"He's morphing! The Visser. He's halfway morphed!"

"He's getting out of his Andalite shape, taking on some form that won't absorb the water," Jake said. "Then the stupid oatmeal won't bother him.

He'll come for us!"

"How far along is he?" Ax demanded.

"Can't tell," Tobias cried. "He's going under! He's submerging!" I glanced up the stairs. A long way still to go. And I was weak from my injuries. Yet I couldn't demorph and reveal that my true shape was human. Plenty of time for Visser Three to come popping up out of the water in one of his vile, alien morphs and come for us.

We were weak and exposed on the stairs. I was practically out of the fight. Jake was still a bat. No way to win if he managed to come after us.

"Marco has to shoot," I said. I looked at Cassie and Tobias to see if either of them would object.

"He's not leaving us any choice," Tobias said grimly. He hopped over to sit on Marco's shoulder. "You're aiming high," he said. "A hair lower.

Lower . . . fire!"

TSEEEWWW!

Far down below us, one of the floating barrels went, POOMPF!

A gray substance like confetti exploded out and settled in the water.

"That should keep them busy," Tobias said. "Let's bail!" It was pandemonium down in the Yeerk pool. Hork-Bajir and humans and Taxxons all rushing around, trying to haul their Visser out of the water. Trying to scoop up the madness-inducing oatmeal before it could dissolve completely.

Then I fell over. I didn't waver or stagger. I just fell over. Five tons of sagging elephant flesh splayed out across a dozen stone steps.

"Demorph!" Jake yelled at once.

Cassie rushed over, helpless to do much with her wolf paws. "lt's the loss of blood! She's passing out. Rachel, you have to demorph."

"He's up!" Tobias yelled. "He's out of the water. Oh, man! What the ...

Ax, what is that thing?"

"l don't know," Ax admitted. "lt's no creature I've ever seen before. But it looks extremely dangerous."

I was demorphing as fast as I could. "You guys get going! I'll catch up!"

"Yeah, right, Rachel," Cassie said.

"It's like some kind of pterodactyl almost," Jake said. "like one of those flying dinosaurs. Only it's covered in quills all over its back." Jake was demorphing. I was demorphing. Too slowly.

"All we have is a monkey and a wolf!" I yelled. "You guys run! You can pick up Jake and run!"

"A monkey?" Marco said archly. "You know, I almost could run off and leave you."

"You have more than a gorilla and a wolf," Ax said calmly. "You have an Andalite."

I was shrinking all the while. And as I became less elephant and more human, the pain began to diminish. I could feel strength returning. But I was still so tired. Could I morph again?

"l have to report there are Hork-Bajir coming down the stairs toward us," Ax said. He was the only one of us who'd been looking in that direction. It helped to have four eyes.

"Great," Jake snapped, human again. "We're trapped. And here he comes!"

I turned my now-human head toward the sound of vast, leathery wings. I saw something that might have been a winged porcupine, only the quills were each five feet long. Its head was elongated forward and back. The beak itself was another five feet.

It flew slowly, with great effort, but it was coming closer. My heart sank. Had he seen us in our human bodies?

I turned my head to look back up the stairs. The Hork-Bajir were a hundred feet away, pounding down on us. We were trapped. No time to morph, even. Trapped!

The stairway entered solid rock and earth just ten feet upward. The Visser's monster wouldn't be able to fly in there. But if we ascended that far, we'd run right into the Hork-Bajir.

I looked to Cassie, my best friend. I guess I wanted to say something meaningful.

And that's when it hit me. "Give me the Dracon beam!"

"It's not gonna stop that . . . that thing. It's armored all over.

Nothing will stop that thing."

I didn't have time to argue. I snatched the Dracon beam from Marco. I turned and plowed up the stairs, right for the Hork-Bajir.

"Follow me!"

"But-"

"Just come on!"

Up we ran. The distance between us and the Hork-Bajir closed at a startling rate. The monster was coming on fast.

"Everyone down! Cover your heads! Mole!" I screamed. "MOLE!" And I raised the Dracon beam straight up. Aimed it at point-blank range right up at the hanging rock and dirt roof.

I thumbed the power switch and squeezed the trigger.

And the entire world fell down on me.

I wasn't crushed by a rock. I was glad for that. I was smashed and banged up pretty good. And oh, was I scared.

Buried alive!

It had actually happened. I'd even made it happen. Buried alive under rock and dirt and struggling Hork-Bajir.

But what can you do when you're buried alive? You can either sit there screaming in blind, idiot panic. Or you can dig your way out. At least, if you're a mole you can.

I was worried about Cassie and Marco. They'd both still been in morph, so they had an extra phase to pass through before they could become moles again.

But wolves and gorillas aren't easy to kill. We all morphed and dug our lonely tunnels upward.

It took a long time. I had to stop and hollow out enough space to demorph to human so I didn't end up trapped in mole morph. Talk about wanting to scream.

But on the second round I emerged into the bat cave.

It took another hour for all of us to get there. We'd meet up in the absolute darkness, one by one, then in a small, edgy, worried group.

Tobias was the last to arrive.

"You scared us to death! Where have you been?" I yelled at him.

"I was worried about you, too, Rachel," he said, with a smile in his silent voice.