I could barely hear anything over the pounding of my own heart. Who was this One, really? A creature of Crayak, yes, and that was bad enough, but to do this? To destroy all that was good in my friends, to turn them into abominations like the Ax I had seen. But I had no choice to go on. Erek and Toby were with me, and we made a funny little army, going to battle against this all powerful evil. But I was used to small, strange armies. That's what we had been, us Animorphs. A small army against a force that threatened to overwhelm us always.

And yet we had won. I sometimes almost forgot that, when I saw what had happened to us 'heroes'. And now this new enemy threatened what was left of us.

It was something I couldn't let happen.

The world we were on was so strange, and yet so familiar. It had been a meeting of three totally different minds, and the result had been…

"Someone's coming," Toby said, and my heart stopped. Who would it be this time? God, did I really want to know?

"It means we're on the right track," Erek reminded me. Yes, the closer we came to our goal the closer we came tomore heartache.

He emerged from a distance, flying in low over the multicolored horizon. I hoped it would be different this time, now that I knew what to expect.

I was wrong.

(Cassie,) he said.

"Tobias," I said, stopping. "Don't come any closer. I know what you are," I said. He fluttered to the ground.

(Do you? Did they tell you?) he asked, gesturing with his beak. You really think you can trust him? He killed Rachel, Cassie. Our Rachel.

"No," I said, but my voice was soft.

(You don't deserve to pretend to be human,) he said to Erek. (I'll never be truly a human again, and it's all your fault.)

The horror and shame on Erek's human face disappeared as he dropped the hologram. Tobias' words echoed that ones that had been in his heart for years.

"Don't listen to him," I said desperately.

(Cassie, how can you speak to him? Of course, I shouldn't be surprised. You've disgraced Rachel's memory. She would have done anything to help one of us, but you didn't do anything to save her. You, who are supposed to read people oh so well, didn't see Jake's plan. Or maybe you just didn't care.)

"That's not it," I said, and the tears I had been suppressing for so long slid slowly out of my eyes. "You, the real you, knows better."

(And of course, you didn't even have enough guts in you to help us rescue the other person you knew I cared about- my shorm, Ax.)

I was sobbing now, shaking my head, but I couldn't get rid of the words. Oh, god, it was true, it was true!

"Tobias," Toby said. "You are my namesake. This is not you. I know you, and this is not you."

(What do you know? You're just a stupid Hork-Bajir, no matter what anyone says! Just like your entire species- stupid, stupid, stupid!)

"No!" I cried. "I don't care if you say you really are part of Tobias, he would never say that. Get away from us! Go!"

The bird vanished and I almost broke down then and there. How could I do this? How could I face the others? Marco, Jake… I wouldn't be able to do it. I was weak, gutless, just like he had said.

Toby put her hand on my back. "We must go on, or leave them like this forever."

She was right, she was right. I took a deep breath in. And out again. I looked at Erek, who was still all android.

"Can we do this?" I asked him softly.

"We have to," he said.

He was right. They were both right. We had to be strong- and we had to take whatever the One threw at us.

It was the only way.