AN: As some of you may know, I'm helping Upplet to finish his main story 'When Night Falls'. This has included helping him plan out some of the motivations for some characters, and writing a number of scenes. Mainly the ones focused around Nick's mayoral run, versus Bradley Stagnew.

For those who read through my 'Fire Instinct Blue' mega crossover concept, this was kinda the plotline that Jack Savage ended up taking onboard instead... although in that case, I'd already planned to have Jack to take on a mayor's run role with its own aims and goals when it was still just Fire Triangle and Guardian Blue crossing over.

(With the GB stuff done, and no Jack Savage in FT, I needed something for striped Bun to do. And given that at the end of GB S2 it was mentioned he might go into politics, and that this route could allow him to take up a few of the political roles of FT's councilmammal Claudia Nizhang, it seemed like a good fit).

Crossing over with WNH allowed me to bring on some of his team (Samantha, Neil) and political opponents (Stagnew and Clovestone, who also acted as really fun 'big bad rivals' to FT's Big bad).

Regardless of that concept outline though, I've written a number of scenes for Upplet. Of course, we both have our own styles, are own interpretations, etc. And I went into this knowing that in some cases, he might edit some of what I wrote (thinking it was the best fit for the fic) a little to fit in with what he thought was best for his fic. And, with the last chapter, that happened to two of my contributing scenes.

They're not big changes. Some differing dialogue here, some other things there. In both cases, he was also in a rush to upload and accidently pulled from some earlier drafts of the scenes, which didn't include a few changes I made due to feedback from the ZAA fic readthroughs.

Anyway, as we agreed at the start, he got the ultimate say in what went up on his fic, while I got the chance to put up my original idea up on here. And, needing something to fill in this week, it kind of made sense for me to upload them.

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So, two scenes. The first one is Harlan getting called back to the ZPD. Now, the only thing really dropped here was a minor additional line or two, ironically enough, to help with the continuity between this scene and Upplet's spa fight that had come previously.

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Stepping out in front of Precinct 1, Harlan knew he should be feeling warmer. Even though this was nothing like the blazing parts of Sahara Square up close to the climate wall, the warmth of Savanna Central was like a blazing summer's day compared to the chill of Tundra Town. He should have been looking forward to this day, getting called back to come off his ticketing punishment and returned to the main force.

Or at least, coming back for a 'critical meeting' as they'd worded it.

But right now, the wolf's tail was dipping. If he was a police commissioner looking into corruption and leaking, this would be how he'd lure his suspect back, wouldn't it?

Climbing up the steps, Harlan grit his teeth and put on a neutral expression. The chances were it was just a normal meeting, in which case he would act like it and give them no reason to think otherwise. After all, even if they did suspect him, staying home or running away would just paint him even worse as they called the other officers out to hunt him down. To come at him. To corner him in his own home to make him surrender, or die fight…

He closed his eyes and breathed out as he stepped inside. This was the right move.

"Oh, hey Harlan! Been a while since I saw you around," Clawhauser greeted.

"Yeah," he said, "been helping out in Tundratown."

"Ooooh," the cheetah shivered. "Way too cold for me… Then again, don't tell me you didn't give Snownuts a go?"

"Snownuts?"

"Only the best donut shop in the entire district, best icing in the whole city."

"Right," the wolf nodded. "I'll remember to give it a go."

"You won't regret it," he smiled. "Anyway, Judy and Bogo are waiting for you in meeting room D. Have fun."

"Will do," the wolf breathed out, making his way over. He hoped he'd be having fun, but the gnaw in his stomach telling him that he wouldn't get the chance to try that donut shop for a lot, lot longer than Clawhauser imagined began to grow and grow.

He closed his eyes. He shouldn't have come. It was too late now, but he shouldn't be here. Aaarghhhh! He'd even tried to phone Mikhael about it, to ask if this was the right thing to do or not, to just… The bear would know. His friend would know. He just got it, but right when he needed him his phone had gone to answer. Not once, not twice, but three times.

Pulling the thing out and putting it on do not disturb, lest the response come at the absolute worst time, he stepped into the room and froze.

There, up at the other end, stood Judy and Bogo, looking at a massive projector, Mikhael's mugshot staring right back out at him.

The wolf gulped and slowly put a foot back, only for Judy to turn. "Harlan!" she chirped. "Sit down, want anything?"

She began moving over to the small refreshments trolley as the wolf, doing his best to keep a lid on his screaming nerves, nodded. "Just some water please." He tenderly sat down on the chair as Judy put a glass in front of him and poured out some water.

"...Is everything okay?"

He snapped to her, the bunny looking on concerned. "I'm…" he began, glancing at the picture of Mikhael staring out, Bogo next to him. The buffalo's eyes were boring in even further than the bears. "Just… Who is that bear? I swear I've seen him before. Ha, must just be some deja-vu." He chuckled off and grabbed his water, beginning to drink it down.

"Uh-hu," Bogo nodded. "It seems we were right to call you in then."

The wolf had to force his throat closed to stop him spraying back out into the glass. "Why's that then?" he said with a forced chuckle to mask out any nerves. "Anything happen to him, or…"

"Well the bad, but I suppose not so bad, news is he's dead," Bogo said.

This time Harlan did choke. "I… What…"

"Apologies if I came off as disrespectful for the dead there," the buffalo said. "Though in terms of respect, I have absolutely none for this mammal. Mikhael Stalilapa. One of Big's inner circle, a mammal responsible for recruiting, corrupting, extorting and murdering countless mammals. We've been trying to get something to stick on him for years, but it seems that his enemies got tired of waiting." And with that he flicked over to a bloody crime scene, the bear lying dead in the middle of a torn up spa room. Bogo began going off about some of what was witnessed, how there were some who claimed savages tore in as if it were the nighthowler case or Catpone's revolt all over. On he went about how there was a group of nocturnals led by a raccoon being tested for Apex-Affluent, wounded civilians in hospital, and how a trio of arctic vixens of all things were caught while fleeing from the site. Decked out with numerous weapons under their bikinis and the blood of half a dozen different bears coating their fur, they were pleading self defense.

Harlan just let it glaze over him.

Mikhael was dead.

The mammal who took him in off a cold street. The mammal who knew what it was like. His friend. The closest thing he had to a…

"Ambushed while in a hot tub, the bear gave a, by the reports, pretty futile fight before collapsing," Bogo rounded off. "I'm sure if we had a certain fox still in our ranks, we'd be getting a tasteless joke about now."

"I could try," Judy offered.

"At ease Hopps. It won't be half as funny…"

"So you did like them."

BANG.

They both turned to see Harlan glaring at them, paws hard and flat against the table.

"Officer…" Bogo began, only to get cut off.

"He's dead! A mammal's dead, murdered while sitting down and not expecting and… and then trying to hold his head high, and you… You're laughing at it. You're making jokes! You're…" He panted in and out. "It's like his life didn't even matter!"

Judy's ears went down and she stared at the floor, while Bogo let his eyes flicker away. "Apologies if we came off as… unprofessional, Officer. I suppose that hearing that a long time thorn in our side had been pulled out did result in that, but you're right. Unprofessional."

"Yeah," Judy said. "Especially given that it's opening up a whole new can of thorns. This was a serious mob hit, and who knows what it could mean going on."

"Which is why we pulled you back," Bogo said. "Ewever has already looked over it with Officer Hopps, but we wanted you back on too. And, given your work in Tundra Town, we wanted to see whether you'd spotted anything suspicious. A shot in the dark, but it seems to have sit true."

The wolf blinked, pulling out of stewing anger and into a tricky matter of hustling himself out of this. "Yeah, I'm not sure, I said it was deja vu but… -hang on, I know where I saw him. It was a few weeks ago, and he was helping a pair of arctic foxes by lifting their car out of a snow drift." He chuckled, "I mean, can't ticket something under a pile of snow, and then lifted out and put back down outside of the space!"

Bogo smiled. "Well, I know one mammal who might try."

"If they have a problem they can argue it in traffic court," Judy smirked.

"Yeah," Harlan rolled off. "But still, kinda shocking that that helpful bear I saw got gunned down in cold blood and murdered and all. Hope he doesn't have any children, learning their father isn't coming home or even being there and seeing it. Not gonna be much of a laughing matter for them, huh."

A cold silence filled the room, Bogo clearing his throat. "My apologies. It's easy to forget that sometimes indirect things like this can hit hard. I can say though he doesn't have any cubs."

"Uh hu," Judy said. "And even though he was a criminal, he didn't deserve this, and it's up to us to find out who did it and bring them to justice. We caught gunmen from both sides, but we need confirmation on who was calling the shots."

"Before they strike again," Bogo intoned. "This kind of thing always spills out to hit innocents and civilians. I trust you two can stop it before then." He was broken off by a knock on the door, as Mary came in with a stack of files in her hooves. "You three," he corrected, "I'll leave you to it. -Oh, and Harlan." He stared at the wolf. "Welcome back, and do not make us regret giving you this second chance. Understood?"

"Understood," he said, as Bogo left and Mary sat down.

"You're back early!" she cheered.

"Yeah," he grunted, eyes flicking back to the screen. Mikhael lying there, and then cut off to a picture of a security camera picture of him and a posse of other animals entering in.

"So, I've been doing some research," the Ewe carried on. "It seems he and his group were mainly there for relaxation, but this sun bear…" She pointed to one. "Isn't a mammal you'd expect in the Tundra Town mafia. I mean, I thought it odd. I was thinking maybe he was there for a meeting or something. Maybe they were planning crimes or something, so I began searching…"

"As did I," Judy said. "And I struck gold first."

Mary nodded, switching to a police report from the desk of Chief Latrans. "A warehouse fire from last week, or at least it seemed to be. Chief Latrans team found several bodies in the ashes, burnt beyond recognition, so he had to focus on dental records for identification. What he didn't need to wait on was working out what species they are. Including another weird one. A naked mole rat."

"What's weird about that," Harlan asked.

"They're an underground species," Judy explained. "And of all the places to come out, Sahara Square is the absolute worst. They've got no fur, and their skin would start burning within the hour. There's reports of an old ventilation tunnel for the Nocturnal District nearby, which could explain it. Smuggling through the tunnels, him popping out and trying to rebuild Sharez's old outfit."

"Of course, the other weird thing that Latrans discovered were a few reports of some bears nearby at the time. And I'm thinking they're linked."

"How?" Harlan asked. "Is this… fighting over the scraps of the Sahara Square mob or something?"

"Could be," Judy said. "Looking into the bears, we think they might be a new outfit from the Timberlands. Trying to jostle up as the third crime lord of the city, to mixed success."

"Well that sounds unbearable," Mary began, only to freeze as Judy struggled to hold in a laugh. One that quickly began returning to sender. "I didn't mean that! Honest, I…"

"At ease," Judy said, wiping away a tear from under her eye. "Apparently that's what they call themselves anyway, so…"

"-Seriously?"

"Seriously," the bunny said, shaking her head and firming up her face. "Wordplay that would make my husband groan aside, they are a serious threat. We're talking about a crime war here, involving those bears and the two city mobs."

Mary nodded. "There was something else…"

"Huh?" Judy asked.

Mary shuffled a few more papers. "It seems the Sahara Square fire wasn't the first. There was one a few weeks before in Tundra Town." She pushed some papers forward. "It's been cleaned up well, no bodies found, but the investigators did notice a lot of things that suggest it wasn't some accident."

Blinking, Judy walked over, gesturing to Harlan too. "Hmmm, I mean, I can see that. But if it was the unbearables trying to come in, why would they strike there first."

"I… What if the bears were brought in by Tundra Town as muscle?" Mary suggested.

"That would suggest a war between Tundra Town and Nocturnal." Judy shivered. "A war that's already turned hot and is only going to get uglier." Her eyes narrowed. "There's no proof though, so… Any ideas, Harlan?"

He shook his head. "No."

With that, Judy groaned. "In that case, we've got to try our best. But it might already be too late to nip this in the bud. We might be playing firefighter to a true crime war here, and that means mammals, guilty and innocent, are going to get hurt." Her eyes narrowed. "So we're gonna work double hard to shut it down and make that number as small as possible. Right team?"

"Yes Ma'am," they agree, pushing off to work.

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An hour or so later, Judy was slipping off for a quick bathroom break and then lunch run, getting some food for all of them. As she went though, she pulled out her phone and dialed in the first number. It picked up and she smiled. "Heya future Mayor."

"Woah, don't wanna tempt fate just yet, future First Lady." Nick and his campaign group were busy getting ready in a salty smelling changing room, the fox sitting on one of the cracked wooden benches beneath a porthole window.

"Says you."

"Says me," me smiled. "How are things going?"

There was a pause. "Tough… Not the best news, not by a long shot, but we have a big chance to make a difference. As will you, soon enough."

"Fingers crossed," Nick said, stepping out and looking out the window. The dock district lay out in front, a queue of mammals already forming. "One last push on the victory lap, the final debate, and then it's election night." He breathed out, blinking a few times. "And chances are… Chances are, I'll be mayor."

"Just hitting you now?"

"You could say that."

"Ah, best of luck Nick!"

"You too my love!"

And with that, he hung up, walking over to Samantha. "Five minutes," she said, showing him his cards.

"Uh-hu. Going over all the main points."

Over in a corner, Neil spoke up. "Even how that rat from the debate was a plant?"

"We're not doing that," Samantha said, arms crossed. "Yes, it sounds like a Bradley thing to do, but we found the newspaper article showing it did happen."

"You mean the one where her and her 'son' had a different surname?"

"The one where it said it was her partner's son, yes. And?"

"Well it'd be step-son for a start, debatable as they're not…"

"-Do you want to lose even more sympathy than Brian did?" Samantha asked, crossing her arms. "Now, looking in, I'm also pretty sure that Stagnew played a bit dirty here. The audience tickets were sent out via a lottery but could be traded, and that rat lady was confirmed to have been gifted her one."

"-And looking on furbook said 'gifter' seems a lot richer all of a sudden. So we can…"

This time Nick spoke up. "None of this changes the fact that a mammal was drained by Lucy Sang," he said, arms crossed. "Trying to draw away from that is what Brian Batley did, and it's exactly how not to do it. We need to have a Sang-stopping 'win-win' solution for both the rodents and the bats."

"Really easier said than done…" Samantha began, only for Nick to cut her off with a raised finger.

"We're gonna fight bat with bats!"

"Huh?"

"ZPD! Air force division!" Crossing his paws in front of him, wrists against opposing shoulders, he began flapping with his paws and running around. "Neeeeoooowwww…"

She paused, looking over to Neil, who shrugged. "Honestly, I'm surprised no-one thought of that before."

Samantha smiled. "Ever heard of the 'Mammal Inclusion Initiative, ultra-first draft?"

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By the end of the day, Nick had managed a speech both at the Docks and out in Outback Island. More were lined up for the last few days, including for both the Nocturnal District and Little Rodentia. Everything was picking up pace, as opposed to the ZPD, where things were running into a roadblock.

Leaving for the day, they had lots of theories, but no firm proof. And nothing to use to cut off the violence before it burst out once again. All they could do was dig in further and learn.

"Maybe see if you can find those foxes again?" Judy suggested, as Harlan, back in his civvies, left for the subway.

"Huh?"

"The foxes. The ones you saw Mikhael helping."

"Oh, yeah. Them! Will do if I see them," he said, before getting onto the subway. Sitting down he closed his eyes and rubbed his face.

Mikhael was dead.

And the ZPD didn't care.

Oh, sure, they said they did. They said this was important. They said they needed to stop it to stop innocents getting hurt…

But that bear wasn't one of those.

He felt his teeth grit.

They were happy he'd been killed. They were joking. As that was what he and all the other 'scum' were to them. To mammals like Clovestone. Jokes. Nasty, horrid, stupid jokes who deserved what they got.

How many times had he been told that before.

'He deserved it'

'The world's a better place now'

'He could have surrendered but he chose to fight back.'

'He asked for it'

Damn that, the wolf growled internally, stepping out of the subway and back into the streets of Happytown. Trash blew gently in the warm savanna breeze, though Harlan kept his fists balled in his pockets as though he'd never left Tundratown. They were mammals, they had their dignity, they had their pride, and they had a will to fight for themselves and their brothers. That was something those mammals staring down above and wrecking their lives would never understand. But he did.

HONK!

Harlan glared at the car his introspective pacing had inadvertently placed him before. Behind the wheel, an antelope raised one fist and shouted, "Hey, big guy, get outta the road! I've got places to be! Go find a nice cliff to howl from!"

Something in Harlan snapped. Though his expression remained flat, his yellow eyes intensified as he drew a pistol from his waistband and fired several shots into the vehicle's tires as though doing something as mundane as flicking the buttons on a TV remote. The antelope yelped with fear, and began to drive away, car thunking awkwardly down the road. Harlan just watched as it fled, standing in the middle of the street. He then looked down at the weapon in his paw, taken from the armory. Normally, officers were only allowed to check-out dartguns for standard use. Yet no one would think twice about just another predator shooting out the tires in just another car in Happytown. It happened all the time. After all, he'd asked for it.

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AN: So yeah, if you didn't notice, it was Bogo (while Harlan was glazing over) making a specific mention of a raccoon being tested for Apex Affluent, and the vixen's being caught.

Next up is the scene with Bradley and Peter talking together. I've only copied it in after Peter introduces himself (cutting the Bradley at home lead up I wrote). Due to copying an earlier draft, there's a fun little bit of line originally suggested/ inspired by Merc_Marten that got cut out. The main difference though is some alterations that Upplet made when Bradley was talking about the history of Happytown, and also around the reveal of what the deer's 'paperweight' actually was.

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even close.

And with that he walked back, past the kitchen where a delicious smell was coming out from. At the foot of the building was one of the finest restaurants in Zootopia, and a dumb waiter connected it to his penthouse. A massive plate of mushroom and squash risotto, with wholegrain toast covered in garlic butter, garnishing flakes of green pine bark, toasted pine nuts and forest berry reduction on the side was ready.

He took it out to a waiting table, ready to eat it while looking out at his city.

"Ooooh, how many janitors wages did that cost?"

Bradley jolted, placing his food down on the table and glaring through his residence. "What are you doing here, Peter?"

"Ohhhh…" the squirrel mused, before appearing, flying down through the air and gracefully landing on Bradleys desk. "Can't a little squirrel come and have a talk with his fellow evil dooer when he wants to?"

The deer gritted his teeth. "No. A useless little squirrel who can't do his job properly is not welcome in my house. And don't take that tone with me. What I'm doing is for the good of the city."

"Awww, you tell yourself that," Peter said, looking over the rim of Bradley's cut crystal brandy glass. Paws in, he scooped up a pawful of the amber lyric and gulped it down. "But I must tell you, it's far funner when you embrace it."

"Says the glorified insurance clerk," the deer scoffed.

"Ahem, that was me sticking under cover and trying to live the normal life. And lemme tell you, it sucked real bad." His gaze turned to the bottle of medicine. "I mean, yeah I wanna be evil, but insurance? Now there's just no fun in that. It wasn't worth it." He scoffed a little. "I mean at least the mammals who peddle this quack stuff get to laugh at the dumb dumbs who buy it. Horn growth supplement, extra, extra calcium." He giggled. "Why not do what most mammals with your affliction do instead, and spend the money you save on a real big car."

"If you need to be educated on the difference between keratin horns that grow once, and bone antlers that regrow every year, I'm thinking I should just give up on you now," Bradley sneered. "There never was any hope of you dealing with Sang in the first place."

"Lucky for you, seeing as the debate now isn't between Wilde and a batty boy," Peter carried on, walking around the desk like he owned it. Coming up to the small metal pellet, he moved to pick it up, only for his feet to slide from under it. "Wooo, heavy boy here."

"So, your incompetence had a positive side effect on one occasion."

"I think the words you're looking for are 'thank you'," Peter said, finger out. "And also, 'Wow, amazing 7D chess move'."

"If you're expecting me to be thankful for that, you're…"

"Oh no, no, no, no…" the squirrel cut off, as he slid the metal puck down next to him. Resting on its curved edge, he leant against it, claws of one paw scratching away idly. "Prepare to eat humble pie, as I'm proud of this one. Now, what's better than taking out Lucy Sang when she comes in to pick up her lost painting, all prepared and ready for something big?"

"I don't know," Bradley said, rolling his eyes.

"Letting her take it back and hang it over the fireplace, relax at her place, and then hit her when she's busy taking a bath or something."

"Which would require you to know where in that maze-like warren of tunnels their secret base is lo…" Bradley trailed off, huffing a little. Peter just gave a candied-nut-eating grin in return. "Ah, I see. If you want me to say I'm impressed, let me ask you why you have to be so irritating about all of this?"

"Because it's evil, therefore fun," Peter smiled. "Come on, embrace the dark side!"

"And when do you intend to finish this?"

"After I've let our other little faction in this butter everything up first," Peter said. "I believe they know where Vlad's base of operations are, and with this war going on they'll be looking for a swift end. If not, I'll inform them. Let the bears and the bats break each other, and sneak through the rubble when nobody is looking to take out Lucy."

"As long as it's quick," the deer huffed. "Though it seems you do think of everything."

"Uh-hu," Peter said, "including how we misread that damn bat and let her destroy our family in the first place… We took everything from her and then raised her just a bit up, thinking her new comradery would hold her to us forever, whatever happened. But when she found out, she decided she didn't really have that much to lose from burning us to ash. After all, turns out she truly didn't need us anymore, and we had nothing to hold over her to keep her in line. And so we've learnt from that. Rule one, make sure your mark always has a lot to lose. Rule two, make sure you're never disposable. Rule three, make sure that if anyone is planning to off you, they know that'll be a very bad move. Rule four, don't forget rules one to three, especially three. I just thought you'd need that especially pointed out to get through that calcium hardened skull of yours."

Bradley slowly looked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Please, drop the faux civility. I know you think I'm the absolutest scum of the earth," Peter said. "And I know that once my work is all done, is there any real reason you'd want to keep me around? After all, evil does as evil does, and two evil doers working together never decide 'well that's a job well done, let's leave each other now and go on our merry way'. Nothing personal, just I know when an end of the job might also involve the end of my life. And I know that you're so envious of my excellent personality, you and Rupey are probably giggling at the squirrel squashing possibilities."

"You really have no honour, do you?"

"Hey, I'm just being street smart," Peter said. "So I'm just telling you now, I have a few friends elsewhere. And if you and your gang don't let me take my big bundles of cash and walk off into the sunset at the end of this, you'll get to join Lionfart and Smellwether in their little manacled mayors club."

"You're extorting me," Bradley growled.

"No, it's insurance. As I said, super evil! I really did learn a lot. All you need to do is pay me as promised and let me go, and we'll be out of each other's sight forever. Is that really so hard?"

"You're starting to make it," the deer snarked.

"Ahhh. Thank you. Anyways, glad we could clear that up," Peter said.

"And what if Lucy kills you?"

"Don't worry. I've got my methods, my contacts, and some base honour among fellow scumbags."

"I am not a fellow or a scumbag. Now get out of my sight."

Peter shook his head. "Oh come off it. You hang out with and idiolise a speciesist corkscrew head like Clovestone who cackles at seeing preds suffer…"

"-While I respect Rupert greatly, I don't respect him there," Bradley opined. "I'm not speciesist and I don't have anything against predators. On their own they're good, honest, mammals. Or at least, most of them are. Little different to most prey." He turned to stare down Peter. "As you should have gathered, sometimes you have to put up with less than savoury ideas and mammals to get to a greater goal. And Rupert is nothing compared to some mammals I know."

"Aw, shucks… I'm touched. But come on. All this stuff, just because a predator asks for more money for the predator district?" Peter chuckled. "Have you seen yourself. Predator slum might get a bit more money… The very foundation of Zootopia is at risk. A bit more prosperity for them and it's the savage ages all over! I mean, for saying 'keep 'em preds down' without saying 'keep 'em preds down', I've got to hand it to you for disguising it so sweetly."

Bradley looked at him, angry at first but then his features softening. "Peter," he began. "Try getting up to that pillar up there."

"Huh?"

"Trust me. You'll like this."

"Oh, I've used that tone before," he said, before scurrying up the nearest pillar regardless. He leapt off it and glided down to the pillar in question, near the window. Climbed up, level with Bradley's eyes, he looked out at where the cervid was pointing.

"See how everything's just a bit of a jumble? How all these buildings are in different states of repair, different sizes, all mixed up."

"Yeah," he said, scratching his head.

"And now look over there."

Peter followed his gaze. "That area is more… samey… Is this relevant somehow?"

"All in good time," Bradley said. "Now back to the desk."

"Okay, but if you're just going to ping-pong me around to get your own back forget it." He scurried back up and then flew down, landing on the desk and sitting next to the small metal puck. Bradley meanwhile went over to a large bookcase and began looking through.

"The reason that area was all the same height, all similar, is simple. It was built at roughly the same time, to the same plan. It's Happytown."

Peter scratched his head. "Oh great, it's not preds you're against, it's bad architecture. You know, I was thinking you were unreasonably petty, but thanks for clearing that all up."

"Funnily enough, you could say that's partly true," Bradley smirked, as he picked a book out.

"Oh acorn hats," Peter moaned, facepawing. "You're an Ayn Ram fan doing some fountainhead larping. That's it, isn't it? I should have known. Just kill me now!"

"No, and no. Unfortunately. You see, on some level I do respect Wilde. His heart is in the right place. But, he is operating on a simple and fundamentally broken premise. He wants to fix Happytown, raise it up high, he thinks that after years of neglect it is broken and that he can repair it and make it a prosperous part of the city. But he fails to see one simple fact. Happytown can't be fixed. It was broken from the day it was created, and trying to act like it can be fixed is a fool's errand."

"Aw, but it's the thought that counts," Peter chirped.

"Mammals like this might have said the same thing," Bradley said, as he raised up the front. 'Modern Zootopian Architecture', a hoof resting on a picture of a slightly nerdy looking moose, two round broad rimmed glasses on his snout. He was standing next to an angular 2D silhouette figure of another of his kind..

"Oooh, another one for the evil jerks with big things sticking from their head. This time it's baseball mittens, which funny shape will be next?"

"I wouldn't describe Le Cormoosier as an evil jerk," Bradley shrugged off. "An arrogant fool, certainly. At the turn of the century he and a bunch of other 'visionary' architects had a bold idea. The way we'd built cities before, the way things naturally were, was just a wasteful accident. Things could be far better if they were planned properly, if a red right hoof swept in to raze and reorder everything in a highly managed dictate. A new ordered order."

"I thought you liked order?"

"The natural order," Bradley said. "You see, these mammals thought their new order… no more streets, no more houses, everything reorganised, would reorganise the mammals themselves. Create a utopia. In reality their arrogance and disregard for the way things had naturally evolved created not a new order, but a new chaos. Their utopias collapsed into uncontrollable unpolicable crime generating slums in the sky, broken hellholes dynamited down barely a few decades after rising from the ground. But that would be in the future. In their present, they needed some big backers to push forward this dream. And funnily enough, given we were talking about strange bedfellows to achieve our dreams, they found some."

Peter rapped his paw against the metal puck. "I give in. Who?"

A warm satisfied grin grew across Bradley's face. "None other than your evil speciesists." His grin grew more as he saw Peter's reaction, before carrying on. "They thought predators were evil, predators were wicked, predators needed to be kept apart from meek prey and controlled. They had a lot of power, but not enough to convince everyone of their plans if presented straight. So, they decided to pitch a grand new scheme to replace Zootopia's slums with modern buildings, built by these architects to their radical new designs. They worked with the intellectuals and let them have a go at building their utopia for all mammals, while rigging the applications to ensure the schemes were segregated. The only one open to predators would be the largest and cheapest, built on large areas of waste land around some of the city's biggest factories."

Peter's eyes widened. "Happytown."

Bradley nodded, putting the book away. "Subsidised rents and mortgages drew them in, but as the factories began closing things began going wrong. Not as bad as the other places, Happytown's design ended up far more conventional and thus resilient than many others. But poverty and crime dropped the housing prices, while more and more funded housing being put up added to the glut. Eventually the penny dropped and the market collapsed. Those who rented tended to be too poor to afford to get out. Those who'd purchased were trapped in negative equity." The deer smiled. "For trapping as many predators as possible in one place with no fences or walls, it was an excellently subtle and devious plot. One that made a lot of mammals happy and rich, including a certain young mammal whose construction company was able to win a lot of contracts during the last great gasp of this era."

"Fusilli horns himself," Peter pointed, leaning back on the metal puck. "And now I'm guessing he wants you in as not having walls is not enough."

The deer remained silent, the corner of his mouth pulling up slightly. "You like that thing, don't you?"

"Huh, the paperweight?" Peter asked, turning to it. "Guess…"

"It's a bit more than that," he said. "If you take the cover off that box there."

The squirrel did just that, pausing as he saw what seemed to be a glass dome on top of a metal base, openings for cooling fins placed in the wooden trim. Seeing a plug, the squirrel put it in, while Bradley brought out a small bottle of clear alcohol. In it was poured, the metal puck placed in the centre. With that the dome went back on and the machine started to hum. Peter looked on curiously, giving his side a scratch. "Any hints?"

The deer remained silent as the squirrel put his paws on the glass, noting it was getting very cold.

And then suddenly it happened, Peter's eyes widening at the site. "It's… it's like a FIREWORK! Woah, can you scale this up for a magic trick or something?" He glanced back at a smiling Bradley, before looking back at the chamber. Inside, the formerly clear air was cut through by sudden streaks of white, falling down or dropping off as soon as they appeared like white ribbons left to the wind. All came from the metal puck, popping out like streams of bubbles in a champagne glass, dozens appearing even before their predecessor faded into mist.

"It looks like a sea urchin," the squirrel said. "What is this?"

"Well the device is called a Quillson cloud chamber," Bradley said. "In the cold environment you have a supersaturated atmosphere of alcohol, desperate to condense but unable to without a point of nucleation. When one is provided though, and it only needs to be the smallest of points, they condense."

"And the puck is providing it huh," Peter mused. "So what's special about it?"

"Nothing really," the deer shrugged. "It's just a run of the mill nuclear fuel pellet firing out alpha particles."

"WHAT!?" Peter jumped back, before looking at his paws and beginning to wipe them on his shirt front. "Are you crazy?" He looked up, before running over to the remaining glass of brandy and washing his paws in it. "Are you a terminal lunatic? Do you have a deathwish? Do you know what kind of HELL I'll cause you if my fur falls out." His face grimaced into a fury. "Was this your way of offing me, huh? Was it?"

"Oh grow up, it's harmless," Bradley waved off.

"But it's…"

"Causing no more harm than living in any number of mountain towns I could point at on the map," the deer said. "Sometimes by a factor of ten."

"Yeah, say that when it blows you up!"

"Science really isn't your strong point," the deer said, crossing his arms and smiling. "As I said, it's harmless. Unused in a reactor, it's decaying at a slow natural rate. Only a gibbering moron could judge it to do any real harm, but certain mammals do. They see it and panic, they hate it, they want to throw and lock it away out of sight and out of mind. You'd want to lock all of these away in one room far away, right?"

"Well, yes," he said, jumping off the table and scurrying away as fast as he could.

"Do you know what you'd need to do to make it dangerous, to make it a genuine threat?"

"Apart from just having it sitting in your living room?"

"Two things," Bradley said, as the squirrel scurried up a table on the other side of the room. "Firstly, concentrate it. Secondly, reach a critical mass. At a certain point, you create a chain reaction. Enough energy to kill anything that gets close. That's the inside of a nuclear reactor. But what happens if you concentrate it further and further and further. To truly unnatural levels, ninety percent or so, all crushed together to an immense, artificial pressure."

"...Boom?"

"Boom," Bradley said, walking back to the window and looking out. "I have nothing against the individual predator. They're harmless, no more a real danger to you than anything else you might encounter out there. Indeed in many cases less than certain prey species, or even those closest to you. Society has lasted for millenia with ten percent predators living amongst us prey, all good and natural, moderated and prospering. It's what built this city and made it great. But some mammals disagreed. In the past, they thought they needed to get the predators away from them, to create a new better order, to rewrite all the rules and make a utopia in which they were finally safe. And in their arrogance they decided that the solution was to concentrate them to unnatural levels, to pack them all in tight, to squeeze them together in the vice like grip of a poverty stricken ghetto to the point where there was nothing but predators!"

The deer shook his head. "And in doing so they didn't solve any problem. They created the problem. As soon as that place was built, as the predators were led in there and as soon as it reached critical mass, a chain reaction leading to Al Catpones inevitable rebellion was ensured." He sighed, stomping his foot. "We were lucky, this time, but next? Or the one after? Rupert doesn't understand, neither does Wilde, you can't throw the predators into some glorified prison or try and fix Happytown. Trust me," he said, a sad inflection in his voice. "I've seen it happen with far less than what's out there. And you only need one to succeed to consume the rest of the city and cause true misery, pain and fear. All because some dumb speciesists who hate predators thought better than the order which had kept peace for centuries!" He held himself tall. "A fair and natural order I will do everything I can to return this city to Peter, before it's too late. And no mammal, however misguided, corrupt, or both, is going to stop me."

.

.

AN: So, the bit that Merc suggested was with the rules 1, 2 and 3 bit. More specifically, joking about 'rule 4: always remember rule 1-3' (based on a catchphrase Conor used in one of his pre-zoot stories (rule 1, don't mess with me. Rule 2, never forget rule 1)). While I tend to far more prefer subtext and not spelling things out... Having Peter spell it out for Bradley, working in an insult as he went, felt just like a Peter thing to do.

Later on, there were some things Upplet changed... Specifically saying that Rupert was fully involved at the start of Happytown, rather than just getting rich off the tail end of it. And, in the final case, the scene with the cloud-chamber. That's one I'd certainly argue to keep in. Instead, Upplet cut it out so the deer straight up said what it was, and added in Bradley saying his mother worked in a nuclear facility and brought it to him to teach him the same lesson... Which I'd say was completely unneeded. It's not something that needs a specific connection, it's just something an intelligent mammal like Bradley knows about and chose to get of his own accord. (After all, it works well as a visual metaphor... Hence why I brought it in). And indeed, the cloud chamber intro... building it up and creating a mystery before the reveal was one of my fav things in there, and having it cut out with Bradley just bluntly saying what it was... Eh, the abrupt skip forward was very much felt there (to me at least).

Overall, I think there'd always be a few disagreements between us. Different styles and views on when to spell out vs when to infer aside, his ultimate plans for Bradley were... Well, before being invited to help out, I was really intrigued by Bradley, and really liked him as a villain. Chaos for chaos sake is a common trope. But Bradley seemed to be a very interesting inversion. Order for orders sake, and I was excited to see where this went.

And when invited to help with When Night Falls and told the future plans... I had to admit, I was pretty disappointed. Avoiding spoilers as much as I can, he felt like he ended up slipping into the exact kind of tropes that he felt like he was a breath of fresh air from. It also felt like it was dropping some of the intelligent political intrigue that had me invested up to that point. A lot of our early discussions were about this, and while we're still going for the same overall plan, a lot of my works writing him have been about building him out, making it clear why he thinks like he does, making his future moves make sense. Overall, making him ideologically consistent.

In my view, is it still the best place to go with him, using him as a character? Hmmmm... Hard to say. Thinking back to some things I said about Aggretsuko S4 and what they did with Haida. In hindsight can I see what they were planning and advise how to make it work and be very good? Yes. I could there, and I'm putting in my advise for WNF here. Is there a different endgame which I think would better serve the themes, the characters, etc? With Aggretsuko, yes. Back there, have Haida thrive in his new position, but then face the same pressures his predecessors had, ending up in the same position as Ton and caught between an absolute rock and a hard place. For WNF and Bradley...

IDK. Given time I could probably think of something, indeed that's what I did for the Fire Instinct Blue crossover ending... Though that was very much fitting him into a place that wrapped his story up in that saga, and being a secondary player it wasn't a grand ending or completely wrapped up in the big action finale or anything. It was more a 'you think you played the game and come out on top, let me karma check you sonny!' Suffice to say, it certainly wouldn't work for WNF proper, where he very much is the top dog.

Eh, who knows. Either way, differences and disagreements happen, mistakes are made, opinions are subjective. But, if any of you were interested in seeing these alternate scenes, so to say, then that makes me happy.

Any reviews and thoughts are welcome.

Stay pawsome!