Chapter 8: Outside Blacknight forest

"Crime butchers innocents to secure a prize. And innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime." – Maximilien Robespierre

It was a dark, moonless night in Blacknight forest, and there was nothing to be heard or seen. Not that it was very light during the day, the sun could never break through to the surface. When humans first came upon the forest, their first instinct was to burn it down. Sure, they wanted the gold that was to be mined underneath, but they mainly wanted to see it burn. But when the humans set the fire, the wind blew it out instantly. When they tried to cut down the trees, the ones who entered never came out. Up to this date, no one has explored the forest, despite the many that have tried. Or so the stories go.

It became a legend much like the Bermuda triangle, but on dry land. Its mystery and allure attracted so many people, that eventually, two cities were formed: the great city of Portland, and the somewhat smaller city dubbed Coastal City. Portland had always been bigger, seeing as it has an airport nowadays, while Coastal City does not.

We're living in the 21st century, which is an age of development. This development, however, comes at a heavy toll, which is being paid not by men, but by nature. Most forests have been cut down, except for a few nature reserves. But this forest is different, this forest is the kind that was, and is up to this day, feared by most humans, making it one of the last places where there was still pure nature to be found.

As was said before, it was a dark and silent night. But this all changed when an object came falling from the sky. It was a small white plane, but it looked more like a ball of fire. If this had been an ordinary forest, the plane would've crashed in the centre and set fire to the entire forest. But this forest, the forest of Blacknight, wasn't ordinary, these woods held a power so strong, that nothing can stand up to it. Somehow, the plane's direction shifted. Whatever power this forest had, it managed to protect itself. The plane hit the ground on the outskirts of the forest, where the younger, non-magical trees were growing. But it was still part of the forest, meaning that the powerful magic blew out the flames instantly. And that is the only reason Rocky Greene survived.

"Well done, you have served me well" Bloodrazor said to the Australian pup.

"C'mon, mate, what'd you expect" the pup responded. They were standing on the Santa Monica pier, and in the distance, they could see the lights of the police cars.

"My assets in the department have already notified me about Officer Stillburg's death, and they have arrested Jessie Griffin for the murder." Bloodrazor said. "The second payment has just been wired to your account, but how would you feel about earning some more?"

"More, you say? How much more, exactly?" the pup asked

"Double, 100k before, 200k after, how does that sound?" Bloodrazor replied

"I'm in, what's the job?" the pup asked

"An assassination, along with a heist. I understand you're no stranger to those?" Bloodrazor said as he opened his briefcase.

"You've got my file, so do you even have to ask?" the pup asked

"Well, this might be harder than you might think." Bloodrazor said as he opened the file. "Several hours ago, my assets in Rotterdam sabotaged the plane of a very powerful CEO, and it crashed just outside of Blacknight Forest. Your job is to find the plane, identify the target, eliminate him and retrieve his briefcase along with his laptop and his phone."

"Hmm, alright, what bloody wanker's gonna wind up dead?" the pup asked.

"Moon Enterprises CEO Rocky Greene." Bloodrazor said.

As Zuma, Silvex and Marshall left the room, Marshall couldn't help but look over his shoulder back at his mate.

I should be with him, especially now. Marshall thought. Marshall then turned to the husky "Silvex, do you think I could stay here?"

Wow, I didn't take him for a coward. Silvex thought. But then he saw the look in Marshall's eyes, it was as if the dally was torn up into two. One side of him wanted to save one of his old friends, and the other wanted to stay with Chase, the one he loved, the most important pup in the world. It wasn't cowardice at all that held him back, it was his love for his boyfriend. "Stay here, Marshall, let me know if his condition changes. And be prepared, if this Bloodrazor convinced Rubble to try and kill us, he might send someone to finish the job"

"Wait, WHAT?!" Zuma didn't know what he was hearing "Rubble tried to kill you?!"

"Yeah, I'll tell you in the car, right now, we need to save your friend." Silvex said as he ran to the elevators. But Silvex couldn't stop himself from looking back, and as he watched Marshall nuzzle his mate, he felt lonely. Will I ever have someone to love, again?

"Where are they? Why is it taking so long?" Rocky thought out loud. He had entered a stage in which the pain had become too much to bear, and had therefore messed with his mind. He was in a kind of trance, with all kinds of thoughts and memories running through his mind. It reminded him of the dreams he had when he came down with a fever. He started to have flashbacks, and for a minute, he had gone back in time. He found himself in a dark room, lit only by a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the semi-darkness, Rocky could only make out shapes. He thought he saw a bathtub, with someone standing over it. For some reason, he held both hands underwater. Rocky stared at the man for a while, with nothing happening. Rocky was about to get up and leave when there was a sudden movement in the bathtub. The man pulled whatever he had in his hands up, and as Rocky identified it, he could only watch in horror as the man put it underwater again. It was a pup, a mix like Rocky, only a lot younger. Rocky felt like he was paralyzed, he couldn't move a muscle. He couldn't even look away or close his eyes. He could only watch as the man put the pup underwater, only to pull him back up a few seconds later. Rocky didn't know how long he was watching, or how many times the young pup was put underwater. But what he did know, and wished he didn't, was that the pup had drowned several times, only to be resuscitated. He didn't have any sense of time, and any attempt to move was futile, his body just wasn't responding. It was a routine, first, the pup goes under, then gets pulled up. It gets a few seconds to breathe before it goes under again. Sometimes, the pup didn't breath in, so the man resuscitated him. During this horror show, Rocky kept trying to run away, but he couldn't. His paws wouldn't obey his commands, so he looked down at them, only to be more horrified and confused than before. At his paws, he saw a pool of water below him, and he didn't understand it, so he looked back up at the pup that was being drowned, only to look at the face of a man. It was only then that he realized that his 'irrational' fear of water was, in fact, justified and that the reason therapy didn't work wasn't because he was coward, but because he never knew the real story. But as he realized, he was pushed down again, and a few seconds later pulled back up again. This became Rocky's entire world, and it seemed like there was nothing else in the world that mattered. But then, after an especially long dive, everything was rudely disturbed. Because of the lack of oxygen, all Rocky could make out were the shapes of men with rifles and flashlights. They were shouting things, but Rocky could only make out one word: "police".

It had been a few minutes since he called Chase's phone, or was it hours? Rocky had lost complete track of time. For a long time, all he heard was the wind blowing through the trees and the holes in the plane. He was in so much pain that he no longer felt it, and all he could do was stare blankly at the chair in front of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice asked why the hell the plane wasn't on fire, but the rest of the mix's mind ignored it.

But then he snapped out of his trance. He heard something behind him. He tried to get up, but the second he tried, the pain hit him all at once, sending him down again. But Rocky didn't give up, he never did, and eventually, he bore through the pain and managed to look around. In the dark night, he saw the shape of a pup approach him, and at first, he thought it was one of his travelling companions or one of the ones he called. But when the pup moved into the light from one of the reading lights, he didn't recognize him.

"Hello Mr Greene, I'm here to kill ya." the pup said with an Australian accent.

"Shouldn't we call for backup?" Zuma asked Silvex as they were driving through the town's outskirts at dangerously high speeds.

"You heard Rocky, most of the CCPD is corrupt. Besides, it would take at least half an hour for them to get there" Silvex said "We'll be there in less than 5 minutes"

"And, then again, a cop and a federal agent should be able to take care of themselves" Zuma added, with made Silvex nod in agreement.

"There is something that I've been meaning to ask you about, but first I guess you'll want to know about Rubble." Silvex said. Zuma did really want to know what happened with their former teammate, but Silvex saying that he had a question and then not asking it made Zuma very curious in that as well. He wouldn't have been able to decide, but fortunately, Silvex didn't give him the chance to.

"Chase and I were working on our first case together, an innocent pup was stabbed to death in a parking lot. We followed the trail to his sister, but she was kidnapped. We did find the body of a man in her apartment, and the bullet we pulled out of his head led us to the gun Rubble had on him when he was arrested" Silvex said. Zuma didn't know this, but Silvex was saying the exact same thing he had put in his report. "I wanted to confront Rubble about it, but he was a hardened criminal, so I needed something that would have an emotional impact on him. I knew Chase had worked with him during his PAW Patrol days, so I asked him to come along. I hadn't expected Marshall to be with Chase at the time, but when he decided to come along, I didn't resist. After all, two is better than one, right? Well, Rubble didn't expect Marshall either, and Marshall being there was the only reason Chase and I made it out alive"

"What do you mean? Both Chase and you are better fighters than Marshall" Zuma said

"I know my way around a fight, and the way Rubble fought, it wasn't spontaneous. It seemed as though he had trained to fight two trained opponents at once. It's how he easily beat Chase and I." Silvex said. He felt shivers climb up his spine when he thought back to his near-death encounter. "In essence, we got lucky, but I fear next time we won't"

"Geez, how could he have known that you guys would show up together?" Zuma asked

"If I had to guess, I'd say that the whole thing was a trap. I'm not sure if it was planned to turn out like this from the beginning, but I'm sure that as soon as the gun was identified, Chase and I were marked for death." Silvex explained "Before I shot him, Rubble told us about someone going by the name Bloodrazor, and Rubble claimed him to be in complete control of the city. I believe he's the one behind this."

"Do you have any clue who he is?" Zuma asked

"No. Up until today, we didn't even know he existed." Silvex replied

"Why would you want to kill me?! What did I ever do to you?!" Rocky yelled at the pup

"Well, you haven't done anything to me personally, I was simply hired by a guy that wants ya dead. It's nothing personal, mate" the pup said as he took Rocky's briefcase.

"At least tell me who sent you" Rocky begged

"Well, it won't do ya much good anyway, but fine, I'll tell ya. His name is Bloodrazor" the pup said as he took Rocky's laptop, phone and briefcase.

"What do you need those for?" Rocky said from where he was pinned against the plane's wall.

"Bloodrazor's orders" the pup replied. The pup then pulled out a gun and aimed it at Rocky's head. "Goodbye, Mr Greene"

He was about to pull the trigger when he heard a car stop. The pup turned around, and before he could do anything, two pups armed with guns jumped out.

"FREEZE!" both Zuma and Silvex yelled.

Silvex and Zuma had expected to find a burning plane, but instead, they found an injured Rocky and another pup who was pointing a gun at the mix. And now, they were at a standoff between the three of them.

Because of the darkness, they couldn't see the unknown pup's face, but they could tell he was a German shepherd, like Chase.

"Drop the weapon and step into the light" Silvex commanded, and the shepherd did so. He dropped the gun, and he walked a little to his right. He stopped when he was standing in the middle of a pool of light originating from a piece of the plane's wing.

Wait a minute, I recognize him! Zuma thought. The shepherd must have seen the look of recognition on Zuma's face, because he suddenly dove even further to his right, landing him right behind a piece of debris. Silvex fired off a round, which was blocked by said debris.

Zuma and Silvex both held their guns up as they carefully approached the shepherd's shelter from both sides. When they reached it, Zuma looked at Silvex as the husky counted down with his paw. When he reached the zero, both him and Zuma went around the corners, but the shepherd was no longer there. They then heard an engine start, and in the distance, they saw a bike driving away.

"Who the hell was that?!" Silvex yelled as he put his gun away.

"I know who, he's on the NCIS most wanted list." Zuma said as he put his gun away as well. "He's dangerous."

"Are you sure?" Silvex asked. Silvex then turned to where Rocky was, the mix still painfully pinned down.

"As sure as I can be, he killed six agents last year." Zuma said as he hurried over to Rocky. "He was a corporal in the military and an expert in tracking and intelligence gathering. His name is Xeno Jones"

"Let's deal with him later, first we need to save your friend, and it won't be easy." Silvex said.

Both pups walked towards Rocky, who had lost consciousness. His hind leg was stuck between the wall and his chair, and he had a nasty looking wound on his head.

"We'll need to take him to a hospital for his injuries, but first we need to free his leg." Silvex said

"The metal seems to cover his leg, how are we ever going to free him?" Zuma asked. He was clearly worried, more worried than he should be. Silvex noticed this, but he kept his mouth shut about it.

"It's simple, we need a welding torch" Silvex replied

"And where would we get one?" Zuma asked. "The nearest shop is a 30-minute drive away, meaning that it would take an hour before we'd be back, and Rocky doesn't have that long!"

"Why should we go get one, when we can just build one?" Silvex said with a grin.

"How in the world would we do that?" Zuma asked, now he was curious.

"I'll show you if you can do me a favour." Silvex said "Go get a flare from my car and scratch some rust from the back of the plane"

"I believe you know what you're doing, but still, it's crazy." Zuma said as he ran over to Silvex's car.

Silvex went on his part of the scavenger hunt, so to speak. He walked to the back of the plane and opened a hatch that revealed several pipes belonging to the hydraulics system. They were made of metal, which was exactly what he needed. He used his pocket knife to screw one loose and took it out. He then moved back to the passenger area, where Rocky was still unconscious. It was only then that Silvex noticed another passenger, a female golden retriever. He quickly checked her pulse and was relieved to feel one.

He then moved onto the next step, to collect some magnesium. Knowing that magnesium was found in the armrests in trains, he figured it could also be found in the armrests in planes, and he was right.

"Silvex, I have your rust and your flare, can you now please tell me what the hell you are doing?" Zuma said as he handed the husky the flare and a cup with the collected rust.

Silvex put the magnesium and the rust in the pipe and pressed it together. He then sealed off one end of the pipe and put in the flare. He then lit the flare while it was inside of the pipe, causing a chemical reaction when the magnesium and iron oxide from the rust caught fire. This made the flame burn far hotter than it would have otherwise. Silvex aimed the flame at the metal around Rocky's leg, and within seconds he cut through. The metal of the plane was nothing compared to the power of the thermal lance, and Silvex had freed Rocky within a minute.

When Silvex was finished freeing Rocky, the thermal lance was still going strong. The flare was better fuelled than Silvex had expected, and the result was the husky holding a very dangerous tool, that could easily set fire to the whole plane, and the forest.

"So, how do you put it out?" Zuma asked Silvex

"Uhm, well…" Silvex replied "This is only the first time I did this, in the movie they ran out of fuel halfway there"

Zuma facepalmed.

"Hey! I don't see you come up with any brilliant theories!" Silvex yelled at Zuma.

"Maybe I just did." Zuma said as he had formed a plan inside his head. "What if I would dig a hole and you throw the torch in?"

"We would cut the fire's supply of oxygen, great idea!" Silvex said. Zuma immediately started digging, which wasn't easy in the hard dirt. But when Zuma finally thought it was deep enough, he climbed out and Silvex dropped the torch in the freshly dug hole. They watched as the torch fell, but before it hit the ground, it suddenly went out.

"Wait, what just happened?" Zuma wondered out loud.

"It ran out of fuel." Silvex said, barely able to contain his laughter, despite the seriousness of the situation.

"Ugh, all that digging for nothing." Zuma said, before turning around and going back to his crush. At first glance, everything seemed alright with the mix, apart from the wound on his head, which had stopped bleeding. It seemed like Rocky had improved, but Zuma had a feeling they weren't out of the woods yet. When the lab felt for a pulse, he could barely make it out.

"Silvex! I can't feel a pulse!" Zuma yelled at Silvex, who immediately dropped the burned-out thermal lance and ran to the pair. He felt for a pulse too, and he too had trouble feeling it.

"We need to get to the hospital, now!" Silvex said as he put Rocky on his back. "Go get the golden retriever"

The Labrador did as he was told, but as he ran to Trisha, he couldn't help but look back at his crush.

Please don't die, Rocky, I need you!

Silvex put Rocky on the back seat, while Zuma put Trisha in the trunk. Silvex got behind the wheel and drove off, giving Zuma barely enough time to get in. As Silvex drove back towards the city, he seemed to have lost all respect for the speed limits.

"Beep-beep-beep" Captain Xavier looked up as he heard his phone ring. He looked at the one on his desk, which was silent as ever. He then realized it wasn't his normal phone that was ringing. It was Bloodrazor's phone.

"Yes?" Xavier said as he answered it after getting it out of his desk's drawer.

"Heya, it's Xeno." Xeno said with his usual accent "I'm sorry to tell ya that the mission was only… half-successful."

"Which half?" Xavier asked. After hearing Xeno's bad news, his voice had shifted to his dark voice. Bloodrazor's voice.

"I got ya the files, but before I could kill the target, some cops were onto me." Xeno said

"Silvex" Bloodrazor said through his teeth "Get me those files, NOW!"

"Only if ya tell me what is in those files." Xeno said

"And why should I tell you? You're merely a private contractor" Bloodrazor said

"Well then, I guess ya will never get to see 'em." Xeno said "Unless ya tell me what this is all about"

"Ugh, fine" Bloodrazor said as he caved. "Those files contain every documentation of a highly classified project from Inferno Industries. I can't and won't tell you more over the phone, but I can assure you that it's something that will change the balance of power on a global scale, forever."