The next day...
In an apartment building, not too far away from the police station, a Dalmatian was walking down a hallway, looking for a very specific room number.
In the room
A Rottweiler was in his room, talking frantically to someone on the phone. he was the trusted friend that the stray pup had given the briefcase to. However, he also had to give the briefcase to someone else, and that person was the one he was speaking to.
As he was speaking to the person on the other end, he heard the door to his apartment open and shut. The Rottweiler quickly turned, seeing a Dalmatian at the doorway, a sign that his life was about to come to an end.
The Rottweiler tried to grab a handgun that he kept on the counter to defend himself, but by the time he raised the barrel and aimed at the Dalmatian, it was too late.
*bang*
The window behind him was covered in red, and the Rottweiler fell to the ground, dead. The Dalmatian hastily searched around the small apartment, but failed to locate the briefcase, as it was already long gone. They then turned and rushed out the apartment door, heading straight for the exit. However, they didn't expect to already hear sirens approaching the apartment complex, which they probably should've, since the Police Department was across the street.
The Dalmatian decided to change escape plans and began heading for the staircase before rushing up them to get to the roof. They had another plan to escape.
Meanwhile, at the lookout
Ace and Sierra were sitting at the window, side by side, staring out at the storm as it pounded the window with rain. Sierra always hated storms. The loud sound of the thunder, mixed with the darkness, just always filled her with despair. However, Sierra felt a hint of joy while sitting with Ace, something about him being there just soothed her.
Soon however, they both heard footsteps approaching them. They turned to see no other than Zuma approaching them, with the most serious look in his eyes they had ever seen.
"What's wrong Zuma?" Ace asked, concerned for his friend.
"Do you think evewyone is okay?" Zuma asked, worried that someone was in danger down in the town.
"I'm not sure, this storm looks pretty harsh." Ace replied, glancing out the window at the downpour.
"It's beyond harsh, I haven't seen a storm this bad in years." Sierra added, sharing the same concern Zuma had.
"Is everyone in the lookout alright?" Ace asked the Labrador, hoping all his friends were safe and inside.
"Yeah, Evewest said she's going to stay hewe fow the day. She doesn't want to go back to the resowt in this weathew, I don't blame hew." Zuma replied, also glancing out the window.
"Me neither, I wouldn't want her to travel in this weather either." Sierra responded.
The three of them continued staring out the window at the downpour until Zuma eventually separated from them to go check on Rocky. Sierra and Ace stayed for a moment before they both got called to the main room by Ryder.
Upon entering, they saw all the other pups sitting in a circle around Ryder. Ace and Sierra looked at one another with a look of worry before joining the others. They all glanced at each other before looking up at Ryder.
"Alright pups, let's get straight to the point. The Police Department called us, requesting assistance to a call of gunshots being heard at an apartment complex in Adventure Bay. Now, I know none of you want to go outside right now, due to the storm." As Ryder said this, all the other pups slowly turned to face Zuma, who responded with a confused expression. Ryder looked between everyone before ignoring their looks and continuing. "But we still have to do our jobs and help the people."
"I assume me and Ace are the ones that'll be responding to this call?" Chase asked his leader.
"Yes, Chase. I'm sending you and Ace to respond to them. Just, please be safe." Ryder replied, worrying for his second-in-command.
"Don't worry Ryder sir, we will." Chase insisted, him and Ace then went to get their gear. Since it was a reported gunshot call, this gear included the IIIA vests that Chase owned, just in case the shooter was still on scene.
The two police pups then went to leave the lookout, entering the pouring rain outside. They both made their way to the Fuchs and hopped inside, they decided to use the Fuchs because, unlike Chase's truck, it actually had a cabin protecting them from the rain. Ace turned on the engine and they began making their way to the crime scene.
At the crime scene
The Dalmatian exited the stairway onto the roof and looked around franticly, spotting a ladder nearby that went down the side of the building. They ran over to it and looked down, the ladder led to an alleyway that ended at a street not too far away, it wasn't the best method, but it went in the opposite direction the cops were currently in, so they took it.
Upon arriving at the bottom of the ladder, the Dalmatian quickly glanced around, spotting a camera not too far away, before rushing down the alleyway to escape.
As they were running however, something fell out of their jacket, landing on the concrete below. It went unnoticed by the Dalmatian, as they kept running until they arrived on the street. They then slowed down, trotting away from the scene, free for another day.
Back with Chase and Ace
The Fuchs arrived at the crime scene and parked outside. The two police pups proceeded to leave the vehicle before heading inside, immediately being greeted by Artemis and Magnum.
"Where's Hunter?" Chase asked, wanting to know where the detective was.
"Fourth floor, investigating the crime scene for evidence." Artemis replied, gesturing up to the roof as she spoke.
"Thanks." Chase thanked her before him and Ace made their way to the staircase, Chase stopped at the door and turned back to Artemis. "You not going to come with?" Chase asked.
"No, I'm going to stay here. I can't bring myself to see another body." Artemis replied, clearly upset about the lives she couldn't save.
"And I'm going to stay here to comfort her. You go along, boss." Magnum added, putting a paw around Artemis, trying to cheer her up.
"I understand." Chase responded before entering the stairway. Him and Ace then began climbing the stairs up to the fourth floor.
As they were climbing the stairs of the apartment complex, Ace was thinking about the last time something horrible had happened a little under a week ago. He still couldn't believe they had an active murderer around, especially in such a nice place like Adventure Bay.
As they both reached the fourth floor and began walking down the hallway, heading for the room where it happened. Ace prepared himself to see the worst. Despite being pepared, when they both finally arrived, Ace was still broken upon seeing the body.
"Cause of death?" Chase asked the bloodhound who was examining the body.
"Gunshot wound, same as last time. Once again, bullet wound matches that caused by a .44" Hunter replied, standing up and stepping back.
"It was very recent too." Chase pointed out, judging from the fact that the blood hadn't fully coagulated yet. "This must've just happened."
"Ace, go ahead and look around with the blacklight." Hunter ordered, Ace called out his blacklight from his puppack and began searching for fingerprints, expecting to find nothing if it was the same as last time.
Chase also began examining the scene, looking for any hint of who could've done it. They already knew the breed and other details about the killer thanks to the camera footage from last time, but canines are tricky to catch. Afterall, they don't have fingerprints like humans do.
After a couple minutes of examining the crime scene, the two shepherds came up empty, Hunter was even beginning to run out of ideas. This was clearly a new problem, during all the time since the ABPD was founded, they had never had to hunt down a canine at a scene like this. They had no ideas, or technology to assist, on how they were supposed to catch them. Then Ace proposed a idea.
"You know how Dalmatians have spots, right?" Ace asked, leading into his idea on how to catch them.
"Yeah?" Chase and Hunter replied, not entirely sure where he was going with this.
"Two Dalmatians never have the same spots, everyone has a different pattern, just like fingerprints. Why don't we just examine the footage again, figure out the spot pattern, then compare it to the known Dalmatians in Adventure Bay?" Ace proposed.
"You have a point, but do you know how many Dalmatians live here?" Hunter responded, liking the idea but also pointing out how impractical it was.
"Also, the one on the camera footage matched Marshall's perfectly. So either the suspect hit the genetic lottery, or that won't work, because they probably dyed their coat to match Marshall's." Chase pointed out.
All three of them then received a call from Artemis, asking them to meet her in the lobby, as she and Magnum had found something potentially huge. Chase and Ace went to see what she had found, while Hunter stayed behind, continuing to examine the scene, despite how hopeless catching the suspect seemed.
Upon reaching the lobby, Chase and Ace saw Artemis, holding a small square object in her paw. When she noticed them, she quickly trotted over to them and showed them the object.
"Me and Magnum went to search around the property and we found this in the alleyway behind the building!" Artemis explained, acting like they had broken the enigma code.
"What is that?" Ace asked, not recognizing the strange device that Artemis was holding.
"It's a floppy disk. It must've fallen off the suspect as they were fleeing the scene." Aremtis replied.
"If we can find a way to examine what's on it, this could be huge." Chase said, delighted that they finally found something that could be linked back to the suspect.
"We have a floppy disk drive back at the station, we could use it to read the disk and see what it contains." Magnum pointed out.
"Sure, let's do it." Chase responded, the four police pups then left the building and headed for the station.
At the lookout
Sierra was sitting in her room, trying to hide from the sounds of the storm. She absolutely hated storms; the rain, the thunder, the bright flashes of lightning, she hated all of it. Being with Ace did soothe her earlier, but he was now gone, out on a mission, so she had nothing to distract her from the storm now.
*Boom*
The sudden loud thunder outside caused Sierra to hop onto her bed and grab a nearby pillow, trying to cover her ears with the pillow. Somewhat succeeding.
I really need to make some canine-adapted noise cancelling headphones. Sierra thought to herself, wishing she had thought ahead. She then heard someone knock on her door. startled, but curious, she called out. "Who is it?"
"It's Everest!" Everest called back. Sierra laid her head down onto the bed before replying.
"Come in!" Sierra called out, inviting then in. She waited for a moment before hearing the door open and the familiar husky walk in. "Hey Eve."
"Hey Sarah, you alright?" Everest asked, concerned for the pure white husky.
"Ye-" Sierra paused for a moment. "No, I'm not." Sierra replied, shoving her head deeper into the bed and closing her eyes, wishing the storm would just end.
"I assume it's the storm?" Everest asked, hating that one of her best friend was seemingly terrified.
"Yeah..." Sierra mumbled, still shoving her head into the bed.
"Y'know, if you continue doing that, you'll turn your head into a pancake." Everest told her.
"It's physically impossible. The bed is too soft and my muscles are too weak to be capable of that." Sierra pointed out, using physics to explain her side.
"Sarah- Okay fine, you won't become a pancake, but can you please just stop and look at me?" Everest requested, wanting to see her best friends face.
"No!" Sierra replied defiantly, shoving her head further into the bed. Everest audibly sighed as she held the edge of her snout with one of her paws.
"Sarah, please?" Everest begged, Sierra tried to resist but eventually gave in.
"Ahh fine! You win!" Sierra grumbled, raising her head and looking at the husky. Everest was clearly much happier now that she could see her. Immediately, Everest grabbed Sierra and pulled her into a hug, probably a bit too tight.
At the police station
Chase, Ace, Artemis, and Magnum were in the station, surrounding a floppy disk drive. All of them were taking deep breaths, preparing to see what could possibly be on the disk. Artemis, the one holding the floppy disk, stepped forward and inserted the disk into the drive.
They all waited a moment before a single image loaded onto a monitor next to the drive. The image contained an emotionless white mask, covered in bright blue spots, and clearly fitted to a canines face. They all continued waiting, expecting something else, but nothing came.
"Really? That's it?" Ace asked, just more confused now. Artemis went up to the machines and began examining them, trying to find something more.
"That was very anticlimactic." Chase replied, disappointed at the end result.
"Wait guys! There's more!" Artemis stated as she stared at the monitor. "It's trying to play an audio recording."
"What? Who uses a floppy disk to record audio!?" Ace asked, a bit shocked to hear that this tiny disk contained audio.
"I mean, theoretically, it's possible for a floppy disk to hold audio. It just can't hold very much. Maybe a minute or two at most, and that's pushing it." Magnum replied.
"Jesus Mag, you're making me feel old." Chase said with a laugh. He then turned to Artemis. "What's on the recording?" Chase asked, curious now.
"That's what we're about to find out." Artemis said as she began playing the recording. It took a moment, but soon, they began hearing what was on the disk.
Hello sir, the mask is finished and ready for demonstration. Someone said.
Good, where is it? A second person asked.
Right here sir. The first person replied, presumably giving the mask to the other person.
Woah, it's almost an exact replica. The second person exclaimed.
Yes sir, we've dubbed it, the 'Mimic Mask'. The first person said, they then heard the second person putting on the mask before a bunch of mechanical sounds played.
Woah. The second person said, stunned. So this'll let me turn into whoever I desire?
Yes, you can change your appearance to whomever you decide. The only limitation is size. A third person explained. You can only mimic someone that is of a similar size to you.
They then heard a bunch more mechanical noises, presumably the sound of the second person changing into a bunch of different forms.
I love it! The second person exclaimed, clearly over the moon about this new piece of equipment. I want to test it out in the field.
The recording then ended as the four police pups stood there, completely shocked. None of them expected some kind of mimic to be behind this.
"H-How do we-" Artemis paused, leaning against a table, trying her best to make reason of the situation.
"Great, so we have someone who can change forms commiting crimes around the bay." Chase said.
"H-How can we possibly catch them?" Artemis asked, having no idea where to even begin.
"I don't think we can." Magnum replied. "How do we identify someone who can change appearances at will?"
"There has to be some way, it can't be impossible." Chase replied, believing there was a way to stop them. It can't be, can it? Chase thought to himself.
"Do you have any ideas on how?" Magnum asked. Chase didn't reply, as he had none.
Back at the lookout
Sierra and Everest were ascending in the elevator, up to the floor where they kept and maintained all the puppacks. Everest was trying to distract Sierra from the storm, and her idea was to ask Sierra for a showcase of all the new puppacks she made, which Sierra was happy to do.
Upon reaching the equipment floor, the two huskies left the elevator and approached the corner with all the new puppacks that were being built.
"Alright, so as you already know, you and Ace already have upgraded puppacks. Ace is likely using his as we speak. And I'm working on making Marshall a new one, to assist with fires and stuff. We've definitely had those a lot more often since Ryder originally built his puppack." Sierra said as she approached a familiar red puppack that was disassembled, one of Marshall's spare ones.
"I already assume oxygen tanks are a given to be added." Everest assumed.
"Yes, most definitely. Afterall, the ability to breathe is very important. I'm also probably going to combine his current puppack and his medical puppack, for ease of use." Sierra said as she looked between all the parts of Marshall's puppack.
"Will there be enough room for all of that?" Everest asked, wondering how she'd fit all that into one puppack.
"Very likely, yes. Now, it will have a reduced water tank size, being able to hold a couple gallons less than before as to make room for the other equipment. And the oxygen tanks will likely be outside the puppack, hooked up to the sides of it." Sierra replied.
"Huh, alright then. What are your plans for the others?" Everest asked while gesturing to the other puppacks.
"Dunno yet. I already have Rocky's mostly figured out, I think. I'm going to make him a little more specialized. I'll keep his claw, tools, etc. But I'm going to add some features to it, mostly relating to assisting AL. Like being able to mark a point for AL to go to, or mark an object for AL to pick up." Sierra explained.
"Woah, sounds complicated." Everest responded, trying to imagine what else Rocky would be able to do.
"Because it is. He'll basically be like a mothership, being able to control all of our... 'machines'... from wherever he's standing. AL, Robopup, even my drone, hopefully." Sierra replied, walking over to Rocky's spare puppack, which wasn't yet disassembled.
"Wait, did you say drone?" Everest asked, not knowing about a drone.
"Oh, right, none of you know yet. I'm working on a drone I can control from the server room so I can assist you all in missions. Right now, I can only help by building new equipment, I'd be more of a liability on the field if I came with, so I'm building a drone as an alternative." Sierra replied, explaining her idea with the drone. "Ryder is already aware and his puppad will be able to take control of the drone remotely, just in case I ever lose connection with it."
"That's good, it's never bad to have a backup plan." Everest said.
"Yep, always good to have a backup plan." Sierra agreed, nodding her head as she examined the puppacks. "By the way, I do have my own question."
"And I'd be happy to answer it! What is it Sarah?" Everest said, awaiting the question.
"What's with the gigantic meteor that's just... sitting there... behind you." Sierra asked while gesturing to the meteor that occasionally gave the pups their powers.
Everst turned around and glanced at the meteor, then back at Sierra. "That's the mighty meteor. It can give us special powers, different for every pup, to help us in certain missions." Everest replied.
"Huh, what powers do each of you get?" Sierra asked, extremely curious now.
"Chase gets super-speed, Marshall gets the ability to control fire, Skye gains the power to fly, Rocky can basically become a large magnet, Rubble gets super-strength, Zuma gets the ability to control water, as well as turn into water, and finally, I get the power to control ice. I'm basically the opposite of Marshall." Everest explained all their powers.
"Huh, opposites attract." Sierra muttered, referencing Marshall and Everest. "Is that it? Are there not other pups that have interacted with it?" Sierra asked.
"There used to be two pups on the team, a very long time ago, named Tuck and Ella. They were twins and got the power to shrink and grow respectively. They've long since left the team though, deciding to retire from the job back when they became adults." Everest replied, clearly missing her friends.
"Hmm, do you know what happened to them or where they are in life now?" Sierra asked, she wanted to meet these former members eventually.
"Unfortunately, no. Once they left the team, they disappeared off the radar. We've heard reports about them being spotted in Barkingburg occasionally, but we've never tried to track them down. If they want to separate from their past of the PAW Patrol, then we'll respect it." Everest explained.
"Really? Not even a note left behind?" Sierra asked, wondering why two famous members would just disappear off the earth so suddenly.
"Nope, they don't even send us Christmas cards. They've completely separated from us." Everest replied.
"Huh." Sierra muttered, curious and wondering what happened to these former members. Soon however, her thinking was interrupted by the loud crash of thunder outside.
*Boom*
Sierra immediately dove to the ground, startled and afraid because of the storm. Everest looked down at the poor husky and felt bad for her, she clearly did not like the mood of mother nature right now.
"Can I return back to my room now?" Sierra asked her friend, wanting to return to the place that gave her a small bit if comfort.
"Sure thing. Here, I'll accompany you on the way down." Everest replied, helping the husky up off the ground and walking her to the elevator, before beginning to descend down to the basement.
That's the end of Chapter 7.
The Man Behind The Mask has claimed another victim, yet has failed to secure the briefcase once more. It's also revealed that this mask gives him the ability to change form at will, and become anyone he so desires.
It's also revealed that Sierra is terrified of storms. Poor husky, hopefully Ace can cheer her up when he returns to the lookout.
Anyway, until the next chapter, bye everyone!
-König der Könige