Opening her talons as she raked them forward, Rachel clamped down on both the collar of his shirt and the man's own collarbone. She was fairly sure that this action had hurt him, but none of those present were concerned about that.

Tobias came in with the swiftness granted to him by long experience, grabbing the man's left arm and holding tight. Shara and Jake arrived at nearly the same instant; Jake grabbing the back of the man's collar, while Shara sank her talons into his left shoulder. Slade grabbed onto the man's right shoulder, and then the man started screaming.

(Hell of a time for this,) Shara groused, annoyed.

(Glide toward the water!) Tobias ordered tersely. (No, don't flap you idiots! Glide!)

Stilling her wings with an effort of will, Rachel forgave Tobias for calling them idiots; he was the one with the most flying experience, the expert. Besides, this situation was almost tailor-made for making people tense and snappish. Cassie and Ax arrived then, sinking their own talons into the man's upper-arms, and Marco arrived last of all, gripping the back of the falling man's pale gray suit jacket.

(Line your wings up on my angle!) Tobias commanded. (Like you're aiming for a level glide, but stay focused on the river!)

Bringing her wings into line with Tobias' own, glad that there was at least someone there who knew what they were doing, Rachel tried to ignore the loud screams still echoing in her ears. The man was clearly panicking, and as much as it annoyed her to have to deal with it, she knew he had valid reasons. He had started falling a bit slower; not nearly enough to ensure that the landing wouldn't kill him, but slower all the same.

He was also moving slightly forward as he fell, being steered toward the water's edge by the activities of their bird morphs. She didn't quite know if they would make it, it was like some insane geometry problem that she was being tasked to solve, but Rachel hoped. It would be really annoying to have all of this hard work that they were doing go to waste.

The ground seemed to rush up to hit them, moving all the faster than it had been while she had had something else to focus on. It was too close now; only fifty feet of open air between them and the man they were trying to rescue. Not enough time!

Just then, the nine of them passed over the water's edge.

(Release! Release, but watch out for the snapback!) Tobias shouted.

Opening her talons at the same time as the others, Rachel found herself tumbling end-over-end. Flapping twisting and flapping some more, she managed to right herself before she would have fallen into the river alongside the man. She finally understood what Tobias had meant when he had warned them about the snapback.

Filling her wings with a chance headwind, Rachel soared and circled back up into the sky to meet up with her fellow Animorphs.

(Hah-HAH! Wow! Oh, that was so cool!) she exulted; then, feeling slightly guilty for having forgotten about the others, even if only for a few moments, she decided to ask after them. (Everyone else okay?)

When all of her fellow Animorphs had answered in the affirmative, Rachel turned her attention back to the man who had just tried to kill himself. He wasn't on or even near the surface of the river he'd landed in, and as she wheeled around over the water, searching for signs of the man she'd just helped to rescue, Rachel saw why: the man had plunged ten feet down into the river, and had actually ended up stuck in the silt-filled mud at the bottom. He was panicking now, thrashing his arms and throwing up huge, billowing clouds of mud, silt, and churning up masses of bubbles.

(You have got to be kidding me,) Rachel groused, once she had managed to take in the man's new situation. (He's stuck in the mud at the bottom of the river!) she reported, swiftly becoming annoyed; she'd still do her best to save him, of course, but this was just ridiculous. (Cassie, Marco, come on! We're supposed to be waterbirds, right?)

Folding her wings, Rachel fell from the sky like a thrown rock, shedding the altitude she had just gained and converting it into momentum for her plunge. The barrier between air and water loomed in front of her for a few moments, before she shot through it. It was a really cool feeling, Rachel reflected, having warm air against her body one moment and then cold water the next.

Then, it stopped being so cool.

The water didn't soak up into her feathers, so she would clearly still be able to fly once she got out, but her wings were almost impossible to move under the weight of the surrounding water. Rachel had thought, just as she had plunged into the water, that she would be able to move in just the same way as she had while in the air; that she would just sort of fly underwater. However, that was far from the case here.

(Cassie! Marco! Don't do it!) she shouted, hoping her friends would hear her in time to sheer off and save themselves.

(No duh,) Marco retorted. (Just because you're a complete lunatic, doesn't mean the rest of us are, Rachel.)

(You have to get into another morph, Rachel!) Cassie shouted. (He's struggling now; if he hits your Eagle morph, he could break your bones, or even end up drowning you!)

She'd already started demorphing, though more for the fact that she could barely move in her current morph as opposed to any danger she might have been in from someone flailing around, but Rachel was glad to know that Cassie was still looking out for her.

XXXX

When she'd seen Rachel dive into the water, and in spite of the fact that she knew she probably wouldn't do any good to her in her current morph, Shara had dove right down after her. She'd heard some of the others calling for her to stop, and even thought one of them might have been Jake, but she wasn't going to give up on Rachel just because some of the others were telling her not to go. She wasn't Slade, after all.

Falling into the water, Shara didn't even bother trying to move her wings, instead she started her demorph and once she had most of her leg-strength back, she kicked her way toward Rachel. The other girl had just taken a breath of air, something that Shara's own lungs were letting her know would be a good idea at the moment, so she rolled over in the water and stuck her head back out.

Blowing out the stale air lingering in her lungs, Shara sucked in as deep a breath as she could and then dove back under the water. Powering her way downward even as her better-than-human-vision reasserted itself, Shara found Rachel as she was well on her way to becoming a dolphin. It was a good choice, she had to admit.

(Shara? What're you doing all the way down here?)

(I might be inclined to ask you just the same question, Rachel,) she said, swimming closer. (Come on; let's go save that guy you found.)

(Right,) Rachel said, as she swam up and offered her dorsal fin to Shara. (I'd just about forgotten you could do that,) she muttered, sounding like she hadn't quite meant to voice that thought.

(Well, you've got to admit, it's a useful talent for times like this,) she said, continuing to kick even as she was pulled along by Rachel.

They soon found the man who had tried to kill himself, and Shara wondered briefly what he had been thinking. What must his life have been like, that he'd seen death as his only escape? She wouldn't have the chance to ask him, of course, since she and Rachel were the only ones who could communicate in any kind of understandable way when they were in environments like this, but she was curious all the same.

Wrapping her legs around Rachel's midsection, Shara gripped the man under the arms and pulled with all of her considerable strength. Rachel was also doing her part, pushing the man out of the mud he'd landed in with her beak, churning the water as she beat it with her powerful tail. With one last, mighty wrench, they tore the man free from the mud and Shara relaxed slightly as Rachel began to power them all towards the riverbank.

Releasing her grip for a few moments, Shara gulped the last breath she could safely take, then ducked back under the water. Steadying the man, she crossed her legs at the ankles and abandoned herself to Rachel's forward momentum. Moving less meant she would use less of her stored oxygen, and at this point that was really the best idea.

No sense in letting the people on land know just what kind of strange things had happened tonight.

When they reached the riverbank, she knew where they were because she had periodically opened her eyes to check their position, though the mud in the river made her eyes sting something fierce, she saw a pair of arms reaching down into the water. Smiling slightly, knowing that her job was almost done at last, Shara released her hold and let whoever this new person was take care of the man.

The fingers brushed hers, and on impulse Shara gave them a brief squeeze, a way of saying 'thank you' when there was no feasible way of expressing thanks in a more conventional manner; she couldn't exactly use her telepathy on this man, after all.

Pulling away as the hands tried to grab at her, since she would be leaving with Rachel soon enough, Shara released her hold and kicked away from the riverbank. Grabbing onto Rachel's dorsal fin as she closed ranks with the younger girl, Shara relaxed a bit. She was starting to feel a bit light-headed from lack of oxygen, but there was an easy solution for that kind of thing.