Disclaimer I do not own Animorphs or Ben 10

Chapter 25: Distrust

Tobias' POV

I looked down from the skylight over the mall's food court looking for Ben. I quickly spotted him wearing his distinctive white jacket along with his brown hair.

Once I identified Ben, I scanned around to see if there were any known controllers nearby. Aside from the clerks that manned the food stalls and a few random groups of people hanging out and eating, fortunately there was no one I recognized. I looked around the entrances to the food court and spotted the guys. They stood near the entrance, turning their heads looking for Ben and then walked over to the table where he sat.

They all sat on the table with him and they began to talk. Ugh. You know the saying "Ears like a Hawk"? Yeah well it's not true, while hawks have fairly good hearing it's nowhere near as sharp as an owl's, my eyesight on the other-hand is topnotch. All I could do while perched up there was to wait and see if anything went wrong.

There wasn't much to say about what went on down there so for the most part I was just bored. They just talked and everything went surprisingly smoothly from my vantage point. Ben stood up and left first heading in one direction before the rest of the gang went out of the food court. Hopping a couple of times away from the skylight, I took off from the rooftop and towards the same entrance where we split up.

I saw them exit the mall and headed towards the tree line. I kept fling and perched on a branch that was fairly close to the ground.

(How'd it go?) I asked.

"Better than any of us expected." Answered Rachel.

Hm, it did seem a bit weird that everything went so smoothly. When Cassie told me what had happened earlier that day I half expected him to start yelling at them. (By the way you guys described him I expected him to shout at you guys at the very least, I kept my ears open and waited for the shouting match.) I said.

"Well he and Ax nearly did, luckily he calmed down before it would come down to that." Explained Rachel. Well, it did seem to make a lot of sense.

"I'm not willing to back down -awn against -st-tah someone like him through sheer intimidation -midation -ation alone." Said Ax.

"I know you won't Ax, but you should've kept a level head. We don't want to make him our enemy, with the way things are now we can't afford to have any more people against us." Said Jake.

"Yes I understand, Prince Jake." Responded Ax.

"Alright, we'll lay low for a while and meet up over at Cassie's place this saturday. Let's just keep everything as normal was possible."

The others all gave the affirmative and we went our separate ways. Ax took off his clothes, hid them and demorphed. We made our way in the forest before separating. Ax heading back to his scoop and me back to my meadow.


I was perched on one of the beams within Cassie's barn.

(I'm still not sure if we should trust Ben.) Said Ax. (I may not be well versed in human psychology, but I can at least tell that there is something off about him.)

(I agree with the Ax-man on this one. There is something definitely up with Ben.) I said, Marco also gave a nod.

"Guys, I know I don't like the situation we're in either, but there's not much we can do about it." Said Jake. "I think it's in our best interests to try to get Ben on our side."

"Yeah, Jake's right. Right now it's just the six of us and we need all the help we can get if we want to hold out until the Andalites get here." Said Rachel.

"You know this is starting to sound very familiar." Interjected Marco. "I specifically remember someone saying something similar when we decided to add David to the Animorphs."

"That was a totally different situation and you know it, Marco." Retorted Rachel. "We hardly even knew David at the time, so it was no surprise we didn't realize that he'd end up betraying us for his own selfish needs. But we've known Ben for a while now and from what he had told us before he's had that morphing ability all his life. Besides if he was gonna abuse it like David did, he'd've done it a long time ago."

Why was Rachel defending Ben so much? She knows more than the rest of us the consequences of adding someone we hardly know to the group. When all this started, the rest of us already knew each other for years, and as for Ben we've only known him for a couple of months. I just can't believe Rachel, with what happened with David I expected her to be the first one against bringing Ben in. So why is she arguing for him?

"You may be right, Rachel. This situation we're in now is different to the one with David, and I'll admit that I trust Ben more than David when he got involved." Said Jake, and Rachel smiled. "But that still doesn't mean we can completely trust him." Good going Jake! Finally someone is talking sense.

"I think we should keep Ben out of the loop for now." We all looked at Marco, he then continued. "We can keep an eye on him and see if he can really be trusted, if not then we just need to make sure he keeps his knowledge of the invasion to himself; also if it comes to that we have to tell him how to avoid being turned into a Controller for his own safety."

(Yes, we shouldn't involve him directly yet and keep observing him first. There are less pros than cons and too many unknowns at the moment.) Said Ax. (We have to know what he wants and what his motives are now that we know his secret and he knows ours.)

"Things are pretty complicated at the moment." Jake said. Calling it complicated is a total understatement. "But let's just be glad that we don't have to worry about Ben for now. We can relax a bit while we find out what the Yeerks are planning next."

"So what do we do if we can actually trust Ben?" Asked Cassie.

"I'd say we let him be an Animorph." Said Rachel. You know if I still had a human face my jaw would've hit the floor right then.

(And what if he doesn't want to?) I asked, truthfully this was less for the sake of speculation and more of a small hope.

"Well if Ben is trustworthy and if he does want to help us we'll let him, we really need all the help we can get. And if he doesn't then we leave him alone, it's his choice we can't force him to fight a war he doesn't want any part of." She replied.

"So that settles it then." Said Jake bringing the discussion to a close. "We'll do nothing for now, see where this goes and hope for the best." But what is for the best?

X

Everyone decided to just hangout and talk in Cassie's barn after the meeting, so I thought this was my best chance to have a word with Rachel about Ben.

(Hey Rachel?) I asked in private thought speech.

She looked up at me. "Yeah Tobias?"

(Could we talk outside for a minute?)

"Sure." She replied and stood from her spot in the barn and went out. I took off from my perch and went out to follow her.

Once I was sure that the others were out of earshot, I started. (Rachel, what's the deal with Ben?) I asked bluntly.

"What do you mean Tobias?"

(I mean why are you so adamant that he becomes one of us. How can you so easily trust the guy? You know better than the rest of us of what happened with David.)

"I know, I know. God, you and Marco keep bringing it up." She said irritatedly. "Like I said back during the meeting, this is completely different. We know better and this time we can prevent something like that from happening."

(But why are you putting so much faith in that we can trust Ben?)

"Tobias, I don't know what gotten into you." She started. Yeah what's gotten into me, what's gotten into you?! "But there is just something about him that makes me wanna trust him. I don't know how or why, but I just do." She stopped looking up at me when she said that. "Just have a little bit of faith in me that I am making the right decision in letting Ben join the war."

I wanted to trust her, out of everyone in the Animorphs, Ax included, I trust Rachel the most. I trust her with my life. But this? I just can't bring myself to trust her on it, I don't know why, but I just didn't like the idea of Ben becoming one of us. But I couldn't tell her that so. . . I lied. (Alright Rachel, I trust you.)

She smiled widely at me. "Thanks for understanding Tobias. Now let's get back inside before the others start to wonder where we went off to."

(Nah, I think I'll be heading off. Starting for feel a bit hungry, the meadow's a bit scarce at the moment so I'll need to find some food somewhere else for a while.)

"Okay, take care Tobias." Said Rachel walking back into the barn. "I'll tell the others that you've left."

So I left, to find food and try to take my mind off of what just happened. I can't believe that I just lied to Rachel, of all people. I lied to her when trust is a huge part of what keeps us alive in this war.

And losing that trust is akin to signing your own death sentence.


I was flying above the multitude of houses. From where I was I could see where the uniform suburb homes ended and where the more personalized homes started. I looked around searching for the one particular house of Ben. Though I had followed him back to his house before it still took me a while to find it by myself.

I flew around in a wide circle to see around the home. The cars were gone from the driveway, it also seemed that there was no one home, and someone had left a window open. Perfect.

The open window was at the back of the house, so after circling one more time just to make sure that no one would see me, I flew straight in the window. I briefly tucked my wings to my sides so that I wouldn't clip them in the window frame before flaring them open and swinging my legs forward opening my talons. I landed softly on the polished hardwood floor, sliding a couple of feet before coming to a stop.

I looked around, the last time I was here to spy on Ben I didn't see any sign of them owning any pets, hopefully I'm right. I shuddered involuntarily at the memory of Fluffer McKitty. But just to make sure I craned my head to the side and tried to listen for any noise in the house. I didn't hear a thing. Good, so the house was totally empty.

I know there's more to you than what you're telling us, Ben Tennyson.

And I'm gonna find out.

Author's Notes: Hello! Merry Christmas to you all! I thought I might just work my ass off a bit and try to give you guys a little christmas present, so here it is! Sorry if it's a little on the short side, but what the hell. This chapter was actively written over the course of three weeks because November for me was hectic to say the least. While other people had their finals and are now enjoying a wonderful break, I just had my prelims and still have the rest of the semester to go through. Exams were stressful, you guys try memorizing some 500 things in one weekend for one subject! Ugh, my head still hurts 'till now. Well on a brighter note, I'm happy and full of food now so it makes up for all the stress of exams.

I'm hoping to get my New Year's Resolution in writing more often. . . Well that, along with losing all these holiday pounds. But seriously I'll do my best to get chapters out sooner.

Anyway! Once again Merry Christmas, have a happy New Year, and Remember!

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