AN: Hello! This is story comes together with my fic "The World to Know".
I didn't plan it to be a two-shot, but many found the original ending not very satisfactory, so I decide to take their suggestions and expand it so it would make more sense. Thank you all for your advice, it helped me a lot (especially to Highwing, since the idea you offered appears on this fic).
I hope you enjoy the story.
Thanks for reading!
Zootopia Police Department
Case: The Night Howlers Conspiracy and W- T-
Log Number 3
Date: - of -, year - after Evolution
Convict: Number 1511, D- -g R-m-
Officers in charge: J- H-s and N-s W-d-
Recording begins.
"Do you know what you're doing here?" Said one of the two figures. Underneath the blinding light, they were little more than shadows.
"Yes." Doug Ramses cracked his neck. "I'm missing my lunchtime."
"This isn't a game, Ramses."
For a creature so small, the rabbit had a way to impose her authority.
"I never said that it was."
"Then why do you insist on being so unhelpful?"
Her companion, a red fox, stood next to her.
"Why do you insist in pestering me with these idiotic interrogations?" Doug asked. "I'm in jail, and so is Bellwether. You've won. Can you let me leave in peace now?"
"Maybe we will. But only after you answer our questions." Her words were a bait, Doug knew from her tone. "It's not an unfair bargain, is it?"
"Not unfair, but too kind." Said the fox. Resentment dripped from his words like venom from a viper's fangs. Had Doug's soul been less calloused and his mind nobler, it would have make him cower like a calf.
Instead, he shrugged it off.
"That's irrelevant. And if you are so eager for answers, go bother Woolter or Jesse. They know as much as I do."
The rabbit's ears flickered. Doug watched her look at her partner. He needn't see their eyes to know they were fixed on each other.
"That's no longer an option." The rabbit stated after a gelid silence. Something in her voice had changed.
"Oh." Doug said. "No wonder I haven't seen them in prison."
"I'm sorry."
"Spare me, rabbit." Doug rolled his eyes. "There's nothing more wasteful than pitying the dead. Those two knew what they'd signed for. Their deaths are the natural consequence of their incompetence. Twits."
Something in his statement enraged the fox. Doug smelled his fury, and delighted on it before it faded away in the winds of civility.
"Is that really all you have to say about them? You're more despicable than I thought." He inquired. His partner glared at him, and urged him to keep his temper in check.
"If I say something mournful, will I be able to go?" Asked Doug with a glimmer of hope. He looked at his watch; if he hurried, he still could make it on time. "Good grief. There, I said it. Farewell, don't look me for me ever again."
"Don't you dare to stand up. We are not finished here." The fox ordered.
"I said what you wanted to hear, and I'll say nothing more." Doug repeated in exasperation. "I'll tell you again what I've told you before: I have nothing more to say about the whole Night Howler thing. By now, you know more about what happened than I do."
"Our questions have nothing to do with the Night Howlers." Intervened the rabbit.
Doug blinked in genuine disbelief. Indignation flared in his chest.
"Then you brought me here for nothing? What, is the ZPD now playing pranks on convicts?" He asked with a scowl. "Well, aren't you hilarious. Now, if you are done wasting my time, I have more important things to do. "
"Like eating your disgusting pasture and sleep your days away in your cell?" Exclaimed the fox.
"Precisely."
"You'll be free to do whatever you wish with your miserable existence after this interrogation is over, Ramses." Said the rabbit, visibly trying to keep her calm amidst the tension.
Doug knew that, even if he managed to get to the door, he would need the keys to unlock it.
He could easily snuff their lives and loot their corpses, but all that would be waiting for him behind the door were endless guards.
And even if he could escape them and reach the outside world, what would be expecting him there?
Freedom?
The sole thought made him laugh.
"So be it." He folded his arms and rested his back against the chair. "Ask you damn questions."
The rabbit took breath, but her fox partner stole the opportunity.
"What do you know of Wild Times?"
The question was so sudden that Doug couldn't make any sense out of it.
It was as if he had heard an unknown language and was now expected to make an accurate translation. Yet, after a few seconds, his memory weaved coherence into the matter.
"What of it? That was years ago."
"So you were involved in it?" Insisted the rabbit.
"Yes."
"Explain to us in what way."
Doug sighed and rubbed his forehead. He hated reminiscing the past.
Outside the practical experience and knowledge it had granted him, it was worthless.
To speak of it had no purpose.
But if it was the only way he could get those bloody nitwits off his back, then…
"I know little of who came up with it. I just know the whole idea came from some papers found in an abandoned clinic with an underground facility. It was big enough to shelter an amusement park, or a marginal city."
"Tell us about the papers. What was written on them, and who found them?"
"I never saw them." He answered. "If you want to know more, you should go ask the sheep that found them. She is behind the bars too."
Silence.
The fox's breathing quickened, and the rabbit hesitated.
"Bellwether?" she muttered.
"Who else?"
"But how?" the fox shared his partner's bewilderment.
"I don't know, and I don't care. Maybe she just stumbled upon them." Said Doug with growing annoyance. "The original idea, and where it came from, stopped being relevant the moment Bellwether reinterpreted it."
"A complete misinterpretation!" The fox punched the table.
Doug simply winked at the overreaction.
"Then the original author should have considered the danger of his words before he put them down on paper. Our thoughts stop being ours the moment we share them." Doug scratched his nose. "A paradise for predators, a place where they could have fun and let their wildest instincts run free, away from the ever judging eyes of the dominant prey. The reimagining of this concept is as limitless as the definition each individual has of the word fun, or paradise. "
"What you did with it was degenerated. Nothing more." Hissed the fox. Doug saw how his bared fangs reflected the light.
"Nick, now it's not the time."
"Judy…"
"We must let him speak , as much as we don't like what we hear."
Finally, Doug thought, the rabbit said something that resembled intelligence.
"No more arguments. Tell us how you got involved, and what exactly happened there." She demanded.
"Bellwether contacted me." Doug shrugged. "She needed a chemist, and I was available. The details are irrelevant."
"When she told you about Wild Times project, did she inform you of its nature?"
"Of course she did. She was way too eager about it to keep all the information to herself. She saw the potential of that unfinished project of predatory diversion, and was willing to make it come true."
"That makes no sense." Said the fox. "Bellwether resents predators. Why would she ever want to build a place for their benefit? You're lying!"
Doug laughed.
"Your stupidity is shameful, fox. You should know by now that Bellwether thinks of no one's benefit but her own. No, if she decided to make Wild Times a reality, it was to damage the predators, not entertain them as the original author had intended."
"Damage them how?" asked the rabbit.
"Are you so simple that you cannot figure it by yourself? Are you sure you're a real cop?" Mocked Doug, and he laughed at her surprised expression. "Think! She took the basic idea of Wild Times and discarded everything else. The diversions would no longer be childish activities; she upgraded them into more savage distractions. She used to say it was like traveling back in time, before evolution took a turn for the worse and dictated that prey and predators were meant to co-exist in peace."
The fox moved away from them and ventured in a corner. The rabbit, though evidently upset, stayed in her place.
"Who went there? What exactly did they do?" She inquired.
Doug yawned before answering.
"Rich and important predators, mostly politicians or crimes leaders. As you can imagine, Bellwether made sure that any information of the park circulated only among predators of high status. She gave no access to predators with no social or economic importance. I remember she once told me to get rid of a meager weasel that had managed to sneak inside; I would have beaten him to death it the bastard hadn't bit me."
"How did that weasel knew about what happened in Wild Times?"
"That idiot didn't. He ventured inside just in search of money, but almost found death instead. What he saw there left him so scared that I doubt he ever told anyone about it."
"And what was it?"
Doug cracked his neck. His muscles were stiff. He longed for a time to move.
"Nature."
The fox rushed towards him with his claws unsheathed. Doug didn't flinch, not even when they were at the point of ripping his eye off.
"Nick!" The rabbit called, but her partner was out of reach.
Doug moved his arm and pointed at the fox, who slowly had backed down only because of the rabbit's pleas.
"Yes, it was something similar to this." He explained. "Only that I used to dart our clients to get them in the proper mood. I think they came to like it more than I had expected. I got many phone calls of them asking me to dose them outside Wild Times, but Bellwether forbid it. That part of the plan would come later."
"So that's it?" The fox shook with rage. "You planned this whole coup against predators using Wild Times as your experimental zone?"
"Bellwether did. She gave the orders, and I just carried them out." Doug glared at his interrogators, offended at the undeserved accusation. "Woolter and Jesse were part of it too. They were in charge of kidnapping the preys our clients asked for. We gave them a chart of the prey their ancestors had once feasted upon, though they seldom followed it. Some of our clients were eager to devour other predators, just to see how one of their kind tasted like."
"How did you choose your victims?" The rabbit tried to keep her voice neutral, but Doug could hear the emerging distress leaking into her words.
"We used to call them baits. We snatched away animals that wouldn't be missed and raise suspicion. The poor, the old, the criminals, and orphan from the streets." Doug cleared his throat. "Or at least, that was the idea, but many times I saw cubs of more privileged origins among the baits. If a child came in the way of Woolter and Jesse, and it happened to match our client's request, they wouldn't hesitate to take it."
"If that's the case, how come the whole incident never reached the media?"
"That's a question our dear clients should answer." Doug stared at them. "Money and influence silence everything."
There was a silence after that last statement.
Thinking they wouldn't speak again unless he spoke first, Doug took a deep breath and proceeded.
"It was a great success, our Wild Times. For four years, I spent my mornings creating the Night Howler mix, my evenings shooting hungry predators as they chased their prey in front of an audience, and my nights studying and improving my formula. I could have lived like that forever and die a happy ram, but Bellwether had other plans on mind. She cared not if Wild Times gave her more money she had seen in her life; what she wanted was to bring down the predators, and nothing more."
"So one day, when our business at its highest point, she told me what she intended. She would leak the identities of our clients to the media, and once everything was discovered, she would play the role of the hero who stopped those savages from taking more innocent lives in their twisted pastime. Betraying animals with so much power would not be without consequences, but she was already Zootopia's vicepresident by then. As such, her contacts were influential, and many."
"That way, not only would she put predators on a bad light, she would also ensure many prey votes for the next election." The rabbit added.
"Exactly. This is how it would have proceeded, but then something happened. I pointed out a flaw in her plan. It was so evident it amazed me it had gone over her head."
"Explain."
"The perversions of those in power is old news to the public. If we did as Bellwether said, she wouldn't be creating hatred against predators, only against those at the top of the social and economic ladder. That's a stigma not even the prey is free from. Many of them were interested in taking part in Wild Time's activities too, you know? A shame Bellwether forbid them; they were quite numerous."
"Don't digress!" exclaimed the fox.
Doug glared at him.
"Surprisingly, I agree with you. I've spoken too much, and for too long. Story made short, Bellwether took my words to heart and decided to make a Wild Times out of Zootopia. One where all predators, no matter how poor or how willing, could join the fun. She shut the park down, destroyed the clinic and bought the silence of our clients. Most of them agreed, as I long as I kept supplying them with Night Howlers doses. This time, Bellwether didn't object, nor did I."
After that, another silence followed.
It was the fox who broke it.
"And?"
"And that's it. You know what happened then, don't you fox?"
Doug thought he would fall for the taunt, and he was disappointed to see that the fox restrained himself from ripping his throat open.
Instead, the fox stared at him.
"What about the predators that took part in Wild Times?" he asked, and this gained him an approbatory glance from the rabbit.
"Beats me. Some probably died of an overdose or withdrawal, or maybe they are living their lives as if Wild Times had been just a shameful chapter of self-indulgence, of depraved curiosity."
"You speak of the Night Howlers as if they were addictive." the fox observed.
Doug laughed.
"They are." He said with satisfaction. "It's too strong. Untreatable, but not incurable, not with the right antidote."
"Do you know how to make it?"
A smile transformed Doug's expression.
"Wouldn't you like to know. Are we done now? Are we done?"
End of recording.
The rest was static.
Lionheart sighed and leaned against his seat. To be surrounded by the safe walls of his old office was the only comfort he had after hearing Doug Ramses' interrogations.
Each time he listened to them, he remembered how closed Bellwether had been of taking over Zootopia; how close he had been to share the sheep's and ram's demise.
He was about to doze off when a sweet scent lured him back to consciousness.
He opened his eyes.
A big, round plate was on the middle of his desk. A silver cover kept his food from cooling.
Next to it, there were numerous police reports scattered like forgotten leaves.
Most of them concerned Hopps and Wilde's advancements concerning both the tracking of everyone involved with Wild Times, and those who had helped Bellwether from inside the political body.
Their numbers still created a hole in Lionheart's soul. Most of them were prey, but there were predators among them as well.
He had considered many of them friends, and it was hard for him to believe they had betrayed him in the blink of an eye. As far as he knew, it was them who followed Bellwether's order to make sure he was sentenced to death too, just she and Ramses had been.
According to the information Hopps and Wilde had gathered, it was a retribution on Bellewether's part for Ramses' death, but Lionheart knew she had done it only out of her need to bring him down together with her.
Had it not been for Wilde and Hopps' investigation...
Yet, he didn't resent his enemies. Lionheart had always found it wasteful to resent the dead.
He saved his anger for the living.
His solace was the fact his former triators were now rotting in jail, or running for their lives.
He had made sure of it.
It wasn't for nothing he had permitted… no, ordered the ZPD to shoot them in sight or if they showed the slightest sign of resistance.
Officer Judy Hopps had spoken against it, and much to Lionheart's surprise, so had Nick Wilde. Others had joined then in their protests, but for now, they were forced to comply.
Once they had captured all the predators involved with Wild Times, and once the mayor's committee was free of double-faced menaces, then maybe everything would go back to normal.
To the way things were before Bellwether.
Lionheart chuckled without humor.
Vile and cruel as she had been, Bellwether had caused such an impact on Zootopia and on animals as a whole, that history may as well be divided before and after her.
Perhaps, he thought, she wasn't as different as evolution itself.
His stomach growled and his mouth watered.
Softly, almost elegantly, Lionheart took the silver cover off the plate. He gazed at the chunk of raw meat and felt a rush of adrenaline in his veins.
The meat was so fresh it almost palpitated like a heart. It rested on a puddle of blood that reeked of its predator's origins.
Lionheart feasted on it like his ancestors had done before him. It wasn't the taste, but the feeling it gave him what made it so gratifying.
As if it was a missing part that Time had taken away from him before he had been born.
Safe inside his office, far away from jail and no longer sentenced to death, he lost himself in that private pleasure that brought him shame and satisfaction in equal doses.
It was the natural consequence of what had happened.
Lionheart would never allow for something like Wild Times and the Night Howlers Incident to happen again, but even then, he wasn't blind to his reality.
He licked blood from his fangs and nose and looked behind him, to the city he was supposed to lead. He took one final chew and swallowed.
A realization came to him.
He could keep the city from reverting back to old habits of hate and perversion, but he could never bring its former glory back.
His Night Howler's bloodthirst was the same as the predators' resentment and the prey's prejudices.
Once awakened, never quenched.