It wasn't easy. Bear paws aren't exactly subtle tools. But after carefully lining up my first claw, I hit the top button.

79 The doors closed and we rose swiftly upward. There was a safety inspection certificate mounted on one wall. I leaned very close to make out the letters, and read it aloud. "Says here the maximum load is twenty people. "

"How many bears, tigers, and gorillas?"

The ride seemed to be taking forever. I watched the counter tick off the floors. Twenty-one.

Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

"So. Seen any good movies lately?" Jake asked.

"I want to go see that new Keanu Reeves movie." I said.

"He's supposed to be cute, right?"

"Duh." I said.

"I wonder if he'd ever want to go out with a girl like me. You know, lots of guys wouldn't want to date a grizzly bear. "

Suddenly I realized there was music playing in the elevator. The usual stupid elevator music.

"Get ready." Jake said.

"Been ready. "

"Top floor. Ladies shoes. Children's apparel. Everyone out." Marco announced in his best elevator operator's voice.

The elevator stopped. The door opened.

Just as three humans and two Hork-Bajir were racing toward the elevator.

"Rrrrrroooowwwwrrrr!" Jake roared in a voice that could crack concrete.

"Rrrrrooooowwwwrrr!" I echoed in my own muddier bear voice.

I charged like an enraged bull. I went straight for the nearest Hork-Bajir. That meant running through the closest human. I felt a slight thump as his body was knocked aside.

I slammed into the Hork-Bajir. The force of my charge just picked him up and carried him along till I hammered into the far wall.

It didn't kill him, but he wasn't going anywhere.

Jake took down the other Hork-Bajir with a lightning swipe of his claws. The remaining humans bolted.

"I'm cut." Jake said.

"Is it bad?"

80 "It isn't good." Jake said.

"But I'll be okay for a while. "

Just then the elevator door opened and Ax and Cassie piled out.

"About time." I said. "We've taken care of the welcoming committee."

"Sorry. Ax pushed the button for the wrong floor." Cassie said. She glanced at the two Hork-Bajir.

"You know they have more than those two up here guarding the Kandrona and. . . Jake!

You're bleeding." Cassie cried.

" I'm fine. The human-Controllers ran down that hallway." Jake said. " Let's go. We haven't won this battle yet. "

I took off at a loping run. The others were right behind me. My claws gouged the carpeted floor with every step. I couldn't see well, but I could smell the adrenalin of the frightened human-Controllers. I knew where they had gone. I could smell them. I could sense them.

They had challenged me. And I was going to show them who was boss.

"Watch out, Rachel." Cassie called. "There's a door straight ahead of you. "

"Nah. There's no door." I said, and plowed all my eight hundred pounds into a steel door that popped open like the lid of a jack-in-the-box.

Inside, eight Hork-Bajir warriors stood ready.

Eight walking razor blades.

Eight of them. Five of us. No way we could win.

A sensible person would have seen the odds and run away. But I charged straight at them.

Later, everyone thought I was being brave.

But you know what the truth was? The truth was, with my weak bear eyesight, all I could see was a blur. I thought they were humans.

I wasn't brave. I was just blind.

81 CHAPTER 21

"Rachel!" Cassie yelled a warning.

"Too late to retreat." Jake said. "GO!"

I figured out the eight blurry figures were Hork-Bajir when I was about three feet away from slamming into the first one. By then it was too late to stop.

"Kill the gaffnur Andalites!" a Hork-Bajir cried in the weird mix of languages that they use.

"Kill fraghent Andalite halaf kill all!"

Suddenly, I realized I was cut. A searing pain radiated from my shoulder. I swung my paw and hit the Hork-Bajir in the head. He fell, but as he fell he slashed with his tyrannosaurus feet, and ripped a second cut in me.

"Aaarrrgghhh!"

From that point on, it was a nightmare of terrible images that seemed to float in and out of my hazy vision.

I saw Cassie, with her bone-breaking jaws sunk into the throat of a Hork-Bajir.

I saw Ax, his tail like a deadly bullwhip, lashing, cutting, lashing again, till one of the Hork-Bajir stood screaming, holding his own severed arm.

I saw Jake and a Hork-Bajir locked in a deadly embrace as they rolled and slashed at each other with superhuman speed.

I saw Marco fighting with one arm as he held his own sliced stomach together with the other hand.

And everywhere, snarling, growling, raging, roaring noise.

"Look out! Rachel, behind you!"

"Die, gaferach, die!"

"RRRROOOWWRRR!"

"Help! He's on me!"

"Aaaahhhhhh!"

I couldn't tell who was winning. I couldn't tell who was hurt. It all became one long cry, one long scream of rage. Hork-Bajir and Animorph.

Alien and animal.

We were flesh-and-blood creatures thrown into a meat grinder. Thirteen deadly animals locked in a combat to the death.

82 I felt the bear weakening as he was cut again and again by Hork-Bajir blades. I was losing blood. The human part of me knew that. I could feel my strength ebbing.

I charged again and hit a Hork-Bajir in the stomach. I carried him along with my momentum as he slashed wildly at me.

CRAAAASSSSHHHH!

I'd hit something! Glass. It had shattered.

A window! I had shoved the Hork-Bajir through the window.

"AAAAAA-AAAARRRRR!"

I heard the Hork-Bajir's cry, dying away as it fell.

A sudden flash of movement, as something came zooming through the shattered window.

"Tseeeeeerrr!"

Tobias screamed as he spread his talons forward and struck the closest Hork-Bajir, raking his eyes.

The battle had turned!

The Hork-Bajir had had enough. Maybe it was hearing one of their fellows fall sixty stories.

Or maybe it was Tobias's arrival, strengthening our side. But whatever it was, the remaining Hork-Bajir ran.

Three of them ran. The rest would not be running anywhere.

Marco grabbed the crumpled door and slammed it back in place. Then, with what must have been the last of his strength, he shoved a desk in place to block the door.

"I'm hurt bad." Marco said. "I gotta morph out, man."

"Do it." Jake said.

"Everyone. Demorph. "

"I'm okay." I said weakly.

"Rachel." Tobias said. "Your left arm. "

I stared blankly at my left paw. It wasn't there. It was a stump.

"Demorphing." I said. I focused on my human body. My weak but healthy human body.

83 Morphing is done from DNA, fortunately. DNA is not affected by injuries, so injuries do not follow you from one morph to another.

Exhaustion does.

As my human body emerged from the vast bulk of the grizzly, I felt so weary I was afraid I might faint.

Through human eyes, I saw a scene of carnage. The Hork-Bajir lay sprawled around the room. Most seemed to be breathing. None were conscious. All were bleeding from claw-and-teeth wounds.

Unfortunately for the Hork-Bajir, they could not simply morph out of their injured bodies.

"Everyone okay?" Jake asked, sounding as weary as I felt.

"Yeah, but that was way too close," Cassie said.