Chapter 25: Ax: The Chase

[Tell me where Prince Jake and the others are immediately or you will lose another hand.] I threatened the imposter posing as Prince Jake as I started pressing my tail blade onto his wrist. As I was about to slice his hand off my right stalk eye saw a golden blur burst through the bushes and run at me with tremendous speed, clearing the meadow in a split second.

The creature jumped at me with large claws extended before I could react. The creature knocked me over while it left a large scar down my side before it ran off while another identical creature took it's place attacking me with tremendous speed.

What was attacking me, I thought, it was running too fast for my eye to track it properly.

"Ax!" Cassie yelled as she started to morph into wolf and run over to me.

[No Cassie,] I yelled at her, holding my hand out in front of me, a very human motion, [You must run and free Prince Jake and the others.]

[But Ax,] She pleaded, more wolf than human now. [Those cheetahs are going to kill you if I leave, I have to help you.]

[Prince Jake would never forgive me for letting you die in my place, Cassie, you must run, go, go save yourself and free the others. I will rejoin you when I am able.]

[Ax] She said, turning around, [I'm sorry, I'll get Rachel and we'll rescue you.]

[No, find Rachel and tell the Chee what is happening, come up with a plan then rescue Prince Jake and the others.]

[I'm sorry, Ax.] I heard Cassie say as she ran through the trees. [We'll rescue you as soon as we can.]

I looked to see if Cassie was being followed when the first cheetah returned and starting running after me. So I started running at full speed in the other direction through the trees. I have morphed a cheetah before so I have some basic knowledge about them. I knew that they were the fastest animals on Earth so there was no way that I would be able to outrun them, but I also knew that they could not run for very long without collapsing, normally not more than a minute or so. I would just have to hope that I could outrun them until they tired.

The second cheetah quickly joined the other as they both chased me through the forest. I started with about a thousand foot lead on my two pursuers but they were quickly gaining on me. I was running through the dense trees trying to lose them when I saw a small river about twenty feet wide a few hundred feet in front of me. I knew from personal experience that while cheetahs can swim that they try to avoid to at all possible. Hopefully for my sake the cheetah's instinct will tell them not to follow me into the river.

The cheetahs were just under a hundred feet behind me when the started to slow down, after twenty more feet they immediately stopped and almost collapsed.

After they both collapsed on the ground I turned around and headed towards them, tail raised, preparing to take the opportunity to kill them before they could recuperate and chase me again.

I was just a dozen yards away when I saw that the two cheetahs were morphing, but they were not demorphing into their human forms, they were morphing straight into other animal forms, one into a very large polar bear and the other into an elephant. I would still be able to kill them with my tail blade before they finished morphing if I hurried.

But how are they able to go from one morph to another, I knew that the Escafil Device only let you morph into another creature after you demorphed. Did these humans obtain a new kind of Escafil Device that allowed morphing from one form to another? I still did not know who these humans were or how they had obtained an Escafil Device.

I was a few yards away when I saw that they had finished morphing in just a few seconds. That must be it, I thought, these humans must have obtained a new Escafil Device that was technologically superior to our own, allowing them to morph from one form to another and to morph in half a minute.

The elephant run at me at full speed, reaching its trunk out to grab me. I sliced the end of it's trunk off and turned to run when the polar bear swatted my legs out from under me with one giant paw. I crashed into the grass and landed wrong on my right front leg, sending a wave of pain down my body, I do not believe that it was broken but I do not believe that I can run on it anymore. With the two humans in morph next to me I would not be able to morph into northern harrier and fly away.

The polar bear was on top of me before I could blink, clawing up my stomach as I swung my tail to slice up it's face. The elephant grabbed my tail with it's now shortened trunk, holding it to the ground where it stepped on my tail pinning it to the ground.

Aaahhhhh! I screamed in pain, I felt the bones in my tail snap under the elephant's enormous weight.

With my left back leg I kicked at the elephant with no effect. It simply took my kicks without even flinching. The polar bear moved over to my upper body and raised one of its giant paws over my head.

Wwhhhaaamm! The bear slammed its paw into my head knocking it back into the ground. The bear raised its paw again and slammed into my face, over and over the bear slammed its massive paw into my face, after a few blows my vision started to blur and I was having trouble thinking clearly.

Cassie, I thought, please find Rachel and the Chee quickly. I hoped that Cassie was safe, if she were to be killed because of me I would not be able to face Prince Jake again. I knew that he cared a great deal for her since they were a couple. Please, be safe.

After a few more blows to my face I could feel myself losing consciousness, my vision was starting to turn dark as I couldn't feel any pain anymore when I lost consciousness.