Warning: This story has been officially upgraded to an "R" rating for sex, drugs, and language. Be prepared.

Disclaimer: Give credit where credit is due; this is KA Applegate's original concept and I've just irresponsibly corrupted it.

It had gotten dark much earlier than usual; the overcast sky made the landscape greenish and unreal. I felt a tremor of uncertainty as I assumed my human morph near the edge of the woods. If I had had my way, all three of the humans would be present when I revealed myself to them, but unfortunately the younger dark girl had been sitting down by the stream all afternoon, inhaling smoke from her cylinders and utilizing a pole-apparatus to procure scaled marine animals from the water. It was an interesting ritual, but I knew from earlier observation that these animals would be killed, heated, and consumed.

I felt very self-conscious as I strode towards the flimsy human dwelling. After three days of concealing myself, to be appearing so openly seemed bizarre. The insects, invisible to my human eyes, were producing a buzzing melody that was the only detectable sound. The two humans had disappeared into their shelter a few minutes ago, but I could hear neither movement nor speech emanating from the thin fabric.

It was also strangely elating to be doing this. I have to admit, I had played out many possible scenarios in my head in anticipation of this moment. Would these humans be sympathetic to my cause? Would they even believe me? Would I be manipulated by them as "Iris" had done the other day? Would the aid they could give be useful?

One thing that I had not considered was what to do if they were not immediately approachable. As I came closer to their shelter, I observed that they had used a toothed mechanism to seal the only entrance. What was the protocol for entering and making my presence known.

I stood there awkwardly in my human form, considering different options. I could hear only slight rustling noises from inside the dwelling. After a few minutes, I realized how foolish my indecision was making me. Did I expect some miraculous opportunity to suddenly present itself? I was letting my apprehension and fear take control, instead of taking action. I had been waiting for this moment all day.

I took a deep breath, and unsealed the entrance to the shelter, softly calling, "Hello," to warn it's occupants of my presence.

The first thing I noticed was that neither human was wearing clothes, and both were tangled in bedding.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" the female screamed loudly, frightened.

"Ahh! What the fuck?!" shouted the male, angry.

"Ahhhhhh!" I echoed involuntarily. I did not have complete control of my human body, and apparently this is a normal human reaction to something shocking.

"Jesus! You fucking gave me a heart attack! What the hell are you doing here!?" The human male still sounded angry, and his face had become an alarming shade of red. My mind flashed back in time to "Iris's" companion, and his violent actions. I knew very well how dangerous the anger of a human male could be.

But this individual seemed more concerned about his lack of apparel than attacking me. He was scrambling in the far corner of the tent, throwing garments to his female companion, who was huddled under a blanket, and simultaneously attempting to put on his own set of artificial skin.

"Who the hell are you, and what do you think you were doing? Were you watching us?" he spat lividly.

"Uh….. no. I came… because I needed help."

"Don't you know people close up their tents when they want privacy?" the male hissed.

At the same time, the female, obviously distressed but seemingly less angered, spoke for the first time. "Drew, he needs help. Don't be such a dick." She had already assumed proper human attire, and cast off the blanket which had sheltered her modesty.

He turned back to her, and with considerably more tenderness said, "Hey, Bel, I know. But it would have been much more appropriate if he had decided to come for help in like an hour."

She laughed. "You wish. Fifteen minutes at the most."

Drew's face had lost it's color as his anger had dissipated, but now it flushed red again. He turned back to where I stood, still framed in the half open entrance to the "tent." "Okay, what did you say you wanted?"

"I… um…" I had rehearsed saying this line multiple times inside my ship, but now it seemed ludicrously inappropriate. I had interrupted an intimate moment, and spoiled our first interaction. I decided to give up on this idea. It was silly. "I just… needed some water. That's all."

Drew looked at me skeptically.

At that moment, I felt something brush my shoulder. I turned to see the other female, the one with darker skin, who had probably come to see what the source of the screams had been. I hadn't realized she was so short. She smiled briefly at me and said "Hey," then peered under my arm inside the tent. "What's going on?"

Drew made a snorting sound. "Mr. Farmboy here needed some water. Did the stream out there dry up or something?"

"No," she snorted, "But I lost a fairly big trout when I had to run up here and see who was getting killed." These humans were speaking words I understood, but they made no sense. Trout? Killed? "I still have a few smaller ones that I landed earlier. Don't worry, Drew, you'll get your dinner."

Drew didn't look very worried. In fact, his eyes were still glaring angrily at me.

"Sorry that I interrupted," I mumbled. The darker girl smirked. "I think I need to leave now." As I turned, she sidestepped to get out of my path. I felt the heavy cloud of shame descend once again. This had been a silly idea, and poorly executed on my part. I would need to come up with another plan. One that would actually work. And I needed to stop ruining every encounter I had with humans. I walked away slowly.

"Wait!" a voice called.

I glanced over my shoulder to see the first girl, still half wrapped in a blanket, beckoning me back.

"Hey, you! Are you alone?"

I turned back towards her, but refrained from making eye contact. I didn't really understand what she wanted. "Yes."

"Why don't you stay and eat with us?"

Drew's face appeared beside her from inside the tent and hissed something into her ear. I only caught the phrases "douchebag" and "not enough fish." The girl seemed to ignore him. "What's your name?"

"Alcolrec-Sharnit…" I trailed off. Andalite names could be confusing to humans.

"Ok, well, you'll probably have to tell me that again. I always forget names, especially foreign ones. I'm Bela, and this is my boyfriend Drew and my friend JJ."

"Nice to meet you," I said, blandly uttering the standard response I knew from my studies.

"Come on back. You can help us cook."

We made small talk as the meal was prepared. I tried to avoid the topic of my background. I hadn't decided if I wanted to go through with revealing my true identity to these people, who were still effectively strangers. If they thought this was strange, they didn't show it. I learned from Drew, who actually turned out to be quite friendly, that they were about to begin another term of their education, and had obtained permission from their parents to spend a week "camping" before they got "railroaded into a new fucking school year."

Human speech is strange. Andalite thoughtspeak is very concise; ideas are expressed as efficiently as possible to make the message understood. In the human spoken language, they liked to insert words such as "like" and "fucking" and "damn" which served no purpose linguistically, and served only to add emphasis to the phrase. Although the use of those words differed greatly from sentence to sentence. I wondered if humans added these words because they too enjoyed making mouth sounds.

"Why are you out here, all fucking alone?" I asked Drew. We had just finished collecting dry underbrush and wood from the forest, and were now in the process of creating a "bonfire." The girls were gutting and cleaning the fish.

He looked at me a little strangely. "Well, the girls told their parents that we'd be going with my dad, and my dad just didn't give a shit. He's kinda a bum."

"Oh, yeah. Is it okay for you to be here, so young?"

"We're about as young as you, Alcolrec. Man, that's a name. You must be pissed at your parents about it."

I thought of my parents, back on the Andalite homeworld. I never really got along well with my father; we always had differing opinions about everything. But my mother was a caring, good female, and we had always gotten along very well. I wondered if they thought I was dead. Would my father be proud that I had died in battle? I realized that I missed them. Both of them.

Drew wasn't deterred by my silence. "You need a nickname, man. Everyone's got a nickname, and you definitely need one badly. My full name's Andrew, but only teachers call me that. JJ actually has some Indian name, and Bela's short for Belladonna, which is her middle name. Her real name's Sarah." He made a face.

"I guess… what would be a good nickname?" I asked him. As I spoke, the flame flickered to life under Drew's experienced hands, and the small fire began to crackle and hiss.

"We could call you Al." I didn't really like that name, and I guess that sentiment was reflected on my features, because Drew provided other suggestions, "Cole, Rick, Alc, Alec…"

"Alec…" I thought back to "Iris." I did like the sound of that name, but it would always be tainted by memories of that experience.

"Ok, so, Alec it is."

And so Alec it was.

"So how old are you, Alec?"

"Ummm…. Nineteen." This was my age in Andalite years, and I thought it would be close enough to the age of my human morph.

"Oh, I would have pegged you as being a bit younger. I'm sixteen, and the girls are fourteen. They're just starting high school."

I nodded my head as if I knew what that meant. Drew kept questioning me. "So are you in school?"

"No."

"Umm, ok."

We worked in silence for a while. The fire grew in intensity until it roared, and the heat felt good on my face. It was night by this time.

JJ walked over to us from the area where they had been treating the "fish" bodies. On a plate she carried five hand-sized shiny drippy oblong objects covered in herbs, which I took to be the marine animals. Bela was right behind her with a little gas stove.

"I thought the fire would be used to warm the meal." I said, confused.

"Haha, no. The fire's just for fun. Atmosphere. You know."

"And it's a convenient lighter," JJ added, extracting a cylinder from a box in her pocket and holding it to the flame until the end glowed.

"Isn't it bad for you to inhale smoke?"

"Yeah, I'm probably going to die. Who cares? These guys always give me shit about it though." She grinned, showing her white teeth. "They don't seem to mind other types of smoke though." She pulled out a small case from her bag, and opened it, showing me a green plant in a bag and a few other objects. "You guys wanna light up before we eat?"

"Yeah, roll it now," Bela answered. She looked at me, "You smoke?"

"Yes." I had never tried anything like this. I had also never eaten animal flesh before. Andalites are herbivorous. But I wanted to try to live as these humans do.

"Cool. I'll roll a big one then." JJ crossed her legs and got busy with some of the items from her little box.

The smell coming from the cooking fish was amazing. I was a little excited about what would be my second culinary experience as a human.

Drew left momentarily to enter the tent, and returned with several large flat square objects and a brown paper bag. I soon found out that the flat objects actually unfolded to become chairs, providing a convenient and comfortable way to sit around the fire. "Thank you," I told Drew when he offered one to me. From the brown bag, Drew took out other foodstuffs. "Junk food!" he announced, noticing that I was observing his actions.

JJ had finished what she was doing; the final product was a long thin pink cone. "Strawberry papers," she said to me, as if that explained it all. Drew rolled his eyes. She stuck the end of it into the fire, lighting it expertly. Then she rose from her position on the ground, unfolded a chair, and collapsed into it, taking a long drag on the small end of the cone. The end of it glowed intensely orange, and thick smoke curled around her fingers. She took a few more puffs, exhaling huge clouds of the bluish, strangely-scented smoke, and leaned over to pass the thing to me.

I tried to imitate what JJ had just done. Bela was watching me. "Next time try to inhale into your lungs," she told me. I did as she said and nearly choked. She shook her head, "You're still not doing it right." But she was smiling, so she wasn't angry. I passed it to her.

"We don't smoke that much during the school year," JJ explained. "It's more of a recreational thing. We're not potheads."

I nodded. My human body was feeling lightheaded and dizzy.

I almost didn't notice when it was my turn again. "Hey, Alec, take the joint," JJ said as she leaned over to me. I guess I was a little slow to react, because she stood up and walked over to give it to me. As I inhaled, she quickly and forcefully hit me on the back. I sucked in a huge breath and it burned a little. I had to cough. "Why did you do that, JJ?"

She smirked. "Virgin lungs. Poor guy. You just needed to take a deep hit."

I passed the joint to Bela again, feeling slightly ill.

Bela smoked it with a big smile on her face. She took a couple draws on the pink joint and handed it to Drew. "I think the fish is done," she announced, leaning over the little stove to check.

"Perfect timing," said Drew, exhaling.

It was the best thing I'd ever eaten. The fish was so good. I loudly complimented Bela, and she rewarded me with a large share of the fifth piece, which we all had to split. Then I ate a very sweet piece of fruit called an "apple." Which was also delicious. Then the four of us ate a bag of very salty food called "Doritos."

JJ was telling me about her parents. "Sometimes I'm glad they're so busy all the time. They really respect my independence. I don't even think they know I smoke cigarettes."

"Yeah right," Bela snorted.

"No, really. My mom's a lawyer and my dad's an airline executive, so they both work long hours. They pretty much leave me and my brother alone. My dad's a workaholic, I guess that's why he's worked his way so far up in the industry. You know he was born in a town that had no electricity or running water?"

"No," I told her.

She laughed, "I was being rhetorical. Well, my dad worked his way up out of poverty in India, did well in technical school in Calcutta, and was accepted to Harvard business. Now he practically runs the company here in San Franscisco."

I think JJ wanted me to be impressed. But I was actually considering the likelihood that her father, as an important businessman, had already been infested by a Yeerk. For some reason, I had a sudden urge to tell her. Warn her.

I had been waffling all night about whether I should involve them in my struggle. They were very nice, but they were very young.

The initial light-headedness I felt had subsided with the consumption of the food, leaving me feeling relaxed and satisfied. I didn't want to ruin the moment. I felt somehow if I told them that their planet was being stealthily invaded, the wonderful mood we had created would be shattered. I didn't know what to do.

"My parents are both cool people. My mom's from the midwest, and she's kinda a hippie. She works for some tree hugging law firm that does environmental stuff. She works really hard and she's weirdly passionate about all the shit she does. Saving the planet and all. Do you know what?" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I think both of my parents still smoke weed. I know they did it in college, but I bet they still do now. You should see some of the people my mom works with. A few of them look like total potheads."

The logic she had used didn't make much sense, but I nodded along with the others. I thought it was amazing that these absolute strangers had embraced me so effortlessly. I felt somehow as if I belonged with them. Belonging was like a warm feeling that flooded my entire body. To be able to talk and interact in such a close way with others after such long periods of isolation was soothing.

We sat and talked, and time flew by, until suddenly I realized I would need to demorph. I started to stand up and make some excuse about needing to relieve myself when I just stopped. It was like the world stood still. In one split second, I had made my descision.

"Hey, Alec, you gotta leave or something?" Drew asked.

I'm not really an impulsive individual. I like to think things out, and plan. Spontaneity leads to sloppiness and mistakes. You must always consider the consequences of your actions.

Maybe it was the "weed" I had smoked with them, or maybe it was the feeling of belonging I had with these people who had shared a meal with me and offered me their friendship, despite such awkward beginnings. I was feeling gravid with the momentousness of what I was about to do. I sat back down.

"Listen. I have not told you where I am from, or what I am doing here, and you have been very nice not to ask," I began.

Bela smiled. "I've been waiting for this, oh mystery man." She giggled.

But I needed the tone to be serious. What I was about to say was very serious. I felt guilty for ruining the mood, but at the same time I felt very strongly that I needed these people, and that they could help me. I would tell them as much as I could.

"I told you that I needed help when I first met you and this is true." Drew coughed suddenly, and I ignored the interruption. "I do need help. I need to learn about your ways and customs, and become as much like you as I can."

"Yeah, we guessed that you were foreign or something," JJ said.

"I am not a human." My words hung in the air, like smoke.

Drew let out a huge guffaw. He's a large guy, so the sound resonated and was very startling. "You are sooooo stoned, Alec. You're crazy."

So I showed them. Stalk eyes emerged from my head and a second set of legs materialized from my midsection. I felt their eyes on me, watching the changes and saying nothing. It took only a few minutes to complete the change, and the eyes of my human friends had grown steadily wider as I assumed my natural form. I was an alien to them. They stared at me, the Andalite, in disbelief.

(This is who I am. My name is Alcolrec-Sharnicar-Taguara. I am an Andalite.)

JJ stood up slowly. If she was afraid of what I had become it did not show on her face. "This is so cool. Can I touch you?"

I didn't really want her to touch me, but I would have felt rude saying no. (Yes.)

She put her hand on my flank and stroked the blue-tan fur. "You're soft."

"How can you do this? Change your shape like that, I mean." Drew asked.

(It is a thing most Andalites can do naturally.) This was my first lie to my new friends. I did not want to tell them about the Escafil device. I suddenly realized, with a shock, that if these human acquired the technology, they too would be able to make use of it. Advanced technology in the hands of a lesser race can be dangerous. This is why there is the law of Seerow's Kindness.

"Where are you from?" Bela asked.

I looked up at the sky, but the stars were obscured by the heavy summer clouds. (It is very far away from here. Even if you were able to travel with Z-space technology it would take at least a couple of human years to reach my homeworld.)

After this I was bombarded with questions. "What is that tail for?" "How do you eat with no mouth?" "How can you talk inside my mind like that?" "What is space like?" I answered their questions as best I could. But it was Bela who asked the question I had been waiting to hear.

"Alcolrec, why did you come to Earth?"

I didn't know how to explain this to them. They were still enchanted by the presence of this alien at their campfire, with whom they had unknowingly shared their fish and their joint. But I would tell them the truth. They needed to know it, even if it hurt. (I have come to this planet because it is being invaded. No,) I said, anticipating their next query, (not as you might imagine. It is an underground invasion. A silent invasion. These aliens, they are called Yeerks. The Andalites have been fighting them wherever in the galaxy they go. Yeerks are parasites. They assume control over the brains of those they infest, and use this host body to carry out the filthy agenda of the Yeerk empire. They have come to Earth to make slaves of the human race.)

I was looking at Bela as I said this. I watched the sheen of wonder leave her eyes, and I watched her face contort with concern.

(We call them Controllers, when they have been taken by a Yeerk. A Yeerk, once it has accessed the brain, has access to all their host's memories, and can emulate that person exactly. Their loved ones may sense slight changes, but they never guess that the person has become something different, that their every move is controlled by an alien parasite.)

I expected more questions, but the humans seemed quiet, almost sedated. I shifted my weight uneasily and tried to guess their thoughts.

"Why have you told us all this?" JJ asked suddenly.

(As I said, I need your help. I need to learn to be a human, to fit in as well as possible.)

"Why?"

(I am a scout in the Andalite military. Very soon a large fleet from my homeworld will arrive, to fight the Yeerks here on Earth. I need to get as much information as possible about Yeerk activity, and in order to do this I must pass as human first.)

JJ looked disappointed. "That's what you need? Guides?"

(Yes. That is why I came to you. To ask for your assistance. To give you this choice.)

Bela looked around, at her friends sitting around the blazing fire. Both Drew and JJ nodded, almost imperceptibly. All around us, the invisible insects hummed their song into the night.

"Yeah," said Bela. "We'll do it."

So, Alcolrec finally gets some human allies… What do you think?

I've been wanting to transcribe this story for years, so I have a lot of details I want to get down on paper. As a result, you get a chapter that is longer than a lot of people's completed stories. Sorry about that, but I haven't gotten many complaints about length yet, so I'm not going to worry too much. I'm glad so many people like this, and, as always, I'm really looking forward to your reviews, positive or negative.