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Chase knew something fishy was going on. And no, it wasn’t the smell of Zuma’s freshly gifted salmon from Cap’n Turbot.
Two weeks had passed since Rocky and Zuma’s wedding on the very same hill Skye had confessed to Chase. It was a simple ceremony. Ryder had officiated it, and all of the guests that were at Skye’s birthday party were invited. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the two pups were ecstatic, fitted in dashing tuxedos Katie had given them.
Only then did Ryder give them the worst possible news.
“Rocky…for being so good at technology, how did you not check the weather forecast?” asked Chase, pulling his and Zuma’s attention away from the Apollo the Super Pup rerun on the television.
Rocky scoffed, personally offended.
“I did check it! Three times every day that whole week!”
“Six times,” Zuma corrected, with a giggle.
“Okay, six times. The point is, there wasn’t supposed to be any rain! And then Ryder comes up and tells me, ‘looks like rain!’”
“He summoned the storm for wevenge…I accidentally knocked his pup-pad into the water one time we went to the beach.”
“Oh, Zuma…” Rocky licked his regretful face to reassure him. “Even though he can see the future doesn’t mean he’d use his powers against you, of all pups!”
“Wait…” Chase interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “He can see the future?”
“Were you not listening? He’s a pwophet!” exclaimed Zuma.
“A prophet!?”
Rocky nodded, closing his eyes while grinning.
“Yeah! You know, he said all my fur would be gone when he took off my bandages,” said Zuma. “Now, I figured my fur would be matted, but when he took them off…I was NAKED!”
“Zuma, we’re usually naked.”
“Lemme wephwase. I felt naked! Like a sphynx cat!”
“Hey!” Rocky barked. “They’re kinda cute!”
Zuma chuckled, pecking him on the cheek.
“I’m glad you think so, ’cause I was stuck looking like that for weeks.”
Chase stood up, shaking his head. “Oookay, y’know what, I’m gonna see what Marsh thinks of this.”
“You don’t need to tell us about your hour-long make-out session,” Rocky joked, making him and Zuma burst out in laughter.
Chase rolled his eyes, pouting. “See ya later, lovebirds.”
Knock! Knock!
“Oh, Chasey~! Come in!”
Chase smiled, opening Marshall’s puphouse door—only for Marshall’s arms to wrap around him and smother him in a long kiss, his tongue running along Chase’s teeth.
Chase gasped for air after Marshall finally pulled away.
“J-jeez, Marsh, what about ‘good morning?’”
Marshall giggled, pulling Chase inside with his paw.
The two lay down on Marshall’s dog bed. Marshall yawned, stretching his legs while Chase gazed at him. The Dalmatian looked up, meeting his eyes.
“You have that look…”
“A look?”
“That you wanna ask me something.”
Chase grinned, licking the back of Marshall’s ear.
“I do, actually…but it’s kind of silly…”
Marshall laughed. “Then you’ve come to the right pup!”
Chase hesitated, his ears falling back.
“Do you think…Ryder can predict the future?”
Marshall fell silent, staring into Chase’s uneasy brown eyes.
“You figured it out too?”
“W-wait, what?”
“Rubble was telling me earlier how Ryder knew he’d get a stomachache, and guess what? HE DID!”
Chase blinked his eyes a few times.
“Did he eat all the pup treats again?”
Marshall gasped, scooching away from the shepherd in horror.
“Don’t tell me you’re a prophet too!”
“Oh my god, not you too…”
“I’m gonna ignore that you just predicted the past…anyway, sometimes I hear him.”
“Hear him…?” Chase raised his eyebrow.
“Muttering.”
“Marsh, we talk to him every day.”
“No, no, not like this…you see, Ryder was reading a book and drinking some coffee when I heard him whisper, ‘he’s gonna trip on that.’”
Chase opened his snout to interject.
“—and I DID! On some kibble! And then the other day, it was stormy and Ryder said Cap’n Turbot would probably call. And guess what?”
“He ca—”
“HE CALLED!”
Chase sighed, standing up from the bed.
“Where’re you going?”
“I’m getting to the bottom of this. Next up is Rubble.”
“Ooh, you’re so sexy when you go all detective-mode~” Marshall flirted, wagging his tail.
Chase smirked, giving his boyfriend another long kiss on the muzzle before heading for his next suspect.
Rubble’s pretty grounded. Surely he’ll get to the point about what’s going on.
“A few nights ago, I was dreaming about building a mountain out of Legos…”
Chase groaned, already regretting his decision as he got the notion that Rubble wasn’t about to provide concrete evidence anytime soon.
“…the next morning, Ryder surprised me with a new box of Legos!”
“Aww, that’s really sweet!”
“Y-yeah, it was,” Rubble uttered, embarrassed. “But how did he know I wanted them?? He saw my dream!”
“…Where were you sleeping?” asked Chase.
“Oh, I fell asleep on the bean bag in the lobby.”
“Rubble. You sleep-talk.”
“He heard the dream!”
Chase facepalmed while the bulldog casually popped a pup treat in his mouth.
“Not to mention, I dreamt that Rocky got over his fear of water and played volleyball with us.”
“….RUBBLE! That was real!”
Rubble looked at the ceiling for a second before a grin spread across his face.
“Oh yeah…Zuma did help him with that!”
Chase reached into his bag of pup treats to take one for himself, getting bored already.
“Oh!” Rubble shouted, startling Chase.
“And you know that pup-pad of his? He watches us through it. All. The. Time.”
“How do you know this?” Chase questioned, a tinge of anxiety growing in his voice.
“Because last week, Rocky took Zuma to the hill Skye confessed to you on for a picnic. And when they got back, Ryder asked how their date was. He saw everything!”
“Any details??”
“Um…” Rubble pondered for a moment. “No, that’s all.”
“Rubble…our pup-tags have GPS on them for emer—”
“OH!”
Chase choked on his treat, hacking and wheezing until Rubble kicked him in the back, forcing a chunk of wet biscuit out.
“Last night, I was having a late night snack, and Ryder said I’d become obese!”
“What did he really say?” Chase asked, having walked away to get some water.
“…that my stomach would hurt. And it DID!”
“Yeah, no shit…” Chase mumbled to himself. “I’m…gonna see what Skye’s up to.”
Rubble waved the German shepherd out the door. “You’re welcome!”
Chase sluggishly walked to the backyard behind the Lookout, watching Skye practice flying with her mechanical wings.
Skye spotted Chase from above, waving as she flew down, though not without a dramatic backflip before she landed on the grass.
“Hey, Chase! Uh…” Skye looked closer.
“Why is your eye twitching?”
Chase put his paw on Skye’s shoulder.
“Skye, please, tell me I’m not crazy…”
Skye smirked. “Depends. What’s going on?”
“Pleaseee tell me you don’t think Ryder is some omniscient prophet.”
Skye stared at him for a few seconds before breaking into laughter.
“Are the others getting to ya? Well, I can’t deny it…but…I can tell you my side of the story.”
Chase whined as he flopped on the grass, soon followed by Skye sitting down next to him.
“When I was little, I doubted myself a lot. I thought I was too small and weak to ever be able to rescue anyone. But Ryder told me that I could do amazing things if I think outside the box.”
Chase looked up at her, seeing a sparkle of inspiration in her pink eyes.
“We played around with a few hobbies I found interesting, but when I tried flying a kite, I realized I wanted to be up there. In the sky. So he built me this pair of wings.”
Chase glanced at her pink pup-pack before meeting her melancholy gaze again.
“Soon enough, there I was with a helicopter of my own, and now I can save people in places that you guys can’t even reach,” she ended with a giggle, nudging Chase in the shoulder.
“Aww, Skye…somehow I never thought to ask during our first few months with Marshall. Your copter just kinda showed up one day,” Chase admitted, scratching his neck.
“I could say the same for you two!” Skye joked.
Chase smiled, taking a few moments to breathe in the fresh air and calm his mind.
“Thanks, Skye. That was…painfully sweet.”
Skye giggled. “No problem! But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta be somewhere.”
“Be where—”
Before Chase could get a response, Skye deployed her wings and flew back around the corner of the Lookout.
“Wishful thinking,” Chase muttered to himself as he began a slow walk back.
As Chase approached the back of the Lookout, he saw Rocky and Zuma carry something big out of the mutt’s puphouse between their teeth. Chase sprinted over, his desperation to solve the mystery roaring up again.
“Guys! What is the meaning of this!?”
The two pups gently set the object on the grass beside Rubble’s puphouse.
“Nothing,” said Zuma, with a dumb grin on his face.
“Then why do you have a keyboard?”
“For fun,” Rocky responded, checking something on his pup-tag.
“And the spotlight?”
Rubble audibly gulped from behind them in the driveway, sitting behind a beaten-up black spotlight.
“Special effects.”
“How long have you been preparing for this?”
“Define pwepawing,” said Zuma.
Before Chase could ask his next barrage of questions, a familiar voice called out.
“I’M HERE, I’M HERE!”
Chase whipped around to see Marshall sprinting toward them.
“Marsh, I swear to god—”
“PLACES, EVERYONE, PLACES!”
“For what!?”
Marshall sat down in front of the keyboard, taking a deep breath before his paws began to play.
“We don’t talk about Ryder, no, no, no!” sang Rocky, marching rhythmically past Chase as Rubble aligned the spotlight with his movements.
“We don’t talk about Ryder…but! It was my wedding day!”
“It was our wedding day!” Zuma chimed in, grinning.
Rocky rolled his eyes as Zuma raised him onto his hind legs to dance.
“We were getting ready and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky—”
“No clouds allowed in the sky!” exclaimed Zuma, waving his paw dramatically in the air. Rocky grunted as he continued.
“Ryder walks in with a mischievous grin—”
“Thunder!”
“You telling this story, or am I?” Rocky quipped with a lighthearted snarl.
Zuma playfully licked his neck, causing him to smirk. “I'm sowwy, Wocky, go on!”
“Ryder says, ‘it looks like rain,’”
“Why did he tell us?”
“In doing so, he floods my brain,”
“Marshall, get the umbwellas!”
“Married in a hurricane!”
Zuma snickered at his boyfriend’s exaggeration. “What a joyous day, but anyway!”
“We don't talk about Ryder, no, no, no!” the two sang in unison. “We don't talk about Ryder!”
“Hey!”
Chase jolted, whipping his head behind him to see none other than his clumsy boyfriend, Marshall.
“Grew to live in fear of Ryder stuttering or stumbl—woaaAH!”
As Marshall trotted forward, his large paw tripped over the other, causing the Dalmatian to fall flat on his face.
Chase gasped, rushing to his side to make sure he was okay.
“I’m fine!” Marshall shrilled, trying to hide the pain in his voice.
Before Chase could do anything else, Marshall dusted himself off and stood up. Rocky sighed as he took over the keyboard.
“I could always hear him sort of muttering and mumbling. I associate him with calling PAW Patrol,” Marshall continued in his whisper-like rap.
“PAW Patrol is on a roll!” chanted the pups.
“It's a heavy lift and responsibility, saving everybody from the city to the sea, grappling with prophecies because he sold his soul.”
“WHAT!?” barked Chase.
“It’s a hefty toll!” Marshall bounced back, giving him a quick peck on the snout.
Chase blushed, about to kiss back when he yelped, clutching his chest upon hearing Rubble’s voice.
“A seven-foot frame—”
“He’s five feet tall. Wait…”
Chase squinted at the bulldog wearing an Apollo costume from above, Marshall bathing him in the spotlight.
“Rubble, are you standing on a box?”
“No!”
“I can literally see the box.”
“Shush,” Rubble growled, clearing his throat to get back into his singing voice.
“—pawprints on his back. When he calls your name, it all fades to black.”
Chase groaned as Rubble covered his eyes with his paws.
“He’s asking us to come to the Look—”
“Yeah, he sees your dreams, and watches through his screen!”
“Heyyy!” the pups sang.
“We don't talk about Ryder, no, no, no! We don't talk about Ryder!”
Zuma stepped into the spotlight, presenting a smelly, dead fish in his paws.
“He told me, my fish would die, the next day—”
Zuma threw the salmon in the air before nearly gulping it down whole.
“—DEAD!”
Chase blankly stared at Zuma.
“Did you really keep that just to—”
“He told me, I'd grow a gut, and just like he said!” Rubble cried out, rolling onto his back and rubbing his belly.
Chase opened his snout, only for Zuma to leap in front of Rubble, proudly displaying a framed picture of himself with the fur on his upper body shaven down.
“He said that all my fur would disappear, now look at my legs!”
“No, no!” the pups cried, raising their paws to their foreheads.
“Your fate is sealed when your prophecy is read!”
Just when Chase thought he had a moment to process what was going on, his ears picked up on the distant whirring of an engine from overhead getting closer.
“S-Skye!?”
“He told me that the life—”
“WE CAN’T HEAR YOU, SKYE!” Marshall yelled to the cockapoo above.
The pups heard a frustrated grunt before Skye stuck a megaphone out from the edge of her helicopter, grinning.
“HE TOLD ME THAT THE LIFE OF MY DREAMS WOULD BE PROMISED, AND SOMEDAY BE MINE!”
“HEY! That’s my megaphone!” Chase barked.
Skye huffed, ignoring Chase’s growing agitation, as well as the others covering their ears, as she smugly continued her descent down.
“HE TOLD ME THAT I’D REACH NEW HEIGHTS, AND THAT SOMEDAY I’D SURELY SHINE!”
“Hey, by the way, Everest’s on her way!” Rubble announced, nonchalantly.
“WAIT, WHAT!?”
Marshall crouched down to Chase’s paws, gazing into his eyes from below.
“He told me that the pup of my dreams…”
Marshall reached out his paw, gently stroking Chase’s chest before quickly retracting it. “...would be just out of reach, betrothed to another!”
Marshall admonishingly pointed his other paw to Skye who had landed on the ground, earning a giggle from the cockapoo.
“It's like I hear him now…”
“Hey, Marsh,” said Skye, running over to him. “What time is Evie coming back?”
“It's like I can hear him now! I can hear him now!” Marshall kept singing before Skye grasped his shoulders and shook him, desperate for an answer.
“Uhm, Ryder,” began Chase.
“Yeah, about that Ryder…I really need to know about Ryder! Gimme the truth and the whole truth, Ryder!”
“Oh, Skye, your girlfriend’s here!” yelled Rubble, gesturing to the husky’s snowcat pulling up in the distance. Skye let out a yelp for joy, instantly leaving the scene to run to Everest.
Bleep! Bleep!
“Pups, time for dinner!” Ryder’s voice rang through their pup-tags.
Rubble immediately stood up. “Ooh! Let’s get going—”
“No! We’re finishing this!” Zuma growled, grabbing his tail.
“Wait, but who’s doing the keyboard?” asked Marshall.
“Scwew it! We’re acapella now!”
Rocky, Zuma, Marshall, and Rubble began to sing their respective parts at the same time, disgruntled that Skye had ditched them for the ensemble.
Plink!
Marshall tripped on the keyboard.
“Ouch!”
Rocky yelped as Zuma stepped on his foot.
“Sowwy!”
“Rubble, you’re off-pitch!” shrilled Marshall.
The spotlight shone aimlessly at the wall of Marshall’s puphouse while the pups danced and sang to the left.
Chase plopped down on his butt as he watched their theatrics, having given up on trying to understand what the hell was going on.
“She's here!” yelled Skye from afar.
“Don't talk about Ryder!” the pups sang.
“Why did I talk about Ryder?” Chase asked, pressing his paw against his forehead.
“Not a word about Ryder!”
“I never should've brought up Ryder!”
Ryder stuck his head out the door.
“Guys? Didn’t you hear me?”
The five pups gawked at their leader. Rocky and Zuma were holding onto each other, Rubble was standing on a box, Marshall was on the grass after falling again, and Chase’s eyes practically screamed “save me.”
“Sorry, Ryder!” said Marshall. “C’mon guys, I’m starving!”
Chase watched in bewilderment as the pups left their equipment just as quickly as they had put it up, following them inside.
Chase was beside himself.
He had gotten no answers the whole day. If anything, he was more lost now than before. The shepherd stayed silent as the others gobbled down their food like nothing had happened.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming, Evie!” Skye’s voice cooed from across the room.
Everest smiled, gazing lovingly at her girlfriend next to her.
“Well, I surprised you for your birthday, and you surprised me in your helicopter, so it was my turn again!”
“Aww, you’re so sweet…” Skye licked her snout affectionately, sharing liver-flavored saliva between their lips.
“Chase? Is something wrong?”
Chase met Ryder’s mildly concerned eyes.
“Yeah…everyone just performed an entire song about you being a prophet!”
“Really?” Ryder laughed, turning to the pups. “Was that what you were doing outside?”
“Yeah! It was a lot of fun!” exclaimed Marshall.
“Okay, first things first, Marsh. What did you mean by ‘sold his soul?’” Chase asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Huh…” Marshall hummed to himself before suddenly breaking into a grin. “Oh, that part!”
“YES, that part!”
“It rhymed with ‘roll.’”
Chase facepalmed.
“But who knows, maybe he did!”
Ryder looked as confused as ever, raising a finger to ask a question before Chase barked again.
“And what about the whole ‘pup of my dreams betrothed to another!?’”
“Oh…Ryder prophesied that you’d end up with Skye instead of me.”
“Wait, what?” quipped Ryder, perplexed. “Are you talking about when I reminded you of Skye’s date with Chase?”
“Yeah…” Marshall admitted, his ears drooping.
“Marsh…I didn’t know how you felt about Chase. None of us did.”
“I know…but it’s in the past. Now I’m with my wonderful, smart, handsome boyfriend~”
Marshall slid up beside Chase, rubbing his head against his chest.
Chase began to smile as his cute lover fluffed his fur. Maybe I don’t need to understand this…he’s happy, they’re happy, and after today, it’ll all be over…
“So…can Ryder actually see the future?” Everest asked.
The table fell silent.
Everyone leaned forward, looking toward Ryder.
“…No?”
Chase breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally.
“Although…”
Ryder smirked, looking in Rubble’s direction.
“Rubble’s about to spill his drink.”
“What!?” barked Rubble. “No, I’m n—”
With a strike of the paw, Rubble knocked his bowl of milk over, spilling its contents across the floor.
The pups stared at the mess, then back at Ryder.
“HE DID IT AGAIN!” Zuma shouted, grasping Rocky’s shoulders.
Chase sighed, burying his snout into his bowl of kibble.
“Chasey, you haven’t gotten a prophecy yet!” Marshall nudged him.
Chase slowly looked up, locking eyes with Ryder.
“Okay, mister prophet. What do you have to say to me?”
Ryder thought for a moment before grinning, leaning forward in Chase’s direction.
“I predict you’re about to get kissed.”
“Wha—”
Smooch!
Chase blushed, his ears falling back as Marshall proudly smushed their muzzles together in front of everyone, his paws pressed against his hot cheeks.
Once Marshall finally let him go, Chase stared at the room in silence.
“I’m never talking about Ryder again.”
Marshall happily licked his cheek. “Good! That’s the rule!”