Chapter 5

Christmas Eve's morning had arrived in Adventure Bay… but gosh darnit, nobody had the time or ease of mind to celebrate the events that would occur in twenty four hours.

Everyone was standing outside the Lookout looking in horror at the mess that lay before them. The hurricane had swept through, causing moderate, but sometimes deadly damage. Cars had been pushed around, some trees knocked over and furniture moved. A bunch of white feathers were ominously gathered in one place right by the lookout. A few houses in the area had been totally crushed, totally wrecked under the weight of an unfortunate heavy tree's demise.

Rocky gulped. "I-I-It's just like the f-flood again…"

"That it is," Pace replied, wincing. He glanced down at his hip fearfully.

Everyone remained silent until Scruffy finally said, "Well Ryder, are you going to say it?"

Ryder nodded. He didn't even bother pulling out his Pup Pad, but rather said in slight monotone, "PAW Patrol, to the Lookout."

"Well, you heard him; Ryder needs us," Chase said, his brown eyes widening as he dashed away. It was a little bit into his run that his collar actually began flashing. The others followed, some in their own sprints, most in between troops and trots, and a few in ambles.

Marshall slipped on some ice and collided with Rocky, but otherwise, not much happened. All of the active PAW Patrol members (the full-fledged members) had the liberty of the elevator, while the others had to take a locked door that Ryder unlocked to show an escalator.

The active PAW Patrol (that is, the original six and Miracle) got in the elevator, whilst the golden-age, trainee, and backup members took the escalator.

The elevator then stopped at the top of the Lookout where the pups lept out and got into their positions. Each wore their costumes: blue on Chase, pink on Skye, red on Marshall, orange on Zuma, yellow on Rubble, green on Rocky, and white on Miracle.

After a bit of delay time (about five minutes) the non-base members arrived. Storm led the charge in a black police vest, with Lightning in tan, Smoky in moderate blue, and Everest (who waved 'hi' and got a grin from Marshall and a short "hi" from Rubble) in teal.

Most interestingly, the legacy PAWs had more advanced-looking versions of the modern PAW Patrol costumes on. For example, Scruffy wore one like Marshall's, but had a hose spun around the side and an axe along the side of her costume. She also had a red fire helmet that even seemed to have a face guard.

Overall, you had Pace the police, Scruffy for fire, Gemini for medic, and Thala for eco. All had some kind of helmet, and the advancements.

"Ryder, sir? Permission to be impressed?"

The funky-haired boy grinned. "Go ahead, Rubble."

The little bulldog jumped up and down for a moment and then circled himself. "So cool!" he exclaimed over and over again. Other, less bombastic responses came in the form of "neats" and a Marshall rearing up and tripping.

"PAW Patrol is ready for action, sir," Chase and Pace said in unison, both of which had stayed still.

"Pups, we all know why we're here," Ryder said as he displayed an animation of the hurricane. "A huge hurricane blew through here last night and not only wrecked all of the decorations, but all of Adventure Bay. We need to get everything cleaned up in time for Christmas."

He swiped across the pup pad and pulled up Chase's, Storm's and Smoky's logos. "Chase, Storm, Smoky, Pace, I need you three to direct traffic and make sure we don't have any other incidents."

Chase barked, "Chase is on the case!"

"A storm is coming; Me."

"This Cop-pup is not runner up!"

He pulled up yet another member's logo. This time, it was Rubble's, along with the purple snow pup insignia.

"Rubble, I need you and Everest to help clear the snow and any branches in the area. Also, try to get rid of any large trees and rebuild any houses."

Calls of "Rubble on the double!" and "Ice or snow, I'm ready to go," were uttered in unison.

Ryder moved on to another logo: Skye's. Then he swiped to Zuma and Lightning. "Skye, Zuma, Lightning, we need to ensure that nobody's been lost in the storm."

"This puppy's gotta flyyyy!"

"Let's dive in!"

"I'll be there in a flash!"

Now it was Miracle's turn. "Miracle, Gemini, I need you to help Katie treat anyone who has been injured by the storm."

"Time to work some miracles."

"Aroof, Gemini's ready for action!"

And last but not least, Rocky and Marshall. "Rocky, find and recycle all of the ornaments you can find. Thala, you know to go too!"

"Don't lose it; reuse it!" both canines said in unison.

"Fire pups, Utsukushi, Shayla, Splotch… everybody, take on general help. Everyone in Adventure Bay is going to have to help us to get this done by Christmas morning."

"I'm fired up!"

"PAW Patrol is on a roll!"

All of the pups yipped and howled as their leader slid down the firepole. They then slid down the slide and to their respective vehicles before following Ryder into town. By contrast, the older members actually had skates grow out of the longer, waterproof sleeves of their costumes. "Can this get any cooler?!" Rubble exclaimed, as Thala passed his yellow bulldozer rig, going at a high speed.

A short clip of time of looking at varying degrees of destruction later, and Main Street was fully visible.

Chase felt that lump in his throat the moment he saw the damage that Main Street alone sustained. Decorations were everywhere: portions of buildings were torn apart. There was even one building where a tree flew through the window. Was that the Post Office?

Some of the other smaller streets they'd passed on their way there? Those were even worse than Main Street. He felt bad for the searching pups, because one house was decimated and he hated to think of what could lie under that rubble.

Not to mention, there was ice on the road and a bunch of people trying to drive...

"Chase!"

Chase rapidly shook his head; his cap fell off. He made to jump for it but Smoky beat him to it, handing it up to him. "Hey, we're going to East and West street to stop the chaos there, a'ight?" Storm said. It wasn't really a question, and Chase didn't need to ask about South street: Pace was already traveling in that direction. Chase just nodded, and added, "Be careful… icy streets and chaos…"

Rubble immediately got to work clearing the snow away from the roads while Skye flew high above Adventure Bay and used her goggles, which gave her the vision of an eagle, to see if anything was happening (beyond the chaos in the town, that was).

Rocky's first step was to get all of the ornaments that have fallen off and put them off to the side where nothing would happen to them. He would later have Marshall help him with resetting them. While he was putting them off to the side, he weeded through the bad ornaments and stashed them in his truck. The snow was also filled with spare parts that had fallen off of various structures and trees; he stashed those away as well. "Don't lose it, reuse it," he said under his breath.

"Rocky, catch!"

A large branch, about the mutt's size, flew at him, courtesy of Thala. Rocky barked with alarm, then yapped again, ducking and allowing the mechanical arm he had grab it. "Sorry; you have a lot more optimization for branches than I do," the veteran eco pup shouted. He had two large green carts behind him: one filled to the brim with branches even Rocky's mechanical arm would struggle to lift and the other with ornaments.

Rocky couldn't help but notice, as Thala zoomed ahead of him on the other side of the street, that he actually had gotten used to his costume again very quickly, as if it were an extension of himself. He had three mechanical arms out, though the ends were in the form of human hands rather than pinchers. Could I ever be that way? he wondered, his jaw a little bit low. He stopped his rig to lift up another him-sized branch.

Miracle and Gem kept their eyes peeled for any potential patients; Gem was sticking behind the path cleared by Thala. Her helmet was on over her eyes; it was actually built to sense blood flow or lack thereof.

It didn't take long for Miracle to spot a squirrel that was walking with a limp. She was actually the first to spot something. She jumped out of the rig, first-aid kit within her vest, walked up to it and said, "Need a paw?"

The gray squirrel jumped at Miracle's presence.

"It's okay, I won't hurt you," she said soothingly, "My name's Miracle, PAW Patrol medic. I just want to make sure you're okay." She yipped and said, "X-ray screen."

What deployed from her pup pack was a miniaturized version of Marshall's X-ray screen. She held it close to the squirrel as she ran it over him. "Wow, you're tougher than I thought; only a sprain." She yipped once to recall the X-ray screen and barked again. A blue and green pill launched out of a container on her pack. She incised it with her claw and bumped a small blue part to the squirrel. "That should get rid of the pain for a while," she told the small mammal. "Unfortunately, I don't have a small enough brace, so you might want to stay off of it for a while. Then again, I would tell you to stay off of it even if you did have one on. I have them custom made at the Lookout, so I'll stop by later and get on that."

The squirrel chirped in what Miracle hoped was comprehension, then scampered away, blue pill nub in its teeth. Miracle noticed the tenderness with which it scampered and smiled before getting back in her rig and driving again.

"STOP YOUR CARS, CONSTRUCTION GOING ON!"

Chase's voice boomed out of his megaphone. He looked over confusedly at Miracle, who was putting a few of the pills in a small tray in her rig. "Hey, are those the pills you had me take when Swift broke my ribs?"

"They are. A squirrel had a sprained leg, and I didn't have a brace small enough for it to wear with me." He looked briefly horrified, but then Miracle giggled. "Not a full one. Just about a sixteenth of one. I get the impression that I'll need them."

Chase shuddered and then shouted through his megaphone, "STOP, DON'T MOVE, SIT TIGHT!"

Miracle had to cover her ears due to how loud Chase's megaphone was. "Ow… Might need a hearing aid after this."

Meanwhile, at the Lookout, there was already a bit of progress. The large Christmas tree outside the place was already back up, and Scruffy and Marshall, using a slingshot of their own creation, were hurling the fixed ornaments that were there back into the tree. Scruffy shouted out "FORE" at random intervals, keeping them laughing.

"Nice shot, Mom," Marshall said.

"Thanks, kiddo," Scruffy replied with a grin, "I practice hard."

Marshall's eyes shined. "I know, and it really shows."

"Yep."

Both dalmatians continued their frenzy of flying ornaments. "This is actually pretty nice, a good change from focusing on what Utsu told me."

Scruffy raised a quizzical eyebrow. "That being?"

"Well, she told me that she thought that you didn't like her for some reason, but that's crazy! I mean, aside from Gem, you never had hard feelings for anyone, right?"

Scruffy snorted and laughed a bit. "Kiddo, I'm a proud dog. I stay mad for a while, but yeah, normally I don't get too much more combative than usual with them."

"What did Utsu do to make you, well… comm… combaahhh…"

"Combative, and… Well… It's not what she did; it's what I thought she was going to do."

Marshall tilted his head. "Huh?"

"Well, when you're out and about as much as I am, getting out and socializing, you hear stuff. Stuff about this dog doing this, that dog doing that. It gets jumbled, so you form ideas about certain types of dogs. Models like her… they, well, they tend to be- err, are stereotyped as 'shallow.' I, uh… thought she might have been trying to break your heart for fun. That's something else they do. Or, word on the street says they do." The older dalmatian, always so sure of herself, looked very uncomfortable."

Marshall sighed, "Well, she wasn't one of 'those models.' You know that now, right mom?"

"I, ah…"

"And I can prove it, too! Should I?"

"That won't be necessary." Scruffy actually cracked a smile. "I oughta see for myself, don'cha think?"

"Yeah, maybe, but the story is so cool. Are you sure you don't want to hear it?"

Scruffy chuckled. "Hey, later. I want to form my own opinion on her based on her, not you. We've got a mission to do!"

She slingshot one more ornament into the tree.

It wasn't just any ornament, though.

It was the shiny gold star on top.