Chapter 2

When the elevator got halfway up to the top, the meteor did its duty, transforming the dogs into the Mighty Pups, and turning the Lookout into its own mighty version to match. Because of their new magical abilities, the green light prompted all the pups to bark, "Ruff! Anthro mode!" (A second meteor, which had to be jettisoned because of the problems it was causing both the forces of good and evil, had given them this ability to switch back and forth between walking on all fours and walking on two legs just like humans, and while Ryder made an effort to determine which missions required the switch and which ones didn't, it eventually became a habit to do this.) Then they found themselves at the top, and promptly arranged themselves in a line, although because Everest and Tracker were present, they stood at the opposite end of the twins.

"Ruff! Anthro Mighty Pups ready for action, Ryder, sir!" Chase announced as the hands of the pups began to glow, indicating they had their superpowers.

Ryder, appearing in his trademark red flight suit he used for his own superhero duties, brought up the screen so he could show them the emergency. "Thanks, pups!" he began. "We've got big trouble! I think the prison warden is planning on firing the guards he had hired, because Codi Gizmody has escaped from prison!"

All the pups gasped in shock at this revelation, and Everest added, "Oh, no; not her again!"

"I'm afraid so, Everest!" Ryder continued. "And what's worse, she seems to be either arguing or collaborating with Harold Humdinger! Take a look!" He switched the screen to a recording from a nano-probe filming the argument between the two; the nano-probe was so tiny, not even Harold's finest gadgets or robots could spot it. (For that matter, Dr. Eggman wouldn't be able to spot it either.)

The scene showed the two having a long discussion. "I think you and I can both agree that my uncle, Mayor Humdinger, was one of the absolute dumbest and most ungrateful beings there ever was, but the truth of the matter is, I am on a mission to prove him wrong, and show that I can be mayor of something, so I'm taking over Adventure Bay!" Harold concluded.

"It just so happens I am the one taking over the city!" Codi shot back. "That stupid woman with a chicken wouldn't sell it to me!"

"Sell it to you? Are you nuts? You can't just buy a city out of the blue like that!"

"Oh, yeah? Tell that to Braticus!"

"Braticus? He's just a made-up character!"

"That's not the point! Adventure Bay is mine, and I am going to make Codi Cove!"

"Ugh; I wish had my freeze ray," Harold moaned to himself. "Then I could freeze this girl and go back to my own way of taking over everything." He then turned back to Codi and said, "Okay; I'll make you an offer. Whoever does the better job of beating the PAW Patrol in a competition wins Adventure Bay. Deal?"

"Okay, deal, but you know you will lose," Codi shot back. "Why? You've proven you're a genius, but you come from a family that is as dumb as a rock!"

"I will pretend I didn't hear that," Harold replied.

"So, what are we going to crush the pups at?"

"This." Harold brought up footage of an old video game known as "F-Zero," depicting futuristic hovercar racing in the year 2560. The objective of the game was to beat the opponents to the finish line while avoiding hazards such as booby-traps, slip zones, magnets meant to pull the vehicle off track, and bumping into the wall, among other things, all of which were making efforts to make the player damage their vehicle to the point of no return or fall completely off the track. Each machine had a power meter that served as a measurement of the machine's durability; it decreased when the machine collided with land mines, the side of the track, or another vehicle. If the power meter made it all the way down to empty, the machine would explode, allegedly killing the driver inside of it. (Given the machines averaged speeds of about 450 km/h, the odds did not favor getting out of a crash alive.) But the drivers could replenish energy by driving over pit areas placed at various points on the track.

Each race in "F-Zero" consisted of just five laps around the track, and players were disqualified if they failed to complete each lap in a successfully higher place. For the first lap, only the top 15 drivers were safe; this decreased to 10 for the second lap, 7 for the third, 5 for the fourth, and just 3 for the fifth. Players who did complete laps were rewarded with a four-second speed boost, known as a "Super Jet."

The game had 15 tracks divided into three leagues ordered by increasing difficulty: Knight, Queen, and King. The leagues used the following tracks, and please note certain locations had more than one track, which meant certain paths were not accessible unless the player was on a different iteration of that track, which then in turn closed off the path previously accessible.

The tracks were as follows: the Knight League consisted of Mute City I, Big Blue, Sand Ocean, Death Wind I, and Silence. The Queen League consisted of Mute City II, Port Town I, Red Canyon I, White Land I, and White Land II. The King League, the hardest of all, consisted of Mute City III, Death Wind II, Port Town II, Red Canyon II, and the dreaded Fire Field.

"So you and I are going to race like this?" Codi asked.

"Yes, and we'll race against the pups and send them to their doom!" Harold replied. "You'd never see my uncle do this in a million years!"

The two then played "rock, paper, scissors," and tied 8 times until Codi finally won, and so she made the call to Mayor Goodway, mentioning the proposition. "If you had sold it to me in the first place, none of this would be happening," she sneered, leading Harold to facepalm.

Mayor Goodway, meanwhile, interrupted Ryder's explanation of the crisis by calling him again, since the nano-probe had leaked the argument to everybody. That, of course, meant that Hailey Daily was doing live news reports of the story. "Ryder, you and the Mighty Pups have to do something!" she wailed. "I can't lose my beloved town to Harold Humdinger or to Codi Gizmody!"

"Don't worry, Mayor; we're on the job!" Ryder promised her.

"But how are you going to protect the town when you have no idea what you're getting into? I've never even heard of this video game, but they want you to do it for real, and worse, they want you to die!"

"They want us dead? How do you know that?" Chase asked.

"Because I watched a video of the game; if your power meter gets all the way to the bottom, your car blows up, and you die!"

"Well, it is a video game, after all," Ryder remarked, "but we're on it, Mayor Goodway. No race is too dangerous; no Mighty Pup is too small!"

"Thanks, Ryder! I owe you and the pups everything!"

"No need to pay us back; we're just doing our jobs." The screen went black.

"But, Ryder," Rubble interrupted, "if we have no experience racing our hovercars in a crazy setting as dangerous as that, how are we going to beat Harold and Codi?"

"With a little help from two special friends of mine," Ryder smiled as he contacted a special mystery guest.

"Two special friends of yours? Who would that be?"

The mystery guests popped up, and the pups got really excited, showing huge grins on their faces. Why? Although the pups' favorite show, "Apollo the Super-Pup," was now in reruns (though gaining just as high ratings as it ever did), it inspired a new spin-off series entitled "The Adventures of Super Lion," although this show depicted anthro animals instead of the regular animals would walked on all fours. (Apollo was a regular dog.) The main characters of this cartoon were voiced by an actual anthro lion and bulldog, respectively; Nathan Nigelson (known as "Nathan the Super Lion" on the show, as Nathan's name was also used for the fictional character's secret identity) and Bradley Barkus (also known as the evil General Braticus, a power-hungry dictator who wanted the world for himself). It reversed the roles so that the dogs were the villains and the cats were the heroes, but it didn't bother the PAW Patrol because they were used to having dogs for enemies (the Ruff-Ruff Pack) and cats to help them battle the enemy (the Cat Pack).

"Nathan the Super Lion!" the pups cheered, letting out howls all the way.

"Yikes! And General Braticus!" Rubble added. "Oh, wait a minute; they're just the actors." (The lion and bulldog were appearing as their characters, so that Nathan was dressed in the superhero's outfit of green and yellow, while Bradley wore a military outfit used to represent the character's role as a dictator.)

"No need to panic, Rubble; I'm not really a power-mad dog," Bradley reassured him. "I'm just pretending. It is a cartoon, but Nathan and I sometimes promote the show by dressing up in character and doing live-action skits for the public."

"Oh, that's good. Wait. How did you know my name?"

"Everybody knows who you are, Mighty Pups; we see you on the news all the time," Nathan replied. "In any case, I understand your enemies want you to race against them in a winner-take-all game of 'F-Zero.' Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir; Nathan, sir!" Chase replied, taking his job as seriously as ever. He even gave Nathan the military salute, leading Ryder and the others to chuckle a bit, although it was not disrespectful laughter. Then Skye added, "That's our Chase!"

"At ease, officer," Bradley put in, and Chase relaxed. "Anyway, I'm the youngest of three pups in my family, all of us obviously grown dogs now, and my brothers, Bobby and Billy, own and operate a special 3D virtual reality facility. It will allow you to experience the thrill of 'F-Zero' and show those two kids who's the boss around here. Here's where you'll find it." He showed a map that showed the location of the facility, and it was located just on the outskirts of Kensington, where the pups had witnessed Mayor Humdinger's ultimate life sentence to prison, and later participated in a special gymnastics meet. "How fast can you get here?"

"We'll be there in a flash!" Ryder confirmed.

"Great; see you when you get here," Nathan replied. "Oh, and don't worry about your hovercars; we got special ones you can drive for the race. Super Lion out." The screen went blank. ("Super Lion out" was a way for Nathan, as the character on the show, to end a conversation if he was talking with an important ally, since he belonged to a league of superpowered felines all with different powers and abilities. Some episodes featured him fighting solo, but others had him with the team.)

"Dude! Sweet!" Zuma exclaimed.

"This is amazing!" Skye echoed.

"¡Esto es realmente extraordinario!" Tracker added. "This is truly remarkable!"

"To get there on time, we'll use the Mighty Jet for this," Ryder announced. "Are you pups ready to save the day at supersonic speeds?"

"These mighty paws uphold the laws!" all the pups exclaimed in unison. "Mighty Pup Power!" They howled and barked with excitement.

"All right! Mighty Pups are on a roll!" Ryder announced as he jumped off the Lookout Tower and launched himself skyward, although he was really just flying down to the Mighty Jet. The other pups, one at a time, slid down the special laser slide, although they did not go to their hovercars. Instead, after going through the effect of flying through their logo shown the pup-tag, they were launched further forward, where they landed and were able to run to the Mighty Jet. Skye was the exception since she could actually fly, but she just flew to the jet.

"Pups, use your super paws to power it up," Ryder called after everybody got settled and buckled up. The pups did so, and Ryder said to his faithful robot companion, "Robo-Dog, it's go time!"

"Arf, arf!" Robo-Dog barked, flying the Mighty Jet towards Kensington, and putting it in stealth mode (a new feature Ryder was testing, which he previously had employed with the Air Patroller).

Mayor Goodway, meanwhile, continued to worry about everything. "How could this happen to us?" she wept. "Why am I cursed with such problems from the opposition? Why did my ancestor have to bear a resemblance to Mayor Humdinger? Why? WHY?" She looked towards the sky and continued to shout, "WHY?", until she could no longer bear it, reducing herself down to just tears. Some of the civilians gave her hugs and tried to console her, but they were struggling to do so. All the while, Chickaletta just dreamed about the next time she would get to eat corn.

TO BE CONTINUED

PAW Patrol © Nickelodeon, Spin Master, and everybody else who owns the rights, and created by Keith Chapman.
The characters Nathan Nigelson (Nathan the Super Lion) and Bradley Barkus (General Braticus) are my original OCs. They belong to me and me alone, so do not even think about stealing them!
Sonic the Hedgehog © SEGA
Biker Mice From Mars © Rick Ungar (creator), Brentwood Television Funnies, and everybody else who owns the rights
F-Zero © Nintendo