said.

“Well then…” Blaize started, but his father interrupted him again.

“Son, I… I know I’m out of the fight, I need to find somewhere safe, somewhere outside, where I can sit still and wait.

Blaize nodded.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Balto shook his head, and as he was still trying to catch his breath, unable to speak, had to wait a minute.

“Not you.” He said.

“You go home.”

Blaize shook his head.

“You think I’m going to leave you in this condition?”

He laughed.

Balto looked at the ground.

“I… I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Blaize smiled.

“Dad, I’m indestructible.”

Balto looked up at his son, a shocked look on his face.

“Don’t... don’t say that.”

Blaize looked at his father, confused.

“I’ll tell you… later,” Balto said, “just listen to me for now, don’t say that.”

His father looked incredibly sad, as if Blaize’s words, had hurt him, or brought up some past hurt.

Blaize nodded somberly.

“Come on,” Blaize said, “let’s blow this joint.”

Balto smiled, as best he could, with his injuries.

Blaize started walking toward the tunnel they’d come in by.

Balto limped slowly after him.

Lightning arrived at the scene of the battle.

He was relieved to find, that the first wave was indeed intact, though they had lost a lot, there were quite a few, who still fought on.

Lightning knocked a wolf that was attacking Dash down, and hit him in the face, taking him out of the fight.

As if fighting several hundred wolves wasn’t enough, the humans who had attacked Aleu’s refugee’s, had apparently tracked her to this cave.

Gunshots were going off every minute or so, as they had brought some of their friends this time.

Lightning took the brief second of safety to look over the hill behind him.

He kept wishing, hoping that Lima would limp over the top, but…

“But it’s impossible.” Lightning thought, “You saw her go down.”

Another wolf jumped at him, and he had to interrupt his thoughts, to defend himself.

He knocked the wolf down, and then kicked him, sending him flying away from Lightning.

Lightning glanced back over the hill.

“How am I going to tell Aleu and Shadow?” He thought.

Then the wolf attacked again, and Lightning turned all his attention to the fight ahead.

Sheik was having a hard time fighting.

He was distracted by grief.

Sheik had seen his sister fall, but he had seen more than Lightning, the reason that he hadn’t stuck around when the other wolves ran.

As Lima fell, he saw a red mist explode out of her.

“It’s not fair!” Sheik thought.

He dodged another attacking wolf.

“Why? Why didn’t he shoot me, why Lima?”

Sheik caught a paw in the face, and fell to the ground.

He looked up, and saw fighting wolves everywhere.

He struggled to his feet, and continued fighting, troubled thoughts still lingering in his mind.

Shadow fell.

He hit the rock ledge pretty hard, and stayed on the ground, hoping that the wolf would think that the fall had killed him.

The ruse, apparently, worked, because the wolf looked over the edge and then disappeared.

Shadow tried to stand, and found that he hadn’t been faking as much as he thought he had.

He’d fallen over twenty feet, and taken most of the impact on his belly.

Shadow thought he probably had a sprained paw, as well as some broken or bruised ribs.

It hurt to breathe.

Shadow slowly stood up, ignoring the burning in his chest, and started to make his way slowly back to the top.

Tiru was having a bit of a rough time.

She was a decent fighter, you couldn’t be a member of a wolf pack for as long as she had, and not be, but her lingering love, and fond memories of her opponent, made her hesitant to hurt him.

He, apparently, was not too worried about hurting her.

She was in pretty bad shape, her face was bleeding, from at least a dozen wounds, her left front leg, bore a gash, evidence of the effectiveness of Kacto’s fangs, down to the bone.

Tiru also had minor cuts and bites, covering her body, but the one that scared her a little, was the wound on the back of her head.

One of the times that Kacto had thrown her, she’d hit her head, on a rock.

Her head hurt bad, and she could feel blood running down her neck, it had been bleeding for the past ten minutes.

Tiru was starting to get a little lightheaded.

Kacto hadn’t been hurt at all, or not really, nowhere near the extent of Tiru’s injuries.

In fact, the only time Tiru had even hit him, and meant it, was when they first encountered each other, when she hadn’t known who he was.

Tiru was kind of stumbling now, almost unable to stand.

She couldn’t believe he was doing this to her.

He hit her again, and she fell to the ground.

She looked up at him, almost unwilling to continue.

“Kacto?” She said, “Kacto, why… why are you doing this, it’s me, you remember Tiru?”

Kacto just stared down at her.

“Tiru died two weeks ago,” he said.

Tiru just closed her eyes, and waited for the inevitable.

Aleu staggered back under Gia’s onslaught.

She knew that the silver wolf was playing with her, for if Gia had fought to her full potential, she would have almost certainly killed Aleu.

Aleu had still been getting the rough side of the fight, Gia was leaving her mark.

Aleu had a strategy though, and that was to get Gia close enough to a high drop, to push her off.

There was no way that she was going to take Gia in combat on open ground, but if she had gravity on her side…

So Aleu was backing toward the small ledge that was outside what had once been her chambers.

Aleu stepped outside, right as Gia caught her with five strikes to the face, then she kicked Aleu, throwing her dangerously near the very ledge she wanted Gia to fall off of.

Aleu stood up shakily.

Gia advanced on her, and the two started anew.

There was a human on the ground, he was a little uneasy at all of the fighting wolves, knowing that if they stopped fighting, there was no way, absolutely no way, that the humans with him could hold them back.

The human saw the two wolves fighting on the ledge high above him.

He raised his 30-30 rifle, and set the sights if the scope on the gray one, Aleu’s, head.

He smiled, then he pulled the trigger.

Shadow was limping into the chamber, when he heard the shot, and heard someone fall to the ground.

He ran out of the chamber, to the ledge, that had been Aleu’s favorite part of the cave.

“I hope I’m not too late!” Shadow thought, “Spirits please let Aleu be okay, don’t tell me that she just got shot.”

Shadow ran out onto the ledge.

Aleu was facing Gia, her back to the ledge.

This was not supposed to be how this worked. The roles were supposed to be switched.

Aleu began to circle around Gia, just as Gia darted around her.

As Gia got behind her, intending to bite into the back of her exposed neck, a shot sounded.

Aleu turned, and saw a red mist, that filled the air.

She didn’t feel hit, then Aleu saw the red stain spreading across Gia’s shoulder.

The silver wolf slumped to the ground.

Aleu watched her for a moment, then, satisfied Gia wasn’t going to get up, she started walking slowly away.

Gia lifted her head, about six inches off of the ground.

She knew she was hit, and hit bad.

Gia watched Aleu walking away, and a tear dripped out of her eye, not from pain, but from sadness, maybe even of regret.

“So this is how it ends, huh Jiurus?” She thought.

As her vision blurred, she thought back, back into the past…

Chapter XX

Gia was on third watch.

She was a young wolf, just barely getting started with the Giat clan’s security team.

She and a young male had joined right at the same time.

It was a good time. The state of things within the pack hadn’t been so steady in many, many years.

The males name was Jiurus, and Gia thought he was kind of cute.

The two of them had been put on guard duty, first thing, and she could look across the cave and see him.

Gia hoped everything would be alright, if it wasn’t well… that’s what the security team was here for.

It was several years later, Gia and Jiurus had gotten together, and Gia was a proud mother of four. They’d grown up quickly, almost too quickly for Gia, and now they too were on the security team.

The pack was walking through the woods one day, on its way to hunt.

Gia had thought something felt strange, and was not really surprised when a wolf leapt out of the bushes, headed straight for their leader.

Gia was surprised however, when the small clearing suddenly filled with over a hundred wolves, more than matching the fifty that the Giat clan had.

The small clearing was turned into the scene of a battle.

Dead and dying wolves lay everywhere, but Gia was one of the best fighters in the pack, and she was not among them, though she did put some of them there.

Gia looked over, in time to see a wolf knock Jiurus to the ground, the wolf tore at his throat.

“Jiurus!” Gia yelled.

She ran over, grabbed the wolf by the shoulder, threw her on the ground, closed her jaws around the wolf’s neck, and twisted her head sideways.

The wolf’s neck snapped, and Gia dropped her unmoving body to the ground.

She ran over to Jiurus, but…. But it was too late.

The remainder of the attackers, slaughtered all but the last few of the team, about nine of them.

They turned tail, and ran.

When Gia got back to the cave, more