Back again, I am. Spent most of this week writing an abridged script for Act 4 of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," so my week has been fun. Only new reviews I've gotten so far were from people saying they couldn't wait for more, so I hope to provide! Read on, my loyal subjects, and enjoy the spoils of my labor!

Chapter 7

The next few days were slow for Judy. She looked up every file, checked every old source, but came up empty handed. Nothing of the old Night Howler case led anywhere. With every day that passed, she felt more and more like she was missing something. One Thursday morning in particular, Bogo took notice. Seeing her so stressed, as if she was literally working herself to death, made him wonder if she was really fit for duty that day, and he wasn't going to take the chance. He approached her at her desk.

"Hopps," He said, grabbing her attention, "I want you to take the rest of the day off."

She was quick to her feet, "Sir, I'm fine. I can keep working!"

"Watch your tone, Hopps. You work for me, remember. You're working yourself to death, digging up old files, searching for god knows what. Go home, get some rest, come back tomorrow. That's all," He replied, and without another word, returned to his office.

With a look of frustration, Judy angrily left her desk and stormed out of the building, right past Nick, who was just returning from the Coffee shop. He tried to grab her attention with a witty remark, but was promptly ignored as she left. Instead of taking a car and going home, the frustrated bunny made her way to the city park on foot. The park was a simple place, filled with different art sculptures and street performers. Judy took a seat on a bench right beside one who was setting up with a guitar and amp. She slid down on the bench with a sigh, pressing her palms into her temples. When the street performer, a Lynx, began playing, the music relaxed her. He even began to sing, but Judy paid little attention to the lyrics. Her attention was drawn to the Siberian tiger who had just taken a seat beside her with a smoothie in hand.

"Is there a problem, Officer?" He asked, looking down at the vexed rabbit.

She sighed, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be teaching your class?"

"I would be, but when I arrived this morning, I found that my gym had been broken into. They raided my records, but didn't take anything. Well, nothing accept that old hunting spear," Ark explained, before taking a sip of his smoothie.

That information immediately brought Judy out of her frustrated stupor. She quickly perked up, her ears coming to full height, and turned to face the calm tiger.

"Wait, why would someone break into a gym?"

"I don't know. When I arrived, the entire front glass panel was broken. None of my equipment was touched, and they didn't leave a single trace of themselves behind. Security cameras caught two medium sized figures breaking in, but they were dressed in all black. They were predators, and most definitely cats, but that's all I could find," he replied.

"Have you filed a report?"

"How do you think I ended up here? I was handing in the paperwork when you stormed out of the building," Ark said, smirking.

"Right…" Judy replied.

"As much as I disagree with his daily motive, he is right. You shouldn't stress yourself so much."

Judy didn't reply. She only sunk back into her seat and leaned forward on her hands, listening to the soothing young voice of the Lynx performing beside them. When the chorus began, her ears once again perked up.

"Night Howlers conceited, the world is falling down…But the people retreated back into the ground. Night Howlers are coming and the people run away, when all that we needed was one little change. Night Howlers are running from one little change," he sang, concluding the song.

"What song is that?" Judy asked, intrigued.

"I figured you'd like it. It's 'One Little Change' by Making Life. It talks about how the world is hard, and didn't want to change. But when things got really bad, the tiniest change in the world changed the entire world for the better, and it was all we really needed," He replied.

Judy quickly pulled out her notepad to write down the song and band so she could go back to it when she had the time.

"It was written about you. You made a difference here," the Lynx added, "My sister idolizes you."

"Thank you. I think that was exactly the song I needed to hear."

With that said, Judy stood from her place on the bench and straightened out her uniform.

"Where are you going now?" Ark asked.

"Back to work. I'm on file duty, or I was anyways, so I've got to get your report and all the others put in. I'll see to it someone is sent down to investigate your gym," She replied with a smile.

"Bogo isn't going to like that," he said, smirking.

Judy didn't reply; only began her track back to the police station. To her relief, Bogo was nowhere in sight. She went straight to the front desk to see Clawhauser.

"Hey Judy, I thought you were off duty for the day," He said, placing down his box of doughnuts.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," She replied with a warm smile, "So, a Siberian Tiger named Ark Fanger came in earlier and left a report about a break in at Sharp Fitness and Aikido. Do you still have that file?"

Benjamin quickly grabbed the few files he had and began sifting through them, eventually pulling one out.

"This the one you're looking for?" He asked, handing it to her.

After briefly looking it over, she said it was and began walking back to her desk. She was quickly stopped by the chubby Leopard calling her back to the front counter.

"He also dropped off this disc. He said it was the security footage from the night of the break in," he said, passing the disc over the counter to her.

"Thanks Ben," She said, before once again making her way back to her desk.

She quickly booted up her computer, and while waiting for it to do so, opened up the report file. It contained a short typed report about the break in, stating all of the details needed, and the address of the gym. It also mentioned the one stolen item as being an antique hunting spear which was three generations old. Nothing in the report aided in her finding any extra details, so she moved to the computer. After inserting the security footage into the computer's disc drive, she opened up one of the two video files which was four hours long, but could be sped up or slowed down when needed. There was only a single camera perspective, which came from the corner of the Aikido area in the back corner, near the antique spear. It was a panoramic camera, so Judy could see almost the entire gym.

When she first played the video, it seemed completely frozen. The lights were out, and absolutely nothing was happening. Judy had to fast forward fifteen minutes in order for movement to be seen. Judy saw the movement of two dark figures outside the front glass panel. They seemed to be moving all around, dragging their hands over the glass. After a few minutes of this, the entire glass plate shattered into hundreds of shards, all of which fell forward into the gym. The two were quick to enter and wasted no time moving straight to the office, out of sight. The camera audio was able to catch the sounds of the two burglars rummaging through the filing cabinets in the office. They weren't going through them at any fast rate. Judy had to speed up almost three hours of footage before they emerged back into the main area of the gym. One of them left immediately, but the other stopped just shy of the broken window to turn and face the camera. After a few moments of hesitation, he jogged back over and leaped up, grabbing the spear off the wall before making a beeline out of the gym and out of sight. The video file ended with Ark's arrival on the scene.

"Hey carrots, I thought you went home," Nick said, startling Judy.

"Cheese and crackers, Nick, you scared me!" she exclaimed, irritated.

He only chuckled, "so what new movie is this?"

"It's security cam footage from the gym. It got broken into last night, but it's so strange," Judy replied, rewinding the video back to when the two burglars were outside the still in-tact glass pane.

"How so?"

"Well look here," She replied, playing the video, "Look at what they're doing. They're just feeling the glass, and you see how it breaks?"

"Yeah, into shards. Should I report this to the Zootopia Institute of science? 'Just in, a new discovery! Glass breaks into shards!'" Nick mocked.

"No, I mean it doesn't break from a single point. They didn't hit it with anything, it just all fell apart while they pushed on it," she explained.

"So, what? Are you saying they used explosives?" Nick asked, this time being serious as he pulled up a chair.

"No, I don't think so. Any explosive would've left some kind of residue, but as far as I know, the glass is clean."

"Well, the only other thing that could cause glass to break apart like that is a consistent high frequency sound. They must have had some kind of device which could make that sound. It isn't hard to make something like that," he replied, still not convinced it was anything more than a rag-tag burglary.

"Ok, then what were they looking for?" Judy asked, "They spend hours sitting in that office looking through files."

"Is there a security camera in the office?"

It was at that moment that Judy remembered there was another video file. She quickly opened it up to find that it was, in fact, a security camera inside the office. It was positioned in the right corner over the door, and the footage was only 3 hours long. It began like the other one, with everything completely still. Inside the office was only a desk, a good amount of writing supplies, and two small filing cabinets, each only having two drawers. At the back of the office, there was another door which led somewhere unknown.

It didn't take long for the video to hit the point where the two dark figures entered the office. The three hour video, which Nick and Judy sped through, was taken up almost entirely by the two carefully reading through each file, looking for some unknown information. After almost all that time had passed, they finished reading through each of the files and left all of them thrown all over the floor. Before leaving, the checked the door at the back of the room only to find that it was, in fact, just a storage closet filled with foldable chairs. The two of them quickly left the office and the video ended.

"And they didn't take anything?" Nick asked

Without answering, Judy opened up the first video and played the part where they stole the spear.

"Nothing but that."

"That's strange," he said

"I know. Why go through the files and only take a-"

"No, not that. I mean the way he took it. They were looking for something in the files, but couldn't find it so they left. His partner ran off without a second glance, but he stopped and had to really contemplate taking the spear. He hesitated. Whatever their plan was, it didn't involve that weapon. He strayed from their plan to take it," Nick explained.

Surprised by his deduction of that detail, Judy replayed that section of the footage once again, and came to the same conclusion. Before their conversation could continue, a looming shadow silenced them. The shadow of a frustrated buffalo.

"Hopps, I thought I told you to go home!" Bogo exclaimed.

"I took all the time I needed, sir. And I found what I was looking for," Judy replied

Intrigued, the Chief moved around the desk to look at the file and video she had. He didn't take any time to read of watch, "Back to this again. What did I tell you about that gym?"

"Trust us sir," Nick said, "You're gonna want to hear this."

I am SO sorry for the delay on the chapter. I promise I'll get better, but this time I have a good excuse! An alibi, so to speak. The day after I last updated, I stumbled across an amazing opportunity. I scored an audition with Next Star Productions, a talent agency which was in the area looking for new and young talent to put on TV and use in film. I spent the last week and a half practicing my monolog, choosing an outfit, and I even got my makeup done for the first time in my life (it felt weird). Any who, my audition was yesterday, and I nailed it. I got a call back last night, and of the almost 100 people they auditioned, they wanted me along with a chosen few others. Sadly, in order to continue in the program, they wanted an enormous sum of money (to me anyways) which I couldn't pay, but it was still an amazing experience. So here I am again, and I'll get you guys another chapter by Saturday at the latest. Leave me a review, and tell the other Zootopia fans about the story!