"Into the cafeteria here," I whispered. "Combat mode. Get ready."

"Get ready for... where did you get that?"

Cassie had seen my Dracon beam as I drew it. I spun to face the Taxxon.

"He moved! It's an AN-DALITE!" I screamed.

I squeezed the trigger.

TSEEEWWW! Down went the Taxxon like a sack of pudding.

TSEEEWWW! Down went the first human-Controller!

TSEEEWWW! Down went the second.

We were clear. For about three seconds. I ducked into the cafeteria and was already starting to morph. The building was empty. Everyone was outside, gaping in fear at their leader.

"Who's firing over there?" the Visser bellowed. "l said, freeze!" Cassie and I banged through folding chairs and slammed around tables loaded with interrupted meals.

"Back there!" I yelled, pointing to a door. I yanked it open. A food pantry.

And there, sitting calmly atop a crate of canned minestrone and enjoying a banana, sat a gorilla.

"Marco?"

"No, some other gorilla," he said. "l've been trying to contact you two for -"

"Some other time!" I yelled. "Hold this! I'm morphing!" I tossed him the Dracon beam.

"Cool!"

"Visser Three is here. Jake, Tobias, and Ax are surrounded by Hork-Bajir, and there are two hundred pounds of oatmeal in a shed!"

The gorilla blinked. "You have some brilliant yet probably suicidal idea, Xena?"

"No."

"What are you morphing?"

"Grizzly bear. It's butt-kicking time!"

"No, wait!" Cassie said. "The stupid oatmeal! That's the key. If that was in the pool, they'd all go nuts. At least it would be a huge distraction."

"We have to get out the front door of this place, around the building, back to the shed where they store it. A long way."

Marco nodded, like a wise gorilla. "Doesn't that mean it's right back here?" He pointed through the wall.

I smiled. "Come to think of it, it would be a lot shorter trip if we went through the wall."

"Through the wall. Then through the two Hork-Bajir guarding the oatmeal.

Then what?" Cassie asked.

"Then ..." I began. I sighed. "I don't know."

"Good plan," Marco said.

"Let's-" I began.

Marco held up one massive, leathery paw. "No, no. My turn," he said.

"All right, let's do it!"

I began to morph the grizzly bear. But then I stopped. We needed raw power. Truck-style power.

"You guys may get a little cramped," I warned. "I'm gonna get big."

I began to morph the elephant.

It's funny with morphing. It's like choosing your weapons in an old-time duel. In the old days two guys would insult each other, then they would arrange through their friends to "settle" the matter. The person who was challenged would get his choice of weapons. They'd go off early one morning, very civilized, with all the proper ceremony, and sword fight or shoot each other.

Pretty much like some people do today, only nowadays the duelists always seem to slaughter some innocent bystanders.

But that's a little of what it's like. I was going into battle. Which weapon should I use? I liked the bear because it was so utterly powerful and destructive. But in this case, the elephant morph was the proper weapon. And just like with one of those old-time, early-morning duels, I had plenty of time to think about being scared.

I began to change. I began to get large. My legs thickened to become telephone poles. My arms thickened even more and the weight of them made me fall forward.

My fingers and toes disappeared, leaving behind only thick, bony nails.

I realized I could see something flapping around my head. Flapping like someone shaking a sheet out of the dryer. It was my ears, growing thin and huge.

My face bulged outward. It was as if someone were blowing my head up like a balloon. My eyes moved apart, spreading farther and farther, blurring my vision. My nose melted with my upper lip and began to grow like some nightmare Pinoc-chio. It grew till it wasn't a nose anymore, but a rope, a cable, a massive octopus tentacle so strong I could rip trees out of the ground.

I was monstrous, towering huge above Marco, and Cassie in her wolf morph. My back pressed against the roof. My sides shoved crates and boxes aside.

"Marco, look out!" I yelled and Marco dropped the Dracon beam trying to get out of the way. Because at that moment, my teeth ground and cracked and suddenly sprouted. Out, out, out from my mouth they grew, forming two long, curved tusks.

If Marco had stayed where he was, he'd have been impaled.

"Marco, get the Dracon beam. You dropped it. Your fingers are the only ones that can work it."

"Dropped it where? Under you? Great." He crawled awkwardly beneath my bulging gray stomach and emerged with the Dracon beam in his fist.

"Okay," I said. "Right for the oatmeal shed, no stopping. Ready?"

"Ready," Cassie said.

"You know, Jake was right. You just never hear about oatmeal being involved in any of the great battles of history," Marco observed.

"Yeah, whatever," I said tersely. "Come on." I didn't have to do much to go through the back wall of the pantry we were in. I just leaned forward and pushed my head against the wall. My head alone weighed more than half a ton. It was a serious battering ram.

Crrrrr-UNCH! Crunch! Scree-UNCH!

Down came the wall. Down came half the roof on my back. Out we barreled, an elephant, a wolf, and a lumbering gorilla.

The shed was thirty feet away. No more. Not even two body lengths for me. One, two, three steps and I was there!

The two Hork-Bajir yelled and almost ran, but then held their ground. I had to admire that. Go to the zoo some time. Take a good, long look at an African elephant, and imagine that thing charging for you. See how long you'd want to stand there.