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Chapter 10: Meeting Gizmo

Tracker closed his eyes. "¡No nos dispares con tu láser por favor!" he cried out, speaking in Spanish in the heat of the moment.

"I don't have a laser," the newcomer replied in some confusion as he twitched his pointed ears. Tracker opened his eyes again in mild surprise. He hadn't expected him to understand that, or anyone else for that matter.

"Why did you trap us?" Chase asked in a reasonable assumption.

"This trap wasn't built for you; I just saw that it had tripped so I came over. But I see it's doing the job of containing you well enough," the Labrador replied somewhat coldly.

"Who are you? Let us go!" Everest cried out, pedaling her legs as she hung upside down.

"No, I don't think so," he replied. He was about to continue when Tracker barked.

"Arf! Cables!" Tracker called out. Tracker's lone working cable extended out from the side of his pup pack, ready to shoot.

"Override; deactivate cables, grappling hook, net, wings."

Tracker, Chase, Everest, Rocky, and Skye all watched in amazement as the cable arm retracted back into the side of Tracker's pack. "How on earth…?" Rocky wondered in bewilderment.

"Hey!" Skye exclaimed in disbelief.

"How did you do that?" asked Tracker.

"Don't make me use my nail gun!" Rocky warned, looking at their captor threateningly.

"You don't have a nail gun," the black dog replied calmly. "Not one that can shoot with the safety off, at least."

"How do you know that?" Rocky questioned somewhat dejectedly, his bluff revealed.

"And how can you disable our pup packs?" Everest pushed.

"It's hardcoded in."

"It's what?" Rocky exclaimed in disbelief.

"Rocky might not have a nail gun, but I have this! Ruff! Ball launcher!" Chase called out. "Ruff! Shoot!" A ball fired away, sending Chase rotating backwards slightly with the recoil.

The Lab didn't even bother to move, but he wasn't hit. Instead a purple force field flashed around him momentarily, bouncing the tennis ball away. A faint ring of smoke briefly rose from the ground in a circle around him. He looked at Chase in amusement. "That'll do nothing to help you guys."

Everyone's eyes widened, and they glanced at each other as they saw the force field appear. If they hadn't believed Marshall before, they certainly had good reason to now. It wasn't exactly as he had described it, but there was plenty of evidence to corroborate his story. Here was a black Labrador retriever with pointed ears who just so happened to have a purple force field in the shape of a sphere. One word went through their minds; Gizmo. Now that they thought about it, how many other black Labs had pointed ears? This had to be him… yet also couldn't be. Nothing about it made sense. Gizmo had been helping Marshall, but this pup seemed to be against them. He definitely knew a lot about their gear; he even somehow knew override commands that the pups themselves didn't know about. However, he didn't seem to recognize any of them. They all decided to wait until they found out more.

Chase hesitated, not quite sure what to do. Then he steeled himself and decided to continue. Chase barked again, "Ruff! Shoot!"

Once again the dog waited until the ball was close before activating his shield. It bounced off harmlessly again, not even causing him to flinch. "Well, let's start over. Who are you guys and why are you here?"

"We're the Paw Patrol," Rocky told him, "We help people in Adventure Bay when they get in trouble. We went out to the ocean because we received a distress message calling for our help. Then we got hit by a laser and lost our right wing. Then we crashed and now we're here. Wherever 'here' is…" He paused a moment. "Where is here?"

The black dog considered for a moment. "Franklin Island," he eventually responded, "or as I like to call it, The Bowl. As for your story, nobody here sent a distress signal. I should know; I'm the only one here. I'm taking you into custody for now." He turned around and started walking away.

"Ruff! Shoot!" A ball launched out, bouncing off the sphere shield once again.

The Lab turned his head back around to look at Chase, who was by now spinning backwards in the air. "You might as well stop trying. I can always activate my force field whenever you say that. You're just going to make yourself dizzy." He continued towards a tree nearby and placed his front right paw on it, activating a hidden control panel embedded into the trunk.

Skye called out to him as he worked, "But if you're the only one here, who attacked us?"

"Nobody attacked you. I've done absolutely nothing to hurt you. I just want you gone."

"That's a lie and you know it!" Chase shouted angrily.

Their captor ignored the German shepherd and went back to working. Suddenly the Lab yelped in pain. Turning around to the left, he looked at his side. There, behind his satchel by his rear leg, shone a silver dart. He looked in fear and surprise at Chase, who was smiling sternly at him, tennis ball launcher still extended.

"If I'm right, you have about thirty seconds before you go unconscious for an hour." Chase narrowed his eyes. "At least, that's how long it lasted on Everest."

All eyes were on Chase. Rocky was grinning, and everyone else was staring at him wide eyed, gasping.

The Labrador glanced back at the dart before looking up at Chase again in respect and mild admiration, "Yep, I guess I deserved that… Well done, Pavlov, you *yawn* got me…" Then he slumped onto his side, already unconscious. Silence hung in the air for a few seconds.

"¡Ay, caramba! You shot him!"
"He shot me with a tranquilizer dart?!"
"Where did that dart come from?"
"That was brilliant!"

"Well," Chase began, "earlier Rocky and I were talking about it. I thought it would be good to have the dart in case of an emergency, so I added it to my ball launcher ammo!"

"I'm glad it came in handy!" Everest smiled. "Also, nice detective work figuring out it was a tranquilizer that got me!"

"Oh, that was easy to see," Chase brushed it off.

Rocky wouldn't let his friend downplay himself that easily, though. "He did more than just that!" the engineer added, beaming, "When he kept telling his ball launcher to launch, he made him think that he had to tell it to shoot every time he shot! So when he shot the dart, he didn't say anything, catching Gizmo off guard!"

"Wow, I wondered why you kept doing that! That was smart!" Skye agreed.

Chase grinned widely at the praise. Then he grew serious. He looked at Rocky, or at least tried. It was hard to do, rotating in midair as he was. "So are we just calling him Gizmo now?"

"He does look like how Marshall described him, even down to the pointed ears," Everest admitted.

Tracker frowned, "But it doesn't make any sense."

"I agree," concurred Chase, "something's not right. He knew who Marshall was, and the entire Paw Patrol, but he doesn't know us now, and hasn't even heard of us? And why would he be out here in the middle of nowhere? Assuming he's telling the truth about us being on an island."

"It's almost like he's a different person…" Skye mused.

"You mean like an evil twin?" Everest asked.

"That makes no sense," Rocky objected.

"Sí, I'm with him," Tracker said.

"That is farfetched," Chase agreed.

"But then what's going on?" Skye questioned.

"Amnesia?" Everest offered.

"Maybe, but it's hard to see how he ended up here." Chase pointed out.

"Maybe… Um… he teleported here?" Everest theorized. "He does have a force field after all, and he appeared out of nowhere to save Marshall."

"Quizás, maybe. And if not that brings up another question," Tracker pointed out. "There's no way he could have been in there before. He had to have known Marshall would be in trouble. Either that or just be in the right place at the right time…"

"So what we're saying is we're looking at a pup that can either teleport or see into the future. Or something?" Skye summarized.

"Well if we're going down that road, while we're at it, why not both? How about time travel?" Rocky joked.

"That would be something!" Tracker replied as everyone laughed.

"Well, it could just be a coincidence," Skye reminded them, "A very unlikely one."

"Wait hold on a minute," Rocky said, deep in thought. Everyone listened, "That would actually make a lot of sense."

Tracker cocked his head to the side, "It being a coincidence?"

"No, time travel!"

All the others glanced at each other.

"Rocky, are you okay?" Chase asked. His expression was a blend of confusion and concern. Not that anyone could tell very well, what with his spinning.

"No, no, seriously! Think about it!" Rocky began, "It would explain why he knew Marshall back then, but doesn't know us now! He hasn't met us yet, but then he joined the Paw Patrol and went back in time to save Marshall! That's why he told Marshall not to say anything! And why he didn't want to meet us! And how he knew exactly where and when to show up, and how he appeared out of nowhere! Oh but oh no… What if he didn't want Marshall to tell us because it would destroy the timeline? Oh no, that's not good. Maybe we'll be fine anyway? Maybe we just need to not tell his past self about his future self or something like that. And really, time travel isn't too wild of a guess anyway; after all we are kinda hovering in midair right now. Breaking the laws of gravity isn't too different from breaking the laws of entropy. Actually wait, I guess it is. But maybe not in this case? I'd need to know how it works. Maybe it's like an Alcubierre Warp Drive and it kind of warps spacetime! That would be so cool! And it would explain the time travel! Both problems solved at once! Or maybe it's an electromagnetic superconductor that operates at frequencies high enough to repel water! Or maybe-"

"I'm starting to get motion sick…" Chase interrupted.

"And I really don't like being upside down either," Everest commented.

"Oh, whoops. Sorry," Rocky apologized, "Can you fire some tennis balls the other way so you stop rotating?"

"No, I'm all out."

"We need to get out of this trap somehow," Everest muttered.

"Pero ¿cómo? But how?"

"Maybe the override is over?" Everest offered. "Ruff! Grappling hook!" Nothing happened. "I guess not…"

Rocky's face lit up, "Skye, you have your jetpack. Can you use it?"

"No, he disabled it too…"

"He disabled your wings, but did he disable your thruster?"

Skye perked up, "No, he didn't! Arf! Thruster!" Her thruster sped to life, and she started moving forward. "Woo hoo! Yip yip!" She blasted out of the zero-gravity zone and tumbled onto the ground, stopping her jetpack. She winced slightly as she landed on her paw, but the pain was bearable. She stood up and turned back to the others. "I made it out! Now what do I do?"

Chase seemed like he was about to say something, but didn't. He looked very sick.

Tracker pointed at a nearby tree. "See those vines? Can you pull one down and throw it to us?"

Skye looked at where Tracker was indicating. "No, they're too thick. I wouldn't be able to get them down."

Rocky looked around, "There's got to be something around here we can use!"

"What about the net?" Everest asked.

Everyone followed Everest's gaze, looking above them where the net remained, still hovering in midair.

"Great idea!" Tracker exclaimed.

"Thanks! It wasn't too hard to think of though. I've been stuck staring at it this whole time," the Siberian husky laughed.

Rocky thought for a moment, "But how do we get it down?"

"Leave that to me!" Skye yipped. She reactivated her thruster and flipped back into the circle with the other pups. When she faced upwards, she turned her thruster on full blast and rocketed into the net. Grabbing it in her teeth, she pushed her back paws against the net, facing her back downwards. She thrusted back down carrying the net, swiping her friends up in it, giving them all something to grab a hold of and pull themselves out of the zero gravity area. They all thudded to the ground as gravity took effect again. Rocky, Chase, and Tracker rolled onto their backs in exhaustion. Everest decided to lay on her stomach, glad to finally be able to see things right side up again.

"Feels good to be back on solid ground," Rocky sighed.

"Si, you can say that again!" Tracker agreed.

"I've finally stopped moving," Chase said thankfully, looking significantly better.

"I'm just glad to be back on my own four paws again!" Everest exclaimed.

"So what should we do with Gizmo?" Skye questioned, focusing everyone's attention toward him.

Chase rolled back onto his paws and walked over to him, "Well, first things first, I should probably do this." Chase grabbed the dart still in Gizmo's side and pulled it out.

"I can take that from you," Rocky volunteered. He used his claw to take it from Chase's teeth, returning it to his pup pack. "There aren't any doses left now so it should be safer."

"Do you think he's okay?" Skye asked worriedly.

"He's definitely smaller than I am…" Everest pointed out.

"If you survived it fine, he should be able to," Rocky reassured them. "If nothing else, then at least he'll stay asleep longer. How long has it been?"

"About twenty minutes," Tracker replied.

"So we have about forty minutes to get him back to the beach," Chase observed.

"What?!" the others shouted out simultaneously.

"You can't be serious," Rocky objected.
"Even after shooting Everest?"
"And capturing us all just now?"
"And threatening us?"

Chase tilted his head to the side in a shrug. "Well, why not? If Rocky's right, we already know he saves Marshall one day. Maybe this is the first step in helping him. He's been living alone for who knows how long."

"Maybe he's right…" Tracker conceded. "He's probably so lonely."

"I know I was lonely all on my own," Everest said quietly, almost in a whisper.

"Or we could completely destroy reality as we know it!" Rocky panicked. "We don't know how time travel works!"

"The way I see it," Chase argued, "that message led us here for a reason. If he says he's the only one living here, then I guess he's the reason."

"I say we help him!" Everest smiled.

"I guess we could." Tracker nodded.

Skye looked at Gizmo. He was about her size. Laying there in the dirt, he looked so young and alone. She thought of how long he must have been living all alone, stranded on this island full of predators. She thought of how scared he must be all the time, watching out for his life. Watching him there, she felt pity for him. "We can't just leave him here."

"Then it's settled!" Chase smiled.

"Hey, and we can use my snowboard to take him back!" Everest offered.

"Alright, fine…" Rocky relented, "But on one condition. We can't tell the others that we think this is Gizmo."

Tracker looked up, "How come?"

"Not even Marshall?" Everest inquired.

"Especially not Marshall. He's horrible at keeping secrets, and we can't let Gizmo know that his future self knows Marshall. We have to make sure he doesn't find out."

"That's not really fair for Marshall though," Skye objected, "and he'll figure out anyway if it is Gizmo."

"How so?"

"...Because his name will be Gizmo."

Rocky blinked. He obviously hadn't thought that through very well. "Well, um, we'll figure it out when we get there, but until then, nobody says a word. Okay?"

"Deal," Chase agreed. "Now let's bring him back home."

Finally, at chapter 10, Gizmo is officially introduced. This chapter is by far the longest yet. Initially it was supposed to be two, but I decided to merge them; I've been wanting to make longer chapters. Let me tell you, though. Writing these takes a lot of thought. I continually have to plan a considerable number of chapters ahead, but still maintain a large degree of freedom. Gizmo has never been tranquilized before, so writing this was pretty fun. I let them realize he had time traveled because at this point, I figure it's fairly obvious, so I'm taking a different approach to telling this story than I normally would. I always found stories that keep characters in the dark for no reason other than 'suspense' annoying. This is also why I let them conclude that it was Gizmo; after all, the clues I fed out enabled people to come to that same conclusion at chapter 5.