PAW Patrol: Enlightenment

Chapter 2- Established Contact

"The path to enlightenment is marked in truth. Only in opening your eyes to reality and discarding all facades of distraction will you be set on your journey. Forget your toils, your worries and fears, and let your deepest desires burn brightly before you. Know what it is you seek, and how to be taught the means to achieve it."

Two pairs of eyes gazed upon the pages of Scio Omnia, hunting for riches untold only to have their desires turned into blank uncertainty. The book was discarded, but its distant call still echoed in the mind of one, reaching its beckoning ethereal fingers to draw in a hopeless soul eager to see beyond. Mayor Humdinger was jailed swiftly, the PAW Patrol disbanding for the rest of the day and returning to their normal lives as puppies. All pawns in a game no one had the vision to see, a chilling wind blew through Adventure Bay, a contrast to the usual summer weather.

Rubble was restless in his kennel, unable to surrender himself to the lure of rest following a successful mission. His muscles ached and his body yearned for even a few minutes to lie down, but his mind would not yield. Things had always been the same countless days before, but an anomaly had seized him seemingly out of random. The young bulldog tossed and turned in his bed, his mind spiraling with the impossible writings he had witnessed within the leather book. Nothing made sense, yet it spoke clear as day, any and all rational thoughts bifurcated with sounds and colors he'd never seen before in his tiny, canine life.

After several hours of tossing and turning, he couldn't possibly shake the thought anymore. He stood up sharply, staring mad into the humble wall of his kennel. That peculiar book, coated with aged leather and bearing the unknown typography on the cover, he had to get it back. He had to read more, he simply had to, there was nothing else he could think of more. Fixated on his task, Rubble hopped out of bed and made haste for the tower, eager to have his questions answered.

As the sky dimmed to the late afternoon, Chase met Ryder in their tower for the evidence investigation, the elevator doors whizzing open for the small puppy's arrival.

"None of this makes any sense," Ryder said, hearing him come in. He was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, rummaging through the evidence bin in a disorganized manner. "It's all just pointless junk."

Chase stepped over the mess of littered objects, "maybe they're antiques, they could be worth something."

"Maybe, but they don't even correlate with the actual crimes he did. It just feels like he..." the boy shrugged; explanations lost on him. "... just stole a bunch of random stuff for the hell of it."

"He could be going senile."

"Hah, that could work," Ryder laughed at the joke, leaning back with his hands on the floor, absently staring into the ceiling. "I swear, that guy gets weirder year after year, doesn't he have a nephew to spend time with?"

"The last time he did, we had a giant robot to deal with," Chase pointed out, licking his paw.

"I'm all for action, but it's getting tiring," the boy said, picking up a cylindrical object tightly wound up in fabric. "What do you think this is? I can't cut the string off for some reason."

"Did you try a kitchen knife?"

"Kitchen? Chase, I put a tactical knife to that thing, didn't even nick it," he sighed, letting the tied object roll out of his palm to the floor. "This stuff is so weird, and I haven't even got to the book yet."

"Book?" the shepherd looked over the mess of evidence, spotting a strange rectangular object sitting by itself. He scanned it up and down with a puzzled expression, searching for meaning in the strange piece of literature. "Looks like a Bible of some kind."