Hello everyone! Welcome to chapter 15 of Saving Wilde!

I appreciate everyone's patience with me, I am about a week later than I had wished to be. My life will be changing quite a bit over the next few months, and in preparing for those changes, I have had to neglect working on this story. Once things get settled again I should be able to resume my regular posting schedule. I will of course do my best to maintain it anyways, but there my be other times in the next two months when I miss a Friday.

Of course it didn't help that I really struggled with this chapter. Not sure why but I simply couldn't put my ideas to paper, and when I did I didn't like them at all. I think I am relatively happy with it now, its "good enough". But hopefully the next will come a little more easily to me, more like the others in the past.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and followed and liked the story so far, I have been blown away again and again by the reception I have received, and I have even had people checking up on me when I am late for an update! I am so glad you are all enjoying this so much. Its has been a pleasure interacting with all of you.

Anyway, on to the story! I don't own any Disney Characters...

Oh! There is one thing I have neglected. Way back in one of the early chapters I mentioned that this story had been originally inspired by a comic and that I had taken some dialogue for Chapter 4 directly from it. I couldn't remember which comic it was or who the artist was either. So about a week ago someone found it for me, thank you for that by the way, and I would be remiss in neglecting to the artist now.

The artist is Kisu-no-hi on Tumbler and I have included a link to the comic below.

tumblr: post/144815390059/

It had been three days. Three days of struggling to catch up on all he had missed. Digesting torrents of new information from all corners of Arctica. Of approving requests, sending orders, and debriefing operatives. Three days of recovery, from the trauma to his head, and the ambush. Three days of looking over his shoulder every time he left his apartment, wondering if Marat would be standing there, pistol in paw. Three days of trying to make sense of just what had happened in that city, that poor, dying city.

Their escape had been uneventful, even easy. They had stolen a car, one of the many they found, perhaps abandoned, perhaps not, and flown from the city as fast as prudence would allow. They had gone to Sergey's, the only one they felt they could trust, and only because they had his measure, knew the power money would have. He had taken them across the border, again in the dark of night, when the local militias retreated to their homes and their loved ones. They had given him more when he deposited them near the train station, nearly all they had left, a not inconsiderable sum, at least not for him, just to ensure his silence. It was unlikely to last forever, but any time at all was infinitely valuable. They were cut off from everything, their safety, and their sources, and they needed to reconnect, step back and assess.

They had taken the train the next morning, suffered through the unending ride back to Muskova, to that beautiful, metropolitan city. It had been easy, so easy that Nick didn't trust it, had spent the first 48 hours back in the city on high alert, tapping his every source to detect anything unusual. See the knife before it entered his back.

But there was nothing, things were as they always were, running smoothly, all thing considered. There were no new threats, no new developments, everything was in its right place.

And slowly, reluctantly, Nick slowed down from his fever pitch. He stopped personally monitoring the wires, stopped pestering his operatives to send him constant updates, stopped feeling like he was under siege. And he slept, drifting down, down, into the immense depths of a senseless, uninterruptible sleep.

When he awoke on the third day he felt as if a fox reborn. Bright eyed, and bushy tailed, ready to take on the world once again.

But, it was on the third day that things changed. Word came in from Veslov, the communications officer in the 64th that they had turned, that the Army was pivoting, was already a long way towards pivoting the bulk of their forces out of the city. Veslov was not explicit as to their intentions, be he didn't have to be, they were moving the 17th Guards out of the city along with the 109th Armored and concentrating them on the flanks.

Their intentions were obvious, they were going to begin an offensive to surround the city, cut if off from whatever supply lines the Ossetians still maintained, and allow it to wither on the vine. The Ossetians could not defeat the Arcticians in maneuver warfare. They were capable of an operational tempo far beyond what the Ossetians could maintain, and the flanks beyond the city were held by hardly more than 15,000 soldiers both east and west. A token force really, so much of their mammals devoted to holding off the siege.

It explained a lot, this redeployment. It explained the relative calm in the city while they visited, and it explained why their lines had been so easy to infiltrate.

They were going to crush the Ossetians, and that would be that. The Mammal's Republic of Ossetia would be another footnote in history. They were doomed.

The news had sent Nick again into action, verifying all that he received. He sent an alert to the embassy, a request for instructions. He knew what had to be done, but he needed the approvals, needed the staff the check the potential message for anything that they may not want shared. But perhaps more importantly, it gave him an excuse to sit back on his paws and wait, and gave him time to think.

He didn't want to help them, not really. The whole trip had left a bad taste in his mouth, from beginning to end. There was no trust there, not anymore, whatever there had been dying along with some many others in that ambush. But it was out of his paws now that the embassy was involved, and he knew what their answer would be.

But they surprised him. He was informed that the ambassador wanted a face to face meeting. Nick wasn't sure how to take that, he had never been asked for a meeting with Stevens before and that he wanted it now, over a simple and routine request made him wonder.

Stevens, nominally the section head of the Arctica station, had little time for him what with all the other things he was responsible for. Stevens let Nick do his job, kept him informed, and he kept of out Nick's way.

But this was different. He could feel it as he sat in the waiting room outside of the ambassador's office. There was a nervous tension in the embassy. The hallways were quiet and the staff quickly moved between offices without saying a word, eyes cast downwards. He had picked up on it immediately, moved his mind to a state of readiness usually reserved only for the Director back home. There had been a death amongst the staff – unexpected and deeply regretted. The death itself was of no consequence to him personally, but the mood of the embassy oppressed him, and heightened his sense of impending dread.

He reflexively checked the email on his phone. Scrolled through the dozens still sitting in his inbox, read but yet to be filed away. He had check it only a few minutes ago and there would be nothing new. He had finally sorted through everything that had come in during his brief absence only the day before. Hundreds of emails, most requiring his immediate attention. He hit refresh, and his inbox populated with a few more. The second one caught his eye, his bi weekly update on the ZPD Academy. It was a simple email, containing only the list of cadets in a certain class ordered by their class rank. Judy Hopps was number two. It had amazed him at first, seeing her in that position for the first time more than two months ago. He had hardly expected her to climb past the halfway point. But slowly, surely, every other week, he had watched her climb the ladder.

It was admirable, the example she was setting. Smashing down the barriers thrown in her way. Admirable… He sighed and put away his phone. He wasn't sure why he still cared so much. She had been an interesting diversion for a time, but that was months ago and many things were different. He had considered ending the notification, telling his source to stop sending them to him. Reasoning that he didn't really care anymore. She was doing well, and he was happy for her, but it didn't really matter. She was just a rabbit he had met upon his journey through life, nothing more. She was different, certainly, but not special, at least not to him, despite the fact that he couldn't seem to bring himself to forget her. And so the periodic updates felt intrusive, voyeuristic. Like he was watching some bizarre game show, rooting for one contestant to outdo the others. But he hadn't stopped them, his curiosity far more powerful than his shame.

He took out his phone again, and returned to the email, scanning the list of the other cadets. There was nothing much to say about the rest of the list, though he pondered the leopard, Opher, who had remained in the top spot of the class since the first time he had received an update. A curious name, Opher Pontecorvo, he had tried to place it before, but had been unable to determine its origin. He had meant, but never remembered, to look it up. He made to do so then, but decided against it. Decided that he didn't care because he noticed for the first time that the email was curiously full of information far beyond just the usual class ranking. There were grades for each cadet, notes from the instructors, precinct selections, and much more. He was amazed, he had never asked for so much information about any of them, not even Judy, and he wondered why he was suddenly given so much. At the bottom of the email though, was something that gave him pause. A single sentence separated by a few lines from the rest. It read, "Graduation date, Friday November 19th - Mayor Lionhart will be in attendance."

The graduation… he had been mulling the prospect over in his mind for some time. He knew it was coming, barring disaster. Remembered his promise to her all those months ago. Had even seriously considered keeping it at one point, though now, like with so many other things from that time, he was slowly trying to forget. But he couldn't, not that promise, it stuck with him like a bad memory. He hated to break a promise like that, personal, heartfelt, at the time anyway, and his intention to ignore it ate at him. Not too much, not enough to be distracting, but certainly so that it became the only thing he thought about any time that rabbit popped into his mind.

A thought floated gracefully through his mind, made him grin inwardly. He would ask Stevens for leave to go back to Zootopia in two weeks time to attend the graduation, then he would be back and he could put all of that behind. Closure, that is what he wanted, the thing that would finally put that whole chapter to rest. Yeah, that was it.

"Nicholas?" The assistant near the door brought him from his reverie. "He's free now." She looked at him curiously. They had never met before, new, Nick thought, a chinkara, and he had no doubt that she was wondering just who he was that he would go to meeting with an ambassador dressed in anything but his best. He smiled as he passed and entered the office.

"Ah! Nicholas, it is so good to see you well after your ordeal. Don't look so surprised, I do read your reports on occasion. Come have a seat, I want to hear about Ossetia, figure I might learn more from you than I do from the news. Oh! Would you like anything?" He gestured to a cabinet behind him. "I would offer you a drink but I suppose it is a bit too early for that, and I am not much for it anyway. How about coffee then? I can have a pot ready in just a moment and to be honest I could use a cup myself this morning." Nick nodded. "Excellent! Just one second." He stood, he long tail quivering in anticipation, and opened the cabinet, revealing a well stocked liquor rack and coffee station.

Stevens was not much of a drinker. The cougar was easily overcome by spirits. He was no teetotaler either – such a thing was rare in the foreign service – but he partook a seldom as his career would allow. It was custom in Arctica, and many other northern countries to offer one to guests during business meetings, the hope being that it would warm them from their travels, however it was not expected that the offer be accepted or drunk. So he kept a large stock of it in his office, just in case, but it just usually sat there, collecting dust. On the other hand, he was a prolific coffee drinker, a real connoisseur, and he took immense pleasure in not only drinking the brew, but sharing it with everyone he knew. He was a mammal after Nick's own heart, in a way. Nick had a saying, that he had heard somewhere long ago: "This army doesn't move without its coffee." It had been true when he had been in the service. He and his fellow soldiers consumed prodigious amounts of the stuff, now matter how tepid or brackish. And he had maintained his love for it long after he had moved on to other things.

In a second, Nick could hear the bubbling of coffee maker and Stevens returned to his desk. "It'll be done in a moment. Let's get started while we wait. I read your report, or the preliminary report I suppose. Is the full thing almost done?"

"Yes sir, I submitted it this morning, and I have a hard copy right here." Nick produced a packet.

"Good, good, just put it there on my desk, I'll get to as soon as I can. Now, tell me what is going on with Ossetia."

"Well sir, as I have indicated the 64th is changing the axis of its offensi–"

"No, no, not what is going on right now. My staff will have a summary for me by the end of the day. No I want to know why it is you think that we shouldn't support them. You know as well as I do that if they manage to survive how advantageous it would be for us. That little country is a real money pit for for Arctica. Hell everything we have done so far has been in the interest of prolonging the conflict. I know you have been on it since before the coup even began. And the folks back home," he said, gesturing towards the window which happened to face in the direction of Zootopia, "are sold on this Nick, in large part because of the information you provided them. So I find it difficult to understand the sudden change in attitude. You didn't make it clear in your report, the only one, by the way, which I have had to read since you came to this station."

"Sir, I am not saying that we should stop our support altogether, just that we should very carefully consider any more offers. Especially anything that goes farther than what we have already done. Not that we don't do that already of course. But, I believe that the things we pass to them don't all stay there. I think, sir, that the government is compromised in some fashion."

"Of course it's compromised! Their whole government is a complete clusterfuck, but that doesn't mean anything."

"No it doesn't sir, but I have reason to suspect that it is compromised at its very highest levels, and it wouldn't surprise me if word of the deal we just signed is already in the hands of the MSS."

"And what reason is that?"

Nick hesitated in answering, knew his case wasn't that strong, but he had to make it. The whole trip had entirely unsettled his confidence in the Ossetians. Information leaks, especially in a new nation trying to fight off invaders, was an inevitability. But Nick just had this feeling that the rot was pervasive. And Marat was the key.

"Sir," Nick sighed, not relishing the task ahead, "in my meeting with the Prime Minister and his staff I met a rabbit named Marat Alexeev who I thought to be a close friend and advisor to Daniil, but I am not so sure anymore that the information I had about his past is accurate. There are a number of discrepancies that I can't make sense of, a large number sir. Further, my primary contact with the Ossetians, Sergey Vasiliev, had never even heard of the rabbit before the coup. As far as he could tell, he was just an opportunist riding Daniil's coattails, but I suspect there is more to it than that. Things just don't tie together well with him."

"So you think we should cool off our support to the Ossetians because of this rabbit?" The Ambassador's eyes narrowed. "Do you also think he had something to do with the ambush?"

The question was a test, and Nick saw through it immediately. Stevens wanted to know just how deeply Nick was concerned about this rabbit and Nick wanted to be honest.

"No, I don't think so. It just wouldn't make any sense for them to try in kill either myself or Finnick. Believe me when I say I have thought about it, but I just can't come up with a reason for it, what would he gain?"

Stevens smiled. "What if you are right about him, but he is far more aware of your operations than you know? He might have wider responsibilities than just Ossetia, just like you. Though maybe he thinks you're dead now too. You are getting good at that it seems."

"Yes I'd… considered that too." And so he had, but beyond his own only half considered suspicions he had nothing in that line. Marat, or a rabbit like him, was nowhere to be found in the ZIA's dossiers of MSS operatives. At least not the ones he had access to, and he was sure he had access to most.

Stevens stood up and returned to his drink cabinet pouring a cup for each of them. "Nick, we obviously haven't worked together for very long. But when you were reassigned to this station I had a meeting with the Director about you, just so I had an idea of who they were sending me. He said something very interesting in that meeting: he told me to trust your intuition. So I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. If you think this Marat is a problem for us, then I will trust you, and I will take that into account in our planning. But, we are supporting Ossetia, not only do I think it's the right thing to do for us, but so does the Director and the Intelligence Committee. And I have word from the PM's staff that so does he. I didn't just send you to Ossetia to get that deal signed on a whim, it had approvals all the way up to the top. We will be supporting them until we can't anymore Nick. At least in the near term. But I will see if I can't find out anything about Mr. Alexeev myself, I might have access to some things you don't after all." He handed Nick the coffee and sat back at his desk. "Now, there is a lot more we have to discuss and time is short, so let's get on with it."

"But sir I–"

Stevens held up his paw. "Nicholas, I appreciate your recommendations. As I said, we will will take them into account. But our course is set for now. I would recommend that, if you are really so concerned, that you bring me something more concrete than just a hunch and feeling. I cannot go to Intelligence Committee and tell them that I disobeyed their orders based on one of your hunches. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir, I do." Nick replied, and he took a sip of his coffee, already disappointed with the audience.

"Halt, Police!"

She had yelled it, at the top of her lungs, for the third time, and it had much the same effect as the others. The suspect kept running as fast as he could, the massive elephant rocking the ground with each of his massive strides.

"I said… Halt!"

She hadn't timed the scream well, it ruined the rhythm of her breathing, made it far harder to keep up her pace. She began to pant. The elephant was fast, deceptively so. When she had been assigned to take him down she had been apprehensive because of the relative difference in sizes, cursed her own luck that she would have this trainer for one of her final assessments, but she had reasoned that at the very least he wouldn't be too fast, and that would give her options. But, oh, how she was wrong. The elephant had taken off light a grey streak and left her in his dust. She was fast too, extremely so, but his targets long strides carried him so far so quickly that it was difficult for her to keep up.

She threw a glance back over her shoulder, hoping to catch a glance of her partner for this exercise, Opher. The Leopard was no slouch himself though and she found him just behind her. He yelled, in between breaths, "Judy– I'll tackle– you cuff 'im!"

"Ok!" was all she could manage in reply, but it didn't matter, he would have leapt even if she had said nothing. And then Opher was on the elephant's back, struggling mightily to throw him off balance. There was a hitch in the elephant's step, a slight reduction in pace, but it was not enough, he had used his trunk as a counterweight to steady himself and then as a cudgel, whipping it around behind himself into Opher's head and neck. Opher tolerated to first blow, winced at the second, ducked a third, and then took the fourth directly on the nose and he tumbled from the elephant's back.

Judy just managed to dodge her falling partner, skidded to a halt, yelled at him to ask if he was alright, and then leapt back as he shot up and raced after their target, yelling after her not to let him get away, blood, bright red, streaming from his nose. She followed, quickly overtook him, and then assessed the situation. There wasn't much she could do, the elephant weighed many tonnes to her several kilograms, it would be impossible for her to take him down as she was, and even if she did there was an excellent chance she would be crushed in the fall. But she had to do something. She looked back at Opher, obviously in pain, and clearly tiring. She had to do something.

She eyed the elephant before her, tried to think of something, anything, she could do to send him tumbling. It would be difficult to send him off balance, but there was a point of no return, his own weight would mean that there would be no recovery before a terrible crash to earth. He would probably spring back up in the event, elephants were powerful mammals, but it would be too late, they would be on top of him. It would be all about speed. She wracked her brain.

Sudden clarity. It could work. It was all about the feet. It could work! "Opher!" she yelled. "You get one arm… I will get the other!" He looked back at her, puzzled, but she didn't await a reply.

It was all about the feet.

She flew ahead, closer and closer to those pounding feet. Watched the stride, found the pattern and then swung wide, far off to the left. She looked back, picked the moment and then shot back, slamming herself bodily into the left foot of her target just as it reached the height of its rearward arc. It wasn't much, but as the foot came back forwards, it caught just behind the ankle of the right, and the elephant soared through the air, all balance long lost. He came down heavily, bouncing, and then tumbling as he once again hit the ground. Once, twice he rolled, still stunned by the sudden crash, and then judy was on his back, had his left arm cuffed in the blink of an eye and using the other cuff dragged his arm across his back screaming. "Opher, the right!"

Opher, who had been standing just a meter away, dumbfounded, sprang into action, cuffed the right, and they brought the two free cuffs together in the middle.

There was silence in the aftermath, no one moved or spoke a word until Opher said, "Holy shit, Hopps, I'm impressed." The solitary voice was loud in the quiet arena, and Judy didn't reply. Simply stared down at the prostrate elephant, still unbelieving at what she had just done.

And then, finally, after a long, pregnant, moment, a whistle blew. And the incredulous voice of the instructor could be heard shouting, "Good job you two, help him up and get off the field!"

This they did. Though it was probably far more fair to say that their charge had simply regained his wits and helped himself.

The returned to the start, watched the next set charge off, and the next too, indeed they watched the rest of the class have their turn. Everyone caught their target, though perhaps no one's capture had been quite as spectacular. A part of Judy had desired some sort of validation of how well she had done beyond what she had already received. But none came, and while it hurt, the lack of recognition, the pain was soon forgotten as she watched the rest of her class have their try.

And it certainly didn't ruin her mood. She was still beside herself at what she had accomplished. That a 2 kilogram rabbit could have taken down an elephant that weighed more than 5,000 was something she never before would have considered. And that, if nothing that had come before it, certainly proved that she belonged at the academy.

But then, she reminded herself, she had already proved that, over the last six months. She was no longer the same rabbit she had been back then, naive, vulnerable, in far over her head. She had risen to each occasion as they came and had passed every test put before her. And while at first she had most decidedly been the odd one out amongst the other cadets, she had been accepted, wholeheartedly, after they had finished their riot training. She didn't need to prove her worth to anyone, they already knew it.

"So, Judy, that was pretty crazy huh?" Opher asked them as they walked back towards their barracks. They had a short time before their next test.

"Yeah, I can't believe I wasn't crushed."

"Just lucky, I guess," he replied, shooting her a playful glance.

"Eh, probably not so much." And she returned the look.

"We are almost done here. Crazy to think about right? It went by so fast."

"Ah, yeah." Her ears drooped, along with the rest of her face. It had been weighing on her for some time, the inevitable conclusion of her time at the Academy. She was excited, of course, but she looked forward to their graduation not with an inconsiderable amount of apprehension.

She was finally coming into her own at the Academy, understood the ebb and flow of training, the mood of the instructors and other students. She was excelling in that environment, had come to realize that it was exactly what she wanted it to be, and she didn't want to leave that. She was comfortable there. Everything made sense. And she didn't have any particular desire to be thrust out into the world again where she just didn't. But on the other paw, in just two weeks she would be sent off to be a police officer, the thing she had always wanted most in her life, and there was no amount of apprehension, no matter how great, that would divert her from that course. Not now that she was on the cusp.

"Actually, Opher, I can't wait."

He smiled. He had been watching her, long used to her moments of self reflection when she would fall silent for a few heartbeats longer than might have otherwise been normal.

"Good. Neither can I."

Well that is all for now, I hope it didn't feel too rough.

As always, all feedback and comments are welcome and indeed encouraged, even the negative ones. I have had some great chats with some of my readers and it is always interesting to find out what parts of my chapters different people zero in on. Just remember to sign in before you do, I can't respond to guests!

As for my update schedule I think that for the rest of this month I should be returning, more or less, to business as usual, but April will be spotty. Just so you all know.

Live well!