As they all made their way towards the Hammerheads tank, Marco couldnt help darting glances at Slade when the older boy wasnt looking. Slade was almost a shark himself, when it all came down to it, and Marco couldnt help wondering what that must be like. To be so ruthless, so completely without emotion, that you could kill a guy just for surprising you on a dark night.

He knew that none of the others not even Shara, who had done the same as Slade when she was confronted were quite comfortable with Slade, now that he had shown just what he was willing to do to keep both them and himself safe. Still, to know that you were able to act when the time came, regardless of any sentiment that you might be feeling it was an attractive possibility. Especially considering what he was going to be facing soon

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, Marco followed the others up the stairs that lead to the top of the shark tank. The one with the Hammerhead in it; the one that Slade hadnt just dumped a pair of corpses into. Looking down at the killer fish, the one that was almost identical to the ones that Shara had killed only a few days ago, Marco found that he was not even one iota less afraid of the thing.

It probably had a lot to do with the fact that, even in spite of the memories he was drawing on to try to bolster his confidence, he hadnt been the one that had killed those sharks.

"All right," Jake said, and Marco could hear the faint reluctance in his voice. "Shara, you said youd hold the shark for us?"

"I will," she said, sounding like she had mostly recovered from the whole stabbing thing.

"Well, go in and hold it, then," Jake said, obviously trying to sound gentle.

"All right."

Without another word, Shara dove into the water and there was a dazzling flash of pink light. Luckily for them, most of it was contained by the pool, and a fair amount was muted by the water. When it had cleared, Marco turned back to look into the shark tank as best he could.

He could see two figures moving around in the darkness of the water, and he could almost pick out which one was smaller, but he couldnt really tell in the absence of light. After about a minute of waiting, there was a larger splash and Shara unceremoniously emerged from the tank. She had the shark held above her head, with her right hand gripping the one of the things pectoral fins, and her left wrapped around its tail.

"Could you all just hurry up and touch this thing?" she asked, sounding worried but not strained at all. "I dont know how long this thing can survive outside the water."

The thing was thrashing around like crazy, probably using up most of the stored oxygen in its body, and Marco couldnt help but feel a bit of vindictive pleasure in seeing one of the monsters that had haunted his nightmares being so helpless in front of him. Walking over to touch the side of the no longer so enthusiastically thrashing shark, Marco concentrated on absorbing the DNA of the killer fish under his hand. Hed been wondering what it would be like to be so emotionless, and now he was going to find out

But later; there was still the matter of getting all of them back home those of them that still had a home to go to, anyway and there probably wouldnt be time to test out the morph before they all needed to use it.

Still Cutting off that train of thought before it could really get going, Marco looked around at the others. Most of them seemed like they had gotten what they needed hed even caught a glimpse of Tobias fluttering down from the trees to take his own sample of Essence of Hammerhead and he was just starting to wonder when Shara would take her own sample, when Jake spoke up.

"All right, Shara," he said, doing that whole commanding thing that he claimed to dislike so much. "Weve all gotten our samples, so you can put that thing back in the tank and take yours now."

"Actually, Ive already gotten my DNA sample, Jake."

"How?" Jake asked, sounding more curious than skeptical.

A shrug of armored shoulders. "I happened to land near the tail when I dove into the water, so I just grabbed it and held on," she said, dropping the shark neatly back into the tank.

"Maybe you should jump back in the tank, or turn invisible or something before you take that armor off," he suggested, knowing that bright lights in a closed park were sure to attract the kind of attention they really didnt need right now.

"Given the choice, I think Ill go with the second option," Shara said wryly, even as she slowly faded from sight.

XXX

Now that they had all managed to acquire the DNA they needed, though he wished that those guards hadnt gotten involved, Jake suggested to the others that they should morph back into seagulls and leave. There was a general consensus on the idea even from Shara, who was still invisible for some reason and so they all gathered together and started to morph.

As Shara lost her human form, she also clearly lost the ability to remain invisible. Once the last of the Animorphs became fully seagull, Jake started his running takeoff and heard the others following his lead.

XXX

When they were all back in the air again, Shara wondered for a moment just what the staff of the park would do once they found those corpses in the shark tank. Then, forcibly pushing those morbid thoughts out of her mind, she decided to ask Cassie about the small problem that she had just found out she had.

(Cassie, do you think you could find me another morphing outfit?)

(Why? I thought you liked the one I gave you,) the other girl said, sounding confused.

(I did like it,) she said, feeling weirdly embarrassed but pressing on in spite of that. (Its just that one kind of evaporated when I transformed that second time.)

(What?) Cassie sounded shocked; Shara didnt blame her. (How could that have happened?)

(When I figure that out, Ill be sure to tell you,) she said. (Im still wondering why it didnt happen that time I transformed in the water.)