The world had seemed to slow down. Ever since they left the station things had moved slowly even though they were currently travelling well over the legal limit. Nick looked out the window to his right and he watched as trees, power lines, shrubs, and fields of grass and crops crawled by. Nick could see their destination approaching. The cluster of old, worn-down buildings was in the distance, the place he once called home about to become his worst nightmare. No matter how things turned out, Nick knew that he would never be able to face this place again.

Nick's senses were on high alert. Every little detail about the world around him did not go unnoticed. He felt the cloth seat in which he currently sat, it's material was rough and uncomfortable beneath his paw. He noticed the fly that had managed to get inside the car which was now flying around the rear-view mirror. It's tiny wings flapped at such a high frequency that it buzzed, but in Nick's mind it echoed like the blast from a rifle in the middle of a rocky mountain range.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing that Nick noticed was the expression on Bogo's face. It wasn't any different from his usual look. Hard and overall emotionless as always.

It pissed him off.

Nick couldn't understand how Bogo wasn't at all affected by this situation. Nick wasn't really all that much better, though. He couldn't see himself, but he knew that he was afraid. The one time he needed to throw away all emotions was the time when he was so gripped by fear that he was shaking and could barely think straight. His paw rested upon the butt of his tranq rifle which sat properly in between his legs with the barrel to the floor of the car. It shook with fear, anticipation, and with anger.

Even more than afraid, Nick was angry, but mostly at himself. Despite everything he'd been told, Nick still felt like this whole situation could have been avoided if he'd done something differently. If only he decided to refuse the case when they first were given it. That would have prevented so much pain and suffering, not just for Judy, but also for Nick. Had he cared more about his life in the past, taking care not to do anything he'd regret in the future, this situation would have never even crossed his mind.

The last couple nights were the worst nights of his life. Only a few times in his past could he remember being scared to the point of tears. All of those times had one thing in common. His life was at risk.

But not those last nights. Somehow, Nick's narcissism had dissolved entirely and everything that he once believed to be true about himself was now the exact opposite. Nick cared more about Judy than he did about himself.

And that was exactly why he was so afraid. There were potentially two lives at risk, one of which showed him how to care about another mammal. He could possibly lose someone that changed everything about him and made him much more than a generalization of his entire species. She was the catalyst that yielded his new and much improved life.

There was a lot on Nick's mind, the most prominent being the events that were about to ensue. From the last time Nick looked out the windscreen their destination was almost upon them, meaning that the time had just about arrived. He sure hoped that there wouldn't be much of an issue. Nick knew that Ray was a fighter and he could do quite a bit of damage for his size. There weren't many officers going along that would be able to catch him if he ran simply because they were too big and he was too small. Nick was the predisposed pursuer if that was the case due to his much more compact stature.

Nick reminded himself of all of the gear which was only used in situations such as this. The kevlar vest felt incredibly heavy on his torso, and the other specially designed clothing covering the rest of his body was tight and hot. He had his tranq rifle as well as a more mobile tranquilizer pistol. And just in case he needed it, everyone had been given a 9mm assault pistol. It was only to be used in very specific situations, but Nick still did not want to have to use it.

Suddenly, Nick felt the car slow down and he was thrown forward into his seatbelt as the car skidded to a stop at the rear of the warehouse that Judy was being kept in. Behind them came the rescue vehicle, housing some of Precinct One's finest officers and two ambulances to treat Judy and Damien Meyer, as well as any possible injuries acquired during combat. Nick did not hesitate to get out of the car, carefully wielding his tranq rifle. As he exited the car, he noticed everyone from the rescue vehicle had also climbed out and were dressed in the same protective gear as Nick and Bogo. They too had rifles and sidearms.

Nick took the time to look at who was present. Bogo and Wolford were obvious. He also noticed Officers Fangmeyer, Delgato, and Higgins.

Chief Bogo got everyone's attention and quickly briefed everyone before they went in.

"Alright, remember the plan. Keep the weasel away from Hopps and Meyer. The sooner we can get him alone the quicker we can get this bastard into custody, got it?" he spoke in a slightly hushed voice. Everyone responded with a salute and an equally hushed "yes, sir!" and Bogo motioned for everyone to follow him to the entrance.

By now, Nick's heart was pumping and he could feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins. He was so focussed that he didn't even notice the wolf right beside him, placing one of his paws on Nick's shoulder. He turned to face Wolford and just about had a heart attack when he saw him looking into his eyes.

"Hey, I've got your back."

"Thanks," Nick replied quietly, his voice telling Wolford that Nick was dreading what he might find inside the warehouse.

Nick and Wolford looked forward when Bogo stopped at the entrance. They had followed directly behind Bogo with the rest of the officers single file behind them. Bogo opened the door slightly and looked inside. His movements were silent, so all Nick could hear was the gentle breeze and the light patter of footsteps behind him. When Bogo thought it was clear to go, he waved them in and everyone entered the warehouse. It was incredibly dark, but Nick was able to see quite well due to his night vision. Everyone else had turned on a flashlight to see better.

The inside was filled with stacks and stacks of wooden crates and old, rusty vehicles and other machinery. The group weaved in and out of the crates and vehicles, being careful not to make any noise. They didn't know if Ray knew they were there, but they didn't want to give away their presence if he didn't.

When they came upon several different paths through the crates, Bogo waved Nick and Amal off to the left, Fangmeyer and Delgato to the right, and the rest of them followed Bogo through the middle. By splitting up, they could cover more ground quite quickly and hopefully find what they were looking for sooner.

Nick and Wolford continued over to the left where they found a small room next to a flight of metal stairs. The two approached the door and Nick opened it a crack and looked in. Finding no threat, he went the rest of the way in and observed a horrific sight in front of him.

Strapped to a chair with cloth surrounding his muzzle was none other than Damien Meyer. He looked to be in just as bad a shape as Judy from the video and he was trembling with fear as if he thought Nick was going to kill him. Nick approached the mink slowly and whispered to him.

"Damien Meyer, I'm Officer Nick Wilde. Can you understand what I'm saying?"

The mink nodded up and down just enough for it to be noticeable.

"Just stay calm and we'll get you out of here, understand?" the mink nodded silently as he squirmed in the chair. "You're safe now. I promise." Nick looked over to Wolford and got his attention.

"I need you to stay here with Mr. Meyer while I go look for Hopps."

Wolford nodded and Nick exited the room and continued walking towards the other end of the warehouse. He knew that the last video was filmed on the upper level right by the window, so he walked up the stairs quietly and along the grated metal surface. Nick's progress towards the other end of the warehouse was slow, but he wanted to make sure that nothing was going to jump out at him and surprise him. He figured that Ray either didn't know they were there, or he was waiting for his chance to attack.

Soon, Nick was nearly at the back when he saw a familiar, yet different figure laying on a table by the window.

Judy.

He broke into a sprint and spoke clearly into his radio.

"This is Wilde, I have a visual on Hopps. Wolford is with Meyer right now. We've got th…"

Before Nick could finish, something kicked him in the back, sending him face first into the metal beneath his feet and his rifle tumbling over the edge of the balcony to the dirt floor below. Nick knew immediately who had kicked him and he wasted no time in getting back up and reaching for his tranq pistol. As he got to his feet, Nick finally came face to face with the weasel that had been tormenting him for the last few days.

"Ray…" Nick said with disgust. The weasel looked at Nick with his cold, dead eyes and snickered as he came to a stop several feet from the fox, twitching and making strange faces that seemed involuntary.

"Nicholas, how nice of you to join us. We were wondering if you were just going to let the poor rabbit die."

"Not over my dead body." Nick growled.

"Oh really? We'll just have to see if we can arrange that!" Ray said, charging forward at Nick. The platform they were on was too narrow for him to dodge, so Nick took Ray's charge full force which pushed him back until he lost his balance and was finally pushed onto his back. When Ray landed on top of Nick, the fox kicked his legs over his head, sending Ray crashing onto the metal platform where it widened into the area where Judy was. Nick fired a tranq round at Ray, but he managed to dodge it and ran over to the left behind some crates. Nick ran over to the crates, but he found no weasel behind them. Nick looked over at Judy and suddenly felt something wrap around his neck and pull him downwards. Ray had jumped down from on top of the crates and with a piece of cloth, gotten hold of Nick's neck and was about to pull him down to the dirt floor.

Nick tried bracing himself with the metal railing surrounding the entirety of the upper level, but the weasel had brought him too much off balance and Nick slipped over the railing.

Thankfully they both landed on top of some more crates instead of the much farther fall to the ground below. Before Nick could get up, he was shoved off of the crates and fell about ten feet to the dirt floor, landing on his back. He hit with a thud that knocked the wind out of him, Nick coughing and hacking as he struggled to catch his breath. He was on his elbows and knees when Ray landed on his feet a short distance away from Nick. The weasel walked towards the fox and wasted no time in kicking him in the face, causing Nick to lay on his back. Ray looked down upon Nick with a devilish smile.

"Sad. We didn't want you to go out like this. It would have been preferable to have you feel overwhelmed by guilt, then you wouldn't inconvenience us with doing it ourselves. That would have made your death that much more pleasurable." Ray said as he flicked open a switchblade and brought it down towards Nick's throat.

"Goodbye Nicholas…"

They say that in a near death experience, one see's their entire life flash before their eyes. This was not what Nick saw. He only saw the parts of his life that made him feel good. His mother, everyone from the Precinct, and even Bogo.

Judy.

Seeing her smile at him as they saluted each other when he first became a police officer made him remember how important it was that he didn't fail. He promised her that this wouldn't go without retribution, even if she didn't hear it.

Nick felt a sudden burst of energy fueled by anger cause his body to twist in a way that allowed his leg to trip Ray and cause him to land on his back. Quicker than he'd ever moved before, Nick got above Ray, holding him down at the chest with one paw, his other raised above his head with his claws extended. Nick barred his teeth and let out a terrifying growl at the weasel beneath him.

The fox had his prey in his grasp. All that was left was to have his claws slice through the weasel's jugular like a hot knife through butter.

Right before Nick inflicted the death would upon Ray, he realised what he was about to do. Nick retracted his claws and slammed his fist down right next to Ray's head. The weasel didn't even flinch as Nick's fist very nearly came down on his face. He lowered his muzzle until he was plenty close for Ray to hear him.

"I'm not like you," Nick flipped Ray over onto his stomach in one fluid motion and began cuffing him.

"You're under arrest, buddy."


After Nick had Ray pinned to the ground and in custody, Officer Wolford took the weasel from Nick and tossed him in the back of a cruizer. Nick would have done it himself, but he had slipped off into a whole other world. He felt like he was completely invisible as everything around him seemed out of his control. Chief Bogo asked him if he was feeling alright and Nick replied saying that it was probably from the fall that he took. He knew that was a lie. Nick couldn't get himself to look at Judy.

After Wolford took Ray out of his paws, he stood in the same spot looking at the ground with a sullen expression. He didn't move or say anything. Eventually he found the courage to look around a little bit, but when he did the medics were carrying Judy out on a gurney trying to ask her questions. Nick couldn't hear very well at the moment, but from what he caught it didn't sound like Judy was very responsive. Figuring that, Nick was at a loss for words. He was the true cause of this entire thing. Ray was right and everyone else was just trying to spare him some amount of pride.

Nick couldn't handle being in that building anymore. He slowly walked away from the position he had been in for the last several minutes and towards the exit. Wolford tried to get his attention, but he kept walking away and ignoring him. As Nick made his way to the exit he found his tranq rifle lying on the ground, covered in dirt. For nearly a minute he stared down at the rifle and did nothing else. Leaving it where it was, he began once again and drifted out the door to the warehouse for some fresh air.

Nick turned left when he got out and walked over to a small grove of trees. The first tree that he approached was a very old oak with a large, rotund trunk. He leaned against it and slid down it's length until he was seated. Nick blankly stared at the wall of the warehouse twenty feet in front of him and breathed in short increments with his arms hanging limp by his sides.

Nick was relieved that everything was over. Judy and Meyer were alive, Ray was finally in custody, and everything was going to be alright. Except everything wasn't going to be alright, and Nick knew that perfectly well. He didn't know what kind of injuries Judy had, but they were definitely going to keep her away from work for at least a few months. He feared that she wouldn't even be able to return because they were so serious.

He also didn't think Judy would be the same mammal again. She had just been through the most traumatic experience in her life and the chances of her being just as mentally sound as before were minimal. He could already tell that she would be waking up in the middle of the night after having a nightmare about this ordeal, only to be able to cry herself back to sleep and do it all again the next night. He wasn't sure if she'd be able to handle that.

And then there was her whole family. Nick knew that she had a very strong sense of family and they all were very close. He wasn't sure what they would think about this. For all he knew, her father would force her to come back and live on the farm for the rest of her life. He knew enough about her father to know that he could be a bit irrational at times.

Nick sighed as he realized just how much he screwed things up for the rest of her life. Nick was right, nothing was going to be the same. But he hadn't just messed up Judy's life, he had thrown his entire world into near chaos. He would never forgive himself for what he caused.

As Nick sat and tried to understand how he managed to ruin everything, one of the mammals he didn't want to see began walking towards Nick. His hulking form quickly approached and Chief Bogo did the same thing as Nick; he leaned against the tree and sat down next to the fox. Nick didn't even have the will to look at his superior when he sat down. He just felt like that much of a failure.

"How bad is she?" Nick questioned.

"They haven't done a full examination yet, but right now we know she has a broken foot and those two holes in her paws. Later today they'll do a proper examination of her injuries. All we know is that she is very lucky to be alive."

The two sat in silence for quite some time, long enough that Nick thought the shadow of the tree had moved to his side quite a bit. Nick didn't know what prompted him to speak, but for some reason he felt like he needed to confess something.

"I failed, Chief… I couldn't protect her, and now she's going to hate me…" Nick mumbled. Bogo didn't even bother looking down at Nick. He knew the terrible sight that would meet his eyes.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Wilde. I don't think Hopps is capable of feeling hate towards anything or anyone."

"That doesn't matter to me. How could she possibly stand to see me after what I did to her?" Nick said.

"Do what? You haven't done a thing to cause her injuries."

"I am the cause of her injuries! If it weren't for me this would have never happened! All throughout this whole situation, everyone has tried to reassure me that it wasn't something I did. For a moment I actually believed them but as soon as I saw her lying unconscious on that table, I realised that I did that to her. I want to take responsibility for what I caused. I know what I have to do now that it's all over. I was just going to assume that you'd be the one to initiate that process." Nick said. Bogo looked at Nick, slightly confused until he reached for the badge on his chest and removed it from his uniform. Nick admired the badge for a short while before laying it face-up in the dirt between him and Chief Bogo. Nick stood up, and without turning around, walked away with his tail between his legs.

"Thank you for believing in me. That made one of us."

Bogo looked down at the small badge at his side and picked it up, holding it up to his face a little closer. He looked to Nick who gradually furthered himself from the buffalo. He wasn't going to let him get away with that.

"Wilde! Stand at attention!" Bogo shouted. Habitually, Nick stopped and pivoted on his heel until he faced Chief Bogo. He promptly stood with his chin up, chest out, stomach in, and shoulders back with his arms at his side and his feet together.

Bogo narrowed his eyes at Nick, who gave full eye-contact to the buffalo. Bogo raised his hoof in a salute which immediately returned by Nick. Bogo eyed the fox for a couple of seconds. He would never get over just how well he followed orders like that.

"At ease, Wilde."

Nick lowered his paw and brought it back down to his side where he remained in perfect posture. Bogo walked forward and stood just a few feet away from Nick.

"What the hell did you think you were doing? There is no way I am losing an officer today. I came close with one, but because of you, she is still alive. Now correct me if I'm not seeing properly, but I'm pretty sure you were not the one that broke Hopps' foot. You did not drill into her paws. You did not cause any of this, so I refuse to let you think that way! You can't control what other mammals do, and those suffering from insanity are certainly uncontrollable. Jamison Ray was the mammal that caused all of Hopps' injuries. Not you!"

Chief Bogo released some of the tension that he'd held in his entire body and spoke quietly to the fox.

"It may not have looked like it, but I was scared going into this. The cards were greatly stacked against us and I don't think you truly understand how close we were to losing a fine officer today. Do not let that happen to me, or this city, or anyone else that you may come into contact with. This city needs more officers like you, Wilde."

Bogo held Nick's badge down to him and looked him straight in the eyes.

"I think you dropped this. You have the next three days off. Get some rest and come back to work ready to serve and protect."

Nick couldn't think of a more perfect response. Badge in one paw, Nick saluted and spoke clearly for the entire world to hear.

"Yes, sir!"


A/N: And there you have it, folks. The climax of the story has been reached.

And now all that's left is chapter ten, the final installment...

And just a quick fact, when I wrote this story, I never planned on exactly when I would start uploading, which is why it's kinda cool that next week's upload is going to happen on my birthday! And just because of that, you'll get to read some nice and fluffy stuff rather than... well, the other chapters in this story ;)

If you liked, don't forget to review, follow, and favorite. I'll see you next chapter!

Cheers!

-Ande