Colin
******




"So, the Yeerk pool is right underneath our school," said Rachel.

"That's what I said!" Allen replied angrily, "Why must you people keep repeating yourselves? It just gets me angry!"

Rachel then did a mockery of being afraid, "Oh no! Please forgive me! I didn't mean to upset the most highly being that we are not worth being in the presence of!"

I knew Allen believed what she was saying because he gave her a smug look. Rachel and the others also believed he was thinking it was true, so they all rolled their eyes.

It was the same day, but after school since Allen turned into a lizard and spied on Chapman. We'd gone to the mall. Rachel, Cassie, and the wimp Tobias all said that it was the best way not to look suspicious. We were sitting in table at the food court. Ever since we arrived here we have been arguing and discussing about the Yeerk pool, except me.

I like to keep quiet and observe what is going on, and also the fact that I was thinking about something else. I was imagining what it was like for Allen being a lizard. I thought that he was disgusted, and I know I was. It was his first morph, and Allen wasted it on becoming a lizard. I wanted my first morph to be powerful, something that would frighten people. Maybe I could try it out on my parents, I thought to myself. But then I snapped myself back to reality.

"Look," said Rachel. "I'm not asking anyone to go down to the Yeerk pool with me, but it's something I have to do. I know that tom is going to be there tonight, and I'm going to try and save him with or without any of you."

"I'll go with you," Tobias said snapping out of his dreamy world, "For the Andalite, and Tom."

Rachel gave him a grin, and Tobias returned the favor.

I looked at Allen, he was going to say something on how he wasn't going to go along with them to fight the Yeerks, but then he caught a glance of me right when I was giving him a look that said, "No, we go along with them Remember the plan?" He nodded and remained silent.

Cassie hadn't said anything since we arrived; right now she was looking dreamily off over the heads of the mall crowd. "You know, back in the really, really, old days-different cultures used to believe they had all animal sprits. And they would call upon those spirits to protect them from evil. They would ask the Eagle for sight, the fox for his cunning, and the lion for his strength."

"Who cares?" Allen said angrily. "Get to the point!"

Cassie continued meekly, "The point is that, the only thing we have to fight the Yeerks is this morphing thing, and we should use it for all it is worth. So far, the only morphs we've acquired are a cat, some birds, a horse, and a lizard. I think we need a little more firepower. We should head to The Gardens. We need to acquire some DNA-from animals that are not easy to acquire. Since my mom works there, I can give you discounts to get in."

"Good, let's go right now!" Rachel said enthusiastically.

We left straight from the mall, hopping a bus out to The Gardens.

"I don't really need to go in," Tobias said as we took out the money we were going to use to get in. "I'm happy with my hawk morph. I don't want to be anything else."

"That's a mistake," Rachel said. "We need all the morphs we can get to fight Visser 3's morphs."

We arrived at The Gardens and paid for the tickets. Cassie led us to the main building, which holds all the exhibits. Cassie stopped us right in front of the otter exhibit. "Okay, we're going inside to the walkways where the people feed the animals and give them medicine. If any of the staff people find us, the story is that we're here to see my mom."

We entered the door, which led us into a hallway that looked like a school one. Cassie led us around the hallway until she stopped by a one of the numbered doors. "This is Big Jim's cage. He is a gorilla. He's very gentle. Would any of you want to morph him?"

"I don't want to morph a monkey, and besides I already know what I'm going to morph."

"It's not a monkey, It's a gorilla. A gorilla is extremely powerful. It could take out 20 Muhammad Ali's. A monkey is basically made out of toothpicks compared to a gorilla," Cassie said to Allen.

Powerful, eh? Well we'd just see about that. "I'll do it. I'll acquire the Gorilla."

"Alright, just hold on a second," Cassie said as she was taking something out of her backpack.

It was an apple. She handed it to me. "Here. Open the door. And give Big Jim the apple. There's an extra security gate so Big Jim can't walk out or anyone walk in."

I opened the door. Big Jim noticed me right away. He climbed down and took a good look at me through the bars. Big Jim was BIG. He had fingers the size of my wrist. And fists as big as my head. Now THAT'S power, I thought to myself.

He didn't seem too interested at me, he looked longily at the apple in my hand. He held out his hand gesturing that he wanted the apple. I gave him the apple. The gorilla started to inspect the apple immediately, checking to see if it was good to eat.

"Quick! Hold his hand," said Tobias. "Don't worry the animal will go into a trance. When you acquire him."

I touched Big Jim's wrist. I closed my eyes, and I concentrated as hard as I could. I REALLY wanted this morph. This was one morph that seemed to fit my need perfectly.

After 10 seconds, I left the Gorilla exhibit and Big Jim behind feeling cocky, and confident. I had the morph that I wanted and I couldn't wait to try it out!

"Okay, let's keep moving people," we kept walking down the hallway and we stopped at a four-way corner.

"The exhibits with the big cats are to the left, and the dolphins and some other big exhibits to our right."

Cassie and the others moved toward the right, and Allen pulled me back. "Let's go to the big Cat exhibits, and get some REAL firepower."

Then a voice yelled, "Hey! What are you kids doing back here?"

"Split up! It's a security guard!" Cassie hissed.

The security guard chased after us instead of Cassie's group.

Allen and me ran to the big Cats exhibits and Cassie and the rest ran the other way. We ran until we found a golf cart. "Let's take this baby for a spin!"

He turned the golf cart around and this time facing the guard that was after us. "I'm not going to run from this old geezer, I want to watch him run!"

We drove towards the security guard, and at the last minute, he jumped out of the way. But when he jumped he hit his head on the door and fell unconscious.

Allen laughed in pleasure, "Okay, now let's go back to the Big Cat's exhibit."

He turned the car back around and drove back to the Big cat's exhibits. He drove around and around, and he didn't seem to know where he was going, but then he stopped suddenly. "Let's look for some big cat's now."

We ditched the cart, and started to open doors. We only found tropical rainforests, rhinoceroses, giraffes, gazelles, and we were just about to give up finding what Allen wanted. "It's gotta be here somewhere," he muttered to himself.

He sat down, and so did I, but not for long. "Hey! There are kids over here!" a voice yelled. It was another security guard, two of them actually. But this time they looked young and healthy.

We ran down the hallway and turned right. "Let's try another one of these doors," I said.

We opened it, and found another bright light room just like the rhinoceros room. "Let's leave," I said.

"No!" Allen hissed, "Look!"

He was pointing at something in the grass. It was Tan in color, it had lightning sharp claws, huge teeth, and a big furry mane. It was a lion. And luckily it was sleeping.

"You get to be King Kong, and I'll be the King of the jungle," Allen said with a gleeful look in his face.

Allen motioned towards the lion. He touched it gently, and closed his eyes. After he finished acquiring it, he said, "Now let's go!"

Ggggggrrrrraaaawwwrrr!

A roar! Not from the lion sleeping, but from a lioness. There were more lions in this exhibit! Duh!

We spotted a ladder, and we climbed it like our lives depended on it. And it did. When we got out, the security guards were waiting for us. They ran at us. and we ran at them. But at the last second we moved out from their grasp and headed towards a crowd. It hid us, and after 10 minutes we ran away from the crowd and Ran out of The Gardens for good.

We ran to the bus stop, and surprisingly we found Rachel, Cassie, and the wimp Tobias, all waiting for us. They had no trouble at all losing the guards, they spent the whole time acquiring morphs, and when they were done they waited for us here.

"I guess we're a team now since we've all acquired morphs, and tonight will be our first battle," Cassie said thoughtfully.

"And it could be our last," Allen muttered darkly.

Cassie ignored him and continued on. "The point is that, if we are a team, shouldn't we have a name for ourselves?"

Tobias the wimp snapped his fingers, "I've got just the name for ourselves! Let's call ourselves Animor-"

But then Allen interrupted him, "I know! Let's call ourselves Morph Troopers!"

Rachel gave him an incredulous look, "That's a stupid name, How 'bout Shifters?"

Cassie shook her head, "No, I was thinking we should call ourselves The A.S.S. team. The Animal Spirit Summoner team!"

"This is the team that's going to save the world?" I asked.

Rachel laughed, "Yup! The Yeerks don't know what they're getting into."




A/N: Jake here, yet again. I don't really have much to say about this chapter, except that I'm sorry that I took so long to update. I was recently infected by a very common disease, which has no cure. Here at Team Omega, we like to refer to this disease as "Fanfiction Writer Laziness syndrome" a.k.a. FLWS. It is a disease in which, the fanfic writer's body is completely withdrawn away from the keyboard because the FLWS germs take over the body completely. I believe that many of you have suffered this disease, but together we can find a cure. There is Hope! Oh well. See you next chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!