Now that the battle had made its way out of the enclosed space of the House of Horrors, the Animorphs, Visser Three, and his Hork-Bajir warriors found themselves in the middle of the Parade of Characters that The Gardens held every night. There were three brass bands, all playing a nice if loud rendition of "Seventy-six Trombones", there were a few clowns, there was a long line of elaborately decorated floats, and there were people dressed up as the namesake 'characters' of the parade.
Cassie liked Looney Tunes, so it would have been fun for her if she had had the time to watch and enjoy the parade. But with Visser Three and a small group of his fellow Yeerks on the loose, there was no time for such mundane things. Cassie's morph was faster than Rachel, and had more endurance than both of the large cats, so she was better suited to catch up to Visser Three and his soldiers before they made it into the parade.
Torrelli was still struggling, making it even harder for the Yeerks to make as much headway as Visser Three would have preferred. The Visser would have ordered that the troublesome human be knocked unconscious, if not for the possibility that one of the overzealous imbeciles who served under him would kill the human in the process.
On a stretch of seemingly clear street, someone in a large, padded Daffy Duck costume jumped right into Visser Three's path. More annoyed than really surprised, the Visser whipped his tail forward and severed the head of the creature blocking his way. Much to Cassie's displeasure, and also to the displeasure of the young woman who had been wearing the costume.
"Hey!" Tamera Collins, who had been having a good time marching in the parade up until this nutjob had destroyed her costume. "What's your problem you psycho?"
(Aaahhhh!) Visser Three stopped in his tracks, confounded and unnerved by the presence of a creature with a smaller, human-looking head under a larger avian one. (What kind of a beast is this thing!)
Visser Three stayed where he was for a few moments longer, trying to understand why and how such things could exist on this would without the Yeerks being aware of them. Then he remembered that he was not in this place to sightsee, as the humans called it. But by then it was too late; the Animorphs had already arrived.
Jake cut loose with a roar that shook Slade's teeth, and seemed to knock the candy out of the hands of the few little kids that were watching the parade. A second later, Slade did the same. Cassie lunged for the Hork-Bajir nearest to her, one that had already come off the worse in a battle with Rachel, and tried to rip his throat out. Though he was wounded, the Yeerk soldier still managed to take a swing at Cassie with his long wrist-blade.
Cassie was still faster than any Hork-Bajir alive, and so she dodged. The blade only cut off some of her fur, a minor loss. The Hork-Bajir was so focussed on Cassie though, that he didn't even hear Slade, silent as any cat, coming up behind him. Bypassing the spiked tail, Slade reared up and dug his claws into the alien's broad back. Pulling down hard enough to strip bark from a tree, Slade tore long gouges into the leathery back of his enemy.
Cassie, taking advantage of the distraction that Slade had provided, was all over the Yeerk soldier in seconds. Sinking her bone-crushing fang-filled jaws deep into various vulnerable places on her opponent, Cassie finally ended the fight by tearing out his throat. Jake and Slade, meanwhile, were making a great deal of trouble for the Yeerks who had attempted to fight them. The two large cats were fighting side by side at the moment, making it all the more difficult for any of the Hork-Bajir to hurt either of them.
Rachel was taking on two Hork-Bajir at once, and handling them rather spectacularly. Her great strength and thick coat of fur lent her an advantage over her extraterrestrial opponents. Marco, who was at a slight disadvantage in claw and blade combat, his morph possessing neither, was using Aximili's rattlesnake morph like a bullwhip. Snapping the Andalite in to bite their opponents, and then pulling him back out once he had done so.
This method was slow, to be sure, but it at least kept either of them from sustaining too many injuries. Slade, seeing the predicament that Marco and Aximili were in, raced over to help. He might not have been all that fond of Marco's habit of making light of serious situations, but the other boy was still a fellow soldier, and so it was Slade's duty to aid him in any way that he could.
As the battle between the Animorphs and the Yeerks raged on, the parade ground began to clear, allowing more room for the combatants to engage. As Slade wrestled an attacking Hork-Bajir to the ground and tore out his eyes; as Jake rolled out of the way of a Hork-Bajir's foot; as Rachel and Marco both began bashing their way through the Hork-Bajir still in their way, the latter carrying Aximili on his right shoulder, the crowd began to cheer.
"Wow!"
"Yeah!"
"Did you see that? That was so cool!"
All of the people who had been watching the parade began to applaud at this point. They all thought it was just some great show that The Gardens was putting on for some reason or another, just like those that had first seen the two groups in the House of Horrors. Only the combatants themselves could understand the urgency of their battle. Not even Captain Torrelli could claim anything like that.
