DISCLAIMER: I did not write Animorphs, ur mama did. J/k. They are K.A. Applegate's bebehs, not mine. But Alandris is totally mine. Even though K.A. Applegate created Andalites. Twang for her.

Yes, the Bird is back once again. Ha ha!

I know, I left a lot of unfinished work...I'll get around to it! Eventually...

Basically, in this fanfic. ( Parentheses marks will be thoughtspeak marks. Because this site is being weird about thoughtspeak marks.

Chapter One - Motivation

My name is AlandrisEschallaEilshallti.

And I am an Andalite female. Almost an adult.

I am a thief, an outlaw, and an outcast from my people.

I wasn't always this way. Well, okay, I was always rude, cynical, disrespectful, lazy, and to the naked eye disinterested in everyone and everything else around me.

But there was never really a time when I didn't care about my family. Mother and Father and my two sisters Genalda and Farilda. Both are younger than me with nicer, lighter fur and more obedient. I don't hate them, though I think Genalda, the middle child, strongly dislikes me and is probably embarrassed of her outlaw sister now. Farilda sort of admires me and is exasperated with me too. She's very bright, that Farilda. Not that Genalda is stupid; she just cares maybe a little too much about what other people think.

My parents have never been cruel to me. And no, I didn't run away because of tragic circumstances - no dying lovers made me leave, no forced arranged marriage to some cruel idiot in the military, I am not a vecol, and I'm not really scorned by my people in any way. At least, I wasn't when I left...

Of course, for stealing a fighter to leave, naturally I'm in trouble. I guess I just wanted a little adventure in my life, maybe? I wanted to be free. I wanted to tour the galaxy and nothing, and nobody was going to stop me.

It all began one day on the homeworld. Me lounging around the scoop as usual, with no particular aim in mind. I tried going to University, I really did! But it was so boring! So I just dropped out. Mother wanted me to get some kind of noble factory work helping build fighter ships, but I got groped by some nasty old section foreman so I just had to leave that place! Of course, mother thought I made the whole thing up just so I could have an excuse to quit. That's life for me, for you though...no wait...sorry that didn't make any sense. But you understand what I am trying to say.

So I'm lounging around and in comes Genalda and Farilda from a healthy session of frolicking on this free afternoon when they aren't at school and can freely run around in the fields near our home. Interesting that Genalda was home playing with Farilda. Normally Genalda would rather be off with her much more exciting friends than with her family, but today being a good older sister to Farilda and playing with Farilda. I honestly think she did it just to make me look even worse; lying there on the floor, my legs spread out in an unattractive manner.

(Hello mother!) Genalda said as she galloped up. She looked disgustedly at my posture - I was lying on my side. (Eww! Alandris, can you please recline properly!) To recline properly is to be on your stomach, forehooves crossed in front of you and your back legs tucked into your sides, with your tail sort of at your side too. But I was comfortable on my side.

(You look like a cheap prostitute! Mother! Tell her to sit up properly! ) I saw the little flash of a smile my sister often had when she enjoyed getting me in trouble with our Mother. I gave her my death glare.

My mother looked pleadingly at me.

(Darling, please sit up!)

I huffed. (Mother, she called me a cheap whore!)

My mother looked at me for a moment, eyes blinking wide. (Well, you certainly look like one in that pose, don't you?)

Genalda laughed behind her back at me. Annoyed, I flipped a disc off a shelf nearby with my tail and it struck her under the eye.

(Ow! Mother!) Genalda went after her. Mother was going out to work on some plants. (She hurt my eye - ! )

(Oh I wish you two would just leave me alone to do my work in peace...)

I smiled, satisfied. Farilda was watching me.

(What is it little one?) I asked without malice.

(I don't know. You're strange Alandris.)

I shifted uncomfortably. Genalda's insults I could put up with fine. I mean, I almost even enjoyed biting back at her. But Farilda's bright little eyes watching me made me very nervous. (Well, what do you mean?) I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

(Well...) Farilda's little hooves wiggled in the dust. (I don't know.) She was looking down at the container of water she held in one little hand now.

(You're just different from all the other older females I see.)

I almost felt really hurt hearing that. It was true. But I didn't care.

I suddenly just wanted to fly off, far away from all this.

I got up and began to walk out of the scoop.

(Where are you going?) Farilda asked after me.

(On a walk.)

(Can I come too?) She began to trot after me.

(No. Stay here.)

(But I want to come too!) She glared at me in my eyestalk view. I continued to trot off. But she stopped trotting, even though she glared. She just stood there, a few yards in front of our scoop, watching me grumpily. Her little grouchy look made me smile. I much preferred it to her pensive, all-seeing stare.

(Mother! Alandris is running off!) Genalda said, trying to get me in trouble again. Shut up Genalda! I thought. I really wanted to kick her suddenly.

(Oh let her. ) My mother said, her mind distant, on her plants. (She hasn't been out of the scoop all day! A good walk will do wonders for her!)

Let her go. Exactly.

I guess half the reason I left, is because I felt like Mother didn't really want me there. Or that's what I told myself anyway. Or, the excuse I used for stealing an expensive fighter and flying off into the sunsets with it.

Really, there was no excuse for what I did. But did there have to be? In the end, I did it, excuse or no.

I walked past the big clump of dirt and rocks where little grass grew that my sisters and I used to play in when we were younger, or Genalda and myself anyway. Farilda probably wasn't even born back then. I looked at the rocks for a moment, and chose one to kick around back and forth as I walked on.

I reached the flight base and looked at the fighters inside, being readied. Warriors were running back and forth, hurrying about, orders being shouted in thoughtspeak as they prepared themselves and the fighters to go onto a Dome ship and into space.

Into battle.

The very idea of it just blew my mind. How could they be so calm, so efficient, so eager about going into almost certain death. I knew it was wrong to think of it that way; but I knew how it was. I actually read and researched things - no one was going to tell me anything! I knew for a fact that thousands of Warriors were dying in battle every week. How long could this war go on before we exhausted every resource, especially our Andalite capital? The war machine was eating up every young to middle aged male we had. It couldn't go on much longer...

My mother wouldn't talk about such things with me, of course. Father didn't like to talk about it either, I could tell. So that left Genalda, who would have said I was being unpatriotic, and Farilda, whose head I didn't really want to fill with worries. She was young. She didn't need my paranoia poisoning her against her government.

After all, the war did have a purpose. Even if I hated to admit it.

But I stood there watching for a long time, fascinated by their work, despite my hatred for war. I wasn't in a University - I figured since I had just barely made it out of school and I was too lazy to study in a University, I didn't belong in one. All I did most days was sit around the scoop. I got scolded a lot for not even helping my mother with housework.

I felt so ashamed suddenly. It was true. It was all true. I was just sitting around getting fatter, lazier, and I wasn't helping anyone out. I was suddenly so jealous of Genalda. She had a little while more before she left school; she could still just play around with her friends and have a good time and not be expected to do anything with her life yet. I, however, was asked nearly every day by my mother, my father, or both, what I planned to do with my life.

What life? What in the world could I do? I wasn't bright like little Farilda - she would be a scientist or something one day. I wasn't beautiful or graceful like Genalda who would probably be some kind of morph dancer.

I was lazy, lazy Alandris. Who was no good to anyone.

I went home feeling very depressed with the images of the hardworking, efficient Andalite warriors in my head. I would never be like them. I would always be lazy and useless.

My mother scolded me again that night for not helping out. Again, I touched my tail blade to hers and promised to help her out more. This time, instead of saying (Alright) as usual, she said. (You say that every time.) and with nothing to say, I remained silent. Genalda laughed at me and mother gave her a light smack on her rump with the flat of her tail blade. But this time, instead of amusing me, it just made me feel embarrassed.

I was just a big, lazy child that my mother had to defend from her other children.

I hurried outside when it was night and time for sleep. I usually slept away from the family, in my own little scoop near the woods. I had a computer in there too. I was going to just go to sleep, when I decided to turn on my computer and see the news of the day. Just because my own life was a bore, didn't mean the rest of the Universe was. Something interesting might be happening.

Not much. Just articles about the war. War war war. That was all it was really. Then I read one article that really got my attention. A young male had written an article about Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, the Abomination and host slave to Visser Three. He was saying something weird in his article - how it was unfair that the War Prince was looked down upon for something he had no control over.

( It is entirely unfair.) stated the young male, who's name was Jelan-Fatil-Emat. (I would hope that if I were enslaved, my people would not abandon me so!)

He went on to say that he had interviewed the son of Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, who said that he was fighting in the hope that no one would end up like his father.

Why wasn't he fighting to liberate his father, was all I could think. Did he just give up on his father like that? Oh no!

I began to search for other articles on my computer. I dug up all kinds of things on Earth. Especially information about the isolated group of "Andalite Bandits" that troubled the Yeerks so. Supposedly, one of them was the brother of the late Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, his little brother Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

That was all we had on that front? Only a few people fighting? Why weren't we sending whole domes to planet Earth? The Yeerks couldn't be allowed to have such a source of hosts!

I kept reading. I read debates about why we had not sent troops yet to Earth, how difficult it was to move a Dome Ship that fast in that amount of time, etc. I read and read and read, until I came upon one very interesting article.

It had been published under a pen name, from an Andalite, apparently female, stating that she had been to Earth in the hopes of spreading a virus to kill off all of the Yeerks, and was forced to come back because of circumstances. However, she apparently had known the "Andalite Bandits."

A lot of the information was ridiculous. Almost unbelievable. She was saying that the Andalite Bandits were mostly humans who had been given the power to morph by a dying Prince Elfangor. It all seemed very inaccurate, but however, it intrigued me how well developed her story was.

Almost too well developed to just be a story.

Andalites had left comment calling her a liar, foul, and a slanderer, and telling her that if she did not take this off immediately, she would be taken in by authorities and cross-examined, possibly even thrown in prison for slandering the name of a dead Prince and hero of the people.

My curiousity won out. I made a decision.

I sent her a message, requesting to meet with her somewhere. Telling her I wanted to know her story.

She seemed reluctant at first and sent a message saying that she would have to think about it.

I fell asleep at my computer, when I awoke very early, near dawn, she had sent a message back.

She was willing to meet me.