Chapter Nine

Alexis Alexander

Northern Austria

0200 Hours Local

After almost three whole days of searching, we still found nothing, and more then once, we had even gotten shot at when we demorphed and started walking around. I seemed to get the most of it, being an American, and Kassad also has his share of bullets thrown his way, being a criminal. Leang had also gotten shot at a few times too, but mostly I think that was because the Asian people look very similar to non-Asians. I guess they mistook her for a South Korean or Japanese.

We were now flying on the way to the last place we considered looking: Austria. I tried to tune out the negativity I was hearing from Leang, and focused on scanning the ground. It was tough, mostly because eagles and hawks have better eyesight during the daytime. At night, we only had as good eyesight as a human did. Leang continued to complain about not having found Natasha yet, and even suggested more then a few times that we stop looking for her.

Kassad either didn't have an opinion about this, or didn't voice it. Which was fine by me, although I wanted somebody to talk to besides telling Leang to shut up. A few hours later I was getting fed up with her, and I even yelled out: Fine! You want to go home!? Go! I'm going to find my friend with or without you, so if you don't like this, leave! If you want to stay, shut up! Got it!?

Leang went dead silent after that, and I was fuming over her stubbornness when I saw something. I dived down to investigate and if I had a mouth instead of a beak, I would have smiled.

Guys! I called out, all my anger lost. I found her! Grey building, almost no blast damage! Get your tails over here now!

I landed on the window frame and tried to break the closed window by pecking it. Natasha was sleeping, but she woke up after i broke the window. She didn't look to good, as though she hadn't set foot in a bath for days. The others landed near me, and I broke more of the glass so I could step in without slicing my feet open on broken glass. Once that was done, I swooped in, and landed gracefully on the floor beyond her reach from where she was.

She seemed terrified, and I almost laughed. In my human form, I wasn't very intimidating. I was more the girl you don't talk to because you know what she COULD do to you if you did. I wasn't a bully, I was just anti-social.

Anyways, after a while, the others swooped in and I demorphed. When I was human again, I grabbed Natasha by the wrist without saying a word. She tried resisting me, but I jabbed my thumb down hard onto the underside of her arm, where it met her wrist. She gasped in pain, and I quickly went behind her and forced her arm up onto her back.

After the little incident in Germany, I asked Kassad for tips on how to defend myself. He showed me all kinds of pressure points, and various other moves I could use against somebody. I eased up slightly on Natasha's arm, but not enough for her to squirm away.

"It's over, Natasha." I said, coldly into her ear. "Whoever or whatever you're working with stops NOW. I'm gonna hand you over to Kassad, and he's gonna ask you a few questions. Answer them, and you get to live. If not… well, me and Leang will be waiting outside this building. Get my drift?"

She nodded, slowly, and I gave her to Kassad who was finishing his demorphing. As I was passing her over to him, she suddenly screamed in pain! I reflexively let go, and swore.

"What did you do!?" Kassad yelled angrily.

"Nothing! I was holding her exactly like you said!"

Leang was already morphing into a snow leopard in case things started to get nasty. Natasha held her ear and was now on the ground writhing in pain. Eventually something slimy came wriggling out of it, and she stopped screaming and threw it with all her strength. It landed against the farthest wall with a sickening 'splat!' and she rose to her feet.

Once she managed to recover enough to think straight, she said: "you have a way out of here, right?"

"Working on that!" I yelled as I threw myself against the cell door. It held, and I tried to think of something else. Leang finished her morph and lunged at the door much faster then I did, and with more of a running start. She rammed the door full force, and managed to break the lock or whatever was holding it shut. We ran out, and I jumped on one of the Navy SEALs. While I simply didn't have enough mass to keep him down, I did knock him down and I started squeezing his windpipe. When he stopped moving, I took his gun, and knocked the side of his head with it to make sure he'd stay down. By the time we were out, the SEALs started chasing us, but we eventually lost them in the war-devastated streets.

Natasha was still breathing hard even when we were clearly safe, and I tried to get her to relax. She was shaking like a leaf, while I checked her over for any visible signs of injury. There were none, and I held her hand while I spoke softly to her.

"Natasha, it's okay. You're safe now. We weren't going to hurt you; we just wanted to know what made you go with those… things in Switzerland."

I pretended not to notice the shocked look from Leang, while I ordered Kassad to find a medical kit or something. He nodded and took off, blending into the night. After a while, her breathing steadied and she stopped shaking and fell silent. Kassad returned a while later with a medical kit as well as something that looked suspiciously like a pigeon.

"I stunned it by throwing a rock at it," he said, as if to explain why he was holding the bird. He let handed it to Natasha and waited for her to acquire it. She did, and before we all morphed, I said to her: "Whenever you want to tell me what happened to you… I'm here."

Natasha nodded and slowly morphed. Once she was finished, she took off, and after we were finished morphing as well, we followed her. Somehow, she seemed to be very good at navigating in the dark, although I suspected that Kassad had somehow managed to find a homing pigeon for her.

Once we were back in Zurich, we went back to where we were supposed to be, and got about three hours of sleep before the hotels' wake-up call rang. Groaning, I let Natasha take the first shower. She deserved it, after going through… whatever it was that she went through. Once she came out of the bathroom, she looked A LOT better. Almost like her old self, but there was a sort of haunted look behind her eyes. It took me a while to recognize where I saw that before, and then I remembered. Natasha's brother, Boris had that same look when he talked about the front lines.

After I freshened up, I saw Natasha was starting to panic again. I held her hand, and she turned alarmed at that. I just smiled, and reassured her that she was okay. Natasha calmed down, and sat down at the table.

"Alexis…" she began. "I have to tell you something. It's about what happened to me."

I nodded, and held her hand again as she explained what happened to her. How she stayed behind, got kidnapped, infested and ultimately head hostage before we rescued her. I passed her a box of tissues in case she needed it, and when she was finished, she fell silent again.

"Look 'Tash," I said, gently. "I really think you should stay here today. You've earned it."

"No, I-I-I don't want to be alone right now. Please, stay with me, if you're going."

"Come on," I said. "Let's go to school together. We'll watch each other's backs, and then there's Leang there to add an extra set of eyes."

Natasha nodded, and after we ate, we went to school. Our teachers gave us hell for disappearing for three days, and threatened to call our parents if something like this ever happened again.

At lunchtime, Natasha told Leang what had happened to her, and what she knew of the Yeerks. Apparently, they had a missive feeding pool directly below us. She said that it would be fairly easy to destroy it without damaging the city above; all we needed was the right tools. Namely dynamite or some other kind of powerful explosive.

"Great plan, 'Tash," I said. "Although in case you haven't noticed, we're in a neutral country. Where are we gonna find that kind of stuff here?"

Leang seemed to smile for some reason. I glanced over to her. "What's up?"

"I think I know how we can do this," Leang said. And she began to explain her plan. I had to admit, it was daring, simple, more then likely suicidal, and it was just crazy enough to work.