Author's Notes: "um excuse me fearowkenya but what the HELL are you doing you are already working on TWO (2) fics right now, what are you THINKING picking up a third?" i know. i know. im sorry. i couldnt help it. i've been rereading animorphs all summer and a yugioh AU for it popped into my head IN MY SLEEP so honestly it's destiny. besides, it's really good practice for managing a whole bunch of characters at once, and i'll be real with you, i need that practice.

chapters for this fic will all be in first person, with the narrator switching every chapter. this fic is an AU: yugioh characters + animorphs situation, but no animorphs characters (other than species of aliens, like andalite, yeerk, hork-bajir, etc). events of ygo didn't happen (no duelist kingdom, no battle city, etc) but certain aspects still exist (duel monsters card game, millennium items, kaiba corporation). animorphs can be pretty dark sometimes so i'll put trigger warnings in the author's notes just in case. oh yeah, no prior knowledge of animorphs is needed to read this fic. if you've read the series, cool! if not, that's okay. this doesn't follow animorphs canon to the letter but does borrow a lot of elements from it. anyway, i hope you all enjoy!

Trigger Warnings: suicide mention

Chapter One: The Invasion

YUUGI

My name is Yuugi. I can't tell you anything else about myself. I mean it. If I did, I would be taking a risk that could get us all killed. My friends and me, I mean. It sounds silly, but we're this planet's only hope right now. I can't afford to put us all in unnecessary danger.

I guess that's a lot of information to handle. Let's back up a bit. It's only been a few days since my life has changed forever, but now that I think about it, I suppose it all started about a year ago.

I was having a really, really rough day. I didn't sleep a wink all night, and school was terrible. I didn't pay attention in class. I didn't eat lunch, and I hadn't had breakfast either. One of my classmates, Anzu, had to drag me to the water fountain in the hallway to get something to drink. I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to stop existing.

You see, the day before, I learned that my best friend Ryou committed suicide. Jumped off a bridge. Gone. And I couldn't figure out why. He'd seemed fine when I'd seen him two days prior, I mean, I spent the whole afternoon at his house playing video games with him, and he was all laughs and smiles. Then the next day, he was dead. There had to have been something I'd missed. Something I'd overlooked. Something that I should have noticed, that could have clued me in on what he was about to do. But there was nothing. And I'd never see him again.

So there I was, shuffling home, totally heartbroken over my dead best friend. Anzu wanted to walk me back to my house and make sure I got home okay, but she had dance practice and a recital coming up, so she couldn't miss it. Maybe I should have waited for her, because I was so beside myself with sadness that I let my feet guide me without really thinking about where I was going.

You know where I ended up? At the bridge he threw himself off of. I don't know why I went there. Maybe part of me hoped that I'd go back in time or something and see him there and stop him. But of course that couldn't actually happen. So I just stood there and cried, I don't know for how long, staring out at the water and wondering why this had to happen to him. To me.

By the time I finally stopped crying, the sun was starting to set. I realized that if I was out for much longer, my grandpa would start to worry about me. So I tore my gaze away from the water and started to turn back the way I came, but before I could, something caught my eye.

Or, someone.

There was a man running at me, a grown man with blond hair poking out from under a bandanna, and blue eyes that were open so wide that his irises looked like pinpricks. His mouth was open and he was breathing heavily and I opened my mouth to scream but he crashed into me before I could even make a sound. I flew backwards, landing on my butt on the concrete. The heels of my palms were scratched and stinging after breaking my fall, but I ignored it and tried to scramble to my feet. The strange man lunged forward again, this time grabbing me by the shoulders. I squeezed my eyes shut, braced myself for some kind of pain, a punch, a kick, whatever, but all he did was scream in my face.

"The yeerks are invading!" he hollered, voice raw and desperate and scared, "The yeerks are here, they're here, we have to stop them before they-aaaaAARRRGH-!"

And as suddenly as he'd grabbed me, the strange man let go, staggering away clutching his head. I was frozen in place, my heart pounding in my throat as I watched him fall to his knees, clawing at his face.

Another pair of hands came down on my shoulders, from behind this time. I jumped, turning my head to see a police officer.

"Don't worry, son," he said, "You're safe."

He gave me a smile that I think was supposed to be comforting, but it looked icy and grim. I looked away and watched as another police officer tackled the strange man to the ground, holding him down until he finally stopped moving. Was he dead? No, he couldn't be… right? I couldn't look away, but the police officer with me must've decided I'd seen enough, because he turned me around by the shoulders and looked into my eyes.

"Go home," he said firmly, "It's not safe here."

I nodded numbly and the police officer stepped aside. I ran. Ran and ran and ran and ran until I saw my house. I moved around to the back door that leads into the kitchen. Normally I take the front door, which is the entrance to the game shop that my grandpa runs, but I was too rattled for any kind of human interaction. I didn't want to have to explain why my eyes were red and puffy or why I was trembling. I just wanted to throw myself onto my bed and dive under the covers and try to forget that this day had ever happened. And that's exactly what I did.

The next morning, I was awoken by the sound of my cell phone ringing. I cracked my eyes open and pawed around blindly for my phone before I realized that it was in my school uniform pocket. I'd never changed into my pajamas, I'd just collapsed onto my bed in my uniform and slept all the way through until morning. I flipped my phone open, pausing to notice that it was half past eleven.

"Hello?" I said. I winced at the sound of my voice. It was weak and kinda squeaky.

"Yuugi? Are you okay?" came the worried voice on the other line. Anzu. "I've been calling all morning, and last night, too."

I blinked and pulled my phone away from my face. In small writing across the top of the screen, I saw the words "six missed calls". I'd managed to sleep through my phone ringing six times. I brought the phone back up to my ear. "I'm sorry, Anzu," I said, rubbing my eye with my free hand, "I was asleep."

"Since seven o'clock last night?" Anzu asked. She sighed, "You should leave your phone off silent. I was really worried about you."

"Um…" I bit my lip. "It, uh. It wasn't on silent."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence. I know she wanted to ask if I was okay, but she and I both already knew how I would answer.

"So, um," Anzu started again. I could almost hear her nervously tapping her foot on the other line, "Um. I'm going to the beach with a few friends today. You wanna come?"

I hesitated. Honestly, I didn't really want to go anywhere. On the other hand, if I fell into the habit of going nowhere and staying in my room all day, I'd never leave the house again. I'd been like that early on in middle school. Until I met Ryou.

No, I don't want to think about that, I told myself wearily, so instead I opened my mouth and said "sure".

It took me about half an hour to get ready. I didn't bother showering, since I was going to get covered in sand and salt water anyway. Anzu met me on the corner of my street and we set off together toward the train station.

The ride there was about as awkward as our phone call had been. We didn't talk much, and I caught Anzu looking at me several times out of the corner of my eye. When we finally got there, we met up with Anzu's friends. Most of them were from her dance class, but there were a couple from school as well. I recognized a guy called Katsuya, along with his friend Hiroto. They'd uh. Bullied me in middle school, but then I stood up to this even bigger bully when they were the ones getting picked on. They left me alone after that. Actually, I think they felt kind of bad about what they'd done, or that they owed me something, because I was never bullied again, by them or by anyone else.

Anyway, they said hi to me and I just kinda nodded at them. When they realized they weren't going to get a conversation out of me, they said "see ya later!" and ran off into the surf. I watched them splash around for a bit. It looked like fun, but I didn't really feel like swimming. Anzu was chatting with her other friends, sitting in a cluster with them on a few beach towels. They were laughing a whole lot and looked like they were having a great time, but I didn't want to be there either. So I got up and went for a walk.

I kept to the shoreline, right where the waves lapped against the sand. My eyes were trained on the ground, absently keeping an eye out for seashells. Olive shells, specifically. My mom liked those ones and was pretty happy whenever I brought one home.

After maybe half an hour, I saw something in the shallow water that looked like an olive shell, so I bent over to pick it up. When I lifted it out of the sand, I saw that yeah, it was an olive shell, but it was broken, just half a shell with the edges dulled by erosion.

Suddenly very angry for no real reason, I clenched the broken shell tightly in my fist, then stepped forward and hurled it as hard as I could into the ocean. I didn't even see it land. Letting out a frustrated, miserable sigh, I stepped out of the water, ready to resume my boring, depressing walk.

Of course, life had other plans for me, and I wound up stepping on something very sharp that dug into the bottom of my foot.

"Ouch!"

I hopped back, shaking my hurt foot a little. I looked down for whatever I'd stepped on and saw something glinting underneath a thin layer of sand. Frowning, I crouched down to get a closer look. There was definitely something shiny there. Shiny and gold. I pulled it out, wet sand getting stuck under my fingernails. I held the shiny thing under the water to clear away the rest of the sand, then stood up with it sitting in my palm.

I had no idea what it was. It was a flat piece of what looked like gold, a little less wide across than a tennis ball. It had a little eyeball design on the front, with nothing on the back. The edges were still sharp, as I'd just found out firsthand, unaffected by the erosion that wore down all the other things that ended up in the sea. It looked kind of like a puzzle piece. I glanced around in the sand, as though I expected to find the other pieces, then looked back at the one I held in my hand. It was eerie. A lone puzzle piece with an eyeball on it. Oh man, I thought, I've got to show Ryou, he loves this kind of–

Then I remembered. The eyeball design on the puzzle piece got blurry. My eyes started to sting. I rubbed them with the back of my hand, then glared down at the puzzle piece, clenching my teeth. I closed my fingers around it and prepared to do what I did with the olive shell.

«Don't!»

I stopped. I still had my arm up in the air. I looked around again, trying to find out where that voice was coming from. The closest other human being was some college-aged kid drinking a beer under a parasol a couple dozen feet away. Besides, I was pretty sure I didn't hear a voice. Not out loud, at least. It felt like it was coming from inside my head.

I lowered my arm, uncurling my fingers to look at the puzzle piece again. I don't know what came over me, but suddenly I felt like it was a good idea to hang onto it. I slipped it into my pocket and turned around, almost like I was on autopilot, and walked back to the area where Anzu and her friends were. They welcomed me back with a smile, and I sat between her and that Katsuya guy for the rest of the day.

I didn't tell any of them about the puzzle piece.

I ended up carrying the puzzle piece around with me everywhere. I felt almost guilty at the thought of just leaving it in my room to collect dust, so it came with me wherever I went. It was always in one of three places: my pocket, my hand, or my backpack. I couldn't go a day without taking it out and staring at it. I kept it on my desk while I ate lunch and slept with it under my pillow. After a while, I started wearing it as a necklace on a thin silver chain. In hindsight, I probably should have taken my weird obsession with it as a sign that I should get rid of it, but the truth of the matter is, I didn't even realize how attached to it I'd become until I started hearing it talking to me.

Yep, that's right. The weird puzzle piece started speaking to me.

Okay, no. It wasn't speaking, exactly, but I could hear what it was saying loud and clear, in my head, where no one else could. At first, it was only one-word statements, things I'd dismiss as my own thoughts. Like answers on my science homework, the numbers on price tags, the names of streets written on road signs. Little things like that. We didn't speak directly to one another for several months, until that fateful day where I was nearly hit by a bus.

I'd been slowly recovering from the shock and grief of Ryou's death. I was feeling much better. I'd grown closer with Anzu, and I was starting to befriend Katsuya and Hiroto as well. But none of it mattered on that day.

It was Ryou's birthday. I remembered the second I flipped my phone open that morning and saw the date in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Almost a year ago, we'd planned on pulling an all-nighter watching really corny old horror movies and playing scary video games to celebrate, but...

… Yeah. That wasn't going to happen. And I was pretty upset about it. I think Anzu knew something was up, but she didn't ask, which I was grateful for. I didn't really want to talk about it. On my way home, I dragged my feet on the sidewalk and stared down at my shoes. A poor decision, really, because you can't exactly see what's going on around you when you're looking at the ground.

I stepped off the curb and onto the road, paying absolutely no attention to the traffic lights ahead of me. I didn't even see the bus heading my way, I just heard the same voice I'd been hearing for months–under the assumption it was my own–cry out in fear.

«Look out!»

I jerked my head up just in time to see the bus careening toward me. I stumbled backwards, nearly losing my balance as the bus missed me by a hair's breadth. The horn blared, brakes screeching, and I backed up until I was safely back on the sidewalk. My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. I'd been so wound up about my dead best friend that I'd almost died myself.

«You fool, you could have died!»

Maybe it was because I was so shaken and disoriented, I don't really know, but in that moment, I had a thought that had never occurred to me before. What if that voice was not just me berating myself, but one that was totally separate from my own?

I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, because an old lady who had been standing on the street corner and seen the whole thing came over and started to fuss over me and scold me for nearly turning myself into a human pancake.

It wasn't until I was back home, alone in my room, that I revisited that thought. I sat on my bed, unclipped the chain from around my neck, and held the puzzle piece up to my face, staring at the eyeball embossed on the front.

"Hello?" I asked softly, "Can you hear me?"

No response. I tried again. Still nothing.

"Well, that was pointless," I muttered to myself, "Idiot boy almost gets run over by a bus, hears voices in his head, then talks to an inanimate chunk of gold. What a day."

I let myself fall backwards onto the mattress, dropping the puzzle piece onto my chest. I wished fervently for everything to go back to normal.

Unfortunately, what ended up happening was basically the exact opposite of that.

Remember how I said I could hear quiet murmurs in my head, short words and phrases that I thought were my own thoughts? Well, that stopped happening. And because it stopped happening, I knew for a fact that there was definitely something in the puzzle piece that was talking to me. Or I was crazy, plain and simple. I pointedly ignored the latter possibility and decided that it was the former.

Any other kid might've gotten rid of an eerie talking puzzle piece, especially after it got quiet all of a sudden, but I'd taken it as a personal challenge. I wanted to hear that voice again. I mean, it saved my life, so it must not hate me, right? Well, I didn't hate it either. I wanted to make friends with it.

Yeah. Make friends with a talking puzzle piece. And that's only the tip of the iceberg of weird things that have happened in my life.

I kept it on the chain around my neck and talked to it when I was alone. I never tried to get it to say something when I was with other people, though. First of all, my new friends would think I was nuts if I suddenly started talking to my necklace in front of them, and second, maybe it was shy. I know I'd be shy if I were a talking puzzle piece.

Despite my best efforts, it stayed quiet for almost a week, so when it did talk again, it caught me totally off-guard.

It was late-afternoon, and I was walking back from the video game store with Katsuya. He'd been hanging out a lot more with me lately. I kind of wondered if maybe Anzu had put him up to it to keep an eye on me, or if he still felt guilty about bullying me in middle school, but regardless, I really enjoyed his company. He was just getting into video games and card games. He hadn't been able to play any when he was younger, he explained, and I was the first friend he had who knew about any of this stuff. It was kind of adorable to watch him get excited about pulling a rare card out of a pack or see his eyes get all wide when he spotted a video game he wanted.

Anyway, we were on our way back and we decided to stop for something to eat. It was nothing special, just a fast food place since we both had to get home and finish some (very late) schoolwork. Katsuya went to go find us a table and I stood in line, staring up at the menu near the ceiling behind the counter.

«What is the difference between fries and sweet potato fries?»

I yelped in surprise, and the person standing in line in front of me turned to stare for a moment before looking away again. Heart pounding, I kept my eyes glued to the menu but raised my hand to grip the puzzle piece hanging around my neck. I counted to three in my head, then whispered, as quietly as I could:

"I think they're made with different potatoes."

For a while, nothing happened. All I could hear was the hustle and bustle of the busy fast food joint. I tried not to let the disappointment get to me, and just when I started to wonder if I'd only imagined hearing that voice again, it responded.

«What is a potato?»

I had to think about it for a minute. It was a vegetable, right? A root vegetable? Would the voice in the puzzle piece know what a root vegetable was? How does one explain a root vegetable–

"Hello? Sir? Can I take your order?"

I blinked. Suddenly I was at the front of the line. The person behind me was getting impatient. I could hear him tapping his foot. My face flushed and I hurried forward and told the person at the counter what I wanted. Just for the heck of it, I decided to tack on an order of sweet potato fries.

I didn't get a chance to talk to the puzzle piece again until I parted ways with Katsuya. I thought about telling him about the voice I could hear coming from it, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me that I probably shouldn't. It was almost dark now and I was standing on the corner of the street waiting for the light to change. I was alone.

"Hey," I said, careful to keep my voice down, "Are you still there?"

This time the response was instantaneous. «Yes.»

I felt giddy with joy. It was talking to me! "Sorry I couldn't answer, there were tons of people around."

«It's all right.»

The light changed colour, and I looked both ways before I started to cross the street.

«I see you've learned to be cautious from your previous experience.»

"Huh?"

«You no longer charge ahead without checking for large vehicles,» it explained, then added, «It's a good thing.»

"Oh." I laughed sheepishly, "That, um. I wasn't paying attention back then. I had a lot on my mind."

«I see.»

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "Thanks, by the way. For warning me. You probably saved my life, I doubt I'd survive actually getting hit by a bus."

«You're welcome, um…» it trailed off, like it had something else to say. I wondered what it was, but it spoke up again before I could ask, «Um. What is your name?»

The question surprised me for some reason. "You don't know?"

«No. How would I?»

I hopped back onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, then shrugged. "I dunno. I thought maybe you could read my thoughts or something."

«No! Of course not!» It sounded repulsed by the idea. «No. I cannot read your thoughts.»

"Oh. Sorry. Well, uh, my name is Yuugi."

«Yuugi,» it repeated. «Yuugi. It's nice to meet you, Yuugi.»

"Nice to meet you too," I replied. We stayed in a comfortable silence for a bit until realized I didn't know what to call it, either. "Hey, hold on. What's your name?"

There was a heavy pause before it answered, and I could almost feel how sad and scared its voice was.

«I… I don't remember.»

It was kinda weird, having someone to talk to who was with me all the time, as long as I had that puzzle piece. Weird but fun. No, more than that, it was exciting! I stayed up late every night just chatting with him. Yep, "him". I asked what pronouns he wanted me to use.

He had questions about everything: school, home, the game shop that my grandpa runs, and a disproportionately large amount of questions about food that I could never quite find the words to explain. He even asked about my friends sometimes. I'd grown much closer to Anzu, Katsuya, and Hiroto over the past few months, and I trusted them. They'd probably believe me if I told them about my friend in the puzzle piece, so I offered to introduce them to him, but he declined politely every time. I assumed he was shy.

He never talked about himself, though. I figured he just couldn't remember. He'd sounded pretty torn up about not remembering his name, and I didn't want to reopen any wounds or hurt his feelings by asking him about himself.

Despite that, we got along very well. I found out a few weeks after we started talking regularly that he was super interested in games. Any kind of games. Board games, video games, card games, you name it. He listened with rapt attention when I explained them and had tons of hypothetical questions after. I knew he wanted to try playing. I wished that there was a way for me to let him. I asked if there was a way he could like, temporarily control my body or something through the puzzle piece that hung around my neck, but he seemed pretty disturbed by that notion so I never brought it up again.

I did, however, let him do a lot of backseat driving. It didn't work so well during video games because I often had to react quickly, but for board games and card games, he would play by telling me what to do and I'd do it for him, even if I knew he was making a mistake. I let him play an entire tournament that my grandpa's shop was holding, and he was so thrilled when he won.

He liked to watch sometimes too, especially story-heavy video games. There was one in particular that he really, really liked, and he sometimes asked me to play it as soon as I got home from school. It was kinda cute, honestly.

It became a pretty regular routine. Wake up, go to school, hang out with my school friends in the afternoon, go home, play games with my puzzle piece friend all evening, stay up late chatting, and inevitably fall asleep. On weekends I'd help with the shop or visit my school friends, but I always made a little time for my friend who lived in the puzzle piece.

Life was finally going well. I wasn't being bullied, I had more friends than I'd ever had in my entire life, and my grief following Ryou's death was slowly going away. I still missed him, terribly, but it didn't feel like my life was over anymore. I think he'd have been happy for me. Happy that I was happy again.

But all good things come to an end, I guess. It's amazing how quickly everything can change. One day was all it took for me. It was the first day of summer break, and I was excited. I decided to do something other than be a couch potato all summer, so I applied to be a Counselor-In-Training at a local day camp. Fun stuff. Unfortunately, I stayed up really late playing pokémon. There was a big tournament coming up and I wanted to be prepared, and in doing so I'd forgotten to set my alarm for the next morning. I wound up waking up extremely late, and I had to rush out of the house to make it to work in time.

And in my haste to get out the front door, I forgot the puzzle piece under my pillow.

Author's Notes: i'm gonna explain my name choices real quick. in animorphs canon, it's dangerous for the kids to reveal their last names, so they never do (except maybe jake? his wiki page lists his last name so i guess we find out what it is at some point. im actually not done reading the series yet lmao). but yeah, the same applies for this fic, so jounouchi = katsuya, honda = hiroto, etc. i'll keep the same honorifics (like how yuugi uses "-kun" for almost everyone) but with first names instead of last names. don't worry, it's weird for me too.

im a little peeved that i can't use the triangle brackets for thought-speak, but ffnet doesnt allow it ): i leafed through the animorphs fic section and it was kinda cool to see how everyone dealt with it. french quotation marks are my personal favorite, so that's what im using B)

anyway, i hope you enjoyed the chapter! katsuya narrating up next!

thanks for reading!

-fearowkenya