Vigilante PAW

Chapter Forty-Nine: Story of Teamwork

"I'm saying that as of today, the PAW Patrol is temporarily disbanded."

It had been quite some time since that announcement.

Ryder pondered those words again and again as he walked down the sidewalks of Adventure Bay. With the team being disbanded, the various small incidents around the small town were left up to the citizens to solve themselves. They had gotten lucky that nothing serious had happened while the team was focusing on putting themselves back together. Though, there was one more thing that was in need of desperate care before he even considered talking to the team about going back to rescues again.

Marshall.

He was aware that the pups had given the Dalmatian their desperate apologies before his innocence was publicly revealed. They visited him at the infirmary and emptied the bitter feelings they shared toward everything that had happened. The accusations, the isolation, the mistrust. In their thoughts of being betrayed, all of them acted uncharacteristically and irrationally. Nobody was more guilty of that than himself, though.

Ryder was his leader. The one on the team that could've easily changed Marshall's fate. He could have defended him, he could have risked everything to uncover the thief's true identity. Yet, he left it to Marshall and Rocky to do it alone. He harbored the most blame for things happening the way they did. The most blame, and the most shame. So much shame, in fact, that when he went to visit Marshall at the infirmary, he couldn't bring himself to apologize wholeheartedly alongside the rest of the pups.

His eyes drifted down to a plastic bag gripped tightly in his right hand. His brows furrowed. That was going to change. It had to change. Not just because he wanted the PAW Patrol to be complete once more, but because he wanted his family to be complete again. The family he had slowly built brick by brick into what it was prior to the incident. The family he lost the day he decided to doubt one of its members.

Teamwork. One of the many things he wanted to instill in the pups. It was great before everything happened, but the events following the theft of the golden bones revealed the various holes in the team's cooperation. And that was the fact they were all still young. They weren't perfect, not even close. They were prone to any emotions a group of preteens were. Including the negative ones.

But that was no excuse. That didn't matter.

The regret he was feeling, the pain he so desperately wanted to rid from his mind, none of it mattered. It was all just things he was feeling. He couldn't imagine what it felt like for your family to turn their backs on you when you're in need of them most. That's why he didn't feel worthy that day. He wasn't one of the pups. He was Marshall's owner, someone who was supposed to take care of him. And he failed.

Reaching into the bag, Ryder pulled out a pristine condition collar. It looked quite similar to Marshall's original collar, being a bright yellow. He wasn't sure what happened to his original collar, as Everest and Rocky quickly put theirs back on after Marshall's innocence was proven. None of the three ever mentioned where his original collar had gone, and they didn't seem keen to bring it up. He wouldn't have been surprised if any of them told him that Marshall burned it.

He would have too, if he were in Marshall's paws. He must have been so hurt, lost and alone. Feelings he'd make sure Marshall would never have to feel again.

Meanwhile, Marshall, Rocky, and Everest walked into the office of Mayor Goodway. The three pups looked around for the mayor in question, just to see an empty chair behind the desk Mayor Goodway would usually work at.