Chapter 6:

"Alright Diggs; fetch!" said Shaun, throwing a tennis ball across his garden; the named German Shepherd in question barked and ran after the ball. Diggs jumped into the air and caught the ball while it was still in the air.

It was about midday on a Saturday, a few days since Diggs had had any kind of call or communications from D.O.G.; though Catherine had come over to his owner's house once or twice during that time when M.E.O.W.S. hadn't had anything going on.

But back to today; while Diggs was chewing on the tennis ball, Shaun got a bleep from his pager and looked at it. He sighed heavily as Diggs returned with the tennis ball; the German Shepherd tilting his head slightly when he looked up at his owner's expression.

"Sorry Diggs; looks like I'm needed," said Shaun, crouching down to ruffle Digg's head. "I'm getting called it to investigate something; can't really bring ya along."

Diggs whimpered softly, lowering his head slightly as his ears drooped; he always hated it when his owner had to go out with the other Chicago policemen, and probably some of the other police dogs that teased him for a long time. Boy, would he show them if they knew what he was…

"Oh come on; don't be like that. I'll try to be back as soon as I can, OK?" said Shaun, ruffling Digg's ears before he got to his paws again and headed into the house. He paused for a brief second to collect his police badge, clip it to his belt and grab his jacket.

"Honey, bring Diggs back in in a bit, please?" said Shaun as he headed to the front door, opening it before pausing so he got a response from his wife.

"Alright!"

"Thanks!" said Shaun, before closing the door behind him. A few seconds later, Diggs heard the deep rumble of Shaun's car starting up and the screech of tires against tarmac, and Shaun and his car was gone. Diggs sighed, before spotting the tennis ball that he had dropped when Shaun had left.

He was about to pounce of the tennis ball before he felt a slight buzzing against his collar; he relaxed his muscles and sighed in annoyance, saying, "Come on!" in annoyance. Why did D.O.G. have to contact him, after a few days of silent comms no doubt, at this time? Then again, it was better than if Shaun was still there.

"Yeah, what?" Diggs asked rather rudely, not bothering to check who was on the other end of the line. He got an unhappy shock when he heard the slight growl that belonged to the one canine that he really didn't want to talk to right now; Shadow.

"What did I say about showing respect, Rookie?" snapped Shadow from the other end of the communications, causing Diggs to flinch slightly at the sharpness of the Wolf's tone. He growled lowly back down the communications, but let Shadow have the communications in case he had useful to say.

"Anyway, this isn't just a social call; I overheard Lou sayin' he's going ask you to come to HQ. Why don't you be a good little pup and come to HQ before the Head has to call you," said Shadow, putting empathises on when he said 'pup'; this cause Diggs to let out a low warning growl, before abruptly cutting communications with Shadow, and grumbled slightly as he headed to his dog kennel.

When Diggs arrived at HQ, he pressed his paw against the paw scan and the security door slowly opened up. He walked into D.O.G. HQ, and the first thing he saw was something that partly shocked him and caused part envy in him; while Butch was waiting officially for Diggs, Shadow, who was now completely healed, was talking to a female Golden Retriever; she was giggling lightly and gently bashed her paw against Shadow's shoulder.

What caused Diggs to spite Shadow more was that what he had said to Lou was actually true; Shadow was a hit with the females. Diggs growled ever so softly, before quickly silencing it when Butch glared at him.

"Shadow," said Butch in his usual gruff voice, and the Spec Ops Agent turned his head, saying something to the female Golden Retriever, before heading over to stand next to the old dog.

"Now, Diggs; we've got some intel about some rouge cats in New York," said Butch, walking with Shadow and Diggs, the German Shepherd making sure to stand on the opposite side of the older Shepherd to the Wolf.

"What do a couple of cats have to do with my searching for my Pack?" asked Shadow, a confident aura coming off of him that Butch didn't glare at him when he had interrupted him. This only caused Diggs to hate Shadow even more; he had taught him to respect his senior agents, and yet he was talking to him like he was equally in agents.

But Butch didn't complain when Shadow interrupted him, and continued on. "Our sources tell us that these cats are supplying dangerous supplies over a feline black market; cat nip, weapons, and a few other supplies that we aren't sure about; but we aren't going to wait to find out what they are supplying."

Butch, Shadow and Diggs then arrived at the Covert Ops section of the HQ; Peek, as per the usual, was working and tinkering away at some of the technology he must have been working on for a while now; a few sparks flew as he welded what appeared to look like an updated collar, but he was safe since he was wearing a welding mask.

"No," said Shadow, his tone simple and sudden; both Diggs and Butch looked at him when he said that. "There is no way that I'm wearing one of those collars; I'm proud of my heritage, and I won't be demeaned by such a…human creation."

"What? Afraid you'll be laughed at?" said Diggs cockily as he took a step closer to Shadow; the Spec Ops Agent raised his hackles and bared his teeth at Diggs, a low growl ripping out from his throat. Butch glared at the two canines, silently ordering them to be quiet.

"Alright, Peeks; what new tech have you go for us?" asked Butch as he approached the smaller dog; Peek turned around to face the three bigger canines and flipped the welding mask up to look at the canines directly.

"Yeah, OK; I've got a few new toys for you guys to have," said Peeks, before jumping off the stool he was sitting on to do the welding, and headed over to one side of the Covert Ops section; the three larger canines following the smaller dog.

Peek pressed a button on one of the tables, and three collars came up from the table. "Diggs, this is your updated collar; plasma laser, voice scrambler, wifi, lock pick, grappling hook, smoke pellets for quick escapes," said Peek, the gadget for each of the things he mentioned coming out from the small panel that covered them, and Diggs smiled, saying, "Sweet."

Peek then moved onto the next collar, saying it was for Butch and went through the procedure again as Diggs grabbed the collar and slipped it over his head, making sure it fit; it fit perfectly. He looked over at Shadow, who had wondered off slightly and was examining some piece of tech that Peek had been working on.

"And this is yours, Agent Sha-Shadow?" asked Peek, noticing that Shadow wasn't standing with the other two larger canines; and he wasn't even in the room anymore. Diggs, Peek and Butch looked around, repeating his name a couple of times. But when Diggs noticed the flick of a black and grey furred tail walk out of sight of the glass.

"Where's he going?" asked Diggs to himself, before he quickly trotted out of the Covert Ops section; Butch quick behind him as Peek went back to tinkering with more mechanics.

Diggs and Butch eventually found Shadow in front of a large metal door that Diggs hadn't seen in HQ before; it was at least as tall as the security door at the front of the D.O.G. HQ, though was square in shape and had the massive emblem of The Pack embedded into the metal.

Shadow placed his paw onto a paw scan next to the door, and a mechanical voice said, "Welcome, Special Operations Agent Dakota," and the door split into two, opening up for Shadow.

The Wolf walked in and Diggs walked over to the still open door; Butch followed behind him, though there wasn't the air of curiosity coming from him that was coming off of Diggs.

When the German Shepherd looked inside, his lower jaw fell open and he said, "Wow.." like the first time he had seen D.O.G. HQ.

Inside, the walls were black with light grey streaks of metal running along the sides of the room. The walls of the room were lined with a few items; all of them more dangerous than the last. Shadow was standing in front a set of metal paw covers.

Shadow grabbed one of the paw covers, and attached it around his front ankle; it lowered onto his paw, and covered his paw. After a quick tense of the muscles, three metal claws came out from the metal paw cover.

Digg's eyes widened as he saw the claws extend for the metal paw cover, and as they retracted into the cover; he heard a sight grunt of pain come from Shadow as the claws appeared to sink deeper than the metal cover, and into the actual paw of the Wolf. Shadow repeated the procedure with his other front paw, and got the same reaction as he did with the first paw.

He walked over to another couple of items, some of which went into small pouches that were part of the chest armour he was wearing, before he noticed that Diggs and Butch were standing outside the room. He just looked at them for a second before grabbing what looked like a small ear piece and put it into his right ear after setting a frequency to it.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get going," said Shadow, walking towards the door for the room, which closed after him.

"Alright; we've all got our tech, we'll get going to the Big Apple. Our contact in the Big Apple'll be meeting us at the drop off point," said Butch, leading Shadow, and a rather quiet and jealous Diggs that looked over Shadow's elite equipment, to the international transport pods.

I'm going to need some ideas for Pack agents and D.O.G./M.E.O.W.S. Agents that they're going encounter. So, leave suggestions in reviews or in PM's.

As always, please R&R

Nf991