Notes:
--Short again. ^^;;
Chapter 12
Tobias
By Aura Kage
Oh my god. No. No. No. It couldn't be.
It was impossible, that's what it was. Completely, utterly impossible.
But there it was, perched atop the largest slope I had ever seen in my whole life. The completely impossible.
I mean, you'd think that being a boy that was permanently trapped as a hawk with morphing powers in enough. Hell, I have an alien father, a human mother, and an uncle who's my best friend. I fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, and by some miracle itself she actually noticed me. You'd think that…that would be enough.
But no.
Apparently not.
But let me back up. I had flown throughout the "night," hardly getting tired at all – for some reason, the more I flew, the more time passed by…the easier it was for my wings to catch some extra thermals, the easier it was for me to scan the planet with my awesome vision. This in itself was strange, as obviously, the more effort you exert into something, the harder it becomes. It's the law.
Not on this world, though. Nope. Tobias was flying around without a care in the world, practically forced into the air by the wonderful thermals I was catching. In fact, it was harder for me to lose altitude than it was to gain it; when I had first tried to lower myself for fear of soaring straight out of the atmosphere, I had only managed to do so by cupping my wings to either side (which not a particularly comfortable act) and allowing myself to fall completely (not a particularly entertaining act. I'm a hawk, not a freaking falcon).
Anyway…the blue sun-moon-whatever had "set," and we were now again in purple land. It was times like these that I wished I had an Andalite with me…you know, to analyze everything and give me a very detailed, if not incomprehensible, description of the logic of this planet. I mean, okay, so I didn't attend much school, being a bird of prey and all, so I wouldn't know if a sun was supposed to be purple, if that was even possible.
And that was why Andalites were useful. They were…what? In Calculus by the time they were five?
It was with these battling thoughts that I soared over the endless violet desert, searching for Jake and the others – for anything! – with an almost mindless attention. You'd think that I would be used to strange planets.
Then, there it was. I hadn't even noticed it at first, until the eye-smarting glimmer of reflected light shot into my eyes and startled me so much I nearly fell out of the sky. It was a while before I could see again – the sun's brightness was so intense – and when I did I wasn't sure that I was seeing.
I had a flashback to the Mercora, with their shield-made everything. Of course, they were somehow more…elaborate with their shields, and more practical about them, too. This thing…this thing was a structure of multi-layered dome shields, all nested within each other. I mean, this wasn't just one big shield over a smaller shield over a smaller shield and so on and so forth. These things were…intertwined. It was hard to say what shape they were exactly, except that they seemed kind of like tubes twisting and raveling around each other. Snakes all woven into a single, pointless shape, to where you couldn't tell one snake from another and couldn't tell where one began and one ended.
But they were completely opaque. I couldn't see through them – they shone with the same beetle-luster that the escape pods had emitted, and they were also apparently soundproof, as my raptor hearing couldn't perceive a thing.
Please, please say that…that is where the Kelbrid are, I moaned to myself, circling the perimeters of the structure – at a distance. No telling what kind of weaponry someone could have had in there. Please.
I continued surveying the place, circling with the same intent as I would have had on potential prey, some rabbit or mouse – except not as a predator, but as the prey. Even if Jake and the others weren't in there, and these weren't the Kelbrid…well, it would be nice if I could sight something that could be useful in the future.
But no, nothing. It might as well have been…dead. The hawk in me was dormant with boredom. This thing wasn't moving, breathing, it wasn't doing anything – therefore it wasn't worth any attention. To tell you the truth, I was kind of agreeing with it. But still…I mean, what else did I have to do? This planet, for all I knew, was the size of Jupiter. I could spend days and days looking for Jake and the others, and I would never even get a clue.
Besides, they were probably underground. Underground with those massive mole-things…
And what was worse was that the hawk in me was starving. It hadn't eaten for what seemed like forever – maybe the last thing I had had in my stomach was a donut, and that was when I was human. Food wasn't usually sustained when in morph – I had to feed my base body first.
Which, lucky me, was a hawk. Which, lucky me, was a carnivore. Which, lucky me, cannot handle anything that is not meat.
So much for being helpful.
I finally flew away from the place with a growing feeling of dread. I couldn't find Jake – I would probably perish of starvation before I ever found them.
And my wings…my wings were starting to get tired. I don't know how many hours I had spent just flying around, but even with thermals…well, I would have to land. Try to land, anyway. Had to find a safe place to land, one that wouldn't rouse the moles.
A red-tailed hawk trying to evade moles. Riiight. I would so not fit into the crowd now. Haha.
See, this is when you know you've been a bird of prey for too long. You start talking to yourself…and making bad jokes. The horror.
Well, I wasn't going to get anywhere just hanging around up here…and I couldn't keep looking around for Jake. It would take…well, forever. I didn't even know if they were alive.
But if they were alive, and if I found them, then I would at least like to tell them that I had been doing something…something resourceful while I was gone.
And hey, if being resourceful meant that I would have to add "suicidal" to that list, then so be it. It wasn't going to be much of a change from three years ago.
I turned towards the fortress, cupped my wings, and fell towards the building.