Heritage of the Wolf: Salvation, Part 1

by The Cool Kat

Looking to start a new life in the Last Frontier, a young husky named Jenna and her human family move to Nome, Alaska in 1922, where she finds herself swept up in a whirlwind love triangle between heroic half-wolf Balto, and malevolent malamute Steele. Revised, April 2019.

1. Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction.

Hello all you Balto fans out there, I'm The Cool Kat, another devoted fan of the "Balto" franchise. There is just something about that movie that I love and it almost brings me to tears every time I revisit it. I'm also pretty fond of it's sequels, "Wolf Quest" and "Wings of Change".

I first started writing Balto-related stories in late 2009, short stories that were no more than twenty pages long, and were directly tied into the movie's continuity, because I felt compelled to stick the film's canon. But after reading some more Balto stories from other fans, I loosened the continuity of my own and starting taking Balto and his friends on all sorts of adventures, diving in the realm of AUs.

My main inspiration came from 90's fanfiction author, Cyberwulfe. From 1995 to 2001, Cyberwulfe was one of the most well known fanfic writers in the Balto fandom (which was still pretty during the late 90's). So when the year 2010 finally came around, I decided it was time to post my stories online, and to also pay tribute to my idol. I asked the now-retired author for permission to re-write his stories, and started reworking some of Cyberwulfe's most famous works. Along with the traditional Cyberwulfe stories, I also added in a few of my own, reworking the lot of them so they would fit into a brand new continuity. I've estimated there's about fourteen stories in the first "Heritage Of The Wolf" arc, starting with "Salvation, Part 1", which is a revamp of Cyberwulfe's very first story, "Puppy Love", detailing Balto and Jenna's past and their new relationship upgrade.

Mind you, I almost didn't publish my stories at all, because for the longest time I was convinced that they weren't very good and I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of thousands of strangers. But, I was inspired to press on by another named iWolf231. Even though I don't know him, he had to courage to post his work online and not care what anything of them, and I loved his stories. They were all brilliantly written, tied into each other well as one long arc, and did Balto's three main characters plenty of justice, particularly "Protecting Their Own", "The Road Home" and "The Last Miles", which involved Balto and Jenna trying to solve a violent dispute between the sled dogs in Nome and the wolf packs living in the forest, which had tragic consequences. So, Nick, if you're reading this, thanks for giving me the inspiration I needed to finally make my own dreams come true.

With the "Heritage" series, I wanted to take Balto's character to some darker places than he ever ventured in canon, flesh out his relationship with Jenna (since I ship them so hard), expand on his rivalry with Steele, and have the wolf-dog deal with some massive, unexpected changes in the status quo. Balto's life will never be the same again after the serum run and neither will anyone else's, so I wanted to dive into all the positive and negative consequences of that event. Since this particular story will take place in Balto's past and his present, I took the liberty of adding time-stamps to each chapter, to avoid confusion.

Well, I'm sure you're sick and tired of this monologue by now (and for those of you who aren't, thank you for being so patient), so I now present "Salvation, Part 1". I hope you enjoy my very first work, and I also hope you'll post plenty of comments (cause I'm always open for new advice on how to improve my stories).