Nick went through his normal routine that day, everything going the same as usual until he got to the part of the day where he would normally do the cleaning and the laundry. This was usually after he had dropped all the kits off at either school, pre-school or some form of activity. But today he had Finnick at the apartment doing those things while he drove down to the decrepit warehouse by the water to begin his first day of training.

Most of it was fairly standard stuff, running, weight lifting etc. Then things started to get a little bit more interesting. Ming taught him how to use smoke bombs and Kiku demonstrated a technique to punch through cinderblocks, which looked rather painful to him. Mabel tried to show Nick how to use the budget radio system that she had installed in the mask and Mike had him practice his 'monologue.'

"I The Scarlet Rogue am here to bring Justice to-" The moose cut him off.

"No, no. With more passion Nick! You need to make the people believe that you really are a hero." Nick rolled his eyes as he looked away from the script.

"What's the point of this? Aren't you guys going to be modifying my voice anyway when we do the whole announcement thing?"

"Well yes, but it doesn't matter how much we modify your voice if you can't deliver the lines with a bit of emotion. We are trying to create a myth here, not a used car salesman. Once again, from the top." Nick let a small chuckle go and got back to it.

Nick felt bushed after practicing for his new job that afternoon. Soon enough though, it was time to get going and pick up the kits. Before he left he checked in with Mike to see when he should come back tomorrow.

"So, same time tomorrow?" Mike gave Nick a serious look before he responded.

"We've got a problem."

"Oh?"

"They are going to start demolishing one of the buildings tomorrow. We thought that we would have more time to get you back in shape but it seems that Santiago has other plans. We need you to go out tonight and pay this demolition site a visit."

"You're crazy. I literally just started today and you're telling me that I have to find a way to break into a demolition site in less than twelve hours."

"Yes, it is crazy. But that's why we made you our leader. Don't worry, you'll figure something out. Now, you better get going or else you will be late to pick up Jessica and Nicole from school."

Nick walked off, not entirely sure how he was going to find a way to break into a construction site between now and later tonight. At the moment he was more focused on picking up his kits. Swinging by the school he picked up Jessica and Nicole and then he went to get Marcus. As usual he now had to take them to their after school activities, which for these three there were only two. Jessica and Nicole went to their ballet class and Marcus to swimming lessons. Nick sat patiently outside the ballet studio while working on his laptop. He had a map of the area pulled up and an article regarding the demolition of the building in question. He read through the article carefully, pausing when he saw that the building was to be demolished using explosives. A flash of inspiration washed over him and he began to type an email to Ming to have something special ready for him when he came back to the warehouse that night. Nick flipped back to the map of the area though and noted the position of the jam cams that seemed to exist at every major intersection. As far as he could tell, it seemed that there was no way to exit the area without being spotted on one of them and tracked all the way back to warehouse. Losing focus, he decided that he would check out Finnick's new website for his auto body shop. Looking through some of the images he noticed that Finnick seemed to specialize in making dull white vans into gaudy flame covered monstrosities. He pondered the images for a moment, an idea springing to mind. He pulled out his phone and gave Finnick a call.

"Hey Finnick."

"Nick! Do you have any idea how many clothes you and your family seem to go through!? I've been stuck doing laundry for the last two hours' man!"

"Hey, being a stay at home dad is tough. If it was easy I wouldn't have asked for your help."

"Yeah, yeah. Alright what do you need?"

"We're going out tonight it seems."

"What? But we haven't had any time to really practice!"

"That's what I said. Anyway, I have a plan. So, that auto body shop that you own. Tell me, how fast do you think that you could paint a van?"

"If I really rushed it, probably a day."

"You are going to have to do this in eight hours. Don't worry though it's nothing too complicated, sending you the picture now." Nick had a picture of one of the City's vans opened up that had on the side Zootopia Department of Water & Sewage. He smiled to himself, maybe their trust in him wasn't totally misguided after all.

Nick returned to the apartment and got ready to start dinner. He found that his usual grace and agility though were somewhat lacking as he put together a casserole, the weight of what he was going to do that night making focus a difficult thing to maintain. Judy arrived home shortly after, looking a little more beat than usual.

"Something wrong carrots?"

"No… Yes… I really don't want to talk about work right now."

Nick tried his best to relax as she laid her arms around him and gave him a big hug. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but decided not to say anything. If she wanted her home to be stress free than that's what he would work to make happen. Nick gave her a little smile and motioned to the dinner he had prepared.

"Broccoli casserole with Brussel sprouts my dear?" Immediately, high pitched yelps and cries filled the air of the apartment.

"Brussel sprouts!? Dad!"

Judy gave Nick a thankful smile and laughed a little at the protests of the kits as they came sullenly to the table to eat with their parents. As usual they talked about the day's activities, Jessica being very excited that her teacher had given her a complement on her pirouette. After eating their fill, and Nick and Judy eating most of the Brussel sprouts, they went over to the TV and sat down to watch a movie. Judy leaned into Nick as the kids sat on the floor to watch the movie. When the prince went to the princess to give her a kiss at the climax of the film Judy leaned in to give Nick one too. Three pairs of ears turned around as the sound of their kiss caught the kits attention. Jessica was the first to make a note of it.

"Ew… Mommy and Daddy are kissing!" Nick and Judy laughed a little as they leaned into each other. Judy decided to tease them a little about it.

"Oh no Nick, they caught us!" Jessica and Nicole looked at each other before they burst out into song.

"Mommy and Daddy sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Marcus in a baby carriage." Nick reached down his paws and tasseled the girls fur.

"That's right! Now, seeing that the movie is over guess what that means." Collectively the kits let out a long groan, with Marcus being the first to make a plead.

"Aw… Five more minutes? There are still the previews to watch." Nick looked at Judy, figuring that he would let her play the good cop.

"Hmm… I think that's okay!" The kits cheered as they went back to the menu while Nick feigned shock.

"It's past their bedtime."

"Five minutes won't hurt."

Finishing up the last of the previews Nick and Judy put the kits to bed before turning in themselves. Nick got into bed first, with Judy laying down next to him. After she turned off her lamp she nuzzled up next to him and held him tightly. Nick tried to relax as best he could, trying to convince himself that tonight was like any other night at home. To convince himself that he wasn't about to get up in an hour and steal off into the night to do something that he had promised Judy only yesterday he wouldn't. Apparently, his self-deception worked well enough to fool Judy, as less than a minute later he could hear her quiet snores. Quiet being a relative term. It sounded like a rusty chainsaw, albeit freshly oiled.

Nick raised her arms off of him and carefully disentangled himself from the bed. He took the displaced covers and tucked them back in around Judy, giving her a light kiss on her head before he left. Quietly getting dressed, he silently opened the door and stole one last look at his sleeping princess before he headed out.

Nick walked down the stairs of the apartment building and stood out front. Waiting for him was a white van that bore a remarkable likeness to those of the Zootopia Department of Water & Sewage. The window of the van rolled down and Finnick motioned for him to get in. Nick got over to the passenger side and hopped into the van. Sitting in back were Mike and Ming, dressed in construction outfits. Finnick broke the silence as they drove to the location that Nick had told him about in an email.

"I have to say Nick, I'm impressed. You've had some pretty crazy ideas before, but this one really takes the cake." Nick gave a bemused smile.

"Thanks."

"I mean it Nick. Dressing up as sewer workers so that we can use the storm drains to get into the construction site? It's crazy man!" The moose laid a hoof on Nick's shoulder.

"I knew we picked the right fox for the job! By the way, we got the black tool bags that you asked for." Nick nodded in affirmation.

"Great! Looks like we have everything that we need. Everyone knows their parts?" They all nodded in the affirmative.

"Good, then let's get this hustle going."

They pulled up to a street corner, parking just in front of a manhole that was near the side of the street. Waiting until a squad car had passed, Ming and Mike got out in their inspector outfits and removed the manhole cover and then placed the appropriate safety cones around it. Next, Nick and Finnick dawned their costumes, Nick noticing for the first time that Finnick was going to be coming along.

"Wait… Are you going to be my side-kick?" Finnick flashed him an angry look.

"I am The Tawny Bandit; I am not your side-kick!" Nick smiled a little before making his comment.

"Right, got it, the tiny bandit." Finnick grabbed Nick's collar and dragged him down so that he was looking at him face to face.

"Tawny. Bandit. Got it?" Nick simply nodded and Finnick let him go.

They then got into the large tool bags that the others had left in the back and sealed themselves up inside of them. The bags were then picked up by Mike who tied them to a rope and lowered them down into the sewer, where Ming was waiting at the bottom to let them out. The smell was overpowering, but there wasn't much that could be done about it. Next, Mike lowered a burlap sack down to the three waiting below. Nick opened it just to make sure that Ming had gotten everything right. Taking out one what appeared to be a stick of dynamite, he inspected the writing and the color. Ming looked on the little stick of explosives with pride.

"Looks almost like the real thing huh?"

"How much damage will it do?"

"To a building? Almost none! I still wouldn't recommend standing anywhere close to it though. It might be a giant firecracker, but it's still dangerous. I also included the smoke bombs that you asked for. I only had time to make a few of them, so use them wisely." Nick nodded.

"Got it. Okay, wait here until we get back. We'll make sure that tomorrows demolition doesn't go as planned."

With that, Nick and Finnick finished dawning their masks and started heading down the sewer towards the demolition site. Counting off the number of grates, Nick eventually found the one that he was looking for. Climbing up the ladder Nick tried to push the heavy grate out of the way so that he could get out onto the street above. Finnick climbed up between Nick and the ladder and brushed his paws aside. Nick put his paws back on the ladder and gave Finnick a questioning look. Finnick ignored him and with a grunt and a twist pushed the grate out of the way, sliding it to the side just as easily as could be. Nick's jaw seemed to have forgotten how to work as he looked on in amazement.

Climbing out after Finnick, Nick cautiously looked around to see if there was anyone around. As far as he could tell the entire demolition site was empty, not another soul in sight. Next, he looked for the real target of this little operation. The truck carrying the explosives that were to be used tomorrow. He didn't have to go very far to find the bright orange pickup-truck that was plastered with warning stickers. Grabbing his lock picking set he started to pick the lock on the steel box that contained the explosives in the truck bed. Popping the lock, he passed the bag of fake explosives to Finnick, removing the real dynamite and putting it to the side. Nick started to put the fake dynamite into the box but noticed something he hadn't expected when he looked up. The foreman's trailer. Nick set down the fake dynamite that he had in his paws and looked to Finnick.

"Make sure that everything looks exactly the same. I have an idea."

"Hey! Stick to the plan!" It was no good though, Nick had already gone off towards the trailer.

Nick approached the trailer cautiously, looking for any signs of alarms or sensors that would give him away. Looking at the stairs to the front door he saw a camera and a keycard reader. Looking at the windows he saw that they too had little sensors attached to them. Figuring that the most obvious means of entry were probably all covered he decided that the next best method was to go with the least obvious means of entry. Crouching down he headed towards one of the grates that rimmed the bottom of the trailer. Carefully removing one these he crawled his way underneath the trailer. Taking a flashlight out of his pocket he looked around for some sort of maintenance hatch. Spotting one he carefully began to undo the bolts holding it in place.

"Bingo."

He lifted the hatch, which was metal on the bottom and carpet on the top, up and set on the floor inside of the trailer. After climbing into the trailer he put the grate back in its position. Scanning the trailer, he found exactly what he had been looking for, computers and folders. Flipping through a few of the folders on the desks he searched for anything that could be useful in showing what was really afoot. Not finding anything he looked at the computers, a few of which were still on. Taping the keyboard, he was greeted with the login screen.

"Great. Maybe they left a password somewhere." Opening the top drawer and looking at the bottom he found a post-it with a username and a password written on it.

"Thank goodness for terrible memories."

Nick typed the password and username into the login screen and was led to the desktop. Opening up an internet browser and typing in a few generic email providers, he crossed his claws and hoped that this mammal was as bad at security as he thought. Sure enough, the browser automatically filled in the blanks and he was able to login.

"Yes!"

Nick read through a few of the emails experimentally. Most of them seemed to be of little use, until he found one that made him give out a bit of a victory hoot.

Hey Boss,

We're having a bit of trouble with wolves over on the third block. Any chance we can have a city inspector show up tomorrow?

Response:

Yeah sure, I'll just ask the higher-ups to get one of their lackeys at city hall to get one sent out. Don't worry, the property will be condemned in twenty-four hours.

Response:

Ha, great! I love how fast the government works for us!

Nick moved to download the file, but he didn't know what he could download it too. Taking out his phone he grabbed a nearby cable and started downloading the email to the phone. Figuring that more information would be better he selected all the emails that he could and started loading them onto his phone. Job done, Nick grabbed the phone and headed for the door. Upon opening it though he immediately regretted it as the burglar alarm went off.

"Crackers!"

Nick looked down the block just in time to see that two officers, who had been standing by their squad car, were now looking right at him. It seemed like now was probably the time to go. Running over to the truck that Finnick was standing in he got an annoyed whisper.

"What did you do man!?"

"I went out the door. Did you get all the dynamite?"

"Yeah, of course! Not going to do us much good when the cops get here tho-" Nick grabbed Finnick and started running towards the storm sewer on the opposite side of the street from where the cops were.

"Grab the smoke bombs!" Finnick dug through the bag as Nick sprinted towards the sewer. Nick looked behind him, the officers were gaining on him and he could see the red and blue lights from the squad cars that were heading down the street towards them.

"Set them off!" Finnick took out a lighter and gave a deep laugh as he lit the fuses on the smoke bombs, tossing a few in front of them and a few behind them as he hung under Nick's arm.

A series of loud pops surrounded Nick as the air filled with dense smoke. From behind him he could hear the cops shouting at him to freeze. Holding the bag in his teeth, he headed down the ladder with Finnick standing on his shoulders. Carefully, Finnick moved the grate back into position and let it down with a muted thud. Nick then started down the ladder as he heard more cars arrive on the scene and the other officers start to search the area. Moving as quietly as he could, he and Finnick headed back down the sewer towards the parked van. Ming was standing there waiting, looking a little bit nervous.

"What happened?" Finnick took off his orange mask and hissed at Nick.

"This fool thought that it would be a great idea to drift from the plan!"

"In my defense, I found evidence that Santiago has his paws deep in city hall." Finnick still looked mad.

"Yeah, well next time don't do something like that without asking okay? We nearly got caught back there!" Nick sighed a little.

"Yeah, well we didn't and that's that. Come on, let's get back in the bags." Nick and Finnick got back into the tool bags and waited for the others to drag them back out of the sewer.

Nick could hear the sirens of the squad cars rushing past their van as they were pulled up out of the sewer. After hearing the doors close, Nick started to unzip his bag from the inside. Stretching out, he moved to remove his mask but was interrupted by Mike.

"Wait! We need to get your announcement!"

"Announcement?"

"The announcement of The Scarlet Rogue! We have to make sure that there is a video to accompany this brazen act of resistance." Nick looked at the moose, not sure whether or not to take him seriously.

"Here? In the back of a van? Can't we do this at the warehouse?"

"You said yourself that we couldn't move the van after the job without making it look really suspicious. So why not use the time we have to wait anyway to get some filming done?" Nick decided that the moose had a decent point.

"Yeah, alright, pass me the script." Mike excitedly passed him the script and got out the camera as Finnick sat in the corner looking disappointed. Mike glanced over towards him.

"Hey, the Tawny Bandit has lines too you know." Finnick's ears picked up.

"Really!? I mean, oh. Yeah sure." Finnick moved over next to Nick and picked up his own set of lines. It was a little while before they were ready to record but eventually they felt confident to give it a go. Mike gave them a count down and then pointed to Nick to start his lines.

"I, am the scarlet rogue!" Mike pointed towards Finnick to cue his line.

"I am the tawny bandit!"

"We have struck at the heart of Santiago's demolition plans, and have gathered information proving that he has paws all over the city council."

"Tonight is merely the first night in our fight against Santiago and his plans to demolish the Canidae neighborhood."

"We'll continue to fight to expose Santiago for who he is, and to protect the Canidae neighborhood. We're the tragic pack, and we're here to stay!" Mike clicked his hoof to signal he was done recording.

"Not bad guys, but we're going to need a few more takes before we can call it good." Nick grabbed his phone to check the time.

"Whoa, it's two o'clock in the morning! Sorry but I got to go or else I won't get any sleep before I have to make breakfast." The others gave him an annoyed look. Finnick just rolled his eyes and spoke to the others.

"The fox loves what he does. Cut him some slack. Besides, he did just help us with our first job, even though he screwed up part of it." Remembering the emails Nick took out his phone.

"Hey, I collected some emails off of the computers in the trailer. Some of them look pretty incriminating." Mike nodded at Nick.

"Sure, put them on my laptop as we take you home. I'll have Mabel edit the video so that we can have it up before the morning news. With a little luck, you two will be the talk of Zootopia in a few hours."

They dropped Nick off at his apartment building, taking the costume back with them as they headed towards the warehouse. Heading up the stairs and quietly unlocking the door he let himself in. He took a quick shower, changed clothes and snuck back into the bedroom, Judy still snoring like a champ. Carefully, he lowered himself into the bed and got back under the sheets and snuggled up back next to Judy. After almost being caught by the cops and risking so much to help out his old neighborhood, he finally felt safe. As he relaxed and began to drift off towards sleep, his alarm went off. Glaring at the alarm clock he hit it to make it stop beeping. Judy turned over next to him.

"Morning sweetie."

"Right… Morning…" Nick rolled out of bed and got ready to start his morning routine.

Edited by B.B. Conrad

Cover Art 'Competition' Announcement: (For those that are interested)

Since this story is gaining a bit of traction (I half expected it to crash and burn if I'm honest) I think it is time to start looking for cover art. Specifically, if any of you out there are so inclined I was thinking of some sort of portrait of The Scarlet Rogue himself. However, I am hardly an artist so I am willing to listen to any and all suggestions. If a few of you send me art of good quality (subjective I know) I will try and alternate your art as the cover art for this story as well as cite you in the description. If there ends up being a sufficiently large number of submissions I will hold some sort of poll to rank them and determine order. PM me if you want to submit art so that I can share with you my email.