Once Tobias had given him the information he needed and insisted on going with him, something that Jake accepted after only a token protest, he left Marco and Cassie with orders to watch for any changes in the situation, but otherwise to stay put. He made sure to make things clear for the two of them, telling them in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to come back and find that they had gotten themselves captured as well. Flying to The Gardens with Tobias was most calming than he had honestly been expecting it to be, since neither of them said much to each other on the way.

That gave him plenty of time to work out the kinks in the tentative plan that he had formed while he and the remaining Animorphs had been sitting perched on top of that Wendy's together. He'd decided that Slade was going to be a part of it, since it would just be stupid not to have someone with his kind of power to back them all up, but Jake himself was going to take just as active a role in the plan. It was only fair.

(Are you at least going to tell me what we're here for?) Tobias demanded, sounding more irritated than truly angry.

(Look down there,) he directed.

They were currently flying above a large outdoor habitat, one that consisted of a grassland-ish sort of plain, a fairly large mud wallow, and an equally large watering hole. There were four animals wandering around inside this habitat. Four large, boxy-framed animals that looked like they had been built by General Dynamics.

(Rhinos?) Tobias asked, sounding dubious.

(Yeah. I need a morph that can go straight through those fences, through the doors, and even take a few bullets if I need it to. Why? You have a better idea?)

(None that I can think of,) Tobias said, after a few, long seconds. (Still, how are you going to get close enough to one of those things to even acquire it?)

(Two of the rhinos are off at the far end of the habitat,) he pointed out, having taken the whole thing in when he and Tobias had been flying over it. (The crowds probably won't be able to see them all that well.)

(Wait... You mean you're just going to drop right down in there?)

(There's no time for anything else,) he pointed out calmly, his focus already shifting to the pair of rhinos that he'd marked.

(Oh, man,) Tobias moaned, sounding more than a little dubious. (Look, at least let me provide a distraction for you.)

He hesitated; on the one hand, what Tobias was asking for was reasonable: he'd probably be a lot better off if those people in the crowd were all looking somewhere else when he dropped into the rhino habitat. On the other, given the spectacular mess he'd made of things so far, he wasn't particularly eager to put another of his friends in harm's way. In the end, though, caution won out over the self-recrimination he was still dealing with.

(Yeah, okay. But don't get hurt out there. You hear me? Do not get hurt.)

He didn't think he'd be able to deal with it if one more person who'd been trying to help him got themselves captured because of what he was doing. Or, especially, because of what he'd asked them to do.

Tobias peeled off, angling his wings away to split their trajectories, and Jake began to slowly spiral downwards. He'd have normally gone right into a dive, but under the circumstances, he wanted to make his approach as subtly as he could. One thing that you did not want to do, was to spook creatures as large, dangerous, and sturdy as rhinos.

He was aiming for the back of the rhino farthest away from the crowds, somewhere he thought that the people gathered to watch them wouldn't have been able to see him; even without Tobias' distraction to get them all looking the other way. When he finally landed on the large, broad back of one of the enormous animals, the rhino barely twitched.

That was good; he was glad to know that he hadn't managed to spook the thing.