The silence of a previously calm morning was broken by the annoying buzz of Ryder's pup pad, which rattled against the surface of the nightstand beside his bed. His eyes shot open as his arm slowly reached over to slam on top of it, as though it were an alarm clock's snooze button. Unfortunately for him, though, he was only left with two choices. Pick up, or allow it to continuously ring until the person on the other side gave up trying to call...
Yeah, that would never happen.
The exhausted boy rolled over, futilely trying to reach his pup pad without getting up. After a few attempts that all proved that it was pointless to try and not get up, he sat up in his bed and slowly picked up his pup pad, answering the call.
"Hello...?" Ryder yawned, rubbing his eyes.
On the other side of the call was Katie, who was still in her own home, wearing her pajamas, "Hey, Ryder."
"Hey, Katie, what's up?"
"What, you thought I was bluffing when I said I'd be keeping tabs on you from now on?" The young blonde raised an eyebrow.
Ryder's cheeks burned with embarrassment, "You don't have to check in, you know? I'm not a kid..."
"Ryder. We're both kids. We're ten."
"That's not fair!" The young leader argued, "We've been ten for years!"
Katie sighed, "That's besides the point!" She leaned closer to the camera, "When did you go to sleep last night?"
"You know you can't use the PAW Patrol emergency line to—"
"Not sleeping for days before this was the real emergency. Now answer the question."
"Um... I went to sleep right after I sent the pups to bed!" He smiled nervously, "...A few hours after I sent them to bed..."
"How many hours after?"
"I dunno... Six?"
"SIX?" Ryder's pup pad cartoonishly shot up into the air as Katie yelled on the other side of the call. Upon falling back into the boy's hands, she sighed, "Well, it's a start when it comes to sleeping more. Now go take a shower."
"What?"
"Go take a shower. Now. You wanna get back on track? It's time to get into a routine."
"I took a shower last night!"
"Hm? Really?"
Ryder nodded, "Yeah, really. It was soon after I put the pups to bed. I remembered what Chase told me about me being smelly."\
Katie smiled nervously, "He wasn't wrong."
"Thanks for rubbing it in," Ryder's eyelids lowered, unamused by his friend's comment.
"How have missions been, by the way?" The young leader heard her ask as he stood up, stretching his back.
He glances at the screen of his pup pad, "There haven't been many missions since that news about Marshall spread. The most notable of which was helping Goodway with something involving Chickaletta."
"...Right, Mayor Goodway."
Ryder raised an eyebrow, hearing the tone of his friend's voice shift to a more bleak tone, "Did something happen with Mayor Goodway?"
"Something's been bugging me for a while," Katie began, "I know a lot of you think of Marshall as a thief, but why were Mayor Goodway, and some of the other citizens so harsh with him? Just because they all thought Marshall stole from Adventure Bay didn't mean they had to act like he never helped all of them out at some point."
"What do you mean?"
The blonde laid herself down on her bed, her mind racing with questions, "Everyone, save for a select few, acted really harsh... Sure the people of Adventure Bay are pretty simple, but still, something like hearing that there was a tape of Marshall stealing wouldn't push them over the edge to prompt them to do those things to him..."
"What did they do?" The boy asked.
The stylist looked away for just a moment, debating whether or not to tell him the finer details, "Well Mayor Goodway tried to splash a cup of water on him, for starters..."
"WHAT?" Ryder turned his entire body in the direction of the pup pad, "I never knew about that!"
"Yeah, she was especially harsh on Marshall that day."
Before Ryder could begin to ponder all of the questions Katie asked, his pup pad began to buzz once more, letting him know that somebody else was trying to call him. Upon checking the small cartoon-esque icon that popped up, he recognized the smiling face of Mayor Goodway.
"Speaking of which..." The young leader stared at her icon, "...Goodway's calling. Might be an emergency. An actual emergency."
Katie giggles nervously upon hearing that last part, "Right. Well, you and the pups do your best!"
"We always do."
He hung up with Katie, answering Goodway's call.
"Hello, Ryder here—"
"Ryder, it's an emergency!" Came a loud and panicked voice from the other side of the device, "Chickaletta somehow managed to get on the roof of Town Hall! I can't get her down!"
The boy nodded along as the distressed Mayor screamed from the other side of the call, doing well to mask the sense of annoyance that came along with the hundredth emergency that involved Chickaletta getting stuck somewhere unreachable. But, regardless of how many times it has happened, it wasn't like he could stop helping Chickaletta. No matter what has happened, or what will happen moving forward, as long as he was the leader of the PAW Patrol, he'd do whatever it takes.
"Don't worry, Mayor, we're on our way!" Ryder swiped the screen of the pup pad before declaring, "No job is too big, no pup is too small!"
After he swiped on the screen, a previously hidden compartment popped out from inside the device. He tapped on the new compartment, ready to start a mission.
"PAW Patrol, to the lookout!"
He quickly finished getting himself ready for the day before walking out of his room. In the background, he could hear the sound of the elevator rising, but not the distant laughter that would usually come after the sound of Marshall crashing into the team. Why would he feel the need to hear it? It wasn't like he had the right to expect that after everything that happened.
His eyes narrowed. Maybe he hadn't handled everything as well as he could have, but there was no use dwelling on it. Not anymore. He'd have to keep his focus on what was laid out ahead of them. He could further address Marshall the next time he saw the Dalmatian.
That is... If there even was a next time.
"What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do!?" Mayor Goodway, in her usual animated manner, panicked as she, Ryder, and the rest of the pups watched Zuma carefully step down Marshall's ladder with Chickaletta on his head.
Ryder turned his head to look at the mayor, determination in his still restless eyes, "Don't worry, he's got this."
Zuma was substituted in for Marshall when it came to the operation of the Dalmatian's vehicle. Because of this change, whenever the Dalmatian's vehicle was needed for a mission, the first pup to be called upon was the Chocolate Lab, who was more than appreciative of being able to do more for his team, despite the circumstances that led up to him having to sub for his friend.
Wearing the Dalmatian's former firefighting gear securely around his body, he adjusted his hat, in order to see his surroundings properly. He hadn't noticed how much bigger Marshall was in comparison to him, as the hard hat the Dally would typically wear fit very loosely on his head, tilting down every so often.
Once he finally made it down the ladder, the lightest movement from the purse chicken caused the firefighter helmet to tilt down, covering Zuma's face entirely when he was making his way over to Goodway. This caused him to stumble over a rock that he hadn't been able to see, his borrowed helmet falling off and landing at Goodway's feet, Chickaletta landing perfectly inside.
"Nailed it!" Zuma exclaimed before letting out a faint groan.
Mayor Goodway happily picked up the firefighter helmet, which Chickaletta seemed to be satisfied sitting within, "Thank you, PAW Patrol. Especially you, Zuma."
"No worries, Mayor!" The substitute firefighter pup grinned.
The tan-skinned Mayor kneeled down to get closer to Zuma's height, "Here's your hat back."
Upon placing the helmet back on Zuma, which covered the entirety of the Lab's head, her mind seemed to take her back to when that helmet would fit. Nowadays, she could feel the space between Zuma's head and the helmet, a space that was always filled before then.
This wasn't Zuma's hat. It was...
Mayor Goodway immediately pulled her hand away, making Zuma flinch with surprise.
"You okay?" He asked, confused by the sudden action.
"I'm... I'm quite alright..." Goodway muttered, looking down at her quaking hand, "I need to get going now..."
"Well, whenever your chicken is stranded, just yelp for help!" Ryder exclaimed, waving as he watched the now downcast mayor saunter off.
"What was that about, Ryder?" Zuma turned to look at his owner, confusion plastered onto his brown-furred face.
"I'm not sure..." The boy scratched the back of his head, "Maybe she has some of her mayor duties to attend to?"
"She has those!?"
Mayor Goodway could hear the all too familiar line of Ryder referring to Zuma as a "good pup", as they left the area in order to make their way back home. Their day was finished, they could rest after the daunting task that Chickaletta had put them through. It wasn't like she could, though. Not while there seemed to be reminders of her mistakes waiting for her at every corner.
The tan-skinned mayor slowly walked into a room, the office she'd often use to file paperwork, prepare for community events, and ensure that her schedule wasn't too cramped. She found herself wading through the seemingly endless sea of papers scattered around the interior of the dimly lit room, nearly tripping over obstacles, hidden from view. Goodway looked down at the ocean of white with a sense of contempt. It had been weeks since she cleaned out the useless papers, but the state of her room had gotten more and more cluttered to the point where she had worked out her own system through the mess.
Finally breaking into the one place where she wouldn't have to worry about papercuts, her office chair, she plopped herself down, staring at the open computer in the center of the desk in front of her. As expected, she was away from the computer for so long that the system had entered a rest mode, in which it was conserving power while it retained all of the tabs and files she had open while working on it. She hadn't bothered to clean out her computer either.
She turned the computer on, her pupils restricting the instant a light brighter than the dim light behind her hit her face. The light from the computer finally revealed the exhausted eyes of the previously animated mayor, who was now finally allowing herself to break her carefree façade now that she and Chickaletta were in the privacy of the office.
She began to move the mouse, carefully gliding across the screen in order to open her email.
Nearly Three Weeks Ago...
Mayor Goodway, sitting in a much more neat version of her office, froze as she sat at her desk. Her phone was still up to her ear, thanks to her arm still being there to hold it up. A wave of surprise washed over her body, rendering her immobile as her mind began to catch up to the words spoken on the over side of her phone.
"What did you say?"
"I said, it's Marshall..." Ryder's breaking voice squeaked, "...He did it. He stole the bones."
The night following the PAW Patrol's investigation of City Hall, Mayor Goodway had received a call from Ryder with the suggestion— no, the confirmation, that Marshall was behind the theft of the golden bones the night prior.
The mayor's eyes slowly drifted to the phone still next to her ear before she put it on speaker, laying it flat on her desk. She slowly inhaled a breath of air through her nose, letting it free from her mouth. The breath leaving her mouth was shaky, unsteady, but not due to the grief that Ryder clearly was feeling on the opposite end of the call. Her lips crookedly turned upwards, the words finally processing.
"Marshall!?" Goodway burst into hysterical laughter, nearly falling out of her chair, "Are you kidding? That pup couldn't even think about theft, never in a billion years! That's ridiculous!"
The sound of her palms pounding against her desk in her animated hysterics deafened the defeated wail that her phone was just barely able to pick up. Despite the sound of the laughing and slamming on her desk filling the room just moments prior, her laughter slowed upon hearing the faint noise from the phone.
"...What was that?" She asked, her lighthearted voice still dotted with the occasional chuckle.
Ryder let out a hum, something she could hear clearly, now that her side was silent, "It's Chase... He asked if he could sleep in my room for the night... He's not handling all of this the best."
Goodway began to notice the ever so faint sound of muffled sobbing filling Ryder's side of the call. She had just assumed it was something insignificant happening in the background, not the sound of the presumed toughest pup on the team crying his eyes out.
This was real.
Filling the silence between her and Ryder were the unsteady whimpers and sobs from Chase, who Goodway assumed was covered by something due to how muffled it sounded. Her smile instantly fell, lips pursing and thinning as she tried to make sense of the new reality banging at the door of her comfort zone.
"How do you know it was Marshall?" Mayor Goodway asked, dropping her initial lighthearted voice in exchange for a more professional one.
"Here, I'll send over the video."
She sat in her chair with bated breath while she closely listened to Ryder typing away at his keyboard. As she waited, Goodway tried her best to ignore Chase, whose presence was still very much known. It was heartbreaking for her to hear. She knew that Chase and Marshall were close, and such news, even if false somehow, would obviously hit him harder than anyone else. Soon enough, her email address was hit with a new notification, one coming from Ryder's personal account instead of his business account.
She opened the video provided by Ryder and leaned back in her chair.
The video began with a view of City Hall from the front, remaining fixed as it stared ahead at the front doors from a slight distance. The footage remained stagnant until about ten seconds later, when she noticed something rush by the camera. It was way too late into the night for anyone to be around there, and she knew that it wasn't her or Chickaletta, as they were fast asleep by then. The video then proceeded to fast forward slightly later into the night. The camera picked up the faint sound of something dragging on the ground.
As the previously unviewable figure entered the frame, she watched on with befuddlement while a golden bone dropped from the bag the figure was dragging across the view of the screen. After exiting the frame, the cloaked figure returned in order to pick up the dropped golden bone to hold it in its mouth. The figure then turned to leave the frame, but not before slipping over its right paw and tumbling to the ground.
Goodway leaned forward in her seat, watching closely. She could see, bright as day, the leg of what she knew was a Dalmatian, not just that, but a Dalmatian that was yet to reach maturity. A pup.
The instant the footage cut, she turned to her phone, which sat silent on the right side of her desk. She hesitated to speak, trying her best to find the words that seemed to be stuck at the tip of her tongue. Once she was able to unstick them, though, she made sure to sound resolute behind her words.
"How do you know for sure that this isn't just some other Dalmatian pup?"
"We asked ourselves the same thing earlier..." Ryder uttered, sounding further away from the phone, "But there are only three parties who know about the existence of those bones. Mayor Humdinger, you, and us, the PAW Patrol. Unless Humdinger is suddenly able to create a Dalmatian robot that can move fluidly and doesn't malfunction at the slightest inconvenience, then it's safe to conclude that he didn't have part in this theft."
"What about—?"
"Additionally, Chase had told me something else earlier..." The young leader continued, making what Goodway assumed was Chase let out another whimper, "He told me that Marshall mentioned taking the golden bones during a conversation that I wasn't there to see... Everything points to him. Motive, evidence, his absence that night, and even his clumsy mannerisms."
Goodway was shocked, he had really thought this one out, "This just... It can't be!"
"I know, mayor... I still can't believe he'd do something like that either, but everything says that he did, and nothing says he didn't. Well, aside from Marshall himself. But he claims that he doesn't even know where he was that night."
"Oh..."
"This is a lot. I'll let you sleep on this information."
"What's going to happen to Marshall?"
"He's been suspended for now, and I've given him an opportunity to collect his own evidence alongside Rocky while he is..." Ryder explained, "It isn't good investigation practice, not at all, but it's not like we can drop everything to try and fight the evidence. We still have a town to protect and watch. Even if... E-Even if... Oh, Marshall—!"
Mayor Goodway, already having anticipated a potential breakdown, decided to disconnect from the call the moment she heard Ryder's voice begin to break. She knew that both the young leader, as well as his disheartened puppy, needed some time to mourn on their own, and needed some much deserved rest. After all, no matter how independent and mature they say they are, they're still tweens. They didn't need the additional stress. He told her all he needed to tell her. Now she'd have to figure out what the next move was on her own.
She needed more. This was Marshall of Ryder's PAW Patrol. Of her PAW Patrol. There had to be something, anything. And while Ryder lacked the time to look into it on his own, she had all the time in the world to try and break this down.
A faint pecking at Mayor Goodway's head woke her up the following day. She slowly opened her eyes, met with the familiar face of her beloved purse chicken, who was clucking repeatedly at her to wake her up. The moment Chickaletta noticed that her owner was awake, she stopped making noise and hopped off of Goodway's head to land on the floor.
The mayor sat up in her bed, her eyes darting over to look at her alarm clock, which she must have forgotten to turn on after the previous night. There were a lot of other things occupying her mind, so much so that setting her alarm wasn't as big of a priority for her. She was too focused on trying to look into why Marshall was the primary suspect of the theft.
Eight thirty, half an hour after the time she'd usually finish her morning jog. She was a bit disappointed that she had missed that window, as now she would have to get right to work.
"Come now, Chickaletta..." Goodway slid out from under her covers, standing up on the carpeted floors, "Time for breakfast..."
Clucking in response, Chickaletta followed behind her owner as they both walked through the halls of City Hall. Like most mornings, the interior of the building was silent, as she and Chickaletta were the sole residents of the place. The only thing that seemed to fill the silence were Mayor Goodway's silent mutters, trying her best to reassess what she had been told by Ryder about Marshall.
There had to be some explanation, right?
Stopping in the kitchen in order to prepare some breakfast for both her and her pet, Goodway's eyes narrowed for a moment. Ryder and Chase seemed so sure of their findings, and could she really blame them? Just like Ryder had told her, everything stacked up against Marshall. It wasn't only the fact that the thief was a clumsy Dalmatian that presumably had similar markings to Marshall, but the fact that he was one of few people to know about the vault beneath City Hall to begin with.
Putting together a bowl, Goodway grabbed a spoon and dipped it into what she had assumed was her cereal. She was proven wrong, though, once the food hit her tongue. She raised her eyebrow, wondering why the cereal was so dry and fruity-tasting. Her eyes drifted down to the bowl she had eaten from, realizing that she had accidentally taken a bite out of Chickaletta's breakfast, a mixture of seeds and berries.
Goodway looked over at her pet, which was glaring daggers at her owner. While most of the time, her pet was just as dopey and airheaded as she could be at times, she knew better than anyone that Chickaletta wasn't one to play about her food. Especially the first meal of the day.
"Whoops! I'm sorry my Chicky-poo!" She laughed as she switched Chickaletta's bowl with her own, making sure that her cereal was now in front of her, "Now, if you'd excuse me, I have some work to attend to! Enjoy your breakfast!"
Chickaletta let out a receptive cluck in response as Goodway picked up her bowl of cereal and turned around, dropping her lighthearted smile to reveal a resolute grimace.
She was quick to enter her office, putting her bowl down and turning her computer on. If she was going to get to the bottom of this, then she needed to start asking around for leads. More evidence. Was Marshall innocent? Was he guilty? She would have to find out for sure on her own.
After typing in her password, the birthday of the first mayor of Adventure Bay, she decided to go to her email in order to check for any updates from Ryder on his status. Instead of seeing a single email addressed to her from the leader of the PAW Patrol, her inbox was flooded with message after message, notification after notification. What had happened overnight? Why was her inbox filled with all of these messages?
"Now what's this all about...?" She asked herself, an eyebrow approaching her forehead.
She quickly began scrolling down the list of emails, deciding that the best way to tackle all of the emails she had received would be from the beginning. She scrolled to the bottom of the first page of her email, which contained the most recent fifty emails addressed to her before she realized that the emails were trickling into the second page of her email. That meant that there were at the very least fifty-one messages for her to look at.
Goodway leaned forward in her chair, shoving a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. She was the mayor of Adventure Bay, sure, but this many messages in one night was unprecedented.
Finally making it to the first email she received after the one she had gotten from Ryder the night before, she realized that the email was sent from what she was sure was an address in Foggy Bottom. That was strange. Not many had ever reacted to things concerning Adventure Bay, much less the PAW Patrol. This must've been serious.
She clicked on the email, and began to read.
"Mayor Goodway of Adventure Bay,
I am deeply concerned with that team of dogs that is stationed in your town, the PAW Patrol. Recently, there have been many personal items turning up missing in Foggy Bottom, as well as sightings reported of a Dalmatian pup that looks identical to Marshall, the firefighter pup of your PAW Patrol. I do not understand why one of your supposed heroes is stealing from Foggy Bottom, a place that already isn't as well off as Adventure Bay, but me, as well as the many other concerned citizens of our home demand that you get to the bottom of this.
Sincerely, Tom Hillbanks of Foggy Bottom."
The usually animated mayor's eyes widened as she finished reading the email. There were reported sightings of Marshall in Foggy Bottom? Goodway put a shaking hand up to her mouth, trying to figure out how to reply to such an accusation from not only one person in the closest town to Adventure Bay, but many citizens there.
For years, mayor Goodway had been trying her best to establish better connections between Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom. Foggy Bottom was unfortunately under the authority of Mayor Humdinger, who seemed more focused on causing trouble in Adventure Bay and making sure that they knew that his town was better than hers was instead of tending to his own town. Through her many visits to the place, she realized that Humdinger's flippant disregard of the townspeople led to Foggy Bottom having a strong sense of community, even stronger than that of Adventure Bay.
While Adventure Bay had the comfort in knowing that she, as well as the PAW Patrol were there to look out for the citizens, Foggy Bottom didn't have that comfort. They had to find solace in one another. The citizens of Foggy Bottom rallied together with the promise that they'd be the ones to watch after one another, so when Mayor Goodway and Ryder offered to station a chapter of the PAW Patrol in Foggy Bottom, they refused, not needing to lean against Adventure Bay. And Goodway respected that.
Now though, it seemed as though Foggy Bottom was starting to pull away from Adventure Bay once more, and that proved to seem true as she looked at email after email.
Most were criticizing Mayor Goodway for allowing something like this to happen, others were demanding that Marshall be taken off of the team permanently, and even the most extreme of those against them were demanding that Marshall be dealt with. Permanently.
Goodway stood up from her chair with enough force to send her chair crashing down on the floor of the space behind her. Her hands pounded down on the desk, nearly knocking over the half-empty bowl of cereal dangerously close to her computer.
There was no way. Just no way.
...Right?
The next day seemed to perfectly resemble the state of her mind. Dreary, filled with uncertainty, and most of all, one that shared her bubbling rage. Mayor Goodway had spent most of the previous day responding to emails and calls from Foggy Bottom, making trips back and forth to Foggy Bottom, and trying to reassure Foggy Bottom that this was an issue that they wouldn't have to worry about anymore. But that didn't seem to matter. No matter how much she pleaded and tried to reason with the community of the other town, they didn't seem to want to hear her. That bridge of trust that she had built between Adventure Bay and Foggy Bottom crumbled away before her eyes.
And apparently, it was all Marshall's fault.
Because of Marshall, all those years she had spent putting up with Humdinger's childish antics in order to reach the citizens of Foggy Bottom were all for naught. She had initially set out with the intention to prove that there was another explanation as to why Marshall was accused of this crime, but no matter how deep she looked, all fingers pointed directly at the Dalmatian. There was no way to refute it.
She had just finished taking a midday jog through the town, not only to get some exercise in, but to try and give an outlet to the anger that was brewing from within her. Never once had she ever felt any kind of animosity toward anyone, not even Humdinger, but the thought that she could've played right into the paws of a pup that had been deceiving her. Playing her for a fool. She might've been a tad ditzy at times, but she was no fool.
While she was furious, and felt like she had been played, she had to make sure that others in Adventure Bay needed to know about this. Copying the many emails from Foggy Bottom and sending those printed copies to Adventure Bay's publisher, it wasn't long before those newspapers began to show up on others' doorsteps, including hers.
Goodway was in the middle of reading through the resulting newspaper, a glass of water resting on the desk beside her. Her eyebrows furrowed as her eyes swept over each and every printed letter on the paper.
"Former PAW Patrol member, Marshall, is Adventure Bay's thief!?"
In the newspaper article, the fact that Mayor Goodway had tried to look into it was mentioned, on top of her attempts to understand why Foggy Bottom was pulling away, was mentioned above all, and this seemed to gather a lot of sympathy from the townspeople, who knew she was trying her hardest to prove Marshall to be innocent. But that wasn't what she was looking for. She simply wanted the townspeople to understand what was happening, and make sure their trust wasn't misplaced. She couldn't care less about the sympathy. She wanted justice.
A sudden knock on the door derailed her train of thought.
Picking up her glass of water, she walked toward the front door. She took a sip of water as she walked, having been too focused on the newspaper she was reading to drink before. She wondered who could be at the door at a time like this. There wasn't anything scheduled for the day. She had fulfilled all of her tasks. Actually, she had finished a few things that she needed to do for the next few days, as she overworked herself through the night, unable to sleep after all of those emails and calls from Foggy Bottom.
She opened the door, expecting for there to be an adult staring back at her. There wasn't. Her exhausted eyes slowly drifted down, realizing that the ones at the door weren't adults, not even human. Looking back up at her were three pups. Everest, Rocky, and...
Him.
Goodway's bloodshot eyes almost instantly focused on the Dalmatian, who's eyes met hers. As soon as their eyes met, the still very fresh memories of an entire day trying to salvage what she had been trying to obtain for most of her time as the mayor of Adventure Bay, filled her mind, fogging her sight. The sound of squeaking, caused by her fingers gripping the glass tighter, filled the silent atmosphere.
"How could you... Marshall!"
The betrayal, the rage, the feeling of inadequacy as a mayor, every single negative emotion that she had been doing her best to keep inside of her shot from the depths of her mind, sending her into a temporary blackout state.
Next thing she remembered, she was staring at the ground in front of her, which was strangely covered with freshly spilled water. She was a bit confused. Where had the pups gone? Did it start raining? Why did she feel a sense of relief?
Her eyes focused on the glass of water she had been carrying, or rather, the empty glass that she was holding with her outstretched arm. Goodway looked at the empty glass, then the water on the ground. At that moment, she quickly realized what she had done.
Dropping the glass, her hands covering her mouth, not even the deafening shattering noise of what used to be a glass cup could deafen her cry of horror.