A week later...

December 25th, Christmas Day

Chase, Ace, and Ryder were all awake extremely early in the morning, decorating the lookout for Christmas before any of the other pups woke up. Jake was on the way from the resort to help, but he wasn't there yet, so the trio would have to get everything ready by themselves for now.

Ace was going through some cardboard boxes full of decorations, handing Ryder a decoration from the box when he requested him to. Chase, meanwhile, was assisting Ryder in putting up decorations, specifically the ones closer to the ground and near the bottom of the tree, as while he was the largest member in the PAW Patrol, he was still only around two feet tall.

Once they finished decorating the Christmas tree, Ryder left the room and left his two police pups to finish putting up the last few decorations. Specifically, Chase's box of decorations that he had bought a couple weeks ago. Chase and Ace both looked at one another and smiled. Ace ran off and grabbed a ladder before setting it up and grabbing the mistletoe, he then hung it by the large doorway that entered the main room. They then put up the rest of the decorations, finishing in only a couple minutes.

Ryder reentered the main room and looked around at the decorations they had set up, he was proud of his two police pups and told them so. He didn't notice the mistletoe that was currently hanging above his head.

They then heard someone arrive outside, they left the lookout and saw Jake get out of his truck, with Everest following him. She was clearly still tired, having just been woken up. Now that they were here, they were just waiting for Tracker, Static, and Sledge, who would likely be arriving in a couple hours.

A couple hours later...

Chase exited the elevator and entered the basement of the lookout, he was about to wake up the pups to celebrate Christmas but before he did, he went up to Skye's room and grabbed the spare key she hid for him. After unlocking the door, he lightly pushed it open before entering the room and walking up to Skye.

"Hey, Skye, wake up." Chase whispered to her, trying to quietly wake her up. Skye slowly woke up and smiled upon seeing Chase. "Merry Christmas Skye." Chase whispered to her, smiling back.

"Merry Christmas Chase. Let me guess, you're about to wake everyone up?" Skye asked, still waking up herself.

"Yep, you going to get up on your own or am I going to have to use the megaphone to get you up?" Chase asked her, in a clearly joking tone.

"No, no, I'm getting up." Skye replied before getting up and leaving her room, heading for the elevator.

Chase watched as the elevator took her up to the ground floor. Once the elevator began lowering back down, he called out his megaphone and shouted into it.

"Alright pups, it's Christmas time! Time to wake up and celebrate, presents from Santa Paws are upstairs!!" Chase shouted into his megaphone. He could physically hear the pups jump a couple feet from the noise, and could mentally hear them groan in annoyance, making him quietly laugh a bit.

Upstairs, Sierra, who was sleeping on the couch in the main room until a room could be set up downstairs for her, was carefully woken up by Ace. After much struggling of course, as she was a very heavy sleeper as they all soon found out.

Skye, Everest, Ace, Sierra, Ryder, and Jake were all waiting for everyone to arrive. They watched as all the other pups left the elevator, annoyed at Chase like always. Now, the only one left to wait on was Tracker, who'd likely be arriving soon. While they waited for their bilingual friend to arrive, they all went to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

A couple minutes later...

The pups began eating from their food bowls as Ryder finished making him and Jake some eggs and bacon for breakfast. He made himself and Jake a plate and sat down.

"So, who else is coming this year?" Jake asked, curious about who will be attending this year's Christmas party.

"Katie, Carlos, Tracker, Sledge, and Static. Sweetie was planning to come but she said something came up and she wouldn't be able to make it this year." Ryder replied, listing off the remaining people they were waiting on.

"Sledge and Static? Aren't they working at the fire department today?" Jake asked.

Marshall paused in eating his food to respond. "They're taking the day off to celebrate with us, me and them discussed it when I visited them last week." Marshall replied before resuming eating his food.

"Oh, alright." Jake responded.

As the pups finished eating, they heard an engine outside, pulling up to the lookout. They all immediately knew who it was and excitedly rushed toward the door to meet their friend from the Jungle.

When they left the lookout, the pups saw Carlos and Tracker getting out of their jeep and heading toward the lookout. Upon seeing the pups of the PAW Patrol, Tracker smiled and began rushing toward them all.

"¡Hola amigos!" Tracker greeted them as he approached.

"Hey Tracker." Chase responded.

"Welcome back to the lookout Tracker!" Marshall greeted him back, also excited to see him again.

"Uhh... ¿Hola mi amigo?" Ace responded, not a hundred percent confident in his sentence. "I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure how to speak Spanish." Ace apologized.

"Don't be, ¡Tu español es genial!" Tracker replied before following the others into the lookout.

Ryder, Jake, and Carlos stayed outside for a bit longer to chat with one another alone. Afterall, they didn't to spend much time together throughout the year as Adventure Bay expanded, causing Ryder and Jake to be much more busy working.

"So, how have you two been this year?" Ryder asked them, curious how they've been.

"It's been good, I've been helping Tracker deal with his fear of darkness. He's making good progress on getting over it." Carlos replied.

"Alright, how about you Jake?" Ryder asked him.

"Also good. As you know, the Resort expanded a lot this year and me and Everest have had more people than ever visit the mountain." Jake replied, grabbing a drink from his truck and cracking it open. "How's the yearly report from down here going? Anything exciting happened?"

"Not really, mostly the same as you. Adventure Bay expanded and we've gotten more calls than we did before." Ryder replied.

"What about you Carlos? Have you also gotten more calls over in the Jungle?" Jake asked him, assuming the answer was yes.

"No actually, It's been the same as last year. I guess all the traffic only affected the Adventure region." Carlos replied. "I understand most people wouldn't want to visit though, there's only so much that happens over there."

"Hey boys!" All three of them heard someone call out to them, they turned toward where they heard it from and saw Katie leave her car and begin walking up to them.

"Hey Katie!" Ryder greeted her as she approached the three.

"Hello Katie." Carlos greeted her as well, while Jake nodded, silently greeting her.

"Am I late?" Katie asked, noticing that everyone was already there.

"Nah, don't worry. We haven't started the present opening or the celebrating itself yet." Ryder replied, raising his hand slightly as he spoke.

"Alright, can I go ahead and bring my presents inside or should I wait?" Katie asked him.

"We can go ahead and bring them inside. Here, I'll help you get them to the tree." Ryder replied while following her to her car to get the presents she brought.

Jake finished his drink and threw the empty can away before entering the lookout, with Carlos following behind shortly. Ryder and Katie eventually joined them after making sure they got all the presents.

Inside the lookout, the pups were all playing games with one another while they waited for Ryder, Jake, Carlos, and Katie to get everything ready. Sierra was watching them from the couch as they brought the presents inside and put them down, surrounding the tree. She immediately noticed a lot of the wrapped presents were in the shape of bones, probably treats for the others. While most of the others were boxes. Again, probably for the others she assumed. The reason she assumed they were all for the others was that she also assumed that the collar Ace gave her a week ago was her early Christmas present, which she'd happily accept her crimes being forgiven and joining the PAW Patrol as her present that year.

She was surprised when she glanced at one of the tags on one of the larger presents and saw that it said 'From: Ryder, To: Sierra.' on it. Now she was thinking about a bunch of different things, trying to decipher what it could possibly contain, when Ace walked over to her.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Ace asked her, being able to tell from her facial expression that she was thinking very hard about something.

"Trying to decipher what could possibly be in my present." Sierra replied, pointing to the box that had her name on it. "Wasn't the box you gave me in the hospital a week ago my Christmas present?" Sierra asked him.

"Uhh... yes, and no? People commonly get multiple presents anyway, why are you so surprised that you got one?" Ace asked her, confused. Sierra looked down at the ground and something clicked in Ace's head. "You do celebrate Christmas, Right?"

"Not really, I haven't celebrated it on this scale since I lived in Polska, and that was many years ago." Sierra replied, trying not to look at anyone.

"So this is your first real Christmas since you arrived here?" Ace asked, wanting to make sure.

"Yeah, I guess so..." Sierra replied.

"Well, I guess we have to make this one good then." Ace said, trying to cheer her up.

"You can try, but I guarantee you it won't work." Sierra responded, Ace didn't know how exactly to respond to that and just went silent. Shortly after, Ryder and Katie finished piling up all the presents around the tree. Now all they were waiting on was for Sledge and Static to finally arrived, which they weren't sure exactly when they would.

At the Adventure Bay Fire Station

Sledge and Static was helping everyone decorate the fire station for Christmas, making sure everything was ready before they departed to join Ryder and them at the lookout. Admittedly, they had never been to the lookout, and only heard of what the inside of the tall tower looked like from stories Marshall told them all. They knew it had an elevator, from Marshall telling them about his clumsiness. And they knew it's general interior shape. Again, from Marshall's stories. But anything more than that was a complete mystery to them.

Finally, they eventually finished helping everyone decorate and began heading out of the fire station and hopped into Static's personal vehicle, before beginning the short drive to the lookout.

"So... this is our first time meeting everyone in the PAW Patrol, must be nervous huh?" Sledge asked his friend, he tilted his head toward him, waiting for a response. Static simply nodded in response, not really paying attention to him, and kept driving. "Oh, right. You're not much of a talker." Sledge said, remembering that Static was silent.

They soon arrived at the lookout, as it was only a couple minutes from the fire station, and parked the car. They then hopped out and began walking to the lookout doors, admiring the large tower as they approached.

"I can't believe Marshall lives here! If this is only the outside, I can't imagine what the inside looks like." Sledge said as the automatic doors of the lookout opened for him. Sledge and Static entered the building and saw most of the pups playing in the main room. The only one who had noticed them was Sierra, who was also the only one not playing, instead laying on the couch watching everyone. The two firepups and her stared at one another in complete silence until Sledge got everyone's attention.

"Hey everyone, is the party already started?" Sledge asked, almost immediately being dogpiled by everyone. Sierra, still laying on the couch, looked down at him while trying not to crack a smile.

"Yeah, get used to that. It'll happen a lot." Sierra told him. Trust me, I found out the hard way. Sierra thought to herself, remembering her first day at the lookout after finally getting out of the hospital when she got squished by everyone upon entering the property.

Sledge eventually managed to wrestle everyone off of him and got up. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle that everytime I visit." Sledge said, worried for himself.

"Just be lucky you ain't Ryder." Sierra responded. "I've only been here less then a week and I've already seen him get dogpiled three different times." Sledge looked over at the leader of the PAW Patrol with a concerned expression upon hearing this, which the pups all responded to by giggling a little.

Now that everyone was there, the pups began finding places to sit around the Christmas tree. While their owners sat on the couch, waiting for them to find their places before giving out the presents. Sierra was already on the couch, and they weren't going to force her to move, so she just stayed there. While Ace decided to sit on the ground next to her.

Once everyone was in their places, Jake, being the oldest, got up and walked over to the tree to begin giving out the presents (At Ryder's insistence that he do it this year).

Sierra watched as he gave out presents to each of the other pups, while she eyed the box that had her name on it. Her curiosity was only going up overtime and the wait was killing her, she had zero patience when it came to waiting for something. Eventually, Jake picked up her present and called out her name before lightly tossing it toward her. She caught it (Which was impressive, as she only had paws) and laid it down on the couch. She stared at it for a couple moments before using one of her claws as if it was a knife or razor and cutting the tape that held it together, she then pried the box open fully and looked inside.

She was shocked for a moment before a smile grew on her face. She picked up what was inside and raised it out of the box. It was her own, personal puptag. A symbol of a gear, to represent her as the inventor of the team, with the phrase 'Pax Vobiscum' curving around it.

"Thanks Ryder." Sierra whispered to her new owner sitting next to her, still holding her smile.

"You're welcome." Ryder whispered back to her. "You all still have one more present by the way." Ryder said to the pups while standing up and swapping places with Jake.

"We do?" Sierra asked, a bit surprised.

"What is it?" Ace asked, curious what it could be. The other pups, knowing the tradition, simply stared at them smiling.

Ryder picked up and unwrapped all the bone shaped presents before turning toward all the pups. "Here you go!" Ryder said before tossing the treats toward them to catch. "A reward for you all being good pups this year."

Each pup leaped up into the air and caught their respective treats before quickly eating it. Except for Sierra, who's treat smacked her in the face before falling onto the couch in front of her, causing some of the others to giggle. How have I been good this year? Sierra thought to herself before shrugging and eating the treat.

"I guess we may need to play fetch until you get better at catching stuff." Ace whispered to her, jokingly. Sierra responded by giving him a death stare which made him laugh a little.

Now that all the presents had been opened and everyone was together in the main room, the main Christmas celebration itself began. As everyone celebrated, singing Christmas songs, Marshall and Everest happened to be sitting under the mistletoe. No one even noticed the mistletoe yet, but Chase and Ace were eyeing it, smiling.

Soon, once they finished the current song, Ryder, Katie, and Carlos left the room to get something from the basement. Zuma then noticed the mistletoe and mimicked the two shepherds smile, except he had to say something.

"Hey, lovebirds, look up." Zuma said, obviously talking about them. Marshall was about to defend himself from the lovebird accusation until he glanced upward and saw it.

Both Marshall and Everest looked at one another, blushing. Chase and Ace were trying their best not to laugh as Zuma looked at them with a smug grin. Zuma didn't make it any better when he hinted at the tradition, and he could feel the Dalmatian staring daggers into him out of the corner of his eyes.

After a couple moments of just staring at each other, awkwardly, the two pups leaned closer to one another, and followed the tradition of the mistletoe. Finally completing a part of the two shepherds plot.

Meanwhile, at the City Hall

A black limousine, trimmed with gold and marked with a logo bearing the initials J.J, pulled up to the City Hall of Adventure Bay, where the mayor was holding a large Christmas party.

The limousine stopped in front of the city hall and out of it came a tuxedo-clad german shepherd wearing his signature green necktie, followed by a blue shepherd wearing a fancy black dress, also with a green necktie.

A butler that worked for the rich shepherd, named Gibson, shut the door behind the two canines before signalling to the driver, causing the limo to begin driving off. The two shepherds and Gibson then began walking to the front door of the city hall while having a short discussion.

"So this is Adventure Bay huh? Doesn't look very small to me." Juniper said, questioning her description of the town.

"It must've grown significantly since I was last here, I don't recognize most of this." Sylvia responded, looking around at the large buildings that surrounding her. "The city hall hasn't changed one bit though." She said while admiring the large building in front of them.

"Looks like a nice town here, but I am curious about one thing." Juniper said before turning back and gesturing toward the gold statue of chickaletta. "What's with the golden chicken statue?"

"Oh, that's a statue of the mayor's chicken. Her name is chickaletta." Sylvia replied.

"The mayor has a pet chicken?" Juniper asked her.

"Oh yes, Chickaletta is even the deputy mayor of Adventure Bay." Sylvia replied, Juniper was too shocked upon hearing this to respond further.

As the two shepherds arrived at the front doors of the City Hall, Gibson opened the door for them, which Sylvia thanked him for. He then shut the door behind him as he entered, after the other two entered first of course. Upon entering City Hall, Juniper and Sylvia looked around and saw the interior filled with powerful people not only from Adventure Bay, but even from some neighboring towns as well.

"This 'Mayor Goodway' person is definitely very good at decorating." Juniper exclaimed as he admired the Christmas decorations set up everywhere. "They even have a 5 meter tall Christmas tree!"

Sylvia laughed quietly a little before replying. "Yeah, Ms Goodway sure loves decorating." Sylvia said as she slowly followed Juniper around.

Gibson tapped his master to get his attention before pointing to someone in the distance. "Sir, the Mayor you wanted to see is over there." Gibson informed him, Juniper thanked him, which surprised Gibson. "Of course sir." Gibson replied.

Juniper walked up to a lady dressed in blue that Gibson had pointed out and tapped her on the shoulder. The lady turned around and smiled upon seeing him.

"Oh, Mr. Juniper! It's an honour to have you here today." Mayor Goodway greeted him.

"Of course, of course. You must be Mayor Goodway of this fine town?" Juniper asked, wanting to know if he had the right person.

"Yes, that's me." Mayor Goodway replied, a small chicken then walked over to them and stood next to Goodway, staring at Juniper with a clear sign of distrust. "Oh, hello there Chickaletta." Mayor Goodway greeted her pet chicken.

"I don't think the Deputy Mayor is very fond of you, sir." Gibson pointed out, referring to the distrustful stare his master was getting from Chickaletta.

"Yeah, I see that." Juniper responded, staring back at Chickaletta.

Mayor Goodway picked up Chickaletta and held her in her arms as she spoke to the famous shepherd. "I'm sorry Mr. Juniper, she normally isn't like this, I'm not sure what's wrong with her today." Mayor Goodway apologized.

"Oh, it's fine. The Deputy Mayor could've simply had a bad day." Juniper replied, he put on a fake smile to be polite, but inside, he already hated this chicken.

"Yeah... a bad day..." Mayor Goodway whispered while trying to calm down Chickaletta. "So, what brings you here Mr. Juniper?" Mayor Goodway asked.

"Just came by to visit. See how the world famous PAW Patrol is taking care of their home town. Y'know, the standard stuff." Juniper replied. He then turned toward the large crowd of people nearby, and noticed they were all dancing very elegantly. "What are they doing?" Juniper asked, gesturing to the crowd with one of his paws.

"Oh, they're dancing. It's one of our traditions during Christmas. I assume it's only a canadian thing?" Mayor Goodway replied.

"No, no, we do it as well. It's just, we only dance elegantly like this when the royalty is present." Juniper responded, watching the crowd. "Is anyone allowed to join in the dance or is it only for...'them'?" Juniper asked her.

"Anyone can join in, I'll probably join in a couple minutes." Mayor Goodway replied.

Juniper then turned toward Sylvia and kneeled. "A dance? m'lady?" Juniper asked her, Sylvia smiled and accepted the offer.

Back at the lookout

Most of the pups were still celebrating Christmas, in the classic ways. While Marshall was sitting next to the door, still embarrassed from the mistletoe incident that happened earlier.

Suddenly, Everest walked up to him and asked him if he could meet her outside and that she wanted to tell him something that's been plaguing her mind for months, even years. Marshall was silent for a moment but agreed and followed her outside the lookout, where Everest led him to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the bay.

"So... What did you want to tell me Eve?" Marshall asked, a bit worried.

"It's related to the mistletoe thing that happened earlier." Everest replied, Marshall's mood immediately changed upon hearing this, but then Everest continued. "Over the last couple months, I've noticed a sort of bond form between us and many hints to such a bond. Like the ice hearts on the mountain, the play we did together last week, and then the... mistletoe."

Marshall stood there, not fully paying attention to her as she spoke, while also thinking about the events that happened between them over the last couple months. "I wanted to ask you though, do you want to become something more?" Everest asked him, Marshall snapped back to reality upon hearing this.

"W-What?" Marshall stuttered, shocked that she'd asked him this, especially after what happened.

"Y'know, like a relationship?" Everest asked, shyly. She wasn't a hundred percent sure if Marshall like her as well still, but she was banking on Sierra being correct and hoping he did.

"Uhh... s-sure, yes!" Marshall excitedly replied, he couldn't believe Everest had finally asked him.

"R-Really?" Everest asked, expecting it to be some kind of joke.

"Y-Yes, really!" Marshall replied, now wearing the same wide smile he was semi known for at this point. "I didn't think you'd ever ask me." Marshall told her.

Chase and Skye were on the balcony at the top of the lookout. They could hear Marshall and Everest's conversation from there and were staring at one another, giggling.

"Those two are honestly made for eachother." Skye stated, she then leaned her head on the shoulder of the shepherd sitting next to her and stared out into the stars. "Sort of reminds me of when you asked me to become your mate."

"Except that we haven't gone public yet, and I don't think they'll keep their relationship secret." Chase pointed out.

"And you think Marshall isn't too nervous to inform everyone?" Skye asked him, they then watched as Marshall and Everest walked toward the lookout and entered before starting to inform the others of then getting together, at which point the lookout doors shut, making it so they couldn't hear them anymore.

Chase looked up at the cockapoo with a smug grin. "You were saying?" Chase replied to her.

Skye was a bit amazed before coming up with a plan to get payback against Chase. She turned back to the shepherd and gave him a smile. "Y'know, those two shared a kiss earlier under the mistletoe, yet we've failed to share one today, until now." Skye said as she looked up at the shepherd, who was now blushing a little.

"I mean, if you want-" Chase stopped to glance around the top floor of the lookout, seeing that it was devoid of life. "-we can, no one's up here to see us." Chase told her.

"Sounds good to me." Skye said flirtingly before leaning toward the police pup. Chase leaned toward her as well, giving her a small kiss. Which Skye didn't think was enough, so she grabbed his uniform collar and pulled him back toward her.

Once she was done, she stepped back a bit and smiled at him. "Merry Christmas Chasey~"

The End

That's the end of Chapter 13, and the end of this story. Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for reading.

1) while writing this story, I think I discovered that my writing weakness is probably romance. Still haven't found my strength yet, but I'll discover that one day.

2) to clear up something my friend pointed out to me when he was helping me proofread this, Juniper and Sylvia are not intended to be a couple (As hinted in "Romeo and Juliet - Part 2", Juniper is meant to be asexual). If you do ship them however, don't let this stop you.

3) thanks to FoxFire and Schell Games for the inspiration to make this story. (Schell Games inspired the character of Wilhelm Juniper, who is based on the character of John Juniper. It's also hinted that John Juniper (J.J) was his owner in this universe)

As always, If you ever want to use any of my OCs or expand on one of my stories. Feel free to! I don't mind. Also, If you want any of your OCs in one of my stories then feel free to ask and I'll find a way to include them.

-König Der Könige