Still, the feeling was compelling enough that Slade wouldn't be able to ignore it with any kind of ease. So, maybe it was best just to listen to this strange new instinct. Another warrior, another Animorph, would probably be just the kind of thing that Jake needed anyway.

"Shara, would you come here please?"

"Sure," the girl put on a rather unconvincing sort of smile. "I'll be right there."

Suiting actions to words, Shara came striding up, still wearing that fake-looking smile that did nothing to hide the fact that for some reason she was feeling miserable. Slade tried to ignore it, it didn't have anything to do with what he was planning to do, after all. But in the end, that same feeling that had led him to rescue her in the first place made it nearly impossible for Slade to disregard something that so obviously caused Shara pain.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Slade," Shara said, still wearing that smile. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to know," Slade said firmly. "Something's bothering you, what is it?"

Shara turned away, folding her arms over her chest in what Slade took to be an instinctively defensive reaction. Shaking her head and seeming to clear it, Shara turned back to look at him. The smile was gone, in its place was a look of resigned sadness.

"You're not him," she said finally. "You look just like him, and your voice is exactly like his. But he isn't here, and you can never really be him again." Shara's mouth turned up in a sad, cynical half-smile, but at least it wasn't that smile again. "I guess I'll just have to get used to it, though. Learn to live without him."

"Who was he, you sound like you knew him really well."

"He was my brother, we were very close."

Slade nodded, despite the fact that as far as he knew he had never had a family. Shara obviously missed this brother of hers very much, and so Slade figured that since he obviously looked so much like the brother she had lost, there was no reason that he couldn't at least protect her the way this brother of hers had probably done.

There was no real substitute for a family member, Slade knew, but they could at least be friends. Slade held out the morphing cube.

"What's that thing?"

Slade flicked his eyes to the morphing cube for a minute before looking back at Shara. She looked confused, and Slade imagined that he had looked pretty much the same way when Jake had sent him to retrieve the cube in the first place.

"Just put your hand on one side of it, I'll try to explain after that," Slade said. Truth is, even I really don't have that good of an idea what this thing does. I just know that it works.

Shara placed her right hand on the top of the cube, exactly opposite of where Slade was holding it from. A strange tingling sensation made its way up from Shara's hand all the way to her shoulder. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, not at all, and compared to the things she had already been though, Shara found it almost ordinary.

"What just happened to me?"

"You were just given the morphing power," Slade said, as casually as if he was merely talking about the weather.

"Oh. What's the 'morphing power'?" Shara asked.

Slade rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how to explain something that had never really been explained to him. "Well, I think it's a kind of metamorphosis. You know, like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly? Anyway, that's what we can do now."

"'We'? You mean you have this power, too?" Shara asked, curious.

"Yeah. That was what gave me the idea to give it to you," Slade nodded. "There are some other people that have it, too. I thought, since you're probably going to be staying here, you might want to help with what we're doing."

"What are you doing?"

"There's this group of aliens, called the Yeerks, who are trying to take over the world," Slade shrugged. "Pretty standard fare for evil alien invaders, if you ask me." What made me say that Slade wondered to himself, then shrugged. "Anyway, there's also this group of kids that's trying to stop them, and they gave me that power so I could help them."

"Is that all?" Shara asked. "I get the feeling that there's more to it than that."