Paw Patrol : Post-Apoca'rift

Chapter 7.1: No Turn Back Now

"do you think you'll be okay if someone treated your body like this?"

ROCKY'S POV

I must have spent hours poking around Shattered Soul, seeking to restore power to that door. It was just a simple matter of replacing a headful of fuses, and swapping out a row of spark batteries, but those proved annoyingly difficult to find.

I did find the armory through a side room off the guard training place. It was completely devoid of weapons. no surprise, as most of the raiders seemed to be armed with magical energy weapons that I assumed were looted from the armory. There was, however, a framed news article on the back wall, and behind it, a safe.

As I took the frame off the wall, the photograph caught my eye. The scene was in the midst of a light winter snowfall; picture was of a funeral. From the looks of it, a very important one, as the shadowy figures of two wingsuit person stood in the background, badly out of focus. One was markedly shorter than the other.

But that wasn't what had captured my attention. The photographer's eye had focused on a man playing the harmonica. a single person who, unlike all around her, had shunned the formal black dresses worn by others to wear only a dark blue robe and sling bag and a striped blue about her hair with a pistol on the holster with a white pattern of the plant. The camera had caught a splash of light glistening off a falling tear as he dropped a single, beautiful flower onto the casket. The man's badge logo, a deer, was identical to the logo on Dan's hat.

All of Wasteland Mourns Bladez Owada, Hero of Shattered Soul Cliff

Two weeks ago, we didn't even know his name. But when Sergeant Blades leaped in front of an assassin's bullet meant for Queen Wakana, dying instantly, he also leaped into the hearts and minds of every loving and patriotic force, friends and family, becoming a paragon of courage, bravery, and self-sacrifice to all of Wasteland.

Funeral services were held this afternoon in the western courtyard of three stands walk. By decree of Captain Calahaen Equus, 'the pegasus forces' arranged for a light snow...

The safe had opened to reveal two (!) Two dusty wasteland guide book, the last spark batteries I needed, and a variety of ammo clips which, according to the documents found with them, were magically enhanced. Bullets for PAW'r Magnum, the needle gun, even Zuma's Assault rifle. Plus two types for weapons of a caliber I was unfamiliar with (although I suspected one type was for the multi-barreled gun I'd seen the slavers use).

I had just bagged my new treasures and was putting the framed article back in place when the sounds of talking raiders froze me.

"...sure they ain't gonna blow themselves all t' hell an' back on the landmines?" One voice, a man.

A youthful-sounding mare snorted, "Like I'd care all that much if they did. You have any idea what those damned slavers did t' my town?"

I hastily finished replacing the frame and hugged a wall behind one of the empty sets of ammo shelves, ears alert.

"Ain't y'all from Littlehead? Heard they massacred that place."

"Naw. But it would have been kinder too. They took all the women and men they could, killed the rest, and left them dead and rotting where they fell. But the kids and pups? Elleanor doesn't have any use for kids. So they just left us behind to fend for ourselves."

After a moment of awkward silence, she continued. "Place went bad real fast. Hell, it was bad to start with, so many of us seeing our parents sliced and splattered. But it got a whole lot worse. Got my tail out of there quickly as I could. So personally, I'd be more than happy if a good deal of this raiding party died screaming with their legs blown off."