Season 3 Episode 17: RESCUE FORCE AND THE TWIST IN TIME PART ONE
WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH RODENTRACER
The newcomer cringed at all the eyes staring at him. "So much for going unnoticed." The Lab bemoaned.
"You said something about your cover being blown… and you have our gear… that must mean… YOU'RE A THIEF! PUPS, GET HIM!" Ben ordered.
The last time a thief had come and tried to steal from the Lookout was years ago, and the pups had been VERY aggressive. They did not like thieves at all. The new pup's eyes widened as the Paw Patrol started charging at him. "Woah woah! What?! Hold on!" He protested.
None of the pups had their pup packs on, so they resorted to tackling him. But just before they closed in on him, he jumped into the air, higher than they had seen anyone jump before. In fact, he jumped so high that he hit the ceiling, but to their shock, his shoes allowed him to stick to the ceiling. The black dog, hanging from his shoes, looked up - or rather, down - at the others. "That's a horrible logical conclusion. I'm not a thief." The black dog proclaimed empathically as he looked down at the Paw Patrol.
"Liar! There's no other reason you'd be sneaking around up here with a version of Chase's helmet!" Ben retorted.
"Pups, go get your gear on while Ben and I handle this." Ryder told them. The eight canines ran into the elevator and it began to descend as Ryder activated the license and donned the armor his father had left for him. Pulling out a high pressure water blaster, Ryder aimed it at the intruder. "Come down from there; don't make this difficult." Ryder called out.
The Labrador didn't respond, however. Instead he asked a question. "What on earth are you wearing? Is that nanotech?" The pup inquired.
"I… don't actually know. Anyways, it looks like we're doing this the hard way." Ben said, activating his own power ranger armor. "A SQUAD GREEN! HIT IT, RYDER!" Ben declared.
Ryder fired his water pistol, a stream of water shooting off towards the ceiling. The pup's eyes widened and he jumped back to the ground, right where Ben was waiting for him with a roundhouse kick. "Oof!" The canine groaned as he flung into the opposite wall. "Alright. Now it's on!" The intruder growled, fur bristling.
Ben charged him again, planning to knock him out once and for all, but his opponent was ready. Rising onto his back legs, he shoved both front paws out at the human. The soles of his shoes glowed purple and Ben found himself unable to move forward, pushed backwards by an invisible force. He shielded his head with his arms as he tried to power through, but his feet kept sliding backwards. Then the black pup, still on his back legs, thrust his paws forward, throwing Ben backwards. Ryder caught him, but Ben brushed him off, seething that this small fry seemed to be getting the better of him. "I didn't want to have to hurt you, but looks like I have no other choice." Ben growled.
"Hurt me? Hah! I'd like to see you try! There's absolutely no way you can beat me." The black Lab smirked as he dropped back down on his front paws.
Naturally, this only made Ben all the angrier. He shouted and charged at the dog again, preparing to loose all his frustration on the uninvited perpetrator. This time the pup stayed still, waiting for the attack. Ben drew back his fist and slammed it into the intruder as hard as he could, putting the full force of his body, anger, and strength-enhancing power armor behind it.
CLANG!
The sound of metal striking sounded as Ben's fist stopped short of his target. The teenager blinked, confused by what he saw. Around the black pup there was a translucent, glowing purple force field in the shape of a sphere, about three feet in diameter. The pup smiled up at him. "I can do this all day, you know." He commented with a smirk.
Ben smiled back grimly, recognizing the reference. "I thought you would be more than just a shield." He shot back, continuing the quote.
The pup returned his grim smile. "Let's see." He replied as he turned it off, rolling out of Ben's range. Then the pups stepped out of the elevator with their gear. On a signal from Ryder, they all focused their attention back at the intruder.
Chase barked out his net, firing it at the black Labrador as the others charged at the intruding pup again. The purple-clad pup rose back onto his hind legs and used the repulsors in his shoes to redirect the net, blasting it directly into Skye's flight route. The pilot fell from the air with a yelp, taking out Tracker and Rubble. Ben quickly ran over and started to cut Tracker and Rubble free from the net while Marshall tried to avoid the collision; however, the Dalmatian slipped and ended up taking out Everest as well. "You have no clue how easy I'm going on you guys." The black pup scoffed, still on his hind legs.
With the distractions, Zuma was able to almost get the other Labrador retriever into a tackle. Almost. At the last second, the black Labrador turned his paws toward the chocolate one, activating his repulsors. Zuma flew across the room, thudding into the opposite wall. "OW!" Zuma shouted as he ricocheted onto a bean bag, getting badly winded in the process.
Rocky turned to the intruder pup and glared at him. Rage infused him, replacing the emotionless adrenaline rush he had maintained up until this point. "YOU… HURT… ZUMA!" Rocky bellowed, letting out a howl as he turned into a werepuppy.
The Lab's eyes were already wide in horror at hurting Zuma, but they widened all the more when he saw Rocky's transformation. "What on earth?!" The pup gawked, instinctively activating his force field once again, encasing himself in a purple sphere.
Rocky leapt at their enemy, clawing and scratching at the force field like crazy. "Some kind of force field?! Yeah?! You wanna play dirty, take this!" Rocky howled as he let his anger take over.
Grabbing the near-frictionless sphere, he lifted the force field and pup up. "Woah woah woah woah WOAH!" The smaller dog shouted as Rocky carried him outside to the balcony, standing on his two hind legs. Rocky paid him no heed, however and tossed the pup off of the balcony to the ground below to the shock of many in the tower. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The technologically advanced pup cried as he plummeted to the earth. The force field bounced off the ground, sending the canine inside tumbling like a hamster in a ball rolling faster than he could handle. Turning the shield off, the pup thudded to the ground hard, moaning from a combination of pain and dizziness.
Chase turned to Ryder. "Should we go after him?" The German shepherd inquired.
"No, we should let him get away. OF COURSE WE SHOULD!" Ben exclaimed as he finished freeing the netted pups.
"But how are we going to get down there quick enough!?" Marshall pointed out.
"We can use the launch pad as a landing pad. It let us jump from several hundred feet in the air when the Lookout was supercharged into a floating tower during the Meteor Incident. It'll let us land safely now, too." Ryder answered.
Tracker quickly leapt off of the balcony, landing on the pad and hopping off. "Yup, not a scratch, amigos!" Tracker confirmed.
The rest of the crew followed quickly after, Skye using her wings to ease traffic.
They were able to quickly surround their opponent, who was groaning as he got back on his feet. "Enough fighting. You'd better start talking before we go Mighty on you and you have to deal with superpowered pups. Who are you!? Who do you work for!? Why do you have our gear? Why did you appear in the Lookout?" Ben threatened.
"Oh thank goodness you're done fighting. My name's Gizmo, and I work for the Paw Patrol. Hence the Paw Patrol gear." The black pup answered.
Suddenly his helmet and shoes melted away. It looked like they turned into a river of mercury, flowing up his legs and down his neck, stowing away in his pup pack. The pups gasped in fascination and surprise, but there were more important questions than the nature of his gear.
"Ryder, what's he talking about?" Ben questioned.
"I have no idea. I've never met this pup in my entire life." Ryder answered.
"Explain. How can you work for us if we've never met you?!" Ben asked, suspicious.
Gizmo shook his head. "I didn't say I work for you. I said I work for the Paw Patrol. Just… Not your Paw Patrol. It's… well, it's complicated." Gizmo answered.
Realization dawned on Ben's face.
"Wait, you're saying you're from some sort of alternate universe? Is that where you came from?" Ben asked.
Gizmo looked at him in surprise. "Wait, you're familiar with the interdimensionality prospects of Einstein-Rosen bridges?" Gizmo asked.
"You're lucky that my pups are around right now or else I would be swearing like crazy. What in the world is an Einstein-Rosen bridge? I'm familiar with the Multiverse, not whatever fancy jargon is used to describe it." Ben demanded.
"An Einstein-Rosen bridge is the scientific name for a wormhole, which in this case-" Rocky began.
"Now's weally not the time." Zuma interrupted, but Gizmo motioned for Rocky to continue.
"No, no, it's okay, Zuma. Rocky can explain it simpler than I can. Or at least my Rocky can…" The black dog answered.
"Enough about the scientific mumbo jumbo. You're claiming to be a member of the Rescue Force in your universe?" Ben inquired. "Rescue Force? No, I'm with the Paw Patrol. Never heard of a Rescue Force." Gizmo answered, somewhat confused. "I call it the Rescue Force. MUCH cooler than the Paw Patrol name." Ben chuckled.
"HEY! Paw Patrol is a really marketable and catchy name!" Ryder protested.
"Sorry Ben. But I think the universe is against you. It's Paw Patrol." Gizmo grinned.
"Anyways, you're a Paw Patrol member where you came from? Who's on your Paw Patrol team? What's your number?" Ben mused
"That's actually a really good question, Ben. I was hoping to ask you the same thing about yourself. I haven't met you before, but I do know everyone else. Ryder, Chase, Marshall, Skye, Rocky, Rubble, Zuma, Everest, and Tracker, to name them in numerical order just because I can. Those are the only eight pups on the team aside from me. I'm labeled as 12." Gizmo answered.
"Huh. So you're telling me that not only am I missing from the team in your dimension, but Alex, Ella, Tuck, Wild, Rex, Liberty, Shade, Leo, and Rory haven't joined yet either? Also, why do you have twelve as your numerical designation? Shouldn't it be ten?" Ben mused.
"Oh- Wow, that's a lot of members… Well, we have other vehicles too. Do you guys not have the Paw Patroller and Air Patroller? Or the Sea Patroller and Mission Paw Cruiser?" Gizmo asked.
"Mission… Paw? Is that for the Barkingburg missions? Me and Ryder just started to work on the pup packs for that. We also made a vehicle and pup pack for the princess's royal pup Sweetie; she commissioned us for it. The amount of money she was offering was too much for us to turn down." Ben answered.
"Yeah, Barkingburg! Where Marshall has a 10 MPa pressurized water lazer, and Zuma has a sonic sensor, and Rocky uses a special form of my lidar scanner!" Gizmo chimed in. "Oh, by the way, whenever you're called for help, it's always Swe- Actually I probably shouldn't say that." The black Labrador mumbled.
Ben wanted to press on with that topic, but he decided not to. Gizmo's answers seemed more than satisfactory. There was no way he could have normally known about Barkingburg; Ryder and himself hadn't even mentioned it to the pups yet. The only options were that he was from an alternate dimension as he claimed, or was from the future, and the first option seemed far more likely. "Alright, well I think you've proven that you're telling the truth. Sorry about attacking you up there." Ben apologized.
Gizmo brushed it aside. "It's okay. I showed up out of nowhere. I should have been expecting it. I definitely will be in the future." The black Lab replied.
"Well, now that we've learned about you, it's only fair you learn about us. You asked earlier about the Paw Patroller's number. For numbers, we don't count the vehicles that Robo-Dog pilots. Alex is 10, Ella is 11, Tuck is 12, Rex is 13, Liberty is 14, Wild is 15, Shade is 16, Leo is 17, and Rory is 18." Ben informed.
"What's your number?" Gizmo asked curiously.
"Oh, mine? I'm number zero." Ben responded. A smile started to form on Gizmo's face at Ben's answer. Soon he started shaking in heaves of laughter, tail wagging wildly. Everyone watched him with a strange look as he laughed away for an unknown reason. Eventually the black pup was able to form words. "WHO STARTS COUNTING AT ZERO?!" Gizmo guffawed, rolling onto his side as he laughed like crazy. "This team does! Zero is like the very first number, the origin, the genesis!" Ben retorted.
"It didn't feel right to give myself a number and not give Ben one as well!" Ryder agreed.
Eventually Gizmo regained his composure. "Sure it's the origin, but it's also a big nothing! Why not give yourselves numbers one and two instead?" Gizmo snickered.
"My favorite number is two." Chase said.
"Yeah, Chase could only count to two for the longest time-" Ben started to giggle, before he was shut up by a glare from the police pup.
"Heh. You never told me that before. Or, well, my Chase never told me that before, though I'm not surprised he wouldn't. Now I can go back and bug him and Rocky if I want to. By the way, what on earth was that, Rocky?! How did you do that?!" Gizmo chuckled.
Over the course of the conversation Rocky had returned to his normal form. "Werepuppy." Rocky simply said.
"Were-what now? Can you turn into it again?" The black pup asked.
"I have more trouble turning BACK." Rocky chuckled sheepishly.
"Hey, what do you have in your pup pack, Gizmo?" Rubble asked.
"Well, I have the multiversal portal which I was testing out. That's why I was here in the first place. Anyway, I also have a precision tri-grip arm, a metamaterial cloaker, my quantum shield, and a Tipler cylinder. My shoes have superconductor repulsors which I can use to hover and jump up to five meters and also electromagnets. And then my helmet has a telepathic control unit, lidar AR overlay, infrared scanners, physics calculators, and a variety of other things. Oh, and my helmet and shoes are also nanomachines, but you've seen those." Gizmo answered. Ben was left with a lot more questions than answers. Tipler cylinder? Metamaterial cloaker? NANOMACHINE HELMET AND SHOES?! Did that stuff even exist in this universe yet?!
"Are you from the future, Gizmo!?" Ben gasped.
"Nah. I'm from the- Well actually no, I'm technically- Hmm… I guess I'm-" Gizmo started talking to himself in indecision. "I'm from the present, assuming this is 2019. I don't know how your universe aligns with mine." He eventually decided.
"...The year is 2030 in our universe…" Ben whispered.
"HOW DOES A UNIVERSE THAT'S ELEVEN YEARS BEHIND US HAVE ACCESS TO METAMATERIAL CLOAKERS AND NANOMACHINES!?" Ryder screamed in shock.
"Uhhhhh… To each universe their own I guess? I assure you my time machine has nothing to do with it, though." Gizmo shrugged, attempting to diffuse the subject.
"TIME MACHINE!? YOU HAVE A TIME MACHINE!?" Rubble squealed.
Gizmo stared around at the dumbstruck faces. "Yeah… I already said that. I thought you understood! Why else would you have asked if I was from the future?" He questioned.
Chase walked up to Gizmo and lowered his voice. "Gizmo, Rubble is the… least smart pup on this Paw Patrol." Chase whispered.
"That's not true. He just has ADHD, or specifically, the ADD variant of ADHD, so he seems airheaded and aloof, but he's really almost as smart as Rocky. Since the ADD form of ADHD doesn't have the hyperactive part ADHD does, it's harder to notice and less likely to be diagnosed." Gizmo replied matter-of-factly.
Ben and Ryder's eyes went wide as saucers as it all fell into place. Everything made so much more sense. "Oh my gosh. You're right." Ben gasped.
"Huh? Sorry, I was thinking about squirrels." Rubble jolted, sensing that they were speaking about him.
"Can you time travel and show us?" Rocky suggested.
"Sure! Anyone want to go with me?" Gizmo asked.
"OOH! ME! I've always wondered what bending spacetime using exotic matter would be like!" Rubble shouted enthusiastically.
"...You sound like Tuck and me put together!" Rocky giggled.
"Is my little Rubble a nerd? Yes he is, yes he is!" Ben laughed as he picked up the bulldog and gave him a belly rub.
"Ohhh yeah, that's the spot." Rubble sighed happily.
"Alright, come on Rubble. Ready to go?" Gizmo asked.
"Am I ever!" the construction pup exclaimed in glee as he jumped out of Ben's arms.
As Rubble stepped up next to Gizmo, a cylinder in the side of the pup's purple pack started spinning. Gizmo's nanomachine helmet and boots reactivated, flowing back onto his head and paws in a silver river before solidifying into their normal purple and black colors. "How long do you want to go for?" Gizmo questioned.
"Ooh, I don't know. Whatever is best!" Rubble responded.
"Then how about we travel just one hour into the future?" Gizmo asked.
"Sounds good!" Rubble cheered. "Alright, see you guys in an hour!" Gizmo grinned, putting a paw on Rubble as the glow in the side of his pup pack grew brighter.
"Wait a second, see us in an hour?" Ryder exclaimed, but it was too late to turn back.
Lightning bolts started striking out of Gizmo's pup pack, creating a dome around Gizmo and Rubble. "Awesome!" Rubble exclaimed, transfixed by the light display.
Gizmo, however, didn't seem as enthusiastic. In fact, he seemed downright terrified. "Oh no…" But before the others could do anything, the pair of pups disappeared.
One hour later…
The Paw Patrol was rooted to the same spot, waiting anxiously. They had clearly heard Gizmo's "Oh no" before they vanished, and were terrified that they might never return. For the last hour only worst case scenarios were going through their minds. Rocky had instantly poofed into his wolf form, and even brushing couldn't calm him down.
Needless to say, everyone was worried sick when Gizmo appeared in front of them without their beloved bulldog. "Where's Rubble?!" Ben asked, but Gizmo seemed just as frantic as the rest of them.
"No no no no no no no!" The Labrador cried. His visor slid down, and his eyes started darting from left to right, apparently reading something invisible to the others.
Ben knelt down in front of Gizmo, grabbing either side of his helmet, directing his vision towards him. "Gizmo, where's Rubble?!" Ben demanded.
Gizmo instinctively stepped back, but maintained eye contact. "My solution to counteracting the gravitational collapse of the Einstein-Rosen bridge was to induce a warping effect on the bridge, but in the process it looks like I overclocked my time drive! And now the log is shot!" Gizmo replied.
"English, Gizmo! English! Not the scientific fancy jargon mumbo jumbo!" Ben prompted.
"Rubble's lost in time and I have no way to find him!" The black pup frantically yelled.
WILL OUR HEROES BE ABLE TO FIND OUR BELOVED CONSTRUCTION PUP!? HOW WILL THEY BE ABLE TO FIND HIM!? CAN RUBBLE BRAVE THE DANGERS OF BEING STUCK IN A DIFFERENT CENTURY!? YOU'LL HAVE TO FIND OUT IN THE NEXT EXCITING CHAPTER OF THIS FOUR PART SEASON FINALE, RESCUE FORCE AND THE TWIST IN TIME! COMING SOON TO A FANFICTION WEBSITE NEAR YOU!