Author's Notes:

This Chapter 3 will involve the first Death Minigames! Will the pups survive the challenges?

I've finally got some time to update Team C's side of the story. This time, the minigame will be completely original, although I got inspiration from 999 and Virtue's Last Reward on this one, too. I got super stuck on this part, which explains the very, very long delay. Also, it turns out that I'm having much less free time than I originally expected. That's why this chapter is shorter than the other ones, but I added a part that's a bit harder to read and understand, so it should take you the same time as the other ones. Maybe in the future I'll make it a little bit longer.

[C] AIR [3]

A large, circular room awaited before the three pups. As their vision started to sharpen and become clearer, the room started to gain details that they could contemplate at.

However, there wasn't much to look at, as most of the room was covered entirely by seemingly five large hills of a black powder. The rancid, yet burnt smell was asphyxiating for the dogs' respiratory system, but they tried as much as they could to adapt to its smell and the scarce fresh air.

"Augh" coughed the cappuccino Shepherd "This smell... The heat..."

The bulldog seemed a bit tense, a trait that didn't appear to be shown on his voice. "This is an exhaustion room..."

"What...?" replied the exhausted Husky with a question. "What's that...?"

"A room specifically built for storing gases and leftovers from an incineration process..." answered Chase, while looking at the now clear steel plate of the door "This one seems to be used for emergency purposes only... Argh!"

The three shocked puppies turned over at the sudden slamming sound coming from the door that Chase was examining, which seemed to have harshly closed shut. An electronic beep and later a locking sound followed.

"Crap! Don't tell me we're...!" Rubble grunted as hard as he could while trying to twist the knob of the door. "Damnit! We're trapped!"

A short chime resonated soon after around the entire room, followed by a seemingly female human voice.

"Incineration process has been terminated. The exhaustion valves will open now. Current carbon dioxide concentration: 23%"

"What's going on...?" Asked the Husky before yelling after being scared by the sudden hissing noise coming from above "What's that over there...?"

"I suppose it must be pumping out the excess carbon dioxide used to put out the flames after an incineration process..." explained Chase.

"Then we ought to find a way to pump it back out!" exclaimed the creamy spotty dog. "Otherwise, we'll exhaust from not having enough oxygen."

"But how do we do that? There's just tons and tons of black powder hills here..." It seemed like the only female of the trio got used to the harsh air.

The chestnut brown dog made a quick look around the walls that were upon a leg's range of him, and noticed a small box that bolted close to the metallic, dirty floor. It had a distinctive look that reminded him of the card reader that they saw a quarter of an hour ago, back at the closed door with -SECTION B- engraved on a plaque "This... Is a card reader. Maybe it has the same purpose as the one we saw before."

Looking at the connections via wires of that same card reader, a somewhat subtle indentation was visible to the Shepherd's eyes when the other end of the wire seemed to abruptly end at what seemed to be a hidden panel. "The ventilation controls must be behind that metal pane. We have to find that card if we want to open this up!"

After a simultaneous agreement between the three puppies, the search for the keycard began.

Rubble was known to be a very fast digger. As soon as he got to the closest pile of ashes, the bulldog started moving his front paws to remove as much ash as possible. "What are the chances we'll find it here, though?"

Chase was looking for the keycard on the furthest pile from the door they came in. He couldn't dig as fast as Rubble, but his strong constitution allowed him to dig at a higher speed than average, although he sometimes stopped to have a couple of breaths, as the oxygen concentration started to get more and more scarce.

Everest, on the other hand, despite being a female, her front paws were firm and strong, a very common trait for a snow pup like a Husky, getting, at times, at the same speed as Chase's. In the end, she was the one who got the quickest to reach the floor since she got the smallest pile. "There's a writing in here!"

The German Shepherd pup stopped when he heard about that message, and ran towards where that voice came from. A couple of strange symbols were depicted on the now uncovered floor.

"It looks like a plus, a minus, another plus and another minus." Said Chase, trying to identify the marks. "Those by themselves don't mean anything."

The bulldog quickly replied. "Let's keep looking, then." The two male pups split up again and returned to their piles. Everest, on the other hand, came over to assist Chase.

"Oh, hi, Everest." Said Chase, as his eyes glanced at the Husky. "You came to help?"

The husky gave a small smile and nodded. They spent silent for a couple moments before continuing the task of removing the ashes from the pile. As their paws moved inside the pile to push the powder outside of the pile, the dust clouds quickly formed in front of them, causing Chase to sneeze. The Husky couldn't help bug giggle, a reaction the Shepherd would respond with an almost invisible blush on his cheeks.

"Say, Chase..." Everest broke the silence. "What do you think about this?"

The male dog simply twisted his head in confusion, still digging, without moving his head or his eyes. "What do you mean by 'this'?"

"Trying to escape from a deathly situation... Putting us to test and solve puzzles... Do you think we're being... Trained? Or maybe even selected..."

"I don't understand you. Why would Y train us? Or select us?"

"This is all speculation, but think about this: We have never seen the outside world ever since we last woke up in those cells, right? We don't even know what day is it today."

"Are you saying that Adventure Bay could have been... Destroyed?"

"Not really. I'm just saying that we have no idea what does the world look like from outside... Whatever this place is." Everest stopped for a while. "Have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?"

"Nope. I'm allergic to cats." Said Chase, sneezing again while another dust cloud struck his nose.

"It's basically an explanation for how quantum mechanics work. In a preset environment within certain circumstances, something can be in two states at the same time, or in the cat's example, alive or dead."

"How can a cat be alive and dead?" The fact stroke him as rather odd.

"It's quantum mechanics. In a quantic scale, you can't tell for sure how fast a particle moves or where it's located at any given time. There's a lot of room for uncertainty in quantum physics. And this uncertainty can be very small, or incredibly huge."

Chase kept digging, while trying to make the words that Everest just spat have sense.

"You can't know those things until you measure either the position or the velocity of a particle. That means that you will never know, for example, where will a particle end up before you measure its position. But what you know are the areas where it's most likely for the particle to be and where is most unlikely. You know the probabilities."

"So... You know the chances of where a particle ends up?"

"Exactly. And the consequence of measuring particles is that all the possibilities sort of 'collapse' into a single, true possibility. The one you just measured." Everest kept digging. "Going back to the example of the cat, imagine you put a cat in a dangerous box that you will never be able to look inside that, if a particle inside the box does something weird, the box the cat is within implodes. And this would happen within a 50% chance. What would happen?"

"I see now!" Now it was Chase who stopped digging to take deep breath and exhale. "You can't tell what the particle will do, but you know the possibilities. It can be alive or dead... But how does that make the cat both alive AND dead?"

"Well, since you can't get to measure it directly, you... You just deduce that right at that moment, both possibilities are valid. But once you open the box, one of the possibilities gets ruled out, and the remaining one turns valid." As soon as she ended speaking, the pile of ash was completely removed, revealing a small lid. "Looks like we found something. Let's talk later, okay? I kind of don't want to waste more oxygen right now."

The pups opened the lid, revealing a box with some strange circuitry on the inside. "It looks like some sort of enclosed circuit with logic gates on it" Chase quickly identified the device, and lifted it up from the compartment. Below it, a number [4] was painted in blue. He quickly identified the chips to which the cables were connected, marked with NOT, OR, AND, and XOR letters. To the right side, a column of four LED lights seemed to be the output of the circuit, while the input looked like a battery to the left side of the box. Over the LEDs where also a couple of numbers, written from top to bottom: [8], [4], [2], [1].

Suddenly, a manly voice resonated the room. "Hey pups, I found tons of drawings in here!"

Followed by that, an announcement was made: "Carbon dioxide concentration: 41%", which was almost double compared to when they started.

The couple of pups hurried over to Rubble, who called them over, and noticed the markings on the now uncovered floor.

One of them was some sort of diagram with shapes connected with lines, and ended on four circles. Another one of the scribbles was "BINARY COLORED LIGHTS", written in four colors: Red, yellow, green and blue. The last and smallest of the markings was a red number [5]. Chase quickly memorized it. "We found a blue [4] in my pile. I think it has the same color as the one on this light scribble. But...!"

He then quickly inspected the device he put on the floor upon arriving to Rubble's pile, and opened the case. "That diagram is the solution of this puzzle, I think." The almond brown dog explained that the diagram was a representation of NOT, OR, AND, and XOR logic gates, vital parts in electronic components. He assigned the triangle shaped ones with NOT gates, the ones that looked like a rounded rectangle with AND gates, the ones that looked like some sort of bullet cap with OR gates. The ones that looked like OR gates, but with an extra arc on the left, were the remaining XOR gates.

As he interchanged the logic gates, the lights were changing from ON to OFF, but the colors stayed the same, with four distinguishable colors, from top to bottom: Green, Blue, Red and Yellow. In the end, only the green and blue ones lit up. Suddenly, a seemingly black bar at the side of the device turned on, revealing the following clue:

"GREEN = ON | YELLOW = OFF"

A short beep followed soon after, and the floor where the plaque was first found opened, revealing another box device just like the one with the circuitry.

Behind the glass of the locked box was the item that the pups were looking after: A silver colored keycard. It seemed like it'd slide once the puzzle was completed.

"We have to enter a password." Said Everest upon gazing the display with a seemingly input interface. You could only enter numbers, however.

"Let's see... All this colors and numbers..." Rubble started thinking, but eventually got lost into a trail of thought. "Shit, I'm stuck."

However, Chase's intelligence couldn't be more of use at this point. He quickly deciphered that the colored lights from the circuitry device were showing the order in which the 'colored numbers' should be placed within the equation plaque.

[Green - Blue + Red - Yellow]

Knowing this, he replaced the numbers that they had found with their respective colors that were painted with.

[Green - 4 + 5 - Yellow]

The ones that were missing where Green and Yellow, which were mentioned in the LCD display to the side of the circuitry device. Green was equal to something ON, and Yellow was equal to something OFF.

It was then when something clicked on the German Shepherd's head. The state of the colored lights could be a clue to deciphering the green and yellow numbers. He quickly realized that the numbers beside the colored lights were the binary places of a 4-digit number in base-2 written in base-10.

In a 4-digit of base-10, the fourth place would equal to 1000. The third to 100, and so on and so forth. In base-2, however, the fourth place would equal to 16, the third to 8, the second to 4, and the first to 2.

So, he converted the state of the lights in binary: [1100], which in base-10 (our traditional way of representing numbers), would be [12]. That would be the number in Green. As for the yellow, he picked the opposite state: [0011], and converted it to base-10, which was [3]. He then repeated the formula.

"[12 - 4 + 5 - 3] ..." He muttered. Everest and Rubble were so impressed that he managed to somehow get a clue in just 30 seconds.

"Did you just... Crack the code?" Asked Everest with a somewhat puzzled look. Rubble had his mouth open in shock.

"I think so... Then, this number would be... Ten." He calculated the result of the equation, which was equal to 10. He punched the one and zero buttons, followed by the ENTER button. A high-pitched chirp resonated in his ears, causing the keycard to slide off from a slit hole and be grabbed by the fangs of Rubble. "Gotcha! You're mine!"

"Quickly! Slide it onto the reader!" yelled the Husky in exaltation. But she quickly dropped to the floor "Oomph..."

"Everest! Are you alright!?" Chase approached the female dog, who seemed unconscious, but still awake. "Oh no... Please, you must resist! Breathe slowly and in small bits!"

Her eyes seemed to be dozing off, as the paws started to move numbingly. Her eyebrows and eyelids seemed to be extremely heavy, as they were firmly closed and took her an enormous amount of effort to open them. "Oh... Ch-Chase..."

"Current carbon dioxide concentration: 97%. Five minutes until oxygen depletion" An emotionless announcer warned that the fresh air was starting to run out.

"Shit! You're going to be okay, Everest. We're going to get out of here!" The pup looked up and gave a somewhat threatening glare to the bulldog. "What are you doing, not stopping the process!?"

The bulldog gave a desperate look. "Please, help me! I can't crack this password..."

Chase ran to Rubble. He first glanced the card reader with a green light on. Then, he proceeded to look up, and noticed that a new panel that was hidden by a metal indentation was revealed. It displayed: "Start with 423. Add from the left, subtract from the right. The final string is the code."

Finally, he glared at the bulldog, stuck in a ball position, wailing about. "Please... I'm... I'm..." Subsequently, he fell to the floor as well.

"No! Rubble!" Chase tried to pick him up and raise him from the floor, but he couldn't stand very well, and fell again. "Chase... Crack the code... And get us... Outta here..." Afterwards, he quickly passed out.

Chase's respiratory capacity was strong enough to continue moving around for a couple minutes, but he doubted that he could bring both unconscious pups outside once the door gets to open... Despite that, he faced the display and read carefully the lines once again.

They say that when in a crisis, the brain's processing power speeds up, making time feel slower. A second may seem like forever in these cases. That's exactly what happened with Chase at that moment. For some reason, he remembered something that he didn't know he heard about. It seemed like a flash. A flashback... Or maybe a flashforward?

"You know, numbers can also be characters, too."

He then realized. The numbers 12, 4, 5 and 3 could also be considered as characters within a string of letters and numbers: '1', '2', '4', '5' and '3'. He wasn't supposed to add or subtract from that number, he was supposed to add or remove characters from a string of numbers!

And so, he started adding and subtracting numbers in order, and in the direction the numbers told him. Left meant "the beginning", and right meant "the end" of the string of numbers, respectively.

423... Add '12' to the beginning.
12423... Find and remove '4', starting from the end.
1223... Add '5' to the beginning...
51223... Find and remove '3', starting from the end.
The resulting number was 5122!

He punched the numbers in the order of [five], [one], [two] and [two], and pressed ENTER.

As the door they came in started the opening sequence, Chase fell to the floor along with the others. His vision started to blur. He felt that there was no more 'fresh air' to breathe. The announcer confirmed this, indicating that the concentration of carbon dioxide reached 100%.

Chase was now breathing the carbon dioxide he was expelling during respiration, and the one expelled from the seemingly unknown incinerator above them. He wasn't breathing oxygen anymore.

He would have to keep conscious while the door remained closed, or else his brain would be heavily damaged by the lack of oxygen and potentially die alongside their partners. While he was crashed onto the floor, he managed to look at the other two partners. He saw that they were breathing, but very slowly. It seemed like their vital functions were starting to cease functioning correctly.

He closed his eyes, hoping that in the next seconds that seemed like forever, the door would open quickly with fresh air to breathe... He couldn't get his strength back to carry the others over the safe place unless he got to take a bunch of that breathable air. His cheeks inflated while he tried to contain his breath for a while to avoid being poisoned by carbon dioxide.

He hoped that fortune would smile at him and open the door in time so that he and their partners would be able to escape safe and sound...

"Why is the door not opening yet!?" That was his last thought until he fell completely unconscious. He wasn't even aware if the door got to open or not.

Did it open in time...? Or was it already late?

STATUS
(According to Team C's perspective)

Team M:
Marshall (?), Skye (?), Tracker (?)

Team R:
Rocky (?), Zuma (?), Robo (?)

Team C:
Chase (RISKY), Rubble (RISKY), Everest (RISKY)

Author's closing note:

Sorry, but in this fic you won't be able to make any choices. But "maybe" in the future, I'll let you choose. Just... Maybe.

I also may spend some time drawing some images of the pups during their misadventures.