"Come on, we have to get away from here." We walked away and I filled her in on what I knew. Which wasn't much.
"So, what do we do?" she asked.
"I was hoping you'd have some ideas."
"Well, we'd better get Jake, Tobias, and Ax first."
"Yeah, but how? They're surrounded by Hork-Bajir on a high state of alert. Visser Three's on his way."
I saw her glance at the Yeerk pool. "They're almost helpless in their natural state, aren't they?"
Suddenly a loudspeaker crackled to life. A blastingly loud message in some language neither of us spoke. And then, to my amazement, the top of the dome began to open up. It was just a circle, and from the filtered quality of the light that came down I could tell it was the bottom of a tunnel. It must have cut straight through some portion of the bat cave.
Floating down on jets of brilliant blue gasses came a Bug fighter.
"Three guesses who that is," Cassie muttered.
The Bug fighter bearing Visser Three floated down to a gentle landing not a hundred feet away.
I caught a glimpse of him as he stepped out. He looked like an older Ax.
But even though Visser Three had infested an Andalite body, there was no mistaking him for a real Andalite. Not once you knew him. There was a darkness you couldn't see, but could definitely feel. A darkness spreading outward from him that caused people to lower their voices, speak in whispers, and try to shrink inside their own skin.
"Some butt is going to get kicked," I predicted.
The Visser's thought-speak roar filled every brain in the Yeerk pool. "Seal every exit! No one move! Not a single twitch, do you hear me? I have secure troops coming down. Until they check you, no one moves. If any of you see any movement, destroy!
Destroy it! Do you understand me? I will not tolerate failure!" Two more Bug fighters were descending now. Visser Three was being careful. He knew we could be anyone. He knew we could even theoretically be in Hork-Bajir morph or Taxxon morph. He'd brought fresh Hork-Bajir down from his Blade ship to begin checking us, one by one.
"We're toast," Cassie said, barely moving her lips.
We were alongside the building used to feed human-Controllers. We were partly blocked from view, and almost everyone in the place was staring straight ahead at Visser Three.
Still, there were two human-Controllers and a Taxxon behind us, where they would see us if we moved.
"Into the cafeteria here," I whispered. "Combat mode. Get ready."
"Get ready for... where did you get that?"
Cassie had seen my Dracon beam as I drew it. I spun to face the Taxxon.
"He moved! It's an AN-DALITE!" I screamed.
I squeezed the trigger.
TSEEEWWW! Down went the Taxxon like a sack of pudding.
TSEEEWWW! Down went the first human-Controller!
TSEEEWWW! Down went the second.
We were clear. For about three seconds. I ducked into the cafeteria and was already starting to morph. The building was empty. Everyone was outside, gaping in fear at their leader.
"Who's firing over there?" the Visser bellowed. "l said, freeze!" Cassie and I banged through folding chairs and slammed around tables loaded with interrupted meals.
"Back there!" I yelled, pointing to a door. I yanked it open. A food pantry.
And there, sitting calmly atop a crate of canned minestrone and enjoying a banana, sat a gorilla.
"Marco?"
"No, some other gorilla," he said. "l've been trying to contact you two for -"
"Some other time!" I yelled. "Hold this! I'm morphing!" I tossed him the Dracon beam.
"Cool!"
"Visser Three is here. Jake, Tobias, and Ax are surrounded by Hork-Bajir, and there are two hundred pounds of oatmeal in a shed!"
The gorilla blinked. "You have some brilliant yet probably suicidal idea, Xena?"
"No."
"What are you morphing?"
"Grizzly bear. It's butt-kicking time!"
"No, wait!" Cassie said. "The stupid oatmeal! That's the key. If that was in the pool, they'd all go nuts. At least it would be a huge distraction."
"We have to get out the front door of this place, around the building, back to the shed where they store it. A long way."
Marco nodded, like a wise gorilla. "Doesn't that mean it's right back here?" He pointed through the wall.
I smiled. "Come to think of it, it would be a lot shorter trip if we went through the wall."
"Through the wall. Then through the two Hork-Bajir guarding the oatmeal.
Then what?" Cassie asked.
"Then ..." I began. I sighed. "I don't know."
"Good plan," Marco said.
"Let's-" I began.
Marco held up one massive, leathery paw. "No, no. My turn," he said.
"All right, let's do it!"
I began to morph the grizzly bear. But then I stopped. We needed raw power. Truck-style power.
"You guys may get a little cramped," I warned. "I'm gonna get big."
I began to morph the elephant.
It's funny with morphing. It's like choosing your weapons in an old-time duel. In the old days two guys would insult each other, then they would arrange through their friends to "settle" the matter. The person who was challenged would get his choice of weapons. They'd go off early one morning, very civilized, with all the proper ceremony, and sword fight or shoot each other.
Pretty much like some people do today, only nowadays the duelists always seem to slaughter some innocent bystanders.
But that's a little of what it's like. I was going into battle. Which weapon should I use? I liked the bear because it was so utterly powerful and destructive. But in this case, the elephant morph was the proper weapon. And just like with one of those old-time, early-morning duels, I had plenty of time to think about being scared.
I began to change. I began to get large. My legs thickened to become telephone poles. My arms thickened even more and the weight of them made me fall forward.