Chapter 1: Demise Has No Luck

The splashing of the cold river water in his face caused the black Alaskan Malamute to wake up at once. The Malamute, covered in the Alaskan snow, while resting on his side at the river bank, stirred from the splashing water and in the matter of the seconds, he opened his black-patched blue-colored eyes.

The first thing he could feel after waking up was the piercing pain in his head and his back. The pain so piercing that the malamute himself, Steele being his name, was wondering how he was alive. He was curious that the fall from the high waterfall didn't claim his already egoistic and arrogant life.

Trying to ignore the pain, Steele got on all his four carefully, applying the pressure on them with the addition of the pain coming from his back. Much to his delight and surprise, he could walk normally, but slowly. He realized that the snow was accumulating on his body, thus he started shaking the snow off his body. The pain was still present and he winced few times before the snow completely got off his body.

He noticed that some of the snow that had accumulated on his body was stained in red liquid, or crystals due to the low temperature. Looking around his body, he could have spotted few wounds on his side, the wounds that stopped bleeding, but the red was still visible on his black fur.

It was the nighttime, the sky was covered with the clouds and the snow was falling, although it wasn't falling much. The question was... how long had it been since Steele was knocked unconscious and how did everything happen out of blue? His answer was answered very quickly.

With the pain, the irritating itch around his neck was unbearable to handle and trying to scratch himself without applying too much pain, Steele sat down and with his rear leg, scratched his neck. It took him a while to realize that something was missing.

"My collar...?" Steele asked himself, touching his neck with his front paw. His glory collar, which he'd been wearing for years, was no longer around his neck. It was gone, and who knows where could it have been now.

Steele looked in the distance, noticing the waterfall. With the most recent memories of his before blacking out, he connected the dots in his head and realized what happened. Something happened that made him recall the events taking place early that day...

Several hours ago, at the daytime...

Steele was in the fierce river, fighting off his archenemy - Balto the wolf-dog. The two were enemies since the puppy days of theirs and to add the salt to the wound, Steele rejected any kind of Balto's help to return to Nome, stranding the team returning to Nome at the cost of innocent children's lives. Having his dirty plans exposed to the others, he was forced to run for his life out of his birthplace - Nome.

After a years of living in wild, kidnapping Balto's grandpuppies escalated in the great fight and only one would take the victory. With Steele looking gleefully how to drown his archenemy, he didn't seem to be thinking about the actions, but relied too much on his strength.

Balto, while being physically underpowered by Steele, took a chance to look at the two oncoming icebergs towards them. Realizing that Steele's madness was unlimited, Balto used the last bits of his strength to push Steele above, probably ending his madness once and for all.

Realizing that Balto had kicked him in torso and was ascending, Steele could have noticed the icebergs coming. With the panic and fear of demise, Steele tried to get away from the incoming demise-bringers. But as he was about to swim on the surface, he felt something behind him.

The icebergs managed to pin his collar, on the worst part possible, which was the loosest of the entire collar. Realizing he was trapped, he was additionally being strangled by the icebergs and in order to save himself, he realized that he had to do something, get rid of the collar as fast as possible!

Using the last bits of his strength, Steele managed to unpin the collar with his paws by force, which allowed him to release his trachea from the strangling. Pushing himself of the icebergs, that also allowed the collar to squirm out of the iceberg pressure, Steele surfaced for the air.

Gasping for the precious air, he tried to remain unseen because he was being left alone. His ally, Niju, didn't manage to survive the waterfall and speaking of the waterfall... he was dangerously close to it. In the desperate moments, Steele tried to swim to the nearest bank and get out.

But he wasn't strong enough to swim to the bank, being pulled down the waterfall. His screaming was over-sounded by the loud waterfall and by the moment he hit the bottom part of the river, he could have felt the rock on his shoulder before eventually blacking out.

Back to the present...

"I lost to that dirty lobo Balto once again!" Steele growled in the utter rage, slamming with his paw to the ground, which only added more pain to his partly damaged body. Searching for the soft spot on the ground, Steele lied to the snow-covered meadow where he could feel the soothing softness of the grass below him. He just wanted the pain to stop, or at least lose some effect.

Rubbing himself against the snow-covered meadow, Steele could have felt that the pain in the back wasn't coming mostly from there. He could have felt in his chest the water stirring in his lungs, stinging him worse. With the force, Steele started coughing, as if he was suffering from pneumonia. Every cough he made was piercing him badly. The water was coming out in huge proportions after coughing several time on force. Then, it was over. No more water in his lungs and even the pain ceased progressively. Still, he had a piercing headache, while his back wasn't aching that much anymore.

"Another embarrassing defeat." Steele muttered to himself in an utter frustration, looking at the grass peaking from the snow. The plan of finishing off his archenemy, with the assistance of his ally Niju, who desired to finish Aleu off for "stealing away" his pride and leadership, was a total failure. None of them actually achieved what they desired any only Steele himself was alive.

"He was a worthless ally." Steele thought to himself. The thought of Niju just heated up the frustration at his deceased ally, who only had an assassination in his mind. On the other paw, Steele knew that he had the ace in his sleeve(?) once the plan would go rogue. "No backup plan of him, just to kill her... At least I had a backup plan. I shouldn't have allied with him... I should..."

However, as he was thinking, he could have hear a howl in the distance. That howling snapped Steele back to the reality. It was a female howl, but not any howl that could have been heard in the wild. It was not a female wolf howling. It was a female dog howling in the distance. The question it, why would a female dog in the Alaskan wasteland howl, as there are no human settlements nearby?

"Shira...?" Steele asked, perking with his ear to the distance, raising his head carefully. He swore that he could have hear a female dog howling in the distance. Then the silence occurred, but just a few seconds later, the howl was heard. It was the same one from before. There was no doubt. It had to be Shira, because there were no female dogs anywhere nearby.

Determined, Steele started raising on his paws. The ascending was not really pleasant due to the pain coming from his head and the back around his neck. That didn't stop him to get up and make a few steps ahead, assuring himself he could walk. Knowing he could not run due to the piercing pain, he at least started trotting towards the howl, muttering: "Shira... I am coming... I hope the puppies are just safe..."

As he was heading towards the small den he lived with Shira, he remembered how it all came to be between them. Him living in the wild of Alaska for three years was a rather tough experience. It would have continued if it wasn't for Shira... she was younger than him not just in months, but years. She was a Siberian Husky and she was from the town White Mountain, the town he'd go deliver mail from Nome when he was the star of that town.

Shira's owner, a young kid named Sean, was her best human friend, whose unfortunate passing in the year before made her run for her life, fearing the worst from Sean's parents. She was genuinely terrified living in the wild by herself, but him taking her to shelter her was a solace they both craved for. He remembered telling her a story that Balto was the villain and he himself was the true hero of Nome, banished due to Balto's wrath. He knew it was a lie, but what mattered him the most was to restore his former glory.

He took a special care for her, hunting and giving her the flesh of the wild as she was expecting the puppies with him, giving a birth to four puppies that were husky-malamute hybrids. The three older ones - Taiga, Rodney and Sarah, accepted his story as the accurate one and he knew that had his plan failed, he'd have a backup plan. The youngest one, Tayer, was openly opposing him and for so, he received the abuse from him and the others. Abusing his youngest son made him feel nothing. Steele couldn't face the truth just like that.

Remembering all these facts, Steele realized that he was standing just a few trees away from the den he and Shira lived in, with their puppies as well. Making his way while trying to avoid being hurt was a bit challenging, but knowing the proper way through made it easy for him to go through. Then, he finally made it to the den.

"Shira, are you awake?" Steele asked, looking into the den. But what followed was as if he was flushed by the bad sense of the embarrassment. The den was empty and Shira and the puppies were nowhere to be found. Still, that didn't stop Steele to pick up the scent on the ground, leading him outside of the den. Following the scent, he had noticed the partly-covered dog paw-prints and numerous tiny paw-prints following the adult-size dog ones. Where could she have gone to?

Going as silent as the shadow in the night, Steele must have walked for tens and tens of minutes in the wastelands of the Alaskan forest. The scent he was picking up behind was relatively fresh and more intense it was, he knew that he was closer to his mate and the puppies. Thanks to his stealth skills, Steele suddenly heard a voice nearby. The voice sounded trembling and grieving. Furthermore inspecting the voice, he knew that his mate was nearby.

"Does she think... I am dead?" Steele asked, feeling the shock and awe brewing in himself as he neared the bush. Once peeking through, he saw a black female Siberian husky sitting near the edge of the cliff, with her head lowered down and she was trembling, with the tears streaming down her cheeks with an astonishing speed. Just few feet away, he saw in the small cave the puppies. He spotted the pile of three puppies on one side and one puppy being isolated from the others - Tayer.

"Steele... my love... how could have that mutt take your life away...!" Shira muttered, choking herself in the tears. Her having someone to depend on while struggling to live in the harsh and snowy wastelands of Alaskan wild was fierce. Despite her being a Siberian husky and capable of surviving the low temperatures, she had shown she was vulnerable to the cold of Alaska because of appreciating the home-life better. Then, she rose her head above, opening her watered eyes and walked to the den, looking at the puppies. She had no idea that her mate was alive and just few feet away from her.

Looking at the pile of her three out of four puppies, where the first three puppies of hers, Taiga, who almost completely resembled her father, Rodney, who looked like Kodiak, but with black fur and gray underbelly, and Sarah, who looked like her mother, only with ocean blue eyes and gray underbelly, they were sleeping cuddled to each other. Then she focused on her youngest pup, Tayer, whose looks deemed unusual to her (and even Steele), yet was green-eyed as his mother, with a quite resentful look.

Watching the entire scenario in silence, Steele's face also turned resentful upon spotting his sleeping youngest puppy. The silence was broken with Shira's surprisingly cold and monotonius whispering, enabling Steele to hear: "Taiga, Rodney, Sarah... you have heard from me that your father is no longer with us. Still, you three have carried the legacy of his very well that he's looking you proudly from the sky."

Steele knew how much his mate admired him, but to receive that many compliments from her and the fact she didn't know he wasn't dead in fact left him awestruck completely. However, he snapped back to the reality once as she started whispering with her cold and monotonius voice towards Tayer. He realized that her tone turned quite resentful as she spoke to him: "And you, Tayer... your opposing demeanor towards your father and his story is going to push you deeper to your doom. It is all on you to accept his story as accurate... and then we might treat you better."

Hearing his mate to speak with that tone was quite surprising to Steele, because Shira deemed pretty mellow compared to him. Though, he also knew that Tayer was openly opposing his beliefs and the rest of the family. That just made Steele think: "That little prick is finally going to accept the story and you, Shira... make sure he does, otherwise..."

"Now it's all on me." Shira spoke with her cold whisper in the name of all puppies. Of course, Steele snapped back into the reality. Her voice was piercing enough to break his minds and to focus on what she was saying: "Since that mutt Balto, as your father spoke to me about him, took his life, we are not going to stand this. I am going to take his life away in a retaliation and I leave you to do the same if someone dares to oppose us!"

Upon saying these words, Shira watched her puppies sleeping some more and instead of shrugging with her head as if she was trying to say: "What have I said now?", she nodded in pleasure, heading into the cave to sleep with her puppies, laying closer to the three cuddled puppies and leaving Tayer out of this. As she laid down and was slowly falling asleep, she whispered to them: "I am going to train you to fight. Even you, Tayer."

Steele waited and waited for Shira to finally fall asleep and as quick as the flash, Shira fell asleep in an astonishingly fast rate. The puppies didn't seem to be awaken from her whispering but just continued to sleep. He connected the dots in his own head that Shira believed Steele was actually dead and that she was going to finish the job he could have - finish Balto off and have his glory re-established posthumously, despite him still being alive.

"I am proud at you Shira." Steele smirked with the over-satisfied look on his face. Watching them sleep for some time, Steele quietly backed off, trying not to wake Shira up or the puppies. He looked for a cover anywhere nearby to sleep, hoping that Shira was not going to find him. The luck smiled to his face when he spotted the bush above, with snow covering the entrance to the small cave. Deeming itself empty, Steele sheltered himself inside. It wasn't like a warm home or anything else, but at least was a shelter.

"I believe she's going to finish the job for me." Steele hoped deep inside his arrogant mind, feeling quite sleepy. Before he finally fell asleep, he imagined in his head some of the images that were rather pleasant to him, but not to anyone else who was on Balto's side - Shira finishing Balto off at once and honoring her mate that she finally finished the task Steele was going to do.