lashed out with one of the virus arms and struck the strep throat advance form in the jaw. It flew backwards, yelling, and crashed into the wall, stunned. Balto was astonished by his new strength, and suddenly realized that he’d need it for fighting the staph advance form. Far more calculating than its counterpart, it took rapid, short swings, aiming for wounds rather than a single critical attack. Balto extended the retractable teeth on the heads of the virus arms and used them to block the fast-falling blows, but he didn’t exactly have the technique down yet; the advance form opened a nasty cut on his back, and he cried out. Intending to skewer Balto’s head, the advance form drove one hand down towards his ears, but he caught the beast’s arm, driving the virus arms’ teeth into it. The monster howled and began to attempt to break free. Balto twisted its wrist abruptly, breaking its elbow, and seizing one of its legs, he tossed it over his back, sending it sprawling. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the strep throat advance form get up and charge him in a rage. Balto considered pressing the attack, but the beast reached him too quickly and began swinging with berserk fury. He wasn’t quick enough to escape every swing; one of them sliced one virus arm, and the pain transmitted right into Balto’s nervous system. “Aah!” he shouted, barely able to get the other arm in the way of the next blow. Immediately, the strep throat advance form attacked again, but it made the classic mistake of attempting a downward stab. Balto hopped to the side, and the blade coming for his body stuck in the floor. Balto grabbed the advance form’s neck and gave it a massive punch to the face, but then, a foot slammed into his ribs, and he flew sideways and struck the wall so hard it dented. He lay there for a moment, trying to breathe, but he forced himself to stand up as the staph advance form, obviously the one who had kicked him, approached, its broken arm hanging limply. It snarled at him and swung sideways, belting him on the side of the head and sending him sprawling. As he rolled, the strep throat advance form got its blade out of the floor, and it and its partner came at him at the same time. He stood up, not knowing how he was going to get out of this. They were so quick and strong…it seemed impossible. Or was it? Balto looked at the staph advance form’s useless arm, and the strep throat advance form’s bleeding mouth. He was already injuring them. Hence, he could kill them. The staph advance form reached him first, and as it attacked, he flung himself low, striking both of its shins and causing it to crash to the floor facedown. He turned to face the strep throat advance form, and it yelled and began attacking him. He fought back, using his reflexes and speed to keep himself safe while he watched his enemy, figuring out its attack pattern, waiting for the right moment… He jumped into the air, over one of the advance form’s swings, and grabbed its arm on the way down, pulling the creature around so its back was facing him. Wrapping his free virus arm around the advance form’s head, he wrenched its neck, and a sickening crack sounded. The advance form stiffened, then went limp, dying right after it hit the floor. The staph advance form attacked, but with only one arm to use, it was no match for Balto. He swung down low with one of his virus arms and took the beast’s legs out from underneath it, and when it landed, he seized it and drove a virus arms’ teeth into its face. It thrashed and screamed for a few seconds, and then expired. Balto, breathing hard from adrenaline and the thrill of victory, turned to look at Sorrow, who smiled, but it seemed a slightly…unnerved smile. “Well…that was…interesting. I’m sorry, but I must be rushing off.” During the fight, Sorrow had unbound Jenna and was holding onto her. Now, he whipped around, still holding her, and jumped up through a door leading onto the walkway that went around the entire room at second-story height. Balto jumped up after them, and he saw that the door led to a dark hallway. He ran down it, approaching a right turn. He reached it, and suddenly, a metal bar swung from around the corner, smashing him in the jaw. He groaned and staggered, and Sorrow, who had been waiting there, struck him with the bar again, this time on his muzzle, dazing him. Jenna screamed and struggled as she watched Balto crumple, but the hand Sorrow had clamped over her mouth muffled the sound. He ran down the hall, then turned a left, jumping off a balcony. He landed on the ground floor of the building, cracks from his landing spreading out over the floor, and sprinted out the front entrance, calling instructions to a few of his servants as the rest left the building.

Balto’s head spun and throbbed, but he managed to stay on his feet and pursue Sorrow. However, when he began to go down the hall, a staph advance form appeared at the end, and ran at him. Balto shrank back; he could barely see. Then he remembered what had happened to his vision when he first woke up that morning. Could it work? He switched to the virus vision, and sure enough, the advance form glowed red like flame in the midst of the darkness, its outline defined sharply. Balto swung at the advance form, but it dodged and countered immediately, karate chopping the back of Balto’s neck, knocking him down. It tried to stab him in the face, but he moved with lightning speed, getting up and darting between its legs. He jumped, pushed off the wall, and flew into the advance forms’ back, smashing it into the opposite wall. He then flung it over backwards, sending it crashing upside down into the other wall, after which it fell to the floor, killed by the head trauma. Balto ran for the balcony, but a strep throat advance form was waiting there when he arrived. Not in the mood to mess around, Balto ducked an attack and gave the beast a haymaker, sending it head-over-heels off the balcony. It landed on a cart, which smashed to pieces. As it stared up, Balto broke the supports of the balcony, and it fell, crushing the advance form. He looked around for a sign of Jenna, but she wasn’t there. It seemed Sorrow had absconded with her, leaving nothing. Balto searched for a clue, but couldn’t find anything. After making sure there were no foes left in the building, he contemplated staying there, and decided that Sorrow knew he was here, and so would know for certain where to go to give him the next clue. He wondered when exactly that would be. There was nothing to do but wait; he had looked for tracks, but Sorrow’s minions had wiped them away as they went, and snow was blowing hard outside, obscuring visibility. Wondering what to do in the immediate time frame, he reasoned that it would be a very good idea to get to know his new powers before he would have to fight something more deadly. And so he did. He discovered that he could leap incredible heights and distances, run with amazing speed, punch even through metal and concrete, and do it all while hardly becoming tired. He found that pouring Ebola viruses into different parts of his body could enhance these powers, and that loosing them in his bloodstream enhanced them all, but in the case of the latter, he also found that it caused the virus to actually injure him as if he had the disease, making small trails of blood leak from his eyes and mouth, and also making his eyes glow faintly yellow, the intensity of that glow based on to what extent he was using his powers, and not only occurring with the enhancement. Knowing that tempering this enhancement would protect him from the disease, Balto didn’t worry too much about the effects, which only lasted as long as the enhancement was being used, although he did notice, with some chagrin, the frightening look it gave him. He was able to undo that when he figured out that the flame that had burned the viruses off his paw in Rosy’s house was a cleansing power that was under his control, and he used it to burn up the Ebola viruses and blood. Eventually, the sun sank lazily below the horizon, and Balto tried to sleep. However, sleep wouldn’t come; his mind was filled with thoughts of Jenna. He knew how frightened she must be. He wondered if she was hurt, if she would be alright. He wondered if he would ever see her again, or if some servant of Sorrow would kill him before he had a chance. If that happened, Sorrow would surely kill Jenna. “It’s all my fault,” he moaned to the blackness. “If I just hadn’t been knocked out when we fell into the canyon…if I had just been strong enough to hit back when he attacked me with that bar…if I had just been able to kill the advance forms faster on my way out…” He sniffed, his lip quivering. “If she dies…it’ll be because of me.” He covered his eyes with one paw and began weeping quietly, images of Jenna’s lovely face and smile in his mind’s eye, and the sound of her voice in his ears. “I’m sorry, Jenna,” he whispered tearfully. “I’m so sorry…”

Balto’s eyes fluttered open. It was the morning after a long night of sporadic sleep and unpleasant dreams. Strangely, there was no clue to be found, so he decided to go home and eat something. Forced to sneak around the back alleys so he wouldn’t be seen, he made his way home and entered quietly through the back door. He ate breakfast as fast as he could, listening acutely for any sound of someone entering. Luckily, he went undisturbed, and was able to leave quickly. “The less time I spend in town, the better,” he thought, not wanting anyone to see him. He pondered what he might have to do next, wondering if Sorrow might simply repeat the same process of having him fight a monster or two, then running away again with Jenna. If that would be the case, he figured he might be able to get Jenna back, if he could pursue Sorrow somehow. After he made his way back to the warehouse, he noticed that there were not just the smells of Sorrow and the strep throat and staph advance forms; there were quite a