Author's Note: This is just the set-up. The real story starts on chapter 1. This is important though, so read this too. Thanks! Please review.

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Maxime coughed, feeling nauseous. His one good eye darted left and right in its socket, the other having been taken by a soldier's bullet many years ago. Stumbling forward in the twilight, he looked for anyone that was familiar to him. Every step he took it seemed he was stepping over a body, and the inferno raging around him illuminated a veritable sea of blood and ripped flesh, the fur on his shattered front leg getting soaked through so thoroughly it seemed his fur had always been that shade of red. Maxime panted hard, his ribs feeling as though they were breaking from the effort, and still saw nothing.

"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER?!" he screamed in a voice so hoarse he could hardly believe it belonged to him.

Somewhere amid the moans and screams of agony that the dying dogs around him were emitting, he could've sworn he heard a low, almost amused laugh, but the next moment it was gone and it was as though he had heard a ghost. Suddenly, something hit him from the side like a train and he was thrown hard to the ground with a grunt, landing on his side painfully. He rolled quickly onto his back and suddenly, there was a dog on top of him as razor sharp teeth tore into his shoulder and went for his neck. Panicking, his military dog training kicked in and he clawed the dog in the balls with his hind leg and when the dog leapt back with a grunt of pain, he grabbed a nearby broken tree branch with his teeth and drove it into the dog's throat as hard as he could. The dog let out a gurgling scream and then fell over dead, the sharp end of the branch jutting sickeningly out the back of his neck. Recovering his footing, Maxime stood unsteadily and licked the blood off his muzzle from where a jet of it had hit him at his attacker's death.

"Maxime!" he heard right in his ear and jumped sideways, nearly falling.

But the dog that now stood before him, missing an ear and half of his face, was a friend, and he realized this seconds later.

"Andre!" he cried, relieved to see a friendly face. "Where's Scimitar?"

"We don't know!" the other German Shepard yelled back. "We can't find him! He may have fled back towards Siberia!"

"What about his followers?" Maxime hissed in frustration, betraying only barely the fear in his voice.

"All but a couple are dead!" Andre answered, "And we're taking care of them right now!"

"Did my father succeed in his attack?" Maxime asked the other.

Andre shook his head, managing to express sadness despite his mangled face.

"Your father's dead." He said, "Scimitar killed him and then his own troops…he killed everyone."

Maxime let out a roar of fury and felt a few tears slide down his bloodied muzzle as he dropped his head to the crimson-tinged earth beneath him. He saw a dog, one of their own, with nothing but a gaping hole where his muzzle and face should've been and he nearly gagged. He hadn't seen death like this since that day in the canyon 3 years ago fighting against his old comrade Victor's pack across the water in…

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to him and he looked quickly at the violently churning black waters of the ocean overlooking the battlefield, and the land across them he had once gone to.

"He's gone across the water…" Maxime whispered in horror. "He's headed for Japan."

"What?!" Andre yelled, stepping up next to him as the sounds of the remaining fighting around them lessened steadily. "Nobody could swim across that in this weather!"

"He could." Maxime insisted. "He's powerful enough even in this. Shit, he's headed right at them!"

With that, he limped forward at the water purposefully, the sand and snow of the beach sticking to the blood on his fur uncomfortably. Andre lunged forward and grabbed him with his teeth by the scruff of his neck.

"Are you insane?!" he yelled as Maxime threw him off roughly. "You'd never make the swim and you know it!"

"Watch me!" Maxime snarled at him but the other wouldn't budge.

"Your leg is broken Maxime!" Andre responded with a growl. "And the storm is getting worse! Any dog who tried to swim across now would drown in minutes!"

"MY SISTER'S OVER THERE!" Maxime screamed at him. "MY FRIENDS ARE THERE! THAT MANIAC WILL KILL THEM ALL!"

"I know!" Andre said. "But they were good, remember?! They were better fighters and dogs then any of us! They know how to protect their own!"

"So did we!" Maxime sounded pleading now. "They have to be warned, Andre!"

"Maxime, there's nothing we can do!" the other said sadly, sounding as frustrated as him. "I'm sorry. They're on their own…"

Maxime looked across the ocean water desperately, knowing he was right. His sister probably had a family of her own by now. If Scimitar made it over to their shores though, she might not have one for long, and it was that thought that made another lone tear slide down his furred cheek and shatter in the sand.

"God help them." Maxime of Russia whispered. "God help them…"