Runaway Rocky

Chapter 2

"Why do we even need him, Ryder?" Marshall questioned, both his voice, and his lips curling up in disgust.

"All he ever does it mess things up," Skye added, glancing at Marshall and tilting her head in an agreeing nod.

"Yeah!" Chase snarled in agreement, looking between Skye and Marshall before his attention settled on Ryder with a disapproving look, "we don't even need a recycling pup, so why bother?"

"And," Rubble drawled, moving to sit beside Chase as he turned his nose up, "he's not even a pure bred. He's a mixed breed, yuck! How can a pup like that even be a part of the Paw Patrol?"

Rocky cowered in the corner of the LookOut, unnoticed by the other pups, ears dropping lower with each word being muttered by the others. By his friends. 

Rocky pushed himself against the wall, as far from his friends as he could manage. His gaze lingered on Ryder and Zuma, the boy stood indifferently in front of the pups, arms crossed across his chest. Zuma was sitting by Ryder's side, eyeing the other pups. 

They will stand up for me... Rocky knew. The always do.

"Well," Ryder sighed, looking down the line of pups before he glanced down at his side, "what do you think, Zuma?"

"I think..." Zuma looked along their friends, grinning, "who needs a stupid mixed bwreed anyways?"

Rocky shrunk in on himself as the other laughed-- even Zuma. How... How could Zuma say something like that? They were best friends... weren't they?

"That settles it then!" Ryder  smirked, leaning forwards to pet Zuma's head, "we'll throw that flea bag mixed breed on the streets where he belongs."

Rocky whimpered, burying his head under his front paws. He was afraid to look up, to see them approaching, cornering him in. He waited for the words-- You're no longer welcome here!-- but it never came.

Instead, a sharp, striking pain erupted in the side of his head, stealing his breath away.

----

Rocky woke abruptly to a pounding headache. 

He shifted slightly, groaning as he moved. He cupped his paws over his eyes to shield them from the blinding moonlight that lit up the LookOut yard. 

It felt like his brain was going to explode.

It had been a dream. All of that. It had been a dream, hadn't it? No, not even a dream, a nightmare. 

But it held some truth to it. It had cleared some things up. 

They... He wasn't wanted. They didn't need him-- they didn't want him. He was just... a dumb recycling pup. They were right, they didn't need him. 

He wasn't about to stand around and wait for them to figure it out like he had. He wasn't going to wait for them to turn on him like they had in his dream. 

He wouldn't be able to handle it... being thrown out. Being tossed away like his recycleables. He couldn't take it if his friends-- Ryder and Zuma too-- turned on him. 

So, it was settled. 

He wasn't going to stand around and wait for that to happen. 

Rocky pulled himself up, blinking away the dizziness he was feeling before getting to work. 

He packed light, just the things he was sure he'd need at some point or another. 

The mixed breed had never been happier to be a hoarder of everything, because a lot of it came in handy, even if other people couldn't see if quite like he could.