42 - 13/14/15 - Acid

But I almost didn't care because the pain in my skin was intensifying. Hundreds, thousands of raw nerve endings were screaming madly. The ironic part about all this was that it wasn't the first time I'd been nearly digested. But that's another story.

<Cassie!> I roared. <Where are you guys?>

<We're coming!> Cassie replied.

(...)

<There's only one way out,> Cassie reported. <We're going to have to go back up the esophagus. You too, Rachel.>

Great. That meant I had to morph a bird or bat. That meant passing through my human form - and hoping I wasn't burned alive in the process.

I braced myself for a new phase of pain.

<Okay, I'm going to morph out.>

<Rachel, try to do it as fast as you can,> Tobias said in private thought-speak.

I began to shrink. My trunk collapsed into my face with shocking, slamming force. I fought to keep my half-formed nose and mouth up in the air.

Vaguely, I was aware of the sound of Dracon beam blasts and my friends' thought-speak voices. I tried to focus on them. Anything to distract me from the blistering agony.

(...)

<Something else,> Tobias said. <A couple of the Helmacrons aren't moving.>

<Dead?> Jake asked.

<Digested.>

"Agggghhhh!" I yelled.

My leathery hide had smoothed, softened into human skin. Was I fully human? Must have been, because an intense agony hit me, made me gasp and swoon.

My skin was burning! And it felt like I was being rubbed with red-hot sandpaper. Eaten away by flame and acid. Tightening, as if it were shrinking away from the bone, shriveling into ash.

I gritted my teeth. Morph! I ordered myself. But my brain was foggy with pain. I couldn't . . . concentrate. I was nauseous and sweaty and my heart was beating way too fast.

<Keep going, Rachel!> Cassie cried somewhere far, far away.

(...)

Through the incredible pain seeped anger. I was starting to get incredibly ticked off. Marco slowly digesting me, Helmacrons shooting at me. No way was I dying here, like a piece of bacon in a frying pan. And that meant I couldn't pass out. Had to morph.

Bat, bat, bat, I thought.

<Go, Rachel!> Jake called.

(...)

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.