Chapter 6

"Rocky, I need your help!"

The mutt, in his recycling rig, drove over as quickly as possible, sliding to an abrupt halt. Thala the chocolate lab was standing in his legacy-PAW Patrol suit with all of his mechanical hands out. A gigantic piece of plywood was in front of him. "There's someone stuck under here and this is too heavy to drag, and impossible to maneuver with just these arms."

"On it," Rocky barked, deploying his own arm. With the three arms of Thala and the younger eco-pup, the plywood could be dragged out of the way, revealing Mayor Goodway beneath, shielding Chickaletta the chicken underneath.

"Oh, Rocky, thank you!" she cried out. "I thought for sure I would be crushed!" Her eyes wandered over to Thala. With a new uncertainty, she said, "Err, who are you?"

"Thala, ma'am. Member of the legacy PAW Patrol."

Gemini watched the scene with hawk-like gold eyes. They narrowed as she jumped from her perch on a roof (it was the building with the tree through the window she was on) and skated up to the eco pups. "What are you guys doing? There are other people to be saved, you know!"

Thala glared over at his ex-mate. "Just receiving a bit of recognition for a solid day's work. You have your own work to do. Saving missing people like I just did."

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter!" Goodway nonchalantly said. "Just… keep on saving Christmas!"

In spite of himself, Thala actually grinned, and his eyes happened to be trained on Gemini. The fellow lab took it as a cue to look competitive back. "You betcha!"

Gemini finally seemed to come to her senses and rolled her eyes, turning away with a snort. Thala walked over to Gemini and stepped right in front of her, glaring all of a sudden. "What is your problem anyway? Why do you insist on trying to rile me up?"

Gem snarled at Thala, but walked around him.

"I get your feelings toward Scruffy for the way she's acting, but why do you insist on torturing me like this?"

"You? Tortured?" Gemini glared at Thala with a death-like stare. "Apparently you've never known what it's like to have one of your best friends be ripped away from you."

"You think I don't miss him? I was devastated when I found his body just laying there."

"Yeah, and bet you felt more at ease afterward."

Thala jumped back. He growled, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"The way you looked at him. You didn't want him around me, so you wanted him to take that plunge."

"Now wait just a minute here, I knew how close you were to him, but if you're trying to imply that you were-"

"See, there you go again," Gem pointed out, "you're assuming the worst."

"Can you blame me? A friend of ours gosh darn died."

"And yet you're assuming that there was something more between us."

"Now where would you hear a thing like that?"

"That is none of your business."

"It is every bit my business if it's affecting the rest of the team."

"We're not a team anymore!"

"Then why are you wearing the uniform?"

Both labs remained silent

Thala turned away. "Look, why don't we talk about this later. Now is not the right time or place."

"No, we need to talk about this now." Gem said.

"Why? Clearly you don't care for me, or Zuma for that matter."

Gem was thrown aback from his response. She immediately snarled, "I do care about him."

"Enough to know when to shut up? I could see the look in his face, and I could tell that he doesn't want to be around us."

"Probably because we keep fighting…" Gemini sighed.

Thala didn't reply. Something had to be wrong if his own son didn't want to be around him. He looked at the pup, who was listening to the entire conversation, and said to him, "Zuma… I'm… I'm sorry. You shouldn't… dread seeing us."

The words stung Gemini. She knew he was right. "Zuma… I'm so sorry we- I- messed up so badly. We've only been thinking about ourselves and, we need to be considering you, too."

"Is there any chance that you would be willing to forgive us?"

Zuma's tail was wagging a mile a minute as he stood up. Tears could be seen streaming down from his eyes. "I couldn't have it any other way."

Rocky smiled. He was glad Zuma's parents managed to patch that up. They may not be able to get back together, but at least they still loved Zuma, and could put their arguing behind them for Christmas.

Meanwhile, Rubble, Miracle, Marshall, and Chase were working around Adventure Bay, trying to help with the hurricane. Right now, Rubble and Marshall were working around the beach front. The hurricane was a category 3, about 145 miles an hour. There was a lot to do. It was a full blown miracle that no one was killed.

But some people were, unfortunately, wounded.

Said people, animals, and plants were lucky that Miracle was on the case, joined by Gemini. A medicine tent had been set up; the pair fixed up the patients with all of the necessary measures to fix their various wounds, injuries, and maladies.

There were only about four broken limbs, and while Captain Turbot was one of them, none of them were unfixable and would almost definitely be healed before spring, if not by Valentine's Day. A lot of the inhabitants at Adventure Bay were as lucky as that squirrel and had sprains, stress, scrapes, or back pain rather than something seriously incapacitating. Then again, with the latter, it was difficult to tell.

Marshall and Rubble were working closely together, as fate would have it. The bulldog looked over, confused, at the dalmatian. "Uh, hey, Marshall?"

"Yeah, Rubble?" the white pup chirruped, slowing down in his rig to drive right next to the inquiring pup.

"I heard your mom doesn't like Utsukushi, but now she does… what happened?"

The fire pup quirked an eyebrow, unable to help it. "Where have you been this whole time?"

Rubble chirped, "Playing hockey with Lightning and Everest."

"Oh. Well, she didn't like models as a whole, but then she suddenly decided that she wanted to 'form her own opinion' on Utsu."

"Oh, uh, okay..." Rubble swiftly went back to work…

...but Marshall continued talking, a freight train with his confused monologue: "I don't know how she feels about her. And, how can I argue with my own mom? She thinks we'll be dating, but who knows, we might!"

"Maybe," Rubble absentmindedly replied.

"Who am I kidding though?! I really care about her! I'd never want to leave her. Isn't that what a crush is about? Just never wanting to leave someone?"

"Yeah…" Rubble stopped to rearrange some small rocks. Then he froze up, dropping a pebble. "Hey, that means I have a crush on Chase, and you, and Rocky, and Zuma, and Ryder, and my mom, and everyone else! Ick!"

Marshall ignored the younger pup, "Okay, but… I don't know." The fire pup face-pawed. "Maybe I'm too young to even think about it. Heck, she's a good six months older than me!"

"Yikes. Maybe you should wait."

"But… Why should that matter? It's just six months. So what if we were born on different dates."

"You have a point."

"Maybe I should just walk up to her, tell her how I feel, right in front of my mom, and- Agh! My mom would kill me!"

"That wouldn't be good..."

"I know! Ugh! Why did she have to do this to me? I was perfectly happy before we met, and now… My entire world is just turned around."

"Do you wanna break up with her?"

Marshall looked taken aback by his friend's comment. "Break up? Break UP break up? Are you crazy? We aren't even dating, and… I didn't have feelings for her earlier today!"

Rubble groaned, "Look, if you're gonna complain about this, talk to someone who has experience?"

Marshall and his rig suddenly stopped, as if he slammed the brakes. He looked thunderstruck and horrified, as well as astonished, all in one facial expression.

Ryder stood a few hundred yards away from Katie's store, hair rad, funky, and brill. A large tree had been blown into it and destroyed the roof and several windows. Katie stood in front of the wreckage. She just stood there, holding what Ryder could only assume as Callie. He was trying to think of what to say, Katie loved that store, and he could only imagine how heartbroken she was. Even his hair couldn't distract him from the problem at hand: a sad friend.

Finally, Ryder moved over to Katie. He could now hear that she was crying. That made the scene even worse. When he was close enough to touch her, he calmly said, "Katie?"

Katie turned around, taking a deep breath, "Oh… Hi, Ryder."

The two stood there. Ryder looked at Katie, and Katie looked at the ground. After a few moments, Katie finally said, "Ryder?"

"Yeah?"

"... I really need your hair's magical healing power… maybe it can bring the store back!"

Ryder recoiled in surprise. "What?!"

Katie looked rightfully confused and disheartened as she said, "I really need a hug right now…"

"Oh." Ryder rubbed the back of his head (and the hair there). What the heck had just happened…? Maybe it was lack of sleep. "Oh! Sure, Katie."

Ryder put his arms around Katie, in a tight hug. Katie lay her head on Ryder's shoulder, and started sobbing in earnest.

That night, the entire PAW Patrol, Ryder, Katie, Callie, Utsukushi, and the parents were all around a large bonfire. Next to each pup, was a select amount of brightly colored packages, that were slightly dimmed by the dark night.

A long day had come to a close in the calm form. The hurricane's damages were still existent, to be sure, but everyone at least had a home and family to go to. Due to the focus on it, the street cleanup was already just about complete. Some houses were even repaired.

Every pair of eyes in the room, from the veteran Pace to the naive Marshall to the mature Miracle, was focused on the clock hanging above it. The seconds hand moved from the 10, to the 11…

A resonant click signified it when the clock's hands both reached twelve. The sounds of a wind chime joined it.

The first one who moved was Skye, who bounced out of her spot between Chase and Rubble with explosive enthusiasm. "Let's Party!" she exclaimed.

A bunch of things happened at once: Marshall tripped, Miracle sneezed, Pace howled in celebration with some other legacy members joining him in barks, and Lightning jumped up and started dancing. "C'mon Rubble, dance with me!" she said, pulling the bulldog over.

Marshall bounced up off the floor and promptly grabbed Zuma's paw. The two pups smiled brightly at each other and then began dancing wildly next to each other.

The sound of ripping paper came from Scruffy. The female dalmatian spoke over the din, "Wow, a new scarf, I needed that. Thanks, Thala!"

The chocolate lab was too busy laughing at a poorly-dancing Gemini to respond. The stray didn't look offended, but instead seemed to purposefully fudge up the moves to her dance even more than she might have otherwise done.

Chase bit into his present, a huge cookie, showering Storm and Rocky with crumbs. The mutt looked vaguely peeved, while the fellow police dog began licking herself promptly.

The eco-pup got away from the already near-bedlam of the exuberant celebration, shaking his long fur out. He was surprised to see his darker-furred brother Smoky looking out the window, his green eyes reflecting the gentle peppering of snow that he was watching. "What'cha looking at, Smoky?" he asked, unable to help himself.

The younger pup predictably had a delay time before he replied, "The outdoors."

Rocky smiled at the glittering snow after a moment of observation. "Yeah… it's pretty…"

A regal howl, very much dulled by the thick window of the Lookout, sounded, clearly heard between both brothers. Not a moment later, a large black canid ran by, long and wavy fur billowing. The richness of that primal sound could not have belonged to any creature other than a wolf.

"Wow…" Smoky said under his breath.

A cacophony of happy friends and families in the background, his brother at his side, Rocky stored the memory of the dark wolf in his mind forever.