Nick had managed to talk his way out of his fair share of tough situations before, and many of them hadn't even been his fault. Like the time he had been rather unjustly accused of spilling a drink on the largest and meanest tiger he had ever set eyes on. That had worked out pretty well in the end. Or at least, he had been able to walk away with all his teeth still in his head, which had at least felt like a victory.
Or maybe his standards for winning were just on the low side.
Either way, spending as much time in Phoenix as he had was enough to have prepared Nick for life without the safety net that mammals in Zootopia took for granted. If that wolf had decided to beat him to a pulp, there wouldn't have been a torc to stop him from doing so. Or, if not stopping him, ensuring that the wolf would have injured himself just as badly in the process.
If he tried putting a positive spin on it, facing down the City Guard was really the exact same sort of challenge. Whether inside Zootopia or in Phoenix, the only way they'd injure themselves fighting someone was if they cracked a claw punching too hard. So really, if he thought about it, having the mind-controlled head of the City Guard, the equally mind-controlled queen, and a gamut of guardsmammals before him, while he sat with his back to an alchemical array that could scramble his own mind, with the mammal he cared most about unconscious in his lap with a frankly slim chance of recovery, was—
No, he couldn't do it.
Telling himself it wasn't the worst situation he had ever found himself in was the sort of lie even he would have hesitated to tell someone else, let alone himself. It was bad. More than bad, it was the worst. But for his own sake, and the sake of the princess (who was fumbling over her words in a way that he could feel quite sympathetic for), Nick plastered his cheeriest possible smile on his face and said, "We can explain everything."
He couldn't, of course, but lying had worked pretty well in the past. Why not try again now? "You can make your explanations from a cell," Captain General Bogo replied, his face somehow managing to be even grimmer than usual, "Take your paws away from the Commandant."
Nick raised his paws as slowly as he could, spreading his fingers wide in what he hoped was as cooperative and non-threatening a manner as possible. "She's fine," he said, although that lie hurt him a little, "Just a little tuckered out, that's all."
He offered another smile. "You know how bunnies are, right?"
From the way Bogo's face twisted, Nick thought he might as well have insulted the hulking buffalo's mother at her funeral, and he could feel his heart beating faster. It had already seemed to be going about as fast as it possibly could, but it turned out to be possible to get even more nervous. It was far from his happiest discovery, but he did some of his best work under pressure. He also made some of his worst mistakes under similar situations, but that wasn't worth dwelling on.
"Come over here, dear," the queen said.
She was gesturing at the princess, of course; Nick would have been rather surprised if she had spoken to him that way. Unlike Bogo, who was looking at Nick as though he was trying to burn holes in him with his eyes, the queen's face was an anxious mess. It actually made Nick a bit jealous; it had been a very long time since he had seen his mother look at him like that.
Nick could practically feel how torn the princess was between wanting to do as her mother asked and wanting to stand by his side. It was obvious to him, from the expression on her face to the way she anxiously played with her paws. "Get away from that alchemical array," the queen urged.
The guards who were accompanying the queen and the Captain General were looking at the array rather nervously, and Nick supposed that he couldn't blame them. To the vast majority of mammals, alchemy was a strange and mysterious art, practiced by mammals who did their best to maintain that impression. Most mammals knew at least some of the things alchemy could do, of course—no one seemed to give alchemical torches so much as a second thought, despite how remarkable even that simple bit of alchemy was—but very few understood its limits. For all the guards knew, the array Nick had his back to could utterly destroy Phoenix or turn them all into chickens; it wasn't as though any of them could tell what it was actually intended to do.
The truth of its power was a bit more terrifying than either of those possibilities, as even without being able to study the entire array Nick understood it well enough. And with that thought the pieces clicked together in his mind.
"Don't do that, your majesty," Nick said, turning his attention to the princess, "It won't end well."
The puzzled look she shot him was, admittedly, not ideal. It was why he had almost always preferred to work alone; a good accomplice was hard to find and a bad one would just ruin the intended effect. Nick felt the smile he wore becoming somewhat more natural, even though he doubted any of the mammals watching him could tell. If the Captain General and the queen thought he was some kind of villain, then by all the gods he was going to give them what they were expecting.
"I'm prepared to destroy Phoenix entirely if my demands aren't met," Nick said, doing his best to infuse his voice with the proper menace.
He wasn't entirely sure he had succeeded, but considering that most mammals were predisposed to distrust foxes he thought it might have done the job. The guards—who had, he realized, been craftily creeping forward ever so slowly—froze, and Nick thought he could actually see flickers of unease crossing their faces.
"This isn't a negotiation, fox," Captain General Bogo spat, but before he could say anything more the queen lowered her arm in front of him.
"What are your demands?" she asked.
Her voice wasn't as harsh as the buffalo's, but there was definitely a chilly aspect to it. "Your majesty—" Bogo began protesting, but she cut him off.
"Do you know what he might be capable of?" the queen asked.
It would almost be a compliment, if it weren't also so insulting. Still, all things considered, Nick was more than a little glad that the queen cared enough about the safety of either her daughter or Phoenix enough not to simply order him killed.
"A wise decision, your majesty," Nick said, improvising wildly, "If I die, this array will activate itself. And that would be bad."
Nick winced internally; as a threat it had been more than a little underwhelming. If anything, though, the simple way he had phrased it seemed to have had the desired effect. Bogo still looked angry, but his anger looked to have settled down to a sort of simmer rather than a rolling boil. The queen gestured sharply at the guards. "Lower your weapons, for the sake of the gods!" she snapped, and they did so with a speed that was rather impressive.
"What are your demands?" she repeated.
"Don't you want to know why I'm doing what I'm doing?" Nick asked, trying to stall long enough to come up with an actual plan.
Bogo crossed his arms across his chest. "Talk, fox," he said.
"Oh, it's simple, really," Nick said, looking down at the claws of one paws as modestly as he could, which he also used as an opportunity to check on Judy.
She was, unfortunately, the same as she had been. Her breathing was slow and even and her eyes were closed. The fiery glow of a philosopher's stone still came from between her tightly clenched fingers, but she otherwise seemed almost bonelessly limp. She hadn't changed a bit since his mental double had started trying to stitch her broken mind back together, and the beginning of an idea struck Nick. If he was right, Judy's mind had broken in the first place because of the conflict between what she actually believed and what she had been ordered to believe. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible to get Bogo and the queen to a similar point, albeit one that hopefully stopped a bit short of breaking their minds; he still didn't know if Judy would ever actually wake up. Nick looked back up, straight into Bogo's eyes with all the confidence he could muster. Which was, he thought, quite a lot. "I'm planning on taking over Zootopia and ruling it from the shadows for the good of all mammals," Nick said.
Bogo actually blinked at that. Was it just optimism—something which Nick generally tried to squash down as much as he possibly could—or had there been a flicker of recognition at that? Considering the control that Cerdo could exert, he had guessed that the pig was keeping Bogo and the queen in the dark about his motives even as he sent them into the ruins to do his dirty work. Unless he was very much mistaken, Nick was guessing that the scheming lord had thought that the princess wouldn't be able to resist her mother calling for her to come back. It was a nasty trick, but also one that Nick thought proved that the pig didn't understand the nature of mammals quite as well as he probably thought he did.
Or, at the very least, that he was underestimating the princess. She did love her mother, after all, and she did want to obey her. But the princess was also pretty clearly not stupid, and she had to know what it meant for her mother to appear at Bogo's side. "That's impossible," the queen protested, and she turned to her daughter, asking, "Is he telling the truth?"
"He's..." the princess began hesitantly, and then she seemed to catch her nerve and continued in a far more confident fashion, "He's telling the truth. I've seen the things he does to mammals that cross him. He put Commandant Totchli into an endless sleep."
She wasn't the best liar Nick had ever met, but she wasn't half bad. The princess had even given Judy's still form a significant look as she spoke, which was good. It would have been better for her to simply imply that he was capable of terrible things rather than inventing something on the spot he'd have to try to make credible, but she was still young. The guards were looking positively uneasy now, and Nick pressed his advantage.
"It's not impossible, because I've had help from within your court. Lord Cerdo has been working for me for years."
"Lord Cerdo is an honorable mammal," Bogo said, but his words came back with a speed and an intonation that struck Nick as being rather unnatural.
Nick sincerely hoped it was something that he had been forced to believe rather than something he genuinely did; if Bogo had held a positive impression of the pig he'd be rather disappointed in the buffalo's intelligence. But then, life was full of disappointments. "Is he?" Nick challenged, "Think about it. He's been manipulating you all along."
There were no further protestations from Bogo or the queen, which was at least a start. Nick didn't get the feeling that either one fully believed him yet, but at least neither was automatically claiming that the pig was innocent. If Judy was any indication, maybe he was close. Or maybe not; Nick wished he had had enough time to set up an anti-alchemy array.
"So," Nick continued, "Here's how it's going to go. I'm going to make my very reasonable demands, and none of your guards are going to try anything funny. If anyone takes so much as another step toward me, I'll make them sleep forever just like Commandant Totchli."
"He can do it," the princess added, nodding her head perhaps a bit too rapidly, "I've seen his alchemy."
Bogo scowled, but when the queen spoke he didn't interrupt. "I'm listening," the queen said.
"I—" Nick began, but he was interrupted by the feeling of Judy squirming in his lap.
He couldn't help but look down into her face as she opened her eyes, blinking rapidly before looking straight into his. "Nick?" she asked, and he felt himself freeze even as his heart soared in his chest.
Of all the possible times for what he wanted more than anything to occur, of course she would come to right after he had used her unconsciousness as a threat. It really did seem like the gods enjoyed a good laugh at his expense.