The pups had been swimming for hours now, hyper-aware of their surroundings. So far, nothing has happened.
"Hey, Rocky? How much farther? It feels like my tail is about to fall off." Skye said.
"Only about ten miles more," Rocky said, the effort of not giving an exact number obvious on his face.
"I'm hungry." Rubble said.
"Dude, you're always hungry!" Skye said. "Ryder practically has to buy two bags of pup food per week because of you."
"Hey! I'm a growing pup, I need to eat more!" Rubble protested.
"Then you should be doing more work, then," Sajon remarked. Chase high pawed him.
"Good one, dude!" he said.
"But for real, can we take a break?" Rubble asked.
"Yeah, I guess so," Chase said. "And I'm just messing with you, Rubble. I'm hungry as well."
"Auntie..." Sajon muttered."
"...make?" Rubble finished.
"Well, we've got some pizza in here..." Marella said, going through a bag she had been carrying the entire time.
"YESSSSS!" The pups shouted, doing a six-pup secret paw shake. "PIZZA!"
"Wow...you must really love pizza," Sajon commented, five minutes later, when the paw shake was over.
"Yeah, we do," Marshall said, tossing his ears. (Marshall looks at the camera) "Umm...how did they make pizza underwater?" (Everypup looks at the camera)
"Yeah, I just started wondering that," Rocky said. "How do you keep the crust from getting soggy?"
"Heck, how do you even bake the crust in the first place?" Chase asks.
"Yeeeeaaaahhhh..." Zuma said, cocking his head slightly. "Who wrote this script anyway?"
"Ummm...I don't know..." LightningPelt12 said, scratching the back of his head.
"You don't know?" Marella asked. "What kind of author are you?"
"It's not my fault you live underwater!" LightningPelt squeaked.
"Yeah, but doesn't this have to make sense?" Skye asked. LightningPelt sighed and shook his head.
"Fine. Since everyone has to complain about the impossibility of this, then everypup can eat raw broccoli for the rest of the story!" He snapped. There was a sparkle, and the pizza turned into broccoli. The pups were shocked.
"You can do that?" Zuma asked.
"Yeah, you live in the world I create for you," LightningPelt said. There was silence for half a second, and the pups began protesting.
"No, please! We take it back!" Marshall said.
"I hate broccoli!" Skye said. "I can't eat this stuff!"
"I actually like broccoli..." Rocky said, raising his paw.
"Shut up, Rocky!" Chase barked.
"Yeah, we don't weally need to know!" Zuma pleaded. "Let's just get on with the scwipt and eat our pizza, please?" LightningPelt smirked at them.
"Good choice." Another snap. The pizza was back. The pups sighed. The story resumed.
"Hey, guys? We should probably call Ryder." Chase said. "Let's give him an update." He tapped his puptag.
"Ryder?" he said.
"Oh, thank god you're alive. For a second I thought..." Ryder trailed off, and the pups felt guilty. "How is everyone?"
"We're just fine, Ryder. We found Sajon and Marella." Ryder looked at the two pups, and they waved.
"Oh, hi, Marella! It's nice to see you again."
"You too Ryder!" she said. "Well, not see you, but hear you anyway!"
"You haven't changed a bit," Ryder said. "Except you look a lot more like your mother." Marella blushed and didn't say anything.
"So, catch me up, pups," Ryder said. "Also, how long are you gonna be gone. I've been receiving a lot of calls recently. Everyone needs the Paw Patrol back.
"Well, they will have to figure something out on their own. Really, do we six have to do everything?!"
"You don't do everything," Ryder said.
"Oh, no! My car has a flat tire! I'd better call the Paw Patrol!" Rocky said.
"The train is stuck on the tracks! Better call the Paw Patrol!" Skye continued.
"My chicken is lost in a maze! I know who to call!" Chase replied.
"A volcano is erupting and everyone on the island is in danger! I need the Paw Patrol!" Marshall continued.
"Someone is about to jump over the canyon! The Paw Patrol must save him!" Rubble said.
"My cows have escaped, and thewe's a cow on a boat on the bay! Call the Paw Patwol!" Zuma said.
"A cow...on a boat...on a bay?" Marella asked, confused.
"No way!" Rubble replied. Zuma high-pawed him.
"Okay! Okay!" Ryder said, laughing. "I get it. People depend on us a lot."
"Well, if anyone is asking, tell them that we are busy saving the world from a merpup who is attempting to open a vortex that will suck all life into it and annihilate it, effectively eradicating everything from the planet permanently and irrevocably for all time and that we are the only ones who have a chance at stopping him, so no, we don't have time to go chasing after your pet chicken for the umpteenth time, who, by the way, will probably get stuck on the ROOF by the time we get back to the LOOKOUT!" Rocky shouted in one breath.
The pups looked at Rocky, who was panting in anger.
"Wow. That weally sums it up, dude." Zuma said, punching his shoulder.
"You all feel that way?" Ryder asked.
"Yeah..." everyone replied.
"It was okay when we were younger, as we didn't know anything different. But really, does Marshall have to be the entire island's medic and firefighter? What if something happens to him? Heck, what if something happens to any of us? We are the ONLY professional first responders on the island." Chase said.
"Now that I think about it, when you guys get home, we are gonna have to make some changes," Ryder said.
The pups proceed to tell Ryder everything that had happened since they left, which took the greater part of an hour.
"So yeah...we're gonna be here for a while," Skye said. Ryder ran his hands through his hair.
"This is a really dangerous mission, but I'm glad you're taking it anyway. Save the world for me, okay?"
"You got it, Ryder!" Chase exclaimed. "We've gotta go...there's gonna be a fight...we'll call you later, okay?"
"Yeah. Bye pups! Love you!"
"Bye Ryder! Love you, too!" They exclaimed. They resumed their munching and had a light conversation.
"If you look in the distance, you can see the Palace," Rocky said, pointing and manducating at the same time.
"But weally, we need to have a plan once we get there," Zuma said. "Sajon, Marella, how do we get in?"
"Well, we should get there at night. For better cover of course." Marella said.
"The classic midnight hour," Marshall smirked, and hipawed Chase.
"Of course," Sajon said. "Once there, we'll have to get rid of the guards at the front quickly, before anyone realizes we're here. And then, once the alarm does go off, you'll need to cover for us while some of you go with us to the map room."
"Tsk. That won't be a problem." Skye said. "Rocky, Zuma, and I can take care of that easily."
"Yes! I'll finally get to fight!" Zuma said. Rocky turned and looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"You can fire your bow, sure, but I'm not letting you fight in paw-to-paw combat for a while yet."
"But I..."
"Zuma, listen to Rocky." Chase sighed. "He's right y'know. You honestly shouldn't be out there...at all." Zuma looked like he was about to retort with something, but Rocky shook his head.
"We aren't debating this, Zuma. You are going to stay Rubble and help from a distance." Zuma lost his angry look and looked more like he was about to cry.
"Awww..." Zuma sighed. "Stupid injury...I'm sowwy guys, I weally want to prove myself to you guys, I wanna show you that I'm not weak. I'd do my best, honest!" He sniffed. "I don't want to be a hindrance to the team..."
"Awww, Zuma," Skye said. "Don't say that. You've proven yourself to us time and time again."
"Yeah, no one thinks you're weak!" Marshall said. "And you are very important to the team."
"You probably saved all of us from injury, inadvertently, so in a way, you did us a favor," Chase said. "You can get a pass. It's not like you are slacking in your responsibilities. You just can't right now."
"Awww...come here, Zuma," Rocky said, opening his arms. Zuma buried his head in Rocky's chest and a few tears ran out of his eyes. He hugged Zuma tightly. "I know you might not like it, but I care about you too much too much to risk you," Rocky said softly. "You'll get your chance. Just not today, okay, buddy?" Zuma sighed, and Rocky licked his nose. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. We all still love you." Zuma rested his head on Rocky's chest and smiled faintly.
"I love you too," he said softly. There was a chorus of 'awwww' ing from the pups, and Rocky very quickly let go of Zuma and went back to his former position."
"Anyway, while you three are taking care of that, Marella, I, Chase, and Marshall can come with us, and we'll try to find the map."
"Do we even know which one it is?" Marshall asked.
"No, but I hope when we get there, we'll figure it out," Marella said.
"Do we really have no better plan than this?" Chase asked. Everyone looked at Rocky. He shook his head.
"Umm, given the circumstances, I don't think there's a better way forward." There was silence, as everyone pondered this thought.
"We should get some rest before we leave," Marshall said after a bit.
"You know...in hindsight...maybe we should've gotten some supplies before we left." Skye said. "Like, maybe a tent, some food..."
"Yeah, that would've been smart..." Rubble said.
"There's like...a market a few miles from here. We can go get some things from there later." Marella said. Chase yawned.
"Well, I'll see ya in a few." He promptly laid his head down, folded his paws, and silently went to sleep. The pups giggled softly.
"I'll keep watch, guys." Rubble said. "We don't know what's going to happen while we're asleep. Besides, if I'm not going to fight, I might as well do something useful."
"Say no more," Zuma said, curling up and laying down, making a mental note on how much he wished he had his paws back. The pups were asleep in seconds, the exhaustion from all the swimming knocking them out.
And so, the seconds stretched into minutes into hours, until the sun had disappeared and Rubble was fighting both sleep and extreme boredom. Rocky woke up early and noticed his problem.
"Hey, Rubble, I'll take over for the rest of the time. You did well." He said softly, so the others were not woken.
"Thanks, Ro..." Rubble fell flat on his back and passed out. Rocky smiled softly and shook his head. He's so loyal. He thought. Even though he's young, he's responsible, and we can trust him.
Rocky felt shifting and radiant heat on his lower chest and tail and looked down at Zuma, who was quite hard to see in the dark. Zuma...
Rocky reached his paw out and stoked Zuma's warm chest fur absentmindedly while he calculated the chances of success for the mission. He wasn't liking the outcome. He noticed a panting noise, and he noticed it was coming from Zuma. Ooooh, I've got a perfect idea. Payback time. He began scratching his tummy. Zuma squirmed and wiggled, laughing very faintly in his sleep.
He hit Rocky in the snout softly with a paw. Rocky scratched him up under the neck, and Zuma's mouth opened like he was about to laugh some more, but nothing came out. Zuma ended up laughing himself awake. He seemed confused when he woke up, and then immediately began laughing again as Rocky ran his paws all over his body.
"Who's a good boy, who's a good boy?" he asked.
"Stop it!" Zuma laughed, trying unsuccessfully to push Rocky awake from him. Rocky pushed Zuma onto his back and held his tail down with his own. Zuma put his paws up, but Rocky gently held both of them up with one hand tickling his chest and underarms.
"Ahh! Please, stop!" Zuma laughed, trying his hardest to escape.
"Good boy, Zuma, good boy!" Rocky replied, smirking.
"Stop it!" Zuma pleaded. He arched his back, and Rocky ran his paws through all of Zuma's fur. Rocky replied. Zuma laughed until tears came to his eyes.
"Please...Wocky...stop..." he begged, squirming on the ground. "I can't take any more! Please!"
"You're a good boy, aren't you? Aren't you?" Rocky said, smiling at both his childishness and his uncharacteristic affection. He licked Zuma's face, and Zuma gave up on trying to escape.
"Say it, Zuma..." Rocky sang. "You're my good boy."
"Yes, yes, I'm your good boy! I said it, I said it! Now please stop!" Zuma said finally, tossing his head.
"Say it again," Rocky whispered. "I wanna hear you say it again."
"I'm your good boy, Wocky!" Zuma repeated. "I'm yours. Now please stop before I die!" Rocky rolled his eyes and stopped, staring into Zuma's eyes playfully.
"What was that for?" Zuma asked.
"Eh, it's never too late to have a tickle fight," he said, licking Zuma's nose. "I like to hear you laugh, and see you happy."
"I wasn't happy, I'm weally ticklish!" Zuma said. Rocky tickled Zuma's stomach again, smiling as he heard him laugh.
"Liar..." Rocky murmured. "You liked it."
"Well...maybe a little bit," Zuma admitted. Rocky smirked at him. "Okay, okay, I loved it!"
"I thought so." Rocky said."Also, that was for treating me like a dog yesterday." Zuma rolled his eyes as well.
"You awe a dog!" he exclaimed, putting a paw over his mouth and laughing.
"You know what I mean," Rocky replied. "I'm not someone's pet."
"Technically, we are all Ryder's pets, he just doesn't treat us as such. Hence the pup tags?" Zuma said, smiling at him.
"Oh, Zuma." Rocky sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"
"But weally, you were enjoying yourself way too much," Zuma said. "And while I love it when you touch me, I just want to know why you're being so uncharacteristically affectionate tonight."
He likes it when I touch him. Rocky thought dreamily.
"We haven't played with each other for a while, Zuma." Rocky breathed. "We are all so busy nowadays, that we don't have as much time for each other."
"Yeah..." Zuma said sadly. "With me training to be a lifeguard, and you training to be a mechanical engineer..." he sighed sadly.
"I want more time with you, Zuma," Rocky said. "I want to spend all my free time with you. I don't want our friendship to start falling apart because we don't have time for each other."
"Oh, Wocky..." Zuma said, touched. "Our friendship could never fall apart."
"That's what I want to believe...but sometimes I feel like there is a distance between us," Rocky said.
"No offense, Wocky, but you overthink everything. We aren't growing distant, especially not now." Zuma said. "Do you weally think that?"
"I don't know..." Rocky sighed. "It's just a feeling I get, and it won't go away."
"Well...we'll have a lot of time on this trip, and you could...maybe spend it with me? If you think we are drifting apart, I'll give you the benefit of doubt and believe you. Let's do more together, okay?" Rocky nodded.
"Yeah." he licked Zuma's nose. "I know I'm not the most feeling of pups, and that I don't show vulnerability much and all that shit, but I do love you. A lot. You are very important to me, and I hate to see anything happen to you."
"Awww...you're so sweet, Wocky," Zuma said, nuzzling his neck, closing his eyes. "I love you too. You're my brother, but more importantly, you are my best friend." Rocky smiled and nipped Zuma's ear playfully. Zuma looked into Rocky's eyes.
"Speaking of love, have you noticed Mawshall and Skye wecently?" Zuma asked.
"I don't know, maybe, what about them?" Rocky asked, cocking his head to the side.
"Well, Mawshall's been acting vewy...diffewent around her," Zuma said. "Also...Skye seems to be spending a lot more time with him than Chase."
"Huh. I almost feel bad for Chase. He waited just a bit too long to confess to Skye."
"But that's the thing! Marshall knows Chase likes Skye. And he hasn't confessed himself. At any rate, if Chase starts noticing how Marshall's acting then he won't be happy."
"Well, I think it sewves Chase wight. He waited for ten years. Ten fweaking years! So, if Mawshall wants to take a shot at Skye, I say go wight on ahead." Zuma yawned and snuggled into Rocky's chest. "I'm sleepy. Wake me up when it's time to go."
Rocky was processing all of this information, and it had the side effect of keeping him awake. Well, at least I'm supposed to be up anyway. I Gotta keep watch. He absentmindedly stroked Zuma's back while he swiveled his ears, looking out for danger. A few hours later, there was a bright flash of light to the left of the makeshift camp. His heart rate increased, and his eyesight got much better. It's probably nothing... He told himself. He pulled out the glowing stones and checked out the area himself, his other paw on one of his twin swords. He saw the flash of light again and sighed. It was just a small jellyfish, and every once in a while, it flashed brightly. Rocky chuckled nervously to himself. Ugh, I'm so jumpy. Besides who would be watching us anyway? No one knows about us except the pups from Yemalin, and they are on our side. Plus, they don't know where they are anyway. Rocky shook his head and swam back to the camp.
"What's going on, Rocky?" Chase asked, sitting up. "I heard you leave."
"I thought I saw something, but everything is fine." Rocky looked up at the sky far above them, even though he couldn't see it, he still knew it was there.
"It's about as dark as it's going to get, Chase. Should we wake the others?" Rocky asked.
"Yeah...no point in procrastinating," Chase said, stretching. "You know, I kinda wish I had my paws back. Standing...err..swimming up straight is so different than I'm used to. And I wish I had my tail back."
"Yeah...me too," Rocky said. "Well, we'll get home soon. We just have to unite the four kingdoms, and then take out Zavok. Easy-peasy, right?" Chase smiled faintly.
"Yeah...right..." he said sarcastically. Rocky and Chase woke up the sleeping pups, and then they got ready to leave. Rubble yawned and twirled his ax around.
"What did I tell you about that?!" Rocky said, holding Rubble's arm. "Don't swing that thing around, you'll hurt someone."
"Yeah, yeah..." Rubble muttered, strapping it behind his back. With the Palace in sight, it was not long before they reached the gates.
"Okay guys, this is where we split up. Dash into the gates the moment you have a chance." Rocky said.
"Bye guys! See ya on the other side!" Skye said. The four disappeared, and Marshall, Chase, Sajon, and Marella stayed silent. They heard shouting fairly quickly.
"Let's go guys," Marshall said. Rocky, Zuma, and Skye had drawn the guards away from the entrance, the others quickly came to the gates. Chase tried to pull them open, but it was locked.
"How are we going to get in?" He hissed. Marella put her paw on the gates, murmuring something with her eyes closed. There was a click, and the gates parted. Marella's stepped back and put a paw on her head.
"You know, I'm starting to like you more and more," Marshall said. Marella smiled. The four entered the palace, which was surprisingly empty.
"Where are all the guards?" Chase asked.
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Sajon said.
"You guys led the way," Chase said. Marshall and I will watch your backs." Marella and Sajon went through the familiar halls, and one glance at each other showed that they both were thinking the same thing: I miss home.
"It's right through here, guys! Sajon said. "This is where all the maps are kept." The four pups dashed into the room. Chase tapped his puptag.
"Come in guys! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, we are fine! But we could really use your help!" He heard Skye's voice.
"Yeah, these guys are super well trained. They are almost as good as you, Marshall!" They heard Zuma's voice. "I'm shooting them down from a distance, but they are really hard to hit!" Zuma said. Chase heard some crashing.
"Uh...guys?" Marshall asked.
"Just hurry up, okay!" They heard Rocky.
"How many of them are there?"
"Umm...maybe about thirty, but more and more are coming. Every time I strike one down, there are another six to take its place. On the flip side, the weapons are awesome!" Skye said.
The two brothers looked at each other.
"We've gotta hurry, I didn't expect that many," Chase said.
"Skye, Rocky, Zuma, you go back and hide with Rubble. They don't know we are here, and we can fight for ourselves. Go now!"
"You got it, Chase!" Zuma said. Chase tapped his pup tag, and the call ended. Marella and Sajon looked at the wall. There were thousands of pieces of parchment along the wall, and the four didn't know where to begin.
"You know, when we got here, I thought things were gonna be so much different. I thought we'd just...know...but this is impossible." There was a soft twang, and Chase pushed Marella out of the way of a flying arrow with a speed he didn't normally use.
"Whoa!" Marella said. "How did you..."
"Yeah, we'll talk later," Chase said. He and Marshall went to the door, where a group of twenty soldiers so far were swimming quickly too.
"You guys find that map! Marshall, don't hold back, we need to buy them as much time as possible!" Chase shouted. Marshall nodded, and his eyes turned to two flickering flames. He gave Marella and Sajon a paws-up before closing the door behind them. Sajon and Marella looked at each other, then back to the wall.
"We're screwed," Sajon said finally.
Hi guys! This is one of my longer ones.
I don't normally have an opinion on my chapters, but I really liked this one. It was amusing. (It at least, it was to me.)
Rocky is a little concerned about his relationship with Zuma, and the two decide to spend more time together, as they have both gotten so busy with life. The seriousness of war has made Rocky very aware of their mortality, and it has made him want to strengthen his friendship with Zuma, to which Zuma agrees, even though he thinks their relationship is fine.
I love the two a lot, and I keep thinking of cute things for them to do together. (Guys, I'm not even trying! I'll be trying to keep to the script but...well...)
#Iwillgodownwiththisship
The pups have made it to the Palace, and now that they are there, they aren't sure how to proceed. What are they going to do? How are they going to figure out which map to use?
Will the pups be able to buy Marella and Sajon enough time? Find out in the next one!
Charisma, your reviews always make me laugh.
(Guys, I know I said I'd try to keep the chapters short so I can update more often... but I keep forgetting...ah, well.)
(Also, I have no idea why, but this story is in the top ten (#6) for RockyXZuma on Wattpad. I'm kinda confused, as it isn't really about them. There is no real protagonist and deuteragonist for this story, its kind of about all of them. And as for a pairing, its more oriented towards MarshallXSkye. (At least, its supposed to be...)
I wasn't even going for highlighting their relationship like I normally do. For ex: WTPBTF is in the top three (#2) for ZumaXRocky, which makes sense, given how the story is about them. So, now I have a question...do I really write about them that much? Should I focus more on the other pups? Am I too dependent on Rocky? (Probably...) Thanks.)
For always and forever, thanks for all of your support!
Cya next time!