(Disclaimer: Mature Language)

<><><><>

Cars blared, passing by the alleyway as Levi took a glance at the Husky who saved him.

"Satoon, huh? That's a cool name." Levi smiled as he looked at the contents inside the satchel.

"Not the name I would've chosen but what're you gonna do?" Satoon chuckled as Levi closed the satchel.

"Not much, I suppose." Levi chuckled alongside as he realized that he had to get back to Spencer. "I appreciate the rescue, being my guardian angel and all but I need to head back." With that, the Malamute walked past the Husky and hoped to leave without any problems but their streak of bad luck still had a little bit more to give.

"Uh...before you do that, I'm gonna need to see the satchel, just as a precautionary measure." Satoon advised as Levi stopped in his tracks, the nervousness coming back to the Malamute. "I'm not gonna cut and run." Satoon added.

Levi turned around, trying his best to not show the nervousness that creeped around his body. "Why do you need to see it?"

Satoon sighed as he tried avoiding as much context as possible with his upcoming explanation. "To keep a long story short, some group stole my shipment a couple days back and I've been trying to find it since, I just wanna make sure it wasn't those amateurs that took it." Satoon explained as Levi loosened his clutch on the satchel. "Look, if I wanted to take it, I would've just killed you already."

Levi looked at the ground and ultimately decided to hand the satchel over, with Satoon grabbing and inspecting it rather quickly. After some time, the Husky let out a frustrating groan as he handed it back to Levi.

"Damn it!" Satoon cursed.

"Sorry it's not what you're looking for but I know you'll find it eventually!" Levi tried cheering up the Husky.

"Yeah. Look, I gotta get going, a quick word of advice though." Satoon looked at the Malamute. "Boroughton can be a scary place without friends, think of me as one of them." The Husky shared a slight smile as he soon left the Malamute on his own.

"The name is Levi, by the way!" The Alaskan Malamute shouted as he saw Satoon turn and walk backwards, giving him one last reminder.

"Nice to meet you, Levi. If you're ever around, you may find me from time to time, usually just doing jobs to survive in this piss-hole of a city." Satoon finally left and so did Levi, ready to head back to Spencer and get paid for his services, although he took a slight beating earlier, at least it was better than ending up dead.

<><><><>

Eyes of determination stared intensely at a small group of dogs as Rocky nudged the one in charge.

"Hey, Decker, I don't think giving them a death stare is gonna make us more inconspicuous." Rocky advised as Decker let out a quick sigh as he looked away.

"I know, we've been trailing these drongos for a while, I don't wanna let 'em go now." Decker recalled as the trio kept tailing the group.

Eventually the small group went into an alleyway, with Decker signaling Rocky to move up and huddle against a wall. The Australian mix signaled at the two to wait and listen in on the group's conversation.

"Look, no one's eyeing us, quit being paranoid already!" One of the dogs advised.

"I swear we had someone on our tail! I can't keep my guard down, none of us can't, ever since those dogs at the Den stole that stash, Sean and Gideon have been stressing out lately with these recons." One of the other dogs stated.

"Don't worry about the stash, don't worry about those dogs at the Den. That's what that Husky is for, they hired him to scout them out while we just make sure our areas are still intact."

Upon hearing that last statement, Decker glanced at Rocky and Rubble, giving them a nod to move in. The trio moved in, approaching the group of dogs that almost immediately noticed them and began asking questions.

"Hey! Who the hell are you?" The lead dog asked.

"Just a couple of dogs who overheard your conversation." Decker answered.

"I told you we were getting tailed!" The paranoid dog shouted as he was shaking to the core, glancing behind him and noticing a climbable fence.

"Shut it, Aiden!" The lead dog yelled as he glanced back at Decker and the others. "Overhearing our conversation still isn't going to help you lot, I consider this a fair fight, wouldn't you?" The lead dog got into an offensive position and he unsheathed his claws.

"A fair fight indeed, Cain." One of the other dogs agreed as Decker got close to the lead dog.

"Now, look here, mates." Decker tried defusing the situation. "We don't want trouble, we just want answers, you think Sean or Gideon is going to praise you after taking us out? Those two are nothing but vermin, they get what they want and they'll leave you for dead." Decker explained.

"We'll see about that when we take that pack of yours and give it to them." The lead dog smiled.

Decker sighed as he barked. "Ruff! Taser!" The lead dog tried stepping back but was met with a volts of electricity coming into contact with his body, with Decker soon setting him aside as the one of the dogs tried rushing Decker but was knocked down by Rubble. Rocky approached the last one as he barked for his blowtorch to intimidate the paranoid dog.

The paranoid dog backed up as his paws met the metallic feel of the fence he was eyeing earlier, it was now or never for him. As Rocky stepped closer, falling for the dog's cowardice appearance, he heard Rubble struggling and as he turned his head to see if his friend was struggling, he was met with a quick slice to his muzzle. Upon wincing at the pain he received, the paranoid dog hopped onto a nearby dumpster and over the fence.

"Aiden! Ya damn coward!" One of the dogs shouted as Rubble pinned him down.

"It ain't personal, survival of the fittest, Quinn!" With that, the paranoid mess of a dog up and abandoned his short-lived crew, with Rocky attempting to climb the fence but was stopped by Decker.

"It ain't worth it, mate, let him go." Decker advised as he cuffed the lead pup. "Come here, let me get a look at ya." Decker checked the small wound on the pup's muzzle. "That don't look bad, it's gonna make you look intimidating." The Aussie mix smiled as he turned to face the two dogs they just wrangled up.

"To hell with all of ya, I ain't saying nothin'!" The dog had a strong Irish accent accompanying him, Decker sat down in front of the dog.

"They always say that..." Decker glanced at Rocky.

"Just before the screaming starts." Rocky ignited his blowtorch and brought it close to the dog's paws.

"Ya goddamn psychopaths! You're outta your  minds!" The dog backed up and Decker held him in place.

"They're only paws, drongo!" Decker bluffed as the dog winced, waiting for the immense burning pain to hit his paws. "Alright, that's enough." Decker laughed as the dog took a moment to recuperate, hyperventilating at the craziness he just encountered. Decker grabbed the dog and brought him close to him. "You gonna talk now or do we actually have to hurt you for that to happen?"

The dog looked at Rocky, who ignited his blowtorch again, scaring the dog and making him give out an answer. "I'll talk! I'll talk, alright?!"

"That's better, now tell us, what operations do the McAllister's have around the docks?" Decker provoked the dog who winced, thinking the Australian mix was going attack him.

"Ok! Ok!" The dog raised his paws up in fear. "We...we have a warehouse close to the docks, it's more of a club really, it's run by one of the McAllister's lieutenants, Maurice." The dog explained. "There's way more muscle in there for any of you to handle, Gideon had to size things up after one of our places got hit yesterday." Quinn took in a breather as Decker continued to make the Irish dog talk.

"Who else is involved in this?" Decker asked as he got close to the dog, who winced in fear.

"We-well, it started out like this; Sean and him took me and another dog with them to talk about the problem we had..."

<><><><>

"Aye, but it's not my fault, Gideon!" Sean tried calming his Irish sibling down.

Gideon pressed his paws on his head. "Oh my Christ, here we go again with the 'It's not my fault' bullshite. Shut the fuck up, you damn sap! I swear, I swear to god if you weren't my brother, I'd kill you myself!" Gideon shouted as Sean tried his best to defuse the gravity of the situation.

"Listen, I'm sorry that these cunts hit the place pretty hard but I had other businesses to take care of." Sean tried defending his poor excuse as Gideon turned to face the Irish Wolfhound, getting up close to his face.

"I gave you the damn place and you remember what I said when I did? I said to hold it with your life!" Gideon soon eased up the tension. "Now, Satoon is out there trying to find those mutts that hit the place and just to be sure, I want all of you to do these things." Gideon looked at Quinn and the dog alongside him. "Quinn, I want you to go out there with Cain and Aiden, put the squeeze on some dogs, see if we get more info on exactly who those dogs at the Den were."

"Got it." Quinn nodded his head as Gideon continued.

"Sean, I want you to keep up appearances, get more dogs in on it. They start hearing that we lost some product, they're gonna lose faith in us and try leaving. We cannot let that happen."

"Sure thing." Sean agreed as he soon left the office-like room.

"What about me, boss?" The dog next to Quinn asked.

"Since Sean is incapable of keeping rivals out of our business, I want you to run the club close by and bring in some extra security so that we don't get raided again by those cunts." Gideon answered as he gestured for the dog to leave.

"You got it, boss." Maurice nodded as the dog felt nervous around his boss, thinking that one wrong move could end him. The tension rose as Gideon approached the Irish Setter but it soon faltered as the Wolfhound smiled and placed a paw on his associate's shoulder.

"Once you're comfortable with your new place, wind down for a bit but just don't get too comfortable because if that club ends up falling, you're gonna wish those bastards at the Den got their paws on you rather than me." Gideon glared as he calmly threatened the Setter, soon nudging the two to leave the room and do their assigned tasks.

<><><><>

Decker focused his view on the Irish Setter, moving closer to him and attempting to intimidate him. The Aussie mix soon eased off and spoke to the cowering dog. "So that leads up here, doesn't it?"

Quinn looked up at the Australian and nodded his head, giving him a quick answer. "Ye-yeah. I-I wouldn't recommend hitting the place now though."

Rocky scoffed as he rolled his eyes at the suggestion. "Yeah, considering you just told us that there's going to be more security, it'd be smart to wait."

Decker gestured for the two to ease off and give the dog some space.

"You think he's telling the truth?" Rubble asked.

"Only one way to find out." Decker looked back at the dog. "Go on, dust off, mate!"

The dog anxiously got up and looked at the other dog who was still out from the taser.

"What about Cain?" The dog asked.

"What about him? You just ratted out your crew, what do you think he's going to do if he heard what you said?" Decker responded as the dog nodded, soon leaving the trio and his line of work. "Let's get out of here, mates." Decker gestured for the two to follow him back to the safe house.

"What do you think we're gonna find over there?" Rocky asked as he barked for his blowtorch to go back into his pup pack.

"If we can go in without raising suspicion, we find Maurice and take him out." Decker answered as Rocky passed on a glance towards him.

"We're just killing him?" Rocky asked with some worry in his voice.

"How else are we going to take down the McAllister brothers?" Decker responded with a question of his own. The tech-savvy mix couldn't give a definite answer as he looked forward. "I'm breaking protocol just by helping you pups, by helping Chase in some way." The Australian continued. "We take down these operations and the McAllisters won't have a paw to stand on, that's when we strike or those dogs at the Den do, preferably it'll be better if they did, more expendable for them and less for us." Decker concluded as Rubble and Rocky looked at each other then at the Australian Mix.

"Expendable? What do you mean by that?" Rubble asked as the two pups took offense.

"I didn't mean nothin' by it, I just prefer if I didn't lose any friends in the line of action." Decker answered as he kept moving forward, leaving the pups behind him as he looked toward the ground, hoping he would be able to keep the pups safe.

<><><><>

Notes of a guitar were heard inside Spencer's shack, more like random strings were being plucked by a certain German Shepherd and laughter was accompanying it.

"Come on, lad, you can do better than that." Spencer smiled as Chase gave the English dog a glare, tired of the sarcasm he was receiving from him.

"You know, it's hard to do this with a busted paw." Chase stated as he eased off his injured paw and set the guitar down with Spencer.

"Hey, I wanted you to rest your paw until your buddy got back but you didn't want to." Spencer partially argued as he placed his guitar back in its place. "Anyone ever tell you that you're a stubborn pup?"

Chase lowered his ears at the Border Collie. "Yeah, all the time. Anyone ever told you that you're a paranoid mess?" Chase slyly smiled as he laid his injured paw on a pillow, seeing the Border Collie's ears lower at the remark.

"You know there's a saying for that—what is it now? Oh yeah, go fuck yourself." Spencer spat as he drank from his water bowl.

Chase shared a slight laugh as he soon let out a sigh, laying his head down as he waited for his optimistic friend to come back. "Levi's been gone a while, maybe I should head out and look for him." The Shepherd suggested as the feeling of worry started to set in.

"I wouldn't risk it, give it another hour and if he's not back by then, then we'll head out and look for him." Spencer smiled as he put some assurance into the Shepherd.

The pup laid his head back down as the worry was in the back of his mind, if anything happened to Levi, it'd be his fault for taking him along. "I'm just gonna check outside and see if he's around."

Spencer sighed as he knew he couldn't really stop the pup. "Alrighty, you better not take off though."

Chase turned his head as he let out a slight smirk. "Don't worry, I won't." With that, Chase left the shack and proceeded outside the alleyway, reaching the sidewalk and looking around the busy streets for his Malamute friend. The Shepherd looked back into the alleyway and as he started thinking about his encounter with Marshall again, he was called out by the man from earlier.

"Hey, you look concerned, your buddy lost or something?" The man asked as he put out his cigarette and leaned back against a wall.

Chase didn't want to answer the man but he didn't have a choice as he turned his head to face him, answering his question shortly after. "Just checking to see if he's around, that's all."

The man chuckled as he looked at the ground, soon shooting another question at the pup. "What makes you think he didn't just run? Leave this life behind him?"

Chase shrugged as he kept an eye out, hoping to catch his friend coming back from his job. His ears twitched as he heard another question from the man, a question that gave him some thought now than before.

"You think it's worth doing what you're doing?" The man asked as he sat on the ground, being almost leveled with the pup. "You do all this for what? Table scraps?"

"It will be worth it soon enough." Chase answered as the man shared a solemn look towards the pup, wondering what he was going to do.

"What ever happened to just being house pet? I got a cat and she doesn't do stuff like this." The man stated as he leaned his head back. "I rescued her a couple months back from a shelter. I was getting lonely just tending to this place and going home, it did help and it still does."

Chase shared a smile with the man, giving him a response, "I guess us pets do make an impact, one way or another." There was a moment of silence between the two as the car horns blared and the Shepherd still glanced around for his friend. "What's your name?"

"Preston, the name's Preston." The man answered as he took out another cigarette from his pack. Upon seeing this, Chase chuckled, which caused Preston to raise his eyebrow at the pup. "What?"

The Shepherd looked at the ground and then back at Preston. "My buddy was right, you keep smoking those and you'll start coughing up blood in no time."

The formally dressed man sighed and placed his cigarette back in his pack, soon getting up and catching the eyes of the Shepherd. The two didn't exchange any more words, shortly after, Preston let out a whistle and pointed in a direction for Chase to look at before leaving the Shepherd on his own.

The former police pup glanced over to where the man pointed and saw his Malamute friend returning back from his job. "Levi! We were just about to go look for you." Chase advised the Alaskan Malamute, who was panting after that long walk.

"Wa...water...please..." Levi begged as the pup was still panting, catching his breath here and there. The two went on back inside the shack and Levi immediately tossed the satchel towards Spencer, making the Border Collie jolt and fall off his chair. Chase witnessed this and chuckled, but soon had to get an insight on what happened with the job, considering that Levi had slight drops of blood on his neck.

"Ah, jeez, you bloke! Give a dog a warning next time!" Spencer advised as he got up, rubbing his head to ease the pain.

Levi nearly drank all the water that was in the bowl and let out a breath of refreshing air, soon apologizing to the Border Collie. "Sorry about that, Spence, I'll let you know next time." Levi laid his head on a nearby pillow as Spencer shot a question at the optimistic Malamute.

"How'd everything go?" Spencer grabbed the satchel nearby and started rummaging through it.

"Everything went off without a hitch." Levi smiled as he assured the two.

"Really? So why is there blood on your neck?" Chase asked as he was glaring at the pup, concerned to an extent but refrained from showing it.

"Blood?" Levi placed his paw on his neck and tried brushing it off like he didn't have a clue on what the Shepherd was talking about. "Huh? How'd that get there?"

Chase gave a hard stare at the Malamute, slowly but surely intimidating him. "Cut the shit, Levi, what happened?"

Spencer placed his bag aside as he got close to the two. Levi tried to avoid the question but knowing he couldn't break through someone like Chase, he decided to come clean.

The Alaskan Malamute sighed as he explained, "I found the stuff Spencer wanted me to get and things got complicated, those punks pinned me up against a wall and I would've been done for if it wasn't for this dog that helped me out."

"Some bloke helped you out? Who was it? Did he give you a name?" Spencer asked as he sat down next to Chase.

"Yeah, Satoon, a grey Husky with the same accent like yours." Levi answered as Chase immediately asked a question towards the Malamute.

"Wait, a grey Husky?" Chase placed his good paw on Levi's shoulder and made the pup face him. "You said a grey Husky?"

Levi looked around, weirded out by the Shepherd's sudden antics. "Yeah, he was a grey Husky. What's the problem?" Chase sighed as he released his grasp on the Malamute's shoulder.

"One of the McAllisters' dogs told me about a grey Husky when I went out on that job for Spencer, this could be the same one." Chase warned as Levi brushed off the Shepherd's paranoia.

"If he was with the McAllister Brothers, why would he save me?" Levi asked as the Shepherd gave an answer.

"Some dogs may not be who they seem." Chase glared. "Just be careful." Levi looked at the ground and took the Shepherd's words into consideration, giving an assuring nod towards him.

<><><><>

As Levi and Chase were getting ready to head back, Satoon wandered around the city, hoping to eavesdrop for some more information on the shipment he was after. The British Husky continued passing through civilians and soon heard his tag ring, the dog went into an alleyway and answered it. "Yeah?"

"How's the hunt for Spencer going?" Gideon asked as Satoon made sure no one was listening in.

"I had a change of plans, some twat from the Den I've been keeping my eye on decided to stray all the way out here." Satoon answered as he walked around the alleyway, flicking a puddle of water with his paw just because the Husky was bored of the Wolfhound's impatience.

"So what happened? Did ya kidnap him?" Gideon asked.

"No, the bastard almost got himself nicked so I had to step in to help him, it gave me the idea to earn his trust and coax him into telling me and then when it's all said and done..." Satoon smiled as Gideon wanted to know more.

"Yeah? What then?"

"Ambush the little bloke or Spencer and make them talk, one way or another." Satoon answered as Gideon advised him on one last thing.

"I like your planning, just get it done fast, it's only a matter of time before they catch on and keep on hitting." Gideon answered as he soon ended the call, leaving the Husky on his own.

"Where are ya now, Levi?"