Author's Note: And now, here's...(drum roll sound in background) Tobias! How will he react? (This is before book 23, so he doesn't know that Elfangor is his father...yet.) Dedicated to PhebgaMFM.

mimichica: Loren WILL show up later, I promise, but I'm not sure how I'm going to bring her in.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs characters, but I do own a copy of each book.

Chapter Six: Tobias' POV

I was sitting on my favorite perch, looking for mice in my meadow. So far, I hadn't had any luck. After about three hours, Ax-man showed up.

[Tobias!] he cried. He sounded really stressed.

[What's wrong, Ax-man?] I asked him.

[Prince Jake says to meet at Cassie's barn in five of your minutes!]

[You're sure?] I demanded. The barn was almost five minutes away in good weather. At the moment, it was rather windy.

[Actually, he said half an hour, but that was twenty-five of your minutes ago.]

I spread my wings. [Then we'd better get going.]

The flight there was actually pretty easy. The wind was blowing from the right direction, and actually sped our journey. Even so, we were a bit late. I flew into the barn and headed for my usual perch on one of the rafters. Then I saw something that almost made me fly INTO the rafter, just to be sure I wasn't dreaming.

Lounging on a bale of hay, playing with a piece of straw, was Jake's brother, Tom. Fully demorphed, and inspecting one of the caged animals, was Ax's brother, Elfangor.

Jake and Marco both looked totally calm, Cassie was staring at Elfangor with her mouth hanging open, and Rachel was pointing a Dracon beam at Tom. It was all so bizarre that I focused on the most unimportant detail.

[Where did you get that Dracon beam, Rachel?] I asked her. She gestured towards Tom.

"He gave it to me."

"I realized that none of you would trust me with it, and Jake refused to take it," Tom added.

[WHAT is going on?] I demanded of the room in general.

"We don't know yet," said Cassie.

"Since we didn't want to explain everything THREE times, we were waiting for you so we'd only have to explain twice," Tom informed me.

[Who is "we"?] I asked. Tom rolled his eyes.

"Elfangor, Tom and Esp," said Jake, as though that explained everything.

[Who's Esp?]

Tom rolled his eyes, and then closed them. Seconds later, a Yeerk squirmed out of his ear. I was surprised that Tom didn't drop it on the floor and stomp it. The first time we were down in the Yeerk pool, Tom's Yeerk had been feeding. I could still remember seeing him, struggling in the cage, screaming at the guards.

"Esp, or 'Esplin Nine-Four-Double-Six lesser of the Sulp Niaar pool', is the Yeerk who currently lives in my head." Tom calmly lifted the Yeerk back up to his ear.

[I thought that you were an involuntary host,] I protested.

"MUST we go through the SAME explanations EVERY time?" he muttered to himself—or so it seemed. "Yes, it appears that we must."

It took about an hour for them to finish explaining. (A/N: For a summary of what they said, read chapters two and three. For the bit about the Taxxon rebellion, read the Andalite Chronicles.)

[How did you even find out about us?] I asked.

"Midget's been talking in his sleep," said Tom. "I've heard blow-by-blow accounts of most of your battles that way, including the graphic descriptions of how gross morphing is. We added in the fact that Jake's always gone during the attacks, and what Elfangor could remember about you guys. A MORON could figure it out—proven by the fact that Tom did. HEY! It was a JOKE, Tom. What happened to your sense of humor?" Tom began explaining EXACTLY what happened to his sense of humor as Cassie posed another question.

"Why didn't you contact us before?" she asked Elfangor. Elfangor looked away embarrassedly.

[I couldn't. I was hiding on the Blade ship for months. After that... well, I also wasn't sure any of you were even still alive-]

"He almost killed me when he found out that I'd known Aximili was alive and hadn't told him," Tom/Esp slipped in, taking a break from his ranting.

[-so, I suppose... I just never really thought about it until today.]

"Although telling Aximili in private thought-speak that he was leaving the mall with us if we had to carry him out was probably unnecessary," Tom added. Then he burst out laughing.

Author's Note: (Runs away from angry mob, screaming:) I DID NOT, I REPEAT, I DID NOT, INTEND THIS CHAPTER TO BE A CLIFFIE!!! I don't personally consider this a cliffie, but some people do. That's why I had Elfangor answer Cassie's question. I really wanted to end it there, but I also wanted to know the answer myself. I honestly didn't know what Elfangor was going to say! Then I remembered the Taxxons going back onto the Blade ship in book 1, and that I wrote that Esp found Elfangor demorphed ON THE BLADE SHIP, so I thought, "Hey, maybe he was stuck there for a few months!" Besides, I also wanted to show real the reason Ax went with Tom and Elfangor. I mean, what kind of warrior is intimidated by a dangerous look? That's why Esp was mad at Elfangor in chapter one. I don't know what will happen next. Oh, wait! I do! Next I'll write from Aximili's POV about how Arbron shows up!