Sorry for not posting sooner and leaving it on a cliff hanger, got caught up in a lot school work, but finally found some time to start wrapping up this story. To be honest, I also ran out of ideas on where to take this story, but I've gotten some inspiration on how to finish this story, so here's chapter 13!
Gray and the pups looked at Chase with a surprised expression. They stared into Chase's now glowing, teary, red eyes. His entire left side was covered in black fur, but his right was his regular coat of fur. The black was noticeably spreading to his left side, trying to shroud him in full darkness.
"Please, do something, I don't think I can hold him off any longer" Chase pleaded. Suddenly, his attitude changed. Instead of Chase's kinder, gentler voice, another voice came out of Chase's mouth.
"You have no right to resist me! You are merely a puppet under my control!" the voice spoke. "Gray, did you really think that I would die? It is true that my son killed you, leaving my curse no one to infest, but you made one fatal mistake, you let Chase here play with you. After you died, I infested Chase, but since he was a pup, I had to wait until I could use his body as a vessel!" Gray growled and snapped at Chase. Chase immediately jumped back, avoiding Gray's attack.
"Now now, you don't want to hurt your precious teammate, or more importantly, Roger's son, now would you?" The voice taunted. "I've been waiting too long for this moment to get my revenge. I was going to unleash my wrath when Chase turned one and became a police pup, but after feeling an immense aura of light around Adventure Bay, I knew it was you. So I waited until you showed yourself, and now here you are." Chase smiled, then bared his teeth and pounced toward Gray. Gray hopped back, narrowly dodging his attack.
"Ahh, this body reminds me when I was a young devil. Nice and agile, able to kill anyone I wanted" the voice remarked. Chase suddenly started to streak around the pups, leaving them clueless how to attack him.
"We need a plan, is Marshall still around?" Gray asked.
"Right here Gray, what do you need me to do?" Marshall replied.
"I need you to heal up Rocky. He hasn't sustained any serious injuries so you should be able to handle it. My strength is linked to Rocky's, and if he falls, I go down with him. Make sure he stays conscious and well" Gray commanded. Marshall nodded and ran right over to Rocky. Marshall held up his paw like before and helped Rocky heal up. Rocky watched in awe as his wounds closed once more. He got up onto his feet and glanced around, seeing Gray's friend surrounding him and the other pups.
"Rocky, you're up, good. I need all the strength you have, I can fight him. All I ask is that you give me your power" Gray asked. Rocky nodded without hesitation and closed his eyes. An aura of light glowed from Rocky and a trail formed from Rocky to Gray. Gray felt a sudden rush of power flow into him, feeling the same power he had before reincarnation. Gray growled, focused on Chase and pounced. He hit Chase dead on the side, knocking him back, causing him to grunt. Chase skidded to a halt, leaving claw marks on the pavement and grass, smiling at Gray.
"Well, looks like you haven't lost your touch yet. No matter, now that I have total control over this body, Chase's strong will is mine to use, and I will triumph!" the voice shouted. Gray growled back at Chase, and like before, scanned Chase for his power.
"Haven't we done this before? Scanning my power is useless, my dark aura prevents you from copying my ability, and since Shadow isn't around, you can't use my darkness in your favor" the voice mocked and Chase made a sudden dash towards Gray, claws outstretched. Gray jumped back once more, but not fast enough to receive a scratch, leaving a small wound on Gray's side. Gray grimaced and looked over at Rocky, who was also grimacing. Gray cursed at his carelessness, he knew that if he got hurt, even the littlest bit, Rocky would feel the same pain. Marshall noticed that Rocky was in pain, but his efforts to heal him were futile, since the pain was from Gray, and not physically on Rocky.
"What do you want us to do?" Cheetah shouted at Gray, hoping to join the fight.
"I need you to stay by Rocky and the other pups, you've seen me and Rocky before before, if he falls unconscious, then I'll fade and disappear" Gray hollered back. Gray turned back around and noticed that Chase was no longer in his line of sight. Frantically, he looked around, hoping to find Chase, but was unable to track Chase down. Chase suddenly streaked next to the unprepared Gray and left a sizable mark on his shoulder. Gray roared in unison with Rocky who had also felt the pain, and dropped to the ground. Marshall's eyes widened to the side of dinner plates and attempted to run over to Gray.
"Stop Marshall, stay with Rocky. I'm fine!" Gray shouted at Marshall. Marshall halted immediately, and looked at his wound, worried, but slowly backed away. Gray slowly got back up, and glared at Chase who was dancing around before his eyes.
"Well now, I guess I'm the stronger pup now, you can't even touch me" Chase teased. "Why don't you bring out your friend? I want a real challenge." Gray growled back, but had no other choice, he couldn't fight Chase in this form he was in, it was too weak and slow. Gray suddenly burst into a ball of light and dark, surrounding Gray completely. Chase smiled with a devilish grin and gave a blood-curdling howl. From the ball, Gray reemerged once more as the half devil, half angel pup.
"Well now, I finally have a challenge!" Chase howled. Gray pounced towards Chase with amazing speed, clipping Chase on the ear. Chase jumped away, unfazed about his ear. Chase smiled, then started to run around in a streak of black, Gray matching him in a streak of gray. Gray slowly caught up to Chase and gave Chase a big bite on the back leg, stopping Chase to a halt. Chase bared his teeth in pain, and glanced at Gray who had black blood on his teeth.
"Impressive" was all Chase said as his would slowly closed on its own. Gray watched in shock and realized that killing Chase was going to be nearly impossible. Once Chase was completely healed, He charged at Gray, bashing into him in his chest. Gray flew backwards and fell on his side, leaving a few skid marks. Gray recovered from his shock and started to think of a plan on how to kill Chase. He needed to deliver a fatal blow to Chase before he could recover, but killing The Devil would be no easy task. It would require him to use up all his energy in one attack, so he needed to pin down Chase beforehand. Then, Gray remembered. If The Devil was using Chase as a vessel, then Chase's weaknesses are also The Devils, and knowing this gave Gray an idea. Gray looked around and tried to find the other pups, most notably Skye. He found that all of them were hugging the lookout as much as possible, avoiding the dangers beyond the police pup's protection.
"Skye, can you see if you can find Mayor Humdinger? I need him to come to the lookout immediately!" Gray shouted at Skye. Skye had a shocked look on her face, but quickly recovered.
"Why Humdinger? How do you know him and how can he help?" Skye questioned.
"Now's not the time to ask questions, just fly and find him, Chase won't be able to follow you if you fly" Gray shouted back. Skye gulped and took off with her pup pack. Chase noticed Skye was flying away, but didn't think much of it, after all like Skye asked, how could Humdinger do anything? Skye flew off into the distance and looked for Humdinger. Meanwhile, the other pups were praying that whatever Gray was thinking would work, as long as they didn't get hurt.
"Sending off a pup to find Humdinger? He's a complete screw up! I can overpower him just like you and the other pups!" Chase smirked. Gray also knew this and hoped that his plan wasn't a complete dud, as he is putting both the pups and Mayor Humdinger in danger. For now, he needed to stall for time. Gray jumped around Chase, making no effort to attack Chase. Chase watched as Gray hopped from place to place, confused at Gray's effort.
"Well, since you're trying to be all quick and all, I might as well use you as target practice" Chase yawned. Chase conjured a black energy ball right above him and launched at Gray, hitting him dead center in his stomach. Gray flew backwards, clenching his teeth in pain. He got back up and made his own energy ball. He realized that he also needed some practice for his energy ball before Skye returned with Humdinger. Gray made a small ball, making sure not to spend too much of his energy, and threw it at Chase. Chase also was making a ball, much bigger than Gray's and launched it at Gray. The two balls collided, and created a massive crater where the two balls met. They repeated this until Chase got bored from Gray's weak attempt at energy balls.
"Really? This is all you can muster? I expected more from you Gray!" Chase mocked.
Gray growled back, hoping that Skye would return faster. Each energy ball Gray created drained more and more of his energy, and Gray was starting to worry he wouldn't have enough energy to finish Chase off. Chase suddenly sped towards Gray, knocking him back by his blow to his chest, making him hit the side of the lookout. Gray fell to the ground and slowly stumbled back up onto his paws in pain. He could feel that some of his bones were broken, but Gray resisted to show any sign of weakness.
"I'm back Gray!" Skye shouted suddenly, appearing up the driveway with Humdinger riding on his kitty carrier.
"This better be important, I was just cleaning my secret base!" Mayor Humdinger complained with his kitties grunting with him.
"Great timing Skye. Tiger, when I say now, I need you to tackle Chase and pin him" Gray told Tiger. Tiger had a very confused look on his face, questioning if Gray had gone mad.
"Tackle Chase? Dude, he's The Devil, there's no way I can pin him!" Tiger shouted back.
"Just trust me. Mayor Humdinger, let the kitty catastrophe crew out!" Gray hollered.
"Okay, but I don't see why." Mayor Humdinger muttered under his breath. He opened the carrier and the six kitties jumped out, but was immediately frightened by Chase's appearance.
"Kitties, I want you to go and play with Chase over there!" Gray commanded. The kitties hesitated at Gray's command, but Gray's glare at the kitties scared them more. They ran over to Chase and started to mess around.
"What are you doing...Achoo!" Chase started. Chase started to sneeze over and over again, leaving him completely helpless to retaliate. He tried to start running away, but a kitty climbed onto his back and head and clung on to him.
"Now, Tiger!" Gray shouted and Tiger jumped right on Chase, pinning him down.
"Curse you kitties! Achoo!" Chase cursed as Tiger pinned him down to the ground. Gray ran up to Chase and started to conjure an energy ball. The helpless Chase watched as Gray's ball got bigger and bigger, almost as big as two of the pup's trucks.
"Wait!" Chase shouted, this time back to his old puppy voice. "Don't kill me!" Chase started to cry and Gray hesitated. He looked at Chase's watery eyes and started to have second thoughts about killing Chase. He needed to kill him, but in doing so would also kill Chase, which he completely forgot about. Gray started to loosen up and then Chase grinned evilly and jumped out from under Tiger and pinned Gray, making the energy ball collide with the wall of the lookout, demolishing it completely.
"I got you! By letting Chase come back out, it gave me enough time for you to hesitate to escape, and because of your big heart, I can finally kill you! Goodbye Gray, It was nice knowing you!" Chase growled. Gray looked around frantically. It turns out that the kittens had ran back to Humdinger because of the giant energy ball, leaving Chase to do whatever he wanted. Humdinger had already left, fleeing from the danger,leaving Gray pinned, unable to escape. He watched as Chase raised his claws and slashed at Gray's throat.
Gray gasped and lost his breath. His sight started to diminish, he felt his life draining away as Chase watched him with Gray's blood on his claws.
"You won't win Chase" Gray gasped.
"Well, I think I just did." Chase replied with a evil smirk.
"Rocky will stop you, he's the smartest pup I know" Gray gasped again.
"Him? I don't think so, none of the pups can stop me!" Chase replied once more and slashed at Gray's neck one more time, finishing him off. Gray closed his eyes and faded, leaving behind the pool of blood that formed around him. The pups and the police dogs had a look of surprise. To Roger, Tiger and Cheetah, Gray was the strongest out of all of them, especially in his half dark half light form. Chase could feel the fear in the pups and the dogs, and was ready to attack them for easy Tiger and Cheetah slowly back away, making sure not to make sudden movements. They looked back, making sure that all the pups were there. They counted four pups.
"Where's Rocky?!" Tiger shouted frantically. "He's not here! Quick, we need to find him!"
"We can't leave the other pups here, they will all die!" Cheetah snapped back.
"Rocky is the only pup that Gray has left, we need to protect him!" Tiger retaliated.
"Rocky huh? He's already dead. Gray's life force is linked to Rocky's. If Gray dies, he dies too." Chase told the pups. "The other pups are next. You know what, I'll give you 15 minutes to go and find Rocky. If you can find him, you can protect him, but I will come and kill him if he is still alive, no matter what. I'll wait on killing the other pups." Tiger gulped, nodded and ran towards the pup houses. Cheetah ran around the lookout, looking everywhere where Rocky could be. Roger stayed with the pups who looked emotionally devastated after Gray was murdered by Chase.
"Come on Rocky, please be alive" Tiger muttered under his breath desperately. Tiger ran into Rocky's pup house and ran right into Rocky.
"There you are! You're alive! Thank the Queen! We need to protect you, Gray is dead and now Chase is coming for you!" Tiger informed Rocky.
"I know, I felt it right before we split." Rocky replied.
"What do you mean you "split"? He is you!" Tiger questioned.
"I created a machine a long time ago, a machine that could separate two entities from each other. I knew that Gray wouldn't be able to fend off Chase, and in order for me to stay alive, I needed to separate from him." Rocky explained.
"Well, good job, but when did you leave? And how did we not notice you leaving?" Tiger questioned again.
"I left when Humdinger came. But never mind that, how are Zuma and the other pups? Are they safe?" Rocky asked.
"We have 15 minutes to find you, and we did, but how are we going to fight Chase? If Gray couldn't beat him, then how are we supposed to?" Tiger asked. Then, Tiger had an idea. "Rocky, you have some of Gray's power, right? You can fight Chase!"
Rocky shook his head. "I gave all my power to Gray, I'm powerless. But I can still fight. I made a few modifications to the living metal in me. I can fend him off while you guys take the other pups and Ryder to a safer place."
"But you'll die if you fight him alone! Especially without your powers!" Tiger shouted.
"I will fight for my friends' safety, even if it kills me." Rocky replied in a monotonous voice and left.
After leaving the pup house, Cheetah ran right up to Rocky and hugged him.
"You're alive! How?!" Cheetah questioned.
"Now's not the time! Tiger can tell you later! For now, I need you to escort the other pups to a safe place out of Adventure Bay immediately!" Rocky commanded.
"But what about you?" Cheetah asked.
"I'm going to hold Chase off." Rocky told Cheetah plainly.
"What?! Are you crazy?! You can't do that!" Cheetah complained.
"You can't stop me, I'm the only one who can even hold Chase up. Please, don't make this harder" Rocky pleaded.
"No, we won't let you." Cheetah and Tiger replied. Rocky sighed and jumped right over the two brothers.
"Ooh, that pup, how dare he! We're trying to protect him!" Tiger growled.
"Just let it go, we need to get the pups out, If we can't prevent him from fighting, then we need to do what he told us. Come on, let's get the pups and Ryder out. I'll tell Roger and you go find Ryder." Cheetah responded. Tiger huffed and nodded, running into the lookout. Cheetah ran back over to Roger and the pups, who were watching as Rocky and Chase circled each other.
"Roger, we need to get the pups out, get them onto the truck and let's book it!" Cheetah told Roger.
"What? And leave Rocky behind? Are you out of your mind?! There is no way we are leaving Rocky behind! You and Tiger need to help him!" Roger commanded.
"Rocky told us specifically to get the pups out. We won't be able to defeat Chase, so we need to get the pups to safety! I'll help Rocky as soon as you guys leave!" Cheetah replied. Roger opened his mouth, but no words came out. Roger closed it and nodded, herding the pups to his truck. Ryder was already in his bike, ready to move out. They glanced at Rocky one last time as he was already pretty battered from the fight and left.
"I see you made them move the pups out, clever pup" Chase remarked.
"I will protect my friends, even if it kills me" Rocky retorted.
"Well then, I will give you the quickest, painless death, unlike Gray's that I savored his life draining away." Chase growled and pounced.
"Rocky moved out of the way, and Chase landed on his feet, pivoted and pounced again. They both knew that none of them were going to get anywhere, but Chase was persistent and pounced over and over again. Soon, Chase got tired, and halted.
"Nice dodging, but can you dodge this?" Chase asked as he conjured up a massive energy ball. He launched it right at Rocky and Rocky dove behind his pup house. The pup house immediately exploded into pieces, leaving scraps of whatever Rocky was working on all over the place. Rocky watched in horror as his inventions were blown to pieces. Then, Rocky had an idea. He quickly jumped into his blown up pup house and opened a compartment his house. Rocky never had enough space in his pup house, so Ryder agreed that he could have a separate underground area to work on his inventions, one of which was the separator he created, and so he had Rubble dig out an area under his pup house for his new work station. It was huge, with multiple tool racks and tables surrounded by four white steel walls and a steel ceiling with a few lights hanging down from it. All the tables had something on it, a incomplete pup pack, the first models of the pup's trucks, but another section was marked off for inventions that Rocky was proud of, such as his first truck that he made from scratch, the first designed pup packs and even the first ever model of the separator.
He jumped down the hatch and quickly ran over to the separator. He thought that if it could split himself and Gray from each other, then maybe it could also split The Devil and Chase. Rocky started up the machine when suddenly Chase also jumped into the hatch. He looked around, found Rocky and charged up an energy ball. Rocky quickly jumped away from the separator, making sure that Chase wouldn't target anywhere near the machine as it booted up. Chase launched the energy ball right at Rocky who dodged it, blowing up is first model of his truck, which was huge and bulky and not at all efficient at being a truck. Rocky winced as the explosion occurred, slightly hurt that his first ever designed machine was gone forever. Chase soon charged up another energy ball and launched it at Rocky once more, blowing up other inventions such as his first pup pack and the other pup's pup packs, a few tools and tool racks, but none of the energy spheres hit the separator.
Soon enough, the separator was completely booted up, and all Rocky needed was for Chase to get into the separator. Rocky waited until Chase was starting to run out of energy so they could fight paw to paw, and that way he could maybe lure him into the separator. Since neither Chase nor The Devil had ever seen or heard about the separator, he had no idea on what the machine Rocky was starting up did. Then, Rocky had another idea. Since Chase had never seen it before, he could use that as leverage to get him to go into it.
"Finally, I can go into this enhancer and make me stronger!" Rocky shouted, cringing at what he said. Chase was completely oblivious to Rocky's plan and tried to stop Rocky from getting in. Fortunately, Chase made it hard for Rocky to get in, saving him the effort to pretend to not get into the machine. Chase slashed at Rocky, sometimes cutting Rocky on his legs, but because of his metal limbs, Rocky couldn't feel any of it. Rocky jumped back and forth, dodging Chases attack and tried to fake going towards the machine. Soon enough, the two dueling pups were right next to the separator. Rocky attempted to step into the separator, but was dragged back out by Chase.
"Oh no you won't! If anyone's going to be enhanced, it's me!" Chase screamed and jumped into the separator. He slammed the door on Rocky and looked around how to start the machine. Rocky was amazed how easily Chase was fooled to get into the separator and be separated until the machine started to sputter and blew up. Rocky was dazed. His machine had worked flawlessly before when separating him and Gray, but somehow the machine blew up. He looked at all the connections and found out in their tussle, Chase accidentally split a wire connected to the machine, causing it to malfunction. After the explosion, out came a coughing Chase.
"You made that to happen, didn't you?!" Chase hollered.
"No, It was supposed to work! Uh, I cut the wire so that you wouldn't be able to use it!" Rocky stuttered, showing him the cut wire.
"Why you little..." Chase started and punched the defenseless Rocky to the wall. Rocky coughed and blood dripped out of Rocky's mouth. Chase went up to Rocky, grabbed his neck and pinned him to the dented wall, choking Rocky.
"This is what you get for trying to kill me" Chase started until he noticed that Rocky was looking at another machine. Chase looked over to the machine that Rocky was looking at and saw the first model of the separator.
"Ah, what a nice pup, making a prototype for me to use." Chase replied.
"No, don't go in there…" Rocky coughed.
"Well now, you can't do anything, can you now?" Chase smirked and walked over to the machine, throwing Rocky to the ground. Chase walked into the machine, shut the door. After Chase slammed the door, Rocky smiled and was happy that Chase fell for his trick. All Rocky hoped was that his old separator was working. Chase flipped the lever inside the machine and Rocky watched as electricity flowed into the machine, rattling the entire machine, lighting up the entire room. The gauge on the side of the machine started to spin, notifying that the separation was happening. Rocky stood back up and pretended to stop Chase from "enhancing" himself.
"No! Stop! This machine isn't stable! Please!" Rocky shouted desperately.
"There is no stopping me! Once I get enhanced, I will be the strongest being alive! I will...wait, what's going on?!" Chase yelled. The machine had reached full potential and separation was occurring. Rocky stood outside and listened as Chase screamed inside the machine. One of the downfalls of the old machine was that it hurt whoever was inside, a flaw that was fixed in the new model. Eventually, Rocky noticed that the electricity flowing had slowed down and the shouting had stopped. Rocky waited until the lights dimmed and the gauge fell back to zero until he opened the door. There was a lot of smoke inside the machine and Rocky hoped that his machine had worked and that Chase wasn't disintegrated into a pile of ashes, which was what happened with an apple he tried on it a few months ago. The smoke cleared out and saw two pups laying on the ground, one pup was a German Shepherd, Chase, the other was a black pup, about the same size as the German Shepherd. Chase woke up, rubbing his head, groaning.
"Ohhh, my head…" Chase groaned. Rocky immediately hugged Chase, smiling.
"What happened? Am I free? What did you do Rocky?" Chase questioned.
"What did I do? I separated you from him! I did it! I can't believe it worked!" Rocky explained ecstatically.
"Wait, if you separated me from him, then that means…" Chase started.
"Well now, it looks as if I got my own form now. This machine may not have made me stronger, but this is a much better improvement!" The Devil spoke, admiring his new form.
So this is the final conflict that Rocky's going to encounter, therefore the next chapter will be the last. I don't know when I'll write it, but hopefully I can find some time later this weekend, no guarantees. I haven't written a story in a long time, so there may be more mistakes than usual, so tell me if there is any mistakes that I have here. Anyways, comment, grammar, thanks for reading!