B21C13/14 - Manages to Demorph

<One minute, Prince Jake,> Ax said, with a definite tone of desperation in his thought-speak voice.

<No! I'm not getting trapped like this!> David screamed. <No! NO! NOOO!>

He began to demorph. I buzzed my wings, lifted off, and spun quickly around in midair. I saw Cassie lying helpless on the floor. I swooped down, snatched her up in my jaws, and hauled like I have never hauled before. Back the way we'd come.

But now David was growing, weighing me down!

Too little time!

I saw the grate. I saw the vertical slats. I folded my wings, shot through, and screamed, <DEMORPH! Now! Now! Now!>

Five fleas catapulted off my back and spun through the air, growing larger even as they fell.

<Cassie! Demorph!>

I released her. I watched her tumble away, out of sight as she fell and fell the millions of miles to the floor of the banquet room.

I was shedding the morph by the time I lit on a narrow, curved tabletop.

<I can't get out of morph!> Marco yelled.

My heart stopped beating. <No, no, no! Marco, keep trying! Keep trying!>

I was emerging myself, growing on the table-top. Wings disappearing, abdomen shrinking, legs thickening.

My own eyes were emerging, and through them I could see someone morphing not a foot away on the table. But it was like no morph I've ever seen. The person wasn't changing, but simply growing.

Growing as a flea. A one-foot-long flea. Larger. Two feet long!

Let me tell you something: There's a reason that insects gross people out. Someday go find a blowup photograph of a flea. And imagine it becoming human-sized.

It stood on six bristling legs. The body was the color of rust. It was narrow, as if it had been run over by a train. It was built of interlocking plates of armor. Its head was a hideous helmet, with a ring of spikes raked back all around the top and sides. At the bottom of the helmet were more spikes, like some horrible parody of a mustache. Two stubby antennae protruded. Saber-toothed tiger "teeth" stuck straight down.

It had two black, button eyes. Dead, soulless eyes. It was now a flea as large as a dog.

<Marco?!> I cried.

<Oh, please, help me! Help me!>


(...)


I could not stand to look at the thing.

<Marco?> I cried again. <MARCO!>

Marco trapped in some hideous, oversized flea body? And Cassie . . . what had happened to Cassie?

Suddenly, over the edge of the table, she appeared. She was fully demorphed. Her own self, even though I was still only halfway through the process.

She looked right at Marco. She placed her hands on his sides, ignoring the sting of his bristles as they poked into her skin.

The flea . . . Marco . . . tried to jump. But the legs that could fire a flea through the air were too weak to move the huge thing he had become.

"Come on, Marco," Cassie said calmly. "Clear your mind of all the fear. You can do this. You will morph. Focus on the picture of yourself. Form the picture in your mind. Let go of the fear and focus on the picture of your own body."

We were all demorphing. Rachel's head rose up above the table edge, then David, Ax. One by one they assumed their own forms. One by one they registered horror on their faces.

We all stared. Stared at the monstrous flea. And at Cassie.

And then, slowly, slowly, the armor plate began to soften into flesh. Slowly the mouthparts retreated. The spiked helmet melted into hair.

Slowly, slowly, Marco emerged.

At last he was sitting, his own self again, on the edge of the table. He looked at Cassie with his own, human eyes, and he did something I didn't think Marco was capable of. He put his arms around Cassie's shoulders and cried.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, Cassie. You saved my life." The rest of us were left staring at Cassie with expressions you could only describe as awe.

Rachel moved close to me and whispered in my ear. "Well, that sent a few chills up my spine."

I nodded. "Oh, yeah."