One Year Later

Marco

I was visiting Ax in the Dome ship Elafangor. Or should I say Prince Aximili. Let's just say that my visit ended as soon as I spotted Tobias and Rachel making out behind a derrishoul tree in the dome area of the Dome ship. I called out to them.

"GAG! BARF!"

Rachel and Tobias split apart faster than the eye could see.

"MARCO YOU LITTLE DIMWIT!!!!"

Rachel screamed, although the threat was dimmed a bit because of the bright red blush across her cheeks and the fact that she was sitting in Tobias's lap. Tobias grinned sheepishly, a bright scarlet blush on his face. In a flash Rachel leaped off of Tobias's lap running straight after me, Tobias right behind her. What could I do? Two people on the war rampage coming straight for me, wanting to strangle me for breaking up their little make-out session. Like any brave person would do I turned tail and ran out of there as fast as I could heading for the exit.

Apparently, both Tobias and Rachel were considerably faster than me and they caught up to me in minutes. I was already close to the ramp leading to the outside and freedom. Only three more steps away and I would be spared from the wrath of Xena: Warrior Princess and her boyfriend the Bird-Boy. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the ramp head over heels. They had tripped me!!!!! I braced myself for the hard landing but instead I landed on something really soft. For a moment I didn't move trying to pull myself together from having my brains scrambled from falling down the ramp. I opened my eyes only to see a pair of big green eyes staring back at me in shock and disbelief.

I couldn't believe it!!! I had landed on top of a very pretty girl!!!!

We both stayed like that for a minute simply staring at each other in shock. Then, I heard bouts of hysterical laughter coming from behind us. Then it dawned on me exactly how compromising our position was. I was lying sprawled on top of her and undoubtedly my friends were standing right behind us rolling on the floor with laughter at my humiliation. I got up quicker than humanly possible and held out my hand sheepishly to help the girl up. She took it and I pulled her up and then looked around. We were surrounded by hundreds of Andalite warriors looking at us with confused expressions on their faces. Not that you could tell unless you knew how to make sense of eye movements. I saw Tobias and Rachel right at the front of the ring beside Ax who was chuckling slightly in thought-speech. Other Andalites were looking at him strangely. Tobias had his arms around Rachel's shoulders, leaning against her to keep from falling to the floor from laughter. Rachel was holding her sides and gasping for air in between laughs. I saw Jake and Cassie standing on the other side of Ax, Cassie leaning on Jake's arm for support while Jake leaned on Ax's shoulder a bit to keep from falling.

For a moment I felt like breaking out into hysterical laughter myself but instead I made a joke.

"Ha ha," I said. "Although it's just my luck that I get tripped by Xena and Bird-Boy here and then just so happen to fall on top of a very pretty girl."

This only caused my friends to laugh harder and this time Tobias and Rachel really did fall to the floor laughing and Cassie came pretty close too. The only reason Jake didn't come close to falling on the floor was the simple fact that he was leaning on Ax, who was chuckling anymore. He was downright laughing, a very disturbing feeling to hear an Andalite laughing in your head, which only caused the other Andalites to look even more strangely at him, diverting all four eyes to stare at their Prince. The outburst in laughing only served to deepen my embarrassment and I felt a heat rise in my cheeks and I knew for sure that I was blushing, a lot.

I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and stomped out of there as fast as I could. This made them laugh even harder but I ignored them. I walked as fast as I could to the river on the far side of the meadow over a hill. I heard soft footsteps behind me and I knew the girl was following me. Let her. I didn't care. I just had to get away from my friends.

When I reached the river edge I sat down by the bank. I felt the girl sit down next to me.

"Why did you follow me?" I asked.

"Well, I couldn't leave without a proper introduction. Also, I was kinda freaked out with all those Anda-whatever-you-call-them alien people."

I chuckled slightly. "They're called Andalites and I admit that they can creep you out if you're not used to them."

"I'm Kris Strasser," she said holding out her hand.

"Marco Shields," I replied shaking her hand.

"Well, now that we got past the introductions, can you please tell me how you know those Andalites?"

I raised an eyebrow slightly surprised. I thought that everyone on the planet knew about us by now. Apparently not. What a major blow to my ego. "Excuse me?"

"How do you know those Andalite alien things?"

"Hmm……tough question. Being and Animorph though you kinda have to know them. Otherwise you'll be totally lost and either end up blowing up our allies or condemning our planet to total annihilation." I said in a matter-of-fact voice.

I could see realization slowly dawning on her face. She looked at me in disbelief. I nodded. The look of shock left her face and instead her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"How do I know for sure that you're an animorph? Morph something."

"What would you like me to morph?"

"How about a wolf?"

"Sure, why not. Now morphing is not pretty. You're not gonna like what you see. Most likely I'll probably grow fur before I start any other changes and I'll look like a hairy caveman. Or the changes could start before I have the fur. Who know? Morphing is never logical so don't freak out."

Kris nodded. I shrugged and began taking off my outer clothing. I noticed her blush and look away. I laughed.

"No biggie. We got over this problem a long time ago. But we can only morph skintight clothes so I'm just taking off the loose outer stuff. I'll still be decent."

If anything she blushed harder but looked up again anyway.

When I finally stood barefoot and in my morphing outfit on the soft grass I began to concentrate on the wolf DNA inside of me. I felt the changes begin rapidly. My nose and mouth melted together and pushed out to form my wolf muzzle and the coarse gray fur began to ripple over my body. I dropped to all fours with a popping noise as my knees suddenly changed direction and stared at my hands. They weren't really hands anymore though. The fingers were shrinking and tough dark pads formed on the underside of my paw. I felt the nauseating sensation associated with guts sloshing around, rearranging and changing themselves inside my body. I felt my spine suddenly stretch out to form my long bushy wolf's tail and my sight, hearing, and sense of smell sharpened. The morph was complete. I didn't worry about the wolf's instincts. I had done the morph many times before and I knew how to handle it. I trotted over to Kris who just sat there stupefied and staring at me in shock.

Uh…are you okay?>

She came out of her stupor. "That was so cool!!!!" she exclaimed.

It is pretty cool but you never want to morph bugs. Those will just freak you out no matter what.>

"I imagine it would."

I lay down next to her and put my head on her lap. I curled my tail around my body and just lay basking in the sun for awhile until I felt an itch on the spot between my ears. I hoped it wasn't fleas.

Uh…can you please scratch me behind the ears? Pretty please?>

"Scratch it yourself."

See, that's the thing. I can't reach.>

To prove my point I sat up on my haunches and tried to scratch the spot between my ears. I twisted and turned every which wat but I couldn't get to that one spot.

Please?> I asked again, turning my sad brown wolf eyes toward her.

"Oh all right," she sighed and scratched me behind the ears. I closed my eyes and wagged my tail in pleasure.

"You owe me though," she grumbled.

Fine. How about I take you out to dinner as repayment?> I asked.

"All right."

That settled I lay back down, once again put my head on her lap and basked in the warm glow of the sun's warm rays.