Zootopia belongs to Disney. Spider-Man belongs to Sony.
Warning: Nightmare fuel coming up.
Judy and Nick stepped out of their cruiser. The former was pepped up and ready for work; the other was not. He felt he could have used another day to be a lazy day of doing absolutely nothing but perfecting the curve in that belly of his. He wondered if Judy was getting to that point yet. He looked at her from the side. Huh! She didn't have a belly at all. All she had was a slightly thicker neck and ooh la la! more curves in her hips. But that was about it. Oh yes, your tail is perfect...
"Nick?" she said with a low voice, not turning toward him. "What are you staring at?"
"I probably shouldn't say in public," he answered with a sip that ended up turning into a guzzle. His third coffee for that morning was done for. He crushed the cup before tossing it in the trash bin in front of the precinct as they passed it.
"Ah! Another day another lepton, eh Carrots?"
"Hey, come on, be happy you have a job in the first place. Remember where you were before you met me?"
"All too well, Carrots. All too well." And he was glad to be out of that mess.
"Nick, do you think Arya will be ok?"
"Oh, she'll be fine. I told her to call the station if she needs anything. I left the number on the table."
"Uhn... I just can't help but worry."
"Honey, she'll be fine! You gotta make sure your bunny instincts are working properly if we're going to save the day." He walked behind her and took her ears, adjusting them like a pair of antennae. Judy just smiled. "How we doing? We getting those instincts yet?"
"A little more to the left..."
"To the left, to the left..." Nick sang quietly, waving her ears back and forth to the simple beat. "To the left, to the left, everything you own in the box to the left..."
Judy giggled. "Nick, stop it, that's embarrassing."
Nick put his chin between her ears and hugged her waist. "Hey it's me. I'm one big embarrassment."
She pushed him off with a snicker. When they reached the door, Nick opened it and waved her inside.
The station was busy as usual. Though a bit more crowded. They weaved their way through, making for the coffee station to grab just a little bit more liquid power for the day. The old buffalo himself was standing there, filling a whole drink carrier full of coffees.
"Howdy, Chief," said Nick tiredly as they passed the coffee station, making it plain this was not the place he wanted to be at the moment.
"Wilde," said the Chief as he turned around. Nick's eyes widened at the buffalo, who did not look well in the least. With dark circles under his baggy eyes, a hunched frame, and a generally pallid appearance, Nick and Judy both found themselves at a loss for words. Their Chief looked like living death. In his hand was the drink carrier with six coffee cups. Steam rose from each one of them. "I know I look like... well, you know." He took a coffee from the carrier and dumped its contents in his mouth in one go.
"Sir," said Judy in great concern, "forgive me for being so blunt, but um-"
"Save it, Hopps," he said with a very stern look. "As you can tell, I am clearly not in the mood. I have a job to do, and I'm going to make sure that job is done."
"Sir-"
"Hey, Carrots, it's like I said the other night: "When nature kmmhs-" Judy reached up and gripped Nick's muzzle shut with such force that Nick began squirming and gesturing at his muzzle, trying to tell her how much pain he was in. "-mmshew khmms, ih khmms!"
"Sorry, sir. Carry on. We'll get right to work."
"That's what I like to hear," he said with his usual scowl, though putting slightly more gusto into his grumbling voice. "Now don't forget your gear. Get to the morning briefing." He began to walk away. Nick began trying to force Judy's hand off of his muzzle.
"Sir, we don't go to the briefings anymore..."
"Hm?" he turned back around. "Oh yes, that's right. Go and find... criminals or... or whatever. Oh! I almost forgot, hand all of the evidence you have on the Shark to Futsbauer and Clawhauser; they're going to help you in your Shark case." He continued walking toward the brief room.
"Yes sir," Judy said before turning to her husband and finally letting go of his muzzle. He opened his mouth wide and groaned very loudly. She planted her hands on her hips. "You don't say that in front of your boss, Nick!"
He leaned closer to her, mimicking her posture. "You didn't let me finish, Sweetheart. I was going to say..."
She closed his mouth with her hand again. "Yeah, I know, you said that." She began to drag him by his muzzle toward the locker rooms.
He stumbled after her, saying through his tightly-closed mouth, "Ok, mmph, ow ow ow. OK!" She didn't let him go until they were right at the edge of the locker rooms where they diverged. There were scattered snickers as they passed.
"Ah!" he groaned when she released him. "Baby, that really hurts..." he massaged and stretched out his tender muzzle.
"Nick, I'm serious. I'm really worried about him. Did you see how... how bad he looked?"
"Well, it wasn't hard to tell, Judy? I mean, even I don't drink that much coffee, because I can guarantee you, that was definitely not the first batch."
Judy groaned. "Just get your stuff!" she said as she opened the door to the women's locker room.
"All right, getting my stuff."
Nick smiled back at her before going into the locker room.
Judy, meanwhile, strapped on her firearm with the usual look of discontent that she wore ever since the innovation had entered the market for both law enforcement and under-the-table business. Since that time, a greater need for access to expertise on the new subject was sought after. Every officer had received firearms training at the academy but only as a precaution. Officers were not technically allowed to carry when Judy joined the force. It wasn't until the NH-Plus trade epidemic grew out of control that they were driven into the public eye, especially once crime began to become much more centered around it in the Southeastern SC area.
Strapping the thing around her waist made Judy feel much heavier. Nick was fine with the addition, but Judy... she hated it, the idea of taking another life, even if she had no other more savory options. But she was glad that she didn't have to use it. She still had the power in her frame to do the job in a non-lethal manner. To her, the gun was nothing more than a moderately dangerous paperweight. Theoretically, at least.
As Nick strapped on his gear, he found himself looking forward to the festival this weekend. It just... would it be the right time? What if she said no?... He figured he'd worry about it later before he snowballed in his nerves. There were more important things to worry about. As he finished strapping his belt on, he shifted his mind to distract himself, and smiled at the thought of a prank that Francine pulled on the two of them a year into their partnership together.
It was just a week after Nick and Judy had begun dating seriously. Francine had worked an overtime shift for the express purpose of pulling a prank that she spent weeks planning.
When Nick and Judy came to the bullpen the next day, Francine was fighting so hard not to laugh that her cheeks were as big as beach balls. The two officers saw why she was fit to burst. The elephant had removed their custom designed high chairs and replaced them with plastic, colorful high chairs for mid-size babies.
Tray. And. All.
Judy and Nick were fully abreast of the situation; there was no reason for those chairs to be there, and apparently, to the officers' chagrin, no other chairs were available. They demanded their real chairs be brought out, or at least a regular one to stand on. But when the chief walked in, the only response he gave to the presence of the baby chairs was a double take. He proceeded to gruffly command them to sit. Having no other options present, they protested, but the chief shouted at them to sit down. They begrudgingly obeyed and perched themselves glumly in the colorful seats, both of which were fitted to their size. There were even little holes to stick their legs and tails through. At least they were comfortable. Everyone could see that throughout role call, Bogo kept glancing at them, trying desperately not to laugh.
"Assignments-s-s... nn-nn... Off-Officers Grizzoli, Fah... Fang- (his voice cracked) Fangmeyer, guh-er, Delgato-ho..." he grimaced in an attempt to keep himself from bursting. No one seemed to be listening, as everyone was fit to burst along with him, just waiting for the chief to crack. The breaking point happened when none other than Benjamin Clawhauser walked in carrying two baby bottles filled with milk and two bibs. The then-portly cheetah literally had no idea what was going on.
"I don't know why, but I got an anonymous message saying there were a couple of kits in here who needed their bottles. Did someone leave babies in the bullpen? The poor kitties!"
Before he had finished speaking, the whole room had exploded. Every officer, save two, was roaring at the top of their voice with laughter.
Wolfard banged his fist against his desk. Trunkaby fell backward in her chair. Delgato shook a shrieking Fangmeyer back and forth.
Chief Bogo himself fell onto the lectern, heaving uncontrollably, to the point that he slid to the floor. Some precinct staff stuck their heads in the room to see what all the noise was.
Nick just slouched in his seat with his arms crossed. His eyebrows were a straight line across. Judy's ears and cheeks tinged a light pink. Her shoulders were locked in a tight shrug.
Ben had stood there with the supplies, not knowing why everyone was laughing so hard, until he saw the fox and rabbit in their seats, unmoving, painfully embarrassed. Suddenly, his paws went to his bulbous cheeks and the bottles and bibs fell to the floor. His sparkling eyes grew impossibly large as he squealed, "AAAAAAAW! You guys are so cute!" The room burst once more into tearful laughter. Judy's mouth tightened into a short, thin line, and her head smacked the tray. Then she jumped out of her chair and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind her. Though it took a bit of grunting and yanking, which drove the room crazy.
Eventually - eventually... everyone calmed down enough for the chief to finish giving out assignments. But he still couldn't help letting out a few more chuckles, even taking a moment to silently battle the urge to laugh. The whole thing was about to start up all over again. Nick didn't move the whole time. He kept that scowl on his muzzle until he was given his assignment. It was still there when he clocked out that night. Judy fared a bit better, but not by much.
Their actual high chairs were brought out by early morning shift, and they were happy to see them the next day, though they would have been a lot happier had Francine not played her little prank.
Oh, Nick got her back. He knew it was her and she would come to regret it. The next day, Francine was seen running from the gym near the precinct that most of the officers used. Her yoga pants had split in the back, showing off her frilly, pink panties. Nick, still inside the gym, had waltzed out of the locker room wearing his aviators and swinging a pair of scissors around his finger. Some of the officers gave wolf whistles on her next shift, which rendered her face a color similar to the undergarments that had been exposed to the world. Officer Delgato was stupid enough to give her a slap on the back and say, "Way to rock those pink knickers, Trunkaby!" to which she responded by angrily giving the lion a frontal super-wedgie with an enraged trumpet blast. The hardened feline officer let out a high kitten scream before being picked up by the handful of underwear and fast-balled across the precinct lobby, face-first. He was ok aside from a few bruises and a very tender groin that left him tiptoeing painfully. The underpants didn't quite make it, unfortunately.
A battle of pranks between fox and elephant would have ensued were it not for the chief to step in and put an end to it. He told them that while did appreciate a good prank every so often, they were colleagues charged to "uphold order." That had been the end of that, but they had left the office glaring at each other from the corner of their eye.
The aging fox sighed from the heavy nostalgia.
"And..." Judy grunted while setting the box down on Ben's desk in his and Ellie's office cubicle "...here's the last of our notes."
"Oh thank goodness!" Ben leaned forward over his desk with a gasp. "I thought it wouldn't end!" He looked around tepidly at the... six, seven... eight boxes that comprised Judy's notes concerning every case they had worked over the course of their investigation of NH-Plus. Ellie leaned on her elbows, one hand brushing an ear, both of which were pressed flat against her skull. Her eyes scanned the boxes in disbelief.
"Uh... Judy, did you guys write all of this?" the slightly older bunny asked.
"No, not all of it," said Nick, who tapped on his phone a couple times. Ben's phone chimed and he pulled it out to see that he had sent him a two-page set of notes that was surprisingly detailed yet... concise. "Dig in," he said to both of them.
Judy and Nick left his cubicle. "Oh..." the cheetah whined quietly, looking at the innumerable packets of information. At least she was thorough. Pathologically thorough.
He missed his desk job. And donuts. Donuts were starting to look a lot more succulent this exact second.
"Well, better get started if we're gonna kick this guy's can," said Ellie with a sigh of resignation as she picked up the first box and began rifling through the pages.
"Yeah," he exhaled. To be fair, this wasn't much different from his desk job. With that thought, his job suddenly felt more like old times. He started reading with a smile and pantomimed eating a rich, sprinkled donut.
Meanwhile, Judy and Nick diverged - she toward their cruiser in the garage and he to the coffee machine. The ZPD had just been granted access to the direct video recording of the incident in the hallway at the bank where the two robbers were last seen. She was eager to get started on a case that might actually lead somewhere.
She had been pleasantly surprised to hear from McHorn following roll call that the whole thing was caught on camera, courtesy of the elephant who had volunteered as bait, Lorian Biggles. He had set up a series of tiny cameras in the hallway while setting up the sting, which she was very pleasantly surprised to learn. Ah, technology. She was just finishing pulling up Rhinowitz's report when Nick appeared with two cups of coffee. She swiped the screen with her finger and sent the report to Nick's dashboard computer.
"Here's your coffee." He held out the cup to her.
"Thanks, Hon," she said. She took the cup and sipped, but nothing went in her mouth. She noticed the cup was cool and very light. There was nothing in it! She turned toward him and refused to break eye contact as she turned the cup upside down. Someone was rapidly becoming good friends with the couch, it seemed. He held the other cup nonchalantly. "What? I always drink two cups and only have two hands." A second later, he gave her his half-lidded smile and held out the other cup to her. "You know I'm only joking, Carrots."
She rolled her eyes with a smile and took the cup. He hadn't lost that eternal youth just yet. "You're treading on thin ice, Mister Fox. Remember, I'm a little pissed about you wasting most of our vacation yesterday," she bluffed.
"Hey, I may not be a hustler anymore but I still have to allow myself to be a free spirit from time to time. To keep this old thing up and running." He tapped his skull for emphasis.
"Hm, your 'old thing,' sounded pretty hollow there," she said as she tapped his skull with her own knuckles. He shooed her with his hand.
"Oh ha ha, let's just see what we got here, shall we."
"I already sent it to your computer."
"Yeah, I got it. Ok, let's see. Naaa-naaaaaaa-nuuuuuuuh... stakeout..." he muttered as he went through the report. Judy kept her eyes on the three separate video feeds - one of Biggle's office, one at the end of the hallway outside facing the office door, and one of the room Wolfard and Rhinowitz staked out in, looking down. She skipped forward periodically every minute or so. But the video was about four days in length so the smallest skip went forward or backward about two hours. She had to place the slider in the general vicinity of the time at which the bank was broke in and hit the fast forward button. Even then, it would take some time.
Pretty soon, Nick's muttering faded. He just sat there reading silently. That was unusual.
"Nick? How's it going?"
"This is... one strange report. Interesting, but weird. And a little scary."
"How so?"
"Huh! Listen to this. 'As I stepped further out into the hallway, the door behind the two imploded, for lack of a better word. The larger of the unknown mammals ran into the office, which forced Wolfard and myself to take drastic action. The other stood guard at the door. As I stepped closer to him...' I swear, he should write a book," said Nick, glancing who Judy, who snickered at the sudden remark. "'...he shrunk back and allowed me to approach him."
Judy shrugged and he continued. "'What is disturbing is that this was a child, whom I would estimate to be between the ages of seven and ten..." Nick paused and looked up at her with a surprised look on his face. "A child? Who in the world sends children for this kind of thing?" he asked before continuing to read aloud. "'Upon further reflection, my guess is that he or she is of the panthera class due to the short muzzle and ear stubs visible through the mask.'"
Judy listened intently. Nick was very right. This was a case that neither Nick nor Judy enjoyed working. Child coercion in organized crime was not unheard of. "What else did he say?"
"Uh, let's see... he broke his cuffs and... Rhinowitz was... he crashed through the wall."
"He 'crashed through the wall,' what does that mean?"
"...that's just what it says. He goes on to say that it left a huge hole."
"Left a huge hole in what?" Judy pressed.
"In the wall," Nick repeated, mildly annoyed. "He crashed through the wall and he therefore left a hole in it."
Judy sat back and crossed her arms. "That doesn't make sense. Did he trip and fall or something? Harry's pretty heavy; he very well could break drywall with his weight."
"I don't know, Judy," said Nick in a low voice. "He insists that... somehow, this kitten did it."
"A kitten...? I don't know if I can believe that," she said.
"Yeah, well, few years ago, you and I never believed that a bunny would trust a fox, much less marry one."
"Nick, please, be serious! I mean, how is it possible for a kit of any species to literally throw off a full-grown rhino? For all intents and purposes, that's physically impossible; his bones would snap under that pressure!" She pressed her back in her chair and rapidly tapped her foot in thought. "Maybe... maybe he made a typo?" she tried. Honestly it was a shot in the dark.
"No..." he scrolled up and down the report. "Rhinowitz couldn't have been more specific. He insists that he got into a pretty short-lived brawl with a four-foot-tall feline and lost... his mind," he added with a smirk. "Or we could go with option B: we got a psychotic, Herculean kitten to deal with." Judy didn't know whether to laugh at that or not. He paused and looked at the report again. "And he said that when he was thrown out, he... the kid, that is... 'stuck to the wall and... caught him with some kind of rope that appeared out of nowhere.' Those are his exact words." Nick squinted. "Yeah, that's confusing."
"He 'stuck to the wall, and 'a rope appeared out of nowehere'?" repeated Judy, her skepticism now circumventing any attempt at a rational explanation. "How?"
"Doesn't say. He literally just saw a kind of rope appear. It doesn't say where it came from, or that he grabbed something; it doesn't go beyond that. Except... then he dropped the rest of the way, and the rope disintegrated..." he shrugged "...and he huffed it back upstairs."
Nick looked at Judy and shrugged again.
"I'm going to watch this video and see just what the heck happened."
"You know, Mr. Lorian Biggles should get a free pawpsicle for setting this up for us."
Judy turned and smirked at him. "Really? From where he's standing, that would be a toothpick with a bare hint of ice on the end of it. Besides, he already got his money from City Hall."
He smiled with his half-lidded grin. She shook her head and turned back to the computer screen.
Even speeding the video up by a multiple of four, the wait period was about ten minutes before Rhinowitz and Wolfard showed up, hiding in a dark room at the other end of the hallway from the office where Biggles had been. She slowed it down to X2. They sat so still that were it not for the recorded time passing on the video, Judy would have thought it had paused. Biggles appeared far too relaxed for the events that were about to unfold.
"Wow, they're dedicated."
"Shush," she chided.
A few seconds later, two black figures appeared in the hallway. Quickly, she paused the video and pulled out her notepad. Then she changed the speed to normal and hit the record button on a task bar at the side to save the stretch of video feed for further analysis. She pressed play.
The taller of the two ran toward the door, but it was closed before he reached it. He slapped it, apparently in frustration. He turned toward the smaller feline, who just stood there. His posture betrayed a certain nervousness.
At that moment, Rhinowitz and Wolfard ran from their hiding spot with their guns in hand. They appeared in the hallway. The kid ran to the larger burglar, who looked down at him for a second. The kid's arms tensed and he seemed to take a deep breath before whirling and punching the door. Exactly as Rhinowitz had written in his report, the door exploded inwardly, spraying wood everywhere. Both Judy and Nick's eyes widened, and the former couldn't help but let out a small whimper. The report was taking shape before them, exactly as he had written it.
Through the office cam, Judy saw Biggles suddenly go from a confident businessman to a cowering mouse in the span of half a second. He seemed glued to his chair, mesmerized with terror and anticipation. It was clear to both of them that Biggles witnessed everything following the demise of his office door.
The taller feline ran into the room. Rhinowitz stepped closer into the hallway. His gun dropped slightly, as if in contemplation, then he dropped his firearm to his side and held his free hand up. Though they couldn't see his mouth moving, they knew that he was speaking to the small child, whose arms were tucked into his chest. Judy's eyebrows furrowed. She'd seen that posture many, many times from small felines when they were scared. She couldn't help her heart going out to him, even if he was a criminal from where she was standing.
The rhino slowly approached the boy and holstered his gun. He knelt down and reached to take his mask off.
The kitten gripped his wrist, and Rhinowitz flinched, his knees giving out from under him. At the same time, he tried to free his hand, but the kitten grasped his other wrist and held him firmly in place. Rhinowitz tried to wrench free, tried to stand up, but the kitten kept him firmly held in his iron grasp. Even though the camera was at the other end of the hallway from where the rhino and kitten were, Judy could see clearly that the boy's light, sky blue eyes were wide, as if he were petrified. But... they weren't that color a second ago, were they? They seemed to glow vividly in the dark of the hallway.
Judy's fingers tightened around her slacks in a growing pit of suspense at the scene unfolding before her eyes - watching the tough, hardened rhino being rendered virtually helpless by a child. The whole situation was surreal, and Judy felt her entire sense of perception being challenged.
After several agonizing moments of watching the rhino struggle painfully against the iron grip, the boy shoved him backward as if he were a two-pound weight. Stumbling to keep his balance, Rhinowitz managed to keep from falling, and immediately raced forward. The kitten cowered back, but the larger animal forced him against the wall with one hand while the other reached for his handcuffs. Within seconds, the kitten was on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Judy's eyes snapped wide the moment the cuffs broke. Just like the report said. How? How could cuffs that were tested to be strong enough to withstand hundreds of pounds of force... be broken so easily...?
Rhinowitz turned, obviously shocked, but then pounced on top of him with his palm, trying to keep him down, but the kid successfully gave him a very hard time just keeping him restrained, until he all but landed on top of him with his body, which made Judy cover her mouth with a gasp. They could see the rhino's incredulity in his eyes. He was just... doing things by now without thinking.
"Oh!" Judy gasped when they flew upward, crashing into the ceiling and plummeting back onto the hard, marble floor. Judy's hand clamped harder over her mouth in shock. Debris from shattered ceiling tiles spilled everywhere. Seconds later, Rhinowitz's body shot off of the boy, launched by the boy's legs, through the wall of the building...
The boy kicked up and ran to the hole in the wall, before seeming to walk out of it into the open. From the angle of the camera, they could barely see the kitten's body, but they knew that he should have fallen the moment he left the hole. Moments later, he came back inside, crawling on the ceiling. Judy grasped her stomach, wide-eyed, wondering exactly what she was seeing.
Judy and Nick stared at the monitor for who knew how long, ignoring the rest of the events that transpired in the office and afterward. Open-mouthed and wide-eyed, they turned toward each other. They had never seen anything like that. They had never heard of anything like that in the history of civilization. Even two of Mr. Big's largest polar bear bodyguards wouldn't have been able to face Rhinowitz. Not a single note had been written by Judy. Her pen was still hovering above her notepad, waiting for her to record her thoughts.
"At least we know he wasn't lying," said Nick with a high voice, that look of shock still in his eyes.
Judy landed on the back of the seat in utter disbelief. "How? How is that possible?"
Nick tapped his finger on the dash in thought. "Maybe..." She looked at him. "Maybe they've... found a way to make a compound of NH-Plus that makes predators stronger somehow. And... sticky?"
"I'm not sure Nighthowlers would be involved. This... this is new. I can guarantee you that even Bellwether's old goon, Doug, would agree with me on that one."
"I have a couple other theories."
"Theories can only help so much. We gotta find this guy if we want answers. We need to replay this and make sure we get every detail." Replaying the recorded snippet, they watched the video four or five more times, making notes and analyzing every point. Each rewatch was just as intense. Their curiosity was overwhelming, as well as their apprehension. Afterward, Judy typed rapidly on her computer and the traffic cam database was at her fingertips. "Let's see where they went."
On the screen, they saw a brief, brief encounter between Rhinowitz and the two cats. The former cautiously walked past them, and then the cats sprinted outside. As soon as they exited the field of view of the current camera, Judy clicked on the next one.
DATA NOT FOUND
"What?" Judy muttered, clicking on the camera before, then tried again. DATA NOT FOUND. The bold print was written in black with a dull gray background. A very, very dissatisfying image. "Ok, that's very weird."
"Are you clicking on the right camera?"
"Oh yes, silly me, that's your phone camera I'm clicking on," she gestured toward his pants pocket where his phone was.
"You offend me, Carrots," he said, tilting his head indulgently. "As if I was that ill-savvy with mobile photography. None of my photographs are so dreary. I'll have you know I have two hundred and sixty-"
"Nick, I was being sarcastic," she huffed.
"I know, and I'm milking it."
Judy tried the next camera. DATA NOT FOUND. Beginning to grow increasingly frustrated, she clicked on each successive camera. But each showed that stupid three-word note. "Ugh! I don't know why it won't..."
"Here..." He nudged her hand off of the trackpad and began clicking on the cameras surrounding the area, finding and highlighting the borders of the area where the cameras ceased to function.
It took her a moment to figure out what he was doing, but after a moment, she began to catch on: this was deliberate. They weren't broken, they had been shut down on purpose. He was measuring the dimensions of the area of inactivity. "Wow. Well, look at you, master Detective. I knew you'd make a good cop."
"Huh, how dare you." Judy snorted in nostalgia. After several minutes, he was able to find the dimensions of the area. "We have an area of about... mm, two miles in length, three blocks in width. So six miles of area. The bank's just a few meters from the outer edge. Pretty dumb move," he slurred, "since all that does is give us an area to work with and a process of elimination. Easy enough."
"Great! Let's go ahead and make the list, but then I want to talk to Harry and get his side of the story."
Nick got out his notebook and started to write down notes about the area they were to search. "Good idea. Might want to get to know the cat who will be our demise."
"Nick, stop it," she said with slight terseness disguised in a weakly mild tone. "Remember, we're not the only heroes at the ZPD. If we need help, we can always call for backup."
"Rhinowitz couldn't," he muttered. Judy didn't answer.
Danny saw a lot of mammals inside the coffee shop. He stopped and Sarah turned around. He shrunk back a little.
"Hey, it's ok. Don't be shy. They'll love you."
Danny had never done well around crowds. He wasn't by any means the outgoing type. He did like sports, but that was about as far as he went. He dropped his eyes to the ground.
"Hey, Danny." She knelt to his level. He looked at her. "You're never gonna have a real friend until you get out of that room of yours," she said gently. "And I mean a real friend who you don't work with and who doesn't just use you to get free drinks." Danny resisted the smirk that played on his lips at the thought of Nigel tricking him into stealing a twelve-pack last month. "Give it a try. Don't worry, I won't let you look stupid."
He nodded reluctantly.
"Come on, bud." She patted his back and opened the door for him. Music immediately blasted his eardrums. He wondered whether these animals were deaf or just liked their music loud. He walked in, covering his ears until he was more used to the noise, but it may have just been permanent hearing loss. At least two dozen animals sat at small tables along the side of the large open area of the shop. Some just talked to each other, some stood, and others danced a little. It looked more like a dance parlor with a bar to boot rather than the other way around. Most of them were different species.
Already nervous, he began shuffling toward the wall. "Ah! No you don't." Sarah grabbed his hand, causing him to moan childishly. She dragged him to a circle of peers in the store. "Hey guys, this is Danny." The animals in the group looked down at him with a smile. She pointed to each of them and named them off. "Danny, this is Sheila (a wolf), that's Hayden (a bear), and the twins, Merrill, and Mary (both foxes)." The two foxes simultaneously greeted with an upward nod.
Danny looked around at them all timidly. "Hello..." he said quietly. though he was certain no one heard him over the music.
"So, Danny, we heard you took down a rhinoceros. Is that true?" asked one of the twins, who had to come close and yell in his ear over the music.
He couldn't be sure, but he felt that he must have been blushing at that second. "Ahh..." he waved a hand looked away. He felt on the spot.
"Oh come on, don't be modest! You're the first cat, heck, the first animal that I've ever heard of to do that without ending up in the ER."
"Or the morgue," his sister added.
"Hey, don't be morbid." She shrugged in response.
Danny was glad Sarah was there. He was not used to being in a place like this.
But ten minutes into their time there...
"Ok, we're ready!" said Sarah. In front of the groups of interested mammals, Danny planted his palms against the bottom of the table, upon which were the bear, the foxes, the ocelot, and the wolf, which added up to nearly fifteen-hundred pounds. Pushing upward, he rose to his feet with virtually no strain, causing the animals to say, "Whoa!" simultaneously and nearly fly off the table. The other animals in the crowd cheered, making Danny grin widely.
He looked forward to the rest of the week at the Hill Plaza.
When 10 pm rolled around, Sarah made Danny some dinner and then brought him to the back of the shop. Danny felt discombobulated at the stark difference between the front and back of house. While the front was technologically advanced, walking to the back felt like going through a portal that had sent him back a hundred years in the past. The walls, floor, ceiling, and doors were all made of wood that looked like it could all poof! into dust at a moment's notice. And there was a dank smell of mildew that took some getting used to, especially for the young feline's keen sense of smell.
"Are we allowed back here?" asked Danny.
"Yeah, of course. Hayden's the manager of the shop. He said we could sleep in the back tonight." She led him into a room where she turned on a lamp, revealing the room to be a bedroom. She pulled down the covers of the bed, which was much bigger than his cot back home. The very sight of it made his legs weak.
"Why here?"
She hesitated a moment before turning toward him. "Why not? I think we needed to get out of that place for once and have some fun, don't you think?"
She directed him to the bed and he got in. She tucked him in, pulling the covers up around him until only his little face was visible. The sight of his large, blue eyes, shimmering whiskers, and shiny fur made her exhale deeply. She sat down at his side and scratched his neck for a minute, causing him to purr, stretch, and yawn - in that order.
"Did you have fun today?" she asked.
"Who didn't have fun today? I mean, the hustling thing was awkward but..."
"Eh, you get used to it. Besides, I had a good teacher."
"Who?"
"Well, he's an officer now, unfortunately," she said with a hint of sadness. "I miss him, though; he was funny."
"Nng," he groaned. "Police officers are the worst."
"...Yeah, they are. He's all right, though. If you can get past the sarcasm."
"They still suck."
She snickered. "Yeah, they still suck."
They fell silent as she scratched his neck. He purred until he fell asleep minutes later.
Sarah took a moment to admire the kitten, tilting her head as she observed him. He was so small, yet held such immense power. She knelt at the side of the bed, looking at him. "I'll keep you safe until you learn who you really are," she whispered.
She stood up to plant a soft kiss on his forehead and left the room. In the bathroom, she looked in the mirror with a determined expression. She stripped down and stepped into the shower to wash away the dirt that had accumulated in her fur that day. It was refreshing - not just the hot water running down the back of her head, but being out of that place. She had suspected that Boss had had some sinister plans for her little kitten for a while now. Being the company's resident hacker/infiltrator/intelligence operative, she had attempted to find some evidence of this. But she never did. Not until her suspicions were confirmed by the Shark himself that she knew that she had to get him out of there. Now, she had to figure out what to do next, how to keep him out of there, and how to keep them away. For good.
After drying off, she dressed herself in a simple pink shirt with black leggings. She crept quietly to the basement door, opening it as silently as she could, cursing the hinges every time they squeaked. After closing it, she descended the stairs and entered the basement proper, where her friends were all seated in a circle.
The light in the room was dim, lit by a single bulb that hung by a wire from the ceiling. She took her place on the pentagram, on the right side from the top, where a small figurine of a black jaguar stood as if standing watch over the animals present.
"So, what's the plan?" asked Mark. "We've gotten him outta there. But what happens when your Boss comes for him?"
"I'm still working that part out," said Sarah.
"So you haven't told him anything?" asked Merrill. "I feel like he should know."
Sarah shook his head. "No, Merrill, that's not a good idea. He's just a kitten; if he found out about all of this, it... it would break him."
"But he's a god," Mark said. "Gods don't break."
Sarah hesitated but rebutted with, "Whether he's a god or not, I don't want to put him through any unnecessary strain. He's scared enough as it is even not being aware of Lukagi's plans for him."
"Does he know about his powers?" asked Mary.
"...Uhm..." Sarah hesitated once more "...he knows he's not like other mammals, at least."
"Shouldn't we tell him, then? Tell him who he is?"
"No, now's not the right time," said Sarah.
"Well why do you get to decide," chided Merrill. "I mean, you're not his mom."
"No, but I know him," she shot back firmly. "And he trusts me. I'm not going to tell him something he's not ready to hear. Right now, right now," she emphasized while pointing toward the floor, "all I want to do is keep him safely away from these monsters who want to kill him."
"But if they wanted to kill him, then why wouldn't they have-"
A hollow thocking sound, followed by a sharp sting on the side of her neck drove a loud yelp from her lungs. The impact shoved her head sideways. The others stood up, shocked questions scattering around the room. Then, one by one, each of them was tagged by small blue pellets. Not one missed.
Dazed, Sarah put her hand against her neck and looked at it. She stared with a trembling hand at the blue residue that covered her palm. A cold numbness was left by the blue substance. She knew exactly what this was. "Danny..." she squeaked past the massive lump in her throat, desperate to warn her little kitten to get out. But she knew he couldn't hear her, and she wouldn't be able to get to him in time before she was turned into something else. Something dangerous.
She looked toward where they seemed to be coming from. There, on the stairs, aiming a rifle into the basement, was... "Who are... You are not touch-" She froze mid-sentence, cut off by the pain of her consciousness fracturing. Her back arched and her hands flew to her head, grunting as she fell over, fighting the drug's power, groaning in a futile attempt to keep her waning senses intact. She could not stop the growl that rose from the pit of her throat. It horrified her, rocked her sanity to its core. Uncontrollable rage blazed its way through every neuron of grey matter. It was suffocating. Her frontal lobe was shutting down, being replaced with something primal, sadistic, monstrous. She could hear in the background the primal sounds of the others going through the same unendurable devolution.
Sarah rose on all fours and remained there, unmoving. That low growl still vibrated from deep in her throat. Her head rose. Her eyes opened, revealing the pupils of vertical rhombi that had long since faded into evolutionary history... the feral eyes of an archaic feline. The last thing she saw before the remainder of her free will evaporated was the mammal who had taken it from her, walking casually back up the stairs.
He didn't know where he was. He didn't... think he'd ever seen it before. There were no windows. He could barely see anything in this room that smelled like mildew.
He looked around the room he was in, but all there was, was rotting wood and dust. A broken picture frame lay against the wall. He picked it up, coughing from the dust that flew around, and lifted it close to his face to examine it. It was hard to see, but his night vision helped him discern two individual figures in the photograph. There were scratches covering the image, but he could see it quite clearly. Though couldn't tell who the animal was in the picture. But the animal was... strangely familiar. There was a distant creaking that caused him to drop the frame. He cringed at the sound of it clattering against the floor. He stood still to see if he heard anything else. Once he was certain he was just on edge and hearing things, he looked around. Looking through the cracks in the wood, he saw there was nothing but pitch-black, like a yawning void. He looked around and searched for a way out. He turned in a slow circle several times, but there were no windows, no... nothing. Just a... room. Like, did someone build it around him while he was asleep? He punched the wood very hard to see if it would break, but it just made a very loud knock that echoed loudly off the walls. It wouldn't budge. He looked around once more - oh good, there was a door. But how had he missed that? Honestly, he didn't care; he just wanted to find a way to a brightly-lit area so he could get his bearings on his situation.
He tried the doorknob, but he immediately realized there was nothing to hold the door closed. He slowly opened the door into a dark hallway that seemed as derelict as the room he was in. His breath hitched at the sight of the wall of black nothingness in front of him. It was almost as if all of reality stopped right here. If he stepped into the void, he'd fall into eternal blackness. He lifted his flashlight - where it came from, he didn't care - and turned it on with a click. The wall of blackness disappeared and revealed a long corridor fading into the distance. He sighed. Looking behind him, he gulped to control his fear. He wished Sarah were here. Or John. Or anybody.
Stepping out into the hallway, he tried to control his breathing. Besides the muffled sound of his feet padding on the damp floor as he slowly shuffled down the hall, all he heard was his breath.
He jumped at a faint sound that suddenly came from behind him, almost like faint skittering, like nails lightly tapping on stone. Like something was coming toward him very fast. Alarmed, he spun and swished the flashlight side to side. There was nothing there, no sound but his erratic breathing. He spun around. Just more dark corridor. He turned again and again, till he nearly forgot which way he was going. Facing forward down the way he was going, he forced his frozen feet to move.
One step at a time, he descended the hallway, turning the trembling beam from the flashlight this way and that between the floor and his front to watch where he was going. The last thing he wanted was to step on a weak board or a nail. He could barely keep his eyes off the walls - peeling paint leaned from the walls and created jagged tendrils as if it were melting. It was ugly and unsettling. This whole place was unsettling. How did he even get here? Where's Sarah?
"Danny..." a whisper broke through the silence. He turned with a gasp. He spun in a circle and aimed the flashlight in every direction. Nothing was there. His mouth had dried up at the sound, forcing him to lick his lips repeatedly. He couldn't tell which direction the whisper had come from, as if it had come from everywhere. The cold air leaned into him, causing him to shiver. Or was that a cold sweat? "Ok, ok, ok," he stammered to himself while breathing rapidly, looking down at the floor. He just had to keep moving and find a way out of here.
"Danny..." the whisper came again. It was louder. Closer. He couldn't help the whimper that forced itself out of him. Trembling overtook him, filled every breath, every pore, every follicle. He was frozen in place. He felt a strange sensation come over him, as if he knew that he should duck, but he didn't know why, nor did he move. Something hit the back of his neck painfully. He whirled around with a shout. Nothing was there. He heard the skittering again. Except it was louder. Closer. He turned again. He couldn't move. He could barely contain the sobs that yearned to burst from him. The trembling beam of light wiggled from hall to hall. He pointed it down the other hall where he came from.
The flashlight fell to the floor with an echoing clatter. His wide eyes stared into the darkness. He had seen something. A dark silhouette right at the mouth of the door he'd come from.
"Danny..." whispered the same voice, even closer now. He stood completely still. Eyes wide enough for his eyeballs to pop out. Nearly driven to madness with absolute, pounding fear. The skittering came again. It was even louder. Closer. Diving for the flashlight, he jumped up and lifted it with both hands as if it were a weapon. The figure had halved the distance to him. He stumbled backward with a shout and fell hard onto his back. The flashlight jiggled back and forth frantically, illuminating the silhouette of the figure. Once again, it whispered his name. It was getting closer, swaying side to side with short and rapid steps, making that terrible skittering sound. But the light failed to illuminate the black shadow. Panic overwhelmed his senses, every nerve tingled. His mind fell to darkness as black as the void outside.
He forced himself up with a scream and sprinted down the corridor. He didn't look back. How close was the thing? Was it chasing him? Was it right behind him? He could feel jagged claws right at his feet, his back, his neck, about to slash him open. Where could he go? Was there even a way out of here?
He came to the end of the hallway, where there was a doorway. He ran into the wall at the end, using it to push himself off and through the door. He grabbed the door and slammed it shut. The loud noise caused by the door reverberated throughout the room.
Trembling, he turned and scanned the room he was in.
No.
No.
How is this possible? It can't be possible. He was just here! It was the same room he'd started in! There was no other door! How! Is! That! Possible! Maybe he passed a door down the hallway?! His heart sank at the thought. He couldn't go back out there. Not with that thing.
He slumped to the floor and began sobbing uncontrollably. He just wanted OUT!
He looked up and looked around the room again. It really was the same one - no windows, no other doors. The only difference was the large... box thing in the middle. It was longer than it was wide and seemed to have two doors in the top. His hand landed on something beside him. He picked it up and shone the light on it. It was the picture frame from before, except it was left unscratched.
For some reason, the animal in the picture still looked familiar, but he couldn't place him. He looked so happy in the picture, smiling widely.
Suddenly, the flashlight flickered and went out, causing him to drop the frame. His breath hitching, he pushed the button on it frantically and tapped it against his palm. It came back on and nearly blinded him. He shined it around the room.
The light settled on the box. One of the doors had... opened by itself. His breath stopped altogether. He knew what it was. It was a casket. Bright light flickered suddenly, illuminating the room for an instant. Thunder followed close by.
Trembling uncontrollably, tears falling from his eyes in terror, he stood up and lumbered toward the casket. But when he looked into it, it was empty.
"It's been a long time, Danny." A jolt of electric shock stung his very flesh at the distorted voice. He gasped and stumbled to the end of the room where he spun around and shined the light into the face of the speaker. He lifted the trembling flashlight to the owner of the voice, but what he saw... no thoughts entered his mind at the incomprehensible thing that stood across the room from him.
The speaker was the mammal from the photograph, except what he saw was anything but happy. The remaining fur was tangled and matted, covered with dirt and mold. Part of his upper lip was decayed to produce an eternal sneer. His rotting flesh was gray and peeling, falling off in places - no covers for his crazed, milky eyes. There was partially exposed bone on his lower jaw. From what he could tell, the creature was wearing the same clothes he'd seen in the photograph - except they were faded, torn. Worms seemed to fall from its mouth as it opened and shut. Blackened, crusty debris fell to the floor from its flesh as it moved swayed slowly from side to side, as if wondering what to do next. Danny just stared, his eyes bulging from his head, the only movement his hand trembling as it held the flashlight.
The nightmarish thing stood on the other side of the room. The casket was the only thing between them. Somehow, there was another flash of lightning and the distant crack of thunder in the windowless room. It briefly illuminated the monster, making his features perfectly clear for one horrendous moment. Danny gasped and whimpered at the sight. He held the flashlight with both trembling hands. The light danced across the monster's ghoulish face. He couldn't comprehend the corpse standing in front of him.
The beam of light flickered, threatening to put him into total darkness. Total darkness in which this thing was his only companion.
"I've missed you," he said haltingly with a voice that sounded as if two of him were speaking simultaneously. The sound sent chilling tingles through his chest and down his limbs. He was petrified. His heart burst against his sternum, pounding in utter horror. He hoped that it would just stop and let him escape this torment. But it kept right on beating, minutes passing between each pump.
The corpse stood still, his gaze boring into his. Deep in the faded scleras of his eyes was a demented glint of madness. Rage. Vengeance. The flashlight flickered again. It was going to fail, Danny just knew it. The dim light barely illuminated his decaying face and left the rest in pitch darkness.
"Finally... I can give you the gift that you gave me," he said in that same demonic voice. A voice that perfectly matched this place. A voice straight from the pit of Hell. "Now... I can rest..."
The corpse took a limping step toward Danny, bobbing his head loosely on its neck. Its joints cracked and popped as it moved. Dust exploded from the calcified cartilage.
That emotionless expression was set on him. Danny whimpered as the grinning monster inched closer and closer. Danny's back hit the wall behind him. He felt that strange sensation again, telling him to duck but he didn't obey. Seconds - or centuries - later, here was another sharp sting on the back of his neck. "Owww!" he bawled. The flashlight failed again. Danny beat it as hard as he could against his hand until it came back on. He lifted it.
The thing was just passing the casket, swaying back and forth as it approached. As its neck craned to look down at the kitten, its grin widened, causing its flesh to crack diagonally across its face.
"AAAAAAAAAH!" he screamed as he tried to scramble backward, scratching the wall behind him. It seemed to hold him in place, forcing him to endure this torture. It was just a few feet away. What would it do to him? Would it kill him? Lock him in the casket with it? Turn him into something like itself? Drag him to Hell? He couldn't bear to think about any of those possibilities.
It was coming closer. Closer. Its fraying grin seemed to widen the closer it came.
It extended its moldy, rotten hands toward him. "Come here!" he said, actually managing to lumber faster toward him.
Danny desperately dodged to the side to run around the perimeter of the room, barely evading the corpse's hand. He ran until he came to the door. He grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn the knob. It didn't budge. He wrenched it, pulling on the door with all of his strength, but it wouldn't open.
He almost fell backward as something broke loose. Looking down, the doorknob was in his hands. He gulped at the sensation of total despair stretching every heart fiber as they desperately pushed and pulled, keeping it beating. Curse them. Curse his heart for beating. Curse his lungs for filling, his eyes for seeing, himself for existing. The doorknob rolled from his fingers, plummeting from his hand to the floor with a final, metallic clang that echoed through the room like the thunder outside in the void.
The door was sealed, and so was his fate.
"Don't go... I have something to show you..."
Danny turned slowly toward the voice. Danny exhaled at the baseball bat in the zombie's hand, a sight that was too familiar for words, a memory playing at the edge of his mind, a hand tightened around the handle of a baseball bat. It leaned into his face, grinning gleefully and showing off its blackened teeth. But behind the smile, plain as day, was pure hate. And its eyes... its eyes had changed. No more were they pale like the moonlight, but a harsh yellow, glowing like fire in the dark. Lining the illuminated irises was a rim of blood red, punctuated by blood vessels filling the whites, creating a look of perfect evil.
"This is the gift you gave to me," the monster said in a low voice. It lifted the bat and the flashlight went out. Danny saw in his peripheral vision that behind the corpse were five disembodied, toothy grins, accompanied by glowing white pinpricks for eyes, perfectly clear against the pure darkness. Trembling, but accepting his fate, his wide eyes peered into the cadaver's glowing ones, floating along with the other faces. He knew he deserved this. He could feel it. But still, Danny's throat tore as he screamed, rendering his voice a hoarse croak. In his peripheral vision, those five grins remained stuck to the wall of blackness like demented wall art, seeming to slowly approaching him as if to watch. He cowered and covered his head. He waited for the first hit. Danny screamed and screamed and screamed. But his screaming didn't sound like screaming. It sounded like snarling.
Something jostled him awake. His heart thundered in his chest. He tried to get himself untangled from the covers. Something knocked into him and he felt the fabric he was wrapped in slide against a flat surface. He hit another surface. A wall. He pulled the blanket off and looked up. Still shaking, he frantically looked around until his eyes landed on a figure before him, standing on all fours. He looked upward and saw the light switch. Grasping the wall, he pulled himself upward and turned on the light. He froze as he faced not a rotting corpse, but a living fox whose eyes were bent on tearing him apart.
The first thing to enter his mind was, At least I'm out of that place.
The nightmare sequence is heavily based on the last scene of a Tales from the Crypt episode called None But the Lonely Heart. I saw it when I was in high school. I turned 26 at the end of May and my memories of that episode still give me nightmares. So if you're a brave soul, be warned before you watch that episode. It's terrifying.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with You. Psalm 139:11,12
