Author's Note: I intended this to be a one-shot short story. I know it looks like it can be continued, but I don't really have any ideas at the moment. We'll see how it goes.
Text in italics represent thought-speak, since for some reason I can't get the brackets to appear.
Jake? Jake! Wake up! It's been almost two hours! DEMORPH! I shouted frantically at the motionless tiger lying beside me. His eyes snapped open.
Huh? What happened? Where are the others? he questioned me.
Marco, Ax and Tobias are safe. We can't find Cassie though. Maybe she got out already. Listen, we have to get out of here. The Hork-Bajir are shooting Dracon Beams like crazy. Remorph into fly and bail! I gotta go find Cass now. Hurry!
With a rush of my gossamer wings, I was off.
I searched frantically for Cassie, but there as no sign of her. Thinking that she had escaped earlier, I flew gratefully out of the Yeerk Pool which was alive with the sound of Dracon Beams being shot. Once outside, I demorphed as quickly as I could, got wings and headed back home.
The next day, Erek told me that one of his friends had seen Taxxons feeding on a dead wolf after the battle. My heart filled with immense grief for the death of my best friend. I could not bear to tell Jake the news. Erek projected a hologram of a letter to tell the news, so as to make things easier for me to spread the news. I called for a meeting in Jake's house.
As he read the letter, his hands shook. He dropped it on the ground. Marco picked it up, read it, and passed it to Tobias (in human morph), hands trembling. Jake buried his head in his hands. "RACHEL! You went to look for Cassie yesterday. WHY DIDN'T YOU FIND HER?" Jake demanded. There was a raging fire in his eyes that I had never seen before.
"Yes. It's my fault." I whispered.
"The Chee found Cassie in a dark place. Rachel might have overlooked it. The Yeerk Pool is so big! There are plenty of places that Cassie could have been hiding in and Rachel might not have seen. Moreover, he was in fly morph! She already had a hard time trying to find you with those fly eyes!" Tobias protested. Jake just stared blankly into space.