Chapter 9: Retribution

Balto took Jenna back to the warehouse, hoping to stay there with her for a while, but he decided that since Backlash had appeared, the only one who could protect Rosy from further danger was Abaddon. He ran back to Nome quickly by himself, telling Abaddon about what had happened earlier that morning, and the advance form promised to make regular runs to Rosy’s house to make sure she would be safe. As Balto was walking back to the warehouse, he suddenly felt dizzy, and a vision flew into his head; a vision of Jenna, running for her life as an advance form charged her…

They had come to the warehouse.

“JENNA!” Balto screamed, as he built to a full-speed run, knowing that he would be too late very soon.

An advance form swung downwards at Jenna, and she darted forward, getting out of its way just in time to avoid being slashed by its claws. She kicked snow in her attacker’s face with her hind legs and ran under some low, thick bushes, leafless in the cold. Another advance form started plowing through the plants, tearing them apart as it tried to reach Jenna. She rolled out of the way of one of its stabs as it finally got an arm through the tangled branches, crawling out from under the bushes and breaking into a run. However, it was obvious that her escape wouldn’t last long; an advance form was running after her at full speed. It lowered its claws, ready to let them drive through he back of Jenna’s head. “I wish I’d had him longer,” she thought about Balto, as she turned her head and saw the advance form right behind her.

Then, all of a sudden, a blurry missile crashed into the advance form from the side, taking it off its feet and crushing it on the snow. Jenna stopped running and looked to see what had happened in time to see Balto punch the advance form in the face so hard its head spun around. “Balto!” she shouted. “Thank you!” “I guess I’m just in time!” he shouted, dropping under an advance form’s swing, then jumping up and giving it a fierce uppercut, knocking it down. As Balto came down, he hammered a virus arm into its chest, breaking through the cartilage rib cage and collapsing its lungs. The rest of the advance forms, six in total, didn’t seem certain if they wanted to stay, but they quickly realized that if they retreated, Sorrow would never let them live. They all ran toward Balto, hoping to overwhelm him. He studied their formation for a brief moment, then charged, holding his virus arms out to the side. As an advance form approached, he stiffened a virus arm, smashing his foe’s knee, and it fell on its head, breaking its own neck. He jumped up and wrapped a virus arm around the neck of another advance form, pulling it off its feet, and then wrapped the other around its chest, flinging it around like a huge club, knocking the other advance forms off their feet one after the other. Some were killed through lucky hits here, including the advance form Balto was holding. Two were left by the time he dropped the dead body, which had been smashed to a pulpy mass. He did a forward flip towards one of the remaining pair, chopping off its head with a well-timed virus arm swing. The last advance form sliced his back, knocking him out of the air. Raising its arm, it stabbed deep into his side behind his shoulder as he hit the ground, causing him to emit a loud scream. He swung one of his virus arms and broke the elbow of the stabbing arm, then grabbed its free arm and rammed the blade through its own abdomen. As it collapsed, he cut off the hand that was stabbing his shoulder and tried to stand up. Jenna was at his side quickly, and put a paw on his neck, pushing his head back down. “Don’t get up,” she said, looking with horror at how far the blade was penetrating his body. “I’ll get this thing out.” She took the end in her mouth, gagging at the taste of the monster’s blood. “Ready?” she mumbled. Balto nodded, gritting his teeth, and Jenna yanked hard, sliding the blade out of Balto’s body. He cried out in agony, writhing painfully, and Jenna dropped the blade, looking at the wound. It was so deep…it looked as if it may have even penetrated one of Balto’s lungs. He coughed and spit up some blood, and she knew it must have happened. “Easy,” she said, trying hard to keep her head clear and think of what to do. “Don’t move. You’ll…” “Be fine?” Jenna looked back at his shoulder and was shocked to see that the wound was nearly healed. “I’m okay, Jenna.” Blood was leaking from Balto’s eyes, the sign that he was using the regeneration ability very strongly. He struggled to his feet, temporarily weakened by the strain of regenerating so quickly, but felt fine after a few moments. But then, perhaps not fine; he was shaking with fury. “They came to kill me, for Backlash…but they were content to kill you in my place.” He burned the blood off his face, growling. “Sorrow’s going to pay in blood. I’m sick of letting him try to hurt you.” He turned to Jenna. “I think it’s time to go out on a little trip.”

Before long, Balto and Jenna were lying on a snowbank, looking over it at the explosives factory. “If they used this for blasting material,” said Balto, “I want to get some. That’ll really teach Sorrow a lesson.” “I was held on the second floor,” said Jenna. “There were no blasting chemicals there. You’ll probably want to look in the basement or something. I’ll come with you, okay?” “Alright, but don’t get killed.” “Not if you don’t.” They both jumped up and ran toward the building.

An advance form acting as a sentry was watching out a front window. It saw the two approaching, and turned around and screamed into the building: “INTRUDERS!” It turned back around, and the last things it saw were Balto’s jaws flying at its face.

Jenna pressed herself against the wall to the right of the door, hearing an advance form heading for it. It flung the door open, and she bit its leg, causing it to trip. Its face smashed into a pole holding up an awning, and it fell down, its neck broken. “Let’s go!” he said, and they ran into the building. Balto stayed in front, killing every advance form that got in their way. Jenna handled all that came from behind, knocking them down to be trampled by other advance forms or stopping to tear their throats out with her teeth. They made their way through a hallway to the mess hall, and an advance form crashed through the ceiling, landing on top of Balto and pinning him down. He moved his head quickly, avoiding being decapitated by descending claws, and Jenna bit onto the beast’s foot, pulling it enough that Balto was able to get a virus arm free and snap their attacker’s neck. “Do you know where the stairs are?” Balto asked as they kept moving to avoid being surrounded. “Yes,” Jenna said. “This way!” She took the lead, with Balto killing the advance forms that kept jumping out of side doors. “We’re near…” Jenna began, but a hand pounded up through the floorboards and grabbed her leg, and she screamed. Balto bit the hand, and a screech came from below as the hand released. “Do you know how many he has left?” Balto asked. “No clue,” Jenna replied. “I never saw much.” They finally made it to the stairs, and they opened the door, only to have an advance form leap at them from the stairwell below. Balto flung the virus arms in front of them, making them bite reflexively, and he ripped the beast’s face off, letting the body tumble backwards down the stairs.

Sorrow, listening to the telepathic reports of his servants from the second floor, knew that Balto wouldn’t be removed easily from the building. He sent a telepathic message to a group of twelve advance forms, ordering them to stay together and sweep the building. He himself waited, staring at his door, claws ready, waiting for Balto to enter.

There were no advance forms in the basement, aside from the one that had grabbed Jenna, which Balto quickly killed. He was thankful that there were no more; he needed time to barricade the entrance, which he did by jamming all manner of heavy wooden scrap into and around it. The door shook violently, and claws began punching through it as frenzied roars came from the other side. “There were a lot of them closing in behind us,” said Jenna. They both could hear the sounds of the large search-and-destroy group moving around on the first floor, finally making their way to the stairs to join the several others that were already trying to break through. “I hope you have a plan,” said Jenna. “As a matter of fact,” said Balto, who had been searching through several crates, “I do.” He slowly held up a pint bottle of a thick yellow-green liquid. On the side was labeled: “DANGER: NITROGLYCERIN. EXPLOSIVE.”

Sorrow wondered why Balto hadn’t battered down his door yet. Surely he had come out of vengeance for the purpose of killing him… He could hear the advance forms below, uttering their raucous yells. “Nothing to worry about,” he thought. “They must be killing him right now.”

Balto broke a powder keg and trailed it from the nitroglycerin bottle to a safe distance. Around the bottle, he piled the rest of the nitroglycerin he could find. “This building’s going to be sawdust when this stuff blows up,” he said. “We’ll need to make a hasty exit.” He took a lamp and poured the burning oil on the end of the gunpowder trail, igniting it. “There’s a second stairwell,” Jenna said as they ran for one end of the room. “It’s just closed off at the top.” “Alright,” Balto said. They ran up the staircase, and Balto flung himself through the boarded door, breaking it down. A pair of advance forms ran at him, and he threw some of the boards, skewering them messily. “We have to move!” he shouted, and he and Jenna tore off through the halls.

The powder trail burned quickly, advancing the flames rapidly towards the bottle. The advance forms leaned back, prepared to run at the door at once.

A thought came to Sorrow’s head. “But if he chose not to come up here first…he must be planning something else…” As he realized what Balto had access to on the lower floors, he suddenly knew.

Balto and Jenna were running as quickly as they possibly could, heading for the front of the building.

The advance forms flung themselves forward with a yell, finally crashing through the door. They looked around…and saw the flames reach the bottle of nitroglycerin.

A tremor like an earthquake rocked the building as the whole basement was blown out, immolating all of the advance forms at the door. The floor blew straight up, a wave of flame rising up underneath it, scattering the boards. Balto picked up Jenna with his virus arms and jumped at the front wall of the building, turning his body so his back was moving toward it. They smashed through the wall, and the building blew apart with the force of a bomb and a terrific noise, every board torn from its neighbor as the entire thing was blasted into splinters by the concussion, which sent Balto and Jenna flying through the ice of a frozen pool of water. The fire quickly followed the blast, engulfing the timbers and any advance forms that remained, billowing up like a red geyser, until it finally disappeared into smoke and falling shreds of wood. The noise subsided, the only evidence left of anything having been there the charred foundations of the building. Balto and Jenna swam up to the surface of the water after the fire had passed, shivering badly, pulling each other close for warmth after they climbed out. Balto used the Ebola viruses to give himself a fever, warming himself up more quickly and passing some of that heat to Jenna. When they were warmer, they stood up and looked at the remains of the building. “Nice job, Balto,” said Jenna. “Thanks,” he replied. “I think Sorrow’s going to have a tougher time of this game now.” “Is he dead?” “I would hope so, but…I don’t know…” Then, through the flames, a tall advance form walked toward them, glaring with rage. At least, it appeared to be glaring; it was very difficult to tell with all of the skin on its face burned off, exposing muscle and cartilage, letting yellow eye lubricant drip down it face slowly. It snarled with no lips. “Sorrow…isn’t…dead,” it growled. Balto and Jenna took off running for Nome, knowing their fight was over, leaving Sorrow to survey the ruins.

Sorrow looked around, wondering how it could come to this. His face and much of his body stung nastily from dozens of lacerations, burns, and stab wounds; he knew he could regenerate the skin, but until he did, it would continue to hurt. He had many aches, which he knew would take time to repair. Yet what bothered him even more about the whole business was that Balto, in one stroke, had slain every advance form he had left. Now, he had no one left to carry out his commands.

Except one…