‹Tobias, this has been a particularly long stakeout,› I said.

‹No kidding, Ax-man,› Tobias answered next to me. ‹I'm BORED. Got any ideas?›

‹On my home world, warriors are not supposed to get bored,› I responded. ‹But admittedly, we cadets often would hide in secret and make what humans call "bets" on tail blade fights amongst ourselves.›

The two of us were continually floating around the apartment complex, per Prince Jake's orders. We had arrived at the location early compared to the other Animorph stakeouts. It was not difficult to fly above concrete, and since the sun had not set yet, there was still warm air that kept us high in the air without much flapping of our wings.

‹I don't think we can go Andalite in that playground down there and battle it out just because we're bored, unfortunately,› Tobias laughed.

‹I have an idea, Tobias, but it would require you to do the bulk of the work,› I said, zipping by his red-tailed hawk body.

‹What do you have in mind?› Tobias asked. ‹It's been hours here, with no sign of Zenguh. Maybe we're too early in the day. He's probably not even here.›

‹Across the street is a McDonald's,› I hinted. ‹With all this Zenguh commotion this week, I have not had any time for the amazing human sensation of taste.›

Tobias laughed.

‹The two of us live in the woods,› he said. ‹McDonald's costs money, and flying around as birds doesn't fill the pockets with cash.›

‹Ah yes, I thought of that,› I countered. ‹And I do not feel we should use our morphing powers to steal. However, perhaps we could convince the McDonald's workers to give us some food?›

‹I don't want to go violent for a cheeseburger, Ax,› Tobias said.

I hesitated. Would Tobias approve of what I was about to suggest?

‹The workers behind the counter of McDonald's currently look about Prince Jake's size, suggesting they are about the same age,› I explained. ‹As it is with Andalites, it is my understanding that human teenage males are particularly susceptible to the presence of a female, especially Marco would call a "hot" female, although I never sense any rise in temperature.›

We circled around the complex again, looking for anything at all out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, we did not know what we were looking for. The Yeerk could have taken any number of bodies if he was continuing the same plan we observed before.

‹Ha! Where is Rachel when you need her?› Tobias joked. ‹Too bad our flirting wouldn't get much in the way of free food.›

I paused again.

‹You do possess a female morph, correct?› I asked. ‹You acquired Taylor not long ago during her elaborate trap.›

Now it was Tobias' turn to be silent. I did not know how he would respond. I was only speculating on possibilities.

‹Genius, Ax,› Tobias said.

The plan went smoothly. Tobias found some female clothing hanging out to dry on a balcony, went behind a Dumpster to morph, and soon was inside the McDonald's. He was morphed as Taylor, a blonde girl we had met who had a tragic downfall into life as a Controller. After less than ten minutes of being inside the restaurant, Tobias came outside, looked up at me still circling the complex, and motioned to meet in a stretch of woods beside the apartments.

Tobias was laughing as he demorphed back to bird, and then to his human form. I demorphed to Andalite, and morphed into my human form, which is a combination of four Animorph's DNA patterns.

"I presume it went well?" I asked.

"Oh yes," Tobias smiled. He tossed me a bag of food. "I didn't have to do much at all. Girls have it easy, right?"

I didn't come close to catching the fast food bag, and it fell on the ground. Luckily, the burger was still wrapped in paper, although dirt may have helped with additional flavor. Since I was not a human cook, I was not sure about the flavor enhancing abilities of dirt. My friends have told me I am not very good at choosing what is acceptable to eat.

For a few minutes, we escaped from the Zenguh mission. Tobias was, strangely, the only family I had this far away from the Andalite home world, and sitting on the grass eating salty and greasy cheeseburgers was a welcome distraction.

"Ax, how does your morph work?" Tobias suddenly asked.

"My human morph?" I clarified. "What about it?"

"Well, I mean, your human morph isn't really anybody that exists on Earth," Tobias explained. "I know you can morph Jake, for example, but the person you are right now, you just combined some of the Animorphs into a new person. You can do that?"

"Ah, you are asking how to blend a morph," I said, understanding his question. I was surprised it took any of my human friends this long to think of it.

"Yeah, I guess so," Tobias said, looking at me as he took the last bite of his burger. I had already finished my burger, with the paper wrapping as well.

As we resumed bird morphs and went back into the sky, I explained some of the science behind the idea of taking DNA through the acquiring process, and morphing through multiple DNA patterns at once. Tobias seemed to follow for most of the conversation, and I was proud of him for it.

‹A hard rule is that you can't go from one morph to another,› Tobias said, thinking aloud. ‹We tried it anyway, and it didn't work. But are you saying that any DNA can be blended together?›

‹In theory, yes,› I answered. ‹It is challenging, though. What did you have in mind?›

We continued to observe the apartment complex below us. More cars were pulling in the parking lot over the past few minutes. This is what I have been told is one of two "rush hours" in the human work day, where everyone returns to their residence at approximately the same time.

‹Man! We could turn into a gorilla-tiger-bird, or a shark-squid-whale!› He seemed very excited about these hybrid animals. I needed to stress the difficulties.

‹Tobias, I think Cassie has done something very close to what you are suggesting,› I explained. ‹Do you recall the time she held onto bird wings while morphing a whale above the ocean to defeat that dust creature, the Valeek? Same idea on the Hork-Bajir planet. She did not morph directly from one to another, but hung onto a little bit of both. However, it is very unpredictable, as even she had a difficult time controlling the morph, and she is a talented morpher. But you never know how much of each DNA pattern will become present in the hybrid morph.›

‹But your human morph looks pretty much the same every time,› Tobias pressed.

‹Yes, but that is because all four DNA patterns I am acquiring are human,› I continued. ‹These are very similar morphs, compared to tigers and gorillas, for example.›

‹Makes sense, I suppose,› Tobias sighed. ‹We could do it, but we'd never know the exact final result we are going to get in the middle of a battle. Scrap that idea.›

‹Each Animorph still has every acquired creature's DNA pattern in their blood, so the morphs won't disappear,› I said. ‹Just use them as intended, there is no hurry to make super-creatures.›

‹It's weird that we never thought of this before,› Tobias said. ‹It would have been cool to be a griffin.›

I didn't know what that was, and did not press the issue.

‹Humans are surprising,› I remarked. ‹They, as Prince Jake would say, "roll with the punches" very well. You all have not questioned the morphing technology that often. I suppose neither have I.›

‹So, wait, we have all the DNA of these animals hanging around in our blood?› Tobias asked, continuing his train of thought.

However, an idea had just occurred to me.