Knowing that Zenguh was still on the loose had really put us all on edge. I blamed myself for assuming he was done for and letting him get away. I went home and had a fitful sleep.
I dreamed I was at the beach. Tobias was circling overhead, then flew down to join me. He morphed to human, and we held hands as we walked along the shore. The sun started to set, and the sky turned a beautiful orange. As we watched the sun go down, the sky turned more and more red, and the sun grew larger. It soon grew to fill the entire sky, and it became the giant, horrible eye of Crayak. Tobias was gone, the ocean was gone, and only sand and Crayak remained, as far as I could see.
Then, Crayak spoke, making the whole world around me tremble.
"I see you're having trouble getting rid of a Yeerk. It must be so difficult being confined to such a tiny, weak body."
"I'm not having trouble," I said. "He got some hits on me, but I clobbered him!"
"And yet he escaped," Crayak rumbled. "A stronger being could have killed him. Ended the problem forever."
Was Crayak right? Had I let Zenguh live? I had crushed the black bear's head into the pavement. That usually ends fights.
"You're afraid of what your friends would think, what Jake would think if you had killed the Yeerk," he continued. "If you would kill Jake for me, you wouldn't have to worry what he thinks."
"I'm not going to kill my cousin!" I yelled. "Besides, the Yeerk got away because of my concern for Jake!"
"Ah, so you admit that Jake is to blame," Crayak mused. "My offer to make you into Super-Rachel is still on the metaphorical table. Just kill Jake for me. Your friends might see you as a monster, but you could be the monster with the power to save the world from the Yeerks. Think about it."
Suddenly, I was in my bed. The sun was rising, filling the sky with a brilliant red-orange. Great, Crayak had ruined sunrises for me. I got up, and walked to the kitchen and poured myself some cereal. It was Friday, but it was also a glorious teacher workshop day. No school for us Animorphs to pretend we cared about. About an hour later, the phone rang.
It was Cassie.
"Hey! How about a nature hike through the woods?"
That was code to meet at Ax's scoop.
I left the house soon after, and flew to the woods. I was a bald eagle; powerful, graceful, inspiring. Not that different from my usual self, really. The dream had shaken my confidence, but I knew who I was. I think.
The others were already there, and I landed near Jake and Marco, who were engaged in one of their weekly 'who would win in a fight' arguments.
"There's no way The Hulk could even hit The Flash! He's too fast!"
"But The Flash couldn't hurt The Hulk! Hulk's too tough!"
"He could if the Flash used a board with a nail in it!"
I walked between them, and demorphed as dramatically as I could. Their surprised screams were music to my ears. Morphing isn't exactly a beautiful process.
"Everybody sit down," Jake said to us all. "We've got some things we need to discuss. First of all, someone called the police because the park is covered in blood. Some of it is mine, some of it is Rachel's, some of it is Zenguh's; but we've all got to make an effort to stop leaving blood around town."
‹If they test the blood, is it going to come back as human or animal?› Tobias asked. ‹I meant to follow up with Ax before, but we got kind of distracted.›
Jake looked concerned. "Hmm, that's a good question. Do you know, Ax?"
‹It should show up as tiger or bear blood, in this case, but with DNA from any animal that you have acquired, including your own.›
Well, that wasn't good. It was going to be pretty alarming if someone tested the blood.
"We've been getting hurt in battles for years! Our blood's gotta be all over the place!" I said.
"That's another good reason to be careful," said Jake.
‹I have something related to that,› said Tobias, fluttering down to the log I was sitting on. ‹Ax and I found Zenguh's apartment. We chased him through his neighborhood, and he changed into that birdwatcher guy, but he shouldn't have been able to do that, since his outermost host would never have had an opportunity to acquire him.›
"That's weird," I said. "But I don't see how that's related."
‹Well,› Tobias said. ‹Since we have DNA from everything we've acquired floating around in our blood, I think that if we were to acquire someone that has used the morphing cube, we would acquire all of the DNA in their blood, including all of the morphs that they have acquired.›
Ax looked stunned. ‹I would say that I wasn't paying attention that day in school,› he said. ‹But I honestly don't think that we Andalites have thought that much into it, as much as it pains me to admit that.›
‹I have been thinking a lot about what else we can do with morphing,› Tobias said as he looked around the clearing. ‹Zenguh thinks of this stuff so fast, it's hard to keep up.›
I was proud of Tobias.
‹Cassie,› he started. ‹Do you remember when Rachel was going on that talk show, after she fell through the floor of her bedroom?›
"Yeah," Cassie said. "That's why I made that 'and a light' callback yesterday. That's, like, one of my favorite things I've ever said!"
I had to speak up. "I fell through my floor because I was having an allergic reaction, and I accidentally morphed into an elephant. I'm not floor-breakingly fat, okay?"
"That's right, Rachel. You look great," Jake said. Cassie raised an eyebrow.
‹Anyway, Cassie acquired Rachel, before she went on the show, in case anything went wrong with Rachel's allergic reaction to the crocodile,› Tobias explained. ‹Everything still went wrong, and a bear fought a crocodile on television, but Cassie was able to smooth things over with the show's producer, in morph as Rachel.›
He turned to Cassie and said, ‹I'd like to try something.›
Cassie looked nervous. "What's that?" she asked.
‹You've never acquired a grizzly bear, have you?› Tobias asked.
"I haven't."
Tobias looked at Cassie intensely. I don't think he did it on purpose, that's just how hawks are. ‹Cassie, I'd like you to try to morph into Rachel's grizzly bear.›
Cassie looked at the floor as we all watched her. She closed her eyes. Nothing happened for a few moments, but then her arms sprouted thick brown fur, her fingernails became huge claws, and she grew to the size of a small car. It was the only time I had ever seen a grizzly bear look surprised. She quickly morphed back to human.
"That's amazing!" I said. "So that's how Zenguh is retaining all of his morphs, even though his outer layer body keeps changing?"
‹It seems that way. Every time he gets a new host body, the new body acquires the DNA from the previous host body via the Yeerk wrapped around the new host's brain, because it's all in there,› Tobias said. ‹Should we all acquire each other, to share our morphs? It would add a lot of versatility to the team.›
"I'm not letting Marco acquire me!" I said. "Who knows what he'd do?"
"Aww shucks!" Marco said dramatically, slapping his knee and laughing loudly.
I turned to Cassie as people were chuckling at Marco, and said privately, "Since you've acquired me, can I acquire you back?"
She thought for a moment, and said, "I think I'd be okay with that. It's only fair, and we are best friends."
I put my arm around her in a side hug. She returned it, and her head rested on my shoulder as the calm from the acquiring trance washed over her.
