"You're such a bad boy, not trusting little old Cubis. Haven't I been everything an evil underworld creature should be?"

Cubis, Angel Wars

After touching base with a few other residents of Sahara Square, they decided to drive over to Tundratown and see Mr. Big. The transition from blazing hot desert sand to freezing cold snow stunned Judy a little even though she expected it, but Nick pretty much took it in stride. After all, he used to make that switch with Finnick every day of the week.

Stopping at a red light, Judy took a moment to admire the goings-on in a small park just off the road. Out on a frozen pond, two young bucks – a deer and a rabbit, respectively – were trying to master ice skates with comical degrees of non-success. Not that far from them, a snowball fight between a snow leopard and a bison brought a smile to her face at the sign of recovery after the Night Howler scare. A ways off to the left, a pup who looked to be part wolf and part dingo lobbed a snowball at a tree, dumping a small avalanche on three pups who must have been his sisters. At least, Judy guessed that from the one set of mismatched parents rushing to the scene of the misdemeanor. On a playground towards the right, a young otter dressed in green and red rode a slide while a lemming in red and blue rode him like a surfboard.

A car horn behind her informed her that the light had changed, but not before she caught one last glimpse of warmth amid the ice and snow. A young beaver, tag-teaming with a tiger, was building what looked to be some kind of snow mammal. Judy couldn't be sure what species it was supposed to be, but it had two heads – one with three eyes – and a third arm in the middle of its chest. It reminded her of ones she had seen some of her brothers build, come to think of it.

Jordy would probably be taking notes, she thought, smirking at the memory of some of his 'masterpieces.' By popular opinion in the Hopps household, Jordy was to be thanked (or blamed) for all the nice trees their neighbors had planted on the property line.

"What is it with guys and weird snow mammals anyway?" she asked out loud.

When Nick made no quick reply, she glanced his way. His mouth was a flat line, devoid of either sorrow, mirth, or even his usual confidence. It bothered her.

"You okay, Nick?" she asked.

He blinked as if he had just woken up. "Huh?"

She focused on the road, but kept glancing at him out the corner of her eye. "You seem different."

Nick shook his head. "Ah, just remembering the old days."

"Heh." She smirked. "You mean about three to four months ago."

"Well, yeah," he admitted.

She reached over and nudged him reassuringly with a fist. "Relax, Nick. Finnick needs a little time to adjust to this, but I'm sure he'll come around."

Nick wished he was so confident. Judy didn't know Finnick like he did. The little guy was tough as nails and had a mean streak that would put a wolverine to shame if you got him mad enough. Still, Nick's breaking up the act had hit the little guy in the two places it hurt most: his budget, and his sense of loyalty. Life was tough enough for foxes, let alone pint-sized fennecs. Ever since the two of them had joined forces, Finnick had had three ways of responding to... well, to being cornered like he must have felt he was now. Those methods had been to outsmart his adversary, team up with Nick, or – if all else failed – lash out. This time, though, Plan A wasn't an option; Nick had, in all modesty, always been just a few watts brighter and a few shades more creative than Fin. Besides, most of what Finnick had in those departments was less tactical and more practical. Squeezing all that gear into the back of a minivan was no sweat for a brain like his, but talking his way around the law… not so much. That was one option down. Plan B was obviously out, especially if (gulp) Nick was ordered to arrest him one day. Now Plan C... well, Nick knew deep down that Finnick wouldn't have it in him to turn violent against his old partner in crime. He also knew that if he was ever proven wrong about that, it would be no contest. Nick's brain was a formidable weapon, but physically, he was useless in a fight – especially against old friends.

"I hope you're right," he admitted. After a moment's pause, he added, "Look, the police wouldn't tell a cop to arrest a friend, right? That's gotta be... I don't know, conflict of interest or something."

Judy frowned. It was true, the police would try to find someone else – if they knew the foxes were friends. Divulging that information, however, could only hurt Nick's chances at becoming an officer. Besides, they might involve Nick anyway on the basis of his usefulness in setting up a sting. She had read about that in the material at the academy, and until now it had all been just words on a page. Looking at it now, she realized it cut a lot deeper than that – and for the first time, a tiny part of her brain wondered if Nick actually had it in him to make it as a cop.

She was yanked out of her thoughts as the car suddenly began to swerve. Instantly tensing, she fought her instinctive reaction to slam on the brake or fight to correct her course. The best thing, she knew, was to ease off the gas and ride out the swerve. She had learned the method from a show about hurricanes, though experience had also proven its usefulness on snow and ice.

Unfortunately, even the best methods sometimes went awry. The car lurched off the road and plowed nose-first into a snow bank, flinging her and Nick against their seat belts with a yank.

"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers," she muttered under her breath.

Nick, seeing that neither of them were injured, instinctively tried to put a lighter face on things. "Ah. Well, you could've gone into the traffic instead," he observed. He pointed left through the cars now going around them to the oncoming ones across the road.

She sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that's true." She hit the blinkers, shifted into reverse, and tried to back out slowly as soon as a gap appeared in the flow of vehicles. The tires spun, but got nowhere.

"More gas?" Nick suggested, trying to be helpful.

She shook her head. "Worst thing I could do," she pointed out. "If the tires caught suddenly and shot us back out into the traffic-"

Her words were cut off by the rumble of a bus driving past; one made, as best they could judge, for any size passenger up to polar bears. Nick followed its progress and swallowed. "Yeah, I see what you mean." Okay, so he wasn't a rocket scientist at the wheel. There was a reason Finnick always did the driving when they had been partners in crime. He watched Judy try a few more times to get them out, then shrugged. "Well, lucky you've got me around." He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling roadside assistance," he replied, clambering up the door to the roof. "I've got friends all over this part of town. Give it five minutes tops before one of them comes by."

Judy frowned. "The last time you introduced me to a friend in Tundra Town, he almost killed us."

"Tuh. Picky picky."

It was only two minutes before a car stopped behind them, flicking on its own blinkers. "See?" Nick called, his voice sounding through the roof. He had shut the door so Judy could stay warm. "The old Wilde card works every- aw, no."

"What is it?" asked Judy, instantly alert as she opened her door with one paw and checked her stun gun with the other. She expected a gang of hostile animals to come clamoring out of the car, intent on paying Nick back for some past hustle.

Instead, to her surprise, a posse of sultry-looking vixens, white as the snow around them, emerged. A passing wind carried mingled scents of perfume from them to Judy's nose, along with a touch of fur bleach. At a glance, they were all nearly identical; all of them wore black outfits which, though covering most of their bodies, didn't leave much guesswork on the shapes of those bodies. They all looked to be wearing eyeliner, and when they blinked, most revealed eye shadow as well. One of them removed a pair of mirrored sunglasses – not unlike Nick's, though much sleeker in shape – and blinked lavender-lidded eyes at the fox on the roof.

"Nicholas Wilde," she remarked in a Russian accent as smooth as melted butter, "what are the chances?"

Nick gulped. Not slim enough, apparently. "Hey ladies. Hey... Vanya. Uh, mind lending us a paw?"

Nick briefly introduced the vixens as 'the Angels,' and Judy noticed that he introduced her to them as 'Officer Hopps' and not something less formal. The crew of females quickly surrounded the car, and with Nick and Judy they were all soon at work trying to get it loose. This wasn't an easy job, but it gave Vanya the chance to sidle up to Nick as they pulled and pushed.

"So, Naughty Boy, what have you been up to?" she asked. Tugging at the open frame of one of the doors, she somehow managed to purr even as she grunted. Judy, who was inside gently trying to coax the reverse gear into action, heard every word and scrunched her face at the phrase, 'Naughty Boy.'

Nick coughed. "Oh, uh, you know. Took some time off from the old hustle, looked into a few new ideas – the usual."

She smirked. "Always something new with you, darling. You know, I've heard a rumor that you are looking into law enforcement."

Judy glanced at Nick as best she could without actually turning her head. He was clearly uneasy. "Well, you know the song: try everything, right?"

This drew a low, almost musical chuckle from the vixen. "Always playing the dangerous games, Naughty Boy. That's what I always liked about you."

At the moment, Judy thought it was Vanya playing the dangerous game. "Hey," she said, trying to sound disinterested, "would you mind not whispering in the back? I'm trying to concentrate."

Mercifully, a passing arctic hare pulled over next with a towing hitch and offered his help. The Angels had to move their car, and Vanya was clearly annoyed to have her time with Nick cut off like that, but in almost no time the car was loose.

"Such a shame to part so quickly, Nick," she called. "Don't forget to call, alright?"

Nick shook his head. "Ancient history, Vanya," he called back, climbing into the car and closing the door.

The vixens left. The hare unhooked his car, tossed a salute to the two sleuths, and then departed as well. Judy glanced across at Nick. "Ex girlfriend?" she ventured.

He nodded. "And before you ask, she was too clingy and I'd rather not talk about it."

Judy closed her mouth and frowned at him before returning her attention to the road. "I hate it when you read my mind," she complained.

Nick's smile returned. "Oh, but that's bound to come in handy on the job," he teased.

Meanwhile, in the other vehicle, one of the other Angels glanced at Vanya. "He'll be answering for that later won't he?"

Vanya studied her claws. "Of course he will," she replied, "but only when it suits me. Overt chases are too commonplace."

Vanya had a way with males rather like a spoiled child's way with toys: she grabbed whoever she wanted, played with him until she got bored, and then broke him or threw him aside, depending on what she felt like doing. Those who refused to cooperate... well, she never did anything to them right away. That would be too obvious. No, she much preferred to bide her time and let them forget her until she came back to remind them. Her methods of doing this were many, but never pleasant for the male who had displeased her.

Nick Wilde had been a particularly challenging one, and the truth was that she had never gotten all she wanted from him – a fact which she would have liked very much to remedy. If he came back, she might even forgive him – or perhaps not. As it was, he wanted to go, so she let him... for the moment.

I'm sorry this chapter doesn't do much for the story (at least for the time being), but I felt that after the talk with Finnick it needed a more reflective scene. Also, I needed to get Vanya established as she's going to be quite the key player later on. As some of you probably know already, I based her and her group on the so-called Angels from the film's earlier concepts. In this version, they work for Mr. Big on jobs where his usual polar bears would be too obtrusive – or just too big. The question now is, will Vanya let Nick's renewed standing with Mr. Big stop her if she wants her old boyfriend back?

On a side note, why do I get the feeling Vanya would get along great with Poisson?

In addition to the original concept reference, I've made this chapter an Easter Egg hunt. Here are the clues:
Three Disney movies
Two comic refs
And a Spectacular Spider-Man
(and now you'll be hearing that in musical form)

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to fave, follow, and review!