 We all leaned our bikes up against some trees that seemed to be where everybody was parking their bikes. Out of habit, I locked my bike to a tree, even though I probably didn't need to.
 Me, Mary and Loren picked out a spot to pitch the tent,we'd all be crammed into it that night. Jon and Cam, who would be sharing their tent, set theirs up next to ours. Me and Mary joined the group sitting around the campfire. Loren went sun bathing, with the small ammount of light left. And The two guys went swimming.It was getting dark fast, and the faces of the other campers looked eerie in the fading light. Somebody passed around a pack of marshemellows and we started making S'mores.
 Mary leaned over to me "These people seem normal enough. Maybe that Andalite dude was wrong, and these are all just nice, normal people. Even if some controllers have joined it. It could just be part of their cover."
 "I agree."
 Jon, Cam and Loren came by the fire when it began to get really dark. They agreed that these people seemed very normal. Around 9 o'clock, everybody started heading for bed. I don't know about Cam and Jon, but neither me, nor Mary or Loren slept. We pretended to sleep, just in case these people really were controllers, and we talked quietly, but we didn't want to miss anything if there was any movement by the controllers.
 Around 9:30, our watchfulness paid off. We heard footsteps outside of our tent, then they stopped right in front of us. We didn't make any noise. Whoever was outside the tent moved on to the tent next to us, paused for a few seconds and moved on. When the person was a few tents down, I took down the window on the side of the tent as quietly as I could to see who it was.
 "It's Mrs. Ranavick!" I whispered.
 I saw the tent next to me take down it's window facing me, I saw Jon looking out, asking silently if I had seen her too. I nodded.
 "Sneak out and morph." he said so I could barely hear him.
 I put up the window and turned back to a nervous looking Mary and Loren. "Let's do it." I whispered.
 I quickly shucked off my nightshirt revealing my black and teal arobics outfit I use for morphing. Mary and Loren did the same. We unzipped the tent as quietly as we could and crawled out. We crawled on the ground as fast and quietly as we possibly could, considering we were going to spy on controllers, one of which was our Priniciple.
 Loren and Cam went off deeper into the woods to morph owls. They would be the first to morph and guide me and Jon to where the controllers were meeting. Mary had to go back the farthest since we couldn't risk the controllers seeing her.
 < Angela. Jon. We've got 'em. > Cam said in thought speak. < I'm surprised you can't hear them. They're only about 50 feet to your left. >
 "Let's morph now." I whispered to Jon. He nodded his agreement.
 I started concentrating on my cat. Suddenly, I was shrinking. Fast than I had shrunk before. It wasn't a new sensation. Our bird of prey morphs were our most commonly used morphs, and even though I'm short,my Condor is much shorter than I am. My cat was even smaller in height than she was.
 Suddenly, I notced that my skin was changing colors. My hands and feet were becoming black as night, while the rest of me became a creamy off white color. Suddenly, I didn't have just skin on my arms, it became fur. It must have looked cool, since I was still almost totally human, just alot smaller. Suddenly, I felt my spine enlongating into a tail. At the same time, my nose started to push out and sprout whiskers. Incredibly long whiskers. I felt a tickling sensation as my ears started to slide up my head. I resisted the urge to scratch at them since my hands had become cat paws.
 Suddenly, I was finished morphing and I felt the cats instincts rise up under my own consiousness. I was kind of prepared for the instincts, I've morphed a cheetah before.
 I was...confident. That's what I felt. It wasn't quite as cocky as the cheetah, the cheetah knew it could out run most enemies, and it was bigger than alot of animals, the pampered house cat wasn't, but she was still confident.
 Sudden movement to my left, a large tabby cat. I pressed my ears back against my skull and hissed. I puffed up my tail and the fur on my back, trying to make myself look bigger to the other cat in my teritory.
 < Whoa, Angela. Chill. It's me, Jon. >
 Jon? I thought < Huh, YAH!!! > I shouted in thought speach.
 < You okay? >
 < Yeah, I'm fine. > I lied. < Nothing wrong. Just startled. >
 < Uh-huh, sure, Angela. > Loren said.
 < Can we just go? > I asked impatiently
 < Sure, Angela. Let's go. > Jon said.
 We started running towards where Cam and Loren had said the controllers were. Once we were about 25 feet away I could hear them easily.
 < Hold up. > I told Jon quickly. < We look way too much like pampered house pets. We need to roll in some dirt, run through some brambles. If we're farm cats, we wouldn't look half as good as we do right now. >
 < Good point. >
 I started rolling around on the ground, trying to get dirty any way possible, which the cat brain definetly did not like.
 I looked over at Jon after a minute or two, he looked back at me. < This should do. >
 We set off. Two barn cats on a dangerous mission.
 To save the world.

Chapter 3

We silently crept through the underbrush remaining between us and the controllers. We were careful not to get too close, or make too much noise. Normal people would write us off as normal cats, but controllers would suspect that we were Andalites in morph.
 < Hey, I think I just saw something heading your way, Angela > Mary said in the equivelent of a thought speak whisper only us Animorphs could hear.
 Thought speak is like e-mail. You can choose who to send it to. There's closed thought speach, what Mary was using to speak to us, or open thought speach, which anybody within range can hear.
 < What was it? > I asked.
 
 I strained my ears to hear what Mary could possibly have seen. Then, very faintly, I heard footsteps. They were very light and delicate, kind of like a deer. But Mary wouldn't have said anything about a deer. Whatever it was, it was obviously doing everything in it's power to not be noticed. It wasn't all that far away, either.
 < Do you hear it? > I asked Jon.
 
 Jon never had a chance to finish what he was saying, suddenly, an odd, blue scorpian-like tail shot out from the trees just behind the group of controllers. < Yeerk! > a thought speach voice said, with a hatred that I had never heard before.
 < What the--Did one of you say that? > Jon asked.
 We didn't have to answer, for his answer stepped out from the trees just then.
 It was about the size of a deer, but where a deers head would be, there was a human-like upper torso. One tiny problem, it was all blue. Where the mouth should have been on it's face, there was only three slits. And instead of the standard two eyes, there was four. Two were where eyes normally are, and two were on stalks above it's head and could apparantly turn in any direction. And then, there was that deadly weapon that would keep anyone from thinking this creature was cuddely, a scorpian like tail that could move faster than the human eye could see.
 I had only seen one of this species before, but I knew what it was right away.
 < It's...it's an Andalite! > Cam said increulously.
 < How the heck did an Andalite end up here?! > I asked.
 Loren shouted.
 I turned to look quickly. I saw several controllers begin to take out weapons to fire at the Andalite with. Both regular guns and yeerk dracon beams. The Andalite knew it couldn't fight against guns and Dracon Beams, and was turning back to the woods. But it had done some damage. A few controllers were lying on the ground, bleeding. Some weren't even concious.
 < Loren, Cam, follow that Andalite! > Jon shouted. < Mary, you follow her too. Me and Angela will morph something that will be better for following it. >
 I was already running farther back in the woods so I could safely morph back to human. We couldn't risk any controllers seeing that we were human. As I ran, I started to demorph.
 I started to grow as I ran. The luxurious fur started to disapear. The tail was sucked back up into my spine. My knees reversed directions so they bent like normal knees and I started running on just two legs. Finally, the changes were complete.
 I immediatly started to morph my cheetah. It was still a cat, but it was larger, and much faster. I've always admired the cheetah's speed, they can run at speeds over 70 miles per hour, as fast as a car on the highway, and apparantly, this Andalite was fast. I would definetly need speed.
 I glanced behind me as I started the morph to see if Jon was still behind me. He was just a few feet back, and as my eyes became the excellent eyes of the cheetah, I could tell that he was morphing his battle morph, a tiger. Already I saw the black and white stripped fur spread accross him as he changed into the tiger.
 I was finished morphing by the time Jon was ony half finished. I'm not the fastest, nor the best morpher in the group. But I was on a major adreniline rush, and I knew that my cheetah was the only morph we had in all our arsenal that had a prayer of keeping up with that Andalite for more than a few seconds.
 I said after running at half speed for about a minute, < What should I do? >
 < Try and get her to stop! > Jon yelled, he and Mary were desperatly trying to keep up with me. Cam and Loren were surveying the scene from overhead.
 < Andalite. Please, stop. We're friends. Please stop, we need to talk to you. > I pleaded.
 The Andalite missed a few steps, obviously surprised to be talked to in thought speak < Who are you. What are you? >
 < If you'd stop, we'd tell ya'. > I was begining to get annoyed. Cheetah's are sprinters, not marathon runners. I was getting tired.
 The Andalite started to slow down, not entirely trusting us. < How can you thought speak? Are you
Andalites? >
 < Nope. We're humans. >
 That got it to stop. < Humans?! >
 I stopped running and slowed down to sit next to where the shocked Andalite was standing. Cam and Loren landed on a branch above us, and after a moment, Jon and Mary caught up with us and promptly sat down. Neither of them were meant to run for long distances either.
 < Yes, we're humans. > Loren said, fluttering down to the ground. She started to demorph. I followed her example. One by one everybody else started to demorph.
 < You... you are humans! How did you...How did you get the power to morph? How did you know I was an Andalite? >
 < We were given the power by an Andalite, his name was... I can't remember it. > Jon said, still more tiger than human.
 " Aximili." Cam supplied. "He was going off to help his people fight the yeerks. He told us that others had fought before us. Other humans, they called themselves Animorphs, and we were to call ourselves the same."
 < Aximili. Yes, I know of him. And I do beleive that in school I heard of the morph capable humans, but I never beleived them. >
 "Hey, we don't even know your name." Loren said. "I'm Loren, that's Angela, Cam,Mary and Jon." pointing to each of us in turn.
 
 We all looked at eachother, "Ann, nice to meet you." Mary said.
 < Nice to meet you all. >
 "Ann, how long have you been on Earth, and how did you even get here?" Jon asked.
 < I was on the Dome Ship NightStrike. I really wasn't supposed to be there. I had been training with my father to become a warrior, but back home, it's frowned upon for females to join the military. We are supposed to do nothng but sit home all day, it seems. > Ann said, with almost the same ammount of hatred she had when she said "yeerk." < My father, the captain of the NightStrike, had said many times that I was worthy of joining the military, but no captain would allow me. Even when it came down to my father's ship, he wouldn't let me on. He was afraid of what others on the ship would say. So, I snuck aboard and hid in the dome. >
 "This girl's got guts." Mary whispered to me.
 < We went into battle with the yeerks. The dome was separated from the rest of the ship. There were two other Andalites in the dome with me at the time, two male Arisths, warrior cadets, but when the dome crashed into one of your Earth oceans, both died. > Ann lowered her stalk eyes and tail when she said this.
 
 "How long have you been here?" I asked.
 < 2 of your weeks. >
 "Geez, two weeks and nobody's noticed you?" Cam asked.
 
 "Know what, this is all really interesting, but we had better get back to camp." Loren said, "If those controllers find out we're gone, they're gonna get suspicious."
 "Loren's right. Ann, can you meet us here tomorrow around, say, 10:00 in the morning?" I asked.
 < Yes, I can. >
 "Okay, then we'll see you then."
 We turned back towards camp. "Angela, do you think you could morph cheetah? You can get us back to camp faster than any of our other morphs. We can morph flies and hang on to you." Jon asked.
 "Yeah."
 "Good." Everybody started to morph flies.
 If you think it's disgusting looking at a fly, you should see what it's like to see your friends becoming flies. It's disgusting. If you didn't know that it was going to be alright, you would run home screaming.
 I turned my back to them and focused on the cheetah morph. I felt the familiar sensation of fur rippling over my body and the tail sprouting from my spine. I heard the sickening crunch as my knees reversed direction. I didn't morph as fast this time as I had earlier. In fact, It took almost a minute longer for me to finish morphing than everybody else.
 < Okay, fly for the big kitty. > I heard Mary joke in my head.
 < Everybody on? > I asked.
 < No. > Cam said. < Wait, yeah, now I am. >
 < Cool. You guys may want to hold on tight, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. >

Chapter 4

I ran at top speed as close to the camp as I dared go. When I didn't want to go any closer, I made everybody get off and demorph. We ended up crawling on our hands and knees back to our tents. Thankfully, none of the controllers seemed to notice that we had been gone. I don't know about the others, but I know that I sure didn't sleep all night. I was a mess the next morning.
 I stumbled out of my tent around 7:30 the next morning, when the adults came into our tents to wake us up. The adults made pancakes over the fire while the kids just sat around, trying to wake up. We weren't used to getting up so early on Saturdays.
 "How're we going to get away from Josh to go meet Ann?" Mary asked in a whisper. We were sitting near the entrance of our tent, along with Loren, Cam and Jon.
 "Tell him that we want to go exploring on our own." I said. "Surely that won't seem too odd to him."
 "But what if that doesn't work?" Loren asked. "What if he doesn't beleive us?"
 Jon smiled, "I know every prank you can pull on a person while they're asleep. There are some that even a yeerk would object to. If he tries to stop us, I'll just remind him of this little fact."
 One of the adults yelled for us to come over to the campfire for breakfast, so we broke up our meeting and joined everybody around the campfire for pancakes.
 After we had eaten, we gathered up our stuff and got on our bikes to leave without Josh. Josh came running up to us. "Where do you kids think you're going?"
 "We're gonna go for a ride, is that okay with you?" Jon told him.
 "No. Mom would kill me if I let you guys go off in the woods by yourselves."
 "We're not going through the woods. We're going to ride through town. And you know very well Mom would let us do that."
 "Fine." Josh grumbled. We got on our bikes and rode off, supposedly in the direction of town, but after we were out of his sight, we headed towards where we agreed to meet Ann.
 It took almost half an hour of heavy peddaling to get through the forest, but we got to where we had met Ann the night before right on time. In fact, she was just crashing through the underbrush when we got to the clearing.
 < Hello, everyone. >
 We all said our hellos, then got down to business.
 "Ann, why did you attack those controllers?" Jon asked.
 She seemed surprised, < You know they were controllers, not regular humans? >
 "Yes, we do. Now, why did you attack them, and practically kill some of them?" I asked.
 
 "How did you know there were yeerks here?" Cam asked. "You say you sensed them, how did you sense them?"
 < It's a natural instinct Andalites have. Usually, an Andalite has to be in the controllers line of sight to detect the yeerk, but when there is a large group of yeerks in one place they can be detected from a distance. >
 "Ah. Okay, so why did you attack them?" Loren asked.
 < They are yeerks. They need to be erradicated. >
 "Erradicated? Ann, I'm usually all for destroying yeerks and stuff. Nobody's more gung-ho about this whole thing than I am, but even I know there are better ways than that to get rid of the yeerks." I told her. "First you spy on them. Then you attack."
 Mary seemed to let out a sigh of relief. "You were sounding way to sensible there. You were scaring me." she joked.
 < You are right, Angela. If I'm ever in combat with the yeerks again, I will remember that. >
 "If? You mean you don't have any imediate plans to fight the Yeerks again?" I asked.
 
 "Prince?" Cam asked.
 < Yes. One you follow into battle. Your leader. >
 We all gave eachother looks that all read the same thing, if this girl wants to fight, but needs a group, why not have her join ours?
 "Ann, you say you can't fight alone, would you join us in fighting the yeerks until your people can come back?" Jon asked.
 
 One by one, we all looked at Jon expectantly. "No. No way. I am nobody's prince."
 But Ann had different ideas. She stepped in front of Jon, lowered her head and tail.

Chapter 5

We talked with Ann for a little while, but around noon Jon glanced at his watch and noticed that we'd better get home before our parents started to freak out. We said good bye to Ann and told her we'd talk to her again tomorrow, same time, same place, and started biking home. To back up our story that we really had gone through town, and had an excuse for taking so long, me, Mary and Loren went to the mall and picked up some new CDs, the guys went to some video game store or something.
 I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch up on homework. My grades had been falling since I started trying to save the world.
 The next day, I told my parents I was going for a walk in the woods. I wasn't lying exactly, but I wasn't telling the whole truth either. I hate all the lying I have to do now. My only consolation is that someday I'll be able to tell my parents the truth.
 Hopefully.
 I trudged through the woods, climbing over ridiculously large fallen trees and jumping over a small stream or two, until I finally got to the clearing where we had agreed to meet Ann. I was the last one to get there. Well, the last human member to get there. Ann was crashing through the underbrush as I sat down on a log next to Mary and Cam.
 "Hey, Ann,"Jon greeted her.
 < Hello, Prince Jon. Hello, everybody. >
 We all said hello, and then got down to business.
 "Ann, I know that you said you weren't even in the military or anything, so maybe you can't answer all of our questions, but you said you had heard something of the previous Animorphs, what did you learn?" Jon asked. He was just as curious as the rest of us as to who they were.
 < I'm not sure if all I know is fact, but I will tell you what I've heard. There were 5 humans and an Andalite, I beleive. No, 4 humans and one nothlit who was trapped in a bird of prey morph. The Andalite was supposedly Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill, the Andalite that gave you your powers. > Ann paused, as if she was trying to remember all she had learned. < The human's names were, if I recall correctly, Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie and Tobias. >
 I leaned over to Mary, "Wasn't Cassie the name of the girl who used to work at that Wildlife rehabilitation Center thing?" She nodded.
 < Jake, their prince, has continued fighting the yeerks. He commands his own ship. Marco is a science officer on that ship. Both are looking for relatives that they lost during this awful war.
 Rachel, too, has gone on to continue fighting. She and Tobias command a ship together. >
 "I thought you said Tobias was a nothlit?" Cam interupted.
 < Yes, he was. But supposedly an ellimist gave him back his morphing powers, but did not allow him to keep his human body, but he can morph human. > Ann continued. < Cassie is now part of the medical staff on Jake's ship. She is one of the most respected doctors in the military. >
 "Why did they leave?" I asked. Obviously they had continued to fight, but they might as well have abandoned their planet! If Aximili hadn't found us and given us our powers, Planet Earth could have been lost forever.
 < They felt that they were needed elsewhere. > Ann replied smoothly. < Of course they all wished they could have stayed, but both Jake and Marco felt the need to find their family members, and Rachel was supposedly the bravest member of the group and never wanted to be left out of the action, and Tobias was always at her side, as Cassie was with Jake. >
 That made sense, I guess. But I still couldn't beleive that anybody would leave there home planet practically defenseless.
 "Is there anything you can tell us about the yeerks that we might not know yet?" Loren asked.
 < You know that the yeerks use Hork-Bajir, Taxxons and Humans for hosts? >
 We nodded.
 < Do you know what kind of ships they use? >
 We shook our heads no.
 < The most common type of ship is a Bug Fighter. The hold a crew of one Taxxon and one Hork-Bajir. They are armed with two standard issue yeerk dracon beams, and often preceed a visser's Blade Ship when it's landing. >
 "Blade Ship? I don't like the sound of that." Cam said.
 < And you shouldn't. A Blade Ship is the type of ship that only Vissers, a rank in the yeerk army, has. It is shaped like one of your primitive human battle axes and is all black. There is a Blade Ship orbiting your planet as we speak. The ship of the abomination, Visser Three. > When Ann said Visser Three's name, you could almost feel the air vibrate with her hatred.
 "Who is this Visser Three?" I asked. "Aximili mentioned his name when he gave us our morphing powers, but he only said that he was the only one to have an Andalite host."
 < He is the leader of the yeerk invasion of Earth. He is a rather high ranking yeerk. There are beleived to be 42 Vissers in the yeerk empire, the lower the number, the higher the rank. And he is possibly the most ruthless of them all. Being the only disgusting slug with an Andalite host, he seems to think he is better than all of the other yeerks, even the Council of 13, the head of their military. He doesn't even hesitate to use his stolen Andalite tail to slice a fellow yeerk's head from his shoulders. >
 We all shuddered.
 < He also-->
 "Stop!" Loren shouted, covering her ears, as if that could block out Ann's thought speach. "I don't want to hear anymore about him! I know he's evil, that's all I really need to know."
 I nodded in agreement, "Yeah, Ann. That was just a bit too much information at once."
 "Same here," Jon said. "And, I don't think we really need any more info on the yeerks right now. What we need to do is plan how we're going to attack the yeerks next. We were trying spying on them, but..."
 "But somebody went on a yeerk killing spree." I interupted.
 Jon gave me a look. "Anyways. The Sharing is going down to the beach tomorrow since everybody has the day off. They're going to do some beach cleaning, and have a cookout for supper. We could go spy on them then."
 "Sounds cool, but what are we going to use to spy on them?" Cam pointed out. "Bugs don't have very good hearing, so they're out. Owls only hang out at night. I don't think any of us has a water bird. Cats don't hang out on beaches too much, and out power morphs would be way too noticable on the beach."
 "I've got a water bird," Loren said. "But we do have a morph for spying on them, Cam. Seagulls. The kings of the beach. Seagulls are always hanging out where people are. We'll be sure to blend in."
 "Yeah, but what about Ann?" Mary asked. "She doesn't have a seagull morph, at least not that I know of." I looked at her, "Do you have any Earth morphs?"
 < Unfortuantly, no, I don't. I have only admired the wonderful creatures Earth has from afar. >
 "Okay, so how are we going to get her a seagull morph? She can't exactly waltz into the clinic looking like she does now. People would freak!" I said.
 "We could catch a seagull," Jon suggested feebley.
 Loren laughed, "Sorry, Jon, but that's practically impossible. Even if we set up a feast of food for the seagulls, they'd fly away before any of us could get close enough to grab one."
 "Well then how are we going to get one?" Jon asked, frustrated.
 "What if..." I stopped. It was a way to wacky idea to be considered seriously.
 "What if what?" Jon demanded.
 "Well, what if maybe she didn't go as a bird like the rest of us. What if she morphed human or something?"
 They were all silent for a moment, then Cam spoke, "That just might work! But how will we get her a human morph? She can't go around as an exact copy of one of us."
 < There is a way to remedy that. > Ann interupted. 
 She walked up to me, < If it's alright with you... > I nodded. She pressed her many fingered hands to my face. I began to feel kind of spacey and tired. When I came out of it, Ann had already acquired Mary and Cam and was starting on Lauren. After she had acquired Lauren and Jon, she closed her main eyes, her stalk eyes stayed open and were looking in all directions, and began to change.
 Her tail was sucked up into her spine, her front legs began to shorten, but at the same time became stronger-looking and two of her fingers on each hand fused with another one so she only had 5 fingers. Her stalk eyes withered, became floppy stalks, and finally disapeared into her head. She couldn't stand on all four legs anymore, so she pushed herself up onto her now almost fully human legs.
 "Yah! Turn around, everybody," I shouted as Ann stood up.
 I listened untill the disgusting morphing sounds stopped. "Ann? You finished?"
 "Finished? Fin-fin-fin-ished? With what? Wha. Wha-TUH?"
 "Morphing."
 "Yes. Yesssssss, Angela. La. I have completed the morphing process. Pleted. Com-PLEET-ed."
 "Are you male or female, Ann?" Mary, who was standing next to me, asked.
 "I chose female. Ch-ch-ch-chose. Since that is what I am. Am. That-tuh. Tuh."
 I took off my T-shirt and shorts, and threw them to Ann. I always wore my morphing suit now, so I was fine. "Here, Ann. Put these on, and tell us when you're finished."
 I heard a scuffling as Ann tried to bend down to pick up the clothes with out falling on her face. It took a couple tries, but she eventually got them on. "I have put them on. Put-tuh.On-on-on-on-on."
 "Guys? Don't look, she might not have put them on right." Lauren cautioned.
 Lauren, Mary, and me all turned around to look at Ann, and turned back around quickly to keep from laughing. Ann had pulled my shorts on her arms, and my T-Shirt was on like a pair of huge shorts.
 "Okay, guys, definetly don't turn around. We've got to help Ann with her clothes."
 We quicly got Ann's clothes on right, and told the boys to turn around. I stepped back to where the were standing to look at Ann.
 She was medium height, a balance between me and Cam. Her hair was brownish blond with red highlights, and was about shoulder length. If she went to school, she would probably be very close to being one of the more popular girls, except for the fact that there was something almost boyish about her.
 "Okay, now what?" Mary asked.
 "Well, we could either go get Ann a seagull morph, or we could say we've had enough excitement for one weekend, and just hang out with Ann or go home," Jon said.
 "I say we call it quits for the weekend," I said right away. Everyone stared at me. I usually say go for it. "Hey, I'm majorly behind on my homework, and my parents think I've joined a gang or something."
 Everybody agreed with me. All of our parents were begining to be concerned about us, and we couldn't have them starting to question us constantly about homework and stuff.
 We said goodbye to Ann, and walked off in our seperate ways. Me and Cam live kinda near eachother, so we walked together.
 "So, what do you think of Ann?" I asked to make conversation.
 "She seems pretty cool, but when she's human she's on the weird side."
 I laughed, "Way on the weird side. But you can kinda understand why. I mean, she's millions of billions of miles away from her people, I'd be a little on the weird side if I was in her position."
 We came to the street corner where we had to split up to go to our seperate houses. "Well, um, I'll talk to ya' later." I said.
 "Uh, yeah. See ya'."
 I turned the corner and walked on to my house, thinking about the events that weekend. It had started out so normal. Then we went spying on the yeerks, and now, we were friends with a very weird aliens. Just another day in the life of an Animorph.