We said goodbye to Erek. We were clearly headed for another battle.

Ax morphed Northern Harrier, and we flew away from his scoop. We were heading toward a Honey Glazed Hams store near the Community Center, as mentioned in Zenguh's coded message. It was a bit further from Ax's scoop than most places in town, so we took the opportunity as we flew to talk about what we found on Zenguh's computer.

‹So, what do we know now, Ax?› I asked. ‹How do we use this to gain an advantage?›

‹He wants to absorb all humans into himself,› he replied. ‹He started doing it to disguise himself and escape from the other Yeerks, but he found the acquisition of human knowledge to be addicting.›

‹So, everyone he infests, he gets all of their knowledge,› I said. ‹He could get pretty smart, pretty fast.›

‹Agreed,› said Ax. ‹Also, I knew there were an astronomical number of humans on this planet. It had not occurred to me, until reading his journal, how much faster humans' birth rate is than their death rate. It would make it impossible for him to absorb them all, especially since he has to wait two hours before he can again acquire his Yeerk form.›

‹Yeah!› I said. ‹He knows he can't get us all, so he's going after people with a lot of diverse knowledge. Mathematicians, computer scientists, college professors; he's even taken a couple of people from Marco's dad's Z-Space lab.›

‹Prince Jake said that when he was being controlled by the Yeerk, long ago, he was able to talk to the Yeerk in his mind. Do you think that Zenguh has dozens of minds yelling at him simultaneously?›

‹I would think so,› I said. ‹That would be really distracting. Maybe we can even use it against him somehow. Hey, did you understand his line, "I've heard of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, but this is ridiculous?" I feel like he was trying to make a joke, but I didn't get it.›

‹Neither did I,› Ax responded. ‹It sounds like a human psychology reference, but I haven't studied the subject very extensively.›

‹Hey, Ax!› I stopped him. ‹Look at that! There's smoke coming from over there!›

As we got closer, we saw the smoke was coming from the alleyway behind the Honey Glazed Ham shop. We also saw that the bottom half of the smoke would have been invisible, if not for my majestic hawk eyes. There were two bug fighters sitting there, also invisible, emitting some sort of cloaking field.

We landed on a building overlooking the big, smoking hole in the wall, and immediately saw a wolf, an elephant, a gorilla, and a tiger inside, along with plenty of Hork-Bajir, and a ring of humans chained to the wall.

I heard car doors slam, and turned toward the sound. A long black limo had pulled up, and we watched Visser One climb out, demorphing from his human disguise to his Andalite body.

‹Let's go,› I said.

Ax demorphed to his Andalite form, and I morphed into a Hork-Bajir by the name of Ket Halpak. Hopefully, my teammates would recognize me and not attack. Ax moved across the roof, looking for a good opportunity to ambush Visser One. I dropped down to the ground, out of sight of the Yeerks, and ran into the hole.

The elephant and the wolf were laying on the ground inside, but were starting to stand up.

‹Rachel, Cassie! Are you okay?›

Cassie answered first. ‹Yeah, I'll be okay.›

‹Me too,› said Rachel. ‹Just a little disoriented from the wall exploding. Let's do this!›

‹Good,› I said. ‹I'm going to cut these people free from the wall before they get hit by a stray Dracon beam!›

I walked through the crowd, toward the closest person chained to the wall. I didn't join the fight. I wanted to blend in as a Controller as long as I could. I walked up to the first person chained to the wall. He was terrified. I sympathized. I was covered in blades after all.

‹Don't worry. I'm here to help,› I told him.

It didn't calm him down. He screamed as I cut him free, and kept screaming as he ran out the door.

I looked around, but there must have been enough commotion that none of the Yeerks noticed. I moved on to the next potential host, repeating my message. The next few were less scared after seeing me let the first man go. I worked my way around the room. Just a few more to go, but Visser One's crew had not noticed me yet.

I cut down a woman, her eyes wet with tears of joy.

"Thank you!" she cried, hugging me carefully. "I was a Controller, and my Yeerk starved out of me. I was so scared that I'd be free just long enough to be taken again!"

‹Good luck!› I told her. ‹Now, run!›

She did.

I continued working, until finally, there was just one person left.

‹Don't worry. I'm here to help.›

His eyes grew wide in understanding. Once he was cut free, he pointed at me and yelled, "This one's an Andalite!"

In seconds they were on me. Two Hork-Bajir, and a human with a Dracon beam, just waiting to get a clear shot. Arm blades flashed, and all I could hear was grunting and the sound of knife-like arms and legs flying through the air. I landed a lucky hit to a Hork-Bajir midsection that made him hesitate to rejoin the fight. The remaining one swung for my face, leaving a very shallow cut. As I was considering how much worse that could have been, his other arm blade struck my right forearm. It broke something, as I found I could no longer make a fist with that arm. But that was okay, I was leading with my blades.

I struck the Hork-Bajir's head with the blunt part of my elbow, stunning him. I maneuvered him between myself and the Dracon-wielding human-Controller, using the Hork-Bajir as a shield. There was a look of uncertainty in the man's eyes, but it didn't last long. I kicked my Hork-Bajir shield at the human, and they fell to the floor in a tangle of arms, legs, and sharp edges.

I turned my attention to the fight at large, to see who I could help. Rachel was surrounded, and had a lot of Dracon beam blast marks on her skin. I knew she couldn't hide as an elephant, and even though she was clearly doing a lot of damage, I didn't think she'd be able to last too much longer on her own.

I went after the human-Controllers training their Dracon beams on her. A quick slice disabled each weapon, and a quick punch to the face with my good hand took each Controller out of the fight long enough for Rachel to get some breathing room.

‹You're clear!› I yelled.

‹Thanks!› she said, and went off to find another battle.

I did my own part, and jumped into a group of Controllers fighting against Jake and Cassie.

Then, the building started to shake.