Morphimals

The Second Generation of Animorphs

Chapter 1

Jack

My name is Jack. I had a normal life, and it was fun while it lasted. I miss my old life, but things can change, and in my case, things changed a lot. My friends can say the same thing. We'll live, though. We must. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to tell the story from the very beginning.

The little bell on the door jingles as me and my friends walk into our favorite hangout, The Ice Cream Haven. They have the best sundaes there. We walk up to the long counter on the side of the shop to order. A lady in a bubblegum pink apron named Margie comes forward and greeted us.

"Hello there kiddies. I can always expect you hip youngsters to be here. What'll it be today?" Margie asked. She takes our order here all the time, so she already knows what we want. She just likes to ask anyway. We're regulars here at the little ice cream place on the corner of Main Street and Harrington Road.

"We'll take the usual," David said. We pool our money together and pay for the tasty frozen treat. Then we sit in the baby blue vinyl booth in the back, by the window. In this spot we can people-watch out the window, talk about anything, or just sit in silence and enjoy the Haven's delicacies. I love the Haven so much.

A little drop of chocolate ice cream landed on Kaycee's shirt. David takes the opportunity to snicker, "Look, Kaycee, you've got them on your shirt!" Kaycee makes the grave mistake at examining her shirt and David reaches across the table and bops her right in the nose. Holly, Zach and I all roll our eyes at this dumb prank. It's the oldest trick in the book. He shoots Kaycee a mischievous glance. She scowls back. David is definitely the jokester in our group. He has black hair and blue eyes that twinkle every time he's going to make a joke, usually at Kaycee's expense. David and Kaycee have this huge rivalry going on, but at the end of the day, they're friends. Besides, I think they might even like each other.

"I'm going to get you!" Kaycee exclaims, preparing to smash her chocolate cone on David's head. Kaycee is probably the bravest one out of all of us. She says what everyone else is thinking out loud. Sometimes it can get her into trouble, but she's really nice. She has glossy chestnut hair with blonde highlights. Kaycee's tall and has blue eyes. She loves the stage and is constantly singing some song from one of the countless plays she has seen. I've seen her act too, and she's talented. She can also play the violin well. Kaycee's also in allowance debt a lot because of her shopping addiction.

"Now, now, no fighting," Holly said in that soothing voice she saves for times like these. The anger fades from the air and we all settle back down. Crisis averted. David's head stays ice-cream free for now. Holly always knows how to make things right. She took a napkin out of the plastic dispenser from the middle of our yellow table and gently rubs the splotch away from Kaycee's shirt. Holly is a sweet person. She has long, wavy, light brown hair that always has a clip in it, and hazel eyes. She's also tall. Her favorite thing to do is write and she is absolutely crazy for her pet hamster, Pickles. Holly's pretty much crazy for all rodents and anything Japanese. I don't really understand that, but whatever. She plays flute, too.

As we finish up our ice cream and throw away trash, Zach starts talking about some Pokemon stuff. He's very into geeky things like that. You know, Star Wars and Star Trek etc. He has very short dark brown hair and blue eyes. Zach is kind of a loner. He doesn't have many friends besides us, and is even quiet around his best friends. I guess he's always thinking about mysterious things that no one else but him can know.

As for me, I'm tall, with hair and eyes the color of caramel. My hobby is running. I can really fly, and it shows at my cross-country meets. I'm captain of the team. I think I'm a natural leader. Sometimes my friends look to me to make decisions, and I feel important. I get kinda good grades, and I play the saxophone. People say they can read me like an open book, which is the opposite of Zach, who can be the opposite. It's hard to tell what he's feeling a lot.

We leave the shop and wave good-bye to Margie. As we hop on our bikes to go, I heard the noise.

I hold out my hands to stop them. Everyone halts what they are doing and look at me. "Did you just hear that?" I ask them

They all nod and Holly said, "Yeah, I did. What is it?" I shrug. And Kaycee, being the eager girl she is, makes a beeline for the source of the noise.

"Well, I'm gonna find out!" she shouts. We followed her, not wanting to argue, and also excited to discover what the noise was. At the back of the shop, where the generator and dumpsters were, we got the shock of our lives.

There were ghosts, or something like that, standing (floating) right before our eyes! And they were the Animorphs. There were Jake, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco. They had been in our history books, and were totally famous. They saved the earth from these wicked bad aliens. These people could morph into animals! How cool is that? Everyone at my school thought they rocked. We had learned about them in history class.

We all stared at them with our eyes wide and mouths open. I couldn't believe it. The Animorphs were dead, as in not living. But here they were. I guess David thought the same thing, because he was the first to speak.

"Aren't you guys dead?" he asked, incredulous. They way he said it was funny. But none of the living kids laughed. We were all too shocked at the moment to speak.

"Really, I hadn't noticed." Ghost Marco said sarcastically. When he spoke, it was too much for Holly, and she wobbled, teetered, then toppled. She's kind of our weakest link. Ghost Marco reached out to catch her but she slipped through his arms, seeing he was a ghost. He laughed. "Looks like she slipped."

Ghost Jake hit Ghost Marco in the arm. "Don't be so rude!" Ghost Jake turned to us. "Sorry about him. He can be really annoying at times."

Kaycee muttered, "Sounds like someone I know." She glared at David.

"So what are you and why are you here?" I asked, still freaked out.

"We are spirits. The Ellismist created, or saved, us. We all died, as you know, but he said because of all we have done we can take this form. We have traveled the universe, making sure all is well," explained Jake.

"In our travels, we have seen many things. We have watched our family grow old and pass away. But most recently we have an evil new alien race and they threaten to destroy our Earth. And all of you are the only ones who can stop them." Tobias continued gravely.

"Those aliens are known as the Skreey. They can shape shift. They hypnotize humans and draw them to their ship that sends them to the Skreey home planet. Once there, the humans are turned into slaves. The Skreey can shape-shift into humans to blend in so they can lure even more humans away. We can't tell who's a human and who's something else. As we speak, our world is being invaded." Cassie said.

Holly, who had been awakened by Cassie shaking her gently, spoke tentatively. "So how are we supposed to stop these guys? We're just regular kids. There's nothing special about us."

"Each one of you is like one of us. We can give you part of us, which means you would get our morphing powers. We cannot defeat the Skreey as spirits, but as humans with our morphing abilities, you can." Rachel explained.

"So you expect us to get your morph powers, defeat an entire alien race, and still try to live a normal life?" I asked, clarifying.

"Yes," said Jake. He and the other Animorphs exchanged worried looks, nervous we didn't believe them and wouldn't accept their offer.

But how could we not? They looked so desperate. My friends all had to just look at one another to know we had to do this. It was our destiny.

"Well, let's get to it, then." Kaycee said, she meant to sound enthusiastic, but was nervous. We all were. I could see Holly literally trembling at the thought of danger. I couldn't blame her, though.

"Okay then," Rachel started, getting down to business. "Kaycee, you are like me. Holly, you're like Cassie. Jack is like Jake. And David is, unfortunately, like Marco. I'm so sorry David."

Marco put his hands to his hips, offended. "What's wrong with me?"

Rachel shook her said and sighed. "You're you. And you, Marco, are a baboon. Poor David is stuck with you."

"So that means David is a baboon." Marco retorted.

"Not necessarily!" Rachel hollered.

Jake cleared his throat. "Let's get on with it.

"Fine!" they both said in unison.

"Okay. It's quite simple," Cassie said calmly. "Each of you just needs to touch hands with the person you're alike to. We'll do the rest."

It was time. We partnered up. My friends and I were horrified to do is. But we had to. I put my palms up to of Jake's "hands." They weren't really there all the way, but I could feel the energy pressed up against me. It's hard to explain, but it felt good. I braced myself and squeezed my eyes shut as some of his energy entered my body. I could feel it coursing through in every direction. Hands, Arms, legs, toes. Chest, neck, ears. Every part of me tingled. I opened my eyes and looked at my friends.

Kaycee had a big grin on her face. Holly staggered around, the energy almost too much for her. Zach was examining his hands and legs, to check that everything looked the same. David was pumped a fist in the air and shouted, "Cool!"

The sun was going to set soon. We had to get home. Rachel told us to keep all this a secret, and that the Animorphs would be our mentors and teach us how to morph and defeat the Skreey. The leader is Markcoto, and he's very dangerous. I was so excited to see what I could morph into.

Then the Animorphs left, disappearing in a little puff of smoke each. "We'll be back," Jake had promised. I trusted him.

"Let's wait to use our powers, everyone, okay?" I said. I wanted to be on the safe side. We all made a pact to wait until the Animorphs could teach us. Then we finally rode home on our bikes, worn out from what seemed like a dream.

Just like that, my life and my friends' lives had changed. I wasn't a normal kid anymore. This path might be difficult, and slightly scary, but I wasn't going to regret anything. After all, we were in this together.