Chapter Three

I returned home after the Andalite shuttle dropped Emily off, grinning like an idiot.

(So,) Escafil had asked. (You know have the power to morph. What do you want to morph?)

Emily and I had spent so much time fantasizing about how to GET morphing, that we had never actually put much thought into what animals we wanted to acquire.

We started rattling off random names.

"Peregrine Falcon!" I had said.

"Duck-Billed Platypus" Emily shouted.

"Tasmanian Tiger," I said.

Emily smacked me in the stomach. "Those are extinct, you doof, you can only acquire from living animals."

"Right, right…" I said. "Wasn't thinking…I just want to acquire something…Special. Something amazing that isn't a commonplace morph, you know?"

(Peregrine Falcon, Duck-Billed Platypus, and something special,) Escafil said. (I believe I can accommodate you. Please return to the embassy tomorrow.)

And so, we went home. Two teenagers, now imbued with the power to become any animal we touched.

I kept pinching myself the whole flight home, just checking to see if I was awake or asleep.

I couldn't wait to try morphing. And I knew exactly what I wanted my first morph to be.

I walked into the house and saw my sister in the living room, watching TV. It was PBS, the Kratt Brothers newest show.

Since the advent of the Andalites, certain humans had been granted access to the Morphing technology, under certain restrictions. The Military, and certain government agencies. And 500 scientists of various biology, zoology and ecological bents.

Chris and Martin Kratt had been among those 500. They now had a live-action tv show on PBS, where they went out into the wild, acquired animals, and taught kids watching about the creatures they acquired. It was as cheesy as any live-action PBS show is, but the Kratts really did morph into the animals they encountered, and it was enrapturing. Highest rated kids show in the country.

Lexie was no exception. Heck, I watched with her half the time. This episode was a repeat. The Kratts were doing a racing challenge using cheetah, wolf, thompson's gazelle, and pronghorn morphs. It was a fun episode, that highlighted the various animal's abilities.

"Morphing's pretty cool, huh, Lexie?" I said grinning.

"Morphing is the COOLEST!" my little sister squealed back. "I mean…Have you been living under a rock these past few years?"

"Excellent," I said. I grabbed her hand. "I wanna show you something."

"But the show's not over yet!"

"You've seen this one before," I countered. "Trust me…I have something cool to show you."

Something in my tone must have caught Lexie's attention, because she immediately followed me to my room. I closed the door behind her and then ran to my sugar glider cage.

I reached in and scooped up Brooklyn, who was easily the surliest of my four gliders. But I didn't care. He crabbed at me, angrily. The sugar glider's natural defense is their ability to "crab" when annoyed or threatened. They unleash a gurgling noise that is much louder than you would think possible from a creature roughly twice the size of a mouse.

Brooklyn's crabbing ceased though, as I focused my mind on him, his DNA passing from him to me. The famous acquisition trance.

Lexie recognized it too, because she whispered in awe, "No way…"

I just grinned. I knew from reading that acquiring DNA took exactly one minute. From there, the trance would remain until ten seconds after physical contact was broken. I just concentrated on Brooklyn for that entire minute, before gently releasing him on the floor of the glider cage.

The moment I broke contact, Lexie began counting down, still in an awed whisper. "Ten…Nine…Eight…Seven…"

I smirked and closed the cage door.

Brooklyn suddenly snapped out of his funk and hopped up the cage wall and back into his sock-pouch, dangling from the roof of the cage. He was snuggling up safe and warm with the rest of his family. Sugar Gliders are nocturnal. They disliked being out and about in the daylight.

"Ten seconds…" Lexie whispered. "It can't be…"

"Oh…" I said grinning. "But it is."

I focused my mind and began to morph.

It's funny…You read about something, and you think you know it…But nothing quite prepares you for what it's like in real life.

I knew that shrinking felt like falling, from reading about it…But I had never experienced that until just now. I just started shrinking…Falling towards the ground.

"Whoa!" I said out loud, but thankfully managed to not break my concentration.

Andalite morphing tech had been upgraded to be more human-friendly shortly after they started sharing it with us…So my t-shirt and shorts were absorbed into my skin as fur began to sprout all over my body…My sandals however, refused to morph with me. No matter how many times the Andalites tinkered with the morphing cubes, they still couldn't figure out how to do shoes.

Which, frankly, made sense. Andalites don't wear clothes, and the fact that the Animorphs had figured out how to morph certain forms of clothing was actually a bizarre glitch in the technology…Specifically with the Zero-Space hyper-link that allowed the deposit and absorption of mass to and from Z-Space.

The Andalites had exacerbated the glitch on purpose, at the request of the human governments, when they presented us with the technology.

My morph continued undeterred, as my skin between my arms and my legs became loose and baggy. The folds that would allow the glider to…Well…Glide.

My spine began to extend behind my back…Stretching into the glider tail.

I felt my face begin to bulge out, my nose turning pink and my jaw stretching. My ears began traveling up the side of my head until they were perched atop. I suddenly lost my balance and fell forward, onto all fours. My hands shifted…My fingernails becoming sharp claws, and my fingers (and toes) shifting into grasping paws. Built for climbing up high, and gliding.

I stopped shrinking, and my sister towered above me. She had been quiet throughout the entire process, enraptured by the visual of me transforming into an animal in front of her.

My senses suddenly came online. My sense of smell, much more sensitive now, I could smell fruit and Doritos all over the room. My hearing was sharper too.

Sight was mostly the same…But I could see in the dark far better than I could have as a human.

My sister suddenly shifted, and I panicked.

PREDATOR! PREDATOR!

Large creature moving towards me!

I bolted. As fast as I could…I was terrified. On the ground, a glider is vulnerable. Worst place to be. I needed to find someplace safe. Preferably a tree.

Suddenly, thick fingers, as thick as armrests grabbed me and picked me up. I was caught. The PREDATOR HAD ME.

Last ditch defense, I crabbed. A loud gurgling erupted from my throat…Though to me it sounded more like a close up of thunder rumbling.

"Jason!" Lexie said. "Get a grip! You're like the Kratts when they morph something new. The sugar glider instincts have taken over your mind. Focus on me. I'm your sister. You are human."

That snapped me out of it.

(Whoa!) I said. (That was…That was intense. You read about it…But dang…You don't know it until you do it.)

"My brother can MORPH!" Lexie said. "This is SO COOL. Wait until I tell all my friends, they are going to be so gell."

(That's good, right?) I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "How did you get morphing anyway? This was so obviously your first morph."

The sugar glider mind had calmed down a bit, now realizing Lexie was no threat. In fact…It now sort of just assumed that she was a tree. Or a member of the glider colony. Or both. It didn't really care, but it didn't want to wait in her hand, so I started crawling up her arm.

(Well…I saved an Andalite's life at the mall today,) I said. (Seriously. No fooling. And it turns out that her dad invented morphing technology. So he gave it to me and Emily as a thank you.)

"Emily can morph too!" Lexie said. "That is so cool. I am so gell."

(Which is good, right?) I said.

"Totally."

The sugar glider mind was now absolutely convinced that Lexie was in fact, a tree. And since trees had sap, then this LexTree must have sap too. So, without thinking, I opened my mouth and bit Lexie's shoulder.

"Ow!" she snapped. "Jason! Don't bite me with your sugar glider morph!"

(Sorry…) I said. (Dang…These instincts really get the better of you if you're not paying attention.)

I leapt off of Lexie's shoulder, which comparatively, was like leaping off a four-story building, but it didn't even phase me when I hit the ground. I realized shortly after that, that the sugar glider instinct, and natural arboreal nature had overridden my usual fear of heights.

(Neat,) I said.

"What?" Lexie asked.

(In sugar glider morph, I'm not scared of heights anymore.) I said.

"Super-cool," she said.

I heard the door open downstairs.

(Mom's home,) I said.

"How do you know?" Lexie asked.

(I can hear her.) I said. (Glider senses. They're totally awesome.)

"Lexie, Jason, Peter," Mom called. "Come help me with groceries."

(I'm gonna demorph.) I said. (Don't tell mom yet!)

Lexie nodded and bounded out the door as I began to grow and resume human form.