Note: There will be a slight time difference depending on which series' character is narrating until they meet, though everything will be chronologically moving forward. Sorry for the confusion.

Chapter 2

My name is Jake. No last name, never a last name. I can't even tell you what town I live in, or what state. Because if I told you, there's a chance the Yeerks would be able to find us. And we can never let that happen.

If you're new to this game, you're probably wondering what I'm talking about. Yeerks are alien slugs bent on world domination. What's a bunch of slugs going to do, you ask?

Yeerks can infest the bodies of sentient beings, crawling into the ear canal. They wrap around the host's brain and from that moment on control their every move. All the host can do is watch as the Yeerk infests their loved ones, tricked by the familiar face.

Until now the invasion was mostly limited to North America, but a week ago we heard news that the Yeerks had targeted another nation, one with many more people living in close contact with each other. Japan.

We were sitting in Cassie's barn, which is also a wildlife rehabilitation center. Her parents were out of town and we didn't have to worry about being over heard, so Ax had chosen to come in his natural Andalite form.

See, the Andalites are the sworn enemies of the Yeerks. When they tried to destroy their enemy once and for all they were surprised. There were few survivors.

One Andalite, war prince Elfangor, crash landed in a construction site that we had happened to be walking through, and he gave us a power that enabled us to fight the Yeerks.

The power to morph into any animal we touch.

However, Visser Three, the leader of the Earth invasion, also found Elfangor. And murdered him. Visser Three is the only Yeerk to possess an Andalite body.

A few weeks latter we found Ax in the destroyed Dome Ship, out at sea. Ax is Elfangor's little brother.

'I am confused, Erik said that there would be heavier losses if the Yeerks captured Japan, but the maps I have seen show that Japan is far smaller than the United States. How is this possible?'

'Japan has a much higher population density than America does. There are thousands of people living in a square mile'

That was Tobias, perched in the rafters. Tobias is stuck as a red-tailed hawk because he stayed in morph for more than two hours.

Ax blinked his main eyes, his stalk eyes looking at each of us in turn. Andalites look like a cross between a scorpion and a centaur, except their fur is blue. They also have no mouth and an extra pair of eyes on stalks on top of their heads.

'But how can you humans stand to live so crowdedly?'

"We just do, Ax. It's a human thing." Rachel, my cousin is the warrior of the team, always brave in combat. You wouldn't expect her to be like that, though, because most people think of her as a fashion lover.

'But how? How do they have room to run?'

"Japanese construction is very space-conscious. You'd be surprised how much room people have to move." That was Cassie. She loves animals, which I guess is lucky because both of her parents are veterinarians. She always knows just how to explain stuff.

"And besides, you don't need much room if you live in a bee hive." Marco, my best friend, was always making jokes.

"That's just the hotels! Most families live in normal apartments, or small homes." Rachel and Marco always get on each other's nerves. It's what they do.

'How does a human fit in a bee hive? I don't understand.'

'They don't. See, the inexpensive hotel rooms are shaped like cells in a hive, only one person can fit in a room at a time.'

"Uh, guys? Aren't we getting a little off topic?" Eric was our main source of Yeerk information. See, Eric is a member of the Chee race. He may look like the average teenager, but this is just a hologram. He really looks like a robotic dog taught to walk on its hind legs. The Chee were created by a now-extinct race called the Pemalites, and were programmed for peace. The thought of harming any living creature fills them with despair. That's why they help us. They refuse to watch the human race suffer.

I nodded. "Why Japan? Why not China? Isn't their population density the highest in the world?"

Eric shrugged. "Word is that the Yeerks want to infest the most people they can in the smallest amount of time. Also, Japan is one of the world's most technologically-advanced nations. If the Yeerks can cut off the supply of new tech, they hope to overpower humanity by sheer technological overpowering."

Marco frowned. "So you want us to risk our butts and go over to fight in Japan, possibly killing ourselves or worse?"

Erik nodded. "Well, yeah."

"…I hate you so much right now."

Rachel ignored him. "So how do we get to Japan? There's no way we can fly that far in two hours."

I blinked, the plan suddenly coming together.

"Remember how we used our seagull morph to sneak aboard a ship to resque Ax? How about we sneak aboard a ship heading to Japan, dimorph and wait out the trip there?"

Rachel nodded. "But what'll we tell our parents? There's no way they'll not miss us being away for that long."

Marco snapped his fingers. "How about an exchange program? We can go to live with a family in Japan. That way we'll have a cover story AND we won't have to stow away on anything!"

"That's brilliant!"

"Yeah, for once."

And so we went home, asking our parents for permission. Turns out our high school would actually sponsor the trip, being educational as it was. In a few short days we were
packed and on a plane to Japan, Ax and Tobias in the luggage storage as flees. Everything was going according to plan.