Hey, I'm back with a vengeance!

This fic is getting new views, but we still haven't surpassed the 76 views in a single day record, as a matter of fact, when I posted the chapter 6, there were only 35 views that day! I'm not complaining, but after the 76 I've had in the past, I'm slightly disappointed. As of posting this chapter, the fic has 2 reviews, 2 favorites, 4 followers, and 852 total views, that's great, but none of that now, here's the new chapter.

"Jake and his friends return to their homes as changed people, they didn't know Elfangor long, but Tobias' Father left an impression that will never be forgotten. They talk to each other the next day to decide what to do, and Jake delegates that they wait, give themselves time to process what they witnessed. Deep down however, Jake's the most concerned of them all, the ordeal is unforgettable it'll stay clear in his mind for as long as he lives, however, Tobias makes contact with them, and makes clear he has no intentions of being relegated to the howls of grief that will haunt Jake's memories for all time."

Lingering

Day 1, Afternoon

Nothing else abnormal happened that day. We just boarded the bus. Marco and I shared a seat, with the girls just behind us.

I just sat on the bus in a daze staring out the window, still trying to process what I was seeing. Not the rainstorm that was hitting the bus, no, images of what happened only an hour earlier were still flashing before my eyes as I replayed the events.

I mean, some part of me still can't believe it! I didn't realize until we got back to the camp, but it was like we had stepped into another world when we met Elfangor. What's more, I knew that world had lost one of it's supporting pillars when Elfangor died before our very eyes. Even if Tobias' breakdown didn't convey that, I felt it.

A world that we're now a part of.

I switched my gaze for the first time since I got on the bus, to my right hand. I flexed it and unflexed it, still feeling numb.

"Guys," Rachel leaned forward to whisper to Marco and I.

I twisted back to see Rachel poking her head over the seat.

"What is it?" Marco asked.

"My arm doesn't feel strange anymore," Rachel said.

"Okay," Marco said, leaving it at that. He was just as numb as the rest of us.

I looked at my arm and flexed it again. Actually, now that I was paying closer attention, the numbness seemed to be fading from that limb as well.

"This is insane," Marco whispered, shaking his head. "Just...insane!"

The bus ride took little over half an hour until we got to the city we called home. We were dropped off at the front of our high school where our families waited, by that time we had gotten out of the storm.

"Guys," Marco said as the bus pulled into the school parking lot, "we gotta act natural."

"What?" Rachel said in confusion.

"Act normal," he clarified. "We have to pretend like what we just saw…never happened."

I nodded, and tried to wrap my head around it. This thing was too big, how could I just walk around like nothing happened?

"How do we do that?" Rachel whispered, "How can we just…act the same as before?"

"Let's pretend it's not a big deal," Cassie said. "Tell ourselves that what happened isn't a big deal. We just snuck out of the camp and went on an unauthorized hike. We got in trouble, how about we pretend that we're still bummed out over being caught? It's not exactly a lie, and our folks will possibly ask about it."

Cassie...she has some pretty good ideas.

"I-, we should do that," I said. I stuttered again, I was about to scold myself until I remembered that she was my girlfriend, not an awkward crush. We were officially a thing now. And I didn't want to think about the other things that had been unloaded onto me. The Andalites, The Controller Invasion, that thing...and something about visions, an omen, and a prophecy? I have no idea what he was talking about, and I believed back then I never would. The bus pulled up into the curb where the students usually got off from school.

"When will Tobias come back though?" Rachel whispered. "How long do you think he'll…tend to his Dad, before coming here? What are we supposed to do until then?"

"We'll lie low," Marco said when the door to the bus opened. "We don't know where the Controllers are. They may be here, or they may be in Atlanta, or Boston or who knows where. But they might be monitoring this place, watching for morphers. We can't afford to blow our cover; we have to wait for Tobias to come to us. He knows where we live. And you absolutely DO NOT morph."

I just nodded as we all got up. When I stepped out of the bus, I noticed that the rain had been reduced to a light sprinkle instead of the downpour we were just in.

"Hey, welcome back midget!"

Tom, I thought with a smile before he wrapped his arm around me. All of a sudden it seemed like the apprehension disappeared. I looked to Tom's smiling face, and with our parents alongside him, I could almost forget the thing that happened. Everything seemed to return to normal.

But then I felt the numbness in my arm disappear with a strange feeling I couldn't describe. Reminding me of the true nature of our situation.

"How was camp?" Mom asked.

"It was awesome," I said with a smile.

"Let's get to the car before the rain starts pouring down like Noah's flood again," Dad said, prompting us to walk back to the Suburban.

As we entered the car, I looked back to see the others be picked up by their parents. Cassie was the closest. We locked eyes and she silently mouthed be careful before turning to join her parents. And that was the last I saw of them that day.

Day 2, Morning

I woke up, and went through my routine as normal. I pretended as if nothing happened to me, as Cassie suggested. It worked well enough, but it was so strange. I told them about me getting a girlfriend there, still acting nervously and stuttering through it all. I just took Cassie's advice and told myself it wasn't a big deal. They didn't ask about camp, so I guess nobody told them about our unauthorized hike.

Yeah, no big deal that I saw an alien leader die before my very eyes.

"So," Tom asked once he got to the table with his pancakes.

"No," I said with a smile on my face.

"You hang out with Marco too much," he accused me. "Where's the real Jake?"

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," I said laughing before stopping suddenly.

Normally I would've just finished with the Hannibal Lector hissing sound he made after that quote. But Tom asking where the real me was, him wording it like that gave me a chill I would not have had were it not for…yesterday.

That experience was like a nuclear bomb; I was still trying to process it. A part of me wanted to forget it, but a part of me didn't because that would mean I would forget Elfangor. I hated Tom at that moment, but he didn't know what he reminded me of, so it lasted only a second. We made small talk while we ate our pancakes, we had good time, we were brothers. Not a single thing we said to each other that morning threw me off again, nothing would stand between us.

"So, what are you doing today, Tom?" I asked him.

"Going to practice basketball with my friends," Tom told me, but his tone indicated that there was a sort of catch. "Buuuut Richard got paid 20 bucks by Allison in return for her coming along."

Tom finished that sentence with a very pained tone. I grimaced. Allison is an airhead and a motormouth. The worst kind of both. She can't stop talking, and makes so many insensitive and just plain stupid comments that your mind just blanks out and your face slacks up in an effort to comprehend her vapidness and utter unthinking nature. She's not a mean girl by any stretch, but she's just simply hard to tolerate, and for me in this particular morning, impossible.

"Allison said she'd be quiet, but you know as well as I do that's impossible for her. I promised to go, but they said nothing about you having to be there," Tom said, offering me a way out.

"Oh thanks!" I said with a relieved smile on my face. "I'm just going to stay here, enjoy the indoors for a while, along with TV."

"Right. I'll be back at 11, enjoy the indoors dude!" Tom said as he finished breakfast before going outside.

Yeah, I thought. I should definitely follow bro's advice and watch some TV. I could use the distraction.

I walked over to the couch, turned the TV on with the remote, and the channel was immediately playing a rerun of action movies from the 80s.

I watched the Terminator for a little bit, but I found none of it to be satisfying.

I knew what was wrong. I couldn't just ignore it, no matter how much I wanted to.

Then the phone rang. Wondering who was calling, I picked it up.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Hey, Jake?" Cassie!

"Ah, Cassie! What's up?"

"I got a letter in the mail yesterday. It's Tobias."

My casual attitude evaporated. I didn't think we'd hear from him so soon.

"Have you opened it?" I asked.

"No, I called you first when I got the mail. I think we should bring everyone to my barn."

"Okay," I said. "I'll ring the others up, goodbye Cassie."

"Bye Jake, see you soon."

After I hung up on Cassie, I called Rachel and Marco to tell them what was up.

It didn't take long for us to go to the place. When I left, I wrote a note and stuck it on the dining room table.

Cassie's barn is out of the way, on her family farm. They both work as veterinarians at the Gardens, which is a zoo/amusement park hybrid our town is somewhat famous for.

Cassie and her family are the most eco-friendly of all eco-friendly people. They run a wildlife rehabilitation clinic in that big barn of theirs. Most of the red paint has chipped away from the barn, making it a faded brownish gray, but the wood's still strong.

I parked my bike at the side of the barn and walked up to the doors.

I heard it from all the way outside, already the peace was falling apart.

"Okay, I'm sorry! It was just a joke! I didn't mean anything by it, and I promise you I know Cassie's not insane!"

Marco and Rachel, why should I even be surprised they're going at it?

I opened the door to find that Rachel had Marco in a headlock.

I looked around the barn, noticing Cassie was gone, but her clothes were all over the middle of the floor.

"Marco," I said in an even voice. "Where's Cassie? And why did you call her insane?"

My best friend simply pointed up, a wry smile on his face. His neck was still enslaved by Rachel's arms.

"Well, Cassie's family released a bat last night. Apparently, she figured out how to morph it, and I called her 'insane as guano' if you want the watered down version."

Marco turned to Rachel, "but I didn't actually mean it, it was a joke!" he said in an incredibly whiny voice.

"But for real though," Marco said, getting serious again. "What did I tell you guys about morphing? I thought we were here to read a letter from Tobias!"

I then heard a quiet squeaking noise, and saw a little dark thing flapping its wings in the rafters.

"Cassie?" I asked the little flying creature. "Cassie? Can you come down?"

There was no response.

That's strange, I thought.

"Cassie?" I asked my girlfriend, holding out my arm. "Can you please join us and turn back?"

There was no answer.

"Hey, if you're offended about the joke, I'm sorry," Marco called up. "Really, I mean it!"

"Something's wrong," Rachel said. "She would've responded!"

Oh no, what if Marco was right? What if Elfangor swindled us all!

"Cassie?" I said, fear beginning to creep into me. "Cassie, respond!"

"I knew it," Marco whispered through gritted teeth. "This is bad, I knew something was wrong with that Elfangor dude!"

All I could do was look at the rafters, where Cassie was. A bat. Cassie turned into a bat, and she may never be able to return. I was beginning to feel panic. Like, I'd finally gotten my first real girlfriend, and after a day she turns into a bat? Possibly never to come back?

Then I remembered.

"Guys, the envelope!" I said to the others.

"What?" Rachel asked.

"Tobias' envelope," I clarified. "He may have written down how the morphing works! Do you know where it is?"

"No," Marco said. "Cassie never showed us."

"Maybe she stashed it somewhere in the barn, look around the barn!"

I looked all around the hay bales, Marco looked around the animal cages, and Rachel looked at the stables. After looking pretty much everywhere else, I found it, stuck where the shovels were.

"Guys, I found it!" I said, removing it from the board the hooks were nailed to, scaring a lizard away. I heard the others rush to me as I read who the letter was from.

Tobias.

"What are you waiting for?" Marco said. "Just open it!"

I walked over to the hay bales and tore the envelope open with my bare hands.

And there it is, what do you think? Please do leave a review on this fic, it feeds the soul of the goblin that writes this...ME!

And credit where credit is due, this was edited by my legendary Beta Reader! flaks314