"Containment failure in two minutes and forty seconds! Have a nice day!"

They ran on, he and Shara, up to the rest of the Animorphs, where Rachel was just tossing aside a crumpled, severely mauled Hork-Bajir.

(Nice of you two to finally drop by,) she snapped. (Did one of you at least get rid of Visser One for us?)

(No,) he said curtly; not feeling quite up to dealing with Rachel yet, after Sharas easy sympathy.

(You okay?) Jake asked privately.

(No, not really. But what we have to focus on right now is getting out of here.) I can deal with Shara knowing, especially since the girl in question hadnt acted at all like one of the others probably would. But all of thats for later; if we dont get out of this complex right now, we never will.

(Ax, look out!) he shouted, but the Andalite was already moving.

(I am not a human, Marco,) he said calmly. (Its not so easy to sneak up on me.)

"Containment failure in two minutes and ten seconds! Have a nice day!"

Rearing back up to strike once more, Visser Three moved faster this time. Jumping to the left, out of the range of Visser Threes morph, Ax tried to bring his tail to bear on the snakes head. But the debris-strewn floor of the facility stymied him; one hoof caught on a broken piece of wall, and he stumbled.

(Got you!) Visser Three crowed with triumphant glee, his morphs jaws closing around the Andalite.

But then, the Visser stopped. The reason for his halt was readily apparent: an angry grizzly and an equally angry leopard were both facing him down. The grizzly, Rachel, had his midsection in her powerful grip. The leopard, Shara, was on her hind legs, with her rail-spike claws bared dangerously close to the Vissers left eye.

(Let him go,) Rachel growled, sounding almost like the bear whose body she was borrowing. (Let him go, or Ill rip you in two.)

(And, if you dont do it quickly, Ill rip your eye right out of your head,) Shara snarled.

(Its a standoff, Andalites,) Visser Three said, sounding remarkably calm for the position he was in. (You have me, and I have your fellow terrorist here. But the water will be pouring in soon, and youll drown in those bodies.)

(Im losing what little patience I have with you, Visser,) Shara said, digging her claws into the flesh beside his eye, just deep enough to be considered a warning. A warning that drew blood.

(Let him go!) Rachel simply reiterated, tightening her grip until the alien snake that was Visser Three began to lose more of his dull, yellow-and-green blood.

(I guess we have a negotiation here,) Visser Three said silkily,

(Negotiate this,) Marco snapped, slamming his fist into the Vissers snout with the full force that the muscles of his gorilla morph could give him.

The Vissers jaw flew open, his eyes widened, stretching the skin that Shara had punctured. He remained, swaying indecisively for a few moments, before hitting his head on the ground. Bleeding, and clinging tenaciously to consciousness by sheer force of will alone, Visser Three slithered back into the water and was soon gone.

(Thank you,) Ax said calmly, as his body continued to drip green slime onto the damaged floor.

"Containment failure in one minute and forty seconds! Have a nice day!"

(We have to get out of here!) Marco yelled, the fact of Visser Threes escape driven from his mind by the Animorphs need to do the same.

(Time to bail, boys and girls!) Tobias concurred, flapping his way off the head of a screaming Hork-Bajir.

"Containment failure suspended at one minute and forty seconds! Have a nice day!"

(What the?)

(Its Visser One!) Cassie exclaimed, loping over to the rest of them, with Slade keeping pace on her right. They both looked worse for wear, after the fight they had been put through; the cuts and the blood matted in their fur was less noticeable on Slade, but the smell of it was thick in the air.

(You should have finished her off when you had the chance!) Rachel hissed, directing her anger to both of them; Marco, however, took it more personally, since for him it was. (Ill take care of this from now on!)

Falling back to all-fours, Rachel barreled in the direction of the building that Visser One his mother had just entered. The one where Ax had futzed with the computers in an effort to get the Yeerk-made implants out of their heads; the one where his mother would live or die depending on what he did next. Ax followed close on her heels.