Chapter 3: Emergency Swim

Back at The Lookout, Snowflake and Ned were on the top floor, taking turns looking around at the surrounding area through The Lookout telescope. Currently it was Snowflake who was using it, trying to stay concentrated and focused to hopefully notice something new that she hadn't already seen. She was currently aiming the telescope in the direction of Jake's mountain, and could faintly see what looked like a log cabin on a small plateau near the top of the mountain.

"Woah, I think I can see the ski resort from here!" Snowflake exclaimed, kind of shocked.

"Are you serious?" Ned asked, not believing her at first. Snowflake then moved out of the way to let him see for himself. "Woah, that's amazing! I can even see individual logs of the walls." Ned muttered, shocked at the level of detail that the telescope was picking up from so far away.

Ned then hopped off the telescope to let Snowflake continue staring at different areas around the bay. Meanwhile, he was staring down at the town through the window when something caught his eye.

There was a canine swimming toward the beach. Which wouldn't be unusual in itself as plenty of people were at the beach and a lot of them were swimming in the bay. What was unusual was how far out in the bay they were; being almost in the center of it. Much further out than anyone should've been.

"Hey, do you see that?" Snowflake asked. Ned quickly turned his head toward where the telescope was pointing, seeing a group of people surrounding a tree, although he couldn't discern what exactly was happening due to the distance.

"I see something. Looks like a group of people. I can't tell what they're doing though." Ned replied.

"There's a cat stuck in the tree. I can see Katie there, which means it's likely Cali. I also see Farmer Yumi. There's a few more people as well but I don't recognize any of them." Snowflake explained. She then moved from the telescope again to let Ned see for himself. And as she said, there was indeed a cat in the tree.

"Do you think they need our help?" Ned asked.

"I dunno. They seem to be handling it themselves." Snowflake replied. The two continued to watch as Farmer Al walked over with a ladder in hand, before proceeding to climb up and get the cat down from the tree. "See? Handled." Snowflake said.

"This must be a regular occurrence for them if they just have a ladder on standby." Ned said.

"To be fair, ladders are always helpful to have around. You never know when you'll need one, like when you need to grab something off of a really high shelf." Snowflake responded.

"Wouldn't a step stool be more convenient for that scenario?" Ned asked.

"Step stools are just smaller ladders, for smaller situations." Snowflake joked. "And for smaller shelves."

She then continued looking around through the telescope. She was staring at the large suspension bridge when she noticed something; splashing underneath the bridge. Upon closer inspection, there was a canine swimming through the bay.

"Ned, we might have a problem." Snowflake said after watching them for a moment. She then noticed that their head was tilted backwards, while their mouth seemed to be hanging open; two important signs of someone drowning.

"We have a serious problem!" Snowflake told him, jumping off the telescope and running toward the slide across the room. Ned barely had enough time to hear what she said before Snowflake disappeared. He quickly followed behind, concerned by what she had said, but having no clue what she saw.

Snowflake slid down the slide, looping around the lookout before flying off the slide and landing on an empty parking spot. She then began running down the hill just as Ned reached the bottom of the slide, trying to catch up to her.

"What happened?" Ned asked.

"Someone's drowning at the beach. We need to hurry!" Snowflake replied.

Meanwhile, Moby kept swimming towards the land but wasn't getting closer. It was as if he was being denied permission to go on land.

"Oh yeah, mer-pup magic. Ugh. Okay, time to fix this..." Moby sighed before swimming down underwater. Looking around, he could see in the distance, the lit up city of Puplantis. Moby quickly swam back, pushing his muscles harder then normal to work. Once he got to the city, Moby found a nearby Mer-pup and tapped them on the shoulder. Moby held out his paw before the aquatic friend paw-bumped him.

"Perfect!" Moby said before he started to swim back to shore. However, even with the magic of his Mer-Pup form turning him into a normal pup, as well as pushing him towards the surface, Moby was getting tired. Soon, he surfaced again as he kept swimming. It didn't take long for them to reach the shore. And, thankfully, the canine was still above water, although obviously struggling to stay up.

Snowflake and Ned then began trudging through the waters of the bay, Snowflake got to them first and began pulling them back toward the shoreline, with Ned arriving soon after and assisting. After a minute or two, they successfully reached the beach and climbed out of the rough waters.

Almost immediately, Moby fell forward onto the sand; exhausted from the extremely long distance he had just swam. Meanwhile, both Snowflake and Ned were running on pure adrenaline, not expecting to have to perform a rescue on what was supposed to be a simple house watching job.

"Are you okay?" Ned asked, wanting to guarantee they were alright.

"Yeah, just exhausted. Why…is this place…so far…away?" Moby replied, taking a breath between every other word.

"Far away?" Ned questioned, now slightly confused.

"Far away from where?" Snowflake asked, curious what they were talking about.

"Puplantis!" Moby replied. "It felt like it took a whole hour to get here."

"I'm sorry, you swam all the way here, from where!?" Snowflake asked, kind of shocked.

"Isn't Puplantis like several miles away?" Ned asked.

"More like several dozen." Snowflake replied, she then turned back toward Moby. "No wonder you're exhausted. You just swam further today than I have the entire month so far." Snowflake pointed out.

"You're telling me that like I wasn't aware of that fact. I could've swore it didn't take nearly this long to get here last time." Moby responded. He then slowly stood up, although with severe difficulty.

"If he's from Puplantis, is he a Merpup?" Ned asked Snowflake in a whisper.

"I'm not sure. Merpups don't normally have legs, and he clearly has legs. Although maybe they do? I haven't actually seen one before." Snowflake whispered back. "My question is why would he be here instead of the festival? Marshall mentioned that the Mermoon is a pretty big deal for them."

"Maybe he came to meet up with Ryder and them? There's only one way to know," Ned said. He then turned back toward Moby. "If you are from Puplantis, why did you come all the way out here? Shouldn't you be at the festival?" Ned asked him.

"No, of course not! That dumb festival is too loud and annoying for my liking." Moby replied. "They do it every month, and they just get louder, and more crazy about it each time. I came here solely to get away from it."

"I understand a celebration of that size must be really loud. Like, incredibly loud. But don't you think you're being a bit…harsh toward them?" Snowflake asked.

"You clearly have never been there before. They celebrate everything! The Mer-Moon, the Mer-Race, even the PAW Patrol! And they don't even operate in Puplantis!" Moby replied.

"Well from what we heard, they are honored guests, so they technically are allowed to help out," Snowflake countered thoughtfully.

Moby just sighed with annoyance. At least he was safe here.