PAW Patrol: Incubus

Chapter 12- Trail of Blood

The research squad moved carefully into the dogtree forest, their bodies staining red from the raining fluids. The sky was blotted out with the bloodied canopies, gory entrails hanging down from the branches like withered grapevines. Ryder pulled an assault rifle on his back and held it with shaking hands, his fearful gaze darting in all directions with every dogtree they passed. Marshall kept behind Rocky, the dogs keeping close under the dangling meat above. No one spoke for the longest time, their muzzle sealed in fear of speaking over the hushed whispers emitting from the meaty foliage above. Small portions of the ground bumped out like rubbery pimples, moving as if they were breathing air in the hive. Marshall stopped to peer into one, even poking it with his paw and making it bounce slightly, but the pumping organ didn't respond.

The ungodly smell was the disgusting icing on the mold-slathered cake, a finishing touch that assaulted the squad with the heated stench of rotted meat and sweet flesh. No one could walk anywhere without getting their feet soaked in some kind of liquid, be it blood, filthy water, or a milky white fluid no one dared to identify. Not a single square inch of The Omnihive was dry, spanning for miles with gore-soaked terrain.

Jagged carvings of hard, white material were scattered all over the ground like rocks. Some were tiny as pebbles, and others were the size of entire boulders. Some were scratched, some were stained yellow or red, some were slightly flat on top, and others were pointed like dislocated fangs. Ryder tapped one with the barrel of gun, somewhat memorized by the echoing tap sound it produced.

"Solid bone," Ryder said aloud, trying to keep his voice steady. "Amazing to see an ecosystem like this, I assume Feroxmalis turned the basement into a similar sight?"

"We didn't even know there was a basement, first of all," Rocky quipped, flashing his old leader a glare. "You sure love to keep things from us."

"It wasn't any of your business, and besides, I had my own work to do down there."

"What could you have possibly been doing that we weren't allowed to see? Were we not all family?"

"You're just dogs, Rocky," Ryder muttered, sighing under his breath. "I didn't expect you to understand any of my affairs. I built machines down there, okay?"

Marshall spoke up, "what kind of machines? You mean like the pup packs we wore?"

"Not exactly," the boy shook his head, looking wearily up at a hanging clump of bloodied biomass. "You think skills like mine were limited to those skimpy backpacks? Nah," he chuckled. "I was meant for greater things, you know. It started with Adventure City and that weather machine, that was a new step for me."

"What, destroying it?" Rocky picked up his pace, coming to Ryder's side.

"Destroying it? That was Skye's fault," Ryder rolled his eyes. "Flew her fuckin' helicopter right into an eight-thousand-dollar machine. Coulda' just turned the thing off, good thing I saved the blueprints."

"The-" the mix narrowed his eyes. "Wait, why did you have blueprints of Humdinger's machine?" He weaved around a small puddle of red liquid.

The boy stopped in his tracks, turning around to meet the mix's gaze. "It wasn't his machine, Rocky," he crossed his arms. "It was mine, he just bought it from me afterward."

"Bought it from you?!" Marshall halted, making one of the scientists crash into him from behind. "You made it for him?!"

"It wasn't for him; nothing was for him!" Ryder argued. "The whole project was commissioned by the Archline Foundation. Turns out they never wanted to control the weather, just wanted to see what I was capable of. I finished the thing, brought the prototype to them and everything! But Dutch just nodded, paid me, and sent me home. That was when I sold it to Humdinger," he finished, his voice weighed with exasperation. "What followed was several weeks of commissions, dozens of projects Dutch practically shoved down my throat. As far as the weather machine went, I just wanted the thing out of my basement, but that purple idiot could've at least been less destructive with it. Took me like months to build..."