With a name for the massacre in place, the group thought of everything they could to explain it. To save you some time, I will only go over the conversation they had about the apples, which as you should know by now is the main cause.
"Maybe it was the apples they ate? Since me and Rocky didn't eat them, and neither of you even knew the tree existed." Skye proposed, a short while into the brainstorming process.
"Not everyone ate the apples though, and this town is completely wiped out." Rocky added.
"If I witnessed all these people dying all around me I would definitely run away." Carlos responded, adding more likelyhood that the apples were the cause.
"It's got the backing, but let's not immediately jump to it." Rocky replied, paying more attention to looking around rather than thinking.
"I don't know what we're looking for around here, it's just aimless walking." Skye spoke, being the biggest believer of the apples at the moment.
"We could get some hints to help find out the cause." Rocky answered, still searching.
"We already walked all around while cleaning the place up, what more is there to find? Besides, I'm pretty sure the case was the apples and its unimportant to me anyway. I think we should find a way to get Adventure Bay back, we can't just leave it, or live here on our owns." Skye said, speaking basically all her opinions on the matter at once.
"We can do that later, but we really should know for certain the cause, and if it was the apples, what was killing them afterwards?" Rocky replied, against Skye.
"We have different ideas on what to do here, so I think we should split and do both at once." Skye suggested.
"This is a horror scene and we're splitting up." Rocky spoke, somewhat jokingly.
"The main course is over, there's no murder wondering about... I think." Skye responded.
"There's no reason for us two to have been spared, it's definitely over." Rocky agreed, on board with the split up.
"Who goes with who?" Skye questioned.
"Tracker and I will go with Rocky while Humdinger, you go with Skye." Carlos suggested, "Sound good?"
"I don't care either way." Humdinger said, which was his way of saying it's all fine.
"So it's settled, Me and Humdinger will figure out how to rebuild this city, while you, Carlos and Tracker will figure out why we have to do that in the first place." Skye explained the plan while setting it into motion.
"See you soon, Skye." Rocky said as he and his group of two left Skye and Humdinger.
"Hopefully so!" She replied, turning to Humdinger, "So how do you think we should go about this?"
"Well there are people around foggy bottom that complain about the living conditions due to the fog. If we convince some of them to come here, that would both help Adventure Bay back, and make my job a lot easier." Humdinger suggested.
"Seems like a good idea, let's go." Skye replied, going towards the lookout for her helicopter as Humdinger called the kitty carrier.
"Right now the most likely scenario is the apples, but what about the apples could have caused this?" Rocky questioned.
"I don't know, but Rocky, didn't you see some of the pups during their... final moments?" Carlos asked.
"Yes but how would this help?" Rocky returned.
"Well, how did it happen? I know it might be hard to go back but could you explain the scene to us." Carlos responded.
"Well, I was talking to Marshall, and then he started staring at something invisible, and when he started running it was too late. As for Chase, he was also terrified of something, and marks just appeared on his body... over and over." Rocky explained, reluctantly.
"So, they saw something, and then that something proceeded to end them." Carlos put together.
"What could they have seen?" Tracker questioned.
"I'm unsure, but the likely story is the apples allowed for it to be seen, so maybe we should investigate the tree?" Rocky responded, skeptically.
"Worth a shot, let's go." Carlos said as they too went towards the lookout.
Skye and Humdinger had spent some time trying to convince people to move to Adventure Bay, but it was much harder than they had expected. They neglected to plan for the fact that people would be reasonably hesitant to move to a city that just had just had its entire population murdered by an unknown force. Well, some people ran away at seeing the killing, but for the most part everyone was killed. A smaller reason people were hesitant was just general hesitation to move. Skye had that mostly covered by offering to move everything with her helicopter, along with helping everyone around on their first days. It was also kinda hard to make them move to a city without a mayor, but that would eventually be arranged.
Eventually though, some people decided to move out. Having their mayor there to convince them was quite useful in getting them to finally make a decision. It wasn't much, but at least it was something, and that's better than nothing.
"We probably need more people, I don't think Foggy Bottom had enough." Skye explained to Humdinger.
"Where else could we go?" Humdinger questioned.
"Barkingburg?" Skye suggested, however unsure.
"I don't think anybody would want to give up a life from there, and even if they did it'd be too much of a hassle to get there for amount of people we'd get." Humdinger replied.
"Well, I guess we're just gonna have to deal with the few we got from Foggy Bottom." Skye decided begrudgingly.
"You really can't think of any more?" Humdinger questioned, surprised.
"None that are convenient." Skye said, thinking about what Humdinger said about Barkingburg.
"Hmm, a rare instance of a PAW Patrol failure." Humdinger thought out loud.
"Is this really the time for that Humdinger?" Skye exclaimed, actually a bit annoyed.
"Uh, no. No it's not."
Rocky and his group arrived at the apple tree and it looked identical to what it had before the Armageddon. There were no changes to the tree, but it had certainly made changes to Adventure Bay.
"There's nothing to see here." Rocky explained, being the only one who had seen it previously.
"Well then what do we do?" Carlos questioned.
"We can't really do anything but try to dispose of it somehow." Rocky replied, unhappy with the results of their search.
"We really can't test anything at all?" Tracker questioned, noticing Rocky's mood.
"Nothing without the risk if death attached." Rocky answered, thinking of how to get rid of it.
"Doesn't getting rid of it run a risk?" Tracker asked.
"We can't just leave it here for other people to use, even if we tell them not to you know how people are." Rocky explained to Tracker.
"What if what we do let's out an Armageddon to the rest of the world?" Tracker responded.
"Burn it! Let's just burn the tree." Rocky yelled, hoping someone else would have a way to do so.
"Ryder had to have had some matches at the lookout." Carlos said.
"We'll go there then."
"I think all we can do is help Rocky out right now." Skye explained, defeated.
"We're giving up that easily?" Humdinger asked, a bit out if character actually.
"I guess it's just hard to stay positive in the midst of all this." Skye replied, looking at the ground, "Let's just go help him out."
"We need to find him first." Humdinger responded.
"He's somewhere around Adventure Bay, can't be hard to find the only living beings in this wasteland."
At this point, Humdinger could tell Skye was out if it. She had accepted failure at this point and Humdinger didn't have much of a skillset made to help her out, so he just went with whatever she said. He was unsure if it was because of her recent failure to bring people to Adventure Bay, which to her was the most important thing in the moment, or just generally what happened. All that he really needed to know is what he knew, she is just a grieving pup at this point, back to how she was at the beginning, and no one is around to feel sympathetic.
Rocky and his group had indeed found some matches in the lookout. It wasn't going to be quick to burn due to the fact that they had nothing but tiny wooden sticks to burn it with, but it would end up going up in flames. The fire was also a pretty obvious signal for Humdinger and Skye, so unbeknownst to Rocky's group the two of them were going to be there quite soon.
"Sorry we couldn't find anything Rocky." Carlos said, patting Rocky's head.
"It's alright. Like I said if we don't find anything we don't find anything. It was worth a shot and we just failed." Rocky replied in an attempt to remain optimistic.
"I guess you're right." Carlos responded, looking back up at the burning tree he had lit. "I think we've done our jobs well enough, once this is gone we should call someone trained to try to fix this city as well as it can be."
"Yeah, but for now we just sit together and watch the tree go." Rocky suggested.
"Speaking of together..." Tracker spoke, looking at Skye and Humdinger coming over.
Nobody said anything, as there was nothing to say. The pure emotion they all experienced during this whole event was indescribable. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that their happy memories old and new to be made is going to get them through this. There's no going back. This is trauma, nothing more than that, and it's not going away until they do.
Rocky, although trying to show optimism, was affected just as much as the rest. He was optimistic about the future, because he's been in some sticky situations before. Nothing even came close to preparing him for this, and no matter how optimistic he felt inside or out, this moment will scar him most, behind Skye anyway.
Speaking of Skye, as I said, she's a wreck. Not much more needs to be said that I haven't already said. Depression is a heavy topic, but it's clear Skye had some of it. She was completely done, and just wanted to lie down and do absolutely nothing for weeks on end.
Carlos hadn't experienced it to a degree as severe as Skye or Rocky, but he had known many of the people who he's now seen as a corpse. Saying Skye and Rocky were worse makes it sound like Carlos wasn't very heavily effected, but that's far from true. He's seen the dead corpses of friends, and countless others, all of which were killed in seemingly purposefully gruesome ways. It's enough seeing a city painted in red, and on top of that, it was people he knew.
Tracker's situation was quite a bit similar to Carlos'. He's not effected as heavily as the two main pups, but as with Carlos, he will be traumatized. He would have rathered him than any of the pups, let alone most. The whole population of Adventure Bay being removed was just added icing on the cake.
Humdinger was the only one with any chance of recovering, as he wasn't close in a friend sense to them. However, even being the mayor of your own city wouldn't prepare you for an entire neighboring city to be slaughtered. Adding to the fact is the change in personality he saw from the pups. It doesn't seem like it, but seeing innocent happy go lucky pups turn grim and depressed nearly instantaneously was a hard hit, even for Humdinger.
After the tree had finally been covered reduced to ash, they all decided to just sit down in the lookout, with Ryder's body covered, as they finally called for legitimate authority to get this taken care of. It'll be hard to keep the city standing, so they just had to hope that their whole expedition wasn't all for nothing.
While in the lookout, Ryder got called by the Earl of Barkingburg. They were expecting a problem that they would no longer be able to deal with, but instead of that, he just mentioned something about an apple tree.