This was not a fight we were expecting. This was supposed to be Animorphs versus Zenguh, not Animorphs versus Zenguh, a whole Yeerk army, and Visser One. Victory was getting out of reach really, really quickly.

I was glad to see Ax had somehow found us to join the fight. We needed him. I could only hope Tobias was around, too.

The ham shop was a mess. There was smoke and blood, shouting and screaming everywhere that I looked. I saw Marco slam his fist directly into the face of a Hork-Bajir. I saw Cassie, unsurprisingly in wolf morph, chomping down on the ankles of another Hork-Bajir. I dodged a few Dracon beams myself before tackling a human-Controller to the ground, knocking him out with a smack of my paw.

‹Aaaahh!› someone yelled. I had no idea who it was.

This wasn't a battle we could win. All we could do was endure. I wasn't even sure what the goal was anymore. Chaos was everywhere.

I heard a shattering of glass behind me, and my eyes followed the sound. Ax was locked in one-on-one combat with Visser One. Andalite versus Andalite. His tailblade had just smacked through a window, then immediately struck again, missing Visser One's neck by inches. It was tough to see them both through the clouds of dust and debris.

‹Ax!› I yelled privately to him. ‹Ax, I'm coming!›

‹Prince Jake,› he answered me, keeping all four eyes on his opponent. ‹I can handle this. Find Zenguh! Tobias and I read the contents of his computer. He must not escape!›

Right. Zenguh. Man, there was a lot going on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Hork-Bajir flying through the air toward me. I dodged, and realized that Rachel had used her elephant trunk to throw the alien completely across the room.

I looked back at the two Andalites, fighting on an upper level created entirely from empty crates. Visser One was bigger than Ax, but Ax was using his own smaller size for quick dodges. I'd have to remind Marco that this is why Flash would beat Hulk. Visser One lunged toward Ax, using his entire body as his tailblade whipped to the side toward Ax's ribs. Ax countered with his own tailblade, and the ensuing clanging sound echoed above the rest of the mayhem.

Then I saw Ax use his experience on Earth in a way that made me strangely proud. He pinned Visser One's blade down with his own, and punched the leader of the Yeerk invasion right in the middle of his face with a many-fingered fist. Andalite punches weren't common. I roared in approval.

‹Ha-HA!› Marco crowed from not far away. ‹Nicely done, Ax! I knew that watching those Indiana Jones movies with you was worth it! ›

‹Fools!› the visser roared at nobody in particular, clutching his face. He began to swing wildly with his tail, but Ax leapt nimbly off of the pile of crates.

‹Jake! He's headed for the freezer!› I heard Rachel say.

Zenguh. I again turned my attention, this time to search for the massive elephant in the room. It wasn't very difficult. I broke out into a run, but quickly stopped in my tracks. I saw the freezer. It was shaking violently before it disappeared entirely. Broken bricks and concrete rose up into the air before falling back to the ground, and the clear rumbling sound of some sort of engine filled the room. A huge hole exploded in the ceiling, and the engine sound faded over the next few minutes.

I looked around. A lot of the fighting had kind of...stopped. Controllers and Animorphs were mostly looking upward at whatever had just left the building. A quietness settled over the room, and I wasn't sure what the next move should be. In the lingering silence, we heard the distant sound of police sirens.

‹Fools,› Visser One addressed us again, fury in his thought-speak voice. ‹You have allowed that creature to escape. You will pay for this, the next time we meet.›

With that, the Controllers left in a hurry.

We were still alive.

"That is quite a tale," Toby said to the group.

We were all sitting around a campfire in the temporary Hork-Bajir valley. It was a short-term refuge while the free colony fixed their homes after a recent planned flood during a Yeerk attack had wiped out much of what they had previously built. Once the Controllers had left the Honey Glazed Ham store, we had quickly morphed birds and bailed.

Toby had joined us around the campfire, and we had told her everything we knew about the current situation. Now the group was pretty quiet. It was hard to get a read on any of them.

"Well, I guess he's gone," Cassie said quietly, supplying the first words in quite a while.

No one knew what to say. Or so I thought.

"Yeah, Cassie," Rachel replied, her voice trembling. "And I had him. I HAD the creep. I could have ended it right there!"

"Rachel, listen..." Cassie began.

"No, YOU listen, Cassie," Rachel yelled, fully turning to her. "You're my best friend. How could you do that? That's three times now I could have ended it. That might have been my last chance! I don't have time for all these morals. We're trying to win a war here!"

‹I have to agree with some of Rachel's sentiment,› Ax interjected.

‹Not now, Ax,› Tobias said.

"Rachel, I can't let you kill whenever you want to," Cassie said. "Someone has to save you from…" She trailed off.

"From what, Cassie?" Rachel asked, her voice rising.

Cassie hesitated before answering, "From yourself, Rachel. I don't like where this war is taking you."

"Oh, get off your high horse," Rachel said, rolling her eyes. "Zenguh is too big a threat for us to be held back by weakness."

"That's not very fair," I said. "You know Cassie helps to keep us from going over the line."

I looked at Cassie. "I know she helps me," I added.

"Bad idea, Jake," Marcos whispered from my left.

Rachel rounded on me, eyes flashing. "You!" she said, fuming. "I couldn't get to Zenguh to keep him out of that freezer. Where were you? Why didn't you help me? What was the big, master plan that our great leader had for that fight, huh?"

Now it was my turn to get angry. "Rachel," I started. "We didn't expect to be in that position, and you know it. We were all entirely separated, and it was a miracle we even ended up together at that ham shop in the first place."

"Yeah," Rachel said, not backing down. "There was no plan. I know. And he got away. Maybe for good. Just like he got away when I didn't finish him off at the park because you were too busy getting your butt kicked."

‹Ouch,› Tobias commented.

Rachel began to walk away.

‹Rachel!› Tobias said, ‹We need to stick together right now. Figure things out.›

"I can't right now, Tobias," she said, without looking back. "Sometimes I wonder if I'd be better off fighting this war by myself. Or getting help elsewhere."

I didn't know what that meant.

"Let her go," Toby advised. "She needs a chance to calm down."

The campfire crackled. Tobias fluttered up into some low-hanging branches. Ax pawed at the ground, and Cassie tried to compose herself. We were exhausted.

"Hey guys," Marco said. "I mean, my family is here, but don't you all need to get home? It's been a really, really long day."