Fleeting, Like Pawprints in the Snow

By Commentaholic

A/N: I just had to write this story. I've been watching Balto: Wings of Change for pretty much the past week. I have no idea why I like it so much. The soundtrack? The emotions? Who knows. I came across it at random on Netflix and have been watching it on and off a lot.

So here I am. First Balto fanfic for me... but I have recently become a fan of the series.

Prologue: The Fall of a Legend

"He'll always have a hero... for he'll always have you."

-=Jenna, to Balto, the night before the Big Race.=-

Balto growled as his claws skittered across the ice, slipping backwards towards the abyss of Grizzly Gap behind him, where Duke had already slipped into. The Bushplane's pilot clung to the sheet metal as Balto's rear leg found purchase on a small outcropping of rock, halting the descent of his slide. Fixing his eyes on the next foothold that he could spot, his paws dug in, slowly climbing up the slope, shoulders burning as the ropes attached to Duke's lifeline pulled him backwards.

He heard howling. What now? he asked himself, a moment before his paws slipped, causing him to slide back onto the initial outcropping, where he came to a stop. The rock beneath his rear paws began to crackle. Balto shut his eyes for the inevitable plunge, but when the crackling died away, nothing happened. His paws were sliding against the stone, unable to get a grip, but he wasn't moving backwards. Balto opened his eyes only to see the last person he expected to see: Steele.

Balto had discredited Steele a few years earlier, making him into an outcast and pariah. The town's dogs finally knew Steele for what he was: a bully and a coward. And now... he was helping Balto? Steele had grabbed one of Balto's leads, the ropes that were strapped to Duke's sled, before pinning it down with a paw.

"Hello, Lobo." Steele snarled.

"Steele... what are you doing here?"

"I wanted the satisfaction of ending your pathetic half-breed life myself. Do you have any idea how long it took me to weaken this bridge? I even had to hire a grizzly to stomp on it in order to get it the way I wanted. Luckily he fell into the gap himself when he was done, so I didn't have to get him the food he wanted." Steele chuckled darkly.

"You're a monster, Steele." Balto grunted, trying to get his feet under himself again. Steele lashed out with a paw, knocking Balto off his paws again.

"Nuh-uh, wolf-dog. You're not getting the picture." Steele growled, "I'm ending you. Right here, right now. And your son won't be able to help you." Steele finished as he heard the howling coming closer.

"Kodi?" Balto could now recognize the mail dogs' howling, his son's among them.

Looking back over his shoulder, Steele snarled. "I guess I won't have as much time to play with you as I thought I would... Your son certainly has inherited your speed, Bingo." Steele lifted his paw off the rope and gave Balto a shove before darting away into the snow-covered forest.

Kodiak panted hard as he pumped his legs furiously to climb the snow-covered slope. According to Dipsy, the dog at the General Store, Balto had left a few hours ago to search for the pilot of The Bush Plane. Kodi snarled at the thought of the metal contraption that had attempted to steal their job, which was to take mail between Nome and the other towns along the Alaskan frontier.

Kodi still didn't think better of the Bushplane and its pilot, but he did know one thing. His father needed him. And after all the times that Balto had been there for Kodi while he had been growing up... he owed it to his father to trust the intuition of the heroic wolf/dog half-breed.

He crested the hill leading to the stone bridge across Grizzly Gap. Kodi gasped as he spotted his father slipping backwards down an incline, pulling a sheet of metal to which the pilot was clinging. The weight of the human was too much for Balto's paws to find a grip amid the slushy snow. Claws threw up chips of ice as the aging sled dog tried to cling to the slanted surface.

No! Kodi exclaimed in his mind, darting forward, the other sled dogs of his team charging after him. They bolted towards Balto, not daring to imagine what would happen if they didn't get there in time.

Crack!

The cliff that Balto clung to shattered, shards of rock falling into the abyss below. Balto's eyes met those of his son for a few precious moments before the last few pieces of rock holding Balto's pawholds to the rest of the cliff crumbled, sending both the pilot and the legendary dog into the darkness below. As the last few rocks disappeared from sight, Kodiak and the rest of the sled dogs could only stare in shock and horror as they witnessed the passing of a hero.

"He can't be dead, he just can't be!" exclaimed Dusty, the lone female member of the mail dog sled team. "Maybe he's just down at the bottom, hurt!"

Kodi peered over the edge, careful not to let his paws slip on the treacherous slope. "I can't see the bottom..."

And he couldn't. To his eyes, the bottom of Grizzly Gap was not in sight. It was just a dark abyss into which his father had plummeted. Tears formed and fell into the darkness as Kodi cursed his foolishness. If only he had listened to his father's urgings to go help Duke. Now they were gone. Both of them. Duke, the Bushplane pilot and Balto, the Hero of Nome.

The walk back to town was the longest of Kodi's life.

A/N: Well... first Balto fanfic. I've been reading a couple of them to prepare for this.

Let me set this straight. This will not be a happy-go-lucky fanfic where everything works out. There will not be many cute little moments of (heh heh) Puppy Love. This will be sad, for the most part. And for that, I only sort of apologize.

My favorite part of Balto 3, the "You Don't Have to be a Hero" song sung by Jenna... it gives me peoplebumps.

Now that you've Read, Now you Review, eh? Please?

-=Commentaholic=-