Title: The Twins
Author: Alexis Steele
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: all the majors
Genre: Alternate Universe, after #23 The Pretender
Series: First story in the "Descendents of the Ellimist" Chronicles
Summary: Tobias is about to find more family than he can deal with
Notes: This fic was my first attempt at fanfiction back in 1999. It has been lying dormant in notebooks and my computer until I pulled it from the Net in 2004. Looking back on the fic about a year ago, I realized that I had a lot of interesting ideas that I wanted to portray in this fic – eventually to become a series – and that I wanted to pick them up again, but I had some major changes that needed to be done to my OC, Shayla. She was a blatant Mary Sue, and now she's become an attempt to see if I can write a competent OC without her becoming a Mary Sue.
And, while I will be following more closely to the events that occurred in the book series, I will always see the characters as their TV counterparts. Let's face it, ladies, the TV series might've deviated a lot away from the books, but it definitely gave us some nice eye candy to glance at. I will also be extending the timeline of the story to five years, instead of three. Therefore, the Animorphs have been fighting the Yeerks for over two years.
Normal speech denoted with "…". Thought-speak denoted in ((italics)). From this chapter onwards, there will also be periods of telepathy written. Telepathy will be shown by .
Each chapter heading will tell you who is narrating this part of the story. If you don't see a character's name in the chapter heading, assume that the character from the previous chapter is still narrating.
Disclaimer: With the exception of Shayla and any other minor OCs, all the other characters are the property of K.A. Applegate and Scholastic Books. All feedback is greatly appreciated
Chapter 5:
We walked out of the woods and started on our trek towards my uncle's subdivision. When we arrived, I found it wasn't very hard to try to sneak back in. My uncle had left the screen door open last night. He was probably too drunk to remember to close it. I'm surprised he hasn't been broken into yet. We snuck up into my old bedroom. Most of my stuff had been moved, but there was still some things left in the closet. As I looked at my clothes, I was worried about whether or not they would fit anymore. I found an old outfit of Jake's that he'd let me borrow two years ago and put it on. While I was searching for my secret hiding place that held all my valuables, Shayla was trying to salvage what was left of my wardrobe. My secret hiding spot held my most personal possessions, including a picture of my parents; at least I hoped they were my parents. I brought out the picture and showed it to Shayla.
"Does this picture look familiar to you?" I asked.
"Yes, I have an identical picture on my night stand," she answered.
Shayla stared at the picture. "I sometimes wonder what our parents were like. Didn't you?" she continued.
"Of course. When I was younger, I kept wishing that perhaps they were still alive somewhere and that someday they would return and take me away from my aunt and uncle. But that never happened, obviously."
I stuffed the picture into a backpack I had kept hidden from my uncle. The backpack also contained, the last time I checked, 350. I was too frightened to put any money I'd gotten into the bank because, as my legal guardian, my aunt or uncle to go into the bank and take out whatever they wanted, usually wiping out my account. Then I stuffed the clothes Shayla had picked out in the backpack too. Just as we were about to walk out the door, I heard a creak in the floorboards. My uncle was up.
"Come on. Let's get out of here," I demanded.
I grabbed Shayla's arm and pulled her over to the window. Then I opened the window and had her start climbing down. If my uncle walked in before we were out, I would protect Shayla with all I had left. Years ago I had removed the screen in case I had to make an emergency escape. Luckily my room wasn't too far off the ground. Shayla jumped to the ground and I followed. We ran to the bushes down the street from my uncle's house. After a few minutes of hiding, we started walking towards school. With that, Shayla and I strolled towards the entrance of the school. Then, suddenly, Shayla stopped.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Where's my necklace?"
"What does it look like?" I replied.
"It's a 14 karat gold chain with a dragon pendant surrounded by two dolphins," she described.
I searched the ground for it. Suddenly, my eyesight sharpened. I couldn't handle it. I quickly covered my eyes and blinked owlishly until my eyesight returned to normal. "Ow..."
"What? What?" she asked.
"I don't know. All of a sudden, my eyesight just grew sharper. And I mean sharp, like my vision was when I was a hawk. By the way, your necklace is about thirty meters back that way."
"This is interesting. I think you might be acquiring another ability. Something to help you compensate for the years you lived as a hawk."
"But, didn't the Ellimist say we wouldn't acquire anymore?" I asked.
"What would he know about this?"
"I don't know. Has this ever happened to you? Acquiring an ability that wasn't supposed to be there, I mean?"
For a long time, Shayla was silent. "I wouldn't know. All of the abilities I've learned over the years aren't necessarily powers that a human is supposed to have, if you know what I mean. All of this is uncharted territory. Do you think it could be this Ellimist of yours again?"
"Possibly. I mean, I've heard of people having enhanced senses, usually in response to losing one of them. Like a blind person having a heightened sense of hearing or touch. Let me try something. I'm going to see if my other senses are enhanced too," I concluded.
"Okay, I'll run over to my necklace. I'll whisper something. Tell me if you hear it," she said.
"All right."
Shayla ran back towards her necklace. Then, as clear as a bell, I could hear her whisper. "Can you hear me?"
/Yes. Whoa. Here comes another ability./
/It's telepathy. Don't worry. I think you'll be used to it. It's very similar to thought-speak./ she explained.
/Well, then, I should be a natural./
Finally, Shayla made her way back to me.
"Well, we know you have enhanced vision and enhanced hearing. Do you have anything to eat in that backpack?" she explained.
"Not necessary. I can still taste breakfast in my mouth."
"Which was?"
"A mouse."
"Yuck. Gross. Well, enhanced taste. What about touch? Here, what do you feel on the tree?" Shayla interjected.
I walked over to the tree.
"I can feel the sap flowing through the trunk," I explained.
"That's amazing. What about smell?"
"I can smell what the cooks are preparing for lunch at school. Gross. Meat loaf."
"You? Grossed out by school meat loaf. You eat live mice for breakfast," she laughed.
"Yeah, but at least I know what I'm eating. By the way, can I see your necklace?" I joked.
"Sure."
It was a beautiful necklace. The dragon's eyes were filled with two multicolored gems – mostly consisting of the colors green, red, and blue, while each of the dolphins had a jewel where one of their eyes, the dolphin to the left of the dragon had a blue gem, while the dolphin to the right of the dragon had a red gem.
"Very nice. Where'd you get it?" I asked as I handed it back to her.
"I got it as a birthday gift from one of my previous foster fathers. I've never taken it off, unless I'm taking a shower."
"Are the gemstones significant?" I asked again.
She nodded. "They're birthstones. The multicolored gem is an opal, which is the birthstone for October, ruby red for the month of July, and sapphire blue for the month of September. My foster father, Mr. Reynolds, said it was to remind me of my birth family, which is strange, since my birth records have been sealed since I was placed in foster care shortly after my first birthday."
"Is it possible that Mr. Reynolds knew about your past?" I posed.
"I always suspected he did, but now I'll never know for certain."
"Why is that?"
"He died right before the adoption papers were supposed to be finalized," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It happened a long time ago." She tried to reassure me, but I could tell that the loss of Mr. Reynolds still weighed heavily on her mind.
"Listen, Shayla, I don't want the others to worry about this extra ability, especially Rachel. She'll think it's another trick from the Ellimist to punish me, or something. So, for right now, let's just keep this between you and me, okay?" I asked.
"Tobias, keeping secrets from the others isn't going to help me to gain their trust," Shayla countered.
"I know, and I'm sorry, but the others are suspicious enough of the Ellimist as it is. I'll incur any blame for everything," I hastened to explain.
"Very well, but don't say I didn't warn you, if this ends up blowing up in our faces," Shayla concluded.
"Deal. And, thank you," I said.
With that, Shayla and I made our way to the entrance of the school. I had the strangest feeling that today was going to be filled with surprises.
Author's Note: Readers will get a special treat this week. I will be posting next week's two chapters on Wednesday night, due to the fact that I will be out of town for a music therapy conference over the weekend. Enjoy!
Reviews:
- Anily & Khthonia: Yes, the Ellimist definitely has a vested interest in Tobias and Shayla, which will be revealed in a later story. This is the first in a long series of fics that I hope to eventually finish.
- digitalmonster: Well, that's what I'm hoping with this fic... that it'll develop enough of a twist that it'll be original. It was at the time that I wrote it, in 1999, but I fell out of the fandom for a long time, and a similar story could've been written between 2001 and now. So, we'll see.
- SouthrnBelle: Thank you for the suggestion. I went back through the fic and did notice a lot of exclamation marks, so I went back and corrected it.