Chapter 2
The voice that I heard wasn't really heard. I could hear it in my head, but nowhere else. I looked at everyone else. Some were searching around for the voice, some just stared at the spaceship.
"Who or what are you?" I asked the spaceship.
Am I going crazy now? I'm trying to talk to a spaceship! I thought to myself. Suddenly, one of the sides of the ship had panels being pushed inward and moving to the side. First, it was four, then eight, then sixteen! After the panels stopped moving, we saw a shadow coming from the ship. Several shadows, actually. When we could see the shadows better, we were surprised. The shadows were a tiger, a grizzly bear, a gorilla, a wolf, a hawk, and a weird creature that had the lower body of a deer, the upper torso of a man, way too many fingers, no mouth, two eyes on stalks, a tail like the ship, except it had a sharp blade on the tip, and blue-tan fur.
~Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you. And no, you aren't going crazy.~ It sounded like the tiger was the one who said it, but I wasn't sure. I looked at the rest of my group. Some had shocked, open-mouthed faces, some had hidden behind Cy and Guardromon, who were the biggest, and some were in a position ready to fight in case they attacked. I looked at the tiger again. He was staring straight at me!
~We are the Animorphs. We come from a different world than yours. We came here because your world is in danger from the same enemy that endangered ours.~ the tiger told us.
"Who's endangering our world?" Falcomon asked.
~Parasites called the Yeerks. They're gray slugs that can control any creature. But trust me, you don't want to know what they do to control them. But they're pure evil, that's for sure. They and one of their leaders have come to this world and want to take it over. They call us the 'Andilite bandits'. We came here to try and stop them.~ the tiger told us again.
"If they're trying to take over the digital world, we want to stop them. This is our home, and no parasites from another world are going to control us!" I yelled. Everyone joined in and yelled in agreement. Then, the tiger suddenly went into the ship. When he came out, he was holding a glowing, blue box in his mouth. He was being very careful with it.
~This is the Blue Box. It gave us our special powers. It gives someone the power to morph into any animal that we touch. If you want to stop the Yeerks, you will need this.~ the tiger said. He sat it on the ground carefully.
Then, he suddenly started changing. The bear, the gorilla, and the wolf were changing, too. The tiger's tail shrank and shortened until it was gone. Then his fur went back into his skin and his face flattened. His ears went down to the sides of his head and his front paws grew longer and thinner as they changed into hands. His back paws grew longer as they changed into feet. After a few minutes, the tiger was human! So were the bear, the gorilla, and the wolf!
The tiger became a tall boy with short, brown hair, the bear became a tall girl with beautiful, long blonde hair, the gorilla became a boy, who was shorter that the first boy, with black hair, and the wolf became a girl, who was shorter than the first girl, with dark brown skin and with short, black hair. Then, the first boy picked up the box from where he laid it on the ground as a tiger.
"My name is Jake." the first boy said. Then, he pointed to the others in his group. First, he pointed to the blonde-haired girl and said: "This is my cousin Rachel." Second, he pointed to the black-haired boy and said: "This is my best friend, Marco." Third, he pointed to the black girl and said: "This is Rachel's best friend, Cassie." Fourth, he pointed to the hawk and said: "This is our other friend, Tobias." Finally, he pointed to the weird creature and said: "This is our alien friend, Aximili Esgarrouth-Isthill. We call him Ax for short. He is an alien called an Andilite." Then, Jake turned back to us.
"Like I said before, the Blue Box gave us our powers. We have used these powers to fight the Yeerks. If you want to help fight, you're going to need the same powers that we have." Jake told us as he held out the Blue Box. "We'll do this in turns. Only five of you at a time. All you need to do is put your hand onto one of the sides of the Blue Box and keep it there until I say otherwise."
We all thought about it. I knew I wanted to do it so I could save the digital world. I glanced at the others. All of their expressions were the same as mine. I whirled back around and faced Jake.
"We'll do it so we can save the digital world," I told him, "Hawkmon, Palmon, Biyomon, Patamon, and I will go first. Tentomon, Guilmon, Guardromon, Cy, and Gaomon will go second. Lalamon and Falcomon, you two are last."