Short chapter today. After this chapter it begins to pick up a bit. I hope.

Disclaimer: Zootopia et al is owned by Disney. Sonic et al is owned by Sega.

Nick's worry came back as Judy explained what happened. He felt kind of bad for teasing her the way he did, but he knew she'd get him back at some point. Probably at a very inopportune time as well. That all said, he kind of had the same feeling Espio claimed he did. The feeling that they were just on the edge of something big, that something even bigger was on its way, something that would change their lives forever.

"And it's not the stupid rain," Nick finished as his eye twitched subtly. It had been raining since they got off the previous night, and it didn't look like it was going to be letting up anytime soon. Fortunately it was only a light rain, but even still, it was getting to the parts of Nick's fur that he didn't even want to think of.

"Nick! Judy! Still wet out there?" Clawhauser asked as they walked past him, their uniforms dropping wet. They nodded, Judy a bit more exuberantly than Nick. "Oh right, Chief asked me to tell you guys that you don't need to go to the bullpen. Nick, just check in with CIIT before you guys leave to pick up Skye...Lanmarck I think her name was?"

"Thanks Clawhauser," Judy nodded, walking towards the parking garage. She motioned to Nick to handle whatever CIIT stuff he needed to as she walked down the stairs, leaving Nick alone to handle the wrath and loneliness of the elevators. It seemed to take twenty minutes for it to get down to the first floor, and another twenty minutes to get back up, although Nick knew that it was only about twenty seconds total. He cautiously walked down the hallway, silent as it was, making sure to not create too much noise.

He pushed open the CIIT door quietly, only to let it drop itself closed loudly. In the center were Delgato and Fangmeyer, looking over some spreadsheets that Nick was only mostly sure wasn't the Chaos Theory. "Hi guys, Whatcha look at? Oh! Are these the betting records for the ZPD!?" Nick overacted his surprise. Fangmeyer barely took a look back before focusing on the records again.

"Hiya Wilde. Say, care to help us update these? See, Bogo doesn't want us to even be betting at all, and Logan doesn't care, so we figured that now would be a perfect time!" the tiger said. Delgato nodded absentmindedly, as he circled another one. "Oh good find," Fangmeyer said once he noticed the new circle.

"Can't, although I'd love to. Any updates on...well, anything really."

"Not that we've noticed. Check the case files by the door, maybe something came up," Fangmeyer said, pointing out another one. Delgato 'ooh'ed and lifted his fist. Fangmeyer hit it lightly.

Nick looked through the two folders, one which was on the bone mummy, declared in proud lettering as "The Bone Mummy", and the other was simply titled "Gemfield management". Curious, Nick opened the Bone mummy one first, just to get an idea as to how all of this was organized.

Date, name, followed by the initial call report. Done by Nightclaw, incidentally. Simple, concise, and normal for most called in cases. The landlady, the tiny hedgehog, had called it in. No wonder she hadn't wanted to go into the room. He looked down to the sections that he would add to, most of them blank. And as the other two cops on the case, Delgato and Fangmeyer, were busy with the betting pool and weren't looking to get anything done for a long time...

He slipped open the Gemfield management folder, hiding it behind his own case. He looked at the date - a few days ago - and the names - Hooferton and Hammerhorn - were blazed near the top. The initial call report seemed simple; someone wanted to report a drug deal. In fact, it seemed oddly similar to the same report that Judy had read that led to Officer Trumpent being out that night. As Nick looked closer, that's because it wasn't just similar. It was in fact the exact same call.

That wasn't strange, in Nick's mind. Sometimes multiple cases to pop up from the same call, although in general they did try to avoid that. But what stood out in Nick's mind wasn't the thing that prompted the case, but rather the reports made by Hooferton and Hammerhorn afterwards.

They went to the same area, on the same night, and found nothing. Literally, nothing. They drove through a fog bank before coming out in complete darkness, without any stars or lights or anything. It was as if the road had just ceased to exist. Freaked, the two drove away, driving again through a fog bank that seemed to appear unnaturally out of thin air before coming back to the normal world.

A small note popped out to Nick's eyes, 'Dispatch's report: The two seemed fine for a while, then suddenly got freaked out over something. It was difficult to hear, as radio suddenly seemed intermittent and blared with static every other moment. Personally, I suggested to the two to take a few days off, and I'm going to check through my equipment.'

Intrigued, but not seeing any more to the report, Nick slyly put it back in it's proper folder, 'Gemfield Creation' and put it and his own bone mummy bare report back on the shelf. He blinked for a moment. 'Gemfield...Creation? Wasn't it just Gemfield management less than a minute ago?' Nick thought. He looked over to Fangmeyer and Delgato. The two tigers were still there, going over the ZPD betting pool.

"I hate Chaos. I hate Chaos so much right now," Nick said, taking out his phone and snapping two pictures, one of the two tigers and one of the Gemfield Creation report, angled to look like he was taking a picture of his own.

"Yeah, it's pretty chaotic alright," Fangmeyer said, grinning at the lion next to him. Nick rubbed his eyes. Sure enough, there was now a lion and a tiger there.

"...I'm done," he said, wandering outside the room. Fangmeyer and Delgato looked at each other for a moment, before shrugging and going back to what they were doing.

Judy always hated waiting for Nick. She just hated waiting in general. She was a rabbit of action, of excitement. Sitting in the car, listening to the weather go on and on about the 'rainstorm' - because a light rain counts as a rain storm apparently- did not count to Judy's mind as excitement. She sent a quick text to Skye, 'Hey Skye, Judy Hopps. Nick and I have a few questions so do you mind if Nick and I come around here pretty soon to pick you up? Chief wants to talk to you too.'

Message sent, Judy turned up the heater. Not because she was cold, but because it was something to do. She turned up the fan and put her paw next to it, checking the clock on her phone again. Barely a minute after she had just put it down. She was restless, and she knew it. It wasn't because she was waiting for Nick, but rather because she got an update from the lab techs. She had just gotten into the car when her phone rang with a new police email. Wondering, she opened it as soon as she got in.

'Hiya Hoppity Hopps!

Ok, no more of that. So over the last day or so we figured out what was causing all of that really weird crap, like it suddenly exploding on us. Turns out that when you drain energy from Gemfield, it turns into something a bit...explosive. No, I'm not sure how that works either. We're trying to figure it out! Any case, Bogo told us a quick recap of your adventures in the Underground yesterday, so when you go back in a few days can you bring up a sample?

And if anyone asks, I didn't ask for it and you were planning to deal it to the poor unsuspecting lab techies.'

It wasn't as though the lab techs tone was infuriating, in fact that was rather light for them, and Judy knew that all of them had had a hand in writing it, but rather the line about draining energy.

When it becomes drained, it becomes explosive. Use it, you get encased in bone. Just what was Gemfield?

Her mind was taken off-guard as she got a response from Skye, which didn't help her already overworked mind, 'Sure thing Judy. But could you wait about ten, fifteen minutes? Big wants a report too.'

'Ok. It'll be a while anyways, we haven't left the precinct yet.' Judy typed back. After sending, she pushed her head back against the headrest of their cruiser, wondering when the heck Nick would arrive.

Only a moment later, the devil himself opened the door and hopped in. Judy was about to counter with her usual sarcastic comment, but the look on his face said something differently and shut her down. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Nick turned to her after he buckled in, "Delgato and Fangmeyer. What species are they?"

"Lion and tiger," Judy answered quickly, and without hesitation. Nick pulled out her phone and showed her a picture of two tigers, standing over the table looking at something. "Ok. What am I seeing?"

"Delgato and Fangmeyer."

"What."

Truthfully, Judy thought to herself later on, this was not the weirdest thing she had come across.

Skye Lanmarck hated her phone at the moment. She was currently dressed in her overalls, no longer blue but a collection of black and various rainbow colors from the various fluids on it, and underneath a long limo with a blown out fuel injector. "Stupid...thing..." she said, keeping her mouth as shut as possible as she whacked away with her wrench to dislodge it. Somehow, and she had no idea how, the part had combusted while inside the fuel tank, turning into slag, which then injected itself into the fuel line.

The first thing she did was drain the fuel line and the tank. The second thing was try to figure out how the hell was this even possible. And then her phone rang with a text. She ignored it. The phone rang again after a few moments. Skye ignored it again, and got rewarded for her effort with the slag moving...inwards. She cursed again before getting fed up with her phone going off. Grumbling, she rolled the dolly she had been laying on out from underneath the car, and cautiously removed the safety goggles she had on. She looked on with disgust at her gloves, covered in the ash and dust of a vehicle's inner workings.

She looked at her phone, barely taking a moment to unglove first, as she looked at Judy's text. "Huh. Sure." she said aloud as she typed the message, then looked at the calendar over her work place. She had today circled, complete with 'Big report' written.

"It's a good thing I don't go to school, otherwise that might've been dangerous..." Skye chuckled to herself as she re-gloved and went back under, waiting for the giant polar bears -the ones who somehow managed this slag-ified mess- to show up.

"Skye. We are here. You make report quickly," a loud voice boomed over the empty and cold air. Skye took only a moment to identify the voice. Kevin, her least favorite polar bear.

"Kevin! I'm in here, trying to figure this dung out," she called out, grabbing what looked like a crowbar out from her toolbox.

"Skye. You make report face-to-face, Big's orders."

"Can't big guy. Big wanted me to fix this first, seeing as someone somehow managed to get this rutted up."

"I see. Very well then Lanmarck. Report to me. I shall know if you leave anything out."

"Yeah, yeah I know the routine. Well let's see, I was tailing Judy and Nick, which is a lot easier now that they're on the same team again-"

"I don't care. Just the Underground."

Skye grunted her acknowledgement as she broke off a piece of the injector, sending it back down towards her. She 'eep'ed, and scooted out of the way as it landed harmlessly. She saw Kevin's large feet at the end of the car. "Skye." he said again, his patience wearing thin.

"Gimme a sec, if you want this fixed sometime within the next week. Right, so Jack put us on the elevator-" Skye said.

"Jack being Savage, yes?" she got interrupted by Kevin again. She growled lightly.

"Yes, Jack being Savage. Before you ask, that is his name. So he led us to the Underground, then we got led through-"

"Interrupting again. Who led you, and what was he? Did you go anywhere, see anyone else?"

"Did you even read the report I sent in!?"

"No. Big did not let me."

Skye rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly, "That...makes way too much sense. So a sasquatch-" she stopped immediately, waiting to see if the polar bear would interrupt. He didn't, and stooped down to peer under the car questioningly after a moment. "I was thinking you were going to say something. A sasquatch led us through the Underground, we found a horde of wargs, basically giant wolves, before heading towards the Nine, which was essentially one of the leaders."

"I see. Anything else of note?"

Skye continued whacking away at the injector. "Kind of. See, when we first entered the Nine's domain, his name is Ray by the way, Ray Kalk, we saw it as a giant church. Turned out to be a simple office."

"You saw something that was not there?"

"Yeah. Like some kind of illusion or something. I've been researching kitsune and all I've seen so far are just rumors and legends from the Chun-Nan area, but some of them do mention their impressive illusion abilities."

"All you have are rumors and legends?"

"Do you have any idea how hard it to research mammals that have no actual evidence of their existence prior to me seeing them yesterday!?"

"Big will not be happy about this."

Skye sighed as Kevin's statement washed over her. She knew that Big wouldn't be happy with her, but Big was almost never happy with her. What else was new? She took a deep breath, centering herself for a moment as she hit the injector one last time. She heard it shudder, and grinned internally. She grabbed a hooked wrench and shoved it into the fuel line.

"Kevin? Might want to move..." she called out as she yanked the fuel injector out as hard as she could. Kevin peered out to see the slagged part fire out of the line and shoot out at high speed. He jumped back, expecting it stop on the floor. It bounced and instead slammed against his shin. The polar bear yelped and cursed her aloud. "You alright out there? If you are, can you hand me that part next to the window? Just toss it underneath!" Skye called out from underneath the car. Kevin growled and made no attempt to hide his faux limp as he tossed the part without a care underneath the vehicle.

"Careful Kev. I don't want to explain to Big why I have to get another part for this," Skye said as she installed the part in silence. She could still hear Kevin sitting down, checking his leg. He was still cursing but it didn't seem to like it was directed much at her this time. Polar bears were strong, it may have hurt but it wasn't going to affect him for too much.

"I take report back to Big," Kevin said abruptly after a few minutes. Skye simply grunted in agreement as she heard him get up and leave. She smirked as she waited for another moment only to hear him come back, grab a few papers and then leave again in silence. She rolled out from underneath the black car, shaking her head with a smile. "Eventually Kevin, you'll learn to grab what you need before you go," she said to no one in particular.

She grabbed her phone and texted a quick message to Big, 'Kev's on his way back. He has the report. Targets are on their way here to talk about yesterday. Will rendezvous with them and attempt to extract mission info'. She didn't need to wait even a few moments before Big's response came back in. She sighed internally; she hated doing all this spy non-sense. If only she had a way out!

She saw the police cruiser pull up on the side of the street before slowing down. She made sure that she had all the important bits; her phone, her ID, her wallet. Nodding to herself, she breached the doorway, putting a smile on her face that didn't need to be faked.

Checking one last time to make sure the door was locked, she grinned at the grey bunny and red fox waving at her from inside the car.

To: Adrian Bogo
From: Judy Hopps
Subject: Questions to ask Skye

Hiya Chief!

Just wanted to check and see if you had any questions you wanted us to ask Skye before we delivered her unto you. After all, you're so busy most of the time and we don't to waste anything now do we? We have all the basics here already.

Signed,
Nick Wilde (Your bestie!)

To: Judy Hopps; Nick Wilde
From: Adrian Bogo
Subject: Re: Questions to ask Skye

Wilde, listen to me when I say do not send emails from your partner's account. I do not care that she is not officially your partner. Do not do it.

Also no, I don't.

This is the part where Skye's character, if she had one before, suddenly does a 180. It's kind of impressive, considering she isn't doing anything sporty. Also, I apologize, but I just love Nick's "I'm done." It fits me, as I was writing this, far too well for me to think that it was actually Nick saying it.

Until Next Time!