"You two are gonna love this place, so much to see and do," the giddy dog, Dizzy, led Lady and Tramp up and over a hill, gesturing for them to keep up with her increasing pace. "The Windy City, The City of Big Shoulders, The Second City, The White City, and The City That Works. You can call this place whatever you want," She stopped in the face of a particularly strong gust of wind and took a deep breath, inhaling sharply through her nose. "Urbs in horto."

Lady glanced at her wondrously, "Urbs in horto?"

"It's Latin for City in a garden," Dizzy quickly explained. "Everyone loves that motto. And it's true too, the parks out here are amazing, but don't take my word for it, you'll both see for yourselves considering that's where we're headed."

"Whoa, sister! Hold on," Tramp interjected, stopping the trio of them on the middle of a sidewalk, one where bright, glowing lights reflected on to their faces, as busy working men walked by, paying them no attention, while the upper class stared mockingly from their prim and proper carriages. "What happened to helping us find the kid and then getting all of us back home safely?"

Dizzy laughed, clearly not caring for Tramp's sudden outburst, "Of course I'm gonna do all that silly, but I can't do it all on my own. That's where Ward comes in."

"Ward?"

"Yup. The best friend that I could ever have asked for," her little stub of a tail wagged excitedly as she spoke. "Just make sure you don't step on his paws too much, he gets grumpy kind of fast."

She walked ahead of the both of them, allowing Tramp and Lady some space to talk.

"I don't know about this Lady. We're being led across a city by a dog we just met that we don't exactly trust towards another dog who we definitely don't trust. Something about this seems fishy if you ask me."

Lady frowned, thick brows creasing in on themselves in doubt, "I'm not too sure of our whole predicament either, but just imagine how devastated Jim Dear and Darling would be if they were to find that Junior has gone missing and all because we turned a blind eye. In all fairness, Dizzy seems quite nice, if not a little naive."

"Naive," he repeated, amused at the word.

"Naive, yes, just like me the day you saved me from the dangers that the streets posed to a dog like myself."

Then the chuckle came, long and drawn out. He at least took the liberty to keep it as under his breath as physically possible.

"What's so funny?" Lady asked, pretending to be offended, where in reality she was not and almost certainly knew the reason behind his amusement.

"You've never admitted that you used to be naive," Tramp confessed with a sly smile. "I never would've thought that I'd see the day, quite a good day it is too, all sunny and not a cloud in si-"

She bumped into him playfully before he could get anywhere with his teasing, the happily stern look she sent him was enough to lighten the both of their demeanors completely, "At least I'm not like that anymore."

"Well, I don't know, I think a little part of me will always miss that sweet, naive, pi-" another light-hearted bump cut him off and this time he only chuckled lightly in response.

"Here we are!" Dizzy's high-pitched voice broke into their scene, causing the two to look at her and then at what lay just beyond her paws.

A park.

The largest they had ever seen.

"Wow..."

Tramp heard Lady's soft statement of disbelief and wonder as they made their way into the park. Almost nothing but the greens, reds, purples and a modicum of other colors from various plants graced their eyes. Even the black gates that securely guarded the park were finding themselves being choked by the ever present vines hanging just under a few trees. Lady couldn't help herself sniffing a few of the plants, many of which she had never seen before, especially not in the dull old park that she had known of.

Dizzy seemed more than happy to explain what they were seeing, despite having never been asked to do so, "...those are False Indigo, those are Prairie Smoke, those are Climbing Roses and ooh! Those right there are Hollyhocks. Beautiful isn't it? I just love this park. Lincoln Park as Ward and the humans call it. Apparently it was named after some sort of leader who fought in a civil war that ended slavery, but that's just silly, ain't it?"

"Dizzy?" Lady asked after her.

Her eyes widened, "You want me to tell the story? That might be a little difficult and a little boring too, don't tell Ward I said that by the way. I'm not really sure I remember some of the finer det-"

"It's not that," Lady stopped her in a polite a way as she could think to do. "I was just wondering how exactly the friend of yours will be able to help us."

Dizzy smiled, "Glad you asked. See Ward pretty much keeps himself around this crazy statue all day long and it's a pretty busy area, plenty of humans and dogs pass through there all the time, meaning that he knows pretty much every dog in town, meaning that he knows pretty much everything that happens in town," she paused to take a breath, having run out of air. "Meaning that if there's a lost kid out there, he's bound to know something about the little guy."

"This 'Ward' is really starting to remind me of someone," Tramp said, a hint of lost pride in his voice.

"Really? Who?"

He puffed his chest out and held his head up, "You're looking right at him."

Her snorts, which quickly turned to giggles and then full on laughter came close to snapping his ego in half.

"Hey! What's so funny?" Tramp asked, genuinely offended.

"S-sorry, sorry," she spoke through her laughter, clearing her throat, "it's just that...well let's just say that Ward doesn't wear a collar, seeing as he hates the idea of being owned by a human. He's also not so, how do I put this? Mushy and soft?"

"Who are you calling soft?"

Dizzy shook her head, "It's nothing to be ashamed of, we're all a little soft on the inside. All I mean to say is that Ward is a real tough nut to everyone except for me...there it is!"

Her head pointed forwards and above the treeline to where, just as she had said, a large statue stood tall and strong. It depicted a man holding some sort sign, whilst another man rose from his feet, hands free from the burdening shackles that had clearly once been tied to them.

"C'mon. Let's get there quick, before he decides to take a nap, or something."

"It's just that sometimes Mr. President, I wish there were more hours in a day. There's just so much to do. Time changes so slowly too, but it's men like you that made a difference. The truth is that, I hope you're proud of what I've done so far. I know that there's still work to be done and more that need to be freed, but that's what I signed up for. Hopefully this isn't the last time we see each other, but if it is, I just want you to know that you're more than a president to me, you're a friend."

Ward backed off from the fading green statue then, loyally taking one last look at the image it crafted, before starting to take off. He would head to the Southern exit of the park, that was the quickest way to get him to where he needed to go.

Today was his day to be cemented as a hero, a hero on par with his fallen idol and inspiration. He'd been planning for that day for a long time, ever since he'd first started to hear rumors of dog fighting. And once he had investigated he was shocked to find that the same rumors which usually held no real weight to them, were actually true. His work had started off small, at first just freeing groups of two to three dogs, those numbers eventually grew to five to six and then to eight to ten. Before he knew it, he had fallen into the rabbit hole that was dog fighting in Chicago. And after much sneaking around, he'd finally came to the realization of where the largest ring in the city was. And the time had finally come to rip it down, to liberate every last dog being held and forced to fight against their will. The time for emancipation had arrived.

"Hey! Ward! Wait up!"

The time for his daily nuisance had also just arrived.

Dizzy's voice cut him short of running, he turned to see the little Pomeranian Corgi trotting quickly towards him, as fast as her stumpy legs would allow her.

"Hiya' Ward!" she exclaimed again, as soon as she had reached his paws.

"Mornin' Dizzy..." he practically grumbled out. "What brings you out here this fine day?"

"Just came by to say hi!" Dizzy playfully rubbed herself against the slightly larger dog, much like a cat would, in a way of showing affection. "Oh and you gotta meet my new best friends! Not that they'd ever be a replacement for you though."

He raised a brow as she turned and skipped back, standing in the distance between Ward and Lady and Tramp.

"This is Lady," she swung her head in the brown Cocker Spaniel's direction, "and this is Tramp," She swung her head again, this time in the gray mutt's direction. "Lady, Tramp, this is Ward, my best friend in the whole wide world!"

The yellow mongrel ignored his 'friend', regarding Lady and Tramp suspiciously, "Nice to meet the two of you."

Before they could even nod their heads in response, Dizzy spoke up again, "They need your help!"

"Help?" now he was interested. "Help with what?"

Lady stepped forward, "It's a pleasure to meet you as well Mr. Ward. We recently moved here with our owners and just this morning, their youngest, a boy of three, wandered off on his own and well, you can imagine how concerned we are for him."

"Mhm...lost kid, you say?"

"Yup," Tramp walked closer. "Think you could help?"

Ward shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. Kids go missing all the time, you're gonna have to be a little more specific than that."

"About your height, yellow hair, sailor outfit," Tramp went into more detail.

"I suppose there might be some chance..." his face scrunched up as if he were thinking hard. "Can't say anyone's come through this morning with any news like that, but I bet there are dogs downtown who would know something about that."

"Great! So you'll take them downtown and help them find this kid of theirs?"

Ward sighed, "I don't know about that. There was kind of...something I wanted to do today...alone, by myself."

"Awhhh, can't you take just a teensy, tiny bit of time from your day to help?"

"I don't know..."

"Please," her lips pouted and she opened her eyes wide, trying to get to his soft side.

Apparently it worked. "Fine, I'll do it. On one condition though. I want one of you two to help me with that thing of mine."

"Sounds fair to me," Tramp agreed. "Fair work for fair pay."

"Are you sure about this Tramp?" Lady spoke in a hushed tone behind him.

He nodded at her reassuringly, "I'm sure."

"Alright then. We should get going, could take all day before we're finished. Plenty that could happen to a kid in that kind of time," Ward started to take off. "C'mon, I'll fill you in on the way. Dizzy, keep an eye on the fine lady, would you?"

"You got it Ward!"

Satisfied, he jogged away lightly, expecting Tramp, who quickly nuzzled Lady in goodbye, to follow, "I'll see you later. Stay out of trouble."

"I should be telling that to you."

He rolled his eyes, "Sure you should."

"Hey Lady, wanna see more of the park?" Dizzy asked hopefully. "I could take you on a tour!"

She nodded off to him, leaving Tramp to catch up to Ward as quickly as he could. Luckily the yellow mutt hadn't gotten far.

It was all too difficult to not note the absolute determination burning in his eyes, as he led Tramp past several blocks of streets, over a bridge and even through a butcher's store, hurriedly trying to get through the other side without getting chopped to pieces by a very angry butcher.

"So, uh," Tramp panted, trying to catch his breath, he shook the dirt and bits of meat from his fur, "we almost there?"

"Not even close."