Disclaimer: K. A. Applegate is queen. I am not. Everyone except Erilase-
Petori-Winya and the Bloyd family belongs to her.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
My name is Tobias.
I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you what I am. Inside, I'm a teenage boy, trying to grow up. Outside, I'm a red-tailed hawk. It all started when my friends and I went through a construction site and we met a prince. No, not Prince William or any of those pretty boys. This was a real prince.
His name was Elfangor. And he was my father.
Prince Elfangor was an Andalite, come down to Earth to save us humans from the horror of Yeerks. Yeerks are evil slug-like aliens who infest your body by forcing their way into your brain and then control your body from inside. You lose control of your actions, your speech. Whatever you do, whatever you say, it's the Yeerk forcing you to say it. No one can tell that there's a Yeerk in your head. You're trapped, a slave in your own body. You become a human controller.
I don't know if he knew it at the time, that one of the people he was giving the morphing power to was his human son, the son he fathered when he became human. I think I will never know.
That's right, my friends and I can now morph. Rachel, Jake, Cassie, Marco, me - we can all morph into whatever animal we acquire the DNA of. I stayed past my two-hour limit. I'll be a hawk forever. But I can still morph to become human; because of a favour the Ellimist gave me. It's a long story, too long for me to go into.
Something caught my eye as I rested on a branch in the forest I now call home. I turned my head to look. One definite upside about being a red-tail is that I can see very clearly. From where I was, 15 feet in the air, I could see the ants trailing under the grass blades.
I thought I saw Ax. He liked to visit the waterhole near my nest every morning to drink. Ax is actually Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. He's an Andalite, and Elfangor's brother, which pretty much makes him my uncle. We found Ax underwater, trapped in a dome-shaped thing. We got him out, and he's been part of the team ever since.
I watched as the blue-furred, half deer, half humanoid figure walked slowly across the grass. The two stalk eyes twisted about, but never saw me. If I had a mouth, I would have frowned in confusion. This Andalite was not Ax. At least, it looked like Ax, but its movements were drastically different.
It held itself with dignity and grace, and looked almost feminine. It held its tail blade high, proud and elegant. I froze. The only other Andalite I knew on Earth was Visser Three, a particularly vicious and evil Yeerk, who has actually managed to capture an Andalite body. But I sensed no evil from this Andalite. Usually, just the sight of Visser Three was enough to make me pee in my pants. If I had any. So it could only be Ax. But something happened that made me absolutely sure it wasn't Ax.
A girl walked right up to it.
The Andalite barely blinked, whilst Ax would have jumped sky high or threatened the girl with his deadly tail. The girl spoke softly, and the Andalite tilted its head. I knew it was responding in thought-speak, since it had no mouth to speak. Then it started to morph.
I watched in fascination as the transformation begun. First the hands became stronger, and its many fingers melded into five. Then the stalk eyes shrunk away and long brunette hair sprouted out. The Andalite bent down, bracing itself against the ground as its forelegs disappeared and its hind legs became double jointed. The blue fur faded into a tan skin tone and I immediately turned away, realising that the Andalite was about to morph into a naked woman.
It was agony hearing the rustling and being unable to turn to see what was happening. The hawk in me wanted to investigate the noises, but the human in me didn't want to stumble on anything indecent. Finally, voices drifted up to me, and I slowly turned around.
"It's great here, Erin." The human girl was saying. The morphed Andalite nodded. She had put on some clothes, and had the same strange beauty as Ax did when he morphed human. "It's strange." She said. I noted how she seemed very comfortable with her human body. "I feel so close to my home here. It's almost as if another Andalite lived close by." I nearly fell out of my tree. If only she knew how close she was to the truth!
"Let's go, Erin." Her companion said. "The clock's ticking." The Andalite, who I assumed called herself Erin, nodded, and they walked away. I would have liked to follow them to see where they were going, and why they were in such a hurry. But I knew the others would have liked to know about this.
Especially Ax.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
My name is Tobias.
I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you what I am. Inside, I'm a teenage boy, trying to grow up. Outside, I'm a red-tailed hawk. It all started when my friends and I went through a construction site and we met a prince. No, not Prince William or any of those pretty boys. This was a real prince.
His name was Elfangor. And he was my father.
Prince Elfangor was an Andalite, come down to Earth to save us humans from the horror of Yeerks. Yeerks are evil slug-like aliens who infest your body by forcing their way into your brain and then control your body from inside. You lose control of your actions, your speech. Whatever you do, whatever you say, it's the Yeerk forcing you to say it. No one can tell that there's a Yeerk in your head. You're trapped, a slave in your own body. You become a human controller.
I don't know if he knew it at the time, that one of the people he was giving the morphing power to was his human son, the son he fathered when he became human. I think I will never know.
That's right, my friends and I can now morph. Rachel, Jake, Cassie, Marco, me - we can all morph into whatever animal we acquire the DNA of. I stayed past my two-hour limit. I'll be a hawk forever. But I can still morph to become human; because of a favour the Ellimist gave me. It's a long story, too long for me to go into.
Something caught my eye as I rested on a branch in the forest I now call home. I turned my head to look. One definite upside about being a red-tail is that I can see very clearly. From where I was, 15 feet in the air, I could see the ants trailing under the grass blades.
I thought I saw Ax. He liked to visit the waterhole near my nest every morning to drink. Ax is actually Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. He's an Andalite, and Elfangor's brother, which pretty much makes him my uncle. We found Ax underwater, trapped in a dome-shaped thing. We got him out, and he's been part of the team ever since.
I watched as the blue-furred, half deer, half humanoid figure walked slowly across the grass. The two stalk eyes twisted about, but never saw me. If I had a mouth, I would have frowned in confusion. This Andalite was not Ax. At least, it looked like Ax, but its movements were drastically different.
It held itself with dignity and grace, and looked almost feminine. It held its tail blade high, proud and elegant. I froze. The only other Andalite I knew on Earth was Visser Three, a particularly vicious and evil Yeerk, who has actually managed to capture an Andalite body. But I sensed no evil from this Andalite. Usually, just the sight of Visser Three was enough to make me pee in my pants. If I had any. So it could only be Ax. But something happened that made me absolutely sure it wasn't Ax.
A girl walked right up to it.
The Andalite barely blinked, whilst Ax would have jumped sky high or threatened the girl with his deadly tail. The girl spoke softly, and the Andalite tilted its head. I knew it was responding in thought-speak, since it had no mouth to speak. Then it started to morph.
I watched in fascination as the transformation begun. First the hands became stronger, and its many fingers melded into five. Then the stalk eyes shrunk away and long brunette hair sprouted out. The Andalite bent down, bracing itself against the ground as its forelegs disappeared and its hind legs became double jointed. The blue fur faded into a tan skin tone and I immediately turned away, realising that the Andalite was about to morph into a naked woman.
It was agony hearing the rustling and being unable to turn to see what was happening. The hawk in me wanted to investigate the noises, but the human in me didn't want to stumble on anything indecent. Finally, voices drifted up to me, and I slowly turned around.
"It's great here, Erin." The human girl was saying. The morphed Andalite nodded. She had put on some clothes, and had the same strange beauty as Ax did when he morphed human. "It's strange." She said. I noted how she seemed very comfortable with her human body. "I feel so close to my home here. It's almost as if another Andalite lived close by." I nearly fell out of my tree. If only she knew how close she was to the truth!
"Let's go, Erin." Her companion said. "The clock's ticking." The Andalite, who I assumed called herself Erin, nodded, and they walked away. I would have liked to follow them to see where they were going, and why they were in such a hurry. But I knew the others would have liked to know about this.
Especially Ax.