Chapter 2: Dark Dawn

Thankfully, neither of the two had any more dreams that night; they needed sleep after the physical and emotional exertion of the night before. Even though they managed to sleep well, they woke up rather late. Jenna yawned and looked at the window, squinting. “What time do you think it is, Balto?” “Mmf. I don’t care. Let’s go back to sleep, Jenna.” Jenna lay down, smiling as Balto kissed her head. “But don’t we have someplace to go today?” she said softly. Balto thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, yes. Wanna go out to the canyon later and have the best kind of fun?” Jenna giggled, running her paws over Balto’s face and neck as he stroked her. “I’d love to, hot dog.”

It was mid-afternoon by the time Balto and Jenna actually left, but the shortness of the walk to the canyon made it not matter. The canyon was what the dogs called the split that ran through the rock hill near Nome, through which dog sled teams would run on the final leg of some races. Shortly before they reached it, they ran into Star, who looked tired. “Something wrong, Star?” said Balto. “I got lost, is all. I just came through the canyon; it helped me find my way back.” He noticed Balto and Jenna’s old collars hanging on Jenna’s bandana. “Are you giving those to Doc?” Jenna nodded. “Yeah, but we’ve got something to do first.” “Okay. See you later.” “Bye.” Balto and Jenna walked up the steep, snowy slopes on one side of the hill and were rewarded with a great view at the top. They smiled and kissed, putting their paws around one another. Jenna giggled as Balto ran a paw down her stomach, and she nuzzled him and licked one of his ears. He giggled and kissed Jenna’s neck, but as he tried to continue, she pulled back slowly. “Baby,” he said, “what’s…” He stopped when he saw her face, which had a look of complete horror. He turned around slowly, and his face took on the same look.

It was walking toward them on bent, unstable-looking legs, with the right foot deformed and rotten looking, causing a limp. Its body was seven feet tall, hunched but incredibly muscular, covered with green skin which was mottled with ugly patches and streaks, many of them as white as the snow on the ground. Some of it was peeling and hanging sickeningly, as if it were decaying away, and underneath these spots, other tissues could be seen, black and deadened. Its right hand was as normal as possible, with five shallow-curved dagger-like claws, but its left was twisted and frozen into a horrible shape and looked immovable, like it was paralyzed. Its right eye was greenish-yellow, with more green than yellow, and looked sinister. It would have seemed more alert, but the eyelid hung slightly, as if the muscles were tired. The other eye was whiter than the patches on the skin, and did not appear to be alive. The eyelid around it was rotten away, and all of the surrounding skin was white. The skin on its lips was decaying, but all the teeth remained hidden by them. The expression on the creature’s face was a terrifying mixture of pain and malevolence that caused almost as much fear as the rest of its appearance. The whole thing smelled faintly like death and rotting flesh. It said nothing, but merely walked a few more steps toward them and stopped. Balto managed to speak. “Who are you?” The creature glared, drawing back its lips and raising its right hand, the good one, flexing its clawed fingers, the skin of which slowly melted and peeled. “I am Sorrow, leprosy advance form.” Balto and Jenna were terror-stricken, and it showed in their faces. “What do you want?” Balto said, his voice volume rising with his fear. Sorrow leaned forward. “You.” He reached out his arm, rotten skin hanging off, extending his hand towards Balto, who shrank back when it came within two feet. “Get away!” he shouted. He and Jenna tried to back up, but their paws only touched air. Balto looked back and saw that the canyon was right behind them. Sorrow withdrew his extended arm, and with a strange hissing sound, his whole body began to emit a green, steam-like substance that smelled worse than carrion. The white patches turned even whiter, and some of it simply fell off, rotting after it hit the snow, burning into dust, then to nothing. He straightened up to full height and raised his arms threateningly. Balto and Jenna tensed, hoping to spring around him, but he guessed their thoughts. “Don’t. If I so much as brush your bodies now, you’re doomed.” His voice was a low, slightly rough noise. “There is no escape.” Balto looked back again, but not to see what was behind them; rather, to see what they were standing on. He saw what he was looking for, and turned back toward Sorrow. “Yes, there is,” he said. Before Sorrow could react, Balto yelled and smashed his back paws down on the snow as hard as he could. The loose rocks below his and Jenna’s hind legs dislodged, and they both plummeted into the canyon, Balto’s head striking an outcropping as the fell. They struck the ground, a swath of snow burying them.

A minute or two later, Jenna struggled out of the snow. She looked around and, not seeing Balto, began digging in the fresh pile of snow she was standing on. The smell struck her, the rotten smell. She turned around, and there was Sorrow, walking toward her with a purpose. She tried to back away, but she tripped in the thick snow, and Sorrow picked her up by her scruff, looking around for Balto. His eyes fell on dog tracks leading out of the canyon towards the town. “Looks like your precious husband decided he liked himself better than you.” He began walking, and Jenna struggled hard. “Don’t touch me!” she yelled in fear. Sorrow stopped and looked at her. “Oh, are you afraid of ending up like this?” he said, ripping up a section of his skin like it was wet tissue paper. Jenna began shaking with horror and revulsion. Sorrow shoved the peeled, bloody skin toward Jenna’s face, and she cried out and turned away, closing her eyes tightly. He laughed out loud with sick amusement, and kept walking with her. “Don’t worry. You won’t get the disease if I don’t want you to. I certainly hope your husband decides to be a little gutsier. Perhaps he doesn’t love you…” “NO!” Jenna screamed, kicking Sorrow’s leg, nearly spraining one of his muscles. He snarled at her, forcing her to look into his horrible face. “I would advise you not to make me want to,” he growled, “or your husband will get to see you looking just like me. Is that clear?” Jenna nodded, trying to hold herself together. “Good. Now shut your mouth; you’re bothering me.” He suddenly performed a very long jump, about a hundred feet. They continued on, to a destination only Sorrow knew.

Balto pushed himself up through the snow, moaning. He was dazed from hitting his head, and his vision was blurry. The latter cleared up in a few seconds, and he looked for Jenna. He didn’t see her around, but his eyes did settle on a hole in the snow next to him. “Well,” he thought, “she must be around…” He then saw a trail of large, heavy footprints leading to the hole, then away from it. He began gasping with fright. “Jenna? Jenna! No!” He stumbled after the tracks, but they ended before too long, and he ran back to the hole. He leaned against the rocky cliff, trying not to panic. At least he was able to keep his mind going. “But why didn’t Sorrow take me?” he thought out loud. “He would’ve dug, I’m sure.” He looked around a little longer, and then decided to go back into town to search. He asked everyone if they had seen Jenna, but no one had, so he asked that if anyone saw her, they would tell him immediately. He spent the whole day looking for traces of Jenna or Sorrow, and even went back to the alley that evening to see if Equinox was there, but he had no success at all. He went into the dog’s restaurant and sat down at a table, hanging his head. Sylvie walked over to him. “Hey, chum, don’t worry about Jenna. Wherever she is, she can take care of herself. Sheesh, what am I saying, don’t worry? You’re her husband; of course you’re going to worry. Ah, well. Do you want anything to eat?” As Balto looked at her, she became blurry for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them, which fixed the problem, but not completely. “Tired?” she said. “Um…yeah,” he said. He felt incredibly hot, and wondered why he hadn’t a few seconds ago. “I’ll…have some cold canned beef. Really cold, please. And some ice water.” Sylvie looked at him curiously. “Are you warm?” Balto nodded and began panting. He looked bad to her. “Okay, I’ll get ‘em quick. Hang on.” She returned in less than a minute. Balto was panting hard, and he looked woozy. “Here,” she said, “go ahead.” Balto drank the water greedily, slurping it up with incredible speed, even eating the ice cubes. He gasped for breath at the end of it, and began eating the canned food. “Do you need more water?” Sylvie asked, concerned. “You don’t look good.” Balto raised his head from the food, looking worse than he had. “I feel really sick,” he breathed. “Water would be nice.” He looked nauseous, and swayed in his seat. “Easy, Balto,” said Sylvie. “I’ll get some water.” She got another one, actually two more. One, she let Balto drink, and the other she used with a cloth held in her mouth to bathe his head. “Golly, you’re burning up,” she said. “Are you gonna be alright?” Balto finished the second water. “Yeah,” he said, breathing hard. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry; I just need to go home and lie down.” He stood up slowly and walked shakily out of the restaurant.

By the time he got home, Balto was feeling very, very sick. He stumbled into the house, everything in a blurry haze, feeling like his body was on fire from the inside. He had a terrible headache, which pounded his skull in rhythm with his pulse. Something trickled from his eye, and he wiped it with his paw, which he then looked at. His vision cleared for a brief moment, and he saw a red smear of blood. “Wha…?” He lowered his paw and went to the linen closet to get a small towel. He came back into the family room and moved slowly toward the bed. His head swam, and he staggered the rest of the way to the bed, falling down into it after he reached it. The fever overwhelmed him, and he breathed with great effort, blood leaking from his eyes and mouth onto the towel, which he was using to keep the blood off the cushions. He began panting hard and slow, with rasping breaths, desperate to alleviate some of the heat. The part of his back behind his shoulders and the ribs that connected to it throbbed with pain, and he gasped, feeling like he could sense his blood pulsing through every capillary. His insides felt as if they were squirming, and he groaned and writhed at the horrible feeling. “Jenna…” he whispered. “Jenna…help…help me…oh, help me, please…help…Jenna…ah…aaagh!…”

Balto awoke after a night full of tumultuous sleep. He opened one eye slowly, looking around the room. “What happened?” he thought as he raised his head. “Was that all just a bad dream?” No, the towel lay on the bed, bloodstained. “Guess not.” Dream or real, as he got out of bed, he felt rather alert, definitely not as tired as he would have expected, although he was absolutely starving for some reason. Then, suddenly, things were not so normal. Something strange happened to his vision, and he squinted. The world had become mostly shifting shades of black and purple, with faint blue shadows hovering in places where there was more light. It was so dark he could hardly see anything, even though the morning light was shining strong through the windows. Something caught his eye: small, rough-edged patches of glowing red on random surfaces. He walked toward one, located on a wall. He looked closer at it. “What is…” he began, but suddenly, he saw the patch up very, very close somehow. He saw small creatures, tiny specks wiggling around… “Rhinovirus, common cold,” he said out loud, having recognized the creatures. “Wait,” he said, “how did I know that?” He thought for a moment, confused, then reached out and touched them with his paw. Some of the viruses stuck to it, coming off of the wall. He looked at them for a moment, fascinated, before realizing with a start that he didn’t want viruses on him. Almost immediately after thinking this, a strange flame erupted on his paw. He tried to shake it off, but then realized that it produced no heat, thus did not burn him. It did, however, burn the viruses; when he looked at his paw after the flame vanished after a few seconds, there was no more red. His vision suddenly returned to normal, but kept shifting back to the strange darkness slightly, although he began to figure out how to actively control it. Becoming more and more perplexed, he walked by a mirror. He froze. His jaw dropped. He walked slowly toward the mirror, hardly believing what he saw. “Holy cow…” Out of his back, at the spot where he had felt the pain the night before, two four-foot long, bright yellow, tentacle-like appendages had grown. They both had heads on the end, with mouths full of semi-transparent teeth between 2 and 3 inches long, and amazingly thin. They had eyes, narrow, red eyes, and long, skinny red tongues. They made growls and other somewhat quiet noises that would have been shrieks had they been louder. Balto was horrified and awed at the same time. “So…I guess these are the tools,” he said. Remembering that he had somehow recognized the common cold from out of the blue, an ability that he assumed came from the tools, he decided to see if he also knew what Ebola looked like. He did; the worm-shaped hemorrhagic fever filoviruses looked exactly like the tools, although since they were growing straight out of his back, they lacked the characteristic twisted base. He didn’t get much of a chance to look at them, because soon after he touched the towel, it burst into flames as well, returning to normal once the blood was burnt away. Balto soon found that he was actually in control of these new “arms”; he could move them, make them bite or produce noises, and although he couldn’t see through their eyes, he could tell whatever they saw intuitively. As he continued to examine the tools, he remembered what had happened at the canyon. He looked at the arms, and nodded at the mirror. “Let’s see what Sorrow thinks of this!” he said. The arms uttered a high-pitched roar, and Balto went to the door, intending to make for the canyon, but he saw something on the doorstep when he began to go out. It was an envelope of crusty paper, with no address, simply his name.  He reached out with one of the arms and picked up the envelope with its mouth, then went inside the house. Opening the envelope, he found it only contained a small slip of paper, on which was written a message:

Mister Balto,

After your departure in the canyon, I doubt you are really that interested in the pretty red object I now possess, but if you are, you ought to come to the location shown on the map I have drawn on the back of this letter. Perhaps you are confused about why I am doing this to you. If you are, I shall reveal what I am doing when and if you follow the map.

Regards,

Sorrow

P.S.: If you keep me waiting for too long, I might send your precious wife back to you, but you might not enjoy her as much with her body half-rotten. As a hollow-headed human would say, “ta ta”.

Balto didn’t know what Sorrow meant. “Departure in the canyon?” Did Sorrow think he had left…? Then, he remembered; he and Jenna had run into Star on the way there. He had just gone through…Sorrow must have seen his tracks. “Thank you, Star,” Balto thought, and ran out the door to follow the map.

In an old fishing warehouse, Sorrow stood with his arms spread wide, using pipes as handles to hold himself up; he was using his legs very little. His eyes were closed, and he breathed tranquilly, but he was mostly conscious. Behind him, Jenna hung suspended between four poles, chains and metal bars binding her, trying to keep herself from staring at his hideous, deformed body. Although she was afraid, she did a good job of keeping it in. “Um, Sorrow?” she said, her voice quavering. There was no response. She swallowed hard and spoke louder. “Sorrow?” He exhaled with slightly more volume, and turned his head slowly around to face her. “Yes?” “What are you doing?” “I am regenerating. Leprosy destroys my body while I go about my business everyday, but I then harness its power to rebuild myself. All of the other leprosy advance forms are dead; I am the only one among them who could keep the disease from eating me alive.” He turned his head forward again. “Is there anything else?” “I, um…I have to go outside.” Sorrow chuckled. “An interesting problem that does not plague viruses. Very well.” He let go of the poles and seemed to nearly buckle to his knees, but did not do so completely. He straightened his legs. Jenna watched as he grabbed the fingers of his paralyzed hand and pulled them into their extended position. Sickening cracks and crackles came from the hand when he did this, and Jenna cringed. Sorrow growled, but Jenna didn’t know if it was with pain, relief, or both. After he finished straightening his fingers, she was surprised to see that he could actually move them. He saw her looking at his hand and explained. “If I regenerate enough, even the deformities caused by leprosy are partially reversed.” He walked toward her, seeming quite energetic, and took the chains off of each pole, lowering Jenna to the floor. He knelt down and unwound the chains from her body, but still kept a small amount wrapped around her ribs, the end in his hand. “Now then,” he said, “I must, of course, escort you. Wouldn’t want you running off so soon.” Jenna nodded, but as Sorrow began to stand, a creature walked into the room. It had a bizarre body that looked like two spiral-shaped creatures wound around each other. The head looked the same way, but the arms and legs were more ordinary. On the end of each arm, there was a two-foot slightly curved blade, and a pair of awkward-looking spiraling fingers. The whole thing was a red color, with copper eyes. “Sorrow,” it said, “may I speak with you?” “Of course,” Sorrow replied. “By the way, Jenna, this is a strep throat advance form.” Jenna smiled wryly. “Lovely. A pleasure,” she said sarcastically. Sorrow and the advance form laughed, and Sorrow spoke. “What is it?” “I wished to discuss the positioning of our guards.” Sorrow put down the chain and faced the advance form. “Do you feel they are inadequate?” “Not inadequate, per se, rather…” The rattling chain distracted them both, and they turned to see what was happening. Jenna had slipped out of the now-loose chain and was sprinting down a hall for a door. “Catch her,” Sorrow said calmly. The strep throat advance form yelled with bloodlust and charged down the hall.

Jenna went through the door at the end of the hall, and it swung shut behind her. The light in the room was low, and there were several pillars around, but nothing else…except an open door at the other end. Jenna was smart, though; she knew she couldn’t make it before the advance form entered, so she hid behind one of the pillars to the right side of the room.

In a moment, the advance form burst through the door Jenna had entered from. It looked around, but didn’t see her. “Why hide?” it said, with a scratching voice that almost made Jenna’s throat sore just hearing it. “Come out. I won’t hurt you.” It laughed menacingly.

Jenna looked around, knowing she had little time to decide what to do. The advance form ceased speaking, and instead began using its predatory skill. It smelled the air several times, divining Jenna’s location by her scent. Hearing it sniffing, Jenna then heard its footsteps approaching the pillar she was hiding behind. She stifled her rapid breathing and tried to think.

The advance form began speaking as it neared the pillar. “If you do not come out on the count of three, you will die.” It was three steps away. “One,” it said, taking a step forward. No response. “Two,” it said, louder and with greater threat, taking another step. Still nothing. The advance form grinned. “Three!” it snarled, taking the last step. It whipped one of its arms around the pillar, looking around it simultaneously, gashing, slicing, ripping…but not flesh, not Jenna, only the pillar itself. There was nothing there. The confused advance form straightened up, looking back across the room. Behind it, a red shape snuck through the shadows, slipping out the other door.

The advance form was about to decide to simply tear the room apart looking for its quarry, but it heard a noisy clattering from through the rear door. It growled and raced towards that door, understanding now what had happened. Jenna must have been hiding behind the pillar, but moved to the next one, closest to the right wall, a very risky move, but one that completely fooled the advance form and would have been perfect if not for the sudden noise.

Jenna had been sneaking through another hallway that the door led into, but it was pitch black, and she stumbled into some ancient renovating equipment, alerting the advance form. As she ran, she looked behind her and saw it come to the door. It could see far better in the dark, and it screamed with rage and ran at her. It was running too fast, Jenna knew, and she wouldn’t be able to get away. Then, suddenly, up ahead, she saw an open vent cover. It would be close… She yelled and jumped as hard as she could, flying into the duct. She skidded for about a second. And then, there was no bottom. Jenna screamed as she plunged down the shaft. She braced herself to feel her bones break, but the pipe was curved, so instead of ending with a hard landing, her fall turned into a breakneck-speed horizontal slide. Relief only came to her for a moment, though, because the thought of shooting right into a furnace came into her mind as she realized there was no way to slow down…or was there? She stiffened her legs and pressed her paws against the side of the duct, with her back against the other side, and this slowed her quickly until she finally was able to stop. There seemed to be two exits from where she was now, and they were providing the only light. One of them was a few yards in front of her, and was another drop from which a faint light was coming. She crawled forward to it, looked down…and gasped. It wasn’t a furnace; it was a very operational boiler. She began shaking at the thought of the death she would have suffered if she hadn’t tried to stop earlier, and she backed up as quickly as she could, breathing hard. The other exit provided more light. It was also a drop, but only a few feet, and at the bottom, there was a loose grate where ambient light from the building’s lighting leaked in. She jumped down the drop, turned around, and kicked the grate with her hind legs. It popped off readily, and Jenna turned back around and stepped out. She was in the utility room, with various pipes on the walls, some leading to the throbbing boiler, others leading down further. Struts and poles of the building’s foundation were all around, and various boxes, many containing tools, lay among them. Jenna went to a double door, the only exit, and opened it…coming right up against another advance form. She cried out and backed up as it entered the room. “Going somewhere?” it said, casually. This one had skin over what appeared to be several spirals, with arms and legs that were short and thick. It looked strange, almost like a semisolid shape, with brown-green skin and black eyes. Both hands had three fingers, each of which ended in a stiletto-like claw. The smell coming off it was even worse than Sorrow, because this smelled foul and putrid as well as rotten. “I’m a staph advance form,” it said. “I’m Sorrow’s other warrior strain. Hence, it’s part of my responsibility to catch runaway prisoners, so here I am.” It held out one hand. “Now, come with me, or I’ll practice with my claws on you.” Just then, the strep throat advance form burst through the door. “Hello, brother,” said the staph advance form. “I’ll kill her myself!” roared the strep throat advance form. “Oh, no, you won’t. Sorrow needs her for this.” “I…I suppose you’re right. But the moment he doesn’t need her anymore, I want to be the first to get my teeth into her!” “Whatever you say. Come now, Jenna, back to the chains with you.”

A few minutes later, everything was back to the way it had been before Jenna’s escape attempt. Thankfully for her, she hadn’t really needed to go outside. Sorrow spent a while speaking to the strep throat advance form, then came back into the room, sat down at a desk, and began writing and drawing things. Jenna wasn’t sure what more she could do for herself now, but she decided to try. “Sorrow?” He looked at her. “What is it?” “Please, let me go, Sorrow. I haven’t done anything to you, and neither has my husband. You’re attacking us like this without even telling us why! Let me go, please!” Sorrow’s face twisted into a horrible look. “You have no idea of what your husband is responsible for doing to my kin and myself. I have taken you hostage to lure him here, and there is nothing you can say to convince me to let you go.” She hung her head, feeling like any possible hope had bled away, and trying not to cry at the thought of Balto walking right into a deathtrap for her sake. “Are you bored?” Sorrow asked. Jenna, frightened by thoughts of what may be going on in Sorrow’s mind, shook her head rapidly. “No, no, I’m okay. Really.” “Well, I am,” he said, beginning to pace around the room. After a few passes, he knelt in front of her. “Do you know what I do when I’m bored?” Jenna didn’t answer; she was becoming more and more afraid by the second. “Come on,” Sorrow said, coaxingly. “Do you know what I do when I’m bored?” “Um…n-no, what?” He smiled. “I hurt things.” He held up one of his claws. “I have decided to offer you a choice,” he said. “I can either hurt you a little bit now and then gradually, or wait until later and hurt you a lot. Which one?” Jenna began to sob in sheer terror. “You’re going to get one or the other,” he said. “You may as well choose.” Jenna didn’t respond. “Alright,” Sorrow said, “I’m more bored, so we’ll start now.” Jenna began to cry harder, turning her eyes away from Sorrow’s leering face. “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, “It’ll be far better than waiting until later. You’ll only scream a little.” He brought his claw toward her chest, and she braced herself for the cut…

Sorrow grunted and pulled his hand away, putting both hands on his head. “Rrgh! Stop disturbing me!” He shook his head. “I swear, I want to infect them with leprosy sometimes. My henchmen, I mean. Like all of my brethren, we share the ability to communicate over distance without speaking. The problem is, they never stop talking. They are always acting as if the enemy is right at my door.” Suddenly, the double metal doors at the end of the room crashed down. Sorrow turned around…and screamed in horror. “No! Ebola? It can’t…it’s impossible…” Balto stood there, new tools uttering violent screams at Sorrow. “It must…that filthy Equinox!” “Alright, scum,” Balto growled, “I followed your map. Now tell me what you’re doing here and give Jenna back!” “Well, well, well, aren’t we feisty? You know, considering that I have your wife hostage, you might want to be careful.” Balto looked at Jenna. She was staring at him, her face a mixture of fear and confusion. “Balto?” she said. “Don’t worry, Jenna. It’s me. I know this looks scary, but it’s just the tools; I’m still me.” Jenna didn’t look convinced. Balto walked up to her, and her fear rose visibly. “Jenna,” Balto said, pain in his voice, “don’t be scared. It’s me.” He reached out and touched her face. “You like jazz, baby?” he said. She calmed greatly, and he leaned forward, kissing her softly. “See?” he said. Jenna sighed and nodded, smiling with relief. “It’s you,” she said. “That’s right,” said Sorrow, “and because it’s him, he is now in very hot water.” “Why?” Balto said. “You promised to tell me.” “I did, and I will, now. You see, in the future, my kind are fighting a war with humans. If I kill you, sled dog mail will fall through because of a certain event in your future that won’t happen, and airmail will take its place. This leads to a rise in airplane science and popularity, so in the future, there are more planes. Eventually, this allows two strains of my kin to cross the ocean to other continents and establish new footholds after we mutate that we didn’t have before, resulting in us winning the war. But in truth, that is not why I personally am doing this. I am doing this because I seek a power beyond the imagination. It lies near this town, somewhere. The problem is, historical records say that you, somehow, destroyed it. So, I have come back before that time to get rid of you. Those…virus tools were not a factor in my plan, but that does not matter. I don’t see any reason why I should wait to destroy you.” He snapped his fingers, and a hideous creature burst out of a door. On the opposite side of the room, another different creature burst out of another door. “It is time to say goodbye,” Sorrow growled. Jenna recognized the attackers as the strep throat and staph advance forms. Both of them ran at Balto immediately, and he realized he wouldn’t exactly have time to learn how to fight; he would just have to do it. He stepped back and swung the virus arms up, deflecting the first attacks by the advance forms. The strep throat advance form yelled and swung one of its blades in an upper slash headed right for Balto’s neck. He dodged, but not just a normal dodge; he couldn’t believe how fast he had moved, getting cleanly out of the way well before the blade carved the air where his head had been. It prepared to swing again, but Balto decided to attack first. He 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 few others that smelled very different. Balto supposed Sorrow had many different strains under his command, but decided not to try and think of what they might be. Even if he had wanted to, it wasn’t made clear from his virus vision, because although he could see where patches of pathogens had been, they had all died and decayed, becoming unrecognizable. Upon further investigation, he found that Sorrow had been smart enough not to leave anything helpful behind, and gave up looking, preparing to anxiously wait out another day, hoping that Jenna would be alright.

Note:  The line “You like jazz, baby?” is an inside reference to a love story I’m writing about Balto and Jenna.  It’s used by Balto here because it’s something only the two of them know, and thus allows Jenna to recognize that it’s really him.