Chapter 20: Ax: The Gut Feeling

Prince Jake sent me out to search the woods for Tobias, which I have to admit is a very difficult task, the woods that we live in cover an extremely large area and Tobias has several hunting grounds. I was getting very worried for Tobias, no one has seen him since last night, while I consider all my human friends my family here on earth Tobias is my actual family, my brother's child, my nephew, my shorm. Both Prince Jake and Rachel were attacked by animals yesterday around the same time and Marco's father was attacked by a human male, I am not aware if the other's suspect foul play but I do not believe these to be coincidences, I believe that someone is trying to take us out one by one. Now with Cassie avoiding Prince Jake and ignoring him when he tries to call her I am beginning to wonder if Cassie is a Controller or some sort of imposter. But if Cassie were a controller than Visser Three would have taken us as hosts by now because Cassie knows all our secrets. So the only other explanation is that someone who is not a Yeerk is impersonating her, but I have no idea who it could be.

I do not know, maybe I am just worrying too much. I just realized that I was not paying attention to where I was flying and I ended up on the outskirts of town. I was just about to turn around and head back to the scoop just in case Tobias had returned when I saw a flash of black and orange in the woods a few hundred feet to my left. I recognized that streak of colors instantly, I have seen them hundreds of times in battle, these were the colors of a tiger, an extremely fierce and dangerous earth animal that I've seen first hand many times.

But why was a tiger in the woods? I was under the impression that they did not live in this area. At least that is what Tobias told me. Then it hit me, this tiger must be Prince Jake in morph. Did he find whoever was attacking us? I changed direction as soon as I could and began flapping frantically as fast as I could to catch up to him.

He ran through the woods for a few hundred feet before he immediately stopped and began crawling through the bushes as though he was stalking prey. I got within range of thought speak of him when I had this feeling in my mind, I can not explain it but something was telling me to not speak or approach him and to see what he was doing. I have been informed by Marco that this feeling is called a gut feeling and that I should always follow my gut, especially when it comes to the ladies as he called them, which I have to say does not concern me because I am not interested in earth females, and to always listen to my gut when it senses danger. We Andalites do not believe in this gut feeling but I have grown to trust it more and more with every mission. I do not know why but my gut told me not to talk to Prince Jake and to follow him so I listened to it.

I flew past who I thought was Prince Jake to see what he was following and it surprised me to see that it was Cassie walking into a clearing. Was Prince Jake suspicious of Cassie as well and was just following her to see what she was doing?

I soared above her for a minute when I saw her begin to morph, during this time Prince Jake moved closer and closer to her until he was ten yards from her.

I was watching to see what Prince Jake would do when in the blink of an eye he ran at her and began attacking her. This proved to me that this was not Prince Jake, he would never attack one of us, especially Cassie since they have formed a relationship and pairing with each other. So this must be Cassie being attacked by someone pretending to be Prince Jake, as a bird she could not defend herself so I went in to an immediate dive to get to her as soon as I could, but as a bird I could not do anything either so I would have to demorph to be able to help, hopefully Cassie would be able to fly away before the imposter could get her.