Chapter 1

With my superb falcon hearing, I could hear everything. I could hear the wind whistling through me feathers. The gentle hum of the cars on the dual-carriage way below. Unfortunately for me, I could also hear a lot more than that.

--Ash!—screamed Samantha, somewhere behind me. –Asha!—

I didn't need to turn around to know what had happened. Sam's tone of voice, and Asha's triumphant yell had told me everything. Sam had escaped. Asha had not.

I'm normally the type of guy who likes to see the best of a bad situation. I'm well known in, and let me be blunt here, the upper classes of society, as the boy with the impressible sense of fun. Anything that is crazy, dangerous, anything that ensures a fine is to be had by all, I generally greet with over-eager enthusiasm. Polo, parties and pranks is what I live for – and in that order. Unfortunately, now was not the time nor place for a laugh.

I followed Philip as he descended a few hundred feet towards a suitable demorphing spot, and landed, somewhat clumsily despite letting my hobby falcon's mind take over for the duration, on the roof of a department store. Philip landed just a few feet away, his buzzard body landing perfectly, I may add, and we started demorphing at top speed. The two of us were nervously looking around us for signed of having been followed by Controllers – the fight had seemed like it was still going on around us, when, in fact, it was probably at least half an hour ago that we'd heard Asha's searing last words. Samantha had ordered us to carry on flying until we were totally out of sight of the Controllers, then to demorph as soon as possible where she would find us with the new fugitive, Maggie. Maggie, the fifth abductee, who'd been forced in the heat of the moment to morph a beetle, having never morphed before. Maggie, who was to replace Asha as the forth fugitive…

I forced my thoughts away from the battle and the thought that Asha could be dead, and concentrated hard on my human form. Demorphing is easier than morphing as it's easier to picture your own self than the body of an animal – especially when you've spent as much time admiring yourself in the mirror as I, on many an occasion, have been known to do. I have to say, morphing is not the most pleasurable experience. It doesn't hurt – those clever little Andalites must have thought of some way to stop the whole pain side of it from happening – but it does shoot off the scale of the creepiness factor. The first thing to change was my beak. It turned soft and runny, like a melting chocolate bar, and formed itself into my own familiar nose and mouth. Next went the feathers. They ran together like hot wax, gradually turning my own pinkish tan, lightly dusted with freckles here and there. I looked over at Philip, my brilliant raptor vision rapidly becoming blurred as my weak human eyes reformed in their sockets. He was demorphing faster than I was – the boy seemed to have some kind of talent for top-speed-morphing – although it looked no prettier. He was almost fully human except for two short hawk legs sticking out of his lower half. Each foot still possessed the sharp, tearing claw of the buzzard.

"Talboat chllegs!" I said, my mouth still not yet fully human.

"What?" Philip looked at me, his human eyes almost as fierce as they had been when he was a hawk. "I didn't understand a word of that."

"I said, talk about chicken legs!" I repeated, my mouth now fully human. I motioned towards his legs with my still shifting arms. Philip just looked confused. Unfortunately, it seemed as if my passing joke had come too late – Philip's legs were now totally human, clad in navy cycling shorts and long, knee length socks he'd worn in the army. I sighed.

"Where the heck's Samantha?" I asked Philip. "I thought she was right behind us."

"She's probably on her way, looking for us," he said, scanning the sky. "Our eyes are a lot weaker than they were as birds, so what we were able to see clearly a few minutes ago, might be invisible to us now we're human."

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, a lanner falcon landed beside us. It dropped something small and black onto the ground beside us, and began to grow.

--Don't just sit there, guys!-- yelled Samantha. --Help Maggie demorph!--