I charged across the parking lot on a collision course with a multi-ton killing machine. Lucky for me, that was a good description of me too. Elephants may not normally be killing machines, but when I pilot one, it's one of the deadlier things on this planet.

Zenguh was shuffling through DNA (and whatever the mechanical equivalent was), picking the deadliest parts to create a bizarre horror show of a body. Ordinarily, it would be suicide to try to take him on one-on-one, but I've got a reputation to uphold, as well as a deal with Crayak. My chance to take him down by myself wouldn't last, but I had a nice head start on the tidal wave of Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, and human-Controllers rushing toward him, not to mention my team.

I got within striking distance of him, and stutter-stepped my feet to get the timing just right. Zenguh raised one of his saw-blade-tipped arms in preparation to cut me into pieces, but I landed one of my front feet onto one of his, and pushed off of it as I slammed my head into his midsection. I heard his foot shatter, and felt his leg dislocate as his body was pushed away from where I had his foot pinned to the ground.

I knew he would swing the saw blade down onto me, but my hit must have been enough to throw him off a bit, and it cut only a shallow, but mostly harmless slice around my back. He fell to the ground, and I slowed myself and turned to face him again. I saw his blood on my tusks, and let loose with a loud trumpet. He climbed back to his feet, and I charged again. Dracon beams seared the air and burned Zenguh's flesh. Hopefully, they'd stop long enough for me to hit him again without getting shot myself. As I ran at him, I saw another pair of saw-blade arms grow from his sides.

Uh-oh.

There was no stopping my momentum, so I doubled down and gave it my all. I hit Zenguh in whatever passed for one of his shoulders, and drove my tusks deep into him. Then I felt his other three arms slice deep into me. The sudden change in my breathing told me that one of the saw blades had hit one of my lungs. That was bad. Gotta retreat and heal.

The Dracon fire resumed, and the first wave of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers arrived and leaped onto him. I used the chaos to stumble away as best I could.

The mill. Its door had been blown open. That would give me enough privacy to demorph, and I wouldn't even have to open the door.

I heard my teammates' voices.

‹Rachel!› Jake probably.

‹Rachel's got racing stripes!› it sounded like something Marco would say.

‹Rachel, run! The Taxxons!›

Fear washed over me just before I felt the first of those disgusting, uncontrollable monsters scurry onto me, powerless against its own hunger. Of course, Zenguh was probably healing himself too quickly to even bleed very much. I, on the other hand, was covered in blood.

There were probably three of them on me by the time I got into the mill building. My vision was getting dark, and my body was starting to go numb, like when your leg falls asleep. I had lost a lot of blood, and it was getting really hard to breathe. It felt like it should have been easier to breathe, with the extra hole in my side, but I guess that's not how lung punctures work.

‹They're off you!› Jake said. I guess I had been so out of it that I hadn't noticed Jake get here or start shredding the Taxxons.

I heard Marco yelling a bunch of nonsense about sports drinks or something, but I couldn't make myself focus on that, even if I had been healthy. I had to demorph right now, or I was definitely going to die.

I collapsed in the entrance room of the mill. My body shrunk, my wounds closed up, and my skin got less elephant-y. Soon, I was a teenage human girl, surrounded by foul-smelling Taxxon guts. I could see and breathe again, and even if the nearby sights and smells weren't anything I wanted to take in, at least I had the option.

I looked out the broken mill entrance door, to the dimly lit parking lot battlefield, and saw a lot of hurt Controllers. I felt both good and bad about that.

I also saw the half-biological, half-mechanical Zenguh throw off the most recent wave of Controllers that had attacked him. Then he saw me. He was even bigger now, and with thunderous steps, pounded his way toward me. He probably thought I'd be an easy kill now that I was human again. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I scrambled to my feet on the Taxxon-guts-slick floor, and looked around for an exit. Before I could even move, Zenguh opened his enormous mouth, full of sharp and deadly teeth, and dove toward me.

The monstrous jagged mouth was only a few feet from me, when I was hit from the side and thrown across the room. My back hit the wall as Zenguh's jaws closed around the tiger, who was in the spot I had been only a moment before.

‹Jake!› I screamed.

Everything stopped. I would have thought it was my mind breaking after seeing my cousin being eaten, but everything was quiet too. Time had really stopped, which could only mean one thing.

My surroundings faded to an empty white void, and I heard a slow clap from behind me. I turned to see the Drode clapping, and Crayak filling the horizon behind him.

"You did it, Rachel," Crayak boomed, "You finally did it. You've killed your cousin, as I've hoped for years that you would."

"No!" I screamed, my grief and fear swirling inside me. "I didn't kill him!"

"Killed him, caused him to be killed, it's all the same to me," Crayak said. "Jake is gone, and it never would have happened if you hadn't rushed in by yourself, without your team."

My face fell into my hands as I wrestled internally with my cousin dying and what my role in it had been. Still, the clapping continued.

"Oh, that reminds me," said Crayak, a smirk in his voice. "Say hello to the Drode. I have asked him here as I lack the necessary appendages for an ironic slow clap."

He turned to look at the Drode. "Thank you, that will do," he said, and the Drode stopped clapping and vanished from sight.

Now, all that remained was Crayak and myself. I still had nothing to say.

"Cheer up, little one," he boomed at me. "All of your problems are solved! You're the leader of your little gang, now that Jake is out of the way!"

Crayak laughed a horrible laugh, and then added: "I really appreciate that, by the way. You're basically my apprentice at this point. I'll tell the Drode that you're gunning for his spot."

I screamed in anger, louder than I had ever screamed before, but it still didn't block out Crayak's voice.

"And since you've fulfilled your end of our agreement, it is time for your reward."

"I never wanted this!" I shouted. "I never wanted to help you! I only agreed that if you brought Zenguh back to Earth, I'd kill him!"

Crayak's voice was calm and slow as he said, "Then imagine how easy this will be for you now."

I felt like I had been hit by lightning. I was strong. My body was flooded by so much power that I felt like I would explode.

The empty white void disappeared around me, and I found myself screaming at Zenguh, whose momentum was carrying his giant body over the area where Jake had been. I looked down at my hands. They shifted immediately into strong, muscular hands, with retractable metal claws. I was Super-Rachel, and Zenguh was about to die horribly.