The bottom floor of Raja's appeared to be devoid of hostiles, to the partial relief of the rescue team, but every one of them knew that appearances could be deceiving. Everyone except Judy, perhaps. She wasn't anywhere near as inexperienced as she'd been when she'd first come to Zootopia, but she still had an unfortunate habit of taking things at face value. Not all the time, and not with the ingrained prejudice she'd harbored before, but she still had a long way to go before Nick could call her his equal in judgement.

Bogo signaled for them to get moving. "Keep away from the front."

One by one, they descended the wooden stairs. Judy was the second to reach the bottom, with Nick close behind. They moved along the side of the stairs, avoiding the middle area where something was likely to spot them through the windows up front.

Nick let out a shout, both from surprise and pain when he felt something rake his shoulder. As the others reacted, he leapt away from the stairs and aimed his tranq gun at a square shaped shelf he had been passing by at the precise moment he was attacked. The deranged looking two-toed sloth reared his arm back to strike again.

Judy leapt in front of Nick and fired, knocking out the sloth instantly, then whirled on her partner. "Are you okay?"

Nick checked his shoulder and found a shallow scratch. "I'm fine. Remind me to never push Flash too far."

"Quit joking around, Wilde!" McHorn muttered furiously.

They heard growling nearby. Bogo quickly switched off the flashlight on his weapon and the others followed suit, but it was already too late.

"Oh, holy crap." Delgato muttered, staring at the windows up front. On the other side of the glass, all hell was about to break loose. Drawn by Nick's cry of pain, a pride of ten, twenty, maybe thirty lions were fast approaching the store.

"To the back door, now!" Bogo shouted.

They ran, weaving through the debris towards the cash registers at the back of the store. Fallen fabrics and severed fake limbs threatened to trip them and the wide stands slowed their progress. They weren't even halfway to the counter when they heard the sound of broken glass being scattered. The lions had reached the store.

"McHorn, Delgato, slow them down!" Bogo ordered. The two mammals whirled round and started firing. Nick didn't look back to see if their efforts weren't in vain.

"Look out!" Fangmeyer shouted suddenly. Nick looked behind him. His heart stopped when he saw a male lion in a jersey pounce through the gap between McHorn and Delgato, teeth and claws aimed for the fox. Before he could even think, his arms shot up in front of his face and he pulled the trigger. The mad lion passed out in midair and crashed into a piled of crushed wood that had once been a clothes stand. Nick kept his tranq gun on the beast, heart pounding. He'd literally just stared death in the face.

"Nick, keep moving!" Judy yelled from right behind him, and he felt her grab the back of his stab vest and drag him the rest of the way to the cash registers. Bogo and Fangmeyer were at the door by this point, cursing and ramming at the door to no avail.

Locked? Crap!

Just when things couldn't get any worse, they heard a tortured trumpet in the distance.


One of the survivors, a well-off kudu who owned a short chain of confectionary stores, donated a heavy wooden cane that Benjamin now held along with Gazelle's Taser. In exchange, he gave Gazelle his satchel for safekeeping. With his primary and secondary weapons in paw, he stepped out into the darkened corridor.

Something had happened to the lights while they had been hiding in the Security Office. Perhaps a savage mammal had come across the switch and accidentally nudged it. In any case the corridor outside was now as dark as the Nocturnal District, and eerily quiet.

The only sound Benjamin heard was the soft, nervous breathing of the two civilians behind him. Despite her injured thigh Gazelle was braving the pain to see Benjamin out, and to silently provide comfort and encouragement to her admirer. Beside her, Stu Hopps watched with bated breath as Benjamin slowly left the safety of the Security Office, knowing that his daughter's life may depend on the cheetah's success. When Benjamin was fully outside, he looked over his shoulder at his companions. Gazelle gave him a nod, not wanting him to leave their sanctuary but also acknowledging that it was the only way. Stu looked at him with wide, scared eyes, half-convinced that Benjamin wasn't coming back.

Benjamin did his best to smile convincingly before turning his gaze back to the darkness ahead. He saw the main corridor up ahead, barely visible with an almost luminous navy blue hue. There was a little squeak as the door behind him began to close. He remained fixed in place, refusing to look back. There was a click as the door closed, and then a second, louder one as someone locked it.

Oh Dickens, what am I doing?

Now alone, Benjamin looked down at his suddenly meager looking weapons. On the top of the cane was a carved strawberry cupcake. He sighed wistfully. "If only you were real."

He held the cane out like a sword, clutching the tiny Taser with his other paw, and began making his way down the short corridor.

All signs of life seemed to disappear the second the office door had been closed and locked. He couldn't hear anything from the room he had left behind, nor could he hear anything from the corridor ahead of him. Even his own footsteps were silent. The only sound in existence was his own breath, coming in and out in a calm rhythm, a facade that masked his inner terror. The air felt so cold that it ought to be visible.

"Is anyone there?" He spoke softly, too afraid to speak any louder. He'd hoped that Bogo's team had managed to get through the back door somehow while Benjamin had been preparing for his suicide mission, but that hope was quickly quashed. "No answer... just like in the movies."

He fought to remember what the academy had taught him about handling a situation such as this. But what exactly was the situation? He wasn't making any arrests. There were no hostages at risk, unless you counted the people hiding in the office behind him. He wasn't conducting a raid and clearing the building of threats either... wait, what's the procedure for clearing a building?

"Rule number one; never pass an unclear area! Rule number two; communications are necessary, but keep them short and sweet! Rule number three; always be prepared for change! Stay on your feet, keep it simple, or you'll be dead!"

The drill instructor's words rang in Benjamin's ears as he drew closer to the main corridor. Clearing a building... that procedure could work for him. He wasn't actually clearing a building, but he could still use that training to watch out for threats.

He reached the end of the short corridor and paused. The faux cherry on the cupcake cane looked almost purple in the bluish dark. Then he steeled himself and peeked around one corner.

The end of the corridor, roundabout where he had witnessed Bellwether's assault, was empty and quiet. Benjamin turned his head to look the other way, where he needed to go. So far he was clear. He stepped into the larger corridor and continued on. In a typical situation he'd be part of a team, splitting up in both directions to make sure all areas were cleared. But Benjamin wasn't part of a team. He was on his own. He longed for the front desk, his donut shaped workplace basked in the warmth of the early morning sun, where there was always someone around to have his back if a visitor or arrested felon became too aggressive.

He reached the corner and peeked again. Clear. So far, so good. Don't jinx yourself.

He spied the next turn up ahead, past the employee's bathroom and a general break room. After that turn was the security shutter Pines had told him about, and after that, the door to Raja's. And Chief Bogo.

If he and the others haven't shown up by now, then they must be in trouble. He's probably trying to break the door open right now while the others are trying to hold off a whole pack of savage animals, his hard, rounded shoulder ramming the stubborn metal again and again, a bruise forming on his massive, rippling muscles...

Benjamin stopped to shake the distracting thoughts from his silly skull. Now wasn't the time to be absent-minded. Before setting off again, he looked down at the Taser and quickly pressed the button to doubly make sure it had power. A little blue arc flashed above his paw.

That was when he saw the footprints.

They were big, rounded, and essentially resembled a deformed three leaf clover. Benjamin had never seen a footprint like it, especially one that had been formed with moist, shiny blood.

His rapidly growing fear manifested itself as a sharp ache in his chest. It was growing harder to draw in air, and his breathing quickened. Benjamin stepped to the side, away from the trail of strange footprints. He almost checked his own feet to see if he'd stepped in the blood. He held the cane and Taser to his chest and closed his eyes, inwardly screaming at himself to turn back. Not for the first time since this all started, he felt the urge to burst into tears. Why the heck was he even doing this? He wasn't like Bogo or Judy or McHorn; he was just a soft hearted, simple minded receptionist wearing a shiny gold badge that just proved he worked with the ZPD. His first three months on the force could attest to that. Bogo and the others were strong where he was weak. They could surely get through a single door by themselves.

But what about the high-tech super strong security shutter?

That single question was enough to get Benjamin off the wall and continue on.

He reached the next corner without further incident and peeked once more. Almost halfway down this long stretch was a closed security shutter. So far, Benjamin's side looked clear. There were doors on both walls, but Benjamin had no intention of opening any door that didn't have the word Raja's on it. He edged closer to the shutter and looked through the letterbox shaped holes. He couldn't see the names of the doors on the other side from his position. He quickly became aware of a vicious banging sound coming from yet another corner on the other end. A savage animal trashing everything in sight, or the rescue team trying to break down Raja's door?

Benjamin spied a keypad to the left of the shutter and pulled out the receipt with the passcode written on it; 1973. He pressed the buttons and was rewarded with a blinking green light.

The shutter was surprisingly quick and quiet as it rose, clearing the way in less than a quarter of a minute. Benjamin smiled in relief. That had gone a lot better than he'd thought it would. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go the rest of the way to Raja's and get that door unlocked.

There was a crashing sound from the direction the banging had come from, wiping the smile from the cheetah's face. He straightened and stared at the distant corner, gripping his cane and Taser. Smack the hostile, taze it, then run like the wind. He told himself over and over as the sound of dull footsteps met his little black ears. Louder and louder they grew as the walker drew closer. If it's Bogo and the others, put the cane and Taser down before you take someone's eye out. His paws quavered slightly as he was torn between optimism and caution.

Black and blue in the darkened corridor, a great rhino came around the corner and stopped, fixing his small, dilated eyes on Benjamin.

Benjamin felt his ears flatten as he froze. A primal terror filled his entire being, the terror that came with realizing your fatal error of trespassing on a larger animal's territory. The understanding that you had just condemned yourself to a grisly end.

The rhino snorted loudly, the mere existence of the cheetah getting him riled.

And then in an instant, he charged.

Going naught to thirty in under five seconds, he rapidly narrowed the distance between himself and the cheetah.

Managing just barely to break out of his stupor, Benjamin charged straight for the nearest escape route; a wide metal door bearing a wolf in a wheelchair. He rushed into the larger bathroom and slammed the door shut. From the other side the rhino struck the door with all his might, knocking Benjamin to the floor. Adrenaline dragged him back up, allowing him to reach the door lock and turn it.

Wide eyes fixed on the door, the cheetah scrambled backward on all fours, waiting for the door to break apart. The rhino struck it again and again, bellowing like a demon. There was a horrible sound as he scraped his horn on the steadily bulging surface.

Benjamin had dropped the cane at some point, but it was of no use to him now. He moved to the side, not wanting to be directly in the rhino's path once he broke through. Sending out a small prayer, he pressed both thumbs onto the button of the Taser, filling the room with a soft crackling. After a short eternity the wounded door was still and silent. The rhino must have given up.

High up on one wall was a line of wide windows that filled the room with light during the day. One of them had a handle. Feeling a small hope, Benjamin released the button, climbed up onto the toilet and peeked outside. He saw the deathly white light of the floodlights and the crowd in the distance, held at bay by the fence. He pushed on the handle. It didn't budge. Of course it didn't budge. Trapped in a disabled toilet, stalked by a crazy rhino, while his friends and favorite boss were risking their lives to save his helpless keister? This was the worst Christmas ever.

The cheetah relented and sat down on the toilet, deciding to wait a few minutes to make sure the rhino was really gone. As he leaned on his knees, he saw a small, reddish brown puddle that nearly made his heart stop again, until his nose caught the unmistakable scent of coffee. Soon enough, his eyes fell on the source of the spill; a fallen Snarlbucks cup lying on a cluster of deep claw marks.

For some reason, his paw reached out to grab the cup. It was relatively clean and part of the bottom was deformed, as if the holder had dropped the cup before finishing it. He tilted the cup upright and peered inside, spying a little trace of blue staining the-

BAM!

Time seemed to go into overdrive as Benjamin spun round and saw the door slam open, spilling a three ton wrinkled grey wrecking ball with a horn. The crazed rhino crashed into the opposite wall near the sink as Benjamin flew off the toilet. As his bloodied feet left clover-shaped prints on the tiles the rhino recovered quickly and turned to search for the cat that had invaded his territory. His wild eyes locked on the panicked Benjamin as he raced around the bathroom towards the door. No longer thinking straight, Benjamin threw the cup uselessly at the rhino and it bounced off, leaving brown spots on his grey skin as he charged again. In his rush to kill Benjamin the rhino missed by a meter and struck the wall-length mirror, shattering it into a hundred shining pieces. Benjamin jabbed him with the crackling Taser, making him recoil with a howl and giving the cheetah the precious seconds he needed to reach the door. He grabbed the handle as he went, pulling the door with him as he spun back into the corridor. The door slammed shut, muting the rhino's bellowing. The beast wouldn't be contained for long. Benjamin spun round, meaning to flee back to the safety of the Security Office, only to find the barrel of a rifle pointing at his nose.

Benjamin gasped and froze, staring at the large figure aiming the rifle. A second passed, in which he became aware of other figures in the corridor with him, and then the figure lowered the rifle. "Clawhauser?"

Benjamin blinked. "Bogo?"

He heard a clang and then something flat and hard slammed into his back with the force of a speeding train, throwing him into Bogo's chest. Wracked by pain in his back and numbness everywhere else, Benjamin felt himself being spun round. With the wind knocked out of him he gasped for air and listened as the other members of the rescue team and the rhino leapt into battle. He heard shouts and bellows, then a scuffling sound as McHorn and Fangmeyer grappled the rhino and pinned him to the floor, allowing Delgato to step forward and knock him out with a dart.

"Holy crap!" Nick cried. "Clawhauser? You okay, buddy?"

"Cripes, he hit that door pretty hard." Judy whispered. "Ben? Come on, talk to us!"

Benjamin didn't feel like he was seriously injured, but he couldn't get enough air in his lungs to answer. Above his head, he heard Bogo speak, his voice unexpectedly soft. "Clawhauser. Benjamin... are you alright?"

As Benjamin regained his regular breathing pattern and the pain and numbness eased, he was able to feel the buffalo's arms wrapped around his limp body. His muscles were hard, but with that little bit of give that made them comforting, and his hooves were taking care not to press into Benjamin's sore skin. Benjamin slowly lifted his arms, even though his body didn't want to work at that moment, and reluctantly and gently pushed on Bogo's vested chest. He felt Bogo's body relax as he released him. "I'm okay. Just had the wind knocked out of me, sir." He breathed.

"You sure, kid?" McHorn asked as he and Fangmeyer got up and carefully pushed the sedated rhino to the side of the corridor.

Benjamin nodded, smiling. "I'm fine, guys. Really."

Judy stepped forward and softly patted Benjamin's knee, making him look down. "Ben, where's my family?"


The moment Judy entered the Security Office and spotted her parents, she dropped all pretense of being a hardened officer and threw herself into their arms, sobbing and thanking God for sparing them. Her reunion with her niece was equally as joyful.

Meanwhile, Delgato quickly found Bellwether and began examining her, deliberately ignoring the look of helpless frustration on her face while Fangmeyer tended to Gazelle and the other wounded. McHorn was keeping an eye on the barricaded closet where the boar was still trapped. Benjamin was in an office chair, still feeling sore from the rhino incident.

As for Nick and Bogo, they were watching the camera feeds to try and find a safe route back to the rooftop. Raja's was no longer an option, what with a pack of lions prowling about the place, and Nick and the others had used up a lot of ammo holding them off until they'd managed to break the door down. In fact, nearly all of the stores were full of hostiles, having been driven from the halls by the elephants that now wandered the wings looking for more intruders. From the looks of it, the only remotely safe way back was up the stairs... which were still blocked by shutters.

"Looks like we're up a stinky creek without a paddle, sir." Nick spoke. "Unless there's a way to open the door shutters from here." The two of them looked at Pines.

"The stairway shutters use a different system." The porcupine explained. "They were a last second addition so I don't know everything about them, but I do know that they require a key."

Nick recalled how there'd been box-shaped keyholes beside the stairway doors. "Please tell me you have one."

Pines shook his head. "The guy in charge of the North Wing had one, but I haven't been able to contact him."

Nick turned back to the camera feeds. "What does he look like?"

"He's a wolverine, the only one working as security here. He should still be in his uniform."

Nick and Bogo searched the camera feed, Pines stepping in between them. Almost a minute went by when Pines suddenly pointed at one of the images. "There he is!"

A wolverine in a ragged uniform was prowling around a fancy looking chocolate shop in the West Wing.

"That's Alec Chocolatier." Pines said. "It's not far from here. We get that key and it's a clear shot to the rooftop."

"I don't like this." Bogo growled. "It's too risky. We've reached the civilians and given them medical attention. We should probably just sit tight and wait for Special Forces."

Delgato stepped forward with slightly bloodstained paws. "Sir, Bellwether's hemorrhaging again. She may not have that long."

Nick pouted. "Great."