My name is Dan.

You've probably heard of me. Dealing Dan Hawke, the used car salesman with the best deals in town.

Well, no more. My life fell apart when an elephant showed up—a freaking elephant showed up—and smashed half of the cars in my lot.

Half of my business, gone in a few minutes. The cars were destroyed beyond repair. Insurance refused to pay me for the damages. Said that elephant attacks weren't covered. Bunch of overpaid bums!

As for the other half of my business? Ha. Did I mention this all happened on live TV? The video of the attack got over ten million hits on YouTube.

Yeah, turns out people don't want to shop at the car lot that's prone to elephant attacks. All my customers disappeared. After two months of no sales, the bank foreclosed on my property and sold the land to my main competitor, Selling Stan Macaw.

I hate that guy.

The worst part is that nobody knows where the elephant came from. Elephants don't just appear out of nowhere, right? Wrong. This elephant must be magic or something, because no one's ever seen it before or since.

The only elephants within 50 miles of the place are at an amusement park called The Gardens. They got dozens of people to confirm that all of their elephants were in their pen, at the time of the attack.

So where does that leave me? I look like a crazy person, trying to accuse an amusement park of using their elephants to destroy my business.

I hate elephants now. I freaking hate elephants.

Yeah, so that's my biography. Sad, ain't it? Well, that ain't the worst part. My girlfriend left me, after I lost the house. Word on the street is that she's now dating Selling Stan Macaw.

I hate that guy. Not as much as I hate elephants, but I really hate that guy.

I'm homeless now. I live an abandoned construction site near the mall. I spend most of my days begging people for money. Half of the money goes to food. I'm saving the other half, so I can buy a car to live in. Hopefully one of my old car friends can cut me a deal.

So. That's where I was when the story begins. Homeless, living alone, trying to protect my little nest egg. I can't carry the money around with me all the time, so I hide it in a hole in one of the walls of the construction site. Pretty good hiding spot. Not easy to find, unless you're looking for it.

Imagine my surprise when I found a punk kid, messing around the area.

"Hey, you!" I shouted. "Get away from there!"

David—that was the kid's name—turned around. When he saw me, he laughed. "Too late, loser! I already found your precious treasure!"

"WHAT?" I shouted.

David laughed again and held out some weird blue box. "What is this thing, anyway? Some kind of door stopper?"

Now, I've never seen that blue box before. But I ain't gonna tell that to this random punk. All I wanna do is get rid of him for good, because he's dangerous close to my money.

"Gimme that box, and get outta here," I said. "You can't use it, anyway. It's no good to you."

David just smiled and tossed the box gently the air before catching it. "What's it worth to you?"

"What you talking about?"

"Gimme a hundred bucks, and I'll give you back your stupid box," the kid said.

"Do I look like a guy who's rolling in dough?" I asked. "I'm homeless, kid. Leave me and my stuff alone."

"Fifty bucks, then," David said. "Unless you want to fight me for it..."

Now. Here's a word of advice for all you people out there. Don't ever try arguing over prices with a used car salesman. I been selling cars since before this punk was born. Why, I'm so good at negotiating, that I'd probably convince him to give me a hundred dollars.

But ain't no way I can negotiate through this. If that kid found out where my money is, you can bet dollars to donuts that he'd be back to steal it. All of it.

So, I had no choice. I had to fight the kid.

"This is for the elephant!" I shouted, running straight at the kid.

He was so surprised, he didn't even react as I tackled him. I didn't wanna hurt him, so I shoved his face into the ground and grabbed the blue box.

I ran away in another direction—leading the kid away from my money cache—and that's when it happened.

I pressed my fingers against one side of the box. I guess I must have touched it in a really particular way or something, because it started to glow. My fingers felt strange. Funny. Different.

I didn't know it at the time, but I had just gotten the morphing power. It didn't take long before I discovered the power, and it changed my life forever. But that's something I'll talk about in the next chapter, you dig?

Back to the fight in the construction site. I was a little weirded out by the glowing box, and it distracted me. That gave David a chance to catch up to me.

"Awww, how cute! It's a little night light! Does that help you get to sleep?" David asked.

I cursed the kid out and braced myself for another attack. I ran at the kid, holding the box above my head.

This time, he was ready. He dodged out of the way and tripped me. He laughed as I landed face-first in the dirt.

"I don't have time to be fighting stupid bums like you," David said. "I've got school. I don't want to end up like you after all."

Ha. Kid doesn't know I went to school. I'm actually a mechanical engineer, with a minor in animal biology. Kinda ironic, now that I think about it. Wonder if my advisor, Al Minist, knew it would come in handy in the future. Seemed kinda stupid to me at the time.

I know what you're thinking. If I'm such a genius, why am I a used car salesman, instead of a scientist? It's 'cause selling cars pays more money. At least, it did, until that freaking elephant showed up.

Anyway. The punk kid went away, and I was left by myself. After checking to see my money was safe, I examined the blue box.

It was like nothing I ever seen before. And remember, I'm a mechanical engineer. I'm used to seeing inventions and contraptions.

Kinda. College was thirty years ago at this point. All my mechanical work since then was put towards repairing used cars. But still, I could tell this blue box was a weird device. I opened up one side and there were wires and a mini-computer and pressure sensors and everything.

But the way it was put together. Nobody builds things like that. For instance, each side had seven sensors, like it was designed to be touched with seven fingers. That shoulda been my clue that this wasn't from Earth. That this was from another planet entirely.

But at the moment, all I did was shrug. I figured, maybe they changed engineering standards in the past few years. After all, we didn't have computers that small when I was in school.

I looked at the box for a while, but I couldn't figure out what it did. You know, besides for glowing. Maybe this was a high-tech glow stick? Maybe. Having a portable light source wouldn't be such a bad idea.

So I kept it with my money. Just to keep it safe.