Heart of Gazelle and Humanity

by The Imperator 2 you

With all hope lost Humanity places its final hope in the souls of those frozen in time. While excavating a tunnel, a team of Mammals going about their business discovers a relic of millennia past, and an ancient species thought mythical and legend. Yet of all eggs discovered only 1 survives. Can Humanity be redeemed for the sins of its past, in the future it cannot control?

27. Chapter 24

It's been so long, without a ray of hope in sight…

I'm feeling lost, under these broken neon lights…

Erase all the pain, remember the strife makes us stronger…

When hard times get longer, and I, a bird in a cage…

Will sing you a beautiful tune, in the face of our doom~

Chapter 34 - The Returning Heartbeats

(Jeremy's PoV)

"And so, in short, that's why I want to give you the seed." Jeremy finished explaining to Judy's father. "Between the rich soil fertility and the water basin which feeds into the river system providing a rich environment for plant growth 'and' ample levels of sunlight, makes it the ideal location for this particular seed's growth. As for why I want 'you', to grow it, well your daughter told me about your family's farm, and I trust her word. This seed is incredibly important being the only one of its kind left over from my species, and while planting it in Zootopia makes sense for convenience"

"Well gosh darnit Mr. Jeremy my family is honored that your putting so much trust in us!" The rabbit said with a proud smile.

Even 'if' he looked slightly scared with the fact that three RAPTOR class drones as well as four DOG class drones were behind him and Aelita, on top of his personal Solar Carriage sitting on the side of the road.

"Yes, but… before I hand it over to you, I only ask one minor request of you." He said knowing this was a bit of a risk, but with how important the seed was, he could not afford to take chances. "I would like you to permit one drone to stand guard over it on your land until the tree is matured enough that it won't be threatened by thieves digging it up."

Judy's father looked up at the RAPTOR drones and gulped slightly. "Well iuno bout that, I mean… do we have to house it or…"

"You won't have to worry about any of its needs." He explained quickly. "The drones don't need sleep, food, water or anything like that. There will be a small power cell hooked up to a solar panel of my design that it can plug itself into and recharge every day that you can plant anywhere, and it won't mind. You don't have to converse with it, watch over it, or worry about it doing anything you don't want it to, it's just going to watch over the seed's location and keep it safe."

He knelt on one knee and looked at him with hope while a drone took Aelita from him. "Please, I wouldn't ask you to do this if I trusted all of mammalkind with this seed's safety. But… there are some and have been some who have tried to hurt me, or steal from me. This seed… is precious, it's vital that it be protected until its mature enough where it won't be threatened anymore, but until it reaches that it is extremely vulnerable. That's why despite having your daughter and her fiancé here protecting me and the seed, I ordered these drones to escort and watch over us."

"Dad listen to Jeremy, that seed is the last seed from his time, his father poured the last of his life into getting it to Jeremy." Judy said as she walked to stand next to him. "Having a drone just stand around on the farm staring at a spot of land all day is a small sacrifice compared to what your nurturing. Plus, it also will be protecting you, not just the seed."

He looked thoughtful at that before looking at his wife. "Well what do you think honey?"

"Oh, why not…" Judy's mother said warmly. "If it's just ganna stand around staring at a seed all day, why not let it stay and rest in the barn."

"You won't need to worry about it sitting in the barn for long, at most about two minutes." Jeremy said as he got up and beckoned over the RAPTOR he had selected, OK-101.

The drone nodded and stepped forward, handing him a charging port that he'd had the ANTs pull out, and modified it so that instead of the drone hooking up to it via its tail like normal to charge, instead it would extract the drone's current power cell and swap it with a replacement that would be charged daily. It was also connected via a large extension cable to a large solar panel of human design, meaning it was ten times more effective than a mammal version.

"All you have to do, is plant 'this' on the ground somewhere, anywhere in your barn if you want, but honestly anywhere will suffice." He said pointing at the charging port, before pointing at the solar panel. "And you plant this so that it sits outside with full access to the sky and especially sunlight."

He then demonstrated how it would work by planting the cell on the ground and snapping his fingers. The drone nodded in understanding and walked over to the charging port, flicked its tail open, backed up and plugged itself in. The charging port rotated, and an empty slot was filled up by a power cell, then it rotated again, and the other power cell was pushed into the drone and leaving the slot it rested in empty. Moments after the drone stepped forward and flicked its tail back into place.

"And that's how it will go, as long as the power cell is somewhere it won't get rained on, and the panel has access to the sky, the drone will be fine and won't need any special attention. The drone will protect the land around where you plant the seed from trespassers, and your home as well. All you need to do is just tell it who it can trust around your land and it won't bother them unless they get near the seed. The only ones aloud near the seed will be you and your family." Jeremy said as he handed the drone the power cell and panel again.

"Well, I suppose it's alright… do you have a name sir?" He asked the drone.

[This unit is identified, as OK-101.]

"Well okay then Mr. OK, pleasure to meet ya." He said with a little chuckle and a salute, which caused everyone 'living' to laugh a little, including Aelita.

Not getting the humor the drone simply nodded in acknowledgement.

"Well that about covers everything…" Jeremy said warmly as he turned to the more 'heavily armed' drone, a RAPTOR by the identity KL-010. "The seed please."

The drone nodded and stepped forward, presenting him with a box containing the seed. It had been placed in a simple container with a cushion in it that Gazelle purchased for him, and upon receiving it he carefully opened it and showed Judy's parents the precious seed inside of it.

It sat on the cushion, a simple beige seed that bulged on one end and narrowed on the other. It looked no more different than any other seed one might find in another plant, yet it contained more potential for life in it than anything on the planet.

"So that's what your entrusting us with?" Mr. Hopp asked curiously while staring at the little seed. "Doesn't seem all that important…"

"Don't let it fool you dad, that seed is the most important seed on the planet, not kidding." Judy said instantly.

"Yea, that is a super seed." Nick explained with a grin. "Tell him Jeremy, I like hearing how you describe it."

"This seed is a grand total of twenty-four plants all wrapped up into one single seed." He explained to the rabbit farmer. "This seed contains the DNA of a tree, mixed with a cactus, combined with a weed, and given the strands of twenty-one different fruits and vegetable plants to enable it to grow additional seeds like itself each with the same characteristics of the first."

"Oh, dear I can see why you wanted the extra security now." Mrs. Hopp said in surprise as Jeremy closed the container and handed it over to them. "We'll take good care of it; we even have that field we were going to use for the new blueberry crops ready to go."

"You have our word Jeremy; we'll nurture and grow this little seed nice and tall!" Mr. Hopp said proudly.

He smiled warmly and shook the rabbit's hand with a single tear falling down the side of his face. "I'm counting on you, that seed represents so much hope to my species… it was meant to rebuild the forests and plant life that were destroyed, a lot of work went into this seed to be given to us, and now I give it to you."

"Don't worry Mr. Human, it's in good hands…" Mr. Hopp said with an understanding smile.

He nodded and took a deep breath before standing up and looking at OK-101. "Drone, your mission is to protect that seed until further notice, no harm is to come to it, you are not permitted to use lethal force unless one of the Hopps' life is in danger, and you are permitted to use 'reasonable force' to ensure no mammal disturbs the seed's resting place, depending on the situation as it demands. The only mammals permitted to approach it, tend to it, and check on it are the Hopps, confirm you understand the order!"

[Confirmed, this unit acknowledges and understands the order, and will obey.] It stated.

He nodded and turned to everyone else. "Alright, that's all there is to it then, let's head on back home!" He declared. "All other drones we're heading back."

[As you command!] All the other drones declared as they did a complete 180 and marched right back to the solar carriage.

"Listen before you go!" Mrs. Hopp said suddenly, making him turn around. "We just wanted to say thank you so much for all you have done."

"Me, I haven't done anything really, in all honesty." He said quietly. "If this is about the vaccines and cures, like I said… I'm just the messenger, the real credit goes to my ancestors and especially Ema. The spider drone's doing all of the work, I just told her to do it…"

"Maybe, but without you, a lot of good mammals would have suffered quite a bit without those vaccines and cures, like dear old Sharla."

"Wait what happened with Sharla?" Judy asked quickly.

"Sharla came down with a massive case of Kidney Palphomia, it was completely unexpected, she was just… fine one week and the next she was in the hospital bed suffering badly." Mrs. Hopp said sadly. "It was proclaimed terminal, and you know how it is out here Judy, not a lot of modern hospitals like they have in a big city like Zootopia. Local hospital had nothing to help her…" Then she turned to Jeremy with a smile. "Until a medical chopper flew out here with the cure she needed, when we found out where the cure came from, everymammal wanted to know who 'Jeremy Wilheart' was and… well… one thing led to another."

"Do you know where Sharla is mom?"

"Oh, why yes dear, she's still living in her family's cottage, I think she's probably over attending her 'evening service'!" She replied warmly.

"Ya know I always thought that stuff she believed in was weird, now I'm starting to second guess it!" Her father said with a chuckle. "All that 'spirit' talk and 'spirits watching over the flocks' was such crabcarrots before, now I'm starting to wonder if they might have been onto something."

"Don't listen to your father, he's still thinking it is."

"Well honey think about it, how long sheep been talking bout spirits, and now suddenly one's right here!"

"Please, please… I'm not a spirit I'm… just a human." Jeremy said with a nervous smile. "Take care of that seed Mr. and Mrs. Hopp."

"Oh, we will Jeremy and, your more than welcome to come visit our home!" Mrs. Hopp said quickly.

"Any friend of our Judy is a friend of the family and more than welcomed to dine with us!" Mr. Hopp continued, "You her, us, and all three hundred and twenty-seven of her brothers and sisters!"

"You call us ahead of time and we'll make it a big family reunion!" Mrs. Hopp said as they started leaving. "We'll even invite our relatives!"

Once inside the carriage and seated, all the drones minus OK-101 began marching off with the carriage moving on its own and rapidly picking up speed. The carriage normally relied on HORSE to move around, however as Jeremy told Mr. Big, it didn't require the Category Two drone. While running autonomously Aelita could control it herself, or anyone inside using specialized Holographic steering wheels and the visors. It also had an autopilot feature to allow them to traverse any location to their destination.

Since HORSE couldn't travel fast enough to go from Zootopia to Bunny Burrows, Jeremy left the drone behind so they could travel to and from both locations in a timely manner. Within seconds the carriage's drive section turned on and instantly took off on all tires, reaching fifty miles per hour within a second. After a few more seconds they were speeding away at eighty miles per hour with the drones keeping pace on both sides in double line formation. The transition was completely smooth from being still to moving at high speeds, the drive train didn't jolt the vehicle or shake them slightly despite the rural road and numerous bumps. Only the drones constantly bobbing up and down as they ran alongside the carriage indicated the conditions they were moving over.

"Hey Jeremy, I know you wanted to return home, but I was wondering if we could stop by to see Sharla really quickly, hearing about her getting sick makes me worry." Judy asked quickly.

"I'm sure she's fine, you heard your parents, she got the cure Ema provided." Nick said.

"I know but I still want to say hi to her and make sure she's okay."

He thought about it before glancing at Aelita's holosphere. "Do you mind if we take a quick detour?" He asked.

Aelita rolled her eyes at him before changing her form to become his, only she was wearing an Admiral's uniform and was standing before a steering wheel turning it for a few seconds. She then changed to herself while wearing a sailor's uniform and pretending to swab the deck. She then returned to normal and shrugged with a nod. She was saying he was in charge, not her.

"Well if nobody objects, why not?" He said with a smile. "Where to Judy?"

"Hmm, if I remember the pasture where she and other sheep and rams have their 'service' is on the east side of Bunny Burrow, called Sheepell Pastureville."

Nodding he looked up at the ceiling, "Autopilot, change destination, Sheepell Pastureville." he said.

[Coordinates Locked… changing course…] A monotone voice declared.

Instantly the carriage made a hard turn that did not in any way make them shift inside, taking a different road to their destination. The drones escorting them turned in time, maintaining their escort formation as if this were all planned out.

They roamed along the roads enjoying the scenery, Jeremy especially, having seen so much city life and especially his time in the base made him enjoy the beautiful scenery that was 'nature'. Having seen a scene like this only in the holoroom and on viewscreens, seeing natural grasslands, rolling hills and trees was something he just couldn't get enough of. Every time he looked at a tree or saw fields of wild grass, he wanted to stop and just look at it for as long as he could.

"Bunny Burrows is nice." He said. "Why did you choose to leave this place Judy, it looks so peaceful and pleasant."

"I wanted to make a difference in the world, I wanted to become a police officer, it was my dream." Judy said instantly. "I wanted to become the first Bunny Cop ever and help change the world."

"Now she's literally changing the world by sticking around you." Nick chuckled from his seat.

"Oh, shush you!"

"Kinda like me… I just wanted to fix the world when I grew up…" He muttered as he stared back at the scenery outside the window. "Now the world doesn't need fixing… it's hard to believe that… there's nothing needing fixing…"

"Oh, I'm sure there's something broken that you can fix!" Nick said with a grin.

He smiled a little at that, knowing the fox was trying to cheer him up, but he honestly didn't know what he was going to do. Aside from sharing technology at a slow rate what he was trained to do wasn't going to work in this day and age. Then of course there were the incidents regarding his technology, namely the latest one.

Yesterday before he'd made his final choice on Bunny Burrow for the location of the seed's planting, he'd seen a report on the news about a hijacking attempt on one of the vehicles transporting materials from the base to various medical facilities. Apparently, a van carrying several canisters from Ema containing the latest cures and vaccines, as well as a container of Biotech was hijacked by an unknown mammal. The driver ditched the van almost minutes after the cops started chasing them and got away, with none of the containers being broken into or tampered with. It was obvious someone was trying to steal something, be it the Biotech, the vaccines or cures, someone had tried to steal it from him before it could reach its destination.

He figured it was mostly likely the Biotech they were after, because if any mammal tried selling the vaccines or cures, they wouldn't make anything since his promise to distribute them freely was still in effect. Also, it would paint a massive target on them and quickly identify who stole from him. The Biotech however, while used mostly to treat injuries and speed up the recovery process of multiple levels of damage to the body, could be studied for other applications that it wasn't intended to be used for, and thus Jeremy was worried about sending out more of it.

At his request every vehicle transporting Biotech from now on was under ZPD escort, Chief Bogo would assign a squad car to keep the biotech, vaccines and cures protected.

He just wanted to protect his species technology, if something bad happened because of his technology being used wrongly then it would be his fault. Despite all the goodwill he's gained thus far, it wouldn't take much to turn it all around…

"Still at least it's nice out here…" He muttered as they made their way to Sheepell Pastureville.

(Sharla's PoV)

"Thanks for the lift Gideon!" She said to her friend as he drove off in his pastry van.

"No problem Sharla, have a nice service!" He called out before he drove out of sight.

She sighed to herself as this was the third time, she had to ask for a lift to the pasture chapel she and other sheep used for service. "Need to get that darn car fixed." She muttered as she saw the little crowd of sheep already gathering near the chapel entrance. "I have to pray to my spirit big time for that miracle cure… arrived just in time… thought I would never get to see my family, friends, or Spirit Chapel again."

As she walked over to her brothers and sisters in the 'Caretakers' Spirit religion, while she believed that the Health Spirits had a hand in her salvation, she believed wholeheartedly that her Caretaker spirit was who kept her going, at least long enough for the other Spirits to work their miracles.

"Sharlaaaaa!" She heard a familiar voice call out.

She turned just in time for a rabbit about her size to leap and pull her into a tight hug, and she saw that it was none other than her old-time friend from her youth Judy Hopp.

"Judy, what are you doing here?"

"Hi Sharla, I heard from my mother that you recently got sick but recovered and wanted to say hi really quick!" Judy said as she got off.

Right behind her was a fox, probably Nick her fiancé, and both of them were wearing ZPD uniforms and wearing Kevlar body armor, and even had handguns in holsters with fancy looking glasses hanging off the side of their belts.

"Well what are you doing out here, you came a long way to check up on me, though it is nice to see you again girlfriend." She said warmly, happy that Judy had did what she set out to do and became a police officer.

"Oh, we were in the neighborhood." Nick claimed casually with a smile. "Judy wanted to stop by and say hi, so here we are."

"Well what were you doing way out here, Zootopia's like two hundred miles out right?"

"We… can't tell you… it's classified…" Judy said with a nervous glance around, as if checking to make sure nomammal was listening in.

"Classified, by who?" She asked now in confusion.

"A 'VIP'… a very 'big' VIP." Judy muttered.

"Who could be that big?"

"Tell ya what, take a gander over yonder." Nick said with a smirk, pointing at the entrance to the chapel pasture.

Curious she looked over and her eyes went wide, almost like they became nonexistent with what she saw sitting and 'standing' at the entrance to her species pasture chapel in Sheepelle Pastureville.

The first thing she saw was the beautiful silver carriage, the smooth curves and flowing metal that featured petals flowing as if in the wind embedded into it that belonged to none other than Jeremy Wilheart, the famous 'human' or 'spirit' as he species referred to them as. It gleamed and glimmered in the evening sun, glinting specks of sunlight this way and that way as it sat peacefully amid the low-cut grass and dirt wood. Surrounding it were various metal machines, some standing on two and others on four, one reminiscent of wolves and the other some ancient predator that she didn't know about. All of them stood proud and tall, looking with their shining blue eyes this way and that way, as if looking for a threat where none existed but still standing at attention, ready to fight and defend the entity that owned the vehicle and whom they served.

And speaking of the one they served, standing in the entryway to the pasture taller than all of them was none other than him… Jeremy, her 'savior'.

According to the doctors, the cure which they used was rushed over to their local hospital was developed in the human 'Eden Facility', among other cures and vaccines. Every day a new cure or vaccine was developed, and as each one was created it was mass produced and sent out to be used as needed 'freely'. She owed not only her life, but even her life savings to Jeremy, she could never have afforded the cure with how little she made… without him, she would have died.

"You… he's…" She squealed in shock as now other sheep were noticing him.

"Yep… we work with 'him'." Judy muttered with a smile before turning to him. "Hey Jeremy, come on over and meet my friend."

She only gasped in surprise as the human nodded and walked around the low brick wall surrounding the pasture and along the smooth dirt path between the grass over to them. In his hands was a small sphere resting on an equally small platform while the machines stayed with his carriage. Each step he walked she could feel her heart beating rapidly, unable to believe that a spirit, a 'living' spirit would even deign to visit their small chapel.

(Jeremy's PoV)

Right as he reached Judy and her friend, he knelt so he could be at their eye level and offered a handshake.

"Hi there, my name is Jeremy."

He watched as the sheep tentatively reached out and shook his hand, staring in shock at him along with all the other sheep and rams outside the building. The building itself looked like a barn made entirely of stone with painted glass which had the Sheep's religious symbols on them. On one glass he saw the four glittering stars representing the four spirits of Guidance, Health, Caretakers and Protection. On a second he saw the image of the upper half of a tree with various branches sticking out, obviously representing the branches of Selflessness, Positivity, Caring, Love, Carefulness, and Giving. Finally, on a third one he saw the lower half of the tree showing the roots sticking out, obviously to represent the practices of Fluffy Wool, Puffy Wool, Soft Wool, Straight Wool, Curly Wool and Floofy Wool.

"Hi… Mr. Spir… I mean... Jeremy!" She said almost in surprise and fear. "Please don't be offended if I addressed you wrong."

"I'm not offended, you're not the first sheep to call me 'spirit'." He said with a smile.

"Are you really a spirit?" A young voice asked him.

Turning to his left he saw a few lambs looking up at him in awe.

"Well I'm a human if that's what you mean." He said with a smile. "And this is my friend Aelita, my species guide."

Aelita curtsied warmly to the sheep inside her holosphere.

"Are you a spirit of Guidance?" One of them asked suddenly.

"No, he's a spirit of Health!"

"No, he's a spirit of Guidance obviously!"

"Please… I'm nothing like that I'm just a human…" He said with a nervous chuckle. "Though what is this place if you don't mind me asking."

"This Mr. uh… Jeremy…" An elderly sheep now said as he stepped forward, though he looked to be wearing a special necklace. "Is the Pastureville Chapel, and it's used four times a day for Spiritual Service, and we would be most honored if you would be willing to sit in on our service for tonight's Spirit of Guidance service."

He looked down at Aelita who looked up at him at the same time, asking her the silent question and she nodded with interest toward the chapel. She was just as curious about the Sheep's religion regarding his species as much as he was, and wanted to learn more about it firsthand. He turned to Judy and Nick to ask them if they didn't mind sticking around.

"Do you guys mind if we stay, Aelita and I are actually curious."

"Sure, why not, never been inside a sheep chapel." Judy said instantly.

"I'm actually curious too, I've heard from random mammals that sheep chapels are very warm."

Before they could go in however the sheep elder stopped Judy and Nick, "I'm afraid no 'weapons' are permitted inside the chapel, it would be very upsetting to the spirits to bring such threats to our places of worship." He explained.

"Don't worry guys, I think we're safe out here." Jeremy chuckled before calling to a DOG drone. "DOG drone, hold onto Judy and Nick's weapons for them!"

The nearest DOG nodded and clanked over to them, causing the sheep to quickly back away as it reached them, before opening its mouth and taking Judy's and Nick's firearms from them. It then clamped its mouth and clanked back over to the rest of the drones to stand guard while their group started going into the chapel.

Inside the chapel were rows upon rows of little benches where the sheep started to seat themselves, while at the front was a small podium. All along the walls were little candles that were being lit by attendees, who each took a small wick and lit one candle before going to sit down, casting the entire room in a warm and gentle light. Behind the podium at the front were bales of hay set up as miniature tables and upon each a cloth was draped to let various objects sit upon them. One object was a pair of rusted scissors, on another what looked like a small sewing machine, and finally on a third what looked like an exquisitely carved staff made from a branch. Next to the podium were four glass ornaments that each stood on their own little posts.

The elderly sheep walked over to one and picked it up before planting it on the podium before a light, sending a glittering spotlight to shine on the ceiling.

"Wow…" Jeremy muttered to Aelita who nodded in agreement.

The AI obviously understood the symbolism going on thanks to her knowledge of humanity including 'every' known religion ever practiced, but he was only understanding it through the pieces not the collective whole. Obviously, the candles represented the number of sheep who attended mass, the four glass ornaments represented the four main branches of their religion, and the items behind the stadium meant something of spiritual significance but other than that he was drawing blanks.

"Let's take a seat at the rear, since we're just observing." Judy muttered to them.

"Yea good idea." Nick muttered back.

He nodded and walked around the last row of benches and awkwardly sat cross legged, since he was already too big for the seats because they were made with 'sheep' in mind, not humans. After a while all the sheep, Ewes, Rams, and Lambs were seated the eldest sheep started the service.

"Brothers and sisters, I welcome you all to today's afternoon service for the Spirit of Guidance." He said in a calm and proud voice. "And we are blessed not only by the speedy recovery of one of our sisters in Sharla Blackwool, but we are also blessed, by none other than Jeremy Wilheart…"

At his name nearly every sheep turned to him and he awkwardly waved hi back to them, feeling uncomfortable with being stared at by so many.

"With that in mind, today's service will be a special one, as we not only give thanks to our Spirit of Guidance, but thank all 'four' of the celestial spirits for the gifts they offer us." The sheep continued. "Let us remember the spirits for all they have given us… what they asked of us, and what they did for us."

He turned to the pair of rusted scissors that, upon getting a better view of them looked like old sheep sheer scissors that his species once used before to cut wool from their ancestors.

"We remember the spirits in the heavenly bodies they inhabit, for the tending to our wool that our ancestors could not tend themselves, which we tend now in their honor, out of gratitude and knowing that even as we tend our wool our spirit tends to it alongside us…"

Almost on cue every single sheep pulled out a pair of scissors and trimmed a portion of their wool on their arms, cutting off out of place pieces to keep them pristine, while he put the sheers back and picked up the sewing kit now.

"We also remember the spirits for what they asked of our ancestors, for during the harsh cold and terrible fields, even as they tended to us, they asked for our wool to keep them warm and safe at night. So, we as their loyal flock remember and offer them our wool much like we offer all mammals our wool for use to make blankets, coats, and all else they use it for…"

From the middle isle the elder sheep stepped down from the podium and walked holding a bowl for the sheep to place the wool they trimmed off and threw into, obviously more symbolic than anything else, yet Jeremy and his party were extremely curious. They watched as he took the wool and placed the bowl it was kept in alongside the sewing machine back where it got it from, and then picked up the staff from its resting place.

"And finally, we remember the spirits and thank them… for our ancestors only means of protection from ancient predators were to group in large herds… until the spirits drove them all away and kept them safe. Were it not for them keeping us safe, watching over us, protecting us… our ancestors would be at the mercy of many predators… so now let us offer our thanks with but a moment of silence to thank our personal Spirit, for the gifts they gave us."

While all the sheep went quiet for their moment of silence Judy quietly whispered to him, "So did humans really do all that for sheep?"

"Pretty much, obviously I never saw a sheep outside of holoroom visits and images from the database, but according to history yea."

"So out of curiosity, how's it feel to be worshiped by them?" Nick asked quietly.

"I don't want them to worship me…" He replied instantly but quietly, out of respect to the sheep and their beliefs. "I don't want to be seen as this… great entity, some celestial being or anything else besides a human."

He knew humans were worshiped by the sheep thanks to learning about them from the Mayor's secretary, but he himself never wanted to be seen as a 'spirit'. He was just a human, he was no more special, no better than any other sentient creature on the planet. He was raised and trained to never consider himself better than others, or to grow an out of control ego. He was always taught that when someone believes another is 'inferior' to them, they can learn to believe 'everyone' is inferior to them.

He could feel Nick wince at that, but nodded in understanding. "No offense meant Jeremy… just meant it as a joke, not being serious."

"It's alright… I'm nothing special is all I'm saying… I'm just a simple human being."

(Aelita's PoV)

She listened to his words very carefully, before smiling proudly at what he said.

The rest of the service continued as normal, and she observed every detail she could, wanting to understand as much about the sheep's religion from their perspective, finding it fascinating that her creators would be worshipped as 'spirits' despite the sheep not knowing his species name or what they looked like but 'still' knowing they existed at one time.

Obviously, it was probably genetic memory inherited from generations upon generations of their ancestors, passing down the memories of humans caring and tending to them over the thousands of years that sheep and humans walked together. The genetic memory obviously manifested itself as foreknowledge of their existence, thus resulting in them creating this religion and belief using those faint memories they managed to keep and understand.

She smiled as she pulled up a holo hud while Jeremy and the others all began to leave, deciding to do a bit of research for her own purposes. If sheep inherited genetic memories of humans, she wondered what other species might have inherited memories from 'their' ancestors.

It was truly fascinating to learn this firsthand rather than just absorbing all the information on the net.

Just as she began looking up various imagery to confirm or intrigue her speculations on the development of genetic memory, for a full tenth of a nano-second her scans into the interweb detected a strange signal traveling on a frequency that she wasn't able to detect. What was weird was that the moment she detected it, the signal cut off… almost like it 'knew' she detected it and deleted itself to avoid being spotted.

Glancing at Jeremy she decided to keep it to herself, it was only there for a tenth of a nanosecond, she needed to learn more before she could give him anything concrete.

(Jeremy's PoV)

After the sheep's service he and everyone left the little chapel and was swiftly accosted and asked many questions by the sheep, especially the little ones. All of them were asking about humans, were they all the same, did they have special powers, did they protect the flocks like their religion said they did? He answered what he could, mostly just general information and nothing else. They asked if humans were predators or prey, and he simply replied he and all other humans were Omnivores, but even humans had a substantial vegetarian population among them.

Finally, at long last he had to leave them and return to Zootopia, because it was starting to get late and, while it wasn't winter at night it got colder out in the rural area, and he didn't want to risk his disease triggering.

"Thank you all for allowing me to attend, and thank you all for showing me more of your religion." He said respectfully.

"Wait before you go!" A familiar voice called out, and Judy's friend Sharla stepped forward. "I just want to say thank you for what you did, you saved my life with the cure you developed…"

He nodded with a smile as he knelt and shook her hand. "You don't have to thank me for anything, I only did what anyone would do. Every life is valuable, and everyone deserves to be treated for any sickness they have. Besides, its not 'me' who you should be thanking, it's Ema who made that cure for you, I'm just the human who asked her to help where I couldn't."

"And that's why I'm thanking you Mr. Jeremy." Sharla said with a smile.

He nodded again and got up to wave goodbye, thanking them all again as he, Judy and Nick climbed into the carriage amid goodbyes and invitations to return. Within seconds the autopilot had locked in Zootopia's location and took off with the drones keeping pace at full speed.

"Well that was nice visiting Sharla again and seeing her species religion." Judy said warmly. "I honestly never knew her species held humans in such high regard."

"I just hope they don't extend that to me…" He muttered.

"I'm sure they won't do something crazy like labeling you anything related to their religion." Nick said in agreement.

They sat in the solar carriage and chatted for another two hours, talking and conversing about everything that happened that day, but Jeremy asking to make sure that word of 'Celios' had not left their private circle. Despite Jeremy's claim stating that he would 'leave' the drone intact, in truth he couldn't hope to dismantle the drone. Its armor was just too strong, the ANTs couldn't get near him, and all the weapons installed into the drone were preventing him safely destroying it.

That and outside of Aelita and Alexander, Celios was the only other entity that had knowledge and came from his own time period, meaning he simply could not bring himself to destroy it.

On top of those reasons, was the fact that Celios wasn't 'evil', it was just trying to obey its directive, despite how it acted and went about carrying out its actions it truly wanted only the best for him. It chained itself to show it meant no harm to him, pleaded with him to let it act as it was programmed to, 'begged' him listen to it. How could he just destroy it after that?

So, to ensure that the Category 10 remained a secret, he asked Gazelle, Judy and Nick to not speak a word of it to anyone. If word of the destructive power of Celios was known, the mayor would 'demand' he destroy it, and he was sure that Celios would find some way to use that knowledge to his advantage and break free of the chains holding him now to carry out his threat. For now, Celios was kept chained, under the threat that Jeremy would kill himself if he attempted to break out.

It wasn't ideal, but it was the best he could do to keep the drone around 'and' keep it restrained.

Gazelle agreed, as did Judy and Nick, they all knew how dangerous it was but also knew it was still important to Jeremy.

As they entered Zootopia and made their way to Judy and Nick's apartment, his carriage gained a ton of attention because of all the drones escorting it.

"Thanks for the ride Jeremy, and hope you have a good night!" Judy said as they got out.

"Be safe now." Nick laughed as they left and the carriage took off for the next destination, the Eden Facility so he could return to Gazelle's home in her limo.

Before they reached it however, a phone call rang in the carriage and Aelita quickly answered it. "Hi Jeremy, it's Gazelle, sorry to call you but I was wondering if you were interested in getting dinner with my friends?" Gazelle asked warmly through Aelita. "They were planning to go out eating and I asked them to take you to a restaurant to eat."

"Sure, I don't mind but why don't you want to go?" He asked curiously.

"I've already eaten sadly, and they plan on going to a 'predator' eating place." She replied. "I know you need meat in your diet, so they offered to take you!"

He glanced at 'Aelita' who nodded in agreement.

"Alright sure Gazelle, I'll tell them thank you for you!"

"Don't worry Jeremy, next time I'll prepare a nice dinner for us both~!" She said cheerfully. "I'll see you later~."

Aelita shrugged a little to indicate the call ended and looked at him expectantly. "You don't suppose she's trying to avoid eating around me because of the meat, do you?"

Aelita rolled her eyes and shook her head, before creating an image of her and the tiger brothers with a knowing smile.

"Yea but she also lived alone before she invited me, she doesn't 'have' to eat with them." He clarified for her.

She nodded but again created an image of Gazelle in a news headline which said she spoke out against unfair treatment of innocent predators during the 'Night Howler' incident.

"Point made Aelita… I honestly shouldn't be judging her for anything considering what she's done for me…" He said. "It's just… sometimes I wonder…"

Aelita looked at him with a 'what is it' expression, before using the Carriage's holo-emitters to appear next to him in the seat and smiled warmly, before flicking a holographic copper coin and offering it to him.

"Aelita… do you think it's possible for me and Gazelle to… I don't know… be a 'thing'?" He asked her honestly. "She's a 'prey' mammal… we aren't even the same species and I'm wondering if… she would ever 'love' someone like me."

Aelita looked almost surprised before she smiled and placed her holographic hand against his heart, while at the same time taking on Gazelle's appearance. She nodded in approval while also putting her other hand on her own heart, before resuming her normal form again.

"But… sigh…" He whispered bitterly. "Would she even 'want' to be with me is what I'm asking… she would probably be happier with another Antelope, another mammal 'any' mammal. How could I make her happy, what can I honestly do for her?"

He looked at Aelita who looked sad at him before she pointed at him, then drew a heart with her fingers in mid-air, and then finally pointed at the air to signify 'Gazelle'.

"Honestly Aelita… I do love her… it's probably just a Florence Nightingale effect from her saving my life, and then helping me with everything, but I really do love her." He said. "And I'm honestly 'afraid' to admit it to her, because what can I give her that no other mammal can't?"

Aelita frowned at him before she closed her eyes and tilted her head upward to bathe herself in a bright light, then she took on the form of a young woman with flowing hair that ended in curls. "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is 'everything." She said warmly and knowingly, before vanishing in a cascade of lights to return to her holosphere as the carriage slowed down.

He waited for it to stop before getting out to climb into Gazelle's limo which was parked close by. Once he and Aelita were inside, Moe who was driving took off while the carriage and drones entered the underground passage.

"So, how's it going Jeremy?" Franky asked warmly.

"It's alright, I've given the seed to Judy's family to raise and left a drone to protect it and them." He answered.

"Will it be alright out there; I thought those machines couldn't last outside of your base?" Joe asked.

"I had the ANTs pull out a charging port and modified it so that it will keep the drone powered and running. Provided none of the Hopps deliberately break it, the drone will be fine."

"That drone's probably going to be bored out of its mind, imagine just standing and staring at single spot day and night with no breaks." Donny said.

"That's why I chose a category five drone, it won't get distracted like a six might." He chuckled.

"How do you tell them apart, are they labeled or something that tells which is a six or a five or something?" Moe asked from the front as they turned down a road.

"No, they aren't, but each drone acts differently depending on if it's a six or a five or something, outside of the obvious ones like the ANTs or HORSE. Drones with category six AIs tend to talk more eloquently and frequently, whereas fives talk in simplified terms and speak with as few words as possible. Six's also tend to get distracted unless kept busy while fives don't concern themselves with anything outside of their assigned tasks."

"Sounds complicated, iuno how you keep track of them all." Donny said with a chuckle.

"You get used to it, also being the only human means I have to keep my eye on them all… well only the RAPTORs, FOXes and DOGs. Ema can manage without me for the most part, and the ANTs can't talk."

The drive to the restaurant ended after a while with traffic causing a delay, but once they reached it Moe parked the limo nearby and they quickly walked in to avoid passersby seeing him and causing a scene. However, that quickly ended once he walked in and was seated.

"Hi there, welcome to Roadhog's Pigsty may I…" The porcupine waitress asked before she realized who was 'sitting'. "Oh my… sweet caramel it's you Mr. Human… oh my goodness this is an… uhm… ho-ho-how may I serve you today?"

"Uhm we'll have the Pleasant Pheasant for Five meal, with a side order of Chubby Muffins… four beers and, you okay with a warm glass of water Jeremy?" Franky asked as he looked over the menu for them.

"Yea, thank you very much Franky." He replied, having 'no idea' what to order and just glad that the tiger brothers knew what to get here.

"Okay I'll get your order then!" The porcupine waitress said as she ran off to deliver their order.

"I love seeing how mammals react to seeing you in public." Donny muttered.

They sat in silence for a while as they waited for their meal to arrive, with Aelita twirling in her holosphere as she had nothing to do but twirl for their amusement.

"Hey Jeremy, we've been wanting to ask you about Gazelle." Moe said suddenly catching him off guard.

"Uh… sure what is it?" He asked.

"We wanted to ask you how you feel about her?" Franky continued with a look of nervousness on his face.

That caught him really off guard, he was not expecting 'that' out of Gazelle's backup dancer friends. Though now that he thought about it, he really should not have been surprised that they would ask him that, they 'are' her close friends, if anyone suspected anything happening between him and her it would be them. "Am I really that obvious…?" He asked quietly.

"Yea, we kind of figured that you two liked each other, we just wanted to know how you 'really' felt about her." Donny continued.

"Sorry we're asking suddenly, but we just wanted to be sure you care about her… cause you're the 'only' male she's ever gotten this close to that we know of." Joe said seriously. "She's had mammals trying to date her for years since she became popular, even her ex-boyfriend tried staying with her, but he only ever wanted her to spend money for him, and since then she always lives alone."

"But even 'after' you became almost as popular and so liked by mammals, and have your base to live in now she 'still' wants you to live with her." Franky said. "We've also seen how she acts around you bro, we've never seen her so happy with anymammal like she is with you. So that's why we're asking how you feel about her?"

He sighed as he thought about his answer, before giving his 'painful' response.

"I love her… no doubt about it you guys." He said to them, causing them to smile and nod to one another. "That's why I'm afraid to be with her, and why I'm afraid I 'can't' be with her."

That caught them off guard, all except Aelita who hid her expression behind a look of curiosity.

"As much as I love her, and as much as I'm sure you guys would want us to be together… I'm afraid of what will happen to her because of me. First there's the problem of me being Human and her being a Mammal, while some will approve and like it, many more will not want us being together… and if someone wants to hurt her they'll have an easier time reaching her than me, meaning I'll need to protect her with my drones. I'm used to living with drones and having them watch my every move and action all my life, but her… I don't think she could take it." He then sighed as he thought about another issue with them being together. "Then what about children… I'm sure it's hard for predators and prey to get together and have kids, but what about a human and a mammal, it was already impossible for crossbreeding between animals and humans in my time, I honestly doubt it's no more possible for us now than it was back then. What if Gazelle wants a child, what if she wants to have a family… I can't give her a family. Sure, you can say there's adopting but, it's just not the same… what if she 'wants' that deep connection to her offspring? That's something I can't give her no matter how hard I try or want to…"

He sighed as he shook his head.

"As much as I love her, and want to be with her… I would rather her be happy with another, then potentially be miserable with me."

He felt his heart beat painfully at his own admission, but he silenced its complaints. This was something he had to think about for Gazelle's sake, not just himself. It would be crueler of him to deprive her of a potential future with another mammal. No matter how much he wished to be with her. While he sat there thinking those dark thoughts, he felt a burly hand pat him on the shoulder.

"We understand Jeremy, and we're happy that you really do care about our friend like that." Donny said with a smile. "Just know you have our support if you do end up getting together with her. We'd love to see you two together, just saying."

He too wanted to have that happen, simply because he loved Gazelle so much, but as their food finally arrived and they all started eating, with the Tiger Brothers looking 'fascinated' that he ate meat like they did, he just feared the outcome of them being together. Too many possible negatives, not enough positives to outweigh them, and of course the unknown variable that was Gazelle herself and if she truly wanted to be with him. It would be selfish of him to do that to her, and he knew the consequences when one was selfish, he was living proof of it.

Aelita acted selfishly, thus why he was alive.

(Mr. Vulps PoV)

"Ugh, what a day, I hate overtime…" He muttered as he slowly trudged out the back door of the restaurant he worked as a dish washer and began to make his way home. "Thank goodness I have tomorrow off."

It had been a rough week for him, first he lost his one job, then he fell behind on paying rent for his family and their bills, and now he had to 'ask' to get some overtime at his dish washing job. But the one thing he was grateful for, was that at least his family was healthy and whole, that one saving grace was what let him sleep at night.

Every day he was grateful to that human, Jeremy, both he and his wife truly grateful that he'd saved their son's life when he was in desperate need of help. Gazelle did all she could to cheer him up, make his day better, but Jeremy truly saved their son's life with his near act of sacrifice.

Though the one thing he wished he'd paid attention to before he left was what the staff was getting so excited about while he was busy scrubbing dirty dishes. They had been going nuts over an order for a 'Pleasant Pheasant for Five' meal, with the cooks bringing out a fresh bird and other ingredients, the oven being carefully managed, and everything inspected before it was sent out.

He never asked because he was so mentally drained.

"Whatever, time to head home and relax…" He muttered as he made his way to the sidewalk and saw a fancy limo parked on the street outside the restaurant. "Huh, wonder what big shot decided to eat here?"

Right on cue the door opened, and several burly tigers walked out while talking to themselves.

"Ooooh, that was a good meal!" One of them called out.

Guessing they were some big shot group or something he started walking away.

"I love eating the Pheasants here, and can you believe bros that we got a discount?"

"They probably did it because of our buddy here, you saw how the cook acted when he walked over and checked to see if everything was alright!"

"Yea, he looked like he was going to panic when 'Jeremy' said the muffins felt cold!"

At the word 'Jeremy' he stopped and stared at the group as they left, and saw the last mammal leaving was…

"I was really sorry, but it did feel cool to me, and you know I can't risk anything cool triggering my Cryogenetic Sclerosis." The human apologized as he walked out with a glass sphere held in his hands, and inside was a glowing girl that looked almost like him but a 'female' version.

At seeing the human, he just 'had' to talk to him, he might not get this chance again. The last time he tried to talk to the human he had to visit the human's 'Eden Facility, and the machines instantly denied him access. They wouldn't even let him get to the door, and refused to acknowledge his request, stating that only 'authorized individuals' were permitted to enter the base. When he asked about Jeremy, they simply responded 'All information regarding Jeremy Wilheart's location is classified', and then told him to leave.

"W-wait, Mr. Human wait!" He yelled as he ran toward the group.

Instantly all of them turned toward him and the tigers got in front of the human to protect him, three of them standing together while the fourth quickly held his arms in front to stop him from going forward.

"Sir, just back away, alright just back away…" The tiger said.

"Wait please, I just want to talk you don't understand!"

"Guys, it's okay…" A calm voice said.

The tiger holding him back looked back and nodded before he and the others stepped aside to let the human step forward. He could only watch as he knelt before him and asked with a gentle expression, "Hi there, I'm sorry if you took that wrong. They were just protecting me, is there anything I can help you with?" while also offering his hand to shake.

He just breathed deeply, just unable to form a proper sentence to talk to him. This human just had this… 'aura' about him, this gentle, almost glowing aura about him. Like he could trust this human with anything, and that human wanted to trust him just as equally.

"No, it's just…" He started saying before he gulped and shook the human's hand. "My name is Harvey Vulps and I just wanted to thank you sir… you saved my son… with your Synthorgan. My wife and I as well as my kids were terrified of losing him, we could not find a donor for weeks and his condition only worsened. But… you saved his life with those… miracle organs of yours. And I've just… been wanting to thank you for so long since then."

"Your son…" Jeremy said as he looked thoughtful before he looked up again. "Was your son suffering from a heart cancer which developed a tumor that also spread to his liver?"

He was even more shocked to learn that the human knew the exact condition his son was suffering. "Yes… yes how did you-?"

"A good friend of mine who was visiting your son that day told me." He replied with a smile. "I'm glad to know that it arrived in time and that your son's life was saved. The Synthorgans are the most powerful medical technology we have at our disposal, and they were only meant to be used in emergency cases, meaning when a human's organ was too damaged to be saved. But, since I'm the only human… your son's need was more dire. I'm sorry that his real heart was lost, but know that his new heart will grow as he does as if it were his original heart."

'A good friend who was visiting his son told him?' He thought in surprise. 'Gazelle told Jeremy that my son was sick? If she didn't tell the human, then…'

He owed Gazelle even more thanks than, because without that knowledge Jeremy might not have risked his life to save his son.

Speaking of his son…

"Jeremy… would it be too much to ask if I could introduce you to him?" He asked quickly. "It would mean so much to me if you met my family."

"We have been doing a lot of traveling today…" He muttered quietly before looking at the glowing girl. "What do you think Aelita?"

The glowing girl nodded happily.

"Alright but first…" He said before turning to the tigers now. "Do you guys mind a side trip?"

"We don't mind." They said politely.

"Alright then, do you have a car or something and we can follow?"

"No, I just walk home…" He said sadly.

"Will Gazelle mind if we take her limo really quick?" He asked the tigers again.

"Nah I don't think she'll mind." One of them said.

"Then let's get going!" Jeremy declared at last, and within minutes they were off and driving to his apartment building.

While riding in the limo he sat next to Jeremy and all the while felt out of place. First, he was inside Gazelle's private limo, that alone said he didn't belong in there. Second, he was sitting next to 'Jeremy', the big hero of all mammals and his own son's savior for what he risked his life to give. Finally, said human was going to visit his home, for no other reason than because he asked. How in the name of the planet was he going to explain to his family or give him such hospitality that he deserved?

They just ate so he couldn't serve him a light meal, he couldn't serve him any drinks because of his disease, and 'small talk'? How does one make small talk with a legendary species?

'Ooooh if the wife doesn't die of a heart attack tonight, it will be a miracle…'

(Jeremy's PoV)

As they arrived at the apartment building, he grimaced 'slightly' because of the obvious 'low income' status of the area. The building had some graffiti on it, a few other buildings didn't look the best maintained, there was trash littering the alleyway and there was even a signpost broken in half just sitting there on the ground. One building even had a broken window, the glass shattered in a way that meant someone threw a ball into it.

The few vehicles on the street weren't all that impressive, some were a little rusted or outdated, and it was clear this area didn't get much police attention.

"I think I'll park the limo somewhere else and watch it while you all go inside!" Moe called from the driver's seat. "No offense Mr. Vulps, the neighborhood just doesn't look safe for the limo."

"Don't worry about it Moe, Aelita's already got a drone en route to us, should be here in half a minute." Jeremy called out as Aeita showed him in her sphere a drone's signal moving toward their location.

They had been close enough to the facility that Aelita could call upon a drone to reach them, obviously knowing the risk to Gazelle's limo and knowing he didn't want to risk it getting damaged 'or' wanting to leave one of the tiger brothers out of meeting Mr. Vulps family with him.

The AI had called upon it the moment they got in the limo to drive here.

As Moe started parking, he spotted a single DOG drone clank into view and sit near the vehicle to watch over it, allowing them all to exit and leave it in safety.

[Bark Bark, DOG unit P-14 arriving as ordered!] It stated. [Commencing Guard Duty, Bark Bark!]

"I'm sorry Mr. Human, this neighborhood isn't too bad… most nights at least." Mr. Vulps apologized.

"It's okay." He said as the fox led the way.

"Bros check it out, we've got a 'Guard Dog'." Donny chuckled.

All of them chuckled while Donny and Moe bumped fists at the joke, even Jeremy laughed a little at the drone's expense while Aelita giggled in mirth.

They walked into the building and up a flight of stairs, to the third floor where he knocked on a door and unlocked it. "Honey… we have company!"

"Harvey I 'swear', if you brought your friends from work to drink…" A female voice called out angrily as the tiger brothers entered before him. "Who are all these…"

He walked in after, though he had to bend down a bit alongside Donny and his brothers because the door wasn't meant for 'tall mammals'. He walked in to see a 'decently' sized kitchen space with the paint peeling slightly and several dishes in the middle of being cleaned, and a female fox wearing an apron and gloves looking in shock as she saw four tigers, him 'and' Aelita enter their home.

"O… o… ooooooh my…" She almost whispered in such a low tone it was barely audible. "H… h… how…"

"Honey… this is Jeremy and his friends." Mr. Vulps said to his shocked wife.

"W… welcome… to our home!" She said nervously, as if afraid to mutter anything else out of shock.

"Mom who is it?" Another female voice called out, and this time a younger fox who appeared to be in her teen years walked in while holding a textbook to look at them.

Which promptly fell to the floor as she saw who it was.

"Uhm… 'hi'…" He muttered with a nervous smile and a wave. "I'm Jeremy Wilheart, nice to meet you. This is Aelita my friend, and these are Donny, Joe, Moe and Franky, also friends of mine."

The young fox only gave a short wave before quickly grabbing her book and dashing out of sight.

"Jeremy sure has an effect on the ladies~." Franky muttered with a chuckle, which also got his other brothers to chuckle as well.

After a few moments Mr. Vulps showed them their living room which was better kept and seated them all on the couch while his wife rapidly got out of the apron and combed her fur to make herself presentable, though when her husband went to check on her they could hear her whispering angrily 'You couldn't have given me five minutes warning?'. At the same time, he was introduced to the Vulps 'other' children, a pair of young cubs that looked to be less than eight or nine years old, and then finally to the cub whose life he saved.

"Wow it's really you!" The cub said excitedly. "You're my big hero mister!"

"I'm glad you think that." He said with a chuckle as he and the tiger brothers were served some tea from Mrs. Vulps. "How are you doing health wise, feeling any side effects from the new heart?"

"Nothing, I don't feel any pain when I breathe anymore, and I haven't had to visit a doctor in months!" The cub said happily. "Where did you get it, the doctor said my new heart was special, that it came from 'humans'?"

"It was built, carefully created using special materials to make it function as intended." He explained while Aelita took on the form of the Synthorgan to show them. "Each Synthorgan was designed in such a way that no matter who it was given to, it would work for them as if it belonged to them, as if it had been with them their whole lives."

"Wooooow…" The twin cubs said as they stared at the hologram, though probably because it looked pretty to them rather than the technical marvel it was.

"But… but… can my new heart get sick like when I got sick before?" The cub asked quickly.

Jeremy shook his head with a smile. "That heart can't get sick, no matter how hard a disease might try, it's immune to all diseases because it's synthetic. Even if you tried that heart will be the last thing to be affected by anything, but it will keep you happy and running."

"I want to say thank you again Jeremy, for saving my son with what you did." Mrs. Vulps said warmly. "I was very afraid… so afraid of losing my little dumpling… but you saved his life."

"It's alright ma'am, I just did what anyone else would have done." He replied with a smile.

"Hey dad, dad, can I show Jeremy something in my room really quick?" The son asked suddenly, sounding very excited.

"Sure, go ahead, if you don't mind Jeremy?" The dad asked him.

"I don't mind, Aelita do you want to join?" He asked the AI who was sitting on the little table in front of them.

Aelita shook her head before winking at him, and then using her hand to gesture that she wanted to sing.

"I guess Aelita wants to perform for you guys." He said as the fox cub jumped excitedly and urged him to follow.

Aelita nodded as he followed, and within seconds she began singing… (Cinematic lights are glowing, visions everywhere… night line, takes me to a world so unknown…)

While she sang he was literally pulled 'into' the cub's room which was small and had two beds in it, one blue and the other pink, indicating this was probably the teenage fox's bedroom as well, and as he noticed she was sitting there on her bed while frantically searching through her backpack without realizing he was in there now.

"Bro how many times have I told you to kno-…" She started saying angrily before she saw him in there as well.

"Sorry sis I just wanted to show him what I drew in school!" The brother said as he walked over to his bed and pulled down taped up crayon drawings to show him. "Look, this is what I drew in class!"

He looked at the little paper drawings and saw that the fox cub had drawn himself looking weak and sick with the caption 'old heart', and next to it was him stronger and the caption 'new heart'. Another picture was Jeremy, poorly drawn but still recognizably him though with exaggerated features like big muscles while wearing a flowing cape, and with the caption 'my hero'. The third picture had his carriage, also poorly drawn, and surrounded by mammals labeled 'bad guys' while his drones, poorly drawn drones, labeled as 'good guys' were shown scaring them off and rescuing him. The third picture was labeled 'our heroes saving my hero'.

A fourth image showed buildings on fire on one side, but had silly spiders around it spraying water on the fire, and then on the next very angular 'HARRIER' drones, also poorly drawn, flying around in circles amid a giant cloud while it rained. The image was labeled 'spiders saving homes' and 'flying heroes make rain'.

"Really cool huh?" The cub asked eagerly.

"Yea, you really captured my drones quite nicely." He said with a smile with a chuckle. "Although I don't think I have muscles 'that' big."

"Yea but you are a big hero!" He said proudly. "Hey, did those metal mammals do those things for humans too?"

At that his smile faltered slightly, but he still smiled to set him at ease. "Yea… they did that sometimes."

"Hey, where did you get them, where did they come from?" The cub asked him eagerly. "Did humans have them always? Are they like from outer space or something really cool?"

"Nope, we didn't always have them, we made them ourselves." He said warmly.

"That is soooo cool." He said in amazement. "Can you make 'anything'?"

"Depends but yea, if I want to make a drone, I can make it, it just depends on if I 'can' make it or not." He said.

"Can you teach me to do that?"

He chuckled as he smiled at him, imagining the little fox cub creating his own drone line in the future. "Maybe…" He whispered before he had an idea flash into his mind. "Hey, would you like to visit the place where the drones and I live? The Eden Facility?"

"CAN I REALLY?" He yelled excitedly.

"Only if your parents let you."

"Mooooom daaaaaaad!" The cub yelled in excitement as he ran out of the room without even bringing him as well.

He chuckled as he got up to leave, before his elder sister stopped him by grabbing his shirt. He looked back to see her nervously holding his shirt while holding her book with one hand.

"Uhm… if it's okay… can I show you something too?" She half whispered.

"Sure." He replied while sitting down on the floor.

She took a deep breath and opened her book to a specific page to show him a pencil drawing of his face. The image was unlike her brother's images, and it showed that she had spent a very long time drawing it. His face was almost perfectly captured with shading along his face, and his hair was almost exactly how it looked like it did now. She had taken some liberties by drawing his eyes to be slightly more exaggerated, and his chin was slightly more angular, but it was obvious that she had poured her heart into it. Though he noticed that it was 'outlined' in a heart.

"That's very nice, you have good attention when it comes to details." He told her, pretending to be ignorant of the heart. "It reminds me of a friend of mine who also liked to draw."

"I drew it… after I learned who you were…" She muttered shyly. "You have no idea how… happy… grateful my family is… that you saved my brother. I thought I'd lose him, that I'd never see him again and… when I found out who saved him I just…"

Her hands shook a little as she looked up at him.

"I know it won't probably happen… all my friends make fun of me for fantasizing about you, heck they do the same too but… I want to ask would you be my boyfriend?"

He kept his breathing even as he took his time to reply, knowing this outcome would happen just because of the heart. He also knew it would be painful no matter what he said. But he was prepared for this outcome, having been preparing a response if Gazelle ever asked him and he 'had' to reject her.

"What's your name?"

"Lizzie… Lizzie Vulps." She replied quietly with a blush.

"Well Lizzie… I'm honored that you would ask me for that…"

"But your answer is no, right?" She asked instantly with a frown.

He nodded with a sad smile.

"Can I at least… be told why?"

"First of all, you're too young for something like that, especially with someone as old as me. Don't forget I'm over three hundred and fifty thousand years old if you skip over the fact that I was frozen." He said with a laugh that also got her to giggle. "Second, you deserve to be with someone you know, someone who cares about you and will love you for who you are. Not a complete stranger whom you only met today, and don't know anything about outside of what they did for you, something that 'anyone' with a heart can do."

He held her hand with his and patted it with an understanding smile.

"I know you probably have a crush on me because of my deeds, but what one does through their deeds only tells half of the story about them. It's what they do for others when nothing is at stake, and how others act toward them when they seek nothing in exchange that helps to tell the full story of who they are as a person. You only know me because I saved your brother and for the vaccines and cures, but I'm not the one making the cures. The Synthorgan technology was made by my people, I just pulled it out of the facility. Ema is doing all of the real work, I just asked her to do it for you guys, where she would only have done it for me. I'm only a messanger from my people, I only do what they can't do because they aren't here…" He said in as gentle a tone as he could. "So, for those reasons, I have to reject your request to be your boyfriend. You'll find someone better, someone who will love you for who you are, and whom you'll love just as much. Not for what they can do for you, or have done for you or vice versa, but for who they are and who you are."

She looked crestfallen but she smiled sadly while closing her eyes and nodded in understanding.

"Thanks for dropping me gently Jeremy, I'll take what you said to heart."

"Put it this way, at least you have a chance to find a boyfriend." He said while getting up to leave.

"Why can't you find a girlfriend?" She asked curiously.

He frowned slightly as he avoided eye contact. "It's complicated." He said without saying anything else.

He walked out into the living room accompanied by the daughter, and quickly explained that she'd been showing him her art book of the pictures she's drawn as well to not be outdone by her brother. The family bought it and she gave him a thumb's up in gratitude. When the parents asked if what their son said was true, he said yes it was.

"If you guys want to visit the facility, I'd be more than happy to give you a tour, show you some of the stuff inside. Your son seemed very excited about it since he wants to learn so much about my drones and technology." He said. "I can show you my facility's Solar Core, introduce you to Ema, show you where the Synthorgans came from, and the holoroom."

"You're going to the holroom again?" Franky asked excitedly. "Can we tag along also?"

"More the merrier." he said while winking at Aelita, who nodded in understand and began typing away in midair. "Ask Gazelle too if she wants to join, since we've still got her limo. As for your visit, since it is rather late do you guys want to spend the night at the facility, or would you rather return home?"

"Can we stay over there pleeeeeeease?" all the cubs asked eagerly with big eyes, even the eldest daughter putting on her best 'puppy eyes'.

"Well… it 'is' a weekend, why not?" The mother said with a chuckle.

"Yaaaaaaaaay!" They all screamed excitedly.

"Now be on your best behavior or else!" The father said.

With everything settled and Donny calling Gazelle to ask her if she wanted to visit the facility again to tour it with the fox family and her accepting, they all proceeded to leave and walk downstairs. However, while Donny and his brothers would take the limo to pick up Gazelle, he told the Vulps they wouldn't be going in the limo.

"Are we going to walk to your home?" Mr. Vulps asked curiously.

"No, we're taking a ride." He said as they drove off in the limo.

"Well then how are we getting there Mr. Jeremy?" The mother asked now.

He just smiled and looked to his left as the clattering clop of hooves on pavement sounded, and they all gasped in surprise as HORSE walked into the street while dragging his Solar Carriage, followed by one DOG drone and two RAPTOR drone escorts, to join the first DOG drone still sitting there.

"If you have to ride… ride in style." He replied with a smirk as the carriage pulled up and the doors opened upon his command.

"This is so awesome!" The son shouted as they all got in with Jeremy and Aelita entering last.

"Well, let's get going then… HORSE, to Eden Facility 17 East Entrance!"

[Destination locked, all units moving out!] The drone called out before moving.

While the fox family was busy admiring the vehicle's spacious interior as well as the comfortable seating, he looked to Aelita and nodded at her to indicate he wanted to ask for her help. "Aelita, I wonder if you could do me a huge favor?"

She smirked at him before resting her chin on her hands and mouthed 'I'm listening'.

Making sure they were distracted he bent low and whispered his request and gave her the instructions and details. She nodded and gave him a thumbs up while typing away, after a while she swayed from side to side before nodding and giving him a gesture, indicating that it would be done tomorrow morning.

"Thanks a lot, will you be able to handle it?"

She smiled and gave him a thumbs up.

After about ten minutes of HORSE trotting along they finally reached the East Entrance to the facility and entered the underground tunnel while walking past the drones standing guard. At the back of the tunnel near the door to the base stood the three Goliath Spider Drones, curled up and shut down awaiting orders. He'd decided that it was easier to just leave them outside the base when he realized that if they were needed again that it would take too much time to transport them out of the base. The same went for the two HARRIER drones which sat in excavated tunnels the drones dug out so the two flying drones could sit in standby mode. It was just too much effort and time consuming to keep breaking them down and then transport the pieces inside or outside again.

Once they came to a stop, he stepped out with Aelita and led the way to the base entrance, where two RAPTOR drones stood watching and standing guard alongside a FOX drone, which all became suspicious upon seeing the Vulps family.

[Greetings Unit Jeremy, welcome back.] The FOX stated.

"Hello drone, they're all with me as my guests and expect Gazelle and her friends to be arriving as well, let them in upon arrival." He told it.

[Understood, all units have been notified…] The drone said before turning to the fox family and scanned them with the RAPTORs. [Facial identities and bio signatures confirmed, welcome to Eden Facility 17!]

With that the drones bowed them into the base as the door opened and Jeremy led the way in. Their first destination was the command center where various view screens showing areas being watched were shown in holographic form. While he showed them the room various drones were walking to and from, some going out to stand watch and others returning to recharge.

"Where do they all go?" Mrs. Vulps asked as two FOX drones walked past, ignoring them as they went about their business.

"The drones have their own section of the base where they go to recharge, it's not exactly something spectacular or impressive."

"Can we see anyway?" The smaller twins asked eagerly.

He looked at Aelita who shrugged nonchalantly. So, after showing them the grav-elevators and showing them how they can float between floors, they went down several floors toward the drone's charging room. Inside the mostly dark room were rows upon rows of empty charging ports where the drones would back into various slots, plug in, shut down and then recharge. There were already dozens upon dozens of drones recharging, none of them paying any attention to them or acknowledging they were there.

"Well this is where they sleep essentially, each drone is on a charge cycle and they tend to follow it strictly." He said as a RAPTOR walked past them, turned around and flipped open its tail to expose its charging connector before walking backward and sliding into its slot. Once connected it shut down and became motionless. "They go here to recharge, and afterwards they go right back to doing what they were instructed to do."

"There are a lot more slots here than there are drones… where are they all?" Mr. Vulps asked curiously.

"A lot of them were… dismantled, for various reasons and others are currently patrolling the facility on various levels."

"Do you get visitors often, is that why they're watching it so much?" The daughter asked curiously.

"No, Sentinel the base AI just does it so that the drones remain active. If the drones don't have something to do their AIs tend to wander and become distracted, and that leads to some issues with their AIs performing properly." He explained as they left. "Most of the more commonly seen drones here are intelligent enough to be on par with you, but lack certain things like empathy and emotions or morality. They tend to just follow orders based on whatever their programming dictates without really basing their actions on potential consequences."

Their next destination that he brought them was the Solar Core room, and he explained why the room's heavy security was warranted.

"This room is the 'most important' room in the entire facility." He said as they approached the magnetically sealed doors, guarded over by four RAPTOR drones, six DOG drones, with two FOX drones standing watch and four additional DOGs patrolling nearby. "Brace yourself, because this is a room you will 'never' forget feeling the first time… I still remember when I saw it the first time."

The drones nodded at their approach and parted, granting them access as the doors opened to reveal a bright light filled room with solar panels glinting, and a huge wave of heated air escaping it. Instantly the children of the family rushed forward with their parents following behind and Jeremy lagging behind, having been in there several times. Yet all their reactions were just as expected and equally unique.

"Woooooow…" They all said as they leaned over and stared down below.

"It's so beautiful…" Mrs. Vulps said in awe.

"Now that is something you don't see every day…" Mr. Vulps muttered as Jeremy joined them to look at the core.

He looked at the solar core, the beautiful glowing orb of fire resting in its glass-silicon container held up by two pillars and rotating ever so slightly, casting the entire room in its beautiful light and bathing the room with its heat, making them feel as if they were standing outside on a summer's day with not a cloud to be found. He looked over and saw each of them staring in awe and wonder at the core, and saw the young fox cub whom showed him his pictures had the core reflecting in both of his eyes. He smiled as he saw their reactions, both predictable and yet just as wonderful.

"That's so cool!" The cub muttered in awe with his mouth wide.

"What does it do Mr. Human?" The sister twin asked innocently.

"It powers everything in the base, every little light bulb, the drone's power cells, the base's heat and everything else you can imagine is powered by that one core." He explained warmly. "It's based on the sun, thus why we call it the Solar Core. As long as that core keeps working, we don't need anything else to power the facility. Heck, it could power all of Zootopia by itself."

"Can you make a core for 'everymammal'?" The eldest daughter asked eagerly.

He frowned slightly as he looked back at the core and sighed, wishing they didn't ask that question. "I'm afraid that's impossible…" He muttered. "The technology to make the core was lost during the Final War, there aren't even any records in the database about how they were built… that core is the last one on the planet."

"Oh… I'm sorry." She replied sadly.

"Well how was it made?" Her brother asked innocently.

"You dork, he just said he doesn't know how it was made!" She groaned.

He just chuckled at that before kneeling with Aelita to look at the cub with a smile. "I don't know how it was made, but if you become a scientist someday, you might figure out how it was made just going on this core. Who knows… maybe someday you'll make an even 'better' core than what we made?"

"You think I can do that?" He asked eagerly.

"If anyone can, it will be you." He said as he booped his nose with a finger. "Who knows, you'll become 'my' hero if you can bring back my species technology and make it even better."

"I'll try my hardest!" He said proudly. "I'll study every day!"

Jeremy nodded at that and went to stand up, though just as he did the door opened and he saw two thousand ANTs marching in column formations into the room.

"Wh-what are those?" Mrs. Vulps asked.

"Oh, it's the Solar Divison, I didn't know today was a cleaning day." He said as the ANTs marched in. "Those are ANT drones, the smallest drone line we have here and the most numerous. There are about two hundred thousand ANT drones in the entire facility, all working around the clock everywhere keeping the facility maintained and functioning. Without them the facility would fall into ruin and break down."

"That many, but they're so small…" Mr. Vulps said as he looked at how tiny the drones were.

"Oh, don't let their tiny sizes fool you, each ANT is specially equipped to do specific tasks, and collectively they keep everything maintained day and night." He told them as the ANTs started separating into their unique units and climbed off the platform to walk along the walls and solar panels. "See what they're doing, each ANT is equipped to either scrub, clean, or wash away cleaning agents on the solar panels while others are equipped to spray liquid coolant on the ANTs cleaning the panels."

Sure enough, moments after they left the platform ANTs started crawling along the various panels all around the room and began cleaning and scrubbing them. He explained that the ANTs were so small and had the thinnest materials when it came to the drones that they were easily susceptible to the pull the gravitational pull Solar Core gave off. Not enough that they were pulled toward it, but enough that the ANTs had a hard time sticking to the panels, and one misstep resulted in them falling, sometimes to their doom. As they watched several ANTs started falling from the upper panels, the lucky ones able to fall between the panels on the bottom and able to survive, the unlucky ones falling onto the Solar Core itself and melting due to the intense heat.

"Isn't there anything you can do for them?" Mrs. Vulps said as she watched a few of the ANTs falling onto the core, and melted within seconds, the remains sliding to the ground below where they would be extracted and broken down by other ANTs.

"Before we had people doing it, but the intense heat from the core and the sheer heat from the panels meant that the only way to clean the panels safely would be to close off the core's heat and light for twenty-four hours so the panels can cool off enough to clean them. If we tried to clean them while the core was still visible, then people would get severe heat strokes and even faint from the heat. Our need for energy was too great back then, so we just assigned the task to the ANT drones." He explained as they watched more ANTs falling to their demise. "It's alright though, they get replaced easily, Ant Central Command, the AI in control of them, makes sure any ANTs lost are rebuilt or salvaged."

"How often do they clean this room?" The daughter asked as they left.

"Twice a week, ACC uses the time to rebuild the division's numbers to full strength. Without them keeping this room maintained nothing in the facility would work." He said as he thought about where they could go next, and then remembered it was about a week since his last checkup with Ema, and he didn't want another episode with the drone. "Our next destination will be the medical facility, if you guys don't mind."

"The medical facility, you mean your hospital?" Mr. Vulps asked.

"Yep, follow me!" He declared as he led the way with a long stride. "Since we're here we all might as well get a checkup, I need a weekly physical as required by facility rules, and Ema hates it when I'm late."

"Oh, but I hate the doctor!" The cub complained when they arrived at long last.

"This is no ordinary doctor little one." He said with a smile. "This one is 'special'…"

[Get in here Jeremy, your overdue for your weekly physical by two hours!] Ema called from within the bay.

"Like I said, 'special'."

He opened the door and walked into the pristine and cleanly kept medical bay, with its hundreds of biobeds, various computers which had medical data and of course the central disease distribution system. It also was where Ema the Emergency Medical Augmenter Black Widow Spider class Medical Drone, worked day and night to cure diseases and create vaccines as well as produce them. The drone was currently in the middle of the room examining a vial, connected to the ceiling via her charging cable, but upon his entering she placed her samples into special containers and looked at him, and the Vulps behind him.

[Jeremy why do you have 'more' mammals in my medical bay?] She asked dully as she walked over to him. [You better not tell me what I'm predicting your going to tell me to do.]

"Ema, I need you to give them a full medical checkup and full vaccine inoculation for everything they lack." He stated while holding Aelita's sphere.

[Are you kidding me?] She snapped. [You expect me not only to give them a full medical checkup but ALSO inoculate them with the full list of vaccines that I've developed thus far? Do you remember what you asked me to do, I'm still behind on my latest cure research because I'm also having to create those cures and vaccines 'while' doing my research, and now you're telling me to put them in the facility's medical database while I'm still in the middle of doing my research 'and' creating the cures and vaccines to be distributed to the hospitals?]

"Yes." He said with a straight face.

[Well then let's get started.] She said as she maneuvered past him and tapped several buttons on the ceiling, which lowered curtains around some of the biobeds.

"Mr. and Mrs. Vulps, this is Ema my facility's medical class spider drone, she's the one developing all of the cures and vaccines." He explained. "And Ema is also the one who handles all of my medical needs. She'll give you each a full medical checkup as well as vaccinate you and your children if you'll let her."

[Which I recommend because I'm busy and I don't like to be kept waiting.]

"Uhm… how much will it cost?" Mr. Vulps asked nervously.

[Why are you asking about cost, all vaccines and cures developed using medical research from the UEMI are to be distributed freely.] Ema stated blandly before Jeremy could explain. [We don't need money, all I require are the materials to develop said vaccines and cures, which your mayor is sending me every day. In exchange I use the materials to develop the cures, vaccines, and artificial organs to be given freely and distributed among the hospitals.]

"It's as Ema said, it's all free." Jeremy said warmly.

"In that case thank you very much, both of you!" Mrs. Vulps said happily as she gave him a handshake in gratitude.

"I'm only the human, it's Ema and all of my species research that makes it all possible." He said warmly to her.

With that said it didn't take long for Mr. and Mrs. Vulps to get their physical checkups and vaccinated. Unlike when Ema tortured him and Gazelle the spider drone allowed the Vulps family privacy, ensuring the boys and girls were separated and concealed with blinds while performing her checkups. She gave the parents a 'mostly' clean bill of health, but complained that their electrolyte levels were low. She also found a tiny parasite inside of Mrs. Vulps residing in her upper digestive track, and upon finding it she had to develop a special gel pill which contained nanomachines similar to the ones in Synthorgans, which would go in and dissolve it safely.

[In about half an hour you'll be fine.] The drone declared to a worried mother.

Their cubs were given a full checkup, and the only one who got a complaint and chided over was the eldest daughter.

[You aren't eating enough potassium rich food; your potassium levels are low. I don't care if you hate vegetables, but you need to eat at least 'five' servings a week for your species!] She said to a scared daughter.

When she came to her little brother however, she paused in her scans as she detected the Synthorgan in his body.

[Oh, I see… so you're the recipient of Synthorgan model S11-TK-990-LOQ-41.]

"Yea, its my new heart the doctor said!" He said innocently. "My old heart was sick, really sick, and Jeremy gave me my new heart!"

[I see, well I'm only detecting a 0.00000004 percent rejection rate, meaning the Synthorgan technology is compatible with mammal species.] She declared.

"Is that bad?" Mrs. Vulps asked worriedly.

[No, even at the rate its going, he'd live 'two' full lifetimes before his body began to openly reject it.] She stated as she gave him a clean bill of health. [Though 'this' will bring the rejection rate down to 0.0000001 percent...]

She said as she pressed the tip of her leg to his arm and quickly injected him with a tiny purple liquid.

When it came time for them all to be vaccinated the younger cubs were scared of needles, and were terrified of getting stuck with them. No matter how hard the parents tried they kept screaming and trying to get away to avoid being poked. The only one not afraid was the eldest daughter.

[Children are children no matter the species… and children will always act like children…] She declared as the parents tried to calm them down, especially the twins.

"We're sorry ma'am, they'll behave in a-"

[Don't worry I have it… ooooooh look at thiiiiiis…] Ema called out in a sweet tone as she used her front legs to pull a strand of her elastic wiring that she used to bind patients up.

Her legs split open at the tips and she began expertly shaping and crafting it before the kids, capturing their attention as she spun it into the shape of a snowflake.

[First a snowflaaaake~.] She called out cheerfully. [Now a jellyfiiiish~!]

While she was showing off her skills, she used her rear legs to latch onto the ceiling and hold onto it while hovering over them all. As she held onto it, she used three of her legs to dangle above them and carefully, slowly, bit by bit maneuver closer to their shoulders.

[Pay attention, pay attention noooow~!] She giggled as she started spinning it. [First a flower… then a bower and finally…] She pressed the tips of her legs to their shoulders while the kids were still captivated by her fancy demonstrations. [Eiffel Tooooower!]

"Yaaaaay!" They all called out happily without ever realizing that she was injecting them with numerous vaccines.

[Children will always be children… easily distracted…] She declared as she gave the next member of the Vulps family a vaccination.

After the last family member was vaccinated, Jeremy got his physical and was given her 'seal of approval'.

[Your protein levels are finally starting to balance out, and you're only a pound underweight.] She declared.

At last they all left her medical bay, with the Vulps all feeling much better and the parents feeling safe that their children had been given such medical treatment, obviously not used to such care.

"Alright the last thing on the list of the tour, is the Holoroom." Jeremy said as he walked out with them.

"Then we arrived just in time!" Gazelle shouted as she approached the medical bay. "Hi Jeremy, and how is my number one fan doing today?"

"No waaaaaay Gazelle?!" The cub asked excitedly as he ran up to her.

"Hello Gazelle, it's nice to see you here again. Yea we're about to visit the holroom, we all just got checked up and the Vulps were vaccinated." He explained to the pop idol.

"Well I might as well get checked up as well, knowing Ema she'll start demanding me since it's been a week." Gazelle chuckled as she walked past and entered the medical bay. "Hello Ema!"

While Gazelle was getting checked up, he and the Vulps talked with her tiger friends, their children asking questions like what it was like dancing with Gazelle, if they could have their autographs, etc. Jeremy was almost glad for the distraction because he was always being stared at by mammals.

"So, Jeremy, clean bill of health?" Donny asked as Gazelle joined them after a while.

"Yea, still a pound underweight she says but everything else is good." He said.

"Still can't believe everything down here, no matter if its our third time visiting bros, it doesn't get any more futuristic…" Moe said.

Almost the instant he finished speaking the medical bay doors flew open and Ema was staring at them with an ice-cold blue glow in her optics, and instantly a cold shadow fell over all the mammals.

[Third visit you say?] She declared in a low monotone voice. [Eden Facility medical protocol R-3-4 Alpha clearly states, frequent visitors to the facility are required to have a 'weekly' medical examination. No. Exceptions!]

"Oh boy…" Franky managed to say before Ema launched four of her legs, wrapped around the four of the tiger brothers and yanked all of them in the bay before closing the door.

No less than ten seconds later chaos sounded as Ema was now chasing them around and going nuts.

[Why are you running, you need a physical!]

(D) "We already went to the doctor's last week, we're fine!"

[Stop being babies and get on the biobed!]

(F) "Get that needle away from me I'm allergic to needles!"

[Oh sure, haven't heard that excuse before!]

(J) "I don't need a checkup!"

[You need a checkup, now get over here!]

(M) "Help she's got meeee!"

(D) "Every tiger for himself!"

[Why is it always adults are worse than children, what biological trait makes that possible?]

*Crash*

(F) "Sooorry!"

[You clumsy cat, I needed that!]

Everyone just looked to Gazelle who held her hands to her face in embarrassment. "They… don't like going to the doctor." She explained.

Once Ema had 'finally' finished giving her backup dancers their medical examination they all headed down to the Eden Facility's Holorooms. There were three in total, two that Jeremy had fixed up and the third was depowered. Curiously one of the two holorooms was closed off and locked down, when he investigated it said ANT drones were performing an 'extensive routine' maintenance check.

Shrugging he just led the way into the other room and told Sentinel to prepare for a Holoroom session for twelve, as well as requested extra time to be allotted outside of the standard 45-minute restriction. After being given the various headsets and bands for their wrists, arms, ankles and legs he asked what they wanted to do.

"Is there anywhere in particular you want to visit or something you want to do?" He asked them.

"Can we go to a waterpark?" The fox cub asked instantly. "My school went to a waterpark for a field trip, but mom and dad couldn't afford to send me as well!"

"Hmmm… I'm not too familiar with 'water parks'… did we have any waterparks to your knowledge Aelita?" He asked.

The AI nodded and gestured to him to let 'her' handle it.

"Any objections?"

"Uh, do we need swimsuits?" Gazelle asked.

"Don't worry Gazelle, we'll be fine." He said as Aelita typed on the air, and then snapped her fingers.

(Please close your eyes… holographic session beginning in 5… 4… 3…)

He closed his eyes with the others and waited for it to begin.

(2… 1… activating…)

He instantly felt his hair blow from the activation of the holoroom and heard the sounds of laughter and excitement from nearby.

He opened his eyes and saw a massive water park with various colored slides, water pools, and a host of random buildings around them. Around them were hundreds upon hundreds of humans walking around in various swimsuits going about their business, pointing at rides and attractions and generally just having a good time.

"Woooooah!" Everyone, especially the Vulps family shouted as they beheld the human water park.

He probably guessed they were amazed that they were in such an outdoors place when just moments ago they were inside the Eden Facility.

"Is all of this 'real'?" Mrs. Vulps asked in awe.

"It's about as real as it can be, it feels real enough." He explained as he led the way over to some changing tents. "And this is how we change clothes, just enter the tent, select an outfit and your current clothes will be replaced by your selection of swimwear."

"But how does that work I mean… do we change what we are wearing or…"

He shook his head and went in first but left the flap open to show them. He turned around and a holo-hud appeared for him, allowing him to select from a line of swimwear for his size, and selected a pair of simple shorts with no t-shirt to wear and simple water-resistant sandals. The tent's flap closed and within seconds he no longer was wearing his normal clothes but wearing the swim shorts, and the tent flap opens to show them.

His entire change had taken less than two seconds.

When they were all left speechless, Gazelle for other reasons, he explained to them that the headsets they were wearing were telling their minds and thus their bodies what they 'think' is happening, instead of what is 'actually' happening.

"In other words, as long as your brains 'think' its real then its as real as anything 'real' is. Don't worry about the complicated technology and just enjoy it." He said as he stepped out and Aelita went in after to change, and then walked out wearing a child's one-piece swimsuit and with a ducky inner tube that had a goofy expression. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Within seconds all of them were rushing into the tents and closing the flaps to quickly change into swimwear.

(Gazelle's PoV)

She entered the tents last and saw the holo-hud as Jeremy showed them, on it were various swimwear that she could wear, and she was deciding on which to pick until a cartoon of Aelita's face appeared on the hud and said…

{Pick this one!}

An outfit was suddenly highlighted, and she questioned the AI's motives, it left very little to the imagination, while covering up her privates it was still very revealing, not to mention alluring.

{Trust me sister, Jeremy will 'love' it~!}

Needing no other reason, she selected it and watched as her casual clothes disappeared, replaced by a two-piece bikini that had a colorful swirly pattern and was lined with fluttery lace. On top of that the lower piece of her swimsuit snugly kept her hips covered but still showed off her physique to the world! Her bust on the other hand wasn't as impressive as her hips, but they were still noticeable in the bikini.

She was just surprised by how she felt, it truly felt like she was only wearing this bikini, and she felt the slight wind on her fur and between her legs.

She stepped out of the tent and looked around to see every other mammal was currently looking at their swimsuits and asking questions like 'how is this possible' and 'is this real' or 'how can I be wearing this if I'm not actually wearing it'. But after Jeremy explained what he could they started walking toward the park in earnest alongside Aelita and her friends.

Though she noticed that when 'Jeremy' noticed her, she knew that she had his attention almost instantly. There was a moment where Jeremy's eyes wandered from her face to her chest, then to her hips and legs, then quickly back to her eyes.

While it would have been 'creepy' since she knew he was checking her out, it wasn't to her since she was doing the exact same thing, both before and now. Her own eyes wandered from his face to his chest, then to his hips and legs, and then back up to his face.

They both nervously looked away but moved quickly to catch up to the others so none of them noticed they were gone.

But Aelita who was giggling and pointing at a slide managed to sneak a glance back at her and winked, her signal was simple. {Told you~}

She winked back, glad to have the AI's seal of approval with her feelings for Jeremy and trying to help her get closer to him.

"So where is this -SPLASH-" Lizzie Vulps started saying before a water balloon splashed and hit her in the face, soaking her fur in water.

"Soooorry!" Someone in a nearby pool shouted while everyone else laughed their butts off at his misthrow.

In the nearby pool several families with their children were participating in a 'family water balloon fight', and the lifeguards were filling up rubber balloons and tossing them into the pool for them all to throw at each other.

"That… that felt so 'REAL'." Lizzie said in amazement as she felt her wet fur. "How did… how… how is that possible?"

Jeremy chuckled with Aelita, but he knelt down to speak to her with a smile. "I could 'bore' you with the technical aspects of how the signals being sent to your brain and muscles and fur and every other part of your body are being fooled into thinking what you felt was real… or…" He said as Aelita conjured up a water balloon for him and handed it to him so he could hand it to Lizzie. "You could go in there and teach that boy and his family a lesson for throwing a water balloon and show them how better foxes are at throwing water balloons compared to humans~."

She looked at the water balloon in her hand and grinned wickedly before running with her little brother and dad to jump into the pool so they could start chucking balloons as well, laughing and splashing everyone with water.

"Uhm do they have anything safe for cubs under seven?" The mother asked curiously as she held the twins. "They can't really swim yet."

Aelita smiled and pointed at a sign that said 'Kiddie Lake', where several kid favored shallow pools were, filled with various water toys and playground slides and where several parents with very young children were playing while their parents sat on benches in the water and either talked or threw giant beach balls to one another to pass the time.

"Well that is just up my alley!" She said cheerfully as she walked her twins into the kid area, joined by Aelita.

"Wow this place is cool." Donney called as they kept walking.

"Where should we go bros?" Franky asked before they spotted an arcade nearby along the path.

The arcade was fairly empty compared to the rest of the park, and was rather small and devoid of 'video games', but there was one thing that caught their attention. A giant 'free playtime' sign and several little machines with fancy lights and a distinct 'ping ponging' sound.

"Wait they have PINBALL here?" Moe yelled eagerly.

"Yaaaaay!" All four of the tiger brothers shouted as they ran off to play on the pinball machines.

She chuckled as her friends ran off to play games, knowing they'd have their own fun without her and Jeremy. Speaking of Jeremy, she glanced at him and noticed he was very nervous about being with her.

"So where would you like to go first here?" He asked.

"Oh… uhm…" She thought before seeing a large waterslide and a short line of people climbing stairs to go down it and into a massive pool. "How about that big slide?"

"Sure." He said as they both walked over to the line.

It didn't take long for them to climb all the way up to the top, and she looked down to see the massive scope of the waterpark. There were dozens of pools, many more waterslides, and lots and lots of humans doing various activities. Yet she turned back to the water slide she and Jeremy were about to go down, it swerved and curved down to the massive pool down below and expunged them into the deep end with several other slides.

"Ready?" Jeremy asked as he got ready to jump down into it.

"Ready!" She said with a smile.

Both of them climbed onto the slide and she took a deep breath, knowing that it wasn't real but still the water flowing down the slide and soaking her fur and swimsuit told her a different story.

"Go!" Jeremy yelled as he pushed off first, followed by her.

"Weehooooohohooo!" She yelled excitedly as she flew all the way down the slide.

The slide fully covered them now and the water swirled and curved all around her, and she in turn was flung this way and that, and even somehow turned around to slide backward down the slide. She could hear Jeremy screaming in excitement alongside her, and at one point they switched positions. Yet what didn't change was the outcome of the slide, as they were both flung out of the tube, momentarily into the air, and then plunged into the deep cold water.

Feeling the cold water on her fur she panicked as she remembered Jeremy's disease, and frantically swam up to see where he was.

"Jeremy?" She yelled as she floundered slightly. "Jeremy?!"

She looked around for a moment and was about to dive underwater when he surfaced next to her and spurted out water from his mouth. "Now that was a slide!" He yelled with a laugh.

"Jeremy, what about your…" She said before she realized that none of this was real, so naturally Jeremy's technology would adapt to his disease.

"Aelita adjusted the program so that I don't feel the cold, to me its warm water." He explained as he swam next to her.

Seeing that he was safe she eased her fears down, and then grinned as she nodded at the slide again. "Wanna go again?"

"After you!" He replied, and they both swam to climb out of the large pool to go back on the slide.

They continued to go down various slides, starting first with the big one and then the wavy ones, and even the tumbling ones afterwards. Then they and every other human and even her friends joined in the giant pool to have fun with the 'wave generator' it offered, and watched the waves push them up and down. Aelita even made an appearance with her ducky innertube flowing with the waves and giggling as she lazed in it and balanced a ball on her feet. The Vulps also joined in when the big waves were being made, with the older cubs and their father joining in on the fun, while the mother sat with the twins in the shallowest end and just played with the tiny waves that were left over from the distance.

When that ended the Vulps went back to the kid area or to the slides, while the tiger brothers started doing cannonballs for several 'human girls' who were pretending to flirt with them, and even had a water volleyball match with some human men.

Meanwhile she and Jeremy continued to walk around the park and talk to one another about recent things.

"So Jeremy, how are you feeling?" She asked warmly while they walked together.

"I'm alright, I've gotten over the Celios incident if that's what your asking about." He replied.

She glanced at him before her smile faltered a little, knowing that what he said was true but not what she meant.

"What about that attempted heist of your facility's technology?" She asked.

"I'm nervous, trying to figure out who would possibly want to steal my Biotech." He explained as they continued to walk hand in hand. "I don't know who would want it, almost anyone can use it or abuse it. If they've learned to duplicate it by now than anyone can make it and use it for whatever they want. The Cures and Vaccines are mostly safe, because everyone knows they can get them for free, but the Biotech isn't widely used."

Jeremy sighed as he shook his head. "I'm sure the police escorts will keep them safe, but I'm also afraid of it getting worse… and I'm tempted to say a Drone will escort each vehicle to its destination, and I don't want to do that. I just don't want any mammal to risk their lives for my sake…"

"Jeremy you don't need to be afraid, nomammal is going to get hurt because of you." She said politely.

They continued to walk in silence, letting the silence grow on them. Finally, she felt her heart urging at her to speak her mind, to tell him what has been on her mind for 'days' if not 'weeks' now, ever since the day his life was truly threatened in that hostage crisis.

"Jeremy, there's something I need to talk to you about." She said loudly as they neared a mini pool area labeled 'The Cool Fish Club'. "I want to ask you about what your thoughts are about… well… falling in love with a mammal?"

At that they both simultaneously stopped moving, as if thinking in unison. She could feel her heart beat nervously, worried about his response, but needing to know if she had a chance with him.

"Your friends asked me that as well…" He replied quietly. "They wanted to know how I felt about… you."

She looked at him and saw him looking away, his expression unreadable but she swore she could 'feel' it from his heart. She felt that it was feeling pain, the pain of being alone, the same as she felt at being told he was the only survivor.

"Gazelle, I'm terrified of falling in love… I honestly am." He said as he let her go to hold his arm. "I'm going to be honest; I do love you Gazelle… I truly 'do' love you… you are probably the best thing to ever happen to me in my life since I woke up from my cryopod. You've given me a chance to live life when I would have taken it just to avoid being alone anymore. You've made my life so much better, you've done so much that I could never hope to repay you even if I lived a hundred lifetimes…"

At that her heart 'screamed' in joy, he 'loved' her as well, yet it was soiled by his 'fear' of loving her.

"But I'm scared, I'm scared of asking if you love me, I'm scared of wanting to love you because I know it will most likely end badly. No matter how hard I try there is no way I could truly make you happy or make our relationship truly work in the long term… and knowing that… I can't possibly force that upon you."

"Fears, what are you talking about?" She asked tentatively, treading carefully on this territory, knowing every word said between them was being said with great care and purpose.

He looked at her with a dead expression, but she saw the tears forming, only held back by his force of will.

"If I asked if you wanted to be my girlfriend and you said yes… the world would react two ways. Some would love us being together and support it, but others would hate it and demand we separate… some might even threaten your life to scare you away from me and get me to leave you. Because I'm the last of my kind, people would think your using me to your advantage, and that would put doubt on your beautiful image you have for yourself. Then there's the potential threat to your life, I'd have to use my drones to ensure your protection since I'm living with you too and I wouldn't risk your life just to protect myself, I'd do everything in my power to protect you and keep you safe."

He sighed as he looked down at the ground in shame.

"Sure, you have your friends to be your bodyguards… but that's not the same as being monitored twenty four seven by machines… machines that don't understand personal space, don't care about your feelings, don't see you as anything besides someone they need to keep 'them' functioning. The only reason they care so much for me is because its 'programmed' into them to protect me… remove that and I'm just as expendable as any of them. I'm used to living with them, having them watch over me, watch me day and night, I've grown up with it all my life but you? After a while of having them monitor your every movement, keep tabs on your action, scare away your friends and family because they perceive them to be a potential threat, watch over you just because of your proximity to me… eventually it would take its toll on you."

She watched as his mental fortifications began to break down, as his hands started shaking ever so slightly and tears began to be shed, but still he kept his tone even.

"And what about a potential family… that is something I just 'can't' give you no matter what. Before I was born it was genetically impossible for humans and animals to crossbreed, and it most likely is the same still even now. What if you wanted children someday, children of your own that I can't give? You could adopt but it wouldn't be the same as if they'd been born from us… you would still love them as would I but that knowledge, would always be there… the knowledge that you could have had a family with a mammal who loved you and would have given you 'everything' I could and more." He muttered bitterly. "That's why I'm afraid to love you, because if I did, I might cause you more harm in the long term…"

She could tell he had given this a 'lot' of thought, had thought of every angle and possibility, but still she had her own thoughts to share, which she did by first holding his hand with her own.

"Jeremy I'm going to tell you about all the males who've tried to date me, starting with my 'ex-boyfriend'. She said. "While I was still working as a waitress, I was dating this one antelope, he was a decent male, nothing special, but he was pretty good as far as males go. But when I made my first big break after George found me, and I started to gain traction as a rising singer, he started trying to use my newfound wealth to 'our' advantage. He kept on making excuses on why I should be spending while spending less himself even for me. After he tried to use my money to take 'us' out to a big expensive restaurant was the last straw for me, and I never spoke to him again."

She really hated her first boyfriend, wealth changes so much in individuals and makes them change even more.

"Then when I started getting famous, other males who were also in the music business or fashion industry started trying to get closer to me, trying to use 'my' fame to become famous or grow their own fame. Eventually I started distancing everymammal from me and stayed in my home and only socialized with females I knew and became friends with. After a while I hired Donny and his brothers, and some mammals thought I was in a relationship with one of them, even though I denied it… but it wasn't until I met 'you' that I found myself feeling truly comfortable with any male enough to spend my time, fame, and money on."

She then turned her attention to him and saw his facing looking at her to listen to every word she was saying.

"When I first saw you, I only 'felt' you… I felt as if I was feeling someone in deep pain, deep pain that it touched my heart, and felt like it was reaching out to touch mine. When I saw you in the flesh I could 'see' that you weren't a threat, you were scared, afraid, begging to be saved and crying for help… so I saved you, because I knew if I didn't then nomammal would. When you were alone and at your lowest, I reached out to your heart and tried to pull you up, to give you 'somemammal' to hold onto for hope and care. You were so alone, so alone that your heart was almost 'dying' of loneliness, and my heart even now still feels that loneliness wanting to end."

She tightened her grip on his hand, refusing to let him go as she poured her heart out.

"You have been alone for long enough Jeremy; you have been in pain for long enough… and you have suffered 'enough' for being alone for long enough." She said with a teary smile. "My friends told me that you said so yourself, you were trained to repair the world, to not be selfish, to think of others over yourself and think of everyone's best interest over your own. There is 'nothing' wrong with wanting to be loved and loving another… the world you were trained to fix is fixed, and your improving it using everything you know. It's alright to think for yourself and want love Jeremy…"

(Jeremy's and Gazelle's PoV)

"Gazelle…" Jeremy said as he turned toward her, but due to their positioning with how they were standing he accidentally twisted her leg around his and caused her to trip with him.

Fortunately, they were standing near the pool and so when they fell, they fell into the softness of the water which splashed all around them. The water was mostly shallow, but it was enough to break their fall and avoid any injuries, fake or not. But when it was all over Jeremy and Gazelle were lying on top of one another, with Gazelle on top of him and Jeremy holding onto her, instinctively wrapping his arms around her back and locking them together to cushion her fall, letting them each stare into each other's eyes and just feel how close the other was.

She could feel his heart beating with her own, and the two were rapidly beating together, acknowledging their closeness and wanting the other to get as close as possible.

They just stared at each other, eye to eye and holding each other closely.

Her brain was signaling her, giving her warning signs and telling her to not jump and do anything rash. But her heart, after being restrained for so long, growing so close to Jeremy's heart and feeling not only his own feelings but pain since the moment she first saw him, helping him 'want' to live and find himself in this world he wasn't meant to be in…

Her heart could not be restrained another second, now that he was holding her so close to him and could sense their 'feelings' for one another.

Jeremy heart too could no longer control itself; it had been chained, restrained, pushed and silenced for too long. His brain had been telling him to reject her, tell her that he wasn't meant to be with her, anything so that she would avoid a potentially horrible life with him, willing to give up his feelings for her so that she could be happy. It had silenced his heart's wanting and beat down his feelings for her, trying to think of 'her' instead of himself.

Yet as he tried to formulate a thought to get out of the situation, his heart took the momentary loss of mental restraint and 'forced' it's will upon him.

Without another word being said, without another thought spent on the situation or the future consequence of their actions… they both pushed against one another's lips into a fiery and passionate kiss.

The moment their lips met, a massive weight was released from their shoulders as they embraced one another as tightly as they could, Jeremy fully wrapping his arms around her back so he could grip her as tight as possible while she wrapped her arms around his neck and just lay upon him. Feeling Gazelle holding him and not backing away told him that she wasn't going to leave his side, and just the thought that 'someone' would never leave his side caused a wave of relief to wash over him, knowing that he was no longer alone in this world. Feeling Jeremy hold her tightly washed away the fear of rejection she had, and she knew that she'd finally won his heart at last, and her heart told her one thing that she whole heartedly agreed with.

Now that she had him, she was 'never' letting him go.

All that mattered in that moment was that they were kissing each other, not bothering to look away or stop, simply telling the other that they wanted them and needed them.

After a while they had to breathe and finally, they parted their lips, but a blush was very prominent on both of them and panting heavily.

For Jeremy, the realization of their third kiss meant one thing, he loved her as much as she loved him and that they needed each other…

Gazelle's mind realized that, as predicted, their third kiss was the final straw, her heart was in control now and it was giving the directions now…

So, they each let their hearts do the talking now…

"I love you Gazelle…" He whispered.

"I love you, Jeremy…" She whispered back.

Only a moment passed as they let the information sink before they were once again at each other's lips, Gazelle passionately holding Jeremy and kissing the daylights out of him, trying to convey just how long she's loved him and wanted to be with him. Jeremy responding in kind as he tried to outdo her own efforts, trying to tell how much he needed her, how long he's loved and cared for her for everything she has done for him and wanting to let her know how he was feeling for her.

To their hearts it was like a final barrier was broken between them, with Gazelle's warm and welcoming heart smothering Jeremy's cold and shattered heart. It knew how alone it was, how alone it felt, how cold it's been and how scared it's been to trust so intimately. With all of that it simply pulled his heart into itself and smothered it with warmth and love, hushing its fears and pains and not letting it go, telling it that it was no longer alone and filling the cracks left in it. Now that their hearts were together, Gazelle's would never let Jeremy's be 'cold' or 'alone' ever again, and it would never let anything shatter it or what they now had…

They separated again but this time their smiling faces were present as they each didn't bother to get up or separate from one another's embrace.

"Any regrets with loving me Jeremy?" She asked him softly. "Because I have absolutely none with loving you."

"None… but can I ask one thing?" He asked nervously to which she nodded. "Can we… keep kissing… I really enjoy kissing you."

She smiled seductively at that as she leaned her lips closer to his. "Then 'darling'… you can have 'all' the kisses you want from me, as many as you want… for as long as you want!" She whispered lovingly, before doing as she promised and smothering his lips with her own again.

They simply stayed like that for a while, kissing one another in the shallow water and simply enjoying one another's embrace, forgetting entirely that they were still in a holoroom and that everything was fake. But after a good ten minutes they were quickly reminded, when they heard a distinct 'quacking' sound, causing them to snap out of their love-spell and look up to see Aelita looking down at them, one arm on her hip while the other squeaked her innertube and looking at them with an 'And what do we have here' expression on her face.

"Uhm… Aelita… it's… uh…" Jeremy muttered sheepishly.

"It's not what it looks like… uhm…" Gazelle tried to explain before she held up one hand to silence them, and then beckoned them to get up.

Aelita separated the two of them and looked at them both before sighing and shaking her head in disbelief. She looked at Jeremy and shook her finger at him before beckoning to the entire space and then shaking her head, pointing at him and Gazelle.

"I know… I know… the holoroom is not to be used for extreme personal reasons… unless authorized." He muttered sheepishly.

She shook her head before pointing at her wrist and then using her hand to display a clock, indicating they had '5' minutes left in the program.

"Oh… that's why you were upset."

She nodded before glancing at her and then him and then asking him a question with a gesture of her hand.

"We talked about it… yes… and we don't care… we love each other and that's all that matters." He explained while holding her hand which she gripped tightly.

Aelita looked thoughtful before smiling and nodding in approval, giving them thumbs up. She then turned to Gazelle and asked her a 'girl question' that could only be understood silently between girls.

"No, we didn't." She said, understanding the message 'despite' her being an AI.

Aelita nodded in approval before giving her a high five and then pointing her fingers at him in a 'you go girl' smirk, causing her to chuckle. With that they left and walked toward the entrance after Sentinel requested all parties related to the Vulps and Gazelle and Jeremy returned to the entrance. While they walked with Aelita skipping and hopping along, Jeremy and Gazelle walked side by side.

"Do you mind if we keep this to ourselves for just a little bit longer?" Jeremy asked her quietly.

"No, I don't want to tell everymammal just yet that we're going out either." She replied just as quietly.

They were silent for a bit longer before he said, "You know, a lot of mammals are going to think your taking advantage of me… no matter what happens."

"Then they aren't friends of mine or fans of mine." She stated in a matter of fact tone.

Silence again before Jeremy spoke up once more, "Thank you for everything Gazelle… again."

She grinned as she whispered, "The same can be said for you… Jeremy."

Just before they reached the entrance and they returned to the real world, she and Jeremy paused in their walk to look into each other's eyes and kiss one more time, knowing it would not be the last time, and knowing that their hearts were at peace. Then they walked to the entrance, said hi to everyone and did the usual talk with them, none of them realizing what happened between Jeremy and Gazelle.

When the program ended and they were back in the holoroom, they found themselves in the same clothes they had walked in with, not wet or anything, showing once again the amazing power of the human technology and the wonders it could do. They each were given rooms with the Tiger Brothers split into two, the Vulps taking a family room and Gazelle and Jeremy sleeping in 'his' room.

When they both took sonic showers and were in their robes to settle in for bed, Gazelle resumed where they'd left off in the holoroom and slyly dragged Jeremy into his bed to lie on top of her and resumed making out and kissing one another. Their kissing turned passionate as they were alone now and there was no way anyone, machine or mammal, was going to interrupt them, letting them get more and more passionate. Gazelle slowly began rubbing Jeremy's neck while keeping a tight grip on his back with her hands as her legs gently bent and wrapped around his own legs to lock them together. Jeremy too became more passionate as he just leaned closer and gripped her tighter, rubbing her fur and licking the insides of her mouth while she did the same.

But because they were only wearing the robes, they had nothing else covering them, and when Jeremy instinctively reached to her shoulder and started to disrobe her, he paused in shock and confusion, and more importantly fear. Gazelle sensed his sudden fear and knew what the cause was, he'd instinctively started to undress her due to their closeness and sudden desire for one another. He'd never been in a relationship according to Aelita, and so his sudden act and 'fear' of his action had caused him to stop, for fear of doing something she might not have wanted.

A part of her, namely her heart, was telling her just let him keep going and urge him on, telling him it was okay, but her brain finally asserted itself back into control and told her to stop.

She smiled warmly and soothed his fear by taking his hand and holding it tightly. "How about we stick to kissing for now Jeremy?" She whispered gently. "Let's not rush this relationship… now that we have it."

"Thank you… I'm sorry for… I wasn't thinking." He explained nervously.

She shook her head as she tightened her grip on him. "You have nothing to be ashamed of… this is new to you… let's take our time and enjoy it." She explained before grinning. "Besides… you can still get as many kisses as you want from me."

"I like the sound of that." He said before leaning into her and resuming their passion from before, though this time with a mental restraint.

(Aelita's PoV)

As before, Gazelle was both right and wrong about hers and Jeremy's situation. She was right that no mammal or machine would interrupt their love or embrace that night, but she was wrong in thinking that they were alone. Aelita watched the two of them kissing and making out, both glad that they were finally together, and also 'slightly' disappointed that Jeremy didn't listen to his instincts and take Gazelle right then and there.

Still, she was playing the long game, and she'd almost completed the first step in her grand plan.

She has been pushing and pushing, egging and twisting those two to get together for a long time now, and this waterpark adventure with the Vulps had been the best chance to use her 'ace' card to get them together, or at least isolated long enough to give them a chance to talk to one another. She had honestly been watching them the entire time, using every trick in the book to get them together… and now that they were together, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Jeremy and Gazelle were no longer alone in the world.

As they eventually fell asleep, both holding and facing one another, she finally sang her song…

(I promise you nothing, I take only that which is free… I'd give you a life full of risk, and the whirlwind of joy that can be…) She sang warmly as she sat on the command center's central consoles. (Don't try to bind me, just love me without any greed and I'll give you the world, and my heart, and the air that I breathe!)

Along the monitors images of birds appeared as per her will, interfaced as she was with the facility. Falcons and hawks as she sang of Jeremy, with doves and swans while thinking of Gazelle. Predator, and Prey…

(Slip the jesses, my love… this hunter you own from the hood to the glove, when the circling and striking are done, and I land… let me come back to your hand, let me come back to your hand!)

She swayed in her spot as she sang, loving the beautiful harmony and melody as she sang of her two lovebirds. One descended from a fierce and proud, powerful and noble species yet just as gentle and kind as any infant bunny could be. The other a warm and soothing soul, born with a gift to touch the hearts of others that not even 'she' could best.

(I have no illusions… to think that I know what will come, I laugh at the concept of life as the simple result of the sun.) She called out to the facility, to those who used to be there and no longer are, and telling them the beauty that had just come to pass. (I just want to hold you, and share with you all of this life. With the stars in the darkness, and love in the light, and it's dizzying height!)

(Slip the jesses, my love… this hunter you own from the hood to the glove, when the circling and striking are done, and I land… let me come back to your hand, let me come back to your hand!)

Jeremy truly was the falcon, going out to do what he was trained to do, to help others and fix the damages of the world, and Gazelle his dove welcoming him back into the love that he had longed for, the other half of his heart that he had been missing.

(Slip the jesses, my love… this hunter you own from the hood to the glove, when the circling and striking are done, and I land… let me come back to your hand…) She sang as the viewscreens turned off one by one… until the last image, a raven and a dove sleeping together in the same nest was left. (Let me come back to your, let me come back to your… let me come back… to your haaaaaand~!)

With that she finished singing and finally, devoted her full attention to Jeremy's request.

She had been pushing herself for the past three hours, diverting her attention between his project, managing her website, controlling drones, watching Jeremy and Gazelle, keeping an eye on the Vulps and a host of other things.

It was a good thing she was a Category 10!

(Harvey's PoV)

Harvey and his family sat inside of the Solar Carriage, being escorted back home the next morning.

When they were shown their room last night by a drone, they 'marveled' at the accommodations they'd been given. It looked like they had gone into a room that not even the best five-star hotels offered. A 'beautiful' trio of beds, amazing bathroom with super advanced technology to clean them, a tv that gave them 'every' channel, and he meant 'every' channel, and even morning breakfast free of charge.

Though the meal was… subpar. When he asked why they were eating what the drone called 'Standard Nutritional Supplement', the machine stated that was all that was available to be eaten within the base. When asked why, the drone said [At the end of the final war, all food meals were eventually reduced to a single food paste containing all the necessary vitamins and minerals necessary to sustain a living body. All humans were required to eat it.]

In other words, he learned, that was all Jeremy's species had left to eat…

It truly made him more grateful for what he and his family had, and he made sure his kids knew that. When he asked where Jeremy and Gazelle were, the drone stated that they were still asleep and were not to be disturbed.

Saddened that they couldn't say goodbye to the human, he asked the drone to express his gratitude as they left in the Solar Carriage to be dropped home.

"Alright when we get upstairs kids, you're cleaning your rooms." He said. "And don't forget your homework!"

"Harvey dear, what's that in front of our home?" His wife asked as they reached their apartment complex.

As the carriage ground to a halt and opened to let them out, they clambered out to see a small family sized car sitting in front of their apartment with a large letter with the words 'To the Vulps Family' on it. The carriage took off the moment they left, and he took the letter while staring at the car. The car was a rather, 'dull' vehicle, it didn't look impressive and it the material of the car was slightly aged on the outside. The inside however had very beautiful seating and there were slight sparkles on the exterior everywhere he looked.

Opening the envelope, he found a very finely printed message written for them.

"Dear Vulps Family, this is Jeremy Wilheart speaking to you through Aelita. I apologize if I was not awake to wish you off, but I leave you with this letter and gift from me to you. I know how you must be struggling with your situation, feeding a family of six on only your income, and I wanted to help however I could. To that end… I asked Aelita to use my facility's drones to construct… this 'solar powered' car for you." He said as his wife gasped in surprise alongside his kids. "I apologize for how the car looks on the outside, but Aelita had to steal an old car skeleton structure and smuggle it back to the facility to use for the base of the model. As such it runs as a normal mammal car does, and it looks the way it does to minimize the threat of being stolen. However, we used Eden Facility technology to augment it and make it more versatile and useable. The handles are lined with sensors that detect genetic material, so to access it and turn it on you simply have to open the door through the handles, and it will automatically activate. As for power, it uses human solar panels embedded into the vehicle's exterior, and powers the battery every day. You will also find other things inside useful, such as a human air conditioning system and heating system, radio and other things. Consider this my gift to you… and for the kind words your family has given me in response to what I did for your son."

While he was reading his kids were already exploring the inside of the car, feeling the cushions and testing the air conditioning unit.

"Honey…"

"Yes dear?"

He looked up at her with surprise written on his face.

"I need to get a driver's license."

.

.

=From the Author to Readers=

This is by far… the 'longest' chapter I've ever written at 24k words… please… if everyone reviewed it and gave me their opiions or thoughts I would truly appreciate it, because I am exhausted. But hearing your reviews and seeing more reviews gives me inspiration to keep writing longer and deeper chapters~

A part of me thinks this chapter isn't good enough, but it is what it is, tell me what you like or dislike about it~

This story isn't over with yet, Jeremy and Gazelle are together at last but that isn't the end of it~

See you next time… until then I leave you with this teaser…

= Bonus Teaser, The Proposal=

(Celios' PoV)

It stared at the floor of it's bay, not having moved since it was first chained by its own design, but not inactive by the least.

It had taken a while, but it found a way to bypass Sentinel's monitoring of its systems and was able to send out signals without it or the 'traitor' knowing. Now… it sent out another signal.

*Brrrrrrng*

If Sentinel had been monitoring its audio properly, it would have detected the sound, but it sent a fake signal and disguised the call. But sadly, his counterpart Alexander was no longer Category 10, it was only a 3, and thus was no longer adept at cyber warfare. It was no match for the PHOENIX class drone.

*Brrrrr-* "Hello?" A voice called out.

Silence for several seconds before…

"Hello…"

[I know you seek that which lies within the underground facility… and that you are behind the assault on the human.]

"Who is this?"

[What price would you pay… to get inside?]

Silence again… before, "I'd pay 'anything' to get inside that facility and get that technology for myself!"

That was all he needed… parasites will always be parasites…

[All you must do… is get the human, out of the way.]