5: Too Effective!
As the Watership rabbits progressed across the countryside, Fiver had another eth of his omens; everyone on the mission gathered to here it.
"Vilthuril shall become the mightiest rabbit as we know of at the moment; hrair men shall flee from her just by the sight of her!" this cryptic message was much clearer than the last; Hazel-rah realised that such physicality would be very clear in sight, but he couldn't work out exactly the sort of physical power she'd have, but it was most likely going to be that her muscles would stretch further than normal. At least that's what he thought.
After several hours in the lab Vilthuril felt the injection take effect, she feared what she would become; she anticipated a desthile ear, kes more tails or some other freaky addition. But then she realised what it was doing to her; most of her body was remaining the same, but eth thing about her was changing, her size! She was growing larger; this was something she couldn't handle.
'How big shall I become?' She thought, 'how large shall I be?' She continued thinking this as she grew & grew & GREW!
In the conference room, a group of scientists, including Elaine, were waiting for some order to be given; forever bickering about morals & advancements. Elaine was continually arguing with a colleague over the moral implications of testing on animals; he always counter-argued of the moral implications if they tested on humans, until the head of the department entered the room.
"Colleagues," he called out, "To what the lead cancer-research scientist tells me, the counter-balancing drug should be working by now! I want two scientists, a monitoring employee & one supervisor to check if it's worked well for Subject #229!" As he went round he chose Elaine for the monitoring employee and moved to the other three, one female & two male. And he sent them down to the holding room.
By now Vilthuril was getting very uncomfortable, because she'd now grown so large that the cage was too small for her.
'Frithrah!' She thought, 'I don't think that even General Woundwort got to be this large!' Yet, despite the cramped conditions, she was still growing, forever getting larger. By the time she felt so tight that she thought she'd gain certain injury if she grew any larger, the cage suddenly burst apart without actually giving her real injury, she was that large.
'What would men think,' she thought, 'if they saw me at this size?' But she kept on growing, eventually she fell off the ledge because she couldn't fit on it, but she didn't so much fall as step; she could now look straight into the other cages while she was on the floor, on her haunches.
The group of scientists progressed down the hallway towards the holding room, most of them were in high hopes of the results, but Elaine was in despair, fearing that Subject #229 was all deformed and in physical & mental hurt. As they came upon the holding room Elaine braced herself in fear if what she might see, the others rubbed their hands together in expectation of results, one of the men opened the door to the room.
The scientists were in shock at what they saw, there before them was Subject #229, the drug had clearly worked but not the way they wanted, Subject #229 was the size of grizzly bear and the remnants of her cage were scattered about the room. Elaine breathed with relief that Subject #229 wasn't hurt and she also breathed with awe at what she saw; but then the other woman screamed with fright, causing Subject #229 to turn towards the door; at seeing the group there was an expression of sly delight upon her face; and with a sweep of her forepaw caught one man, Elaine & the other woman, whom she held underneath her forepaws whilst the other man slammed the door shut and ran off down the corridor.
Vilthuril was astonished at how large she had become, bigger than a man by her reckoning; upon hearing a scream he turned to the source of the sound & beheld kes men at the doorway. She decided to compare herself with them and, so, with a sweep of her forepaw, brought des of them into the room and pinned them under her forepaws, whilst the other man slammed in the door & ran off.
Vilthuril looked down at her captives, it was quite clear now that she was larger than a man, and she was still growing. She also found that she was starting to become accustomed to it; now she looked at her captives again, and recognised eth of them as the female that watched over her in the hrududu, she felt a strange bond with her, as though this female man could be her pet once she reached the right height. To reassure the des of them she glanced at them with an expression that suggested she wanted to take care of them, now she was growing larger than them.
The Watership rabbits were still moving across the countryside, determined to bring Vilthuril back to Watership Down, but the sun was beginning to set in the west; so Hazel-rah decided to make a few scrapes for the night. Bigwig found a suitable bank to make them in, and work for night shelters began; yet Hazel-rah & Fiver were feeling restless, Fiver was wondering if Vilthuril would be understood enough to avoid too much pain, and Hazel-rah was nervous as to how Vilthuril would look like (he knew she'd look different, he just didn't know how).
As Hazel-rah finally came to rest the moon was beginning to rise over the horizon, he was still thinking about Vilthuril though, Blackberry had taught him a cunning trick to work out exactly what he was trying to work out; it involved continually thinking about the problem right up to the point at which he fell asleep, the subconscious would then work on the problem in his sleep so when he'd wake up the problem would be solved. He began to doze off as he thought about Vilthuril & Fiver's cryptic messages.
The man who had avoided Subject #229's forepaw was still racing through the building to the committee room, thinking about what he saw and if the committee would actually believe him. It was quite a problem, this sort of thing only ever happened in science-fiction, he was afraid the committee would put him in an asylum if they didn't believe him, then he'd only be proved when Subject #229 outgrew the building itself!
As he rounded a corner he began to run out of breath, all this running was making him exhausted, but he wanted to tell the committee what happened ASAP!
'Still,' he thought, 'If they do put me in an asylum they'll find out the truth sooner or later, and they won't be able to say I didn't warn them!' He rested to get his strength back and also to think about Subject #229's growth rate, it was a frightening situation.