ANIMORPHS #56
The Superb
Chapter 1
My name is Jake. Just Jake. I can't tell you my last name or where I live, otherwise it would be too risky. For we are being invaded. You think, What? By aliens? You're nuts dude! Well, believe it or not, it's happening. I'm not talking about little green men from Mars. I'm not talking about the sci-fi stuff that you see on TV.
I'm talking about evil, parasitic slugs called Yeerks. A race enslaving another race, and another. Including us. Humans. These slugs can crawl inside your ear to get to your brain. Then they flatten themselves over the crevices, look through your memories, then utterly take control over you.
When this happens, you can't eat, sleep, talk, or do anything on your own free will. The Yeerk inside would use you like a puppet to do what it wants and decides when you should eat, sleep, or whatever. I know this because I was a Controller once for three days. My brother, Tom, is a Controller.
Controllers are what we call beings with Yeerks inside their heads. They have enslaved the Gedds, a clumsy race of aliens. They have enslaved the Hork-Bajir, a once peaceful race that used their body blades to strip off bark from trees for a meal. Now they are used as weapons. My best friend Marco calls them Salad Shooters. Well, anyway, all of those alien species that I have mentioned are controlled against their free will.
The Taxxons are huge centipedes that are endless eating machines. So big and wide that you wouldn't be able to wrap your arms around one to give it a hug. Not that you'll want to hug one that is. They offered themselves to the Yeerks to become their allies.
I am the leader of five kids and an alien as a resistance against the Yeerks. My friend Marco came up with the name "Animorph," which means animal-morpher. We can touch, or "acquire," and collect the DNA of any animal to actually become that animal. Pretty cool, huh? That means there is still hope for our planet Earth.
But there is a downside to our morphing powers. There is a time limit of two hours. If we stayed in morph for over two hours, we are trapped as that animal. Forever.
Tobias used to be a normal average kid who went to school and got picked on by bullies. Now he lives life as a red-tailed hawk because he stayed as one for over two hours. He still fights alongside with us. And a creature called the Ellimist gave back the morphing power back to Tobias. But he still lives as a hawk. He could have morphed human and stayed like that permanently, but didn't. He still wishes to fight against the Yeerks. I would do the same thing if I were him.
This story begins at a hidden Yeerk pool under our school. Yeerks have to soak in rays from their portable sun, the Kandrona, every three days. My best friend Marco, Cassie, My cousin Rachel, an Andalite named Ax, and I had discovered the Yeerks have installed a new Kandrona in there. Our mission? To destroy it.
As we were fighting against a bunch of Hork-Bajir, Marco wondered in thought speech, How long exactly have we been doing this for a living? A few years? He was in his gorilla morph by the way.
We can't actually talk to each other, because nature had not designed animals to speak our human language. So we use thought speak as our communication tool.
As Rachel threw a Hork-Bajir across the room with her elephant trunk, she wise cracked to Marco, Not long enough as Batman or Spider-Man I guess.
In my tiger morph, I had spotted what the group has been searching for. I found the Kandrona guys! I called to them. Rachel saw it too and yelled, Let's smash it! Marco was already on it. Ax! Tobias! Help me cover them! I said. No problem at all! shouted Tobias, flying into a face of the Hork-Bajir nearest to him. Yes Prince Jake! answered Ax.
Ax was the last member to join us in fighting the Yeerks. He is an Andalite, a mixture of a human with too many fingers and almond shaped eyes, a deer with blue fur, and has the tail and blade like a scorpion. His nose and mouth are only vertical slits, and he cannot eat with them. The four hooves at the bottom of his legs are used for that. Don't ask me how, because you may not want to know. And there are the extra pair of eyes on stalks at the top of his head. In his Andalite form, he can only use thought speak. When morphed as a human, he can be very weird.
Ax was out there, fighting off any Hork-Bajir controllers with his tail. He moved it so fast that I could barely know it was moving. Fwap fwap! I as the tiger pounced into another, sinking my teeth and claws into its snake-like head.
Marco and Rachel already had the bright red Kandrona in their possession. CRASH! With one fatal drop, the Kandrona was destroyed. Alright guys, let's bail! I alerted my friends as all of us ran out of there. Victory once again! Rachel cheered. We obviously outsmarted the Yeerks this time! Tobias agreed, in flying behind us through the cool night air.
We were happy, but very exhausted. Even I was. All I wanted to do was go home and sleep. All of us, but Tobias, reached the farthest alley and demorphed.