The Animorphs Alternate Universe Series
The Faith
Chapter 12c -
Virus, p3 -
In Her Eyes
(Tobias)


It's strange. I knew how sick Sarah was, but… as she was laying there, she looked asleep, peaceful. I wasn't sure what to think of that - I was almost sure she had died, but she was still breathing, though it was shallow and weak. She was still burning up with fever and I couldn't think of a thing to do make it better. She couldn't morph this off…
"He's a special case. He's centered, grounded, and protected…"
What did she mean by all that anyway? I leaned back again the wall of the horse stall and closed my eyes. The horse stall was a nice place to relax - it felt so separate from the everything outside, and it was warm from the sun that shone in through the window. The hay was comfortable and it was just… nice. A good place to think. Unfortunately, thinking wasn't going to solve anything this time… I had no idea what was going to happen to Sarah, no idea what was going to happen with the group now that Alay had joined, no idea what I was going to do about Rachel, or about Alay's plan to hook up Sarah and Marco (I wasn't too fond of that one, actually. Sure, Marco's a nice guy, but he's had a lot of girlfriends and… Sarah's my sister. I gotta protect her). Really, I wanted to just… not worry about any of it. Really, I wanted to be Tobias, just Tobias again. Not Tobias-the-Animorph, not Tobias-the-Caster-Trainee, and especially not Tobias-the-bird.
I felt the hay move as Sarah shifted, and opened my eyes again.
"Would you have me any other way?"
Would I? Would I change things? If I could have, would I have gone back to that first night and… changed the way things happened? I would have never even seen Elfangor, or known about the Yeerks, or been given the chance to morph. I never would have learned Sarah's truth or seen that side of her like I had that night… it took a lot to affect Sarah's heart, because life had already callused it to pain. I never would have had a chance with Rachel… given, that's given me a lot more trouble than I would have expected, but still…
I never would have been an Animorph.
I never would have been a Caster.
I never would have known…
But, in the truth of things, not becoming an Animorph would have done more harm than good. Because the Yeerks would have invaded nonetheless. The Earth wouldn't have had a chance, though, the chance it had now was slim. And I never would have had a sister…
Well, that's not entirely true. Sarah and I were close before that night at the construction site but… our entire relationship would have been different. Who knows? Maybe I would have gone back on that decision I made the first day I met her. Maybe we would have…
I gave a mental shudder. Now, I love mi itala dearly, but ew, that's way too close for comfort, thank you very much. Non-blood related incest. Ew.
The ground beneath me moved faintly and I saw, more than felt, the disruption. There was a flash in my vision, hundreds of thousands of small, indistinguishable shapes, suddenly moving, and then I was looking at plain ground again. That's something I had been keeping secret from Sarah… I could see the seharai nendei, like Alay, but I was a Caster too, something Alay said never happened. Ever. I… wasn't sure what to make of it, really, but it came in handy, even though I couldn't control it like Alay could.
There was silence in the barn again, a silence like there had been before but… this time, I was worried. I sat there for a moment, debating - if I went to check out what was happening, I would be leaving Sarah alone and that was a bad idea. But what if everyone needed my help? Finally, I shifted to my knees and was halfway to my feet when I heard Rachel yell and Alay swear, some jumble of Teslahani and English that came out in a big rush. Just what the hell was going on!?
"Marco, move!" I jumped to my feet and took in the site that presented itself - Jake was kneeling over Rachel, who lay on the ground, presumably unconscious. Alay was standing in front of Marco, as if she was protecting him, and Ax held his tailblade at Cassie's throat.
Everyone was silent.
At my feet, Sarah stirred, her soft groan breaking the tense silent. Cassie lifted her hand and a cold light flickered in her eyes. The ground moved, and shook, sending everyone falling, including Ax, who yanked his tailblade back so as not to accidentally hit Cassie. I took a step back, to steady myself, and hit the wall, which upset my balance and made me fall into the hay. I pushed myself up on my hands as I heard the creak of the stall door opening - Cassie stood over me and Sarah, that same cold look in her eyes. It didn't look like Cassie and… there was something else. Something about the way she looked at me… as if… she didn't know who I was. Something inside me reacted to the look and I went cold with fear. This wasn't Cassie… this wasn't…
She was leaning over me, the look in her eyes keeping some kind of strange hold over me. I wanted to move, to get away but… I couldn't-
And suddenly, Cassie's eyes were no longer on me. Every muscle I had been holding released itself and I took a deep breath - than froze again. Cassie's attention had turned to Sarah, who was laying, curled up on her side, still unconscious. For reasons I didn't know, a smirk curled on Cassie's lip, the kind where it was obvious she found something ironically funny. She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers once - the air around us, Sarah specifically, shifted, and Sarah was lifted into the air, until she hung like a marionette puppet a foot or so off the ground. She was still unconscious and her head hung down to her chest, every muscle in her body limp and useless. There was still a virus in her system and it would have made short work of her major muscle groups by now… but that didn't worry me. What worried me was that Cassie had Sarah in a tight Air Cast-
Air Cast?? Cassie??
Everything clicked. And now I knew we were all in deep, deep, crap.