AN: For some reason kind of hates me, so currently all thought-speak is indicated with quotation marks and underlines. (Sorry, it's the only kind of speech indication that would allow me to have.) Thanks for understanding.


My name is Rachel.

And I was about to collapse, cry, or kill someone.

The first two options were completely out of character for me. I don't collapse, or cave in, or give up. That's just not me.

And I definitely don't cry. I'm Racheland that's just part of what goes with being me. I don't show signs of vulnerability

But the last one? Well, that's something I do pretty often.

Before you get all paranoid, don't worry. I'm not some psycho murderer. Or, at least, I hope I'm not.

What I am is a teenage girl. A teenage girl with the power to morph into any animal she wishes, but only so that she can participate in an inter-galactic war in an effort to save the planet Earth.

Yes, I'm serious.

Here's the truth for all you people who don't know what's going on. And honestly, I'd prefer that you didn't know what was going on, because if you do, than that means that you're a part of it in the worst way.

I'll give you the Spark notes version of it all: Earth is under attack by a bunch of parasitic slugs (lead by the main slug honcho named Visser Three) that wrap themselves around human's brains and make those host humans what we call Controllers. My five friends and I are the world's only defense against these aliens, called Yeerks. We fight them by using the morphing power, invented by the Andalites (another group of aliens) and given to us by a dying Andalite prince.

He did give us a warning, though. The morphing power is a blessing and a curse. You can't stay in morph for more than two hours, or else you'll get stuck in morph, and become what the Andalites call a nothlit. One of our group, Tobias, knows this firsthand. In one of our first battles, Tobias got trapped in the form of a red-tailed hawk. He only later received the power to morph after doing a favor for the Ellimist, who I'll tell you about later.

So now, we fight. "We" is all six of us: Tobias, who I already mentioned. Jake, my cousin and out unofficial leader. Cassie, my best friend, our local animal expert, and the necessary peacemaker in our group. Marco, Jake's best friend, who usually wastes our time by telling stupid jokes, but on rare occasions can be extremely intelligent. Aximili, who we call Ax, the brother of the Andalite who gave us the morphing power. He joined us a little later in the battle. And then there's me, the local adrenaline junkie.

We're aided by the Chee, a group of age-old, dog-like, almost robotic creatures with the power to generate holograms around themselves. Sometimes, when he feels like it, we get the help of the Ellimist, the guy who gave Tobias his morphing power back. There's pretty much no way to describe him other than a seemingly all-powerful guy who tries to monitor the universe.

But mostly, we fight by ourselves.

That's what we had done last night: we had fought.

I won't lie; usually I like to fight. I like the thrill and the rush and the incredible sense of power that comes with being a Grizzly bear and being able to knock someone out so easily. You could even say that I love it. Out of all my friends, I'm the one who's always ready to go into battle.

But not after last night.

"Rachel. Rachel! Rachel, are you paying attention?" My math teacher interrupted my thoughts and peered into my face, looking a little pissed off.

"Yes, ma'am, I am," I told her, but even I could hear the attitude in my voice. To tell the truth, I didn't care. I was too tired, too stressed, and too worried, to care.

Apparently, she felt the same way. "Rachel," she said tiredly, and I sighed. "I am not in the mood for your attitude. If you aren't going to be respectful, then you can just get out of my classroom."

The whole class knew what was coming.

"Okay," I told her. I threw my books into my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and walked out. From the glimpse I caught of my teacher's face, she didn't look too disappointed. Or too surprised.

It's just the sort of thing people expect from me. And I guess, with time, it's come to be what I expect of myself.

The hallway was empty for once, and I was glad. I really just needed some quiet to think over my thoughts.

"Hey, Rachel! RACHEL!"

Obviously, I wasn't going to be getting quiet anytime soon.

Marco jogged up to me, wide grin on his face. "Hey Rachel, how you doing?"

I leaned on a locker and glared at him. "Not in the mood, Marco."

He shrugged. "Funny; neither am I. Why aren't you in class?"

"Got kicked out." He shook his head amusedly. "Well, why aren't you in class?" I shot back at him defensively.

He waved his hall pass in front of my face, and then leaned against the lockers next to me and slammed an open locker's door shut. The sound echoed throughout the empty corridor.

We were silent for a moment, both thinking about the same thing. Some girl walked by us, gave us a strange look, and kept on walking after I glared at her.

"We'll find him," Marco said quietly. "Or he'll find us. If anybody knows their way around, it's him."

"Yeah," I whispered. "It's just, you know, last time –"

"We'll find him, Rachel," Marco repeated, but his voice sounded shaky, like he was trying to convince himself.

"You should go back to class," I told him firmly. I didn't want to break down in front of him. He nodded and left.

I closed my eyes for a second and remembered last night…

"Everybody out!" Jake shouted.

Nobody complained, not even me. We were outnumbered big time. The endless hordes of Hork-Bajir weren't stopping, and as if that wasn't enough, we could still hear the tortured screams of humans as they were about to be re-infested by Yeerks.

This was why we hated the Yeerk Pool.

"This place is a living hell," Cassie muttered uncharacteristically. She was in wolf morph, missing an ear, and limping on three legs.

We ran up the steps of the Yeerk Pool. We could hear Visser Three shouting for all the exits of the pool to be shut.

As we approached the exit, we realized with horror that it was blocked by a beam of wood that we had knocked down earlier.

"Damn it," Jake cursed, before turning to Ax and me. We need a door, he said tersely. And fast.

Ax looked at me, and I nodded my shaggy bear head. His quick-as-lightning Andalite tail cut open a few slits in the wall, and my huge bear body plowed through. We were out in the middle of a dark alley, running, demorphing, and morphing back to birds as fast as we could.

Soon we were in Cassie's barn, back to being normal kids and a normal Andalite. All of us. Except…

"Where's Tobias?" I asked suddenly. Cassie glanced up from the animals she was checking on, Jake opened his eyes from being sprawled on the floor, Marco sat up from the bale of hay he was on, and Ax turned all four of his eyes on me intently.

"Where's Tobias?" I repeated.

Silence. I watched as Jake's eyes slowly moved up to the empty rafter that Tobias usually perched on. He turned quickly to look at Ax. "Wasn't he with you during the battle?"

Ax shook his head." No, Prince Jake."

Jake didn't even tell him not to call him Prince. He frantically turned to Marco, Cassie, and I. "None of you saw him?"

We all shook our heads.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, as if on cue, all five of us sprinted outside of the barn. "TOBIAS!" Jake shouted.

No answer.

Jake turned slowly to look at first Marco, then Cassie, then Ax, and lastly me. His eyes held a look of fear that was mirrored in our eyes.

"We're screwed," he whispered.

I opened my eyes and was greeted with the grey door of the bleak bathroom stall. "Yeah," I whispered to myself. "We are."