SPOILERS
Gale is a part of a special squad of army trained morphers whose mission is to search the galaxy for their missing Commander and his team, the Animorphs. When she loses her team, she and her new canine friend must seize control and continue the mission. As they join with three other outcasts from throughout the galaxy, they begin to uncover a threat that is much larger than the Animorphs ever dealt with. They must learn to overcome their own lack of brains or heart or courage in order to protect the very existence of the universe. A story based on the classic Wizard of Oz, done Animorphs style.
I do not own the rights to any Animorphs related characters or places. This is my first animorphs fanfic, it will have all origional characters, but maybe a few surprises. Its wizard of oz, but it wont be exactly like the story, it will just bear some resemblenses to it, so even if you hated Oz, you still might love this. Its kind of like that Sci-fi mini series Tin Man, which I definately have to recommend because it was pretty awesome. So give it a read, and please give it a review even to tell me how awful it is.
Chapter 1
My name is Gale.
I'm not usually supposed to tell people much about myself, for all intensive purposes I don't even exist. But I will tell you somethings, I mean things have changed a bit, and people definitely know I exist now. I'm an about average height, twenty-seven year old with short messy hair. A lot of people say I look young for my age, which I hate. I'm trying to get people to take me serious and they see this stupid little girl. But I don't let it bother me too much, I don't look like a little girl all the time. Gale isn't my real name, it's the code name I chose when I became part of the special ops team that made all others look like stupid school boys running around with slingshots. Our team has a major, major advantage over others, our group has the ability to morph, to become animals. Its crazy that just a few years ago I could have said that and everyone would have just laughed in my face, I would have brought myself to the loony bin. But I guess after the Animorph's war ended people were forced to accept a lot of things that they never would have even imagined.
I'd been expecting for a long time for us to finally find out that aliens were out there somewhere, and maybe we'd get to reach them someday. I didn't expect to one day learn that they are not only out there, but they are right here, on earth, and they have been living among us for years. We learned about the cultural revolution and the industrial revolution, this was a revolution like no one could possibly imagine. The surge of technology and information was incredible, the government worked to slow it down of course but the world was affectively shoved ahead a hundred years in a day.
I tried to stay focused throughout all of this, I was only a year out of military school when everything came out into the open. It was strange looking at Commander Berenson's face on the news, so terribly serious, with a flash of some horrible memory across his face after every question was asked. It was strange because despite how much the war had changed him, how much it had seemed to completely tear his life apart, I still wanted to be just like him. I'm almost ten years older than him, and I still look up to him like he's some great old man. I guess its just the way he carries himself that makes him look like he's about fifty.
Commander Berenson is the leader of the special ops team I had been recruited for. At least, he used to be. When I had only been on the team for about six months, he disappeared along with two of my senior teammates and the original Animorphs. For the next year, Tonlin trained the team, and nothing was said of the mysterious disappearance of our leader. Nothing was said officially anyway, but we did talk about it a lot among ourselves. We all assumed that they had left on some top secret mission and hadn't come back yet. I had not been on any of these supposed top secret missions until Tonlin came in one day with some shocking news. We were right, the Animorphs were off on some operation, even though we were never told what exactly. But, as some of us had feared, they had no been in communication with anyone for some time.
A few months from learning this terrible news, I set foot on the first alien planet I had ever been to. I tried to master my excitement and remember that I was on a very serious mission. But that only made me more excited. I mean come on, I'm on my first official mission! On an alien planet! This was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I looked around, taking in the surroundings of this new environment. The ground was moist and springy, it seemed to be made out of odd bushes, as though we were standing on the top of a canopy of very thick trees. There were tiny cracks between the purple/green leaves, some too small to see through, others with large bluish branches sticking out, and others open enough to glance through at nothing but black emptiness. If we were standing on a thick canopy, then we were a very, very long way up. The sky was a bit darker than ours, that same kind of purple tint to it, like someone had messed with the controls on the TV. Aside from they occasional stray branch sticking up, there didnt appear to be any other life, plant or animal. We weren't able to see all that far however, because the bushed or trees or whatever it was below us varied in height, causing slight slopes and hills in areas.
"Okay team," Tonlin said, in an even more serious voice than he had adopted on the voyage. He was obviously just as excited and awed as I was. "We split up here, three groups. Striker and Ghost; air, Gale, Frost, Royal; right here, Deacon and Rock, we're gonna check out down below. Everyone head to the settlement, but stay clear of it until everyone arrives you got me."
I was glad he didn't choose me to go down there with him. That dark did not look very inviting. And I was glad I'd be going with Royal, I was comfortable with him, I could trust him.