“Oh, thanks,” you say. “That clears it up. Totally.”
“The thing is that Ax said, you need some sort of huge explosion to blow you back,” Jake says worriedly. “I guess maybe it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Terrific,” you say. “Something to look forward to besides pizza. Nuclear annihilation.”
“Unless we’re in a rip right now,” Ax puts in.
“A rip within a rip.”
Jake frowns. “What does that mean?”
Ax shrugs. It could be his first shrug, because he looks surprised at the motion. He does it again for practice. “I do not know. I am just guessing. Want some licorice?” He holds a piece out to you, and —
FLASH!
The trees soar above your heads. The leaves make a canopy so dense it blocks out the sky. The heat presses against your skin.
“Whoa!” Jake cries. “What’s going on?”
“Wait,” you say. “You mean you know you’re here? With me?”
“It’s the same place,” Jake says, spinning around. “Hang on.”
He darts through the trees, and you and Ax follow. You stop abruptly when Jake does, bumping into him. In a small clearing is a Bug fighter. It is scorched and trashed, as though it had crash-landed.
“This is totally freaked,” Jake whispers.
“I’ll say,” a voice says. It’s Rachel, who steps through the trees, Cassie and Marco at her side.
“Where did you guys go?”
“And where are we?” Cassie asks.
“And why don’t I have shoes?” Marco asks glumly, staring at his bare feet.
<I’ve been circling above, but all I see is a green canopy of trees,> Tobias says in thought-speak. He swoops down and lands on a tree trunk. <I’d say we’re in a rain forest. I can try to see if there’s a city or a village nearby.>
“There’s no city,” Jake mutters.
“Pray tell, how do you know, O Fearless Leader?” Marco asks.
“I just do,” Jake says. He frowns. “The first thing we have to do is take the onboard navigating computer. Visser Three will be coming back for the Bug fighter.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Cassie asks. “The last thing I remember I was on the Bug ship. We were shooting Dracon beams at Visser Three.”
“It’s a Sario Rip,” Jake says. Quickly, he summarizes what has happened.
“So how do we get back?” Cassie asks. You can tell she’s trying not to look scared.
“I’m not sure,” Jake admits. “Last time, I had to die. I don’t especially want to do that again.”
“Are you all thinking what I am thinking?” Ax asks suddenly.
Marco rolls his eyes. “What are the odds of that?”
“Think about it, Prince Jake,” Ax continues. “You have been given a second chance. Last time, you made mistakes. What I mean to say is, you made good decisions, but things went wrong.”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better, Ax, but you were right the first time,” Jake says wryly. “We walked right into Visser Three’s trap.”
“But this time, we will not walk into the trap,” Ax points out. “We know what is wrong to do. Now we must do what is right to do.”
“You’re right, Ax!” Jake says excitedly. “We’ve been given a second chance! And the first thing we should do is not take the onboard computer. Can you just disable it instead? Make it look like it happened in the crash, but be sure that they can fix it. That will slow them down while we follow through on a plan.”
“I can do this, Prince Jake,” Ax says, nodding. He takes off for the Bug fighter.
“What plan?” Marco asks. “Call me crazy, but I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”
“It’s simple,” Jake says. “We’re going to sneak onboard the Blade ship —”
“Already, I don’t like it,” Marco interrupts, groaning.
“— and destroy Visser Three,” Jake says grimly. “Then we’ll re-create the rip and get back to our own time.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Rachel agrees. “Especially the ‘destroy Visser Three’ part.”
“Of course you’d think so,” Marco says. “What do you need morphing ability for? You’re already an animal.”
“The question is, what should we morph?” Cassie asks. “We have to get through the rain forest, and we’re barefoot. How about monkeys?”
“Really, a monkey morph?” Marco says, lifting an eyebrow. “Listen, I’ve been a gorilla. That would be quite a demotion, don’t you think?”
“Marco, I’m just wondering,” Rachel says, her hands on her hips. “Do you always have to make things difficult? Is it like, your hobby?”
“It’s his life,” you say.
Marco gives you a strange look. “I was going to say that.”
“I know,” you say.
“Come on, guys,” Jake says. “We have decisions to make. We have to acquire morphs that will help us cope with the rain forest. But we also need morphs that will help us sneak aboard the Blade ship.”
“And we might need the help of that tribe you met last time,” Ax says as he reappears. “You said they were pretty helpful against the Hork-Bajir.”
“What about using an ant morph again?” you suggest. You point to a tree. “I read about those ants. They’re called parasol ants. They can climb hundreds of feet. And we’d be so small we’d sneak onto the Bug fighter with no problem.”
“That’s true,” Cassie says reluctantly.
“No way I’m being an ant again,” Marco says, shuddering. “That was the worst.”
You all begin to argue about what morphs to acquire. But you’re running out of time. You might only have time for one morph.
You choose:
A monkey. Go to chapter 18.
A parrot. Go to chapter 19.
A parasol ant. Go to chapter 20.
You’d felt out of place in the rain forest. First of all, the bugs alone are enough to send you screaming toward the horizon. If there’d been a horizon.
But once you morph a monkey, you discover that the vines you thought of as choking off air and light are … well, like
