Steele - The Vain Champ.

The Alaskan wind howled like a scorned beast, tearing through the jagged teeth of the mountains. Snow hissed against the cliffs, burying the scent of betrayal—and the stink of fear. Far below, the sled team vanished into the storm, their shapes swallowed by the white fury. Steele’s claws dug into the ice, his muscles trembling not from cold, but from rage. Jenna’s bandana, clenched between his teeth, tasted of salt and stolen victory.

His own team had abandoned him—given the lead to that half-bred mutt. And why? Because Steele had been too busy trying to rip Balto’s throat out to notice the ice cracking beneath them. The bandana had slipped loose in the struggle, and Steele had lunged for it like a fool, momentum sending him tumbling over the edge. Now, his pride was just another thing buried in the snow.

He spat it into the snow, the orange fabric a wound against the pale ground.

"Go ahead, Wolf Dog! You’ll never get home!" His bark shattered the silence, raw and venomous. "...I’ll make sure of that!"

The wilderness stretched before him, a labyrinth of shadows and deceit. Then he saw it—a scratch on a tree, Balto’s mark. Steele’s lips peeled back in a grin.

"...I’ll show ‘em!" He lunged at the bark, his claws carving an identical gash. "Why not this way? How ‘bout over here?" Another tree, another lie. His laughter curled through the pines, sharp as a knife. "Oops, wrong way!"

He ran, marking false trails with frenzied precision, each scratch a nail in Balto’s coffin.

---

Nome’s meetinghouse hummed with nervous energy, the air thick with the stench of wet fur and doubt. Jenna stood at the center, her ears flat as the others scoffed.

"I don’t get it! How could Balto hope to find Steele and his team? They were off the trail!"

Jenna’s tail flicked. "Well, he’s... he’s tracking them."

"That mutt! Tracking a championship team, in a blizzard!" The dogs erupted in laughter, their muzzles wrinkled with scorn. Doc’s ears flattened as he shot Jenna a sidelong glance, but she wasn’t laughing. Her lips curled in a silent snarl, amber eyes burning into the jeering crowd.

Then it creaked open.

Steele stood there, frost clinging to his fur like a second pelt, his breath ragged. The room fell silent.

"Balto...?" Jenna whispered.

The crowd erupted. "Steele! Steele! You’re alive! Where ya been? Are ya okay?"

A bone rolled toward him. Steele pounced on it, his teeth sinking into the marrow with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

Doc stepped forward, his voice tight. "Steele! Wh-Where are the others?"

Steele’s chest heaved, his ice-blue eyes glistening with manufactured grief. "...Well... one by one, fell frozen... barely alive." He shook himself violently, sending icicles flying. The dogs yelped, dodging. "I pulled four onto the sled. Three more, on my back!" His gaze darted sideways—how many had there been? Five? Six? then continued the act. "And I-I walked... and I walked... but... It was – It was just too late! They were—" He collapsed, a masterful performance of exhaustion.

Doc’s ears twitched. "But what about the medicine?"

Steele staggered upright, his voice cracking. "Well.. I-I-I went on... dr-dragging the medicine alone... all alone... and... and then suddenly, that Wolfdog appeared. Balto!" His muzzle twisted into a sneer before he forced it back into grief. "You know, he – he just wanted so much to be a hero in your eyes... And.. he, he grabbed the crate... but he couldn’t handle it!" His words tumbled faster, painting a canvas of incompetence. "He-he couldn’t see the, the patch of ice, the-the snow, the wind, and... and the log.... and the cliff... He just didn’t have chan—" He broke off, panting. Then, the coup de grâce—he let Jenna’s bandana slip from his collar.

It fluttered to her paws.

"He... made me promise to take... care of you, Jenna."

Jenna stared at the fabric, her breath coming in short, ragged pants. For a heartbeat, dread coiled in her chest—then her spine stiffened. She lifted her eyes to Steele’s, the room holding its breath.

"...You’re lying."

Gasps. Whispers. Steele’s pupils shrank to pinpricks as he glanced around, as if suddenly realizing the walls were closing in.

"Steele’s lying! Balto’s alive! ...He’s coming home." Jenna snatched the bandana and bolted, her tail a flame in the dim light.

Steele nodded nonchalantly, his mask slipping back into place. "Ah... well... you know, she just... needs a little time."

---

The red lantern outside the mail office had gone dark - Nome had given up waiting. In just hours, Steele's lies had taken root. He lounged like a king in the meetinghouse, gnawing his bone with satisfaction. The crowd hung on his every word now, their doubts fading like the lantern's dying glow. Balto's name was barely whispered anymore. Steele stretched, surveying his victory - the town, the glory, all his. The extinguished light said it all: they'd stopped hoping for a miracle.

*"Of course, as you know, I just..." He tossed the bone into the air with a flourish, catching it effortlessly between his teeth, his ice-blue eyes gleaming with smug satisfaction. This was his moment, his victory - the whole town hanging on his every word like obedient pups. "And then... then finally, I just said, 'Steele, you're just gonna have to gnaw your way to the surface.' So I—"

Then—a howl. The door burst open, and Doc stood framed in the entrance, his breath fogging the air.

“It’s Balto, with the medicine!”

Silence. Steele’s grin faltered for just a second before he waved it off, flashing Dixie his usual charming smile.

The elegant purple Pomeranian tilted her head, her tail flicking as she studied him. Her voice was smooth, almost sweet.

“Steele, you are positively—” Then, like a whip, her fur bristled. “—dis-POSABLE!”

Her paw lashed out, smacking the bone from his mouth. It hit the floor with a hollow clatter.

The crowd growled. Dogs turned away, their admiration curdling to disgust. Steele’s ears flattened.

“Okay, okay… I-I can explain,” He stammered, his smooth confidence cracking.

Dixie huffed, tossing her head as she sauntered past him, her fluffy coat swaying with every step.

“You guys weren’t there, so you don’t… wait a min, guys! Wait just a second… please?” Steele’s voice wavered, his desperation growing.

The last dog paused at the door, snarling over its shoulder. “Get lost!”

The slam of the door still reverberated in the empty meetinghouse. Steele stood frozen for a heartbeat—then his muzzle twisted into something feral. A guttural snarl ripped from his throat as he lunged at the nearest object—a metal pipe jutting from the wall. His powerful jaws clamped down, bending it with a shriek of protesting metal. Steam hissed through the new rupture, clouding around his furious panting.

"FINE! Go lick that mutt’s paws like the spineless worms you are!" His claws raked deep grooves into the wooden floor as he spun, demolishing a nearby stool with one brutal kick. "I carried this town! ME! And this is how you repay me?!"

His chest heaved, spit flying from his jaws as he rounded on the last remnants of his dignity—the championship collar around his neck. For a wild moment, his claws hooked under the leather, ready to shred it—then stopped. No. This was still his. They couldn't take that.

The back door slammed behind him as he emerged into the frigid night. The hospital porch blazed with light just fifty yards away—the entire town packed around Balto. The mail office's red lantern, extinguished in surrender just hours before, now burned bright again, its light pulsing in time with the telegraph clicks inside as news of the rescue spread down the wire.

Steele's paws rooted to the snow as the scene burned itself into his vision:

His musher's weathered hands—hands that had only ever fastened Steele's harness with pride—now ruffling the fur between Balto's ears. The sight of his former team clustered around the wolfdog made Steele's hackles rise: Kaltag pressed close to Balto's flank, that smooth-talking traitor murmuring what were surely praises; Nikki, the gruff old fool who'd once taken Steele's orders without question, now standing at Balto's side like some loyal lieutenant; and between them, Star, his nervous energy channeled into excited circles around the trio, yipping approval with every rotation - the complete picture of betrayal.

The laughter and cheers rolled across the snow, each happy bark like teeth sinking into Steele's pride. Jenna's bandana, that bright scrap of orange he'd torn from Balto's neck himself, now rested comfortably against the wolfdog's chest again - the final insult.

Steele's claws unsheathed, carving deep gouges in the frozen earth beneath him. The wilderness stretched at his back—dark, endless, and waiting.

His muzzle wrinkled, exposing every gleaming tooth as the words left him in a cloud of frozen breath:

"Enjoy your victory, hero."

Then he simply walked away. No dramatic flourish, no final glance—just the slow, deliberate crunch of paws on snow as his massive frame turned away from the town. The party continued behind him, unaware that winter's teeth still walked away into the night.