Ethan came to and blinked in confusion. This wasn't school. This wasn't even Earth. There were impossibly tall trees and the sky was purple. There was sand beneath his feet, and he realized he was on the shore of a beach. He saw a huge volcano looming over him. He was at a loss for words as the realization dawned on him that he had just been transported elsewhere.

Ethan doesn't see the other kids anywhere nearby. He doesn't see the school anywhere. He doesn't see anything recognizable at all, and suddenly he feels very small and afraid. He starts exploring a little bit of the surrounding area, trying not to get lost.

He immediately gets lost.

After leaving the beach, the area becomes a thick jungle and he can't make heads or tails of where he's going. He tries to circle back around to where he started, but quickly realizes he's gotten too turned around in the jungle to find his way back to the ocean. He's not much of an outdoorsy type.

He feels like he's been wandering around for hours, but the sun hasn't budged an inch. It's hot, humid, and he's now tired and hungry. Ethan stops to rest for a few minutes and thinks through his situation. While he is trying to figure out what is happening to him, a strange creature approaches out of the jungle.

It looks like a small mote of light with butterfly wings. When Ethan looks at it, his vision blurs a bit and makes the creature appear like it's in multiple places at once.

"Hi there!" It squeaks at him.

Ethan is taken aback. "Um. Hello." He mumbles.

"Where'd all your friends go?" The tiny fairy asks him.

"I don't really—those other kids aren't my friends." Ethan says.

"Oh, good." The ball of light splits itself horizontally as it opens its mouth, revealing huge, sharp

teeth.

"That means no one will miss you."

Ethan scrambles back and the creature floats towards him, licking its lips and gnashing its teeth.

"It's been a while since I had human. Lucky find for me!"

"Wait, wait, wait, you can't eat me." Ethan says while trying to crawl away. "I'm a person."

The fairy laughs. "A really edible one at that!" It lunges forward and Ethan has to run away.

It takes a chomp out of his leg and Ethan stumbles forward while the fairy goes to town on the flesh it tore off of him.

"Oh god oh god oh god" Ethan says while clutching his leg and limping forward, trying to move through the jungle and find any kind of help.

"Delicious." The fairy says. It flutters in front of Ethan and gives him a wide smile.

"What are you!?" Ethan yells as he stumbles back.

"I'm just a little hungry fairy animon. You don't have to worry about the details. You're not supposed to be here, after all." It opens its mouth wider and wider as it gets closer to Ethan.

"Get away!" Ethan cries out, and a light starts emanating from his chest.

The fairy recoils back as the light coalesces into what looks like a high-tech cellphone in Ethan's hand.

"What's that going to do for you, huh? An ani-tool without a partner makes you just as useless as any other human." the fairy lunges for him again.

"Hm hm, who says he doesn't have a partner?" A voice calls out from a pool of water, and a new figure leaps out and tackles the fairy.

Ethan blinks in disbelief. It looked like a tiny alligator sitting in a half-broken eggshell wearing comically large glasses. Still, it was bouncing around and swatting the fairy with its claws and chomping at it with its jaws. The fairy flitted around it from the air, easily dodging every attack coming its way.

As Ethan watched it, he realized something: This new creature looked suspiciously similar to his stuffed animal back home, the only thing he'd been allowed to keep when his family's possessions had all been repossessed.

"S-Swampy?" Ethan blurts out.

"That's my name. Can you lend me a hand with your ani-tool, Ethan?" The alligator, apparently Swampy, called back at him.

Ethan looked down at the device that had materialized in his hands. The fairy and Swampy had both called it an ani-tool, but he had no idea what it was nor how to use it. He tried pressing his thumb against its screen. It beeped, and an image of Swampy showed on its screen, right next to Ethan's own name.

"That's more like it!" Swampy said with a renewed vigor. "Now we can fight as one!"

Swampy, empowered by the light of the ani-tool, jumps up and bites at the fairy. He lands a hit and locks his jaws around the flying orb of the fairy's body, and while it fights back, the alligator holds tight. After another exchange of blows, Swampy takes some damage and lets go of the fairy, plummeting to the ground with his egg.

"Swampy! Are you okay?" Ethan calls out. He tries to rush over to his partner, but his injured leg stops him from getting very far.

"I'm okay, I'm okay. This guy is tough. We're going to need to do more than this."

"How?"

Swampy raises a claw to adjust their glasses, and they take on a glint in the sunlight. "Evolution is how! Give it all you've got!"

Ethan, dumbfounded, stares at the alligator, then at the fairy, who's getting ready for another attack.

"How do I do that?" He blurts out.

"You just — ack!" Swampy is attacked by the fairy again, and starts bouncing around in the egg.

Ethan puzzles over the ani-tool. It was supposed to be important for doing whatever this evolution thing was, he figured. He fumbled around it for a little bit, and then looked up to see the fairy clenching its jaws over Swampy's head.

"No!" Ethan called out, and a new light burst out of the ani-tool, enveloping Swampy's body.

His body began to change its shape, the eggshell falling away and new legs taking its place, as Swampy took on the form Ethan was more familiar with from his stuffed animal. He mostly resembled a real alligator, but with obvious cartoon proportions. And, of course, the spectacles stayed.

"Yeahhhhh!" Swampy shouted, and they got ready for more action.