Chapter 3: Dead Reckoning

This chapter is probably gonna be a big one.

Ryder and Marshall were currently putting the fire out while the rest of the pups were freaking out about Everest dying in front of them. Zuma let Rocky back into the lookout and realised the sun was already setting. He was bleeding a lot from all the glass still stuck in his body.

Ryder and Marshall finished extinguishing the fire and went back upstairs. Ryder looked into the living room and saw Rocky picking the pieces of glass from his body with a pair of tweezers.

"I'm going to bed, pups, that's enough death for one day." Ryder said as he walked to his bedroom.

"I'm going on a walk at 4." Chase stated as he walked out to his pup house.

"Be carful, Chase." Marshal said as he finished bandaging Rocky's paw from the glass.

"I will." Chase said.

A FEW HOURS LATER:

It had been a few hours and Ryder was sleeping, as well as the rest of the pups, except Chase, who was taking a midnight stroll.

Ryder found himself on the bridge that connects the lookout tower are to the rest of adventure bay. Ryder looked down at his watch and saw it was 7AM, sharp. He out of nowhere saw headlights, then they disappeared, and a hubcap was rolling on its side and landed at Ryder's feet. Ryder picked it up and read the brand name of it.

The brand name read:

"Wheels For Chasers"

Ryder found himself back in his room and looked at his digital clock and the time read 6:59AM. Ryder ran out into the living room.

Ryder looked around and only saw Rocky still pulling the shards of glass out of his neck and paws.

"Where's Chase?!" He asked.

"Still on his stroll." Rocky answered.

Ryder sprinted out of the lookout towards the bridge. He saw his pup walking across the street.

Soon the headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere, making chase freeze up.

Ryder grabbed his pup and moved him out of the way just in time for the car to miss Chase.

Ryder was hugging his pup tightly.

"So who's next, Ryder?" Chase asked. Making Ryder start to think.

"What do you mean?" Ryder asked.

Chase whimpered. "There has been an order of how people died, the news showed that all of the seats broke in a certain order. The ride control guy would've died first, and Tracker would've died second on the ride, and Everest third. Remember that's what Rocky said." He explained.

"I'll talk to Rocky, but to answer your question, I think Marshall is next." Ryder answered.

Meanwhile, Marshall was waking up. He saw Ryder and Chase walking towards him. "Morning, Marshall, I need you to stay safe today." Ryder said.

Marshall gave an extremely confused look as Ryder walked away from his pup house and into the lookout.

Rocky was laying on the couch with Zuma, watching the movie they were watching earlier.

"Rocky, you need to stop freaking everybody out about this 'death's design' thing. You're freaking everybody out, but, you're right... So, I just saved Chase from a speeding car. Now what?" Ryder said.

Rocky looked over and was about to respond.

"It skipped him, and now it's onto the next." A dark shadow said.

Ryder and Rocky looked over at the shadow as it disappeared in front of them.

"He's right." Ryder thought. He had to protect Marshall at all costs because then no one else would die.

A COUPLE DAYS LATER:

It was a rainy day, puddles were forming and the mayor was giving a speech.

Mayor Goodway was giving a speech to the people of Adventure Bay, mourning about the chair swing incident. It was a stormy day, just like the day of the crash.

"The Paw Patrol publicly stated they aren't responding to any missions involving their pup Marshall. The local medical personnel will take his place until Ryder allows Marshall to go on his missions." Mayor Goodway stated to the people of Adventure Bay during the end of the speech.

Rocky and Zuma were instructed on their mission to fix the water pump for Adventure Bay.

Rocky and Zuma finally lifted the stubborn manhole cover covering the water pump's internals.

"Rocky, you're gonna need to get in the water for this one." Ryder said.

Rocky sighed "Come on, Rocky, a little water didn't hurt anybody."

"But a lot of it could kill you" replied.

"You know how to fix the pool drain, the lifeguards are in standby, over and out." Ryder said.

"Over and out." Rocky replied as he switched the pool drain to OFF. Then he put his goggles on and jumped into the pool, swimming towards the drainage system.

Meanwhile Chase was at the police station, talking to someone that was freaking the hell out.

"Alright sir, please calm down, what happened?" Chase asked.

The man who was freaking out, looked at Chase worriedly. The kind of look you would give someone when you're scared of a rollercoaster.

"You don't understand. I saw it!" The man said.

Chase sighed. "Sir, tell me what happened." He said.

The man sighed.

"Me and my friend were driving on the highway."

"It was a semi truck driver named Xander, a guy named Jacob in a pickup truck, two motorcyclists named Charles and Luke, some grey mutt driving a garbage truck, and me and my friend Mike in our car."

We were driving down the highway, we thought everything would be normal. When a flatbed truck that was carrying a forklift starting leaking fuel. Then the semi truck exploded, killing Xander and making the forklift fall and crush Jacob in his truck. That car explosion sent a stop sign flying towards the first motorcyclist, Charles. It hit him right through his neck. His head fell off his limp body. As it continued to balance on the still moving motorcycle.

Meanwhile, another unfortunate accident was about to happen, at the public water park.

Rocky was sitting on the deck of the pool as he heard yelling.

A teenage girl was yelling about the water slide collapsing as the other teenagers were also being transported out.

He ignored them as he couldn't hear what they were saying anyway and jumped back in the pool and swam towards the drain.

The teenage girl saw Rocky jump into the pool and panicked more.

"Right there, that dog died in my vision!" She yelled out as she tried to run towards where the pup was in the pool. The security that was bringing her out of the premises for her commotion placed his baton on a stray A/C unit and ran after her and grabbed her arm. She turned around towards the security guard and she kept trying to get free.

MEANWHILE: Ryder had the news on while most of the pups were napping. When a channel came on talking about the chair swing crash.

"It appears that some more information was found about the 360 Degree Chair Swing disaster."

Ryder was about to change the channel but the remote seemed to be unresponsive. As he troubleshot, the news was still talking.

"It appears that there is one survivor, the man who sat in seat number seven. The cords on sitting in seat number eight unfortunately died on impact. A memorial will be held."

That's when Ryder realized. "Marshall and Chase were in seats seven and eight."

Ryder then rang Chase.

"Hey Ryder." Chase said.

"Chase, I need to know if you sat in seat Stevan or eight." Ryder said worried.

"Uhh, I sat in seat eight, why?" Chase said.

Ryder felt his heart skip a beat as he realized his eco pup is up on deaths chopping block.

He dropped his pup as and ran rewards the door. But a railing from above falls and lands on the handles, making it impossible to get out from the inside.

The commotion of the railing falling woke up the napping pups. Making them all confused and assuming the worst.

MEANWHILE The security guard had threatened to raze the teenage girl for the mass panic. When the security guard's baton that was placed on the A/C unit suddenly fell into it's fan blades.

The fan blades sent the baton flying towards the teenage girl but the security guard grabs her and moves her out the way. The baton misses her and hits the electric box behind them, and to the characters around, it would seal the tomb of someone just feet away from them.

Rocky was looking around to see if a screw he dropped went down the drain or just floated off. That's when Rocky looked up towards the sky to see if it floated to the surface when suddenly Rocky got stuck to the drain, he tried to pull himself away from the drain but it was to no avail. Since he had an oxygen tank, he could breath fine, until it ran out of oxygen.

Rocky felt his breaths being almost worthless all of a sudden.

The electric box sparks and explodes, sending a piece of shrapnel towards the pool's suction activator, inevitably activating it, upping the pressure a lot because it detects a blockage, sounding a beeping alarm.

Rocky was breathing frantically as he felt lots of pressure being applied to his body. Eventually the oxygen tank just released itself and slowly floated to the top of the pool. Making Rocky panic even more than he already was.

Unlike Everest and Tracker, Rocky knew he was dying and is dying painfully. No matter what he did nothing would save him.

Rocky let out everything he had in a scream that was never heard. As he felt his insides being taken away from him.

The teenage girl was now in handcuffs and was being told her rights when all of a sudden. One of the pool pump's exposed pipes bursts. Spraying water up into the air, the water then turned red. And then what seemed like intestines and other organs went flying up in the air.

MEANWHILE Ryder was frantically trying to get out when he was forced to give up after running completely out of energy. But that's when the handles broke off releasing the pressure of the rails, letting Ryder out.

The rest of the pups and Ryder ran to their vehicles frantically as they didn't know what was happening.

They were driving extremely fast to where Rocky was sent. And eventually got there, Ryder got off his ATV and threw his helmet on the ground and ran through the gates entrance of the water park.

What he saw was absolutely horrifying. There was blood and guts nearly coating the entire pool side deck. There was blood in the pool water. And Rocky's dead corpse was being carried into an ambulance.

Ryder followed them as long as he could, looking into the eyes of his deceased pup. His usually dry gray fur was soaking wet, his bright orange eyes were now only white because he had no pupils, and his body was much thinner than it's ever meant to be.

"Official cause of death, disembowelment slag pool entrapment." Ryder heard a medical worker say.

Ryder watched in sadness as Rocky's corpse was loaded into the ambulance. The vehicle drove off.

No siren... never a good sign...

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: this took me a good while to write so I hope you guys enjoyed it. There's also an official 'Final Mission' book cover. Sorry this chapter was delayed by so long... I was experiencing technical difficulties. And since this chapter was so long. It obviously took longer to write than chapters 1 & 2. So chapter 4 might also be delayed. So sorry in advance.

-Sincerely

RockyFan01