The Shock The Shock

By: Tien

Chapter 1

My name is Tobias. Just Tobias. You don't need to know my last name, and I'm not going to tell you. If the Yeerks ever found
out my real name, or the names of my friends, we'd be history. What are the Yeerks? Good question. Yeerks are an evil species
of parasitic aliens. Their little slug bodies crawl inside the heads of other species. And then they take over, mind and body
under control of the Yeerk. Then the host is a Controller. All the Hork-Bajir are Controllers, along with the Taxxons, countless
other species, and a rapidly growing number of humans. That's why we fight them. We are, or at least we used to be, five
pretty normal kids. Boringly average, in fact. We happened to hook up together one night at the mall, and decided to cut
through an abandoned construction site. Pretty dumb, huh? We weren't even really a group back then, but we all went to the
same school. As we walked through the construction site, an alien spaceship landed nearby, and our lives were changed
forever. We met our first alien, an Andalite prince.

Andalites fight the Yeerks throughout the galaxy, but this battle, fought in the orbit of Earth, went to the Yeerks. The Andalite
prince's ship was damaged, sending him crashing to Earth. He was fatally wounded, so we five kids were the only hope our
planet had. So the Andalite gave us a weapon to use in the fight against the Yeerks, so we might be able to hold them off
until help arrived.

That weapon was the power to morph-the power to change into any animal we can touch. I have no idea how it works-it's an
advanced Andalite technology-except that it involves DNA. But there is a terrible downside to morphing. Stay in morph for
more than too long and you stay in that morph forever. That's what happened to me, now I'm a red-tailed hawk. But thanks
to a species known as the Ellimist, I have my morphing powers back and can return to human shape for more than two hours
at a time. Which I think is lucky. And I was just off flying around. Minding my own business. And then I saw her. My twin, my
dead twin, Shelly.

Chapter 2

Hi, I'm Marco, and you know I can't tell you my name and all, sorry. I would like nothing more than to tell you my last name is
Jones or Williams or Vasquez or McCain. Marco McCain, sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? But McCain isn't my last name. I'm not
even going to swear to you that Marco is my first name. Of course you already know about the yeerks, so I'll save the blah,
blah, blah.

Anyway, I was just sitting in my room, minding my own business and playing video games. I believe in minding my own
business. And that's why when my dad and my grandpa were standing in the hall outside my bedroom door talking softly so I
could barely hear them.

I thought to myself, "Do NOT get in the middle of this Marco, mind your own business. You don't have to go listen in."

But I guess I'm just one of those people who don't care more or less about anything. I walked over to my closed door and
pressed my ear up against the wood. Their voices were muffled but I could catch most of the words.

My grandpa was just dropping by for a visit that weekend on a trip further down the coast.

"Bill…don't know what…tell Marco."

Bill is my grandpa's name.

"Well, I don't…all the answers. Listen…know your concerned…Marco's opinion on this, but…you know…can't exactly help
you."

What on earth were they talking about? What would I not like?

"I know…last time…came here…Marco whined…hours, on and on until…were here. I just can't stand…way he'll act when…tell
him. Maybe…just won't tell him…doesn't… have to know until…get here."

I heard them walk away. Someone was coming? Someone that made me very annoyed? Who…

"Oh no." I whispered, a look of pure horror came on my face.

There were only two people that could be coming, that could make me whine my head of for hours straight, and they were
my twin cousins Chelsea and Katie. They were the same age as me, but they were annoying beyond belief. I ran out into the
hall and dialed Jake's number.

Chapter 3

Hi, I'm Karla. I like to dance, and do gymnastics. I'm very athletic, and I'm a little tall for my age. I have Strawberry-blond hair,
and blue eyes. I get pretty good grades, B's C's a few occasional A's. I also like to shop and have fun with my friends.

My friends are Karen, Madison, and Tiffany, we are the Butterfly club. The four of us formed it. I also have my sister, who's only
a year older than me, and I'm friends with her.

Her name is Loren. But she's a little too serious. She gets Straight A's, and every now and then a B. She's on the track team,
and loves to just sit in a quiet spot and read. She loves cats. Our family ended up with four cats, because she likes them so
much. She looks a lot like me, except she has more reddish hair, and greenish-blue eyes.

The butterfly club and I were at the mall that day, and Loren had needed a new pair of tennis shoes, so she was with us.
Normally she wouldn't come do anything with us, but I had convinced her to come.

"Hey, guys," Madison said, "There's a lady over near the hot dog stand, and she's staring at us."

She was right, out of the corner of my eye, a tall woman with long raven-black hair was staring at us intently.

"Jeez, what does she want?" Karen said snidely.

"Come on, you guys. Lets get going." Loren said. "We've got better things to do."

"No, wait." Tiffany said with a grin. "Lets get out of sight and then follow her… we can she what she's up to."

We all agreed, except Loren.

"It's her own business." She remarked.

"Well, have you ever seen a lady that stares at you that long? Come on Loren." I tried to convince her. "Besides, mom said that
you had to stay with us. Haven't a clue why, but, still. You have no choice."

"Oh, alright." She said a little reluctantly.

We dodged out of sight into the bookstore. The woman turned and started walking toward GAP.

"Well, she may be nosy, but at least she has good taste." Madison joked.

We walked back out of the bookstore and over to the entrance of GAP. WE walked in. The woman had just grabbed a scarf, a
hat, and a swimsuit. She walked toward the dressing rooms. I grabbed a sweater and followed her. She went into the last
dressing room. So we went into the one next to it. All together, crammed. I got down on my hands and knees, and looked at
her feet.

She just stood there. I figured if she wasn't going to undress, it would be okay to peek. I turned under so I could see her and
she couldn't see me. She opened the mirror. It took all my will not to gasp. She stepped through the mirror, and closed it
behind her, leaving the swimsuit, scarf, and the hat on a rack.

Chapter 4

Hi, I'm Jack, I've got a pretty big family, but I don't really have any friends. You know, one of those loner guys.

The people in my family are my older brother, and younger brother, Mike and Kevin, and my mother, Sally, and my father Dan.
Five people. Plus my little sister Jessica, who's two years younger than me, so that makes six.

My mom had been taking a sort of drug when we were all born. It was a special new drug they had thought would help make
the birth easier. They were testing it out. Turns out, it didn't do a thing, as far as the doctors, and my parents know.

But now, my brothers and sister, and I have got these special powers, except they're all different, because she took different
dosages before each of us were born.

I can see into the future, I can make people forget anything I want, I have laser vision and can see as far as I want, and I'm
telepathic. Mike, my older brother, can move things with his eyes, and shoot lasers out of his fingers, plus make force fields,
but only around humans and animals. Kevin, my younger brother, can turn things into things their not, and make things pop
out of thin air. Jessica, well, she has the best of us all. She can change into animals, just by knowing what they look like, and
she can talk to animals, and can breath underwater in her natural form. All our powers come in handy sometimes.

But there was one HUGE down point in my life. We were moving, halfway across the country. All of us, our family was. I
wanted to make them forget totally about the idea of moving, but, I did want to see what it would be like somewhere else.
So I decided, it couldn't be bad living near a beach either.

Ten days later we were there… Our new house. We were just starting to unpack. It was a cool house, At least I got my own
room, plus my room had a balcony with the view over a cliff, and lots of houses, and just at the tip of the farthest point you
could see, was the beach, and the sparkling blue-green ocean.

My brothers had to share a room, Jessica got her own room too. I was out on the balcony right then. I was staring at the
golden sunlight, and deep salty ocean, and my blackish brown hair was caught in the wind. My brown eyes sparkled with
delight at the scene.

Nobody else in the whole town had such a good view, I could see everything. Into people's yards, even. And what I saw next
shocked me. A girl, with very short black hair, she looked sort of short, sort of tall, but I couldn't tell from here. Anyway, the
thing that caught my attention was, she started to turn into an animal. Was she like us?

Chapter 5

My name is Polari-Centhor-Sinrafi, I am a male andalite. I am only an aristh, as far as other andalites know, but I fight with the
morphing powers, even though it is against my people because I am young.

I was about to fake my death, because I wanted to fight the yeerks freely, I wanted to do some damage.

I had heard that they were infesting the humans of earth, silently attacking. I heard that Visser Three had taken an andalite
body, for a host, and was leading the invasion on earth, and hated when anything went wrong. I heard that lots was going
wrong, because of the andalite bandits, that were attaching on earth, but Visser Three couldn't seem to catch them, they
were clever andalites. I wanted to hide on a ship that was headed for earth, and I wanted to drop out of the hatch as soon as
the ship was in orbit.

While I would be falling, I would morph a bird from the andalite home world. I would then go to an earth forest and acquire
some earth animals, including a human. I wanted to join the andalite bandits.

No matter how old most were, they would let me fight, because the let Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill fought, obviously. He had
crashed in the dome on earth, he either died, or was one of the andalite bandits. And as far as I know, all the andalites on the
ship died. I had been on that exact ship. I had morphed my father, while he lie sick at my mothers side, and since he was sick,
I had pretended to be sad, touching his shoulder, I had acquired him. Then I had pretended to take his place on the ship. I
beamed myself home on the dorsenth when the ship began to be pulled into the earth's gravity.

I went home later as if nothing had happened. Now, I figured I should have stayed on the ship. It probably had crashed and
most of the andalites had died. But a few had survived. I probably would have too. I am a strong andalite, or at least I think of
myself that way.

I told my mother and father that I was going for a swim in the andalite ocean nearby. Instead I snuck on board the andalite
ship. After a very long time, we were finally in orbit around earth. I quickly opened a small emergency hatch, and slipped out,
closing it on the way.

Immediately I was drawn to earth's gravity. There was a lot more of it than on the andalite homeworld. For a moment I
thought that I was going to drop too fast and not have a time to morph, but already the leathery, rubbery wings grew. Just as
I was about to hit something very flat and very tall, I opened my wings and flew up high, away from where the humans could
see me.

I flew. In a few andalite hours, my family would think I was dead.

Chapter 6

"Come on Karla!" I whispered. "What do you see?"

My name is Karen. Loren, Tiffany and Madison were in here with us, but you already know that. I just wish she'd tell us all what
was going on. She stood up, her face was pale.

"She… she… she went through the mirror." Karla said.

I giggled. "Alright tell us what really happened." I said, then I got down on my hands and knees and looked under.

The woman was gone.

"What!?" I said, standing up, my face was also pale now. I was sure she hadn't left.

"What is it!?" Tiffany said.

"She's gone." I whispered.

"As I said-" Karla said, but she was cut off by Madison.

"Yeah, yeah. She went through the mirror." Loren laughed. "You guys have funny imaginations."

The rest took turns looking under the stall, and they each turned pale too.

"So what do we do?" I asked nervously.

"Listen, the woman opened up the mirror, and went inside and closed the mirror behind her. Let's follow." Karla said.

"Ok." We all agreed.

We went into the next stall, and Loren tentatively tried to open the mirror. To everyone's complete amazement, it opened. It
led down a very long staircase. One by one we stepped through.

After a moment of us all just trooping down there, we began to hear screaming and crying, and growling. We looked at each
other, eyes wide, faces pale. We hurried down the steps. We didn't want to know what was at the end. But we did. Curiosity
was pulling me down those steps.

After what seemed like an hour we finally reached the bottom of the steps. I was so horrified I couldn't move. We were in an
underground cavern, with a big, sludgy, dark, pool in the center. It looked like there were things swimming in it. But you
couldn't tell.

There were two lines of people, with aliens or other humans holding them in one. The other, was where calm humans stood
patiently. At the end of the first line, the one where the humans were waiting calmly, they would get to the end of the line,
which was at the edge of a pool. They would dip their heads in the pool, and when their heads came up, they would be
screaming, and a couple aliens would throw them in cages thrown off to the side.

The other line was worse. People were screaming while the aliens were dragging them down the line. They would dip their
heads in, like they did in the other line, but when their heads came up that time, they would be calm, and they would walk
away. I screamed. And a few seconds later I herd the others scream too.

Soon a couple of aliens were dragging us toward the second line, where most the people were screaming or crying. I
screamed again, this time because I was not only scared, I was petrified.

Chapter 7

My name is Katie. I'm fun, loving, and I can't get enough excitement.

I'm fairly tall. I have long, raven black hair, and green eyes. I love sports too. My twin Chelsea is a little like me, but not much.
She doesn't like sports, but she loves excitement. She looks exactly like me, but she actually likes school. But she hates
homework, just like I do.

We both love to shop. But, see I'm friendlier. She says she doesn't like nerds, but I think some nerds are ok. We were on the
plane, headed for my uncle's town. And my cousin Marco's.

Marco is funny, but Chelsea and I love to tease him. I knew how much he probably hated the idea of us coming to stay with
them for a month, while our mother and father were getting ready to move to the town they lived in.

This was gonna' be great! I looked out the plane window. We were obviously almost there, because the plane was a lot lower
than it had been a few minuets before.

Just then the Plane announcer's voice came on. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please do not panic. Remain seated at all times. The
plane is losing control of the engines. I am very sorry to say, that we are about to crash."

My heart pounded. About to crash!? My heart was in my ears as I timidly looked out the window. Millions of butterflies were
flying in my stomach. The plane had just suddenly started to drop slowly, although it kept going forward. I liked excitement,
but this was like being on a roller coaster, that's about to fly off its tracks.

A few little kids screamed. I closed my eyes, and hoped, with all my heart.

Chapter 8

Hi, I'm Rachel, I'm an animorph. That day, Marco had had me, Jake, and Cassie come over, for moral support. Tobias and Ax
were there in human morph.

He said that his twin cousins were royal pains in the butts. Personally, I wanted to meet them. They sounded cool. Then again,
anyone who loves to tease Marco is cool.

We were in his living room, waiting for his dad to come back with Chelsea and Katie. Those were their names.

We were talking about yeerks and business, since we hadn't really gone on any missions lately.

"Look, guys," Tobias was saying. "I know that you might not want to know this right now, while we have no spare time,
but…well…" he trailed off.

"What is it already!?" I said.

He took a deep breath. "I used to have a twin sister named Shelly. She died two years ago. But, the thing is, she faked her
death, so she didn't really die. Shelly looks almost exactly like you Cassie. The only reason I recognized her, was because of a
mole on her neck. It was earlier, when I was flying, I saw Shelly. And she was walking through the forest, and she was
barefoot and alone. But, the thing that got my attention, was, while she was walking, she was…morphing." He pushed the last
word out as if it were hard to say.

Cassie gasped. "Almost exactly like me?" She sounded amazed.

"Yes." He choked out.

I felt my stomach twisting and diving and fluttering. "So that's bad news!?" Marco cried. "Your long, lost, dead, twin, alive! And
she was morphing, Tobias. She can take my place." He joked.

Jake and Cassie cracked a smile. So did I. Even Tobias did a little. Ax just stared.

"If you didn't know your parents, how come you know your twin sister? Twi-un. Siiiis-tuh. Er." Ax said.

"Good question." I said.

"We were sent back and forth between aunts and uncle's together, and then she 'supposedly died' when we were with my
aunt across the country. I came here, and I've been here for two years." Tobias said.

I was amazed. Tobias was so… sad. So lonely.

Chapter 9

Hi, I'm Shelly. I can morph into any animal by acquiring its DNA pattern. An andalite gave me, and another girl, I can't say who,
the power to morph. I can't say which. And I can't say how, because if I did, I would get the andalite in trouble with the
yeerks, because he is being held captive. They torture him.

No one knows about this Except Visser Three himself. And me, and the other girl, because he escaped and gave that power
to us, but then he was captured again. As I said though, I'm not going to go through the details.

Anyway, I fight the yeerks. But you already know about them because of the animorphs. I've been following them for ages.
Yes, I know that Tobias, my twin is trapped a hawk. And I know all that blah, blah, blah. They are clever, because they survive
every time they go on a mission. And I am going to join them.

That's where I was headed right then. To Marco's house. That's where they were meeting, I'd heard them over the phone. I
listen into every phone call they make, except for when they call Erek. I decided to join them. I was a little excited. It would
be fun to be one of them. Suddenly a new thought struck me. What if they rejected me?

I became nervous. I approached Marco's house and rang the doorbell. Marco answered. I expected him to look shocked,
because I looked so much like Cassie. But he only looked a little surprised.

Then he said "Hi, Shelly, come on in. Tobias is waiting." He shocked me instead.

I stepped inside. "Hello Shelly." Everyone said, except for Tobias.

I was really shocked. Tobias slowly lifted his eyes to mine. He was smiling so hard I swore he was happiest person on earth.
Maybe he was. He came over and hugged me. I hugged him back. I was now smiling myself. Tobias was so wonderful. My
twin! I finally was seeing him again. After all these years of my own morphing, and his own morphing, and my living in a cave,
and his being a bird we finally met. Again.

"Hi Shelly." He said. His voice was a little deeper than I remembered.

"Hello Tobias." I said back.

Chapter 10

Hi, I'm Mike. And I am about to be killed on a plane. Across the aisle from me, a pair of twins with Jet-black hair looked
terrified. I'm sure I looked the same. Then I realized I wasn't helpless.

I used my floating powers to make the plane rocket through the sky and soon we were at the airport, we were only five
minuets early. I told Jack, my brother, he needed to make everyone forget about the whole plane trip. Now. So he did. And we
were all getting off the plane.

Later we moved into our new house. I peeked out the window at Jack's balcony. I was jealous. He had a cool balcony, and his
own room. He has all the luck. He was staring out at the landscape with his mouth hanging open.

He looked toward me, and gestured frantically for me to come here. I raced into his room. Jack wouldn't act that way unless
something major was up.

"Look." He said in an awed voice, and he pointed.

I squinted down at the backyard of someone's. Jack has laser vision. Suddenly he powered the laser vision into me and I saw.

A girl, tall, black, very short black hair, changing into an osprey. My mouth hung open as he took the laser vision away.

"One like us?" I said.

"Gotta' be." He said.

I went and got Jessica. She speed-morphed, and flew down to the osprey.

Chapter 11

Hi, I'm Jessica, you know about all this. Except you don't know what I look like. I'm tall for my age. I have blond hair and
brown eyes. I flew down to the osprey, as fast as I could.

Are you like me!?> I cried into her head.

She did a double take and went twirling and falling to the ground.

Are you okay?!> I called to her.

She landed in a tree branch, and I landed beside her.

Who…who are you!?> She said in thought-speech.

My name is Jessica.> I speed-demorphed

"Who are you?" I said when I finished demorphing.

C…Cassie.> she said. She began to demorph.

"Why not go back to human shape faster?" I asked. Because I can't.> she said. How can you?>

I waited a couple minutes for her to finish. When she did I explained.

"Before I was born, my mother was taking a drug, it was supposed to help the pain, but it didn't do a thing, as far as the
doctors, and my parents are concerned." I said. "I have three older brothers. Mother was taking the drug when they were born
too. She took different dosages before each of us were born. Now we each have different powers, sort of. My oldest brother,
Mike, can move things with his eyes, and shoot lasers out of his fingers, plus make force fields, but only around humans and
animals. The middle brother, Jack, can see into the future, he can make people forget anything he wants, he has laser vision,
Plus he's telepathic. The youngest brother, Kevin, can turn things into things their not, and make things pop out of thin air. I,
can change into animals, just by imagining them, I can talk to animals, and I can breath underwater in my natural form. I
morphed and flew down here, because you might be one like us, with powers and stuff. My brother, Jack, saw you morphing
with his laser vision, so are you like us?"

"No," she said. She looked a lot calmer now. "I'm an animorph."

And she explained how earth was under attack, by evil alien slugs. And how an andalite gave her, and a few friends, the
power to morph. She said she was on her way to one of the friend's houses. Marco's she said. She said she'd tell the others
about me and my brothers, and maybe we could help them fight for earth. I said yes, turned back into an osprey, and flew
back toward the cliff.

Chapter 12

It's me, Polari-Centhor-Sinrafi. I kept flying on, through the human homeworld. I realized that I didn't know a thing about human
culture.

Tall, metallic things were sprouting from the ground. There were very many people walking around here and there below. I
saw a forest up ahead. I quickly sped, and shot in a dive and slowed and landed in a tree. I flapped down to the forest floor,
and began to demorph.

Soon I returned to my andalite form. There was a bird in a tree branch up there, watching me. I tentatively reached up to
acquire it. I did not want to startle it. Soon I was morphing the earth bird, while the regular earth bird was shrieking and flying
off.

When I finished morphing the bird I lifted and soared into the sky, In search of a nice forest to live in, and I also wanted to find
the andalites. Up and up I flew. Gaining altitude. What I saw next shocked the life out of me.

A girl with blond hair and just demorphed form a bird, while another girl, with short black hair, and black skin, was
demorphing from a bird too, but she was slower. I watched them, circling, high above. Finally the one with blond hair
morphed into a bird…very fast…and flew up into the clouds. The girl in black seemed amazed.

I flew down toward her. And began to demorph. If she could morph, no need to pretend. The girl looked doubly shocked.
Then she fell over laughing. As soon as I finished demorphing, she stopped laughing.

"Oh, hi Ax." She said.

I am not…ax, as you said. I am Polari-Centhor-Sinrafi. I am a young andalite. I want to join the andalite bandits, to help fight
the yeerks. Since you morph, you might know them.>

Her eyes widened. She smiled. I am one of the andalite bandits, as the yeerks say. Except we call ourselves animorphs. We
are all really humans, except for one andalite, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. We call him Ax, for short. That was my mistake. You
looked so much like him, I got confused.>

It was my turn to be surprised. You are humans?>

"Yes."

And that yellow haired girl, that flew away, she is one too?>

"No, I just found out that she was born with powers to morph. Anyway, If you want to join us, I will tell the others. Why don't
you stay here in this forest in the meantime." She gestured toward a very nice forest behind her house. "Don't let any humans
see you, except me. Okay? They yeerks could be anyone."

I agreed and she morphed a bird, and flew away. I trampled into the forest, wondering, What should I do now?

Chapter 13

Hi, I'm Loren. I'm Karla's older sister. I screamed again. We were being dragged toward a sludgy pool. We got closer. Now I
could see that little slugs would crawl in or out the person's ear, when the dipped their head into the pool.

I screamed again, louder than ever. What I saw next horrified my deepest core. Madison was turning into an alien! She was the
only one who hadn't screamed. She had just stared open mouthed.

Now she was turning into one of the weird aliens with blades all over. She slashed at the other bladed ones, who were staring
open-mouthed. A couple seconds later they were dead. She slashed at the ones holding the rest of us. Soon we were all
running, back up the long stairway. After a long time, we reached the top.

We flew out through the mirror. Madison had changed back to her human self. We raced out of the mall, and down to the ice
cream parlor. We dashed inside, and slid into a booth. I hadn't the slightest idea why we had come here, but at least we were
safe. Hopefully.

"What did you do Madison?" I asked fearfully. "Who are you?"

She was the only one of us besides Karla who I actually considered a sort of friend.

"I…I…I morphed" she replied. "An andalite, an alien, not the kind back there, but a blue deer with stalk eyes, and a tail with a
scythe blade, he gave me the power to morph, to change into any animal I touch, and acquire. He gave the power to me, and
another girl, her name was Shelly. But I can't tell you more. It's against. The Yeerks, a parasitic alien species, that crawl into
your ear and take over your brain, torture the andalite. Its horror beyond belief. The yeerks could be anywhere. Anyone. Your
best friend, your mother or father. Your principle or teacher. They control you." She explained everything.

I was terrified. "I have been trying to find the andalite bandits, to join them."

And right then, I wanted to be able to morph, I wanted to be able to fight those evil slugs. Because no one here saw, that my
mother was down at the yeerk pool. She was screaming in a cage. And now, I was mad.

Chapter 14

Hi, my name is Cassie. I'm an animorph. And, you know all the details, so I'll skip it.

We were all there, at the animorph meeting. And Shelly had just walked in. She was the new official animorph, and now I
wanted to tell them about The andalite, and Jessica, but then Marco's dad walked in with two tall, thin girls with long,
jet-black hair, and green eyes. They were stunningly beautiful.

They walked in the living room, and Marco's dad was smiling as he walked down to his den. We could no longer talk about
animorph business. Then everyone went crazy at the next thing Katie said.

"You're the andalite bandits, aren't you?"

"What?" Jake said. He was obviously nervous.

"When we were landing, I saw you, Cassie, and a girl. You guys were morphing birds. We used to be controllers, so we know
all about it."

We all stared at them. Amazed.

"Cassie! Rachel! You guys were morphing in your own backyard!?" Jake cried, annoyed.

"No." Rachel said. "I wasn't."

"But you're the only other girl here, besides Cassie. Who other girl can morph besides Shelly and you Rachel?"

I cleared my throat. "Attention." I whistled loudly.

Everyone stopped talking at once.

"Let's go outside, and I'll tell you about it. It wasn't Shelly, and it wasn't Rachel. I just don't want Marco's dad to hear us
talking about aliens and stuff."

So we went outside. It was a short walk to my house, so I insisted that we go there. I told them to wait a moment. I got the
girl Jessica, and her brothers to come down to my backyard, and I got the andalite.

Soon we were all crowded in my backyard. I explained everything, including me meeting the andalite, and the girl, Jessica, and
her brothers. Everyone was amazed.

Polari-Centhor-Sinrafi told us that while he was hiding in the woods, he had found an actual morphing cube. We decided that
we would make everyone that was in my backyard at that moment an animorph. So we did.

Now there was thirteen animorphs. Thirteen! "Lets go to the ice cream parlor to celebrate the Brand-new animorphs!" I cried.

Everyone agreed. When we got there, there was nobody else there, except for some very nervous and pale looking girls, there
were five of them. I felt like laughing. Sometimes we acted like that when we were about to go on a mission. All of the girls
stopped talking, and they each turned to stare at us. I suddenly had a very bad feeling.

Chapter 15

Hi, I'm Karla. Me and my friends were in the ice cream parlor. We decided that even if anyone could be a controller, we had to
tell some people. But only a few, and only people we were absolutely sure weren't controllers. Suddenly a bunch of kids
walked in the door.

We all turned to stare. We were only staring because there were so many of them. Suddenly this big ball of panic rose up in
my head. I felt like screaming. I was horror stricken. Suddenly, on the verge of going insane, I jumped out of my chair and ran
toward a girl with long black hair and green eyes.

I pulled her out the ice cream parlor door, and began to tell her everything. A few seconds later she began laughing.

"I know it sounds impossible, but believe me!" I cried.

Just then Loren came out and slowly pulled me back to the table. I suddenly felt calm. A second later I realized what I had
done. I looked at the rest of my friends in horror. I told them what I'd done. They were staring at me like I was nuts. I suddenly
began to cry. I don't know why, Its just, finally realizing you almost became a slave… It changes everything. Loren hugged
me.

I whispered, "I'm sorry. Oh…I'm so, so sorry."

Chapter 16

Hi, I'm Chelsea. And some crazy girl with reddish-blond hair was telling me about accidentally going down to the yeerk pool.
Who in their right mind would blurt that out like that? Unless they wanted to be a controller, they wouldn't.

I walked over to the counter. I couldn't believe I was an animorph! We had all morphed birds to get here. It was amazing! The
wind beneath your wings, the feeling of being above the clouds, the sight, it was so clear… we were going to fly over to the
gardens after ice cream to get some really useful morphs.

The rest had already gotten ice cream. They were all staring at me curiously. I ordered a double scoop. One
Chocolate-Strawberry swirl, and the other was blueberry cheesecake. I sat down with the others.

I finally said it. "They know about the yeerks, but their not controllers."

"What?" Jake asked. He was our sort-of leader, and he was obviously surprised.

"She told me about how earth is under attack, and how she followed a lady who was acting suspicious, and went through a
mirror at GAP, and ended up at the yeerk pool. She almost got infested, she and her friends over there anyway. One of them
even has the power to morph, but I don't know who."

Everyone just sort of sat there for a moment while the info sunk in.

"What do we do?" Jack finally said.

"We, we could make them animorphs, I mean, you did make us animorphs." Jessica suggested.

I nodded. "Yeah." One by one each of us voted yes. The group of girls were just getting up to leave, and I walked over.

"Uh, you guys, my friends and I want to talk to you." I said.

"It was just a joke." The girl who had went nuts on me earlier said.

What could I do? "Uh…It's not about that." And they came over to our table. They sat down. We told them about us, and they
told us about them. It took a whole hour, but we finally decided to make them one of us.

We flew to Cassie's, with the girls walking beneath us. When we got there Polari gave them the power to morph, and they
each acquired a bird. I figured that since Polari's full name was hard to say, just like Ax's was, I figured we could call him Po.
He agreed. Ax and Po.

It made me laugh. Eighteen animorphs. Amazing. And then I knew, that we were going to be very strong.

Chapter 17

Hi, I'm Kevin, and I'm an animorph. We were all heading toward the gardens. I wanted to get a really good morph, like a
grizzly, or crocodile. We flew over the gardens gate, figuring that it would cost way too much for us all to get in. We were
probably right.

Alright, to the crocodile pit.> Cassie said.

I wanted one of those, more than ever. We landed, and demorphed.

"Can I acquire a croc?" I asked.

"Sure, why don't a couple more of you acquire this guy too? This is the most deadly earth animal." Hearing that sent a shiver
through my body.

"Any other volunteers?" Chelsea and Tobias each acquired the croc.

Then we went to the grizzly cage. Rachel already had a grizzly, and we needed more of those too, they were the second
most powerful. Loren got a grizzly morph.

We also went and got wolf morphs. All of us. Mike and Katie wanted those to be their battle morphs too. We got tiger
morphs for Karla, and Karen, and gorilla morphs for Jessica and Jack. We also got a Rhino for Madison, and a rattlesnake for
Tiffany. We also all got bat morphs, horse morphs, and shark morphs.

We had been there for about two hours, so we all had to go home. I was disappointed.

Chapter 18

Hi, I'm Tobias, you already know me. We were almost to the bottom of the stairs of the yeerk pool. We went and hid behind a
bunch of huge pillars. We began to morph our dangerous morphs.

Mine was the crocodile. The first thing that happened was the scales. It is cool, getting larger, and larger. And suddenly
turning green, and growing scales. My jaw was increasing in size, by the second. My mouth was bulging out and razor-sharp
teeth were growing out of the short, stubby human teeth. My legs began to shrink like crazy. I fell forward, unable to stand
erect any longer. A few minutes later I was ready.

We were going to fight. I raced forward on my tiny legs, and bit down on the nearest hork-bajir. I don't think he'll be walking
for a very long time. I saw the others, in battle.

It was an insane rush! We were winning! For once, we were actually winning! It was because of how many animorphs we had.
The battle raged all around me. A hork-bajir slashed at my head, but it didn't go very deep, because of my scales. The only
weak point I had was my belly, and no hork-bajir was going to slash at my belly. I heard hork-bajir raging in pain, and running.

I heard humans screaming, and I knew, that we might actually win this war.

Someday.

To Be Continued in ... The Last Battle