Author's notice: Oh, in case you're wondering, this is called "Balto 5," but this will follow directly after Balto 3, so you won't need to worry about reading my Balto 4 fanfic first.
MOST RECENT CHAPTER EDIT: May 22nd, 2018
Outside Porch – Nome Post Office; Nome, Territory of Alaska
12:51; Monday, July 2nd, 1928 (Over a month after the final scene in Balto 3.)
Summer came into Nome as Balto waited at the post office for Kodi and his sled team to make it back after their morning mail delivery to White Mountain. Nearly all of the snow in Nome has melted and grass came in and washed the snowy land that has winter half of the entire year.
Balto noticed his son, Kodi, panting as he and his team were scurrying in. Kodi's musher, Mr. Simpson, stopped the dogs right on time. Kodi panted happily to his father. "Whew! That was awesome, Dad! It's so cool my musher can now mush with wheels now that the snow is all gone! I thought Duke would have run us over with his bush plane this season!"
Kirby interrupted, to Balto, "Because humans know dogs are tough and reliable!"
"Good job son. Another good timing," said Balto, with a moderately proud face as usual.
"Thanks, Dad!" panted Kodi.
Meanwhile, Mr. Conner, the post officer, gave Simpson his return mail batch. "Here's the next batch, Mr. Simpson."
"Thanks, Mr. Conner," replied Simpson, loading the bag onto the cart.
"Wish us luck again, Balto!" panted Ralph.
"Mush, Mush!" called Mr. Simpson, driving the dogs away. Balto smiled as his son and his team took off into the forest.
Jenna sneaked over on the post office porch behind Balto, smiling. "Jenna, sweetheart, don't you ever wish to run the mail?" asked Balto as he faced his mate.
"Nah, Balto, it's not really my type," she replied, looking to the side.
"You're just the stay-at-home mom I know you are?"
"Yeah, that's what almost all mothers are. I'm over seven years old. I'm getting pretty old right now. My small paws are barely able to carry me anymore."
"Nah; as long as your beauty never gets old, then your age won't," nodded Balto with a smile. Jenna made a smirk and then licked him on his furry grey cheek.
Nome boundary
18:06 (6 hours later)
Kodi and his sled team were galloping their way back to Nome again with their final daily batch. As they reached the city boundary, Kirby turned to everyone behind him and announced, "Gee, team... It's been a pretty quiet run this time."
"Agreed," responded Ralph.
Kodi mildly grinned ahead; he started to sing the lines of the first chorus of Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis. The rest of his team joined in as they all sang together while running.
Outside Porch – Nome Post office
Balto was waiting patiently at the porch—not for the entire day though. He chuckled as he saw his son's team singing as they were arriving. Balto said, "Good job, team! let's call it a day!" when they just passed the point of the post office entrance they were supposed to stop at.
"Oh right!" yelped Ralph, immediately alerted.
They all used their paws to brake themselves on the sandy dirt ground, each of their sliding paws sounding like tire screeches. Dusty, the longest to react, yipped, and then accidentally slammed into Kodi's body right in front of her.
She then got her head out from Kodi's red fur, and then she inched away and sat down making an embarrassed grin to him. "Whoops! Sorry, Kodi."
Kodi raised his "that's what friends are for" smile to her and said, "Nah; that's alright, Dusty."
Near Balto's Boat – Nome Beach
18:19 (Less than 15 minutes later)
Like every day, Kodi, Dusty, Ralph, and Kirby went to celebrate. This time, after all the water splashing and nuzzles, Kirby made an evil grin and quietly walked towards Kodi. "Kodi, come with me."
"Uh, alright, Kirby," replied Kodi. They both walked a small distance away from Ralph and Dusty.
In the distance, Balto came over. "Hey... Balto!" panted Ralph as he then galloped with Dusty towards him.
As Kirby made an evil grin on his face, Kodi said, "Kirby, I would hate to be lost far away and you're the only company with me—"
"You wanna say that again?" asked Kirby, bobbing his head, trying to intimidate Kodi.
"Yeah," nodded Kodi with a sassy grin.
"You wanna say that again?" bobbed Kirby, trying to intimidate Kodi for the second time.
"Yes," grinned Kodi, nodding. He then slowly said, making every word he says clear, "I would HATE to be LOST FAR AWAY and YOU'RE the ONLY COMPANY with me—"
Kirby sighed. "Do you even know what I mean by 'do you wanna say that again?'" he said in mild frustration.
"Yeah."
"It means that if you say that again I will kill you." Kirby then commanded him bullyfully, evilly grinning, "Put your foreleg down! I'm gonna give you 'laceration'!"
"That's not lacerati—" justified Kodi. Kirby right at the moment scratched Kodi on his front leg with one of Kirby's claws. Kodi yelped.
"So, Kodi," interrupted Kirby before he slapped his front leg over Kodi's neck. "We both know why you said, 'Nah, that's alright,' as Dusty slammed into you!"
"Gee, give her a break, Kirby!" complained Kodi. "The poor chick has really slippery paws!" He tilted his head towards him and grinned. "Heh, get it? give her a brake?" Kodi and Kirby's grins immediately went to a halt when they noticed an odd fragrance.
"Smell somm'n?" asked Kirby. They both sniffed around.
"It smells kind of like metal," said Kodi before he turned his head to something coming in the sky.
It was a large silver object which was about 65 metres (~71 yd.) long and 30 metres (~33 yd.) wide. It revealed a very odd shape nobody had ever seen before. It looked larger and larger the closer it came.
"What is that thing?" asked Kirby as he inched closer to Kodi, nervous.
Dusty and Ralph—who were many metres away from them—inched closer to Balto and then they clumb up his back in fear.
Balto was the only one who smirked with pride. Wow, is that the humans' newest flying machine? he thought.
"Don't tell me its another bush-plane!" complained Kodi.
"I think it is, Kodi! It's ginormous!" exclaimed Kirby. "It doesn't just carry mail! It carries humans too!"
Oh not again, Kodi! thought Balto. Please give the humans' newest invention a chance this time!
The flying object hovered right on top of Balto. Balto sighed concernedly. Dusty and Ralph were whimpering and shivering in fear as this was the scariest moment they've had for months.
Then, a large, translucent green beam was shot out from the bottom centre of the flying object, aimed directly at Balto. Ralph and Dusty were also caught in the radius of the beam. All three of them disappeared in about two seconds.
"Dad!" exclaimed Kodi.
Kodi and Kirby ran as fast as they can into the beam. As they ran inside, a flash of white light blinded them.
In circuits of time
As all of their sight recovered from the flash, Balto, Dusty, and Ralph were speed floating through what looks like a blueish-white tube that turns in all directions to an endless end. They were a lot like the time circuits from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989).
All five of the dogs were howling their vocal chords out with hugely terrified looks on their faces. They didn't know what was going in their heads. Balto, Dusty, and Ralph held their front legs on to each other's shoulders as they were rotating and howling their way through. It wasn't until several seconds when they heard a familiar male voice.
"Guys!" barked Kodi, hanging onto Kirby two metres away from the other three.
"Kodi!" barked Balto.
"Kodi, we've gotta catch up!" barked Kirby.
The three ahead were watching Kodi and Kirby behind them swimming to catch up; it wasn't doing much as the air resistance was pushing them too much in the opposite direction due to the circuit pushing everyone forward at around three-quarters of the speed of sound. "I cant move!... The force... pushing me... is TOO STRONG!" howled Kodi, facing ahead.
"I've got an idea, Kodi!" howled Dusty. She clumb from Balto and Ralph and then she lended her hind paw. "Grab on!" she called.
"Kodi! This is your chance!" commanded Kirby. "Do what all males are born to do! Grab the female!"
Kodi kept looking ahead at Dusty. He raised his front-right paw in front of him and started to swim with this other legs in the circuit. The limited swimming was helping now that Kodi had some energy. Kodi was sweating vigorously through his paws from all the energy he's burning having to get to Dusty.
"Come on, Kodi! You've got this!" barked his father.
"You're almost there, Kodi!" barked Ralph cheerily. "Just a few more swims!"
As Kodi was finally was about three centimetres (~1 in.) away from Dusty's paw, the force of the tube systems veered Kodi and Kirby into a small tubular tangent to their upper-right.
"Nooooooo!" exclaimed Balto, shocked with huge eyes a dropped jaw, seeing his son veer off course.
Meanwhile, with Kirby and Kodi in the tube they've accidentally got tangented to, "Doh! Look what you've done now, Kodiak!" growled Kirby angrily. He slapped Kodi's thigh. "If you really loved Dusty you could have went faster and grabbed her!"
"Zip it, Kirby!" barked a cross Kodi. Kodi turned to face forward, which to his sight, led to a circuit exit.
Transporter room – Inside the unidentified flying ship; Squamish, BC, Canada
10:22; Thursday, July 3rd, 2014 (The next day after 86 years after time circuit departure)
Balto, Dusty, and Ralph were inside a huge metallic room about twenty metres (~22 yd.) in length with lots of computers, screens, and metal objects around them.
"Where are we now?!" whimpered Ralph nervously, looking all around.
"It smells like we're inside that oversized flying thing, Ralph," replied Balto, staring ahead statically.
A sliding metallic door opened, and then three tall two-legged figures walked into the room to them.
Each one of them had jet-black skin, pairs of large luminous purple eyes, pairs of white whiskers, husky-dog ears, and two thin organic "jet-packs" each aiming down coming from each of their backs. All three of them were dressed in their light military armour, bandoleers with tanks for their rifles, and heavy black combat boots.
Balto and the two dogs flanking him were shivering to each other in fear of the non-human extraterrestrial creatures. "What's in their hands?" asked Dusty.
"Those look like rifles," replied Balto. Dusty and Ralph yelped and buried their faces into Balto's fur.
Suddenly, the three mysterious creatures saluted, and then their general, in the centre, barked—in dog language—"At ease! Welcome aboard! We come in peace, Balto!"
"Who are you guys?!" yelped Balto anxiously. "H— How do you know my name? How come you guys talk like dogs?!"
"We are extraterrestrial beings known as the 'Zhulp', NATO reporting name: 'Smokebacks'." replied the general. "We come to and studied planet Earth because it is the closest planet with intelligent life from our star system besides ours. Anyways, my name is Gen.—" he then said his name which is spoken in Zhulp which is really quickly spoken and hard to understand.
"General What?" asked Ralph.
"My apologies, Ralph," replied the general. "Our form of communication is really different from dogs and humans, so it's almost impossible to translate my real name into Dog. Whatever! Now to the point! We've abducted youse because we were interested in you, Mr. Balto."
"What? How? Why?" asked Balto, who was getting somewhat annoyed.
"We hate to break it out to you guys, but we've been spying on youse..."
One of his bodyguards bent over to Ralph, raising one of his skinny fingers. "And Ralph, we know what what you did last night!" Ralph shivered and yipped in terror.
"At ease, colonel," barked the general, pulling his guard away from Ralph, "We don't have much time for that kind of stuff!" "Anyways," he said to the dogs. "Turn on the screen." he ordered to his operator at the other side of the room.
The general then explained to the dogs—while the TV shows what he is explaining. "We're the poor breed of Smokebacks on our planet. Our nations were under a huge sanction by the most rich and extravagant nation. They took our resources; they discriminated us; their intelligence services propagandized us as killers and evil people; and they even murdered many of us and their news stations hid it all from everyone there. Yesterday, the Big One happened: they mass murdered 90% of our entire civilian population and via hydrogen bombs! Now, all that's left, is this nation, where the last of our people live. But, we won't be able to survive there because need enough of a Gross Domestic Product to keep a sustainable economy there." Balto exhaled in terror.
"I don't get it. How are we going to do that?" asked Dusty.
"Well, Dusty, we have a special capsule we will give to Balto which can change his vocal mechanics," replied the general. "It will allow him to be able to speak to humans."
"Really?" asked Balto, slowly raising a curious eyebrow at the Smokebacks.
"If he's brought into the 2010s era as the first human-sounding talking dog, he can become very popular, and make lots of money," explained the general.
"What? The 2010s era?" asked a surprised Balto.
"Mr. Balto, those big tube things youse were in were time circuits," explained the general. "Youse have now been teleported in time and space to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the year 2014."
"2014? Tartar sauce! We're very far in the future!" panted Ralph to his dog friends.
"And you are very far in human technology too, Ralph," continued the general. "You aren't going to be going into a small village like Nome; you'll be in a big city with lots of houses, buildings and a huge overload of humans." Balto exhaled in shock. The general continued, "Youse have 30 days to make us one million dollars."
"One million?! That's impossible!" complained Ralph.
"One million Canadian dollars of today is $74,233.31 American dollars of your time, adjusted for inflation." explained the general. "Remember, we recommend keeping the money in a bank. When you have one million, you can withdraw it and we will come pick it up when everyone is sleeping in a safe room. We cannot afford to be seen by any of the humans. It is also too dangerous to take the money out of the bank by force. When we pick up the money, we will pick all of youse up too. Most important, do not tell anyone but close human friends about us. If you succeed the mission, we will deliver all of you back to Nome 1928."
"Wait a second, sir," asked Balto, gradually clenching his eyebrows. "Why couldn't you have abducted a dog from 2014 and give him or her a talking ability? Why do you need specifically me?!" he growled in frustration.
"If we abduct a dog from 2014, Balto, it won't do this mission for us because that dog won't have a punishment for failing the mission."
"That's pretty cruel," responded Dusty, concerned.
"It's the only way we can make enough money quickly, Dusty," explained the general. "Our country is in grave danger just like how Nome was back in January 1925 before Balto here, delivered the Diphtheria antitoxin." Balto smiled a little bit. "So let's just get started," continued the general.
"Wait a second again, why do you need money from earth?" barked Balto. "Don't you have your own currency?"
"Yes, Balto," replied the general. "We used to use our very own currency which after our H-bombing, we have next to nothing. Over on our planet, earth currencies have a much larger value, so that's why one million Canadian dollars is enough to give us a GDP and build one capital city to keep a population of us."
"Okay, but one more thing," said Balto, "What about my son Kodi? Where is he?" he asked anxiously.
The operator in the room turned around from his screen on his spinning chair, raised his baseball cap from his eyes, and then informed, "Salutations, Balto. We did spot some heat signatures in the tubes. The two accidentally veered into the exit that brought them into some different co-ordinates. We are unable to approximate their location as circuits like those always generate a random spot."
Balto sighed. Oh no! Where is he and what will Jenna think? he thought in terror.
"We almost never use these time transporters because of their heavy unreliability," added the general; "To make just one reasonably precise transportation, it requires about nearly 25 earth days worth of calibrations and tweaks. These only work once before needing to be calibrated again."
"I do not know a thing you just said," said Ralph, squinting.
"We were really lucky to at least have you, Balto, and Dusty here in one piece each!" added the operator. "We didn't have enough time to calibrate the system because of the attacks we faced, and we thought we might lose you guys! We lost already so many of our people thanks to this thing!"
"Now, Balto, we will give you the capsule," said the general.
The operator walked over with the very valuable capsule in two of his four fingers. "Alright, Balto," said the operator, "You will need to swallow this right now. It might sting a bit, but it takes effect quickly and it has no side effects."
"Alright! Give it to me!" panted Balto. He then opened his snout, ready for the capsule to enter.
"Here you go!" chanted the operator, feeding it into Balto's mouth. Dusty and Ralph, curious, walked away from him, and then inched closer to each other.
After five seconds, Balto howled in pain, feeling his vocal chords and mouth mechanics deform, as well as feeling his brain quickly and artificially develop.
"What's going on?!" whimpered Ralph, mildly shivering at the sight of Balto.
"The capsule, Ralph!" clarified Dusty, turning to his face, "That's what's going on, you dufus!"
After thirty seconds, the capsule finally dissolved. "Say something in human English, Balto," said the general.
Balto inhaled, and said, "Alright, I—..." He was shocked to hear himself talking just like a human. An excited look slowly grew on his face as he turned his eyes to his snout. "Whoa! I'm talking like a human!" he cheered. He spun around and laughed in happiness.
"Tartar sauce, Balto!" panted Ralph. "You really do sound like a human! I'm not even kidding around!"
Ralph and Dusty galloped with their tongues to the Smokebacks. "Can we get some too?!" barked Dusty and Ralph happily.
"Negative," replied the general. "That was the last one we have. It comes from a scarce ingredient which we cannot extract from our land anymore due to the radioactive soil."
"Fish-paste!" barked Ralph disappointingly, looking down to his left.
The general walked over to Balto, crouching down at his face. "Remember, Balto, that was our only canine vocal capsule. The safety of our planet lies inside your snout. Do your mission wisely, and you will get your reward," he said as he tapped Balto on the head.
"Hey, hey, Ralph," panted Dusty, "I always wondered how your human voice would sound like. I bet you'd have a really beautiful voice," panted Dusty, mildly nodding.
"Aw! Thanks, Dusty!" whimpered Ralph in joy, with turned-on hearty eyes. They were so close to nuzzling before they got interrupted by the operator.
"Yo, Dusty, Ralph," said the operator as he was rummaging through some Dope boxes at his computer desk, "I'm going to give you some old capsules which we're trying to give away."
"Really?" asked Ralph, raising an eyebrow to him.
"Yes. Found it!" called the operator, gripping the capsule with his skinny fingers. He walked over to Dusty and Ralph and crouched. "We have this musician capsule which can give one of youse great musical instrument skills. Most notably, the piano!"
"A piano capsule?" asked Dusty, raising an eyebrow.
"It's redundant for us today so I'm thinking to give it to one of youse. Who wants it?"
"Ralph?..." asked Dusty, slowly turning her head, raising an eyebrow to her best friend.
"Uh... Alright. I'll take it, sir!" panted Ralph.
"Alright, Ralph, Here you go!" chanted the operator. He fed the capsule into Ralph's snout. Ralph howled as it stung a bit.
After about thirty seconds, Ralph felt the process complete. His eyes were twirling around before he said, "Wow, I've now got slightly larger paws and more posable digits! I also know all about music now! I can't wait to try this!" he panted, looking around, smiling.
"Well now that Balto can talk to humans and Ralph has piano skills, what about me?" asked Dusty looking around before she faced the operator with a bummed face.
"Your skill is that you're really kind, loving, and you're very pretty," flirted Ralph, winking.
"Oh, stop it, you!" teased Dusty, flicking her paw towards him.
"Actually, Dusty," said the operator, rummaging again through the same container. He picked up another capsule. "We have this Trinity power capsule which can give you the power to laugh like a human, and idiotically, so that it makes everyone around you laugh with you because of how stupid you'll laugh! The capsule will also have you burping through your nose instead of mouth, and finally, the capsule will give you explosive diarrhea so that when you take cruds, the turds are in type 7 liquid form and comes out like a waterfall!"
"Oh Boy!" panted Dusty, hopping on her paws. "Idiotic laughing styles! Burping through my nose! Explosive diarrhea! Gimme! Gimme!"
"Alright, Dusty, here you go!" chanted the operator, feeding her. She howled from the ingestive stinging.
After about fifteen seconds, Dusty felt the process complete. "Hmm, I can't wait to test this out!" she panted as she looked around. "Even though this is a bit pointless, what could be wrong? I can't wait for the next time I take a deuce!"
"So now each one of youse dogs have even more powers to enter the future with!" said the general.
"Thank you!" called all three dogs.
"Before you leave, we will need to give all three of youse scans," said the general.
Just then, three more Smokeback units teleported into the circular room everyone was in.
The dogs had to go through many scans. Scans include: saliva samples, fur samples, urine samples, blood tests, retinal scans, teeth x-rays, advanced paw pad scanning, 3D body scanning, x-ray bone scanning...
"Sorry doggies; x-ray is bad for you," said the general.
...Brain PET scans, and for Dusty, milk samples, and last but not least for everyone, rectal scans.
Before it started, Ralph asked to Balto, "Balto, what's a rectal scan?"
"Ralph, you don't want to know," replied Balto, shaking his head, avoiding eye contact with him.
After all the scans and samples, the general had one last thing to say. "Balto... Very important! Because the one million will take some time to get and we would prefer to calibrate the time/space–travelling system to your safe return, we will be doing some calibrations with it to ensure you and the rest of your dog pack's precise and safe return. We should be done within 25 days, so do not take the money out from the bank until 25 days have passed."
"Got it!" replied Balto.
All of the Smokebacks waved goodbye. "Goodbye Balto, Dusty, and Ralph! We wish you the best luck we can! Dismissed!" called the general.
"Wait a second, will this cause us to separate us again as you said?" asked Balto as he was about to be transported.
"No. That's the TIME transporter," replied the operator; "This transporter—which doesn't travel through time and has a limited 200 km radius—is very reliable, easy, and stable. We use it all the time."
"Okay," replied Dusty. The dogs have been beamed out of the ship.
Street level – Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain Station; Vancouver, BC, Canada
11:00; Thursday, July 3rd, 2014 (DAY 1)
"Hooey! That rectal scan was awesome!" panted Ralph, facing the two to his right before he drops his jaw, looking at the amazing cityscape ahead.
Balto and the two exhaled with shocked eyes and their jaws dropped.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing, boys?!" panted Dusty.
"Look at all of those tall houses!" panted Balto (in Dog).
"I have never seen so many breeds of humans!" panted Ralph.
"Yeah, Ralph! People aren't all white or red; hello!" panted Dusty. "They're sometimes black, brown, salmon-coloured, most of the time yellow, maybe even more!"
"Hey Dusty, I wonder how green humans look like!" panted Ralph.
"Yeah!" chuckled Dusty.
"Hey, guys, I've gotta ask where we are with my new talking ability," said Balto.
"Oh yeah, Balto! Let's hear what the humans will say!" panted Ralph before they took off.
Balto and the two walked over to a man sitting at the WB w Georgia St FS Seymour Street bus stop. Balto placed his front paws on the bench and asked him, "Hey, sorry to bother you, sir, but do you know where I am right now?" He raised a shy grin.
The man flinched and gasped in astonishment. "Doggy?! D— Did you just talk?!"
"Yes, I did," replied Balto, mildly nodding.
Some more people across the street turned around to him, all stunned. They took out phones and cameras to take videos and snap vines.
Find out what happens to Balto, Dusty, and Ralph, and find out where Kodi and Kirby are in the next chapter. Stay tuned!
