A/N: Hopefully revealing all of what happens here in the third chapter isn't too much, but I wanted the pacing to be quick. There's still a bit of a ways to go though, and I may be continuing this as a series, with a real overarching plot!

Anyways, please review, and enjoy!

...

Judy jerked awake, sitting up slightly in bed. Thankfully, unlike her dream, she was surrounded by her plushies. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. The nightmare she had just awoken from had been going on all night. Hours spent trapped in her mind's dark places.

The monsters she dreamt of were designed by her own imagination to capture the essence of her worst fears. She knew that they couldn't be real, but fear is not a product of what one knows. Fear comes from the unknown, and not knowing what made the claw marks on Steven's house was enough to let her fears run wild.

She looked out her window at the darkness. The sun hadn't risen yet. She wondered what might be out there, but she knew the answer. Nothing was out there but mammals and she knew it. She knew that there was someone responsible for Stevens disappearance, and it was her job to find them. She decided, after hours of nightmares brought on by fear of the unknown, that it was time to stop being afraid and get to work.

Her alarm then startled the life out of her. She yelled and threw her arms up to her head, but immediately realized what had happened. She let out a little chuckle.

"what are you doing in there rabbit, I'm trying to sleep!" Bucky yelled through the wall.

"Oh god, not this…" She whispered to herself, facepawing.

"Yeah Bucky, leave her alone! She doesn't want to hear this! She was having nightmares all night long!

"Oh shut up!"

"You shut up!..."

What is with those two? And how do they always hear me? she thought. She lamented her neighbor situation for a moment before yawning and stretching. She got out of bed and started going about her morning routine.

She ate some cereal, took a shower, and got dressed. She got all of her gear in order, shined her badge a bit, and left her apartment. She exited the building and headed to the subway station. While she was walking down the stairs she spotted a fully grown American cockroach tooling through the station.

Oh sweet cheese and crackers that thing is the size of me! She thought, horrified. Of course, this was an exaggeration, but this insect was no joke. She watched as some mammals rushed to get away, while others seemed to care less. Then, a very shaggy looking wolf came by, plucked it off the ground, and ate it.

That is so not ok, wow... She thought, cringing harder than she had ever cringed before. The wolf kept walking as if nothing had even happened. Some were staring, but most seemed happy that the 'threat' was gone. She finished descending the stairs and waited on the platform. It wasn't long that before a train arrived.

She got on the subway and, unlike her typical commute, she got to sit down. She enjoyed the ride for once, able to sit and watch all the mammals go about their commute, without having to balance or avoid getting squashed. Her stop arrived all too soon and she got off. After that, it was a flight of stairs to the surface and a quick walk to precinct one.

She went through the doors and went up to Clawhauser to start their morning chat.

"Happy Tuesday morning Hopps!" He said, jolly as usual. She laughed and hopped up on the counter.

"Happy Tuesday morning to you too Ben," she said as she sat down, letting her legs dangle off the edge of the desk.

"So, how's your day so far?" He asked.

"Weird, but not so bad. Saw a homeless wolf eat a P. Americana on the subway platform, so that was nice. Then I actually got a seat on the subway! but I had the worst nightmares last night... eventually they woke me up, but get this, while I was trying to get my bearings my alarm scared me half to death," she said with a chuckle.

"Well, quite a morning you've had! My day has been pretty good I'd say. The orange creamsicle doughnuts are great," he said, rubbing his belly. Nick then walked through the doors.

"Hey hey! The gossip twins. How we doin' fluff 'n claws?" He said as he leaned up against the desk.

"Pretty good, you gotta try the new doughnuts, Nick."

"I'll try to choke one down some day. How about you fluff?"

"Not bad. Interesting though, I'll tell you more later. I think we should get to the lab quick and see what they came up with," she said.

"Sounds like a plan. Cya later Claws."

They began working their way to the lab. They arrived and found that Hurriet hadn't arrived yet. Instead, they met the lab technician, Vivian, a spotted hyena. She was fairly well known for being edgy, hardcore, and punk. Her pink dyed mane, metal prosthetic foot, and nose ring added to the reputation, so the two officers were a little nervous.

"Hey, uh, Vivian right?" Judy said meekly.

"Oh, yeah that's me! What can I do for you guys?" She said rather politely. This eased the two a bit.

"We dropped off some evidence for a case yesterday, we were wondering if you had a report ready?" Judy said.

"Oh, the Paradit case? Yeah, there wasn't too much to do, so we got it done quickly. We got some info from the phone but that fur you found didn't have much, it was Steven's," Vivian said. The two were quite surprised by her chipper attitude. Judy looked over the report. They had a list of calls made and a transcript of the last call.

"Could we listen to the call?" She asked.

"Yeah sure, I'll pull it up on my computer," Vivian said as she led the two to her desk. She found the audio file and played it. It began with Paul's voice.

"Hey Steve, what's up?"

"Bro, I've been hearing these creepy noises outside in the forest! it's like there's someone running around!"

"Woah, that's weird. You think you should call the police?"

"Nah, it's probably just some kids or something but it's like freaking me out! I had to call someone otherwise I'd lose my mind!"

"Yeah, I'd want some company if I was hearing weird things out in the forest too."

"Yeah man, I was like totally psyching myself out. You think I should go out there and see what it is?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea Steve, I know it's probably nothing but-"

Paul was then cut off by a horrible scratching sound. Thumps and clicks were drowned out by the sounds of the outside wall being shredded by sharp claws. The two were silent for a moment, then Steven whispered.

"What the hell was that?"

"Dude call the police, that was like not ok."

"I kinda wanna see what did that."

"Are you kidding me Steve? Don't go out there!"

"whatever it was, it seems like it's gone now, I'm gonna check the damage to my house…"

"Ugh, Steve you idiot don't!"

"Dude I'll be fine!"

"You literally just called me for moral support and now you wanna go find out what made the noise that was scarier than the ones that made you want to call me? Like, bro!"

"Talking with you reassured me!"

"Well I'm trying to un-assure you. Don't go out there!"

"I'm going out there."

"Steven!"

"I'll be fine! What could possibly be out there?"

"Ugh, fine, but you call me the second you get back inside."

"Yeah bro I'll be fine don't worry. Call you in a bit."

Then the phone disconnected, and the call was over. The three were now sitting there, nonplussed. The noise that was made in the middle of the phone call had them completely stumped. It took them a good few minutes of looking at each other before Judy spoke up.

"Alright, well, while that's kinda simmering in the back of our minds let's check out that fur," she said.

"Oh, sure. Here's the report on that," Vivian said as she picked up a file that was on the desk, handing it to Judy. She began reading it over and it was fairly to the point; it was definitely Stevens fur, but a picture immediately caught her eye. It was a scanning electron microscope image of what appeared to be a tiny feather.

"What in the world is this?" She asked, pointing out the picture to Vivian.

"It looks like some kind of urticating hair, we found a few of them stuck to fibers of the fur. You reported that you found the sample on a spiky weed so that's most likely where they are from but we'll have to do some more tests on it to be sure. It's a very small sample and I'm afraid we'll just end up destroying it if we try anything. We wanted to wait for you to give us the go-ahead," Vivian said, hoping that she had made the right decision. Nick and Judy looked at each other for a second but it was pretty clear that they needed anything they could get. They both nodded to Vivian.

"Well, I'll get right to it," She said, getting to work. The officers said their goodbyes and left the lab, talking on their way to the garage.

"Wow I can't believe there are so many rumors about her, she seems like a very nice mammal," Judy said.

"I heard that she came from a rough background and it took and while to adjust. She's got quite the style though."

"Yeah, she looks the part. So what's the plan now? That still didn't do much for us, other than nullify any reasonable ideas we had."

"Well, I say we should talk to neighbors. This is a pretty low profile case, so someone might have seen something and thought nothing of it."

"But they would have seen the police activity and the police tape, there's no way."

"You never know carrots, maybe they just didn't connect the dots. I don't know what else we have."

"Yeah, you're right, let's head back to the neighborhood. See what you can find on social media about the mammals around that area," Judy said as she opened the door to the garage. They got in their cruiser and started driving, Nick fiddling with his phone, trying to gather information on neighbors.

He then stopped for a moment, staring at the phone. He tapped it once again and a video started playing. From it, Judy could hear the sound of rainfall on a roof and the phone being shifted around. Then a woman's voice whispering 'what in the world is that? God, it's horrible! I hope it's a mammal on all fours that I'm just not seeing right…'

This was enough to cue Judy in, and she looked over at Nick expectantly. He was giving her a horrified look.

"What… what was in the video?" She asked him.

"I don't know… it's too dark, but… I could see something, and it didn't look like a mammal."

"What do you think it was?"

"I don't know Judy, it was low to the ground and fast… It could have been a mammal I guess…"

"Where was it? who recorded it?"

"A kinkajou named Maria, she lives just down the street from Steven. looks like she recorded it from her house pretty recently but not today. She posted it just a few minutes ago," He said. It hit Judy like a ton of bricks. Oh god, we're gonna be buying Clawhauser dinner for a month, she thought.

"We better talk to her, see if there's more to what she saw than she posted online," She said. Nick nodded and they continued on the way. He began looking for Maria's address but had to resort to contacting her through social media. She replied rather quickly, saying she was off of school and at home alone.

He let her know that they were on the way, and the car ride there was quite tense as the two tried to refute what was quickly becoming their reality. Judy sat in silence, focusing on the road, trying to ignore the thoughts coming into her head. She knew nothing would change just from her worrying so she had to focus on the task at hand.

Nick was looking out the window, thinking of what could be going on. His first thought was that it was another Nighthowler attack. Perhaps the culprit had lost two of their claws. But how did they scale a vertical wall, he remembered, nullifying his theory. He couldn't imagine what kind of creature with two claws could scale flat, vertical walls.

They arrived in the neighborhood and parked in front of Maria's house. They nodded to each other before getting out of the cruiser and approaching the front door. Judy rang the doorbell and she heard footsteps inside, then the door opened to reveal a young female kinkajou. She gave them a hollow, nervous smile.

"Hi officers, come in," She said as if she was about to cry. The officers immediately noticed her strange behavior and entered cautiously.

"Is everything alright miss?" Judy asked. Maria sniffled before speaking.

"Yeah"-she sniffled again, followed by a drawn-out exhale-"Yeah, I'm ok, I just… I'm just scared," she said.

"Its alright Maria, you have no reason to be afraid," Nick said as he laid a hand on her shoulder. She wiped a tear from her eye and smiled at him.

"Well, can I offer you two anything?" She asked. They both thanked her for the offer but refused. She then led them into the kitchen to begin the discussion. They all sat down at the kitchen table.

"So, could you tell us more about what you saw?" Judy asked, figuring they could talk about steven once they addressed the major issue.

"I don't even know. I took the video while it was moving through the street the other night, then it went behind the house and, it went into the shed. Its… Something is still in there-" She said, breaking down in tears. Judy immediately went to console her, hugging her.

"Its ok Maria, we're the police, we're here to protect you," She said, patting her back.

"I know, but… It's big and fast… and… and I think it killed Steven." She said, holding Judy tighter.

"What makes you think that?"

"I saw the claw marks on the house… no mammal could have done that," she said between sobs.

"Well, we don't know anything for sure, so don't give up on him yet," Nick said, trying to comfort her. This worked enough for her to let go of Judy. She remained standing next to Maria with a paw on her shoulder. Judy decided it was time to act.

"So, you said you thought something was in the shed?"

"Yeah, I saw it run in there, but I don't know if it left… It got in through a hole in the roof I think… it was so hard to see. You don't want to go check it do you?" She said, concerned. Judy nodded her head confidently.

"Trust me, we'll be alright," Judy said. Nick wanted to make a joke about Judy dragging him into her investigation but decided that it wasn't the time for that. Maria led them to the back door, and the officers started wandering to the shed while she watched through the partly opened door. Just a few steps out the door, there was a knock on the front door. Judy stopped and looked back, Nick noticing this and stopping with her.

Maria looked at the two and Judy told her that it was ok to answer it. She left the door open and started walking to the front door when whoever was there knocked again. She opened the door to reveal two mammals, a deer and snow leopard in suits. The deer was too tall for the doorway, so the leopard introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm special agent Tatyana Vecher of the Agency of Investigation and Internal Intelligence, and this is my partner, James Miller. We'd like to speak with you and Officers Hopps and Wilde," She said, quite professionally. Maria was now scared and confused, but she figured she should listen. Considering all of the law enforcement in and around the house at the moment, she was afraid they would find the shotgun she had in her closet.

"Yeah… they just went out the back to look in the shed…" She said.

"Why is that?" Tanya said, worried.

"Well, I thought I saw someone or something run into it and they wanted to check it-" She began, cut off by Tanya running past her and ordering James to come around the back.

"Hey, I didn't say you could come in!" Maria said, concerned that the situation was getting out of hand. Meanwhile, Judy was slowly opening the door the shed. It was still pitch black inside, so she got out her flashlight. It revealed a horror beyond her wildest dreams. She jumped back and shouted, but calmed down quickly as she realized it wasn't alive.

Inside the shack was the shed molt of a gigantic tarantula, at least 4 feet in leg span. Judy began realizing what exactly she was looking at and dropped her flashlight, covering her mouth. Nick saw this reaction and opened the door further to look in. His ears went completely flat against the back of his head. Tanya then burst through the back door, James rounding the corner of the house immediately after. She made a quite fitting exclamation.

"Oh shit…"