(Shara, are you better able to balance yourself?) Ax asked, and Shara had the feeling that he was the one Visser Three was chasing.
She couldn't say it definitively, since unlike when she used telepathy there was no underlying sense of where the person she was speaking to actually was, or even much of how they felt.
(I am, thanks Ax,) she said, adjusting her wings slightly so that the wind would serve to better anchor her to the Visser's back rather than potentially tearing her off the way it would have otherwise. (Are you the one Visser Three's chasing?)
(Yes,) Ax said, and there was the slightest thread of tension carried in the Andalite's otherwise flat thought-speak. (The Visser has morphed into a kafit bird.)
(Is that a bad thing?) Shara asked, not quite sure what was making her fellow Animorph so tense, but knowing that it had to be worse than what she could tell from her friend's flattened thought-speak.
(The only place the Abomination could have acquired a kafit bird in the first place is on the Andalite home world, my home world,) Ax said, and Shara could pick out the subtle threads of unsettled disgust that lingered under the usual flatness of thought-speak. (I cannot stand the thought of Visser Three setting a single hoof on the grass of my homeworld!)
(Wouldn't Visser Three have access to any morphs that his host acquired before he was infested?) she asked, wondering why Ax was so keen on jumping to the worst possible conclusion.
(I… I suppose I hadn't thought of that,) Ax said, and Shara had the feeling that he would have seemed sheepish, if subtle emotions could actually be transmitted over thought-speak.
(I guess this situation isn't really one that lends itself to deep thinking,) Shara allowed, gripping all the tighter to Visser Three's back, even as he tried with all the might of his alien bird morph to throw her off.
(Do you think you could let go?) Ax asked.
(At this speed?) Shara asked, knowing that her frank incredulity would be projected along with the words she was saying. (I'd be lucky if I didn't break a wing from the turbulence. Still, I think there's at least something I can do.)
Suiting actions to words, Shara gripped the Visser's back as tightly as she could with her seagull feet, moving carefully up his back toward the Visser's head. Tearing through the eye on the right side of the Visser's head with her sharp seagull beak, Shara felt a brief, grim sense of satisfaction as she heard the Visser screaming. She thought he might have been talking to Ax, at least before she'd taken his eye, but she hadn't been paying much attention to what their enemy might have been saying.
xxxxXxxxx
Watching as Shara clung to the Abomination's back, after having pecked out his right eye, Aximili felt a muted sense of vindication. Still, in the end it was his duty to avenge Elfangor's death at the hands of Visser Three. To that end, he couldn't allow himself to simply stand back and rely on Shara to defeat the Abomination for him.
(Clever Andalites,) the Abomination said. (I would have expected that only one of you would be willing to attack me. Still, do you truly think that a mere pair of you will be able to kill me?)
Aximili said nothing, at least to the Abomination. (Prince Jake! Keep the others back! Visser Three knows that Shara and I are his enemies, but if the rest of you attack, he will know that the rest of you are not true birds!)
(Stop trying to be a hero, Ax!) Prince Jake snapped. (Tobias!)
(I'm doing the best I can!) his shorm called back. (I'm working with dead air here!)
Turning his attention back to the surrounding area, Aximili looked around to see how he might use the terrain he was currently flying over to his own advantage. He'd previously found that he could at least out turn the kafit bird, though only when he had the advantage of surprise, so he was going to need some way of leveraging that particular skill if he wished to keep himself from being killed by the predatory bird that the Abomination had morphed.
Catching sight of a golden sign, standing above yet another of the fast-food restaurants that seemed to be endemic to this part of the city for whatever reason, Aximili determined that the pair of conjoined arches would be the optimal place to put the plan he'd been forming into motion. Diving in through one of the arches, knowing that he would have a better chance of surviving this encounter with the Abomination if he used the advantages he presently possessed, Aximili flew.
What few advantages he actually had.
