a howl of pain as his ribs were still injured from the fall from Balto’s boat and suffered worse injury. Tina looked down, anger in her eyes. "I’m going to warn you Steele, I know this monster better than anyone. If we stand any chance of stopping it we need Balto alive or its going to get to town and it will show no mercy to anyone, everyone will die. If you can’t leave him alone for that, do it for the only thing you really care about, yourself! I’m going to tell you something about this monster, it has claws that can tear clean through six inches of solid metal like its tissue paper, can you imagine what they’d do to flesh and bone!" she warned. She went back to Jenna and helped her carry Balto while Steele tried to dislodge himself.
"Good thing Steele is too stupid to realize it was a trap, again." said Jenna before looking back to Balto, wondering if he was still able to fight that monster.
Meanwhile in Balto’s mind, he’d given up hope. His mental plane resembled the last time he’d lost the will to go on, the bottom of that cliff. He didn’t know whether or not he was still alive or dead, even if he was awake or asleep, he just laid in the snow, his paw over his eyes, crying. "I’m sorry Jenna, Rosy, I couldn’t stop it, I let you all down and now Nome is doomed." he said, depressed. He wanted to get up and somehow get back to Nome but he just couldn’t muster up the willpower to. His ears perked, he heard something. He removed his paw from his eyes and looked up. Standing in front of him was the same white wolf from before. She pointed her head skywards and let out a long, majestic howl and looked at him, expecting a howl in return. This time Balto didn’t hastate, he got up, shook the snow off, and let out a long howl of his own.
Aniu looked proudly at her son and let out a howl along with him. She couldn’t tell him she was his mother, it wasn’t time for that yet. She looked at him. "Hello do you remember me?" she asked.
Balto nodded. "Yes I do, thank you for helping me so much…am I still…" he asked, wondering if he was still alive.
"Alive? Yes you are but unconscious." Aniu replied, she understood why Balto thought he might have been dead.
Balto smiled slightly. "That’s a relief." he said but then lowered his head. "I can’t stop that monster, I did everything I could but I just couldn’t beat it."
Aniu shook her head. "Do you remember what your friend told you before you headed out on your own that night?"
Balto looked surprised. "You know about Boris?"
"I know many things."
"Alright. He told me ‘A dog cannot make this journey alone but maybe a wolf can.’" he quoted.
Aniu nodded. "Yes, that was true for that journey but not this one. Nether part of you is strong enough to beat this creature, you will need help this time. Now awake, you need to get back to the ones that care for you." she said and let out a howl.
Balto groaned as he regained consciousness. He expected to see the frozen wilderness he fought the Outsider in and feel pain and cold but instead saw a lit fireplace, he was warm. He felt a weight on top of him, he looked over to see that his mate was partly laying on him, warming him with her own body as she did before. She saw him and her face lit up. "Balto! You’re alive!" she said and nuzzled him repeatedly. "You almost gave me a heart attack, thank goodness you’re alive."
Jenna got off him and Balto tried to sit up but pain shot through his injured ribs and he felt dizzy. He looked at his ribs, they were taped up. "What happened? How’d I get back here?" he asked.
"Tina saved you, she carried you all the way back to Nome."
Balto looked at Tina who set a little bit away from him. "Thank you, you’re stronger than you look." he said.
Tina blushed slightly. "I guess we’re even huh?" she asked.
"Even…Tina can the Outsider talk?"
Tina cocked her head. "Well its able to talk but it doesn’t know how."
"Yes it does, during our fight, it asked me ‘Why won’t you die?’ it was hard to understand but I got the message."
Tina looked shocked. "This isn’t good, its learning."
"Learning? It can do that?" asked Jenna.
"Yes, its designed to absorb information from any source, to better itself."
"Like it wasn’t tough enough." said Balto, managing to sit up with a slight whimper.
"It gets worse, the longer its alive outside the enclosed laboratory, the more it grows, if we don’t stop it soon, it will metamorphosis."
"What?"
"It will transform into a more powerful form."
Jenna’s eyes went wide. "More powerful?! That monster could already wipe the whole town off the map."
"I know, it shouldn’t evolve before it attacks, we have to stop it before then." said Tina, a serious expression on her face.
"We will win, but I can’t do this alone." said Balto, his normal smile on his face.
"Well before we make up a plan to stop the Outsider, there’s a family in the other room that is very worried." said Jenna. "Rosy and her parents helped bandage you up but Rosy cried the whole time, it broke her heart seeing you so beat up, same with me." said Jenna, nuzzling Balto before the two of them went into the next room to be with Rosy...

Healing Wounds

Nome, Alaska, 6 am;

Balto set on the porch. Jenna and Tina were asleep, he’d had trouble sleeping because of his injuries and something on his mind. "How can we stop it?" he asked himself. He remembered the fight, the only thing that had any effect was hitting it with something, he couldn’t bite through its skin. "Alright so we need to pound away at it but how can that destroy it?" he asked himself. He wished some of his other friend were in town, he needed all the help he could get, he’d even settle for Dixie. He got up with a groan and walked a little bit, thinking. "It’s a living thing, it has to be able to be killed." he said to himself before coughing some from his injured ribs. "Oh man, how am I going to fight that thing again in this condition?" Suddenly something grabbed his hind leg and swung him around into an ally. He slid across the icy ground and banged his head on a trash can. He got up to find Steele standing in front of me.

"Then half-breed, I guess you won’t be able to be me ether." he said. Balto took a snap at the bigger dog but Steele avoided it and struck Balto in the head with his paw. Balto yelped, his head still hurt from the concussion he’d gotten from the Outsider. Steele saw this and grabbed his leg and threw him head first into a trash can again. Balto yelped harder, he tried to stand but felt dizzy again and fell, he’d gotten another concussion. Steele laughed at Balto’s pain. "I don’t care about this monster or whatever it is half-breed, this town hates me so I could care less what happens to it." he said. He bit down on the bandages wrapping Balto’s bruised ribs and tore them off.

"Please, stop." said Balto weakly, he was disorientated by his concussion and felt so weak.

"Now why would I do that?" asked Steele. Steele reared up on his hind legs and brought his full body weight down on Balto’s ribs. Balto yelped loud in pain and coughed hard. Steele did this again, with the same reaction. Steele did this repeatedly while laughing rather psychotically until there was a rather loud snap. Balto and Steele both knew one of Balto’s ribs had broken. Balto coughed harder, some blood coming up. Steele reared up to do it again.

"No!" yelled Tina as her and Jenna slammed hard into Steele’s side, knocking him on his side. The two females put themselves between him and Balto, snarling and baring their teeth. "Leave him alone!"

Steele looked at the sight before him, he was still hurt from his previous fight. "This is over." he said and ran off, with another psychotic laugh.

"Thank you." wheezed Balto, he tried to stand up but couldn’t even get part way off the ground before falling back down with a groan of agony. "If I can’t even beat Steele, how am I supposed to stop that monster?"

Jenna was crying at seeing her mate this badly hurt. Her and Tina picked him up carefully and took him back to Rosy’s house and got him taped up again. Balto rested in the living room. Tina and Jenna went outside. "What are we going to do? How can he stop that thing when he’s too hurt to even stand up?" asked Jenna, disheartened.

Tina thought for a few minutes. "I know a way but its very dangerous…" she said.

"What is it?"

"The Outsider has great healing powers, it can heal almost any wound. If I can get a piece of it, I can make something that will heal Balto."

"How are you going to get a piece of that monster?"

"Well when it heals, it sheds its old skin, its shed skin will do. Don’t worry it won’t make Balto shed his skin, it only does that because it’s a reptile. I think Balto hurt it in there fight, which is why it didn’t follow us to finish him off last night."

"I’m coming with you."

"No, Balto needs someone here incase Steele comes back, I’ll make it back, I promise." said Tina, she ran off out of town.

It took Tina awhile to reach the Outsider’s lair. It was still sleeping so she snuck into to the cave. Despite not reacting earlier, the stench in the beast lair really made her almost throw up, she just knew how to hide it. She looked around for the shed skin, she saw it, right behind the monster. She got a little mad at her rotten luck. She snuck around. She carefully stepped into the warm waters, trying not to make much noise. She snuck behind it. As she reached for its shed skin, the creature’s tail smacked the surface of the water. She froze. The monster was still sleeping, it must of just moved in its sleep. She bit down on the skin, it tasted revolting and increased her urge to throw up. The monster’s tail smacked down again, this time hitting Tina’s back. She wanted to yelp but managed not to despite the welt forming on her back. She snuck out of the lair, dragging the shed skin. As soon as she got out of its lair, she dropped it and threw up.

A few hours later, Tina and Jenna had Balto on his boat so no one would see what was about to happen. Tina had ‘barrowed’ a bowl of water from Rosy’s house and tore a piece of the shed skin and