Narancia's wounds were bandaged when he and Rachel returned to the house. Narancia got scolded for his mission failure.
"How many times did I warn you? You can be such an idiot sometimes," Fugo told him.
"Hey, what else could we have done?" Rachel cut in. "We got rid of the enemy. You're welcome. We prepare for another battle, it's that simple."
"Easy for Rachel the Psycho to say," Marco mocked. "Not all of us enjoy spilling blood like you do."
Rachel lunged for Marco's throat. "Shut up!" Jake's words came back to her, him telling her that he worried about her with her enjoyment of battles, and how she'd cope when it was all over. Of the Drode and Crayak trying to get her to kill Jake. Jake, her own cousin, using her as a wild card to defeat the rouge animorph David.
Cassie and Giorno pulled her off of Marco.
"I'm not some kind of violent nut who you can send off to do the dirty work no one else wants to do!" Rachel was shaking, aiming her glare first at Marco, then at Jake. Jake looked away, accidentally locking eyes with Bucciarati, knowing that to him, he looked guilty. Bucciarati's gaze was unreadable to Jake, but he had a feeling that any respect the capo had for him was lost at finding this out through Rachel's outburst. Jake knew that Rachel had every right to be angry with him.
"So you won't go after my mother for me?" Marco sneered at Rachel.
"Cut it out," Giorno said, stepping towards Marco. "We're teammates, we shouldn't be fighting like this."
Rachel turned and stormed into the house. Trish was watching from the window. Cassie hesitated, but stayed where she was. Tobias, who was perched on a branch, rose and flew to the side of the house in search of Rachel's room.
"Alright," Jake said after a few moments of awkward silence. "So, we know an attack is most likely coming-"
"So we should get the hell out of here," Abbacchio interrupted.
"So we should make two teams and split up. If the enemy stand users are coming so are the Yeerks. We'll divide both teams so there's animorphs and stand users in each team," Jake went on.
"I didn't realize you were our boss now, Jake," Fugo said coldly.
"I'm a leader. This is what I do," Jake replied just as coldly.
"Well, you're not our leader," Fugo snapped.
Jake shrugged. "You want to get eaten alive by a Taxxon? Be my guest."
Fugo gritted his teeth. Abbachio glared at Jake.
"Can we all hear each other out without the snide comments, please?" Cassie said.
Suddenly, the back door of the gang's van opened. "Bucciarati! I think we have a message from the boss!" Mista called.
Bruno hurried toward the van.
"Stay away," Abbacchio told the animorphs. "This isn't for you to see."
The animorphs waited while Bruno logged onto the laptop and read the message. The team had to find a key in Pompeii.
"Giorno, Abbacchio, and Fugo, you'll go. The rest of us will stay behind and protect Trish."
Ax galloped toward the group. I would like to participate in this mission. Learning to fight stand users could be useful, especially if we ever run into human-Controllers who are stand users. Of course, I need my prince's permission.
"Sure, Ax," Jake answered. "If you want to go, you can go."
Thank you, Prince Jake.
"Don't call me Prince."
Yes, Prince Jake.
"He can't come with us," Abbacchio argued. "There's no room."
I can morph a flea and ride with you. The ride is only an hour long and I will have plenty of time to stay in morph.
"Alright," Bruno agreed. "Abbacchio, Ax, Giorno, and Fugo it is then."
Ax stayed on Giorno's shoulder in flea morph. When they got out of the car and reached their destination, Ax heard Fugo call out, "There's someone behind the pillar!"
"What? No there's not," Giorno said, confused.
"What, are you blind?" Fugo snapped.
"I don't see anyone either," Abbacchio said.
"He's coming in for the attack!" Fugo shouted.
At the last second, Ax leapt from Giorno's shoulder to Fugo's, an impulsive action that surely would've gotten him killed. But he got lucky.
"Where am I?" Fugo asked. Ax leapt from his shoulder and tried to find a good place to demorph.
The enemy began interrogating Fugo. "Tell me what you're here for," he demaded.
"Never," Fugo spat.
In desperation, he called out his stand Purple Haze, but because he was in a mirror world, it appeared on Giorno and Abbachio's side.
Ax heard Fugo cry out in pain. He focused on the cheetah in his mind.
His dark blue fur was replaced by orange and black spotted fur. His hooves softened and became paws, and his hands and weak Andalite arms strengthened to become paws and the muscled legs of the cheetah. He fell forward, his scorpion tail changing to the fleshy tail of a cheetah, while his internal organs moved around.
"Someone is running away," the enemy said. "Outside my mirror world. Your teammates are abandoning you! Killing you would be a waste of my time." With that he left Fugo laying there to pursue the person running away.
But what he didn't know was that a cheetah was lying in wait for him. Faster than a human could react, Ax sprang! Aimed directly for the throat. Bit down on the jugular and before the enemy knew it he was bleeding to death.
Ax was thrown a few feet away when the stand of the enemy punched him, disorienting him. But he was too weak to anything but lie there. As he bled out, the mirror world faded and Ax and Fugo found themselves back. Fugo recalled his stand.
"Ax?" He asked the cheetah.
Yes, Ax answered.
"Thank you."
It was not a problem.
"Come on," Giorno said. "Let's go find Abbacchio and get back."
"You gotta lay off everyone, man," Jake was telling Marco back at the hideout. "Stop causing problems. I know that you're frustrated and upset with the situation involving your mom, but you can't take it out on us."
"Okay, fine," Marco replied. "But you're not exactly a saint either. Sending your own cousin after David."
"Can we not talk about this, please?" Jake asked. He looked up to see Mista and Narancia looking at them from near the stairs.
"Whatever you want, oh fearless leader," Marco replied with his typical Marco-sarcasm. He walked up the stairs, ignoring Mista and Narancia.
Jake felt a wave of guilt as Bruno came in through the kitchen door.
"You heard everything, didn't you?" Jake asked, not looking at the capo's eyes.
"Yes," Bruno answered, his voice not betraying any emotion he felt.
"Just…..it's a war, okay? We need to make sacrifices. I need you to understand that," Jake pleaded.
"Who's this David?" Bucciarati asked instead.
"Rouge animorph. We gave him the power to morph after he was almost killed by Visser Three. He was a liability to our team. I-I did send Rachel after him. We thought he killed Tobias, and I knew that Rachel and Tobias are really close. We didn't kill David- eventually we trapped him in rat morph so he couldn't put us in danger anymore."
"It sounds like it was a tough thing to do," Bucciarati commented. "Do you think you would have been able to kill him yourself?"
"If I had to," Jake replied. "But to tell you the truth-" he hesitated. "I worry about Rachel. I can tell that there's something dark in her. She enjoys the bloodshed. I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how she'll cope when the war is over- if it's ever over."
"Sometimes you need to accept people as they are," Bucciarati answered. "Worrying about it won't do any good. Fugo can have quite a temper sometimes but we handle him. He had rather violent tendencies as well. But I'm not using him and his useful stand to slaughter every enemy in our way. That would make him a tool rather than part of the team."
Jake looked at the ground. "So you're saying I used Rachel as a tool," he muttered. "But the thing is, you're right. She has every right to be mad at me for it. She scares herself too. It's so hard to be the leader, Bucciarati. The world is on my shoulders, literally."
"I know. Even leaders make mistakes. Unfortunately, mistakes sometimes get us killed in the process, or damage our relationships with others. But you can always try to make things right while you still have the time."
"I'll try." Jake finally met the capo's eyes.
"Good," Bucciarati replied simply. The sound of the van pulling in distracted him. "They're back. Now we can leave for the next part of the mission. Can you call everyone downstairs? I'm going to talk to them and see how it went."
"Sure," Jake answered. He trudged up the stairs, and Mista and Narancia parted to let him pass. He had a feeling they heard everything but he hoped they wouldn't mention it to Rachel.