Thanks JoJo for clearing that up.

Tobias

We flew down and began to demorph and remorph, Jake was talking to Erek. Apparently this was as new to him as it was to us. I looked at my mother she was very pale. Some Hork-Bajir had found her unconscious by the creek and when she woke up she was screaming. I hadn't heard screams like that since our last visit to the yeerk pool; they had set a foreboding pall over the morning.

"Alright guys, Erek says he hasn't heard of any yeerk activity this way, but as always they've slipped things by us before." Jake's voice was solemn; there was nothing else to say really. He smiled a tight smile and he and Cassie began to morph fly. They would be hiding in Loren's purse and when he found out where they were from Ax he would fly to them and demorph and remorph as necessary.

I pulled on my clothes, a very mismatched outfit but at least they were clean. I saw my reflection off of Erek's chrome body, even in the poorest days of living with my uncle I had never looked this bad. I met my mother's eyes and all I saw was sadness and regret, she looked ready to cry.

"Tobias I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. When I left I didn't think that would happen, I though I'd be back for you that night…" She was speaking of things that I knew nothing of, but I felt her pain like a knife to the heart. Impulsively I hugged her.

Okay guys, I'm ready. As Rachel would say, let's do it. Jake flew into Loren's purse.

Aximili

We flew behind the bushes to demorph; it felt good to have my tail. I wish I didn't have to morph fly, I felt so vulnerable without it. So there we were trying to morph fly in the middle of a storm.

Ax-man you morphed yet? Marco and Rachel had finished their morphs several minutes ago leaving me to stand guard incase we were discovered. So far the Andalite hadn't even moved. Did he really not hear us or was he letting us walk into a trap?

One moment Marco. I began the morph. I felt a sickening sensation as all my bones and organs turned into so much good. I felt myself hit the ground as my skin became hard and crunchy, I tried to close my eyes but I no longer had eyelids. An extra set of legs shot out of my chest and eyes that saw everything exploded from my head. My hooves became little claws and bristly hair covered my body. Then and only then did I begin to shrink, smaller and smaller till I was barely bigger than a pebble. Finally I was fly. I am ready.

Rachel, ask Tobias if the andalite has moved yet?

I don't need to. I am flying around his head. He's still out in the yard, but I think the rain has slowed down and morning is coming. It looks brighter out here. Wow! Marco, Ax be ready we're moving.

Marco and I lifted off to intercept Rachel at the door. She again had disobeyed orders; many times I think Rachel is too reckless to be a soldier. She is too eager for conflict. My brother told me once that a warrior who has come to love the war has gotten too good at killing. Regardless Prince Jake still saw her fit for combat, who am I to argue? In my readings of humans I have often found them to be a whole race of madman. Making speeches such as 'Give me liberty or give me death' or 'I have not yet begun to fight' and even more unbelievable living up to them. One day our scientist will study their DNA, it will be amazing to see the results.

Ax! Pay attention.

Yes Marco.

Rachel says they're almost here on her signal we fly in and go upstairs.

Marco, Ax are you guys ready? Doesn't matter we're here. Let's do it.

I powered my wings and flew in; the burst of cold air numbed my body for a few seconds.

We made it…air conditioning. Everyone stick close to the ceiling, we lost our guy. I think I just heard a TV or stereo come on so we should be okay.

We flew through the house until finally by accident we found the stairs and flew up.

Ax how are we on our time?

We have used approximately fifteen of your minutes.

Ax for the last time, you've been on earth what over two years. I think they are everyone's minutes by now.

Of course. I think I have found us a suitable place to demorph.

Fine, everyone demorph. Ax be alert.

I felt my body begin to shift and change. It felt good to regain my natural form. With each second I felt my own instincts rise above those of the fly's. I began to look around as the others finished morphing. The room was sparsely decorated by human standards, but it was neat and clean. Nothing like what my human friends had lived in before. The bed and dresser I believe they are called and…

Marco, a laptop. I pointed to a black flat object plugged into the wall resting on the floor.

"Xena, go to wolf morph find someplace where you're not being seen and sit quietly. Ax morph human we'll stay up here and take a look at what's on this thing." By the time he was finished speaking she was already in mid-morph.

Wish me luck.

Good luck Rachel and watch out for tile floors.

I sat down next to Marco on the floor; he already had the computer turned on. I looked at the keyboard and the screen. I smiled the keys and all the writing were Andalite characters, the beautiful flowing script of my people. Marco looked confused, for all his computer skills he was helpless.

"Alright Ax, tell me which Best Buy he picked this on up at." He handed me the laptop.

"Marco, it doesn't even require a password." Easily I scanned the welcome screen for files. "Here is one all on yeerk activities, and a window into the Yeerk network. Also a file on 'Andalite Bandits' and the Andalite home world. It seems there is intelligence on the Andalite fleet here as well. Who ever he has getting him this information has very good eyes and ears. And if this information is accurate then the Andalites are coming after all."

Guys Jake says they're coming.

"Ax tell Rachel we'll be waiting for her signal."

Loren

We were walking towards that house and I wanted to throw up. I grabbed Tobias's hand and he squeezed mine. Tobias and Jake had some strange reason for wanting me to come, they said it would be important. I was so nervous, so I acted brave. Lifting my eyes to look ahead I walked up the stairs to the door and knocked. A few seconds later the door opened… and I couldn't move. The face from my dream! His eyes grew dark and stormy he saw it too. I felt surprise creep into my face, carefully I hid it.

"Hello," I said briskly. "Apparently several days ago your father gave my son your address because he had helped him in the forest. Now I've probably caught you off guard, but since it was on my way home I hope you don't mind us stopping by so early." All I received was shocked silence I smiled. Finally he motioned for Tobias and I to come in, I saw a mix of emotions come into his face when he saw the two of us together. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed two flies buzz out of my purse.

Elfangor

I fell asleep on my couch watching TV. I couldn't have slept for more than a half an hour when I heard knocking, if it was that annoying paper boy again I swear I was gonna kill him. I opened the door…and there was standing the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life. For the first time in years I was speechless, Loren my beautiful Loren was here.

"Hello," She was way too perky for this hour of the day. "Apparently several days ago your father gave my son your address because he had helped him in the forest. Now I've probably caught you off guard, but since it was on my way home I hope you don't mind us stopping by so early." Then when I was groping for something to hold onto she just walked in. But when I say the boy I knew there was nothing coincidental about our meeting. I wanted to hug her, to kiss her to tell her I would make everything all right but she didn't even know my name.

I looked at Tobias and saw an intensity that I usually saw in hardened warriors, but I made you one didn't I my son. His face was expressionless. He looked so much like me, and I saw lots of Loren there too. I closed my eyes this was too much for me.

"Okay Bird-Boy, introduce me!" Behind me stood a Latino boy, also one of the children from the construction site. "Fine I'll start with the introductions," it finally hit me that they didn't know who I was. "I'm Marco, I am an Animorph okay Ax-man he's all yours." Doing a mock bow the boy walked into my kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips before stretching himself out on my couch. Well at least this one had manners.

Welcome to earth, I turned around and there stood my brother along with the big male and two females. The site of him caused such relief I burst out laughing. They all kind of looked at each other in wry amusement, apparently they had met some of my colleagues.

"Forgive me, but you're alive. You're…all alive." The words fell out of my mouth. They had to be the most unprofessional words I'd ever spoke and yet I was so glad to speak them. I looked at Loren; she rolled her eyes making me grin more. For the first time in many years I felt happy.

As I was saying welcome to earth, my Prince, he motioned to the big one. Jake would like for me to extend an invitation to join our resistance.

"You ask this without knowing whom you ask?"

"Well let's put it this way," the blonde adolescent girl spoke. "We've dealt with enough pushy aliens and we can deal with one more, but we figure if you were going to rat us out you would have already and you're really in no position to negotiate. So let me be straight with you this is our planet, our world and right now it's too dangerous for anyone to screw us up, so if you do or if you even think of getting in our way we'll kill you."

I looked this warrior-child; she had started off almost ranting, but by the time she was done her voice held all the coldness of a killer. Her blue eyes held so much fury; she was a soldier I could respect because I had the feeling she would make good on her word if needed.

"Well there you go Rachel, that's why you don't have many friends." It was the one called Marco, he actually reminded me of Arbron but that's a good thing. The galaxy needs more people that can laugh.

"What Rachel means is that right now we are in a position that if we lose any more we might just lose the war. We need help but we can't afford to get it at the cost of our planet, so if you'll help us we'd be grateful but if not we hope you'll just forget we ever met." This girl had sad eyes that seemed to see right into me. She was the one that had told the boy to go into my ship.

"Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to now?"

"Cassie, my name is Cassie. And this is my friend Rachel, that's Loren." She pointed to the older blonde and smiled. "This is Jake I guess you could say he is our leader and he," she rolled her eyes at Marco, "needs no further introduction. And of course Aximili-Esgarrouth-Esthil, but we call him Ax and Tobias."

I nodded. These were the children that I had given the morphing ability to, it was amazing. They had changed I was sure of it, my brother had changed. I looked at them one more time and for the first time I realized they looked pretty beat up.

Cassie

I think I might know who the Ellimist sent to help us. Jake and I were in Loren's purse and I had been thinking about this since our meeting the night before. Marco's description was pretty true but correct, if we have to work with an andalite he did need all of those things.

I been thinking about that too, but your better at this stuff than me so explain.

Honestly, I think the only andalite that we might get along with would be Elfangor. I know it's crazy but it makes sense. I mean he broke the rules once why wouldn't he help us and we know how he regards humans.

Yeah but he's dead remember. If I recall he was Visser Three's late night snack about the same time we were hiding behind a wall puking our guts out.

I know Jake, but remember we're going on the assumption the Crayak broke the rules so why couldn't the Ellimist? He makes time machines, stuff like this would be easy for him. I think Jake was about to answer when two thumps were heard, it was the signal that we had been waiting for. Jake and I powered up our little fly wings and flew out of the purse.

It was crazy; being a fly is like being the world's greatest test pilot. We flew for about a minute when Jake told me it was time to land and demorph. A few minutes later we were walking toward the sound of voices in a strange house. What made it even more weird was that we were on a mission and out battle morph was human.

Jake and I arrived just in time to hear Ax make his welcome to Earth speech, it of course had been a diversion. Every time we meet Andalites as soon as they see Ax they forget all about the rest of us, he was buying time for Jake and I.

I looked at this Andalite, what if he was Elfangor? He was big and muscular, that I could tell because he was sitting in his pajama pants and nothing else. I guess that's our fault for coming so early in the morning. His hair was really dark almost black and his eyes were brown and human but they still had the same ferocity as the hawk form Tobias lived as. I had the feeling we were being watched by him as much as he was watching us.

"…So let me be straight with you this is our planet, our world and right now it's too dangerous for anyone to screw us up, so if you do or if you even think of getting in our way we'll kill you." Rachel had been raving, but I was glad it made things seem normal.

"Well there you go Rachel, that's why you don't have many friends."

Politely I rephrased what Rachel had said. I don't think I needed too, I think he liked it the way she said it. Then I introduced us all, but it almost seemed like an overrated formality. He had known us long before we met today, I could see it in his eyes.

"May I get some water?" All the others stopped and stared at me, but the andalite smiled and instead of replying got up and went into the kitchen. By the time I walked in behind him he had already got the glass and was headed to the sink. "Who are you?" I said the words in no more than a whisper. Slowly he turned around and looked at me.