"ONE, TWO THREE!"  Thursday howled, both teams leapt at the harness eagerly, their combined power pulling the gangline tight, the weight of the sled pulled pack for a moment and slid forward smoothly as they all took off along the marked trail, Sylar could hear his heart pounding as his paws crushed the fresh snow into the ground, Sylar could also hear balto breathing heavily to his right, he laughed, he of course realized this was not the time for laughter, though he did anyway. Thursday, confused about the sled was still at the start line, nosing his way into the harness, after a while, he stood up with his head through one of the holes for which a leg goes through and growled viciously, "come on! we don't have time for this,: Thursday snarled and leapt forward, the other wolves behind either had their harnesses on, or flipped head over heels while their harness fluttered in the breeze as thursday led the struggling wolves forward Howling miserably, the Wolf team, raced after sylar's with a terrible start.

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After several minutes of flat out sprinting, sylar finally slowed to a stop, panting hoarsley Balto padded up to him and asked "what are you doing Sylar? they'll catch up in no time if you don't get up!" Balto nudged Sylar with his nose, willing Sylar to get up, in the distance, Apryl heard a faint howl, hardly there, but recognizable,

"OH NO!" Apryl howled, startling the others out of their break,

"what is it?" Kodi questioned

" the wolves are gaining on us!" Apryl groaned in fear

" We have to go Sylar, Wake up!" Balto growled angrily, Sylar still not revived, Balto sighed, opened his mouth and bit down hard on Sylar's ear, Sylar let out a huge howl into the sky and leapt to his paws, and took off, almost dragging the team behind him, they eventually came to a fork in the marked path, they ran to the left in confusion, due to the thickening fog, Sylar didn't notice when eight shilloettes padded into veiw through the fog, Sylar caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye and skidded to a halt the team piling up behind him, Balto squirmed out of his harness and padded forward to the closest shilloette, he opened his mouth as if to speak, the wolf lunged forward and grasped Balto's scruff and flung him the the ground, a slight trickle of bright red blood from the back of Balto's neck seemed like the only colour, for Sylar, everything moved in slow motion, The wolf right of the one who had just attacked sprinted forward and tore through Sylar's Deltiod muscle, Sylar felt a hot sear of pain and felt the hair on the back of his neck raise up in response, Sylar lashed back at the wolf, not meaning to kill, but he did, blindly, Sylar bit forward, shredding through the wolf's sternohyoid muscle and into his jugular, more colour. red. Sylar struggled out of the harness and glanced through the clearing fog, a large blonde wolf had Apryl by the spine, crunching through the young bone not even fully developed, Sylar charged the wolf and ripped through his fur, shaking vigorously, his gums beginning to feel sore he let go, tossing the wolf to the ground. he glanced through the fog again and moaned in despair, the wolf team had joined the fight, just then, a clear unfamiliar howl rang through the crisp air, Sylar saw his shy son Ryeschea bounding ahead of the mystery pack, he noticed also, that almost each wolf had a black racing collar, they easily overpowered the wolf pack together, blood and fur flew, wolves and dogs alike fell to the ground, dead or otherwise, at the end, the entire team was still intact, along with some of the dogs with the collars, Sylar, exhausted, stumbled up to Ryeschea and Spoke

"who are your friends?"

"they are the dogs of Nome, Sled dogs of course, but we followed the teams to see who would win and saw these cowards sneaking into the woods, we followed them as best as we could but almost lost them, we found them when we heard the fight from about half a kilometer away, we came as quickly as possible, but never mind that! you have to go!" Ryeschea explained, Sylar's eyes widened, and he leapt into his harness, growling at the others to do so as well, the whole team was prepared in under 30 seconds, Ryeschea bounced alongside the injured team, willing them on, "Come ON Come ON!!" he howled, leaping through the thickening snow, "we're not allowed to follow you any further due to the rules, but be careful dad!" Ryeschea's voice faded gradually as the team sped up, their muscles burned along with the searing cold snow that flew into the fresh wounds, the black harnesses dug into the gashes along their sides and shoulders creating a rash of sorts and rubbing the wolves' fur down to a stubble. Speeding through the blizzarding snow, Sylar could see nothing within five feet of his paws as the flew out and back in as the cycle of his legs wore his paws down until the snow behind the sled began to turn pink, sylar slid to a halt licked gently at his paws, he glanced back to the rest of the team and realized the same was happening to them, Sylar, muddled this around in his head for a moment, confused at why the snow should be this rough he padded forward tenderly and spotted a small black speckle in his periphary vision, he trotted over to the speck and realized as he advanced towards it that it was a tiny black thorn, as he walked back to the sled, more black spots seemed to appear on the snow as if they weren't there earlier,

"listen up! there are thorns on the ground! my guess is that they were scattered around here to slow u-us--us d-dd-own...i.do.n't... feel....so...g...o...od..." Sylar collapsed into a heap of mahogany fur in the snow, unconcious, Balto stood up and attempted to walk over to Sylar, after 2 paw steps he too collapsed, Apryl, who was already collapsed, sighed and closed her eyes as if sleeping, Kodi layed down gently before he fell and saw his vision flicker and die into a haze of black.