The hidden animorphs 42, p.5
The Hidden (Animorphs 42), page 5
Jake yelled.
over here, Marco! Hurry!>
One of the cops made a quick motion and A spotlight split the darkness, only feet from four or five Hork-Bajir stepped out of the woods the soaring blue box.
and around the patrol cars.
I held my breath.
The buffalo snorted and tossed its head. 74
75
powerful animal, but my stomach turned at the I now knew what that motion meant. I had exthought of pitting buffalo against buffalo. perienced it firsthand. Aggression. It was going
Ax said quietly. ing all night.
Jake said wearily.
Ax said, his voice firm.
Rachel said. Grudging admiration tinged her voice.
Marco said.
No winning this one. If the buffalo was killed in battle, we'd be safe. And our hands — my hands — wouldn't be stained with blood containing human DNA. But I knew Marco was right. The Controller who caught a live "Andalite bandit" would probably be well rewarded. The Controller who killed it would be, well, probably dead himself.
We were going to have to destroy the buffalo. If we we're closer to home, we might have been able to do it humanely, to euthanize it using my father's vet supplies. But I wasn't home. And now I didn't know when the chance would come, or what morph we would use to destroy such a 77
76
Ax announced coldly, in public thought-speak, as the leader of the Yeerk invasion leaped nimbly from the helicopter.
Visser Three said almost graciously, glancing at us and chortling to himself. His gaze lingered on the buffalo standing nearby. He stepped up to the buffalo and jabbed a slender finger down into one of its gaping wounds.
Th
he helicopter was coming straight toward us. The buffalo snorted and swung its head, its The fighting stopped.
horn narrowly missing Visser Three. The visser
I yelled. I shot beneath the moved away slowly, his main eyes half-mast. Alskids and head-butted Jake with everything I most as if he were drugged.
had. Which was just enough to make him stum Marco muttered. licopter.
he grunted.
of his funk.
Rachel said bitterly. Controllers left standing. So did we.
I looked at the buffalo. Its flanks were heavI didn't look around. I stood with my head ing. It stood, head high, and stared at the figure down, hiding the cube that was still tucked into emerging from the helicopter.
my mouth.
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79
<0r perhaps one of you has it with you now,>
TSEEW! TSEEW!
Visser Three said, in a suddenly low, silky voice.
Visser Three commanded, pointHe turned away from the buffalo and glared at ing imperiously at the buffalo in Andalite morph. each of us.
beg to die,> he said.
The Hork-Bajir-Controllers hesitated, torn be Ax tween the two.
said urgently. Visser Three's Andalite tail came up.
Marco crowed. The buffa-Andalite's did, too.
While the real Visser Three was raging at FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lopped off one of the Hork-Bajir for not finding the cube, the the buffalo's Andalite arms.
buffalo was turning blue, growing eye stalks, The buffalo bellowed in open thought-speak and thin, almost graceful arms. Turning into and charged. Slapped and whipped its tail with an exact replica of the visser's stolen Andalite little skill but with major fury. Drove Visser Three body.
back.
Including a curved and lethal Andalite tail. The Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers milled
Jake said in helpless confusion, not daring to attack the tensely.
sees that buffa-Andalite, we get out of here!
Jake yelled, charging into a Head straight for the beach!>
knot of Hork-Bajir and plowing open a huge hole.
I asked. I watched He ran into the woods with us behind him, tramas it experimentally flicked its tail, severing the pling anything that got in our way.
arm of a Hork-Bajir in the process.
had actually helped us fight and I didn't want to
Jake said, as the Hork-Bajir leave it behind to be killed. Or worse. •
cried out in pain.
FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lashed out again. Visser Three turned toward the sound.
One of the buffalo's eye stalks fell to the
Jake shouted.
ground.
"Grrr GrrrOWWWRR!" I plowed through the The buffalo's tail jerked forward, more of a terrified human-Controllers.
pain reaction than anything, and the dull side of 80
81
his tailblade whacked Visser Three on the side of his head.
He dropped like a stone.
The Hork-Bajir stood silent, uncertain. The buffalo in the Andalite's body galloped through the Hork-Bajir and into the woods. Following us.
T h e beach was getting closer but we were wounded and tired.
I could hear the Hork-Bajir behind us, not right on our tails but gaining fast.
Tobias had already demorphed and taken to the sky.
Jake sighed.
I shivered. So many things could go wrong.
Jake continued.
He looked straight at me. 82
83
sharp, curving horns.
Rachel — of course. The buffalo began to darken and swell, mim I said slowly.
tension eased. It had followed me as a Cape bufAnd probably be killed. I felt like the worst of falo before and by doing so, had already estaball traitors. lished our hierarchy.
Jake said. He nodded.
we're out of here. Cassie?>
We both lifted our heads, noses twitching.
Caught the scent of approaching danger. And
He took the cube in knew to protect the herd.
his mouth.
I snorted.
/ hope so, I thought. But I didn't say it, not It snorted.
even in private thought-speak. Instead, I watched We tossed our horns and I lumbered into the as they took off through the thinning forest. tall bushes, the buffalo following.
The buffa-Andalite shifted.
We would wait. And then we would ambush I turned back to face it. It was wounded and the Hork-Bajir. That's when I noticed the drop-off bloody, its lone eye stalk drooping. Somehow, I on the edge of the ravine. Not too far down but had to get him to demorph back into his true bufdefinitely far enough down to hurt. falo self, where he was at his most lethal. They started to come at us quietly, cautiously, Where I could use him most effectively. and within minutes.
And I had to use my own buffalo morph so we We waited until they were almost equal with could fight side by side with full power. us and then . . .
I focused on my human DNA. Demorphed as I bulldozed out of the bushes, knocking down rapidly as I could, trying not to give the buffalo trees, goring and slashing as I allowed the buftime to mimic me. I went from tired, wounded falo's defense instincts to kick in and send me wolf to puny, human girl and then bulked right into a wild, raging fury.
84
85
And still more Hork-Bajir fought their way through the narrow ravine.
Visser Three thundered at his troops.
My blood ran cold.
He was morphing. His stolen Andalite body bulging and melting, turning black and gooey. Oozing forward and tainting everything he touched. Making the nearby Hork-Bajir's skin sizzle and bubble like it was being dissolved with acid. Short, thick, dripping tentacles shot out of his body, and a huge, wet, red mouth with buzzsaw teeth chomped and smacked, drooling the same smoking, sizzling acid.
Time to go, I thought, as Visser Three pointed Terror. Sheer panic.
a tentacle at me.
Falling was nothing like flying.
A stream of acid flew through the air. It splatNo control at all. tered the Hork-Bajir in front of me and sent it My buffalo instincts went insane.
howling and writhing to the ground.
I bellowed, legs scrabbling for something, The holes in its skin bubbled and stank. anything, to hold on to. My heart slammed into I wheeled.
my chest and panic froze my blood.
Powered up my short, muscular legs.
I crashed down through a thick, brittle layer And with a loud, snorting call to the buffalo, of scrub bushes, falling . . .
barreled"to the edge of the drop-off and jumped. The rocks shot up at me, hard and cruel and —
WHUMPRCRRUNNCH!
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Pain was everywhere, pounding and tearing at me.
WHUMPF! CRRAAACCCKKK!
86
87
The ground shook when the buffalo landed I began to demorph, slowly at first, then gainbeside me. ing speed.
I opened my eyes, dazed. And through a hazy My shattered bones ground and reformed. mist of agony saw the buffalo raise its head and
"Come on," I urged, as the buffalo groaned look at me. It bawled piteously and struggled to and began to shift shape.
rise.
I crouched beneath the bushes beside it. It couldn't. It had snapped a couple of Sickened by the transformation, yet unwilling to legs; the bones jutted out through the torn, leave him there to die like this, or live on as a ragged skin. Blood pumped and stained the crippled bloody mess. Or be captured by the ground.
Yeerks.
It was in agony, but it wasn't dying. Yet. A human head. Nose stretching, slimming. I was bleeding, too, from the branch that had Eyes crawling from the sides to the front of the speared into my stomach on the way down. face. Teeth shrinking, ears popping out.
. Infection's going to set in, I thought dimly. The buffa-human opened its eyes and looked Someone had better cleanse this wound really at me.
thoroughly or —
"Come on," I said, when the morph was comNo. No one was going to cleanse my wounds. plete. I stood up.
No one was going to save me.
The buffa-human — Chapman —got to his
The world got smaller, then expanded. I knees. Shakily, he rose onto two feet and swayed. blinked, fighting the wooziness.
Took a wobbly step toward me. Snorted.
My blood was pumping out of my chest with I snorted back. "Come on."
every beat of my thundering heart. I would probaWe traveled slowly, keeping close to the dropbly die before the buffalo did. If it did. off base where the Hork-Bajir couldn't see us. We The buffalo bawled again. Its unbroken legs were safe for the moment. They weren't-coming churned the dirt.
down the same way we did.
There was only one way to save us.
Visser Three knew it, too, and his enraged
I said to the buffalo. shouts echoed through the canyon.
Its head jerked and he focused its eyes upon The buffa-human stiffened at the sound. me.
Tossed its head.
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89
"Don't listen," I said, motioning it on after ther's Wildlife Rehab, especially when I was me. "Come on, we have to find the others." changing their bandages or cleaning their cages. But even as I said it, I was filled with a sick Calm words seemed to soothe them —
mixture of hope and dread. What was going to But this was different and I knew it.
happen to this sad, messed-up creature when we
"There she is! Cassie!"
did meet up with the rest of the "herd"?
The shout was faint.
We couldn't let it live and yet everything inI looked up and saw Jake waving. side me rebelled at the thought of killing it. I My spirits shot up and suddenly, buffa-human could have let it die back there — Marco and or no buffa-human, I was glad to be reunited with Rachel would probably say I should have and my friends.
Jake had expected me to — but I just couldn't. No matter what happened in the end.
And I was at least partially responsible for its awful situation. To have walked away and left it when I knew a way to help i t . . . Well, I just couldn't.
If it had to die, it had to die fast, without excess pain. Not lingering. Not inhumanely.
"Guuuuhhh," it said, stumbling along behind me on its tender, human feet. "Goowwww."
"You have to walk carefully," I said, pointing down at the smooth patch of rock I was standing on. "See?" I stepped on another smooth surface, avoiding a tangle of sticker bushes. "Like this." The buffa-human frowned but stepped where I'd stepped. Its face cleared. "Guuhh."
"Yes, that's good," I said, my heart sinking right down to the bottom of my stomach. What was I doing? I shouldn't be talking to it — but I always talked to the wounded animals in my fa90
91
blank, absent of human recognition and intelligence. It was watching us, though, and warily sniffing the air. It was listening, too, gauging the tones of our communication and on the alert for any type of alarm call. A buffalo in human skin. It was unnerving.
"It's gross," Marco said, looking away.
Ax looked at me with his main eyes while the ones on stalks surveyed the area.
"Yeah," Jake said, weakly smiling at me as I sat down on the rocks next to him, keeping the blue box between us. "Glad you made it."
"Me, too," I said, smiling back, faintly. "That How could it have survived that fall?" drop-off was pretty bad."
Marco asked, glancing pointedly at the buffa"Guhhhhd," the buffa-human said, tensing human and giving me a hard look.
when all heads swiveled in its direction. "Guh"It was pretty bad," I admitted, avoiding his hhd?"
cool gaze. "It saw me demorph, though and mim"No, not good, bad," Marco said, scowling. icked me. I guess that saved it." Sure. I guessed. The buffa-human frowned and pressed its How about I knew?
lips together. "Baaaaadd?"
"I just can't get right with this," Rachel said.
"I'm teaching my assistant principal to talk,"
"I mean, it's bad enough that we have this muMarco said. "Is this whacked or what?" tant thing following us around, but did it have to
Tobias said. Rememgo and acquire someone we know? I know I'll ber that. It's not Chapman.>
never be able to look at Chapman again without
black ant from the morphing cube. It hit the The buffa-human had hunkered down at the ground and ran up my leg.
edge of our circle. Its eyes were disturbingly
"No, it's not, Cassie. It's only mimicking," 92
93
Rachel insisted, shaking her head. "Don't make I turned away as the others began their this more than it is. It should have died a long morphs.
time ago."
"Ready?" I said in a low voice to the buffa"She's right," Marco said, giving me a knowhuman, blocking his view of the others. ing look. "You didn't do it any favors by keeping It cocked its head. "Guuuuhhhdd." it alive, Cassie. Now one of us is going to have
"Yes, you're good," I whispered, closing my to . . . "
eyes and concentrating on the buffalo's' *Werful There was an uncomfortable pause.
DNA. "Now, pay attention."
"Well," Jake said, rising. "I think we'd better I felt the changes begin. The usual. Bones get moving again. The Yeerks are going to find grinding, contorting, wrenching backward and us, no question about that, but we want to be in forward, stretching and disappearing. The feeling place when it happens."
that your entire body is shot full of Novocain, so
"Mee-meep," Marco said, jumping up. "Anvil you're aware of the impossible crunches and gurtime." gles, but you don't actually feel them. I rose slowly. The buffa-human did, too. I opened my eyes and saw the buffa-human
"You have to get it to morph back to buffalo," finishing its morph. Thick horns were crawling Jake said, avoiding my eyes. "It's probably safest out of the center of its massive head, slithering that way. The rest of us will head out. We'll move down past its tufted ears, and curving back up slow enough for you to catch up, Cassie." with deadly accuracy.
And the buffalo? I wanted to ask. What about
SPRROOT!
it? Am I supposed to lead it off another cliff, or out Its tail sprouted and it flicked it.
into the dangerous undertow and abandon it?
over here, Marco! Hurry!>
One of the cops made a quick motion and A spotlight split the darkness, only feet from four or five Hork-Bajir stepped out of the woods the soaring blue box.
and around the patrol cars.
I held my breath.
The buffalo snorted and tossed its head. 74
75
powerful animal, but my stomach turned at the I now knew what that motion meant. I had exthought of pitting buffalo against buffalo. perienced it firsthand. Aggression. It was going
No winning this one. If the buffalo was killed in battle, we'd be safe. And our hands — my hands — wouldn't be stained with blood containing human DNA. But I knew Marco was right. The Controller who caught a live "Andalite bandit" would probably be well rewarded. The Controller who killed it would be, well, probably dead himself.
We were going to have to destroy the buffalo. If we we're closer to home, we might have been able to do it humanely, to euthanize it using my father's vet supplies. But I wasn't home. And now I didn't know when the chance would come, or what morph we would use to destroy such a 77
76
Th
he helicopter was coming straight toward us. The buffalo snorted and swung its head, its The fighting stopped.
horn narrowly missing Visser Three. The visser
had. Which was just enough to make him stum
of his funk.
I looked at the buffalo. Its flanks were heavI didn't look around. I stood with my head ing. It stood, head high, and stared at the figure down, hiding the cube that was still tucked into emerging from the helicopter.
my mouth.
78
79
<0r perhaps one of you has it with you now,>
TSEEW! TSEEW!
Visser Three said, in a suddenly low, silky voice.
beg to die,> he said.
The Hork-Bajir-Controllers hesitated, torn be
said urgently.
While the real Visser Three was raging at FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lopped off one of the Hork-Bajir for not finding the cube, the the buffalo's Andalite arms.
buffalo was turning blue, growing eye stalks, The buffalo bellowed in open thought-speak and thin, almost graceful arms. Turning into and charged. Slapped and whipped its tail with an exact replica of the visser's stolen Andalite little skill but with major fury. Drove Visser Three body.
back.
Including a curved and lethal Andalite tail. The Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers milled
sees that buffa-Andalite, we get out of here!
knot of Hork-Bajir and plowing open a huge hole.
arm of a Hork-Bajir in the process.
had actually helped us fight and I didn't want to
cried out in pain.
FWAPP! Visser Three's tail lashed out again. Visser Three turned toward the sound.
One of the buffalo's eye stalks fell to the
ground.
"Grrr GrrrOWWWRR!" I plowed through the The buffalo's tail jerked forward, more of a terrified human-Controllers.
pain reaction than anything, and the dull side of 80
81
his tailblade whacked Visser Three on the side of his head.
He dropped like a stone.
The Hork-Bajir stood silent, uncertain. The buffalo in the Andalite's body galloped through the Hork-Bajir and into the woods. Following us.
T h e beach was getting closer but we were wounded and tired.
I could hear the Hork-Bajir behind us, not right on our tails but gaining fast.
Jake sighed.
I shivered. So many things could go wrong.
83
sharp, curving horns.
tension eased. It had followed me as a Cape bufAnd probably be killed. I felt like the worst of falo before and by doing so, had already estaball traitors. lished our hierarchy.
we're out of here. Cassie?>
We both lifted our heads, noses twitching.
Caught the scent of approaching danger. And
his mouth.
I snorted.
/ hope so, I thought. But I didn't say it, not It snorted.
even in private thought-speak. Instead, I watched We tossed our horns and I lumbered into the as they took off through the thinning forest. tall bushes, the buffalo following.
The buffa-Andalite shifted.
We would wait. And then we would ambush I turned back to face it. It was wounded and the Hork-Bajir. That's when I noticed the drop-off bloody, its lone eye stalk drooping. Somehow, I on the edge of the ravine. Not too far down but had to get him to demorph back into his true bufdefinitely far enough down to hurt. falo self, where he was at his most lethal. They started to come at us quietly, cautiously, Where I could use him most effectively. and within minutes.
And I had to use my own buffalo morph so we We waited until they were almost equal with could fight side by side with full power. us and then . . .
I focused on my human DNA. Demorphed as I bulldozed out of the bushes, knocking down rapidly as I could, trying not to give the buffalo trees, goring and slashing as I allowed the buftime to mimic me. I went from tired, wounded falo's defense instincts to kick in and send me wolf to puny, human girl and then bulked right into a wild, raging fury.
84
85
And still more Hork-Bajir fought their way through the narrow ravine.
My blood ran cold.
He was morphing. His stolen Andalite body bulging and melting, turning black and gooey. Oozing forward and tainting everything he touched. Making the nearby Hork-Bajir's skin sizzle and bubble like it was being dissolved with acid. Short, thick, dripping tentacles shot out of his body, and a huge, wet, red mouth with buzzsaw teeth chomped and smacked, drooling the same smoking, sizzling acid.
Time to go, I thought, as Visser Three pointed Terror. Sheer panic.
a tentacle at me.
Falling was nothing like flying.
A stream of acid flew through the air. It splatNo control at all. tered the Hork-Bajir in front of me and sent it My buffalo instincts went insane.
howling and writhing to the ground.
I bellowed, legs scrabbling for something, The holes in its skin bubbled and stank. anything, to hold on to. My heart slammed into I wheeled.
my chest and panic froze my blood.
Powered up my short, muscular legs.
I crashed down through a thick, brittle layer And with a loud, snorting call to the buffalo, of scrub bushes, falling . . .
barreled"to the edge of the drop-off and jumped. The rocks shot up at me, hard and cruel and —
WHUMPRCRRUNNCH!
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Pain was everywhere, pounding and tearing at me.
WHUMPF! CRRAAACCCKKK!
86
87
The ground shook when the buffalo landed I began to demorph, slowly at first, then gainbeside me. ing speed.
I opened my eyes, dazed. And through a hazy My shattered bones ground and reformed. mist of agony saw the buffalo raise its head and
"Come on," I urged, as the buffalo groaned look at me. It bawled piteously and struggled to and began to shift shape.
rise.
I crouched beneath the bushes beside it. It couldn't. It had snapped a couple of Sickened by the transformation, yet unwilling to legs; the bones jutted out through the torn, leave him there to die like this, or live on as a ragged skin. Blood pumped and stained the crippled bloody mess. Or be captured by the ground.
Yeerks.
It was in agony, but it wasn't dying. Yet. A human head. Nose stretching, slimming. I was bleeding, too, from the branch that had Eyes crawling from the sides to the front of the speared into my stomach on the way down. face. Teeth shrinking, ears popping out.
. Infection's going to set in, I thought dimly. The buffa-human opened its eyes and looked Someone had better cleanse this wound really at me.
thoroughly or —
"Come on," I said, when the morph was comNo. No one was going to cleanse my wounds. plete. I stood up.
No one was going to save me.
The buffa-human — Chapman —got to his
The world got smaller, then expanded. I knees. Shakily, he rose onto two feet and swayed. blinked, fighting the wooziness.
Took a wobbly step toward me. Snorted.
My blood was pumping out of my chest with I snorted back. "Come on."
every beat of my thundering heart. I would probaWe traveled slowly, keeping close to the dropbly die before the buffalo did. If it did. off base where the Hork-Bajir couldn't see us. We The buffalo bawled again. Its unbroken legs were safe for the moment. They weren't-coming churned the dirt.
down the same way we did.
There was only one way to save us.
Visser Three knew it, too, and his enraged
Its head jerked and he focused its eyes upon The buffa-human stiffened at the sound. me.
Tossed its head.
88
89
"Don't listen," I said, motioning it on after ther's Wildlife Rehab, especially when I was me. "Come on, we have to find the others." changing their bandages or cleaning their cages. But even as I said it, I was filled with a sick Calm words seemed to soothe them —
mixture of hope and dread. What was going to But this was different and I knew it.
happen to this sad, messed-up creature when we
"There she is! Cassie!"
did meet up with the rest of the "herd"?
The shout was faint.
We couldn't let it live and yet everything inI looked up and saw Jake waving. side me rebelled at the thought of killing it. I My spirits shot up and suddenly, buffa-human could have let it die back there — Marco and or no buffa-human, I was glad to be reunited with Rachel would probably say I should have and my friends.
Jake had expected me to — but I just couldn't. No matter what happened in the end.
And I was at least partially responsible for its awful situation. To have walked away and left it when I knew a way to help i t . . . Well, I just couldn't.
If it had to die, it had to die fast, without excess pain. Not lingering. Not inhumanely.
"Guuuuhhh," it said, stumbling along behind me on its tender, human feet. "Goowwww."
"You have to walk carefully," I said, pointing down at the smooth patch of rock I was standing on. "See?" I stepped on another smooth surface, avoiding a tangle of sticker bushes. "Like this." The buffa-human frowned but stepped where I'd stepped. Its face cleared. "Guuhh."
"Yes, that's good," I said, my heart sinking right down to the bottom of my stomach. What was I doing? I shouldn't be talking to it — but I always talked to the wounded animals in my fa90
91
blank, absent of human recognition and intelligence. It was watching us, though, and warily sniffing the air. It was listening, too, gauging the tones of our communication and on the alert for any type of alarm call. A buffalo in human skin. It was unnerving.
"It's gross," Marco said, looking away.
"Yeah," Jake said, weakly smiling at me as I sat down on the rocks next to him, keeping the blue box between us. "Glad you made it."
"Me, too," I said, smiling back, faintly. "That How could it have survived that fall?" drop-off was pretty bad."
Marco asked, glancing pointedly at the buffa"Guhhhhd," the buffa-human said, tensing human and giving me a hard look.
when all heads swiveled in its direction. "Guh"It was pretty bad," I admitted, avoiding his hhd?"
cool gaze. "It saw me demorph, though and mim"No, not good, bad," Marco said, scowling. icked me. I guess that saved it." Sure. I guessed. The buffa-human frowned and pressed its How about I knew?
lips together. "Baaaaadd?"
"I just can't get right with this," Rachel said.
"I'm teaching my assistant principal to talk,"
"I mean, it's bad enough that we have this muMarco said. "Is this whacked or what?" tant thing following us around, but did it have to
never be able to look at Chapman again without
black ant from the morphing cube. It hit the The buffa-human had hunkered down at the ground and ran up my leg.
edge of our circle. Its eyes were disturbingly
"No, it's not, Cassie. It's only mimicking," 92
93
Rachel insisted, shaking her head. "Don't make I turned away as the others began their this more than it is. It should have died a long morphs.
time ago."
"Ready?" I said in a low voice to the buffa"She's right," Marco said, giving me a knowhuman, blocking his view of the others. ing look. "You didn't do it any favors by keeping It cocked its head. "Guuuuhhhdd." it alive, Cassie. Now one of us is going to have
"Yes, you're good," I whispered, closing my to . . . "
eyes and concentrating on the buffalo's' *Werful There was an uncomfortable pause.
DNA. "Now, pay attention."
"Well," Jake said, rising. "I think we'd better I felt the changes begin. The usual. Bones get moving again. The Yeerks are going to find grinding, contorting, wrenching backward and us, no question about that, but we want to be in forward, stretching and disappearing. The feeling place when it happens."
that your entire body is shot full of Novocain, so
"Mee-meep," Marco said, jumping up. "Anvil you're aware of the impossible crunches and gurtime." gles, but you don't actually feel them. I rose slowly. The buffa-human did, too. I opened my eyes and saw the buffa-human
"You have to get it to morph back to buffalo," finishing its morph. Thick horns were crawling Jake said, avoiding my eyes. "It's probably safest out of the center of its massive head, slithering that way. The rest of us will head out. We'll move down past its tufted ears, and curving back up slow enough for you to catch up, Cassie." with deadly accuracy.
And the buffalo? I wanted to ask. What about
SPRROOT!
it? Am I supposed to lead it off another cliff, or out Its tail sprouted and it flicked it.
into the dangerous undertow and abandon it?
