At Rachel, a massive, towering grizzly bear.
Marco, a gorilla with enormous hands and the strength to tear a human apart limb from limb.
At Ax and Tobias who’d chosen their own forms. An Andalite whose razor-tipped tail was as lethal as lightning and twice as fast. And a red-tailed hawk with talons created to puncture, rip, and tear.
Jake padded silently to the edge of the cave.
I followed him, the blue box wedged tightly in my mouth.
Clop clop clop!
Marco joked, slapping me on the rump.
The buffalo temper flared and I twisted, tossing my horns at him.
he said, leaping back just in time.
I muttered.
I followed the others cautiously out of the cave, relying more on my sense of smell and hearing than on my eyesight. I was listening for even the slightest whisper of sound.
Jake said.
Rachel threw back her head and let out an enraged roar.
“GGGGRRRRRRROOOAARRR!”
The night erupted.
The buffalo’s overwhelming defense instincts kicked in and suddenly I was barreling through the weeds, tossing my horns, and impaling a Taxxon where it stood.
“SSSKKKRRREEE!” It fell, writhing and twisting, foul-smelling blood pumping from its wounds.
Immediately, two other Taxxons converged and tore it to shreds.
I began to bellow, enraged by the scent of aggression, by the invasion and threat to my herd.
WHAM!
I charged, slamming one of the feeding Taxxons into a tree. It burst, spewing guts everywhere. Frenzied, I trampled the second Taxxon, piercing its fat, squishy body with my hooves.
It slashed at me, spasming in its death throes, but I barely felt its needle teeth. My heart was thundering and adrenaline powered my massive body.
Nothing hurt. And nothing could stop me.
“SSSRRREEE WAAAARRI!”
I whirled and saw Jake rake open a Taxxon.
“RRRROOOOOWWWRRR!”
Rachel, slashing and biting at a pair of Hork-Bajir, her chest matted with blood.
Fury rose and I stampeded a Hork-Bajir.
WHUMPF!
Its fiercely bladed arm split my shoulder.
I gored it, trampled it. Backed off.
It didn’t move.
FWAP! FWAP!
Ax’s tail blade was slicing and dicing, severing Hork-Bajir arms, hands, landing lethal blows, but there were too many and he was being driven back toward the cave.
A furious, gray haze misted my vision and I barreled through the Hork-Bajir, a tank, a steamroller, hooking them, goring them, scattering them like bowling pins.
More Hork-Bajir converged, wrist and arm blades slashing.
“TSSSSEEEER!” Tobias screeched, raking his talons across a Hork-Bajir’s eyes.
It screamed.
Everyone was screaming.
Marco bellowed. Bringing down his huge fist onto a Taxxon. But his scalp was split, and one of his ears was missing.
he yelled.
“GGRRROOOWWWWWR!” Rachel roared, as a Hork-Bajir blade carved a deep swath through her shoulder.
Jake leaped, grabbing a Taxxon and taking it down, ripping at it with his back claws. Leaped away and took down another one.
I slammed into another Hork-Bajir. And another. Stomped them. Gored them.
Their blades sank deep into my hide, slicing me open, nicking my bones and making me scream in pain, making me charge in fury, making me fight to the death.
Marco yelled, clutching his head and reeling away from a downed Taxxon.
Ax said grimly, lopping the head off a slavering, chittering Taxxon.
That’s when I heard the familiar bellowing. The enraged bellow was fresh and furious.
Tobias shouted.
I sucked in lungfuls of air and let out a resounding, answering snort.
The buffalo went berserk. It was a whirlwind of destruction. Trampled, pierced, gored, and gouged huge, gaping holes in the Taxxons. Battered the Hork-Bajir.
We all went a little crazy after that, on some kind of sick, bloody rampage spurred on by the African Cape buffalo who annihilated the Hork-Bajir ranks with sheer savagery. And finally, sent them howling, bent and broken, into the forest.
And then it was over.
We were all pretty messed up. So with Ax and Tobias keeping a lookout and the buffalo following doggedly at our heels, we demorphed.
The buffalo watched us, then began its own morph.
Once again, unnervingly, the head developed first.
“Of all the people around, it just had to acquire Chapman?” Marco joked lamely, turning away. “That is so not cool.”
Tobias said.
“It’s becoming human,” I said quietly, watching as the buffalo’s skin faded and lightened, as the coarse hairs were sucked back into its body.
Tobias said.
CCRRACK!
The buffalo’s legs reversed, stretched, and hinged into human knees.
“There’s something really gross about this,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “It’s so, I don’t know, unnatural.”
“So are we,” I said, watching as the buffa-human wobbled up onto two feet.
Jake shot me a concerned look.
“That’s different,” Marco said. “We morph consciously. This buffalo’s just mimicking what it sees. It doesn’t know what the heck is going on.”
“But what if it could learn?” I said. “What if now that it has a human brain, he learns to use it? What if it learns how to reason, or —”
“Nuh,” the buffa-human grunted. “Guhhr-nuh.” It looked up at me and blinked.
“It’s learning to talk,” I said, feeling a mixture of hope and nausea.
“No way,” Marco shot back. “That was just some kind of weird, random firing of neurons in the speech part of its brain.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, stepping slowly toward the buffa-human, who went very still. “Hi. I know you can’t understand me yet —”
“Nuh,” it grunted, tossing its head. “Uhhhhnnn.”
“Hi,” I repeated.
“Heeeeehhhhh,” it said, looking puzzled.
“I wouldn’t push too hard to teach it to talk, Cassie,” Jake warned. “If it becomes too human, it’s gonna be a problem.”
“Trust me, Jake, it’s not gonna live that long,” Rachel snapped. “I’m not being handed to the Yeerks by some lame Chapman mutation.”
Thwok thwok thwok!
Tobias said tensely.
“We’ll have to morph,” Jake said, running a hand through his hair. “We don’t have a choice. Everyone use your wolf morphs.”
Thwok thwok thwok!
I concentrated on the wolf DNA. Immediately, a ruff of thick, lush fur sprouted around my neck. My legs dwindled in size but didn’t weaken. My chest and shoulders swelled, and my face began to bulge. My teeth grew into long, deadly fangs.
The buffa-human was morphing, too. Watching me as its defenseless, human body beefed up until it was a dark, massive rock. As the rolling, deadly horns sprouted from the center of its skull.
Mimicking.
THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!
The trees whipped wildly and dirt flew.
I scooped up the blue box in my mouth.
Jake ordered, streaking out of the clearing.
We dashed after him, slipping away into the darkness just as a blinding shaft of light pierced the clearing from above.
I shouted. ffalo!>
Rachel said, tearing past me.
I cried, pacing anxiously in the dense shadows.
Jake said.
The real buffalo bellowed and snorted and barreled after me, bringing the searchlight with it.
I couldn’t kill it and I couldn’t let it reach me. If it did, the Yeerks would see the morphing cube in my mouth. And that just wasn’t going to happen.
Whirling, I shot off after the others.
I could hear the buffalo crashing along behind me, snapping trees and crushing anything in its path.
The helicopter blades sliced through the air but I was already pulling ahead of the buffalo, dodging and racing through the woods.
TSSSEEEWW!
A pine tree behind me exploded.
TSSEEWW!
KA-BOOM!
A huge boulder blew apart, winging fragments like shrapnel.
I heard Ax say grimly.
Marco said.
“SSSSRRRREYYYAA SSSEEWWWITT!”
A pair of Taxxons burst through the bushes in front of Tobias.
“Grrr GrrOWWWRR!” I dropped the blue box and launched myself at the closest one. Felt its rows of tiny legs scrabbling through my fur. Sank my teeth into its disgusting body and twisted, yanking and tearing its flesh.
It screamed.
I bit it again, sinking my muzzle into its guts and ripping them out of its body.
I left it dead, and helped Tobias finish off the other one. Trotted back and picked up the blue box.
Tobias said, running alongside me.
Jake called back sternly.
He was right, but his scolding tone still hurt.
I mumbled.
Jake instructed.
Rachel promised, circling back around me.
I felt like a total idiot. Like I should have known better. Only I couldn’t have stood there and let the Taxxons rip Tobias apart, could I? No.
Rachel said to me, in private thought-speak.
I said.
I said, mollified.
SLASH! CCRRAAAAAAAACK!
Hork-Bajir exploded out of the woods around us.
And somewhere up ahead, I heard Jake howl in pain.
It was total mayhem.
Screams. Shouts.
Grunts of pain.
Snarling.
Rachel shot past me, a lethal blur of fur and teeth. Launched herself at the closest Hork-Bajir and ripped its throat out.
That’s when the buffalo came up from behind me and charged into the fray, slamming and trampling Hork-Bajir, mindless of its own open wounds.
TSEEEEW! TSSEEEW!
The clearing lit up with a blinding flash and another tree exploded.
I couldn’t drop the blue box, so I couldn’t fight. Couldn’t help my friends. I was glad the buffalo had followed us, glad to see it take my place in battle, but I was afraid, too. If the Hork-Bajir-Controllers noticed I wasn’t fighting, noticed my jaws weren’t free to defend myself …
I hunkered down and belly-crawled under a thick bush.
THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!
The helicopter hovered directly above us. The downwash pounded us with dirt and pine needles and rubble. The spotlight flooded the clearing. There really was no place to hide.
It was a bloody, gruesome scene.
Severed Hork-Bajir arms and legs twitching in the dirt. Growing pools of blood. Taxxons feasting, drooling, like something out of a slasher movie — only this was real.
TSEEEWWW!
I bolted out from under the bush.
The spot near where I’d been hiding exploded in a shower of rocks and dirt.
Jake shouted.
Leave them and run? I paused in the shadows, torn.
THWOK! THWOK!
TSEEEW!
A pine tree shattered.
The spotlight shifted toward me. Searching for the morphing energy.
Searching for the blue box.
We took off, zigzagged, and somehow managed to lose the helicopter. The Bug fighters swooped and zipped through the sky, blasting anything and everything that moved, but at least they were still focused on the woods behind us.
Marco said, limping.
Jake said, padding along beside me. He glanced at me.
I said shortly, tightening my jaws around the blue box.
He must have noticed my tone, because he said in private thought-speak,
I said, too weary to hold a grudge.
Ax said, slowing.
Jake said.
Tobias said quietly.
Rachel sneered.
And probably even more Hork-Bajir, I thought.
We crept beneath huge clumps of sticker bushes lining the edge of the road.
Marco said.
Rachel said immediately.
Jake pointed out.
Rachel snapped back.
Marco said.
Rachel said sweetly, which for Rachel usually means she’d like to punch you in the face.
We shrank back from the road as a patrol car cruised slowly past, shining its spotlight into the woods.
Jake said.
I said.
Marco said.
I said, with a confidence I didn’t really feel.
Marco looked at me. I turned away first.
Tobias suggested, getting us back on track.
Jake said.
And then it came to me. Pure. Simple. Ridiculously simple.
I said.
Jake said, startled.
I said.
Tobias said uneasily. bound to draw the Helmacron sensors and the helicopter. And then come the ground forces.>
Ax pointed out.
Thwok thwok thwok!
The helicopter.
Jake said.
she said.
It was a simple plan and it should have been easy.
I should have known better.
Demorph.
Remorph to flies. Marco to human since he’d decided to be the one to toss the cube.
Exhausting.
But necessary.
Huge, glittering, bulging compound eyes popping out of my sockets.
Legs sprouting from my chest, gauzy wings tearing through my back and unfurling.
Crunching, mushing, gurgling gut-shifting.
And the long, tubular proboscis stretching out of the middle of my fly face.
My wings beat two hundred times a second. I gave into the rush, zipped up, and landed on Marco’s nose.
“Hey,” he whispered, swiping at me. “Who’s the wise guy?”
I said, buzzing circles around his head.
Jake said.
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Marco said quietly, hunkering down in the bushes.
Jake called, buzzing away.
I shot off after him. Now, a fly can only cover about four miles an hour, but when you’re only an eighth of an inch long, that’s like major warp speed. I stifled the urge to dip and dive, and powered in a straight line across the road.
Patrol car headlights cut through the darkness.
I shot straight up about a millisecond before the lights swept past.
Jake called, zipping down into a thick stand of weeds.
I said, landing and immediately beginning my demorph.
Jake asked, when he’d finished demorphing and had remorphed back into a wolf.
Ax said, joining the rest of us.
Morphing is tiring and doing rapid morphing, like from a wolf to a human to a fly, then from a fly to a human to a wolf was more than we’ve ever had to do. But the wolf’s sleek, powerful body was fresh and its senses keen, so the weariness wouldn’t catch up with us until we were human again.