Behind The Mask

His Self Conflict

     New Years is coming up really fast, but Chase couldn't care much less as he was still having a mental turmoil about leaving the team as it was a somewhat hard choice to make. But luckily, Humdinger finished washing the dishes and all of the work at Mr. Porters was done.

"Well, I gotta say, you actually did everything right and no tricks." Porter complimented with a little disbelief while talking to Humdinger.

"I'll...take that as a compliment." Arnold slightly chuckled and just then, Chase walked up to him and stood next to the mayor. Once again, surprising Mr. Porter as he was still confused as to why a member of the Paw Patrol was with Adventure Bay's greatest enemy, but still, Humdinger hasn't done any trouble so far.

After paying Chase and Humdinger, receiving more money than what Chase would've earned alone, they left as the German Shepherd led him to their next job.

"So, how many more jobs do we have to do?" Humdinger asked, curious as to how many they'll have to do. Chase glanced back at him and nervously chuckled.

"Trust me, there's a lot." Chase laughed along with Humdinger who laughed as well, but was also a little nervous but curious at most, wondering how many jobs Chase has to do to get the amount of money he gets.

Awkward silence filled the atmosphere again, but now, Humdinger looked off to the side and looked back at the police pup, his attention fully on the direction ahead. He looked all innocent, like nothing has ever happened. Arnold glanced back down at his hoodie as if he could see the scars through his hoodie. He frowned.

"Hey, uh, can I ask you something?" Humdinger asked and Chase glanced back at him with a smile.

"Yeah, sure." Chase confirmed and gave the human his full attention, but then his smile turned into an expression of confusion as he watched Humdinger hesitating a little bit.

"I wanna ask you about...well...the scars on your body." Humdinger bluntly said, which earned a wide-eyed look from Chase, but then a sad frown from him as he looked down at his hoodie, looking over it again and again.

"I...It's not really something I wanna talk about." The shepherd softly answered.

He did see Humdinger as family, but even so, he would want the ones closest to him to see those scars. It's enough that they already know about them, but explaining how he got it is a much harder task. Humdinger frowned a little from his answer, but he could understand why.

"I understand, but...can you at least tell me who did it?" Humdinger politely asked, and he couldn't see Chase biting down on his lip a little bit.

Flash Back

"T-Thank you. But, how are you able to afford a car, much less, adopt me?" Chase asked, he knew it costs a lot of money for both and Chase remembered that Jamison was poor when he met him.

"Well, I've recently begun working for Felicia, but, shortly after you ran away, she got arrested."

"Wait, what?" Chase asked again, hoping that he wasn't just hearing things.

"Yeah, apparently, one of the guards was a spy-detective, and once he gathered a lot of evidence, he ratted out Felica and now she's spending the rest of her life behind bars." Jamison explained and began driving the car slowly out of the parking lot while Chase was processing what Jamison said.

Flash Back Ends

"Don't worry about it, whoever did it is in prison now, so it's no use." Chase weakly reassured and focused his mindset back onto thinking, leaving Mayor Humdinger mute.

For the next few hours, Humdinger and Chase helped out with cleaning, herding and other jobs that Chase had to do and much less to say, it was tiring. But again, this whole time, Chase couldn't keep his mind off of whether he should leave the Paw Patrol or not.

Flash Back

"Don't know dude. Sometimes, I wish that we didn't have him as the leader or police pup on the team. I know that's a bit hawsh, but c'mon, his authowity is really annoying. I wish we didn't have someone like that on our team." Zuma said.

Silence

"Agreed" The rest of the pups said.

Flash Back Ends

Maybe it would be for the best. Chase thought in his mind as he kept replaying their words over and over.

7:00 PM

Thanks to Humdinger's help, Chase and him got jobs done a lot faster than normal, so now they're making their way back to Captain Turbot's boat.

"Hey, thanks again for your help, it means a lot." Chase grinned at him, earning a smile from Mayor Humdinger.

"I'm glad to help, besides, it's for our family." Humdinger commented and Chase smiled back at him. Once again, this gave him more of a reason to leave the team. But still, he wasn't ready to go back or even leave just yet. What's preventing him from doing so?

Up ahead on the docs, Humdinger and Chase could see Captain Turbot's boat, all ready to set sail. Both of them smiled as they looked at each other and made pace. Finally, he was going back to the kittens, Maya, Arya and Helga. Each step he got closer to the boat, the more excited he got.

But then...

"Chase?"

Two voices called out to him which made the German Shepherd freeze dead in his tracks along with Humdinger. Recognizing those two voices, he slowly turned his head to the side and his eyes widened even more as he began wishing he was dreaming right now.

There stood two dogs, the last two that he wanted to speak to right now or even make any sort of relation right now.

He began feeling nervous as he felt his blood turn cold and his spine shook a little bit. His legs shook also as he got even more nervous. Two familiar Dalmatians were standing there, looking down at their "son" with worry. But they had smiles on their faces as they tried to approach him in a friendly manner but also in reality, happy to see their "son" once again.

In a far, but small distance, stood Kushina and Edan.