Author's Note: God, this is such an old fic. Anyway, I don't like it that much, but I've gotten a request to reupload it, so...yay. Someone out there likes this! Let's see, this fic was an anirarepair holiday challenge that grew way out of hand. There's a teensy-weensy shouldn't-even-be there slash part in the second chapter. I think that covers everything. Enjoy!

Melissa Chapman sighed in exasperation, holding the cup of mocha in her hand. It should be a few hours before he was back. She lifted the cup to her mouth and downed what was left. With a flick of her wrist, it landed in the trashcan. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to force the memory out of her mind. Instead, it played over again...

"Dad, Mom, I'm home!" she called as she went inside. Then those fake responses.
It was horrible, seeing that everyday. She was getting used to it, though. Coping with that, after a while. Besides, she would be leaving after High School. Maybe then she could patch things up...
Melissa clenched her fist even tighter, her knuckles turning white as the memory came reeling back.

"Honey, this is Victor Trent." Mrs. Chapman said, pushing Melissa towards the door. Melissa regarded the man with the empty smile. She knew that he worked with her Dad as spokesman for The Sharing.
"Hello, Melissa." he said smoothly.
In the corner of her eye, Melissa saw her dad's face violently twitch.
Mr. Trent was walking about The Sharing, and what fun Melissa would have if she became a full member. Dad's face was ticking like a time bomb...
Suddenly, Melissa found herself walking Mr. Trent to his car. Then Dad exploded.
"MELLISSA, RUN!" he screamed. Mr. Trent grabbed her by the neck. Then Dad hit him in the jaw.
Melissa took her chance and fled without looking back.

"Hey, miss?" someone asked, pulling Melissa back to reality. It was a guy from school.
"What?" Melissa asked him, glaring fiercely. "What do you want?"
The guy didn't say anything and walked away. Geez. Okay, it was harsh, but she'd been having one hard day. She went back in the shop and ordered another mocha.

"So Chapman was..." Marco said, about to say killed, but Erek stopped him by shaking his head.
"We don't know for sure." the android said.
"What about Melissa?" Rachel angrily demanded. Erek shrugged. "I haven't heard anything."
Rachel muttered some colorful words, and everyone excepting Tobias looked away. They figured Tobias was probably attempting to comfort her via private thought-speech.

"Well, we could send a search party." Marco whispered as glanced at Rachel.
Jake gave him a dubious look. "Marco, we don't have the time." he hissed.
Everyone looked back at Rachel. No one said a word.
"Maybe you guys can't." Erek spoke up, breaking the tense silence. "But I probably could go find her. Besides, the Yeerks will be searching for her anyway." he stated matter-of-factly. Everyone turned to Jake.
"All right, Erek can go find Melissa. The rest of us should turn in for the night." he sighed.
So everyone left the barn, excepting Cassie. Jake with his shoulders hunched down, Ax to his scoop, Marco to his house, Rachel crying with Tobias perched on her shoulder, and Erek went off into the night. Cassie turned off the dim light as she went back inside her house.

Erek ran through the woods in his android body, searching for any sign of either Visser Three or Melissa. He'd been going for about two hours now and had found nothing. So it seemed pretty likely Melissa was in the city somewhere. Visser Three? No idea. Probably back on his Blade Ship killing Iniss 337 for letting his host gain such control. Erek turned on his human hologram and headed towards the mall.

Melissa had stopped being angry. Now, she was just confused and scared. The caffeine in the mocha had kept her tense and angry, but now the effects were wearing off. She was just plain tired. Reaching into her shopping bag, she pulled out a small tube of hair glitter and smeared it her hair. That way Victor Trent and his cronies wouldn't find her. She was sure Dad had to have mentioned her intense dislike of the stuff. Indeed, Melissa felt disgusted as she worked the slimy goo into her hair; but she did feel safer.

That is, until she found herself face-to-face with some blond, curly haired guy with brown eyes. In one of the shops, a radio started cranking out the song "This Magic Moment." Melissa later would find this irony of that a little too strong.
"Who are you?" Melissa yelped as she jumped away from the guy. The guy blinked.
"My name is Erek King." he said. Melissa frowned.
"I've never met you." she said.
"Yeah, well I'm not from around here." Erek laughed. Melissa smiled. "I'm Melissa Chapman."
Melissa watched as Erek's eyes widened with shock. "Chapman?" he whispered. Melissa nodded.
Erek looked around nervously before he whispered "Get out of here."
Melissa looked at him in surprise. "Say what?"
Erek grabbed her by the wrist. "The Yeerks are after you. They're the guys Victor Trent was with. Go to Rachel's, she'll keep you safe. Now!" he fiercely whispered.
Melissa jerked her hand out of Erek's tight grip.

"I don't believe you." she said, walking away from him. Erek sighed, then he noticed the mall cops after Melissa. Controllers.
"Hey!" Erek shouted to Melissa. She just kept walking faster.
"Oh man..." Erek muttered to himself as he started running after her. The mall cops sped up, and grabbed Melissa by the waist. Having not seen them, Melissa freaked and elbowed one in the gut. The others scattered.
Melissa went speeding towards the nearest exit, Erek trailing after her.

The door made a loud slam as Melissa ran into the parking lot. This had to be the absolute worst day of her life. Everybody was after her, she had globs of hair glitter in her hair, and...
The creepy guy was back. Sure he was cute, but this was just not the day.
"I told you." Erek said softly. Melissa glared at him, scowling angrily.
"How'd you know?" Melissa asked the blond. A nervous look passed over Erek's face.
"Oh, I'm a psychic." Erek joked.
Melissa rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure. And I'm Queen Cleopatra." She stepped forwards to face Erek.
"Tell me." she said, staring into his eyes. "How did you know?" she asked in a dangerous tone.
Erek shook his head. "It's a long story, and we can't stay here long." he said matter-of-factly. Melissa shot him a death glare.
"Um, how about I take you somewhere where I can tell you?" he asked nervously.

Half an hour later, Erek and Melissa arrived at Cassie's barn. On the way, Erek had stopped to call Cassie and tell her he was coming.
They were greeted by a group of tired and sleep-deprived morphers.
"Melissa!" Rachel cried, running up and crushing her former best friend in a hug. Melissa said nothing.
Her eyes were wide and frightened, and her mouth was gaping open...because Ax was not in morph.

"W-what is that?" she whispered, backing towards the barn door. Erek placed a hand on her shoulder.
Melissa looked up at him, scared at frightened.
"Don't leave. We still have to explain." Jake told Melissa sternly. Melissa broke into a rant.
"You need to explain, all right!" she shouted. "There's some weird horse-man thing in Cassie's barn, the mall cops and Victor Trent are after me, my parents have been acting weird for ages, and I have hair glitter in my hair!" Melissa roared. Marco glared.

"You're complaining?" Marco whispered.
"We have been fighting the Yeerks for a long time, Melissa." Rachel said, glancing at her distraught friend.
"The Yeerks are why your parents have been nuts. They're Controllers. They are being controlled by a Yeerk doing everything for them." Rachel whispered.

Melissa suddenly remembered the note she'd gotten in her locker a few months back. It had read "Your parents love you more than they can show." Had Rachel sent that?
They're trapped in their own minds. Tobias, the school nerd's voice echoed in her head.
She looked in the direction of the voice and found a red-tailed hawk sitting on the rafters and staring at her. So that's why Tobias had been ditching school...
"You're a hawk now, Tobias?" Melissa asked. "How?"
He is what's called a nothlit. A person trapped in morph. Ax answered. Melissa's face showed utter confusion.
"Morph? Nothlit? What?" the younger Chapman woman asked in an exceedingly clever voice.
Marco laughed. "Never mind Ax-man. He never makes sense." The Andalie seemed very irritated by that comment, but Marco paid no attention. "Morphing is what we do to fight the Yeerks. We morph into animals."
Melissa stared at Marco. "If it weren't for the fact that I can clearly smell animal dung in here..." she muttered.
Cassie sighed, catching Melissa attention. "It's not a dream. I can show you." the peaceful girl stated. With that, she began morphing wolf. Just when it looked as if Melissa was about to hurl, she demorphed.
A nothlit is a person who gets trapped in morph. Ax explained to Melissa.
There is a two-hour limit. If you exceed that limit, you will trapped in the body of whatever you morph.
Melissa's hand went to her open mouth. "Tobias, I'm so sorry!" she cried out.
Don't be. It's really not that bad, and due to some not-quite all powerful being, I can change into human again. the bird boy told the brunette girl. Melissa sighed in relief. For some strange reason, she hated the idea of Tobias being trapped like that. She hadn't known him very well, but she had always been oddly worried about him, like as if he were her brother or something. Melissa couldn't explain it.

"Wait a moment." Melissa said, cradling her chin in her hand as she thought. "All of you guys can morph, right?"
Then Erek shook his head. "Nope." he said. "I'm afraid I can't."
"But why not?" Melissa asked. Erek turned off his hologram.
"Okay, that's great." Melissa remarked sarcastically. "We have four people and an alien which can turn into animals, a robo-dog, a bird boy, and me. What a weird group."
Marco cried out in triumph. "Finally, I'm not the only one who thinks we're freaks!" he declared happily.
Typically, everyone glared at him.

Jake had been watching this in silence for a while, pondering something. "What do we do with Melissa?"
Everyone turned to look at him. The idea hadn't really crossed their minds.
"The Yeerks are after her, and she knows about us. There's no way we can safely return her home..."
She could stay with me and Ax in the woods. Tobias suggested. Be on lookout for us or something.
Melissa swore she could've hugged the bird right then. "Would that be okay with you two?" she asked.
Ax nodded, and Tobias replied. Sure, if Rachel doesn't get jealous.
Rachel then shot a pointed glance at her "special" feathered friend. "You'd better not do anything to make me jealous." she threatened, waving a finger at him. "I know Melissa won't, but you'd better be careful."
Marco whistled. "Way to go bird-boy! You totally ticked off Xena!" Melissa shook her head. Marco was really annoying.
"Well, I think that if Melissa is going to go into hiding, she'll need to do some major changing." Erek said.
Melissa gave him a confused look. "We'll have to make it so that the Yeerks won't find her." Erek said.
"You mean like change her look and stuff?" Rachel asked, a manic gleam in her eyes that Melissa was very familiar with. She called the The Crazed Shopper Look. Erek nodded.
"Well then, let's go!" Rachel shouted, grabbing her by the shoulder.
"Tonight you can stay at my house, and then we'll go shopping!" Rachel declared. Melissa smiled; finding herself looking very much forward to what she figured would be her new life.