The next day, they were driving to pick up Gazelle to take to the park. Judy noticed her partner was giving her strange looks.
"You okay? You had that same look last night after we left the hospital."
"Really?" he glanced at the mirror.
"What's wrong?"
He sighed, "I guess I was kind-of shocked to see Roy and Francine in the hospital. Chief's right, they are the larger officers on the force like we're the smallest, but I never figured they could get hurt like that."
"It is pretty surprising… The job doesn't seem real until an officer gets hurt or worse…"
"It's a huge sacrifice," he released a small chuckle, "your parents had a right to be happy when you were first assigned to parking duty. Even though they have over two hundred offspring they still worry about the daughter that's a cop."
"Can't say I blame them. As much as I am able to take care of myself, a lot of things can go wrong. They know the risks I'm taking but they love me and support my decision."
He just smiled.
Once they had arrived at the park, Gazelle was excited.
"After all this time, we'll finally see each other again."
Judy said, "She'll be coming soon. We told her this morning and she was looking forward to seeing you as well."
"I can't wait."
Nick told her, "We asked Clawhauser if he wanted to help provide extra security, needless to say, he was more than thrilled to do it."
Gazelle giggled.
"Speaking of Ben…" gestured Judy, "Here he comes now."
The cheetah rushed over to them but he was panting hard, obviously he wasn't used to the exercise. He faced them and gave a wary salute, "Officer… Benjamin Clawhauser at… your… service…" he fell over.
Judy was about to grab a bottle water from the refreshment table when Gazelle beat her to it and kneeled down to Ben and lifted his head up. He opened his eyes to his surprise of his favorite celebrity giving him water! He almost sputtered out the liquid but kept it in as he was too stunned to move.
She spoke, "I want to thank you for coming, we need all the help we can get to catch this animal, and I hope you'll stay hydrated for me."
"Oh… Oh, I would do anything for you Gazelle."
"Actually, my real name is Giselle."
"Giselle? That's… a pretty name." he smiled.
"Do you prefer Ben or Benjamin?"
"Oh, I'm fine either one but when I was a cub my friends used to call me, Benny."
"Benny?" she did a tiny giggle, "That's very cute. Do you mind if I call you that too?"
"No!" he blushed, "No… I'm okay with that. It's just been a long time."
"I understand. I haven't used the name Giselle in a long time too…"
They ended staring at each other lovingly and Judy and Nick who had been watching the entire scene gave a knowing glance. Eventually, they decided to give the lovebirds some space to keep talking.
When Gazelle went to go rehearse, Ben found them and was swooning all over the place.
Nick smirked, "I take it you had a nice talk with Giselle?"
"She's so amazing! I mean, I knew she was amazing before but now it seems she's even more amazing! I'm seeing this whole other side of her I never knew existed! She's like a normal animal like us! She admits she makes mistakes and wants to make things better! I've always supported her cause toward unity in Zootopia but I never understood her reasons until now!"
"That's great, Ben!" Judy grinned, "I really hope it works out for you two."
"Same here." Nick kept smirking.
Judy questioned, "Think you can check the perimeter while we watch over Gazelle?"
"Certainly!" and he went off.
Nick look at his partner questionably, "Remind me again why we aren't telling Ben about the double?"
"The less anybody knows, the better, we can't give anything away that will allow the attacker to hurt Gazelle instead. Only us, Gazelle, and Gina know about the plan. I don't like keeping it a secret from him, but its better this way."
A car drove up then and Nick checked his cell phone clock, "Right on time."
Gina stepped out of the car and went to the cops.
"By the way, I found my ring, thought you'd need it."
Judy motioned, "That's great but we don't need it anymore seeing how the ring was Vivian's all along."
"Oh my! Really?"
Nick pointed out, "But we have reason to believe she's innocent since she didn't have the ring with her the time of the "accidents" and she was with us during the kidnapping."
"Kidnapping? There was a kidnapping?!"
"Near kidnapping." corrected Judy. "Gazelle's captor lost their grip on her and ran."
"That's a relief. So… where is she?"
"Backstage." Nick pointed toward the stage.
Gina went on ahead.
It was almost showtime, and Judy and Nick were prepared for the attacker to strike as they waited in the wings.
"Once Gina is ready we wait for whoever's doing this and get them!" Judy exclaimed.
"So you keep telling me, over and over, Carrots."
"That's because it's a perfect plan."
"Bellwether's plan was perfect too till we foiled it."
"Well, this plan is way better; nothing is going to mess it up!"
A voice spoke, "Oh, really? Nothing?"
They turned to see Gina looking like Gazelle like when they first saw her in the nightclub.
The partners were confused by her words as she kept speaking.
"There is no way you can catch them because there's nothing to catch!"
Judy asked suspiciously, "What do you mean by that?"
"You wait for an attacker to attack me when really the attacker was me all along!"
"Say what?!" Nick shouted out.
"That's right. It was me this entire time! Well… not the kidnapping… but the chandelier, planting the ring, all those minor "accidents", it was all me!"
Judy bellowed, "So why tell us this?! You practically just made a full confession to two officers of the law! You're under arrest!"
"I don't think so." she smirked evilly and managed to throw a lever down that caused Judy and Nick to fall into a trapdoor.
They looked up at her in anger as she explained, "Why tell you? Because you would have gotten suspicious that no one was attacking me, if it was just Gazelle on that stage I would have found some way to attack her but since you needed me in your pathetic plan that I have but no choice to get rid of you as well!"
Nick gestured, "And just how are you going to do that?"
"As soon as the concert is over with, I'll make it look like a spotlight was faulty to cause a stage fire and by the time you're found… it'll be too late…" she smirked at the genius of her plan.
Nick snarled, "Have we've mentioned you're under arrest?"
"Please, you can't stop me now. There's a new Gazelle in town, and her debut starts now!" she laughed as she closed the door leaving them in darkness.
Nick grabbed Judy's paw as he said, "Stay close to me while I find a light switch or something…" thanks to his extraordinary night vision, he was able to locate a switch.
When the lights came on, Judy gasped when she noticed Gazelle was laying a few feet from them and was out cold. She rushed to her and started crying.
"This is all my fault!"
"Judy…"
"It is, Nick! It's Bellwether all over again! Right when I think I can trust someone, it backfires on me! I almost lost you to the Night Howlers, now we're going to lose Zootopia's means of unity! Gazelle keeps animals' hopes alive, now she's going to die because I thought Gina was a good enough friend to help out! I have got to be the dumbest bunny in the world!"
"Okay, you may be dumb, but you're not that dumb. You're the smartest rabbit I know. You manage to solve where the missing mammals went in less than two days! And if you think you're dumb for coming up with this plan then I must be just as dumb for going along with it! You know that saying, it takes a fool to follow a fool. You didn't know! We didn't know who the heck it was until Gina made her foolish confession. So stop being so hard on yourself! You knew there would be risks with this job; look at what happen to Francine and Roy! Do you think they'll stop fighting crime even after getting shot at?! Somehow, I don't think so… And the Judy Hopps I know doesn't let anyone stop her even after making a mistake…" he gave a tiny smile.
She stared at him in bewilderment. She was about to reply when Gazelle started waking up.
"Gazelle! Are you okay?" the bunny had to ask.
"Well… I do have a headache… from when Gina knocked me out…" Her eyes widen, "Judy, you have to stop her! She's the one that has been attacking this whole time!"
"We know… but I'm afraid we knew too late…"
Nick mentioned, "She's trapped us down here."
Judy questioned, "I just don't understand how she could have gotten into that party to mess with the chandelier, she couldn't have gotten in on her own…"
Nick started looking around for a way out, "We'll have to ask her that once we can get of here."
Gazelle inquired, "But isn't Benny still out there? Surely he could find us and free us?"
Nick and Judy exchanged unsure glances.
