Zuma is the only pup without a known fear and he never seems to be anything but cool and laid back. But the Chocolate Lab's past holds a dark secret and once that secret comes out, no one will escape its shadow.
Zuma's Fear is PAW Patrol fanfiction written by HavocHound. The first segment can be read here
and the second segment, Zuma's Courage, Here.
Zuma's Fear provides examples of:
- Afraid of Blood: Zuma is absolutely petrified of blood and seeing it causes him to freeze up completely.
- Ambiguous Criminal History: What Stone did before he killed Zuma's Family is left untold to the audience.
- Alternate Continuity: Shares none of the backstory of HavocHound's other works Marshall Gone Missing and Partners in Fire, though Chase and Marshall being friends as close as brothers serves as a Shout-Out to the former.
- Abusive Parents: Rocky's first owner. The abuse culminated in the man trying to drown the poor puppy. Later revealed to be worse. It was Rocky's little brother Ryan who was drowned in the tub.
- Apathetic Citizens: Most of the Coastal City population is like this: None of them went into a complete lockdown despite the fact that there's a rampaging murderer killing innocent people at random. Likely justified since Stone was so difficult to arrest.
- Bittersweet Ending: This segment ends with one. Zuma leaves the PAW Patrol, sprouting sadness into the rest of the pups. Fortunately, Marshall is retrieved, although traumatized.
- Child by Rape: Chase. His mother was a police dog who was assaulted by street thugs and wound up pregnant.
- Child Prodigy: Ryder, having graduated from college at age 8.
- Criminal Mind Games: Damian Stone abducts a group of bunnies Skye is fond of and forces her to play a trivia game about him, with the penalty being him killing one rabbit per wrong answer. Only one of the bunnies survives.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Chase, Marshall, Rubble, Ryder and Zuma; poor Zuma is this trope twice over since it's hinted his dog parents aren't in the picture either.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Shelly murder alongside with the owners siblings shared is definitely the root of Zuma issues.
- Driven to Suicide: Chase's mother, when she couldn't bring herself to kill Chase even after killing all of his litter-mates.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Stone finds the easy reconciliation between the PAW Patrol members after each round of his “game” boring and can't understand it.
- Fatal Flaw: Shelly’s aggression was exactly what caused her death.
- Fun with Acronyms: Hound Assaults of Various Organized Combats, aka HAVOC
- Furry Reminder: Non-comedic example - when Stone forces Chase to play the Shell Game mentioned below, the idea of Marshall having to eat the chocolate bar is met with horror, indicating chocolate is just as bad for dogs in this universe as it is in ours.
- "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: When Damian Stone attempts to force Marshall (a Dalmatian) to eat a chocolate bar, everyone reacts in horror, implying that chocolate is as deadly to dogs in this universe as it is in real life.
- Heroic BSoD: Over the course of the story, Zuma has several.
- In chapter 2, he has 2, one when an accident victim being covered in blood makes him freeze up and the second when he wakes up in the hospital and finds out the victim died.
- In chapter 3, he has one off-screen when he finds out the man who killed his first family has escaped police custody.
- Ryder has a massive one when it's revealed that Marshall was kidnapped after he was tricked into going after a bomb made to look like Alex.
- In his back-story, Rocky has one of these at the worst possible time; it lead to his abusive owner's attempt at drowning his little brother Ryan being successful.
- I Want My Mommy!: Said word for word by Marshall when Stone mockingly asks how he's feeling after cutting off one of the puppy's toes.
- Relationship Sabotage: Stone forces Skye to tell Chase that she has never and will never have romantic feelings for him. He takes it well all things considered.
- Sadistic Choice: Stone forces several of these on the PAW Patrol.
- Rubble is forced to choose between smashing Zuma's shell collection with his jack hammer and watching Stone break Marshall's legs.
- Chase is forced to play the Shell Game mentioned below.
- Ryder is forced to kick Zuma, with Stone threatening to cut off one of Marshall's toes every time it's not hard enough. After the first cut, Ryder ends up having to kick Zuma hard enough to send the poor puppy flying across the room. Normally, pups flying across the room and into the camera would be funny, but due to being forced to do it, it's not.
- Zuma is forced to choose between Marshall and a pregnant woman hostage. Marshall ends up being his choice, but Stone kills the woman instead anyways.
- Sequel Hook: By the end, Ryder wants to revive HAVOC, a more military based team, and while Zuma has ran away, he's also been approached by a wolf who offers to help him learn to face his fears and Stone. Played With because this may be either a segment of a longer story or an actual sequel hook, depending on the Viewer.
- Shadow Archetype: Damian Stone (somewhat) represents what Zuma could have been if he continued his rage against the person who killed his family.
- Shell Game: Stone forces Chase to play one via web-cam with a dog biscuit, a chocolate bar, and a gun, with his captive, Marshall, having to eat whatever comes up.
- Spanner in the Works: Believe it or not, Zuma ends up being the spanner after the death of his family in Stone’s Evil Plan.
- Survivor's Guilt: Chase and Rocky both turn out to have this; Chase because he's the only member of his litter his mother didn't kill and Rocky because he didn't stop his original owner from drowning his little brother.
- Team Rocket Wins: Damian Stone wins this segment, but he will be defeated in the next one.
Zuma's Courage provides examples of:
- Face Your Fears: Mentioned - Zuma is no longer afraid of blood and Death like he was in part 1.
- Made of Explodium: Various plushies explode randomly in this story. Justified because Big Bad Damian Stone contacted Boomer to plant Bombs into said plushies.
- Vigilante Man: Zuma becomes a vigilante after running away. Now he is doing reckless stuff like blowing up an entire warehouse.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Stone changed his plans multiple times from breaking Zuma and expecting him to kill himself to attempting to kill the PAW Patrol and even put a bounty on him for $1,000,000 dollars.
