Having used up so much time drawing Gunnar off, Cassie didn't have any time to let Shara know what had gone on between the pair of them. She could only hope that the other girl wouldn't be too worried about what had happened to her. After her dad had taken her to school for the day, Cassie tried to settle as well as she could into the routine of yet another school day.

At lunch, Cassie looked up to see Rachel making her way over to the table where she was sitting, and the look on her friend's face made her more than a bit apprehensive about what might be coming.

"Jake wants to talk to you after school," Rachel said, after checking to make sure that none of the other students were either looking their way or close enough to overhear what she was saying.

"All right," she said, nodding and briefly chewing her lower lip.

She had the feeling she knew what Jake wanted from her.

Sure enough, when the pair of them met up, once the last of their respective classes had ended, Cassie found that Jake had the determined sort of expression on his face that meant he wanted to talk about something unpleasant. Something more unpleasant than what usually happened in their lives as Animorphs, it seemed like.

"Slade told me what happened at Fenestre's mansion," Jake said, once he'd checked to make sure that the pair of them weren't being followed or watched.

"Oh," she said, sighing. "I guess I should have told you earlier," she said, as the pair of them continued walking toward the parking lot, where their parents were going to pick the pair of them up.

"Yeah, not only about Fenestre, but also about the way Gunnar showed up to attack the both of you," Jake said, narrowing his eyes as the pair of them began coming too close to the rest of the students and their parents to risk talking about anything having to do with the Yeerks, the Radam, or their fight against both of them. "We're going to need to meet up again."

"Yeah," she said, hurrying to catch up with her dad as he pulled into the school's parking lot.

xxxxXxxxx

Later, once he'd managed to get away from Tom, his parents, and the Yeerk in Tom's head, Jake met up with the other Animorphs at Cassie's barn.

"So, what's this about?" Marco asked, once all of them had settled down on their various hay bales. "I thought we weren't going to try to acquire H.A. Third until the weekend."

"This isn't about Mr. Aldershot," he said, glancing over at Cassie for a moment, before returning his attention to the rest of the Animorphs. "That Teknoman who showed up yesterday, Cassie and Slade met him before," he said, nodding to Cassie as she sighed.

"When I took Slade back to Fenestre's mansion," Cassie paused, chewing her lip. "I had Slade transform and attack him," she said quickly. "And then Gunnar showed up. He told Slade that he was there to bring him back to Darkon, and after I told him to ignore what Gunnar was saying, he attacked us. He also came around this morning, so I morphed Shara to draw him off."

Breathing in sharply, since he hadn't known about Gunnar's second visit to the barn, or the fact that Cassie had had to morph into Shara at all, Jake shuddered.

"Shara, are you okay with that?" he asked, turning to look over at the girl as she settled down on a nearby hay bale, while Slade stood behind her, clearly listening for anyone who might try to make it into the room.

"I was the one who asked Cassie to acquire me in the first place," Shara said, looking thoughtful. "Though it was for a different issue I was having."

"I'm glad that worked out for you, then," he said, wondering for a moment if he should ask her about the issue she had been having, before deciding that she'd tell him about it if any further issues came up.

"If Gunnar or some other Teknoman is going to be hunting for them, maybe Tobias should acquire Slade," Marco said, narrowing his eyes as he looked over at where Shara and Slade had positioned themselves.

"I wouldn't mind that," Slade said, glancing up toward the rafters where Tobias was perched.

(All right,) Tobias said, fluttering down from the rafters as Slade held out his right arm to the hawk.

He could only hope that that would be enough, to keep Darkon and his forces from getting their hands on the siblings again.

xxxxXxxxx

Once the rest of the Animorphs had left for the day, Shara settled back into the hayloft again, wondering all the while if Cassie and Tobias being able to morph into her and Slade would be enough to keep Darkon and the Teknomen that he was clearly beginning to hatch in earnest from coming after them. She hoped it would be, but she didn't honestly know.

That was really the worst part, honestly.

The next morning began a lot more normally than the last morning, a fact which Shara could only be grateful for, considering the fact that it was Friday and hence just one day before the mission that the Animorphs were going to undertake to at least make the attempt to acquire Mr. Aldershot. To try to make sure that the Yeerks, at least, wouldn't be able to use his face to access the information his position would allow him to as a matter of course.

And so, Shara allowed herself to relax at least a little bit, even though she knew that Darkon and his forces were still waiting somewhere out in the forest. Even though she knew that all of them were still dangerous.

xxxxXxxxx

After Gunnar had made his report about the strange way that Shara's mental signature had seemingly duplicated itself, and then vanished from his senses entirely, he'd found himself sent out to search for some place that Darkon might be able to harvest the extra energy his plants would need not only to create more Teknomen, but also to create something else.

Something that Darkon seemed particularly eager to begin cultivating, and also something that Darkon didn't seem to want to talk to him about.

He'd been ordered to keep his senses primed, just in case Slade or his sister – Shara, whose name was probably still Shara, given the way she hadn't seemed to have gone through the mind-wipe that Slade had clearly gone through – revealed themselves to him again. As Gunnar left the forest behind, he found himself wondering just what in the hell kind of power-source Darkon expected him to acquire, and just how the Warlord expected him to be able to secure it at all. Still, he was fully aware of what the Warlord would do to him if he refused, or even if he just hung out in the city for a bit.

Still, the Warlord would at least understand if he stopped off to get some food while he searched the city for a source of energy that Darkon could use.