Animorphs 2.0

Tobias

Tobias

My name is Tobias. I am the son of Loren from Earth, and Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, War Prince of the Andalite race. But I didn't always know that. I thought I'd always thought I was just a normal kid, with a normal family. But one day, things changed.

I was never a loner in school. I had friends, people who liked me. I wasn't bullied or ignored. I wasn't the most popular guy, but I was respected. There was this girl in my class that I liked. Blond, beautiful. Her name was Rachel. She was headstrong and independent, never afraid of a fight. I liked that about her. She had a cousin named Jake, also in our class. He was kind of a bully, which sucked. Rachel said it was because his brother used to bully him; I didn't think that was an excuse. Jake had a friend named Marco. They had been friends in kindergarten, but somewhere before middle school they'd grown apart. It'd started when Jake started bullying kids. Marco was the class clown, always joking, never serious. But he was a good guy. He hadn't stood for Jake's bullying and had stopped hanging out with him since he'd started. Jake still thought they were friends, but they didn't spend much time together anymore. Cassie was Rachel's best friend. Though they spent almost all their time together, they couldn't have been more different. Cassie grew up on a farm, she didn't care how she looked or what she wore; she also had very strong morals. I guess from taking care of animals so much, she found life very sacred. Rachel was very much the stylist, always knew what to wear and how to look, but they were best friends anyway. I wasn't as close with Cassie as I was with Rachel, but we hung out regularly.

One day, I was walking through the mall, looking for people I knew, when I saw someone waving at me. It was Rachel. Yes. I thought. I quickly came over to her.

"Hey. What're you doing here?" I asked. It was rhetorical; it was obvious she was shopping. But her answer surprised me.

"Cassie's back there changing." She said, jerking her thumb towards the changing rooms. "I'm forcing her to upgrade her wardrobe."

I smiled. "You mean poop-stained overalls aren't good enough?"

She punched me lightly on the arm and I laughed. When they were finished shopping we decided to leave the mall together. We passed by the arcade and Cassie cried out,

"Hey isn't that Jake?"

We all looked. It was. He was playing a video game and surprisingly, Marco was with him. He lost as we came over.

"Hey Jake." Rachel said brightly. She was one of the only people I knew who treated him like that. "You want to leave the mall with us?"

"Sure, Cuz." He said. His voice was low and rough. He tried to make himself sound more mature, it didn't really work, but it frightened smaller kids. We didn't say much more now that he'd joined us, simply walked in awkward silence to the exit. I nodded to Marco as he fell in step beside me.

"Hey." I said. "I thought you didn't hang out anymore."

He shrugged. "We don't. Not really. He saw me playing at the arcade and joined me. I try to be nice to him. He doesn't have many friends."

"Kind of his fault." I pointed out.

Marco shrugged again. "I dunno. Still, we used to be friends. I kinda feel bad for him. Besides, I could maybe try to help him."

When we exited the mall, Jake presented the idea of taking a shortcut through the abandoned construction site behind the mall. Our parents had warned us from taking that route; however all of us had done so on many occasions. There was something from Jake's voice that made us hesitate, but Rachel, never one to back down from a challenge said,