Disclaimer: see Chapter 1
"indicates thought speak." I'd like to use the regular symbols but Fanfic has deleted them every time I tried to upload. Arrgh! If anyone knows how to fix this, I'd appreciate knowing.
Chapter 2
"You do realize, Marco, that if Jake ever finds out about this, you're dead." Tobias muttered as he crawled through the dank, dark, constricting pipe just ahead of me. We were in rat morph, ideal for maneuvering through the huge building unseen.
"Tobias, if Jake ever finds out about this we're both dead, not just me. But no one is going to know that the rat that attacked Debbie Wallace is a loveable guy named Marco. That is, unless somebody tells them. Remember, I didn't ask you to come along." I shot a glare at him as we came to an intersection in the pipes.
"Yeah, but if Jake caught you he'd know that you didn't locate a sewer rat on your own. I came along to protect my own hide, not yours. Besides," and Tobias's voice held a note of laughter, "I don't want to miss Ax's second day of school. It was bad enough to have to miss his first. Speaking of which…"
"…so if you carried the determining factor of zero and divide by the factor of negative one you can determine the relative speed of an object through normal space. Spai-yus. Now if you take the resulting figure and place it in this equation…" Ax, of course. Ax is relatively normal when he's not in morph- at least as normal as a blue-furred, scorpion-tailed alien centaur with stalk eyes can be. But when he's in human morph, his mouth fascinates both him and anyone else within earshot.
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil, or Ax, is one of the more aggravating problems of the Animorphs. The Yeerks have the idea that we Animorphs are a group of 'Andilite bandits,' and that's good in some ways, because if the Yeerks ever found out that we are mostly a bunch of human kids…well, lets just say we really don't want that to happen. But since there is one true Andilite among us, Ax is in constant danger of Yeerk discovery.
Andilites have many things in common with humans, such as their intelligence, their government, and their values. But they are definitely not from around the neighborhood. Their technology alone has had a 300 year head start. You can probably tell from the way that Ax was entertaining Jake's physics teacher.
"I'll stay here, Marco. That way I will be able to say to Jake that I wasn't with you."
"What, the Bird boy who hunts for breakfast is afraid to get in the ill graces of his esteemed leader?"
Tobias laughed. "You better believe it! Plus, I have this problem with smelly gym socks. You will not believe how bad they smell when you have a nose more sensitive than your own."
Marco, Marco, Marco. (shakes head in dismay) What are you up to now, I wonder? Don't worry, there is a plot coming...slowly...