Disclaimer: I do not own Zootopia or its related characters. All is the property of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Clark Spencer, and Byron Howard. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Silent Civil War

Chapter Ten: Morning Brings Little Comfort

Judy saw the ram before he even knew what hit him.

Literally.

She was running a circuit of Tundra Town before she planned on making her way to the other districts. He was crouched on top of a building overlooking the parking lot of the ZPD's Precent Six. The rabbit recognized the gun before she recognized the Mammal holding it. He had swapped out the barrel for something longer, better suited to long range shots, but the trigger, grip, and ammo chamber were the same. It was the same gun. The one that shot Nick. The Night Howler gun.

After recognizing that, Judy recognized the ram holding it as 'Doug', the sniper Bellwether hired to dart innocent predators and turn them Savage.

He was staked out overlooking a police station. Was he planning on turning an officer Savage? Half the Zootopia Police force was predator. One of their officers turning Savage -especially if it was during the line of duty- would be devastating to city moral. Equally as devastating as the attack on Gazelle, still only hours fresh, was already proving to be. That, and more innocent Mammals would be harmed. Judy couldn't let that happen.

She got a running start, jumped, and landed and two-footed kick against the barrel of the gun.

The shot went sideways. The Night Howler pellet impacting impotently on an office window on the second floor. Doug blinked in shock at not only being discovered but also being attacked. Judy looked down to make sure no was hurt and saw Chief Bogo and Clawhouser leaving the precent, and her heard did a funny little twist when she realized who Doug's target must have been. Ben was to sweet and gentle to go Savage, the nicest predator Judy had ever met. That would have been cruel.

Doug recovered quickly. He was an ex-army ranger. One didn't last long if they remained stunned on the battlefield. He didn't know who this little hooded interloper was, but they had just blown his shot! He lowered his head and charged the interloper, taking advantage of their distraction to pushing them off the roof.

Judy flailed, groping madly in mid air for something to stop her fall. How did children's cartoons make this look to easy? Her paws connected with a flagpole jutting out from the building. Her fur slipped over the metal of the pole, but her blunt bunny claws managed to grab hold of the fabric of the flag itself and she hung there, for a moment. Breathing. Taking note of the fact that she was still alive and not splattered all over the pavement below. Street pizza.

Below her, she saw Bogo and Clawhouser crossing the motor pool back to their squad car. Safe and unaffected for the moment. Completely oblivious to the danger that had just narrowly avoided them.

Taking a deep breath, Judy used the flag she was holding to swing herself back up into the roof she'd just been thrown from, bracing herself for a second attack.

But Doug was busy loading a fresh round of Night Howler formula into the chamber.

She rushed at him a second time, but now the sheep was prepared for her. He ducked to the side, lashing out with a kick to throw the smaller Mammal off her feet, the wind knocked out of her.

He rested the barrel of the gun on the rooftop railing and leaned into the scope to line up his next shot. The first one went -blissfully- unnoticed by the police below and so there was scurry or panic. No frustrating duck and cover. Everyone was just going about their business.

Through the scope, Doug saw the cheetah gesturing wildly as he recounted a story of some variety to the police chief, then grip his belly as his whole body shook with jovial laughter. The buffalo just rolled his eyes and motioned for the predator to get in the car. The cheetah's back was turned as he reached for the door handle and Doug had a perfect, unobstructed shot at the back of his neck.

Judy pushed herself back to her paws. Saw the sheep already lining up for another shot and jumped on him.

"No!" The rabbit shouted as she wrapped both paws around her eyes and pulled his head back.

His hoof squeezed the trigger. A soft p'sh was heard from the silencer as the round left the chamber.

"No..." Judy muttered again.

She had failed. Doug had shot a member of the ZPD. One of Zootopia's finest was going to go Savage in the middle of a crisis that already had the ZPD spread then, right outside a ZPD precent, in the presence of the Chief of Police. Oh, cheese and crackers! What if Bogo was attacked? Mr. Big implied that he might work for Bellwether, but if he did, why would she have another one of her goons dart a pred so close to him? That could only mean one thing. Bogo was really on her side all along and now he was about to be mauled by one of his own officers!

Judy lifted her ears. There should be more sounds of panic. She should hear Mammals screaming or the predator growling or snarling. Instead, she heard just the normal chatter that was drifting up to them from the street before the ram took the shot. Judy looked back over the ledge.

Clawhouser was climbing into the cruiser, moving normal and still laughing at hs own joke. The shot had thankfully missed him. On top of the cruiser was a large dark and very wet bluish-purple stain. The oddest bird poop stain in the history of bird poop stains. Where the Night Howler round had hit and burst instead.

Judy sighed with relief. "He's alright."

Doug, taking advantage of her distraction, grabbed the sniper rifle from the edge of the roof and hit Judy with it. This time knocking her out.

When the bunny came to again, she was alone on the roof. Doug having absconded with the gun. She had no idea where he went.

But more importantly than that, Judy was pretty sure she and Nick blew up their drug lab. She would know. They barely managed to get out with their lives -never mind the Howler gun- before the subway car impacted the tunnel wall, the propane was ignited and everything went up in a spectacular ball of fire. Yup. Just was fairly certain their lab was destroyed. So, the real question was, where and how were they making more Night Howler formula and ammo?

Mr. Big probably had the resources and connections to find out for her, and with most of his employees being polar bears -predators- he would also have a vested interest in putting an end to Bellwether's Nigh Howler production. But, at the same time, Mr. Big probably wouldn't let her be involved in the take down. He'd want her to lay low. Stay dead. Stay out of the line of fire and stay safe. From the moment she dragged herself to his frozen doorstep after that train wreck of a confrontation at the museum, he'd been preventing her from taking the action she felt she needed to take to save the city. Telling her to stay at home with his daughter and her child. Let the men-folk handle this. (Not Mr. Big's words.)

Well, Judy Hopps was not in the habit of letting other people do her job for her. She was going to find Bellwether's new drug lab, and she was going to do it herself, her way!

…

The sun slowly rose over the cityscape, reflecting off the steel and glass of the buildings, illuminating the city and bringing an end to what was probably the longest night in Zootopian history.

Bogo and Clawhouser shambled back into Precent One exhausted and looking like they were ready to collapse.

"I've never felt more out of shape, than I do right now." Commented the cheetah as he slumped down in the first chair he could find -which was the second reception seat.

Muttonson had been dozing, her head resting on the desk, but she was startled back to full waking when his bulk settled down beside her. "You're back!" She blinked, not at Clawhouser but at Bogo as if she wasn't expecting to ever see him again. "And you're alright. I was so worried."

"Go home, Muttonson." The buffalo sighed, rubbing his eyes. Clawhouser had the right idea. Find a place to park your tail and rest. But there was something important he wanted to check first. At least, Bogo thought there was. It was a little hard for his sleep deprived and exhaustion addled brain to recall. But he was pretty sure that he'd had an epiphany of some kind right before all this madness started. Something Lionheart had said during their interview sparked something, but now the police chief was to beat -physically and mentally- to remember what it was. "Get some rest, we all need some rest."

He shambled to his office, closed the door behind him, slumped down in his chair, and fell fast asleep.

…

The attack on Gazelle sparked some pretty passionate and violent riots, but all rioters were Mammals and Mammals eventually got tired. The moment Primal decided it was sane enough for him to go outside and cross the city again, he hopped on the rail and rode straight to Silver's house in Timberland.

When he got there, the gray wolf was outside, duct taping what looked like a cotton bed sheet over what was unmistakably a broken window.

"What happened?" The gorilla asked.

The wolf offered him a self-deprecating smile. "A rock decided it could fly, and my window happened to be in its way."

"Are you okay?" Primal asked.

"Oh, me? I'm fine." He assured the gorilla. "But... but they crushed a brown recluse..."

Amazingly, Primal was not the least bit sad about this. Brow recluse, in addition to being just as creepy as every other spider on Earth, were also highly poisonous. One less venomous spider in the world didn't seem like such a terrible thing to him. Then -almost hearing Hopp's voice in his head- he realized that this way of thinking wasn't really all that different than how Bellwether and her conspiracy of sheep must feel about predators. That made him feel bad.

"I'm sorry." The gorilla shifted from foot to foot. It was terrible that the wolf was targeted during the riots, but that wasn't actually the reason he came. "Listen... I know things have been pretty crazy recently, but... did you happen to take a look at that toxic plant I gave you?"

The wolf paused in his duct taping of the sheet to look at the gorilla. "Yeah. Your antidote's inside. Finish this for me and I'll get it for you."

He tossed Primal the duct tape and went back inside.

The gorilla was just finishing up securing the sheet over the broken window when Silvers came back out again, holding a small metal box just a bit bigger than a cigaret case.

"I don't know what you're mixed up in, Primal." The wolf said. "But when I ran your flower through the mass spectrometer it came back with a whole bunch of crazy crap!"

"How scientific of you." The gorilla gave a silent laugh at his word choice.

"I'm serious, Primal." Silvers insisted. "Whatever that plant was that you gave me, its worse than LSD and PCP combined. Here's your anti-toxin. It'll counter act the major effects, but I'm not a botanist or a toxicologist so this isn't a compete cure for what this thing can do to a Mammal."

The gorilla opened the case to find it contained six tubes containing a fluid almost the same viscosity as blood in a shade of blue just a bit paler than the actual Nigh Howler flower. "But it will make a Mammal lucid, right?"

…

Judy couldn't find Doug after losing him on the roof. Getting knocked unconscious by an aggressive ram can have that effect on a pursuit.

She returned to the abandoned subway station the old lab used to be parked at. But it was even more abandoned than it was before. No new disused railcar had been converted. In fact there were no signs that anyone had been there since she and Nick stoke the train car, and subsequently blew it up. She tried finding Duke Weaselton but he wasn't exactly helpful.

"Ain't you s'pose to be dead?" He blinked at her, the toothpick he had been chewing on fell from hos mouth when she grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him up against a wall.

"As you can clearly see, I'm not." The bunny growled at him, pressing the side of his head hard against the wall with her free paw. "Now are you gonna tell me what I want to know, or am I gonna have to take you back to Mr. Big?"

"Okay! Okay!" Pleaded the weasel. "Jeez, it sucks when the goody-goodies have friends in Big places. I ain't sold no Night Howler since you and Nicky strong armed me the last time!" A paws. "Heard he was the one that did ya. Guess he didn't like the taste of your bitter shriveled tail!"

She slammed his head into the wall again.

"You have no idea what you're talking about!" Judy let go of him and turned to leave. Weaselton was useless and she didn't want to waste her time with him. But, remembering that he was also a predator, she paused, turning back just long enough to tell him. "You know those Night Howlers you were stealing -they're the reason so many predators are going Savage. Its a mind-altering drug and the sheep you were selling them to was weaponizing it. That's what happened to Nick. If you won't help me, then at least help yourself and don't deal Night Howlers anymore."

The weasel stared at her. "You're hustling me."

She might have had a witty comeback. But the 'hustling' comment reminded her to much of Nick and Judy found that she just didn't have it in her to be feisty and clever at the moment. "Does it matter? You'll just do whatever you want anyway."

Then she walked away for real. She had to find someone who would help her. Someone who knew the streets of Zootopia, not just his way around town, but the Mammals who lived in the city itself. But also someone who was willing to help her. Someone who knew her -who knew her and Nick. Judy dashed off to find Finnick.

The van was not in the ally she found it in the last time.

In fact, she couldn't find his bright red van with its provocative fantasy mural anywhere in the neighborhood. It wasn't like she could put out an all points bulletin for it. Since she was supposed to be dead, she didn't exactly have access to her ZPD resources anymore. So she went off of the very little that she knew of the diminutive fennec fox.

Judy knew that he lived in his van -which could be moved anywhere. She knew that he was Nick's partner in... activities that fell just short of crime. That was about all she knew about him. Not much to go on. So she did the only other thing she could think of. She followed what she knew of Nick.

First she checked the last place she found him. The lawn chair was still there. Tipped over, but still laying on the bank of the stream, beside the bridge. Judy had to smile slightly at the memory. She and Nick made up next to -literal- water under a bridge. But Finnick wasn't there, so she didn't stick around to indulge in an emotion she refused to call 'pinning'.

The next place she tried was the ice cream parlor where they first met. It was still early in the morning, the shop hadn't even opened yet. There were a few Mammals out on the streets, shambling home after the crazy night the city just had to endure, or else on their way to work like responsible and constructive members of society. But no red van with a provocative mural, and no fennec fox.

Next she tried Sahara Square where she saw them melting to Jumbo Pop. Then back to Tundra Town where she spied them refreezing it into Pawpsicles. Then to Lemming Brothers Bank in City Central where she watched them sell the Pawpsicles. Still nothing.

For a moment, Judy thought about going to Little Rodentia to the construction site that Nick and Finnick had sold the used popsicle sticks to. But then she decided that would be a useless exercise. Finnick was pretty small -smaller than Judy herself- but he was still just a little to big to hide out in Little Rodentia. Besides, there was no where for him to park his van.

Flat out of ideas, Judy tried the only other place she could think of in combination with Nick (and possibly Finnick by extension). According to Nick's tax forms -which she honestly wasn't sure were all that reliable since he lied about everything else on them- his home address was 1955 Cypress Grove Lane, Downtown District. It was a bit of a long shot, but what did she have to lose?

The address belonged to a run-down and abandoned looking clothing store and custom tailor. The faded sign was missing a few letters, so it read 'Sit-pi'. But the silhouettes left behind in the grime told her that it was actually supposed to be 'Suit-topia'.

Shrugging to herself, Judy did a circle around the building and was revealed beyond belief to find the familiar red van with its provocative fantasy mural on the side. Judy dashed around to the back of it and banged loudly on the double doors, expecting the small fox to throw them open and threaten her with a baseball bat just like last time.

Instead she was beaned in the head by something thrown from a second floor window above the abandoned clothing store.

Judy looked at the spool of green thread that had hit her as it roll over the filthy pavement. Then she looked up at the window it had been thrown from and saw Finnick leaning out the sill, an armful of the projectiles held at the ready.

"Get the hell away from there!" The tiny fox snarled.

Judy lowered her hood, letting her ears out and showing the fennec fox who she was. "It's me. I need your help again!"

Finnick gaped at her, as if not quite believing what his eyes were telling him. "Officer Toot-toot? Ain't you supposed to be dead!?"

"Long story." She told him. "I could tell it to you if you let me in."

There was a beat of silence and, for a moment, Judy wondered of Finnick was gonna throw another spool of thread at her and tell her to go the yiff away. Maybe even go so far as to say that it was her fault Nick went Savage and she didn't have the right to show her face around him ever again. Judy certainly felt it was her fault Nick had gone Savage. If she hadn't stalked him back to his little troll bridge and convinced him to track down the Night Howlers with her...

Instead, Finnick sighed, as if exasperated. "Hang on a sec."

He disappeared from the upper window.

A few moments later, the back door to the shop was cracked open just enough for the rabbit to slip in.

Inside, everything seemed to be caked in a thick layer of dust, disturbed only by a clear and distinct trail of fennec fox sized paw prints. Everything else -sewing machines, dress forms, bolts of fabric, a cutting counter, mirrors- were all coated in a grayish haze. At least a decade's worth of neglect caking the exposed surfaces.

"What is this place?" Judy found herself asking, and then mentally kicked herself for the stupid question. It was obviously some sort of custom tailoring workshop and clothing boutique.

"This is Nick's place." Finnick supplied as if her question wasn't really all that absurd. He lead her upstairs.

"Was he squatting here?" The rabbit asked.

Finnick paused on the stairs to look back at her as if that was the weird question. "No. He owns the building."

Upstairs was much cleaner -by comparison. It was still messy. But it was a 'lived in' kind of mess. Not an 'ancient ruin undisturbed for countless years' messy. Above the shop was a cozy little apartment. The stairs opened up onto a narrow hallway. One end featuring a small kitchen, just big enough to fit a tiny table but still allow for a red fox sized Mammal to cook a meal comfortably. At the opposite end of the hall a door stood ajar revealing it to be a bathroom. Lingering in the middle of the hall between the bathroom and kitchen were two other doors which Judy assumed must be bedrooms.

Overall, the place seemed fit for a small family.

And then a thought struck her. "Was this... is this where Nick grew up?"

Finnick snorted. "Hmph. I guess you're not such a terrible detective after all." He walked to the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge. One beer. For himself. He did not offer one to Judy. "Now, you're gonna tell me how the hell you're still alive. Last I heard, Nicky went Savage and ate you!" A pause and he looked the bunny up and down with glare of mock-appraisal. "You don't look very eaten to me."

"He did go Savage." Judy nodded, sitting at the tiny kitchen table across from the small fox. She was looking around the room in fascination. Yellow linoleum floors, dark wood counters, hand-made needlepoint on the walls. Judy never would have imagined Nick living in a place so... normal. Truth be told, she would not have been surprised if he lived under the bridge she found him at. "But I managed to escape. Bellwether said I died to push her own agendas."

And then she told Finnick everything. About how she and Nick got a tip from Duke Weaselton (she left out the part about Mr. Big), how they followed the tip to the disused rail station and the abandoned train car, explained how they were using the Night Howler flowers to cultivate a drug that made Mammals turn Savage and targeted predators in order to turn public opinion against them. They were intentionally cultivating speciesism. How it was her idea to steal the whole train car and take it back to the ZPD. How bad of an idea that really was -and that it went up in flames. The chase to the museum. Her injury. Falling into the sunken exhibit. Nick being darted, and her subsequent escape.

"I was injured and had to lay low for a while."She finished. "But last night was so crazy, I had to go out and help if I could. I ran into one of the sheep that was darting predators and realized they must have rebuilt their drug lab. But I can't find it on my own." A pause. "I was... I was kinda hoping you'd be willing to help me with that."

Finnick raised an eyebrow at that. "Right. 'Cause Nick's been expended, so now you need a new 'sly and shifty' fox to take your falls for you."

"What?" Judy blinked at him.

"Listen, Honey-Bunny," the small fox leaned over the table, as if conspiring a secret plot with a friend, "Nicky's always had a bit of a hero-complex. Even since before he tried to join those stupid Junior Ranger Scouts -runs in the family, they all wanted to stick it to the rich and help the poor- so I'm not surprised you managed to manipulate him into attacking Prey Supremacists on their own turf. Even after you made him trust you then ripped his heart out at that press conference -yeah, don't think he didn't tell me about that little gem."

The small fox finished his beer and threw the empty bottle out the kitchen window. Judy heard it shatter on the pavement below.

"But don't forget," he continued, "I was there when you first hustled him into helping you in the first place. I know just how cold you can be. So, no. I ain't gonna help you. You don't con your own partner and you don't abandon your partner to take the fall, you protect the Mammal you're with and in return he'll protect you. That's how it works. You have consistently used Nick without giving him anything in return, and in the end, he ended up insane and locked up while you're out and about, and healthy as can be. It's nothing personal, sweetheart, just business." A pause. "Well, maybe a little personal."

"But if they're making more Night Howler-"

"Not your problem anymore. You're dead, remember." Finnick snapped at her. "I think you've done enough. Every time you try to help, things just end up worse. You need to learn to cut your losses and walk away. Speaking of walking away, I think its time you left."

He stood from the table to shoo her back out. Finnick didn't know what possessed him to let her into Nick's house in the first place. He knew the idealistic red fox found the naive bunny cop amusing, but after hearing her story Finnick had never been more sure that she was toxic. Nothing good could come from helping Judy Hopps. Nick tried to -twice- and look what happened to him.

…

Primal wasn't really sure how to measure out the dosages. Obviously, larger predators would need more of the anti-toxin than the smaller predators. With Nick and Otterton taking the smallest amounts and Barry DiCaprio and Sven Polarvsky taking the largest doses. But how much would he need to administer to successfully counter the effects of the Night Howler? How much would be to much and overload their systems.

Using new medications was always risky business -and this one didn't even have the luxury of a focus group or testing phase. Primal was working blind.

Taking a syringe, the gorilla injected a dose of the anti-toxin into Nick Wilde's IV drip. "This better not kill you." He muttered to the sleeping fox. "Otherwise, your little bunny will kill me. She's uncommonly fond of you, ya know."

Primal watched the monitors for several minutes to make sure Nick wasn't going to instantly crash. When he was satisfied that nothing life threatening was happening inside the fox's body, he left the room to make his rounds with the rest of the Savages. He didn't know how long it would take. The was Hopps described it, the Night Howler acted almost instantly, but Primal had no reason to assume Silver's partial antidote would work just as fast.

For all the gorilla knew, the anti-toxin could take hours -or even days.

…

In the wake of the Concert Tragedy, in which beloved pop sensation Gazelle was attacked mid-performance by one of her own backup dancers (a Mammal that had worked with the diva for years) the City Council was quick to push through their approval of the Taming Initiative. The Savage predator problem had gotten out of hand. Two were dead now thanks to these beasts. It was time City Hall got off their collected tails and did something.

The initiative passed with a unanimous vote and went into effect one week after the the announcement that it passed.

Distribution centers for the TAME collars were set up in community centers and high school auditoriums around the city. Predator type residents had thirty one days to report to their local distribution centers to be fitted with collars from themselves and their families if necessary. Pups and cubs as young as five years of age were required to wear the shock collars. Cubs and pups younger than five years would be issued a collar upon completion of their fifth birthday.

Koslov hesitated to let the volunteer sheep clip the shock collar around his son's neck. The little polar bear cub didn't quite realize exactly what the collar meant. He was excited to receive it. The moment it was snapped around his neck, he dashed off to proudly show his friends. The little light on the collar shifting from green to yellow.

"Morris!" Koslov called to the boy.

But his little cub either didn't hear him or was ignoring his father's warning. As his emotions continued to run high with excitement, the yellow light flashed red and the collar shocked the little cub.

Morris looked back at his father, his eyes shining with newly forming tears. He didn't understand what just happened, or why.

If, after the thirty one days allotted to report and receive their collar voluntarily, any predator type Mammals who did not report could be ticketed and fined. If, after the first citation they did not claim their collar, the predator in question could be arrested, held for twenty-four hours, and have their collar issued to them by the ZPD instead of a city volunteer.

That also meant they went on a watch list.

Any predator that law enforcement had get involved with went on a new watch list.

Without Nick and his easy money schemes that just managed to stay on the right side of legal, Finnick found himself on the ZPD radar sooner than he would have liked. As he was shoved into a holding cell to wait while an officer found a TAME collar in his size, the diminutive fennec fox had to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss Nick's bunny. He might not have liked her personally -or professionally- but she did seem to want to help Zootopia and all its Mammals, predator and prey alike.

But as the collar was snapped around his neck he remembered that both times Nick tried helping the obnoxiously energetic little fluff, he'd been burned. The second and last time, burned bad.

He tugged on the collar experimentally, only to receive a small warning shock for 'tampering' with it.

If this experience taught him anything, it was that no good ever came from associating with prey.

…

His dreams were strange.

Of big, amethyst eyes. Deep indigo staring at him. Wide with emotions he never wanted to see directed at him. Betrayal. Sadness. Fear. No! Don't look at him that way! He didn't want to see that. He wasn't- he wasn't like that! 'What did I do wrong? Tell me what I did wrong?'

Of his pulse pounding in his ears. A pain in his neck. The ghost of a head ache. A female voice, desperate and afraid. 'Nick, please, fight it!' Why was she so scared?

A sudden rush. It made him feel confident and powerful. Potent. But also hungry. Very, very hungry. A hunger that could only be satisfied by the sweet taste of young supple flesh. Warm and inviting. Pulsing with life and vitality.

The scent of blood.

'Nick, please, fight it!'

'What did I do wrong? Tell me what I did wrong?'

So hungry.

A scent so delicious and inviting. Young and healthy. But also injured. Blood. Vulnerable. Easy.

Prey!

'Nick, please, fight it!'

The taste of blood. Metallic and thick. So much blood.

'I'm sorry... Goodby, Nick...'

Groggily, Nickolas Wilde shook off the latest helping of sedatives they kept hm on and was confused to find himself in laying in a bed that was not his own, in a room that was most definitely not his house. It looked to be a hospital room, but what hospital had bars on the windows? If that wasn't disturbing enough, the fox found that he was also strapped to the bed. Tied down and unable to move his arms or legs.

Nick felt something constricting around his throat and reached his paws up to feel a collar wrapped around his neck. His reflection in the barred window showed it was a glowing yellow light.

What gives? Why the Dr. Lecter treatment?

Then he remembered his dream. The taste of blood and Judy's voice. 'I'm sorry... Goodby, Nick...'

Bile rose in the back of his throat and Nick had to fight the sudden reflex to vomit. What had he done?

Bellwether shot him with the Night Howler, he went down, Judy was on top of him, and then... and then... 'Nick, please, fight it!' ...What had he done!?

And then the small yellow light on his collar flashed red and Nick experienced a strong electric shock that threw him back down into the darkness of unconsciousness.

…