Forcing all of his thoughts his fears and uncertainties and concerns to the back of his mind, Marco began his morph at last. Like all morphs, even those of the same animal, this one was different; this time, it was his skin that changed first, becoming dead gray with the texture of fine-grained sandpaper.

His feet twined and twisted together even as he watched, leaving him to fall back into the water. A sharp pain in his right hand drew his attention, and Marco noticed then that hed managed to cut the side of it on a shell. It wasnt particularly important before he finished with the morph, the cut would be completely gone but it was at least painful enough to notice.

When he tried to stand back up, Marco realized just how far the morph had progressed: his legs were completely gone, in their place was the sharp, cutting tail of a shark. Windmilling his arms in the water, Marco just managed to raise his head above it.

XXX

Even with all the times that she had used this morphing power shed been granted, Shara still found it incredibly strange when she was required to put it into play. It was nothing like the powers that shed been granted or, more correctly, been forced into accepting by the Radam.

For one thing, they required far more concentration to activate; you needed to hold the image in your mind while you were changing, or you would end up stopping halfway through. The Radams transformation fed on itself once it was triggered, cascading over you until you were filled with energy and felt like you could take on anyone or anything on Earth. It was almost scary, how invincible the armor the power that flowed through it made her feel.

It would be all too easy to fall into the trap of actually believing that she was invincible, and staying so long in her transformed state that she allowed Darkon to find her somehow. She couldnt allow that to happen; to say nothing of the danger that the Radam Warlord presented to earth as a whole, there was also the matter of protecting the scant remains of her family from his depredations. She wouldnt allow anyone to take Slade away from her, whether he remembered her or not.

She would die before she let that happen.

Focusing on the morph to hurry it along, Shara let herself drop into the water and continued focusing. It wasnt long before she was a complete Hammerhead, watching as other Hammerheads turned and twisted their way through the water in an oddly purposeful way. Almost as if they were searching for something.

(What are you guys doing? Shouldnt we be heading back to that Yeerk facility we discovered last time?) she asked, watching in confusion as the other Animorphs turned in restless circles in the shallows. (Guys?)

(What do you think theyre doing, Shara?) Slade asked, echoing the question that she had already asked, likely without even knowing it since she hadnt aimed her thought-speak at him.

(If I could guess, Id tell you,) she said, staring at the sharks as she tried to puzzle out just what they could be thinking.

Cassie had said, on more than one occasion, that they only had two hours in any one morph. So, what could the others be thinking, wasting time searching for whatever it was that they were searching for?

(Guys?) she paused for a moment, waiting on whatever kind of response that she was going to get. (Guys!)

(Oh my God!) Marco exclaimed, making her wonder just what it was that she had missed this time; and if she should be grateful for it or not. (It was me! That was my blood!)

(What are you talking about, Marco?)

(Shara, call out to them again,) he said, sounding relieved and urgent at once.

(Everyone, listen to me! You all need to get a hold of yourselves, right now,) she said, deliberately using her telepathy so shes make more of an impact on them.

(Jake!) Marco called. (Jake, shake it off, man! The shark has you. Tobias! Ax! Rachel! Cassie! Slade! All of you! Its the sharks instincts, you have to get control of them! That was my blood!)

Watching carefully, Shara could almost see the moment when the other Animorphs started to come around. Slowly, and seemingly reluctantly, the five Hammerheads abandoned their search.

(Yikes,) Cassie said with a short, nervous laugh. (Kind of single-minded, arent they?)

(No one else bleed,) Rachel groused. (Im going to be hungry for hours as it is.)

Shara would have rolled her eyes, if shed had any of the proper facial muscles. (I dont think this is really the time to be making jokes, Rachel.)

(Whos joking?)

Deciding not to continue the conversation, Shara fell in behind the others as they headed away from the shoreline and dove deeper into the water. She swam right beside Slade, as it turned out; still, there wasnt much they had in common anymore, so she decided not to try starting up a conversation. Passing easily through the hologram, the same way theyd done when they had first come to this place in dolphin morph, but that was the only similarity.

The sharks, that had once posed such a danger to all of her friends, ignored them like they werent even there this time.