As she crossed the line from mostly-osprey to mostly-human, losing her thought-speak capability along the way, Cassie sighed. She didn't know just what was going on in this place, just what the Controller Joe Bob Fenestre could possibly be planning, but she knew that it wasn't anything good. He was a Yeerk; it was almost a given that he was planning something awful.
"Well, I guess it's just you and me, Slade," she said, turning to look up at the armored figure standing just behind her.
It was so strange, seeing him in that form; Marco was right, Slade didn't look a thing like Shara did when he transformed. For one thing, his form was much more bulky; his shoulders alone were easily twice the size of Shara's when she transformed, and his chest was almost the same relative size. His arms and legs also seemed to have thicker armor on them, or maybe she just thought that because of the sharper lines of Slade's armor. Still, the most drastic difference between the shapes of their armor was the shape of their respective helmets: Shara's was built close to her head, and almost softly curved in places; Slade's was more sharply-angled, with three spines, one set very short, the next set slightly longer, and the last set a bit longer than the other two put together, set onto the sides of his own helmet.
Slade's armor was also colored much differently from Shara's: bright white with red patches, while Shara's was more of a dark pink with cream-colored pieces. Still, there were enough similarities between them, mostly in the facial areas, that Cassie could tell that they were the same kind of being. Generally, at least.
"Cassie, are you all right?" Slade asked, setting an armored hand on her right shoulder?
"I'm fine, Slade. Just resting a bit," she said, putting her own hand over Slade's.
With anyone else, she would have stroked that hand to try to make them feel better; but Slade's armored hand wasn't really made for stroking, with all the sharp points she could feel at the joints of his fingers, and she didn't think he would have felt anything through his armor, anyway.
"I'm going to morph now, then we'll go," she said, having regained the energy she'd used from demorphing.
"Right," Slade said, and she could hear his armored form shifting slightly behind her; probably getting ready to move again.
Focusing her thoughts on the wolf morph that she had used for almost every battle that the Animorphs had had with the Yeerks over the course of the invasion, Cassie felt the changes begin. She might not have known what was coming, but with her friends close by, Cassie was sure she would be able to handle it.
XXX
The sound of heavy, thudding footfalls coming down the hall sounded louder than they probably really were, since his rhino ears and the sense of hearing that went with them hadn't yet morphed away yet. Turning to look behind him, Jake stumbled slightly on his half-formed legs. He felt himself being caught by a thick, strong, armored arm and steadied before he could fall to the ground.
"Thlade," he slurred, his mouth and lips and tongue still morphing even as he spoke. "Gooth to see you again," he said, as the other boy helped him up to the top of the stairs; he finished morphing as the two of them reached the top.
Still, while he'd been demorphing, he'd been "treated" to the sight of one of the bullets that had been lodged in his right shoulder popping free of his morphed body as it shrank away to reveal his normal human form. The bullet itself ended up falling to the carpet, and Jake could only be thankful that Slade's hadn't been covering the part of his shoulder where the bullet emerged from.
(What are you guys doing, looking like that?) Tobias demanded, zipping by over their heads, his wings scraping the ceiling with each up-stroke; Jake saw one of his feathers flutter to the ground.
"Are they still after you?" he demanded; they could think about the guards with the guns later. He wanted to make sure that Tobias was all right before he moved onto anything else.
(Yeah, but I've lost them for now,) Tobias reported. (The room they were guarding is down the hall, then through this big, massive bedroom. You'll see a doorway on the far wall. The last time I went past, there were still a couple of guys guarding it.)
"What do we do now?"
Still feeling a bit tense from all of the things that had been going wrong, Slade's sheer over-zealousness in their defense only the most recent, it took him a moment to decide what to do. Having Cassie morph had been an impulsive decision; knowing how Slade saw their bird morphs as needing his protection – not that he wasn't right – Jake had wanted to give the older teen as few reasons as he possibly could to go off on any of the guards still stationed in this house. But, maybe that decision hadn't been so impulsive, after all.
"Morph again," he said firmly. "Combat mode. Tobias? Try to reach Rachel and Ax with thought-speak. If you get Rachel, tell her to demorph; no arguments. If you get Ax-"
"Jake, I hear people coming," Slade said, and Jake could almost feel the other boy tensing up behind him.
(Those sound like my guys,) Tobias said, sounding agitated. (You guys, get into that side room! It's unlocked. I'll lead these guys away!)
They all did so without hesitation, though he had to give Slade's arm a tug before the Teknoman would follow his lead; he knew what Slade had likely been planning, and he'd wanted to make sure to nip it in the bud. He could hear the sound of heavy, weary footsteps plodding past the room they were all hiding in.
"Where is that lousy bird?"
"What I can't figure is why we're chasing it and blowing holes in the boss' walls and ceiling in the first place."
"'Cause that's what the boss pays us to do," the first man said, sounding like he'd had the same discussion a few times before and he was starting to get sick of it.
By the time the two men had passed them by, Jake had already begun his tiger morph. The rhino was good for smashing things down, but if he didn't want Slade to try linking their minds together again, he needed to be able to see what he was doing. Besides, the tiger was the morph he was more used to using; nothing, or nothing but Slade or Shara in their armored forms he was beginning to suspect, could do as much damage as his tiger morph.
Marco was morphing into his gorilla, and Cassie was already a wolf. Slade hadn't gone into his usual combat morph, but the other boy was really as dangerous as he was going to get in that armor he was wearing.
(Rachel!) he shouted, not knowing if his cousin could hear him or not, but hoping that she would do what he said. (Rachel! If you can hear me, demorph now! It doesn't matter if anyone's watching you, you need to demorph!) Turning his attention back to the others, he said: (All right, let's do this.)
