Chapter Two – Cassie:

Ignore his injuries…I couldn't let him die, not while I was there. "Jake, Marco, one of you give me your shirts, I can use it as a bandage to –"

the alien said, closing his eyes and beginning to breathe more heavily.

He stopped speaking and looked at the seven of us. Comprehension dawned on Marco's and Jake's faces, and Marco stepped away.

"Uh-uh, I'm not getting myself involved in an intergalactic war, no way. Leave this to the people who are involved."

"I will," Tobias said, followed by Cori, Rachel, and myself. Branden looked completely disinterested, Jake was hesitating, and Marco still flat-out refusing.

"We should take this to the authorities. Seven teenagers does not make a good Army in any circumstances," Marco said. "I'm out. So very out I was out before the baseball was even thrown."

"Do you really think any adults would believe us if we told them we saw an alien spacecraft crash and a dying Andalite told us that another alien species called the Yeerks were invading and asked us to help defend the planet?" Rachel said, glaring at Marco. "They'd lock us in a mental institution before we'd even finished the first sentence." She turned to look at the Andalite. "What do we have to do?"

All eyes fixed on Jake.

"Wha-why me!" he cried, holding his hands out and stepping back.

"Because you're the leader?" Cori said with a smirk on her face.

"Hang on, I never agreed to anything!"

"Jake, I believe you're the best one to lead our group," I said with a smile, walking forwards and grabbing his hand. "If anyone's the leader in this group, it's you."

Coloring up, Jake nodded and, resigned, walked into the alien craft, reappearing moments later with the blue box. The Andalite took it from Jake, and then held it in his open palm.

We did so, and the box began to heat up beneath my hand, eventually giving me a small, but unexpected electric shock. Removing our hands, we all looked at the Andalite, who seemed to be growing worse by the second.

Something on a control panel in the Andalite's ship began beeping, and he lowered his stalk eyes.

All of us began walking away: Jake and Cori heading for his car, Rachel following at a distance; Marco jogged away, heading for his house; Branden snorted and stuffed his hands in his pockets, walking in the opposite direction to Marco; I began walking away too, then changed my mind and headed towards Jake, Rachel and Cori; Tobias…

I looked around, realizing that he wasn't walking away, and found himself kneeling down next to the Andalite. The Andalite pressed one of his hands against Tobias' forehead, and Tobias' eyes shot open before he slumped back, unconscious.

"Tobias!" I yelled, seeing him wake up while I was shouting his name.

the Andalite said, presumably just to me and Tobias as no one else reacted.

I frowned, wondering what the Andalite had done, before walking over to Tobias, grabbing an arm, lifting him to his feet and mentioning that we were getting a lift home thanks to Jake.

ooooooooooooooo

Despite it being almost eleven PM, I managed to sneak back into my house, largely due to being able to walk through the barn attached to our house without being disturbed.

I lived in a converted farmhouse on the edge of the town, and the barn was where my father worked, and where I occasionally helped him. He took in injured wildlife, treated them and released them back into the wild. As a consequence, we had numerous animals native to where we lived in cages with varying injuries, as well as a couple of tame horses which belonged to us.

I opened the door connecting the barn to the house, and stopped. The Andalite said we now had the ability to morph into animals…I walked back, heading to the stable section where we kept the horses. Calling over my favorite mare, I stroked her mane and then moved to her forelock, unsure of what to do next. Taking a deep breath, I concentrated on her image in my mind, while I continued to stroke her forelock.

After a half-minute or so, during which the mare was extremely quiet, I moved my hand away and began to concentrate on the same picture I had in my mind while I was stroking her.

The first thing I noticed was that my head was starting to grow unusually heavy, so much so that my neck was starting to bend forwards, forcing my chin to my chest. Ignoring it, I continued to concentrate on morphing, almost collapsing onto the floor when my hips changed, forcing me from a bipedal primate to a quadruped equine.

My hands began to melt and merge together, forming hooves within a few moments, followed by a sudden growth of my arms and legs. Fur covered the skin there, and began to sprout all over my body, the hair on my head retracting and forming a long, thin strip down the back of my head and down the back of my neck.

I heard a tearing sound and looked over my shoulder as best as I could to see the clothes I had been wearing as a human begin to shred, splitting at the seams. Gives Rachel a good excuse to drag me shopping, I thought to myself, rolling my now-horse eyes.

Layers of muscle began to be laid down, bulking out my body and making me look more horse-like and soon, within about two minutes, I was no longer a human but an exact replica of the mare I had gotten…no, acquired DNA from. Despite the fact that my bones had been elongated and twisted, and my internal organs changing and growing, I felt no pain.

"Cassie? Is that you?" my father called, and I fought down a wave of panic. Demorphing (and finding myself changing back to a naked Cassie), I grabbed my ripped clothes and hid inside one of the empty stalls.

My father walked in, switched on the lights, and glanced around. Seeing nothing, he shrugged his shoulders, turned off the light and walked out of the barn, closing the door behind him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked over my clothes and wondered if there was a way to change with at least some clothes on: I didn't really want to come out of a mission against the Yeerks, change back into a human, and be naked in front of all the others, especially Jake.

Once I was sure my father had retreated to somewhere in the house, I moved out of the barn and dashed to my room as fast, and as quietly, as I could. Pulling on a ratty t-shirt which I slept in, I rummaged through my wardrobe, finding a few tight t-shirts, shorts and an old leotard from when Rachel dragged me to gymnastics a few times before I decided it wasn't for me and quit.

Dragging out the clothes, I laid them on my bedroom floor, considering whether or not to try my theory tonight, before I remembered that I still had school tomorrow. Stuffing the clothes back into the wardrobe, I got ready for bed.