Chapter 22: Ax: Ax's Doubt

[I do not understand Prince Jake, what is going on, what are you talking about?]

"Ax, this bird is not Cassie, this is a random human sent by Crayak to infiltrate and kill us. The Ellimist spoke to me earlier and told me everything, there is an army of humans out there who can morph so he sent some humans who can morph to help us."

[The Ellimist spoke to you alone without the rest of us?] I asked, that didn't make any sense to me.

"Yes he did, everyone else was not available at the time so he just spoke to me. Ax, we don't have time for questions, the others are in trouble and I need your help to save them."

When I first saw Prince Jake step out of the bushes I felt a sigh of relief, I did not know what was going on and he'd have the answers. But as I was talking to him the voice in my head came back and told me not to trust him. I was trying to shake that voice from my head but it wouldn't leave.

[Prince Jake I am still not understanding what is going on, who is this bird here then, and who is this human here?]

"That person there name's Jorge, you can trust him, The Ellimist sent him and I trust him. That bird there is just a person morphed as a bird." Prince Jake smiled as he stepped towards me.

[But I saw Cassie morph into this bird, how could a person morph from Cassie straight into a bird?] The smile left his face.

He stood there for a second and smiled again as he said; "That's simple, The Crayak gave them the ability to go from one morph to another to have the advantage over us."

"Ax, don't listen to him, that's not Jake, he's the fake." Cassie yelled, she morphed back to human and was sitting on the grass behind him.

"Listen to me, Ax," Prince Jake said, "This person is trying to confuse us by pretending to be Cassie. He need to take care of her so we can find the real Cassie."

"Ax, please," Cassie practically yelled, "Listen to me, Jake is the one that is the impostor, he almost killed me earlier."

"Ax, I am your Prince, and as your Prince I'm telling you to let Jorge go and grab Cassie before she morphs again, as human I can't do anything."

I was really conflicted, I did not know who to believe, I know that Jake, my Prince would never lie to me but I also knew that Cassie would never lie to me either. I also know that Prince Jake would never hurt Cassie so she must be the impostor. But what if Prince Jake were the impostor? I could not know for sure, the only way to know who was real now would be to ask them questions only they knew, but if they were controllers than that would be pointless, but as a morph the impostor would get their instincts but not their memories. So I needed to test them to see who was the impostor, but what would I ask? While I spend a lot of time with both of them I am not to good at reading human facial expressions and human emotion to tell if they knew the answer or not.

I thought about it for seconds when I thought of the perfect question to ask them to be sure, an incredibly personal question that only the real Prince Jake or Cassie would know.

"Ax?" Prince Jake asked, sounding a little irritated. "Are you listening to me or not?"

[Sorry, Prince Jake, but to be sure as to who is the impostor I would like to ask the two of you some questions to determine who is the real one.]

"Ax we don't really have time for this, we need to get going and contact the others asap."

[I'm sorry, Prince Jake, but I must insist.]

"Fine then, let's get it over with already so we can go."

[I will ask both of you the same question and you will give me your answers separately.]

"What kind of question is it?" Cassie asked me as she kept looking back to Prince Jake and Jorge.

[In order for me to be completely certain about which of you is the impostor the question is sort of personal and might be a difficult topic to talk about if I understand human emotions clearly, especially you two in particular.]

I could see that Cassie was worried about the question I was going to ask while Prince Jake looked a little annoyed and nothing more.

I let go of the human named Jorge and brought Cassie to the side and began to talk to her.

[Cassie, we are far enough from Jake so he can't hear us so I am going to speak freely.]

"You called him Jake? What about Prince, I thought that you only called him Prince Jake?" Cassie whispered to me.

[That is because I do not believe this person to be Prince Jake, but in order to know for sure I still need to ask you both a question. Do you understand?]

"I do, but what did you mean about this being a personal question and being hard to talk about for us?" Cassie asked with a little fear in her eyes.

[I need a question that only a member of our group would know.]

"Okay, I understand, ask away." She said without hesitation.

I almost tried to clear my throat until I realized that I do not have a mouth, it is a human action that I have been doing more and more recently when I am about to say something that is difficult to talk about.

What is the Golden Rule that Prince Jake made for the group?

"What?!" Cassie asked as her eyes widened till they seemed they were about to become too large for her face. "How do you know about that? That was just supposed to stay between Rachel, Tobias, Jake and I. Tobias told you didn't he?" She sighed.

[Will you please answer and say what the Golden Rule that Prince Jake made for us Animorphs is?]

"Yeah, sorry, I'm just a little surprised and embarrassed that you know about that. Simply," She said as she took a deep breath, "It's a rule that Jake made for the couples in the group, that being Rachel, Tobias, He and I, that we are not allowed to,.. Uh,.."

[Please, hurry up, Cassie, we are running low on time.]

"We basically aren't allowed to sleep with each other or anything like that, we all agreed that while it may be,... uh,... fun,... to do, we don't need any kids running around while we're fighting the Yeerks. Rachel came up with that last line by the way."

[Thank you, Cassie, and to answer your question, yes, Tobias told me the other day when I overheard him talking to Rachel in human morph. Rachel was saying that the rule was unfair and the Prince Jake had no right to say what they could or could not do.]

"She said that, did she? Well, I can kinda see her point, but we all agreed that it was a good idea. So did I pass your test or not?"

[You passed as I expected, this means that Jake is the impostor. But I still need to ask him the question so he does not become suspicious.]

I left Cassie on the far side of the meadow and headed towards the impostor posing as Prince Jake. I did not know who this person was but I knew one thing, that Prince Jake would never let himself be acquired by the enemy, and that he must be a prisoner of these impostors. I would do anything for my Prince and for my friends, I was going to make this human suffer for posing as my Prince and for capturing him.