Clawhauser wasn't entirely sure how he and Ray made it to the main doors without Weaselton spotting them, but he'd take any luck he got right now. Unfortunately, it ran out when they entered the foyer to find Yax unconscious behind his desk; no amount of shaking or calling got him to stir, and there was no trace of the front door key. They did, however, find a tranq dart on the floor.

"Wait, Weaselton's got a dart gun?!" Ben exclaimed. "Where'd he get it? How?"

Ray was stunned. "This guy doesn't mess around."

"He's a one-stoat crimewave." Clawhauser headed back to the Oasis proper, tail lashing in agitation.

"A stoat called Weaselton?" Ray asked, confused, following him.

"Well, he's too big for a weasel, and has a long tail with a black tip, so I'm pretty sure he's a stoat," Ben explained, setting himself in front of the doors. He looked to the pool, reassuring himself Elle was still there holding Julie atop the rocks and greenery, the four Ottertons bundled together alongside the antelopes. "Although, with that muzzle, there might be a little marten in him. Can you see him?"

The tiger shook his head. "Maybe he's raiding more rooms."

Clawhauser sighed. "Keep your eyes open, and lets hope the backup gets here as fast as they said they would..."

Several tense minutes slid by with no sign of Weaselton, in a restless silence finally broken by Ray.

"Any idea why he decided to come here?" the tiger asked.

"Because it's one of the few places in the city he hasn't hit," supplied a smooth, lightly roguish voice; Nick sauntered into view with aviators present and correct. "And he probably thought it an easy target."

"We're about to prove him wrong!" Judy proclaimed as she strode in front of them; her determined expression was slightly undermined by it being aimed at the path in front of her feet.

"Doubt you're gonna catch him with your eyes glued to the floor the whole time, Carrots," Nick teased. He looked to Clawhauser. "Does he have any idea we're here?"

"None," Ben answered.

"Then we might be able to catch him unawares," Nick mused. "Before he can start firing off that tranq gun he used on Yax."

"We'd better, or things could get ugly." Judy's head snapped up. "Let's go pop the weasel! Again!"

"I'll stay here and guard the gate," Ray offered. "Maybe the sight of a great, bruising tiger will make him think twice about sneaking out."

"You know, it just might." Nick nodded agreement. "We ready?"

"As we'll ever be." Clawhauser squared his shoulders.

The fox lobbed him a radio. "Then get going! Call in if you spot him."

Ben nodded; he headed down the main pathway, while Judy and Nick fanned to the left and right. His head swivelled ceaselessly as he tried to catch sight of Weaselton, but beyond the odd distressed mammal or visibly rifled bag found nothing. Reaching the pool, he skirted around it to the rocks and shrubs, to be beckoned urgently by Elle.

"We've just spotted him," she reported. "Heading for the stairs."

"Huh; Ray was right." Clawhauser thumbed his radio. "Target seen en route to back stairs, likely heading for guest rooms."

"Gotcha, Sprinkles!" Nick's voice crackled back. "If he's turning over a room, we can trap him in there."

"On my way!" Judy called in.

"Keep an eye out, Ben," Nick instructed. "You see him, call in where."

"Will do." Clawhauser moved to the highest point of the rocks, where he had a decent view of the verandah. Scanning along it he picked out a door near one corner that was slightly ajar. "There's a room near the left corner as you come up the stairs that's open. If you're quick..."

"Quick's my middle name!" Judy came into view, streaking across the verandah.

"Huh; I thought it was L-"

"Say it and you're a throw rug, Nick."

"Shutting up and heading over."

Clawhauser giggled softly, then tensed as the door opened wider; he was sure he glimpsed a sharp snout. "Guys, he's coming out..."

Weaselton suddenly scurried into view; he saw Judy bearing down on him almost immediately, jumped with a yelp Ben heard loud and clear, pulled a tranq gun from his bag and hurried to load it. The bunny spun around a door that opened in her path at the same time as Duke fired a wild shot; the dart missed Judy but hit the puma who'd stepped out of their room in the side; they groaned and sagged.

Hopps skid-turned and raced to the cat while Weaselton scrambled to reload and Nick bounded from the stairs. Duke hesitated, eyes flicking back and forth between the two officers, giving Judy just enough time to half-drag the woozy puma back into their room, then he fired at the fox, who dived back to the stairs; the dart cracked off the stone railing and tumbled to the grass below.

Clawhauser bolted to collect it before anyone else did, one ear on the shouts from his radio.

"Hopps, you all right?"

"Safe for now, Nick, but he's firing loose, and he's using heavy darts; just took a puma down."

"Almost hit me! That coulda been nasty. Ben, where are you?"

"Just recovered the dart that fell." Clawhauser held it up. "Didn't want a cub getting hold of it."

"Good thinking!" Nick approved. "Weaselton's got nowhere to go, so you just watch for more loose shots while we close in."

"He's making a run for it!" Judy hissed; there was a yell, a scuffle, and a jeer from the target. "Dangit, I missed! Hold the stairs, Nick!"

Clawhauser, panting a little, rushed to the bottom of the stairs, ready to try and block Duke should he get past the fox. As he reached them a dart ricocheted down toward him, missing his foot by inches; barely had he snatched it up than paws were hammering his way, Weaselton sliding into view on the stairs; impulsively Ben threw a dart at him, and the mustelid span and fled back up.

The cheetah reclaimed the dart and followed, finding a groggy Nick two-thirds of the way up, and hearing Judy again just missing Duke.

"Too slow, cottontail!" Weaselton sneered, though it was edged with considerable tension.

"You're cornered, Wesselton!" the rabbit called back, as Ben and Nick joined her. "Give up!"

"It's WEASELTON!" the mustelid roared, eyes bulging, the gun shaking in his paws. "And I ain't out of it yet, coppers!"

"Got enough darts left for all of us?" Nick asked, cockily.

Duke fished in his bag, pulled out just the one, then glared murder at the fox. "Least I got a gun! Pity you're both too green to have yours!"

"We don't need them, Wesselton," Judy shot back. "We got you dead to rights, so come quietly! Last chance, or we take you down."

"WEASELTON, WEASELTON, WEASELTON!" Duke bellowed, hopping in place he was so incensed. "And I told ya, I ain't out of it yet!"

He lunged for the railing, and only then did the officers realise that a group of mammals had gathered on the grass right below, watching what was happening, among them a giraffe. Weaselton flung himself off the verandah, sailing an impressive distance to latch onto the neck of the towering mammal.

The giraffe panicked, stumbling around as he fought to dislodge Duke, the other animals scattering. Judy bounced onto the railing then leapt high and long over to the neck of the giraffe, chasing Weaselton, while Nick and Clawhauser rushed down the stairs to try and get everyone to safety, the cheetah still carrying his darts.

Duke swarmed to the megafauna's head, giving them a close-up view of his gun. "Make for the exit, beanpole!"

The giraffe, terrified, whirled around, Weaselton only just hanging on and Judy, who was a few feet below, tumbling to their shoulders; they careered for the main doors, splashing straight through the pool and almost trampling a raccoon. Nick managed to get the latter safe, then joined Ray, while Ben ensured the Ottertons and the two gazelles were well clear before joining the others. All of them stared resolutely up at Duke, who glared right back.

He prodded the giraffe. "Kick 'em out the way!"

"This is low even for you, Duke!" Nick called out. "Do you really think a pawful of stolen trinkets are worth all this?"

"I got a good haul, here!" Weaselton was indignant. "Coupla hundred zoobucks, easy!"

"Coupla hundred?" Nick scoffed. "That's chicken feed! Are you really that desperate?"

"I ain't desperate!" Duke near screeched. "I'm doin' great!" His voice dropped, and he looked away. "Just...felt like a change, is all." Then he was raging again. "And at least I ain't turned traitor!"

Nick smirked. "You're mistakenly assuming we were ever on the same side. I hustled to get by, never hurting a soul; you...you're traumatising a giraffe just to try and get away with a couple of hundred zoodollars of...what? Loose change and costume jewellery?"

"No!" Weaselton fished in his bag, bringing out a video camera; Ray's eyes bulged. "I swiped this, too!"

A grey paw grabbed the one of his holding the gun, trying to wrench the weapon away. "Give up, Wesselton!"

"WEASELTON!" Duke roared, his outrage only growing when it sank in what had happened. "And you tricked me!"

"Not a challenge, Wesselton!" Nick laughed.

Glowering murderously, the mustelid fought to free his paw, the dart gun flailing around in the process, and the camera falling free. As Ray lunged to catch his property Nick ran to cover one crowd of onlookers, while Clawhauser rushed to cover another, the Ottertons, Elle and Julie among them. Almost the very moment the cheetah reached his group and turned to look back at the tussle atop a giraffe now paralysed with fear, the gun fired.

The dart zipped straight at Ben's crowd; he took one step to the side, right in front of Julie, and it hit him in the chest. Waves of drowsiness began to wash over him, stronger each time; he slumped to his knees, dropped the darts and radio, and watched through increasingly blurry eyes as the battle atop the giraffe ended when Weaselton lost his grip and fell with a scream, still clutching the bag.

Ray caught and restrained him, while Nick tore past, skidding to a halt alongside Clawhauser, but Ben could barely hear the fox. The last two things he saw were Judy hugging and petting the giraffe's head, trying to calm them down, and a pair of gazelles reaching out for him; then he slumped to the floor and passed out.

The first thing to register when he started to stir was warmth, warmth that seemed to envelop him almost entirely. After a while, it came to him that it was fur, and a little later that it was fur covering bodies. A trio of bodies, in fact: one really large and really soft that he was lying on; a slimmer, sleeker one curled against his side; and a small, delicate one bundled in his lap.

When he finally got his eyes to open, and once they'd found enough focus for things to be more than shapeless blurs, a smile coalesced in front of him, but it confused him; it was Gazelle's smile, as bright and as warm as he'd ever seen it, but on Elle's face, and that didn't make a bit of sense.

Then Elle spoke, and his confusion grew, as it was in Gazelle's vibrant Clawlombian accent.

"Easy, querido," she soothed. "You're safe."

"I...think the tranq...is messing with me," he mumbled. "You...sound like Gazelle...but you're not Gazelle..."

"Are you sure?" she asked, smile growing even wider.

He nodded, a little woozily, patting Julie's head and chest as the child nuzzled his chin. "Gazelle doesn't have a daughter."

"Yes, she does," the cub answered. "Me!"

"But...but..." A confounded Clawhauser looked at Julie, then Elle, and finally Ray...and that's when something came back to him. "With little chance of being recognised by anyone..." He turned to stare right into the true face of his Angel With Horns. "Not even her biggest fan." And then he started to cry.

Gazelle reached a paw out to softly stroke his tears away. "After what you did, you deserve to know." She cradled his cheeks and gave him a kiss right on the mouth that was as warm as her smile. "Thank you for saving my daughter."

Julie kissed the side of his muzzle and Ray the top of his head at the same time. Ben blushed vividly, eyes still watery.

"Just doing my job," he mumbled, then stiffened. "Wait – is everyone okay? What happened...?"

A chuckling Ray shushed him. "Nick and Judy have taken Weaselton to the station, along with the darts, gun and all the loot. The giraffe and the panther and Yax are doing fine and no-one else was hurt. Oh, and no, I've not heard from Gary, but I'm sure he's doing fine, too."

Clawhauser breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I'm sure you'll have your camera back, soon; Can't imagine conviction will be hard."

"Certainly like to have it back." The tiger looked a little shamefaced. "I have some footage on it I wasn't able to get off it thanks to the whole night-howler situation. Really hope no-one looks."

"They won't," Ben assured Ray, patting their paw. He tried to swallow his curiosity, but it wouldn't be denied. "Could I ask...?"

"We recorded a warm-down dance for future reference," Gazelle told him, with no hesitation. "And I happened to be nude; in character – I'd just posed for photos, and it didn't go well, and I tore the deo outfit off in a bit of a rage..."

"Should've filmed that!" Ray laughed. "You really didn't hold back!"

Gazelle shuddered, glared playfully at the tiger, then continued as if he hadn't spoken. "But nude. After that we messed around to blow off some steam, then showered, and then this tonto tiger" – she patted a chagrined Ray's chest – "remembered he'd left his camera on, and it'd recorded everything."

"Oh, my," Clawhauser giggled. "Imagine if someone got hold of that."

"Someone very nearly did," Ray sighed, then brightened up. "But you, Hopps and Wilde stopped them, and saved us a world of trouble."

"You did your bit," Ben insisted, then a jolt of alarm ran through him, and he looked anxiously around. "Wait, can anyone hear us?" Then his ears stiffened and his whiskers twitched in confusion. "Uhh, where are we...exactly?"

They were resting against a small mound of rocks and shrubs; on the left was a bathing pool of modest size – less than ten feet across – and to the right a mud pool of the same scale. Tall, brightly painted walls surrounded them, and a sole door stood across from them.

"Private area," Gazelle explained. "Expensive, but Officer Hopps told us to look after you until you're fully recovered, so..."

"Oh!" Clawhauser clapped a paw to his muzzle. "I'll have to go to the precinct and give a statement."

"When you've recovered." Gazelle was fondly resolute, pressing her paw to the middle of his chest to emphasise the point. "Until then, you stay. Got it, querido?"

Julie added her hands, doing her best to look assertive. "Yeah, stay!"

Ben squeed gently, and kissed the bridge of her muzzle. "Well, if you absolutely and positively insist..."

"Yes!" The cub nodded energetically.

Clawhauser giggled. "How could I say no to that? Your daughter's so adorable...er...Gazelle or just Elle?"

"Elle, and yes, yes she is." The elder antelope lovingly tousled the ear of the younger one. "And to think she was an accident."

"She was?" Ben blinked.

"Back when I first found success," Elle explained. "Before I met all the tigers. It...went to my head, and I went pretty...well...wild. Parties and drinking and spending and..." She searched for the right phrase. "Other things that, since I wasn't careful, meant I started getting pretty round pretty quickly." She loosed a rueful chuckle. "My manager tried to get me to...deal with it, but...I couldn't.

She stroked her daughter's face. "And I'm glad I didn't. Having Juliana sobered me up completely. She gave me motivation, the drive to sort my life out and, in time, become the Gazelle I am today. All right, I'm having to lead something of a double life to ensure she can live hers in peace, but my pequeña estrella is more than worth the effort."

"Wow." Clawhauser rested a paw on the antelope's stomach. "I don't think many people would have managed that. Could manage that." He held up his other paw. "I promise never to tell a soul about any of this; not even Judy."

Elle beamed. "Thanks. Consider yourself part of our little family!"

"Welcome, Unca Ben!" Julie cheered, hugging his neck and kissing his cheeks repeatedly.

Clawhauser's eyes grew wet again. He wiped them dry, then put his paws to Julie's waist, almost encircling it, easing her back. "Soo...does my lovely new niece want to go play in the mud?"

The cub's answer was to bound to her feet, race over to the mud, and cannonball into it. Ben roared with laughter, brushed kisses across the muzzles of Ray and Elle, his ears faintly red, then ran to join Julie. The tiger and the gazelle watched, both smiling widely, as the cheetah and the child play-wrestled in the mud.

"Quite a bit of luck, him being here the same time as us," Ray noted, nosing Elle's scalp. "Couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. And your instincts were spot on. How you could know he'd be so perfect just from watching him at our concerts..."

The antelope's grew to a size and warmth that was pure Gazelle, and she kissed the tiger's nose. "The same way I knew you, Fred, Bert and Ral would be perfect."

Clawhauser lifted and spun a wildly giggling Julie, then they both fell back into the mud.

"Because you wear your hearts for all to see."

Then she got up, and ran to join the muddy fun, laughing all the way.