Chapter 8

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AN: This chapter and the next were interesting to write, both being the split up parts of a long meandering set of conversations where the initial theories and plan of action are hammered out. I ended up chopping and changing a bunch of stuff around a few times to get the scenes into a flow that worked, made sense, and ended on the note I wanted. Enjoy.

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"I-I-I've worked something out!"

All eyes turned to Ash as he stepped into the room, nervously glancing around before scurrying up close to his parents, holding them tight. His mother bent down to hold him, hard, while his father's ears had picked up. "Excellent work son. What is it?"

He turned and looked up into his eyes. "It was supposed to be me."

There was a long pause, Felicity finally breaking it as she held him tighter. "Oh Ash… No it wasn't, it…"

"-It was," he stated, suddenly pushing himself out of her grip and looking around. "It was supposed to be me!"

"No, Ash, it wasn't…"

"It was!" he shouted, his mother suddenly backing off. He'd gone from looking worried to having lines of frustration riven across his muzzle, all while his fluffed-up tail beat back and forth behind him.

"Ash," his father began. "You did have that talk with…"

"-Yes! That's how I know it was supposed to be me. Now are you going to let me help Kris or not?"

Felicity's head tilted a little and she looked up at Foxy, the older fox paused in thought. "Okay Ash, tell us everything."

He looked at his father for a second or two before closing his eyes, breathing in and out. "Thanks," he muttered, before walking over to the centre of the group. "My therapist said that to help with my survivors guilt, I could start listing out all the times I thought it was meant to be me. Then I could work out an explanation for each time." He brought out a sheet of paper and began reading off of it.

"Okay, first off, all the stuff going on with the police. That just made me nervous and more insecure, so I began getting worried. Then, when the police began looking 'at' me and standing around me, they were actually looking at Kris. Well, I didn't think that then, I know when people are and aren't looking at me, and I think it even less now. But okay, they were looking at Kris. Then they got to the lockers, which they opened up after arguing over the name list. Kris' locker is right below mine, easy mistake. But then I was being led over to the principal's office, the cop still tough and angry standing beside me. I was nervous, right? Same thing I was when I was being interrogated. But, after that, when the Chief mentioned 'the true suspect' to the hippo, he looked right at me. Right at me. Then he paused and said it was Kazar. That, I can't explain."

"Well," Felicity began, stepping forward. Ash's eyes narrowed as she spoke. "Maybe there isn't a reason, or maybe he was glancing at someone behind us, or…"

"-He's right."

She paused, turning to her husband. "Foxy?"

"That police chief was most certainly looking at our family unit, or rather in between us and at about Ash's height, for an unusually long time."

"But still, there could be all sorts of reasons for that?"

"Or it was meant to be me, originally," Ash spoke. "It's not the only odd thing. Back when a cop was taking me to the Principal's office, she was mad at him for lots of reasons. But then she said that I had a 'right to know' and that she should tell me, but the cop ordered her to stay quiet. That's the big thing that made me realise this. They originally got a call telling them that the howlers were in my locker, not Kris'. Only, when they came to inspect it, they found them in the one below mine. That's why they were confused and needed to get the records. That's why the cops were all looking at me. That's why they gave me such a long interview at the station!"

There was a long pause, only broken as Judy clicked her fingers. "Of course! An anonymous tip!" Nick snapped to the same realisation too.

"Hold up," Skye said. "Wouldn't you have known if Ash had a tip against him? If he was interrogated, wouldn't that be the first thing they'd bring up?"

"Theoretically, yes," she said. "Except for the fact that this is a youth case."

"And that changes things how?"

Judy paused, taking a breath in and stepping forward. "Let's say you have a young gang member or suspect. They might know something important, or a less-than-ethical detective suspects them of something and point blank wants to see them put away. Now, they don't have anything on them. However, they or a friend could put in an anonymous tip. At that point, they say they have something on him and can use it to scare them. Add a few more tips, maybe from the same person as, guess what, nobody could tell the difference, and suddenly you've got a young and scared child who might jump at a plea deal or give up some info. It used to be used fairly often, which led to a law being passed banning it. Unless they have firm physical evidence, you can't say that an anonymous tip was levelled against them, given that it's an illegal intimidation tactic. Bogo's a by the book's Chief and against Wassermaim he'd do nothing that could give him leverage, he wouldn't even tell us confidential stuff like that off record, but he does want to help us."

Nick snapped his fingers. "There's nothing I can legally do to help you. Not even an anonymous tip. Think about what I just said."

"So that's why they were so mean to him," Felicity gasped, turning to her son. She walked up to him and, this time, he didn't resist her embrace. "They still suspected you, they thought it was you. Oh I'm so sorry Ash, I'm so, so sorry…"

His looking of comfort in her paws broke off a little. "You know it wasn't actually you who did that?"

She sniffed a bit. "Well, I'm so, so sympathetic doesn't have much of a ring to it," she said, gently kissing him on the forehead.

"T-thanks," he said, before stepping back. He looked around, his gaze eventually glancing to Nick. "That's it. I think whoever put them there called in an anonymous tip on me. It would have all worked too, only they got the wrong locker. Probably as they thought I'd have the lower one being the short kit."

Silence filled the room as Nick stood up and looked around. "So," he said. "We're not looking for someone who wanted to get Kris, we're looking for someone who wanted to get Ash. It could be anyone. After all, it doesn't take much effort to make your way into a school locker."

Judy nodded. "That's if it's true," she said, turning to Ash. "It is a good theory, but we need proof. Proof we won't get from the police."

"The head," Felicity spoke. "She does know, doesn't she? I can phone her up right now." She stood up and walked out over to the staircase before descending down. A long pause followed her absence, before Nick turned to Mr Fox.

"Don't you bunch have a cell phone?"

"Our old landline holds a lot of sentimentality, and Felicity always wants something to wrap around her fingers while talking" he said, shrugging. "The important thing is what we do with this new bit of information."

"Well," Nick said, turning to Ash. "Mr…" he made a spitting noise, "who hates you enough to try and do this to you?"

"I don't know," he said. "If I knew I'd have told you."

Haida nodded along. "That is a fair point. Also, surely whoever did this also needs access to the Nighthowlers in the first place. Maybe their family used to be one of Kazar's ex-goons. If you could cross reference the list of those arrested for that with, say, the student yearbook, you might be able to find something."

Judy pumped her fist and smiled. "Great idea! You might make a pretty good detective going on."

Haida blushed a little, his tail wagging. "Oh, uh… Thanks."

"-Also," Fenneko said, "you can forget about a yearbook." She began opening up browsers, typing in the name of Ash's school before finding a school photo of the entire staff and student body, their names listed beneath. Opening up a little tab in the website, she began entering in a few lines of code."

Jack looked on, astonished. "Hacking in the flesh…"

"Yup," Finnick said, cosying up to her. "I don't know what the heck she's doin', but I like it! We make quite a badass pair, don't ya think?"

Nick shrugged. "I think that 'Gruesome Twosome' is more fitting, but each mammal to their own."

Ash nodded, before his head tilted a little. "Hang on, how does she know which school I go to?"

"Just accept that she does, Kitto," Haida said. "It makes it easier."

"I wouldn't say that," Skye said nervously, before looking down at Jack. "Though, as you'd put it, it's very in-character."

He gave her a smile, only to be broken off by the fennec in question. "It's what I do," she said, looking up and giving a wink as she brought out her phone, Finnick jumping up next to her as she took a picture. "I take selfies and I know things. And done!" She hit the enter key and a line of text appeared before closing. There was a pause as she then switched to an excel document, a whole list of first and second names printed out. Judy nodded and then stepped over.

"I think I can find a list of those arrested on the Kazar raid," she began, beginning to flick through the web. Her interest was piqued, and she was going to get to the bottom of this. She was soon on the ZPD homepage, looking for the staff log-in. "If you set up your little thing again, we can get it down and…" She froze, her eyes lingering on a small article mentioning the first badger to try for the academy, his black and white striped face staring out. The sight triggered a memory, which hit her like a bucket of freezing water. "Oh…"

"Oh, what?" Finnick asked.

Judy looked down at him, before looking up at Mr Fox. She was shaking a little, her ears hanging down. "I'm sorry," she sniffed, as she suddenly felt dreadful.

"Sorry for what?" he asked, as Nick got up and walked over to her.

"Hey, hey, Carrots. What's the matter?"

She looked up at him, her lips trembling. "Do you remember the baby shower, when that Badger was talking to me?"

"Yeah…" he said, not quite sure where this was going. Just in case Mr Fox was getting any ideas, or rather one idea in particular, he shot him a warning glare, telling him to let the bun finish.

"He was worried that mammals who didn't like me, who wanted to… to hurt me… That they would go for Mr Fox instead, getting me through him," she said. She'd brushed it off then, it seemed implausible, but now... "But what if they went after Ash instead!? What if the whole reason Kris is going to jail is because someone wanted to hurt me!?"

"Hey, hey hey…" Nick said, leaning in and holding her. "It's not your fault…"

"But it would be…" she began, trying to get it across. The only reason he was suffering now, thrown away due to a law that she supported, was because she had put this family into the firing line. That was on her and she hadn't even thought about it, and now an innocent kit was suffering because of that, the guilt of it all worming its way down into her bones. "If I wasn't…"

"Hey!" he scolded, breaking her off. He looked into her eyes, hard. "Judy Laverne Hopps, let me remind you who first got in contact with this family, hmmm? And let me remind you who is friends with the targeted mammal? So, if someone was trying to harm one of us via hurting Ash, which would it most likely be, huh?"

She paused. He kind of made sense? Still, she felt bad. "I…" she began, before breathing in and out. She had to focus, otherwise how would she help him? "No, it's whichever mammal did this, isn't it. It's their fault."

Nick nodded. "Bingo. And there's one other point worth considering. I don't blame you if you've forgotten it, I only mentioned it a long time ago, but my mother also works at that school."

"She does?" Retsuko asked.

Fenneko nodded. "On the lunch staff."

"Yeah," Nick agreed, turning back to Judy. "So, if we were the targets, surely she would be a much bigger, more obvious one. They're much more likely to know who my mother is than know that we're friends with Ash, right?"

"Right," she said, looking over to Mr Fox and Ash. "Whether they were after us or not though, we will help. And if anyone thinks they can use you to harm me, if they think they can get away with harming Kris, then they're going to have to read up on what harm really is!"

"Tacit support of police violence," Mr Fox said, "I like it."

Nick rolled his eyes, only to then freeze. Just like Judy, a memory had fired in his brain. What Mr Fox had said, or the first part of it, had briefly reminded him of the kind of barb a certain someone would make and, as soon as it had entered his mind, it had begun to take root. His teeth began gritting, the fur on his back rising, and half his mind not wanting to believe but the other half screaming out about how much it made sense.

"Aaaaannndddd done," Fenneko said, before typing a few more lines of code. "Just put a comparison through and… -Oh, no match."

"It's not one of them," Nick spoke out loud, harshly. All eyes turned to him as he closed his eyes and pinched the brow of his muzzle, pacing around as he did so. "I don't believe this, I really don't believe this. This has got to be way too far for him. It has to be…"

"Nick?" Judy asked, watching as he sat down, his teeth grit in anger.

"A mammal who doesn't like us. A mammal who doesn't like Ash either and knows we know each other. One who thinks he was screwed over by all the three of us not once but twice, and swore to get his own back barely more than a day ago."

Judy blinked, her mouth gaping open. "No. Even he…"

"He can sneak in and out of that school and he may well have some howlers stashed away too. After all, we know he was wrapped up in the first plot too, don't we?"

"Who is this?" Fenneko asked, her ears tilting.

"Yeah," Haida added, Retsuko nodding along.

Jack and Skye leant forward while Dr Silverfox looked on in nervous anticipation. However, it was a member of the Fox family who eventually spoke.

"It was that weasel," Ash spoke, his father turning down to look at him. There was the sound of a door opening as his mother marched out, tail bushed up, only to freeze as she saw that something was going on.

"Ash? She asked. "What weasel? This isn't that one you mentioned, was it?"

He nodded. "All three of us were there when he got caught selling alcohol next to my school. He didn't like Nick and Judy, and he was angry at me too. Then we bumped into him yesterday, messed up his last day of community service, and he was mad at all of us."

"The embarrassingly useless one," Felicity added. "And also indescribably petty if you're talking about him for the reason I think you're talking about him."

Ash nodded as Dr Silverfox got up. "Kris mentioned him yesterday," he said quietly. "Talked about him getting mad at Ash and the two officers, promising to 'get his own back'. This is it…"

Nick nodded gravely. "Well, it isn't quite it. I still can't believe he'd do something this wicked, but it does look like he planned to stitch up Ash, hurting all three of us at once. Heck, with his community service ending who knows where he might have gone now. And though he framed the wrong mammal, if he was callous enough to do this in the first place he probably wouldn't care about it being the other young fox who created a mess for him getting into legal trouble. He probably still thinks that his call about Ash screwed him up."

"About that," Felicity said, a long pause filling the room. All eyes turned to her, her ears drooping a bit. "All she said was that she was told it was police business and couldn't comment. I tried my best; I was quite forthright with her."

"How forthright are you talking about?" her husband queried.

"Very."

"Yikes," he said. "That is quite forthright."

"So…" Ash began. "We don't really know if they called against me. -But it still makes sense, and out of all the mammals who could do this, this weasel makes the most sense."

"Or it could be someone completely different," Judy said, stepping forward. "She might have been ordered to stay quiet using those same youth justice laws, and it might have been called in on Ash, but we don't know. We need more information."

"Though, for now at least, we could try and get some more info on his whereabouts," Nick spoke. "Finn, Fenn, we need you to do a search for Duke Weaselton."

"On it," she saluted, as Finnick blinked.

"Wait, this is Duke we're talking about, here?"

Nick nodded, as Retsuko spoke up. "Who is this mammal?"

"I'll tells you who," Finnick spat. "He's a slippy, slimy, useless little bootlegger without a backbone in his body! I actually endured a year with him back when I was locked up in Juvie, he'd pickpocket and steal and snitch on anybody! All the time being this insufferable little prick in your face. If he's anythin' like what he waz back then, and the times I bumped into him since he's pretty much been worse, then he'd sure as cuss think nuthin' of sending some poor kit to the pen! Slick… You better get to him first… If he really did this, I might not be able to stop myself going all Lang family against him and biting his face off myself. And this time I literally mean it."

Nick looked at Finnick silently for a second or two, his ears folded back as he gulped. "Right, I'm actually believing you right now," he noted. "I'll do my best."

"Yeah," Finn said, looking over to Fenneko. "I think I've found myself someone I want to spend my life with here," he said, their eyes meeting as they shared a smile. "Don't think I can bear being split apart."

"Neither can I," the fennec vixen said, as she gave him a peck on his muzzle before turning back to her phone. "Any other information on him?"

Judy nodded. "He was hired by Doug and Co to steal the Nighthowler bulbs for the original scheme, when we tried to chase him up to ask questions about this latest one we ended up busting him for selling alcohol to minors. He pled down to community service by helping us with that case, though his lead led us nowhere."

"Which might have been the plan," Nick said. "He might have been lying."

"Well," Judy said, "he's going to really regret that if he did." She turned to look at Fenneko. "Any news?"

"I've not got a lot, this is not a socially media active mammal," Fenneko said, a pang of worry in her voice. "He has a barely used furbook page but… -ah! His flat mate does have one! It appears he shares an apartment with a ferret named Gus Pippman. A few posts and mentions have our mystery mustelid in the background, some are even in his room. As for this ferret, he appears to be a minor gang member, he has unusually large quantities of flashy jewelry he enjoys showing off so he's potentially a shoplifter or small time thief."

"Yeah, I bag that one as a thief," Finnick agreed. "He's also a Lobos gang member; not fun, and I don't think he'd rat out if Duke did it or not. He actually has street cred."

"Still worth a try," Fenneko said, as she began typing again.

"Not without me and Mr Bat," he said.

She paused, looking at him and flashing a little blush-accompanied smile, before turning back to her phone. "Also, it appears that he's got a bunch of Caveslist advertisements for different rooms in his place. Going back to the furbook page and looking at the pictures of Duke's room, there also appears to be a few bits of camping equipment put in place, an interest said landlord shows no evidence of interest in. I'm presuming that our weasel might have a fondness for outdoor activities, and may be using it as a cover to leave the city."

"Or the country," Nick spoke, walking over. "Go Stateside for a bit, he's completely out of our reach unless we can get an international warrant, which we're not going to get anytime close to soon." He paused and sighed. "He could be anywhere. We'd want to both confirm the tip against Ash and look at that roommate first, then maybe try and find him and, if worst comes to the worst, go out there and make him admit that he planted the howlers and then put in the tip."

"Which might not even exist," Dr Silverfox commented sadly. There was a pause, as all eyes turned on him. "I mean, it might not be a set-up against Ash and it might be someone else, and we'll spend all this time barking up the wrong tree while… while…" He breathed in and out, sniffing a few times as he reached for a tissue to wipe his eyes with. The whole room seemed to take on his morose expression, ending as he put the tissue up and looked over to the others. "What do we do until then?"

The grim mood held itself for a second or two before it was cut off by Fenneko. "If you remember, before we had the weasel lead I was trying to raise some issues about the social media impact of our mammal's arrest."

Dr Silverfox nodded gravely, his ears folding down. "How bad is it?"

Fenneko opened up a few websites and began scrolling. "It seems that the initial arrest wasn't captured on any recording devices, so the direct link to Nighthowlers is not there. However a few students recorded the police turning up, with one capturing a video of Kristofferson being led out and placed in a cruiser. It was posted to Dik-Dok and was then distributed. There are also two versions on Chitter, one on Furbook and, most worryingly, a version of Preddit."

Finnick nodded. "Yeah, we actually saw that one just before getting a call out. You fine if we play it, Pops?"

He nodded slowly, taking a breath in to steady himself while his sister in law put a paw on his shoulder, and the fennecs pressed play. The recording was shaky and grainy, but it showed a bunch of cop cars pulling up into the school and a variety of mammals jumping out. Whoever was holding the camera asked what was going on, one of the officers responding that it was trouble and that they should keep their muzzles out of it. Then it skipped forward, revealing the front doors of the building open up wide. There, led by a tiger cop and with his paws cuffed behind his back was Kris. His father breathed a sigh of relief, he seemed perfectly calm if not content, and though he glanced towards the recording mammals for a second or two he provided no resistance as he was put into the back of a car and then driven off.

"That... That wasn't so bad," he muttered, breathing in and out.

Finnick nodded. "Now, do you want the good news or the bad news?"

"I… bad news first," he said, bracing himself.

He glanced to Fenneko who carried on. "Let me prime you first," she said. "The website Preddit is a social media platform that takes on the form of a forum, with multiple sub forums. For instance, most countries and large cities will have their own sub-Preddit, set up by residents with posts about said area being put in. Mammals can then reply to said posts, up or down voting them as they like. Very popular posts have a chance of appearing on Preddit-slash-all, which is the closest thing the site has to a homepage."

"Okay…" he said. "I'm used to the standard hobbyist and academic forums, but I think I get this. I'm… I'm guessing that this post was put into the zootopia channel and then got upvoted to the front page."

"Not quite," Fenneko said, as she opened up P-slash-all and scrolled down a bit. "As you can see, it was put on P-slash-JusticeServed… Also, hang on… There's a second version that's been posted onto P-Slash-ImAtotalPieceOfCuss. Both are climbing highly, both, as you can see, say that he was taken in for having nighthowlers in his locker."

"I…" Dr Silverfox drew a blank. "Okay, what's the good news then?!"

"The good news is that if you scroll to the very end of the video," she said, opening it up and looking through. She pressed play, and the mammals there were talking for a bit. "Isn't that the new kit?" one of them asked. "Chris, right?" Someone else looked at him. "No, it's Christopher." And then the video cut out.

Dr Silverfox breathed in a sigh of relief, running his paws against his leg. "So, they'll get his name wrong… That's a relief. -But can't we take them down?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, that'll be covered by the youth protection laws. Preddit will definitely take them down if ordered too, though the other social media sites are too decentralised to easily control. With Furbook especially it'll be like trying to beat out a burning fire, we may have already missed it and can only hope it dies down soon. On a lighter note, for the Preddit takedown we probably don't need to get a lawyer in or anything either. I can email the news to Chief Bogo and he can make a start on the injunction."

"Yeah," he said, "and speaking of lawyers I'm going to get my paws on one as soon as I can."

Nick smiled. "I have a shortlist of those guaranteed to make steam come out of The Chief's ears lined up and waiting."

"Great, I'll also march right over to the Canidean embassy, see if they can kick up a fuss there too."

Judy nodded, clicking her fingers. "Good idea. I heard about a previous case with a foreign national, and their embassy did put up a fight. All the more pressure on the DA to tone it down."

"Yes," Fenneko spoke, leading on. "That's probably the other big issue we have."

Nick nodded, sighed, and stood up. "She's right. Popping the weasel is all well and good, but it's about time we talked about the hippo in the room."

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AN: Kudos to Merc Marten for coming up with Dik-Dok in his fic, 'Zootopia: Fire Triangle'. Given its size, I'm not going to tell you to read it despite how much I love it… I will tell you to read the much shorter and plot critical prequel, 'Escape from Zoo York'. That should get the addiction going...