The Journey: #42 Alternate ending.
"Oh shit!" Marco yelled, slapping his hands to his nose where the Helamcrons had just entered. "They're inside me! That can't be good!" He just stood there looking shocked, his hands fluttering over his neck and chest as he felt the tiny alien ship progress into his body. The rest of us just stared, except for me. I was too busy trying to suppress a shout of laughter. I managed to contain it to a few amused snorts, and then turned to Jake. "What now, Great Leader? Want me to morph to grizzly and gut him like a tuna fish? We would get them out that way!" Jake and Cassie gave me dirty looks. Suddenly a voice boomed inside our heads. "Ha Ha Ha! Give us the power source, weaklings, or we will fry this puny creature from the inside out! Submit to our power!" On cue, Marco clutched at his chest and staggered, groaning. "Owww! They're zapping my heart! " He would have fallen, but Jake caught him and lowered him into the hay. I stopped chuckling. Marco was an annoying pest, but that didn't mean I wanted midget aliens to burn his insides out. "Hey!" I shouted. "Stop that right now! When I get my hands on you I'll introduce you to my waffle iron!" "Silent, insolent one!" said the voice. Marco suddenly shrieked as a tiny pinpoint beam of light lanced out of his shoulder and left a minuscule smoking hole that immediately filled with blood. "That was merely a taste of our destructive power!" shouted the voice. " Give us what we want!" "Ok, Ok, we'll go and get it." said Jake in a worried but consolatory tone. "But don't hurt our friend any more or the deal is off! Tobias, stay here and keep an eye on him. You alright, man?" to Marco, who raised pain-filled eyes and grimaced. "Sure, feels just like a bad case of heart burn." "Come on, peeps." We all filed outside. Ax, in Andalite form because it was dark out, slid the barn door closed after us with his tail. We stopped a distance from the house, out of hearing of whatever technology the Helamcrons were using to communicate from inside Marco. We hoped. Jake turned to face us, a determined gaze in his eyes. "We can't give them the blue box!" I blurted. "That power cannot be entrusted to anyone, least of all those nasty egomaniacal xenophobic nitwits! Besides, it might fall into the Yerk's hands." I stared at Jake belligerently. He met my gaze, then sighed and looked at the ground. "You're right. I hate to admit it, but that sacrifice is too much to make. What other options do we have? We have to hurry. Those Helamcrons hate us for what we did to them last time. They're probably just itching to carve Marco up with those beams of theirs." Cassie spoke up for the first time. "Well, if they won't come out, we'll have to go in and get them." "Ewww! I yelled. " Marco is nasty enough on the outside, I have no burning desire to see what his insides look like! And I flatly refuse to morph into bacteria or a white blood cell. That would be the most beyond-weird thing we have ever done." Cassie shook her head. "I don't think that would work anyway. We would have no way to see or find them, and I'm sure Marco's immune system is already doing all that's possible on that front. We wouldn't be able to make any difference. "She looked at Jake. This isn't a job for a morph alone." Ax clopped his hooves and turned his main eyes on Jake. We will use a technological approach then. "What?" said Cassie. It is necessary to get inside Marco in order to remove the Helamcrons. If there is not an adequate creature we can morph, me must enter another way "How?" This In his small, six fingered hand Ax held up a very small metal sphere. "What's that?" I believe it is called a "ball-bearing". An exceptionally primitive human mechanism designed to minimize harmful friction in machinery. Despite it's deplorable design, it will be adequate for this purpose. I propose we hollow it out, add a few modifications, morph to ant, and use it to enter Marco's body to free him of the Helamcrons. "Are you insane?" I shouted. "That is the stupidest, most impossibly suicidal plan I have ever heard in my short life. Lets do it!" "Alright" said Jake. "Ax, if you can turn that ball-bearing into a miniature submarine or something, then this is doable. Ask Tobias how Marco is." We all heard the question, and then Tobias's answer. Ummm.I'm not sure. He's still talking to me. Seems a bit peeved "Damn right I'm peeved!" We heard the shout faintly from the barn. But he has the shakes. Jerking spasmodically. Don't know what's causing it. Could just be nervousness "They better not be moving around in there too much" said Cassie worriedly. "The human body is a very delicate and complicated mechanism. Who knows what they're messing up!" She bit her lip and looked at Jake. "Let's hurry." "Ok Ax, how long is this going to take and what materials do you need?" Jake, Ax (in human morph) and I made a very quick trip to a computer store to pick up what Ax needed. We rationalized that Cassie, the most levelheaded, sympathetic, and diplomatic of the bunch of us, should stay with Tobias to keep the Helamcrons under control. We were back in record time with a bag of bits and pieces Ax had picked out. As we entered the barn, Tobias, perched on a rafter on the lookout for Cassie's parents, greeted us. Hey guys. Success? Good. No problems here.so far. But the Helamcrons have stopped talking and Marco can't figure out where they are "At least they haven't been practicing their aim on my liver anymore" said Marco from the hay bales where he was slumped. "This is such a bummer. I have so much homework I could be doing." "Since when are you worried about homework, Marco?" I asked. "I thought you were on the fast track to a rewarding career in burger-flipping." He gave me a dirty look. "Since my math teacher became my mother, genius." Ax retreated into the surgery room at the back of the barn to work on his construction, demorphing back to Andalite as he went. His small, six fingered hands were much better at delicate work than human hands. Jake strolled over to Marco and addressed the Helamcrons. "Ok, you egomaniacal aliens. We got the pieces of the blue box and we are putting it together for you. You happy now?" The resonating voice that had previously echoed from inside Marco was now silent. Jake waited a moment then glanced at Marco. He shrugged. "Well, I guess they can hear me." Jake raised his eyebrows then walked back across the barn to Rachel. Tobias preened his feathers near the ceiling, while the rest of us sat around and made desultory conversation. I wished Tobias would perch down nearer me. I could hardly see him way up there in the dim rafters, just a faint sheen of starlight from the skylight reflecting off his feathers. I suppose the hawk in him must feel more secure way up there, but it annoyed me non- the less. We could hear odd noises from the surgery room, where Ax was presumably doing what he did best with the ball bearing. Cassie was discussing some topic we had gone over in class yesterday with Jake (dorks) and I was brooding about Tobias, when Marco suddenly stood up with a jerk and headed towards the door. "Hey! Where are you going?" Jake let go of Cassie's hand and jumped up to intercept him. "You know you have to stay here where we can keep an eye on you. Who knows what could happen with the Helmacrons inside you." Marco stopped and half turned towards him, staring, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Dinner time. Homework." "Don't sweat it. We already called the Chee." Marco appeared to consider this, then dismissed it and continued out of the barn into the night. Jake shot a look at the rest of us and then ran out after him. Cassie, Tobias and I followed. Grabbing Marco and spinning him around, he said, "Don't be an idiot! What's wrong with you? Come on." He started pushing Marco back to the barn, with reasonable success, since he was a good deal taller and more heavily built. Marco's skin was oddly pale and he remained silent. Suddenly Tobias shouted Jake! Watch out! He's morphing! With his superior sight, Tobias had noticed what no one else had in the darkness outside. Marco looked white because he was, in fact, turning white. With startling speed, dense fur sprouted over his body and he doubled, tripled in size, became hugely larger. His mouth bulged out into massive jaws filled with glittering teeth. Before anyone could react, the polar bear swung one enormous paw studded with stake-like claws and smacked Jake away and down. For a second I just stared as my cousin flew through the air and landed with a thud several yards away, but as the bear turned its glittering eyes on the rest of us and began to advance, I started my own morph. Out of the corner of my rapidly changing eye I saw a bushy tail sprout out of Cassie's rear. Jake had started morphing even before he hit the ground. But Marco was coming on too fast! He would bite my nasty half-formed head off before I could fight back! Suddenly there was a clatter of hooves as Ax bounded out of the barn, no doubt alerted by our shouts. Ax! Marco has lost it! It must be the Helmacrons! Ax leaped between the growling bear and the rest of us, his tail raised over his head like a flag. He whipped it forward with lightning speed, intending to knock Marco out with the flat side of the blade. I just gasped as the polar bear dodged the blow, clamped its jaws around Ax's tail, and yanked backwards. Ax just had time for a frightened What?! before he had been pulled of his hooves and was lying on his side at the bear's feet. It was impossible! No one was faster then Ax! Not only had Marco flipped out, but he suddenly had souped-up reflexes too! By this time, Marco and Ax were surrounded by a grizzly bear, a wolf, a tiger and a Hork-Bajir. It must have been a fearsome sight had anyone been watching. Huge carnivores and aliens cavorting on the grass under a bright moon. The polar bear looked around at us, glaring, Ax's tail still in its mouth. He appeared to consider. The wolf shot a look at the tiger. Jake! This is Marco! We can't hurt him! It's not Marco; it's the Helamcrons! I said. If they get away, we will lose the blue box and they'll probably sell us out to the Yerks. That can't happen. And he's about to gut Ax!. All right people, calm down. We stop him, but using minimum force. Even a super polar bear can't beat us all together. We've got him. Jake's stripy haunches visibly tensed as he prepared to spring. But then relaxed, as the bear dropped Ax and backed up a few steps. Ax sprang up and analyzed his bleeding tail. The Helamcrons had apparently come to the same conclusion as Jake, because the bear began to shrink and Marco's familiar features slowly emerged. He looked defeated and vulnerable. Ha! They're giving up! I shouted. They know Marco doesn't have a morph that can beat us all! Suddenly Marco began to change again, very rapidly. His skin grew scaly and lizard- like. What? An iguana? But that won't... Cassie seemed to be talking to herself. Suddenly her wolf head shot up. No.it's not possible... She began demorphing faster than I had ever seen anyone do it, shouting to the rest of us as she did. Watch out! The Helamcrons have access to parts of his brain that even Marco can't use! Her thought- speak changed to spoken words as she became herself again. But she kept changing, shrinking as she went straight into another morph. She sounded as panicked as I had ever heard her. The rest of us were just confused. What did lizard boy think he was going to do to us? "He's morphing the.." T-Rex!!!!! Oh my God! shouted Tobias. We're meat! Marco continued to change and grow. Massive talons grew out of his scaly feet, like Tobias's but oh so much bigger. There was an audible creaking noise as his spine elongated and a long whip-like tail grew from his rear. Most frightening of all, his mouth bulged forward, out and out, till he had a four-foot snout filled with hundreds of teeth several inches long. Fairly petrified with fear, we all stared, except Cassie, who was changing also. Finally Jake shouted How can he do that? We lost all the morphs we picked up in the Cretaceous! Ax replied It is impossible to truly lose a creature's DNA once you have acquired it. In our case, the dinosaur's DNA was buried in the back of our brains by the time-travel process where it is inaccessible. Apparently, the Helmacrons were able to uncover it. Whatever! I yelled. Doesn't matter! We can't take down that thing! Time for a strategic retreat! I had seen what those things could do first hand, and although running away is entirely against my nature, here discretion was defiantly the better part of valor. The bear inside my head knew when it was beat. My morph, the grizzly bear, is one of the largest and most powerful creatures on Earth, but I was just a snack to this monster. Jake stared up at the thunder lizard and roared in defiance, a sound that made grown men wet themselves. ROAARRRRRR. Marco lowered his head and let out a bellow that made Jake's sound like a kitten mewing in comparison. The ground shook with the force of it and deep in the back of my brain a relentless worm of electric terror jumped to life; some sort of genetic memory from the rat-like mammals of the Cretaceous I was descended from who quivered with fright in their burrows whenever they heard the familiar heavy tread overhead. That was it, we scattered in panic. Jake, Ax, Cassie (who was by this time a squirrel (a squirrel?) and I headed for the barn at a gallop, while Tobias ran for the woods. We barreled into the barn and slammed the door behind us, then huddled at the far side. The presence of two large carnivores in the barn was not making the sick animals in the cages happy, and Cassie's horses were neighing and kicking at the walls of their stalls. Outside it was quite. Where is it!? What is it doing? asked Ax Shhhhh! Cassie jumped up onto a table to see us better, and stared at us with glittery black eyes. I suggest you guys loose the big morphs and go for something smaller. Andalites, tigers and bears are great for fighting Yerks, but not for avoiding a Tyrannosaurs. She was right and I began to dimorph. I hope he's not eating Tobias Ax said Jake. Get on that ball bearing. That's the only way we can stop them. Nothing we have can fight a T-rex. He turned and began to stalk back and forth across the barn. What is he doing out... CRACKKKK! There was a mighty crunching noise as the T-Rex shoved its blunt snout right through the door and into the barn. The resident wildlife decided they had more to worry about than a few minor carnivores. The creature's mouth opened and teeth glittered as it stared around. It (I couldn't think of that thing as Marco) began to force itself further into the room, splintering the wall and part of the roof as it come. It roared again and began to snap at us. Aaaaggggg! We all screamed and ran, scattering to various corners of the barn were we hoped it couldn't get us. The beast lunged forward, apparently after Jake, but then swerved at the last moment and fastened its jaws around one of Cassie's horses. NOOOO!! she shouted. Blood spurted as it shook the big animal like a dog shakes a rat. The horse screamed, then was silent as Marco bit down and bone crunched. Seemingly satisfied, perhaps thinking the horse was one of us, the T-Rex backed out of the barn with the horse clamped between its teeth, destroying more of the wall as it went. Cassie leaped out of the corner in which she had been cowering and darted after the monster's receding tail. She jumped like only a squirrel can, caught it, and scampered up the tail and back to crouch on the back of its neck. Cassie! What are you doing! yelled Jake. She shouted back We have to stay with him or we'll lose him. He doesn't even know I'm here! Follow when you can! The monster plunged into the forest and disappeared. Jake and I stared at each other in dismay across the devastated barn. We were both fully human, and just for a moment I thought I saw desperation and terror in his face. But just for a second, before it disappeared and crisis management Jake emerged. "Right, I have an idea." He ran into the surgery room where Ax was. I followed. The probe is complete, Prince Jake "Good job, Ax." Opening the cabinets against the wall, Jake yanked out a box of syringes of various sizes and rummaged through them. "We have to stop that dinosaur. He's on his way to get the blue box. Because Marco knows where it is hidden, the Helamcrons know too. I guess our little trick didn't work so well. He will probably do a lot of damage on the way. Ax's construction is the only way to get him to demorph, and we can only get that in him if we can slow him down first." Out of the box he pulled a huge syringe that must be used to inject elephants or something. He trotted over to a shelf and yanked down a bottle. "I wish to God Cassie was here, but hopefully I've seen her do this enough times." He filled the syringe full of the liquid in the bottle and stood up. "Let's rock and roll!" I said. Over the dark forest I flew, the syringe gripped in my talons. To either side of me were two owls, Jake and Ax. Ax had the ball bearing in his mouth. I was in bald eagle morph because it was the only bird morph we had strong enough to carry the syringe. We were skimming the trees, looking for an out-of-place dinosaur and calling for Cassie or Tobias. Oh, hey guys Tobias suddenly replied, swooping down from a higher altitude to join us. Tobias!! I yelled. We thought dino-boy ate you as an after-dinner treat! Nope. I know this forest. Give me a little credit. Are we looking for him? Yup. More like listening, though. We'll never find them by ourselves. Cassie is along for the ride. Finally, we faintly heard Cassie yelling for us in the distance. We homed in on her thought-speak voice, heading further into the forest. Jake, with his superior owl eyesight, suddenly shouted Hey, there they are! Sure enough, the treetops were swaying up ahead and a very large shape could be seen moving between the trunks. As we got closer, we could see a tiny furry lump crouched on the monster's back. I could not even imagine how Cassie must be feeling. Alone at night in a dark forest hiding from the very creature you are sitting on, afraid to move in case it felt you, and worst of all, feeling the squirrel's instinctual terror and desire to flee. Hey Cass, we're here! Jake called down. Alright, action people! That was my cue. I aimed up on the primeval monster and swooped down, my tail making minute adjustments to correct my line of flight. Down, down until it seemed that I wouldn't be able to pull up in time. At the perfect moment, I released my cargo and shot up into the night, made buoyant by the sudden weight loss. The hypodermic syringe fell point first like a torpedo and stuck into Marco's muscled neck. Cassie leaped high in the air and came down right on the plunger of the syringe, pumping the paralysis drug into the T-rex. It finally noticed what was happening to it and swung its head around to bite at the needle. Cassie skipped out of the way. Wow, I hope that was enough. Cassie said worriedly. Biggest animal I know the dosage for is my horse. Ohhhh! My poor horse! The T-rex was still moving, but more sluggishly now. It suddenly tripped over its own feet and fell full length, crashing into the bushes and splintering some small trees. We all landed around it and demorphed. I have to admit that it was kinda scary standing around the massive creature lying in front of us. Its enormous muzzle alone was five feet long, longer than Cassie was tall. The trees creaked gently in the breeze around us and cast moving patches of dappled moonlight on living mountain collapsed towering over us. The moonlight glinted softly on the four- inch teeth, and the dinosaur's sides moved rhythmically up and down like enormous bellows, expelling breath smelling sickly sweet of blood. Tobias cocked his fierce head and said "Hard to believe that's Marco." There was a pause as we all remembered the terror in the barn. "Thank God these things are extinct." he said feverently. I silently agreed. Jake suddenly became businesslike. "Alright folks, lets do this!" Ax produced the ball-bearing and on his instructions, I held it as he morphed an ant. When he was very small I scooped him of the ground into the same hand as the ball bearing. Once he was totally ant, he ran across the curving pink plain of my hand and fiddled with the outside of the ball-bearing with his foremost limbs. Magically, a tiny hatch opened in the side of the metal sphere. Jake and Cassie crowded around me to stare at my hand. Tobias perched on my shoulder and looked on. Ax the ant crept into the ball-bearing and the door swung closed. "Way to go Ax!" I exclaimed. That boy is a genius, I swear. Ax's thought-speak emanated from the little ball. All systems initialized. Please place the vessel in Marco's mouth. I stooped to the cavernous maw that was Marco's mouth and, carefully avoiding the huge teeth, tossed the bearing deep into the back of the mouth. I straightened up and for a moment there was silence. Then Ax's voice came back to us. I have successfully entered the bloodstream. I have detected the Helamcron ship near Marco's left kidney and am closing on their location. Jake whispered to Cassie "He managed to install a metal detector in that tiny thing!" A few moments passed, the only sound was the wind whistling through the tree tops and the heavy breathing of the T-Rex. Ax's voice started again suddenly. I have the ship on sensor lock! Grappler deployed! Ax had put a kind of grasping arm on the ball-bearing. His plan was to grasp the alien ship and forcibly drag it from Marco's body. I know, it doesn't sound like much of a plan, but it was certainly better than having a firefight inside of Marco. The rest was surprisingly easy. The Helamcrons were hauled out of Marco's ear with relative ease. Perhaps their ship's power was running low, or perhaps they figured it wasn't worth the effort to hang on. Or maybe they were just bored with the whole thing. Who knows. They are psycho aliens, after all. As soon as Ax's ball bearing craft attached to the ship had fallen to the ground from Marco's outer ear, Ax emerged and demorphed. The Helamcron ship suddenly powered up and zoomed away, but we really didn't care. Marco was still for a moment, then suddenly he stirred and raised his enormous head. The rest of us backed up in a hurry, just incase Marco was not quite compos mentis yet. The horrible thought that he was still somehow either controlled by the Helamcrons or by the T-rex instincts shot into my head.. If he was anything but entirely himself, we were all about to be tasty dino snacks. But as the ferocious creature that was our friend staggered to his feet, he stared at us with what was clearly recognition and relief in his yellow eyes. What? What's going on? We all stared at him. Oh.Oh gosh. I remember it all! He reared up to his full height and thrashed his tail, laying out several trees as he did so. Staring down at us over the glistening teeth he launched into an apology that was very un-Marco like. Guys, I'm so sorry! I tried to stop them! Oh Cassie, your horse! I.I just don't know what to say.. Cassie smiled up at him. "It's OK, Marco. I know it wasn't you." She sighed and looked at the ground. "However, I wouldn't mind if you lost that horrific body." Marco immediately began to shrink back to human size and his talons began to retract into his feet. As he resumed his familiar human self, the creeping fear that had been in my brain ever since the dinosaur first appeared sputtered and went out. Incredible that a creature that humans have never had to deal with could cause such a reaction in us, a reaction that went far beyond fear of a messy death. Marco was now completely normal. " I tried to EAT you guys! It was horrible! I was myself, but I couldn't control myself at all! I tried.God knows I tried.Cassie.When I.killed.your poor horse.I could taste the blood...feel the bones snap. Oh man." Cassie hugged him. She smiled, but a tear ran down her cheek. "I know." I marveled at her empathy. "Hey guys!" I said. "Ax, will Marco still be able to do this.morph to T-Rex, I mean?" Ax cocked his head. I should think so. Because the Helamcrons unburied the morph's DNA from the depths of Marco's head where it was buried, he should be able to access it at will. "Woohoo!" I cheered. "This is fantastic! Think of all the Yerk-butt we can kick." I turned to Marco "I'm jealous. That morph kicks ass!" Marco looked less sure. "Yeah, you wouldn't be so thrilled if you had just tried to kill your friends with the "kick-ass morph"." But I would be, I was sure. I guess I am just barbaric like that. We strolled off together, into the dark forest. Jake, Tobias, Ax and I walked ahead, chatting eagerly about the serious damage we would inflict on the Yerks with 30 foot dinosaur. But I noticed that Marco and Cassie walked behind. They were silent, and I sensed a empathetic link between them, joined by a bond of sorrow and guilt. The trees swallowed us up, leaving nothing but a patch of decimated vegetation and some unlikely footprints in the wet earth.
"Oh shit!" Marco yelled, slapping his hands to his nose where the Helamcrons had just entered. "They're inside me! That can't be good!" He just stood there looking shocked, his hands fluttering over his neck and chest as he felt the tiny alien ship progress into his body. The rest of us just stared, except for me. I was too busy trying to suppress a shout of laughter. I managed to contain it to a few amused snorts, and then turned to Jake. "What now, Great Leader? Want me to morph to grizzly and gut him like a tuna fish? We would get them out that way!" Jake and Cassie gave me dirty looks. Suddenly a voice boomed inside our heads. "Ha Ha Ha! Give us the power source, weaklings, or we will fry this puny creature from the inside out! Submit to our power!" On cue, Marco clutched at his chest and staggered, groaning. "Owww! They're zapping my heart! " He would have fallen, but Jake caught him and lowered him into the hay. I stopped chuckling. Marco was an annoying pest, but that didn't mean I wanted midget aliens to burn his insides out. "Hey!" I shouted. "Stop that right now! When I get my hands on you I'll introduce you to my waffle iron!" "Silent, insolent one!" said the voice. Marco suddenly shrieked as a tiny pinpoint beam of light lanced out of his shoulder and left a minuscule smoking hole that immediately filled with blood. "That was merely a taste of our destructive power!" shouted the voice. " Give us what we want!" "Ok, Ok, we'll go and get it." said Jake in a worried but consolatory tone. "But don't hurt our friend any more or the deal is off! Tobias, stay here and keep an eye on him. You alright, man?" to Marco, who raised pain-filled eyes and grimaced. "Sure, feels just like a bad case of heart burn." "Come on, peeps." We all filed outside. Ax, in Andalite form because it was dark out, slid the barn door closed after us with his tail. We stopped a distance from the house, out of hearing of whatever technology the Helamcrons were using to communicate from inside Marco. We hoped. Jake turned to face us, a determined gaze in his eyes. "We can't give them the blue box!" I blurted. "That power cannot be entrusted to anyone, least of all those nasty egomaniacal xenophobic nitwits! Besides, it might fall into the Yerk's hands." I stared at Jake belligerently. He met my gaze, then sighed and looked at the ground. "You're right. I hate to admit it, but that sacrifice is too much to make. What other options do we have? We have to hurry. Those Helamcrons hate us for what we did to them last time. They're probably just itching to carve Marco up with those beams of theirs." Cassie spoke up for the first time. "Well, if they won't come out, we'll have to go in and get them." "Ewww! I yelled. " Marco is nasty enough on the outside, I have no burning desire to see what his insides look like! And I flatly refuse to morph into bacteria or a white blood cell. That would be the most beyond-weird thing we have ever done." Cassie shook her head. "I don't think that would work anyway. We would have no way to see or find them, and I'm sure Marco's immune system is already doing all that's possible on that front. We wouldn't be able to make any difference. "She looked at Jake. This isn't a job for a morph alone." Ax clopped his hooves and turned his main eyes on Jake. We will use a technological approach then. "What?" said Cassie. It is necessary to get inside Marco in order to remove the Helamcrons. If there is not an adequate creature we can morph, me must enter another way "How?" This In his small, six fingered hand Ax held up a very small metal sphere. "What's that?" I believe it is called a "ball-bearing". An exceptionally primitive human mechanism designed to minimize harmful friction in machinery. Despite it's deplorable design, it will be adequate for this purpose. I propose we hollow it out, add a few modifications, morph to ant, and use it to enter Marco's body to free him of the Helamcrons. "Are you insane?" I shouted. "That is the stupidest, most impossibly suicidal plan I have ever heard in my short life. Lets do it!" "Alright" said Jake. "Ax, if you can turn that ball-bearing into a miniature submarine or something, then this is doable. Ask Tobias how Marco is." We all heard the question, and then Tobias's answer. Ummm.I'm not sure. He's still talking to me. Seems a bit peeved "Damn right I'm peeved!" We heard the shout faintly from the barn. But he has the shakes. Jerking spasmodically. Don't know what's causing it. Could just be nervousness "They better not be moving around in there too much" said Cassie worriedly. "The human body is a very delicate and complicated mechanism. Who knows what they're messing up!" She bit her lip and looked at Jake. "Let's hurry." "Ok Ax, how long is this going to take and what materials do you need?" Jake, Ax (in human morph) and I made a very quick trip to a computer store to pick up what Ax needed. We rationalized that Cassie, the most levelheaded, sympathetic, and diplomatic of the bunch of us, should stay with Tobias to keep the Helamcrons under control. We were back in record time with a bag of bits and pieces Ax had picked out. As we entered the barn, Tobias, perched on a rafter on the lookout for Cassie's parents, greeted us. Hey guys. Success? Good. No problems here.so far. But the Helamcrons have stopped talking and Marco can't figure out where they are "At least they haven't been practicing their aim on my liver anymore" said Marco from the hay bales where he was slumped. "This is such a bummer. I have so much homework I could be doing." "Since when are you worried about homework, Marco?" I asked. "I thought you were on the fast track to a rewarding career in burger-flipping." He gave me a dirty look. "Since my math teacher became my mother, genius." Ax retreated into the surgery room at the back of the barn to work on his construction, demorphing back to Andalite as he went. His small, six fingered hands were much better at delicate work than human hands. Jake strolled over to Marco and addressed the Helamcrons. "Ok, you egomaniacal aliens. We got the pieces of the blue box and we are putting it together for you. You happy now?" The resonating voice that had previously echoed from inside Marco was now silent. Jake waited a moment then glanced at Marco. He shrugged. "Well, I guess they can hear me." Jake raised his eyebrows then walked back across the barn to Rachel. Tobias preened his feathers near the ceiling, while the rest of us sat around and made desultory conversation. I wished Tobias would perch down nearer me. I could hardly see him way up there in the dim rafters, just a faint sheen of starlight from the skylight reflecting off his feathers. I suppose the hawk in him must feel more secure way up there, but it annoyed me non- the less. We could hear odd noises from the surgery room, where Ax was presumably doing what he did best with the ball bearing. Cassie was discussing some topic we had gone over in class yesterday with Jake (dorks) and I was brooding about Tobias, when Marco suddenly stood up with a jerk and headed towards the door. "Hey! Where are you going?" Jake let go of Cassie's hand and jumped up to intercept him. "You know you have to stay here where we can keep an eye on you. Who knows what could happen with the Helmacrons inside you." Marco stopped and half turned towards him, staring, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Dinner time. Homework." "Don't sweat it. We already called the Chee." Marco appeared to consider this, then dismissed it and continued out of the barn into the night. Jake shot a look at the rest of us and then ran out after him. Cassie, Tobias and I followed. Grabbing Marco and spinning him around, he said, "Don't be an idiot! What's wrong with you? Come on." He started pushing Marco back to the barn, with reasonable success, since he was a good deal taller and more heavily built. Marco's skin was oddly pale and he remained silent. Suddenly Tobias shouted Jake! Watch out! He's morphing! With his superior sight, Tobias had noticed what no one else had in the darkness outside. Marco looked white because he was, in fact, turning white. With startling speed, dense fur sprouted over his body and he doubled, tripled in size, became hugely larger. His mouth bulged out into massive jaws filled with glittering teeth. Before anyone could react, the polar bear swung one enormous paw studded with stake-like claws and smacked Jake away and down. For a second I just stared as my cousin flew through the air and landed with a thud several yards away, but as the bear turned its glittering eyes on the rest of us and began to advance, I started my own morph. Out of the corner of my rapidly changing eye I saw a bushy tail sprout out of Cassie's rear. Jake had started morphing even before he hit the ground. But Marco was coming on too fast! He would bite my nasty half-formed head off before I could fight back! Suddenly there was a clatter of hooves as Ax bounded out of the barn, no doubt alerted by our shouts. Ax! Marco has lost it! It must be the Helmacrons! Ax leaped between the growling bear and the rest of us, his tail raised over his head like a flag. He whipped it forward with lightning speed, intending to knock Marco out with the flat side of the blade. I just gasped as the polar bear dodged the blow, clamped its jaws around Ax's tail, and yanked backwards. Ax just had time for a frightened What?! before he had been pulled of his hooves and was lying on his side at the bear's feet. It was impossible! No one was faster then Ax! Not only had Marco flipped out, but he suddenly had souped-up reflexes too! By this time, Marco and Ax were surrounded by a grizzly bear, a wolf, a tiger and a Hork-Bajir. It must have been a fearsome sight had anyone been watching. Huge carnivores and aliens cavorting on the grass under a bright moon. The polar bear looked around at us, glaring, Ax's tail still in its mouth. He appeared to consider. The wolf shot a look at the tiger. Jake! This is Marco! We can't hurt him! It's not Marco; it's the Helamcrons! I said. If they get away, we will lose the blue box and they'll probably sell us out to the Yerks. That can't happen. And he's about to gut Ax!. All right people, calm down. We stop him, but using minimum force. Even a super polar bear can't beat us all together. We've got him. Jake's stripy haunches visibly tensed as he prepared to spring. But then relaxed, as the bear dropped Ax and backed up a few steps. Ax sprang up and analyzed his bleeding tail. The Helamcrons had apparently come to the same conclusion as Jake, because the bear began to shrink and Marco's familiar features slowly emerged. He looked defeated and vulnerable. Ha! They're giving up! I shouted. They know Marco doesn't have a morph that can beat us all! Suddenly Marco began to change again, very rapidly. His skin grew scaly and lizard- like. What? An iguana? But that won't... Cassie seemed to be talking to herself. Suddenly her wolf head shot up. No.it's not possible... She began demorphing faster than I had ever seen anyone do it, shouting to the rest of us as she did. Watch out! The Helamcrons have access to parts of his brain that even Marco can't use! Her thought- speak changed to spoken words as she became herself again. But she kept changing, shrinking as she went straight into another morph. She sounded as panicked as I had ever heard her. The rest of us were just confused. What did lizard boy think he was going to do to us? "He's morphing the.." T-Rex!!!!! Oh my God! shouted Tobias. We're meat! Marco continued to change and grow. Massive talons grew out of his scaly feet, like Tobias's but oh so much bigger. There was an audible creaking noise as his spine elongated and a long whip-like tail grew from his rear. Most frightening of all, his mouth bulged forward, out and out, till he had a four-foot snout filled with hundreds of teeth several inches long. Fairly petrified with fear, we all stared, except Cassie, who was changing also. Finally Jake shouted How can he do that? We lost all the morphs we picked up in the Cretaceous! Ax replied It is impossible to truly lose a creature's DNA once you have acquired it. In our case, the dinosaur's DNA was buried in the back of our brains by the time-travel process where it is inaccessible. Apparently, the Helmacrons were able to uncover it. Whatever! I yelled. Doesn't matter! We can't take down that thing! Time for a strategic retreat! I had seen what those things could do first hand, and although running away is entirely against my nature, here discretion was defiantly the better part of valor. The bear inside my head knew when it was beat. My morph, the grizzly bear, is one of the largest and most powerful creatures on Earth, but I was just a snack to this monster. Jake stared up at the thunder lizard and roared in defiance, a sound that made grown men wet themselves. ROAARRRRRR. Marco lowered his head and let out a bellow that made Jake's sound like a kitten mewing in comparison. The ground shook with the force of it and deep in the back of my brain a relentless worm of electric terror jumped to life; some sort of genetic memory from the rat-like mammals of the Cretaceous I was descended from who quivered with fright in their burrows whenever they heard the familiar heavy tread overhead. That was it, we scattered in panic. Jake, Ax, Cassie (who was by this time a squirrel (a squirrel?) and I headed for the barn at a gallop, while Tobias ran for the woods. We barreled into the barn and slammed the door behind us, then huddled at the far side. The presence of two large carnivores in the barn was not making the sick animals in the cages happy, and Cassie's horses were neighing and kicking at the walls of their stalls. Outside it was quite. Where is it!? What is it doing? asked Ax Shhhhh! Cassie jumped up onto a table to see us better, and stared at us with glittery black eyes. I suggest you guys loose the big morphs and go for something smaller. Andalites, tigers and bears are great for fighting Yerks, but not for avoiding a Tyrannosaurs. She was right and I began to dimorph. I hope he's not eating Tobias Ax said Jake. Get on that ball bearing. That's the only way we can stop them. Nothing we have can fight a T-rex. He turned and began to stalk back and forth across the barn. What is he doing out... CRACKKKK! There was a mighty crunching noise as the T-Rex shoved its blunt snout right through the door and into the barn. The resident wildlife decided they had more to worry about than a few minor carnivores. The creature's mouth opened and teeth glittered as it stared around. It (I couldn't think of that thing as Marco) began to force itself further into the room, splintering the wall and part of the roof as it come. It roared again and began to snap at us. Aaaaggggg! We all screamed and ran, scattering to various corners of the barn were we hoped it couldn't get us. The beast lunged forward, apparently after Jake, but then swerved at the last moment and fastened its jaws around one of Cassie's horses. NOOOO!! she shouted. Blood spurted as it shook the big animal like a dog shakes a rat. The horse screamed, then was silent as Marco bit down and bone crunched. Seemingly satisfied, perhaps thinking the horse was one of us, the T-Rex backed out of the barn with the horse clamped between its teeth, destroying more of the wall as it went. Cassie leaped out of the corner in which she had been cowering and darted after the monster's receding tail. She jumped like only a squirrel can, caught it, and scampered up the tail and back to crouch on the back of its neck. Cassie! What are you doing! yelled Jake. She shouted back We have to stay with him or we'll lose him. He doesn't even know I'm here! Follow when you can! The monster plunged into the forest and disappeared. Jake and I stared at each other in dismay across the devastated barn. We were both fully human, and just for a moment I thought I saw desperation and terror in his face. But just for a second, before it disappeared and crisis management Jake emerged. "Right, I have an idea." He ran into the surgery room where Ax was. I followed. The probe is complete, Prince Jake "Good job, Ax." Opening the cabinets against the wall, Jake yanked out a box of syringes of various sizes and rummaged through them. "We have to stop that dinosaur. He's on his way to get the blue box. Because Marco knows where it is hidden, the Helamcrons know too. I guess our little trick didn't work so well. He will probably do a lot of damage on the way. Ax's construction is the only way to get him to demorph, and we can only get that in him if we can slow him down first." Out of the box he pulled a huge syringe that must be used to inject elephants or something. He trotted over to a shelf and yanked down a bottle. "I wish to God Cassie was here, but hopefully I've seen her do this enough times." He filled the syringe full of the liquid in the bottle and stood up. "Let's rock and roll!" I said. Over the dark forest I flew, the syringe gripped in my talons. To either side of me were two owls, Jake and Ax. Ax had the ball bearing in his mouth. I was in bald eagle morph because it was the only bird morph we had strong enough to carry the syringe. We were skimming the trees, looking for an out-of-place dinosaur and calling for Cassie or Tobias. Oh, hey guys Tobias suddenly replied, swooping down from a higher altitude to join us. Tobias!! I yelled. We thought dino-boy ate you as an after-dinner treat! Nope. I know this forest. Give me a little credit. Are we looking for him? Yup. More like listening, though. We'll never find them by ourselves. Cassie is along for the ride. Finally, we faintly heard Cassie yelling for us in the distance. We homed in on her thought-speak voice, heading further into the forest. Jake, with his superior owl eyesight, suddenly shouted Hey, there they are! Sure enough, the treetops were swaying up ahead and a very large shape could be seen moving between the trunks. As we got closer, we could see a tiny furry lump crouched on the monster's back. I could not even imagine how Cassie must be feeling. Alone at night in a dark forest hiding from the very creature you are sitting on, afraid to move in case it felt you, and worst of all, feeling the squirrel's instinctual terror and desire to flee. Hey Cass, we're here! Jake called down. Alright, action people! That was my cue. I aimed up on the primeval monster and swooped down, my tail making minute adjustments to correct my line of flight. Down, down until it seemed that I wouldn't be able to pull up in time. At the perfect moment, I released my cargo and shot up into the night, made buoyant by the sudden weight loss. The hypodermic syringe fell point first like a torpedo and stuck into Marco's muscled neck. Cassie leaped high in the air and came down right on the plunger of the syringe, pumping the paralysis drug into the T-rex. It finally noticed what was happening to it and swung its head around to bite at the needle. Cassie skipped out of the way. Wow, I hope that was enough. Cassie said worriedly. Biggest animal I know the dosage for is my horse. Ohhhh! My poor horse! The T-rex was still moving, but more sluggishly now. It suddenly tripped over its own feet and fell full length, crashing into the bushes and splintering some small trees. We all landed around it and demorphed. I have to admit that it was kinda scary standing around the massive creature lying in front of us. Its enormous muzzle alone was five feet long, longer than Cassie was tall. The trees creaked gently in the breeze around us and cast moving patches of dappled moonlight on living mountain collapsed towering over us. The moonlight glinted softly on the four- inch teeth, and the dinosaur's sides moved rhythmically up and down like enormous bellows, expelling breath smelling sickly sweet of blood. Tobias cocked his fierce head and said "Hard to believe that's Marco." There was a pause as we all remembered the terror in the barn. "Thank God these things are extinct." he said feverently. I silently agreed. Jake suddenly became businesslike. "Alright folks, lets do this!" Ax produced the ball-bearing and on his instructions, I held it as he morphed an ant. When he was very small I scooped him of the ground into the same hand as the ball bearing. Once he was totally ant, he ran across the curving pink plain of my hand and fiddled with the outside of the ball-bearing with his foremost limbs. Magically, a tiny hatch opened in the side of the metal sphere. Jake and Cassie crowded around me to stare at my hand. Tobias perched on my shoulder and looked on. Ax the ant crept into the ball-bearing and the door swung closed. "Way to go Ax!" I exclaimed. That boy is a genius, I swear. Ax's thought-speak emanated from the little ball. All systems initialized. Please place the vessel in Marco's mouth. I stooped to the cavernous maw that was Marco's mouth and, carefully avoiding the huge teeth, tossed the bearing deep into the back of the mouth. I straightened up and for a moment there was silence. Then Ax's voice came back to us. I have successfully entered the bloodstream. I have detected the Helamcron ship near Marco's left kidney and am closing on their location. Jake whispered to Cassie "He managed to install a metal detector in that tiny thing!" A few moments passed, the only sound was the wind whistling through the tree tops and the heavy breathing of the T-Rex. Ax's voice started again suddenly. I have the ship on sensor lock! Grappler deployed! Ax had put a kind of grasping arm on the ball-bearing. His plan was to grasp the alien ship and forcibly drag it from Marco's body. I know, it doesn't sound like much of a plan, but it was certainly better than having a firefight inside of Marco. The rest was surprisingly easy. The Helamcrons were hauled out of Marco's ear with relative ease. Perhaps their ship's power was running low, or perhaps they figured it wasn't worth the effort to hang on. Or maybe they were just bored with the whole thing. Who knows. They are psycho aliens, after all. As soon as Ax's ball bearing craft attached to the ship had fallen to the ground from Marco's outer ear, Ax emerged and demorphed. The Helamcron ship suddenly powered up and zoomed away, but we really didn't care. Marco was still for a moment, then suddenly he stirred and raised his enormous head. The rest of us backed up in a hurry, just incase Marco was not quite compos mentis yet. The horrible thought that he was still somehow either controlled by the Helamcrons or by the T-rex instincts shot into my head.. If he was anything but entirely himself, we were all about to be tasty dino snacks. But as the ferocious creature that was our friend staggered to his feet, he stared at us with what was clearly recognition and relief in his yellow eyes. What? What's going on? We all stared at him. Oh.Oh gosh. I remember it all! He reared up to his full height and thrashed his tail, laying out several trees as he did so. Staring down at us over the glistening teeth he launched into an apology that was very un-Marco like. Guys, I'm so sorry! I tried to stop them! Oh Cassie, your horse! I.I just don't know what to say.. Cassie smiled up at him. "It's OK, Marco. I know it wasn't you." She sighed and looked at the ground. "However, I wouldn't mind if you lost that horrific body." Marco immediately began to shrink back to human size and his talons began to retract into his feet. As he resumed his familiar human self, the creeping fear that had been in my brain ever since the dinosaur first appeared sputtered and went out. Incredible that a creature that humans have never had to deal with could cause such a reaction in us, a reaction that went far beyond fear of a messy death. Marco was now completely normal. " I tried to EAT you guys! It was horrible! I was myself, but I couldn't control myself at all! I tried.God knows I tried.Cassie.When I.killed.your poor horse.I could taste the blood...feel the bones snap. Oh man." Cassie hugged him. She smiled, but a tear ran down her cheek. "I know." I marveled at her empathy. "Hey guys!" I said. "Ax, will Marco still be able to do this.morph to T-Rex, I mean?" Ax cocked his head. I should think so. Because the Helamcrons unburied the morph's DNA from the depths of Marco's head where it was buried, he should be able to access it at will. "Woohoo!" I cheered. "This is fantastic! Think of all the Yerk-butt we can kick." I turned to Marco "I'm jealous. That morph kicks ass!" Marco looked less sure. "Yeah, you wouldn't be so thrilled if you had just tried to kill your friends with the "kick-ass morph"." But I would be, I was sure. I guess I am just barbaric like that. We strolled off together, into the dark forest. Jake, Tobias, Ax and I walked ahead, chatting eagerly about the serious damage we would inflict on the Yerks with 30 foot dinosaur. But I noticed that Marco and Cassie walked behind. They were silent, and I sensed a empathetic link between them, joined by a bond of sorrow and guilt. The trees swallowed us up, leaving nothing but a patch of decimated vegetation and some unlikely footprints in the wet earth.