Dark Light (a 'Balto' fic)

Disc.: I do not own 'Balto' it belongs to their respective owner(s), so just fuck off with the hate flames already!

A/N: Welcome, one and all, to Ch.6! I feel so happy that you guys love this fic enough to tell me so, and for your love I am going to make this chapter as long as possible simply because I love u guys and all the praise you give me! So, without further adieu, I give you the next chapter- Enjoy, everypony!

Ch.6- Guiding Light

Balto took one last look behind him and then ran off towards the mountains, he knew that so many lives depended on him finding the missing sled dog team and getting the medicine back to Nome. Many other dogs in his position would probably do it for the recognition of being the hero that saved everyone's lives from certain death, but Balto wasn't doing it for that, nor was he doing it for some sense of acceptance by the townspeople.

No, he was doing it for the single most important reasons that were burning brightly in his heart like a warm fire. He was doing it for Rosie, who deserved to live…and for Steele, the one he loved more than any other.

Balto knew by now deep in his heart that he was in love with the Malamute who had not only accepted him, but had literally risked his life to keep the wolf-dog from dying alone in the wilderness at the hands of a bear and even hypothermia by warming his heart (literally).

As he made his way through the mountains, darkness began to settle and the trail was hard to see through the snow. But Balto had the greatest tracking tools at his disposal: his sense of smell and the nose that utilized it. He put his nose to the sky and caught the scent of burning oil, following it straight onward…but not until after he'd left another trail marker for the team to follow.

It felt like hours, the snow had blown around him with stinging intensity as the beautiful crystals pelted him in an effort to make him turn around and go back home, but Balto forged on- even when he'd hit a deep pocket of the white powder that made him have to work even harder to get out onto stable ground to resume his trek, until he'd made it to the top of a hill…the scent was getting stronger, and when Balto looked down he saw the somehow still burning lantern illuminated among the darkness and freezing cold winds.

At last, Balto had found the missing team and the medicine…all that remained was to get them all home in one piece, even though it meant having to put up with the glory bitch Jenna the whole way back.

Balto knew that he wouldn't be helping them by standing atop the hill looking down at them, so he started the somewhat long slide downward and into the clearing at the bottom. Upon hearing a sound coming towards them and getting louder, Dixie looked up at what could possibly be coming towards them, her back and face covered in snow that had finally begun falling off after nearly 8 days of not moving and was utterly shocked at what she saw…coming down the hill towards them was the last dog she'd ever imagined would be out here looking for them.

"Balto!?"

When she'd spoken, the other dogs looked in her direction and saw that she was indeed right- Balto had come all this way just to find them.

"Is that really him?!"

"Balto, how did you find us!?"

"Is anyone hurt?" The wolf-dog asked them all with genuine concern in his voice, sure he was worried about the medicine and even the musher that was trapped here with them, but he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't worried about the missing sled team that had been entrusted to bring the medicine back to the illness stricken town. Even though she hated the fact that he'd come all this way, Jenna spoke up as well…but it was in a bitter, almost threatening tone of voice.

"Everyone is fine."

"Yeah, but our musher hit his head…and he didn't get up." Angela said worriedly.

"And he's not moving, either."

"Alright, follow me…I can lead you all home."

Balto told them as he grabbed the harness in his jaws, but was surprised when Jenna forcefully yanked it from his teeth with her paw…she then spoke to him in a low and dangerous voice that almost made him shrink away from her in fear, but he stood his ground against her- if he could take on a bear and live then Jenna wasn't that much more of a threat to him.

"We don't need your help."

Dixie was shocked at Jenna's behavior, if Balto had come all the way from Nome to help them then why would the Husky vehemently deny it in such an aggressive manner?

She knew why, it was because she was so addicted to the glory that came from being the top racer in Alaska that she couldn't stand anyone else stealing her spotlight…even if they were trying to help her, all she saw was that they were trying to upstage her and she wouldn't allow that to happen.

"Maybe we should listen to him."

Jenna looked at her team mate and growled threateningly at her.

"Well, how would you get us back home Balto?" Nikki asked curiously, if he came all this way then he obviously had a way for them to get home.

"Well, I marked a trail…like this." Balto answered her question by walking up to one of the dead trees and scratching off some of the bark as sort of a trail marker.

This was actually a very good idea, all the dogs began praising Balto's efforts. He had obviously thought ahead and made a visual path for them to follow, they began talking excitedly- except Jenna, who was still pissed that they seemed to be eating up some fucking half-breed's efforts at finding them. In her anger, Jenna crushed the frail tree into the snow and began threatening Balto again.

"I'll be taking them back, I'm the lead dog- I'm in charge!"

Balto faltered under her gaze and voice, even after being stranded out here she still hadn't changed her attitude towards him.

"But…at least let me take the medicine back, the townspeople are probably getting even worse as we speak. If we don't do something, then everyone will die."

The dogs were all shocked, if what Balto said was true then they only had a few more days at most to save everyone, which meant that they couldn't waste time fighting like this. Balto tried approaching the box, but Jenna leapt in front of it and stared him down with the most murderous gaze she could muster up and threatened him once more, this time she meant business.

"Touch that box…and I'll tear you into pieces, you fucking bitch."

Balto almost relented under her threat, but he approached her anyway…for his efforts, she roughly pushed him away, making sure it hurt.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, half-breed? I told you not to come near this box, or I would hurt you."

"Jenna, let me help you."

"I don't need your help, I need you to die out here so you can't keep me from claiming Steele and my rightfully deserved glory as the town's top racer!"

Balto had taken a bit of a beating by this point, but he still kept advancing. Jenna was starting to become livid, so she bit Balto hard enough to make him cry out in pain…she then grabbed his tail with enough force to break it in half and threw him into the mountainside, laughing as he fell unconscious. The other dogs thought he wouldn't recover from that, Dixie had heard his ribs crack from the impact but was shocked when Balto started getting up shakily.

Jenna knew that she hadn't yet finished the job, so she moved to sink her fangs into his jugular vein and tear his throat out…but instead, she grabbed Steele's collar and ripped it off of Balto's neck. However, there was no way for Jenna to keep her footing so she fell down the mountain path and into a clearing at least 100 feet below where Balto was looking down at her. After he went back to the sled, he saw the other dogs had by now gotten their musher onto the sled and covered him with the furs that had been piled up under the box to keep it stable.

After making sure he wouldn't fall off, Balto walked to the front of the sled and stepped into the lead dog harness when Dixie held it up for him, her face beaming with the biggest smile she could dredge up even in the dreary cold and falling snow.

When Jenna finally made it to the top of the ravine, her heart became filled with hatred when she saw Balto in her lead harness and pulling the sled up the icy slope easily. She had to stop him from getting back to Nome and stealing her fame right out from under her nose.

"Go on, wolf-bitch, you'll never get home…I'll make sure of that."

Jenna then slipped away towards the mountains, after looking around for a few minutes, she found Balto's so-called 'trail marker' and scratched off the bark of the surrounding trees to confuse them as she limped her way back towards Nome. If she couldn't have glory as the savior of Nome, then she'd sure as fuck make sure that no one else would either.

After 3 hours of trying to find his way back, Balto panicked when he heard a tree branch fall nearby and took off running full throttle in a straight path that had them all freaking out. When they stopped at the edge of a cliff, the medicine box's strings snapped and the box started falling off the cliff. Balto leaped out of his harness and caught the box just as it was about to fall, but had made the patch of ice he was standing on too heavy to stay attached to the mountain and the other dogs immediately began panicking as Balto and the medicine fell down a 700 foot ravine, the wolf-dog's scream the last thing they heard before he vanished into the darkness below.

(In Nome)

Steele was recovering in a nearby boiler room, listening to other dogs asking questions about the medicine and the missing team. When he told them that Balto had left to go find them and bring them back, they were stunned…why would a half-breed that everyone hated so much risk his life to save a town that didn't even like him?

"I don't get it, how could Balto find them all the way out there in the mountains?"

"Well…he's tracking them."

"That mutt? Tracking a championship sled team, in a blizzard?!"

Everyone in the room by this point was laughing their asses off at the ridiculous idea of Balto being able to track them after the trail had obviously gone cold long ago. They just kept laughing until the door blew open and there was a dog standing in the doorway, the snow obscuring their view of them so they couldn't tell who it was at first.

"Balto?" Steele asked hopefully, his heart begging that it was the wolf-dog he loved so very much but was disappointed when it was the last dog he'd wanted to see.

"Jenna!"

The others began clamoring excitedly, they were happy to see their heroine alive and well. Steele, to his credit, was confused…if she was here, then where was the rest of the team she set out with almost 10 days ago?

"Jenna, what happened to the others, to the medicine?"

Jenna looked up through the ice on her eyebrows at the dogs waiting to hear what happened, she knew they couldn't find out that she'd left them behind as 'collateral damage' in her rightly deserved admonishing of fame and glory, so she told them…in a way she knew they wouldn't question her.

"Well, one by one they…fell, frozen, barely alive." Jenna said as she shook the snow and ice off of her body, the icicles sticking into the wooden wall and melting from the heat.

"I pulled four of them onto the sled…three more, onto my back. And I walked…and I walked for days on end but…it was too late, they didn't-"

"But, what about the medicine?!" Benson asked her, he wanted to know the fate of the elixir that would save everyone.

"Well, I tried to…get the medicine back here, I really did all alone…and then suddenly, that wolf-dog appeared, Balto. He demanded that I let him take the medicine…you know, all he wanted was to be seen as a hero in your eyes."

Jenna said this with a look of 'genuine' pain on her face as she looked at Steele, his own eyes seemed to reflect sadness at hearing what happened to him.

"And then he grabbed the crate, but he couldn't handle it! He couldn't see the patch of ice, the- the snow and the wind, and the log…as he…he…"

It almost seemed that she couldn't continue, she looked like she was gonna cry at any moment but she managed to find a way to finish up.

"And then…"

Jenna said before she reached around to her neck and held something in her jaws. Steele gasped as he saw that she had the collar that he'd given Balto not even two days ago.

"My collar!"

"Here, he…as his last request, he made me promise to take care of you, Steele."

Steele looked down at the collar in front of him, then back up at Jenna with a look of disgust on his face as he narrowed his eyes at her before speaking to her.

"You're lying…Jenna's lying, Balto's alive! He's coming home."

Steele said before he picked up the collar and ran out into the cold night air, ignoring the stunned looks on the other dogs' faces as Jenna stood there downcast, the silence broken by her voice a few seconds later.

"Well, you know he…needs a little more time to accept the fact that he's gone forever."

Steele had managed to, despite being in tremendous pain from his bruised ribs, drag the same broken bottles that Balto had shown him up to the top of a hill that faced a mountainside. He also had a lantern with him as he arranged them in the same pattern that his future mate had done that night nearly 2 weeks ago under the floorboards.

"Sun…ice caps…"

Steele was hoping that this would work, and not even a minute later the mountainside lit up in the same colors that had bathed him in that soft rainbow glow that night they spent together, his heart filled with hope as he spoke the name of his beloved.

"Balto…"

T.B.C.- Wow, Jenna's a nasty little liar ain't she? Read and review, they make the lights shine ever brighter and help bring in the next chapter!