42 - 15 - Helmaroc Dracon Beam and Acid

I couldn't see my friends by the time they arrived. The acid had splashed into my eyes, eaten away at the vulnerable eyeball, painfully blinding me. But I heard a clumsy flap, flap way overhead. Wings. Bat wings. The perfect morph for "seeing" in the dark.

(...)

<Agggghhhh!> Jake yelled.

KER-SPLASH!

<Watch out, they're shooting at us!> Cassie shouted.

Tseeew!

<I have been hit!> Ax.

KER-SPLASH!

Tseeew!

<Cassie, watch out!> Tobias called.

KER-SPLASH!

Tseeew!

KER-SPLASH!

<Aaaaahhhhh!> Cassie yelled.

<Aaaaahhhhh!> Jake yelled.

<Aaaaahhhhh!> Tobias yelled.

<Aaaaahhhhh!> Ax yelled.

"What is going on?" I asked foggily. But I could see. They were demorphing. Cassie quickly. The other three more slowly.

<Don't -> Cassie yelled as her human lips and teeth began to form. "Morph!"

"What!" I screamed wildly, kicking to keep my face above the acid, desperately chanting Bat, bat, bat in my head. "My skin is bubbling off!"

"Give me a second," Cassie grunted in a strange, pain-filled voice. "Then, climb on my back."

Cassie was growing. In the weird red half-light, it looked as if a rock were rising out of the churning liquid. And then the rock was twice my size. Then double that. Bigger and bigger.

Cassie was going humpback whale.

Our own personal aircraft carrier appearing out of the sea. Maybe not impervious to the acid, but tougher-skinned than a human.

Now fully human, Jake crawled onto Cassie's still growing back. Then he leaned down and pulled me up, my raw skin screaming at his touch. I lay back, gasping. Tobias was back in hawk form. He took to the air, hovering over us. Ax's hooves and weak Andalite arms weren't much use on the slippery back of the whale, so Jake held on to him.

<I am beginning to think this mission was foolish,> Ax said, glancing with stalk eyes at the patch of burned fur on his hindquarters. <Marco's body seems to be doing an excellent job of defending itself.>

<Against us,> Cassie said.

"Two more of the Helmacrons are dead?" I asked, lips and teeth and tongue about the only part of me not fried. "And excuse me while I try to morph and demorph to get whole," I added.

"Yeah," Jake answered, still panting. "Two more down."

"Arrivederci and good-bye," I said bitterly. And then the changes began. Didn't matter what I became. So I chose grizzly. Just to feel like I hadn't been totally defeated.