Jack Savage

The van zooms down the street at full speed. Adrienne's little script had given us a clear path to the Downtown area, and we're zipping along with a string of green lights ahead of us. If we put on a police siren we'd be able to move even faster, but that'd alert every goddamn Praetor within half a mile.

"Benjy, don't tell me you believe this! The ZIA doesn't have any real evidence!"

Though Kaplan's got the phone pressed to his ear I can hear the conversation on her end with perfect clarity. There's a tremor in her voice, a wetness in the back of her throat like she'd been crying. Now and again Judy makes a small snuffling sound.

"I was right there, Judy," Benjy says firmly. "Nick attacked three ZIA agents who were coming to arrest him. He actively evaded capture! And he attacked Agent Savage!"

"Bastard caught me by surprise is all," I grumble under my breath. Well, that and sleep deprivation.

Even though he's raising his voice slightly with each sentence, Benjy's speaking with a calm that's uncharacteristic given what I'd just seen from him not five minutes ago. The way he'd gripped Chester, growling in that low, murderous tone and demanding information on the foxes who'd nearly killed his brother... that and a little public property damage to emphasize the point, and it'd terrified the little fox to the point that he'd started gibbering about old sewer tunnels almost immediately.

Kaplan asked for thirty seconds. In truth, he'd only needed ten. After that little talk of theirs we tossed Chester in the back with a pair of pawcuffs on his wrists.

"And you know Nick's been using Chester as a body double? Yeah, Chester!" Benjy continues. "Apparently that's how he's been fooling ZIA surveillance!"

"But... you know Nick. This isn't like him!"

"I want to give him the benefit of a doubt, Judy, I really do. If he gives himself up... I'm willing to listen."

Benjy's trying to sound placating, but by the way his paw tightens on his knee I suspect he's lying. By the look of it he's about ready to twist the nearest fox in half. It's no wonder Chester's been so meek back there.

"Benjy... Benjy, please-"

I lean forward in my seat and hold my paw out, looking Kaplan in the eye. He blinks, but he takes the hint and passes the phone over to me.

"Judy? This is Jack," I say, putting the phone to my ear. "I'm sorry. I really, truly am. But the Nicholas Wilde you knew is a lie. We know he's in on this because Skye identified him as the one who attacked her."

"Agent Skye is alive?!"

"Barely. The doctors only just took her out of a medically induced coma yesterday. The moment she woke up she was able to identify Wilde."

"A coma?! But- wouldn't she have been on painkillers? Or it could've been brain damage, or she could've just been confused-"

"Officer Hopps..." I'm trying to speak as gently as I can, but when she says that about Skye I can't help but let my tone sharpen into a dangerous edge, "I've known Agent Skye for a long time, and she has one of the most disciplined minds I know. She would never accuse someone if she wasn't completely certain of her own thoughts. You need to come to terms with this, because we are going to need your assistance."

"A-Agent Savage... Jack... please-" Judy chokes. I wince, hearing the pain in her voice. The last thing I'd wanted to do was hurt her. A lot of the secrecy and caution I'd exercised in dealing with Wilde was for the sake of operational security, but I'd also wanted to help spare her just this sort of pain.

In truth however, it'd been inevitable. It'd always been inevitable.

"I want him to be taken in alive as much as you do, Judy," I say firmly, "But if the Sanguinis can pick him up before we do, we'll never be able to recover him. If he's as innocent as you think, he won't stay that way for long in Frisk's paws. The Prince will break Wilde. He will brainwash Nick. And when the ZIA does encounter him again, he'll have changed. The fox we meet then... we'll have no choice but to use lethal force. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Y-y-yes..." Judy chokes.

There. She finally accepts it.

"Now Agent Bearington was able to trace his last phone call to you from a payphone in Happytown," I sigh, "That neighborhood is lousy with foxes, so he'll be able to blend in almost perfectly. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

For a moment Judy's quiet on her end of the line. She's making soft, snuffling sounds, and when I'm about to try coaxing her into helping us again she finally speaks.

"Nick- he grew up in Happytown. But there's only a few places that mean anything to him, really. His mom's living at their old house, but there's also a bridge he hangs out at sometimes. And... the tailor shop. Well, it's a bakery now, but his dad used to dream of opening up a tailor shop..."

It takes a few minutes for her to figure out the addresses, with some help from Agent Bearington and a street view on Zoogle Maps via his laptop.

"Thank you, Judy. We'll do everything we can to bring him back unharmed."

They key word there, of course, was 'try.' Nick was sure to resist, and I'm going to have a great deal of satisfaction in taking him down.

"Teams Alpha and Bravo," I speak into my mic, "Did you hear that?"

"Confirmed," says Lenny.

"Loud and clear," says Miles.

"Good. Alpha will investigate his mother's house. You won't have a warrant, but convince her that it'll be in her son's best interests if she complies to a search of the house. Bravo, you take the bridge. We'll take the bakery." Wilde's psych profile implied he was the sentimental sort, so the guy probability of him being in any of those locations is pretty high. With his daddy issues, my bet is on the site where his dad had wanted to open up his tailor shop.

"Got it," the both of them reply.

"And remember, capture is our number one priority. When you get to those sites you'll have to split up to cover more ground."

"Heh. Famous last words."

"We've got no choice, Lenny," I say, "Right now Wilde is the closest we've got to capturing a live Praetor for interrogation. Over and out."

I can feel Kaplan's eyes on me, and I turn to face him. He looks concerned.

"Agent Savage... do you mean to join the search? Maybe you should sit this one out and direct us."

I rub my stomach where Wilde had stabbed me with that tranquilizer dart. Granted I'm still feeling a little woozy, but I've had worse while still in the thick of a mission.

"I'll rest easy after we get Nick Wilde."

.


.

Rufinius Varius Frisk

"We've lost contact with Nicholas."

I swirl the cabernet in my glass as I pore over the report that Doug has provided. I am no biochemist, but I have a sufficient understanding of mammalian physiology to understand the results of his experiments. Everything is looking quite promising already... he had after all done the bulk of his research on the matter long before the words "Night Howlers" were on anyone's tongues.

The wine is from a younger bottle, though it's still well-developed. It is sharp with the exotic scents of red fruits and earthy with the smell of graphite and pencil shavings. It reminds me of my youth in the Mauseille countryside. I can still remember the scents of the vinyards and berry bushes, the long summer days spent sketching beneath the trees. Such innocent times then... I could bathe in this aroma and the nostalgia it elicits for hours, if not for the work ahead of me.

"Thank you Rhona," I say absentmindedly to the good doctor. With all the Praetors spread across the City looking for Nick, it is left to her to keep me up to date.

"I would've thought yeh'd be more concerned."

Rhona leans against the table, and I glance up from my papers without moving my head an inch. After years of caring for my health she's grown to have a familiar manner with me. I suppose it came naturally to her, this former country rustic who had never bothered to even try and shed her thick brogue. Yet where she lacked in sophistication she made up for with an earnest and gentle manner. In some ways she'd become the daughter I'd never had, nor truly ever wanted. An impressive feat for an outsider without a drop of Frisk blood in her veins.

She was a diamond in the rough, one that my operatives had noticed by mere chance. Foxes always had an uphill battle getting into medical school, something that Sebastain well knows. It was only through Sanguinis influence that she'd been able to secure her education.

"I've accounted for this eventuality, my dear," I say. My operatives know how to keep a level head in a crisis such as this, but even they became unnerved when they encountered my sense of beatific calm over this matter. Rhona herself is shifting her weight now, mouth tight.

The last we'd heard, Nicholas had just bested Jack Savage in combat. No small feat, especially for a novice Praetor. Yet the moment he went into the sewers his signal was blocked, and for a while yet we will not be able to contact each other by radio.

Rhona sighs. "Well, I suppose t'was inevitable. Yeh don't get t' dance with th' devil an' act surprised when yeh find yerself a few steps closer ta hell."

I look up at her over my sheaf of papers. "My dear Rhona, have you considered writing poetry?"

She smiles momentarily, then sighs. "Still, the poor tod dinnae have ta get uncovered so quickly," Rhona says, wrapping her arms around her body. "I never should've given him those scent mask pills... I always did think that might give 'im away when he's around a bunch o' sniffers all th' time."

"You followed my orders to the letter. That itself makes it the right decision."

"But it wasn't as if 'e was gonna be runnin' stealth missions!" she protests. "All it did was produce eccentricities in 'is scent that the ZIA could pick up on! And taking 'im ta observe operations... it just left 'im exposed."

"You act as if that weren't precisely what I wanted."

Rhona blinks and stands up straighter. "M' Prince?"

"If Nicholas is to be my protege, it will take much more than simply legitimizing his bloodline by decree," I say, folding my paws in my lap. Rhona and Sebastian are the two I trust most in the Twilight Cathedral. It truly is a pity they had been unable to bear kits together. "And it will take much more than a little exercise and shadowing our operations here and there. Nicholas has years of dedicated study before he has a chance of becoming the next Prince. Such a duty is simply impossible in this City."

"So 'is trainin', then..." Rhona muses, eyes sparkling with interest.

"Served another purpose entirely," I nod. "I have given him a few hard restrictions yes, but aside from a few threats and monitoring his movements I have allowed him an astonishing degree of freedom. I have issued no overt shows of force, made every accommodation to ensure that my orders do not make him to betray his current loyalties too much. Indeed, if I'd brutishly demanded he choose sides he would've learned to resent me. He fears me yes, and he may still attempt to undermine me in small, subtle ways. Yet he doesn't hate me enough to push me away outright."

I gesture to the cabinet where the glasses are stored, indicating that she is free to help herself to this cabernet as well. A shared drink always tends to smooth the conversation. It'd taken some doing to educate Rhona's palate to wine. As if to make a show of her training she swirls the glass and holds it up to the light to admire the coloration and flow, before sniffing and taking a small sip.

"Binding Nicholas to me is different from how I dealt with his father. Jacob was vulnerable then. He and his family were under assault from outside forces, and he saw me as his only possible savior. But Nicholas has no enemies. At least, not the sort of enemies that beset him from all sides. He has many friends as well... ones that could shield him."

"So yeh set him up t' fail..." Rhona's mouth curves into an appreciative smile. "Yeh gave him th' scent mask, had him come out to observe... all knowing that there were cracks in th' plan. That 'e was gonna get caught eventually."

"Very much so," I say, taking a moment to regard her carefully. Rhona has a keen mind for academic matters, but her sense of guile had always been lacking. Has my planning been too transparent, I wonder?

"It is all a wonderful confluence of my interests, isn't it?" I continue, "That Jack Savage himself would be tasked with hunting me down? That Nicholas had become a ZPD officer by now?"

The moment Jack Savage saw Nicholas that obsessive little rabbit would've surely recognized the familial resemblance to the tod that killed his mother. Agent Savage could've then acquired a DNA sample easily, and from then on put Nicholas under surveillance. I had no ability to know for certain how the situation would play out, but the traps and snares for Nick to fall into were limited to a few possibilities. All I needed was to plan for those contingencies and keep our responses supple.

Of course, I hadn't expected the whole incident with Agent Skye to end as brutally as it had. A dangerous mistake, that... allowing it to happen. Jack Savage would be out for blood now, and he would be far more unpredictable as a result. And my plans hinge on being able to anticipate the moves of my opponents.

Still, in some ways pushing him a little closer to madness may be exploitable as well, if I am careful.

"And so bit by bit Nicholas would stumble in hiding his new links to the Sanguinis. And as the ZIA learns more, Savage will turn Nicholas' friends against him," I swirl the cabernet in my glass. The smell of red currants and graphite fill the air. "His social circle will crumble, he will become increasingly isolated. Even that little rabbit he is so smitten with would have to see him in a new light. And here we are now... with my poor grandson bereft of friends, surrounded by enemies. Betrayed by those he loved, even though I hadn't given him a single order to harm anyone. All the mistakes that got him in trouble are his own."

I allow myself a rare, toothy smile. "He cannot blame me for putting him in this situation. On the contrary, he will see me as his protector and savior."

"Just as Jacob had," Rhona breathes. "Most wise, m' Prince."

"Thank you, Rhona."

"Though... how did yeh know 'e wouldn't have risked it all? Simply betrayed yeh th' first night yeh let him free from th' Twilight Cathedral?"

"My dear Rhona," I chuckle, "Have you read the psych report from Doctor Conall? A tod as damaged as he is simply is incapable of trusting the authorities, even if he wears the same uniform now. Besides... he is a Frisk. Subterfuge is in his blood."

.


.

Nick Wilde

I run my fingers along the books on the shelf, their spines rippling against my pawpads as I walk by. With so many physical bookstores being shuttered these past few years it's always nice to see a library again, even though it doesn't quite have the same feeling.

Dad used to love hanging out here. Ever since I was a kit he'd bring me to this library in our neighborhood. It was no wonder then that right across the street he'd seen the empty storefront that he'd wanted to become his tailor shop. Our tailor shop.

I can imagine him now, browsing the newspapers and magazines in the small lounge section. Maybe he'd look out the window, and there across the street a "For Rent" sign behind classic Victorian-style windows. Maybe he'd glance over at a ten-year-old me as I flipped through books in the Young Adults section, and the idea gets in his head.

My paw lingers on the old Moosebumps books, all 62 of 'em shelved in order. I really had to give it to the librarians that they were this meticulous. I used to love this sort of kiddie horror... it was always about fantastical things: swamp monsters, haunted dolls, blobs of sentient jelly with mind control powers. Stine never wrote about anything real. The kits in the books never had to deal with dead fathers, abuse from their peers, drugs or poverty or crime. They were stories you could use to escape your own shitty life just for a moment, with delicious chills that you knew could never be real.

If only us adults could escape so easily.

I pull out a random book from the shelf... The Terror At Deerbrooke Lake. Why is it horror writers always set their stories in rural podunks or glossy suburbs? The moment I begin to flip through it though I notice one of the librarians, an aging raccoon, shooting me suspicious glare.

Well of course. An oddly well-dressed tod wearing a Trilby hat, hiding in the corner of the kiddie section of the library? I must look like a total perv.

A sense of disgust and embarrassment replaces any nostalgia I'd just been feeling. I put the book back on the shelf, and just as I'm about to leave I see an awfully pissed-off bunny in a black suit walk through the door.

Holy crap how did he shake off the tranq that quick?

Jack Savage picks up a newspaper without even looking at it, rolls it up into a tube, and holds it over his body. For a moment I wonder if he's actually thinking of batting me across the nose with that, when I notice that his other paw has crossed his chest and slipping beneath his jacket, where his gun holster should be. The paper's just supposed to be a distraction.

Oh god I hope he's just holding a tranq gun.

Ever flip a coin while trying to make a decision? Maybe you're just trying to choose whether to go for Thai or Italian. See the new action flick or a comedy at the theater. Or heck, do you stay in, or go out? Maybe it's even for a decision as monumental as what major you wanna choose in college.

Thing is, you don't flip the coin to let fate make the decision for you. You flip it because the moment it lands, or even when it's still up in the air, you realize that your choice is gonna be taken from you. In the instant of clarity that follows, you know what you want in your heart. When it finally lands, all that's left is to either be satisfied that the coin's just confirmed the decision you'd already come to, or to tell fate to fuck off.

Him walking in through those doors was the coin landing, and with the murder burning in his eyes I come to realize that I really don't want to be shot by Jack Savage. If it were any other Agent I'd probably surrender happily to 'em, but after what'd happened to Skye I know that Stripes here is out for blood.

I carefully I slip through the nonfiction section. There's a fire exit at the back, but that'd trip the alarm. Frantically I look for the nearest teenager, a skinny little fox about fifteen years old. His headfur is dyed purple, and he's wearing a black hoodie along with that cold, serious expression kits his age always try to pass off as looking tough.

"Hey kid," I whisper, "wanna make fifty bucks?"

He gives me a funny look and takes a step back. "Hey man, I don't do that shit."

"Wh- no! I need you to make a distraction. Now take it or leave it."

Keeping my voice as low as possible (I know from personal experience how good bunny hearing could be) I do a bit of quick negotiation and pass him the folded bill. Circling around the perimeter of the section alongside books on New Age crap and pagan religion, I try my best to play it cool as I pretend to read a book on Roman gods.

Just then the fire alarm sounds from the back of the library, and I see Jack's ears perk up. He bolts straight for the emergency exit.

I take the opportunity to head calmly towards the front entrance as that same raccoon librarian dashes past me to turn off the alarm. Once I reach the street I try to keep it casual as I make my escape. Maybe I'd run into Elkredge, or Packard again to give myself up. Packard wouldn't be too happy after I'd hosed him at my place, but he's always seemed like a fairly chill guy. Not the type to plug me on sight.

Just as I reach the next block though I hear the distant scuttle of tiny rabbit feet from afar. Glancing over my shoulder, my eyes widen as Agent Savage barrels towards me.

"FREEZE, WILDE!" he snaps, holding his gun in his paw.

Okay, he says that, but his choice of weaponry kinda makes me feel I should do otherwise.

I take off at a terrified sprint, as Savage takes up the pursuit. I have to dodge past a vixen and her kit, a pair of possums out walking their iguana, and duck as a beaver construction worker carries a wooden beam into a yard. I miss the clearance by perhaps half an inch, because the beam knocks my hat clean off. The beaver accidentally steps on it as I keep running, the foil crunching beneath his foot.

My head now bare, I hear a click as my earpieces reconnect.

"Mr. Frisk, trying to contact Mr. Frisk..." the vixen on the other end says. "Is that you, Mr. Frisk? We've been trying to get in touch for the past twenty minutes."

"I had to go through the sewer tunnel," I say quickly, which is half-true. I'd come out of the sewers just after I evaded Savage the first time, but I'd been wearing my foil-lined Trilby then, to make sure the Twilight Cathedral wouldn't be able to get in touch.

"What's your location? The Praetors have spread out over the city to find you."

For a moment I debate whether I should play it straight or just lie, when I hear the ping of a bullet striking the garbage can I'd just dodged around. While kevlar might be bullet-resistant, a hit would still sure as fuck hurt.

"Happytown!" I yelp, "Three blocks East of the local library!"

For a moment there's silence on the other line as the vixen on the com, before she pipes up again.

"Continue heading East. A small team will meet and recover you on the other side of the Manchacori River."

Perfect. With a drawbridge just another block away I have a chance of shaking this crazed cottontail off my ass. As much as that smug bastard pisses me off, I'd gotten my lick in with that gut-punch. Besides, I can't just let him get gunned down by the Sanguinis.

Among all that Praetor training Dad had given me on how to deal with different mammal species, I'm suddenly glad that he'd trained me to deal with rabbits. They're fast, but they originally evolved to evade pursuit, so they aren't built to chase quite as effectively. Most important thing to remember though is that while their legs are exceptionally powerful, their spines haven't developed to withstand the force of their own jumps and kicks.

"If a rabbit leaps at you," Dad had told me, "all you have to do is get it to jump into a wall or spin and pistol-whip him at the right angle, and you can snap his spine easily."

So really, as fit and fast as Jack is, he just isn't quite as built to chase perps down in some ways. Kinda reminds me of that story of how well Duke Weaselton evaded Judy through Little Rodentia. I'll definitely have to give her some pointers on how to keep from being killed in a scurry.

It also turns out I've timed things perfectly. Just as I see the drawbridge a ship is beginning to approach. Racing onto the bridge I take the sidewalk, earning a good number of confused glances from the waiting drivers as I rush past. The concrete and steel beneath me let out a soft groan as motors rumble and turn, but I keep running as the ground begins to rise, tilting at an incline that's growing steeper with each second.

My legs are burning. My lungs feel like they're on fire. But I continue to race along, try to push past that barrier and hit the high of pure endorphins. I'm not the most fit fox out there. Hell, I came in last on physical evals in my graduating class at the Academy. But if both of us are gonna live I need to do this.

I leap off the end of the rising drawbridge, across the still-growing five-foot gap that's just formed, and land on the other side with my torso hitting the edge of the bridge. My feet dangling, my claws scraping at the metal, I struggle and pull my butt over and roll down the other side, panting. There's a commotion from the bridge's operator booths, and a pig pokes his head out the window. He shakes his hoof and yells at me for making that crazy jump. Despite his tantrum though he hadn't stopped the drawbridge. He couldn't, not with the slow cargo ship that needed to pass under.

With a sigh of relief I pick myself up and begin to limp away, when I hear another yelp from the other side.

I turn around, just in time to see a white rabbit in a black suit flying over the gap. His arms and legs are cycling, and when he lands he does so gracefully on his feet. There's no stumble or roll: Jack Savage just uses the momentum and the decline to race towards me fast as a bullet.

"Seriously?! The old Emergency Exit trick?! You thought that'd fool me?! I could hear your heartbeat from a block away!"

It's too late. Just as I turn to run his tiny body slams into mine, sending the both of us rolling in a pile of fur and very expensively tailored formal attire. Somewhere in the middle of it I'd made a grab for his gun, and though we struggle for a moment my superior strength as a fox wins out, and I rip the pistol from his paw and toss it aside. When we finally roll to a stop I tense up as I feel cold metal clap around my right wrist.

Blinking, I stand up and raise my arm, holding it out as far from me as possible while I grip the bridge's safety railing with my other paw. Jack Savage dangles from it, the other end of the cuff tight around his own wrist. He's scowling and snarling, twisting as he swings back and forth like an adorable little ball of feral rage. He is pissed.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I say in flat disbelief at the little rodent hanging from my wrist. "You do realize I weigh like four times as much as y-"

Savage doesn't give me a chance to finish. Swinging up and hooking one leg around my arm, he kicks me straight in the face with the heel of his other foot.

Wham! The world explodes in multicolored stars. I think I just felt half my teeth loosen in their sockets.

I'm normally used to Judy being soft and plump in all the right places, though she's got a nice amount of muscle too. But Jack... there isn't much that's soft about him. Not that I can feel at least. He's just a bunch of hard elbows and fists and feet and knees trying to hammer into me.

At first I'm ashamed of the fact that I now have to use a full show of force on him... after all I've been through, all the crap I've taken from mammals who thought they were better than the slimy, shifty, untrustworthy fox, beating the shit out of a bunny rabbit after I've already defeated him once feels like bullying. Especially with that whole "natural enemies" thing I'd been trying to grow out of these past few months. Turns out though that Savage with all his crazy ass ZIA Agent combat training is more than a match for me.

Even though I'm not looking to kill him, I really want to hurt this little long-eared bastard right now. And I only have once chance of doing that.

Stumbling, bleeding from my nose and mouth, my skull ringing from his punches and kicks, I press up against the guard rail and, taking a deep breath, I let myself roll over.

The terrified squeak that Savage lets out is supremely satisfying, and his frosty blue eyes widen in shock as we plunge twenty feet into the water below.

The moment we hit the river I feel him thrashing, trying to claw his way through the twisting currents that send us spinning through the blue-black depths. The water is ice cold, and the chill stabs through my body like a thousand needles. The weightlessness and flow pushing us downriver are disorienting, but once I judge what direction's up and down from the stream of bubbles trickling from my nostrils, I start swimming deeper.

Bunnies have a higher metabolism, after all. They'll burn through oxygen twice as fast as a fox would, and if I keep calm he'll pass out from oxygen deprivation long before I do.

At first I feel desperate yanking at my wrist, the hard edge of that metal pawcuff biting through my fur and chafing the skin beneath. But I continue to drag Jack Savage down with me, staying just a few feet below the surface. If he drowns he's only got himself to blame for cuffing us together like this.

But then I feel him spasm. The tension on my wrist goes slack. Wait, it couldn't have been more than thirty seconds or so. Is he already at his limit? Yet when I look up at Savage the silhouette of his body, dark and still against the morning sun above us, looks so much like Judy for a moment that I start to panic.

Immediately I turn around and start paddling back towards the surface. My lungs are burning, my cheeks puffed out with a breath I'm desperately trying to hold in. I'm getting lightheaded, and the moment I break the surface and breathe in the sweet, crisp air it's like drinking in life itself. Pulling Savage's limp little body up against me I cradle him against my chest as I tread water for the both of us.

His mouth is half-open, revealing his tiny buck teeth. His ears have gone limp, and they drape over my shoulder like a wet towel, sodden and limp. I try patting his cheek a with my paw.

"Hey... Agent Stripes. You with me? You gotta breathe. You gotta..."

And then his eyes snap open. Oh shit he's been faking this whole-

With a crazy ninja-flip that only a bunny can do he's somehow gotten onto my shoulders, and he's squeezing his thighs tight around my throat. This crazy little asshole is choking me, like he doesn't care if I drag him beneath the water again so long as I drown first.

"You tried to kill Skye..." he snarls, starting to pull on my ears. I want to scream in pain, but all that comes out is a strangled gurgle.

And then, despite the pain ringing through my scalp, the water in my ear canals, and the violent yanking distorting the sounds around me, I hear a low roar like the sound of a motorboat. All of a sudden I feel a yanking sensation at my collar. The both of us are lifted out of the water, and we're thrown in a wet heap onto the deck.

As I blink the water out of my eyes, waiting for my head to clear, I look up to see an arctic fox in a snow-white suit smiling down at me, his cheerful blue eyes more giddy than I've ever seen.

"No..." Jack pants in horror. He searches his clothes for something, anything to use as a weapon, but all he's able to come up with is what looks like a pen.

"Stay back! Stay-" Savage doesn't get to finish his sentence. A large, black paw closes around his upper body, pinning his arms to his sides as Oliver grins down at him. The big panther squeezes, hard, and a strangled gasp escapes the bunny's mouth as the pen clatters to the floor. Looking at it now though it's more like some sort of injector.

"Nicholas... you've done so marvelously well capturing the famous Jack Savage," Sebastian says, "I must say, the Prince will be quite pleased with this unexpected turn of events. Exceedingly pleased, in fact."

"W-Wilde..." Jack gasps, his eyes beginning to swim in their sockets. "K-Kill me... p-please... k-k-kill... me..."

Sebastian takes a small metal probe from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, the kind used by dentists. Knowing what he likes to do to other mammals for fun, the thought of what else that thing has been used for sends a cold shiver down my spine.

"Do loosen your grip, Oliver," Sebastian smiles as he inserts the probe into the keyhole of the cuffs and begins to fiddle around, "You wouldn't want to cause any damage to the Prince's personal property."

The teenage cat's eyes widen, and he slackens his paw just a hair. Not enough to give room for Savage to move his arms freely, but just enough that he can finally breathe without his ribcage creaking.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smiler, Sir. Praetor," Oliver says politely, just as the cuffs come off with a light click. I rub my wrist to ease the bruised flesh.

"You couldn't have known, my young lad. Milo," Sebastian says, turning to the cat at the steering wheel. "You know where to go."

"Wilde, please!" Jack begs as the ship's engine roars to life. His blue eyes are wide in terror. Even though I know what Sebastian is capable of, the look on Savage's face is like a knife to the gut. The fact that ZIA Agent Jack Savage could be so shaken scares the shit out of me.

"Um, Sebastian?" I ask nervously, "What... what do you plan to do to him?"

"Whatever my Prince commands, of course. I'll have to confer with the Twilight Cathedral, but for now... Oliver, if you would please hold him under the water?"

"No! NO!" Jack yelps, but the cat in question simply scoots over to the edge of the boat, and holds the small, wriggling form of Agent Savage upside-down beneath the frothing river. All I can see of him now are his little white-furred feet kicking violently as he squirms, toes spreading apart and clawing desperately into the air.

"Wait, stop!" I say, gripping Oliver's arm. "You're gonna kill him!"

"Keep holding him, Oliver," Sebastian says calmly as he pulls on a pair of black rubber gloves. "We simply need to disable him for the moment. Most unfortunate that we were in a rush to collect you... none of the Praetors had thought to bring tranquilizers with them, otherwise it would be a simple matter of darting Mr. Savage here. Luckily I have a decent substitute."

He pulls a small white object from his pocket, about the size and shape of an electric razor. But then I see the two metal prongs protruding from the end, and my eyes widen.

When I look back at Savage, his kicking has slowed to a few faint twitches.

"I think he's softened up sufficiently. Pull him out."

Oliver does so, and at Sebastian's command he drops the limp form of Jack Savage onto the deck. Sebastian leans down, holding the bunny by his scrawny neck with one paw protected by a thick rubber glove.

"There we go... you must be exhausted, you poor little thing. But don't worry, the Smiler knows how to put bunnies to sleep..."

Blue-white sparks crackle between the taser's metal prongs, and the light reflects in Savage's dull blue eyes. He hiccups, water spilling from his mouth, only half-conscious now. Yet I can see the dread, the despair that drags down his features.

Sebastian is almost gentle when he presses the taser into Jack's side.