The Zootopian Chronicles II: Darkness

by Menser

The Protectors: They came with promises of safety and protection from all the threats facing Zootopia but what if the greatest threat is The Protectors themselves? Nick, Judy and their Furless friend must forge an alliance with old friends and Legends from Zootopia's dark mysterious past to save their city and world against these invaders from within and new otherworldly threats.

34. Reynard's Story – Part 3D – Dungeon Raid

Reynard's Story – Part 3D – Dungeon Raid

This is the fourth of several sections of the Third Part of Reynard's Story. The bunny agent and the team go on a true multi-level dungeon raid searching for the greatest treasure there is but finding horrors beyond their wildest imaginations. Reynard meets several new relatives that will change his life forever. The chapter is Rating M+++ because of scenes referencing sexual acts, rape, torture, torment, scenes of extreme depravity, extreme violence and gore.

Congratulations to everyone on the Zootopia team for a much deserved Academy Award Win. There was no more deserving winner by far of any award in any category.

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Zoodate: Zoodate: (-34 Years) (32 years before the events at the end of Zootopia The Movie)

As Jack headed down into the dungeon, he could see this entrance was meant to be hidden as the false flooring had been removed and pushed to the sides. The doors were slid apart and had been previously chained shut by the mercenaries to prevent them from being opened by those trapped below. A wall had been knocked down and a large vehicle placed atop the doors.

Jasper and his group went down a long set of stairs about five meters wide. The stairs continued for a long distance at about a forty-five degree angle. Jack knew from the plans that this entrance came out on the second level. The main entrance was much larger and had a more gradual slope down to the first level with a ramp for moving mammals in wheel chairs and equipment on carts or wheels.

Once they finally reached the flat of the second level, they exited through some secret panels that had been slid open. The hall continued straight ahead and to the right. Both hallways were reasonably well lit with recessed lighting in the ceilings. Jack sniffed expecting to smell mold or earth which is what he imagined a dungeon would smell like. But the air seemed very fresh and clean, and he remembered they had vents and pumps to circulate clean air. He reasoned that if this operation was meant to generate millions of bucks a year, they would spend a decent amount of money on the entire entertainment complex. Jack could hear some voices barking commands from far off in the distance while Jasper and about fifteen others headed down the right tunnel. Jack knew this led to one of the slave holding areas as well as storage and a passageway to the third level.

Jack could hear strange noises from the direction they were heading, and Jasper motioned to teams to fan out ahead and check the situation out. As they headed down the hall, Jack smelled something that disturbed him far before he saw anything. There was a series of locked doors along each side of the hall. Multiple teams opened the doors and stuck mirrors attached to poles inside the rooms to check for possible surprises or ambushes. They withdrew the mirrors satisfied there were no traps in the first two rooms they checked, and two teams of four went into each room. Jasper joined the team entering into the left room.

The first thing that assaulted them as they entered was a horrific odor. It smelled of sickness, waste and the odor of mammals kept in appalling conditions with dreadful hygiene. There were rows and rows of stalls with mammals of all species, ages and sexes chained to the wall. Each area had a filthy mattress on the floor, a bucket of water and a container to shit and piss in. Most of the animals seemed to have sores, worn patches of fur and were covered in fleas, gnats and flies. Several of the mercenaries had to stop themselves from vomiting. Most of the mammals didn't even seem to notice they had entered the room. Jasper ordered his crew to quickly use the tools from the captured guards to quickly release each mammal and move them into the hall. Each of them were very docile and just followed the mercenaries as they gently led them into the hall where others restrained their paws and linked them together with cables.

"Is that necessary?" Jack questioned his lower jaw trembling thinking of their horrid treatment and suffering.

The poor pitiful slaves had been through hell and looked to pose no threat. They barely looked like they could even move, let alone put up any resistance.

"I'm afraid so Jack. We can't take any chances. It is procedure with all rescues and captives. They are not being hurt, I assure you." Jasper explained.

Jack nodded his head looking mournfully at the long line of wretched looking mammals. He tried to talk to them, but they just kept looking down at their feet.

"Where are the kids?" Jack wondered.

Most all the mammals seemed to be in their late teens to their early forties. He supposed any mammals older than this didn't survive that long or were killed.

"Hopefully in the other rooms." Jasper answered.

They knew from the manifests there should be several hundred younger slaves down here.

The mercenaries then opened up each of the other rooms checking for possible ambushes and removed all the other captives living in similar conditions. They finished opening all the rooms along the hall and ended up removing seventy-eight adult slaves. Most of the slaves were wearing filthy rags with many wearing nothing at all. Jack had only seen a couple naked adults in his life and now was staring at dozens. He thought it would be interesting, but looking at the adults in horrible condition he felt nothing but disgust and sorrow. The mercenaries had no time to worry about naked mammals and just led them out the way they had entered. Their mission was to clear the entire facility as quickly as possible. They would worry about niceties such as clothes, food and medical treatment later. Unless they were bleeding or dying right in front of them, if they could walk, they were moved as fast as possible back down the hall. The fifteen mercenaries escorted the slaves up the exit to waiting transports while Jasper was joined by ten other mercenaries who had returned from exploring the other hall.

They reported that they had run into a large room of clients of the facility who had barricaded themselves into an auditorium. Jasper told them to seal the room from the outside and leave some guards. They would come back for them later once they cleared everything else. That was pretty much the standard policy. If there was resistance, they would block it off and wait to get to it later. The more separated the groups of resistance, the better.

Jasper radioed to his group ahead and then took the ten back down the way they came passing the now empty slave pens. They passed by several storage areas and each one had to be carefully checked to make sure no one was hiding inside. They even had a bear mercenary with them to sniff each room carefully just to make sure. But just as a precaution, they yelled a warning into each room that they were locking each one up, and if they didn't want to die a slow death due to the lack of food, water and air, they should give up and come with them. They then sealed each door using chains and tape to mark that they had been checked and the rooms properly sealed. They continued down the hallway and turned a corner arriving at a long series of rooms Jack remembered were called fun rooms. Jack had doubted anything actually fun happened in them, but he wasn't exactly expecting what they found.

Some of the rooms had open windows on the side so you could see into the rooms. Others seemed to have hidden viewing chambers with one way mirrored glass for watching what happened inside unseen while sitting in comfortable chairs. They even had refreshment stands in many of these viewing rooms to provide the audience with all the amenities possible to enjoy their entertainment. The fun rooms seemed to have themes. Some looked like a child's playroom with toys, stuffed dolls of various species, kids books and a closet of all kinds of kids clothes. Another room seemed to have a fake castle, fake swords, armor and old costumes from a medieval age. There was even a fake dragon costume. There was a space room with a large space ship you could sit inside, and it even had a simulator screen so it looked like you were actually taking a space voyage. They have various props outside to simulate anther planet's surface. It was like you could have some fantasy where you were on a full voyage and explore an alien planet.

"What are all these for?" Jack wondered.

Razer thought he might know, "These seem to be fantasy playrooms. They don't necessarily seem to be about anything sexual, although it is possible they could become sexual. But many of these just seem to be for those into role-playing. Again it could have a sexual component or not. Some of the kid stuff with kids clothes is disturbing, but it is also possible some clients just enjoyed the idea of playing with the child slaves or watching them play."

"Well all things considered, I wished they had only wished to watch me play instead of trying to fuck me." Jack stated matter-of-factly.

Jasper admitted regretfully, "I heard about all that nastiness Jack, and I am so very sorry. I know when we were planning this assault a week ago we had no idea this place was a giant sex and torture complex. The only information we had was that slaves were kept here, but everything was extremely secretive. I am sure Reynard and Felix thought you would only be treated like a normal slave and not as a sex toy."

"I don't blame them. I know this place was top-secret. I would not have even said no had I known. It is just my approach and strategy would have been totally different. By the time I realized the situation I was in, it was too late." Jack explained.

"Yes you were flying blind. And that was very regretful. I heard your boss nearly tore an office and several innocent bystanders apart when he found out what had been done to you." Jasper revealed.

"Some of these rooms look like a whole lot of fun." Mini said excitedly.

There was one room full of every kind of game you could imagine: bowling, badminton, console video games, pinball, board games like chess and checkers as well as dozens of others, several card tables and poker tables with an area for a dealer and stacks of poker chips, a large area with huge sofas and enormous televisions with console video games attached. Jack had never seen anything like it before.

"I wish we could bring all this back to The Warehouse. I know the kids there would love all this stuff." Jack exclaimed in wonder.

"It would be nice for sure, but we have a very strict time schedule and unfortunately no time to remove anything but living beings and documents or data.. Everything else stays." Jasper explained.

One of Jasper's assistants was video recording everything they found in detail. They wanted a full video record of every square meter of the entire facility.

In a wing down the hall they found the section labeled instruction and training rooms which seemed to be a bit confusing, but they had some classrooms with video screens and white boards. But it was the abnormal items in the rooms that were disturbing. Along the wall were whips, chains, ball gags, muzzles, rods with barbs, sticks, items for wrapping and constraining and sexual devices or every kind. Razer pointed out things called anal plugs, dildos, clamps, lubricants and numerous others. There were hundreds of diagrams and models for every sexual perversion known. However the most disturbing instructional room was the torture room which contained many of the items from Jack's nightmare, but many more he never imagined. There was a large table that could be tilted covered with straps where a victim could be attached and spread out. There was another device where a victim could be laid out and slowly stretched. A kiln of some kind filled with implements to be heated sat against a wall. There was a vat of water which Jack assumed the instructors used for drowning. Numerous pulleys and straps were attached to the walls and ceiling bringing visions of horror back to the young bunny. Razer pointed out this was something called a strappado, but with an endless amount of variations for using gravity and the laws of physics to cause extreme torment.

There was a large metal container that seemed to be alterable to fit most mammal sizes which could be closed, and was attached to an electrical system for applying shocks of varying levels on various portions of the body. Razer said the torturer could control which portion of the body was shocked or it could just be put on random mode. In the same device intense amounts of heat could be applied or the device could be sealed shut causing the victim to feel like they were being boiled alive. Jack noted even Jasper was looking quite sick as they began to realize all the methods of torment that were being developed in this room and most likely practiced in this true House of Horrors.

Several dummies were in the corners presumably so that students could practice with whips, knives, pokers and prods, and the numerous other implements of pain scattered around. Jack's keen eye noted that the floor had drains and small stains of darkness in numerous spots which he assumed were the remains of blood that had been thoroughly cleaned. Jack had known great evil in his short life, but the minds that came up with the things in this room seemed to show there were levels of evil he had not even come close to imagining.

He wished this was the sickest thing he would see down here, but the horrors were only getting started. Along the sides of the halls were carts of varying sizes many of which were covered in blood and fur from numerous mammals. Some residual evidence of the bodies appeared to be very old while other evidence quite fresh. The smell caused several of the mercenaries to gag. Jack had to quickly cover his sensitive nose and breathe through his mouth to avoid vomiting all over Mini and Razer.

The little mouse looked up at the bunny with sympathy, "Jack… you really sure you want to be down here?"

Jack looked down at his friends through watery eyes holding his paws over his nose and nodded, "It is important for me to see why I am doing what I do."

The mouse nodded that he understood but looked extremely distraught.

They were then joined by a group that had returned from delivering the adult slaves they had found earlier. Some had gone to help down the other hallway, but most had joined the large group exploring levels two and three. Jasper was talking to the group that had entered the main entry and had gotten word that they had found the boss Bruun the Bear. The rest of this section of the second level consisted of a hotel of sorts running off the main hallway with about forty rooms for guests and five highroller suites. Jasper left most of group to go through every one of these rooms searching for anyone or any evidence. He took his core group with him as well as Jack, Mini and Razer and rushed back the way they had come until they got to the secret entrance from which they had originally emerged, and went down the hallway the other group had explored. They passed several large rooms some of which had mercenaries guarding the entrances. Apparently these were some of the viewing rooms in which the guests had decided to barricade themselves. Jasper and the other mercenaries were happy to just keep them contained in these rooms while they explored and cleared the rest of the underground dungeon.

They passed five of these viewing rooms. Three of the five appeared to contain considerable numbers of clients. He could see groups of them milling around inside some of the rooms. Some were dressed in black robes with hoods and others were just dressed normally. They all appeared to be exhibiting a mix of distraught, angry, guilty and desperate emotions. Jasper's group climbed up a circular ramp with a slow grade which curled around leading to the first level area. Jack knew most of the first level contained sizable auditoriums and viewing areas for the big events that went on at the House of Horrors. They had spacious event halls which could be used for meetings, extensive dinner parties, concerts or similar purposes. One huge auditorium and two substantial other auditoriums were present here. There was a extensive kitchen for food preparation and several temporary storage areas for slaves that were to be used for the events. Apparently they had recovered about fifty slaves from the temporary storage areas, about a third of whom were children. Theses had already been removed from the complex.

The kitchen, temporary storage and event halls had all been cleared. There were still a very large number of clients still contained in all three auditoriums. Apparently those running the underground had just continued the events, and had not even told most of the clients that anything was even wrong. So they had just been participating in the festivities when the mercenaries had secured the upper grounds. When the mercenaries had come down in force, many had panicked and tried to make a run for it and were quickly captured. Others tried to barricade themselves in several of the event areas and restrooms, and were easily subdued. The vast majority just barricaded themselves in the auditoriums, and the mercenaries seemed satisfied to leave them there while they cleared everything else. Finally a group in one of the smaller auditoriums identified themselves as a group of special VIPs, and Bruun the Bear demanded to speak to whoever was in charge. That is when they called for Jasper who had rushed here to talk to the boss. He was on the comms with his own boss getting instructions on what he needed to do.

Jasper arrived at the door and spoke briefly to a representative for Bruun through the door informing him he had a communications device connected to the mammal in charge. The door was opened up just enough for Jasper to hand the device over to Bruun's representative, and then the door was sealed. Apparently the device was a specially designed one that only had one channel on an unblocked frequency which was now being used by Reynard while Jasper, Felix and other leaders listened in.

They heard the loud roar of the bear yell through the microphone, "Who the fuck is this? Do you have any fucking idea who you are messing with?"

"Why of course I certainly do my dear Bruun. I know you quite well. Although I never expected you to be associated with this whole mess." Jack heard his boss Reynard say in a disguised manner.

"What? Huh?" The large bear seemed quite stunned by this, "What… what is the meaning of this?"

"Why to shut down this entire monstrosity of course. I regret I can not be there in person nor any of my associates so I had to send a proxy force instead." Jack's fox boss replied calmly.

"You… you are willing to risk open warfare with me over this shit?" The bear wondered incredulously.

"Of course not my dear Bruun. I meant no disrespect or insult to you or any of your gang. As I said, I was quite shocked you had anything to do with what was going on in this facility. We mean you no harm at all." The fox responded hopefully reassuring the bear.

"I see. I didn't think you had the guts to pull anything like this off fox, if that is you. And I very much suspect it is. You have grown far too big for your britches." The bear growled.

"We just heard there were some innocent children in need of help, and decided we could no longer stand by and watch them be victimized. I had no idea you had a whole full-fledged slavery, torture, and sex den practicing every horror I have ever heard of." The fox responded in a disappointed voice showing a great deal of disapproval.

"It's not any fucking business of yours fox. Stick with your own patch. There are rules against this sort of thing in place for a reason. You have violated all the laws of the King!" Bruun angrily countered.

Reynard calmly explained, "How am I interfering my dear Bruun? I have not placed a single paw in your district. Not one of my gang or any of my employees have made a single move against your interests."

"Then what do you fucking call all these shits who are holding me here?" The bear furiously responded.

"Why they are merely like-minded individuals who share common values and objectives. They are free to accept my suggestions or not. I am merely offering advice." The fox smugly informed the furious bear.

"You expect me to buy that fucking shit? What kind of moron do you take me for?" The bear bellowed.

"I merely tell you my position and do not admit to my identity or purpose. I am only speaking to you to assure you that you are not the target or object of this entire operation." The fox serenely explained.

"So you are telling me that my group is free to leave at any time?" Bruun seemed to calm a bit and had begun to negotiate with the other boss.

"Of course my dear friend. I wish you and your gang no ill will whatsoever. However I was hoping you could do me a favor first. Your associates have been gathering outside and seem to be quite agitated. I would not want any misunderstanding between your people and my comrades. You must concede that would be terrible for both our interests. I only wish a peaceful solution to this impasse." Reynard smoothly explained in his most tranquil negotiation tone.

The bear seemed to understand the situation now, "Ah… you wish no bloodshed. What's to stop me from ordering a full assault as soon as I am in contact with them? Why the risk? You have cut off all outside communication. Why allow me to speak to them now?"

Reynard placidly explained, "We did not wish any warning or miscommunication to occur. Panicked mammals are never the best source of accurate information or advice. I was hoping you could calm the fears of your people, and wanted to make sure you had all the proper facts of the situation before you made contact with them. If you were to order an assault, I can not guarantee your safety. The potential losses would be quite regrettable for both sides I am sure you can agree."

"Fox, you are too clever for your own good. You will allow me to communicate with my people, but control the communication, listening the entire time. You hold my life and my top lieutenants hostage if any intervention in your plans is attempted. That about right?" Bruun expressed realizing his situation.

"I know not of this fox of which you speak, but yes, that is a good summary. You may remain in contact with them the entire time so they are assured you are being treated extremely well, and not threatened in any way. We will clear the entire facility and withdraw. You are free to leave completely unharmed. I promise not a strand of fur on you or any of your gang will be harmed if you meet my conditions. You will however need to remove any of those currently with you that are not members of your gang so we can have a chat with them." The fox explained.

There were some angry shouts from inside and then some growls and shouts from the bear.

"Your terms are acceptable. War is bad for business. What do you plan on doing with these others at this location?" The bear wondered.

"As per the rules of the court, they will not be harmed in your district. I would never wish to have your authority challenged or undermined in any way." The fox tried to convince the bear.

"Sure… sure… you just have no problem having a large armed force decide to assault a complex in my district without my authority. Nothing wrong with that eh fox?" The bear replied sarcastically.

"Just a bit of a misunderstanding is all. We were here because we heard some children were in trouble, and stumbled upon this entire other situation. Your involvement is completely accidental and quite regrettable." The fox explained remorsefully.

"Very well, have the communications device given to my people and I will do as you ask. But what is to stop me from bringing this before the royal court?" The bear countered.

"My dear Bruun, I have been quite careful not to do anything that would go against the rules of the court. Even if you were to find some offenses you feel I have made against you, you must admit that the piles of evidence I have found linking you to this entire facility and all its activities paints you in a much worse light than anything I possibly could have done." Reynard craftily explained to the bear.

"So you seek to blackmail me on top of everything else?" Bruun growled angrily.

"Of course not, my dear friend. I merely point out that if the details of this whole situation were to be revealed to the court, it could be quite embarrassing for you. I wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" The cunning fox slyly disclosed.

"You are a real bastard, fox." The bear grumbled.

"You have no idea how true that is in many ways my dear friend. I have never claimed otherwise. But I hope we can maintain amicable relations so that every one of our associates get safely home. That sound good to you? I understand my associates have given the communication device to your representatives and they are getting it to the mammal in charge." The fox informed the bear.

"Your terms are acceptable fox. I will not be the one to start a war. As a sign of good faith, I will give you the ones you wanted… to question."

Another voice came on the line. The voice sounded desperate and highly agitated.

"Boss? Boss you there? Boss… these guys here said you were fine…" An extremely stressed voice spoke on the line.

"Ferry that you? Yes… yes we are fine. Just a bit of a… misunderstanding. Do not make any moves on anyone unless they make the first move." The bear ordered.

"Understood boss. But they have been all over the district for hours picking up hundreds of individuals and taking them south toward the water. We didn't know if you wanted us to stop them or come here and get you." The anxious voice of Ferry explained.

"Fox… you still there? What's the meaning of this shit?" The bear growled irritated.

"Are you talking to me my dear Bruun? If you are, my associates were merely concerned with the well-being of innocent children that had been sold from those at this facility according to the quite detailed records I had mentioned to you. My associates were just liberating them from the deleterious conditions in which they found themselves. I can't imagine you would have any problem with that." Reynard tactfully clarified.

Bruun growled frustrated, but did not want to lose face before his men so he answered, "Of course not… children should not be sold as slaves if that is what they did here. Are you finished with gathering all these slaves?"

"They should be just finishing up by now. Again I apologize for not clearing all this with you in advance my dear Bruun. But you were unavailable for contact once we learned of the situation. We had to act on the information without any delay to make sure all were gathered before the guilty could flee." The fox craftily explained.

"Of course. How could you do otherwise? I regret being unavailable to provide approval. Ferry stay on the line with me, but keep everyone back until they have cleared out. How long will this take fox?" The bear questioned.

"Oh… hopefully less than an hour assuming we have no problems with the clientele we needed to question." Reynard revealed.

"Well let me not delay you any. Let me help you along so you can finish quickly." Bruun offered.

The door to the room opened and twelve mammals in robes were roughly pushed out into the hallway against their will and quickly gathered by the collected mercenaries. In addition five very dejected looking slaves, two of which appeared to be in their early teens, were pushed out. Jasper was on another line with Reynard and he was issuing orders to several of his men.

Reynard then spoke again to Bruun, "Your assistance is very much appreciated my dear friend. We will be out of your fur as soon as we can. I hope you will allow one of my associates to inspect the room to make sure no one was accidentally overlooked. He will be unarmed and will come bearing sealed food, water and portable restroom facilities to help make your brief wait more pleasant. If you should need anything else, please let my associates know and we will try to make you as comfortable as possible."

"That is acceptable." The bear responded.

They sent a leopard mercenary in carrying two boxes full of sealed food and drinks they had found in storage as well as a portable toilet. Apparently the leopard was chosen because he knew the pictures of all Bruun's top personnel, and would recognize anyone that did not belong. After a few minutes of carefully inspecting the room, he seemed satisfied and left nodding to Jasper all was clear. They then left a guard detail and Jasper issued orders to start clearing out the auditoriums and hurried back down the hall to join the team on the second level.

After several minutes they arrived in the main hall and were informed that all the rooms and high-roller suites had been thoroughly searched and sealed. The group then gathered heading toward the descent to the third level. However there was quite a commotion as they approached an out of the way alcove near the end of the hall that Jack remembered was labeled disposal. Jack had thought nothing of this when he had been studying the map, but judging from the yelling and the group of six hardened mercenaries standing outside the double-doors vomiting on the floor, apparently he was quite mistaken.

Mercenaries were yelling many angry confusing things. Something about a refrigerator and mouths and the insides of something. It was extremely confusing with all the very agitated and shocked voices all speaking at once. Jack would never forget the looks on the tough mercenaries standing outside. Their faces showed such sickness, disgust and horror that Jack couldn't imagine what he would see.

As they entered the large double doors, he could see many cart tracks, and there were carts along side the entrance inside the doors. They entered another set of doors and a wave of cold hit him and he immediately began shivering. They were in some sort of giant refrigerator. But instead of fresh produce, drinks and fish inside, there were bodies stacked all over. Jack's sensitive nose could smell the sickening stench of death. It was very faint, but quite pervasive. In one area there appeared to be a place to wrap the bodies in some kind of plastic wrap and some plastic bags. There appeared to be an area to construct boxes of all sizes to fill with bodies and load onto carts.

Jack could make out at least twenty bodies of all sizes mostly medium to large. There were however a couple of small bodies, two of which appeared to be children. The fur on most of the bodies looked matted and damaged, and many of the bodies appeared to have numerous cuts and welts. The bunny was disgusted and horrified, but couldn't understand what had disturbed the mercenaries outside. He had expected there would be a number of casualties based on the activities of these monsters, and it only made sense they would need a storage area to keep them until they were able to transport them somewhere to dispose of them. What he had not expected was what Jasper and several others were staring at in horror.

On one table a large dead rhino was laid out and an amount of cut binding cord lay next to the head of the rhino. Jack had seen several of the dead mammals, especially the larger ones, with the same cords wrapped around their muzzles and mouths. But what was laying partially pulled out of the rhino was the most horrifying sight Jack had ever seen. Inside was a large mass of red muscle, white substance, bone, and a gooey mess. It was an image from some horrific nightmare! There was a skull of bone and muscle and two huge haunting eyes in the sockets.

"What… what is it?" Jack managed to get out.

They turned and looked at him, and one lion mercenary stared at him in dismay and stammered, "It… it… it's a bear."

"A bear?" Jack couldn't believe he was looking at a bear, "What… what happened to it?"

The lion's look of horror told him all he needed to know, "It… it was skinned." The lion put both his paws up to his muzzle and fled the way they came, and they heard heaving sounds of vomiting a few seconds later.

Jasper was shaking his head and muttering. He then seemed to notice something else and ordered a mercenary to look inside the remains of the bear's mouth and they pulled out something else smaller but equally devoid of flesh and fur. Jasper and two of the other mercenaries both then fled out the doors and began spewing the contents of their stomachs all over the floor. Fortunately Jasper had the presence of mind to vomit away from the bunny, mouse and rat. Jack looked at Mini and Razer and saw each of them looked extremely ill, but fortunately they were not retching or vomiting. Jack supposed after all the horror he had been exposed to this day, this seemed to be one more in a string of nauseating abominations. The monsters responsible for all this needed to pay! He hoped his boss had a punishment worthy of them. Jack had never really thought about the perpetrators of all these crimes before. He had only been interested in saving the victims. But after experiencing this House of Horrors, he wished there was fitting hell for those responsible for all this suffering and torment.

Jasper then ordered some of the mercenaries with stronger stomachs to check the other mammals with mouths wrapped in cord and gave one of them the video recorder to get full documentation of everything in this room. He briefly went back in long enough to see that each of these mammals had been stuffed with skinned smaller mammals. Most of them had their skeletons crushed in order to be stuffed inside the large ones. Jack noticed most of the larger mammals either had no fur like the rhino, or had damaged or matted fur.

Some of the mercenaries talked about removing the poor creatures to return them to their families for a proper burial. But Jasper told them they had to be out of the facility in under an hour, and their responsibility was to the living at the moment. The mammals had to regrettably agree to Jasper's statement and said some prayers among the dead and then sealed up the room.

The team that headed down the ramp to the third level was extremely dour and subdued. Upon arriving at the third level they came to several passageways that let to a complex of rooms labeled 'One on Ones'. Each of the rooms appeared to be similar to the hotel rooms except many of them contained beds and video cameras. Others contained many torture devices. Most disturbing to Jack were the ones with child play toys and stuffed animals. He noticed most of the rooms had video equipment and metal rings on the walls to attach manacles or to attach chains wrapped around pawcuffs. Jack was getting really sick of this place as they kept finding horror after horror.

There was some excitement down the hall and some shouting. Apparently they had found one of the clients in one of the rooms with some children and he was threatening to kill them. Jasper ordered his people out and he entered to negotiate. It was an old male goat holding a small goat kid and a little antelope calf in each arm threatening to strangle them if anyone came closer. Both of the children were understandably terrified.

"Calm down… we don't want anyone to get hurt." Jasper told the goat who appeared to be in his fifties.

Jack noticed he was wearing one of those dark robes with the hoods.

"Stay… stay away from me or they die! Leave now!" The old goat yelled panicked.

Jasper shook his head, "I'm afraid we can't do that. We are clearing the entire underground. We can't leave anyone here."

"Why the fuck not?" The old goat responded.

Jasper calmly answered, "Because we are blowing it the fuck up."

"What?" The shocked goat barely managed to get out.

"We are under orders not to harm anyone. But we need to get everyone out as my boss is going to bury the whole thing. Anyone remaining down here will die a slow agonizing death. You don't want that do you?" Jasper calmly asked the stunned goat.

The goat thought about this a few seconds and then responded, "You are under orders not to harm us?"

"Why do you think we are equipped with sedatives, pawcuffs and restraints? We are not here to kill anyone. That would be against Bruun's commands, and we would not go against him." Jasper reasoned.

"You know Bruun?" The old goat sounded shocked.

Jasper turned on the communication device being used by Bruun, and after a minute of waiting they heard Bruun giving a status update to his group letting them know he was fine.

"Satisfied?" Jasper asked.

The old goat nodded and released the two children. They were terrified but merely just moved a meter or so away from the goat. Jack then noticed they were chained to the walls. Instead Jasper extended his paw and took the hoof of the goat and led him out the door where he had cuffs placed on him and was led away by a leopard. Jasper unlocked the children, but they seemed frightened of the fox.

Jack then looked at both of the kids and tried to reassure them, "Guys… they won't hurt you. They are friends."

The kids looked at the bunny disbelieving, but then saw Jack was not restrained as he hopped down in front of them.

"They are here to take you out of here." Jack told each of them showing how earnest he was gently leading each of them out into the hall. Instead of restraining them, the mercenaries gently picked them up lightly petting them. Two of the mercenaries then carefully carried them out.

"Good job Jack." Jasper told the bunny as he hopped back into harness around the fox.

"I told you I would be useful." Jack told the fox smiling up at him.

As they began to head down the hallway, the bunny asked the fox, "That stuff about blowing up everything? Is that real?"

The fox grinned down at him, "It is what your boss said to tell them. Whether it is real… it is effective is it not?"

Jack realized that yes it was quite an effective negotiating ploy. His boss continued to impress him with his ingenuity.

The mercenaries then finished clearing the rest of the one on one rooms and then headed back down the hall and found several passageways leading to slave quarters. On the one side of the hallway opposite the halls that led down to the slave quarters were two large rooms Jack had been dreading. Jasper sent two teams of five mammals into each of the large rooms to check them out. Within half a minute both teams had exited each room clearly distraught. Several of them were vomiting and the others all looked sick and nauseous.

"What now?" Jasper exclaimed shaking his head.

They glanced into the first room and saw why. The entire room was full of racks and racks of hangers with suits on them. Only these suits were not normal clothes, but instead the skins of mammals. It was a huge room of fursuits made with the skinned remains of hundreds of slaves. They had been sewn together so they could be worn so different mammals could dress up as another species wearing their skins and faces. There were hundreds of species and all different sizes of suits. It was a horror show of epic proportions. Jack saw a rabbit suit with ears and big fluffy cotton tail and instantly vomited. He couldn't control himself. Seeing the skinned remains of a fellow bunny was too much for him. Fortunately Mini and Razer dodged out of the way. Seeing what he was looking at, they looked at him with great sympathy and anguish. Jack saw that Jasper nearly vomited himself seeing a suit with a familiar big reddish bushy tail.

"Well we found out what happened to all the skins." Jasper remarked trying to fight his stomach's reflex to gag.

"But… but why?" Jack wondered.

"I suppose for fantasy or play acting or who knows what. Whatever it is doesn't matter. This is sick on such a horrific level. But the extent of all this… there are hundreds of skins here. Hundreds of mammals killed for their fur to be worn. It is a crime of such magnitude that I… I am not sure what to say." Jasper expressed in dismay.

They then went to inspect the other room and got a similar horror. The room was full of the skins of mammals. Some were freshly cut off with blood and fat still stuck to the skins. Others were in various stages of being processed using chemicals and stretched out to dry. Others were sitting by machines ready to be sewn. In many of them, masks were constructed for attaching the mammals face to in order for someone to wear its face over theirs. Jasper had to quickly leave before he got sick. He ordered someone to record everything in detail and make sure nothing living was present in either room. These were the Fur Rooms Jack had been wary of. The did not disappoint in terms of horror. The entire facility was aptly named as the House of Horrors. Jack would never forget the things he saw here the entire rest of his life. After seeing all the things that were going on here, the bunny now knew why every adult slave he had seen all looked like they were the walking dead. They had all long since given up hope, and accepted that they were living a fate worse than death, and were just waiting longingly for that final death to actually arrive.

Once they searched and sealed off the Fur Rooms, they headed down the side hallways to the slave quarters and found four rooms similar to the ones they found on the second level with adult mammals. They recovered eight-nine slaves from the four rooms in similar wretched conditions as the earlier ones except that four of them were too weak or injured to walk. They recovered some of the carts they had seen to help push these four out and a group led these slaves connected with a cable outside. They then went down another wing and found six rooms that were all full of children. Several of the rooms were full of mammals of all species and sexes in their teens. The other rooms had children ranging from as young as three to twelve. All told they found 134 child slaves. The mercenaries placed the smallest ones on carts to push them out. The older ones they connected together with cable like the adults and led them out. All the children were quite terrified by the scary looking mercenaries in black, but Jack, Mini and Razer attempted to convince each of them that the mercenaries were here to rescue them. From their expressions they seemed to be partially successful. At least the children seemed to go from terrified to skeptical, but most nodded their heads accepting the word of the tiny little bunny.

As Jack was busy talking to the smaller children, he heard one he recognized speak up.

A little gopher boy of about seven spoke out, "Phillip? Phillip… is that you?"

"Sam?" Jack called out.

The little gopher got a huge grin and embraced the bunny who had hopped down in front of him.

"I am so glad you are alive! I was so worried they had killed you. But then they were screaming all over about you escaping. I had so hoped it was true." Sam sobbed hugging Jack.

Jack patted the gophers back, "I found a few friends to help get us out of here."

Sam stared disbelieving into the bunny's large cyan eyes, "Truly? I thought they were just trying to fool us."

Jasper looked to the bunny, "Jack, we have a timetable to keep. We need to get a move on."

Sam seeing the way the fox who was obviously in charge spoke to and respected the tiny bunny hesitantly asked, "Phillip… who… who are you?"

Jack gave the little gopher a slight smile and responded, "Savage… Jack Savage."

He then put his arm around him and encouraged Sam to let the jaguar pick him up to carry him to freedom.

"I'll see you later Sam. We need to get you guys out of here as quickly as possible." Jack informed his friend.

Sam nodded and then thought of something, "Have you gotten to the wild girl yet?"

"Wild girl?" Jack asked.

Sam then led them down a hall full of a few small cells. Four of the cells were empty. In the fifth, the lights were out, but when they turned them on they were truly met by a wild creature.

A figure was crouched in the corner and instantly began growling and spitting at them. The thing that was truly unusual about this was that the figure was not a tiger, wolf or leopard, but a female zebra of around fourteen. She was gnashing her teeth, snarling and thrashing her hooves in their direction. A few of the mercenaries attempted to enter to free her, but after getting kicked and nearly bitten, they thought better of this and retreated. They were about to try and tranquilize her when Jack had an idea and told them to wait.

Before Jasper or anyone could react, Jack jumped down and hopped over to the zebra looking up at her with his big beautiful cyan eyes and fearlessly told her, "Hi… my name is Jack. What's your name?"

The vicious psychotic zebra froze in place staring at the tiny bunny in front of her and then sat down on the floor. Jack hopped up next to her and sat in her waist nuzzling her side. She carefully lifted him up into her arms and pet him. He looked up at her and gave her a big smile, "Hiya beautiful. I bet you have a nice name like Penelope right?"

The crazy zebra seemed mesmerized by the tiny bunny who hugged her around her muzzle and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She gave him a shy soft nicker resulting in a big grin from the bunny.

"We're here to rescue you beautiful." Jack told her with a wink.

She didn't seem to really understand or believe him until he looked deep into her eyes and nodded, "I mean it."

She then began to look around and notice the mercenaries staring at her and began to get anxious until Jack patted her nose, "It's okay. They're with me. Want to get out of this place?"

She looked into Jack's eyes and slowly nodded. He smiled at her and squirmed out of her arms and motioned to Jasper who tossed him a tool which he used to release the zebra from her chains. She sat disbelieving staring from the bunny who had tossed the tool back to the fox to the mercenaries in the hall who had backed away leaving Jack alone with her. The bunny hopped back into her arms and encouraged her, "Come on doll. Can you stand?"

She slowly nodded and carefully stood up and slowly walked out the door of the cell. The mercenaries gave her a wide berth looking at her very warily. But they seemed satisfied that the tiny bunny had somehow apparently tamed the savage beast.

Jasper stood his distance from the zebra holding Mini and Razer and spoke carefully to Jack, "Jack, we need to finish things up on the first level. Will she be okay to follow us?"

Jack turned to his new friend looking at her and rubbing her nose, "That sound okay dollface? Just follow Jasper here."

She looked at him and slowly nodded. He gave her a big hug around her chest. Jasper gave orders to the mercenaries to finish checking the rest of the third level and follow them up. Several of them had a recorder attached to a megaphone to issue a warning to anyone possibly still hiding to come out, that they would not be harmed and the entire facility was going to be demolished. The time for subtlety and silence was past. It was now time for a final warning and to clear every level before leaving. The only thing remaining on the third level was some storage rooms, restrooms, a medical facility and a janitorial closet. Jack checked his knife and saw they had only fifteen minutes to clear the facility before Reynard's one hour estimate. While it was not a hard time limit, Jasper wanted to try and stay close to his boss' estimate to Bruun.

The mercenaries scurried around the other rooms searching all the remaining rooms blaring the warnings. Apparently they nabbed a few employees and some evidence in the medical bay, and a couple clients came out of hiding in the storage rooms. They had revealed that they had hidden in some boxes when they heard the mercenaries coming down the level. Jasper sent some bears to do some last minute sniffs in any of the similar rooms where anyone could be hiding. The bears could identify any recent presence by any mammal. Hiding from the expert sniffer of a bear was not an easy thing as their ability to differentiate tiny subtle smells was far superior to even a fox or wolf.

As Jack and the female zebra walked up the hallway, Jack chatted to her constantly trying to get her to open up and say something. Whatever terrible thing had happened to her seemed to keep her silent, but she seemed to understand what Jack was saying. After a good five minutes, the little bunny was able to achieve a great accomplishment as she finally told him her name was Missy.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Missy. My boss will make sure to get you returned to your family as soon as possible. How does that sound?" Jack happily informed her trying to cheer her up.

But from her reaction, the bunny immediately realized this was the wrong thing to say as she reacted with fear and disgust.

Jack immediately looked sorrowful regretting what he said and rubbed her nose, "I am sorry Missy. Did your parents sell you to these horrible creatures?"

She confused the bunny by shaking her head no.

"Hmmm… but they sold you to someone?"

Missy nodded her head and then looked away ashamed.

"Oh my sweet Missy, you can tell me anything. My dad beat me and tried to kill me while committing suicide. I was sold into slavery until I was rescued by my boss. So your story can't be worse than mine." Jack told the zebra softly.

She looked to Jasper questioningly and Jack realized what she was thinking, "No Missy dear. My boss is another fox… we are here to save those like you and punish those that did this to you. He will take good care of you I promise."

She nodded and gave him the slightest smile and he climbed up enough to give her a kiss on her long nose.

They walked up the second level silently until all of a sudden Jack heard a female voice above him say, "They sold me as a bride, my parents. I didn't take it well and misbehaved. The marriage broker sold me to these..."

The little bunny looked up at the zebra shocked at what he heard. He had heard of all kinds of slaves, but had no idea this even happened. His eyes became watery looking into the eyes of Missy and he responded, "That is horrible my sweet lovely striped goddess. We have to stop that from happening to anyone else! Could you help me know all the details when we get out? I promise to do everything I can to use the information to help save others."

The zebra looked into the bunny's breathtaking cyan eyes and nodded giving him a slight enthusiastic snort and head nod.

As they got to the food preparation rooms, several mercenaries came running up to Jasper informing him there was something important to see. Jasper instructed the camera operator to come with him and then saw Jack and Missy following him into the room and stopped looking hesitantly at the bunny, "Jack, this is something your friend there shouldn't see. Can you get her to wait there briefly or stay outside with her?"

Jack looked up at his zebra friend, "Missy can you stay here for a few minutes? I promise I will be right back."

She nodded at him and he gave her a big smile. She then extended her arms so the bunny could join his comrades in the fox's harness. As they headed into the food preparation areas, Mini and Razer gave him a big grin and the rat teased him, "You girlfriend is a lot to handle there. You sure you are up to the task?"

Jack gave him a grin, "Missy has had it rough, but I love her spirit. You jealous Razer?"

Razer smiled at that, "A bit… it seems you are fearless when it comes to all things my bunny comrade. Just be careful with that one."

Jack nodded, "I will try, but she is really a sweetheart under all that fire. You just have to know how to handle her."

Mini piped up, "Well being cute, fuzzy, little and gorgeous doesn't hurt."

Jack looked at the mouse shocked, "Mini are you coming on to me?"

Razer looked at the bunny curiously, "Jack, you haven't noticed that you are the most beautiful bunny around?"

That brought back some painful memories to the bunny, "Don't remind me. That old rabbit wanted me... looked at me like… ewwww… that was horrible!"

Mini then looked at him and placed his paw on Jack's forearm shaking it a bit, "No Jack… not just to those creeps. You are the nicest looking bunny I've ever seen."

"But I have stripes on my face and ears." Jack responded disbelieving.

Razer informed him, "Those just make you look distinctive. They make you stand out from the rest. With those light blue eyes, that face, everything about you… you never compared yourself to other bunnies?"

Jack shook his head disbelieving, "I wasn't around other rabbits much. And all the ones I met disgusted me. I never really saw any other bunnies being around The Warehouse. It was not a place for bunnies as all the others frequently pointed out to me."

Mini smiled at him, "Well then just to let you know, as far as bunnies go, you are quite spectacular."

Jack would have to think on that. He always just thought of himself as a freak with weird markings and shunned by rabbit society. His father had made sure to remind him of that fact every day they had been together. Perhaps his father was lying to him the entire time. Well no… it seemed his father truly believed what he was saying, but Jack now realized that perhaps all other rabbits didn't share his father's opinion. He knew Reynard, Felix and the caretakers at The Warehouse certainly never cared what he looked like. They all treated him very nicely and he was extremely appreciative to have found them all. The other kids teased him just because he was a bunny, not because of what he looked like. So maybe he wasn't hideous as far as bunnies went. But the best looking bunny ever? That seemed pretty ridiculous.

"Dear Fucking Lord!" A shocked voice called out from ahead of them.

Jasper ran over to gather in front of a refrigerator where several other mercenaries were standing shocked holding their paws over their mouths.

As the fox arrived with the camera mammal looking inside, it was another scene of horror. Hanging in row after row from hooks in the ceiling were skinned corpses of mammals of many species missing their heads. It seemed the horrors wouldn't stop. Jack couldn't even identify what species was what as all he saw was red muscle, white sinew, bone and connecting tissue.

"What… what is this?" A large bull moose mercenary exclaimed in sheer horror.

Razer had an answer, "Cannibals! These fuckers are eating the slaves now."

"Impossible! Even these sick fuckers wouldn't do that!" The moose exclaimed in complete dismay.

"Apparently nothing is out of bounds for them." Razer stated in disgust.

Jasper looked sickened and in complete despair, "Film it all and let's get the fuck out of here."

"Over here!" A voice called from across the kitchen.

They headed over to find a book full of recipes showing how to cook the meat of different species. A tiger mercenary couldn't control himself and vomited all over the floor. Several of the other mercenaries looked like they wanted to join him. It was just one thing after another.

Then the saw all the scraps and two other mercenaries did follow the example of the tiger and lost whatever remained in their stomachs all over everything. For on a counter were the remains of a victim chopped into pieces. Parts of the victim were spread out. Brains, intestines, organs, hooves, genitals were spread out among sections of legs, arms and sections of the rest of the body chopped into pieces. It was like anatomy class gone horribly wrong. Jack had studied anatomy simply to understand different species' bodies in order to figure out how best to attack and disable them, but seeing and smelling a specimen in living flesh was a nightmare of epic proportions!

Jasper and the others ran out of the room and into the hall gasping for breath. It was the most horrific thing Jack had ever seen. The horrors that happened here were beyond his imagination. It was even too much for his two little friends apparently as Mini and Razer looked at him aghast and extremely troubled.

After a minute of heavy breathing as the fox desperately tried to get air into his lungs, he finally ordered, "Film it all. Remove the books and any other similar evidence. Bag it and tag it and then let's get the fuck out of here."

The moose looked at him in horror, "You want us to bag… to bag all that?"

The fox realized what he was asking and responded thoroughly repelled, "Fuck No! No… I only meant the recipe book or anything written down. Don't touch any of that other. We don't get paid enough for this shit."

Jack had never seen the normally cool and calm fox so distraught. The discoveries of the facility had finally taken their toll on him. Everything seemed to have a breaking point, and the fox had now reached his. Jasper transferred Jack over to the waiting arms of Missy and the bunny told her to just stay next to the fox. She nodded her head enthusiastically and the bunny gave her a kiss in response. Jack looked worriedly at the fox as he listened to reports on the comms and headed down the hall angrily. Apparently one group refused to come out of one of the auditoriums. He led a large group down toward the main auditorium past the room with Bruun and his gang.

"Whats the hold up!" The fox curtly asked the mercenaries at the door. He did not seem to be in any mood for excuses and the mercenaries immediately sensed his extremely irritated mood.

"They… they won't come out. We've tried everything." A wolf mercenary informed him.

"Who's in charge!" The fox asked irately.

"The large elk, Radford Rutledge… we have him listed as one of the main administrators here according to the documentation."

"Well get his ass here so I can talk to him. We don't have time for this shit." Jasper growled at the wolf.

He walked away while the wolf yelled inside to get the attention of someone to bring the head mammal to talk. After a minute the wolf informed Jasper they had the elk there. Jasper stepped over and looked high up into the smug looking elk's face on the other side of the door.

"Like I told the others. We're not coming out." The elk informed the fox haughtily.

"Fine. Then just send out any slaves." Jasper told the elk matter-of-factly.

"Why do you want the slaves? What good are they to you?" Radford asked the fox curiously.

"That is my business. I was just told to get the slaves out." Jasper explained.

"And you'll then leave us?" The elk asked incredulously.

"Yep. Bruun already gave us his. You're holding him up and he is not happy." The fox informed the elk impatiently.

"Okay… give me a moment." The elk told him happily and began shouting orders to others inside.

Jack looked at the fox concerned whispering, "You're letting them go?" Jack was not happy about letting any of these monsters get away with what he had seen.

Jasper whispered back to the bunny, "Be patient Jack. One thing at a time."

The elk then appeared, "Get back from the door and we will open it and let them out."

Jasper ordered everyone far away from the entrance. The door then opened just enough for those inside to start pushing out a bunch of horrid looking adult mammals. Some of them were covered in blood, and most were either naked or dressed in rags. After they pushed ten adults and five children out, the doors closed. Jasper quickly had the mercenaries perform first aid on those with cuts bandaging them up and then helping escort them up the ramp to the outside. But something bothered Jack about two of them.

Jack yelled out, "Stop!" He then jumped down and quickly hopped over to two of the slaves pointing at a female zebu and male kudu.

"These two are not slaves!" Jack informed Jasper and others nearby.

The kudu and zebu immediately protested saying they were.

"How do you know Jack?" Jasper asked with an amused grin.

"Well for one thing, no slave would even bother to protest. But mainly because they were not walking like any of the other slaves. They were exaggerating injuries when they moved. Also this is not their blood." Jack sniffed it again carefully, "It doesn't have their scent. See… it is smeared on. Also they were going to a lot of trouble not to be noticed."

"Excellent eye Jack, they are certainly not slaves." Jasper nodded to Jack with approval and motioned to his mercenaries to restrain the two.

The fox then looked through the door at the elk, "What kind of shit are you pulling Radford!"

The elk looked confused and annoyed. Apparently he didn't know about this plan, "I assure you I knew nothing about this. I will find out what happened and fix this immediately."

The elk disappeared and began yelling and appeared a minute later with two very horridly abused slaves, and Jasper ordered his people back and then a naked male addax and female camel were pushed out and the door quickly closed. Apparently both of these poor unfortunates were definitely slaves as they were covered with the scars of long-term abuse and the limps and behavior to go with it. Once Jack was satisfied these two were definitely slaves, he hopped back up into Missy's welcoming arms. The mercenaries quickly moved the two slaves outside to safety and Jasper returned his attention to the elk.

"I suppose it is too much to ask to return the two you took?" The elk asked.

Jasper then had an idea. Jack saw he got a mischievous grin which quickly disappeared to look at the elk, "Oh no… actually you can have them back." He motioned to the two holding the kudu and zebu to bring them forward.

Both the zebu and kudu looked shocked and exclaimed, "What?"

The elk also looked suspiciously at the fox, "Really? Why are you returning them?"

Jasper shrugged his shoulders, "Two less to process for us. We have too many to deal with already. What do we care if these two are buried… I mean what do we care if we have to less mouths to take care of."

As predicted the kudu and zebu quickly picked up on the word Jasper had let slip.

The kudu exclaimed wide-eyed, "Buried?"

The elk glared at the fox intently, "What is the meaning of this fox? What did you mean by buried?"

The fox shrugged his shoulders, "I figured my guys already told you. We have orders to demolish this entire complex. Didn't they tell you?"

The elk looked back at him troubled, "Yes… but… but I figured they were lying to get us out of here."

Jasper then got on his comms and asked the status of the demolition. The report back was explosives were set on the second level and they were getting to the first level now.

"Good, go ahead and get them setup all along the first level hall. We have a deadline and need to blow them in ten minutes." Jasper informed them.

The voice on the other end apologized for the delay and informed him they were getting right on it.

"Now open the door so we can get these two in there with the others. We are sealing the door up." The fox informed them.

The kudu and zebu immediately began pleading with the fox begging to be taken out.

"Fine… take them then. They are already in restraints anyway. Get the materials and seal this door." The fox informed his subordinates who quickly began gathering materials to seal the door shut to prevent it from ever being opened.

"Wait! Hold on a minute fox. Can I ask to see if any others want to leave as well?" The elk asked with some panic in his voice.

"Fine… hurry… we don't have time." The fox replied impatiently.

"You guys promised we would not be harmed. Is that correct?" The elk questioned desperately.

"Yes… we are under orders not to harm anyone. We are under strict orders to obey the no kill orders of Bruun and not to cause any unnecessary harm to any mammal found here." Jasper informed him.

The elk then shouted something into the room behind him and all of a sudden there were dozens and dozens of panicked voices and a great rush towards the front door. The elk opened the door and many dozens of mammals in robes came pouring out quickly surrendering to the mercenaries. Jasper ordered them to be quickly restrained and had attached cables to connect them together and they were rapidly marched up the ramp to the outside. They all seemed quite enthusiastic to get out of the facility as quickly as possible.

Jasper and a few other mercenaries now entered the auditorium to give it a quick examination to make sure it was empty. What was on the stage was not something Jack expected. It seemed to be a stage of some kind. The entire stage seemed to be on a rotating wheel with three different scenes, one of which would be visible to the audience at one time. The scene on the stage currently seemed to be a scene set in a living room. The only disturbing thing with this scene was the presence of three fursuits that seemed to be discarded on the floor and sofa. They seemed to be doing some play with members of this group as actors.

It wasn't until they looked around the side and saw the other hidden stages that Jack's dread was reinforced. One of the stages was a torture chamber with real torture implements and a table with straps. The floor beneath the table was covered with fresh blood. Also in the room were some horrible smells. Jasper sniffed his nose in disgust and quickly glanced down seeing buckets which seemed to filled with fecal matter and body parts. The other stage seemed to be a mad scientist's laboratory with electrical torture devices Jack had seen earlier, an operating table, chemicals and test tubes, and many other scientific implements. Jack had a good idea that nothing good went on in this scene. Jasper seemed to agree and screamed to film it all and get the fuck out. The poor fox had enough of this whole place apparently.

The video mammal quickly covered every inch of the room capturing all the scenery in detail as well as the back rooms and audience area. As they exited the room, Jack saw they were placing boxes along the walls connected with wires.

"I thought that whole thing about blowing everything up was just a way to get them out." Jack asked Jasper.

"Nope." Jasper informed the bunny, "Your boss never wanted anyone to use this place ever again. He collected enough demolition explosives to take down a large building. We are burying this place. We have the entire second level wired and almost have the first level done. There won't be anything left after this goes off."

"What about about Bruun?" Jack wondered.

"Once we are all ready to leave, we are going to insist he follow us out right before we blow the place. Your boss figured it was a good way to motivate him not to dally." Jasper said with a grin.

Jasper then called for a last minute sweep of the facility from the third level up with the seal on each room checked. The warnings were cranked up promising everyone they would be unharmed and the building was scheduled for demolition in a matter of minutes. Jasper realized that they had done everything possible to clear everyone out of the entire complex so his conscience was clear that they had done everything possible to avoid any accidental deaths by burial. They were fifteen minutes past his bosses estimate, but it could not be helped. There was a huge amount of area to be covered and so much that had needed to be done. He was informed that the demolition explosives were in place and only required connection to the detonator. All slaves, employees and clients had been removed and were enroute to the awaiting ships. Only Bruun and his gang members remained except for the couple mercenaries guarding him. All other mercenaries were waiting armed outside in case of any conflict, ready to leave in vehicles.

Jasper then got the attention of Bruun through the door, "Bruun sir… we are pulling out now. I suggest you follow immediately."

The bear looked at the fox curiously, "Why the rush? My people told me all your guys are waiting in vehicles at the front. You can just leave and we will come out after you leave."

The fox looked at the bear anxiously, "Sir… we have orders to blow the facility. We want to make sure you are outside before we set off the charges."

"What? You are destroying everything? Do you have any idea how much this whole thing cost?" Bruun exclaimed in disbelief.

"No sir. We are under orders. Everything is set and everyone has been removed and warned. We wish no harm to you sir. Our boss was quite explicit about that." The fox explained.

"Well the damn fox is not a complete moron then. But he can't mean to destroy all this. We still owe a fortune on the construction. Let me talk to him immediately!" Bruun ordered firmly.

"I'm afraid that is not possible sir. We are under a strict timetable. I suggest you follow us immediately. Francis, Stevens, you guys follow them out and stay on the line with me. Make sure no one touches any of the explosives. They could set them off prematurely, and we don't want that. Bruun, sir, please follow me. If you wish to contact our associate once we are outside you may. But it is not safe for any of us to be down here as the explosives are ready to go off at any moment." The fox sounded extremely nervous and turned quickly and headed up the hall to the ramp to the main exit.

Jack noticed his expression quickly changed from nervous to relaxed as he purposely strolled up the hall. The bunny also knew that no order to attach the final wiring to the explosives had been given. But Bruun and his gang didn't need to know that. The fox was quite an excellent actor as he even had Jack convinced the explosives were ready to go off in seconds.

They heard a door open behind them and the grumbling low voice of the bear growling and giving orders to hurry after the fox. The fox didn't even look back at the bear, but Jack glanced back around the side to see that the bear and seven of his gang were moving quite rapidly following them.

The main entrance was wider than the secret entrance they had entered into initially. It had some normal stairs and a long wide gradual ramp. He noticed there was an automatic winch at the top of the ramp to help haul anything heavy up and down the ramp even though it was at a fairly gradual slope. As soon as the fox was clear, he issued orders to have the final wiring connected and have everyone ready to move as soon as they detonated the explosives. He was handed a remote detonator and moved everyone near the front of the complex clear of the blast radius. Then the large figure of the bear exited the doors and looking around and saw the fox across the yard and quickly headed toward him.

Jasper watched to make sure the bear and all seven members of his gang exited. He checked that all five of his mercenaries had left and then they closed the doors to the main underground and chained them shut. He then got an all clear check on every channel of his comms. He saw his crew had quickly run from the entrance to the waiting vehicles once it was chained shut. The bear was heading right toward him holding up the comms in his paws to his ear and pointing at him. The bear was clearly wanting to talk to Reynard, but as soon as Jasper guessed he was out of the blast radius, he flipped the safety switch on the remote detonator and pressed the large red button.

BOOM!

The entire world around them shook. It felt like the entire world would be destroyed and the buildings in front of them shook and then several of them split apart in a crashing sound and the ground seemed to open up and swallow them partially. Bruun, his gang, and every mercenary all crouched down instinctively looking around wildly. The sound of crunching, crashing buildings continued and a huge wall of dust and dirt filled the air blowing toward them blinding them for thirty seconds. Then as if a signal was given all the vehicles started at once and they all began to drive out of the complex. Jack could see the shocked, confused and furious visage of the giant bear looking around right before Jasper got into the back of one of the SUVs and shut the door. Then he felt the vehicle begin to move.

Jack could see the bear looking around and yelling as they drove out the main entrance. Jasper was on the comms immediately receiving reports making sure that no one was following them. The trip to the docks was quite short and only took a couple minutes. They parked all the vehicles neatly in front of the ships in a defensive position, and all mercenaries were quickly exiting the vehicles and boarding the ships. Apparently some of Bruun's gang had followed them, but they seemed content to just watch them board.

Once aboard one of the ships Jack asked the fox, "What about all the vehicles?"

"Don't worry about them Jack. They were all rented under a fake company, and will be picked up by the company as soon as we inform them we are done with them and where they are located." Jasper explained.

The ships were now released from their mooring and they began heading the long way around Zootopia towards the east and north. The difference between this mission and all others was that it was daylight out now. Jack checked his knife and saw it was 8:12 AM. The operation had taken over seven hours, well over the length of the previous three operations combined. Once he realized all that had been accomplished, it was hard to believe the full scope of everything. Jack only knew he needed quite a lot of sleep and a long vacation. He hoped he was done with any missions for quite a long time to come.

---

Reynard was exhausted by the night's activities. He had been nervous with every report coming in and wondered when the disaster he knew was due was coming. The fox had his entire gang on alert and ready to come rushing to the aide of his mercenaries if Bruun's gang made a move against them. The plan was to create a strong defensive position at the front gates while his gang came up from behind Bruun's forces creating a vice and pressing them in exposing them to attack from all sides. The mercenary force was under orders to immediately kill Bruun and his associates located underground if the bear was to order his gang to move on the mercenaries. If the gang moved on their own, his men were to subdue Bruun and force him to order his gang to stand down. He would be removed and held hostage at the front if his gang continued. They were to avoid attacking the gang in the second scenario, but if the orders from Bruun and the threat on his life did not make them stop, they were under orders to kill Bruun and his associates and hold the gates until his gang arrived. They would slaughter every single gang member and let none escape in order to try to disguise who had carried out the attack.

In this scenario, Reynard hoped that the confusion from the now giant power vacuum in the entire Savanna Central District would lead to a large war as various smaller factions all tried to wrest control of the region. He hoped the massive confusion this would cause would hide the fact of his involvement in the entire situation.

Reynard and Felix kept running through all these different kinds of scenarios all night long as they waited for word of the attack. After talking to Bruun, the fox felt a bit better about the situation, but was still prepared for an attack and had Felix closely monitor the communications between Bruun and his gang looking for any possible coded words or signals that would warn them of an impending attack. But fortunately it seemed Bruun was happy to stew and grumble. The bear knew Reynard well and knew the fox had everything planned. That was the main reason Reynard had not tried to hide his identity better from the bear. Bruun knew Reynard had no designs on his district or his power so he would accept Reynard's promise of meaning no harm to him. Once the bear realized Reynard was being very careful to follow the rules of the court and that he was dealing with a boss who had no desire to move in on his territory, he backed off his gang. Bruun knew Reynard was only there for the kids.

But the bear also knew that Reynard would have every scenario and every contingency well planned. Reynard let his reputation do a lot of work for him. Against someone else, the bear may have attempted a move hoping to outsmart them, but Bruun knew better than to try that against Reynard. The bear also knew Reynard would not hesitate to slaughter every last one of his gang if he decided to bring war. This knowledge seemed to help the rest of the night continue without any incident, and the operation finally finished into the morning. This was far later than Reynard would have ever wanted as there were many witnesses and his ships were visible. Fortunately they had taken precautions to leave the ships unmarked and to take them out looking like they were heading to the east side of Zootopia before looping around out of sight and slipping down the coastline through the Marshlands to arrive in the hidden islands in the northwestern section of the Docks District.

Reynard then spent the morning meeting with his kids. Even though he was exhausted and there was a huge amount of important work that still needed to be done, he always found time for his kids and patiently spent time speaking with all of them answering their questions and then giving each one individual time. While it might not seem important, the impact of those individual one on one sessions were ones that all his kids remembered the rest of their lives. He learned the issues that were important to each child and discussed problems they were having or their future plans. He missed the days when he could meet weekly with each of his kids, but now with his busy schedule and the huge number of kids under his care, these meetings were very infrequent. He always tried to at least meet with every child at least once a year. Each of these kids looked forward to these meetings the entire year, and he would be damned if he ever half-assed one of these sessions. It may have taken a pot of coffee and sticking his head underwater in between each one, but he made sure he was completely alert and giving each child his full attention.

The fox then ate lunch with the caregivers discussing their progress and any issues they were having and finally finished and headed back to the Docks District. But on his way back he had one very important stop to make. For just outside the Downtown District in a small predator only neighborhood called HappyTown waited a young vixen and her husband.

Reynard had called ahead and gotten permission to visit. He pulled up in front of their building with his contingent, but only allowed Alexei to follow him up the stairs. He was still in contact with his lieutenants and his bodyguard via comms. But because of the recent operations, he couldn't take any chances in case any of the bosses or the King tried anything. But he refused the giant tiger's request to follow him inside his sister's apartment knowing how much that would anger her or frighten her husband. So Alexei stood outside while Reynard entered after John Wilde opened the door with an apprehensive smile. Reynard didn't sense anything was wrong. He only sensed the normal uncomfortableness the male fox had with his presence.

He wordlessly nodded at the fox and let him escort him through the apartment. Reynard noticed the apartment was fairly bare and seemed tidy and clean, but was certainly quite plain. He noticed they had purchased a bookcase and his sister had put her collection of books upon its shelves. He walked down the hall and John opened the door to a simple bedroom at the end where his sister sat in bed holding a soft white blanket in her arms.

As he stepped into the mostly dark room with only the light from a small lamp, Marion looked up at him with a very tired but happy smile and pulled the blanket away to reveal a small newborn kit. The kit had dark brown soft fine fur with tiny ears on the sides of it's head looking almost like a short little weasel. But Reynard grinned looking very relieved because this was how newborn kits were supposed to look as he had four of his own. Its eyes were tightly closed and it was nuzzling next to its mother's chest feeling the heartbeat that was so warm and comforting.

"Renny, come say hi to your nephew Nick." Marion told him with a grin.

Reynard knelt down next to the bed and put his paw around his sisters head and gave her a kiss on her head grinning and then looking the kit over thoroughly.

The little kit scrambled out of the blanket to lie on his mom's chest and Marion put her paws around him gently hugging him.

"He's beautiful." Reynard managed to get out.

He pet the kit gently with his paw and it opened its tiny muzzle and yawned and snuggled back next to his mom.

"Everything go okay?" Reynard asked concerned.

"Everything was fine. John wanted to pay you back for the doctor you sent to deliver him." Marion answered him.

"No need. He owed me a favor so there was no cost. Do you have everything you need? Did you need baby clothes, toys, a crib, formula, anything like that? I am quite sure Aza still has all that stuff around, and we would be happy to get you anything we aren't currently using." Reynard offered sincerely.

"I'll let Aza know. She called earlier and gave me a lot of good suggestions. I wondered how long until he opens his eyes, but she said it took several weeks. He has been a hungry little guy though." Marion said with a tired smile.

"Well that is a good sign. You know all three of you are welcome to come to Maupertuis where Aza and the nursemaids could help you with anything you need." Reynard carefully suggested.

"Yes… yes… Aza already offered. I didn't want to move him yet, but I'll think about it. The kits all want to see their cousin, but I wanted to get him a bit stronger first. Aza said you have been very busy with something secret." A fatigued Marion responded.

"Oh you know… busy saving the world. It seems there is an endless supply of kids that need help. In fact I just came from visiting my building downtown." Reynard informed her with a big grin.

"Yes… Aza said you were visiting them last night. I am sure they were all thrilled to talk to you. Well I am going to feed little Nick and then get some sleep as we are both pretty drained. You look like you could use a good rest as well." Marion suggested to her brother gently chastising him for neglecting proper rest.

Reynard then sat awhile with his sister admiring his gorgeous little nephew who was more interested in snuggling as close to his mom as possible. He spent some time catching up with her discussing everything she had been doing since he last saw her. Finally he could see both Marion and Nick were both nodding off and needed some sleep and he decided he could use some as well.

Reynard wished his sister well and gave her and little Nick a gentle kiss and left her softly closing the door. John Wilde escorted his brother-in-law to the front door and Reynard gave him a friendly smile and nod, "Take good care of them. If there is anything you need please don't hesitate to call Aza or myself. We would be only happy to help. You are family now and we are always here for you… for all three of you. Please don't forget that."

John looked very surprised and nodded wordlessly. He had never seen Reynard act so gentle or kind to him before. After all he had heard about the boss, and the very rough previous meeting they had, he had never expected such a gentle loving treatment and caring from the notorious brutal gang leader and business tycoon.

---

After a brief rest, Reynard gathered with his lieutenants and advisers to go over the results of all operations. They currently had a large problem in that with the huge additions of slaves, clients and employees from the Downtown District and Savanna Central District, they were completely out of space as the nights operations had added 1,555 additional rescues and captures. From the four days of operations they had 2,844 rescues and captives, 561 from Sahara Square, 96 from the Meadowlands, 540 from Tundratown, 96 miscellaneous witnesses and of course the newly added ones from the previous night.

From the Savanna Central District all told there were 728 slaves recovered and 209 owners, 294 clients and 68 employees captured. A huge number of the slaves recovered from the House of Horrors complex including nearly every single adult all required a great deal of medical attention. Reynard had to call in nearly every single doctor, nurse, EMS and anyone who had any medical training at all to help try and deal with the nightmare medical emergency. They had to create a triage patching up the less damaged and stabilizing them while they focused on the ones at most risk. They had six operating theaters setup and each were running around the clock doing their best to help slaves that had been abused relentlessly and maliciously for sometimes years.

The priority that night was to release all witnesses, prostitutes eighteen or older, innocent patrons mostly from the raids on prostitution locations, gang members and employees of district bosses, and any slaves that were in good physical and mental condition and had family to return them to that were not complicit in their slavery. Everyone that fit these criteria that had been thoroughly interviewed were then sorted for delivery back to their appropriate districts. Plain clothes mercenaries were tasked with personally escorting each slave home and insuring they were properly returned to the correct family and were each safe and secure. Any prostitute wishing for a chance at a different life was offered an opportunity for training in a new profession and assistance. Any minors that had chosen prostitution and were seventeen or older were highly encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities. Any below that age required mandatory rehabilitation and counseling.

The work that night thankfully removed 560 leaving a total of 2,284 to still deal with. He had all the mercenaries trained to join his gang in either aiding medical care, helping with imprisonment of the guilty, interviewing each slave and capture, aiding in determining the status of each prisoner, or out in the field interviewing parents or guardians to determine if they were acceptable to allow the return of children. Ultimately Reynard had hard choices to make regarding many of the captives and slaves.

With regards to slaves, many had suffered horrendous trauma and psychologically would need a great deal of help. Others would need a great deal of medical care first. And finally many others like a lot of the ones from Tundratown all had questionable guardians or family to be returned to and each had to be thoroughly checked out before being returned to a family that was complicit in their slavery. Any that could be easily placed back into loving homes like rabbits, gophers, beavers, meerkats and other species with very close social communities were cleared and released as quickly as possible.

Reynard began to hear rumors of some discontent concerning the raids from Felix, and quickly called for a meeting with his cousin Grimbeert at his estate. It seemed it was important that his wife meet her cousin as soon as possible while the rumors were still only rumblings and nothing more substantial.

He joined Aza that afternoon and went to meet her cousin who was visiting with his aunt and uncle, Aza's parents. They walked arm in arm to see a young badger of around twenty-nine dressed in a sharp navy blue suit with a gold silk tie and matching handkerchief in the pocket. Clarette and Kazimir smiled wide and waved at Reynard and Aza as they entered. Clarette ran over and hugged her daughter and escorted them over to her husband and the young badger.

Clarette grinned introducing them, "Aza dear… this is my brother's son… your cousin Grimbeert. Grimbeert this is your cousin Aza."

Grimbeert gave Aza a hug and politely greeted her with a smile, "My long lost cousin. I must apologize dear cousin Aza, I only just recently learned about you or I would have insisted on meeting you much earlier."

Aza smiled at her badger cousin, "Certainly understandable, I only recently learned of you as well."

Clarette then motioned to Reynard, "And this Aza's husband."

Grimbeert firmly shook Reynard's paw, "Of course, he needs no introduction. He is quite famous at court. In fact he is discussed quite often. It is good to meet you again Reynard. I was quite surprised to realize I was related to him."

Reynard gave the badger a friendly grin, "Hello cousin. I was quite surprised as well, but pleased. You were one of those few I met at court that I got along with well."

Clarette got a curious look on her face, "Why is that?"

Grimbeert smiled understandably at his aunt, "Your son-in-law and I share common ideas about the rights of children in the court. But much of them are still quite resistant to change and are stuck in the old ways. Reynard can ruffle a lot of feathers with his rather dynamic defense of the children's rights. There has been quite a lot of abuses in the districts that he has frequently been quite insistent about stopping. He has a few allies, but also many enemies."

Reynard nodded at the badger, "Quite well said cousin. I spent many years trying to bring up their rights and dire situations, and everyone would politely listen and express concern, but then would just put it in the back of their minds and nothing would change. I finally got impatient and decided to be a lot more vocal about my displeasure. It may have made me enemies, but at least the court was paying attention."

"His fights with Isengrim are legendary. We always wonder when they will come to blows and wager on it constantly at court. The wolf is slightly bigger than his brother, uncle Kazimir there, and easily well over twice cousin's size, but Reynard gets even odds on who would come out ahead in that fight." Grimbeert exclaimed proudly.

"I didn't know I got that good of odds bare pawed." Reynard responded surprised.

"Well Isengrim is quite powerful and vicious, but you are known for being incredibly fast and anyone with knowledge would know never to underestimate you." The badger nodded knowingly.

"Well my husband better not be getting into any fights at court. I prefer him nice and healthy." Aza decreed.

"Yes dear." Reynard answered her with mock defeat.

Everyone laughed at that.

They all sat together and Aza and Grimbeert caught up with what each had been doing their whole lives with helpful input from Clarette and Kazimir.

Aza was impressed, "So you are an adviser to King Nobel and also a legal representative in the court?"

"Yes cousin. I am thoroughly versed in the law of the Underground Court as well as all precedents. I help negotiate any disputes and provide council to parties bringing such incidents to court. That is why I have met with your husband before as he has petitioned the court to change the laws regarding children's rights and their treatment in the system. He has also levied charges against other district bosses for numerous abuses." Grimbeert explained to Aza.

"Unfortunately the current laws allow such abuses to continue even though most in court agree the atrocities should stop. The bosses condone the abuses in their districts and in many cases encourage and profit from it." A frustrated Reynard pointed out.

"But why can't the King change the laws?" Aza wondered.

Grimbeert sighed and answered, "Changing existing laws is difficult. It might seem like the King is autonomous, but he depends on support from many factions. There are still a lot district bosses and officials participating in those same abuses and gaining monetarily from them so they express their opposition to any changes in secret. The queen openly supports the changes and defends Reynard, but the King is getting too much opposition from those other forces."

Aza was shocked, "Can't the Queen help change her husband's mind?"

Grimbeert explained the dynamic, "While the Queen has a lot of influence, the King is the final word and is more likely more afraid of the loss of support from those others than the Queen I am afraid. But Reynard's constant accusations do help to bring the subject up for debate constantly. Hopefully with enough badgering the King may eventually change his mind."

Reynard laughed, "Nice pun cousin."

Grimbeert nodded his head slightly at Reynard and smiled.

A bit later Reynard took Grimbeert on a private tour of the estate while Aza stayed and talked with her parents. Reynard took the badger to meet his four kits and discussed all he was doing with his work for Reds kids as well as his fight for the rights of children in the laws of the underground.

Finally Grimbeert brought up some rumors he had heard, "Cousin, I have to tell you there have been some rumors recently around the court about your involvement regarding some attacks in several districts over the past few days. Because these all were targeting operations that were known to be harming children, your name has been mentioned frequently."

Reynard looked Grimbeert in the eye, "I would not be honest if I did not admit that part of the reason we are meeting now had to do with those rumors. But it is very good you got to meet Aza as she is so very happy having family now after thinking she was an orphan and abandoned so long. Having no other family but my sister, I can understand how important finding that missing family is to her. But those particular rumors are why I wish to hire your services as my advocate in court. I am afraid it would be a dangerous place for me to be at this time, so I was hoping you could act as my defense in my absence."

Grimbeert nodded to the fox knowingly, "I would be happy to. But how much of these rumors are true?"

"Well… without directly admitting anything, I will say that I support all the actions taken as allowing such activities to operate in any of those districts is horrendous. Such abuses of innocent children should never be allowed under any circumstances laws or no laws. I will also say that myself and my gang members did not operate in any of those districts illegally except with prior consent to visit some of the Reds kids homes in a few of them recently." Reynard explained.

"I see. So you broke no direct laws by operating within any other district. But you understand interference in any other district is also a violation whether you actively did it or not." Grimbeert warned.

Reynard nodded, "Yes… but very difficult to prove. If they only have circumstantial evidence and no hard proof of my direct involvement, there should be no valid case."

Grimbeert got a concerned frown on his face, "Under normal circumstances I would say yes, but you have many enemies that will find evidence I am sure one way or another. But yes, I would agree that you should stay away from court for the foreseeable future."

Reynard got a grim look on his muzzle and the two discussed some possible defense strategies. If Reynard could not be at court to defend himself from all the accusations of his enemies, he would have to depend on his cousin who he knew to be a brilliant legal analyst and orator. The fox then returned his cousin to the company of his wife and in-laws and apologized that he had to leave to attend to a great many business concerns and bade them all adieu.

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Author's Note: Of note concerning the adaptation of the Reynard source material, concerning names: There are numerous different spellings of each of the names used in the Reynard legend which can cause confusion. This is due to the numerous languages in which each of the stories were told and translated from. In fact Reynard is also listed as Reinaert, Renart, Renard, Renert, Reynaert, Reineke, Reinicke, Renartus and several others. King Nobel is commonly listed as Noble as well. Bruun the bear is also commonly referred to as Bruin. This is true of all the names used including Hermeline aka Ermelyne, Hermelyne, Ermeline, etc. Typically Hermeline plays a minor role in Reynard's legend, but Aza is just so awesome she gets her own unique name even though technically her name is Hermeline like the legend, and plays a much greater role in this Reynard's story because she is a force of nature that will not be denied.

Also of interest is the fact that some reference material lists Isengrim (aka Ysengrim and several other variations) as Reynard's uncle while others do not. In some Grimbeert (aka Grimbart, Grymbert, Grimbert) is listed as Reynard's cousin, while more commonly in others his nephew. Well unless John Wilde had Grimbeert as an adopted child or some similarly strange scenario, this wouldn't work for this adaptation so the cousin relationship was chosen instead. While it seemed in the original source having animals of different species related to each other was never an issue, it did make it tricky trying to apply it to a realistic Zootopia scenario as this could only occur through marriage as genetically it was impossible. I suppose this might have had to do with the lack of understanding of genetics and science during the Early Medieval Period when these legends were created. Of course legends or fables were never known to be sticklers when it came to science and logic anyway.