Notes: This story is a crossover with the TV series Animorphs and is set a few years after the episode Front. In the PR timeline, it's set shortly after the end of Dino Thunder.

For those who haven't seen Animorphs, it's about a group of teenagers who were given the ability to turn into animals in order to fight a race of alien parasites called the Yeerks. The Yeerks live inside people's brains and control them. Every few days they have to come out and recharge themselves in a Yeerk pool using a device called a Candrona.

Near the start of the series, one of the characters, Tobias, got stuck as a hawk. Even though the problem was later fixed, he has to turn back into a hawk every two hours otherwise he gets stuck and loses his ability to change.

If you get confused about anything else, ask me and I'll let you know.

Chapter One

It would be easy to fly away. He could stay a hawk forever and just be free, living in the forests, eating mice and not having to worry about being infested. There'd been a time when he'd thought he'd never be human again and he'd come to terms with it. Now he had a choice.

If he stayed a hawk, he'd be safe. The Yeerks couldn't hunt down every bird. He could hide for the rest of his life and never have to be afraid.

But he'd be alone. He'd be the only hawk able to think like a person. And he'd watch his world be taken over by alien slugs.

There wasn't much he could do to stop the invasion. There was only one of him, all Yeerk pools were thoroughly protected and the enemy knew what he looked like now. Tobias remembered the last time they'd tried to strike back. It had been after Jake was taken and Rachel too, though they didn't find that out until too late. They'd planned to destroy the Candrona and, if possible, to get Jake out so they could free him. They'd been careful and thorough. They'd discussed all possible strategies and made dozens of back-up plans in case things went wrong.

And Rachel had told them all to the Yeerks.

Tobias had been lucky to get away alive. Marco and Cassie hadn't.

And now he was alone, flying from place to place. Occasionally returning to human form to listen for any sign of the Yeerks and just to remind himself what it was he was staying alive for.

He had to cling to the hope that maybe, one day he'd find a way to fight back again. Until then, he just kept surviving.

Tobias flew over woodland his sharp eyes scanning for human movement. He saw a boy and flew closer. A teenager, he saw as he drew nearer, sitting by a river with a sketch pad.

Tobias flew in to land on a branch close by. The teenager noticed and flipped to a clean page of his book, moving slowly so as not to startle him. Tobias smiled inwardly and posed.

It wasn't safe for him to use his own human form. The Yeerks knew what he looked like and would kill him instantly if they saw him. He'd managed to gather a couple of human morphs, but it wasn't easy. Due to getting stuck as a hawk a few years earlier, his body now thought the hawk was his normal state and now he had to be the hawk in order to acquire new DNA.

He waited until the teenager had managed to finish his picture. It was the least Tobias could offer in exchange for stealing his identity. Tobias flew down and landed right in front of the teenager, who looked surprised but pleased by this.

"You're a tame thing, aren't you?" he said. There were a few moments when Tobias wasn't sure what the teenager was going to do, then he reached out and stroked Tobias' feathers.

It was the work of a moment to acquire the DNA pattern and then Tobias was flying away again, back above the treetops before the guy was even out of the trance.

He headed for the nearby town, ready to try out the new morph. It probably wasn't the best of ideas, but one of his other human disguises had been identified by the Yeerks as an enemy and the other was an old woman. Tobias would much rather pretend to be someone nearer his own age and definitely his own gender. Besides, the odds of someone recognising this guy weren't that high if Tobias only planned on being here for two hours.

He landed in an alley behind a row of shops and checked for anyone nearby before morphing into his newly acquired form. It felt weird to have arms again, which probably meant he'd been a bird for too long. Tobias walked around the alley for a minute or so, getting used to the new body.

Once he stopped feeling wobbly, he headed out into the town. Human eyes and ears took in his surroundings, seeing people going about normal lives. He saw friends talking, parents with children, couples holding hands. This was what they'd fought for. This was what his friends had sacrificed themselves for; humanity. Tobias let himself be surrounded by it all, drinking it all in so that he could hold on to the memory when he was hiding and afraid.

"Trent! Hey, Trent!" The name was called several times before Tobias realised it was addressed at him. A pretty girl ran up to join him.

"Hi," Tobias said. He wasn't quite sure the best way to react. Making an excuse to leave and morphing back into the hawk was probably his best bet.

"Are you OK? I was yelling your name for ages."

"Yeah, I was just thinking. I guess I didn't hear you."

"Come on," she said, "I'm meeting Connor and Ethan at Hayley's place."

"No, I should..." was as far as Tobias got.

"No way. You're not getting out of it. We've only got a few more days before you leave and we are going to make the most of them." She grinned and Tobias found himself towed along. He guessed he'd have to find some excuse or slip away later.

If the worst came to the worst, he could always morph. It wasn't like he was trying to keep his identity hidden any more. A couple of days flight and he'd be miles away even if the Yeerks found out he was here.

Besides, this might be useful. Talking to people who assumed he was their friend might let him find out if anything unusual had been going on round here.

Hayley's place turned out to be a café with a load of computers and some games. The girl joined a guy in red soccer kit at a table without waiting for an invitation.

"Hi," she said, "Where's Ethan?" Which meant this guy must be Connor, Tobias surmised.

"Checking out a new game," said probably-Connor with a laugh. He pointed across the room to where black kid was struggling on a dance machine. Tobias tried not to laugh as the guy moved his feet, generally, several seconds after the arrows on the screen were telling him to. Fortunately, Connor and the girl were also finding it amusing.

Ethan finished and came over to the table. He noticed the suppressed laughter.

"It was my first try!" he said.

Connor grinned, "Next round of drinks says I can do better."

The two shook on it and the whole group moved to the dance machine. Tobias went with them. No one suspected him yet and, after all, the whole purpose of doing this was to interact with human beings. Connor got up on the machine and began scrolling through the song choices.

"They call this music," moaned the girl.

Connor picked a song and stumbled his way through the first stage. He failed the second, but it was a close thing. There was no doubt he beat Ethan and Connor left the machine saying, "I wonder what the most expensive smoothie here is."

"You've played it before," Ethan complained.

"First try," Connor grinned, "I just have practice at moving something more than my fingers."

"At least the games I play require a little more intellectual input than kicking a ball round a field."

"Soccer takes a lot of skill and thought."

They continued like that all the way to the counter and started up again once they'd ordered drinks from the woman behind the till. Tobias grinned at them. It was like watching Jake and Marco bickering over something pointless and insignificant. He was almost overwhelmed by nostalgia, thinking how similar all this was to how things used to be back home. They'd hung out, played video games, moaned about high school. And here were people living the life he'd been forced to abandon.

"Are you alright?" the girl asked.

"Just thinking," Tobias said, "I'm going to miss this sort of thing." He remembered what she'd said about him leaving.

"You'll just have to get daddy to pay for you to fly home every weekend," Connor said, apparently deciding to end the argument of computer games verses soccer.

"I think that might get a bit expensive," Tobias said, keeping up the joking tone.

"You're right. It'd probably be cheaper for him to buy you a private plane for your birthday."

Tobias let most of the conversation wash over him, joining in occasionally but just enjoying being with people, laughing and joking. He remembered what it had been like when he'd done this as himself, not wearing another's body and borrowing their friends for a time. He thought of Jake and Rachel. He often told himself he'd get them back somehow, but most of the time he didn't believe it. Now, he was determined that he would find a way, so he could enjoy this kind of companionship and have it not be a lie.

After a little over an hour of idle chat, Tobias excused himself and headed to the bathroom. Enjoyable though this was, he didn't want to get stuck in someone else's life. He morphed back to the hawk and, for a moment, considered flying out the bathroom window. The guys out there would think it strange and no doubt would get very confused when they asked the real Trent about it.

He morphed back into Trent and then returned to the café. He told himself it was to stop them getting suspicious, but he knew he real reason was that this was the first time he'd had fun in months.

When Tobias got back to the others, Connor and Ethan were cheerfully arguing whether Star Wars or Galactic Conquest was the better film. Tobias didn't join in since he'd never managed to see Galactic Conquest due to the two hour time limit on being human. He watched the argument with amusement though, trying to work out which of them was actually on which side. He quickly came to the conclusion that wasn't the point of the debate.

The argument ended when the girl, who Tobias thought was called Kira but wasn't certain, looked up and said, "Oh, hi, Dr O." A man several years older than them was walking to their table. From his serious expression, he wasn't here to talk about films.

"What's up?" Connor asked.

"Not here." He headed to a door by the counter, giving a querying gesture to the woman by the till. She was busy serving someone and just waved the man through. He headed into the kitchen and backroom of the café, Tobias following with the others.

"What's wrong?" Kira asked.

"I've detected morphing energy in this area," the man said.

Tobias went cold. They were looking for morphing energy. That could mean only one thing: Yeerks.