on the rocks. He mounted the ledge, and they took off again, finally reaching an area that wasn’t dependent on the pillars for stability. “There’s the door!” Balto shouted. They both ran toward it…and Jenna uttered a bloodcurdling scream of agony. Balto spun around to see her caught in the grip of an enormous foot, massive claws stabbed into her back. The foot attached to a long, skinny leg, which turned out to be one of many on the grotesque worm-like green body of the colossal monster that stood there, apparently having climbed up from some hidden lair below. Balto stared at it, not believing what he saw. It was the eyes more than anything that gave it away, the eyes with the asymmetrical irises…

It was the creature from his nightmare.

He jumped forward and cut into the hand, ripping muscles and rendering its grip useless. Jenna’s body fell from the claws, and she seized with pain. “Oh…Balto…” she gasped, trying not to scream again. “Easy, Jenna,” Balto said, fear and distress in his voice. He was about to continue speaking, but his paw happened to touch the wounds on her back. He slowly raised his paw, looking at the shiny crimson staining his pads, breathing hard. It was Jenna’s blood. This monster had drawn Jenna’s blood.

Deep down, something awakened.

The pure, raw fury of animal rage built up gradually within Balto, and he began shaking from the intensity of the emotion. He saw red, and in the middle was the red of Jenna’s blood. He leaned his head forward and licked the blood from his paw, letting the metallic taste run over his tongue, and he let out a savage roar, his eyes turning a bright yellow, fingers of the color reaching out into his fur, blood leaking from his eyelids, some of the hairs on the rest of his body thickening and becoming yellow, his muscles gaining strength as Ebola swept into them, every sense sharpened to that of the ultimate predator. He felt all of his virus powers at his disposal, and he realized that this was what had been happening to him coming out of the Ebola River nightmare. The virus arms screamed like demons, and Balto turned to face the monster, crying out at it. “YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER LIFE!” He had unleashed virus rage, becoming as close to pure virus as possible. Now, he was ready to fight.

Ready to kill.

The huge beast made an attempt to grab Balto, but he turned around and ran at the wall, moving at blinding speed, using pure inertia to overcome gravity as he propelled himself up the wall and across the ceiling long enough to come down on its back. He drove the teeth of both virus arms into its right shoulder and jumped off, using his body weight to give a mighty yank. The creature’s feet lifted off the ground, and it spun around twice in midair, coming down with crushing force on the floor, shredded muscles hanging from the gash in its shoulder. It twisted its long body with the flexibility of a snake, biting at Balto with a mouth big enough to easily cut him in half. Balto flung himself to the ground, and the behemoth’s jaws snapped shut above him. He roared and leaped straight up, hammering a virus arm into his enemy’s jaw, sending its head crashing into the ceiling, causing rock dust and pebbles to fall. As it came back down, Balto realized he had made the mistake of not moving aside, and the creature shot out a foot and snatched him easily. It pounded him into the ground, so hard it made a hole, then flung him up into the ceiling, making another hole. Taking him in its mouth, it turned and threw him across the entrance room, and he struck the wall like he had been shot out of a catapult. He slid to the floor, pain nearly crippling him, but the viruses inside him quelled the pain and fed him more strength, and he stood up. He threw himself at the monster, and it swung a foot in anticipation, ready to slice his head from his shoulders. However, Balto had been expecting this move, and he caught onto the foot, using its continuing swing as an easy way to get close enough to the creature’s head to jump on. He punched downward with terrific force, cracking the beast’s skull and causing it to roar with pain. This wasn’t the desired effect, though; Balto had been intending to penetrate its skull and pulverize its brain. However, this was one creature that had a skeleton of bone, not cartilage. Balto was soon thankful that he had a skeleton of bone, as the monster reared up and crushed him against the ceiling, successfully causing him to lose his grip and fall off. He landed directly in front of the creature, and it opened its slavering mouth. Now, Balto didn’t have a chance, and he knew it as the mouth loomed in his vision…

For a moment, Balto wasn’t sure what happened. He had been bitten by the creature, instantly killed by its powerful jaws. He could see it there, standing over him, roaring and thrashing. Perhaps he could turn and see his dead body before passing on completely. However, as time seemed to inch along, realization slowly came to him; he hadn’t died. The creature had never had a chance to bite him. But then…what had happened? What had stopped it? He jumped to his feet, finally recovered enough from shock to move, and stepped back a few paces, observing his foe. It squirmed painfully, still roaring, and Balto saw that a massive slab of stone had fallen from the weakening ceiling and landed on its body, apparently causing some sort of back injury. Balto panned his gaze across the whole cavern, and his eyes widened. The pillars were buckling, and the ceiling was disintegrating and coming down everywhere at once. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration came. He couldn’t kill it quickly enough to save Jenna and himself, no. He’d let the cavern do it for him. He jumped forward, grabbing the beast’s neck. With an unearthly roar, he summoned all his strength and threw the creature, sending its body smashing clean through a pillar. Now, with two supports totally destroyed, the chain reaction of collapse sped up exponentially. Balto grabbed Jenna and ran full speed down the passage out as the walls caved in around them, launching himself through the doorway with a yell, escaping crushing death by a hair. Balto set Jenna down…and collapsed with a soft moan. “Balto!” Jenna cried, lying down beside him, horrified by what she saw. The virus rage had ceased, and Balto’s face was absolutely soaked in his own blood. His eyes, nose, mouth, and ears were all letting crimson trails run over his fur, and they collected in a small puddle on the snow. Balto’s eyes were half-closed, and he breathed weakly, uttering bloody coughs sporadically, seeming incoherent. “Balto! Please, Balto! Talk to me!” Jenna was nearly in a panic as she tried to get a response, thinking she would have to watch Balto bleed to death before her eyes. But suddenly, Balto took a more normal breath and turned his eyes up towards her, and the leaking blood stopped. “It…it’s alright,” he whispered. “Are you okay?” Jenna cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m okay. Don’t be scared, Jenna. I…had to use the virus powers at a high level…and it turned out to be dangerous. The viruses attacked my body, like a real infection. It’s okay. I’ve…got it under control. I know it…looks bad, but I’m going to be fine. Could you help me up?” Jenna put her head under one of Balto’s shoulders, helping to lift him to his feet. Balto used virus cleansing on his face to remove the blood, standing still for a few moments to recover his strength. “Okay,” he said. “Better now.” They looked back at the entrance just in time to see the door cave in on itself, becoming entombed in snow. From inside, noises of screams and the thunder of collapsing rock were still easily audible. “Let’s go, Jenna,” Balto said wearily, and they walked away.

Sorrow awakened from a horrifically turbulent sleep, still feeling the bombardment of hundreds and hundreds of telepathic impulses that had fallen on his mind as he slept. They felt like death…but that couldn’t be, he knew. He didn’t have hundreds of advance forms with him. He was too disturbed to go back to sleep, however, so he stayed awake, wondering what had just happened to cause this.