Prologue
My name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.
I am an Andalite Prince and I am trying not to die.
I am heading toward the planet Earth, Yeerks hot on my tail.
I had my brother Aximili with me, but a Controller who had snuck onto the ship had killed him.
I fight to make sure that I destroy all the Yeerk Bug Fighters I can.
I land on the planet.
I have no other choice.
But then I saw the human child looking back at me.
He had seen me land.
I recognized him.
My son. My son who I had not seen since he was seven human years old.
When I was on Earth, I had fallen in love with a human woman named Loren.
I had gone to Earth because I no longer wanted to fight.
I morphed human and promised myself that I would never become Andalite again.
That was where I met Loren.
We became good friends and later fell in love.
I told her the truth about how I was an alien and I did something I thought I never would do again. I demorphed.
She told me she was surprised and she needed time to process this, but she loved me anyway. Four years later we were married.
Then we had Tobias.
He was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Then, when Tobias was one year old, Loren, his mother, was killed in a car accident traveling home from work.
I was devistated but I never stopped loving Tobias.
I was there for him on his first day of kindergarten when he came home from school crying that his teacher had called him a worthless little brat.
I raised Tobias until he was seven.
One day I woke up in my Andalite body, on an Andalite fighter.
A creature calling himself an Ellimist appeared to me.
He told me that I was needed by the Andalites. He showed me that Tobias was sent to live with his uncle.
The Ellimist said that he did not erase Tobias's memory.
I knew his uncle Dave, Loren's brother.
He was a horible man with a drinking problem who couldn't keep a job and abused Tobias when I sent him there once to baby-sit him.
Tobias lived with him for seven years.
I found I had a little brother named Aximili.
Aximili was a smart, curious, imaginative young child.
He was accepted into the military as an aristh. He went into battle in my fighter with me.
But we found that a Hork-Bajir-Controller had gotten onto the ship unnoticed and he shot my brother with a Dracon beam on full power.
I killed him, and threw him into space.
Then, I crashed on the planet Earth.
I saw Tobias, and I heard his voice. "You can come out now."
I stood there, contemplating my next course of action.
On one hand, I could step out of the ship and see my son again.
On the other hand, seeing an Andalite could put Tobias in unnecessary danger. Then he spoke again. "Come out. I won't hurt you."
I am ashamed to admit it, but the selfish part of me won my inner debate. [I know.] I said.
Chapter 1
My name is Tobias Fangor.
I used to be a normal kid. My life was never exactly the happiest life ever.
My mom died in a car crash when I was only a year old. I can't really remember her.
My dad raised me as a single father until I was seven.
One day when I was seven I woke up to an empty house.
I called the police just like Daddy had taught me to do.
I still called him Daddy back then while most kids my age grow out of that.
It was a source of relentless bullying from other kids and even a teacher.
I was sent to live with my uncle Dave.
He is an alcoholic who beats me up when he's drunk and even sometimes when he's sober. Either way, he always seems to be in a bad mood.
I also still have bullies that pick on me, slam me against lockers, and use me as their human punching bag.
This story starts when I was looking at my grades on my report card.
We had just gotten back from summer vacation and for some reason this school hands out report cards at the beginning of the new school year instead of at the end of the old one.
I am kind of average in school. I mostly get B's with a few A's here and there.
I was looking at the scores when I heard a familiar but unwelcome voice behind me say, "Hey! How's it going, Toby Boy?"
I turned to see Ben Kelly, a kid from the school's wrestling team and one of my current bullies, standing in front of me.
"Leave me alone, Ben." I said, trying to sound threatening, but what came out was more of a bearly audible squeak.
"Leave me alone, Ben." He mocked. He turned to his friends, more like his lackies who do whatever he says and said, "You hear that guys? Little Toby wants us to leave him alone." One of his friends, Victor Parker, ran up and snatched the report card out of my hands.
He brought it to Ben.
"Well. Look what we've got here. Little Toby's report card."
Silence as he read through it. And then ... "You got a B in math? I can't believe it. Math was the easiest class. Tobias, tell me, what's 1 1?"
"Leave me alone."
"He doesn't know!" Ben exclaimed, which caused an uproar of laughter from Ben's buddies. "What will your daddy say when he sees this."
He paused for a moment, then said, "Oh yeah! I forgot! He's dead!"
Then they ran off.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to face ... "Rachel?"
Rachel is this popular girl who all the guys have crushes on. Including me. She's also a member of this club called the Sharing.
"The way that Ben and his group of idiots were talking to you was not okay."
"Yeah, well, it's been going on since kindergarten. I doubt it'll stop now." I said.
"Maybe not. But you should really come to a meeting of The Sharing. We are having a meeting tomorrow. Mr. Visser himself is going to be there. Just tell them that Rachel sent you and you will probably become a full member right away."
"Maybe I will." I said, and I meant it, too.
After school, I decided to head to the mall to avoid having to face my uncle.
I hung out there for a while, and then I decided to go home.
I decided to take the shortcut through this abandoned construction site which was going to be turned into this new shopping center, but the people working on it just decided to leave it. Now it's just a bunch of old abandoned half-finished buildings. Sometimes homeless people hang out there and I've found empty beer bottles and the remains of little campfires.
I've probably seen more beer bottles on the floor of my uncle's house than in the construction site.
When I was walking, I saw some weird light in the sky.
It came closer, and I drew the only logical conclusion.
It was some sort of experimental government aircraft.
Then it landed.
It certainly wasn't anything I'd ever seen.
It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen.
It was like something off of Star Wars, but not quite like that.
If it was some sort of alien, then I needed to let it know that I wouldn't hurt it.
"You can come out." I said.
I didn't entirely expect it to speak English, but I thought that at least my tone would be enough to convay the message.
It didn't come out, so I tried again. "Can you come out? I won't hurt you."
[I know.]
I startled at hearing the voice inside my head.
Some kind of doorway appeared, and something came out.
It had a body similar to a deer or a small horse, except its fur was blue.
Its head looked similar to a human head, but it had no mouth, three vertical slits for nostrills, and four eyes. Two where normal eyes should be, and two mounted on stalks on top of its head that were constantly swivelling around.
"Hi." I said.
[Hello. My name is Elfangor.]
"Nice to meet you. I'm Tobias."
[I am honored to make your acquaintance, Tobias. But I fear that we have much to discuss with so little time. I may have been followed. The Yeerks are coming.]
"What are the Yeerks?"
[Yeerks in their natural form are not dangerous. They resemble your earth slugs, only a bit bigger, about the size of your Earth rats.]
"Why should we be scared of these Yeerks?"
"They crawl into your ear, connect themselves to your brain, and take total control. You cannot eat unless the Yeerk wants; you cannot go to the bathroom unless the Yeerk wants; you cannot even blink unless your Yeerk does it for you. You may be able to twitch a finger if your Yeerk is distracted, but even that is extremely rare.]
"What can we do about it?" I asked.
[I must ask you if you would help me fight the Yeerks. Go into my ship. There is a black bag. The bag holds many supplies that might be useful to us. I will morph a kafit, a bird that is native to the home world of my species, the Andalites.]
I went into his ship.
When I came outside, Elfangor was tapping his hooves anxiously against the ground.
[Good. Now I will morph.]
"You mean you Andalites can become animals?"
[Yes. More on that later. I will morph, then I will fly into this bag, and you will take me to your place of residence so I can stay with you. Would you mind?]
"Not at all."
Elfangor smiled. [I apologize if I sounded rude. I was just unable to set up any living arangements prior to this moment.]
"It's fine. My uncle isn't the nicest guy on the planet."
[I would say that it is most likely that the Yeerks, especially the Vissers, are worse than your uncle. But I do believe you when you say he is unkind to you.]
Elfangor began to morph into some sort of freaky-looking alien bird.
Suddenly he flew right at my face!
I was startled until I realized that he was not going for my face, but the bag that I was holding. He flew inside and said, [Now run!]
I got home and snuck past my uncle and into my room. Elfangor demorphed and took out a strange device. He pressed a button, and he disappeared.
"What?" I asked.
[I am still here.] Elfangor explained, [This is merely a hologram of a spot on the floor that is not being occupied by an Andalite. In simpler terms, I am using a hologram so if your uncle walks in, he will not see me or my bag.]
We fell silent.
I can't explain it, but I felt like Elfangor was someone I'd known all my life. We already had some sort of closeness, some kind of unexplainable connection.
I felt a lot safer with Elfangor sleeping near me.
I fell asleep, but first, I kept thinking about how the Yeerks were invading Earth.
My last thought before sleep overtook me was that I really hoped they hadn't taken Rachel.
