Redux: The Pretender

[dolphin4077]

Wow!  First of all, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I really love how you utilize the morphs. You pick the right morphs for the situation, and you showcase more of a variety.  (Hope that made sense)  Also you are quite a juggler with the way you not the emotions, the characters, and the plotlines.  The Karen and Bek dynamic was just as great to read as the Tobias and Loren stuff was.   

I love Ax!  This cliffhanger doesn't bother me as much because I like having a chance to bask in the hero moment.  (However, please don't think I wouldn't want you to update ASAP.)

 

[OrcaMorph]

I'm having Redux withdrawals

[QIfry]

I'm having Redux withdrawals

I second this.

[dolphin4077]

really miss this

[Kitulean]

Hey you guys. Thank you so much for putting up with my absence. You know I love every single one of your comments. I hope you enjoy this and that it's not too confusing, because I'm writing it with a cold that's been keeping me so congested that sometimes I get dizzy. I'll take another look at it later and make sure there's nothing dramatically incomprehensible in it, but right now I figured you'd waited long enough.

Chapter 7

I'm not sure who was more surprised by Ax's challenge, the rest of us or Visser 3. I saw the yeerk leader mull it over briefly in his head, obviously trying to see what Ax's play was. And, just as obviously, looking for his immediate advantage. Ax stood firm, his body between Loren and the evil creature that had tried to kill her.

Slowly, the Visser lower his tail into some kind of warrior salute <Very well, Andalite. And after I kill you, the human female will die.>

Ax started to lower his own tail into the salute automatically. Instantly, Visser 3's tail blade flicked up with shocking speed under the lowered guard, going for his smaller opponents throat. I started to scream a warning, but Ax managed to stumble back at the last second, springing up on his back legs to kick the Visser in the chest when he tried to charge over him to get to Loren.

Then they were on each other. I have seen sword fights in movies, but I had never seen anything like a tail blade fight. They were like a couple of scorpions, lashing out at each other with quick, rapid strikes. I saw the Visser's tail come down at Ax's exposed left side, but the Ax-Man shuffle stepped to the side, forcing the blade to whiff as his own tail shot out, coming up from his lower stance. Visser 3 curved his tail around in his slash, bringing it back in time to intercept, but Ax was still able to smack the larger andalite in the chest with the length of his tail even as their two blades grappled and clashed.

The Visser had the advantage, in size and experience. Besides that, Visser 3 was also able to maneuver better, since Ax had to keep himself between Loren and his opponent. The Yeerk kept attacking and all Ax could do was react each time, continually being pressed back.

<Tobias.> I heard Ax's voice come through tersely as he was driven back by a slash that drew blood along his chest and made him hiss in pain. <Now would be a good time to remove your mother from the battle, if you... uggggnnnn would.> He was slowing, which wasn't a good sign. That last strike had hit deeper than I thought. <Take her!> He shouted. Ax never shouts.

That brought me out of my frozen state and I started for Loren once more. I had to get her out of there. But even as I began to move, I was jerked to a halt. One of the Hork-Bajir guards had stopped me, catching my arm and swinging his wrist blade for my throat. I brought my own wrist blade up to block him. I was staggered backwards by the blow, and he still had a tight hold on my other arm. Two more Hork-Bajir were joining him.

One quick slash and my arm was free while the Hork-Bajir who had grabbed me was missing his. But his two pals had joined him, and now it was three on one. I was panting and looking desperately for a way around the three of them, when they charged.

Or at least, they started to charge. Then they fell down. Well, they didn't so much fall as get knocked head over heels by a thousand pound grizzly barrelling into them from the side. <Lay off!> Rachel shouted at them as the grizzly roared. <Go, Tobias.> She took a vicious swipe at one of the Hork-Bajir as he started to move, and he wouldn't be moving again. But the other two were already scrambling up. I hesitated, not wanting to leave Rachel fighting two to one by herself, but she shouted.  <Go save your mother so we can get the hell out of here!>

I ran, leaping over the wolf that was Jake, who was tugging the gun from the hands of one of the human-controllers while Melissa tripped the guard that was trying to take aim at him. I saw Ax and the Visser as their tail blades glinted in the sunlight, lashing out at one another. Ax caught Visser 3's blade on the flat of his own and then twisted and flicked it aside the way a swordsman would to disarm an opponent. As the Visser's tail was knocked aside briefly, Ax curled the length of his tail slightly and used it to club his enemy upside the head, the way a human would elbow someone rather than punch them. Blood dripped from both of them. I wanted to say that the Visser was hurt worse, but I couldn't tell.

I reached my mother then, and saw her recoil in surprise at my sudden arrival. She had been engrossed in the fight. <It's me.> I said quickly. <We've gotta go.> I reached out and carefully scooped her into my arms. She was light enough that I could easily carry her. I gave her a second to sort herself and avoid getting cut on my blades, then started to run once more.

The Visser yelled in anger and leapt past Ax in a desperate gambit to reach us. I looked back and saw his tail blade whip out. It cut a deep gash through my side, and I staggered against the nearest tree, nearly dropping my mother. She screamed briefly and clung tighter around my shoulders, telling me I could make it, to drop her and go.

Then Ax was there. His own tail blade was drawn high before being driven hard, directly into the Visser's back. The yeerk screamed as his front legs buckled, taking him down. But as he fell, his blade lashed out, burying itself into Ax's chest, making his eyes glaze as he began to pitch forward.

I started to cry out and turn, but before I could, and before Ax could fall, a large hairy arm grabbed him around the side. Marco hauled Ax up as best he could and half carried, half dragged him while shouting. <Don't stop! Go, keep going! All Andalites aboard the Big Jim Express!> He must have remorphed. At least, I hoped that was what happened. Marco has enough maturity problems without literally being a big hairy ape.

We fled into the woods. Melissa and Jake, being the least wounded or occupied of us stayed back and deterred the yeerks from following. Most of them seemed occupied in helping the Visser though. Rachel, who was still a big matted mess of blood and fur from throwing herself into the thick of the guards, was talking Ax through his own morphing so he could heal the damage that had been done. Slowly, but surely, he was changing into his human form. I think he was delirious, because he kept calling her someone named Telkea.

Gradually, we slowed. I put my mother down to let her walk, and Marco did the same with Ax. I abandoned the Hork-Bajir body to resume my hawk shape so that I could scout ahead. From what I could tell, the walk passed mostly silently. Everyone seemed to want to wait until we felt safely away from that battle before anyone said much.

Jake finally spoke. He and I had held a brief conversation moments earlier, most of which involved him calling me crazy and telling me what Marco was going to say. <So you know.> He addressed everyone, but we all knew who he was talking to.

Loren seemed confused at first about who to look at, until she saw the wolf with its head turned back to her as it trotted. She hesitated before nodding with a brief glance up in the air to where I was gliding, trying to keep an eye on them while not moving too far ahead. "Yes... my... son. He showed... me. He told me."

<He what?!> Marco half erupted, turning his gorilla face to glare up in my direction. <Are you crazy? I mean, without even talking to us? You could have-->

<You were a little bit captured.> I shot back. <I needed her help.>

<And you couldn't just ask her as the mysterious birdie andalite? You had to give yourself away? What part of 'Excuse me, Miss, my friends are in terrible danger, would you mind lending me a bit of assistance' requires human lips?!>

He was just getting warmed up when Rachel cut him off. <Shut up, Marco. Like you wouldn't have done the same thing.>

Marco just replied flatly. <I wouldn't. I didn't.> That made me wince, knowing that his own mother was Visser One, and he had resisted giving us away in every encounter we'd had with her.

<It's not the same.> I tried to explain. <We know your mother is a yeerk. An important yeerk.>

<And you know yours isn't?> He shot back with a glance toward the woman in question. We were, thus far, keeping the angry conversation away from her. But her gaze moving back and forth seemed to show that she knew we were talking about her.

Melissa spoke up finally from where she trotted alongside Ax, who I guessed was staying quiet to avoid giving away what we were talking about, since he was limited to human speech at the moment. <I think ummm... I think Visser Three's reaction pretty much proves she isn't one of them.>

<Sure.> Marco waved his big meaty hand. <Or it could be a trap. Get all of us into one place, learn all of our secrets, grab us all at once.>

<I don't think so, Marco.> Jake sounded uneasy, but like he had put a lot of thought into it. <Visser 3 isn't that good of an actor. He was totally out of control, trying to get at her. I think it's safe to say that she's not a yeerk... right now. But--> He cut off Marco's protest. <-That doesn't mean that telling her was smart. Now we have to make sure she's never turned.>

"You know..." Loren began to say, almost conversationally. "I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I can guess. And it might help if you let me talk for myself."

Everyone fell silent, except Ax, who was bobbing his human head the way he'd seen us do so many times. "That sounds acceptible to me, Prince Jake. Ible Ax Sept Uble Ububble Axseptibubble. Those sounds are pleasing. Bubble. bllluh bubbubble."

Marco sounded like he couldn't resist, despite his annoyance. <I guess the defense rests on 'bubble'.>

We laughed in spite of all the tense air, and Jake came a halt. <Time to demorph.> He shot a look toward Marco. <All of us. We're in for an inch, in for a mile.> He began to suit action to word, resuming his human shape. All the others slowly began to follow suit, some with obviously more relunctance. I started to morph because for this talk, I wanted to be human. I wanted to look at my mother with my human eyes.

For her part, she just stood there and watched in rapt fascination. I guess because she'd seen Elfangor morph but hadn't really seen many humans come out of animals. She didn't seem disgusted, which was a bonus because believe me, morphing can be really disgusting the first few... oh, billion times you see it.

Once everyone was human, she shook her head in amazement. "My god, you really are all kids. All of you. You're the Andalite Bandits that keep stopping the Yeerk invasion. This is... incredible. How long have you been doing this?"

Jake's slight smile was weary. "A really, really long time."

Marco, Rachel, Ax, and I all agreed variously while Melissa responded with a quiet. "Three weeks and four days." That made Loren look to her with a surprised expression, and Melissa blushed, waving her away. "I'm ummm... new." She left it at that.

"I think you should answer some questions now." Jake said, but he and the others looked to me to go on.

I took as deep a breath as I could manage and then let it out. "How are you here? How are you alive? Where have you been? How much do you know about the yeerks? Why is Chapman after you?"

She held up a hand to forestall more questions. "Okay, okay. That's a lot. All right, let me explain. When I was about your age, Chapman and I were both abducted by aliens called the Skrit Na...." And then she explained everything that had happened to her during the time that she was with Elfangor, finally finishing with. "I don't know how long we were together here before he disappeared. I think I was pregnant with you, Tobias, but it's all muddled still."

I wanted to ask how she had gotten her memory back in the first place. I wanted to ask how much she knew about what had happened after that, but Melissa interrupted. "My... my dad. My father tried to sell out the Earth to save himself?" She looked stricken.
 
It was Loren's turn to look first surprised, then mortified. "You... You're his daughter. You're Melissa." At the girl's nod, she winced. "Honey, your dad.... your father was... changed by what happened but not nearly as much as he was changed by you. When he had you, he had something to lose, something more important than himself. You made him better. He's different. I've seen him outside of the yeerk's control. He's a good man now, and nothing he said then could have changed things or pushed them away from Earth. They knew about both of us. They didn't need him to tell them what we were. The damage was done. He's not responsible for what's happening."

"Yes, he is." Melissa's tone was a bit darker than what I was used to hearing from her. "Maybe they would have found it without his help. But he let them know what to look for. He pointed them in the right direction. He opened the door for them." She folded her arms and looked away. "And he did it to save himself." I guess hearing that your father sold out the entire human race and could have pushed the Yeerk invasion ahead about a decade or so would be enough to make even the best natured person a bit miffed.

No one knew quite what to say for a few moments after that. We all just looked around at each other. Finally, Jake broke the silence by starting to walk once again. "More answers later." He said with a look to my mother. "We need to get back to Bek and Karen."

That jolted the rest of us into moving, knowing that those two were left alone in the middle of the woods. We hurried the rest of the way to where I remembered the spot being. It was easy enough to find by now.

What ended up being harder to find were the mismatched kids themselves. We entered the clearing and called out for them, but there was no response.

Rachel shook her head, scowling. "Why would they wander off? You told them to stay here."

"They're kids." Jake responded. "Maybe something caught their attention. Or maybe they decided to hide somewhere else..." He trailed off, not wanting to voice the third option, that leaving hadn't been their idea.

"Friend Tobias?" The hopeful, quiet voice came from overhead. All of us jerked our gaze up to see Bek slowly descending from the top of the tree. The poor guy looked scared out of his mind.

"Bek!" I cried out and peered past him. "Bek, you're okay. Where's Karen? Where's the human girl?"

Now the little guy looked ashamed. "Bad man come. Bad man take Karen say come now and take her. Bek try to hide her with Bek in the tree but she no climb and bad man take. Bek try saying no no but Bek no talk when Bek afraid."

Jake winced and obviously tried to control himself, laying his hands on either side of the young hork-bajir. "Bek. Where did the bad man take Karen? Where did they go?" As soon as Bek pointed, we were running. There wasn't time to morph. Loren pulled Bek along by the hand, trying to reassure him that things were okay and it wasn't his fault.

We crashed out of the trees in time to hear the shriek of a young girl. Fifty yards away from us, we could see Chapman forcing Karen into the back of what looked like one of those trucks the banks use to transport money. Another man was helping him. Once the doors were closed, both of them moved around to the front.

Rachel started to run at the truck, but Jake caught her arm. "Morph. We have to stop that truck."

"Morph what?" Marco voiced the question all of us had. "That's an armored truck, Jake. Unless one of us somehow acquired a panzer, I don't think we can stop it."

"We don't have to." All of us looked to see Loren speaking. "He's taking her to the nearest Yeerk Pool entrance. I know where it is. I know how to get there first. We can catch them before they get into the pool."

Marco scowled. "That means letting them get out of sight. He could take her anywhere."

My mother shook her head. "I know where he's taking her. I know him. I know how he thinks. Both Chapman and the yeerk in his head."

Slowly, I looked at Jake. I wanted to say go with her, but it wasn't my call. He was the leader. He had to decide what to do.

Loren pressed him, looking anxious. "Look, you can either morph whatever you can and try to catch up with and stop that truck, or you can trust and follow me. It's your choice, but you have to make it. You have to decide now."

Jake looked after the truck, which was already pulling onto the highway ahead of us. He looked torn, and I knew he wished the decision didn't fall to him. A tense, eternal two seconds passed before he turned back to Loren.

"Show us."

[dolphin4077]

Great as always.  Thank you for filling the Animorphs in on the TAC.  I loved Melissa's reaction to Chapman and Loren's explanation on why he changed.  Hope you feel soon.

[OrcaMorph]

  yayyy.  But now I'm hungry for more. You shouldn't feed the animals.

But really, keep it up

[Kitulean]

Hey guys, I know this story has moved slowly lately, but I’m gonna do something a little bit different here. I’m going to try to get these last 3 chapters out quickly, within this week. This one doesn’t have a lot of action in it, because it’s mostly all Loren’s explanation of what happened. It’s a lot of talking.  I apologize for that, but I thought you deserved to get her whole story in one go. Next will be the confrontation with Chapman/the rest of Loren’s history, and then the final chapter/epilogue.



Chapter Eight

Minutes later, after telling Bek in no unequivocal terms to stay hidden and not to wander off, we were running across the field that bisected the highway and the forest. Everyone had remorphed. Most of us were using the horse forms, but Melissa didn’t have one of those. Instead, she was riding on Rachel’s back. Occasionally, I heard half muted groans. “Oww…. Owww… owww… Isn’t Xena supposed to be the one riding bareb—owww, you did that on purpose.”

Meanwhile, Loren rode on me again. I suppose it helped make up for all the times she wasn’t there to ride me about school. Yes, I know it’s a bad joke. Blame Marco for telling it within six seconds of our trip. If I had to suffer, so do you.

“The highway curves around.” Loren was saying, yelling to be heard over the rush as the five horses galloped. “It has to go all the way around getting to the airport, and then it comes back through the outskirts past the place where the closest entrance is. He won’t risk going off the main road in that thing.”

<I’m glad you’re so confident.> Marco muttered. I think he was still a little annoyed that no one laughed at his riding me joke. That and he’s naturally suspicious. Beyond that, I think some guilty part of him felt bad that here I was with my mother and his was still infested by the evil slug that started this whole invasion.  <Personally, I’m not so sure about our odds on beating him to the entrance. And if we do, what then? Did you forget about the yeerks that are probably going to be at the… what is it anyway?>

Loren hunched down, holding tightly to my neck as she replied. “It’s a storage lot. The entrance itself is in one of the storage sheds. Don’t worry, we’ll make it. It takes thirty minutes in this traffic to make the complete loop on that highway. We’ll make it in fifteen.”

<And if he speeds?> Marco demanded.

“He won’t speed.” My mother assured him. “The last thing he wants is to get pulled over or even noticed by any cops. He doesn’t want to give them any reason to look in the back of that truck.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments, and then Jake spoke to me privately. <You have to ask her, buddy. We have to know what’s going on, all of it.>

I knew what he was saying, but I still hesitated. Finally, I started, once I worked out how to ask. <I… ummm… Lor—errrr, Mo… umm… Mom. What… What we really need to know is, how do you know all this stuff? What happened to you, exactly? I mean, you said you forgot and then you remembered. But we sort of…>

There was no response at first. I could almost hear my mother thinking of how to explain. Slowly, she eased into it. “After I… lost my memory of who Elfangor was, for some reason I thought that I had gotten pregnant and that the guy had left me right after the baby was born. I didn’t know what to do with a baby. Hell, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Everything was out of focus. Nothing was quite right. It was like being on stage in a play and being the only person who knows that you’re all acting.”

“My sister was a few years older than I was. She and her husband wanted kids, but they couldn’t have any. I tried to keep you for a couple years, but when every memory I had of how you came to be was either bad or felt just plain wrong, like everything else, I couldn’t do it anymore. When she offered to take care of you… I…” She hesitated, sounding ashamed of herself. “I let you go. I couldn’t handle it. I…” She corrected herself. “I wouldn’t handle it. I sort of divorced myself from reality for awhile. I checked myself into one of those psychiatric clinics. I just couldn’t figure out why the entire world felt wrong. I felt like we were all in danger, like anyone I knew could be an enemy.”

Rachel said quietly. <Yeerks. You thought they could be yeerks.>

“Yes.” Loren confirmed. “But I didn’t know that at the time. I thought I was insane. Part of me was terrified that I’d lose my mind and think my baby was one of these ‘enemies’ and do something terrible. And another part of me was afraid that it would be the right thing to do and if I couldn’t do it, I’d fail. So I sent you away to your aunt and uncle, and committed myself.”

<We’d have to be nu--> Marco started an old joke.

<Don’t. Even. Start.> Jake cut him off firmly.

Sounding distracted, as though she was reaching far back into her memory, or into dark corners, my mother continued. “I guess while I was in there, my sister divorced her husband. Legally, they still had to take care of you, because I was umm, indisposed. So Parker moved out to Florida and they started shuffling you back and forth. I think partly they saw you as one of the reasons their marriage didn’t work out. I don’t know why they didn’t hand you off to a foster agent, except some sort of loyalty to promising me they’d take care of you.”

Rachel’s voice was disgusted. <Yeah, they did a bang-up job. If they cared about him any less, they’d come full circle all the way back around to adoration. You should have taken care of him. You should have been there for him. You should have-->

I interrupted. <Rachel, it’s okay.>

“No it’s not.” Loren’s arms held my neck tighter. “It’s really, really not. I’m sorry, Tobias. There isn’t any excuse. I should have taken care of you. I should have snapped out of it. If there was a threat, I should have protected my child.”  Her voice broke slightly. “I can’t forgive myself for that. But I can try to make up for it, in little ways.”

<What little ways? What did you do?> I couldn’t keep all of the hurt out of my voice, even though I tried. If she had come out of it, why hadn’t she come back to take me with her?

“Because…” Loren hesitated. I could feel the tension in her arms. But she wanted to finish her story before we had to stop.  “Because it wasn’t my choice. If I could have come back to find you as soon as I was out of the hospital, I would have. But I couldn’t.”

I felt a note of tension enter my own voice. <Why not?>

She put it out there like she was ripping off a band-aid quickly. “Because the yeerk wouldn’t let me. I was infested.”

That brought me to an almost comical skidding halt. <You were what?!> I shouted, unable to understand what she was saying. My mother wasn’t infested. Hosts that were infested didn’t get away and live to tell about it.

Now the others had stopped and were looking back toward us, or rather, to my mother, with as much foreboding and threat as four horses can manage. Which is to say, if I had been a bale of hay at the time, I might have wet myself. As it was, I just said carefully. <Explain that, please.>

“Was.” Loren reiterated. “I was infested. They brought the Sharing into the hospital where all the…. Where all of us were. The other patients and me. They talked about the world outside and how we could be a part of something better if we wanted to. A lot of the patients in there were complete… weren’t any use for a yeerk because the brain didn’t work right. But some of us were fine, at least relatively speaking. They took advantage of the stress and need for companionship.”

<Were you…> I could barely bring myself to ask. <Were you voluntary?>

“No.” She stressed the word, and I believed her. “They brought us to some meetings. We had some evaluations. I guess they were testing us to see if we were suitable. Then, those of us who were, they brought to another meeting. They did the infestation there. It was…” Her voice broke slightly before going on. “It was horrible. These monsters… I thought they were monsters at the time, the Hork-Bajir. They appeared and held us. People were screaming for help while they were dragged to this swirling hot tub thing. They’d shove the person under water. At first I thought they were killing them. These creatures, they were the ones from my dreams. The ones that weren’t real. They couldn’t have been real, but they were here. Then the person would just stand up and walk away, all calm. It was torture, being held like that. I think it was even worse for me because it was my nightmare coming true. Everything about something in the world being wrong, everything I had spent years trying to suppress, was real. I thought I was having a complete psychotic break.”

“I started screaming then. I think I startled them, because I started fighting even harder. It surprised all the yeerks there. I think part of me already knew exactly what was happening. I managed to get my legs up and kicked the yeerk ahead of me. He was a human and when he fell backwards, one of the Hork-Bajir that was holding me let go to help him. I guess he thought the other one could hold me. Any other situation, I think he could have. But I was screaming like a banshee and managed to twist that arm free. I wanted out of that room. I was going to get out of that room. I think they’d done this so many times that it was routine. They didn’t expect anyone who knew, even subconsciously, what was about to happen to her.”

“You escaped from the yeerks?” Melissa asked as she perched on Rachel’s back. “But you said you were infested.”

Loren nodded a little. “Yes. That’s because I didn’t escape. I got close. I think I got so close that it scared them away from doing it there anymore, so that’s one good thing, I guess. But when I got to the door, it opened just then and a guy stepped right in the way. I tried to plow through him, but he caught me around the waist and slowed me long enough that the Hork-Bajir caught up. They dragged me to the pool. I was screaming. I was begging. I was kicking and clawing, but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop them. My head was under the pool and then… “She didn’t have to finish. We all knew how the yeerk entered the host through the ear and wrapped itself around their brain, completely taking control.

“The guy who stopped you.” Melissa seemed to have picked up on something in my mother’s voice. “He was my dad, wasn’t he?”

I could feel Loren shift on my back as she looked to the girl. “Yeah. It was. That’s part of what slowed me down. I knew him from somewhere. I couldn’t figure it out then, but it kept bugging me. The yeerk made fun of me for it. It called me crazy. It went all through every memory I had and proved that I couldn’t know Hendrick.”

<Wait, who?> That was Marco, sounding confused.

“Hendrick Chapman.” Loren explained while Melissa nodded.

<Wait.> Marco said again. “Chapman’s first name is Hendrick? Hendrick? Seriously?”

<What did you expect his first name to be, Marco?> I asked before I could stop myself.

<I’m not sure.> He admitted. <But the name Richard Wilkins comes to mind.> He hesitated slightly as Rachel snorted angrily. <Errr, sorry, Melissa.>

“I’m the daughter of the vice principal, Marco.” Melissa responded in her quiet, yet in control way. “Do you really think having my father compared to the best villain Buffy had is the worst thing I’ve ever heard about him?” She paused, and then added. “Before all this, I mean.”

Loren continued. “I was a controller for a long time. It felt like forever. Years went by.”

<How did you escape them?> That was Ax. His tone indicated that he would judge for himself whether to believe it or not, depending on how she explained herself.

I didn’t expect what she said next. Then again, if I had a nickel for every time someone had said something I didn’t expect in the past day, I could have bought myself a new Ferrari. And then, being a bird, promptly pooped on the hood.

“I didn’t escape. You rescued me. All of you.” She sounded midway between confusion and amusement.

All of us blinked slowly, as one. I managed  to get out. <We what?>

My mother chuckled slightly and reached up to pat the top of my head. “Well, not Melissa, I guess, if she’s new. The first time the…” She coughed. “… andalite bandits showed up in the yeerk pool. You pulled a lot of people out of the cages. I was one of them. I was… the only one who made it, on one of your backs…”

That made us all stare. Our first real mission. The very first time we had gone into the yeerk pool, Cassie had managed to get one woman out on her back while she was a horse. The others had been distracted by the fireballs the Visser had been spitting at them. I had been too far away to get any kind of look at the woman that Cassie had rescued. Afterward, they told me she ran away from them. I had been stuck below, hiding in the corners of the yeerk pool caverns. It was there that I had been trapped as a hawk. It was there that my mother had been freed.

<What…> Jake was the first to find his voice. <What did you do then? You just… ran off. Cassie… Cassie said you ran away from her as soon as we got out.>

“I did.” Loren nodded. “I was scared. I was terrified really. I just wanted to get away. I wanted to find my son and get him as far away from this invasion as I could. Right then, that’s all I wanted. I had to know my son was safe.”

“Then….” Melissa asked quietly. “… why… are you still around the yeerks?”

Loren took a breath and let it out, emphasizing her words. “I told you. I had to save my son. I went looking for him and no one knew where he was. No one cared. My son had vanished and it was like he didn’t matter. You know what I thought.”

<You thought I was infested. You thought I was a controller out somewhere, maybe on one of the ships.>

Her arms held me tighter. “Yes. I thought you were taken. I thought the yeerks took my son. So I went back in.”

Marco sounded incredulous. <Excuse me, you what? This was before you remembered about the whole Elfangor thing?>

I could hear the slight smile in her voice. “I went back in. Not as myself. I followed the ones I remembered. The ones who looked slightly like me, my build. I found one woman and followed her until I knew her schedule. Then I dyed my hair, put it up in a bun and put on a suit. Then I just walked right into the yeerk pool. I was so afraid I thought my knees were going to knock themselves right off my legs and run away all by themselves.”

<Why?> I couldn’t help blurting out. <Why would you go back in there? Why would you risk being infested again when you were free? Why would you do something that… that dangerous?>

She answered, restating her previous answer as though it were the most natural and obvious thing in the world. “Because I thought my son was in there.”

I couldn’t speak. Nothing would come out. I wanted to hug my mother. It was impossible of course, but I wanted to demorph. All I could do was swallow and shudder a little, longing for the embrace that I thought I had taught myself to never wish for again.

Rachel spoke for me. There was one more question that needed to be answered. <How did you get your memory back?>

Loren trailed her hand down my side absently, rubbing it. “I kept at the yeerks. I got better at disguising myself as one of them, at pretending to be a controller. I watched them, looking for any information about my son that I could get my hands on. I couldn’t find anything. But I wouldn’t stop looking. I couldn’t. Then, one day down in the pool, a man appeared.” She paused, gathering herself to explain this much. “He… time… stopped. He stopped time. Everyone else was there but they were frozen.”

<The Ellimist.> I said, starting to understand a little better.

“That’s what he called himself.” My mother confirmed before continuing. “He told me that if I did him a favor, he would give me what I wanted. I couldn’t exactly doubt him just then. I asked him for my son back. He said that that was something that would happen on its own, in its time. So… I asked him to explain what these half memories, half thoughts, half dreams in my head were. I asked him to fix my memory. He said he would, if I caused a distraction at this one exact time, so that a couple of Hork-Bajir could escape.”

That part really floored me. <Wait a minute. He had me lead them away. Once they got up into the forest, the Ellimist got me to guide them to safety. That’s where the Free Hork-Bajir came from, where Bek is from.”

Loren nodded. “I remember, the yeerks went completely bat**** about it. They couldn’t let anyone get away. Especially not from a species that had already been completely subjugated. There couldn’t be any hope in the hork-bajir. They said that they killed the free ones, that they fell off a cliff and were eaten by wolves. But the Ellimist came to me. He told me that they were safe, and that I had done my part. Then, he gave me my memory back. He let me remember exactly what happened, and who your father was.”

There was still a note of baffled surprise in my voice. <We worked together. We didn’t even know it. You distracted them and I led the Hork-Bajir. He got us to work like a team, and we didn’t even know.>

I could hear the smile return to my mother’s voice. “Well then.” She said while pointing ahead at the storage yard that was still a couple of football fields away. “Let’s be a team again, huh?”

<Yeah.> I said with a note of pride that I couldn’t help. <Let’s do it.> I picked up speed, kicking up a bigger dirt cloud behind us.

<Aww man.> Rachel complained. <Now what am I supposed to say? I can’t steal Marco’s battlecry. I can’t get my voice into that girly squeal.>

“You could say it together.” My mother offered while Marco made a strangled sound that was half laugh, half indignation.

Rachel and I both turned our horse heads toward each other. I swear the Rachel-horse smiled. <Yeah. Together is good.>

We turned as one, back to the storage yard where we could see armed guards patrolling. In one motion, both of us kicked off our hind legs and sprinted the last bit of distance we had to go while the other three fell in behind us. Together, we shouted. <Let’s do it!>

Behind us, Marco let loose with Xena’s war cry. <There--> He informed Rachel. <--is your girly squeal.>

[dolphin4077]

I love this!  Thanks for tying up so many loose ends. 

[Kitulean]

All right, guys! I ended up deciding to merge the last two chapters together rather than split them up. So this is the last chapter of Redux: The Pretender. I hope you all liked it as much as I liked writing it. I’m really tired right now after an all nighter of getting this done, but I’ll be back soon with the next book. Please keep letting me know what you think and what you’d like to see.

Enjoy!


Chapter Nine

We descended toward the sprawling storage facility. The place was surrounded by a nine foot chain link fence covered in green boards. There were three armed guards wandering through the rows of storage sheds. I had no doubt that all were controllers if this was a yeerk pool entrance. No way the yeerks would leave non-infested humans this close.

When we were about 100 feet away, we found a clump of boulders and demorphed while Melissa and Loren kept a look out. Moments later, the seven of us sprawled over the boulders, watching the fence below. Well, five of us sprawled. I perched on the edge of the boulder, reporting details to the others. They could tell there were three guards. I could read the title of the magazine stuffed into one guard’s back pocket. And Ax stood close by. Andalite bodies don’t sprawl very well.

That made me wonder. Was I half Andalite? Or a third Andalite if you considered morphing? Was there anything of Andalite DNA within me? If I was a child born of a human and and Andalite-in-human-morph who was trapped as a hawk and regained the power to temporarily become human, then what was I? How many different lives was I living? The better question was, how many different lives was I not living? In spending so much time thinking about what I wasn’t, how much was I losing of what I was? How much of my life was I missing?

I glanced sideways to Rachel. She had a determined look. Of course, that’s pretty much like saying salt has a salty taste. Rachel is always determined. Sometimes I think nothing phases her. Jake is our leader, and we follow his orders, but Rachel is our warrior. We all fight, but she is a fighter. There is a difference. Without this war, I don’t know what I would have become. I would like to think that I’d have found a place. Jake probably would have been a politician or something. Maybe he’d join the military. Marco would probably go to Hollywood. They find anything funny. I don’t know enough about Melissa to say. But Rachel, I think, would have always found a cause to fight for. She was that kind of person. Not the kind that goes looking for trouble. She was the kind that saw trouble already happening and did something about it, even if it didn’t involve her. Rachel was… - - was looking at me like I was deaf and waving her hand. I realized with a start that she’d been saying something and I had tuned completely out.

Flushing, I responded. <Sorry, sorry. What?>

She gave me a weird look for a moment. “I said, can you see anyone in the office?” She pointed toward the glass plated building near the front, where the gates opened to let cars in.

I turned my head and focused on the building. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus thinking about… that. Especially not with my mother six feet away. <Yeah, there’s one guy in there. He’s watching tv and eating nachos.>

That got Ax’s attention. His stalk eye turned toward me as he spoke hopefully. <Nachos? With yellow paste and delicious cardboard? He is not eating too quickly, I hope.>

Marco rolled his eyes. “Cheese, Ax. It’s cheese. And didn’t we tell you not to eat the cardboard anymore?”

<Yes.> Ax nodded solemnly. <I remember now. You humans have such peculiar ways of dictating what is to be ingested and what is to hold those things. It is a very hard list to keep track of. I hope you prepare your young early with sufficient memorization tests before abandoning them to the centers for food consumption and the gathering of artificial fur on what they may ingest and what is delicious but not meant to be eaten. >

Melissa spoke up from the other end of the boulder. “Yeah, everyone has to pass an ‘Eat cheeseburger, hold wax paper’ quiz before they get their mall license.”

“Melissa…” Jake pleaded. “Please don’t tell him things like that. We have enough trouble keeping him straight on human things.” He looked to me. “Three guards roving and one inside the office. I bet Marco’s allowance for a month that at least one of those sheds down there is full of hork-bajir, just in case.”

“Hey, why is it my allowance that has to suffer?” Marco complained. “And no bet. There’s definitely something like that. It’s gotta be that one at the back gate that’s set away from the others.”

Loren pushed her way to her feet, brushing her knees off. “I’ll take care of the guard in the office. That tv he’s watching is probably connected to cameras around the lot.”

<What? No.> I protested, turning a sharp gaze to her. <It’s dangerous. If he makes you, or figures out what you’re doing, you could be reinfested, or hurt, or… worse.>

“Tobias.” My mother smiled and reached out, putting her hand on my folded wings. “I know what I’m doing.” She crouched a little. “I want to tell you not to go down there. I want to hold you away from danger. But I can’t. Because the danger is everywhere and the only way that I can do anything about it is by helping you now. You have the power to fight them. You’ve been fighting them. You’ve done damage to the yeerks. You’ve frustrated them. They’re hurting here on earth because of you and your friends. As much as I want to protect you, if I stop you from doing what you’ve been doing, I’ll doom all of us. I can’t do what you can do, but I can do this. I trust you. Now trust me.”

I was silent for a moment before looking to Jake. <We need to take those guards down fast and silently, so the reinforcements aren’t alerted. What do we have that can take out three separate men that quick without making a lot of noise?>

Jake’s brow furrowed slightly as he thought. “If your mom can distract the guy watching the monitor, Marco should be able to drop each guard separately, since they’re all spread out.” He looked at Marco. “But you’ll have to be quick, because they probably report in regularly with those radios.”

Marco shrugged. “With Birdboy scouting directions so I don’t stumble into them, I could do that.”

“Great.” Jake nodded. “Get morphing. Ummm… Mrs… Miss… Loren? If you can start that distraction, we’ll take care of our end.” As my mother nodded and started off, he turned back to the rest of us. “Melissa, I need you to get airborne and let us know when that truck is close. Ax and I will try to find a way to seal those Hork-Bajir inside their boxes, just in case.”

Ax responded carefully. <There is probably a security console to lock the unit down in case of a breach, and so that it may serve as a detention cell as well as allow the leader of the site to lock his men inside. The yeerks trust no one, particularly themselves. I believe I can over ride it and lock them in. The building they are in may appear to be primitive human construction, but if it is a yeerk security center, it will be much stronger.>

Melissa started to morph alongside Marco, while Rachel frowned. “And what am I supposed to do?”

Jake smiled. “I’ve got another plan for you…”

A minute later, I was gliding over the storage lot. All the metal on those roofs made some sweet thermals. Thermals are updrafts of air that birds use to fly on, sort of like surfing in the air. You can fly without them, but it involves a lot more hard flapping. <Okay, Marco. Your first guy is right inside the fence. You’re almost right behind him. If the fence wasn’t there, you’d be able to see him.>

Marco hunched over in the weeds near the base of the fence, a male gorilla that could have broken Mike Tyson in half without exerting himself. <Anyone nearby?>

I did a quick check. My mother was in the office, animatedly shouting at the poor, confused guard in there after practically dragging him out from behind his desk for a thorough screaming match. The other two guards were at the far end of the lot. <No one in easy hearing distance. Just be quick. One of them is starting to walk back. But you’ve got a few seconds.>

A gorilla weighs a lot. You wouldn’t think it could get much of that into the air. But surprisingly, they are good jumpers. Most of them can leap three to four feet straight up. Marco leapt and grabbed the top of the fence, hauling himself over it with a rattle that startled the controller. If the guy thought the fence shaking had scared him, looking up reflexively to see an 800 pound gorilla landing on top of him probably gave the poor guy a heart attack.

A second later the guy lay crumpled on the other side of the fence after Marco dumped him back over it to be out of sight. <That was fun.> He started loping toward the rows of sheds. <Who’s next?>

I circled back around, taking time to check on my mother. She was still keeping the office guard’s attention on her. I didn’t know what she was saying, but she looked pissed off. I turned my focus back to the situation under me. <You’ve got a guy about two rows left from you. He’s coming your way. The other one is… he’s heading to the office. I think the guy in there called him. My mom-->

<We’ve got him.> Jake interrupted. I saw the guy step around a corner on his way to the office when an Andalite tail appeared from inside the half open door to the shed he was passing. It smacked into the side of his head, and he went down hard.

<Okay, just the one guy then.> I tried to keep the relief out of my voice. <He’s one row away from you now, two sheds up.> I watched as Marco cut between two of the storage units. When the guy passed, he stuck out a hairy arm and snagged him by the face. One quick yank and hard shove into the wall later and the last guard was down.

It was just in time too, because Melissa called down from where she was circling higher than me. <Truck! The truck is coming! My… my dad isn’t driving; he’s in the passenger seat. It’s some other guy.> I turned the way she was flying and sure enough, the armored truck was making its way steadily along the road. It would be here in another minute or so.

I saw Jake and Ax step into view. Jake was in his tiger morph. Ax ran off down the rows of storage units toward the back where those reinforcements waited. Meanwhile, Jake was looking toward the sky. <We’re not going to make you confront your dad, Melissa. Just keep circling and let us know before anything else can surprise us.> He was keeping Melissa out of the way. It was safer for everyone involved.

I watched Jake as he prowled to the edge of the cover that the last shed provided and waited. The truck would pull through the gate in a few seconds. Realizing a problem, I looked to the office and sent. <Mom, Chapman’s nearly here. You’ve gotta get out of there.>

Jake added. <Lead him down the first row. I’ll take care of it.>

My mother complied, stomping out of the office while she waved her arms in a fury. I caught a few snippets of her words as I flew closer. She was ranting about the new television and waterbed she’d stored at their facility that were now missing, and was going to show him where exactly her unit was. The human-controller was trying to explain to her that she wasn’t listed in the system for what was probably the fifth time when a vicious, 600 pound, snarling, man-eating tiger with teeth that could rip into him like a teenager into a taco stepped into sight and told him to sit down. It was a testament to my mother’s ability to intimidate that the guy looked somewhat relieved that he had the tiger to deal with now instead of her. Soon, the man was on his stomach, tied with rope that Loren found in the storage unit.

At the back of the lot, I saw Ax. He and Marco were standing next to the shed where we believed the Hork-Bajir guards were hidden. Ax’s fingers danced over what looked like an oddly advanced computer pad attached to the wall. Then Ax flipped the computer shut and Marco gave me a thumbs up. The yeerks were trapped, for now.

We were as ready as we’d ever be, as the armored truck pulled through the open gates and stopped, idling in the lot. I could see Chapman’s eyes moving over the storage units as he gestured to the driver. For a moment, I thought they weren’t going to go for it. We were all tense, half expecting the truck to suddenly reverse out of the lot and make us come up with some other desperate plan.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Eventually the truck shut off and both men stepped out. The driver started to walk toward the office while Chapman moved around to the back of the truck. <Steady.> Jake ordered. <Let the driver go until we see Karen, then Marco can take him. Ax, you and I will stop Chapman. Melissa and Tobias, you guys are back-up. Stay in the air. You ready, Rachel?>

<Yeah.> I couldn’t see where Rachel had positioned herself. <He tries anything and I’m on him.>

By now, Chapman had pulled Karen out of the truck by the arm. The young girl struggled, but he didn’t care. He was starting to pull her up into his arms to carry her. Meanwhile, the driver was almost to the office when Jake said tensely. <Now.>

Immediately, Marco loped off the roof of the nearest storage unit, leaping out to collide with the man. He caught the startled controller around the waist and bodily hurled him into the wall of the office. The guy wouldn’t be getting up for awhile.

As he heard the crash, Chapman whirled with the struggling and kicking Karen tight against his chest to find Jake and Ax advancing on him. “Andalite!” His surprise was obvious. “Stay back! Or I break the human child’s neck.” His arm moved threateningly over Karen’s neck, and I could hear her whimper.

<My dad…> It was Melissa. I realized she was talking privately to me, and heard the despair in her voice at seeing her father being this ruthless.

<It’s not him, Melissa.> I tried to reassure her, wishing it was Rachel doing so. <It’s the yeerk. Your dad’s powerless in there.> Yeah, probably not the best way to make the girl feel better. Like I said, I wished Rachel was talking to her. She went silent then, and part of me was relieved. I didn’t know what to say to her.

Jake growled low and stalked to the left while Ax started to circle right. <Let the human girl go, yeerk.> Jake’s voice was hard and low with his demand. <We don’t want to hurt her to get at you, but you are high placed in yeerk society. We could learn much from you. The death of one human might be worth it.>

There was a long, tense pause, and then Chapman called Jake’s bluff. “No you won’t. You Andalites think you’re the saviors of the galaxy. No, you might drop a biological bomb on this planet and condemn the entire race, but you won’t get your own hands dirty directly.” His voice was mocking. “So why don’t you back away before your sensitive Andalite morality is as broken as this child’s neck?”

Jake and Ax both took a step back as Jake ordered. <All right, Rachel. Plan B.>

There was a flurry of wings and a rush of movement. Before Chapman could react, Rachel perched on his right shoulder. For being so completely crucial to our plan, the animal she’d become was fairly small and frail looking. It was about nine inches tall, with a white chest and black wings, along with a bright red head. But the thing that mattered was the long, sharp looking beak. Rachel had morphed into the woodpecker that she had acquired at the resort where we had stopped another of the yeerk plans. <So.> She announced almost casually. <Ask your host what a woodpecker is. See if you can figure out how fast I can get through that ear and snatch you right out of there if you don’t let the human go. Think about the Vanarx. Yeerkbane. Do you want to face this planet’s equivalent?>

Chapman froze instantly. It was almost funny, seeing one of the leaders of the yeerk invasion held completely powerless and terrified by a tiny bird that wasn’t even a foot long. I guess the mention of the Vanarx, a creature that hoovered yeerks right out of the host’s heads for supper, that Rachel had seen the Visser become on hologram when she was snooping around the Chapman’s house had shaken him.

There are a lot of differences between human and yeerk. The most important one, in this situation, was the fact that yeerks won’t keep fighting against difficult odds. If surrender looks like the more attractive option, a lot of the time, they’ll do just that. They don’t understand the human will to keep resisting. A human might have kept trying to find a way out of the situation with his hostage. Chapman just decided to cut his losses and slowly put Karen on the ground. Marco started to move to help her.

But I guess some yeerks didn’t completely give up all the time. Because as soon as our attention was on Karen, Chapman’s elbow snapped back and knocked Rachel off of him. She crashed to the dirt and he spun with his foot up to stomp on her small, helpless body. Jake roared and leapt, and I started to dive, but neither of us was close enough.

Someone else was though. Chapman reeled back and cried out as Melissa swept down and raked her talons over his forehead, leaving long jagged cuts. As he staggered, Rachel reoriented herself and shot up into the air quickly. She was moving erratically though, and seemed to be mumbling to herself, something about carrots. I think his elbow hit her pretty hard.

Marco had picked up Karen, who was calling him the mean monkey. He carried her quickly away from the confrontation. Chapman recovered just in time to be knocked flat on his back as Jake plowed into him. The tiger easily held Chapman helpless with a single paw on his chest. <My advice…> Jake informed him. <Stay down!> This was accompanied by a roar that shook the surrounding sheds. Chapman elected to stay down. I think he also elected to wet himself.

I landed on top of the armored truck. <Rachel, are you all right?>

She responded a bit hazily. <Mmmfine, just gotta find the Green Giant and give him his jolly peas back.> She giggled. <Jolly peas.>

<Rachel.> I turned my attention to her erratic loop as she flew in an oval, favoring her right side. <Maybe you should stop flapping for a bit.> I winced at the subsequent thud. <I uhhh… I meant land.> I swept down and landed next to her, prodding her a little with my beak. <Are you okay?>

The woodpecker opened its eyes and I heard Rachel giggle. <You’re a pretty birdy. Pretty.>

<Right back at you.> I smiled inwardly, and then looked up as there was a commotion from the back of the lot.

Ax seemed to wince. <The reinforcement Hork-Bajir are attempting to escape their confinement. I do not know how long the inferior yeerk construction will hold them. We should leave as quickly as possible.>

 “Yes, we should.” My mother had emerged from the shed. She stood over Chapman, who gazed up at her in wonder.

“It’s real.” His voice had taken on an amazed tone. “You’re her. The girl… the girl the host was taken with. Both of you. The dreams… the dreams are real. They must be. But how is this possible? There isn’t a real memory in this head. We should be able to access it if there was. He says he has hidden it. I don’t believe him. It is impossible to hide a memory from us. But the dreams are real. The dreams are there, so the memories must be there. But they’re not. I’ve seen you in the pool. Then you were in the dreams. You were at the human hospital, but he knew you before then. He knew you from dreams, but the memories aren’t there. What is happening? What is happening? Hosts cannot hide memories from us!”

“Shut up.” Loren told him and knelt down, grasping his shoulders. “I’m not talking to you.” Looking him straight in the eye, my mother said. “Hendrick.” Her voice was soft. “Hendrick, you did the right thing. Whatever happens, however this ends, believe that. You made mistakes. Everyone does. But in the end, when you had something to care about, you did the right thing. Stay strong. The Andalites will beat them.” Then she straightened up, and as Chapman started to sneer and open his mouth, brought her foot up into his face, knocking him silly. “Okay.” She announced. “Now we can go.”

Marco, who still had Karen in one hand, stooped to pick up Rachel from the ground. He carried them out of the lot. The rest of us followed. Once we were out of sight, Marco put Karen down and began to demorph. Once he was himself again, he prodded Rachel. “Time to morph out, Woody.”

 She took one look at him and recoiled. <Ugly monkey!>

Jake, who had resumed his human shape as well, sounded concerned. “I think we need to get Rachel to demorph. She seems really out of it. She can’t even tell that Marco demorphed.”

<Actually,> The delirium in Rachel’s voice was gone. <I snapped out of it a minute ago. It’s just really hard to tell the difference between a big smelly ape and Marco.>

*******************************************************

It was three days following that insane day, where I learned that my father was an Andalite War Prince, the same Andalite who had given us the responsibility, and the power that we now held. Three days since I met my mother for the first time. And now, I was going to say good bye. At least for awhile.

I was human at the moment. The two of us were sitting on the hood of the station wagon that she had somehow acquired.  We were sharing a sack of greasy french fries between us. We watched the cars pass on the freeway. After a moment, my mother spoke. “You know I want to ask you to come with me.”

My head shook. I’d spend a lot of time these past few days as a human, getting to know her, and getting to know my father through her. The old gestures were slightly easier to remember. “I can’t. I have to keep fighting. I… I can’t leave them.”

She nodded, acceptingly, but still sadly. “And I can’t stay. I have to keep moving. I can’t let Chapman or the other yeerks find me. Us.” She gestured toward the backseat of the station wagon where Karen slept. “Especially now that I have to keep her safe and out of their hands. If they find her, if they find either of us, it’s over for you. It’s over for earth.”

“Then we found the perfect person to trust with her, and with our secret.” I told her with a slight tremble to my voice that I didn’t even try to help. “I just found you, mom. I can’t… I want you to…” I trailed off.

“I know.” Loren put her arm around me tightly. “Tobias, you are my son. Whatever happens, you are always welcome with me. You have my number. If you need me, I’ll come to you. No matter what. And someday, when things are safe again… I… I want you to live with me.”

It was too much. I did a completely unbirdlike thing. I turned to my mother and put my arms around her tightly, burying my face against her shoulder. “I love you, Mom.” My voice shook with emotion.

Her arms held me tight, the french fries forgotten. “I love you too, Tobias. My son… I love you too.”

A few minutes later, I stood in the parking lot of the diner, watching as my mother pulled the station wagon out. She raised her hand in a wave, that simple gesture of both greeting and farewell that was so apt in this situation. I raised my own hand to her and stood watching as the car joined all of the others on the freeway. I watched the car drive off until long after I couldn’t see it any longer. This was why I hadn’t let myself be in my hawk shape at this point. Because if I had been, I would have continued to follow that car until I couldn’t fly anymore.

While I stood there, I slowly realized that I wasn’t alone any more. I turned to find Rachel standing beside me. “How are you?”

“I’m….” I started to answer, and then paused. “I’m a lot of things. I don’t know what I am. Happy. Sad. I forgot what it was like to be both at the same time.”

“She’s an amazing woman.” Rachel offered as we both turned and started to walk away.

“You’re just saying that because she’s a lot like you.”

Rachel shook her head. “Do me a favor. Never ever say that again.”

That made me blink. “Why?”

Her shoulders shrugged. “Because… because with the way I feel about you, that’s really weird.”

“Oh yeah?” I couldn’t resist poking the metaphorical bear with the stick. At least I hoped the bear stayed metaphorical. “How do you feel about me.”

Now she was really blushing. She glared at me, but it wasn’t an angry glare. Then she looked down. “I don’t know. How do you feel about me?” She nodded, and I looked down to see that my hand had somehow found hers.  I wasn’t sure who had initiated it. Somehow, it didn’t matter.

“Rachel…” I took a breath. Wow, this was hard. “I… I don’t know… what exactly I’m going to be when this is over. Before I met my mother, I would have said that I didn’t see a future after this war. But now I have, and… I’m still not sure what’s going to happen. But I know that, whatever happens, I don’t want to regret being too afraid to do… to say what I want to. And…” She was watching me expectantly, and I was sure that my clammy palms were soaking hers.  “Since I’ve been… a hawk, I’ve… forgotten a lot of human gestures. But there’s one I do know.”

My hand touched her cheek, and as she lifted her head, I kissed her. It was short, a little awkward, and still somehow beautiful. I looked away just as quickly and flushed.

She was quiet for a moment before asking quizzically. “So uhhh, is that your best offer?” When my head swiveled back to her with a look of horror, she winked and squeezed my hand with a snicker.

“You’re—“ My voice was tight as I tried to decide whether to groan or laugh. I settled on both. “You’re not gonna make any of this easy, are you?”

Rachel shook her head emphatically. “Nope.”

I snorted and then stopped. “Good. Cuz if my life was ever easy… I think I’d be bored.”

“Tobias…” Rachel said while turning to walk once more. “I promise you… I will never, ever let you be bored.” We walked, and then we flew. Together.

I am human. I am andalite. I am hawk. I am all and none of those. I am more. I am Tobias.

I am free.

END


Next… Redux: The Suspicion

My name is Melissa…

[dolphin4077]

I'm so sorry that it has taken me forever to post.  Anyways, this was a great ending.  It reminded me of book 7's ending, which I always liked.  Overall, fantastic job, as usual. 

[warren_bearclaw]

Again, you're gonna make me cry....

I did have one question though... is this happening before Loren's accident that made her go blind, or are you just removing that all together from your alternate timeline?