Vigilante PAW

Chapter Fifty: Story of Heroes

"My name is Marshall."

A calm voice echoed throughout a silent room, a microphone amplifying it enough to reach the far corners of the audience.

"...I'm a Dalmatian, but I'm sure you already know that..." He smiled awkwardly as he finished his first sentence, regaining his professionalism for the following statement, "Some of you might know me. I'm the fire fighting pup of Adventure Bay's PAW Patrol."

Despite everything that had happened to him, he somehow retained his stage fright. He wasn't performing, but the mere sight of dozens of eyes focusing on him, the thought of dozens of ears waiting to hear what he would say next, made him break out into a cold sweat. Despite that, though, the Dally swallowed his anxiety and continued to speak.

"The night it happened... I didn't see it coming..." Marshall continued, "...I was in the middle of a conversation with my friend, Rocky, about a few things that were bothering me... I begged him to ditch our tags to go out one afternoon to talk about those things... If I had known it was the night Hood had planned the theft of the golden bones, I wouldn't have gone out at all."

His eyes landed on a particular boy in the audience. Ryder. His owner. The leader of the PAW Patrol. The very same boy who believed he committed the theft in the first place. His brows furrowed a bit as his gaze switched to the piece of paper he was reading from.

"The next day, I was off the team."

Looking up, he allowed his attention to turn to another Dalmatian sitting at a table alongside a man in a suit. His city-appointed lawyer. As Marshall recounted the events leading up to his supposed crime and the events following it, the Dalmatian he was looking at couldn't bear to look him in the eyes, clear shame littering his face. He was forced to remain quiet as he listened to Marshall speak, unable to respond to any of it.

"My friends... The citizens of Adventure Bay... Everyone turned their backs on me..." The Dally let out a heavy sigh, "So I ran away. If I hadn't been found by the town's pet treatment specialist and her aunt, I don't know what would've happened to me."

Marshall then looked at a few others in the front row of the crowd. Sitting there were the members of the PAW Patrol. Ryder, Chase, Skye, Rocky, Zuma, Rubble, and Everest. Beside the Husky was a familiar Shiba, who seemed to be hooked on every word Marshall spoke, strangely interested in hearing about Marshall's tale of woe.

Rocky, meanwhile, nodded along as his mind was taken back the various events that took place during Ryder's assigned time limit. Especially the day Marshall ended up running away. His ears perked to the sound of shifting to his left. Turning his head, the mixed breed noticed the pups that weren't with Marshall during their days in the valley were uncomfortably shifting in their seats, their eyes trained on the floor beneath them.

"Hood, what you've done..." The Dally took a deep breath in, "...Caused my team to lose faith in me. Had you not succumb to your guilt and confessed when you did, I would've ended up at some pound again. They would've kicked me off of the PAW Patrol permanently... I could've lost everything."

Hood's eyes fell. He knew that. He already knew everything Marshall was saying. Things that the wild Dalmatian would have to pay for. His confession wasn't enough. Nowhere near it. Letting Chase and Ryder arrest him and bring him to some officials in Adventure City wasn't enough either. Starting from today, though, he'd finally be able to begin repaying the debt he had both to Marshall, and the society impacted by his actions.

It was his trial, after all.

With this victim impact statement, the judge would be ready to sentence Hood to whatever he deemed fit. His decision was going to be based on both the information given through the trial, and the impact statement Marshall was currently giving.