just an author's note. I'm gonna experiment with POV in this story. enjoy!


paw patrol all grown up #4: the tape

Written September 17th through October 7th, 2020

chapter 1: teaching a young dog old tricks

chase pov

I have to get something off my chest. I've been feeling… worried for the past few days. About my future. You see, me and the PAW Patrol have to deal with some missions that I can safely say as life threatening. I just went on one two days ago with my team. We were doing an Ultimate Rescue, police style. We had to stop a criminal who was robbing a bank not far from Adventure Bay. We all went there, and saw the men leave the bank with large sacks of cash. We confronted the criminals, and they responded with drawing weapons. Only me, Rocky and Skye were out in the open. I'm gonna say this right now. I had to deal with criminals before, but I've never seen one pull a gun. One of them shot at us, and he missed me. By inches. I could hear it whizzing by my ears. I almost lost focus on that, but Marshall jumped on him out of nowhere and tazed one of them. It worked, and that criminal was on the ground. The rest of us, with some hard work, knocked the guns away from the robbers and we apprehended them. We called the actual police from Coastal City, which is not far from here, and they took them away. I've been silently traumatized ever since. I feel like one of these days… Hell, it could even be tomorrow. I could be on a mission and not come back. And by that, I mean die. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It could be when I have pups of my own. It might never happen. But there's always a chance it could happen. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm willing to put my life on the line for protecting our home. But the thing that scares me is... that if I die, I'll never have the proper chance to say goodbye. So, I've decided today's the day. All of us pups get 30 bucks a month, and we use it regularly. My plan is that I'm gonna buy a camcorder and record a tape saying my goodbye to my team. Then, I'm gonna format that recording to a VHS tape and bury it somewhere. Also, I'm gonna label it something like, "only open if worst case scenario occurs". Then, I'll hide that box somewhere. It will be hard to even record it. But I know it has to be done. The real reason I'm planning on doing this is because of Skye. I'm so damn afraid of dying because of her. I mean, the pups would take it very hard if I die. I know that. But Skye… I cannot imagine the pain she would go through. It sends shivers down my spine. I walked over to an antique store in the next town over and found a bunch of cheap camcorders. For 20 bucks. I also found a pack of 10 blank VHS tapes for 5 bucks. That's a steal! I thought excitedly as I gathered my stuff and headed for the checkout.

marshall pov

I decided to go to the antique store. I heard that there was some very old Apollo merch that was cheap. Maybe I could find something for Rubble's birthday. I'm sure he would like that. As I was walking in, I saw my best friend Chase at the checkout. I walked up to him. "Hey Chase, what's up?" He turned around.

"Oh, hey Marsh."

"What'cha doin over here?"

"Nothing much. Just buying some VHS tapes and a camcorder." That had me confused. Chase was never the type of canine to be filming anything.

"Why would you buy one of those?" He sighed.

"Remember when we had to go on that mission a few days ago? The one where the criminal pulled a gun and shot at us? He barely missed me." It all came back to me instantly.

"Yeah. I remember the look on your face when we went back. You looked like you saw a ghost or something." Chase let out a heavy sigh.

"That's the point. We've had so many close calls recently that it's starting to make me worried." I got confused.

"You mean that you're afraid of dying? I can't blame you for that." Chase sighed again.

"No...it's that if I do die on one of these missions, I'll never have a proper chance to say goodbye to you guys." That shocked me. I knew exactly what he meant.

"Hey… you're not the only one to think about that sort of thing." Chase's ears perked up. "I mean, your job is dangerous, for sure. Not to be rude, but I think my job is even more so." Chase nodded his head in agreement.

"Remember that one rescue that we had when Jake's resort was on fire? I actually had to go in and rescue him myself. Everest was worried sick for both of us. Thank god we made it out alive. She hugged me and wouldn't let me go for 5 minutes. Trust me, it was the most bittersweet rescue I have ever done. But that was 2 weeks ago. I still smell the ash on my fur." I said, trying my hardest to lick the damn smell off of me.

"The reason I'm doing this is because...well...Skye. I mean, if I die, I know all of you will take it hard. For her… I don't even want to imagine the pain. Of not even getting a chance to say farewell, even if it's not in person." Chase spoke solemnly. I nodded.

"Yeah...I've been thinking about Everest, too. She's been through so much in life. She dealt with loneliness long before she joined us. Even when she lived with Jake, she still felt that. So, she came down here to live with us. So far, it's great. That thought of death and not saying goodbye isn't just you. I think about that too. For me to possibly die this young… when we still have so much to do together… God only knows how she'll react."

chase pov

I saw my buddy Marshall shudder a bit after he shared his thoughts. I put my paw on his shoulder.

"You know what? I think that we'll do this together. You can record a tape, and I could do one. We could hide it somewhere, and make a new one every few months. The old tapes after that are gonna be destroyed." Marshall nodded. "We'll both share the camcorder and the unused tapes. But we have to make a promise." I decreed.

"What's that?" I got serious for a moment.

"We can't tell anyone about this. Especially Skye or Everest." Silence.

"Deal." We both shook paws, checked out our stuff, walked out of the store and began to head home. "So, how do we do this? I mean, we've never filmed anything on this type of device." Marshall observed. An idea immediately popped into my head.

"Hey...we can ask Rocky to teach us!" Marshall stopped into his tracks, looking at me confused.

"Isn't that breaking the promise?" As we walked home together, I kept trying to reason with him.

"We aren't gonna tell him why we're doing this. Plus, we don't know how to operate any of this equipment." I said, looking at our stuff.

"Yeah, you're right." Marshall finally agreed. The walk home was relatively short. We made our way to Rocky's house. Ever since we reached full size, our pup houses have been expanded to fit all of us. We knocked on his door. He quickly answered it.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" I almost forgot what I was gonna say, but Marshall looked at me and whispered to get a move on.

"Hey Rock. Can you do me and Marshall a favor?" The mix smiled.

"Sure. Anything for you guys. What'cha need?" I decided to get serious.

"Me and Marshall wanna learn how to use this." I then proceeded to show my stuff to Rocky. His eyes widened in surprise and confusion.

"Wait a minute...Why would you want to record stuff with this instead of a regular HD camera?" Marshall facepalmed.

"No time for questions, bro. Just show us!"

"Ok." Rocky sighed.

neutral pov

After a few hours of instruction, Chase and Marshall learned the basics of handling a camcorder. They learned how to put the tapes in, charge the device, record footage and the like. Rocky always prided himself in his intellect, and was very good with technology. The two dogs were satisfied with what they learned and said their goodbyes to their friend. They walked out of his pup house, discussing how they were going to utilize this foreign technology that they had on their paws.

chase pov

"So, we're gonna have to record our tapes now. You wanna go first?" I asked Marshall.

"Sure...might as well get it over with." He groaned. He walked into his pup house. Just before he shut his door, he told me that he would call me on my pup tag when he was done, and I let him do his thing. For an hour, I relaxed in my pup house with my door open, enjoying the amazing sunset that Adventure Bay had to offer. I was suddenly interrupted by my pup tag going off. I could hear Marshall's voice through it. "I'm done. You can use it now." I walked over to his pup house, and when I opened it, Marshall looked really shook. Marshall is very emotional for a guy, mind you. A little less than Rubble, though. I asked him how his recording went.

"I barely got through it…" he whined. "I mean, when I got to Everest, I just… cried. I mean, I-I-I couldn't focus at all. I'm just happy that I got through it." I asked him if he got the recording, and he showed me a VHS tape. It read "WORST CASE SCENARIO" on it with permanent marker. "I'm gonna hide this. Somewhere where no pup can accidentally find it." He then walked out to one of the corners of the little island that our lookout was based on, dug a hole, and patched it up. "The stuff is yours. Go ahead." I thanked him, and I proceeded to do my recording.

neutral pov

Chase and Marshall hid their recordings as soon as they made them, and things were going rather well. They acted like everything was fine. Every time when they had a mission, Chase and Marshall bro-hugged each other if they had to do missions without one another. The other pups thought it was cool and didn't question it, but in reality, it could have been their last goodbyes to each other. But thankfully, it wasn't. For three months, the recordings were safely hidden. Until one fateful night.