Waiting, tail moving softly from side to side. Confidence of a predator. Strange sounds. Not tiger sounds. Irrelevant. My ears flatten back against my skull, feeling threatened by the strange sound and tail suddenly twitches with displeasure. Black-stripe tiger limps between me and the two-legged. It snarls. No movement, I examine the tiger. Scan it. Hunger, the unending hunger of a hunter. Back leg seriously wounded. I can overpower it, put teeth through the two-legged skull and drag it away. Find a tree, climb it, drag the body up, watch the hurt tiger fail to follow me. I bare my teeth further.
<No way in hell> More sounds, getting on edge. But a deep, deep instinct says that this noise is wrong. It should be mouth sounds from the two-legged. Mouth...sounds? Prepare to growl loudly - <Rachel I know you're there, don't do this. Please> Begging for mercy? The jaguar does not understand mercy...Mercy? A human concept-?
I see past the instincts, the hunger, the wounded enemy. I see past the human and I see past the strange garbled face. I knew the voice. An image came to my mind of the boy that helped me first morph, that figuratively helped me gain my wings. And he was hurt. I froze there for a moment longer in the feline body, noticing for the first time properly that he was clutching his arm, that the tiger- Jake, my cousin, is hurt too. And I wanted to hurt whoever hurt them. I realised dimly that I had hurt people- I had killed those Hork-Bajir, wounded the others. And I was overwhelmed with too many different feelings. Had to focus on right here, right now...focus.
<Sam!> I cried, bounding up to him and automatically rubbing my cheek along his hand, a very feline sign of affection. I barely realised I was doing it, too caught up in my concern. <Jake, Sam...I'm sorry. I didn't practice the morph. I should have done it before I came out here.> I remember now that I haven't harmed them, that these injuries they have are from somewhere else. <I'm sorry...> I said agan, guiltily this time. I feel terrible for putting Sam in danger. I turn and run away, snarling at Hork-Bajir. <Cassie! Cassie!> I shouted for my best friend. My dappled head swung left and right. Ax was fighting and doing a great job of it, almost looking like he was performing a graceful, deadly dance. Shaun, the boy I didn't know was on the pier, making it impossible for them to get any more Yeerks back into human brains. Marco...where was he? There he was, looking for something. It was impressive, the way he handled the giant morph so carefully. I felt a sense of urgency. Tobias, where was Tobias? I looked up and spotted him circling. We were all safe except Cassie. And we needed to find Tom. I remembered now.
Our mission was to free everyone. And Tom. And Cassie. And then destroy the place. Maybe I'd made up that last one, but I definitely wanted to, splashing through puddles of Hork-Bajir blood and realising the floor was unpleasantly slippery. I shut out the thought that Hork-Bajir had died, suffered, instead concentrating on my hatred of this confined, too-warm prison. There was chaos as the humans in cages had no idea what to do and I wanted to end the chaos. Jumping straight for the jugular of a Hork-Bajir, I felt a sharp pain lance through my front. The Hork-Bajir fell backwards with a thump and as I let go of it, I looked down to notice it had raised an arm in self-defence to shield its throat and an arm blade had stabbed me in the chest, down below my throat. I hissed in pain as I tugged my body from it, the pain only serving to feed the jaguar aggression. <Cassie! Where are you?> I shouted. I padded back and fro and only when I searched again for my best friend did I see something that would have made me sick.
A black bear bleeding from a serious wound in its chest. If I imagined it as a human, the wound would be just above its heart. I didn't know how the anatomy of bears worked but the sight was still horrifying. What kind of weapon could do that? I caught sight of the weapon as it was trained on Jake and before I could even react, I was knocked over as the seriously wounded bear shoved me aside and I screamed in thought-speech as I watched a beam shoot through the side of the creature. No. Not of the creature. Of Shaun! Why did I pick such a small battle morph? I got to my feet as quickly as I could, running towards Shaun.
<Nooooooo!> I mauled a Hork-Bajir that got in my way with extreme prejudice, this time using my claws as well as teeth. I skidded to his side. <No no no no no!> I cried. How could this happen? How could we lose someone before even starting? I'd known this was hell as soon as I came in, but we were a team! We were strong, fierce, dangerous animals! How...what could I do? How could he be healed? As if Elfangor was watching over me, his voice came to my memory. '...allow you to acquire the DNA of a creature....DNA...' Science class! I wasn't great at biology but DNA...I remembered! DNA was just the basic makeup of something! DNA carried illnesses and traits like blonde hair. It couldn't carry injuries, could it? <Demorph, Shaun, demorph!> I cried, almost laying down beside him, nudging him gently with my nose and whiskers. <Shaun, if you can hear me, demorph. Imagine your own body!> I sounded almost hysterical.
