Chapter 24: Rachel: The Grizzly's Rage

After the incident at the mall with the mountain lions I continued to fly around the town for a few hours, having to land and demorph then morph again looking for the others. I had already searched Cassie's barn, Tobias's meadow and Ax's scoop but hadn't found anyone. I was flying over Jake's house when I saw his parents packing the car and drive off. That's right, I thought to myself. His parents were going out of town for the weekend so he'd have all night to search for Tobias.

I was running out of ideas where to look for the others and was quickly running out of light as the sun was beginning to set. I decided that I need to make an appearance at home so my mother didn't worry and say that I was going over to Cassie's for a sleepover so I could continue looking for the others all night without my mom wondering where I was.

I was going to fly through my window but when I flew by I saw that someone had closed it, strange, I thought. Because I knew that I had locked my room before I left and I didn't let my family in my room anymore.

So I flew to the roof of a closed Burger King where I and the others left some normal clothes since it was close to our houses. I slid my outer clothes over my morphing suit, threw my shoes on and climbed down the ladder that ran into an alleyway.

I was walking up the driveway when I saw that the front door was slightly open, that's weird, I thought to myself, my mom was a stickler when it came to leaving the front door open. I walked up the front steps and saw that the lock on the door and the latch on the door frame were broken. I drew my hand from the door as fast as I could, looking around trying to see if anyone was around my house. The first thought that came to mind was that someone broke in my house and had attacked my mom and sisters. I stepped back a few feet and considered morphing grizzly just in case they were still in there, but what if no one had broken into my house and I stormed in as a bear, how would I be able to explain that?

I couldn't decide what to do so I tried to sneak in the house as quiet as I could to find out what had happened.

I entered my living room and saw that it was a mess, even more than it was yesterday with the whole mountain lion fiasco. The couch was flipped and the coffee table was splinters against the far wall.

Then suddenly I heard a faint sound coming from the kitchen. A sound that sent a chill down my spine; muffled crying. That threw my mind into a frenzy, several emotions were fighting for control; Fear, Anger, Worry, and Helplessness.

I was morphing grizzly before I could think about what I was doing, if my mom and sisters were being held captive behind this door then I want the ability to severely punish whoever had done this to them.

I was almost full Grizzly when I threw open the kitchen door with pure Grizzly might, knocking it off its hinges and into the wall. I rushed into the room on all fours slamming through the table in the process.

Before me were two blurry figures standing next to three even more blurry figures lying on the ground. Dammit, I thought to myself, Grizzly was perfect for kicking butt and taking names but I couldn't see who was standing in front of me. But that didn't matter, because I knew the three people who were lying on the floor in front of me, screaming, crying and flailing around on the floor because a grizzly bear just burst through the door.

[Mom!] I yelled in open thought speak before I could stop myself, [Jordan, Sarah, don't worry, it's me, I'm going to get you out of here.]

"Rachel?" I heard my mom say with the sound of hope in her voice. "Is that really you?"

[Yeah mom, it's really me, I'm going to get you all out of here as soon as I kick some butt.]

"Ah, isn't that sweet?" The guy on the left said with a sarcastic voice, "The wittle bear thinks she's going to save her mommy." Wait, this guy knew I was the bear? Any normal person would cry for their mommy as they wet their pants if a grizzly burst into the room and started talking. Are these guys Yeerks, did Visser three finally figure out that the so called Andalite Bandits were actually a small group of seventeen year olds? If he did then why were there only two humans? I'd expect nothing less than a dozen Hork-Bajir, but not two humans. Whatever or whoever they were they were going down.

[Wittle bear?] I asked as with a laugh as I stood on my back legs with my head scratching the ceiling.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," This time it was the guy on the right. "If you even twitch we'll kill your family, right here, right now."

[And how exactly do you plan on taking me on with only the two of you as humans?]

"Who said anything about it just being the two of us? Did you Pedro?" They guy on the left asked the guy on the right, laughing.

"Do you really think that we'd be stupid enough to take you on by ourselves? Hell no, we were warned about you, told not to underestimate you. And that's why we brought them along with us." Pedro said as he pointed behind me.

Behind me two very large blurs burst into the room. I recognized the scent of the larger one as a polar bear but the smaller one was a mystery to me. I figured that it was a big cat of some kind, not a tiger or lion, probably a panther or something. Not that it mattered, in my grizzly morph I'm practically unstoppable.

[Who are you?] I roared in thought speak. [How are you able to morph? What are you doing with my family?]

"We're here to bring you to a little reunion party with all of your closest friends, really, you wouldn't want to miss it, believe me, everyone will be there." Pedro answered back. "Everyone from your cousin to your boyfriend, even your best friend, and I know that they'd all hate for you to miss the party, so you should just demorph and come with us."

No way, I thought, they had to be bluffing, there was no way that all the others could be captured so easily. Who were these guys? How can they have the ability to morph. But I didn't care, if the others were captured then I was their only hope, and most likely the last hope for the human race if they were all killed. Whatever it takes I'm going to take these guys down and rescue the others.

The polar bear and whatever cat that it was were about fifteen feet away behind me, in order to save my family and take down the two guys standing by them I'd have to take down the two in morph first. The polar bear would be the tricky one, he had three feet and a few hundred pounds on me, but in this confined space his bulk would be a disadvantage. The big cat though, had me worried, it would be able to make use of it's reflexes and acrobatics to avoid me and fight in this confined area.

I'll take out the polar bear first because he'd be the stronger one. I was thinking back to the time I had tried to pin down Nanook when we were stuck in the North Pole, this was going to be very difficult by myself.

In a blink of an eye the big cat lunged at my face, grabbing and attaching itself to my muzzle, clawing and biting me at the same time.

"Grrooowwwrrrr!" I roared, grabbing the big cat from my face and slamming it into the floor with pure grizzly might, knocking the wind out of it and shattering the tile floor that used to be there. Taking advantage of having the wind knocked out of it I picked up the big cat and threw it at the polar bear knocking it over. I spun around to run to my family when I was met with two other big cats standing where Pedro and the other guy stood.

[What the hell?] I yelled, [How did you two morph that fast?] I stood there stunned, wondering how they could morph in just a few seconds when it took Cassie a few minutes.

Before I could think the two big cats who I could now see were mountain lions lunged at me. I swatted one away into the wall but the other grabbed a hold of my left back leg as I stood at full grizzly height.

"Grrooowwwrrrr!" I roared in pain as I could feel the blood rushing from my leg.

Suddenly from behind me the polar bear tackled me and was attempting to hold me down, the other mountain lion went for my other back leg as the other big cat went for my throat trying to tear it apart.

While this was happening I could hear my mom and sisters screaming and crying. "Rachel," I heard my mom manage to say over my sister's crying, "please…"

[Mom!] I yelled, screaming in pain, [Don't worry, I'll save you.]

[Just give it up already, we have you beat.] Pedro yelled.

[Never, I'll never let you hurt my family.]

"Just do as he says, Rachel," My mother yelled frantically, "They said that if you go with them that they'll leave and wouldn't hurt you. If you keep fighting then you will die, if you go with them then at least you'll be safe."

This stunned me, my own mother was telling me to give up and go with the guys trying to kill me. I couldn't believe what she was saying.

[Your mommie's right, Rachel, if you surrender and come with us then we'll leave your family alone.]

What should I do? I don't trust these people but if I keep fighting then they will kill me and then my family will be helpless.

Then all of a sudden a voiceless thought popped into my head;

{{BE CALM, RACHEL, LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER AND GO WITH THEM.}}

Ellimist? I thought, this isn't exactly the best time right now, I'm kinda busy here.

{{I KNOW. LISTEN TO ME, GO WITH THEM, ALL WILL BE MADE CLEAR SOON ENOUGH.}}

But what about my family? You can't just expect me to abandon them.

{{I WOULD NEVER ASK THAT FROM YOU, DO NOT WORRY, I WILL WATCH OVER THEM. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE, YOU MUST GO NOW.}}

I don't understand, I thought. But as soon as I felt his presence appear, he disappeared. You better be right about this, Ellimist, I thought.

With my mind popping back into reality all I could feel was pain as they were trying to remove my legs.

[Stop] I yelled to them all. [I surrender, let them go. I will go with you.]

They all backed away and watched me closely as I demorphed.

After I finished demorphing they led me out of my destroyed house and into the back of a van where they duct taped my hands and feet and threw a bag over my head.

I thought of morphing back to grizzly and taking them down when they were separated but The Ellimist's words stayed on my mind, no, I thought, I should trust him and wait until he tells me what to do.