CHAPTER 6
"…Mother."
I looked around; darned human eyes are so weak compared to the eyes of a hawk. I saw nothing, but something was strange. Everybody but Tabitha and I were frozen in place. Then I saw him, the one who could warp time.
"The Ellimist?"
"Yes, it is I again."
"Not interfering as usual?" The Ellimist, though very powerful, was not allowed to intervene in other races. He said this, but some of his actions proved otherwise. He is the one who gave me my morphing power back, though at the time seemed like a trick. I had thought he would give me back my human body. But that has since come and gone.
"Of course not," came a voice, from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"What's going on?" asked Tabitha, not scared, just concerned. Why could she move and no one else?
"Um, I'm not sure exactly…" I answered as I looked over the table, trying to spot my friends in fly morph with my lame human eyes.
I saw two in the air, then a third on the untouched burger, near Ax. No doubt it was Marco.
"So what are you not interfering in now?" Then in front of me came a shimmer, and out of that shimmer came a man. The man was young, with blondish-brown hair. It was much like what I used to have, though mine had been more brown than blond. He was in his young 30's.
"Another image to gain our trust, no doubt?" I asked cruelly.
"I have come to show you something," he answered ignoring my question.
"What I will show you may change the course of the war with the yeerks as you know it. It depends how you decide."
"Yeerks? What are those?" Tabitha asked. Gosh, this is bad.
"You are stepping onto dangerous ground here, you are forcing a hand." I answered sharply.
The man, or the Ellimist masked as the man, shrugged his shoulders.
"I will erase her memories as necessary, but first you must make a choice. You must take one other on this journey. Then all three of you will be reduced to your first form, be taken away, and then brought back to make a decision."
"Decision? First form? This is too much, I'm not Jake!"
"Who's Jake?" Tabitha asked me.
I finished, "and I am not going to decide any fate of anything."
"Choose someone now, or else it'll be too late, she will know too much."
"Fine, fine! Just let me think." I put my beak into my wing. Er, at least I tried. It resulted in my forehead getting bonked on my own arm.
I ran though the possibilities in my head. My first thought was of Rachel. She was tough and could handle anything. Then I thought of Jake, if a decision was to be made it would be best for him to go.
As for the others, Cassie would be good too, because she could understand Tabitha, and try to help her. Marco would be good if I needed to see how it would help or harm the rest of us. And Ax, well, considering his first form, he is a bit stuck out there.
Just as I was thinking this the Ellimist said, "Your group is so interesting, Tobias. It is much like a big family."
Then it struck me, where I had seen her smile before, why it had seemed so familiar. I hadn't seen it in many months. Even in human morph I didn't smile very often, it was too much of a hawks gaze.
The smile looked like mine.
He said family… family. The only family I knew I had was Ax, so out loud I said, "I choose Ax."
"Choice made."