The Dragon Curve

by Locksoli

There's always a saying, that the worst things imaginable are always done with the best intentions. I didn't know whether mine were good or not. I only knew I had to do what was necessary.

3. Interlude 1

Alright, this'll be the last thing I write before I work to get back on schedule for my Jojo/Naruto Xover. So I'll leave you with this little interlude chapter that teases some things to come. So I'm teasing a lot of things. I'm teasing Dinosaurs the main OC is gonna acquire, I'm teasing characters you already know about, I'm teasing other OCs. You'll understand why I'm teasing you all with this stuff, you'll all understand why (muahahahahah!).

Thank you to followers and favoriters: Ascandas, Droyenes Uzushaki, Jules2621, Kitsune-taicho, YuNaru19, Aarik Wrath, and odin928.

Disclaimer: Jurassic Park and all related adaptations are owned by Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg, and the late Michael Crichton. Animorphs is owned by Schoolastic, K. A Applegate, and Michael Grant. I own neither series, please support official releases.

---

Iniss 226

Some things couldn't be helped.

The nervous feeling that permeated my oozing core as I walked through the underground city was one of those things. I think this host felt it as well, at least once he assessed the situation in its entirety.

Visser Three was one thing. If you died to him, there was a good chance he had fallen into a rage and would make it quick. But Visser Seven was an entirely different beast. If Visser Seven was angry enough at you, your death would not be merciful.

It was something I could tell Chapman was worried about as well, though he did not put it into words. Ever since the incident a week ago with his offspring, he had ceased speaking to me, ceased offering suggestions or taking over for the menial tasks that were required for myself to blend in.

It was rather irritating to deal with, but oh well.

Within a few minutes, I was in front of Visser Seven's personal office. These types of buildings were only used by the Vissers themselves when they were on the planet, as they preferred to stay within the personal confines of their Blade Ships. But Visser Seven's Blade Ship had been damaged "accidentally" by Visser Three during the scuffle with the Andalites near this world's moon, at least that was the story Visser Three had stated. This, combined with the fact that Visser Seven was still gathering enough numbers and support to mount an attack on one of the Shuldidnian Capitol Shuttles, meant he was bound to the planet for a while longer.

The room I entered was nearly empty save for a table, a few chairs, and a trio of shaded lights overhead. The lights caused the room to shine slightly, the metal walls reflecting everything in a metallic sheen. At the back of the room was another door, which most likely led to Visser Seven's room of leisure, his washroom, and his personal lodgings.

I felt two pairs of eyes glare at me as soon as I entered. A Hork-Bajir and a Human stood at either end of the room, both armed. Visser Seven's temporary guards, seeing as his last two had been...disposed of.

Both of them were armed as well. In fact, my own Dracon beam remained at my belt. Not one of us hadn't been armed with some sort of weapon since the incident that had occured the night before. Not since the Rogue Andalite had attacked had any of us stopped looking over our shoulders.

We knew it was only one Andalite, one that through some strange miracle was not associated with the others. But that only made it worse if I wanted to be honest with myself.

This single Andalite, the Rogue, must have believed itself to be the only Andalite left. Perhaps thinking this caused it to be unfettered by their moral standards. It didn't adhere to their honor, it didn't postulate smugly or act arrogantly towards the Controllers it fought. It had come at us like the horrible demon it had morphed into, fighting like an animal backed into a corner as it did everything it could to claw its way to survival.

I honestly wondered if that made it more dangerous than the others. The bandits, as we had started calling them, were more organized, they were obviously more reluctant to break their rigid honor and supposed noble ideals. They had been a nuisance at best, only causing a single minor setback of a few months, and personally invading my host's home for information and nearly compromising my rank notwithstanding, were clearly green.

The Rogue had managed to cause more damage by himself than when all five of the bandits had charged down here. While we could easily refill the pool with a new slurry and improve the insulation, we had lost thousands of our own, numbers that would not be easily replaced in a single month alone.

And curse that Andalite-Controlling scum, Visser Three. Within the same month, he had gone out of his way to kill many hosts simply for escaping. He killed them in droves, many of whom were necessary and were not only nearly impossible to replace, but would draw unwanted attention from human authorities. Regardless of how well the cleaners covered things up, the humans would notice hundreds of their own going missing within the span of a month.

I was brought out of my musings when the door to the Visser's dwelling opened. The two guards and I stood attention as the smaller Controller strode forward, a bright smile tugging at his lips.

Shuldidnians were rather strange creatures, comparable in appearance to humans, but were a bit smaller and possessing metallic skin colors. Their large eyes and acicular ears were nocturnal adaptations, and their psychic abilities were unparalleled by other psychic races within the galaxy. Were it not for their appearance being too dissimilar to humans, they would have been useful in infiltrating their society.

Some of us believed that they had been delivered to us by fate. The reality was that they had fired a primitive, manned space exploration vehicle to one of the moons furthest from their planet. We simply came upon them by happenstance.

Visser Seven was the first to obtain a Shuldidnian host. Not only that, but the host and the Yeerk itself were in full cooperation, to the point it was always difficult to tell which you were speaking to. What Visser Seven orchestrated with his host upon learning of the people of Anati, even we did not realize until it was too late...

"Good day, Visser! Iniss 226 of the Sulp Niaar pool submits to you. May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you."

"And you, Iniss 226," Visser Seven said, his host's melodious voice ringing through the small room. The Shuldidnian-Controller motioned towards the table with a low hum, "feel free to take a seat, Iniss 226."

"Ah, of course Visser!"

I tugged nervously at my collar as I took a seat across from him. Visser Seven himself remained standing, idly gazing at me with his host's large eyes.

"Tell me, do you know why I asked you to meet with me?" Visser Seven's eyes glowed red for a split second as he assessed me.

"Ah, not entirely, Visser. You mentioned it pertained to...last night's incident, correct?'

"Indeed," the Shuldidnian-Controller pulled out a hologram disc, and pressed a single button, revealing several images that had been gathered within the last month. "I've decided to join in on the investigation of these Andalites."

I swallowed as I took in the images.

One was of a large-bodied grey-skinned animal, with four legs thick like the trunk of a tree. At its back end, a ropy tail whipped around, and at its front, a massive prehensile tendril emerged from its face. A large pair of ears fanned out from the side of its head, and two beady eyes stared forward. The creature itself was charging through several Controllers, human or otherwise.

The picture next to it was of an orange, striped quadruped. A long tail trailed behind it, and the front pair of its four powerful legs held vicious claws. Its mouth was wide open, revealing several sharp teeth. On the still, it was glowering at the Hork-Bajir it held down with hateful yellow eyes.

I looked over the rest of them as well. A black, fur-covered humanoid with tremendous arms and a sloping head. A small aerial creature covered in feathers, feet tipped with deadly talons. A fur-covered quadruped with muscular legs, strong hooves, and long well-kept hair flowing from its neck and tail. All of them were either attacking Controllers, or rounding up several humans to safety.

An Elephant, a Tiger, a Gorilla, a Hawk, and a Horse. Those were what the creatures were called, at least from what I took from Chapman's memories, and most humans would be able to identify them easily. Of course, we only realized they were Andalites when Visser Three told us, despite also claiming Elfangor was the last of them.

One new image sat below the others though. I had only heard about what the Rogue had taken as a morph, but seeing it for myself was jarring. It seemed like others weren't wrong by calling it a 'demon'.

It was a creature similar in size to the horse, but with a body plan more akin to a Hork-Bajir. Unlike a Hork-Bajir, it's posture was more horizontal to the ground, and it lacked the many blades, instead having knife-like claws tipping its hands and a single sickle-shaped claws on each of its large toes. Rather than green scales, this creature had scales that were dark brown, and while Hork-Bajir had teeth for eating plants, this monster's needle-sharp dental arrangement clearly screamed "carnivore".

And the eyes, I think, were the worst part. Whereas Hork-Bajir have red, bird-like eyes, this beast had sickly yellow orbs with disturbingly slit pupils. I could only see insanity in those eyes, and I couldn't tell if it was the Andalite, or the animal itself.

The creature itself looked wounded, and covered in blood, but for some reason that only made it look even more frenzied.

'What?! Wait, is that a-'

"W-What?"

"Hmm? Is something wrong Iniss 226?" Visser Seven eyed me curiously.

"N-No, Visser! My host just got a little bit confused," I said nervously. "He is, he's a collaborator. So he might have some insight on some of these animals that the Andalites-"

"Yes, yes, I've spoken to many others who have "insight" as to what these animals are capable of, all save for this one..." the Shuldidnian-Controller almost looked sour as he spoke these words. "None of them were any more of an expert than the previous. It seems that while humans would recognize the species of their world, very few would be able to give full insight as to how these animals truly work."

Visser Seven's finger pulled the image of the Rogue to the center and enlarged it, as well as unfocusing the entire image. With the entire image shown, I could see that the image was taken while the Andalite was mid-battle with a particularly large Taxxon. All around them, the blood and gore of other Controllers covered the floor.

"Two of my most loyal subordinates are gone," Visser Seven's voice lowered, the melodious tone, like the scare chord of a human horror movie building up. "And all of our own in the pool were slaughtered."

"W-Well, Visser, it was one of your subordinates that the Rogue used to electrocute the pool-"

It suddenly got very hot. I noticed it. Visser Seven's temporary guards noticed it. I only realized exactly why it was so hot when I saw the glowing ball of flame only a foot or so away from my host's face. I could feel beads of sweat running down my face as the fire inched closer.

"Sweaty?" Visser Seven had a malicious grin stretched across his face that showed his host's pointed canines. With a wag of his finger, the fireball pulled away from me just a couple of inches. "Yes, Iniss 226, I'm well aware of how the Rogue managed to cause the incident. And, much to my chagrin, Esplin has made me aware that if I want it to be kept under wraps, I need to "vouch for his successful endeavors" if the council were to investigate any issues."

It was the more formal way of saying that when Visser Three screwed up, unless Visser Seven helped him he'd be taken down with him.

"So you can imagine that our issue with the Rogue is rather personal," the fireball flew back to the Shuldidnian-Controller's hand, and he quickly snuffed it out. "You were the one tasked with handling the Andalites, correct? What was your plan to do so?"

"I...I believed we simply needed to wait for them to reappear, and then react accordingly," I shrunk back just a bit when the Visser eyed me tiredly. "The last time they showed themselves, they used the pet of this host's daughter in order to spy on my meetings with Visser Three. I believe we simply need to wait for them to come to us."

"Incorrect," Visser Seven said offhandedly.

With a few quick hand movements across the hologram, the images of the animals shrank ever so slightly. Now, in the center of the screen was a map of the entire surrounding area above the pool. Across the map, several different places were marked, and those marks were coded with specific colors. Almost all of the images of the animals had lines of text beneath them that associated them with some of the points on the map.

"Through my extensive investigation of this world, I have learned that humans have an incredibly wide variety of animals upon their planet, much more so than any other world in the galaxy," Visser Seven tilted his head to me before continuing, "they are also prone to keeping much of their vast array of animals in captivity at some point. They do so while also mimicking the animal's natural environment and discouraging fully domesticated behaviors they would normally try to propagate in certain other animals."

"...Y-You mean a zoo?"

"Yes, a zoo," the Shuldidnian-Controller hissed as he motioned to the map. "Marked here are all the local zoos or similar animal containment facilities which humans often frequent for entertainment. My belief is that the "Bandits", as they are so affectionately called, have infiltrated human society and used human morphs in order to gain access to animals within these zoos."

"You believe so? I, this is an interesting revelation, Visser-"

"Hardly!" Visser Seven's voice was filled with a venom as he ran his nails across the table. "Any imbecile could have figured it out. All these Andalites, Rogue included, are most likely Arisths, the lowest rank for their military. The Bandits will only be able to set us back by months, at worst, but the Rogue is my primary target."

"Y-Yes, thank you. I'm certain this information will be helpful...ah, now that I think about it," I pointed to the image of the Rogue. "That one does not have any of the zoos mapped out associated with it."

"Yes, the Rogue continues to be an enigma," the Shuldidnian-Controller mused tiredly. "He did not even give me the courtesy of the creature's name, let alone where he got it. I wanted to assume that it was acquired from another world, but none of the worlds we've ever been to or gained information from have anything like it. And it seems to fit within the ecosystem here for some strange reason, though I cannot place why."

"Well I'm sure that I can figure out its origins soon enough," I said firmly. "When I inform Visser Three that I'm proceeding with this-"

"No," Visser Seven said flatly. "You will not tell him."

I hesitated slightly. Sure, Visser Three was the worst Visser to be assigned to, but even then this entire situation just felt wrong. The Andalite-Controller didn't care how things got done, just that they were taken care of at all.

"S-Sir, my apologies but Visser Three is my direct-"

"Esplin 9466 is an imbecile!" fire erupted from the Shuldidnian-Controller's hands, his eyes glowed brightly even in the lit room, and his teeth were bared. "He slaughtered half the Ssstram within five years, and he considered that a victory. I took Anati in under a year! He is nothing but a tool, the equivalent of a Dracon Cannon being mounted for an assault. He shouldn't be put in charge of a stealth-centric invasion, his presence here was a mistake!"

It felt like I would break beneath the quaking presence of Visser Seven's voice. His host's telepathic abilities were being transmitted to both myself and my host in the worst way. Chapman's senses quickly disappeared, save for his hearing. No taste, no sense of smell, no sight, it was like being back to my pitiful self again.

'AGHHHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!'

It was something I was used to. Chapman had no idea what it was like, so for one of the few times since I first infested him, he screamed. It was incredibly visceral to hear, to listen to a being who had evolved with such incredible senses to lose them.

Based on the sound of gargling nearby, I wasn't the only one affected. Visser Seven's temporary guards were shuffling across the floor, what they were doing I couldn't tell by sound alone. But it had quickly apparent that Visser Seven wasn't any different from Visser Three in terms of temperment.

"Oh, goodness, goodness me..."

Visser Seven's voice lowered, now almost musical in how it sounded. Slowly, Chapman's senses returned, and both of us felt less panicked than before. Nearby, I saw the Visser's two temporary guards struggling to stand to their feet.

"My apologies, goodness I'm very embarrassed by this," the Shuldidnian-Controller gently motioned with his hands as our senses returned, albeit slowly and mostly in shades. "I'm sorry, I'm sure that'll clear up in a few moments…"

For the most part, Visser Seven did seem apologetic.

For about five seconds.

"But don't imply that Esplin is above me in any way, filshig!"

I felt a trickle of liquid escape Chapman's nose, and the human himself took initiative to stifle the bleeding.

"I wasn't!" I said nasally. "I'm just worried, that since Visser Three is my direct superior, he would react rather...v-violently, were I to go behind his back."

The Shuldidnian-Controller clicked his teeth angrily. "Let me deal with him when the time comes…" Visser Seven dispelled the hologram disc and pocketed it. "I will send you the information I have gathered, you will be able to print it out on one of those human computers. And if you manage to find out anything about the morph the Rogue used, inform me before you do Esplin. Are we clear?"

"Y-Yes, Visser," I said stiffly.

"Wonderful…" Visser Seven snapped his fingers, and the door behind him opened. As if on cue, a box of tissues slowly floated into the room, and landed in my hands. "Again, my sincerest apologies for that. You may leave now, Iniss 226, and do take care of yourself."

"As you wish, Visser," I said numbly.

As soon as I left the office, I quickly jammed a few tissues up Chapman's nose and tilted my head back. It had been something from his memories, an effective way to deal with these nosebleeds. His offspring was an athlete of sorts, so she would often get them by accident, meaning he had experience.

Speaking of which…

'Chapman?'

'The hell do you want?'

I flinched inwardly. Perhaps it was the fact that he had just temporarily had four of his five senses taken away from him. More than likely, he was also still sour from the incident with the Andalites from nearly a week ago.

'Chapman, I understand you are rather displeased with me. But believe me when I say that I truly wish to honor the agreement we made. I will prevent her from being taken for as long as I can, so long as you can cooperate with me.'

'...Truly?'

'Truly, Chapman. Regardless of whether or not she had gotten close to that boy, she is not somebody we would simply prioritise. As long as we can make ourselves useful to the Vissers, no harm should come to her.'

'...heh...your bosses are a real piece of work, you know that Inny?'

I cringed slightly at the nickname. He had started calling me that halfway through the first month, and for quite some time I found it irritating.

But, I can't say with honesty that within his past week of silence, that I didn't miss it.

'I am...aware they can be rather...short-tempered-'

'That's putting it lightly. The blue meanie is one thing, at least I know I'll need to worry about saying goodbye to you if he turns into that freaky sucky thing…'

He spoke of the Vanarx, of course. The Yeerkbane, our kind's only natural predator. And, for some reason, he actually sounded sad when he said that.

'But at least you know what you're getting into with him. That guy, the little munchkin looking one, I couldn't get a proper read on him.'

'Shuldidnians are rather...unique, in that way I suppose. To have gained full control over his host's abilities requires an indomitable hold over him, or…'

'Or? Or? Or what, Inny?'

'Or a high level of cooperation between the two. I do not know what type of individual Visser Seven's host is really like, but from what I can understand, we should be thankful that the Visser is the one in control most of the time.'

'Gosh, you actually made that seem disturbing…'

'Onto the important thing. The Andalite Rogue, you recognized what they were morphed into, didn't you?'

'...E-Eh, sort of?'

'Yes or no, Chapman?'

'Well, I know what it is, I just don't really remember the specific name.'

'Alright, then what is it?'

'A Dinosaur.'

'...A what now?'

'It's a Dinosaur. The name is in latin, which is sort of a dead language, but it means "terrible lizard". Any human child would take a single look at the same picture and tell you the same thing.'

'So, this creature is named "Dinosaur"? What an interesting name-'

'A-Actually, the name "Dinosaur" only refers to the clade of animals that it is a part of. It probably has a different name, and again I don't really remember it.'

'Clade? You mean that there is an entire group of animals just like it?'

'Was an entire group, but yeah. And that one would probably be one of the smaller ones. The largest of them would actually be almost twice the size of a Blade Ship-'

"WHAT?!" I choked out nasally.

I noticed several stares as many other Controllers stopped their work to take a look at me. I had started walking towards the outer edges of the cavern for more privacy for this reason.

"Ah, my apologies! My host is a collaborator, and I'm asking for information," I said nervously. "No need to worry! Just surprised about something he said…"

'Smooth…'

'You can't actually be serious about that? Twice the size of a Blade Ship?!' I wheezed internally as I continued my trek towards the edge of the cavern. 'A creature that size shouldn't even be possible!'

'Well they were. Hell, Blue Whales are almost as big as Blade Ships too-wait, they're marine mammals, they don't technically count.'

'These Dinosaurs, explain them to me, please.'

'Okay, so there were three subclades I think...right, so three subclades. The one that the Andalite morphed was in the Theropod subclade, and I think those ones were all carnivores. Some of them could be pretty small, but the biggest I think was supposed to be nearly 13 meters in length, maybe 12 feet in height, almost 10 short tons.'

'That's...bigger than some of Visser Three's morphs…'

'Yeah, and that one the Andalite morphed was considered a small one-oh hey, I just remembered it now! Velociraptor, it's called Velociraptor! I knew it was on the tip of my tongue...w-well, not literally.'

'This "Velociraptor", it's considered one of the smallest of these creatures?' I felt disturbed when Chapman hummed affirmingly. That creature had still been larger than a human, large enough that it didn't need to look too high to stare a Hork-Bajir in the eye. 'I noticed something, you've been using the past tense to refer to these 'Dinosaurs'. Why?'

'Because that Andalite having one as a morph is impossible. Unless they figured out time travel,' I heard the human let out an almost insane laugh at this. '65 million years ago, there were Dinosaurs. Then a meteor the size of Mount Everest slammed into the planet. Boom, no more Dinosaurs. They've been extinct ever since then.'

'Extinct?!' Chapman confirmed this, and I felt a dry feeling on his lips for some reasons. 'And yet you're sure you've positively identified that specific creature as a "Velociraptor", which is a species of "Theropod Dinosaur"?'

'Like I said, even a child would tell you that that's a dinosaur. There's no doubt about it!'

'And yet you're also contradicting yourself by affirming that this creature's entire lineage has been killed by a celestial object tens of millions of years ago, and therefore it shouldn't exist.'

'I'm saying that the fact that they have a picture of an Andalite morphed as one doesn't make sense, because a Dinosaur shouldn't exist. They're gone, all of em. They went kablooey and now all we have left are their fossilized bones.'

I rubbed our chin in thought.

Just how could an Andalite get their hands on a creature that was supposed to have been made extinct eons ago? And if Chapman was telling the truth about what these other "Dinosaurs" had been like, then what others did the Rogue have under their belt?

---

Aaron

I don't think I had the time to really enjoy flying last night. I had been in a hurry, and I only flew for maybe twenty or so minutes in order to get home. I hadn't been able to truly enjoy how it felt to be in the air, to move like that without a care in the world, to experience something most people wouldn't ever get to in their lives.

Of course, I could chalk that up to the fact that I was running on fumes, and everything around that point seemed like a haze brought on by how tired I felt and how much pain I had experienced while I was a Raptor. I was just so laser focused on getting home safe then, and I've been so locked onto one thing that I almost forgot I needed some sort of fun in my life.

I think that now, no video game or rollercoaster would cut it from here on out. And it was even better out here in broad daylight than it was at night.

The air just felt so incredible as it vibrated against my wings. The way the air flowed past me as I dived was indescribable. When I made a midair loop, I passed through a small cloud and I could feel bits of dew sticking to my face for the briefest of moments before slowly flowing back as I sped up.

All of it was...it was just so-

F̷̯̝̏̒̚Ȏ̶͎̀Ơ̵̰͖͇D̴͇̎͗!̵̻͊!̷̟̥́̄͘!̸̨̻̽̈́͌

And Terry ruined it again…

I remember going to beaches when I was younger, and suddenly finding that much of my food my family had bought had been stolen before we could even eat it. Whenever I glared at the seagulls that had done it, I sometimes wondered what those winged rats were thinking. Were they smug about their haul? Did they not have shame? What went through those infuriating little heads of theirs?

The answer? Well-

F̷̯̝̏̒̚Ȏ̶͎̀Ơ̵̰͖͇D̴͇̎͗!̵̻͊!̷̟̥́̄͘!̸̨̻̽̈́͌

That, the answer was that. If Terry was supposed to be the prehistoric equivalent of a seabird of sorts, then it was safe to assume that seagulls thought the same way.

To the Pterodactyl, all that mattered was food.

All that garbage in the fast food dumpster way down there? Food!

Those burgers that a set of humans were still eating, with them still in their hands? Food!

Insects? Smaller birds? That roadkill at the side of the road? All that plastic that would most likely kill me?

Food, all of it was food, especially the stuff that wasn't food, and especially the stuff that wasn't mine right now. In fact, if I wanted it more than the person who has it, then I'd take it and I wouldn't have a problem with it. They were just holding onto it for me, whether they knew it or not.

Obviously I had to reign in Terry a bit less than I had the Raptor or Count, but I was glad he wasn't too difficult to control. I just couldn't believe that the hyper Pterodactyl was the easiest to control out of all of-HEY LOOK THAT CAT HAS A FISH IMMA S̶̛͕T̸̙̂Ḙ̵͝A̷̞͝L̶͕̎ ̴̘̾I̵͕̚T̵̓͜

Wait, no! No! Million times no! Get a grip Aaron! I am not running down a damn cat to steal its fish, and I'm not soaring off to do who knows what! I have something important to do!

...Wait, what was it?

Right! I was gonna go steal one of those burgers from the-Nope, nope getting off track, I remember now!

Ugh, I swear I was gonna have to get a lot more practice in keeping my morphs under control...anyway! Yes, I remember now, I was on the hunt for those people I freed from the Yeerk pool.

...W-Well, the ones who survived, that is.

I didn't like dwelling on that. I already knew I'd deal with the nightmares I'd have from it, and considering how long I had stayed up last night giving my aunt that whole crash course...yeah, I needed all the sleep I could get. And I needed to focus on helping the people I did set free to the best of my abilities.

The entrance we had escaped from was some sort of abandoned gas station outside town. I remember there being construction equipment around it that must have seen some use, meaning the Yeerks were trying to refurbish it in order to draw less suspicion when people entered. So that meant if I ever decided to pull that kind of stunt again, I had to pray I had found an exit they hadn't had on lockdown.

Currently, the place was surrounded by police cars, with more than a few ambulances at the side of the road. Some of the police were standing outside, but more than a few I could see were combing the surrounding area. I noticed paramedics wheeling bags out of the building, and I internally flinched when I saw they weren't able to cover everything.

What would the cover be? Would the news start talking about the mysterious "(town name) slayer" or something just as cheesy? Would they even risk telling people? I remember Stevie's dad being a member of city council, which meant he was much too important to just sweep under the rug like that.

And what would they do when they attracted the feds with all this? Did they have the feds under their belt too? What was I supposed to do when I encountered fed Controllers?

What was their game plan here? And how did I counter it?

I narrowed my eyes to get a better view of the ground.

One of the things I had first had trouble with when I morphed Pterodactyl was the vision. That isn't to say it's terrible, in fact an active creature like this that will eat whatever it can get would obviously see really well. I could see even the tiniest bit of movement on the ground, even when it was hundreds of feet below me.

No, the problem was that I had to turn my head when I wanted to get a better view of things. For the first several minutes, it was like down was up, up was down. Colors weren't different, but I suddenly had to try and make sense that I was seeing two different images on both sides of my head as well.

I would have preferred to morph Count, but when I tried, I found that the vampiric pterosaur was not a day person. Everything was a bit too bright for him, and whenever I tried flying Count's mind would constantly look out for danger, even deciding toy planes were predators.

So Pterodactyl it was, much to my chagrin. And I don't think I'd take depth perception for granted ever again.

From what I could see, the Controllers were spread thin on the ground. No doubt they had less troops to spare due to the nice jolt I gave their pool. But plenty of Police were still sifting through the forest like they were on a manhunt.

I almost worried that they would start calling for the arrest of the people I freed. I hadn't read the news in a while for...reasons...so I had no idea if they were suddenly offering a bounty for random people. Would they plaster the faces of five innocent people on wanted posters simply because they knew too much?

Luckily, I spotted it first.

It was far away, much too far away for the Yeerks to spot from the gas station, and quite a ways into the forest. But somebody would be able to spot it if they were on the trails, and worse, if the Yeerks mustered up enough to get some of their ships out, they'd see it easily. A small cloud of smoke rising into the air, almost imperceptible, but clearly the signs of a spent campfire.

I flapped my wings hard as I all but charged towards the smoke. Eventually, it got to the point where I didn't need to see it, because the smell was more than enough.

I landed in a nearby tree and hid within the foliage. With a tilt of my head, I parsed four people sitting around a now smouldering campfire, while two more were standing.

The campfire was surrounded by a trio of logs. On one, the teen girl from before sat gazing at the fire with a dead-eyed look. On the log adjacent to that, the everyman-looking dude sat huddled close to the gold-skinned Shuldidnian girl. Across from them, the scar-covered man sat with a foul look, sharpening a large and flat rock.

"You're insane!" the businessman growled. "You can't actually be serious?! What, you're gonna sharpen that stone and tie it to a stick and then start picking them off if they get close?!"

"Well obviously I don't have a fucking gun to deal with them, now do I?!" the scarred man hissed angrily.

"We have weapons!" the blonde teen said in exasperation as he held up a Dracon Beam. "How are you missing this?! We literally have what we need!"

"Those are the enemy's weapons, we don't know if they'll work for long," the gruff-looking man growled.

"Nind orn tlu kl'eril p'luin natha mildrin xonathull," the Shuldidnian girl said tiredly.

"The fuck you just call me bitch?!" the scarred man roared, standing to his feet and brandishing his partially sharpened rock. "You wanna say that to my face?!"

"Hey, hey! Fortunate Son, bring it down a notch!" the boy beside the elvish-looking girl said loudly. "She's not the enemy, don't go fighting her."

"We should ditch her!" the gruff man hissed. "Little goblin can't even speak english. And we should ditch the Lizard too."

"We aren't ditching anyone!" the blonde teen cried out. "We need to focus. We gotta figure out how to get someplace safe, and some place hidden."

"Oh, you have any ideas?! Cause I'd love to hear them!" the businessman threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "What, nobody wants to say anything?! Nobody wants to tell us what they're thinking?!"

‹I think you're all assholes,› I thought-spoke to them

"Holy shit!"

"Sunnuva Bitch!"

"Jesus H. Christ!"

"Sweet Mother Theresa on the hood of a Mercedes Benz!"

"By the power of Greyskull!"

"Eep!"

The teen girl turned to the everyman-dude with a tired look. "Greyskull? Really?!"

"Don't judge me!"

"You're back?" the blonde said owlishly. "W-Where are you?"

‹I'm close...› I said tiredly. ‹Just give me a few moments. I'll be right down.›

I quickly flew to another nearby tree, then slowly shimmied my way to the ground. Immediately after hitting the dirt, I demorphed. Wings became arms, toothy beak became a human mouth, pterosaur fuzz fell out or was replaced with hair where appropriate, yadda yadda yadda.

A few minutes later though, and I had come out to greet them in another morph, the one they were familiar with. The Raptor's mind was still focused on hunting and killing, but simply saying that we had to get our pack under control kept it from thinking like a violent lunatic long enough for me to pull back on the reins.

Up close now, without the darkness of the Yeerk Pool or the fact that it had been night, I could get a better look at them.

The teen girl wore her dark-brown hair in a ponytail, and hid much of it under a baseball cap. Her green eyes, while bright colored, were currently dull and hollow as they looked on. Her outfit wasn't too special, a t-shirt and shorts along with some sandals.

The scarred man, he might have been latino or something based on his darker skin, but he had a single strand of grey hair along with black locks. His eyes held this dark look to them, like he had somehow managed to see something so horrible and get through it, only to meet something much worse. He wore a camo shirt and jeans, and I could see that his shoes had rubber cleats.

The cashier guy, or rather he seemed more like a nerdy highschooler now in this light, had dark grey eyes and black hair. The only reason I had thought he was a cashier before was because, obviously, he was still in his work uniform. A cheesy one with reds and blues and yellows all put together in the most gaudy way possible, the only saving grace being that he wore normal khakis and sneakers.

The businessman was an asian man with formerly slicked back black hair that had not been done any favors after a night in the woods. His outfit suffered similarly, the tie was torn slightly and the suit had holes in it, and his shoes had clearly been scuffed to hell and back. But I doubt he cared, with the way his dark eyes assessed me it was clear he wasn't one of those types of businessmen who got all selfish when their Gucci shoes or something got ruined.

The blonde, for whatever reason, was the most underwhelming. I already knew what he looked like beforehand, but now that I could see him in the light he most definitely blew the broody teenager description away. I mean, he was dressed like a damn hiker, like he was prepared for this trip from the get go but forgot his bags at home and didn't remember until the last minute.

I think the Shuldidnian was the one I lingered on the most. Her bronze colored skin shimmered a bit in the sunlight, though bright orange eyes did the exact opposite during the day, and her auburn hair seemed to follow the standard of her race. She wore little more than a large, billowing robe that concealed most of her body.

I think seeing her, or at least one of her species, in the light was different than it was in the dark. She had this quality about her that made me just want to hug her, like a rabbit or a puppy that was giving you a sad look.

The Raptor's mind reminded me that the pack needed to be handled, and my gaze snapped away from her. Upon looking back at the smouldering fire, I felt my reptilian lips curling up in annoyance.

The businessman stepped forward with a soft smile, and held his hand out. "My name is Hideo, it's a pleasure to properly meet you."

I gave him a blank stare while clicking my claws together. ‹Yeah, I can't exactly shake hands like this. Odds are you'd lose some fingers.›

"A pity."

"Uh, m-my name is Ian," the cashier said nervously while pointing to his name tag. "Uh, nice to meet you scary, Andalite dude-"

"Human," the blonde said firmly. "You're definitely a human by how you talk."

"Probably a punk too," the scarred man muttered.

‹Yeah, figured something would give it away...› I narrowed my reptilian eyes at each and every one of them. ‹Take that knowledge with you to the grave, understand. I don't care how you feel, if they find out about me then there's no chance of stopping them. Understand?›

I let the tone in my mental voice convey the unspoken "I'll make you take it there myself" just to drive it home. They all nodded after a few seconds of glaring them down.

‹Good.›

"How'd you get the morphing tech?" the blonde asked.

‹Give me your name first,› I said boredly.

"I'm Billy," he then motioned towards me.

‹Elfangor, Visser Three ate him. Before that, he gave me the cube of destiny.›

"You still have it?" Hideo asked, a wary look flashing through his eyes.

‹It's safe. That's all you need to know.›

"U-Umm, hey!" the teen girl piped up from her log, giving me a wary look. "M-My name is Sarah...uh, t-thanks for...everything, I guess."

‹I don't know if I deserve being thanked for anything,› I said tiredly.

I turned to the scar-covered man with a slightly expectant look.

A loud grunt escaped his lips as he set his rock down. "I'm Trip."

‹You a soldier?›

"I was, in Nam...I didn't like talking about it before," there was a dark look in Trip's eyes, and he looked away. "Might not be as bothered about it now."

‹And what about you?› I gave the Shuldidnian girl a sideways glance. ‹Your name, please?›

"...Amitela," she whispered.

‹Good...wait, where's the other one?›

There was a collective sigh from all of them at this. Trip gave the trees behind them an annoyed look, while Billy gave a small whistle. And then I realized what I had missed before.

Within one of the trees behind them, a Hork-Bajir sat in the more shaded branches. It was so odd to see him like that, every other Hork-Bajir I had seen was either trying to hunt for new hosts, or they were charging into a fight. Then I remembered Elfangor's words, that Hork-Bajir were good, but they hadn't chosen any of this to happen.

"Oi, lizard! Come down, the morpher guy came back!" Ian cried out.

"...N-No, Jell stay in tree," the creature finally said after a short pause.

His voice was somewhat high-pitched for a creature like him, but it had a breathy feeling to it. It was somewhere between a high-pitched bellow and what you'd hear in kids shows when the voice actors were trying to pretend to be a "slow elephant" for the kids.

‹Jell, right? Come down, I'm not here to kill you.›

I saw his red eyes squint at me for a few seconds, before he swung down the tree like a gibbon.

Face to face, it was easy to see how I had missed him. He might have been a younger Hork-Bajir, he was a foot shorter than most of the other ones I had seen. Despite being covered in huge blades, he actually looked nervous, in fact he was hopping on a single foot for a split second.

‹So your name is Jell? Interesting name.›

"Jell parents come to earth with Yeerks. Parents eat Jelly, taste good. Parents name Jell," the reptoid practically chirped as he spoke. "Jell is Jell."

‹I see...›

"What human name?"

‹Excuse me?›

Jell pointed to me with a curious expression. "Humans have names. Morpher human have name?"

‹A. Just call me A,› I said firmly.

"What human morph to?"

Before I could answer, somebody else beat me to it. "Velociraptor."

I looked over to Billy with a blank gaze, teeth bared slightly as my lips curled up further. The blonde, for the most part, seemed less intimidated and more curious.

"I'm studying for a degree in Vertebrate Paleontology, and my mentor is absolutely obsessed with Velociraptors," he leaned forward, a single brow raised in suspicion. "So how is it that you acquired an animal that's been extinct for 65 million years?"

Jell looked like he didn't even know what the word "extinct" meant, nor could he fathom the number "65 million". But Amitela could understand english, even if she couldn't speak it-or at least it seemed that way based on the look of mute shock she gave me. The other humans, once Billy's words hit them, seemed to have it click in their heads, and looked at me much the same.

‹Sorry, I'm currently under an NDA agreement which prevents me from discussing the living Dinosaurs,› I chuckled inwardly at their incredulous looks. ‹I'm afraid I can only help you handle the real-ass aliens instead.›

"And how do you plan on helping us?" Trip grumbled. "And why should we trust you? You sound like a kid! What, you can command us?"

‹Oh, I thought you'd be a bit more grateful that I freed you from hell, but I guess not,› I shrugged tiredly before narrowing my eyes at them, ‹But I'm the only one who can keep you safe, so you will listen to me. First off, which one of you started the fire?›

None of them responded.

‹Answer me! And don't fucking lie either, just come clean!›

Movement from the corner of my eye.

The Shuldidnian girl had slowly raised her hand, eyeing me with a wilting gaze.

With a quick movement, my tail smacked her across the face. She fell off the log with a small yelp, clutching her face in pain. I could hear her sobbing starting up, with a lot of mutterings in a language I couldn't understand.

"Dude!" the boy next to her cried out.

‹Do not fucking "dude" me!› I hissed, angrily taking a step forward while snapping my jaws. Ian let out a small yelp as I backed him towards a tree. ‹Those assholes are currently combing the place around that abandoned gas station we escaped through! I wouldn't be surprised if your faces were plastered all over the front paper for causing the death of a city council member!›

"They have a member of the city council under their control?!" the businessman asked.

‹They had a member of the city council,› I said darkly, before snapping at the high schooler in front of me. ‹Somebody put that smoke out, somehow some-fucking-way! If they see it, you'll end up back in their cages-or worse-before you can say the word go.›

I noticed a couple of them moving to stifle the smoke, how they did it I didn't care.

‹Now you!› I turned to Trip with a furious glare. ‹I am so fucking close to reading you the Riot Act! Do you understand that you trying to go around picking fights with every person around you is not helping?!›

The gruff-looking man leaned back on his seat, clearly exasperated at the entire situation.

‹Now, I want to know one thing...what was your plan? Because aside from "break as many people out without getting them killed", I didn't have much more than that,› I flinched inwardly at some of their looks. ‹If you need to cover your asses, I know where to find a payphone. I can help you get to a car and you can hotwire it-›

"We aren't just gonna steal things, are we?!" Sarah cried out.

"To be fair, hotwiring a car is the only substantial idea anybody has given," Hideo mumbled.

"We need a weapon," Trip said. "Something reliable. A semi, or just a shotgun will do. But something that we can figure out how to work."

‹You have Dracon Beams-›

"They need to be charged!" Sarah said suddenly. All of them looked towards her with irritated expressions, but she continued, "they have charges, and I think the charging stations are in...t-that place. Same with the batteries too, so we need to save them for important things."

"So we need guns!" Trip said mirthfully. "Finally, we can be in agreement."

‹Sorry, I'm only 13. I'm afraid I can't just walk into a damn gunstore and clean the place out for you,› I noticed their looks of horror, and sighed. ‹Look, I'll see what I can do. But so far, it's money and transportation I can help you with. And one of you isn't going with the rest.›

All of them instantly looked at Jell.

"What humans look at?" Jell's snake-like neck swivelled around in confusion.

‹Jell, I'm going to need you to focus. You can't go with them when they leave, it'll be too obvious. So you need to figure out a place to hide.›

"...Jell hide in tree!" the Hork-Bajir motioned to the forest canopy above them.

‹...Tell me, do your species normally hide in trees?›

"Hork-Bajir live in trees," Jell said proudly, "Hork-Bajir know which bark best. Cut bark with blades, taste good."

‹So, if Hork-Bajir live in trees, then that would be the first place the Yeerks would look, right?›

Jell tilted his head as he thought this over. "Yeerks look for Hork-Bajir in trees, yes."

‹So the best idea would be to hide anywhere else but a tree, right?›

"Yes! Jell want to hide, find good place!"

‹Exactly! So Jell, where should you hide?›

Jell tapped his chin for a second, then smiled brightly. "Jell hide in tree!"

The Raptor's mind short circuited for a split second. My jaw dropped, and I was sure I was catching more than a few flies. After all that, and he finished with that?

"The trees are literally the first place they would look for you!" Ian wheezed out.

"...Jell not know what wrong," the reptilian said innocently.

Amitela stood to her feet with an incensed look. "Mal'ai! Do'rn inbau dosstan elggen, xor wruuty!"

‹Shush! Let me handle him!› I said firmly. I turned back to Jell with a hiss. ‹Alright, Jell! Last time! You're a Hork-Bajir, and Hork-Bajir like living in trees, right?›

"Hork-Bajir live in tree!" Jell once again said proudly. "Hork-Bajir know which bark best-"

‹Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got that!› I said quickly. ‹So if Hork-Bajir live in trees, that'd be the first place the Yeerks would look, right?›

Jell rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yeerks look for Hork-Bajir in tree, yes."

‹So it'd be better to hide anywhere but a tree, is that a good assessment?›

"Yes! Jell want to hide, find good place!"

‹Good! So Jell, where do you hide?›

"...Jell hide in tree!"

The Raptor's mind shut off. I felt my jaw drop again. I could see the other free people looking at him with varying expressions of shock, amusement, and (in Hideo's case) fury.

I let out an almost demonic shriek in indignation. ‹NO! You do not hide in a tree you moron! You Find a cave and hide in there! Caves are the last place they'll look, find a damn cave!›

Jell flinched back as I screeched, shaking as I continued to hiss and bark angrily. The Hork-Bajir pointed towards the direction the gas station was in.

‹NO! That's where the Yeerk Pool is! Find another cave!›

"Jell feel safe in tree-"

‹It doesn't matter if you feel "safe" in a tree! It's not safe in trees anymore, you need to find a cave that isn't filled with Yeerks! Understand?!›

Jell almost looked like he wanted to cry, but he nodded slowly when he saw my glare.

‹Thank you!› I let out an exasperated huff. ‹I'm sorry for scaring at you, but I'm trying to protect you. All of you. So please, just try to work with me, and I'll make sure you can get home safe when all of this is said and done."

There was a pregnant pause before anybody spoke again.

"And when will this all be done?" Trip asked lowly.

I gave the former soldier an empty stare as I thought the question over. ‹I...I wish I could tell you for sure...›

"That always seemed to be the answer back in the jungle too," he mused tiredly.

I felt my toe claws clicking nervously. The Raptor hadn't rebooted yet, it wasn't getting antsy for a fight. This was all me reacting to those words, nothing else. The look in Trip's eyes, would I end up the same way?

‹Let's get back to the issue. If you guys can find a cave, please, then you can hide there and not worry about them tracking down the smoke from your fires,› I tilted my head towards both the non-humans for a moment before looking at the others. ‹Do you have any places in mind where you could hide? As in, endgame plan to hunker down and rough it out?›

"I...to be honest, I would have thought of this old bunker behind my house," Hideo rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "It's a fallout bunker, for when the...the you-know-whos would have started throwing nukes at us. But all of my neighbors know about it."

‹Let me guess, all of your neighbors are...›

"They're with them, yes," the businessman groaned.

"I m-might have a place," Ian said weakly. "Up in the mountains, my family always had this cabin. It's almost been a decade since any of us was up there, but it could house my whole family at least."

‹And how big is your family?›

"Uh...it's pretty big," the highschooler chuckled bashfully. "Most people in my family ignore the meaning of "protection", if you catch my drift-"

‹Didn't need to know, but I got the jist of it,› I clicked my jaws together in thought. ‹Does it have everything you'd need?›

"It's got its own water supply, we can always get firewood, it has a couple of backup generators in case of an emergency with plenty of spare gas, it even has a phone if we need it," Ian frowned slightly, it looked like he was thinking something over. "If they manage to trick the police, they might wiretap it."

‹They literally are the police now. Who do you think is combing the woods for you right now?›

The looks of horror on their faces, or the humans at least, almost made my stomach churn. But it looked like they weren't even surprised. Maybe they had known that they had Controllers in the police force, but they just didn't realize how bad it was.

"I-It can't really be that bad, can it?"

‹The cops, the local city government, probably the entire county,› I let a hissing breath push through my nose as I tried to think some more. ‹They're in the schools, they're in the private sector, they have practically everything on lock. The only thing I think don't have is the state government or any federal agencies...after last night, what with that lunatic turning people to paste for his own amusement, that last one might change soon.›

The way they shuddered made me feel awful. I already knew what it felt like, to stop trusting the world around you. They had still had some hope that things weren't bad, and I had just tore it apart like that.

‹Look, I'll see what I can do about getting you guys a car, maybe some cash for a payphone. Guns will be a bit difficult, but I'll try my hardest,› I let out a small trill to try and soothe them in some way. ‹I have to get going-›

"You're not just gonna leave us alone, are you?" Hideo looked at me in muted terror. "You said it yourself, they're looking for us."

‹Yeah, but Papa Smurf turned most of their bodies into mush, and I gave their little swimming pool a jolt of electrotherapy. There's not much of them now,› my eyes flicked towards the sky, a thought flashing through me right then and there. ‹I didn't see any, but it's possible their ships have cloaking devices. If they haven't brought any down yet, I'd suggest getting a move on quick.›

"Will you be able to find us again?" Sarah asked weakly.

‹Day and night, either or. I have a Pterodactyl and Anurognathid I can use, so for me at least spotting you won't be a problem.›

"Those too?" Billy looked like he could fall over just by hearing those words. "Come on A, paleontology student here. You gotta throw me a bone, give me anything."

‹...There are T-Rexes,› I said it to him, and only to him. He simply dropped to the ground in shock, moaning as he tried to put his head between his legs. ‹I don't know where they are, obviously. But I know they exist at least.›

"Ohohoho man!" he let out an almost child-like squeal. "I can't believe this…"

"What did you tell him?" Trip grumbled.

‹Ask him. You'll probably react the same if you got it from me,› I shook my head slightly, then turned away and took a few steps back towards the tree line. ‹I promise I'll come back to check on all of you again, maybe in a few days at best. Just try to stay safe until then, please.›

"W-Wait, A!"

I tilted my head to look back at Ian. The highschooler wilted just a bit when I caught him in my gaze, but then I could see him swallow a lump in his throat as he took a tentative step forward.

"Thanks, A. You didn't have to come find us, but you did," he gave me a firm nod. "So thank you, for freeing us and for trying to look out for us."

‹...You don't need to thank me. Anybody else in my shoes would probably have done it too,› I turned my gaze away from the highschooler and turned a lone eye back to the bronze-skinned girl. ‹I'm sorry about-›

"Nau! I am...f-fool," Amitela said stiffly. Her english was heavily accented, and it seemed more like she was testing it before switching back to her alien speech. "Usstan rytho'leus ulu tlu sarn'elggus whol tluin ji waele…"

My lip curled slightly in an almost frown as I processed this. While I couldn't understand the language itself, I could understand the tone.

I wasn't an adult, hell I didn't think I was anywhere close to being responsible. I hadn't ever had even a goldfish within my entire life, yet now I had to watch out for seven sapient living things, of which five were humans. I could barely look after myself sometimes, and I had to make sure all of them were safe.

I shrugged these thoughts away and darted off, leaving them only one last message.

‹I'll find you in a few days. I promise.›

As I completed a demorph and started a morph within the same minute, I heard one of them trying to sneak towards me. I had already taken off as the Pterodactyl before they could see me. I saw that it was the soldier, though he didn't realise I had already left.

Trip almost looked mad when he saw that I was gone. He threw his hands up into the air in exasperation as he walked back to their camp. I circled around discreetly, idly watching as they started to "pack up", so to speak.

"You think we can trust him?" Trip hissed.

"He's just a kid, and he can somehow turn into a dinosaur," Hideo shot back. "Besides that, he charged straight into hell just to save as many innocent people as he could. He thinks he failed, and if we get caught again he really will. I'm not letting that weigh on a 13-year old's shoulders."

"Kids are too impulsive!" the scarred man growled. "He shouldn't even be doing this at all. Hell, he could screw up any day now, and we'd be worse off. I've seen it more than a few times to know-"

"Well, I don't see anybody else fighting the evil brain slugs!" Ian cried out. "So unless you can turn into a hippopotamus and start breaking their shit, you don't get to throw away his help. So unless you're gonna dick around trying to play with a sharp rock, help us somehow!"

I decided to stop circling and just fly off. As I flew closer towards town, I felt a huff escape my toothy beak. If I hadn't been through the past month, I wouldn't have agreed with Trip so much, I would have protested that I was perfectly capable of handling this.

But the truth is, I was just as scared of screwing things up as they were.

---

Jenna

"And I've just been so grateful to my friends in The Sharing. Ever since...w-well, you heard about what happened with my husband, right? I've just been so heartbroken, I didn't know what to do…"

"Wow, they sound like really good people," I said gently. "I'm sure they're really good to you, I know I wouldn't be able get through that sort of thing alone if it happened to me."

The woman in front of me let out a loud sniffle as she glanced at me. "Oh thank you for that, Jenny. You know, I'd really be appreciative if you would join me one of these days. I've told so many of my friends there and they're just so curious-"

"I'm afraid I'll have to decline," I said, almost too quickly. When her sniffling got louder and her sobbing threatened to start anew, I held my hands up defensively. "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Sánchez, but I'm not really interested in going to one of their meetings. My company has been speaking to senior members for months now, and combined with an incident a few weeks ago that my nephew was involved in, I'm just sort of turned off from The Sharing."

There was a dark look in the woman's eyes. "B-But, my husband! Don't you have a heart-"

"Mrs. Sánchez, I am very sorry that you're going through this, and I think you're a very kind person," I said gently. "But my family and I, we just moved here. If I'm being honest, I barely know you, and it feels like you cornered me here while I'm just trying to get my mail. I feel rather uncomfortable right now."

I motioned to the fact that I had barely even walked away from my mailbox. Around us, I could see most neighbors giving us looks. Some were looking at her with sympathy and me with incredulity, plenty were doing the latter to her instead because they most likely understood my point. And others…

The stares of at least two of our neighbors across the street were blank, almost robotic. But there was something else. Like a hunger to them, as if they were dogs being presented fresh bones, but were told they couldn't have them yet.

I felt so wrong, feeling those looks on me, and I had to fight back a shudder to not show I knew what was up.

"Oh, Jenny," Sánchez moaned, though the entire act itself felt fake and hollow as the emotion in her eyes. "I thought we had connected-"

"Just Jenna, will do, Mrs. Sánchez," I said, not gently but not aggressively either, just with a tone that should get the point across. "That's the only short version of my name I let people call me. Jenny is for really close friends and members of my family," I noticed her left eye twitching, the fake emotion disappearing as a much darker expression permeated those orbs. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to be going now…"

I had to stop myself from outright bolting towards my front door. When I got in, I did slam it, but I felt that could easily be played off as me being unhappy about being put on the spot like that. When I discreetly looked through the blinds, I could see the neighbors reacting in a myriad of ways.

Some glared at my house angrily for a few seconds, before giving Sánchez a sympathetic look. Others were giving her incredulous expressions, as if to ask her whether she was seriously trying to emotionally manipulate somebody into doing something they weren't okay with. And most others, they were completely ambivalent about the situation.

But long after all the other neighbors had gone inside, Sánchez and the other two remained. And they continued to stare-no, to glare at my house. I didn't know whether they could see me looking, and I pulled myself away from the window for just a few seconds to make sure. But even when I was sure they weren't able to see me, I could still tell they were glaring at my home.

It wasn't the same hungry glare anymore. I'd almost caution as to say it was like the wicked witch of the west telling Dorothy "I'll get you my pretty! And your little dog too!". But instead of cartoonish villainy, they were looking at me with pure, evil intent that I couldn't possibly fathom.

I plopped myself on the nearby couch, and I almost reflexively curled into a ball.

"This sucks!" I whispered.

It did. I mean, I think I'd call this the worst day of my life. Or maybe every day after this will be somehow worse, and anybody who speaks to me will be, at the point that they do, talking to me when it's the worst day of my life.

First off, it's not every day you learn about the flippin' ALIENS! I mean, I was expecting little green men, and instead it's brain slugs that wanna take our souls, as he so described it as. Brain slugs that had taken the souls of millions of other creatures already before they had come here.

And one of the only races they hadn't taken? One had given him Pandora's Box, both figuratively and literally, and basically told him "avenge meeeeeeeee!". Yeah, real great those good aliens are, huh?

"Is this how you feel?" I asked nobody in particular.

I honestly felt like I failed him. I always told my nephew that he could always come speak to me, that he didn't need to hide anything from me. And somehow, that made him hide more from me, as if telling him that opening up to me and that I was trustworthy just made him keep it from me more.

I almost felt like screaming at him last night, hell I almost felt like screaming now. I had listened patiently and calmly as he admitted to killing people, to killing cops! He admitted to killing a member of city council, to killing another child! And all that had just been the tip of the iceberg.

Hey, I wanted to whale on the pigs once in a while like any other person, and everybody says they want to off their least favorite politicians. But listening to the boy I thought of as my own son saying, with a face like he had taken a cookie from the cookie jar, that he had ended somebody's life? I felt sick to my stomach at hearing it.

And the reason why, as crazy as it all seemed, it made sense once he showed me everything. The weapon (which he didn't demonstrate, thankfully), the power he was given which was just so damn terrifying to look at and I had serious doubts that it didn't hurt. All of it just clicked.

People at work acting creepy and trying to get me to join a club even when I've said no? Aliens!

Neighbors cornering me at my mailbox, acting creepy and trying to get me to join a club? Aliens!

Police stopping me, claiming it was by mistake, but then suddenly acting all creepy and touting about some club? I think you get the flippin' picture, 'cause it's flippin' aliens!

Every time I was followed, every time somebody spoke to me about The Sharing, every time my strange co-workers were creeping around my office, it was all them. Those times when I knew I was being followed home, but couldn't see anybody, it was probably some other alien thing they had taken over.

I felt a shudder run through me as I thought it over. Everybody around me could be out to get me. People from my job, people who I thought were friends, they could simply be waiting to pounce, to betray me and hurt my family.

Then I remembered Reese. My Reese's Pieces, he was the one they really wanted. They only wanted Aaron and I so they could get to him. And they were ready to send a pack of alien monsters to kidnap all of us, to cut out the middle man just because they were so damn impatient.

I remember how I had said I was going to tell Reese, that I couldn't keep this from him. Aaron begged me not to, saying that he didn't need his uncle to worry. I had made a compromise, that as long as Aaron didn't come out his door until I said so, I'd think it over for the rest of the day.

I think it helped that Reese was doing god knows what for Peter Ludlow for what might be the entirety of the next week.

I wished I really knew what had gone through my nephew's head. I mean, I knew half of what it was like by now, hell I would probably understand within a week. But to have been so scared, so alone that he couldn't even trust me? To trust us? What could have happened, what could he have seen that was horrible enough to make him feel that way?

I jumped off the couch when I realized asking myself those questions wouldn't give me answers. I had to ask the boy himself why he truly wouldn't tell me. I had to just go up the stairs and truly confront him, and maybe get him to just do something about the awful feeling in my gut.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I could hear music. Not strange, obviously. Teen boys listen to music, Aaron likes listening to it when he's doing homework because it helps him unwind in case he starts to get stressed. It's a normal thing.

So most likely, he was listening to music while laying in bed and not doing anything in particular.

"The beat was goin' strong! Playin' my favorite song! An' I could tell it wouldn't be long-"

I put my head up to the door, listening for any noise over the music. None, of course, so he might not be doing anything at all like I had thought.

"Singin', I love Rock n' Roll! So put another dime in the jukebox baby! I love Rock n' Roll! So come an' take your time an' dance with me!"

Maybe I had been too hard on him. I was overwhelmed by the situation, but I knew I had no idea how he felt. Maybe if we just had an actual talk, right now, it would fix things. And we could figure out something to handle...well, everything.

I opened the door…

And found nothing. He was most definitely not in his room.

...He had snuck out. Not strange, obviously. Teenagers sneak out all the time, it's a normal thing. Aaron wasn't supposed to sneak out of his room, which made me very mad. Which meant he was in BIG TROUBLE MISTER!

I went to shut off his walkman, only to suddenly feel the draft in the room. I saw the window, open enough that a small animal might be able to get in. I let an annoyed huff escape my lips, and after cutting the music off, moved to close it.

Before I could even do that, something suddenly flew right inside, straight into me.

"EEEP!"

‹GAAH! What the fuck?!›

I leapt back as a small, fur-covered winged creature jumped away from me, landing on the bed. I had met it before, Terry-no, except it wasn't the Pterodactyl my husband had made through cloning, as weird as it was to say that entire sentence. I knew now, from the telepathy, that it was Aaron.

‹Aunt Jenna, the hell?!›

"Language!" I shrieked.

‹Keep your voice down! And close that window, damn it!›

He said that last part just to spite me, I just knew it.

I closed the window, and gave him a very pointed look. "You were not supposed to leave your room-"

‹No, you said, and I quote, "young man, you are not to exit through your door until the day is over and I have thought this through". So really, you should have been more specific,› the pterosaur-boy-pterosaur who was actually a boy, whichever, he flapped his wings in indignation. ‹All I did was morph and fly out the window. So I haven't done anything wrong.›

"That does not make it better! I wanted you to stay in your room, and you deliberately disobeyed my wishes!"

‹Well, I'm sorry, but I am now responsible for making sure seven living, sapient creatures are not captured by The Tommyknockers!› he let out an angry squawk as he turned to face me. ‹And as somebody who hasn't even had a damn goldfish at any point during his life, I feel a bit stressed about making sure they stay safe.›

"People are not goldfish!"

‹Maybe having one would have helped me?!› he hissed as he began to "demorph", as he referred to it. ‹Would have given me the valuable life skills to prepare me for it!›

It was so ugly to look at. He had shown me how he had morphed into a cat before, it was a disturbing thing to look at, and I felt sick watching it happen. But he had said he never felt pain when it happened, just some minor itching and feelings of discomfort at certain points.

First, the fuzz on his body began falling out in clumps, where it went to I didn't know, it seemed to dissolve into nothing before it even hit the floor. His torso expanded and recolored itself to the same as his clothes, and I could see his arms and long fingers shrinking and realigning themselves back to their normal appearance. The creepiest part was seeing all that skin that had made up the wings receding into nothing, it was like watching something pull them into a compartment that didn't exist.

He started to get bigger, and his legs soon shifted and bent back to their normal shape in the most distressing of ways. I could see his feet melting back together, his claws receding back into normal toenails as the toes themselves seemed to mold back into shape like clay. The weirdest part was that for a couple of seconds, he had what looked like a mix between his human face and the pterosaur's head, toothy beak and crest still protruding from the area where his mouth and nose were even though they were visibly shrinking.

Even after he was finally back to being a boy, he still had a few lingering traits that remained for just a single moment. His eyes were wide and bright orange for only the briefest second before they returned to their normal size and baby blue color.

I sat back on his desk chair in exasperation. "Aaron, sweetie, I just...I don't know if I can take this…"

"Aunt Jenna-"

"This, this is whelmed," I stood to my feet and held my flattened hand to my waist. I then raised my hand to my head. "This is overwhelmed!" I then held my hand as high above my head as I could manage. "And this is where my ass is!"

I sat back down, inwardly flinching at his guilty look.

"I...I didn't want to tell you…"

"Why not? What was the benefit of not telling me or your uncle?"

"If they realized you knew, if they figured out that you caught on, they'd send a pack of Hork-Bajir in here and capture us," he said weakly.

"Hork-Bajir? W-What, what are those?"

"They're the reptoids. They look sorta like Dinosaurs, but their bodies look a bit like a monkey's. They're huge, and they're covered in spikes and blades, which hurt like a bitch," the way he said told me all I needed to know about his experience with it. Aaron shook his head tiredly as he looked at me. "They're their shock troops. The Yeerks send them at stuff when they need muscle."

"So, they're bad then?"

"No, they're good! The Andalite, Elfangor, he said they're good, a-and…" he remained silent for several seconds before finding his voice again. "I talked to one, just before while I was out."

"You talked to one?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah, they can talk! I think all the aliens can talk. The Hork-Bajir, he talked like a five-year-old, I think they're all on the same level of intelligence as one. I even got into this circular argument like what you'd get into with a kindergartner. And he said himself they're herbivores," Aaron clenched his fists angrily. "They took herbivores who aren't any smarter than a child, and they turned them into weapons."

"...You shouldn't be putting yourself through this," I said lowly after a pregnant pause.

"And who else is going to?!" he cried out, standing to his feet. "Because there were five other kids, who are probably dead now if the Blue Meanie's past tense was right, and I'm the one who has the storb. What else am I supposed to do?!"

"Go to the police?!"

"I already told you they're in the police! They're on my school's board, they're in the private sector, they have corporations on lock, they've got the state government in their palm, they'll probably have the entire FBI by the end of the week!"

"Get the secret service involved or something?!"

"Oh, so you want me to give them the president?!" he said angrily. "Oh, that's wonderful! Mr. President, brand new delivery for ya! Oh, what is it? Just slavery, nothin' too big!"

"Aaron, you have to think about this reasonably-"

"There is no reason here, Aunt Jenna!" he choked out. "I asked one, I asked him "why?" and he got confused. I told him that sapient beings like Humans, like the Hork-Bajir, didn't deserve to be locked in cages or treated like property, they didn't deserve to have their free will stolen from them. Do you know how it responded?"

"Aaron…" I felt my mouth turning dry.

"It told me that that didn't matter! It said that they didn't care whether it was wrong, that they didn't deserve it! That the words meant nothing to them, that all they cared about was that they had a host. That's all they referred to them as, "host", with the words "my" included. We're to be nothing but property to them."

"Stop! I get it, alright! You can stop now, Aaron!" I sobbed out. "I get it! But you still could have told me! You said I met their leader?! That would be some nice information to have known!"

"What, I'm supposed to tell you that I watched that Trent dude eat somebody and make a cheesy one liner about it like it was the greatest joke in the world?" he let out a tired huff and ran a hand through his hair. "He's planning to kidnap you, by the way. I don't have confirmation, but there's no fuckin' way he isn't going to get a bunch of Controllers to take you when you go to meet him."

Controllers. That was the word Aaron used for them. Apparently they called themselves that as well, from what he told me. So when he said that they were treating people like property, he wasn't lying.

"You could have told me. You could have told us," I sobbed weakly. "You've always come to us with your problems."

Aaron stood to his feet with an almost wild look in his eyes, shoulders raised almost like the hackles of an angry dog.

"Since when?!"

I gave him an almost dumb look through my teary eyes. "What do you mean by that? You've always been able to talk to us. You're always open about things-"

"Do you even know who you're talking to?!" he hissed. "When have I ever done that? When have I ever told you my problems?! Never! I never burdened you with that!"

I felt my jaw drop at this. "Aaron, you've never bottled things up before-"

"No! That's the exact opposite of what I do! I "bottle up" every last issue in my life! I deal with my shit on my own!" he growled angrily. He held up his hand, and began counting his fingers. "I hide the fact that I've never had any actual friends and I feel lonely! I hide the fact that people seem to just wanna punch me every time we move to a new place even though I go out of my way to not piss anybody off! I hide the fact that I hate that I've never had a girl who isn't you so much as hold my hand!"

"Aaron-"

"No, you wanted to hear me tell you things?! How bout I hate that Uncle Reese brought back the fucking dinosaurs! I think that he's a lunatic for doing something so dangerous! And that Wu guy is a megalomaniac who knows he's playing god!"

"Aaron-"

"You wanna hear all the stuff I bottle up, huh?! How about this?! I can't get over the fact that a fire burned my parents alive in our home and left my older sister in a coma! That's something I still have a fucking issue with!"

I couldn't even find my voice. The way he screamed some of those things, the rage in his voice was almost suffocating. The wild look in his eyes faded slightly and his shoulders lowered just a bit.

"I'm scared, Aunt Jenna," he said firmly. "Everyday, I'm scared of what might happen when I walk through the front door. I'm scared of who or what might come through it. I just didn't want you or Uncle Reese to feel the same way…"

"You don't have to put yourself through this! This shouldn't be something you have to do!" I cried out.

"You think so?! You really think so?!" Aaron's eyes started to turn wild again as he charged towards his closet. The door slammed into the wall as he threw it open, and he began digging through the contents of it. "You want me to stop?! Fine, I'll stop if you do one thing for me!"

Then he slammed it onto his desk. It was a blue cube, large enough that Aaron could barely keep his hand around it. At the edges were a series of small runes, but the faces remained completely blank. The cube itself glowed warmly, clearly holding some power within.

"There! There's the Cosmic Box! You figure out how it works! Then, you break into InGen, find the biggest dinosaur there, acquire it, and you fight them!" he growled angrily. "Until you do that, you don't have any right to tell me that I don't have to do this! Because I have to do this now! I killed people! I failed to save people, and they're dead because of my failure! This is a hole that's too deep, and now that I've fallen in I can't get out!"

I could feel my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping in the air. I couldn't find a way to respond to him. I could only stare at the cube with a look of mute shock.

When I finally found my voice again, I went straight back to crying. "I...I don't know what to do!"

I felt arms around me. He was hugging me close, I could feel him pressing my head to his chest.

"I'm sorry for yelling," he said tiredly.

"No, no, I'm not mad. I'm just...all of it is finally crashing down on me, and I don't know how to deal with it!" I sobbed out. "I don't know what to do!"

"...Live," was all he said.

"W-What?"

"Just live," he said again, now flashing me a shaky smile. "Don't try to act too differently, but try to be careful. Just do all you can to get through the day," he ran a hand through his hair, a tired sigh escaping his lips as he did so. "That's how I've managed, at least."

I stared at him for a few seconds, before letting out a small chuckle. "That's...awful. You've been struggling with this all on your own…"

"I...I just wanted to protect you."

"I know! I know sweetie, and that's very sweet of you," I said gently. "But even if you have to do this, you don't have to keep that weight on your shoulders all by yourself. Understand?"

"I...thanks, Aunt Jenna," Aaron looked like he was on the verge of tears. "I didn't know I needed to hear that. I'm sorry, I should have thought it over and said something, but I just got so…"

"It's alright," I said. "Just...from now on, please don't hide anything from me, alright?"

"Alright...and, can you please not tell Uncle Reese?" he almost bounced on a single foot, he looked so nervous. "I feel like he already has enough on his plate, and I'm worried this will overwhelm him."

"Yeah, I'd imagine it would...I'll have to think about it some more," I tilted my head and gave him a slight deadpan look. "Also, you're grounded for a week."

"Damn!" he growled, although I could see he was smiling slightly and his growl sounded more like a chuckle. "Yeah, that sounds about right though…"

"Now, you gave me the crash-course last night, right? Can you tell me everything? From start to finish, please?"

Aaron visibly chewed the inside of his cheek at this, giving the cube a nervous look from the corner of his eye. After a few seconds of this, he sighed tiredly and sat back onto his bed with a grunt.

"Okay, so it starts with that night I went to the construction site. I took a shortcut there after I saw a bunch of kids go in before me, and then I saw this bright light in the sky…"

---

Tobias

As I stood on the perch Cassie had left out, I remembered how much I had taken basic hygiene for granted.

I couldn't wash my hands anymore, of course I didn't really have hands to wash either, but the point still stood. My arms were covered in quite a bit of gunk from flying through the forests, and of course the jokes about swallowing bugs weren't too far off. So being able to wash my hands, or even just take a shower, would have felt like heaven.

I wondered if I was overthinking it. I mean, preening myself like I was doing now, it wasn't too awful. I could feel the hawk's mind confidently poking my-its beak where it needed to go. The hawk dug out whatever dirt and debris it needed to get out of its feathers.

Right now, we were all meeting in Cassie's barn, thankfully her dad was busy with an off-site patient. That gave us all the time that we needed to go over what we knew, what information we had gathered.

Between all of us...it wasn't much.

"So we don't have anything from Chapman?" Jake asked.

"Obviously not! We can't just chance it again," Rachel said.

As she leaned back against the wall of the barn, I could tell she wasn't too pleased about the entire scenario. She had wanted to go back, not just a second time but a third. Whatever had happened, whatever she saw her friend go through, it changed something in her.

"Let's just break into his office and snoop around on his computer," Marco suggested. "Hey, we could even change our grades while we're at it."

"That's terrible…" Cassie said quietly. "N-Not the computer part! That might be a good idea, actually...but changing your grades? You'd get caught."

"Not if you do it discreetly," the dark-haired boy smirked. "See, all I have to do is make it just a little bit higher than the grade I had before, and Chapman wouldn't suspect a thing."

Rachel rolled her eyes and snorted. "Shut up Marco!"

"Hey, this is all very hard work. You can't get good grades and make the girls go nuts when you're so busy saving the world."

"Yeah, the girls will go nuts alright. Just hearing you talk would make them go mad," Rachel chuckled.

"Anything else?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, I think the Yeerks are up to something…" Cassie pulled out a leaflet and handed it to Jake.

Jake took a look at it, and frowned. "This is that big charity event being held by The Sharing? Tom mentioned we were all invited."

"It's also being sponsored by GammaCorp. They're a technology company, one of the biggest out there," she said. "GammaCorp is even holding the event at their headquarters."

She left the idea unspoken. The Yeerks had their claws in GammaCorp, and they were using it to manufacture more of their own technology. And the charity event wasn't even about the company itself, but rather about increasing membership for The Sharing, even by forcefully inviting people in.

"So, that'll be easy. Tom said Rachel and I were invited, and we could bring friends. So you and Marco come with us, and Tobias follows closeby-"

"It's not just about GammaCorp," Cassie said firmly, "Remember Aaron? The new kid at school I made friends with?"

"Yeah, I remember," Jake said stiffly, some jealousy dripping into his voice.

"Oh yeah, I remember A-plus too!" Marco said happily. "Yeah, what does he have to do with this?"

"This is what he has to do with it," Cassie said, pulling an object from her pocket and throwing it at Marco.

The dark-haired boy caught it in his hands, and turned it over cautiously. It was a round object, bright red and shiny, with little green leaves sticking out of the top. As Marco squeezed and tapped it experimentally, I realized exactly what I was looking at.

‹It's a tomato!›

"Yes, it's a tomato," Cassie said proudly.

"Why did you throw me a tomato? And why does this one feel so...so…" Marco blinked as Jake pulled the tomato from his hand.

After a few experimental squeezes and taps of his own, Jake stared at the fruit in shock. "How long ago did you get this?"

"My parents bought an entire bag of those a couple of weeks ago."

"Shouldn't they have rotted by then?" Rachel asked incredulously.

Cassie gave the fruits an almost unsure look. "Not these ones. They're the tomatoes created by International Genetic Technologies. Or InGen, for short."

"Oh yeah! I remember now!" Marco took the tomato back from Jake and began turning it over, a smile tugging at his lips. "So, at lunch a few weeks back, I met Aaron. He said his uncle works at InGen, and then the other guy, Stevie, said that they made these tomatoes."

"They're tomatoes that were genetically modified to stay riper and firmer for longer than a normal tomato. That way, they have an increased shelf life," Cassie sounded unhappy as she explained it. "Aaron said his uncle made a species of salmon that grows to full size at over three times the rate normal salmon do."

"There's also some conspiracy about them bringing back the dinosaurs, but that's plain ridiculous," Marco said absentmindedly as he examined the tomato. "Wow, if you told a bad joke and got one of these thrown at you, you might end up getting a black eye."

"Then it's a good thing nobody else here has to worry about that, Marco," Rachel said with a wink.

"Go back a bit! You said they brought back the dinosaurs?!" Jake wheezed out.

"No, that's just a conspiracy theory made by a mathematician with a dead career," Marco shrugged. "Or at least, that's what the conspiracy theorist had said. And when you hear a conspiracy theorist guy calling some other conspiracy theorist's conspiracy theory crazy, then you know it's pretty bad."

‹So no dinosaurs then? Damn!›

"Would have been helpful," Rachel groaned.

"Even without the dinosaur rumors, this is still something that has gotten the attention of the Yeerks at least," Jake frowned slightly and turned back to Cassie. "How big is InGen?"

"They've basically cornered the market on GMOs and biotech. The Yeerks probably want them for the former," Cassie quickly mirrored Jake's frown, her brows furrowed in confusion as she thought it over. "What would they want a genetics company for?"

"You said biotech too, didn't you? What if there was...a way to just prevent a host from fighting back? Like with Chapman a week ago."

The others went pale. I couldn't do the same, obviously, but I felt my shoulders sagging just a bit at hearing that.

‹Not just using biotech to keep people from fighting back, either. Some people can be born with physical or mental disabilities, right?› I tilted my head when the others turned to look at me. ‹Those would also be connected to their genes. Humans don't mess with Human genes, we made laws for it. But the Yeerks wouldn't care, they'd want to weed out any imperfections in their hosts, not just Humans either.›

"...Crushing a Taxxon is easy," Rachel said after a few seconds of silence. "While I was an Elephant a while back, I crushed one under foot. It was like crushing a soggy paper bag."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Marco said with disgust. "So you crushed a big bug? A real man could do it ten times better."

"I'll make sure to ask one if I ever see him then," Rachel chuckled. Her expression quickly turned sour, and she cut off the boy's whines of protest before they could even begin. "What I'm saying is, if InGen was able to do all that to a tomato and a fish, what would the Yeerks do with that power? Would they make it so that Taxxons have skin harder than rocks? Could they just make Hork-Bajir have sharper blades?"

From the looks of everybody else, it was definitely hitting a bad note for them. In fact, it was starting to sound like a terrifying prospect. The Yeerks were already hard enough to fight as is, but if they suddenly souped up their hosts with more powerful genes from a test tube, we might never be able to fight them.

And that isn't even getting into what Visser Three would have put in some of his new morphs if he got control of InGen. With the DNA of monsters from other worlds, they could create some super-monster by combining all of their most terrifying traits.

"Yeah, that'd be bad. That'd be really bad," Marco said nervously. "That'd be it man. Game over man, game over. What do we do?"

"Calm down!" Jake said firmly. "I still don't understand how a charity event being run by The Sharing, at GammaCorp headquarters, has anything to do with the Yeerks getting their hands on InGen."

"Because Aaron's aunt works for a company that provides catering and assistance in hosting these kinds of events," Cassie hissed. "Her company is working on the event. She's working the event, and she's going to be meeting with one of the higher-ups of The Sharing. And they're going to infest her to get to Aaron's uncle. They've been trying to get Aaron too."

"...Have they?" Jake asked.

‹I've seen him being followed,› I said. Jake gave me a wide-eyed look, and I felt a sigh escaping my beak as I continued. ‹I may have stalked him...just a bit. I've seen some known Controllers and people we once saw at The Sharing following him closely. Same with his aunt.›

"Have they risked breaking their cover? Just for one family?"

‹Some of them have almost risked it. The only one who really got close is Chapman, but he's pulled back on it,› I flapped my wings slightly as a low noise escaped me. ‹Three of their neighbors are Controllers. One is directly next door to them.›

"So, somebody needs to be on protection duty then?" Jake wondered aloud.

Everybody looked at me.

‹Of course...› I shook my head. ‹I'll keep a lookout until everything has passed. He might be going to the event too, so there's that.›

"Is there anything else? Cause unless the Yeerks are taking over McDonalds or something, we should pack it in," Marco said tiredly.

‹Actually, I think I might have something.›

The rest of The Animorphs looked at me in confusion.

‹Remember how I said I was sure there was somebody else at the construction site that night?›

"Yeah, you said it a million times bird-boy!" Marco sounded tired of hearing it. "Your argument is that the Andalite went off to a spot further away, you thought you saw somebody pop their head from a hole in the ground, and you thought you saw somebody throw metal rebars at a bunch of the Controllers there which accidentally started a frenzy among the big bugs. All of it comes with the keyword "thought"."

"Yeah Tobias, I still think it's pretty hard to believe," Jake said unsuredly.

‹Well, now I know I wasn't hearing things. Last night, while I was flying home, I saw something flying near the mall. And they were using thought-speak.›

Everybody perked up at this.

"You're sure you heard somebody using thought-speak?" Jake looked at me incredulously, "that you saw somebody in morph? How could you be sure?"

‹I'm pretty sure. I heard their voice, they sounded like a kid around our age.›

"What did they say?" Cassie leaned down to look me in the eye. "Did they say anything to you specifically?"

‹That's the thing, I don't think they knew they were broadcasting. All they said was "woohoo", but like really loud and excited, like-›

"Like they were flying…" Rachel said blanky.

"For the very first time," Marco finished.

It wasn't hard to figure out what they meant. When all of us had taken our aerial morphs and used them for the first time, it had been something else. Words just couldn't properly describe it, no matter how hard you tried.

I might have an easier time explaining it then the others did, though...

"Alright, alright! I submit, oh great wise bird!" Marco got on his knees and began prostrating himself, bowing like he was facing the pharaohs of old. "Never again shall I doubt your great wisdom, oh great wise bird! He who is named "Tobias", I concede that you were right!"

"Shut up Marco!" Rachel hissed.

"Did you see what he was morphed as?" Cassie asked.

‹No, not really. It was some flying thing, something about as big as a goose, but I couldn't get a good look at it since he was going so fast. I almost thought it was an owl, actually.›

"A really big owl? That would explain the time," Cassie mused. "But then, you say you almost thought it was an owl? Which means you positively identified it as something else?"

‹Yeah. Last night was a full moon, and he was flying close to the mall, so I was able to get a good look. I don't think owls normally have big glowing red eyes that look like they're in their torsos.›

"You said it was a "he"?" Jake asked. When I nodded, he cupped a hand to his chin. "Ah, right, you said he thought-spoke. So he's probably a guy...did you see where he went?"

‹No, I didn't, sorry...› I noticed Jake's annoyed look, and let out a low hiss, ‹well I'm sorry, okay! These eyes are good during the day, but they suck at night. The only reason I was able to see some of what he was morphed into was because of the lights from the mall, the full moon didn't help me track him any better after that.›

"But you lost him not too far away from the mall, right?" when I nodded, Rachel shrugged. "Okay, then that narrows it down, doesn't it? We just gotta start looking for any kids nearby who have used the construction site as a shortcut before the Yeerks closed it down."

"Oh, sure, let's just go and ask everybody in school!" Marco put his hand up to his ear like he was making a phone call, and mimed Chapman's voice. "Hey, Visser! There are these kids in the school asking about that construction site. They yours? No? Hork-Bajir squad it is then!"

"Obviously not that!" Jake said gently. "But, we can't just let this slide. This kid could help us-"

‹He might already have.›

Everybody turned to look at me once again.

"What do you mean he already has?!" Jake asked.

‹Because I remember the direction where he flew from, at least in relation to the mall. Early this morning, I flew out that way to check,› I shook myself, shedding a couple of feathers and ruffling others as a shudder ran through me, ‹I saw this abandoned gas station, there were Hork-Bajir and other Controllers guarding it.›

"What does that mean? Why would the Yeerks need to guard an abandoned gas station?" Cassie wondered aloud.

Jake's eyes lit up when he realized what it meant. "Yeerk Pool! The gas station was an entrance to the Yeerk Pool!"

‹That's what I got too,› I bobbed my head in confirmation. ‹The Controllers there were talking. They mentioned something about a "Rogue Andalite" that wasn't with the others. Said he charged down in some morph they couldn't recognize, stole some Dracon Beams, gave them to people in the cages, and then distracted the Controllers down there long enough for the people to bust out and fight.›

"He did that?! This guy sounds awesome!" Marco all but squealed as he shook excitedly. "What was he morphed into? They said they couldn't recognize it, right? Was he a Sasquatch?"

"...Is that a thing?" Rachel asked. "There are Sasquatches? I want a Sasquatch!"

"There aren't Sasquatches!" Cassie groaned. "I think my parents and I would have seen one by now if there were."

"Unless that's just what the Sasquatches want you to think!" Marco laughed.

"Hey, let's forget about the Sasquatches! Right now, I don't care what the guy was morphed into," Jake snapped his fingers at me. "What else do you have?"

‹Well, Visser Seven-›

"The elf guy?!" Marco cried out.

"Shut up Marco!"

‹Visser Seven tried to fight him off. So he took one of his subordinates and dropped her into the Yeerk Pool.›

"So? She takes a nice dip in the grey smoothie, and they have to fish her out," Marco shrugged in confusion. "I don't see the problem here."

"Marco, remember the last time we were near a Shuldidnian?" Cassie said darkly.

I think it was hard to forget. It had only been a week since we had tried to infiltrate Chapman's home, and it was disastrous. Rachel had, stupidly mind you, neglected to tell us that the first time she went in, Visser Three saw her and immediately ordered her to be killed for fear she was an Andalite.

Obviously, the second time he saw her when Chapman communicated with him, he had put his foot down. Chapman brought her, and Jake (who had morphed into a flea and hid on her), to the Andalite-Controller.

When Visser Three came out of his ship, some elf-like humanoid aliens had followed along with several other controllers. One big orange eyes and rose-gold skin, and the other had purple eyes and copper skin, both of them had hair of differing shades of red and their skin was literally metallic in appearance. We had thought nothing of them, just that it was another alien species the Yeerks had.

Jake had gotten away from Rachel for a while, long enough to morph tiger, while everybody else was ready as a bird to fly down. The plan was simple, distract the Yeerks, get Rachel, get out. We hadn't looked for a fight then.

When Jake charged at the Controllers, it was made clear really quick that the tiger alone wasn't gonna cut it. Marco had to fly off and morph gorilla to back him up, just to have a chance at survival.

Why?

Well, it turns out that Shuldidnians could control the fucking elements. The gold-skinned one simply snapped his fingers to create fire, like a match. The copper-skinned one shot lightning out of his hands and made it dance around like a tesla coil, which struck Cassie at one point and almost dropped her to the ground had I not been there to catch her.

And when they weren't making fire or lightning, they were using psychic powers. Marco and Jake were practically flung into each other at one point when one used his ESP movement power thing to throw the gorilla back.

Plus, Visser Three morphing into that giant rock beast had only made things worse. Rachel had barely gotten away from him by herself, and she had barely gotten away in time before she had gone past the two hour limit.

By the end of it all, Jake was covered in burns and smoke, and his tail had been burned to the stump. Before he demorphed, Jake had described it as the most painful thing he had ever experienced. Marco had barely managed to demorph, he had been so jittery Cassie had a lot of trouble talking him through it. Marco had asked if that's what being put through a taser had been like. No joke, no one-liners, just genuine shock, and I hate myself for describing it as that, but he clearly was shocked both in the emotional and literal sense by the event.

I think, if I were to make a good analogy between the Yeerks and their forces, I could use a fantasy setting to paint the picture.

The Human-Controllers were their archers and scouts, they were resourceful and decently fast, able to get into places their other creatures couldn't. The Hork-Bajir were their warriors, their shock troops that they kept at the front lines, and that would make the Taxxons their berserkers, the fighters who went at their opponents with a frenzy like no other.

I suppose, then, that would make the Shuldidnian-Controllers their mages or wizards.

"Was it lightning or fire?" Marco asked nervously.

‹Sounded like lightning, since all the Yeerks in the pool were zapped.›

"He had to have been zapped too, right?" Jake asked.

‹And he was still kicking, yeah. The people in the cages he gave Dracon Beams to broke a lot of the hosts out, human or otherwise, and they all started fighting. It must have been total chaos down there.›

"So what stopped him? Why aren't there a bunch of freed humans walking around right now?" Rachel hissed angrily.

‹What stopped all of us the last time?› I noticed the looks on their faces, and sighed. ‹Yeah, Visser Three showed up. So now there are a bunch of missing people, who the people around town will ask questions about. But hey, the Yeerks were set back a lot by it.›

"Did anybody get out?" Jake asked firmly.

I flinched internally. ‹Was Tom-›

"No, I saw him at dinner last night…"

‹Like I said, Visser Three showed up. Most of the people who were freed were killed like the last time,› I tilted my head in though. ‹B-But I think some people might have gotten out. Some of the Controllers I eavesdropped on said seven got away. And when I was flying around the place, I thought I saw smoke from a fire.›

"So this guy, he had no idea what he was doing. He charged into the Yeerk Pool, stole some weapons, gave them to people in cages and told them to free themselves," Jake frowned as he thought the entire story over. "Then he went ham on the Yeerks, fought a Visser with a host that produces fire as an attack, fought that Visser's subordinates who have hosts with lightning attacks, and then he used one of those subordinates to kill all the Yeerks in the pool by dumping her in it and electrocuting them. The people in the cages freed themselves, Visser Three showed up and killed most of them, but this guy managed to get seven of them out. Is that all what I'm hearing?"

‹That's about the gist of it, at least what I got.›

"Again, this guy sounds awesome!" Marco cried out.

"This guy sounds like a fucking lunatic!" Jake cried out at the same time.

"Wait, what?!"

"Think about it! He went down there by himself, nearly got himself killed, and got over a hundred other people killed as well," Jake let out an exasperated groan. "He's a certified lunatic. What he did, it barely counts as a win."

"He probably pushed their invasion back by almost a year," Cassie piped up. When all eyes turned to her, she shrunk back just a bit. "T-That is, if they weren't prepared for this."

"They probably have some sort of backup plan for this," Jake shook his head. "Even when we do find him, I think we should tread carefully. He's obviously extremely dangerous, and he's somehow a bigger idiot than Marco."

"He's a loose cannon! He doesn't let anybody boss him around!" Marco sing-songed.

"Shut up Marco!" Rachel hissed.

Jake snorted, but his eyes remained semi-serious. "Seriously, who in the world would think that the sort of plan he came up with was a good idea?"

---

Wu

"Achoo!"

Oh dear, it looks like I'm catching a cold.

Or maybe it was just the stuffy air conditioning in my office. I couldn't quite tell. I might not have noticed any problems while I was getting the files I needed for this next meeting, but I could always investigate later.

I've been so busy dealing with the security division as of late that I wasn't in the mood to bring it to upper management. Sure, plenty of them might bend over backwards to make sure their golden goose was taken care of. But to Ludlow, it had been pretty obvious that I had worn out my welcome.

That man, he had quickly moved on to the newer talent and dug his teeth in like a leech finding a new meal.

I didn't hate Reese, well, personally at least I didn't hate him, professionally I could say otherwise. But even I felt disgusted for his sake, because that greedy Ludlow only cared about the bottom line. And he was willing to hold the stability and happiness of Reese's own family over his poor head just to ensure the bottom line was held up.

Speaking of which…

When I entered the security room, every security guard left to perform their nightly rounds. Most of the ACU team had gone home...save for one.

"Lucien," I said blankly.

"Henry! So glad you could join me," the head of InGen Security sent me a beaming smile. "So let's get to talking…"

Lucien was a man with a tall build. He had dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, and a dark stubble lining his jaw. Currently, he was wearing the standard security uniform, with the addition of heavy body armor added in case of an event. The weapons at his side had live rounds, or like his stun baton, were heavily modified.

Nobody needed to ask why. Any who did need only look at the cameras beside me.

"So, Aaron made his move, correct?"

"That he did. Little munchkin charged down there as his biggest lizard and went to town. Apparently he ripped off Red Dawn too," Lucien shook his head tiredly. "Seems like he was trying to bust people outta the place. Wound up fighting Sauron and his two ringwraiths, then everything went tits-up there with the water, and all hell broke loose before Huckleberry Hound showed up and made some civvies into mush."

Translation?

Aaron had gone to the alien base as a Velociraptor, somehow arranged for the people in cages to have a means to escape, and started fighting. He fought several dozen Controllers, before fighting one of their leaders and then causing something to happen with the pool where the parasites were. Then, the caged Humans and other aliens freed themselves and started fighting by his side, before the one called "Visser Three" showed up and began killing off the freed slaves.

"Did anybody make it out?" I asked.

"About seven of 'em, I think. That's what we got from the one we drew and quartered, at least."

"And Aaron is fine?"

"Had some guys run by Reese's place. The boy is grounded, apparently the wife figured out."

So Jennifer knew now? That wasn't something I was expecting, but it didn't change the plans I had made.

"What do you think, Lucien?"

"I think the kid's a dumbass!" the man growled. "Any soldier I saw that pulled something like that off would be court-martialed."

"But Aaron isn't a soldier," I stated bluntly.

"Exactly! He's a kid, kid's are dumb and impulsive," he said angrily as he sat back on one of the chairs. "They ain't cut out for that kind of shit."

"Perhaps...or maybe Aaron has the makings of somebody who could pull a win off," I noticed Lucien's disgusted look, and decided to elaborate, "through my background checks and investigations into his personality, I've found that Aaron is a very kind person. He goes out of his way to help others because he can't help himself from doing so, he's very bright and intelligent, and despite his obliviousness towards it, he's apparently a catch with the girls his age. Despite this, I've seen that he's rather flawed. He often keeps his emotions to himself, rarely opening up to even the people he trusts, and he refuses to allow others to share the emotional weight he bears."

"So, wannabe tough guy, huh?"

"Not quite. He's dealt with very many tragedies since a young age," I handed Lucien the folder I had brought with me, opening it to a specific page. "Because of this, he's quite a bit more mature than other children his age, though these events clearly have contributed to his bottling of his stress and emotions."

"So, no dumb kid stuff for him, huh? No vidya games, or that two pack guy?"

"Aaron's interests aren't as mundane. Sure, he certainly enjoys pop culture elements, but his interests seem to lie in music and history," I hummed thoughtfully. "Apparently, the latter can get him talking for hours on end. They say those who take an interest in history do as such so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past."

"Get to your point, Wu!"

"I'm trying to say that Aaron is a very smart boy, that he won't repeat the incident he had last night," I gave Lucien a firm nod. "He'll do better. He'll be more careful, he'll most likely have an actual plan."

"He better…" the man growled. "The feds are gonna catch wind of this. And that means those slugs might have a ticket straight to the Commander-in-Chief's head."

"Obviously we would want to prevent that," I said blankly. "Aaron has made his presence known to them, and he'll more than likely become something they'll learn to fear-with our help, of course. We just need to keep to the planned schedule and adjust if necessary."

"Yeah, yeah, sure!" Lucien sighed tiredly, "by the way, Biosyn is setting up a branch nearby. And Lewis Dodgson is snooping around town."

"Is that so?"

Lucien scoffed loudly. "Do you even care?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Whatever…"

"So, tell me, which of these do you think would suit him best?" I motioned to the screens.

All across the screens, the animals we held in containment were displayed. From some of the slightly obscure creatures, to the more common beasts the mainstream were well acquainted with. And even a few were from the deepest depth of the past, ones that not even we had been prepared to handle.

"What were you planning to let him get his hands on?"

I tilted my head for a few seconds, before pointing to several smaller Theropods. "These ones! Dilophosaurus, Herrerasaurus, and Proceratosaurus," my eyes darted towards one of the cameras pointed towards a certain hallway. "I was also planning on leaving Lucy's office open and leaving one of the Compsognathus accessible."

"Pfft! You're really gonna give him the bottom of the barrel?"

"Starting him off small sounded like a good idea," I said curtly.

"Well guess what Henry, he ain't gonna appreciate the tiny ones. He's gonna want one of these," Lucien pointed to one of the larger Theropods.

It was one of the two Majungasaurs we had in containment. We had to keep them seperate, because the last time they were all in the same cell, there used to be three. We would rather there not be another "incident" with them.

"I'd rather not allow it just yet…" I said lowly. "You said it yourself, did you not? Regardless of my faith in him you weren't wrong about how he may be too impulsive. And I'm not sure I like the idea of a 13-year-old who can transform into a predator as big as an Elephant."

"Aww come on! Let the kid have something fun!" Lucien chuckled. Then he pointed to the one thing I wished he didn't point at. "Hey, why not let him get his hands on the Amalgam?"

I felt a frown settle on my face then and there. "I'd rather he not be anywhere near something that has 48% Allosaurus DNA," I gave Lucien a pointed look, "especially since there's no telling how the technology he's obtained will react to the Amalgam's full genetic code. It could cause problems for him."

"Alright, Alright!" the man held his hands up defensively. "So don't give him the Allosaur Amalgam, fine! But give him something big. Three big things to offset the three littler ones you're handing him."

"Tell me, what do you have in mind?"

Lucien stood to his feet, and leaned towards the monitors. He stared at the screens for several seconds, walking back and forth to get a better look at each of the creatures. Then his eyes settled on three different screens for a few seconds each, before he pointed to them.

"Those three! The one with the spikes, the one with the lumpy tail, and the sea monster!"

I looked at the animals he pointed to in befuddlement. "Are you serious? The Tylosaurus, I could most definitely understand, but the other two are herbivores-"

"And what do you think those are all for?" Lucien pointed to the two Ornithischians with a wide, predatory smile. "Just look at the big one. Almost as big as a Rex, ain't it?"

"A-Almost, yes-"

"And it's got them spikes on its thumbs. You think they're used for dick-measuring or something? No, the thing has them there for a reason," Lucien pointed to the other herbivore. "And this one, the smaller one. Still pretty big, comes up just past a Rex's knee. Well, those spikes and knobs and armor aren't for nothing. And that tail...wooo. That'll break a lot when it hits, won't it?"

"Quite, yes," I noted, remembering the one time we hadn't given it enough sedatives. "Perhaps you're right. From what our...informants?"

"War-prisoners we tortured!"

"Unwilling informants," I settled on. "From what they've told us, that technology and the ability that comes with it, it means that Aaron would be sharing his body with the instinctual mind of the animal he has shifted into," I cupped my chin in thought, "our Raptor is...was, severely deficient in mental health, not just due to our lackluster care, but also due to genetic hiccups that were accidentally inserted there through the Null Gene. It's more likely that he'll find it easier to control a herbivore than he would a carnivore, despite the instincts of a herbivore being more counterintuitive towards his intended goals."

"See? It'll work out for him if we give him those!"

"But why the Tylosaurus?! That's the worst idea I've ever heard!"

Lucien shrugged blithely. "He needs something that can swim. Any yuppy can walk into SeaWorld and pet a dolphin. But who'd ever pass the chance up for an actual sea monster?"

"I find your logic very disturbing…" I said tiredly.

As I took back the files, I noticed the drawing of a glowing cube. The label from R&R stated that this object held the mechanism that conferred the shapeshifting ability to others.

"Tell me, do you think he'd know where to find this?" I pointed to the drawing of the cube.

"Not a chance! That...what was it called? Ah, whatever, the Smurfs made em, and the last one had it on his ship. That got disintegrated, and then Huckleberry Hound ate the poor sunnuva bitch."

"Do you not think the Andalite could have gifted it to somebody before his passing?" I asked.

"Hmm...maybe? Doesn't seem possible, it probably got lost at that construction site."

"Then perhaps finding another Andalite may lead to us finding another cube," I mused.

"Hah! Yeah, I doubt there are any of the smurfs left on the planet…"

---

Out in the ocean

The creature I had captured was a strange thing.

It had a sleek body, shaped like a large oval that tapered off to a point at the back before keeling into a split tail with a long, raking vertical blade and a shorter one just beneath. The skin itself was blue and grey, but covered in black stripes, and when I had touched it, I found that it was covered in scales. When I touched the scales a certain way I found a rough texture which I soon found would draw blood.

Several large fins protruded from it. On its top-side, one large one just behind where its head met its back, which pointed upwards, and then one small one further away from that towards its tail. On its underside, two fins splayed out from just behind its head, and beneath the five gills that lined its neck, while three more jutted from the area just before its tail fin.

Its face was rather intimidating as well, if I were being honest with myself. I had stunned it with a Shredder because I had seen it chasing down what looked to be prey animals, so I could safely assume it was a predator. Even then, had I not seen it hunting I would have surely come to the same conclusion upon seeing its dreadful mouth. The rows of sharp, serrated teeth were endless, in fact it looked like new teeth were already growing in even after the current set were still in use.

That was compounded by the eyes. They were completely blank, devoid of proper expression and feeling. Yes, this being was indeed a predator, though I was obviously not familiar with it.

After acquiring it, I released the creature back into this earth water and stepped away from it. After a few minutes, the stun wore off, and the creature returned to swimming and hunting.

I sauntered off, unsure of what to do. I had acquired an earth creature only as a test, to see mostly if I could manage the Shredder, and to see if there was any chance I could escape. Elfangor had not taught me what to do in this situation, he had only told me to stay on the ship when the fighting had started.

I walked towards the edge of the enos ermarf, and slumped down to my haunches.

I wished he was here.

He would know what to do.

---

Somewhere in the woods, near the hometown of our heroes

‹Gafinilan, please. Just leave me...›

I looked back at him. I felt my primary eyes straying towards his tail-towards where it...no, I looked back to his face. I would not focus on that. I cared not for what he had become, only for who he was.

‹Mertil, we need to get going,› I said firmly, holding a hand out.

‹No! You can be useful,› Mertil moaned, looking back at his tail. ‹I am...vecol. You should be ashamed-›

‹Mertil!› I said firmly, trotting over to him and grabbing him by the shoulders. ‹Mertil, you are everything to me. I promised to be by your side, no matter what. Now come! We must get a move on!›

His four eyes stared up at me in shock. The lighter fur on his neck puffed up slightly as he began to sob.

‹Gafinilan...›

‹Mertil...let's get a move on, please,› I gave him a bright expression as I helped him to his feet. ‹I don't care about...about that, Mertil. I only care about you! Now please, come!›

With that, we began to flee through these earth woods. I knew that the moment our ship's cloaking device failed, they would start searching. We had already abandoned it, we couldn't afford to dawdle for any longer.

The only issue was what we did, where we could hide. I cautioned a thought towards finding out if any other had survived, but I shut it away. The Galaxy Tree had fallen into this world's ocean, there was no chance anybody had survived.

Two other ships, I think, had entered the atmosphere. One I had recognized, it was his ship. As much as I disliked him, I knew that if we could find him, he might be able to assist us…

---

Somewhere in the mountains near the hometown of our heroes…

‹Sister, what is going on?› I asked shyly. ‹P-Please, just come back into the pod. I am worried-›

‹Would you calm yourself?!› she cried out. ‹I am trying to figure out what is wrong. These pods were supposed to come with a way to communicate with the homeworld.›

‹Sister, please!› I cried out. ‹This is an alien planet which is being invaded by the Yeerks, our sworn enemies. Being on this planet will not end well!›

‹I am aware...›

‹I did not wish to be here, sister. I am very frightened.›

‹But did you not seem interested in imaging this world's wildlife, sister?› she said from outside the escape pod. ‹I could not simply leave you at home, by yourself. I had to take you with me.›

‹But this world is dangerous to be on. And that battle...› I felt the fur on my back standing on end as a shudder ran through me. ‹Sister, I wish to go home!›

The rustling outside the pod stopped.

Then she slowly stepped in. She was larger than I was, and her fur was a deeper shade of purple than my own, save for the fluffed tuft of pink fur just below her neck that I shared. Our parents had the same trait, and it always felt good to be reminded of them, as we never had much left.

‹I am sorry, my dear...› she said gently, giving me a sweet look with her eyes as she pulled me into a hug. ‹I knew that when they asked us to come, that something bad could happen. But, I just thought that we would be safe.›

I felt myself sobbing as I tried to compose myself. ‹Why must you always bring me along on these? The last time, we nearly ran afoul of an Antideon Bynar.›

‹I'm a reporter, sister,› she said gently. ‹It's my job. And this was a chance to speak to the war-hero, Elfangor, to let the people see him in action. I just...I felt like I couldn't pass this up. I'm sorry I didn't take your feelings on the matter into account, and if I had known all of this would happen, I would not have brought you.›

‹Sister...I...I'm sorry, I'm just so scared...›

‹It'll be alright,› she quickly exited the pod, and the rustling resumed. ‹I just need to figure out what's wrong with the communicator-YAOLIN!›

‹W-What?! What is wrong sister?!›

‹It's destroyed!› she moaned. ‹Everything connected to the communicator was destroyed! It must have happened when we landed.›

‹These pods are designed to land in tough conditions!› I cried out.

‹Well, obviously not tough enough!› she growled. ‹Seeing as we landed right on top of a mountain and bounced across it.›

‹Ah, that would explain a lot...so, that means we're not going home any time soon,› I felt myself shivering again as I held my front pair of legs close. ‹Which means that instead of being back at our scoop, we're out here in an alien world. Cold, alone, in danger of being captured by the Yeerks.›

‹It is not that bad-›

‹Yes, yes it is that bad, sister! Because who knows when they'll find us, and turn into the next set of Abominations! And this world smells of Flaar, of all things. Just what kind of horrible creatures exist here?!›

‹...You're still mad about how we got chased by that Bynar a year ago, aren't you?›

‹Sister!›

‹Calm down, calm down! I can figure things out. Just come out of the pod, please.›

‹No! I am staying inside, and you can not make me come out!›

‹The food supply in there is almost out.›

‹So?!›

‹There's grass out here. It's rather good.›

‹This world's grass could be poisonous!›

‹You say that about every world we go to!› she groaned. Then she entered the pod again, and began to forcefully pull me out. ‹Come! We're in an alien world with a semi-civilized species populating it. There's no possible way we're in danger up here.›

‹No! Let me go!›

‹Sister, just come...out...guh!›

And like that, we tumbled out of the pod. When I emerged into this "earth" air proper, I found it colder than the air in the pod. Perhaps that was because we were on a mountain, so the air was thinner.

When I saw this "earth" up close, I realized why my sister had stayed silent for much of her early moments outside of the pod after exiting it.

The mountainside itself was not like the ones of our homeworld. But it had its own beauty, one unique to this world alone, and it easily stood equal to our own.

The trees were fresh and green, covering the slopes with a bright emerald sheen that almost glowed in the early morning light. Some of the exposed stone loomed imposingly over us, the way it was shaped made it almost seem like it had been painstakingly carved into its impeccable state. Dripping down several of the mountain slopes, I could see pristine streams of earth water that glittered in the light of the earth star.

‹It's...wow...›

‹I know, right?! This world is just so lovely,› I could feel the sadness in my sister's voice. ‹It's a shame that they're here. What they'll do to this world...just like they'll do to so many others-›

‹That won't happen!› I said suddenly. ‹The fleet, they'll take care of it?›

‹What fleet? The one we came with? Most likely gone by now,› her voice was melancholy as she strode forward. ‹There may be survivors like us, but the Yeerks will be hunting us all the same.›

‹Then what do we do?› I asked quietly.

‹...We have to find Elfangor,› my sister said firmly. ‹He'll know what to do.›

‹But where would we even begin to look?!› I shrieked. ‹What, are we supposed to go to that earth population center down there...oh, there's an earth population center? I forgot I noticed that.›

‹The species of this world are called Humans, and it's called a city, dear sister,› I must have looked rather displeased, because she let out a small chuckle. ‹But yes, that Human city would be the best place to look.›

‹I believe that would be a poor decision!› I whined.

‹If you have a better idea, then I'd love to hear it, sister.›

I remained silent.

‹That is all the answer I need,› she said firmly, her gaze roaming over the Human population center. ‹That will be the area we investigate.›

I let out a tired sigh. ‹Just please tell me we'll be careful about it...›

And that's a wrap. I promise, I'll start to put in more amusing moments in this story, but I'm still planning out every other chapter from here, so bear with me.

Now then, onto the reviews.

Negima Uzumaki: No gigantic Sauropod morphs just yet, and the Animorphs themselves wont get dinosaur morphs for a long while until it's closer to the canon "twilight phase" of the story itself (so like, around books 38 to 42 or something). But I do have a sauropod planned for one of the Animorphs, just as all the other Animorphs have dinos line up to match that specific person and then some.

As always, lease leave any thoughts, questions, and constructive criticism in your reviews. And thank you for reading.