"After Nick Wilde saw X for what he had become, he staged a tactical retreat with his unit and safely made it back with no casualties. But that is only because X had no intensions of killing any of them… Just yet." The shattered Tiger lord took a deep breath as he glanced up at Judy and saw her piercing eyesight, quickly he found himself staring at the table, trying to gain some solace other than this powerful Bunny's judging eyes. "Little did Nick know, or at least we assumed he didn't know… He was being followed back to their Headquarters where X then attacked directly. An operation that had taken fifteen years to build up was then destroyed within an afternoon as X's forces came crashing in on Laurence's unsuspecting army. Not wanting to face the facts that not only had Nick lost his brother, but he had also caused the fall of his employer who he had looked up to his whole life; Nick ran and started life anew."

"Where has X taken Nicholas?"

Judy's voice was cold and factually, a little louder than a whisper in the eerily silent interrogation room as she sat on the table, staring at the Tiger who simply could not hold eye contact after finishing his retelling of Nick and X's history.

"There… There was a farm that Nick and X had been given by Laurence for their services and as a show of appreciation, before they were captured by the enemies. After everything that happened; Nick deserting his service and X being the leader of the opposing army, the farm was no one's. Until word reached X that Laurence was seeking to expand operations once more, but instead of cloning hybrid animals, he was looking to improve upon them by making them super animals. And suddenly X called a truce with Laurence, saying that all hostilities between their forces would stop and X would even aid Laurence where possible. Provided that he got the farm Laurence had promised him and that they found Nick and got him in on this endeavour."

The tiger's voice had become a little course and Judy showed him the courtesy of requesting a glass of water. A bear knocked on the door and Judy took the glass of cold refreshment from him, with thanks. She placed the glass on the table in front of the tiger and he stared at it eagerly, the glass beginning to mist as its coldness met the humid air of the small room.

"Tell me what I need to hear and you can have the drink." Judy spoke as she got comfortable again; cross-legged on the table top, sitting opposite the tiger.

"Roughly two years ago they found Nick, and told him that provided he did what they asked, he would be given amnesty from all he had done to Laurence's operations. But looking back in retrospect, I can see that X never intended to." Suddenly the tiger saw the chance to glare up at her defiantly and smirked at the humour of Nick's foolishness.

Judy's eyebrows raised as her eyes remained narrow, she pouted her lips so much as to finish off her look that just screamed; 'Really?' She took hold of the glass of water and had a deep sip, making sure to gulp loudly and let out a loud sigh as she finished a good third of the contents before placing it back down. "I'd like to be clear when I state that this glass is not getting a refill, so if I were you, I'd drop the sass and continue."

The tiger looked at her with total disgust, as though her mouth had diseased the glass that he would have to drink from. He almost spat his words out as he continued; his eyes deadlocked with hers now. "At the same time, roughly two years ago… They had found out that Mayor Lionheart, teamed up with his deputy; Bellweather had been working on a drug to enhance animal abilities. However the two of them had a fall out and that's what led to the missing mammals incident. Nick's job was to get as close as possible to their operations and attain as much of their research as he could… And that's where you come in, Ms Hopps."

Judy's ears flicked at the mentioning of her name and she leaned forward listening with deeper intent. Her eyes locked deep into those of the now defiant tiger.

"What do you mean?" She asked with genuine concern.

The tiger grinned in response before simply stating. "Tax evasion."

Judy's ears dropped behind her head and suddenly it all made sense.

"You don't honestly believe that someone like Nick would walk into such an easy slip up as that. You were both his bait and his way into the case Judy. He's been using you from the beginning."

The bunny suddenly felt as small and insecure as she had ever felt her entire life, as her mind and body began to retreat to that dark place instilled by X. When suddenly; like a candle illuminating through the dark, Judy remembered the time Nick cared for her while she was hurt. After the case. After they had long since left all ties to the case. He stayed for her, he knowingly gave up his safety and eventual freedom to be with her. Nick was smart, he knew a day would come where his past would catch up to him and he was desperately spending as much time as he possibly could with Judy. He betrayed his superiors and broke every standard he had ever set himself because he loved her.

The bunny's eyelashes fluttered as she lowered her head, and for the first time since leaving Nick's house; she felt a warm smile spread across her face.

This whole time she had been told that Nick was only looking out for himself, believed that to be true herself. When Nick had always been looking out for others, anything he had done was in the hopes of helping those he loved.

And now… He needed her help in return.

Judy's eyes grew narrow as her head shot up. The tiger before her had taken to rambling on about Nick's betrayal and she had lost herself in this new revelation. Shooting up on to her feet and interrupted him by shouting plain and clearly; "Where is the farm?"

The tiger stared at her with a blank and startled expression.

"Where!" Judy shouted again, now grabbing the tiger at the collar of his shirt.

"Are you mad?" He shouted back as he pulled himself back against her grip. "X will have my head!"

"X is the least of your problems." Judy growled as she gripped tighter and pulled the tiger in close so her eyes were a hair's distance from his. The outer edges of her vision had started to pulse a dark red, and she could feel her new found instincts starting to kick in. But she fought it and focused on what she needed, Information.

"Okay, okay!" The tiger pleaded before continuing through several stutters; "Beyond the rainforest district, outside of Zootopia. About eighty miles in that direction is a 5 acre farm. There is where you'll find him. It won't show on any maps or records, but trust me… It's there.

The door opened and re-latched shut with force, Judy's bunny eyes quickly readjusted to the bright lighting of this room and she now found Mr Big, as always, seated in his perfectly scaled leather chair, which rested on a crud desk that was set up as so to peer through a one way mirror into the interrogation room she had just left. Naturally there were two very large and intimidating polar bears behind him, ever watching and protecting their boss.

"So now you know the truth about Nick…" Mr Big began, just to be interrupted by Judy.

"Now I know what he did to keep me and everyone else he cares about safe!" She snapped back at the powerful mob boss before her, glaring at him from over her shoulder with an accusing finger pointed out at him.

The bears kept their pan expressions but Judy could clearly hear low growls coming from deep within them and immediately realised the immense disrespect she had just shown her host, but she held her ground. For after all the lies and misinterpretations she had been fed, everything was now looking crystal clear and she would have no more of people feeding her rubbish.

Instead of taking offense to the disrespectful blow sent out by the bunny, Mr Big's aged face creased into a smile and his bushy brows lifted lightly as he let out a low chuckle. "There is the Officer bunny I knew from when we first met!" He stated while gesturing loosely in her direction. "Try not to wear that uncertainty over yourself again darling, it's really not your colour." Mr Big then snapped his fingers to the bear that stood on his right and pointed at Judy, "Tell me my dear, what do you need to wrap up this whole mess for once and for all, and I will give it to you."

The bunny nodded with gratitude towards Mr Big, before looking up at the bear with a furrowed brow of certainty, "A plane, guns and ammo, my gear and bolt cutters."

Reaching behind herself and pulling the zip up of her blue uniform, Judy felt as though she were putting on a second skin that felt more natural than her own flesh. The last item she pulled on was her light, day-to-day, bullet proof vest. She popped the collar as she looked at herself in the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief. She had felt as though she were living in someone else's body these past few days and it most definitely felt good to be back. She slotted a pistol with live ammunition where her taser usually lay holstered, and clipped in as many spare ammo clips as her utility belt would permit. She wondered how Mr Big's men had even gotten near her home, let alone inside to retrieve her uniform, but was grateful none the less for their aid.

Judy stepped in front of a full length mirror; the room she was in was identical to that of Sue's and the Chief's. She would make a point of seeing them before she left. And as she admired the sheer 'rightness' of her appearance now; clean and neat and civil, she caught sight of her police badge. Running a finger over her metal certification as an officer of Zootopia, Judy then gave it a good squeeze with her small hand, before unclipping it and throwing it into a duffel bag with the rest of her spare belongings. She held the zip to the bag, ready to close it when the badge caught her eye again. She took a deep breath and whispered to herself; "As an officer of Zootopia, it is my duty to serve and protect all of its residents for the greater good. And now one of its best citizens lies in the wake of absolute danger. I do not deserve this badge until that citizen…" Judy choked and felt her eyes begin to water, "Until Nick, my Nick, is returned safely to his home." And with that she zipped up the bag and dropped it on the floor, giving it a swift kick under the bed.

Walking back to the mirror she picked up the large and heavy bolt cutters that lay on the bed, looking at herself with a smile, Judy quickly groaned and was overcome with a tired and fed up expression as her left ear came round front and bobbed in front of her face. The heavy metal ring taunted her as much now, as it did when she was first given it. "Right." She stated loudly as she positioned the heavy cutters so they looped into the ring. "It's time… for you…" She continued as she began to exhort her strength and apply as much strength as she could, "To go!" Judy shouted out loud as it took all of her natural power and a sudden rise of her hidden power to crack the ring. The sound of heavy metal striking the wooden floor and feeling her ear lift up as though it were a feather blown lightly in the wind; Judy looked up at herself and shock turned to Joy as she saw both her ears standing high and proud.

It took both hands to throw the heavy cutters back onto the bed as they landed with a thud, and without a second thought about the ring that now lay on the floor, Judy walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. Leaving all her doubts, fears, hate and loss behind.

Judy walked on, with only the trust she held in her heart.

Sharp Sue's ears flicked at the sound of a small being walking into the room. Sue had her eyes shut tight as she was still blinded from the assault and would probably not be able to see for a couple more days still. Her breathing was deep and uneasy as she sat rigid on the right side of Chief Bogo's bed. She felt him reach out and gently grasp one of her tightly clenched fists that rested in her lap. "It's only Hopps." His deep voice reassured her although heavy strain and a long way to recovery were evident in his tone.

Judy felt the worlds weight lifted off of her shoulders to see the chief alive, recovering and for the first time in a while; conscious. "Chief!" She exclaimed as she hurried to the side of the bed and stood before the seated lioness and the resting chief. Immediately noticing Sue's shut eyes, Judy asked, "Trouble on your end too?"

The lioness' eye brows raised while her eyes remained shut and her face went from a look of concern to one of animated reflection as she brought a hand to her neck and rubbed it lightly. "There was an attack, but between the chief and myself; we had it handled. And don't worry about me, the Doc here says I should start regaining sight within a couple of days."

Judy sighed out a chuckle as she looked up at Sue and then directly at the chief who couldn't help grinning himself. "You can always count on our chief to break his comatose state for a good fight."

The bunny's tone suddenly shifted as realised just how much the chief had missed out on. "Chief…" She started, "There are some things…"

Bogo cut her off, "Susan…" He corrected himself "Officer Clawton has filled me in on everything, once she regains her eyesight we will make a public appearance and get 'caught' deliberately. By then I should be well enough to travel at the very least. If this whole thing has gone down as Lionheart has intended, then he has won this battle, tarnished our good names and taken a lot of weight we have in terms of public trust. But the force knows our loyalty to the city and will back us up in regaining that trust." He took a deep breath before shifting and repositioning himself in the bed so he sat up a little better. Judy could not help but take note of how the movement caused Sue to clutch his hand that held her own.

"Like I said Hopps, he won the battle, but there is still a whole war ahead. While we deal with the collateral here, you focus on getting Wilde back and if possible, gaining as much information on the involvement of our Mayor in all of this. Can you do that for me?"

Standing in her uniform; Judy could not think of a better opportunity to snap her posture rigid, slam her feet together and give the chief a strong salute, raising her right arm fast to her head. Her eyes focused and brows slightly furrowed. "I've yet to let you down chief, I don't intend on starting now."

It was late night the following day that Judy saw the lights of the farm over a rise in the land. She had been walking for almost an hour in the pitch black night after a slow two hour drive in the back of a van. She opted to walk the last stretch so to avoid possible detection, although she was almost certain that all hell would break lose in any case.

She held her hand in front of her face. It was so dark that the only thing she could see was it's silhouette cast against the distant lights of the ranch she was about to infiltrate. Returning her hand to her side; Judy took one last look at the ranch before saying to herself. "Nick is in there. Somewhere…"

As she began strafing down the opposite end of the incline she had just climbed she finished her thought. "I trust you Nick, now I need you to trust me."

This was one of the few moments in Judy's career that she was glad for her small stature. She had snuck by three building-exterior patrols with ease. Two pairs of which were predators and the third some very intimidating prey.

Judy knew that her best chance of getting Nick out without causing any mayhem would be to eliminate any chance of being seen, and that meant taking out those who may be constantly checking the many security cameras that the small bunny was taking strain to avoid at all costs.

Without a map and only natural intuition, Judy found herself moving away from the main buildings and skipping along through the dark towards a small set of cottages out of the way and off to the side of the farm. One look at the roughly six to seven small houses told Judy's gut all she needed. They were lined like a military camp. Circling around to the other side let Judy see the military grade jeeps parked out of sight to anyone like herself that might have come snooping about.

So locating the security force was easy. 'Now the hard part…' Judy thought to herself as she hid behind one of the jeeps. 'Disabling the cameras and not alerting the roughly fifty animals strong; militia, these cottages could cater for.

Timing was key, and Judy knew this. She folded her ears back behind her head as her brows furrowed into concentration. A light breeze brew through her fur on this midnight in peril. And Judy watched as two animals came back from a patrol, a cheetah and a wolf. The wold knocked on the door of one of the cottages and stated something, before he and his cheetah counterpart opened the door to another cottage and went inside. Judy had spent the last half hour studying this pattern and now knew the routine each pair of animals had to go through. Every ten minutes a pair of patrollers would return before signalling that another pair should go out. The new pair of animals would then spend 8 minutes patrolling around the cottages before they could see another pair returning and then walk off to start their route of the rest of the farm. So in just over seven minutes time, Judy would have a less than two minute window to deal with the camera security. And fortunately she had figured out which building they were in. They only building undisturbed by patrols.

The wait was agony as her body began to pump up for the approaching rush as she knew that if she messed this up, then the extraction would be over and have failed before it even began.

As she saw the latest two patrollers walk away, Judy almost jumped in the air as her body took off. She ran straight for the cottage where she knew the camera security were and pressed her back flat against the wall next to the entrance door. Her chest rising and falling as her breath was heavy; Judy looked around and saw a camera right next to her on the corner of the cottage. It was not looking at her, fortunately, but it soon would as she saw it swivel on a small mechanism that rotated the camera a hundred and eighty degrees at a considerably slow pace.

Judy felt luck was on her side as this particular one seemed to jolt and move at a very rickety pace, as though it had been broken and shoddily repaired. Once again our lucky bunny had stumbled right into opportunity.

Inside the camera room sat a male zebra and a female lion. The zebra sat up close to a desk in front of 40 small, wall mounted monitors and was rather meticulously working on building the perfect sandwich for a midnight snack, the lioness sat more relaxed with her feet kicked up on that same desk and was rambling on about a story from her straining days as she casually watched over the various monitors.

Suddenly her eyes caught sight of something. One of the cameras wasn't rotating but was jolting back and forth while stuck in one position. "Ugh!" She groaned as she pulled her legs from the table and stood from the desk. "Camera four is stuck again."

"Mhm" Was the only response she got out of the zebra has he took his first big bite out of his masterpiece.

"Oh, Please, don't get up. I'll check it myself." The lioness enthused sarcastically while rolling her eyes before unlocking the door and walking outside to check on the camera outside their hut. "I swear, if I have to put through another request for new equipment-" Her statement was cut short as she immediately caught sight of the belt that had been tied around the camera, holding it in place as it jolted in protest.

The lioness had no time to react as she felt the bite of metal being pressed into her lower back and instinctively she slowly raised her arms. As any trained combatant would do with a gun placed to their back.

"Get on your knees." The lioness heard a small voice whisper and she complied, fearing for her life. She got down one shaky knee after the other.

"And goodnight." The small voice whispered again, closer to the lioness' ear. And before the predator had time to work it out; the gun left her back and went straight for her temple. She saw stars for only a moment before her vision blacked out.

Judy had rendered her unconscious. But her time was running out.

The Zebra took a second satisfying bite out of his sandwich. "Wow, that looks great!"

"Mhm, you bet." Responded the striped animal, before stopping mid chew and raising his head to look at the bunny sitting where his partner should be. With a slight grunt of exertion the small rabbit leapt forward and punched the zebra on his left cheek, sending backwards in his wheeled office chair and alas, he dropped the sandwich. He looked down with silent regret before looking up finding the bunny running along the desk, jumping up once more and whacking him hard in the side of his head. The zebra was out cold.

The cameras were disabled. The two animals Judy had knocked out had been restrained and dumped in a corner of the room and were not likely to rouse for a couple of hours. The bunny reckoned she had about twenty seconds to get moving or lose her window of opportunity. Taking a good and hard look at a map on the wall that gave a decent layout of the farm. Judy knew where she needed to go. As the last few seconds rolled by in her head. Judy stepped outside, closed the door and locked it, before throwing the key in a nearby bush and making a run for the nearby cover of the jeeps. It wasn't a moment after she was concealed once more that she heard a pair of patrollers knocking on a door of one of the cottages to swap shifts.

She had just made it in time.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND ANY ERRORS SO I CAN FIX THEM ASAP.

A note from the author:

So, I know saying I'm sorry for this long of a delay means absolutely nothing, which I will learn to live with, but I am truly sorry. After this chapter there should be one more and then a possible epilogue before this tale has reached its end.

After that there is the possibility of a sequel, but I want to give this plot line a break for now and write something else related to our favorite crime fighting duo.

As always thank you all for your continued support, it is honestly the whole reason I came back to this, I simply could not leave you all hanging with an unfinished fable. I know the power that these FanFictions hold if they find you in a time of need and a time to get away from all the nonsense life throws at you. I've had times like that myself, and not that my story is doing that for anyone, but if I can walk away giving someone a single second of distraction from something that's upsetting them, or happily filling their free time. Then that's a win for me.

Last chapter is in progress. This I can assure you.

Peace and love,

Un4gottenSOUL