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 ((bold)).

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 7: Tobias

As the busses started pulling up to school, Shayla and I made our way into school.

"Wait here," I told her, "I'm going to go get the others."

As I walked towards where I knew Rachel's locker was, I realized that I was walking the halls of this school for the first time, except for the previous night. I had become trapped in my hawk body before Christmas vacation during eighth grade. Rachel had stopped by her locker the night of the talent show to get a notebook she needed for her homework. I strolled up to her locker. I noticed she was having trouble with her locker.

I began, "Here, allow me beautiful."

Obviously, she was in a bad mood because she spun so fast I didn't even recognize her. At the same time, luckily, Rachel must've recognized me because she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Tobias, what are you doing here? Is everything all right? How long have you been in your human morph? What's going on?" she demanded.

"Relax Rachel. I'll explain everything once everyone is together, which shouldn't be too long now," I said, calming her down.

As if on cue...

"Hey Rachel!" Jake yelled down the hall.

I spun around to see Jake, Cassie, and Marco walking down the hall towards us. It looked like they were going to try to calm Rachel down before classes began. But once they saw me, they stopped dead in their tracks too. Jake recovered first.

"Tobias, what are you doing here? Do you realize how much risk you're placing on us? How much time do you have left in your morph?" he scolded.

"Good, I'm glad we're all here. How long do we have before classes start?" I asked.

"Fifteen minutes. Why?" Cassie answered.

"Because we're gonna need every minute of it. Come on, let's take a walk outside," I said.

I led them outside to a picnic bench on the opposite side of the school from Chapman's office. Once they were all seated, I made a motion for Shayla to come forward.

I began, "Okay, this is going to take a lot of explaining. Where do I begin? Well, first of all, you all remember Shayla from the previous night, right? Well, early this morning, Shayla came searching for me in the woods near Cassie's house. She came right up to the tree I was perched on and started having a conversation with me. At first, I tried to ignore her, but Shayla isn't like any other person we know, and now, neither am I."

"What do you mean?" Rachel demanded.

"While Shayla and I were talking, the Ellimist made an appearance," I explained.

At that point, everyone, except Shayla, groaned in exasperation.

I continued, "And he told us some very startling news. Shayla and I are twins."

"Twins!" the remaining Animorphs exclaimed in surprise.

"How can you be sure Tobias? I mean, the Ellimist has tricked you before. And how does Shayla know the Ellimist?" Rachel demanded.

"He's been coming to me in my dreams the whole time I've been in town telling me to search out someone named Tobias," Shayla spoke up for the first time.

"Figures," Marco said in disgust.

I continued, "I'll try to explain as best as I can. See, I was as skeptical as you so I asked the Ellimist to show us some proof. Suddenly, we were whisked away into another dimension. You can laugh, Marco, but I swear I am telling the truth."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Marco interrupted.

"Yes, you were," I responded.

"I believe you Tobias. Continue," Cassie said.

I explained, "This place was unbelievable, but not as incredible as what the Ellimist showed us next. We were taken to a special section of this dimension. In this area, the Ellimist showed us the lifelines of millions of species across the universe. He showed us our lifelines. It showed two lines separated shortly after birth."

"But what does that prove?" Rachel inquired.

"I'm getting to that. At first, I didn't believe him. He told me to follow my lifeline further down the road. I did, and it revealed everything. Our fateful night when we met Elfangor."

"Hey. Hey. What's gotten into you, Tobias?" Jake interrupted. "Why don't you blurt out all of our secrets in the open where anyone passing by can hear it?"

"I already knew about the Yeerks and you before meeting Tobias," Shayla explained.

"How?" Marco asked suspiciously.

"I'll let Tobias tell you. You're less likely to snap at him," she said softly.

I continued with the story. "Thank you Shayla. As I was saying, it also showed us meeting Ax and David, and showed David's lifeline parting again."

"He's still alive?" Rachel asked.

"For now he was. Anyway, then I saw something else. I saw four other lines join with us," I continued.

"Four?" Everyone else exclaimed.

"You didn't tell me that Tobias," Shayla added.

I demanded, "Let me finish, please. As I was saying, I did see four lines, but I only saw the identity of one. And it was Shayla. Then I looked back into Shayla's past and saw that it was the same line as the one that I was separated from years ago. Shayla is my sister. You'll just have to believe what I saw."

"I believe you, Tobias," Cassie said.

"As do I," Rachel agreed.

"I don't know man. This is just insane. You know the Ellimist loves to yank our chains every chance he gets, even though he claims he cannot interfere. And, why did you say you weren't like any normal person anymore?" Marco doubted.

"May I continue?" Shayla asked.

"Be my guest," I said.

Shayla continued, "Thank you. Ever since my sixth birthday, I have been developing these abilities -- one that includes morphing, as you call it. The Ellimist told us that our mother also had these same abilities."

"What else can you do?" Marco asked.

"Mostly telepathy, and an ability to heal others by touching them," Shayla said.

"So, what does you having these abilities have to do with Tobias?" Rachel inquired.

"During our discussion with the Ellimist, he informed us that unless Tobias and I performed this special ceremony, both of us would lose our powers forever. So there, in the middle of the woods, we did it. I transferred my abilities to Tobias. That is also how I learned about the Yeerks. One part that came along with me transferring my abilities to my brother was a transfer of our life's experiences and memories to the other sibling. Unless you include my last set of foster parents who, I'm almost positive, were controllers," Shayla explained.

"Okay, so you transferred these abilities to Tobias?" Marco concluded.

"There's something else about your abilities than what you're telling us," Cassie said.

"I suppose so. I mean, I never thought anything was abnormal about it, but the Ellimist was the one who brought it up to Tobias this morning. Apparently, along with my morphing ability comes an ability you don't possess -- an unlimited amount of time to be allowed in a morph," Shayla finished.

"So, in a sense, she took away my old morphing power and gave me a new one. At least, that's what it felt like," I summarized.

"Are you sure about this? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but as I said, the Ellimist has been known to trick you before," Rachel inquired.

"Yes, Shayla, tell us more," Jake demanded.

Shayla snapped. "Well, I've had my morphing ability since I was eight, so I think I would know a little about my average time in a morph. I often used my morphing ability as an escape mechanism when I was living in the children's home. I had one best friend throughout my years there -- Natalie. When we were ten, I acquired her and for an entire day, we lived as twins. As you can see, I'm not trapped in the body of a ten year old."

"Amazing!" Marco interjected.

"And how would we know what you looked like before?" Jake countered. "We've never seen you before the talent show Friday night."

"If you wish, we can test this out," I said.

Just then, the bell rang.

"This will have to wait until after school," Jake said.

"Shayla, are you enrolled in school yet?" Cassie asked.

"Not yet. Shayla and I are on our way to the office now to register," I explained.

"Um, not to put a damper on your plans or anything," Marco postulated, "but don't you think it'd be slightly suspicious to the Yeerks that someone who hasn't been seen in these halls since eighth grade suddenly reappears out of nowhere, with a long-lost sister in tow?"

I shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. I've been shuffled around from school to school so often that it doesn't faze me anymore."

"Still," Jake interjected, "Keep your relation to Shayla under wraps for now. Until we can figure out exactly what's going on here. Something about this isn't adding up. It's not like the Ellimist to be so directly involved with our welfare."

With that Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie headed off to their first period classes while Shayla and I strolled towards the office. Somehow, I had a feeling that convincing Jake and Marco about Shayla's sincerity would be one of the biggest challenges as an Animorph that I'd ever face.

Author's Notes: Posting schedule will return to normal next week. Enjoy!

Reviews:

- spartin-226: Welcome back. Sorry for the slight delay. I'm still in the middle of packing for this weekend's conference. Enjoy the next two chapters!

- Anily/Khythonia: You're on the right track. Some of the birthstones will be explained in the next chapter, so wait patiently. HINT: (whispers) Tobias' and Shayla's birthstone would be the one on the necklace which is doubled (winks). Also, I was never certain they revealed when Tobias' birthday was, so I made it up. Enjoy!