Chapter 13

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AN: Major thanks to Giftheck, who did an artwork of Maisy Calrama for me, currently up on the A03 version.

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"Right then son," Mr Fox announced, slipping into his office. "As part of our multi-faceted multi-pronged multi-thought-out plan for solving this issue, we need to get a hippo incredibly drunk."

Following on, Ash nodded. "Right. How would we do that?"

"Well," he spoke cunningly as he opened up his desk. "There are two simple schools of thought. One, you increase the potency of what he's drinking. Two, you decrease or remove the potency of what you're drinking. I, naturally, go for both of them. First off, should I ever wish to make the other side more drunk, I have this!"

He dove in and pulled out a key. Ash blinked a few times, before rolling his paw to tell his father that he needed to get on to the next step.

"Not just any key!" he announced, before diving down below his desk, grabbing the floorboards and lifting up a hatch. A shaft and ladder were revealed, which he grabbed and sailed down. "-Now, back when you were into clearing this old bootlegging tunnel to the nocturnal district out, did you ever notice a certain safe by the side?"

"Yes."

"In which case, you must have been ever curious about what was in it. Well, today, it is revealed!"

Mr Fox emerged out again, putting down a cobweb covered bottle with a loud thud. The ceramic was faded and cracked, the labels long since decayed off, unlike the multitude of black 'X's' which covered it like a cheetah's spots. "This is not like that cider, son. This is not a drink for mammal consumption, this is a drink for tactical warfare!"

Ash's head cocked a little, and he leant forward to open it up, only for his father to block him.

"Let me just," he began to say, looking around. "-Right, no open flames, go ahead."

Ash did so, only to back off in a fit of coughing and spluttering. Waving his paw in front of his nose, he leant outside of the room to get some fresh air, before looking back in. "Okay, so we lace his drink with that, right?"

"Right, sort of," he said. "This mammal we're facing didn't get anywhere by being unintelligent, so it stands to reason that he'd be able to detect when a drink or such had been amped up with this. At least, of course, with his usual faculties. So, this is our, as your generation might put it, quote-unquote finishing move."

"Okay, and do we use some kind of hidden tube system to put it in or what?"

"A hidden tube system is exactly what we'll be using," he said, bringing out a length of thin pipe. "Stuff this in your sleeve, point it over his drink and give your armpit baggie a firm squeeze whenever you want to apply some. Skye is working on a rough set-up as we speak."

"And do we use a seperate baggy to pull our drinks out of their glass?" he asked. "Use some valves and stuff… Or maybe a paw-pump in your pocket!"

"Excellent ideas which I'll be running by Skye," he said. "Though usually I stick to the classic funnel under the jacket approach."

"But that relies on your target looking the other way," Ash reasoned. "Whereas sucking it out slowly could happen right under his nose, especially after he's already had a few."

"Which is why both ideas have perfect validity," Mr Fox carried on. "Indeed, Discreet Drink Disposal is a long and proud tradition. I remember my first time, using the handy dispensary that was Kylie's pouch…" He phased off, looking up and reminiscing.

Ash's face screwed up in confusion. "You've done this before? -With Kylie? -His pouch…?"

"Yes, yes and yes. He is a marsupial, after all."

"And a man. He doesn't have a pouch."

"Yes, which is why we faked one."

"But… He's still a man."

"Ah, but they didn't know that," he said with a wink. "It was a role he was born to play, I didn't even have to change his name."

Ash tried to imagine the opossum in drag, then tried to obliterate that mental image from his mind (with greatly reduced results).

"Anyhow," he spoke, "all different methods in which to greatly reduce the amount of intoxicants that our party is taking in, while increasing the amount that the opposing party is taking in."

"But, we'll still be taking in some."

"You know, you sound just like our secret agent bunny there," Mr Fox commented. "Regardless, our techniques will do enough."

"And I suppose that as Retsuko and Haida are planning to recruit someone, and we also have Jack, we could swap them out at the mid-point."

Mr Fox paused, blinking a few times. "An excellent additional card up our already well stuffed sleeves. Well done."

Ash stood up proud, smiling, before jumping up in the air. "Oooh, another idea!"

"Hit me."

"Some of the alcohol will go in our guys mouth, right?"

"Right."

"So why not get it out of there before it's swallowed?"

"That would require major surgery and would probably be incredibly painful."

"I… -Well, why don't you absorb it?" he carried on. "Some cloth or something either side of your teeth," he explained, hooking his lower lips with his claws to reveal the space between his gums and his muzzle. "You slosh the drink into them, they suck it up, you fake swallow and, when you can, you swap them out!"

Mr Fox nodded his head, considering it. "Maybe you could, but you would require some kind of high absorbency microfibres, which may be well out of our means to procure."

Ash balled his fists and held them against his hips. "That's not your attitude. Of course we can procure them!"

"Well, maybe, if we knew the right place or supplier. But it might be an order in job from a specialist supplier, and it may be too late anyway."

"Or we may already have some," Ash suggested.

"I severely doubt that."

"I severely don't doubt that and am willing to bet on it."

"Bet on it, hmmm?" Mr Fox questioned, a sly smile growing on his face. "What are your terms."

"My allowance. Quadruple or nothing."

"Agreed," Mr Fox began. "And now you're likely going to go down that tunnel and bring out something you found down there and make me look stupid."

"Oh no, you brought in our high-liquid absorbing solution."

"Did I now?"

"Yes."

"Starting a week ago to two days ago."

"Are we on the same page here, as I'm getting nothing."

"The two days ago one was when they had a mega-sale on the jumbo pack down at the mother-and-cub store."

"Oh, disposable mammalian waste absorbing undergarments. I'd forgotten about those."

"Right, and now my allowance is quadrupled."

"Not so fast," Mr Fox countered. "Let's recap, because if this doesn't work it's nothing. You're suggesting that, in order to avoid ingesting any alcohol during this scheme, our guy sticks my as yet unborn second kit's diapers in his mouth."

"No. I was more thinking that you could stuff the fillings from them into a kind of cheese-cloth sausage thing, that you can then stick in your mouth. -You can paint them pink too, to blend in. If they're in your top lip, they'll be hidden throughout and avoid over-saturation from your own saliva. -And we could have some set-up to help swap them out often."

Mr Fox blinked a few times, before getting onto his knees. "Son. That is a sly, cunning, brilliantly thought out scheme. I'm proud of you." He lunged forward, hugging him tight. Ash couldn't help but smile.

"Thanks."

The soft moment of father and son bonding was cut short though by a banging on the door, the older fox looking up. "Ah! Fenneko, Vulpes zerda, got the location where we will launch our sting yet? Or is it time for us to meet this Ewetuber of ours."

The door slammed open and a tired looking grey bunny marched in. "Judy Hopps, Oryctolagus cuniculus," she spoke, before slumping down on a chair. The two foxes briefly noted that Nick, Jack, Skye and a female honey badger (Mellivora capensis) were also there, before the bunny continued. "We have a new suspect."

"On top of the weasel?" Mr Fox asked.

"-Apparently so," Fenneko chimed in, walking in after the others. "Given the suggested story, it does line up. Also, your meeting is coming up, but we have the time to drop one major bombshell."

"Who is it then?" Ash asked, before frowning. "And why are you looking at me like that?"

"We think…" Judy began, before breathing in and out. "We think that one of your friends might have planted them."

He blinked, his ears folding back. "N-no…" he said, shaking his head, his tail drooping down between his legs. "I mean… You say friend, you don't mean an actual friend of mine, right? You're just meaning that in a general sense of mammals I know in school, whether they are friendly to me or not. Right…?"

…

"Not right, then," he said, looking down.

Judy nodded. "This here is Honey," she said, gesturing back to the ratel.

"Hi there."

"Hi."

"She kept track of a lot of…"

"-Used to keep track," she interrupted harshly. Judy broke off, looking back at her, her ears drooping as she face-pawed.

"Sorry, I…"

"Accepted," she grunted, walking over to Ash. "Hey. I used to think all sheep were evil, I got treated and don't now. But back then I tracked down all those connected to Dawn Bellwether and her plot, and basically your friend Maisy is Bellwether's heir. She might have done it."

Ash blinked a few times. "-Maisy…? -But she trips over her own tail to be good to preds, especially given all the hurt some gave her for being a sheep. Why would…" He trailed off, frowning. "What do you even mean by her being Bellwether's heir?"

"She's her niece," Judy explained.

"Yeah," Honey carried on. "Born Maisy Bellwether to Dominic and Alicia Bellwether; Dominic, Dawn and Dexter Bellwether being children of Astor and Sandra Bellwether. After the initial plot, Dexter, the oldest and unmarried child, kept his surname and position as a professor of medicine up at the University of Barkley. -He was very cooperative with the investigation, so they didn't need to extradite him or what not, but it's up in the air whether he was hella deep in or completely clueless, 'specially given that without him Doug and Dawn would never have met. Ramses was his Master's student going back and they even did some research papers together, before Doug went into the whole evil pred darting sheep industry. Dominic and Alicia though, the former got rich from trading stocks as a teen, landed himself a job at a hedge fund when he was twenty, then married and had a child super young, did the opposite. Left their jobs, changed their surnames, reapplied hoping to avoid all the heat." There was a pause, and a sigh. "Heat from mammals not even as bad as I was. But the point is that their daughter, Bellwether's niece, is the ewe that you know as Maisy Calrama."

Ash looked at her, then shook his head. "Do you have any proof?"

"-I tested it for her," Fenneko said, turning her computer around. "Maisy Calrama, Furbook profile, alongside various other social media accounts. All started within the first few days of each other, two weeks after the arrest of the former mayor and unravelling of her plot. Meanwhile…" She typed a bit. "Maisy Bellwether… Last posts and freezing of accounts, the same week."

Ash began to tremble as he viewed the two profiles. Tracking back through Maisy's profile to the earliest pics, and then glancing over to the last ones on the other. From oddly thin wool back to thick stuff, but the sheep beneath it all was the same. He looked over and scrolled through the earlier posts, seeing his friend talking about how the hated ex-mayor was good, how she was doing her best, how she was proud of her, how the claims that she was behind the savage cases was crazy. And then there was a picture of them, together, all smiling. The young fox backed away.

"-Also," Fenneko spoke, "if you compare fandoms, interests and the key hobbies you'll…"

"-I get it!" he shouted, only to break off trembling a little. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out before growling. "But… But she's not like that! She's different. I… I trusted her, and you really think she tried to hurt me? Why?"

"To hurt us," Judy spoke. "Nick and I took away her favourite aunt, turned her world upside down, and then she finds out that we have a friend in you. Frame you up, and she can cause us the same pain that we caused her."

He frowned. "That's dumb."

"She's young and emotional," Judy sighed.

"I wasn't saying she was dumb," he said, his voice flaring up. "I'm saying the idea is dumb. She's scared and self conscious of being a sheep, because of…" he trailed off, rubbing his eyes. "Because she thought that people would link her to Dawn. It… Was it all a lie?" He looked up at his father, fearfully. "Was she lying to me all this time?"

"Well," Honey began. "She was certainly omitting a lot of the tru… -OW!" She backed off from where Judy had elbowed her, rubbing it and scowling. "Hey!"

"It was just a light tap, as now wasn't the time," Judy explained.

Honey backed away, Nick nudging in. "Don't worry, just a light bit of honey badger abuse, you'll get used to it."

"She's mean."

"I'm…" Judy began to say, only to grunt, pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing. She looked back to Ash. "She was a transfer to your school, right?"

"Yeah, but it was at the start of the last calendar year. That was almost a full sixth months after all that went down."

"They may well have hired a tutor or something for then," Judy replied. "They're a rich family. She then chose to go back into schooling once all the attention had gone down, entering in and meeting up."

"But…" Ash began. "But she was nice to us. She didn't have a problem with predators!"

"And I didn't think Bellwether did, either," Judy countered. "She mainly went after them for her own power. Sure there was resentment, especially against larger preds, and she levered the resources of some who really did hate preds. But put her in a room with them and you wouldn't know… I didn't know."

"I… -Maybe she was forced!"

"Ash…"

"No, I'm serious here," he spoke, a desperate edge in his voice. "Maybe her parents forced her to do this, against us. Maybe that's why she did it against Kris, as she thought he could weather it better and the whole wrong name thing would cause the cops confusion. She'd have to get the howlers from somewhere, right?"

Nick clicked his fingers. "He has a point. If it was her in any way, shape or form, her parents or a parent were likely involved as well. Maybe they had a small cache of the things that they were keeping safe for Dawn? If it was her idea, she could have asked for them. But if she was being coerced, and given how fretful she seemed in our brief encounter and how much you trust her, I'm leaning more towards that, they'd have provided her and told her what to do."

"And if she was forced then she can tell us and be safe?" Ash asked. "She doesn't have to go to jail or anything, or be punished, as they were making her. Right? Right…?"

"That would need a formal plea deal," Judy explained. "But if she liked you and didn't want you to suffer, why would she tell her parents if they were the…" She trailed off, her face going pale. "Oh sweet cheese and crackers. I've done it again."

"Carrots?" Nick asked, as her face slumped into her paws.

"I've messed it up again! I'm such a stupid, useless, fox-harming DUMB bunny…"

"Uhhh," Honey began. "I think I've missed something here."

"Join the club and just enjoy the ride," Jack replied, gesturing to himself and Skye.

"Nick and I went to a meditation class hosted by Kris," Judy explained, turning to Jack and Skye. "Before our date. Yesterday! He and Ash are there, and they bring along Maisy Calrama too, that's how I knew her and she knew me. She sees us, panics, walks away and I think it's just been because of bullies picking on her because she's a sheep and her being self conscious. But oh no, it's because she realises that we might know about her, or her parents might find out about us and exactly this happens. So she leaves, hoping for it to never come up again. Only, what do you know, I'm a BIG dumb bunny and ask Ash and Kris' friend Agnes to send a text, telling her how much of a big group of friends we all are together. Given what that family might be up to, who wants to bet that they might read her texts and messages, or it pings up while she's in the room with them. So they see it, and get angry that they didn't know before, and then she's ordered to slip a howler into someone's locker, all in the name of revenge."

"You don't know that," Nick said.

Mr Fox nodded. "Though it would explain an awful lot."

Nick shot him a look, before looking down at Judy. "You weren't to know."

"Tch… Just like I wasn't to know about how I'd draw mammals in against this family. Just like I didn't know that Duke might go against us. Just like I didn't know about how that law I quite liked would be used. Just like I happily went on my way and hurt Honey, and hurt you Nick, and hurt all those predators in Zootopia because of my dumb words and now, whoopsie, the two predators in zootopia who weren't hurt back then as they weren't here have now been hurt because I messed up."

"Ever heard of the butterfly effect?" Ash asked, Judy turning to look at him. "Each word I speak might nudge a hurricane into a city or something but I don't worry over everything. Doing so is just dumb."

"It is when you can't make a firm connection; I can."

"What, crazy connections like how that worried sheep was Bellwether's heir," Honey asked, frowning as she marched up to Judy. "Now, you listen here. If you'd have been able to think or guess about that back then, then your mind would have had to be running at a million miles an hour, and you literally thinking of a bajillion or so different crazy ideas at the same time. You'd literally become old me, and old me had to be sent to the looney bin to get fixed!"

"I…" she began, biting her bottom lip with her buck teeth. "Okay, yeah, point taken," she admitted. "I'd probably try and bust out too…"

"Oh totally," Nick agreed.

"Can I be the one to tranq her this time?" Honey asked. "Y'know, even stevens?"

"Be my guest," the bunny said, dryly. "But… Urgh… Every time we come across a new clue or new idea, it's something that I had a paw in. Some way that I, without knowing it, messed up. And yes, we all make mistakes, we're all different. But those mistakes have landed a sweet, mature, innocent kit in a hardcore prison. So, I come in and I want to try, try and help him in whatever way I can. And now we're discussing ways to fake our identity and dupe a distressed head teacher who's probably beating herself up about all this. We're talking about suspecting a friend from school and setting up a way for her to sell out her parents. You over there are basically talking about how to spike a public official's drinks! I'm recruiting help from a mammal whose heart I crushed, betraying her when I was her hero, and who's still scared to some extent that I'll send her back to the asylum…"

"-Nah, I'd say that's over," Honey said. "The scared of the asylum bit, not the crushing betrayal bit."

Nick groaned. "Started out good, went downhill."

She shrugged. "Just being honest, honest."

Judy groaned. "Listen, on top of all of that, all of this might be because, way back, I decided that the best way to get some information out of a weasel was to use my mob connections to threaten his life. And now he hates me and may have tried to harm the ones that I love. How many more will hate me after this?"

There was a long pause, before Skye came forward. "Hey, Judy? If what I remember about that mob connection thing was true, it was never intended. You saved an innocent mammal's life and he felt indebted to you. As for that weasel, you getting the information out of him helped save this city! I was starting to plan a permanent move out to Vegas given what was going on, but then you saved the day. You did what you felt needed to be done at the time to do the right thing, and don't let anyone take that away from you. You saved a life. You saved a city. Now go save a kit."

Judy looked up, her eyes hardening with determination. "You know what, you're right. I'm Judy Hopps of the ZPD, and I do NOT know when to quit! Maisy Calrama might be involved, might be being forced into this by her parents? Well, we can inform the ZPD, inform them about all our theories and stuff, and let them run the official investigations as well. In fact, I'm pretty sure we had to do this anyhow, but attack from two fronts is better than one. I can walk around, asking questions. I can pour through the jam cams, seeing if I can see where our weasel went or not. I am going to try more than I have ever tried, and save Kristofferson Silverfox or die trying!"

"Yeah!" Mr Fox cheered. "Bar a slight quibble with the last three words, that's what I want to see. Skye, we can work together to deal with the whole alcohol thing. Thanks to a cunning plan by Ash, even my wife's knitting and culinary skills may come into use."

"I can help too," Ash spoke. "I go to Maisy's school, don't I? I can do my own investigation there. Tomorrow, I'm bringing home homework and the truth."

Honey smiled. "I can help, I guess. Gadgets here, old sheep intel there… It'll be fun to see what scratching against the right tree is like."

Fenneko smiled. "Together with our intelligence networks combined, we can rule this city as fennecs and ratel."

"Fennecs?" she asked, getting a screenshot of her and Finnick in response. "Oh, he's cute. Very very cute…"

"Sorry, but he's hot as heck and all mine."

"Nah, I didn't mean it like that," she waved off. "Though now you mention it…-no, can't get distracted. We're on a mission!"

"Yes we are," Fenneko agreed. "Anyway, one bombshell over, Mr Fox, you, your wife and brother in law have an interview to go to with an Ewetuber. And talking about missions, Jack, I've located a potential position to intercept our headmistress. Your friend from the theatre delivered your disguise. Are you ready to rumble?"

He stepped forward and nodded. "Secret agent Jack Savage, reporting for duty!"