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.

36. Reynard's Story – Part 3F To Catch a Fox

Reynard's Story – Part 3F – To Catch a Fox

This is the sixth of several sections of the Third Part of Reynard's Story. The King has a great feast and celebration, and calls all the representatives of Zootopia's Underworld, but one sly fox decides his attendance might be unhealthy. Many other mammal leaders accuse the fox of many crimes, while a few defend him. But it is decided that certain representatives be called to bring the fox to court to face the charges levied against him. However forcing the fox to do anything he doesn't want to do comes with great personal risk as those who attempt this find out. The situation is dire, but Reynard and his allies hang on to a thin thread of hope that the situation can be reversed and his life spared.

This particular chapter coincides the most with the original Reynard legend and text from around 900-1400 A.D. as nearly every scene takes place in the original. I used the book Reynard the Fox: A New Translation by James Simpson as a constant reference especially when writing this chapter and the next. I didn't think I could adapt the original story so closely with the modern Zootopian adaptation, but was pleasantly surprised by my result. Considering how simplistic the original ruses were, the heavy constant religious references, and the nature of text, I was thrilled with the result, and any who know the original story will get quite a thrill with how closely it was adapted. I was particularly proud of my version of the story of the Cat given how far I had to adapt it from the original. For reference, this chapter encompasses all scenes from Chapters 1 to 14 of the original legendary story. The final scene is where things veer off from the original, and use elements used later in the original work. Those familiar with the ancient story, don't worry, as the classic scenes from Chapter 15 and beyond of the original ancient legend will come, just a bit later, as there are a few items to take care of between now and then for my particular story. Also, many things from the original story will be out of sequence from how they occurred in the original. For this is a Zootopian story, and this Reynard is quite different from the original, so of course things will be quite different. Also, just for the sake of a challenge, I wrote it in the style similar to that used in the original modern translation. (A taste of Old English form, but one that is reasonably clear for modern readers which was utilized throughout the new modern 2015 translation of the ancient text) You will see what I mean. It was my first attempt at this writing style, and I think I quite enjoy it. I may stick with using it for any scenes centered around the King and court as it lends a certain authenticity and flavor to everything.

I apologize for the long hiatus, but I am back to finish everything. This was the hardest chapter I have ever written, but also I believe the most rewarding one, simply because of the difficulty regarding the adaptation from ancient text to the modern Zootopian story. The good thing is a very detailed 7K word script was finalized for this and the next four chapters, so things should be much easier now. It is a beast weighing in at around 30K words, but the next two should be quite large as well.

The chapter is Rated M because… well because it is a Reynard chapter. But also because of scenes of brutality, sexual reference, reference to rape, torment, extreme violence and other nasty stuff all of which correspond to the original legend. Reynard's original story from over 600 years ago was not all kittens and rainbows, and was quite violent, sexual and graphic. I imagine it was the Game of Thrones of their day with salacious acts and violence galore. There is plenty of that in this chapter, but compared to the next two it is quite tame as things are about to get really really intense coming up.

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Zoodate: Zoodate: (-34 Years) (32 years before the events at the end of Zootopia The Movie), 145 P.C.

145 P.C.

Judy: crying "So horrible… it's all so horrible."

Judy had been sobbing miserably throughout this part of Reynard's story. She had dug her claws into Drew's arm as she tensely listened as Jack, Mini and Razer attempted to avoid the massive search for the tiny bunny. She wailed in despair at Jack's nightmare of being gang raped and the human had to restrain her so that she didn't hurt herself as Reynard described the horrors. She was relieved it was only a nightmare, but as the journey into the dungeon commenced and horrific scene after horrific scene continued to be discovered one by one, she had been turned into a shivering, shaking blubbering puddle of gloom and wretchedness. The forlorn bunny seemed buoyed briefly by the discussion of the rescue, rehabilitation and return of some of the slaves to their families. But once Reynard detailed the extreme punishments and deaths of nearly a thousand guilty mammals, Judy took each death personally, and while she obviously despised the crimes of each, she couldn't comprehend ending their lives, and the suffering and terror each experienced in their final moments.

Reynard had taken a break so they could visit the facilities, refresh their drinks, get some food, and allow Drew to try and clean up the puddle of goo that was at one time a happy courageous ZPD officer. The human found a very gentle liquid wash that would not bother the bunny's sensitive skin and used it to wash her face thoroughly with a warm washcloth. After she was rinsed and dried, he attempted to cheer her up the best he could playing with her droopy ears tying them around her neck and rubbing her nose with his and spinning her around. It took awhile, but he was finally able to act silly enough and provide her enough positive emotive thoughts to cheer her up a slight bit.

Drew: grinning at Judy "He warned you it wouldn't be all kittens and rainbows. You liked the part where he saw newborn Nick didn't you."

Judy nodded her head. That was the one part of the story she enjoyed even though it was far too brief for her tastes. She couldn't get enough stories of baby Nick and his mom and dad. They finally settled back down with Reynard, and Judy finally felt able to ask a question.

Judy: hopefully "Did any of the mammals on the sunken boat survive?"

Reynard: surprised "I didn't expect you to care so much about them, but I suppose that is your nature. Yes… I think a dozen or so did manage to survive. A couple were picked up on some vessels in the area. Others managed to make it to shore. We only had problems with one of them that had to be 'dealt' with, but the rest seemed to be changed mammals and never did anything to harm anyone again that we knew about."

Drew: "Were you lying to them when you said they could all survive?"

Reynard: "No… if they had chosen to work together instead of panicking and trying to climb over each other and pulling each other down, they all could have survived. We had timed it perfectly so that they all had a chance. But mammal nature being what it is…"

Judy: "What became of Missy the zebra girl and the whole thing with the child brides?"

Reynard: "Missy became one of my kids and later became one of the 'Freedom Fighters'. Jack and her always had a special friendship. And not the kind you may be thinking of… they were only friends."

Judy: insulted "I would never have thought they were anything else. Freedom Fighters?"

Reynard: "You will learn about those later on if you get to hear the latter parts of my story."

Drew: "I look forward to that. But why did you not punish Bruun and his gang? He seemed to be a primary leader of this whole House of Horrors."

Reynard: smiling mischievously "Well I had chances to deal with Bruun again… but you will hear about that shortly. But realize I was doing everything possible to prevent a war between my district and others. The results of that would have been horrendous for all sides."

Judy: "Yet you did all this anyway."

Reynard: fuming "I could not stand by knowing these atrocities were happening to innocents. I even had kids in all these districts now. The thought of others suffering when I could help them…"

Reynard struggled to maintain himself as those feelings he remembered from the past seemed to come bubbling to the surface like they had just happened, until he finally calmed himself so he could continue.

Reynard: calming himself "Just suffice it to say I could not stand by anymore. I had tried every possible other option, begging district leaders, offering deals, making numerous appeals to the King and Queen… but nothing changed."

Judy: "What happened to all the slaves and victims… could they ever be alright after what happened to them?"

Reynard: "Well as you have seen with Marion, I don't think anyone truly recovers completely from such things. The younger the victim, the easier it seemed for them to put everything in the past behind them. One thing it did do for all victims regardless of their age was make them appreciate their new lives that much more. You don't appreciate what you have until you have everything taken away including your freedom, dignity and hope. That is something I learned the hard way at a very young age. But there is no simple answer to your questions. They all recovered to some degree and were extremely grateful the rest of their lives. Many of those from the House of Horrors I have seen in recent years have told me the day of their liberation was the day of their rebirth, and they celebrate it all together every year even to this day."

Drew: "You already had a significant impact on so many mammal's lives, and I suspect you were only just getting started."

Reynard: chuckles "You think to know where my story leads my human friend? Well your instincts are quite good and your perception fairly accurate. But the impact can be good or bad depending on your perspective. My love for those innocent and helpless as well as my friends and family is boundless."

Reynard's eyes and face begins to change and a glimpse of the demon and reaper inside him came to the surface. It is a glimpse of the vision all those who have personally died at his paws have seen.

Reynard: malevolently "But for those who sought to harm those I loved… for those who stood in my way… for any who were an impediment to my plans… those mammals would rue the day they ever left their mother's womb."

The silence in the air after Reynard uttered those words was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Finally Reynard's face changed back to his normal affable self and he smiled as if nothing had happened.

Judy was the first to speak and sought to change the topic to one she hoped was happier.

Judy: "What happened with Sheba and Alexei… did Sheba… was she ever satisfied?"

Reynard: chuckles "A polite way of putting it my little bunny friend. Shea could never truly be satisfied, such was her nature. But if you are referring to Shea ever getting some sexual satisfaction. Based on her and Alexei's improved moods and subtle and very not so subtle clues when they were around each other after that, I feel it is quite safe to say that Shea finally found someone worthy to please her."

Judy: smiling big and then looking at Drew "I am so happy for her. Sometimes it is well worth waiting for the special one who can do that."

Drew gave his little bunny a big hug and a passionate kiss.

Drew: grinning at Judy "I wholeheartedly agree."

Judy: thinking of something "Oh… I wondered if the kids who were sold by their parents… were they ever returned to them?"

Reynard: "Some were… many were not. I had each of the parents thoroughly vetted and made sure only to return children to parents who regretted their decision, and would never think of doing something like that or harming those children ever again. The children's lives and futures were at stake, and I took such decisions extremely seriously. If I had any doubts, they were moved into foster care, orphanages or became members of my kids."

Drew: "One thing I wondered was why were the anim… mammals… stuffed into each other? What was the purpose of this horrific desecration of their bodies?"

Judy began to look sick again.

Reynard: "We wondered about this as well. After interviewing the workers there, it seems this was done to those mammals that were skinned. They would break the bones so they could stuff smaller ones into slightly larger ones and then those into slightly larger, etc. Sometimes there would be even up to eight bodies in one larger mammal. Apparently all this was done to make disposal of the bodies easier. They would then put the combined body in a box to be dumped into the water south of the district with a weight attached. The body was much more dense as there were virtually no empty spaces and they only had to do this with one body instead of numerous smaller ones."

Drew: shudders "The whole thing is so grisly. But I suppose it seems to match with how they treated the slaves like they weren't living creatures, but instead some worthless objects. The whole concept seemed to remind me of a horror movie version of the Russian nesting Matryoshka dolls."

Seeing the confused looks on his two companions, he explained about the Russian wooden dolls that would fit inside of each other from tiny to large gradually increasing in size, or decreasing when you kept opening them up. Judy got quite a disgusted look on her face at that analogy while Reynard found it quite amusing.

Drew: "But I thought these monstrous patrons of the House of Horrors ate the slaves. Why go through all the trouble of stuffing them?"

Judy looked at Drew angrily looking very sick again.

Reynard: laughing "I know you humans are used to eating your fellow mammals, but even for the patrons of the House of Horrors, this was a rarity, for only those true degenerate connoisseurs of perversion. So the actual number of those eaten was fairly small relative to the number of slaves killed. Only the 'tastiest' slaves were chosen to be eaten."

Judy looked extremely ill and threw up, but Drew had been prepared and caught it in a pile of toilet tissue he had gathered on his last trip to the restroom. Drew cleaned the mouth of his love and apologized to her for bringing the subject back up. She nodded at him weakly accepting his apology.

Finally Judy seemed to recover enough to ask Reynard a question.

Judy: curiously "You had mentioned several times that you expected problems with the King after your actions. You had even arranged to meet with the badger Grimbeert specifically because of this. I thought you had done everything to prevent any trouble with the King."

Reynard: grinning "Well I was 'technically' not in violation of his rules. But in reality I was definitely breaking his rules regarding interference in other bosses districts. I was merely doing it in such a way so as to leave the least evidence I possibly could. But I knew that my actions would drive my enemies to come up with any excuses to seek my punishment."

Judy: "I thought the queen was on your side."

Reynard: "She was… but she did not have the King's ear like Aza has mine. If the King had only listened to her from the beginning, all of this would have been unnecessary. But the King listened to his advisers and district bosses like Isengrim and Bruun who paid him special compensation using money from their atrocities for his influence. There was much corruption in his court. But we are about to get to all that. In fact it is the next part of the story, so how about we get to it now."

Judy grabbed some fruits to munch on and Drew refilled his glass of Scotch. Judy and Drew then nodded in anticipation of what was to come.

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

It was the annual Nobel Celebration named after his majesty the lion, King Nobel, ruler of all the Zootopian underworld. Each year King Nobel would hold open court for a week where all the district bosses, important underworld personages, and members of the King's court would meet for feasting and discussing all the important matters concerning his kingdom.

Summons to the court were made throughout his realm, and every requested mammal was commanded to appear by order of the King. All those requested came, both great and small, except Reynard the Fox and his entourage. Reynard normally loved to attend the celebration as he had made many important agreements over the years leading to his now having large contingents of his Kids in every district. Those agreements led to places for kids who had nowhere else to turn, from now anywhere in Zootopia, to have a place to take them in and give them a family and a future if they followed the rules. Reynard had also used his time at the feast to find like-minded district bosses and members of the court to help to argue for the rights of children, and to expose any laws, operations or practices that were currently harming innocents all over Zootopia. He had found some allies, and had been successful making minor changes to help those so effected, but there was a great deal more that needed to be accomplished before he would be satisfied.

However after his recent operations to liberate thousands of innocents kept as slaves, child brides, sex slaves, prostitutes and numerous other horrific abuses, as well as the punishment of nearly a thousand guilty violators of those innocents, many supported secretly by other district bosses and members of the court, Reynard felt that those parties who he had wronged in his actions would certainly use the opportunity to seek his punishment by the King and court. So he didn't dare show up lest he face punishment on the spot. Reynard preferred to let his enemies show their cards in court before King Nobel, where his allies could inform him of their arguments and other allies could defend him. Reynard preferred to have all information first before he decided how to react, for he was a master tactician and a sly sneaky fox. But this time he may have overstepped his place as careful as he was to leave no evidence linking him to his activities. For the entire operation had been far too massive in scope for him to have hidden everything.

So almost immediately after the court met, and all the attendees had gathered, the first accuser petitioned the court to punish Reynard. For the first was Reynard's mortal enemy, the wolf Isengrim. The same wolf who under strange circumstance was Reynard's uncle by marriage. The same uncle who had repeatedly molested his wife Aza, the wolf's niece, when she was a small child, leading to her being separated from her parents and left in foster care only to later be sold to sex slavers and then tormented and attacked once again by the same wolf in the child sex slavery location known as The Dungeon where Reynard had found and liberated her. But Reynard's hatred and history with the wolf existed long before this information came to light as they had numerous run-ins for decades because of the horrible abuses and actions of the wolf since the time he was a lieutenant to the boss of Sahara Square District and later as the gang leader of that same district. In fact it was the horrible lax practices of Isengrim's former boss who led to the unnecessary death of Aza's birth father.

The wolf Isengrim gathered before King Nobel with his supporters. The King looked down from his elevated throne and smiled affectionately at the wolf for the wolf had ingratiated himself to the King and the court through bribes, secret deals and blackmail for many years. Queen Fiere sitting next to the King, that most beautiful and regal lioness, looked at the wolf trying to hide a scowl, for she knew the wolf was there to speak against Reynard whom she sympathized with and supported on many occasions.

The wolf bowed low before King Nobel and began his practiced speech, "High and mighty prince of all, my Lord King, I beg this of you: that by your great power, justice, and mercy, you'll pity me, given the seriousness of the crimes that Reynard the Fox also known as Red or Red Death, has committed against me, my wife, and my district."

The King nodded his head and the Queen frowned at the wolf in response.

Isengrim continued, "The violations and affronts to your Lordship by this fox are long indeed, and I merely bring to your attention some of those instances to show you the need for this Reynard to receive your worst punishment possible. The first being the affront to my wife as he entered my house against my wife's will and proceeded to have his way with her in the worst way possible as he violated her repeatedly when she refused to tell him my whereabouts."

The King looked aghast at such an accusation and all Isengrim's supporters feigned shock and grumbled angrily after this pronouncement. The Queen looked down stoically refusing to respond to the allegation.

Like a practiced thespian, the wolf waited for the outrage and shock to begin to subside and continued, "The Fox has also made numerous offenses to myself, my district, and ultimately your Lordship. On several heists the Fox was responsible for running in my district, my operatives who participated in the operation reported that the take was under-reported and bribes were given out to those operatives to say nothing about this. But the Fox failed to realize my operatives were completely loyal to myself and not to him or mere coin. The under-reported funds would have meant large commissions to myself and would have meant large tributes from my share as well as the Fox's share to you if he had reported them as is his responsibility."

The King frowned shaking his head at this claim. Under-reporting revenues was truly a capital offense as there was honor among thieves in the realm of the underworld. Not being honest with your fellow underworld bosses and the King was the one of the gravest crimes possible as the whole system was predicated on the honesty of each member of the gangs.

The wolf smiled wide seeing his accusations being well received by the King and then continued, "And finally the most serious offense of all. The Fox sought to interfere with operations in my district just a couple weeks ago. While he hid it well, we have proof the Fox employed mercenaries to interfere in several of my profitable money making ventures. We traced the vehicles used to shell companies linked to Reynard. Also many of the same individual mercenaries we could identify were known associates of the Fox. Finally many of those individuals including some of my gang members, patrons of my operations, and some employees, claim that they identified some landmarks and knew they have been taken to the Fox's district in the Docks."

There was a lot of grumbling and heads shaking their agreement in many of the contingents of district representatives after this last declaration.

The wolf looked angered and looked around making sure he had everyone's attention and continued, "Dear King, many mammals here at your court have experienced similar atrocities by the Fox and know what I have said to be true. And yet Reynard has dishonored me in so many other respects as well; no mammal alive could tell you all that I leave untold. But I swear to avenge the shame he has inflicted on my wife as well the offenses to myself and my district. For that he'll pay, and dearly!"

The King nodded his head and looked troubled, "The charges you bring dear wolf are extremely disturbing, and if true, you shall have your revenge. I know you have had your arguments with the fox on numerous occasions, but such arguments give no justification for such violations of the laws of the underworld."

The Queen scowled at the wolf and gave her husband a disapproving look, but kept silent.

After the King's statement, the wolf stepped back to indicate he was finished and a wild dog also sometimes known as a painted hunting dog (Lycaon pictus) named Courtoys stood up and stepped forward before the King.

He looked nervously at Isengrim and then to Bruun who both stared at him and nodded to him and to the King to indicate he should continue. He then nervously spoke to the King, "My Dear Lord King, I speak before you about a matter where I was wronged by Reynard the Fox who stole a box of gold coins from me. I had needed those gold coins to pay the workers at my operation, and without those coins stolen by the fox, I had to shut down everything resulting in losses of revenue for my boss and for you my King."

Then Tybalt the wildcat (Felix silvestris lybica) spoke up. He advanced angrily, springing next to Courtoys glaring at him and then addressing the King, "My Lord King, I hear that Reynard is accused of serious crimes. No one present has more to do to clear his name. The matter Courtoys complains about happened many years ago when Reynard was still personally involved in heists, and even if I don't lay charges, the box of gold coins was mine. I got it as payment from a heist I was on involving a government archive building. If Courtoys had any claim to it, it came through me."

Then a white panther named Falsus spoke, "Tybalt, maybe we should accuse Reynard: he's a murder, scavenger, liar and dishonorable thief. He cares more about some children and his own pockets than about the love of anyone here… even our lord the King… and he's prepared to lose his reputation and honor for it."

The panther looked around seeing he had everyone's attention and continued, "I'll tell you what I saw him do the other day to Cuwaert the Hare who stands here personally protected as the King's guest and employee. Reynard had promised to show all the financial elements of his district so that he could provide a full accounting of all business and financial dealings to the King. I had been visiting the Docks District as a guest and heard Reynard speaking to Cuwaert. I spied on them and saw that Reynard was merely spouting meaningless nonsense and numbers, giving him piles of reports rather than the summaries he needed in order to confuse him thoroughly so he had no chance of providing a proper accounting for the King."

The panther spoke directly to the King, "Truly, my lord King, you must on no account allow this affront to you to go unpunished and permit the deceiver and rule breaker Reynard to go scot-free. If you don't exact justice according to the judgment of your own mammals, this is what will happen: your reign will be weakened and criticized on account of this for many years to come. Others will see this as a sign that they can do whatever they please and break any of your laws with no consequences."

"Truly, Falsus," Isengrim stated smiling and nodding at the panther, "you're telling the truth: it's right that justice be done, for those who want only to follow the laws of the King and provide a profitable environment for everyone in the underworld."

Finally Reynard's cousin by marriage Grimbeert stepped forward and spoke angrily at Isengrim, "District Boss Isengrim, you are malicious and deceitful. It is a common proverb that an enemy's mouth rarely speaks well, and the charges you lay out against my cousin Reynard at the court proves the proverb correct. I wish you'd agree to this: that whoever of you two has sinned most against the other should hang by the neck like a dishonorable thief on a tree. If Reynard was as close with the King as you are with this court, he'd not consider it sufficient that you merely begged his forgiveness for your false claims. You have bitten my cousin with your frightening teeth more times than I can possibly tell. Your affronts to him and to those he holds dear are so long that we would have to extend our Lord King's celebration for weeks listing them all."

The badger glared at the wolf and his supporters, and continued, "All the same, I'll go over some incidents I know well. You speak of under-reporting of takes from from joint heists and yet you are guilty of far worse on numerous occasions. You clearly knew of and agreed to the standard 15% tribute for operations in your district. You also agreed to the lesser tribute of 10% if your agents were used in those operations as you would get your additional commission out of each of their shares. Yet you clearly took the 15% as well as your operatives' shares on joint ventures. Reynard allowed your agents to join as a courtesy to you when his own people were clearly superior in every position. You shortchanged Reynard his rightful share of every operation in your district."

There was a fair bit of grumbling following this pronouncement from those not supporters of Isengrim as the wolf was notoriously unfair when it came to sharing revenues.

The badger continued, "I also know on multiple occasions you under-reported the value on joint heists and operations with Reynard. You are notorious for undervaluing items that do not have set values such as coins and precious metals. You bribe fences and appraisers to intentionally undervalue gems, jewelry, stocks and bonds, antiques, and similar items with indeterminate value in order to lower the amounts you would have to share with Reynard and other bosses as well as those mammals risking their lives carrying out each operation. Instead of that money going to those deserving, as well as the King's share, you have those same fences and appraisers give you kickbacks to make up that large discount they were able to buy the items for because of this deflated value. You thus line your pockets with the King's gold as well that of Reynard and all others doing any business with you."

Many of those in the court who knew first hand, or suspected this was the case when dealing with Isengrim, all seemed to shake their heads in agreement and mutter curses about the stingy dishonest Isengrim.

Grimbeert seemed pleased others were seeing the wolf for what he was and continued his argument, "Did you not wonder why Reynard quit almost every joint venture with you? You blame it on your rivalry, but you of all know that when it comes to business, those in the underworld put aside all personal issues for the sake of profit. In the cases you complained about regarding Reynard under-reporting his totals, realize Reynard was only trying to gain his rightful share as well as the share for both your operatives and his own after your dishonest manipulations had constantly short-changed everyone involved. You can also check the books in each of those cases and see that our Lord King received his full share finally for once."

The badger was just getting warmed up. He had spent his career in the court listening for all the gossip, rumors and bits of evidence every day for just a moment like this. His time had not been idle as he proved next, "As to the matter of your wife, everyone knows that you have been unable to fully satisfy your wife for your whole marriage. Everyone also knows that your same wife has lusted and fantasized about Reynard since even before you were married. She was known to have tried to gain his affections for many years as he is indeed a most dashing, handsome and glorious figure for any female's desires. Yet everyone also knows Reynard has been chaste and faithful to his wife, his true love Aza, your niece and my cousin. Reynard would rather slit his wrists than ever do anything to hurt his love. Any such stories your wife told you were certainly fevered lustful fantasies and desires. Since she can not be satisfied by your loins, she must find solace in dreaming about things she can never have. If her allegations are really true, have her tell us all in person and before Reynard if you dare. As I am sure you know, she will surely see Reynard and run to him begging for him to forgive her delusions and to join with her in front of God and everyone assembled until she is finally satisfied by a real canine cock at least once in her life!"

There was an eruption from Isengrim's supporters and the wolf looked ready for murder, but all those others in the court, including Queen Fiere, snickered, guffawed and howled with laughter openly and quite loudly.

The King listened to the statements dispassionately and somberly, but nodded his head in seeming acceptance that everything Grimbeert said was certainly the truth as everyone in the court knew his statements to be the gospel truth as Isengrim's failures in the bedroom and Reynard's devotion to his wife were quite well known.

Grimbeert was pleased with the impact of his words and he finished his oratory with his final defense against Isengrim, "And finally to the matter of Reynard's supposed interference in your district. One thing you fail to mention is the exact nature of these operations of yours you were referring to. From my understanding, many of these were banned and outlawed. Others of these were highly discouraged as they offended our good and blessed Queen as well any with any morality, integrity or sense of any decency toward innocents in their care as a district leader." Grimbeert smiled and nodded his head at the Queen upon her mention, and she beamed at him and nodded, pleased at his pronouncement.

The badger then concluded his defense, "So if anyone is guilty in this case, it is Isengrim himself admitting to supporting and profiting from such reprehensible operations. As far as the evidence to Reynard's guilt, it is all highly speculative and none of it concrete, certainly nothing conclusive. If we are to be held responsible for anything any of those we have employed in the past as contractors, mercenaries, gang members, etc. do in the present, then we may as well all admit to being guilty of nearly anything. You know very well that all gangs have hired mercenaries on many occasions, and most have worked for many of us over the years and not just for one district boss. In conclusion, the only thing I have heard from your mouth is a profession of self-guilt and nothing that Reynard the Fox or Red could ever be blamed for."

Many of those in the court applauded the efforts of Grimbeert and his eloquent and brilliant defense of his cousin.

Now Grimbeert addressed the other attacks on his cousin, "As far as the matter of Cuwaert the Hare, all that Reynard did was provide all available information for him to use to do the Lord King's work. Falsus' claims about nonsense and false numbers is only his interpretation as to an outsider of any operation, such numbers and figures would appear as such. If Cuwaert could not understand such information and how to interpret them, the fault lies with him and not Reynard. The one deserving of punishment is the hare not the fox if he is not doing his job properly as directed by our Lord King. But we don't even know if this is the case as nothing was directly presented one way or the other by Cuwaert."

"And then Courtoys the Wild Dog complains… Courtoys, of all mammals! He's gotten hold of a box of gold coins by ill-gotten means. It seems Courtoys only means to use this to deflect blame for his failure to his bosses with respect to the operations for which he was responsible. He should have been smarter and kept quiet, since he'd stolen the coins in the first place: male quaesisti, male perdidisti! (You acquired it badly, you badly lost it!) It's only right the ill-gained be ill-lost. Who'll blame Reynard, if he took stolen goods from a dishonest thief? Whoever understands the law and can tell right from wrong knows that Reynard was in the right. And whoever is as esteemed as cousin Reynard knows how to handle stolen goods. No member of the court would think it remotely wrong or illegal if Reynard had hanged Courtoys when he found him with the coins. The reason he was spared was because he was another boss's charge and Reynard would not disrespect another boss or the court by killing their underling. And what was his reward for this? Not a thing! What wounds him most is that he's the one being accused here."

"My cousin Reynard is a noble and honest creature. He detests falsehood of any kind. He does nothing without the advice of the court and his advisers. I declare it openly that, since my lord the King proclaimed peace between the districts here, Reynard has never intended to harm a soul in another district. And those he has punished in his own district have deserved every sentence handed down to them. He spends his time thinking of how to help those in his district and enrich the lives of those in his employee as well as the pockets of our Lord King and the court. He spends his time enjoying the company of his beautiful wife, my cousin Aza, and his four precious kits. Who could blame him for this? The rest of his time he manages his business ventures in order to help pay for the many thousands of his Kids, Red Kids, located all over Zootopia now. He frequently visits all those kids every chance he gets helping them to grow up safe and with a future. What nobler venture could anyone have? He lives his life for charity, for taking care of his thousands of Kids and his family. If you could show me a better mammal, I fear I would be waiting here until I grow old and my fur falls out before such could happen. Any of those who seek harm to such a person are only guilty of jealousy and envy, and nothing more. If only all your vassals could be more like Reynard my lord King, then your realm would be far better off."

As Grimbeert, Reynard's cousin by marriage, stood and delivered his summation speech, the court saw Chaunticleer a giant panda running into the court followed by a retinue of followers wheeling on two large carts the bodies of an enormous polar bear covered in numerous gashes and cuts around his head and lower body, and a transcaspian urial with large curved horns with embedded gold who appeared to be missing it's eye sockets. Both dead mammals smelled horrible and were placed in large coffins. All those in the court immediately covered their noses and faces as the grisly dead decomposing bodies were brought forth.

For these were two prominent victims of Reynard's personal justice of the previous week, and the giant panda was an independent investigator hired by the court, but really financed by Isengrim, Bruun and several other bosses who had an ax to grind with Reynard and his meddling in their district's affairs.

Chaunticleer was never known for being subtle, and as he entered the court he made a great show of piteously clapping his paws together and wailing wretchedly as if his world had come to an end. On either side of the coffins walked Cantart, an elderly female polar bear, and a beautiful transcaspian urial ewe named Cryant with small horns with a sheer black veil attached to them covering her face. Both looked incredibly sad and distraught and each bore a white burning candle which was long and straight. For this was the polar bear Jax's mother and the transcaspain urial's wife and now widow. They wept and wailed grieving for their dear loved ones.

Their grieving was so loud they were heard long before anyone in the court even had a glimpse of what was in the coffins. As they approached and stood before the King, they seemed to realize where they were and looked down reverently and subsided their wailing.

Chaunticleer then spoke for them addressing the King, "Merciful lord, my lord the King, please hear our accusation. You'll be shocked by the frightful damage that Reynard has inflicted upon your faithful servants and their loved ones, who stand here before you!"

The panda looked around seeing he had everyone's attention and continued, "Please hear me, for the tale I seek to tell will strike pain in your heart and be sure to make your blood to boil. For I tell you the story of two of your servants who worked tirelessly for their district bosses and ultimately for you my King. For first the great Jax, son to his beloved mother Cantart here, rose from a mere dock worker, to enforcer, and finally to a true entrepreneur building a business in Tundratown generating a fortune for his district boss as well as the royal court."

"Jax was beloved by all his workers, and treated them well… better than any similar operations. He believed a happy worker was a much more effective worker and put this into practice every day. He strove to have the happiest and most hardworking workers anywhere, and ran the most efficient operation in all the districts."

Chaunticleer then got a furious look on his face, "And what was his reward for this hard work? Reynard the scoundrel, the rule breaker, came into the Tundratown District using a proxy force in his horrible name and destroyed the entire operation Jax had built from the ground up with his sweat and blood. Reynard then took everyone at the facility against their will, workers, guards, employees and the good Jax himself. Reynard kidnapped everyone and left the place bare."

"But it does not end there. It gets far worse. While some employees were released unharmed, others have never been heard from again and assumed dead. And what did Reynard do with those workers he took? He stole them. He sought to take them into his own organization giving them no choice in the matter."

"And finally the worst affront of all, the monster Reynard executed our valuable and loyal member. Not merely satisfied to murder, this Reynard… this demon, instead slowly tortured poor Jax repeatedly using him for target practice striking him repeatedly creating hundreds of holes. Poor Jax suffered horribly for hours as Reynard tortured him throwing knife after knife against him and cutting him repeatedly in the groin. See here the results of his handiwork!"

Chaunticleer brought the great bear before the King and had the coffin lowered to the ground with the help of nearly half the court.

The King looked down seeing all the damage all over the bear, which supported the panda's narrative, and nodded his head in considerable consternation.

The King then spoke somberly to the panda, "This is truly dire news Chaunticleer. How came you by the body of our dear Jax, and what proof do you have that Reynard the Fox was responsible?"

Chaunticleer nodded his head expecting this question and turned to Cantart, Jax's bereaved mother, "Our goodly mother Cantart found the body of her beloved son in a large box at her door with a note saying her son had died a good death and he was presented to her for burial out of respect. But I say to you, how can he have had a good death? We can see for certain he was brutalized and tortured repeatedly."

"And look here upon our friend Fredo prematurely meeting his end at the knife of the fox. We all know that Fredo was a regular tireless leader of his operation. The loyalty of the urial was beyond reproach, and he consistently performed as one of the leaders in profit and revenue generation among all districts. For the urial only cared about providing profit for his boss and you my lord King. He merely wished to take home his rightly share to his good wife who stands here before you. They had planned to have a family and our dear Cryant is with child who will now be born without a father to provide for and raise it. The only thing the goodly wife Cryant got was a box with her dead husband and a note similar to our friend Jax."

The female urial fell to her knees and broke down into tears sobbing uncontrollably with her hooves held over her face. Chaunticleer moved next to her and stood over her gently rubbing her back and shaking his head sadly.

The panda then raised his head and gave the King a hard look declaring, "We know that it was wicked Reynard who did this as we interviewed all employees released and pieced together enough evidence to prove they were held in Reynard's district. In addition, many of the employees who had been working for Jax were identified and seen among Reynard's staff. Finally, we found two of the mercenaries who were responsible for carrying out the evil plans of the villainous Reynard. And while they were not given any orders directly from Reynard, they admitted that they had heard he was in contact with their bosses. In addition they were told they had orders not to attack or kill anyone in the district and to avoid any contact with any gang members of the district boss. Finally they admitted to Jax and the good urial Fredo being among numerous others held in the Docks District awaiting judgment by Reynard. Judgment! As if the scoundrel could ever judge the actions of others after his long list of misdeeds."

"I know you will ask how do we know the blackguard Reynard personally did this to our admirable friends and allies Jax and Fredo? Reynard would have only executed those of their stature himself. Also looking at his handiwork, who else is as good with a knife? Reynard may be scum, but he would not leave such a task as killing such important personages to anyone else. We all know Reynard controls everything that happens in his district tighter than any other boss, and anything that happens there, and any deaths there would only be with his direct involvement."

Everyone nodded knowing this to be very true. Reynard was known to run the tightest ship in all the kingdom. No one in the Docks District even ran a card game, or spanked a child, without him knowing about it and approving it.

Chaunticleer then raised his head high looking defiant, "I thus say to you my good King and to those assembled here at court, how can there be any doubt Reynard has done this to our good and loyal friends as well as to hundreds of others in districts in which he has no rights? I beg you my wise King to seek the only rightful justice such actions deserve. I know we can not bring the loyal hardworking son or the beloved father back, but we can prevent this from happening again, and send a message that such actions can not and will not be tolerated in your kingdom, my lord. I lay this charge in your presence gracious King, that you might take pity on the hundreds of your loyal servants who have been wronged by the fox for the unreasonable and abhorrent harms we have all suffered."

There was a great deal of muttering and upset voices in the court following Chaunticleer's impassioned statements. Finally all eyes then turned to look upon the King who had his right paw held under his chin as he sat considering the presented evidence.

The King finally spoke in a commanding voice to the room, "Counselor Grimbeert, listen to the latest charge against your cousin the righteous family man: if I live a year he'll pay dearly, despite all his charity and devotion to his Kids!"

The King then spoke directly to the panda, "Now listen to me, dear Chaunticleer: Your accusation is sufficient. These two beloved servants we give over to death, since we can't bring them back to life. We must entrust them to God as we sing their praises and bury them with the reverence and honor they deserve. We'll then take council among these bosses and court members, deciding how we might best enforce justice for these actions and terrible murders, and how we might bring this dishonorable thief to law."

The court then began a reverent service for important dead members of the underworld with the appropriate ceremonies. When the ceremonies were ended and the polar bear and urial were buried in the underworld royal graveyard, each had a marble gravestone polished as brightly as any mirror, in which the following epitaphs in large letters had been incised:

Jax, son of Cantart, whom Reynard the Fox aka Red Death executed. Lament his death, for he was shamefully murdered.

A similar gravestone and message for Fredo was engraved and placed at the urial's grave.

The King then gathered the district bosses, chief members of his court and the wisest of his council to deliberate on Reynard the Fox's punishment for this dreadful murder. Those assembled concluded that they should send for Reynard to answer these charges. There was no way he could evade a summons to appear in the King's court. They also decided that Bruun the Bear should be the messenger to deliver such an official and important summons.

All this seemed good and proper to the King, who addressed Bruun the Bear, "Boss Bruun, I want you to carry this message. But take good care of yourself for Reynard is wicked and dangerous. He has lots of tricks up his sleeve, and he'll lie, flatter and do nothing but ponder how he can deceive and mock you."

Bruun nodded at the King and responded, "Good lord, it be a bit late in the day for the fox to deceive me! I have learned from past dealings with him who he is. I think he comes a bit too late to make a fool of me."

Thus Bruun left merrily. But his friends and the King would regret that he didn't return in quite so merry a mood.

---

Now Bruun was on his way to the fox, fully convinced that the fox couldn't outwit him. As his driver entered the dark alcove to the main entrance of the fox's residence and fortress Maupertuis, he told his lieutenants and associates he needed to visit the fox alone. They had concerns for him of course, but he told them that this was business for only bosses alone and he would be just fine. He exited and walked to the main estate gate and found it locked.

Bruun knew that Reynard had all kinds of secret entrances all around the estate, but was told the fox was happily locked up tight inside, and he had no reason to doubt these reports.

He buzzed the guard station inside and informed them that he was there to meet Reynard one on one, boss to boss. After a few minutes he was informed Reynard would be right out.

Bruun knew that Reynard was many things, but he was honorable and would respect the conventions of dealing one on one with a boss. He did not fear the fox. He was not naive enough to think that his enormous size and strength would be enough to protect him against the well-known very talented killer. But he knew that Reynard had no personal quarrel with him, and he had a far more valid reason to be angry at the fox than vice versa. But killing the King's emissary and a district boss would be the most dishonorable thing the fox could do. And the fox may be a scoundrel, liar, trickster, thief, but he was not dishonorable regardless of the things said at court.

After a few minutes Bruun saw the fox strolling down the walkway to meet him at the front gate wearing some baggy brown pants and a loose fitting cream colored shirt. The practiced eye of the bear did notice Reynard was wearing a brace of knives as well having several strapped to his legs and his belt which is why the fox preferred loose clothing. But the bear was not threatened by the presence of these as a boss, especially in Reynard's position, would need to be able to protect himself at a moments notice.

The gate opened partway and the fox gestured him inside the grounds. Bruun stepped a few steps inside and the gate immediately closed back securely. Reynard gestured to the bear to follow him, and he began walking around the outside grounds of the estate towards the water.

The fox grinned widely at the bear shaking his paw in friendly greeting and asking, "My Dear Bruun, what brings you out to visit me on such a warm day? Regardless, it is always good to see you. We bosses really don't have enough of these personal meetings. I like the personal touch of a face-to-face myself."

Bruun was amazed and surprised at the calm nonchalant attitude of the fox considering he was sure Reynard's allies had informed him about what had transpired at court. But it was time to get the formal part out of the way as the bear pronounced, "The King has sent me to summon you to court to face charges that have been brought against you, and to request you to plead your case. The King has sworn by God that if you don't come, or if I fail to bring you with me to receive sentence, you're a dead mammal. He'll either hang you or set you on the wheel. Reynard, do as I suggest: come to court!"

Reynard glanced up at the bear with a thoughtful look, "My dear Bruun, whoever sent you all the way here did you no favors for I see you are exhausted as there is sweat on your face and you are panting. Your trip is completely unnecessary though, since I was coming to court tomorrow. But I'm happy you've come all the same, because your wise council will help me at court. But couldn't the King have found some less important messenger than yourself? That is quite shocking to me, because apart from the King, you're the noblest and most important figure at court."

The fox continued, "I wish we were already at court, but I'm afraid I won't be able to come just now, for I have a particular project that consumes me. One of the special extremely rare opportunities that is only available for a very short window if you catch my drift. I dream of the amber glow and the priceless finery in which it finds itself attached."

Bruun's interest was piqued as what possible thing could be so important to distract Reynard from coming to court to defend his life? And what possible amber item would be so important?

"Dear fox, what thing has filled your head so that you can think of nothing else? You mention amber, but what thing of priceless value would have that description?" The bear wondered.

"Ah, well it is a thing of great value that I did not wish to share with my crew if you know what I mean. For it is a set consisting of a flawless honeycomb necklace made of amber, diamonds and gold with matching earrings, tiara, brooch and bracelet. It is truly magnificent and priceless, but I am sure anyone fencing such could ask quite the reward as it is insured for many millions." The fox looked preoccupied thinking upon such a thing of immense value.

The bear had many questions, "Why have you not taken it if you know it's location? I know you are one of the best thieves ever to set foot in the underworld."

The fox shook his head as if in resignation, "Yes, I know I am one of the finest thieves around, but this particular job requires something I lack, something all my best operatives are absent as well."

Bruun was puzzled, "But you are renowned for having the very best thieves in all the kingdom. No other district comes even close. What could all your best lack?"

Reynard confessed his problem, "They lack strength. In order to retrieve this particular treasure, it requires someone of enormous strength. It is not as much a job for finesse as is the norm, but for someone with raw brute strength."

Bruun still had questions, "Why not go to some of your strong powerful gang members? Why not even go to your bodyguard. I would imagine the strength of a giant amur tiger would be sufficient for the job. Or perhaps you could hire an elephant or something similar?"

Reynard looks at the bear thoughtfully, "Yes most likely my bodyguard would be able to carry out this task. But I fear that this would present too great a temptation for him. It may prove too great a temptation for any I might hire. My bodyguard has gotten older and slower, and has been trying to get me to move him to another position. Yet he is a simple bodyguard, and does not fit very well in any other aspect of my organization. I would hate to tell him this, but I believe he sees from my expression my feelings on the matter. But I imagine a million or more bucks in the pocket after visiting a fence can make such a mammal, any mammal, question their loyalty. I find the chance anyone I send will return such a treasure quite frustratingly slim."

Bruun then got an idea, a thoughtful devious idea, "Perhaps… perhaps someone I know would help you out… someone for whom the amount would not tempt to flee and retire… someone for whom honor means a great deal?"

The fox looked up surprised, "My dear Bruun, are you talking about yourself?"

Bruun pretended that was not his intention at first, "Oh no… but… now that you mention it. If I were to… obtain this treasure… I would share it certainly."

Reynard looked at the bear inquisitively, "Bruun my dear friend, when did you bother with menial tasks of thieving yourself? It doesn't have anything to do with the financial hardship I heard you found yourself in… something about large construction costs that needed to be paid off? I try not to listen to such things as they are not my business. But if it is something where we both can benefit, then it may be just the thing."

Bruun shook his head understanding the fox knew of his financial hardship, mostly caused by the fox himself, but he was very polite in discussing it. The fox did not know that Bruun himself had financed the construction of the giant underground complex before he blew it up. It was just one of those unfortunate circumstances. But quite possibly the fox could make it up to him with this… this honeycomb treasure.

The bear asked an all important question, "Do you wish to share the spoils fifty fifty as equal partners?"

Reynard considered that for a bit and answered cautiously, "I know of the recent hardships you have endured and wanted to help how I could. But I also realize I am in a bit of a sticky predicament at court as you well know. I could use your support as you certainly have the King's ear on this and many matters. You would be welcome to a seventy share to my thirty if you could just lend me your full support at court."

Bruun thought to himself that now he saw the desperate need of the fox. He is doomed and is grasping for any possible ally to support his wretched position. Well he is not asking for me to do anything specific to support him, the bear thought. And what he doesn't know happens in private council will not hurt him. I can easily promise support, give him nothing and pocket an extra several hundred thousand out of it. That would go a long way to getting the bank and contractors off his back.

The bear smiled happily at the fox and extended his paw shaking the fox's returned one, "Very well Reynard, you have a deal. If you lead me to the treasure, I will retrieve it and pay you a thirty share and give you my support at court. Now lead me there so we can finish all this up before it gets too late."

---

Reynard led the pair to an isolated estate in the southwestern corner of the Rainforest District near Harbour St. They used a 'borrowed' laundry service van to drive around to a back entrance of the estate and parked it in a hidden alcove. Such vans would be used commonly at most estates to handle laundry services for the large homes, and seeing this one would not be suspicious as it is one that would normally stop by estates in the area at all hours. However Reynard had no plans to enter through the service entrance as he quickly scampered up the side of the building to a third story balcony. There he created a pulley and harness system using equipment he had brought and had the bear pull himself up with the fox assisting. After several minutes they managed to get the bear up to the balcony.

The fox then scampered up to the roof and disabled cameras and pressure sensors and tied some ropes around a chimney and carefully used the ropes to climb up to an upper floor walking along the side of the building using a slight railing along the edge. He then tied off supporting ropes and had the bear carefully maneuver around the railing using a harness behind the beast supporting nearly all his weight. Bruun was clearly terrified of being up this high moving along a railing not designed to handle anything close to his weight. Finally the bear reached a small outcropping and window Reynard had chosen to be the best path to the room they sought.

Reynard then forged ahead of the large bear disabling any alarms and traps between the window and the hidden room attached to the study.

Once they were in the study, Bruun expressed one of his concerns whispering, "Reynard are you sure we won't be interrupted?"

Reynard's eyes gleamed in the near darkness as he grinned, "I assure you my friend I have cased this place quite thoroughly. The family is away visiting relatives down south, and there is only a minimal guard staff and they never come up this high. They depend completely on the many alarms, the hidden nature of the room, and the near impossible type of the lock to protect it. For anything strong enough to do this job would have to somehow get up here and past all the security. Not a possible task for anyone else but… well I don't wish to brag."

The bear grunted and responded softly, "Yes… yes your reputation is well-deserved. I have never doubted your capabilities."

They finally made it into the hidden room after Reynard located the hidden trigger panel and disabled the coded locked door. Finally they could see what they had come to steal as a panel in the wall revealed a small alcove with a larger hole and two smaller below it.

As Bruun examined the hole looking inside, he asked the obvious question, "Where is the lock?"

Reynard stuck a mirror on a pole in the hole allowing the two of them to see the most beautiful set of jeweled treasure made from flawless pieces of polished amber and hundreds of jewels.

Reynard grinned at the bear, "Behold the Honeycomb Treasure. The only way to release it is to stick your head in the larger hole and two paws in the lower and smaller ones. You need to pull the two handles carefully making sure the counterweights do not touch the electronic triggers on the sides. It requires an enormous steady force of well over a thousand kilograms. There was no way to simulate the pull force as it required constant grip pressure."

Bruun looked everything over very carefully, but seeing the glimpse of the treasure got his heart pumping as it seemed to be everything the fox had promised. He then stuck his head and paws into the holes. He had to stretch quite far to get his paws around the handles and to see what he was doing. Once he had grips around the handles and could see the guide lines, using the small light the fox had pushed inside, he began pulling on the handles slowly. Strangely the handles felt like they had some kind of sticky substance on their surface, but he didn't have time to worry about this as he began apply enormous pressure slowly and steadily pulling back. Bruun carefully pulled on the handles keeping the guidelines straight, but it was slow going and he was beginning to tire after several minutes. It was then the bear realized he was not going to be able to make it all the way to the end as strong as he was, he did not have the incredible stamina required to do this for the nearly fifteen minutes it would require. No one did.

So he carefully let the weights fall back to the start, and once they were situated in the exact slots, he released the handles and began to pull back. But he had one big problem. He couldn't release the handles. It seemed his paws were stuck to the handles as there was some substance on them preventing him pulling his paws and arms out of the sockets. At this realization he felt a cold shiver go down his spine and sweat began to drip down his head as he attempted to pull his head free. It was then he found he could not do that either. He then began to thrash pulling harder and harder, but everything appeared to be stuck. Claustrophobia now started setting in as the bear began tugging this way and that attempting to break free. At this point nothing could help the bear, neither flattery nor reproach: he was stuck fast inside the trap.

In this way did Reynard bring the bear into a prison of his own making through trickery and greed. Brawn nor brain, foot nor head: nothing was going to help him. Bruun's strength and courage were of no help at all in this situation. He saw now that he was thoroughly trapped and began to roar and bray pressing and scratching with his hind legs. He began to make such a racket that they began to hear shouts from below and footsteps as Lantfert the leader of the guards led a whole team up from below armed with electronic prods and other impliments to subdue and capture an intruder as they knew nothing of what the hullabaloo upstairs was about. Bruun remained fixed and frightened trapped inside a dark prison which held his head, paws and arms fast. He twisted, he wrestled, and he roared, but it was no good: he was clueless about how to pull himself out.

Reynard of course heard Lantfert and the approaching guards the instant they came near, as his hearing was quite keen, even far greater than an average fox whose sense was already one of the best of all mammal species.

So he calmly told Bruun, "How is the Honeycomb? It is truly as magnificent as you imagined? I hope it is everything you dreamt it would be. Take care you don't take it all for yourself as that would be greedy. You won't be returning to court anytime soon I am afraid once Lantfert and the guards get a hold of you. Try not to enjoy too much of what he and the others will dish out as I know from some of your appetites at your House of Horrors you certainly enjoyed dishing out such treatments to many innocents. I suggest you drink in all the amber beauty while you can to make it worth your while."

Having offered his advice, Reynard shoved a couple small flashlights in on either side of the bear's head so he could get a wonderful view of their purpose here this night. He then left the room quick as a flash sprinting down the hall and throwing himself out the open window grabbing a rope conveniently standing at the window side as he leapt. The momentum sent him flying into the air and he released the rope at the proper time falling onto the third story balcony rolling forward and leaping off grabbing another rope and sliding down to the ground. The fox was completely out of the building in mere seconds as always, having planned escape routes was one of the most important things to know as a master thief.

As he ran to hide in the bushes, Reynard's extra keen hearing picked up shouts and voices saying, "Come on, you lot, into the study, there's a bear stuck fast there!"

It seems every guard available had heard the call and had crammed into the room. All came well equipped to punish such a brazen act and subdue this beast regardless of his size. The guards were all small, the biggest being a panther and leopard, but they were many in number and quite motivated for vengeance.

Now Bruun wasn't feeling great as it was one against many. When he heard all the guards rush in and began to wail on him with sticks, electronic prods, and clubs, he wrestled and pulled so hard he extracted his head, but he left behind all nearly all the skin and both his ears. No one had ever seen more hideous a mammal, for blood ran over his eyes. Before he could yank out his paws and arms, he had to leave his claws, paw pads and a good portion of the fur on his arms behind.

The deal turned out badly for Bruun. He thought he'd never escape, now that his paws were so painful, and he couldn't see a thing because of the blood running down across his eyes. Lantfert the Ram and the guards all surrounded him cautiously and the ram then slammed his head into the bear and all the guards began wailing on him beating him repeatedly on his head and face as hard as possible. Bruun certainly received many hard knocks and was nearly rendered unconscious.

Those listening to this story take note, if you are in a bad way, you're everyone's victim. Bruun's story proves it as each of the guards were fierce, furious and merciless with him just as he had been with all those innocents he had tortured, abused and killed during his participation at the House of Horrors. All the guards seemed inspired to take out any aggression or anger they had experienced in their lives, and expressed it all at once at this moment on the giant bear. The larger of them, the panther, Lantfert the Ram, and a wolf did more harm to the bear than others biting, shocking and cutting him as if their purpose was to kill him. They gave it to him with everything they had.

Bruun the Bear, initially sat and cried and groaned for he was blind and had to take all they dished out. The guards pummeled him now with clubs, staves and any blunt instrument they could find as they now tried to render him unconscious. Lantfert repeatedly tried running across the room and smashing the bear in the head with his great horns causing Bruun's head to ring and his ears to go deaf.

But the bear suddenly surprised them all as if he had been waiting for the right moment and sprang up knocking them all around the room and went charging out of the hidden room and study racing down the hall. The clever bear had maneuvered himself so the guards thought he had given up, but instead prepared himself for this desperate astonishing act. The surprise had given him just enough time to make it to the window and frantically search around and find the rope and harness he had used to move along the railing. But as Bruun grasped the ropes, he screamed in agony as the pain from his bare raw bloody paws was extreme, and he instead had to wrap the ropes around his arms and then jump off just as the guards made it to the window.

He bounced along the railing in several large leaps releasing the rope when he was near the third floor balcony landing on the roof sliding down and smashing onto the balcony crushing a table and set of chairs. The bear then had no choice but to climb over the railing hanging by his raw bloody paws and drop hoping he didn't break anything vital as he slammed into the ground. Fortunately he knew well enough to roll on impact and only sprained an ankle and broke an arm as he landed on it.

Several of the guards had followed him out the window, while some raced down the stairs to the outside. But one of the guards, a female cheetah named Julocke, thought she had the balance and climbing ability of her panther, leopard or other similar expert climbing feline brethren, and had attempted to scamper across the roof, but lost her balance and was now hanging four stories up on the edge by her paws.

Seeing this, the guards shouted, "Dame Julocke is hanging from the roof about to die. Everyone help her! Rescuing her is our top priority at the moment!"

Every guard then ignored Bruun as they all moved in place to try and save their comrade.

When Bruun the Bear saw the guards running back towards the house to attempt to save the cheetah, he jumped into a nearby large stream bordering the property and attempted to swim away as fast as he could.

One guard who apparently ignored the calls to save the cheetah, ran after him shouting, "Come back, you treacherous thief!"

The bear made it to a wider part of the rushing water, and moved into the fastest current leaving behind the guards' shouts and curses as water was a bear's friend. And fast running water was something that would be extremely difficult for anything to follow unless they were an aquatic mammal like an otter or beaver. He was so glad to have escaped them. He bitterly cursed the honeycomb trap and treasure, and the fox who'd betrayed him, since he'd now lost both cap and ears. It was several kilometers he swam downstream before he recovered from exhaustion on the bank. He was heavy of heart, groaning and sighing, with blood flowing into his eyes again. He huffed and puffed as frantically as if he were dying.

And as for Reynard? As he lay watching all the commotion hidden in the bushes, he decided to slip back into the house. As the guards all rushed upstairs to rescue their feline friend, he grabbed several valuable paintings removing them from their frames as well as grabbing a statue made of gold and gems, and three nearly priceless ancient first edition books he had all spotted earlier while casing the joint at a business meeting a month back. As he bounded silently away from the estate to the laundry van obscured by a back wall, he thought to himself how nicely everything had worked out. He had seen this wonderful treasure a month ago as he wandered around upstairs 'searching' for a free restroom. He had been back a few times with some of his experts trying to find some way into the hidden vault finally concluding it was impossible to open. Sometimes as a thief you have to accept when a job is too hard, and move on to easier targets. But this one had always been on his mind, and it was good to know that while the treasure was not his, the rewards for the heist were still quite substantial.

As he hurriedly drove out a back entrance in the van they had arrived in following along the waterway, he rejoiced thinking the bear was finally out of his fur for good, either captured or dead. The fox thought to himself, "I have certainly scored a win here this evening, for now one of my biggest enemies at court is now removed, and no one will blame me. Why shouldn't I celebrate?"

But the moment he was thinking these thoughts, the fox happened to look toward the waterway where he saw a hulking form recovering on a bank. Looking through some high powered binoculars using a night vision filter, he recognized the form quickly realizing it could be none other than Bruun the Bear. The moment he saw the bear, he was as depressed as he had been happy before. He angrily spoke aloud as if to tell Lantfert off, "Damn you, Lantfert, you ignorant incompetent fool, may God give you a shameful death! How could you have lost such an enormous, lumbering and deserving quarry to be caught and treated as he well deserves? How could you have lost such a big fat bear!"

The fox drove up onto the grass arriving near the water bank and the exhausted bear. Bruun was quite bloody and very ill, for which he thanked no one so much as the fox. Reynard then leaned out the window shouting to the bear, "Dear friend, may God protect you!"

The bear was frightened at first thinking he was caught, but then realized it was only the red devil that had come to torment him further.

"Haven't you forgotten to pick up something from back at the estate?" Remarked the fox with a mischievous grin, "I fail to see the Honeycomb Treasure or anything in your paws. In fact I believe you left quite a lot of yourself back there. The idea as a thief is to come away with a lot more than you came in with. I am afraid you make a horrible thief Bruun with results such as these. Wasn't the honeycomb as good as I promised? I have many more such jobs if you are interested. Perhaps you may eventually learn something through trial and very frequent error. Dear bear, tell me, before I flee like a thief in the night, as... well… that is what I am, what is this new look you are sporting? I have to say red looks good on you as I have certainly enjoyed it's wonderful hue for all the years of my life. But it would have seemed a lot easier if you had dyed your fur instead of removing it all to get that particular color."

Bruun the Bear heard all this, but couldn't avenge himself which made him both furious and nearly dejected as he was exhausted, and in no position to do otherwise. He let the fox say whatever he wanted, and endured it all with bitterness before jumping back into the waterway. But the words of the fox began to ring in his head. He hadn't seen himself in the mirror, but imagined his appearance at court would look horrendous, for he was sure he had lost both ears, along with the fur and skin on his head and arms as well as leaving behind the claws of his paws.

Even if he had been faced with the most novice and incompetent gang member in the entire underworld trying to kill him then and there, Bruun couldn't have escaped due to his utter weakness. Once he got out of the waterway farther down and rested for a spell, he realized he would have to move, and crawled his way until he came to a vehicle large enough to fit his enormous frame, and managed to painfully open the door thoroughly surprising the occupant, a large male hippopotamus who was happily listening to some loud music shaking his head forward as if he wanted to smash it into the dash of the vehicle. The expression of the hippo upon seeing the monstrous hulking raw red bleeding vision before him changed his expression from joy to utter terror in an instant, and he fled the vehicle babbling incoherently the moment the great bear began to rumble.

Bruun then slowly and painfully climbed into vehicle and thanked the hippo for having already started it as it was one less painful action he would need to undertake. However he had no thanks for the smell of feces left across the driver's seat which to a bear's sensitive nose smelled like he was in the city's central sewer, but the bear had much greater concerns at the moment. Bruun then winced in agony as he gripped the steering wheel and drove toward the King's court a few kilometers away underneath the Downtown District.

As the bear lumbered toward the gathering, many in the court were unsure of what kind of creature was approaching, and everyone had pulled their weapons preparing to attack the monster that was coming into their midst. Finally the King recognized him somehow perhaps from his clothes. Well one thing was for sure, the King was none too pleased.

"This is Bruun the Bear, my friend and chief adviser. Lord God, who's done this to him? He's all red and ripped to shreds around his head and arms! I'd say he looks like he is on death's door. Where on earth could he have been coming from? Are we under attack?"

Finally the bear made his way before the King, and was able to use his remaining energy to utter his words, "I come to announce my complaint to you, merciful lord my King, so you can see how I have been mistreated and wronged. I beg you to avenge this treatment I have received from Reynard, the cruel cunt. For I have been brutally handled in your service. I've lost both my front paws, the fur on my arms, my ears and the covering on most of my head, by his treacherous deceit!"

"How dare the dishonorable thief Reynard do this!" Roared the King in response, "I declare to you Bruun, and swear it on my crown, I'll avenge myself on him. You'll happily thank me for sure once I am done."

The lion then sent for his council and advisers furiously demanding their answer to how best avenge the monstrous crimes of the fox.

The council concluded all that Reynard be summoned immediately. They declared that he must be made to suffer any sentence the court should hand down. They all agreed that Tybalt the Wildcat was best equipped to deliver the summons, because he was especially intelligent and unable to be outsmarted by the fox. The King agreed with their judgment and sent for Tybalt to be brought before him.

When Tybalt stood before the King awaiting orders, the King commanded, "Sir Tybalt, go to Reynard and deliver him a second summons: he must come to court immediately to answer the charges. Though he is cruel to most others, he trusts you and will follow your advice."

The wildcat answered his king, "My lord King, those who counseled you to send me weren't any friends of mine. What could I do there? Reynard won't come or go on my account. I beg you, dear King, please send some other mammal to him. I am even smaller than him. If Bruun the Bear who is enormous, powerful and a fellow district boss couldn't bring him… how, then, could I do the job?"

King smiled affectionately at the wildcat, "Sir Tybalt, you are one my chief advisers at court. You're wise and well educated. Though you are small, there are many crafty animals in the underworld who can do more with brains than with brawn. Reynard the scoundrel is certainly a prime example of one of these."

Tybalt sighed in resignation, "I guess someone has to do it, so it might as well be me I suppose. God give me his grace to succeed, for I fear my heart is in my feet."

As the wildcat was preparing to leave, he absently walked under a ladder and knocked off a box containing three mirrors all of which smashed to pieces upon landing on the floor. The sound startled him so much he sprang backwards landing against a table knocking a pair of salt shakers on the floor emptying their contents as well as a pair of knives which landed in a cross pattern. He shook off all these bad omens the best he could, and hurried out the door and onto the street not realizing he was stepping on every crack on the sidewalk as he went. Tybalt was not feeling very optimistic about his trip to the fox, but he finally mustered positive thoughts and managed to convince himself he would succeed regardless.

---

The wildcat got a surprise as he walked up to the gate to the entrance of Maupertius as he found Reynard already there waiting for him leaning against the wall with a sly smile. This was certainly quite unexpected.

"May God find you well this evening, Reynard. The King has threatened to execute you if you don't come to court with me right now."The wildcat solemnly uttered his message.

"Tybalt, my good friend, you're very warmly welcome. When I saw who it was who approached my walls, I had to run out immediately and greet you. May good fortune always be yours!" Reynard spoke warmly to the wildcat.

It hurt the fox to speak so kindly to the cat. For as he uttered the words, his heart was not thinking the same thing at all. The truth of these feelings will make themselves known before the encounter of the two is done.

"Let's spend the evening together my old friend," suggested Reynard, "I'll entertain you so well you will remember it for decades to come, and tomorrow morning, first thing, we'll together go to court arm in arm. Dear Tybalt let's do as I propose, for I have no one at court who I trust as much as you. The traitor Bruun was here. He treated me quite malevolently, and acted like a bully being so egotistical and false, that I wouldn't have accompanied him for a pile of gold. But my friend, I'll go with you tomorrow morning early. First thing."

"It's best we leave right now, for the moon is shining as bright as the sun. I have never felt the weather so good for a nice ride downtown to court." The wildcat responded.

"No my dear Tybalt, there may be those who would treat us well by day, but come the dark they would seek us harm by the cloak of the night. Why come by night when the day is much brighter and safer?" The fox sought to convince the wildcat with amazing sincerity.

"Reynard what is your true purpose? I know you well enough to know nighttime is your favorite time as most of your activities take place by the dark of the moon." The wildcat countered.

Reynard smiled widely nodding his head, "Tybalt I knew I could never get anything past you as you are sharp as they come. I admit I have another objective which would serve me dual purpose, and make me more friends aiding my defense."

"Speak plainly, fox, for your reputation for tricks is well deserved. How can this objective of yours solve so much?" Tybalt questioned.

The fox then looked down a bit apprehensively, "I have a message from a certain acquaintance of yours. In fact it was she who pushed so hard that you would find your way to me tonight."

"She?" The wildcat asked nervously. He dare not imagine that the she the fox was referring to was his secret love and obsession.

"There is only one she that could possibly have your attention my dear friend. You know she is my close friend and always supports me at court no matter the situation. It was she who wanted to arrange a special meeting at a time and place no one could possibly suspect, for the danger to her if she was found out would be dire indeed. I must say that if I did not have my one true love, my darling wife, I would be sorely envious of the attention she places on you now." The crafty fox cooed to the wildcat expressing his envy for the wildcat's current position.

"How… how did you know about… about my feelings for her? She always smiles so brightly at my compliments and the attention I pay her. But… I didn't think she returned my feelings. I mean... I hoped of course… but she seemed aloof and distant at times. I was so pleased at her gratitude for the ballad I recently wrote and performed for her ears. I would have made it much more plain if the King was not there to hear as well." The hopeful wildcat expressed wistfully.

"How do you think I knew my dear friend?" Reynard smiled placing his paw gently on the cats shoulder and continuing conspiratorially, "She told me of course. But only to my own ears as she knew I had no love or loyalty to the King, only for her, as she is my only true friend at court. She told me she longed for all your attentions no matter how small, but had to act that way because she had eyes on her at all times you understand." In actuality Grimbeert had told him, as nothing that happened in and around the court escaped the badger's careful eye. It was a quite poorly kept secret that the wildcat was madly in love with Queen Fiere. It was unknown if anyone had told the King. But either his majesty didn't know, or didn't care not seeing the wildcat as a threat. Grimbeert had suspected the Queen knew about the cat's feelings and was amused or flattered by them doing nothing to discourage him.

But the wildcat seemed to take Reynard at his word, as it was the only logical explanation to him, "I knew there had to be the reason! You have lightened my heart so much Reynard. You have no idea! But where would she be able to meet me in secret where no one would see? There are always eyes on the King and Queen at court."

"This is the ingenious part of her plan, for her majesty is as brilliant as she is beautiful. She suspected that if she sent you to me, everyone would expect you to be busy for quite awhile. She would retire to her chambers to rest while she supposedly waited for our return to court together. But she instead would use a secret escape tunnel in their majesty's bedchamber which was built in case they would need to flee secretly in case of an attack by the Zootopian authority or God forbid an assassination attempt. Her chambermaid would then pretend she was the Queen and refuse to open the door sending anyone away that came for her telling them she was in great need of rest and did not wish to be disturbed. The Queen knew that the King would be quite busy at court discussing the current matters, and not paying her any mind. Ultimately the escape tunnel leads to several hidden tunnels. One of which leads to a secret vault perfect for a special intimate encounter unseen by anyone but her love." Reynard informed the wildcat telling him exactly what he hoped and needed to hear.

Tybalt nodded his head and swallowed in a big gulp, "That is indeed a brilliant plan. She must have surely had someone like yourself helping her plan such. For I could not see a beauty like the fair Fiere being so duplicitous."

"As far as I know, she came up with everything herself." The fox informed him, "Sometimes a special situation like this requires someone to act outside of their nature to accomplish something that means a great deal to them. Also sometimes when one is mistreated and unhappy, she has to turn to deceit as a last resort."

"The Queen is mistreated by the King? I thought she seemed a bit melancholy of late. My poor dear Fiere, suffering alone with no one's arms to comfort her. It is a crime of the highest order. You are right good Reynard. In a situation like that, she would have to resort to something so against her true nature. I can only hope my presence and touch can turn her mood and give her hope. But you mentioned something about a dual purpose. What do you hope to gain by all this? I know you dear fox. You are not known for doing anything that doesn't benefit yourself." Tybalt responded, his mind thinking again about the fox's motives as he was quite intelligent.

"A valid observation my dear friend. As to what your presence can do for our beloved Queen's mood, when speaking of meeting you in secret, I heard such joy and excitement in her voice that I haven't heard in so long from my good royal friend. So I have no doubt about what your affections could do to brighten her mood, rescuing her from her current malaise. As for my part in all of this, I see so many potential benefits especially considering the current situation in which I find myself. Desperate times call for desperate measures they say. No time is more desperate than the current one for me. While the short term and long term happiness of the Queen is of course something that is near and dear to my heart, it is not the sole motivation regarding this matter. As I hope to secure your voice and council at court by my side for taking such a risk. I also greatly secure my good Queen's support by lifting her spirits, and hopefully give her the strength to deny her husband's yoke, and speak openly and vehemently in my favor. I hope my thoughts on this matter have not been misplaced." The crafty fox affirmed to securely solidify his supposed reasons for his part in the plan.

The lovesick wildcat shook his head to the negative as the motivations of the fox made perfect sense, "I would be forever in your debt for such a gesture. I will of course do everything possible to aid you at court. Where should we away to as the thought of my sweet Fiere waiting alone and frightened is a dagger in my heart?"

---

As they approached a dark entryway, the fox activated a hidden lever sliding part of the wall aside and exposing the dark outline of a door. Fortunately the fox and cat could see quite well in the absence of light so it was quite obvious to them both.

"It is just beyond that door. I will wait outside here for however long you need. We can then go to court afterwards since we are nearby. But don't think to hurry on my account, as I want both of you to satisfy your every desire. I need both of you in the best moods of your lives. I know the Queen mentioned bringing some blankets so you two would be comfortable. I hope that all is agreeable to you." The fox said with a barely discernible grin.

For the sly fox knew that everything he said was as if angels sang in the ears of the wildcat and his every dream waited beyond the door. In fact the thought of such pleasures with his most perfect love had butterflies dancing in the cat's stomach and sweat running down his brow and onto his whiskers. He had only hoped to talk to her alone for a few minutes, but the thoughts of what the fox had suggested were something altogether more than he could dream. To touch her soft luxurious fur and feel her body next to his was something of his wildest fantasies. And the possibly of doing much more than that with her… well let's just say his pants were fitting quite a lot tighter than usual all of a sudden.

"I…" The wildcat began and then tried to continue, finding he was having problems with speech all of a sudden, "Thank you good fox. You truly are an amazing friend. I just know your reasons for what was presented at court are pure and just. We will put this all behind us later tonight I am sure."

With that Tybalt the Wildcat entered the secret door to meet his most covert and perfect love. He had wished for this moment for years. And to finally be consummating their love would be the highlight of his life. Unfortunately for him the fox responsible for his situation was quickly rocketing far away from the area before it was crawling with guards. For the secret vault he had led poor Tybalt to just happened to be one of the King's extremely secret treasure rooms with the most advanced security technologically available. And the wildcat's presence was going to bring every guard in the surrounding area in under a minute.

As Reynard was away as quick as an arrow, he thought to himself, "Tybalt, you are quite deserving of a covert surprise, and the firm sword in your pants will come in handy when dealing with those you will meet quite soon, as you may have need to defend your love from those who would restrain it quite forcefully. My only regret is that the mangy wolf Isengrim was not there to share in your surprise as he loves thrills and excitement. I only wish to entertain him as much as I know I have enlivened your life at the moment."

---

When a thoroughly beaten and shabby form was brought before the King, it took awhile for anyone at court to even recognize who it was that lay before the King. Finally the Queen herself took note of the creature before them as she had seen quite a lot of him in recent months. She was aghast at the possibility of who it could be and uttered shakily, "Tyb… Tybalt… is that you?"

The sound of that sweet voice was the only thing that could persuade the cat's neck to turn to seek it's source.

The King's eyes got wide and he exclaimed, "By the heavens! What has become of my most brilliant and wise friend?"

The court was stunned as the guards and the cat told the story of what had unfolded.

---

Tybalt had walked stealthily into the dark room. He dare not use a light in the unlikely event someone outside might see, and he had the vision in darkness and quiet paws to move without noise in the pitch black. He worried about his love waiting anxiously in the dark all alone. The cat knew she was made of stern stuff having had to put up with the King for so long. His boarishness and coarse ways must play havoc on her delicate sensibilities. Tybalt only hoped that he could provide that light in her otherwise dull life to keep her going and buoy her spirits. She deserved so much more than the lout. She deserved someone who would appreciate her every moment, and listen to her every word as if spoken from the angels themselves. But hopefully the darkness would make her anticipate their meeting even more as a bit of fear was known to get the adrenaline pumping in ones veins and thus make passions normally subdued leap out and take a hold of them, making them slaves to its raw unrestrained desires, and hopefully leave them both panting in exhaustion.

These thoughts had the cat at attention in more ways than one as he crept around the vault brushing up and barely touching various objects he encountered searching for his love.

He had hoped to surprise her to thus trigger that fear response as he had been thinking about making their meeting that much more exciting, but finally he grew impatient and risked alerting her to his presence whispering, "My love, I am here. Where are you hiding?"

Then Tybalt heard a voice in response, but it was certainly not the voice he was expecting as it was clearly male and quite menacing in tone.

"I am hiding right in front of you thief. I hope you listen well for it might be the very last sound you ever hear." The menacing nasty voice muttered out of the dark.

What had happened? Had this dark assassin come to harm his love? Had he followed her waiting to ambush her and then off him as well? Anger then rose up in the wildcat, intense rage and fire like never before as he thought of someone seeking to bring harm to his love.

Now more shapes could be heard barely visible moving throughout the room. None were his precious Fiere as he knew her shape and movement as if it was his own name. He would have also smelled her if she were present. These cutthroats and villains sought to harm his love and stop him from realizing his dream. All of a sudden several forms in the back turned on flashlights which blinded Tybalt as he tried to cover his eyes with his right forearm.

The forms then advanced on him in earnest growling menacingly and started beating him with staffs and clubs. One guard, a boar named Martinet, screamed at him furiously and struck the cat in his eye with one end of his staff knocking it out. Martinet then raised his staff high to strike a final blow to the head of the wildcat, but seeing he would surely die from the strike, Tybalt distracted him by springing forward slashing with his claws at the crotch of the guard exposing flesh and bit with all his might on what he found there ripping the right stone of the boar clean off. That leap shamed Martinet quite soundly as the thing fell to the ground in a bloody clump. When the chief of guards, a wolf named Dulocke saw it, he swore on the King's life that he would avenge this wrong.

They then proceeded to beat the cat until he moved no more, but careful not to kill him as the King needed to see who sought to steal from him.

Tybalt was indeed there to steal from the King, but not the treasure his majesty thought, as the cat only sought to plunder the most precious jewel in the entire kingdom, and had hoped to keep it's affections all for himself.

The fox may have thought the wildcat was dead, but he had survived, and now stood, or more rightly, lay before the King trying to explain his presence in his majesty's secret treasure vault. The only problem was that he had no good explanation, as the truth was words he dare not speak to the King. He could only think to utter a single word as he really had no other excuse. The one word he spoke now, and let the reputation of the word speak for itself. He spit out some blood and a part of a tooth and hissed, "Reynard!" Then he collapsed on the floor.

When the King understood the import of the word, and imagined quite well what must have occurred, he was furious. He uttered fierce threats against the dishonorable thief Reynard, immediately summoning his council once again. He demanded to know how he might bring the fox to law.

Then Grimbeert, Reynard's cousin by marriage, spoke up, "Lords, even if my cousin was twice as bad as you all make him out to be, there is a remedy all the same. Let him be treated like a free and innocent mammal instead of convicted in all your eyes before he even opens his mouth. He must be summoned a third time. If he refuses to come after this, then you can convict him of being guilty of all the crimes of which he is accused."

"Grimbeert," uttered the King, "who would you think should go and summon Reynard to come? Who will risk his ears, or his eye, or his life? Which mammal has such courage? I don't believe there is anyone here who is foolish or brave enough to do it after what we have already seen."

Grimbeert replied sighing heavily resolved knowing that there was only one mammal who stood a chance, "So help me God, I'm fool enough! I'll take the message to Reynard myself, if that is your command. For I am your loyal servant my lord King, and only wish to serve you and the court to the best of my ability."

The King pondered the badger's words and then proclaimed, "Sir Grimbeert, if you could do this service for me and this court, you would rise in all our eyes and gain yourself a seat as a Chief Adviser with a substantial appropriate pay raise to go with it." This was definitely what the badger had wanted to hear all along as he knew his cousin would deal with any others besides himself quite badly. The shrewd court member had watched all that had unfolded, and believed he had a solid stratagem for getting Reynard to come and face the court.

The King gave the badger one final warning, "Remember Reynard is dangerous, deceptive and subtle. You'll need look on all sides and be very wary of him. I wish you good luck and God's speed. Just know you have the support and favor of everyone here with you."

Grimbeert nodded to the King and the rest of the court. His countenance was serious and stern, but he jumped on the inside as this was chance to shine and rise to glorious heights.

---

So Grimbeert traveled to Maupertuis to visit both his cousins. He didn't have to go through the back door or wait at the gate, but was let through the main gate without delay and allowed to drive up and enter the estate proper.

He went to meet Reynard, Aza and their four kits in a dark room in the corner of the estate which was only lit by the glow of a small fire in the fireplace. But all six of the occupants were foxes so they could all see quite clearly. The badger found Reynard lying in a corner of a large sofa holding Aza in his lap and his two oldest kits, Titian and Rose, in each arm. His youngest, Scarlet, was crawling around behind him on the sofa corner holding him around his neck tightly and kissing him. The fourth kit, Brick, had crawled up into his mother's lap and snuggled tight curled in a ball while being held in her loving arms.

Reynard motioned to a nearby chair, and the badger sat next to the fox addressing him, "Cousin it is good to find you among such precious company. But let's not let your absence from court damage you anymore while you stand accused. I believe you have reached the limit of your time, and your continued absence can do you no more good as you are accused of a long list of things there, and this is your third and final warning. I'm being completely honest now: if you hang around here all day tomorrow, no amount of trickery and pleading will get you out of what they have planned for you. They will shortly come for you in force which will not end well for anyone including those you hold even now. They'll erect a gallows with a rack in front it. I am telling you straight: You won't escape with wife or child. The King shall take all your lives. So in my opinion it's best you come with me to court right away. Your cunning and my observations and strategy will perhaps help you out of this tight spot. You've survived greater dangers before now, and who knows, you might be acquitted of each accusation, and all your enemies might be shamed and made fools. You've often wriggled out of tighter corners than what's required now."

Grimbeert hoped his logic, pleas and flattery would allow the fox to see the truth behind his statements, and he would come away to the court with him forthwith. While the badger believed he had some sound ideas, he knew the situation was grave with how prejudiced the court seemed at the moment. But if he could get his cousin to come with him, even in the worst case scenario his own position would rise meteorically, and his cousin Aza and her kits would be spared. They may lose their husband and father, but their genes and memory of their father would survive. He realized thinking of such things may seem callous and selfish, but the badger was rational and practical, something his cousin the fox lacked at times.

The fox gave his cousin a tired smile, "What you say is true good badger. The smart thing is for me accompany you… now I'm all out of tricks. Perhaps the King will show mercy if I come to speak with him muzzle-to-muzzle. The court can't survive without me, the King understands that very well. I speak for the innocent, disenfranchised, downtrodden, and wretched souls giving them a voice where before they had none. Without my counter to the bullies like Isengrim and Bruun, there is no balance to court. Even if I have enemies, it doesn't trouble me at all. It just shows my cause is just and worthwhile. All the council will judge me, but wherever great courts of kings or lords are gathered, Reynard must devise the greatest of plans. Subtle stratagems are required, and there are few paws so skilled as mine. The others can play their parts as much as they like, but mine is the best, and I'll come out on top of the heap."

"There are however many in the court who've sworn to inflict maximum damage on me. This distresses me. For many hostile enemies are capable of more damage than one. All the same, cousin, it's better I accompany you to court and answer for myself than putting my most valuable possessions, my one true love, my wife, and my four beautiful kits, in danger of destruction. Come on, let's go. The King is more powerful than I, so I have to do as he wishes. Patiently suffering his will is the best I can do." Reynard admitted sighing and accepting his only real choice.

Reynard then turned and spoke to Hermeline Aza his beloved wife, "I put my precious kits in your safe keeping. Look after them well, especially little Scarlet here, for she pleases me so well every moment I spend with her."

In response, his little kit by that same name climbed up his chest and hugged him around his neck looking into her beloved father's face.

"Must you leave us daddy?" She pleaded.

The fox's eyes filled with tears as the thought of ever disappointing his cherished daughter was as a dagger to the heart. But he looked deep into his daughter's eyes and nodded his head.

"But… but it is too late. Stay with us for the night." His little daughter begged.

The sentiment was echoed in the eyes of his dear wife and other kits.

"I have spent nearly every moment of the King's celebration week with you all and overstayed my responsibilities. I know it is late, but the darkest hours are the brightest for our kind. I am well rested and my mind is sharp. I can't say the same about the others at court, as the nighttime is my friend." Reynard regretfully told his adored family.

The other foxes nodded their heads in understanding. They knew their dad had many responsibilities to his business empire, his thousands of Kids, his district and all it's inhabitants, and finally to all those he spoke for at court who had no other voice but his own.

He then smiled at his little son Brick, who was now hugging his father around the waist as if to keep him there forever, "And little Brick, with the makings of an expert thief, and my brilliant twins Titian and Rose who will no doubt take over for me someday in my business dealings. I love them all as well as any mammal could love his children. If God protects me this day, I'll repay you properly when I return."

His wife and greatest and most trusted counselor, embraced him entwining herself thoroughly and kissing him quite long and soundly, and then whispered in his ear for a good minute. He then regretfully pulled away slightly and kissed her on her head.

And then Reynard sorrowfully took leave of his beloved Aza and his kits, leaving them in her capable paws. For the house would soon be greatly diminished, as the supplier and caretaker of Maupertuis was now gone.

---

Then Reynard and Grimbeert left through the main gain and headed on a direct path towards the Downtown District and court. Grimbeert wondered why they had not taken a vehicle with guards as would be usual, but he kept quiet until they had walked a fair pace.

"Cousin, why are we walking in the middle of the night, with no guards? I know that we are walking through your ally Sweet Lou's district to arrive at our destination, and no one would be crazy enough to attack us if they valued their head, but why take the chance when it is unnecessary?" The badger questioned. He had seen his cousin arm himself fully as if for battle, as it seemed every part of his body had a knife near.

Reynard regarded his cousin as he had been absent in thought, "Dear cousin, I'm truly afraid, for I go in fear and danger of my life. I seek to do penance by walking the entire way in an attempt to cleanse my soul and prepare my mind."

Grimbeert nodded his head in understanding, "Do you seek to unburden your heart, and discuss your options?"

Reynard nodded but first asked for a complete detailed overview of everything that had gone on at court in his absence. He knew most of what happened from phone calls from his allies. The fox merely wanted to make sure everything lined up, and sought to fill in any slight holes. The two then discussed various strategies and members of court counting up who their supporters and opposition most likely would be.

Once they felt quite finished with the subject at hand, they moved on to the matter of Reynard's confession.

Reynard then gave Grimbeert a plaintive look, "Dear cousin, I've wronged so many mammals, especially Bruun, whose crown I made all bloody. And I taught poor Tybalt the Wildcat, that your heart's wildest desires could be your weakness, and can get you beaten. I have also greatly wronged many Chaunticleer mentioned. Neither has the King gone scot-free, since I've slandered him and the good Queen Fiere so many times that they'll never wholly escape my wicked tongue."

The fox took a deep breath and continued, "I've also wronged Uncle Isengrim more times than I can count. I call him Uncle only in an attempt to annoy as he knows he is no kin of mine, and his link to my wife is only through treachery. I have done so many crimes, leaving clues leading back to him and his gang. I have intentionally poached those employees I knew he desired offering them far more than they were worth simply to deny them from him. I have targeted his treasure and coffers on many a private unsanctioned heist frequently hiding tracking devices among the treasure I have shared to find where it was stored in his keeping. And of course I have targeted many of his operations harming innocents first and foremost. For this I am especially sorry as if I had paid less attention to the wolf and more to the bear I might have been able to shut down the House of Horrors much earlier, sparing many lives I was too late to save. On numerous occasions I have led the authorities to his door and placed suspicion on him first. I have studied the subtle clues left by members of his gang, and made sure sure to leave them at particular crimes that would most anger the Zootopian authority. My how he has complained he has been singled out time and time again at great personal cost. On many other days I have sought to hamper cooperation between him and his allies, causing great arguments and rifts. If I can sow distrust between him and any other boss, I surely take the chance. If there is an embarrassing rumor that can be spread leaving the wolf in a bad light, I carefully fuel and fan it. In fact I have several in my employee whose sole job is to plot sabotage against the treacherous beast. They have quite creative minds I have to admit. And finally while I have never done anything with Dame Arswind, his wife, I have intentionally flamed her desires for me with hints I might share hers. I wish I hadn't continued to do this, and I really regret this most of all. For she an innocent in all this, and if I have shamed her, I'm truly sorry for it."

Grimbeert responded, "Dear cousin, I don't quite understand you. You say you've wronged his wife, but you speak as if you weren't being entirely sincere. I can't figure out what you mean, or where you learned these kinds of ideas. Surely my cousin, Aza, couldn't have condoned this kind of behavior."

Reynard nodded, "My dear Aza would have the least love for her uncle of anyone. But you are right, she would be most angry at involving an innocent wife who has suffered under his paws as much as anyone. Fortunately she has a few pups to occupy her, and fill her heart where her husband won't. But you are quite right as I should never speak against any innocent especially females most of all. Now that I have unburdened my soul, give me penance and absolve me, for I'm truly repentant."

Grimbeert was wise and considered his cousins words, and how to turn his sorrow to a positive, "A penance like walking instead of driving, saying repeated prayers and rituals, or harming yourself in some way are all silly and empty. True penance is shown in selfless actions which aide deserving others. What value is saying a few prayers compared to helping others to live and be free and joyful? The greatest penance you can do to absolve your wrongs is to focus you attentions on the good you do aiding the innocent and providing hope to so many who had none before. You should continue to care for all those in your district trying to make their lives safer and more fulfilling. Continue to shower your beautiful family with endless love. And continue to provide tireless support to all the many thousands of Red's Kids who count on you so much. Focus on all these positives to outweigh any negatives. For then your soul will be absolved, and your heart's burden lightened."

The fox then got a great smile and his attitude changed as he became more assured and positive. The worthless feeling inside had flown and the clever brilliant fox who had changed so many lives for the better was back and grinning.

The badger noticed the change in his cousin and he remarked, "Cousin, look to it from now on focusing your efforts on doing good works rather than petty revenge. Think beyond yourself and how you can still help countless more. For children still cry out in desperation and hopelessness. They still wait for your call and need your voice. You have been able to change much in the kingdom during your tenure, but there is so much more that needs to be done."

Reynard nodded as Grimbeert's words struck his heart and energized his soul, "You are right, of course. I have thought too much of myself as of late rather than all those who need me now, and will need me in days to come. I do not merely fight for my life, but I fight for theirs as well, as who will answer their call at their moment of need if I am gone?"

Reynard's mood and step lightened for quite awhile as they approached the entrance to the court. However as the fox and badger stepped through a secret passageway passing several guards, the fox began to tremble the closer they got to the main hall. For the fox knew very well that he'd have to answer for the many serious crimes for which he had been accused.

---

As they approached, word spread rapidly through the entire complex, and those asleep were awoken to hear that the impossible had happened, that the badger had somehow managed to return with the fox. Everyone gathered who had prepared to lay accusations and blame on Reynard the Fox for any ill for which they could think. But Reynard conducted himself as if he hadn't a care in the world, and pretended to be in a much better position than he actually was. He passed proudly with his cousin by the throngs of onlookers and officials lining the viewing area looking as if he was the King's son and he hadn't wronged a soul in the slightest. He proceeded directly to the large throne room and stood before the King smiling. Reynard briefly waited for the hastily assembled court and substantial audience to finish gathering, and when it appeared they had settled down, the King nodded to Reynard letting him know he should now speak.

The fox then bowed before the King and spoke reverently, "God grant you great honor and renown! Never did the King have a more faithful servant than I have been, and remain, to Your Grace. I nonetheless happen to know that there're many in the court who'd destroy me if only you'd believe them. Thanks be to God that it's beneath your crown lightly to believe these liars. We should complain to God himself that these deceptive flatters are most credited in lords' courts. These same villains are promoted so as to damage the good. The Lord God will duly pay them back for it!"

"Peace! Reynard, dishonorable thief and traitor!" growled the King, "How well you tell pretty stories, but they won't help you one jot. Do you think you can be my friend with such flattering words, you who have so often ill-served me, as we shall now know for sure? Have you observed the peace between districts that I commanded?"

Chaunticleer couldn't contain himself stepping forward and waving his paws theatrically, "Think what I and all those I represent have lost in this peace!"

"Silence, Chaunticleer! Hold your tongue and let me do the talking to this dishonorable thief!" The King shouted admonishing the interruption and then continued, "You traitor, you say you love me, and that you've treated my messengers well… those poor fellows Tybalt the Wildcat and Bruun the Bear, who are both still bloody and suffering horribly. Don't deny it or speak up for yourself… it'll cost you your life this very day!"

"In the name of God, the kingdom and my loved ones," the fox expressed in shock, "dear lord and mighty King: if Bruun's crown is bloody, what's that to do with me? He was the one who attempted to steal the Honeycomb Treasure and brought the harm on himself, when he was beaten. If he'd wanted to, he could have taken vengeance on me… he's such a strong powerful fellow… before he jumped into the water. Did he expect me to wait and be caught when he intentionally alerted Lantfert and all the guards to our presence. There was nothing I could do for him at the time, and he didn't even ask for help when it happened. The least I could do was leave him a means of escape. He was big and strong and could handle the many guards. I am but a small fox fleet of foot and good at combat at a distance, but against a mob of armed guards I am surely useless."

"Then Tybalt the Wildcat came, whom I welcomed politely. If he went out without my advice and sought to take what is yours when you and the court were distracted, should I be blamed? If so, I wouldn't be happy, my liege lord. Have you asked him why he was there? If he can't give a good reason what do I have to do with it? You can do what you will with me, regardless of the justice of my cause. You can boil, roast, hang, or blind me: I'm here before you and unable to escape you, and we all stand under your jurisdiction. You're mighty and strong, while I am feeble, with no resources if you put me to death. You wouldn't need much to take vengeance on me."

While Reynard was speaking, Bellin the Ram and his ewe Oleway sprang up exclaiming, "My lord the King, hear our accusation!"

Bruun the Bear stood up slowly covered in bandages, with all his family and supporters. The whole crowd of accusers was there: Tybalt the Cat lying bandaged on a stretcher, Isengrim the Wolf, Cuwaert the Hare, Falsus the White Panther, the boar, the sheep, Brunel the Leopard, the goat and his kid, Boudewyn the Wild Ass (Equus africanus), Bore the Bull, Hamel the Ox, the weasel, along with Chaunticleer the Giant Panda and his whole group of supporters and the grieving mother of Jax and widow of Fredo. The whole lot of them made a huge uproar. They came openly in front of the King and demanded the arrest of the fox.

However Grimbeert the Badger, Reynard's cousin and ally, stepped forward, and the King put his paw up to stop and silence the rabid crowd. The King then nodded to the badger, and the Queen gave him a slight smile encouraging him.

The badger spoke before them in a clear, confident voice full of fire and power, "My dear lord King and assembled court, my cousin agreed to come with me to court based on the assumption that he be treated as free and innocent of all charges before being prejudged, for he hasn't even had a chance to answer any of the charges put before him. Has Reynard been lied to? Is this a court of justice or a lynch mob? The reason the fox was hesitant to come in the first place was for this very reason. This court has become a bully pulpit rather than a reasonable body seeking the truth in the matter. Even you yourself, my good King, have been guilty calling Reynard a dishonorable thief multiple times without hearing his voice. As all who have worked with Reynard know, he has never been dishonorable in his dealings, and has sought to be the most honorable and honest thief among his own there was. Rather than shouting unproven charges, I challenge the court to live up to it's promises to dear Reynard, and present it's charges and let him answer them."

The King regarded the words of the badger with a pang of guilt, for he knew the new Chief Adviser was right. His wise statements just now were a good reason for the badger's rise in prominence as he did not fear to go against the entire court when the cause was just and right. The King knew he needed voices like this to maintain balance, and not let the court become the chaotic thing it had just been a few moments before. Promises were made to the fox, and if the court sought to break those promises, it was no better than the fox even if he was guilty of every charge presented.

The King then nodded to the badger and then to Reynard showing respect, "I hear your words good badger and they ring true. There have been quite a lot of charges and accusations, but without hearing from the one accused how can we rightly judge the truth in the matter? I agree that Reynard should be given an opportunity to address every charge. The court should be ashamed that it degenerated into a mob seeking vengeance for unproven wrongs rather than a reasonable body seeking truth and justice. Our whole system depends on such values, and it sets a dangerous precedent when such actions are tolerated unchecked."

The King and court then established the rules of defense, and the charges would be read and evidence presented with Reynard allowed to seek council and to cross-examine any witness and question any evidence or conclusions. The council of gang leaders, chief advisers, and top members would decide on the strength of the defense versus the accusation. However much of these members had to remove themselves from consideration due to conflicts of interest as they were involved with the accusations, or in the case of Grimbeert, Reynard's defense.

Reynard's spirits were buoyed by this news as he had far more enemies and adversaries removed from judgment than friends. Quite a great many actually. Removed were Tybalt, Bruun, Isengrim, Friese the Arctic Fox, aka The Ice Queen, boss of Tundratown removed because Jax was listed as on her payroll, Chaunticleer, Cuwaert the Hare, Brunel, Bore and Falsus. The only allies he lost was Grimbeert. Reynard had good relations with Sweet Lou, boss of the Rainforest District, who he knew would be extremely opposed to any leadership change in the Docks District. He also had good relations with the new boss of the Meadowlands District as well as the representative of the Downtown District. He counted several remaining on the judgment board as allies or at least neutral. He knew several supported him on several of his initiatives to protect the innocents and children in the kingdom, and would be quite willing to overlook his transgressions given his reasons. He merely needed to provide a strong enough defense to allow his allies to stand with him, and those neutral to side with him or to merely abstain.

This was the first time Reynard could remember a case at court when it was good to have nearly the entire court against him. This seemed to be a new valid defense strategy as long as those against him could be removed from the panel. Reynard chuckled at this turn of good luck. If all those enemies had been on the panel, it would be very doubtful he would have lived through the day.

First before they got into the official charges, Bruun the Bear and Tybalt the Wildcat were called to accuse Reynard of new charges. However Bruun had nothing he could complain about as Reynard had done nothing wrong on the job. Heists do go bad from time to time, and in a case such as Bruun's, Reynard did the only thing he could at the moment and flee so both were not caught. The only thing Bruun had any traction on was his failure to pick up Bruun in the laundry van as he was escaping. However Reynard argued that the guards were on only the trail of Bruun, not even knowing the fox was even there, and in a case such as that it was prudent to split up which the clever fox argued was what he had rightly done. Bruun grumbled quite a lot over that, but the argument of the fox was sound and he was held blameless in this case. As to Bruun's other complaint with Reynard regarding the House of Horrors and rescue of slaves and capturing of slavers all over his district, Reynard craftily held all the cards in the matter as the proof he was involved was tenuous, but the list of violations and crimes of the bear were very long and the fox held all the evidence. To try and bring any of this up would go extremely badly for the bear, and he knew it well. Worse yet was the strong likelihood Reynard would easily escape untouched even if he sacrificed his entire career and possibly his life pressing this. So the choice was obvious regarding the matter, and he stayed understandably silent.

In the case of Tybalt, the Wildcat failed to even bring charges lest he have to answer the question why he was even in the secret vault in the first place. Reynard knew the cat was helpless as he could not accuse the fox without incriminating himself, and possibly causing his love, the Queen, much grief and unwanted attention and gossip. So as the fox had predicted, Tybalt claimed it was an unfortunate mistake, but announced Reynard completely blameless.

Isengrim knew his wife's charges were false and that she would crack under interrogation by Reynard himself almost instantly, embarrassing the wolf quite thoroughly as the fox was sure to use the opportunity to ridicule his enemy as to his wife's unhappiness in the marriage, dissatisfaction with her love life, and the wolf's inability to provide her any, and the secret love she bore for Reynard.

As to his other charges, Isengrim knew if he pressed the charge of shorting his own share on the heists, most likely he himself would be convicted of fraud on most of the other gangs as well as the royal court, which could condemn him to death. The wolf also found it highly likely that the panel would also excuse Reynard's actions as justified given his own malfeasance. So this charge was obviously removed as it was suicide to push it forward with Reynard ready to tear it apart personally, and happily condemn his enemy to death in his place.

Finally to the matter of interference in his district. Isengrim knew that he could not push the matter without exposing the nature of the operations in his district which in some cases were illegal and in other cases frowned upon by the royal court. Also the evidence he possessed was very weak and merely circumstantial making it likely Reynard was guilty, but certainly not enough to convict him based on the current makeup of the panel. It was far better for Chaunticleer to present his charges as he had much stronger evidence to present without revealing anything dangerous to Isengrim himself.

So Isengrim declared he had no charges to bring when asked by the King. This led to a great deal of surprised grumbling and murmurs throughout the assembled court. For Isengrim, Reynard's known mortal enemy, to refuse to bring charges given the incredibly unique opportunity for ultimate vengeance and his vehement declarations several days before, started many rumors and gossiping throughout the assembled masses. There was quite a lot of mentions about how fearful anyone was to face the smooth tongue of the fox upon cross-examination. For the fox set the tone early tearing Bruun's accusations apart making him look as much the bumbling fool as he looked without his cap and ears.

Courtoys the Wild Dog of course refused to bring charges as he was far more guilty than Reynard having stolen the gold coins in the first place. He was already in a lot of trouble with his bosses over his earlier revelations.

Falsus the White Panther and Cuwaert the Hare were both loathe to bring any charges as the panther's charge was hearsay and the badgers early defense was valid as how was Falsus to know what were legitimate figures and what was false. Cuwaert was also fearful of being made a complete fool by the crafty fox. For Reynard had an extremely justified reputation for ripping apart anyone when it came to a war of words. Unless you had rock solid irrefutable evidence supporting your accusation, which Cuwaert had not even remotely in his possession, it was not a healthy thing to accuse the fox in person where he could speak freely in open royal court. So once again when the King asked Falsus and Cuwaert to bring their charges, and they both declined, and the entire court began to murmur and whisper wondering if anything said about Reynard had any truth to it, or was it a complete baseless lynch mob like the badger had claimed.

The noises of the packed court become so loud the King had to clear his throat noisily to silence the room, and then glared at the gathered group of accusers in disgust, "Apparently Sir Grimbeert is quite justified in his statements earlier as it appears to be easy to throw baseless accusations at an absent victim, but shrink away in fear of discovery when he actually has an opportunity to defend himself. Is there no righteous charge to be brought against Reynard the Fox, or have we gone to all this incredible trouble over the past several days for naught?"

As the question was left hanging in the air, always the consummate showmammal, Chaunticleer stepped forward dramatically as if on stage about to deliver his most key soliloquy to his rapt audience, "Yes my lord King, there is one who stands against this scoundrel as I Chaunticleer have solid charges and sound evidence to back them up."

The group of accusers then began to smile and quietly clapped their paws in support of their fellows bold statement.

The King looked at the panda somberly in reverence to the dead, "We have seen the bodies already, and though buried in the honorary graveyard, we have sufficient photographs to prove your statements true or false. Though we have already heard them, bring forth your charges and evidence so that we may determine the truth of the matter."

The packed court then began to murmur excitedly as Chaunticleer was a practiced orator and would surely hold his own against the sneaky fox. It figured to be an interesting battle to come.

So Chanticleer presented the charges, accusing Reynard of unlawfully interfering with the operations of other kingdom districts by executing two prominent earners and leaders in profit generation for their bosses, torturing Jax, a prominent member of the Tundratown District operation, hiring of mercenaries to carry out unsanctioned operations in multiple districts, removing numerous personages, clients, workers and employees of other district operations against their will, and multiple other charges related to these unsanctioned operations. The panda then presented his physical evidence including the photos of the bodies and the attached notes, testimony from the grieving relatives which Reynard declined to cross-examine, written statements from multiple clients, employees and gang members identifying landmarks which put them around the Docks District. Finally Chaunticleer brought out his ace in the hole, his two mercenary witnesses who stated they had known Reynard the Fox was the one giving orders to their bosses.

Now these witnesses the fox did decide to cross-examine.

He stood before them and asked them both at the same time if they had ever seen him before or know who he was.

The mercenaries answered no to both questions.

He asked them if they had received any payment from this Reynard.

They both answered no again.

Reynard went down a long list of questions with the same negative responses over and over again.

Finally the fox looked them over and asked them the all important question, "Pray tell, how did you know it was someone named Reynard giving the orders to your commanders?"

Both mercenaries looked at each other uncertainly and began to fidget. The astute fox noticed this all, but pressed on with the question at hand, "Speak up, for I am sure everyone gathered is eager to know your proof on the matter. Did these commanders tell you they were hired by or received orders from this Reynard?"

The mercenaries finally answered, "No… no they never spoke the name or told us who had hired us. It was just… you know how mammals in our position can get bored during the off-times, and talk about such things as what job we have next, how much it will pay, what risks may be involved and who hired us. Well… it was rumored that the one hiring us for the week long job was a district boss named Reynard and he was a red fox."

"I see," said Reynard, "so your only purpose here today as a witness is to say you heard a rumor during gossip about who might have hired you?"

"Um…" the mercenaries looked over at Chaunticleer nervously for a moment, an action not missed by the fox, and continued, "we don't have any specific proof. But we did take the boats around to the northwest of the city in the area known as the Docks District."

"A-HA!" exclaimed Chaunticleer.

"Silence!" The King ordered glaring at the panda for the interruption.

"I will get back to that in a moment. First off, how do you find yourselves here today?" Reynard asked the mercenaries.

"How do you mean, sir?" They answered him.

"I mean, how did you come to be before us now? Certainly you did not wander around the districts asking for the chance to testify to what you did and didn't know." Reynard questioned.

"Oh… um… we were… captured by members of one of your district gangs. We were then questioned at length regarding what we had done, who had hired us, and where we had taken those we loaded onto the boats, that sort of thing." They answered.

"I see… you freely volunteered this information knowing how the mercenary code requires you never to speak of such things outside your specific group? Did you patiently wait around for weeks in case this need to testify arose?" Reynard queried.

"Um… no… you are correct, our code prevents us from revealing such details. But we were coerced, quite forcefully, to give up such details. We were also held against our will for over a week, and told what to say at court." The mercenaries responded.

"During this questioning, did those asking these questions, using extreme methods to make you talk, hint at what they wanted you to say? Did they perhaps let the name they were looking for slip?" Reynard questioned relentlessly pushing for the admission he needed.

The two looked at each other avoiding the intense gaze of the fox. The King looked sternly at them speaking, "Fear not your answer. This is our court, you should feel free to speak only truthfully without worry of any harm or retribution. For you two are now wards of the court, not your former keepers. In fact not speaking truthfully in this court is the most dangerous thing you could ever do."

The threat was left hanging and well received as the two mercenaries answered quickly, "Yes… yes King sir… we were told they wanted evidence regarding Reynard the Fox, and insinuated that our future health depended on our answers. It is possible the name in the rumors was not Reynard. But from our responses to landmarks it does seem reasonably certain we moved those we took to the islands and many ports in the Docks District."

Reynard then addressed the room, "It is interesting that we hear that those supposedly searching for the truth seem to be interested in only their version of what they want the truth to be regardless of the reality. We are then made to wonder how valid the statements are from those who were literally told what they should say, or their captors would threaten them with I am sure a long list of quite colorful results if the answers they wanted didn't match to their liking."

Then Reynard returned to the mercenaries, "Finally, you suggest those you removed from the district were taken to the northwestern section of Zootopia. But do you know where those taken ended up?"

The two mercenaries looked at each other uncertainly, "Umm… ended up exactly? How do you mean?"

"Do you know what happened to those removed?" Reynard asked quite pointedly.

The mercenaries looked uncertain and answered, "Do you mean do we know if they were killed… or moved… or..."

"The second." Reynard said with a grin, "Could those you moved to this area have been instantly loaded in vehicles and moved elsewhere?"

"I… I suppose so..." The two admitted.

Reynard nodded and looked around the room giving Chaunticleer a wink. For the fox knew something that no one else in the room did. He knew these two were only hired as members of the assault team for the week, and were not part of the crew involved in housing, questioning and dealing with the thousands of those taken. Those particular mercenaries were all well accounted for currently doing other jobs for the fox conveniently far down south dealing with his shipping interests.

"So now we finally hear the truth. From this line of questioning we have learned many truths. But not about what these two mercenaries saw. We instead learn about a group of supposed investigators who seek to know the truth of the matter, yet who have instead orchestrated their own truth. The truth they want all the court to think is real. Yet I believe the truth lies somewhere else. I believe these supposed investigators have manufactured the facts from the ether to tell their story, and have put it in these poor mercenaries ears and mouths. That they instead were involved in a plot to discredit me, and quite possibly moved these mammals themselves to an unused portion of my district where they showed those taken to convince them there were located in the Docks District, when in fact they were immediately moved in secret to their real destination. They tortured and implanted the words to say in these two, threatening them with death if they did not go along with the plan. In summary, this exposes a plot to blame me for something done by Chaunticleer and his team of supposed investigators. But I daresay they are more conspirators, liars and saboteurs than truth seekers." Reynard exclaimed in an angry dark foreboding voice.

The room erupted in murmurs and gasps once Reynard finished. Chaunticleer was speechless for the first time in his adult life as he sat with eyes wide in shock and gasping open mouthed. His gallery of accusers began to shout angry denials until the King silenced the crowd and asked Reynard to conclude his cross-examination.

Reynard then looked at the two mercenaries with an angry glare few have seen and lived to tell the tale.

"The truth shall set you free brothers, for fear not what Chaunticleer and his conspirators have threatened you with, and answer me truthfully. Let's explore the possibilities. Could your testimony here today have been coerced by this here lot?" Reynard motioned to Chaunticleer and the group of accusers keeping his deadly eyes staring at the mercenaries.

The mercenaries looked frightened at Reynard adjusting the collars on their shirts in a failed attempt to reduce their stress and the feeling the world was closing in on them, "Um… yes I suppose so."

Reynard immediately continued his attacks, "So the place you claim to have taken these mammals you supposedly rescued or captured could have only been a temporary location, and they could have been moved quickly elsewhere to places unknown?"

The mercenaries nodded their heads mimicking the slight movement of Reynard's head while holding his glare and then uttered, "Yes… that is possible."

"And finally the question at hand. Since you have admitted that you are unsure on whose behalf you were working and were coerced through threats both physical and mental as well as through subconscious suggestion, is it quite possible that you have been unknowingly working on behalf of Chaunticleer and this mob of conspirators to deceive this court and falsely accuse me?" Reynard gave them a hard gaze that said they had best answer truthfully or perish right there on the spot.

The two mercenaries then gave the answer Reynard had cleverly maneuvered them to, and uttered the words softly, "Yes."

"Speak up so everyone can hear. Speak plainly!" The fox insisted.

"YES!" The two shouted.

And the court erupted.

Chaunticleer still looked quite stunned and aphonic moving his mouth, but with no words heard. For the panda had never expected that Reynard would turn the accusations against them so. The group of accusators uttered shouts of "Lies" and "We are innocent" only adding to their guilt in the eyes of much of the court.

Finally the King had to quiet the room down and asked Reynard, "Are you done with these two?"

The fox nodded and thanked the two mercenaries for their honesty.

It was now time for Chaunticleer to question Reynard directly regarding the crimes for which he was accused. Because this was an underworld court involving the accusation of prominent leaders, those accused were allowed more latitude in their answers, and did not necessarily have to strictly stick to the questions asked. However if they got a bit too off-track, the King would reign them in and move them back to the topic at hand.

The panda was a bit shaken, but he had finally recovered and had evidence he believed was strong even if his witnesses had been complete failures.

Reynard stood calm and confident glaring at the panda defiantly daring him to do his best.

Chaunticleer, always the showmammal, strutted around the dais in front of the King and Queen and then suddenly turned pointing directly at Reynard and asking loudly, "Reynard the Fox also known as Red Death, did you personally kill Jax the Polar Bear and Fredo the Urial?"

Reynard looked at the panda with a placid expression and announced loudly and confidently, "Of course!"

Chaunticleer's jaw dropped and he stared at the fox in complete shock.

The entire courtroom then exploded as if all the charges Reynard had used on the House of Horrors had been detonated around it at once.

"Order!" Shouted the King unsuccessfully, "Quiet down immediately!"

Even the Queen was looking at the fox in shock wondering what he was thinking as it seemed he was asking for his own death.

The King then stared at the fox and asked, "Reynard, you admit to the murder of these two prominent and beloved members of brotherhood?"

All eyes turned to the fox in anticipation of his answer. As such an admission of guilt had never been so easily made before.

"I admit to the murder of Jax and Fredo. But I question their prominence and their beloved nature. Beloved by who? Maybe by their family, their boss, or those in their employee they rewarded with ill-gotten gains through their victimization of innocents. But I daresay the vast majority of those they touched do not see them as such. In fact they see them as quite the opposite truth be told. For I say they were executed for just cause in rightful and ritual combat to the death. They were given strict equal chance against me as prescribed by the rules of the underworld and admitted their crimes before numerous witnesses." Reynard declared confidently with no hesitancy.

"How… how could you say their deaths were just?" A shocked Chaunticleer stuttered.

Reynard glared at the panda, "You know very well why I claim their deaths just, for you and your associates supported and condoned their crimes. For Jax and Fredo were two of the largest slavers and victimizers of children in the entire underworld."

Again the room erupted, and everyone spoke to each other asking if that was true and who knew this.

The panda then glared at the fox asking, "What proof of these accusations do you have?"

The fox then confidently declared, "The truth of their guilt in this matter is beyond reproach. I can even provide you their personal confessions, the statements by the hundreds of children and other innocents they abused, their employees, their clients, detailed documentation from their operations, and numerous other sources. I have all this if necessary, but I need not present all this as there are numerous council members and prominent members of court, as well as the bosses of their districts, who know the truth of this. I could spend hours bringing them all up here and questioning them under oath, but I am hoping they can just admit to what they know in private so as not to inconvenience you my lord King and this goodly court."

The King then looked angrily to his councilors and the bosses of their districts and saw many guilty faces. Several of his prominent advisers then approached him and whispered in his ear for several minutes. The Queen absently listened and got quite an angry scowl on her beautiful face. After they moved away from the King and returned to their former positions, the King had a bit of a shaken visage as he considered their words.

The lion finally looked to Reynard and the court, "It appears certain facts regarding this case have been kept from my ears whether intentional or not, and is of grave concern. But I will deal with these issues later. For now let me declare before all that Jax the Polar Bear and Fredo the Urial were both engaging in numerous illegal and strongly disapproved activities regarding the abuse, slavery, kidnapping, selling, and violation of children and innocents."

With those words, the room was filled with every voice murmuring disbelief, shock and admissions of truth or denial.

A shaken Chaunticleer recovered much to his credit, and pounced on several admissions by the fox, "Be that as it may, what gave you the right to challenge and execute them? They are not in your district. Also how did you come by all these confessions, witnesses and evidence if you were not the one responsible for carrying out these illegal operations to remove these bosses, employees, victims, witnesses and evidence?"

Reynard may have exposed the not so noble nature of these two prominent operation leaders, but he was surely going to be unable answer these questions and would hang himself with his answers. Chaunticleer gave the fox a sly grin and pointed an unseen paw at Reynard as if to say, "Gotcha Fox!"

The Queen looked very worried at that moment. She had grimaced seeing the panda's smug subtle gesture, and then turned to the fox, her ally in her struggle to help innocents in her kingdom many times against her husband and his council, but she now seemed distressed and very concerned that even the great fox could not avoid this figurative and quite possibly literal noose.

But as was his nature, the fox was unpredictable and calmly answered the seemingly impossible questions without showing his guilt, "Why you and your conspirators know very well dear Chaunticleer. I suppose it is possible you were not informed of the plot that was afoot in your group. But I say to you, all which you have spoken of was found in my district as if a gift from the gods. Apparently the children, victims of these abusers and violators, were delivered into my paws as an anonymous gift. With them were those responsible for their plight and suffering, piles of evidence of their crimes, and everything I could need to justly accuse and prosecute them. Whoever delivered them knew my weakness, and well knew I could not ignore the cries of innocents. This could have been anyone as my actions and declarations at court have been quite obvious regarding this. They also knew my outrage at such abuses would be fierce and deadly of purpose. Whoever left these gifts was certain that I could not ignore such evil. They read me like a book. I am the victim here as they used my nature against me. My desire to punish the crimes was too great, and I had to see it done. But I declare to you all, the leaders like Jax and Fredo received proper treatment as was their due for their position. All proper procedures were followed, and they were allowed a rightful defense, as well as full honors of ritual combat. Finally as befitting their position, both bodies were delivered to their immediate relatives so they could be buried and grieved as is proper for their position. Every law of the kingdom was followed regarding this matter to the best of my ability."

Chaunticleer stood looking at the fox like he had just seen a ghost. How had the fox slipped from his grasp? How had he maneuvered around every careful trap? How had every argument he presented fallen apart as if it was an untreated thousand year old piece of paper?

But the panda was not done. Sure most of his strongest stuff was all in tatters and strewn around the court as if refuse. But there were still holes in the story that could be exploited.

"So you are saying you have no idea where these victims, supposed guilty abusers and evidence came from?" The panda shrewdly asked.

Reynard had to be careful with his answers to this line of questioning as he did not wish to directly lie in open court if at all possible responding, "I speak plainly when I say my associates took me and showed me all that was delivered into the district, and it was the first I had seen of it before. I had heard rumors of such abuses of course as I always keep my ear to the ground regarding such matters. And I had warned and complained of such rumors numerous times at court, but my words seemed to always fall on deaf ears. But not until I saw everything before me did I know for certain the guilt of those placed into my paws."

No one seemed to notice the extremely careful wording and language the clever fox used. For nothing he spoke was a direct lie. He just crafted his words to demonstrate his supposed innocence.

"But… but what gave you the right to execute those you claim were guilty? You are not their district boss. They do not report to you. And what of the torture you inflicted on poor Jax. No one, no matter their crimes deserves such treatment." The panda questioned the fox in a desperate attempt to find something to stick, some mistake the fox could make.

But if the panda was expecting these things, he was sorely disappointed, as the fox calmly responded, "I was given the rights over those in my district just as these mammals found themselves."

Then suddenly the fox became angry and his eyes terrifying, "I will tell you by what right I had to judge them. By the right of the underworld, by our good King here and the entire court before you. I was given the right of ultimate dominion over all in my district. I was given the right of acting as the sword of righteousness to cut down those who would harm my children and bring pain and sorrow to those good and decent citizens in my care. The guilty received a just reward for their unjust actions. I am the ultimate word in my domain. Those who come there know and accept this. I treat the guilty and innocent as they deserve. I am a tireless champion of honor and justice. Those who wish to live in peace without fear of being murdered on the street, violated or sexually abused are welcome in my walls. But those who violate these laws better beware my vengeance for it is fierce and deadly of purpose. No one, no matter their station has the right to violate my citizens who I love as my own family."

All in the court looked to the fox with awe and wonder as he spoke as if a god of justice and vengeance was before them. Even the King himself seemed quite impressed with the fire and passion of the fox.

Reynard's expression then just as quickly changed to one of calm and confidence as he answered the last question of the panda, "As to your statement about torturing Jax. You are correct that no one no matter their crimes deserves such treatment. But the wounds Jax received were such because I was having to fight him with mere throwing knives. Unfortunately the blades are short and his hide quite thick. I would have wished to end the fight much sooner, but given the weapons at hand I did the best I possibly could."

There was a great deal of muttering as to this answer. Most of the voices were in disbelief.

Even Chaunticleer seemed incredulous, "You… you mean to tell me that you defeated Jax, the biggest, toughest polar bear known, using mere throwing knives? Do you think me mad? They would barely prick his flesh. It would have taken forever. It would have taken hundreds of..." The panda then realized what he was saying and how he was describing the remains of the bear as he had lain before the court just days earlier.

"Exactly," Reynard nodded, "It took quite a long time unfortunately. I wished it had not been so as I did not wish the bear to suffer no matter his guilt. I have a complete video of the entire combat I can present to the court for inspection to confirm my story."

"But…" Chaunticleer stammered, "Why would you choose such a weapon against him?"

Reynard responded to the room, "For honor. I had chosen that method of combat for all those I fought. How fair would it be for me to change each weapon to advantage me so? I may be a thief and a scoundrel and proud of it, but I respected our traditions of ritual combat. It may have been within my right to choose the weapons for such an execution, but I did not believe it honorable to do so."

Chaunticleer looked downcast as the fox's answer to this last accusation painted the fox in a brilliant light and ripped apart all he himself had so carefully built.

The King then looked at the fox with newfound respect, something he had never expected to find in such a notorious creature.

He asked the panda if he had anything further to ask, and the dejected Chaunticleer shook his head not wishing to speak at the moment.

The King then declared, "I believe the matter is finished. I would ask Chaunticleer and Reynard for summations, but I do not trust they are necessary as it appears all that was needed to be said was expressed quite thoroughly. I will then go and deliberate with the judgment panel, however I ask everyone to remain where they are as I feel this can be settled quite quickly."

With that those judging the trial, and the King and Queen, retired to a private chamber room attached to the main hall to speak on the matters they had heard.

While they were gone, Reynard's cousin Grimbeert stepped up beside the fox and put his paw on his shoulder reverently speaking softly in his ear, "Cousin, truly the most masterful defense I have ever heard or seen. You have even convinced myself of your complete innocence to all charges and crimes. Given the makeup of the panel, the mood of the King, and your defense, I can't imagine the deliberation will be long,"

The badger's words were prophetic as the King and the panel returned forthwith as if cued to his very words and moved back into their former positions.

Many at the court were extremely surprised, as they had never heard of such a short deliberation, and especially not for such a high profile case.

The room then became hushed and all attention was placed on the King, for he was the final arbiter of the court. He looked around and then spoke directly and firmly to Reynard, "Reynard the Fox, also known as Red Death, district boss of the Docks District, you have been charged with numerous serious crimes this day. You have acquitted yourself well answering each clearly and without hesitation. The accusers and complainants did an admirable job bringing their charges as each one was not frivolous, but serious in nature all. However your defense was far stronger and ultimately carried the day. All charges against you are rejected and dismissed."

There were many shouts and cheers from Reynard's allies and many newfound friends who had gained a great deal of respect and admiration for the fox that day. Grimbeert appeared overjoyed clapping his cousin on the back and laughing warmly grinning from ear to ear. The Queen could be seen trying to contain her joy and appear regal and unmoved, but was having quite a hard time as a grin and smile escaped her several times.

Everyone seemed overjoyed except Chaunticleer and all of Reynard's accusers, and finally strangely enough Reynard himself. For the fox was joyous on the inside. But he had a bad feeling that he had not escaped the noose unscathed as he sensed a large "BUT" coming from the King based on his observed countenance.

And after a few minutes once things had settled down, the fox's always alert instincts were proven correct as the King prepared to give his final statement.

Everyone seemed to recognize important words were about to be spoken, and they all settled down giving rapt attention to the lion who spoke thusly, "Reynard the Fox, while you have been found innocent, it does not mean that we on the panel all believe your conjecture that other forces were responsible for the delivery of the guilty, innocent and evidence to your district for judgment. We believe that most likely you were involved in some way, just that the evidence against you was not strong enough to prove this. Also, while your actions against the guilty may have technically been just and within our laws, it is felt that you have attempted to act against the spirit of the law regarding peace and prohibition of interference in other districts. Your cause may have been righteous and virtuous, but such actions set a dangerous precedent which could be used for much worse purpose. I can't allow any boss to act thinking that they can technically stay within the law, yet act against the core of the reasons it exists in the first place. The law was put in place in order to make sure peace is kept among the entire kingdom. For example, if any of your supposed forces had killed anyone, especially a member of another gang, it could have erupted into a war that could have involved the entire kingdom, and cost everyone everything. Because of this, no matter the honorable cause, I have decided to re-clarify the law, and place many additional restrictions in place to avoid any skirting of the law in the future."

The King took a deep breath and proclaimed, "Forthwith the law regarding non-interference between districts now includes the follow caveats: No one may hire any third parties to act on their behalf regarding another district. No boss may judge the guilt of those within their district who is an employee or has association with another district even if they are present in that bosses territory or outside the entire kingdom, without getting proper authorization and approval from that individual's boss. Disputes regarding all matters such as these between districts or about proper authorization, will be brought before the court of arbitration for judgment. No actions of any kind shall be made against another district without proper authorization, or knowledge and approval of the other district. No member of another district be they child or adult may be taken and removed to another district without their proper consent, unless approved by the boss of the other district. If it is felt any action is taken which seems to intend to circumvent these laws, and the spirit of non-interference, those guilty will be found in breach of the law. Thus I have spoken. I hope my message is clear from this moment forward."

After the King made his final statement, Reynard looked down at the floor and muttered one word to himself.

"CRAP."

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Final Author Notes:

Those recognizing the name Tybalt from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, note that Shakespeare named him for the cat from the Reynard legend. It is why Mercutio repeatedly calls Tybalt "Prince of Cats" and a ratter. Shakespeare frequently paid reference to ancient literary legends like Reynard's this way.

The name has many forms: Tybalt, Tibert, Tybert, etc.

This is the same for most all the names in the legend because it was translated and common in so many different languages and countries in Europe.

In the original legend, Reynard uses Tybalt's desire to eat lots of big fat mice to trick him into falling into a trap entering a hole and getting caught and attacked by a priest and villagers. The priest (Martinet) comes out naked thinking he has caught the fox (Reynard) who has been stealing his chickens only to find Tybalt is caught and begins beating the crap out of him with his staff and then strikes him with his staff knocking out his eye and meaning to smash his skull in, but Tybalt leaps forward biting the priest's right testicle off. Now there is a funny bit after this where the priest's wife is lamenting this happening for quite awhile and Reynard is nearby chuckling telling her not to worry as he still has one to keep her happy in bed. Thus Reynard mocked her quite a lot. There was no way to adapt this part unfortunately.

Nearly all Reynard's ruses in the original were very simplistic usually involving the other animals desire for particular kinds of foods they liked/were hungry for. For example in the case of Bruun (aka Bruin) Reynard convinces him he knows where he can get all the honey he could want. The bear sticks his head and paws in a hole in a tree and gets stuck. All the villagers come out and wail on him mercilessly, and to escape he has to pull himself free leaving his scalp and ears, claws and paw pads stuck in the tree. Bruun is able to escape in the water when a woman, Dame Julocke, gets trapped in the river and everyone goes to rescue her leaving him alone.

Reynard then proceeds to trick and fool crows, chickens, the wolf Isengrim, and many others with their desire for their favorite foods usually.

One of the difficulties I had was trying to adapt these simplistic ruses to my modern Zootopian story. Nearly all the original Reynard's ruses were far too simplistic, did not apply in my Reynard's world, and could nearly all be seen coming a mile away. So my Reynard had to be incredibly sneaky/clever using each of his foes greatest desires and finding a way to manipulate them into very complex traps he setup while at the same time staying close to the original events. Quite a monumental task. If you go back and reread how subtlety he leads them the whole way to where he wants to get them, it is quite masterful and I truly appreciate his genius. For example in Reynard's early line when first meets Tybalt he says ""Let's spend the evening together my old friend, I'll entertain you so well you will remember it for decades to come." What he is referring to is subconsciously telling Tybalt that his plans that night will essentially change the cat's world. Tybalt thinks he means that memorable event will be consummating his love for the Queen. But Reynard actually means he will suffer a fate so fierce he will never forget it. Notice Reynard does not lie to him with this statement, but merely points Tybalt to interpret his statement in his own manner thinking of his greatest desire instead. Reynard does the same thing with Bruun as well.

You will also note I listed the scientific names of the species after some characters. For example I made Tybalt a wildcat (Felix silvestris lybica) instead of a plain cat like he is in the legend because in Zootopia humans were not supposed to have existed in their world so any animal that was a result of human intervention/domestication should not exist. Thus I used the ancient original ancestor of the domesticated cat which through human selective breeding became our common house cat. Look them up, as they look amazingly similar to the common cat. But these would have existed without humans so they made sense for Zootopia. Again I did the same with Courtnoys the Dog making him an African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) aka a painted hunting dog, which would exist without the interference of humanity.

In the original there is some mention of Tybalt being in love with the queen, but this is more common in other versions of the Reynard legend than the text I was using. But in nearly every adaptation I had seen, Tybalt is seen to be in love with the Queen who seems mostly amused by him rather than reciprocating his affections while the King seems to ignore it is even happening. So I used this common aspect of the legend as a means to exploit the cat.

I couldn't have Tybalt running around trying to eat poor innocent mice and rat Zootopia citizens as they are sentient creatures obviously.

Also one difficulty in the original is that it makes heavy use of references to the Catholic church, God, priests, religious rituals, penance, trips to Rome, The Pope, cardinals, pilgrimages, confessions, corruption of the clergy, etc. I tried to keep a little of this in the adaptation, but so much of the other had to modified heavily as it made no sense in this story. For example in mine Reynard confesses to Grimbeert walking by foot to court together. But in the original, Grimbeert has him do some long list of penances involving sandals, a hair shirt, beating himself, saying ritual prayers, etc. In mine I have Grimbeert tell Reynard all that penance crap is silly nonsense, and he should focus on doing good in the world for others instead if we truly wishes to repent. It is my own standpoint on the matter and seems to make a lot more sense to me personally.

A final modification I had to make to the original involved Reynard's rape/violation of Arswind the Wolf, Isengrim's wife. In the original, Reynard pisses in the eyes of Isengrim's/Arswind's children blinding them and then raping Arswind. But this made absolutely no sense for my Reynard as he would never do either. In fact the thought of doing either would sicken him terribly. I could never see my Reynard doing something like that to innocent children, or cheating like that on his true love Aza. So instead I used Arswind's lust/desire for Reynard since well before she was married to Isengrim, which is straight from the original legend, to instead imagine her fantasizing about these things as being the truth. In the original legend and other versions I have seen, it is thought Arswind actually wanted Reynard to rape her at various times and the truth of this is usually left uncertain. I debated on this, but decided it would be out of character for Reynard ever to do this so just used the obsession of Arswind with Reynard to explain it.

Oh we will find out why Isengrim is not satisfying his wife Arswind in upcoming chapters, and why she would be instead fantasizing about Reynard.

Anyway I suppose the reason for the hiatus in writing the work was because of how difficult I knew trying to adapt this chapter would be. It was like something I had been dreading because of the extreme challenges inherent in doing so. But once I finally got around to saying fuck it, and doing it, it turned out to be one of my proudest and most fulfilling accomplishments. I suppose that is a lesson I need to take with me in life. To not become hung up on the difficulty of certain things, and instead to embrace those as true challenges of your ability.