Two officers lay injured mere feet from the savage elephant, and it was to the ZPD's credit that two more charged in to put a stop to their attacker. They fired a dart apiece into Trunchbull's flank, but he whirled on them with no sign of slowing down, fixing on them with dark eyes as big and round as bloodstone crystals.

We can't let him leave the lobby.

Bogo targeted Trunchbull's buttock and fired, the dart finding its mark just beneath the elephant's belt. The madmammal still didn't slow down.

It was his damned bulk. The number of darts riddling his body had to be enough, but whatever serum Cheryl had used was making him take longer than normal to actually feel it.

"Get outta the way!" The receptionist, Bogo finally remembered his name was Price, hollered from behind his desk. The cow and boar split, Moony running toward the stage used for press conferences, Razorwitz running to block the hallway to the bullpen and eastern offices. Trunchbull bellowed and swung his trunk left and right, trashing the award display cases that stood beside the stage, scattering glass across the polished floor like sparsely fallen snow.

The ibex fired a shot of his own before ducking behind his desk, understandably terrified of incurring Trunchbull's wrath. "Hold your fire! No more darts!" Bogo yelled. He holstered his own empty gun to get the message across, and the other two officers understood and did the same. Every dart they fired risked an overdose, and Bogo didn't hate Trunchbull enough to let that happen. He saw Moon use her radio as she used the podium to get out of Trunchbull's line of sight.

Bogo backed up to the front entrance and pressed the red emergency button, locking it shut. The loud clank of the door sealing itself caught Trunchbull's attention and he sped up, charging toward Bogo, and as the buffalo dove out of the way, the elephant ran past, swinging his tusks upward with a jerk of his head. The tusk that wasn't broken gouged the sandstone pillar beside the entrance as Trunchbull struck the door headfirst. The door buckled and the glass cracked, but it held. Trunchbull wasn't even fazed when he spun wildly to see Bogo scramble to his feet and back away, beginning to reconsider not using his gun anymore.

A stun rod, recently introduced to the ZPD to deal with the savage predators, skidded across the floor in Bogo's direction. Bogo gave a nod of thanks to the boar who had thrown it and ran to pick it up.

Trunchbull started to run again, his throat rumbling like thunder as he went for Bogo just as he had the rod in his hoof.

Bogo thrust the rod forward like a sword, jabbing the dancing electric arc into the base of Trunchbull's trunk. He bellowed but didn't quite stop, and his hard skull hit Bogo square in the chest. Bogo tumbled to the floor and scrambled backward, coughing, the reflexive action wreaking even more pain on his body. He tried to not think of how his heart and lungs would have fared had the stun rod not slowed Trunchbull's momentum.

Sedate already, you son of a bitch!

Trunchbull advanced on Bogo, his tusks aiming straight for his torso. Moony and Razorwitz were both yelling to try and draw Trunchbull's attention away from Bogo, but he was too fixated on the buffalo to notice. Then the reception phone rang.

Price's hoof shot up and grabbed at the phone to shut it up, but it was too late. The loud ringing, harsh and distinct from the shouting voices, caused Trunchbull to turn his attention to the desk. He stormed up to the desk and snaked his trunk into the ring.

Bogo retrieved the stun rod and stood up. Overhead, the Assistant Chief and another officer poked their heads over the glass rail and aimed their rifles. "No!" Bogo yelled and thrust an arm out. "No more darts! He'll overdose!"

Price screamed in terror. Bogo saw Trunchbull lift Prince into view, his trunk coiled around his leg, and charged forward with his stun rod. Trunchbull slammed the ibex to the floor, leg raised to trample him, right before Bogo jabbed him with the rod. The elephant bellowed, and Bogo bent double to avoid the trunk as it lashed out at him before running away to a slightly safer distance. Prince lay motionless, one of his arms twisted at an unnatural angle, and it dawned on Bogo that someone might die before the tranquiliser kicked in.

Trunchbull turned his attention to Moony, who was visibly trying not to panic as she struggled to drag one of the fallen officers across the floor to the relative safety of the hallway, where the other officer lay bloodied and semi-conscious. His ears flared and his trunk tucked in as he started toward them.

Chest hurting with each breath, Bogo reached for his gun.

"Mansa!"

Bogo heard Benjamin's voice and stared up at the cheetah, who had appeared at the glass rail above the Assistant Chief's head, and saw a small black object fly from his paw, hitting the bottom floor with a slap.

Moony made it to the closest door, dragged the second officer inside, and pulled the doors shut, locking them just in time as Trunchbull rammed them with all his might. He hit them again, and again. The doors were heavily built, but against such a formidable mammal they wouldn't hold forever.

Bogo ran to the object, a security briefcase built for a large mammal's hands, and opened it. Inside was a dart gun with hornet-coloured stripes, and six darts, three blue, three gold. Judging from the empty slots, there were two darts unaccounted for.

Benjamin shouted from above. "The gold one's the cure! Use it!"

The doors began to buckle under Trunchbull's crazed persistence.

Razorwitz ran forward, stopping when he was close enough to use his stun gun, and fired the barbs into the leathery flesh behind Trunchbull's ear. The elephant roared and turned on him.

Bogo loaded the gun with one of the darts with golden liquid and took aim.

Razorwitz veered away from Price's feebling stirring body as he ran toward the desk, the elephant close behind. He vaulted over the desk as the buffalo fired, the dart hitting Trunchbull in the neck.

Trunchbull stopped dead and fixed his bloodstone eyes on his captain.

Bogo loaded another dart, but before he knew it the elephant was upon him, his long trunk coiling around Bogo's neck. Even as he was lifted above Trunchbull's eye level he wasted no time firing the dart into the flesh of the elephant's trunk.

Trunchbull grumbled from the sting of the dart, and he raised Bogo higher in preparation to slam him down. Bogo pulled at the trunk, as strong and unyielding as iron, which suddenly slackened and dropped him.

Rubbing his throat, bandages slightly displaced from Trunchbull's grip, Bogo stared up at the elephant. He had seen Trunchbull's eyes flicker, had felt the elephant's trunk hesitate in the middle of squeezing right before it had dropped him.

The buckled doors burst open, spilling the Assistant Chief, Moony and three more officers into the room.

"Did it work?" He heard the Assistant Chief ask.

"Looks like it." Moony replied.

The officers charged and with their combined strength and weight tackled Trunchbull to the ground, Razorwitz climbing back over the desk to tend to Price.

"Chief, we trusted you!" Bogo roared at the elephant as he struggled in vain against his captors. "This precinct was built on integrity and trust! It's on the fucking badge!"

Trunchbull locked eyes with him. Whether the look in his chief's eyes was anger or shame, he didn't know. Those same eyes turned glassy as the tranquiliser finally, finally kicked in.


Judy's fists were trembling, her senses unusually focused on the pressure of the floor beneath her feet as the elevator carried them upward. At any moment that door would move aside, opening them up to the teeth and claws of a maniac.

In the corner behind her, she knew Swinton was keeping her arm around Nick's neck, holding him close. As for her gun, it was either aiming at his temple or the back of Judy's head.

"We don't have to do this." Judy dared to say. The elevator had no indicator as to when they would stop. "You can still escape before the authorities catch up to you."

"Oh, I fully intend on leaving." She heard Swinton say. "But not before I meet the cause of my downfall."

Right on cue, the elevator slowed to a stop. After a moment the door slid open, and Nick suddenly lurched past Judy as Swinton shoved him out. Judy felt the hard metal of the gun press into her back, pushing her out after the fox.

They now stood on a metal square grate, high above what at first appeared to be a bottomless pit, but what little she could see from the little red lights suggested they were standing at the top of a wide ventilation shaft, one that stretched all the way down.

"What exactly is this place?" She asked.

"Not your concern." Swinton said. "Let's find the Red Queen."

With her gun she ushered Nick and Judy across the short walkway to the door at the end. It opened automatically at their approach,

It was a small room, lit by square ceiling lights and one small table lamp on a stool beside a well-used armchair. On the floor lay a pig, his head and shoulders in a pool of old blood, his throat unzipped all the way so Judy could see the white of his trachea.

"Good God." Nick breathed, his eyes switching from the stain on the floor, to stains on his clothes, to the splatter on the lockers, and finally to the tiger-shaped footprints leading crossing the corpse, vanishing past the next door. Judy could picture the pig dying in her head, staggering around and trying to stem the spurting blood before he finally collapsed to his knees and died. She could almost see Bogo there lying there instead.

"Er, how long do you suppose he's been dead for?" Nick asked. Judy noticed that the pig was wearing a holster, the gun still inside it, but Swinton would shoot her if she so much as reached for it so instead she sniffed the air. The air conditioning was working to the point of chilling the room, so there wasn't much of a smell, and the body was bloated. He'd been dead for several days, probably killed just before the city came under attack.

"Porkleton." Swinton whispered. "But… but I contacted him only yesterday. He said nothing was out of the ordinary."

Nick turned to the mayor. "You contacted Cheryl. She can sound like anyone. I've seen it. She's been playing you all along."

Judy gasped softly. Bonnie had been so insistent that she'd never called Judy when she'd gone to investigate Nick's clinic, delaying her from returning to her car until the tires got slashed, and then tricking her into taking her eyes off the doll that would have exposed Wild Times sooner…

"Keep moving." Swinton's voice was thick with fury as she shoved Judy onto the trail of footprints. It hurt, but the catharsis of watching the realisation of just how little control she'd had, right from the start, sink past Swinton's arrogance and into her self-righteous brain rendered the ache to little more than a brief annoyance.

"You're going to kill us anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to tell us what else is up here." Nick said.

Swinton rolled her eyes. "If you must know, up ahead is the monitor room. It's the only place left."

Nick gave a mirthless smile. "Thank you. That clears a few things up."

"Excuse me?" Swinton asked.

"All this time Cheryl has been moving us around her messed-up chessboard. Telling us where to go, sending her rodents to help us out, quoting her favourite book, generally making it harder for you and your assassins to hunt us down and kill us. And now we've just confirmed how she's been doing it."

Swinton strode up to Nick, spun him round by the shoulder and pressed her gun into his back. "Let's put an end to that, shall we? Keep moving."

They continued through the next door.

A single metal staircase went up to another door, and Judy went up first. On the platform at the top, between the stairs and the door, was another pig lying face down in another puddle of blood. Beside the door was a high-tech metal panel with a little glass lens. Swinton grabbed Judy, lifted her off her feet, and held the gun to her head as she walked up to the panel and leaned forward. The panel, a retinal scanner, scanned her eyeball with a ruby-red light which turned green as the door opened.

Swinton released Judy and used her gun to direct them through a short tunnel lit with red and white lights. At the end of the tunnel was a wide room full of server banks, glittering with blinking red lights like miniature skyscrapers.

"Really rocking the red up here, aren't ya?" Nick asked.

"Nick." Judy said sternly, unable to think what City Hall would need all these servers for. She swept the room with her eyes, searching for Cheryl. The tiger could be hiding behind any one of those machines. There were so many little light sources that there was no obvious shadow to give away her location. And tigers were quiet when they wanted to be. Real quiet. Even a rabbit wouldn't sense her coming. Cheryl would have her fangs in Judy's throat before she even knew she'd been ambushed.

But as they crossed the room, no-one leapt out to kill them.

With Swinton silently nudging them with her gun, they reached the next door, which required a handle to open. A visibly terrified Nick turned the handle and opened the door, and this time Judy reached out touched his other arm.

"It's okay." She said, hoping Swinton hadn't seen her expression change when she felt the object under Nick's sleeve. "I'll go first from now on."

She looked back at Swinton, in particular the gun in her hoof, and went through the door.

After seeing the colour red in so many forms, the cool sapphire aura that filled the cuboid room was jarring to Judy's eyes. The walls were black and shiny enough to reflect each other, and the floor was a series of metal grates illuminated from below by bright blue lights. Judy thought the floor lights superfluous until she realised that the lights were actually servers, protected by a layer of thick glass.

Other than that, the room was empty. No computers or desks. No Red Queen. Only a glass keypad on a thin metal pole build into the floor raised at the perfect height for a pig.

Swinton shepherded Judy and Nick further into the room and past the panel, and Judy's ears swivelled as she heard the beeping of a code being inputted.

The black lustre of the wall in front of them suddenly cleared. In room beyond was a cluster of flat screens displaying streets from all twelve districts within Zootopia, and a black control panel standing in front of them like a conductor's music stand. Standing in between the panel and the glass wall, her back to the intruders, stood a figure in black.

Judy held her breath. There she was, right in front of her, the woman who had caused all this.

"We meet again." Swinton snarled.

Her hood up, arms crossed in contemplation, the Red Queen turned away from the screen displaying the server room they had just walked through and faced them directly. Her green eyes stood out against a face that was still coated in the blood of dozens.

"You didn't sacrifice Nick just to take out Swinton? Heh, good move."

Blam! Judy flinched as a bullet flew between her and Nick, striking the glass but failing to punch through to Cheryl's chest. Nick swore under his breath and held a paw over his heart. Cheryl blinked and looked at the frozen white crack.

"Reinforced glass, remember? Or did your fibbing father kill off the architect and builders before they showed you the blueprints?"

There was more beeping. Judy turned her head briefly to see Swinton inputting another code into the panel, but nothing happened. "I see you changed the code to raise the glass. But I could just head up to the roof, where a substantial armed guard is waiting for me, and then bring them back down here to shoot the glass until it's no longer resistant." She was calmer now. With her enemy cornered, she was getting back to her old self again. "Unless, of course, you raise the glass yourself so we can finish this like women."

Cheryl smirked, but Judy could clearly see her true feelings in her eyes, all the pain she'd suffered, all the hatred that had stewed inside her for years. The hurt that lingered from having the worst experience of her life thrown in her face by the pig who was partially responsible for that experience. "We finish this? I think not. There are only two queens left on the board now, and you're not one of them." She turned her attention back to Judy. "You chose an impressive strategy, Hopps. You would never have found me without their help."

"Where is the Commissioner?" Judy asked.

Cheryl sharply tilted her head to the side. and Judy saw Elba duct-taped to a computer chair in between two of the larger monitors. He wasn't moving.

"Don't worry, your king is still alive." Cheryl strutted over to Elba and tenderly rubbed his shoulder. "But you and that porcine bitch really shouldn't have fallen for my skewer tactic."

"I will not be ignored!" Swinton snapped.

Cheryl ignored her, stepping away from Elba to slowly pace across the room. "It's already done. The Queen of Hearts has lost, and her Wonderland is about to be shattered."

Swinton drummed her fingers on the glass keypad. "When I get in there, I'm going to shatter your kneecaps."

Cheryl passed the big control panel, on which Elba's personal dart gun lay. "There is one move left to play before it's checkmate. One last piece to be claimed."

"Not so fast!" Judy slapped her paws against the glass. "We've got the proof! We found the Vorpal Blade, just like you asked!"

"The Knave of Hearts is dead." Cheryl stopped at the other end of the control panel and turned back toward Elba. "He was slain by the Bandersnatch not long after escaping you… before the blade could be unlocked, I'm afraid."

"No…" Judy whispered.

Nick hissed a tsk sound, making her look at him. His eyes darted sideways, indicating that she needed to look behind her. Swinton was using the keypad to hide whatever she was doing to the heart-shaped brooch she had removed from her chest.

While Cheryl's eyes were on Judy, Nick locked his own eyes with the rabbit and mouthed, "Trust me."

Judy had no way of showing she trusted him without arousing Cheryl's suspicion. All she could do was stare at him nervously and hope he knew what he was doing.

"And why exactly is Elba the White King in this whole thing?" Nick asked, making Cheryl look at him. He started to wander gradually to the side, away from Judy and Swinton. "It's not like killing him will stop us from taking you down."

"Nick, you may not realise it, but your kind has a vested interest in his assuming the throne once Swinton goes. You wouldn't want the Duchess taking her place, would you?" Cheryl pulled out a metallic syringe as she closed in on Elba. "But then again, I have a friend who has a vested interest in seeing this city go to hell in a teapot."

Judy pounded on the wall. "Cheryl! Stop! You don't need to do this!"

"Carrots, let me do the talking from here." Nick kept his tone even as he kept slowly stepping along the wall, easing Judy out of Cheryl's line of sight.

She felt the glass slowly slide beneath her paws. In the reflection she saw the faint image of Swinton turning a key in the panel. There was a dart gun on the control panel, the weapon Elba had used to subdue Bellwether when she triggered her collar at the press conference. Judy hoped it would be light enough for her to aim quickly.

"Kinda contradicting yourself, huh, Cheryl?" Nick went on. "I thought the truth was what you cared about."

Judy looked down at the steadily growing gap between the glass and the floor. Just a little more and she'd be able to slip through.

"I thought so, too. I really did." Cheryl stopped beside Elba, the syringe shining almost white in her black-gloved paw. "But this… this bloody serum… it puts all these thoughts in my head… you can't imagine it. You don't know what I think about every day. What I dream, even when I'm not sleeping. It took me months to regain the discipline to resist. I tried to hold it back. I tried so… sooo hard…" She glared at Swinton, her wide, hateful eyes shining cerulean from the blue lights of the monitors, putting the slowly rising crack in the glass in her line of sight. "… but then she had to mock me with that 'experiment,' didn't she? She said I enjoyed every second of it!"

"I'm sure that's not true." Nick said quickly, drawing Cheryl's glare back to him before she could notice anything amiss. Judy felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. That's it, Nick. Just keep doing what you do best…

Cheryl closed her eyes, took a long, deep, silent breath. When she let it out, she was creepily calm again. "But it's not just about me. Sedor was forced into the experiment as well. He held off going back to his family so he could make up for what he had done to me. And Ryan, just like Alice, he was convicted for something he didn't do, and now he's dead. She took everything from us. And in return, I'm going to show her one last terrible truth."

"That prey can go savage, too? You already proved that! In spades!" Nick said.

"This isn't Night Howler. Just enough Anafaux to give him a heart attack before he even goes into Anaphylaxis."

Like a dagger, she stabbed the syringe into Elba's neck.

Judy shrieked and reached for her gun, her horror making her forget she no longer had it. Elba's face briefly winced, but his eyes did not open.

"Go to hell!" Swinton screamed and fired four more shots, each bullet cracking the glass.

Cheryl still had her paw on the syringe, her thumb on the plunger. "Easy, I've only pierced the skin. Ready?"

"Cheryl, don't!" Nick begged.

Judy slid under the gap, her head barely clearing the small space, and leapt for Elba's gun. At the exact same time, Cheryl paused in the middle of pressing the plunger when she noticed that the five cracks were moving. Her eyes moved further along and spotted Judy approaching the control panel.

Seamlessly she let go of the syringe, leaving it protruding from the side of Elba's neck. Then she aimed a submachine gun at Judy.

Judy gasped and ducked behind the control panel's metal stand, barely avoiding the short hail of bullets Cheryl sent her way.

"Carrots!" Nick was stopped from going under the glass by Swinton pointing her gun at him with a sharp tut-tut.

Judy curled up behind the stand, cursing Cheryl for catching on so soon. Plan B, she needed a Plan B. She peeked around the edge of the stand to see Cheryl aiming the gun right at her.

Without warning, Cheryl pounced, not toward Judy but straight up. She thrust her legs apart, planting herself between the glass wall and the sturdy arm fixing one of the monitors to the ceiling. She expertly kept her balance and grip even though the glass wall was still sliding upward.

Judy saw Swinton's furious expression. She had tried to take a cheat shot while Cheryl was focused on Judy, but the tigress had caught on to her attempt.

Holy Mackerel, that was fast!

Finnick was right. She was the last predator in the world you wanted to mess with.

When Swinton had attempted her cheap shot, she had made the mistake of taking her attention off of Nick. The fox ran at her and grabbed at the gun, instigating a furious struggle. Cheryl looked down when she heard the pig and fox fight over the gun, and Judy seized her chance. She leapt onto one of the other metal arms and then shot up toward Cheryl. She spun in mid-air to deliver a vicious kick. Cheryl saw the rabbit coming a second too late, receiving a blow to the chest that pushed her back, disarmed her of her gun and knocked her from her perch. Judy fell onto the top of a monitor, grabbing the metal frame and saving herself from a longer fall. Cheryl fell headfirst, shooting out her arms toward the floor at the last moment and flipping her body upright, landing on her feet with a clang that echoed in the chamber.

Swinton let out a grunt of pain as Nick punched her. The blow was not enough to make her release the pistol they were still grappling over.

Cheryl pounced, this time aiming straight for Judy. Judy leapt straight in the air. She somersaulted at the height of the arc, glimpsing Cheryl's powerful form soaring beneath her as she spun. Judy landed feet first, her eyes catching Cheryl ricocheting off a wall and going for the rabbit again. Judy rolled to dodge the attack. Cheryl's claws ripped the grating from the spot where the rabbit had been. The tiger paused for a moment, crouched on all fours, then threw the deformed metal square aside and went into a combat stance. Judy stopped by the fallen submachine gun, pulled out the magazine and threw it away. It hit the wheel of Elba's chair and stayed there. Then she went into her own stance and waited for Cheryl to make the first move.

Cheryl made no move to attack. Her eyes were hard and focused. She showed no sign that her vicious, lightning-fast attack had overexerted her. By attacking the tiger, Judy had caused her formidable combat training to kick in, momentarily putting her madness to one side and leaving Judy with no weakness to exploit. This, Judy understood, was the true Cheryl Radames, the Red Queen of ZI6. The ultimate predator.

"You know I was top of my class in the academy, right?" Judy said, hoping her bravado hid her growing primal terror.

"That makes two of us." Cheryl said.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but can you guys cut the banter? Please?" Nick said. He was now struggling to get out of Swinton's headlock.

Judy agreed with him, but she needed to buy time. She was no match in a one-on-one fight, not this time. She needed a firearm, a sharp weapon, anything she could use against that woman.

The dart gun on the control panel. Judy had hoped to stun Cheryl long enough for her to use the over-sized weapon, but she had proven too resilient. Diverting her attention had worked once, but Swinton was too preoccupied at the moment.

Cripes, what do I do now-

Blam!

Another monitor shattered beside Cheryl's head. During his ongoing struggle with Swinton, Nick had seen that Judy was in trouble and tried to aim Swinton's gun in Cheryl's direction. The bullet had missed, but Cheryl sharply swivelled her head to determine the shooter.

Ooh, Nick, yes!

Judy hopped onto the control panel and grabbed the dart gun. It was as heavy as she imagined an anti-tank rifle to be, forcing her to get down on one knee as she hefted the weapon, rested the butt on the panel's surface, and turned it in Cheryl's direction.

"Freeze!" She yelled.

Cheryl glanced at Judy out the corner of her eye, which narrowed when she saw the gun. Judy had felt body armour when she'd kicked the tiger's chest, so she had her sight set on Cheryl's head and neck, which had nothing but the hood for protection.

Judy eyed her along the length of the loaded dart. "Drop the gun, Cheryl. Game's over."

Cheryl said and did nothing.

Blam!

Judy froze when she heard the gunshot, but Cheryl didn't even blink.

Then she looked beyond Cheryl and saw Nick hunched over, holding his hip with an expression of shock and agony.

Judy's mind went blank. Her heartrate skyrocketed when she saw the blood on his paws.

"No." She whimpered.

Her paw tightened on the large trigger. She didn't notice the dart soar, or Cheryl's gloved paw snatch the dart out the air like a bothersome fly.

Brushing herself off, Swinton stepped away from Nick, breathing heavily.

Nick's bright green eyes were wide with shock and pain as he propped a paw against the glass, leaving a bright red streak as it continued to rise.

"Be a good fox and die this time." Swinton spun her gun back to Cheryl and strolled under the glass without so much as a glance at the fox. Nick moaned and collapsed to the grated floor, curling into a ball around his wound. Tears began to run sideways down his face, dripping through the grating onto the lights below.

Judy's ears flattened as she kicked back into gear, bared her teeth and threw the now useless gun aside.

"YOU… BITCH!"

She propelled herself off the control panel, boiling blood deafening her to the beepof the Mag-Ryder when Nick, curled up on the floor, saw Swinton begin to turn her gun toward the enraged rabbit and raised his arm. The instant the gadget detected the steel within Swinton's gun it fired, the powerful magnet hitting the gun with enough force to divert her aim. The bullet missed Judy by centimetres, shattering a monitor. Before Swinton could understand what had happened the magnet violently retracted, yanking the gun out of her hoof. Judy hit the floor, bounded off the grating, and slammed her fist into Swinton's nose.

Swinton flew back and slid along the grating as Cheryl shrieked with laughter, her cackles filling the black, reflective room. "And I thought the Noah's Ark Trap was a bad move!"

She continued to laugh loudly, leaning against the control panel for support as Swinton got to her feet, clutching her nose. Blood dribbled under her manicured hooves and soaked her white dress like red wine as she looked around for her gun. She stiffened when she saw it in Nick's paw. His teeth were clenched as he aimed it straight at her.

Cheryl laughed harder when he pulled the trigger, but his paw was shaking as shock set in, causing him to miss and put a hole in the wall. He fired again as Swinton turned her curly tail and ran to the exit, cracking the glass keypad. He fired a third time as she reached the door and fled through it, only to hear a dry click.

Judy didn't even think about going after her. She ran to Nick and pulled the gun away from his fingers before pushing him onto his back. She released a shuddering breath when she saw the wound. It wasn't a big leaking hole in his abdominal organs, as she had feared. Instead there was a long clean gash running diagonally down his side, ending in a hole where the bullet had penetrated the edge of his thigh and exited from the other side. Her vision turned misty. She wiped the tears away but they kept coming, and soon they were running down her face.

"Nick… Nick… stay with me, Nick!"

Nick whined as she applied pressure. "Judy, it hurts…"

"I know, I know!" Judy sobbed.

Cheryl started to calm down, glancing briefly at Elba when they heard him stir, disturbed from unconsciousness by all the commotion. "Well, I can't say I enjoyed this game, but all in all, I think it went swimmingly, don't you agree?"

Judy bit her lip, feeling a sudden, violent urge toward Cheryl. She didn't want to leave Nick's side, but the tiger had to be stopped. She pulled a gauze from her belt and pressed it to his injury. "I've only got one left, sorry. Just hold it here and press."

Nick nodded, eyes scrunched shut, and cursed as he did what she said.

Elba groaned, eyes blinking from the headache he appeared to be suffering from. "What the hell…" He froze when he saw Cheryl, and then started struggling against the duct tape holding him in the chair.

Cheryl gave the water buffalo a half-smile. "You feeling proud about yourself, Commissioner? You tried so hard to encourage a better coexistence between predator and prey. Congratulations, it appears to be working."

Elba growled, then jerked his body so the side to fiercely that he toppled to the floor, chair and all. The syringe fell out his neck and rolled across the floor.

Judy inched herself closer to Nick's head, reached out and stroked the fur above his eyebrow. He relaxed slightly under the gentle touch, though he kept his paws wrapped tight around his thigh.

Cheryl paused, tilting her head curiously at the small pair. "Maybe a little too well…"

While she wasn't looking, Elba had gotten a hold of one of the glass shards littering the floor and was currently sawing through the tape holding his left arm.

"I-I'm sorry, Judy." Nick shuddered from the pain. "You'd be tackling that witch to the floor right now if it wasn't for-"

"You're more important to me." Judy said softly. She stayed crouched but propped herself onto her feet in preparation for the confrontation to come. "Just stay here and keep pressing down. I'll be right back once I've taken care of that psycho."

Judy took a deep breath. She stood up and turned away from Nick in one movement.

Cheryl was standing only five feet away, between Judy and Elba, her aura eerily serene once more. Elba had cut both arms free and was now pulling himself toward the submachine gun with the magazine in hand.

"Look at monitor twelve." Judy said hoarsely.

"I know." Cheryl said without looking. "The ZBI will be here, soon. I think Honey found the elevator code in the Queen of Hearts's computer and tipped them off. It's just a matter of getting past the queen's guard."

"Another predator I couldn't have done it without." Judy went back into her combat stance. If she could hold Cheryl off long enough for the ZBI to get here, they might still have a catch to take her down before Swinton got away. "Just like you wanted."

Elba grabbed the submachine gun and slipped the magazine inside. Cheryl's ear twitched when she heard the magazine click in place, but she made no attempt to stop him. He aimed the weapon at Cheryl's back.

"I didn't." She said. She looked overly peaceful, like she had just made a tremendous accomplishment but was too demure to rave about it. "I just needed you to keep Nick alive until he could testify against the Court of Hearts. I didn't expect you to become friends."

"But why me? Why did you put us through all this, really?" Judy asked.

Cheryl pulled something from one of the large pockets of her coat; it was her gas mask, still coated with old and fresh blood. She dropped the mask to the floor. Next she pulled out a collar reader, identical to the one used by doctors and police officers except for the red and black colour. "Alice woke up from her Wonderland, and with time, we will wake up, as well." She took a step toward Judy, dropped the reader to the floor and aimed Elba's gun in her face. The dart, which Cheryl had deftly caught, had been loaded back in place. "This city is nothing a pack of cards. And yet, you've proved it can be different."

Having listened to every word, Nick, propped himself up on one elbow. "What can we do to make it different?"

For what felt like an eternity, there was no sound but the sum of the monitors.

"Wake up." Cheryl slowly raised the dart gun to her own neck, pulled the trigger, and collapsed into a dreamless sleep.