Nick tapped his fingers on the wheel as he approached the Bridgeway building, Judy had surely come upon the same revelation he had. 'If I drummed it up after that ordeal, Carrots probably figured it out walking in the door off the top of her head!'

He felt the light of the sun on his arm; even through the closed window and with the AC cranked, the incipient summer heat was making its presence known. His mind drifted to the bug-days of summer when he was a kid, in the 'lower bracket neighborhoods' as he had heard it called by people such as the Mayor. The sweltering days of high summer were exacerbated by the frequent easterlies that blew in off Sahara Square, a sensation not unlike a city-sized blow-drier.

Today the wind was blowing in from the west.

Today was going to be hot.

Nick would frequently prove himself the hero of his schoolfellows whenever he could palm a pipe wrench and crack a fire hydrant. They would frolic and dance in the spray, gloriously cool against the cooking heat of sun-bleached pavement and brick.

There would be kids out doing that today. Thousands, tens of thousands, and even more families in better-off parts of town would loose their children on water parks and pools and other such establishments.

A lot of water.

A lot of kids.

It would start off as a whole mess of isolated incidents as men, women, and children went completely insane, tearing each other and everyone around them to pieces. Sometimes solo, sometimes in groups, predators, prey, from the biggest elephant right down to the tiniest vole; everyone would get in on the fun. No one would suspect that it was the water, not at first, anyway, and the cases would just keep popping up, overwhelming any sort of law enforcement. Then it would hit the Rainforest District and all hell would break loose as a fifth of the city collectively lost its mind. Downtown, the Meadowlands, Nocturnal Town and Savannah Central would become bloodbaths as a surge of murderous lunatics poured out of the saturated district, killing everyone and everything that doesn't run or hide very well. Next would likely be Sahara Central, they could barricade the tunnels well enough, bomb the bridges, and rely on the Lion's Tail to keep the savages out; but the poison still surged through the water mains beneath their feet, the poisoned oases would spawn murderers within their fortress walls. By then, of course, someone would figure out that it was the water, but by then nine out of ten people would either have their throats torn out or would be the ones doing it.

Nick shuddered, he could not help but imagine the carnage, the confusion; how blood would run thick in the poisoned water.

There was some hope. Tundra Town was lightly populated enough to survive on food stores long enough to put something together, not to mention there was enough untainted water in the accumulated ice to last a million people a hundred years. All on top of all that, it had a climate that was lethal to most if precautions weren't taken, precautions that a slavering beast was not likely to take. If the right people, a certain shrew chief amongst them, reacted fast enough, there might be something left for the rest of the world to find.

Oh, yes. Today was going to be a scorcher.

Today was going to be Hell.

Nick was jolted out of his morbid fantasy by a blast of grating static; he had turned the radio on full blast in a futile effort to ward off anxiety, he didn't even know what song had been playing. He reached over and changed the channel, only to be greeted with more static. He switched out twice more before, more on impulse than consciously, he turned off the radio and depressed the button on his police scanner and was once again met with grating white noise.

"Hm," he muttered, pulling into the parking lot and next to Judy's empty car. "Red flag."

He stepped out of the cruiser and made his way towards the building, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the shattered door window. "Big red flag!"

Nick approached the door window, his nose curling at the stench of blood pouring out of the building. "Oh no…no, no, no…"

He peered in and sighed with relief when he saw that the body wasn't Judy. "Oh! Thank God! …Oh no…no, no, no Carrots you didn't!"

'Did she try to take those three on by herself?!' Nick paced back and forth in front of the building, his ears flat as his tail swished nervously. 'Why didn't she call for backup?! C'mon, Rabbit, you're smarter than this!'

Nick remembered the radio and how it abruptly cut out just as he approached Bridgeway, as though all AM/FM traffic was being overridden.

"If I was a gambling man…" He fished his phone out of his pocket, it displayed 'no service' in the upper left corner of the screen; he wasn't even getting so much as a Wi-Fi signal. "I'd be a lot richer…dammit!"

'Well, I'm going in after her, of course,' he thought to himself with finality, not even considering the possibility of running for help. 'Those three are in there getting ready to dump that crap into the water, it's do or die time!'

'Mostly likely die,' Slick Nick added, dismayed.

"Shut up," he muttered aloud. "Gotta get back-up here somehow…" Nick looked over at his cruiser, Car 52, and smirked. "First rule of living in the bad part of town: don't call for help because no one will care, but scream 'FIRE' and everyone comes running!"

A minute later Nick dived behind a concrete divider, a heavy duffel bag in his arms. Car 52 was flung into the air by a huge thudding explosion that echoed deafeningly through the surrounding cityscape. The wreck sailed through the air before crashing back down with a bone-jarring crunch; a writhing mass of orange flames enveloped the shattered shell, sending a huge plume of greasy black smoke crawling into the air.

"Sorry, old girl!" Nick said with a salute. "That should just about do it…eh, whatever, I'm a thorough guy."

He pulled two signal guns and a road flare out of the duffel bag and ran across the parking lot, firing the flares into the air and tossing the road flare into the recycling dumpster, setting it ablaze and adding to the smoke signal. Nick paused in front of the door, his ears rotating atop his head as he pulled out and put on a flak jacket, affixed a heavy stun baton to his belt and slipped his hands into a pair of sap-gloves. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth when his sensitive ears detected the distant-but-reassuring peal of sirens.

"Well, that's that," Nick said, checking the extra ammunition clips on his belt. "I hope you left some of them for me, Carrots! Otherwise I just did all this for nothing!"

'She's alright,' he thought to himself frantically as he ducked in through the broken window. 'She's alright. She can take care of herself. She's alright.'

Elim stood in front of the vending machine, counting his coins. "Three bucks for a Coke…and people call me a criminal!"

The machine groaned and belched and the bottle tumbled into the receptacle, Elim took it and set off down the hall, nervously passing by the room where Finn was 'entertaining' their guest. He quickened his pace, tensely anticipating some manner of bloodcurdling scream to echo through the halls as the ferret's sharp teeth sank into flesh. He sighed with relief when no such scream occurred, hurrying down the hall to the pump room.

Elim strode into the main room and tossed the bottle at Grigori, who plucked it from the air without even turning around. He examined the glass bottle, perplexed. "Glass bottle? Fancy."

"Either Zootopia's shifting from plastic bottles to cut down on waste, or that vending machine is older than I am!" Elim scoffed, sitting down on a creaky chair. "I'd accept either explanation, considering the state of this place."

"Whatever," Grigori said, hissing as he pressed the cold bottle against his sore side. "It does the job just fine."

"Did that bunny leave you a little sore, Gori?" said Elim.

"Ya." Grigori capped the bottle and began to drink. "Last time a bunny fought me, he did not do nearly so well."

"Savage survived you know," Elim snorted. "Turns out bunnies don't hit terminal velocity at three stories. Too light. Whoda thunk?"

"I still threw him through a plate glass window, not to mention all the walls and furniture I threw him at before that. Still, he got a few good kicks in, not bad for a little guy; but Hopps…she blows him out of the water. I like her, it's a shame she got tossed to Finn. That's a bad way to die."

"You saw how happy he was when we showed her all trussed up for him!" Elim smiled warmly and set his feet up. "Like a little kid on Christmas. Besides, this is the second time she got in our way. She needs to know that we don't appreciate her dedication. Besides, bitch cost me a Coke. Fuck her."

"You're not petty at all." Grigori smirked and took a pull from his Coke, when suddenly his ears shot up and he leapt to his feet. "Did you hear that?"

Elim looked around nervously. "Is Finn finally playing with the rabbit? I mean, I'm kinda glad I don't have to hear her screaming all the time, but the silence is somehow worse, you know?"

"Not that!" Grigori snapped. "There was a noise, like a big thud or something. It sounded like it came from outside."

"Outside," Elim repeated, unconvinced. "Outside is three hundred feet up through God knows how much concrete!"

"Then you can see why it has my back up, yeah?" said Grigori, walking over to the security console. "Can we get the cameras working on this thing?"

"No, the bug takes all the cameras down, the secondary system only deals with the inner locks and shit."

Grigori hissed and slammed his fist on the counter-top. "Can you, I don't know, un-bug the system?"

Elim drew back defensively. "I'm just using what Richie left us! This computer stuff was his shtick! If he was here, yeah, maybe, but I wouldn't even know where to start!"

"Well, what can we do?" Grigori said, gesturing at the console.

Elim stepped forward and pressed a big red button and a series of clunking sounds echoed throughout the complex. "There, I just locked off every door in the inner layer. All the elevators are shut down and the doors are locked. An army couldn't get to us now!"

Grigori sighed and nodded. "But we are trapped, now, yeah?"

"The maintenance elevator works on an analog system, its non-computerized," Elim explained. "Punch in the code and up it goes, and the only person who knows that besides us had a run-in with Finn. So, we're sitting pretty until Boss calls."

"Any idea as to when that will be?" Grigori said, pacing about the room. "All this waiting around is making me uncomfortable."

"Boss calls us, not the other way around." Elim shuddered. "They really didn't like it when we hit them up either time, I'm in no hurry to see if the third call's the charm!"

"Boss really gets to you, huh?" Grigori said, amazed; above all else Elim was something of an arrogant bastard, for him to respect anyone enough to fear them was equal parts impressive and terrifying.

Elim grimaced and shook his head. "If you ever talked to them, you'd know why. We're a bunch of stone cold bastards, true enough, but we're doing this for the money! A shit-load of money! What do they get out of this? What could anyone get out of this? So, yeah, they freak me the fuck out and I'm in no hurry to get on their bad side!"

Elim thought back to when they had first heard from Boss, 'destroy all of Zootopia' was their preliminary statement. He'd thought it was a joke at first and was about to get Richie to trace the call so he could get Finn and Grigori to peel the prankster's skin off. But something about it stuck in his teeth, the tone, the glibness, there was the remote possibility that they were serious. He called them back and gave them their five minutes and they outlined a frighteningly detailed and thought-out plot for them to execute. When asked to name a price Elim found himself at something of a loss, the most they'd made on a single job before then was three million each, and that was a theft with a middling body-count. This job was something else, something else entirely. When he named his price, thirty million each, Boss didn't even hesitate before agreeing and just like that a hit was placed on nearly a hundred million people. Elim shivered: damn right he was scared of the Boss.

Grigori and Elim both jumped when the satellite phone trilled, the sound was stark and metallic, echoing ominously off the concrete walls. Elim sighed and shook out his shoulders. "Game time."

He answered the phone. "Everything's in position, Boss. Just give the word!"

"You sound chipper, Elim!" Boss chirped, or what Elim figured was chirp through the distorter. "Who died?"

"No one yet," Elim said flatly. "Well, a few people. Four going on five."

There was a pause; a chill worked its way up his spine as Boss processed this innocuous-sounding information. "Elim, there should be only four people in the building besides the three of you. Explain."

"Heh!" Elim laughed bitterly. "Take a wild guess!"

"Those two," Boss hissed, angry but not surprised. "They showed up again?"

"Well, one of them. Don't worry, we're still in business and she's–"

"Alive?" Boss interrupted. "She's alive?"

Elim paused, his tongue tripping over itself as he tried to shave an inquiry down to something less likely to offend. "Yes? She's in the other room with–"

"Good~" Boss crooned thickly, the sheer satisfaction in their voice oozing through the distortion. "Elim, listen to me. She's not to be killed, not yet. I want her alive and compos mentis, you understand? I want her to see Zootopia fall! To see the scope of her failure! Do you understand me, Elim? I want you to make her watch!"

Elim successfully kept the panic out of his voice, hoping to cover his tail for whatever gruesome injuries the rabbit had sustained so far by feigning ignorance. "Finn'll want her. It won't be easy to keep him away."

"And he can have her," Boss relented. "But after. She needs to be in a clear, healthy mindset to fully appreciate the city's demise. So, none of your little savage's games, do you understand? She must be whole in body before her spirit is crushed!"

"Yes, Boss. Whatever you say." Elim cast a harrowed look at Grigori, who pointed at the pipe filled with the catalyst. "When do we dump the stuff?"

"Well, I have it set up so you get paid at ten, so nine forty-five?" Boss said glibly. "It's already a hundred degrees in the shade, by then everyone will be wading in pools or making lemonade or some such. I want this to start with a bang, everything must be perfect!"

Elim mouthed 'forty-five minutes' to Grigori, who threw his hands up in disgust and marched off to the handrails to glare at the main pipes. "I understand, Boss. Anything else?"

"No, nothing. Just tend to our guest, see that she's comfy, and destroy the city. You can handle that, can't you, Elim?"

"Yes sir," Elim said, distantly. "She'll be comfy alright."

Elim panted in terror as he sprinted down the hallway. 'Oh shit oh fuck oh shit oh fuck!'

He practically knocked the door off its hinges, skidding into the room with wide, wild eyes. "Finn! Stop! You can't…hurt her…whuh?"

Finn glanced over his shoulder, a look of confusion on his face and a fan of playing cards in his hands. On the table was a pile of cards and a stanced book acting as a divider. Opposite Finn was the cop, bound, helpless, and utterly unharmed, her expression flat and somewhat unimpressed.

"Hey, Elim!" Finn said, smiling boyishly. "Judy and I were just playing Go-Fish, wanna join?"

Elim blinked, utterly dumbfounded. "Uh…no, thank you."

"Suit yourself," Finn shrugged, turned back to the rabbit. "Got any black fours?"

The rabbit blinked once, her expression unchanging.

"Shoot!" Finn reached down and picked up a card from the pile. "Your turn."

The rabbit said nothing, blinking twice in a slow, deliberate manner.

"No twos, red or black," Finn responded to the unasked question. "Go fish."

There was an agonizing pause as the two stared at each other from across the table, Finn chuckled bashfully, as though reminded, and pulled a card from the pile and placed on her side of the table, behind the divider where he couldn't see.

Elim watched the farce with barely concealed horror; this was, somehow, immeasurably worse than anything he'd been expecting. "S-so, uh, you're not…y'know…?"

"Right off the bat?" Finn scoffed and gestured at the cop, smiling with admiration. "Naw! A lady this fine you gotta romance first!"

That got through to her, the neutral, dismissive mien giving way to barely concealed disgust and disbelief. She looked over at Elim, her expression questioning; Elim threw up his hands and shook his head. "Don't look at me, lady, I just work here! Look, Finn, Boss called, they want us to dump the stuff in forty-five."

"Some time to kill, then," Finn said, turning to the bound bunny. "Maybe you could tell me about how you caught the Shearer?"

"Finn," Elim said, sternly. "Boss wants her alive and unharmed for when it goes down. They want her in her right mind, so no bites, no claws, no…" Elim gestured at the cards on the table before turning back to Finn, "whatever godforsaken thing this is. Just watch her, talk to her if you have to, but none of your psycho stuff! Boss wants her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the big show."

"Why?" Finn said, dejectedly, as he scooped up the playing cards. "Why's it so important?"

"Who cares?" Elim shrugged. "Revenge, from the sound of it. She wants her to watch her city tear itself apart, and she wants her in her right mind so she, I dunno, loses hope or something."

"Jeez…" Finn muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's messed up."

Elim laughed and shook his head in disbelief. "Yeah…I'm just gonna let that speak for itself. Anyway, Finn, do you think you can control yourself?"

"Elim," Finn said, crossing his arms in offense. "I'm a grown mammal! Give me a bit of credit!"

"Okay, okay!" said Elim, backing out the door. "You guys, uh, have fun?"

"Okie dokie!" Finn chirped, turning back to the rabbit. "Judy! Wanna hear about the time I killed an elephant?"

Elim left the room, desperately wishing for this day to be over and done with.

Nick sped down the halls, his footfalls light and muted. He curled his nose; the whole place stank of blood and fear. He had found a horror show in the lunchroom, one body had been unmistakably the work Finn, but the other, a water buffalo that reminded him a little too much of Bogo, had his neck shattered so violently that his head practically rolled on the ground. It did not bode well to say the least.

'At least Judy wasn't with them…' Nick thought as he turned the corner.

He followed the scents of the gnu and lynx down the hall when a groan from behind caught his attention. Nick spun around, his weapon at the ready; at the other end of the hallway was a shape slumped against the wall, another groan, closer to a gurgle, sounded as he drew near. Nick saw the security uniform and ran the last little bit, stopping and kneeling in front of her; she was a hyena, well built and strong-looking. She also had a chewed up ankle and what appeared to be a serious neck-wound.

"You hold on, you hear me? Help's on its way!" Nick reached into the back compartment of his flak jacket and produced a thick, flexible packet. He opened it at the top and peeled the plastic film off, revealing a layer of thick gel. He reached down and pulled her hand away, noting that she had managed to pinch off her own jugular vein well enough to last this long. He slapped the gel-pad onto the gushing wound and held it there, the pad hissed and tensed as the medical gel sealed off the wound and bonded with the blood and fur.

The hyena hissed and tensed, Nick stroked her forehead and nodded. "I know, I know. It hurts, but it'll keep your tank full until the paramedics arrive. What's your name? Can you talk?"

"Yes," she croaked, the anti-shock chemicals in the bandage were beginning to take hold. "Rebecca. Beck."

"Okay, Beck, I need you to tell me what happened here." Nick said, looking over at the emergency stairway up the hall. "Did you come out of there?"

"They just showed up and killed everybody," Beck rasped. "They took me with them but I got away, up those stairs. A ferret…"

"Where is he now?" said Nick.

Beck shook her head. "Gone. He smelt something and took off…I think he said 'bunny'. I played dead…sorry…"

Nick cursed under his breath and got to his feet, heading for the stairway when Beck called out, panting. "Wait! Lock-down's been activated; it's a dead end down there!"

Nick remained calm, knowing full well that even in the event of a total lockdown there was going to be a way in, these kinds of places always did. "So, they're down in the lower levels?"

"Yes," Beck said, sluggishly. "I can…ah…I can tell you how to get down there. Help me up."

The emergency exit on the side of the building swung open with a kick. Nick grunted in exertion as he hauled the 200lb hyena out the door and onto the steps, positioned under her armpit like a crutch.

She gingerly set herself down on the steps, her injured leg lay out as she propped herself against the handrails.

"Thank you," Beck panted, smiling weakly as she gazed up at the sun as it beat down mercilessly. "Thank you so much. I'd rather die in the sun."

"None of that," Nick grunted, his ears swiveling around, catching the still-distant cry of sirens. "The fire department is on its way, maybe five minutes. The cops'll be by soon after. You just got to hang on until then. You can do that, can't you, Beck? Big tough Pred like you, you're not gonna get offed by a ferret, are you?"

Beck wheezed a shuddering sob. "N-not a ferret…not a m-mammal! He's a monster! Eyes in the dark…"

Nick reached over and snapped his fingers in front of her face, rallying her waning consciousness. "Hey! Enough of that! Wake up! You have to hold on, Beck, you have to stay awake! Do you hear me? Beck!"

Beck reached up and grabbed Nick, pulling him down to her face. "You have to stop them! Take the maintenance elevator shaft down to the pump level, the crawl-way next to the door will take you right to the control room, you can ambush them there. You have to stop them!"

Nick looked over at the garage on the other side of the dry, sunbaked lot. He turned back to Beck and nodded, handing her a flare-gun. "When you hear the sirens in the parking lot, you pop this off and tell them what's going on. Don't go dying on me, Beck! Don't give Finn another notch on his belt!"

Beck smiled wanly and nodded, feebly brandishing the flare gun. Nick took off across the lot, his feet kicking up dust as he skidded to a halt in front of the door. He bolted in, his nose twitching as he entered the main room, the air in the room was cold, musty, and humid from the complex below. The elevator had already descended, leaving only the hole where the platform had been and the massive hoists on either side. Nick kicked a bolt into the chasm, his ears drooping as each second passed before a gut-wrenchingly distant and insignificant clatter announced the bolt's impact with the ground.

Nick gulped and sighed, shaking his head. 'Huh, no console up here, it can only be controlled from the bottom. I have to be quiet about this. Gotta maintain the element of surprise.'

"The element of surprise…" he muttered aloud, manfully resisting the urge to spit down the hole. "This is a bad idea, this is a really, really bad idea!"

Without further hesitation he leapt over the side and grabbed onto the steel cable, sliding down the side a little too quickly for comfort. 'They say the only difference between a good idea and a bad idea is options. When you're outta options, all that's left is good ideas!'

Slick Nick scoffed as he slid down the dark pit. 'Whoever said that never had to slide down a three hundred foot pit to fight a bunch of mass murderers!'

The chair creaked as she shifted; it was old, wooden, and rickety. Judy tested her bonds; her forearms were inexorably fastened to the armrests but her legs were mostly free save for the bindings around her ankles. It would be a simple matter for her to snap the zap-straps were the chair not slightly too big, preventing her from getting the necessary leverage. If she could topple the chair forward she would be able to use the momentum to snap the bindings with no problem. But for that, she would have to neutralize her chatty 'companion' long enough to do so.

She looked over at him, despising the fresh jolt of terror that followed. He looked just like any other ferret, perhaps a little taller than most and visibly muscular; he had a trim, neat look about him that suggested fastidiousness. His face was pleasant in a broad, small-mammal sort of way. His features were symmetrical and well proportioned, and his eyes were a shade of brown so dark as to appear black compared the pure white of his sclera. Judy reluctantly admitted that he would be almost handsome in the right light, and the endearing Emerald Island brogue didn't hurt. All in all, Finnegan McNulty looked the part of a ferret to a tee: a larger, taller, better-proportioned weasel with a naturally affable charm.

And then he would smile.

Not the friendly smirk that was practically his default expression, but a grin. Broad and sharp, a shocking slash of white teeth that would crawl across that pleasant face and up to his eyes, squeezing them into little black pits that glinted coldly like shards of broken glass. She could see now that there was no insanity there, nothing out of control or broken. Whatever he was, he was whole and fully functional, just horribly and dangerously wrong; a mind that had no business being in a mammal, a square peg that had somehow fit into a round hole.

It dawned on her, with no small measure of horror, that perhaps had hadn't been joking earlier; that he was presently treating her to some sort of deranged courting ritual and that the friendly façade the was putting on was his own psychotic attempt at a date.

She felt ill. Why was he so interested with her? What was he going to do with her? She felt the incipient pangs panic begin to jolt through her, as though something deep inside was unraveling. She had to get out, she had to break free, she had to get away from that thing! 'Gotta get out! Gotta get out! Gotta get out gotta get out gotta get out'

'Enough!' On-Duty Judy commanded, silencing the gibbering panic. 'Keep calm, don't panic, don't speak, don't do anything! The only way I'm getting out of here is if he slips up, and the only way he's going to slip up is if I make him. He's used to people talking back, or hearing them try to bargain with him, or get on his good side, or seduce him, or whatever! He's trying to get under my skin, trying to get a response. Well, he's not going to, and it's going to drive him crazy! He'll get angry, he'll get careless, and then I'll make my move! Until then, don't let him see that he gets to you.'

"…So yeah," Finn was saying from across the table. "We learn that this big ol' bull elephant has a thing for ferret ladies, 'cause they have flexible bodies and can wrap around…you know, things and stuff and…anyway, it was fortunate because otherwise we were at a loss as to how we were going to actually get close to him, much less kill him! So, do you know what we did?"

Judy stared back neutrally, unspeaking.

Finn reacted as though she had said responded. "That's right! They kitted me out in this real pert cherry-red number with a matching scarf and handbag. You wouldn't guess it to look at him, but Grigori has a real eye for fashion, he picked that dress out of a line and said," his voice dropping an octave and donning a thick east-Tundran accent, "'This will accentuate your figure and hug your curves, Dick-Dick will take care of the rest.' And boy, did he ever! Man, I still don't know how he did it, but Dick-Dick made me look like a proper lady! There were times I wanted to hit him up for another make-up sesh, so I could look at myself in the mirror, it was that good! But, y'know, that'd be weird…"

Judy stared back neutrally, deigning to blink.

"Right? So, I enter the penthouse and there he is, fifteen feet tall and fat as the world…also, not terribly romantic, as it turns out. Just *zip* *plop* 'get to work!' And talk about a busy trunk! Jeez! So, he sussed out real quick that this particular cherry was high in vitamin-D, so I figured that I'm pretty much screwed, right?"

Neutral stares and silence.

"Wrong!" Finn announced with a laugh. "Ha-ha! Turns out the big fella just liked ferrets in general! Jill, hob, made no difference to him! So, he wants to get down to business right away, but my mum didn't raise no hussy, so I insist on a kiss first. It was real romantic! He lay down and lifted his trunk, pursing his lips together…so I crawled down his throat, into his lungs, and tore his heart apart with my teeth. Needless to say, the dress was ruined."

Judy adjusted herself in the seat and resumed staring at him, her face a stony mask.

"Are you uncomfortable?" Finn asked, the concern in his voice seemingly genuine. "Sorry about that. I think Elim was the one who trussed you up, he's not very good at it; I can see a bunch of pressure points from here. Now, if I bound you up, you'd only ever know when you tried to move, otherwise you'd be comfy as all get out!"

More stares, more silence.

Finn eyed her for a moment, a tiny downward curve tugged at the corners of his mouth for a second before the smile returned. "So, I make it back, just covered in blood, and I tell 'em what happened. And do you know what Dick-Dick says without missing a beat?" he paused and gestured at her to ask, after a moment of silence he gestured again, more frantically this time, before relenting and smacking the table-top. "He says 'Jeez, Finn! I never knew you were such a heartbreaker!' Get it?"

Finn clapped his hand over his face and cackled wildly, pounding his fist on the table as he jittered about in his chair. Judy's face scrunched slightly while he was giggling, the mad urge to take up his infectious laugh was almost unbearable. 'Stop it! Stop it! It wasn't that funny! …Okay, it was pretty funny, but keep it together! The silent treatment is getting to him, just stay strong!'

Finn's raucous laughter died down into a series of panting giggles, his eyes watering as he turned back to her. "Man! That Richie! I miss how we used to shoot the shit, just him and me. Elim's so controlling and Grigori won't smile unless he's breaking bones! Usually, it was just the two of us, joking around…" Finn's smile vanished and he looked at his hands, his voice low and flat. "How is he, by the way? I mean, I got pretty carried away, I admit. I messed him up pretty good. It's just that…I was angry, you know? I mean, we were a team! It was just us against the world, just like always, and then he up and fucks us over? And for what? A bunch of 'civilized' folk sitting in their fancy, sterile houses, eating their state-issued slop and watching their pointless, inane, fat-headed indoctrotainment?! That's what hurts the most! He betrayed us, his friends, his true boon companions for this place, for these people?! For you?! I'm not sorry! I'd do it again! I would have seen him off this godforsaken mortal coil with a grin on my face, but you just couldn't let me have that, could you?! He was my friend! Mine!"

Finn shot to his feet and flung the table across the room with a single swipe, he lunged forward, clasping his hands over her wrists as he snapped his jaws in the air just front of her face. Judy felt a swish of air on her nose as a fang gnashed a hair's breadth away. It took all her self-control to keep herself from flinching away and crying out. Instead, Judy maintained her stoic expression, staring out at him as he glowered back at her. His face was horrible, his muzzle bunched as his lips fleered back from his huge, shiny teeth; his brow furrowed with rage and his eyes were those familiar pits of glittering black.

He drew away from her, panting his hot, heavy breath in her face. "None of that for you, love. Not yet. You have to be able to watch your city tear out its own throat and choke on its blood. Then we play."

Judy stared back at him, just barely keeping herself from trembling in sheer terror. 'Oh God…oh God oh God oh God…Nick, please hurry…'

Nick set down on the floor without so much as a sound. He walked over to the door and looked at the wall beside it, noticing a panel with a notched indentation in it. With a claw, he hooked it and unlatched it, silently pulling the panel down and onto the floor, the inside surface of which had a tiny set of stairs leading up to a small-persons access hatch. Nick smirked; this would lead to just about every room, including the control room. He ducked into the access hatch, which was only just large enough for him to crawl through, adroitly hooking onto the stairs on the inside of the panel with his toeclaw and closing it behind him.

Nick shuffled through the tiny hallway on his hands and knees, sniffing the air and listening for voices. As he drew closer he could hear the tail ends of a conversation.

"He was doing what?" Grigori exclaimed.

"Playing cards!" Elim replied. "Go Fish! Like, he was playing for her, too. I think she was too scared to do or say anything."

"That's…" said Grigori, leaning on a handrail. "I don't know, worse, somehow? I'd almost prefer to walk in on him chewing than…that."

"Right? On some level I can understand the chewing, almost. But what is he even up to?" Elim sighed and sat on the console, his hand next to a MSIM resting on the countertop. "To top it all off, you know what he said when I asked him about it?"

"What?" Grigori said, amused.

"He said 'a lady this fine you gotta romance first'!" Elim said in a poor imitation of an Emerald Island brogue.

Grigori bellowed with laughter and slapped his knee. "Seriously?! Okay, that does it! When we retire, you and I are finding him a girlfriend."

Elim rubbed his chin thoughtfully, smiling. "Ha! We might go through a few before one takes."

"Eh." Grigori shrugged. "She'd be smallish, so we wouldn't have to dig a big hole–ELIM LOOK OUT!"

"Wh–" Elim began to say when Grigori lunged forward and sent him flying across the room with a powerful swipe. Not a millisecond later and a net cartridge burst open, enveloping the lynx's arm and fastening it to a handrail, constricting and pinning his arm to the metal. Elim thudded painfully on the ground, a clattering noise to his left drew his attention; in the confusion he had swept the sidearm off the console. He sprung for it, his arm outstretched to grab the bouncing weapon. In a moment of uncharacteristic grace, he grabbed the stock and brought it around, his finger on the trigger. He leveled the weapon at the intruder when another net canister burst in front of him, encasing his weapon and hands in a mass of unbreakable fibers.

"Holy shit!" Elim cursed, glowering up at the advancing assailant; an armored red fox. "Wilde."

"Hey!" Nick said, smirking. "Long time no see, Big E! How're you doing, how's life?"

"You bastard!" Elim spat. "How did you even get in here?!"

"Fox magic!" Nick said, looking over at Grigori. "Nice reflexes, by the way!"

"I'll kill you!" Grigori roared. "I'll rip your head off and shit down your neck!"

"Tch!" Nick scoffed, turning back to Elim. "Not a very friendly guy! Sorry you two, no genocide today, but perhaps I could interest you nice long stay at the Zootopia Maximum Security Prison!"

A whistling sound drew his attention and Nick ducked just in time to avoid an empty steel canister hurled at his head. He spun around and leveled his weapon at Grigori, who was now fresh out of throwable objects but was smiling regardless. Nick turned back to see Elim level his own sidearm at him, the barrels were unfortunately unobstructed by the net.

"Don't–" Nick tried to say as his thumb depressed the yellow button on the side of the stock with a nervy, instinctive quickness. The net electrified and Elim went stiff, gurgling as he jittered in place. A heavier, bass thrum drowned out the clicking of Nick's MSIM as the energized fibers shorted the metallic hydrogen battery of Elim's weapon. An enormous, hissing arc of electricity danced up from the weapon and into Elim's convulsing body. There was final hissing crack as massive amounts of electricity pulsed out of the weapon, encasing the gnu's body in a cascade of popping sparks and smoke. With a final twitch, the smoldering body collapsed to the ground in a heap.

"Oh God!" Nick retched, the stink of burning fur and cooked meat washed over him in a repulsive wave.

"ELIM!" Grigori cried, thrashing against the fibers. "No! Elim!"

Nick stared at the steaming, charred corpse, horrified. "I–I didn't mean…I…oh, God…"

"You," Grigori growled, tears streaming down his face.

His massive muscles bunched as he pulled against the netting but was unable to budge it. Grigori roared and braced his feet against the handrail, straining with all his might. The steel groaned and warped, but the fibers held fast. Grigori looked down at the net and saw the little black hub holding the mass together, with a growl he leaned down and took the hub between his new tungsten teeth and bit as hard as he could. With a crunch and a pop, the composite materials succumbed to the hard tungsten and shattered. The net went slack and he was free.

Nick tore his eyes away from the body just in time to see the massive lynx lunging towards him and ducked out of the way, rolling and turned to draw a bead on his attacker. Nick was fast, but not nearly fast enough, just as he turned to bring his weapon up, a huge paw swung in and swatted the weapon painfully out of his hands, sending it flying over the handrail to clatter on the concrete fifty feet below. Another fist smashed into his stomach, lifting him clean off his feet and hurling hum backwards through the air. Nick grunted as he tumbled back onto his rear, winded but mostly unharmed, the flak jacket had withstood the brunt of the impact. He got to his feet and donned a fighting stance only to see Grigori kneeling over the body of his teammate.

"My friend…" he muttered, closing Elim's open unseeing eyes with a gentle sweep of his hand. "Finn and I will set a spot for you every day in his restaurant. Every night, we will crack a beer for you. My first son will be named Elim and he will live rich and happy thanks to you. I must go now, there's killing to be done." Grigori rose to his feet and glared at Nick. "You. You will not merely die; you will be erased. I will break you. I will crush you. You will know pain. You will know suffering. You will know me. And when nothing remains of the mammal you were, I will snuff the gibbering meat that is left."

Grigori seemed to take note of the loose fabric of his sleeves and smirked at Nick, mindful of how they had hindered him before. He breathed in deep and swung his arms down in front of him with a growl, flexing his huge back and bulging shoulders so suddenly that the fabric exploded at the seams with a ripping pop. Grigori roared and reared up, puffing out his barrel chest and similarly destroying the front of his uniform. He discarded the shredded remains of his top and revealed his impressive physique, he grinned a fanged glittering grin at Nick, his eyes bloodshot and enraged.

"Oh, fuck me…" Nick muttered, drawing his stun baton in a shaking hand.

Grigori roared and lunged, bridging the gap between them with frightening speed. Nick leapt out of the way and swung his baton, only to hit open air as his target ducked mid-lunge and followed through with a solid kick to Nick's chest. Nick wheezed and flew through the air, skidding on the ground before pulling into a somersault and rolling to his feet. Nick growled and charged, swinging his baton at the surprisingly agile lynx. Grigori ducked and weaved, flinching away when the baton struck the metal counter and sparked with 50,000 volts. Nick aimed a series of jabs and swings, each one missing by less and less as the well-trained fox hit his stride.

"Enough," Grigori rumbled, catching Nick by the wrist and twisting the baton out of his hand, letting it clatter harmlessly on the ground.

He pulled him into a crush-hug and began to squeeze. Nick groaned as he felt his bones grind together under the relentless pressure. Thinking quickly, he reached up and undid the collar on his flak jacket and, in a single smooth motion, slid out the bottom of the protective garment. Nick doubled back and swung a sap-gloved fist into Grigori's jaw as he clutched the empty jacket. His fist connected with a satisfying impact, the powdered metal over his knuckles and fingers adding weight to his blows while also protecting them from injury. Nick loosed a blurry volley of punches when Grigori, quite unfazed, caught his fist mid-swing. Nick cursed and swung with his right, which Grigori also caught. Grigori grinned and nodded approvingly at Nick before swinging his head forward, smashing it into the bridge of Nick's snout. The fox went limp as his knees buckled, his larger opponent holding him up by his hands. Grigori chuckled and whirled his dazed opponent around, throwing him at the opposite wall like a bag of flour. At the last second, the fox rallied and braced himself, bouncing off the concrete and landing on his hands and knees.

"You fight well," Grigori said, walking over in a slow casual manner. "I think I'll kill you as painfully as possible."

Nick smirked and got to his feet. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

Grigori growled and lunged forward, but Nick leapt down and between his legs at the last second, pulling into a somersault and rolling towards his dropped baton. In a single fluid movement, he scooped up the baton, leapt to his feet, and rebounded off the security console. Grigori turned around just in time to have Nick jab the electrified baton into his belly; he tensed and grunted, dropping to one knee as he gasped for air. Nick rushed forward and jammed the baton in between his shoulder blades, holding it in place as it unleashed jolt after jolt of into the mountainous lynx.

"Go! Down! Stay! Down!" Nick bellowed, stabbing down with the electrode-studded baton.

A hand flew up with lightning speed and grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip. Grigori roared and leapt to his feet, partially hauling Nick into the air. Nick balled up his left fist and began to punch the enraged lynx in the face to no discernable effect. Grigori looped his arm over Nick's and barred it against his bare body. Slowly, deliberately, he reached over and grabbed his opponent's right just below the elbow and began to bend; the bones in the arm creaked audibly.

"I will…" Grigori growled over Nick's terrified protests, twisting and binding the fox's arm, "…break you!"

With a twisting, wrenching motion Grigori snapped Nick's forearm completely in half, livid white bone sprang from his skin. The fox screamed as a bright tearing sheet of agony raced up his arm, now bent at a hideous angle. The baton tumbled out of his useless hand and clattered on the floor, where Grigori promptly kicked it over the edge. He threw the screaming fox to the ground and snarled, walking after him as he crawled away.

"Pathetic," Grigori sneered, bending down over the crippled cop. "Your bunny friend put up a much better fight, much more satisfying." He knelt down and grinned sadistically. "For killing Elim, you get to watch your city die screaming before you die screaming. And as a bonus? You get to see what Finn is doing to your bunny friend."

Nick growled and swung out at Grigori's face, his claws drawn and sharp. Three bloody slashes burst across Grigori's muzzle, causing him to flinch back with a grunt. Grigori touched a hand to his face and roared in fury, he swatted Nick back to the ground as though he were a mosquito and knelt on his chest. He raised a mighty fist a brought it down with terrible power, Nick's head snapped to one side, bouncing off the concrete as stars exploded behind his eyes, the terrible crunch of bone echoed inside his head. The fist went up and plummeted down again, and again, and again, and again. Grigori panted and got to his feet, loosening his shoulders. The prone body on the floor twitched and groaned thickly, the left side of his face split and bloody.

"Now, before any more fun is had, I have a job to finish," Grigori said as he made off for the valve. "Do not worry, I will be back shortly."

Nick groaned, his face was somehow numb and one fire at the same time, memories of pain were washing in from all over his body, overwhelming any sort of rational though he might have had.

'Just go to sleep,' Slick Nick mumbled, his thoughts sludgy. 'It hurts too much to be awake right now, go to sleep.'

He glanced dazedly at the lynx as he walked away, his left eye already swollen shut. "Wuh…"

'Have to…stop him…' He raised his hand in front of him, trying to gain enough leverage to sit up. But it was too much; he collapsed back on the ground, his arm falling over his chest.

Something hard.

'What's that?'

In his breast pocket.

He fished it out and looked at it: it was a little glass vial of blue liquid.

'Koolaid. From Greg…I forgot all about that!' he thought, the inner workings of his head felt like clock gears in soup. 'Bad idea…no options…Judy, I'm sorry.'

He popped the glass vial into his mouth and bit down hard, feeling the glass shards cut into his cheek. The catalyst hit like a shot of bad moonshine, practically evaporating before it hit his tongue, spreading through his mouth like liquid fire, leaving a burning numb sensation in its wake. He gasped instinctively, drawing the vaporized catalyst down his throat and into his lungs, spreading the burning sensation to his very core. Nick sputtered and coughed as it hit his bloodstream, the pain from his arm, face, and many contusions surged and crested, amplified beyond pain, beyond agony. He writhed on the floor, screaming silently as the fire in his veins washed over him, clawing away at his mind like a terrified beast. Unfathomable panic seized him as he spasmed on the floor, grunting, choking, his last thought as Nick was 'It's like drowning!'

The Beast opened its single eye, the pupil a pinprick of black against a backdrop of savage green. It was under attack, pain was everywhere, its heart thudded like a piston as its muscles twitched and spasmed. It had to fight, it had to kill the things attacking it, everything was attacking, everything was hurting it. Everything had to die, only then would it be safe.

There was a thing over there. Unyielding terror washed over the beast as it got to its feet, the thing was huge and horrible, grunting awful hideous sounds that it could not understand.

It had to die.

Grigori heard the coughing and sputtering from behind him as he prepared to turn the valve. He thought nothing of it, sometimes people aspirated blood after he gave them a good thrashing. "Be calm, I'll be with you in a moment."

A frenzied growl caught his attention and he began to turn around, his hand still on the release valve holding the catalyst.

Grigori didn't feel the impact on his back, nor the claws that dug into his shoulder. In fact, he didn't feel much of anything as fangs crushed and severed his cervical vertebrae. But he did hear something; hard heavy breathing, as though someone was having a panic attack, and a rich, meaty crunch like ripping the legs of a freshly cooked king crab. The kind he had eaten at holiday dinners when he was at home, surrounded by Anya and Kesnya and Mama. They would be getting the rest of their money right about now, he desperately wanted to see their faces when they got it. How they would smile.

Finn sat across from his prey; it had been several agonizing minutes of silence since he snapped at her and he was contemplating his next move. She had proven to be a tough nut to crack and no mistake, but he would make her talk. Her silent treatment had put him in a foul mood, and he was looking to blow off some steam, Boss be damned! "This isn't the first time I've been to Zootopia, you know."

Judy didn't respond, he continued. "Nope. I dropped by about two years ago, when all that Bellwether stuff was going down. I'd heard there were mammals here, Predators, who were going savage and tearing folk apart. I thought, maybe, there were people like me here, people who knew the truth."

'Truth?' Judy didn't say, but he could see it in her eyes.

"The truth," Finn affirmed, nodding. "The truth that there's nothing better in life for a Predator, no purer pleasure, than the taste of hot blood on the tongue. Imagine my disappointment when they turned out to be a bunch of druggies! Tch!"

Judy's mask fell for an instant, her confusion evident on her face. Finn grinned wildly at the reaction; finally, a crack! "I don't expect you to understand, but it's like…lightning. It's warm, thick, the taste is salty and metallic, and when it hits my tongue or splashes against the back of my throat I see stars! Pump pump pump! Pulsing, hot, alive! It's like their life is pouring into me, and I become them!" He looked off into the middle distance for a moment before turning back to her. "Not actually, of course. I'm not crazy! I don't believe in magic or faeries or such, but I know for a fact that it's…intimate. I talk to people, I chew them up, and talk some more; they tell me things, anything I want to know, and a lot of stuff I don't. It's no use asking them directly, they'll just say what they think you want to hear. No, I just make conversation and let them fill in the rest. By the end I know more about my toys than their own mothers!"

She simply stared back at him, her calm, cool demeanor and still nose trying desperately to conceal the terror-scent pouring off of her in waves.

"You're afraid," he said, evenly and calmly. "You hide it better than others. In fact, you don't seem to let it affect you at all. If you didn't reek of fear, I don't think I'd be able to tell at all! You should be proud of that. I've had a go at all kinds of animals, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Not one of them has kept it together as well as you have. Not to say I've been working on you the same as anyone else. Usually I just talk to them about this and that and they snap all by themselves, and then the fun begins. You? I wanted to see how much shit you'd put up with before you started talking, and you didn't disappoint. Here you are, cool as a cucumber, quiet and stoic. But what are trying to accomplish? Are you trying to get under my skin? Are you buying time? For who? The fox?"

A long, shrill, agonized scream cut through the air, reverberating off the walls. Judy's ears shot up, her eyes wide with shock and horror: the voice was familiar.

"Oh," Finn said, smirking. "Sounds like someone had a run-in with Grigori. Get used to that screaming by the way, Grigori likes to break arms and legs, it's therapeutic for him."

He turned back to Judy, her ears were down and her face had once again become a stone mask. Finn bristled; equal parts frustrated and impressed with his quarry. "Speaking of therapy…"

Without warning, he reached over and dragged his index claw down the right side of her face, carving a long deep gash down the side of her face. To her credit she bit back a scream, only loosing a squeak and a gasp as she drew away from him.

Finn smirked and licked the blood off his claw, his eyes sparkling. "In case you forgot what you're here for. Now, Boss wants you relatively intact so you can watch the show and, I dunno, die inside or something. Boss is a little twisted, huh?"

Her stoic expression returned with a vengeance, she had somehow managed to make it dismissive despite the bleeding gash on her face; Finn bristled in frustration. "So I guess I can't really chew out your eyes! But…"

He knelt down to her hand, grabbing it and holding it flat before she could ball it into a fist; he grabbed her pinky and bent it back, looking up at her as he did. "You won't miss this, right? Kind of a useless little limb, isn't it?"

He took her finger into his mouth, running his tongue along it, biting lightly. She looked down at him, her expression impassive, before turning away and staring at the wall ahead.

"Well!" Finn hissed, grabbing her middle finger. "How about this one? Gonna have trouble flipping folk off without this little guy!"

Judy sniffed disinterestedly and continued to stare at the wall. Finn huffed and examined her hand, isolating her thumb and grinned. "I love chewing off thumbs. A big heavy bone, big bundles of connective tissue, it's like chewing off a toe!"

A flinch. Followed by a quick return to stoicism.

Finn's eyes lit up, his grin widened. "Ohhh…that's your weak spot, is it?"

That same neutral expression, but her brows held a hint of worry; Fin chuckled joyously, running his hand down her legs, pricking with his claws. "There it is! Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh! I should have known! Bunny feet are so sensitive! Be a shame if something happened to them!"

He walked out in front of her, feeling her legs twitch as she tried to pull away. He looked up to see her face, the fear, the desperation, the–

Smile?

She was smiling?

"Whuh?" He looked down, her legs were only bound together and not to the chair. 'Elim, you newb son of a–!'

Her powerful legs kicked up, catching him full up and under the ribs. Finn grunted as the breath was driven from his lungs in an instant. He wheezed and bent forward; looking up just in time to see her wind her legs back and unleash their full fury on his upturned face. Finn was propelled backward through the air by the sheer force of the two-footed kick, stopping only when he hit the wall on the opposite side of room, some twenty feet away.

"Uuugh…" Finn groaned and he collected himself off the floor, there was a familiar metallic taste in his mouth, but something else, too. Finn sucked into his cheek and spat his mouthful onto the ground. He gasped in outrage as lying on the ground in a puddle of blood before him was one of his eyeteeth. A quick probe of the tongue revealed it to be his top right. He looked over at Judy, who was busy toppling her chair forward. "You…BITCH!"

Judy gave one final push and the chair teetered forward. She landed on her feet and bent her knees; the force of her body and the chair pushing her legs apart snapped the zap-strap. With her legs already bent, Judy leapt straight up into the air as hard as she could. She flipped onto her back just before she hit the ceiling and pushed off the concrete roof with all of her strength towards the floor. The rickety chair shattered on impact with the ground, freeing her arms as both armrests came loose. She turned around just as Finn launched himself into the air, streaking down at her with his jaws open. She brought up the armrest and jammed it between his jaws; his teeth sank into the wood with a gruesome, bone-like crunch.

"Ull gill 'oo!" he roared around the wood, swiping at her with his claws.

Judy growled in return and swung in with her right, smashing the solid end of the armrest into his ribs, again and again and again. Finn released his grip and began to back off when she rushed forward and kicked him square in the chest, knocking him on his back. Before Finn could regain his footing, Judy was on top of him, pummeling his face with the wooden clubs on her arms.

"You like the taste?!" she screamed, punctuating each word with a strike from her clubs. "Huh?! You seeing stars yet?!" Judy paused and panted; she looked down at the bloody, beaten ferret and hissed. "Are you still having fun?"

He looked back up at her, smiling with pink bloody teeth. "I take the good with the bad."

Judy roared and delivered a final blow with her right, Finn's head snapped to the side and his body went limp. She got to her feet, panting and exhausted; she moved to flip Finn over and restrain him when the door flew open with a bang. Judy spun around, her eyes wide; standing in the doorway was a familiar shape, a fox slumped over, leaning against the frame and breathing heavily.

"Nick?" Judy said, a smile spread across her face. "Nick, are you–"

Then she noticed the blood splattered across his shirt, dripping from his muzzle and pooling on the ground. The she noticed his eyes, snapped open wide, his visible pupil a tiny dot in a sea of savage green. A low, purring growl escaped his throat.

"…Nick." Judy whispered, stepping back as he advanced on her.

Finn reared up behind with a roar, the backrest of the chair in his paws. He swung it down with terrible force, shattering it over Judy's head and back. Judy fell to the ground in a heap, the world spun as a terrible splitting pain exploded inside her head and up her back.

"So!" Finn said, stepping over the felled rabbit, grinning bloodily. "You finally showed up! As you can see, your girlfriend and I were having ourselves a nice, civilized discussion regarding international politics and labor disputes."

Nick's lips peeled back to reveal bloody teeth as he stepped into view, his face a swollen horror of tousled blood-matted fur.

"Holy…you've been exposed!" Finn's eyes went wide, his gapped grin vanished, "W-wait…whose blood is that?"

Nick snarled and moved to circle around the smaller mammal. Finn chuckled nervously, shaking his head. "No…no, that's…Elim! Elim! Elim, you there? The fox is here! We got ourselves a WildeHopps playset! Ha! …Elim? Hey, guys, c'mon! This isn't funny! Elim! Grigori! …Kitten?"

Finn glared at the wounded, blood-coated fox, his own fangs bared as tears streamed down his cheeks. "You…you killed my friends! Elim! Grigori! You killed them! You fucking bastard, I'll tear you apart!"

Finn coiled his muscular body and launched himself at the larger Predator, bellowing a battle cry.

Judy groaned and stirred. The world was spinning both above her head and below her feet, pain wracked her body and the inside of her head felt like there were pieces loose and rolling around. She could hear a terrible din over the ringing in her ears. She looked up and saw a fox with a bad arm and swollen eye fighting a ferret.

The ferret clambered all over the gnashing, snapping fox, dodging every bite and slash of his much larger opponent. Nick was larger, stronger, and arguably more savage, but he was also visibly exhausted and severely injured. Finn on the other hand was faster, more lucid, and immeasurably more skilled. Finn leapt up onto Nick's back and sunk his fangs into the meat of his shoulder, yanking his head back and forth as Nick holwed in agony.

"Nick!" she called out, but he didn't seem to hear her, he didn't seem to be doing much of anything besides snarl and swipe at the impossibly fast ferret. 'Oh, God! He's been exposed! He's savage!'

Finn scurried up his good arm and delivered a devastating kick to the face. The fox recoiled and snapped at empty air, Finn having climbed down his body and onto his ankle.

"Down you go!" Finn hissed, his jaws snapping shut over Nick's Achilles tendon.

Nick howled in agony and toppled over, yelping as he landed on his bad arm. Finn clambered up his writhing prey, biting at random as he went, ripping and tearing flesh and fur. Blood flicked from Finn's jaws in long, ropey drops.

'I have to help him!' Judy thought frantically as she looked around for something to throw.

Finn stood over a panting, exhausted Nick, his jaws dripping with blood. "Farewell, foxy–Ack!"

A chair leg bounced off Finn's skull and nearly threw him off balance. Nick took this opportunity to snap up at his attacker, catching the ferret around the midsection between his powerful jaws. Nick clenched his jaws, Finn's ribs cracked audibly and a gout of blood spurted from his mouth. Nick growled and jumped onto all fours, thrashing the ferret around violently, snaps and crunches could be heard throughout as Finn's body bent and snapped at odd angles. Nick let go of his prey mid-thrash, sending the limp body cartwheeling through the air before hitting a wall and collapsing in a crooked, bloody heap.

Nick panted heavily, too winded to snarl or growl. He turned to Judy, who was shakily getting to her feet. He bared his teeth and hobbled towards her for a few moments before collapsing on the ground, unconscious.

Judy wasted no time fastening zap-straps around Nick's limbs. Judy made her way over to Finn, staring down at his grotesque, bloody body. He was bent and contorted to an almost hideous degree, his spine almost certainly shattered. Black tarry blood oozed from the countless puncture wounds that dotted his body, his insides must have been shredded.

Satisfied that neither was going anywhere, Judy set off out the door and down the hall. Her footfalls echoed in the eerie quiet of the hallway, the steady lowing of the massive pump became louder and louder as she approached the maintenance room. Slowly, tentatively, she pushed open the door and glanced inside. She immediately regretted it, the stink of blood and gunsmoke mingled with the horrid stench of burning fur and cooked meat. Two bodies lay on the ground, one a charred mass of carbonized flesh and the other a ravaged tatters. Judy swallowed hard and walked over to the security console, she noticed a large red button flashing in the center of the panel with a label that read 'emergency lock-down'. Judy hit the button and jumped at the sound of all the unlocking doors as they clunked throughout the facility.

Judy gave the bodies around her one final examination; she should have felt jubilant, exultant, victorious, but she didn't. All she felt was a smothering tired regret. Regret that any of this had happened in the first place, that anyone, even these three, had to die because of it. Judy sighed sadly and exited the room, unable to stomach looking at them any longer.

She shuffled back into the waiting room, looking over at Nick to make sure he was still where she had left him. He lay on the ground, his arms bound together at the elbow as not to exacerbate his gruesome broken arm, his side rose and fell in great billowing huffs, as though he was still panicking despite his unconsciousness. Judy knelt next to her fallen partner and ran a hand through his soft, warm fur.

There was a grunt from the far side of the room and Judy shot to her feet. She warily approached the corpse in the corner of the room, her heart thundering. She stood over his ravaged body and nudged him with her foot, leaping back when he uttered a sputtering, clotted cough as blood sprayed from his mouth. He looked up at her and grinned, there was a hitching coughing sound she assumed was supposed to be laughter. Judy shuddered at the high, merry smile on his face.

"Good game, Detective," Finn gurgled, an odd, clear liquid dripped out the corners of his mouth. "You two really…showed us. "

"I didn't want this," Judy muttered, kneeling next to him. "Not for any of you."

Finn blinked, grinning wider. "Even after all that? I thought for sure I made a little killer out of you. Guess I'll have to try harder next time."

Judy leaned in, on her face was that practiced stoic mien. "I'm game when you are. Now, who hired you? You were given the documents to look over, the catalyst. You must know something."

Finn gurgled something that was supposed to be a chuckle. "You'll find Boss soon enough, or they'll find you. Ha! You'll find out more than you ever wanted! You think you've won?! Eh-heh! It's everywhere! In everyone! Boss'll find some other bastards to do the job and this city will disappear in a torrent of blood! Eh-heh! Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! AH-HA-HAAA! AHAHAHAHA~!"

Finn laughed loudly and shrilly, gasping between cackles as he did. Suddenly, the laughter broke off into a series of gurgles and sputters, he jittered and convulsed on the ground as something inside him gave way or ruptured. The ferret loosed a croak, his eyes wide and terrible, and seemed to deflate; a low clicking gurgle escaped his toothy, rictus-grinning mouth. He was still.

Unfazed, Judy walked back over to Nick and sat down at his side, stroking his fur as his flank heaved. "Let's just sit here a bit, yeah?"