The Hopps family had been expecting many things from this travel to Zootopia.

They expected to drop by to see Judy. They expected to see a little of all of the things that they always heard about from Zootopia (even because there was one or two of them that planned to move in there as well, although they would not admit it to their parents). They expected to see the mall and all of the many stores in it.

They didn't expected to be dragged into the middle of an incident involving mages. They didn't expected to be stranded inside of a mall taken by golems and controlled mammals. They didn't expected to be forced to fight for their lives in the midst of all of that mess.

And they surely didn't expected to find out that Bonnie was a mage.

They were shocked to find out that the matriarch of their family was an ex-mage. More than that that she was an ex-necromancer. A mage that practiced a magecraft that used corpses. That was something that none of them would have been able to imagine, even in their wildest dreams.

They were able to relax a little after the events of the mall. However, they were still all processing what they had learned about that female bunny that they had known for their entire lives. The children were still in shock for having found out such a dark secret about their mother.

Stu was not much better, as he was still trying to process all that he had learned about his wife. Not only she had kept things secret from him, but she had also lied right on his face about things from her past. She lied him saying that she came from Podunk, when instead she was native to Zootopia. Also, she didn't told him that she had changed her name. All of that made him wonder just what kinds of secrets she was keeping, and what other lies she would have probably told him.

All of sudden, he felt as if he had married a stranger.

He wanted to talk to her as soon as they were out of the mall, but Bonnie was able to convince him that they had a very long day, and that they couldn't discuss anything in such a state of nervousness. Not to mention about their children and granddaughter, who were probably going through a lot for having to deal with all of that.

It was already nighttime, and they didn't wanted to have to deal with the travel back to BunnyBurrow. So, they found a place to stay the night, and they planned to get a new train back to their home as soon as they felt recovered enough to travel.

Zootopia had many places that could house mammals for a night or more. They spread across the city and could cater all kinds of needs for all manners of mammals. They were lucky that they were able to find a place used to deal with bunnies. They had sizable apartments of a decent size and a good number of bunker beds on each one. They were one that would easily house the number of bunnies that were on their group comfortably.

The night had passed for the bunnies rather uneventful, but they still had some problems to get some actual sleep. Some of them were a bit traumatize by the events of the mall, the zombies that their mother created in particular, as well as the ominous laughter that she let out as she made them. Some of them were deep in thought, as they reflect on how their mother hid her past from them.

Even Stu was having a little trouble to get to sleep, as he and his wife were on the same bed, but they didn't cuddled to sleep, as they usually did. Instead, it seemed that each one of them had chosen to remain on one side of the bed. Bonnie was laying on her back, looking at the ceiling with an absent expression. Stu, on his end, was laying on his side, his mind still passing and repassing all that he learned about his wife on that day, and on all of the things that he wanted to ask her as soon as the morning came.

With the coming of the morning, the Hopps family had calmed down considerably from the events of the previous day.

Cotton had recovered completely from that, and she was soon smiling and laughing like most kits her age would. She was soon playing around the place and making some drawing on the table as they had breakfast. She seemed a lot more active than the rest of the family.

Many of them were still processing what happened on the previous night, including Harry. He still found it hard to believe that his mother had been a mage in the past. And a necromancer to booth! He could not imagine his mother being the kind of mammal that would willingly touch and desecrate dead bodies. She had always been so tame, so... normal. To find out that she would do things like that in her early years...

Some shared of his opinions, as they found it hard to believe that such a kind soul would do such things. Of course, many of them knew what was a 'necromancer', and the ones who didn't still remembered the explanation that they heard, about how necromancers created zombies and used pieces of corpses to make magical objects.

They had witnessed it with their own eyes, when they saw that skull-shotgun that their mother used to kill the golems, as well as they did saw Bonnie animating dead mammals in front of their very eyes.

Stu seemed to be the one that was affected by this the most, as he had remained unusually silent during all of the breakfast they were serve by the place.

Even after the food was eaten, he still sat silently by his wife's side. It seemed that they both were seeing which one of them would talk something first. The rest of their family kept their distance from both of them as they were like that. They even were sure to let Cotton know that grandma and grandpa both needed some time for themselves. The tension was rather palpable.

Still, it seemed that none of them was willing to talk first. They just sat in there by each other's side. Stu was keeping himself busy by reading a local newspaper, purposely avoiding any article that talked about the events of the mall. He had enough of that by witnessing with his own eyes.

Meanwhile, Bonnie was sitting by his side, and she seemed to be trying to keep herself busy with a book, but it was clear that her mind was distracted from the story that she was trying to read, as there was too much on her mind.

Meanwhile, their children were busy trying to diverge themselves from all of the tension. Some would play and read on their phones. Harry would be sitting in a corner reading one of his books (although he seemed as distracted from it as his mother was with her own book). Two of the females were near Cotton, as the young bunny was very distracted making crayon drawings.

Jason was with his own form of distraction. He was having a discussion with some neighbor who stepped on his foot by accident as they were going to their own apartment, which was nearby to that of the bunnies. Originally, the brown-furred bunny had just got out of the room to cool his head. That was, until another bunny would pass by him and step on his foot, prompting the brown bunny to start a discussion with him.

Jason had a strong personality, and that much anyone knew, and he was famous for being the kind who would get into fights rather easily. Some said that he had a strong personality, like Judy. However, the male bunny was much more aggressive, and much more of a wild child than Judy ever was, as he would often look for other mammals to challenge to a fight (much to Bonnie's chagrin), which included much bigger mammals, foxes in particular (much to Stu's worry).

The discussion lasted for a while, and at the end of it, the other bunny told Jason to 'go to Hell' as he walked back to his apartment under a torrent of obscenities that Jason was saying to him.

The brown bunny would then walk back to the apartment, slamming the door on his way in. This startled some of the bunnies on the room, and some of them even looked at Jason, seeing his angry faced saying that he would take it off on the first who said the wrong thing to him.

Jason had problems with anger management, so this kind of thing from him wasn't actually unusual. However, the ones around could notice that the brown bunny actually seemed more on edge since the previous day.

They guessed that the events of the mall and the discoveries that they made had affected him as well, even thought he was trying to put up that usual hardcore front he often had.

Lunch was as silent as the breakfast was, with Cotton being the only one that would try to make up any long-length conversation, while the rest of the ones in there kept it short. Stu and Bonnie, in particular, seemed to still acting as if the other could explode, as they would be very brief when talking to each other.

Once the lunch was over, the bunnies went back to what they were doing, and the silence once more resided in that place.

That was, until the doorbell rang.

It was one of the girls who would answer, and she would be surprised for seeing Judy on the outside, followed by the three foxes of the previous day at the mall.

Judy was warmly received by the other bunnies, and so where the other foxes, once the bunnies were very thankful to them for having went in there to rescue them. They were soon asking them questions, and asking them if they had gotten the mages that had taken the mall, and if they were going to arrest someone for that.

The bunnies were all excited; however, Bonnie remained impassive as she looked at the enforcers.

She knew that they would not have come in there to see her family for no reason at all. They were there for a motive, and Bonnie had a feeling that she knew what it was.

"Okay, guys, okay." Judy said, as her siblings and her niece came to her, all of them asking questions and wanting to talk. "I'm glad to see all of you as well, but... I came here in business."

"What business?" Jason asked.

"They probably want to take our statements." Harry said, and he looked at them, however, he was noticing something strange about the way that Judy looked. It was as if she didn't truly wanted to be in there.

"Not quite." Marceli spoke, and he looked at the bunnies. "Maybe we even need your statements later on, but right now, we have come for another reason."

As he said that, his eyes turned into Bonnie's direction, who was still sitting in the table. This, of course, didn't go unnoticed by all of the bunnies present in there.

"The clans put you into it, didn't they?" Bonnie asked, and it sounded as if she already knew the answer to the question. The other bunnies looked at them confused, Stu in particular.

"You left Zootopia decades ago, and now, for the first time you come back, you are present on the day that a mall gets seized by mages?" Emilia asked, looking at the impassive-looking bunny "You gotta admit that it is a bit suspicious."

The bunnies around traded looks among themselves, and they were slowly catching up to what was going on.

"Hold on." Jason said, looking at them, "Do you think that Mom had something to do with that?"

All of the eyes turned to them, and the cops and enforcers remained in silence over this. Even Judy didn't said a word, and this only worried her family even more.

"Aunt Judy?"

The grey bunny looked down, at her niece, who looked back at her.

"Are you going to arrest Grandma?" She asked timidly, and Judy only looked back at her.

All of the other bunnies were looking at her, and they seemed like they all wanted to ask the same question that Cotton had just asked.

"No!" Judy was quick to say, kneeling by her niece. "We just need to ask her a few questions about what happened yesterday."

Cotton looked at her and, for the first time, Judy was not sure of what the small bunny was thinking. Did she believe what Judy was saying, or did she doubted her auntie's words?

"Zoe." Bonnie said, causing one of the females in there to turn to look at her. "Would you mind taking Cotton out? Take her to buy some toys. There is a store just across the street, and we still owe her toys after losing the ones we bought back on the mall."

The bunny to whom Bonnie spoke looked at her for a few moments, and she silently nodded. Soon, the female was taking small Cotton out, and the young bunny didn't really wanted to leave, but she ended up following.

This now left only the adults in the room. They all looked at the cops and enforcers. The enforcers, on their turn, had their eyes only on the sitting female bunny, who looked back at them with an impassive look.

"Bonnie Hopps." Marceli said, and the bunny relaxed a little. "We have received instructions from the Clock Tower to question the mages and ex-mages that had been present during the events of the mall. This, of course, includes you."

"Of course." Bonnie said, and everyone still looked nervous, as if the enforcers were suddenly going to pull out a heavy pair of handcuffs and force Bonnie to go with them to the questioned. However, the enforcers simply asked if they could have a seat, and Bonnie answered positively. They didn't even asked the other bunnies on the room to leave them alone as they started to ask her questions.

"Why did you came back to Zootopia after so many years away?"

"Because of the mall." Bonnie answered, not letting any emotion pass through her expression or voice. It was really strange for the bunnies to see Bonnie like that, once they had grew used to her caring and warm voice. Seeing her so cold was somewhat unsettling to them. "I came with some of my children and with my granddaughter to see the new mall that was inaugurating."

"Sounds like an interesting motive to come back to the city after so long." Marceli asked. There was no accusation on his voice, as it was only as if he was stating a fact. "Coming back to a city that, according to rumors, you forsaken along with your clan and your name."

"Bonnie didn't wanted to come." Stu said, causing the fox to look at him. "She was very hesitant in coming here, and she only came when she realized that some of the children were coming anyway, including Cotton."

Marceli looked at him for a few moments, and then he looked back at Bonnie.

"Is it true?" He asked, "Were you really hesitant on coming to Zootopia?"

"She sure was!" Stu said.

"Mr. Hopps. Would you mind letting your wife answer?" Marceli said, looking at the bunny, and Stu immediately looked down. Bonnie sighed at the way that her husband acted.

"Yes, it is true." Bonnie said, "I really didn't wanted to come back to Zootopia. Too many memories." She spoke as she looked at the window. "But, as soon as I knew that Cotton would be going with or without me, I knew that I had to come as well."

"Why?"

"You know why." Bonnie said, "Because Zootopia is not a safe place. Not with the clans going around this place. Not with all of the things that happen in here just beneath everyone's noses."

There was a heavy silence in there, and everyone looked at Bonnie as she spoke that. Stu was looking at his wife with a surprised expression. All of her children looked at her in silence, including Judy. All of sudden, she was remembering how her mother, despite being far more receptive to it than her father, was just as hesitant to allow Judy to go to Zootopia and live in there by herself.

Marceli looked at her for a few moments, and he then nodded, and proceeded to another question.

"You brought an arsenal with you to the mall." Marceli spoke, looking at the female bunny. "Mystic codes designed specifically for combat. Did you expected to fight here in Zootopia?"

"They are all for personal protection." Bonnie said, "I brought them with me to feel safe in this city. I still remember how things are around here. Not to mention that there was the possibility of someone from the clans coming to me."

"Would they have been aggressive to you?"

"Considering what happened before and after I renounced magecraft, I'm sure that many of them would." Bonnie said.

"Including the Höhle clan?"

"Especially the Höhle clan." Bonnie said, and she and the fox only looked at each other for a while. "And before you ask, you know very well the reason, and you know that I won't speak about it."

The fox looked at her, and he nodded, all the while the other bunnies continued to look at Bonnie. Some of them were sharing looks among themselves, and some had confused expressions as they looked at her.

"Yes, of course." Marceli said, "I am well aware of the rumors, and of the accusations that the Höhle clan made against you."

"Wait, accusations? Of what?" Judy asked, but Marceli quickly was cutting her:

"So, proceeding. You brought combat-oriented mystic codes to Zootopia as a manner of personal defense for yourself and your family; is that correct?"

"Yes." Bonnie answered, remaining impassive and her voice and gaze were almost glacial as she looked at the fox sitting before her.

"Did you had any knowledge of the events that would take place in the mall during that same afternoon?"

"No."

"Did you had previous contact with anyone from Zootopia on the days previous to your visit?"

"No."

This way the questions continued for a while. Marceli would ask a direct question to her that hinted in her possible involvement with the events of the mall or previous knowledge of it, and she would answer "no". Some even thought that the fox seemed to be quite insistent on it, with Jason, in particular, giving unfriendly glares at the vulpine that seemed to want to make his mother a suspect in these events. Stu was not much different, as he was not liking this insistence in acting as if Bonnie had anything to do with that.

"Do you still have the mystic codes with you?" Marceli asked, and Bonnie answered positively.

"Could I take a look at them?" The tod asked again.

Bonnie looked at him for a long moment, as if she was trying to see through him. Everyone around was a bit tense at the silence that followed as the two mammals did a staring contest. Finally, Bonnie said:

"Harry?"

The bunny snapped out of his stupor, looking at his mother.

"Huh?"

"Would you and Jason please go fetch my luggage? It is under our bed."

Harry blinked, and soon he and his brother were doing as their mother requested. Soon they were coming back with the luggage, having to drag it a little bit due to the weight. As they approached, the luggage was place on the table, and Bonnie opened the latches of the luggage, opening it and allowing the inside to be see.

The skull was more unsettling seeing it up close. Mostly because looking close it was possible to see that it was not plastic, and that is definitely didn't looked like a simple decoration. That was an actual skull, attached to the barrel of the gun as if it was a part of it.

Marceli looked at it for a few moments, before he reached out and removed the shotgun from the suitcase. He looked at it closely, and he seemed as if he was deeply interested into the design of the weapon.

"Definitely, a work of the Höhle clan." The fox said, as he looked at the object. "The fact that it has the skull of a weasel on it leaves no doubt." He said, as he looked intently at the skull with sharp teeth, which looked back at him with empty eyes.

"Was he an acquaintance?" Marceli asked, looking at Bonnie.

"Just some corpse that they put on a table for me." Bonnie said to him, "Just another dead body that my family gave me and that I never truly questioned where came from. He wasn't very pretty, there was some strange scabby mass of moles along his muzzle. I kind of felt glad that I removed it from his skull along with the rest of the flesh."

It felt so surreal to hear Bonnie say such a thing.

It was surreal to think that she would ever even consider doing that to a mammal corpse.

It was such a far cry of the kind and sweet mother and wife that all of them had knew for so long.

The more disturbing was that she spoke about it as if it was something casual and common to happen. The bunnies were slowly starting to realize that, in the family she grew up, a family of necromancers, such thing actually was common, or at least they thought that it was.

"Yeah, he probably was ugly." Marceli said, "Still, it is very unusual for any mage to use firearms as part of a project, considering how most mages see modern weaponry."

"I was never a traditional mage." Bonnie said casually. The fox simply looked back at her.

"And the bullets?" He asked, and Bonnie was soon reaching inside of the suitcase, and pulled a pawful of the bullets that she had in it. She showed to the fox, who picked it up from her paw, and examined it in his paw.

"Mummified fingers?" He asked, and Bonnie looked back at him.

"Mostly from weasels and bunnies." Bonnie said to him, "I also use fox fingers once in a while, but they are pretty big."

Nick felt a shiver running down his spine, and so did Emilia, but Marceli only looked at the dried up fingers that he had on his paw.

"Any special enchantment in them?"

"They were modified to chase after sources of heat. Like a snake following its prey through the heat of their bodies. Of course,that made the bullets slower" Bonnie explained, "And they have been treated with the Gandr curse. One hit from one of these bullets and the curse will cause your heart to explode inside your chest. As you can imagine, very few can survive something like that."

The fox nodded, he soon was putting both the shotgun and the fingers down, and Nick had the distinct impression that he was glad for not having to touch those anymore.

"That is why I hate necromancy." Emilia said, looking at the skull-shotgun and finger-bullets as Bonnie picked them up and placed them back into the suitcase. "It always involves something creepy."

"It is a magecraft that revolves around controlling the remains of the deceased." Bonnie said on a monotone tone, as she closed the suitcase and looked at the vixen with evaluating eyes. "What did you expected?"

There was a silence, and Bonnie sighed.

"To us, death is the more normal thing of the world." Bonnie said to them, "We are exposed to corpses since we are kits, and through all of our lives." Emilia looked at her, and she asked a question:

"So, is it true?" Emilia asked her, "Is it true that you start learning how to create zombies at the age of four?"

There was another silence, and then Stu was the one who broke it:

"WHAT!?"

Everyone looked at him, and then, many eyes turned to Bonnie, who looked around, at all of her children. She gave a look at her husband that was almost an angry glare. A glare that she also directed to the vixen. A glare that seemed to be saying: "see what you've done?".

Bonnie now had all of her present family looking at her, looking as if they wanted to know if this was truth, and the older female bunny saw herself with no choice but to answer, although it was something that she'd rather not tell them.

She could only feel glad that Cotton was no longer in there; for there was no way she would say something like that in the presence of her seven-year old granddaughter.

"Mages start being taught magecraft when they are very young." Bonnie explained to them, "Usually when they are around four or five years old, but sometimes later." She looked at her children and at her husband, "When you are a clan of necromancy-users, this means that you will start learning how to animate corpses. As a result, our first experiences with creating zombies start when we are around four. I was a bit precocious in this. I started with three."

They all looked at her with shocked expressions.

"For real?" Harry said.

"Wait, you mean they brought you to corpses?" Jason asked, his mind still trying to wrap up around the concept that Bonnie was presenting to them. "You mean that they brought you to corpses and made you animate them as a chore?"

Bonnie looked at him, and she looked as if she was debating either she should tell them or not. Eventually, she decided to do it.

"They didn't made me animate corpses as a chore." Bonnie explained to them. "They gave me corpses for me to animate and use as toys."

The expressions of shock in the face of the bunnies was something that Bonnie already expected. Nick had a shocked expression as well, one that he found himself unable to hide behind his usual mask. Marceli looked at her with raised brows, and Emilia looked just a bit surprised.

"Wow... so that is also true." The vixen said, and Bonnie nodded.

"Some say that games and plays are the way that children get ready for the adult life." Bonnie said, "They say that in the old days, predators played tag so they could learn how to catch their prey, and that prey played hide-and-seek to learn how to hide from predators. Even today, they say that playing is one of the best ways that young ones can get prepared to the life of adults, mixing fun with the everyday tasks that they will one day face." She rose her head, "So, it is actually no surprise that necromancers would literally put their kits to play with corpses."

The shock persisted in the looks of everyone.

"So... they just brought corpses to you and said 'here is your new toy'?" Nick asked, his mind also having problems to process a scene like that. "Like, they gave you dead tigers and wolves as birthday presents instead of dolls?"

"Not anything that big." Bonnie said to Nick, "Animating a corpse can be hard, and if you don't do it right your own creation could go out of control, or maybe turn on you. Even unrepentant necromancers like the Höhle would not put their own kits in danger by giving them big corpses to animate, even because it would be rather impractical."

Bonnie looked down, and she sighed.

"No, they gave us very small mammals. Mice, hamsters, sometimes a rat or two." Bonnie spoke, her voice almost seemed absent as she explained that. "They would be easier to animate, and they wouldn't be able to really hurt us if they went out of control. Basically, these small corpses became our toys."

"My sisters and I used to play by making the little corpses move around as if they were puppets." Bonnie continued to explain, as the ones around her grew more and more horrified with each phrase they heard. "We would make them dance as if they were in a party, we would make them act on little plays. One of the favorite things to do was to get two corpses, a boy mouse and a girl mouse and make them play a little wedding."

She made a pause, and she smiled a little.

"You know, you could really say that we had corpses instead of dolls." She spoke, and the others only continued to look at her.

"My brothers were a bit more aggressive." She explained, "They liked to make the corpses fight each other. They made them attack each other and watched as they tore each other apart until only one was standing. Many of them stood around and watched as they cheered for their favorite little corpse, and sometimes they even bet their allowance or candy on which zombie would 'survive'. I didn't liked it; it had too much blood and gore to my taste."

"The older ones were a bit more sophisticated." She continued to explain. "They played chess using the corpses, making the little dead mice wear costumes and take the place of the pieces. Each time you 'took a piece', the little zombie would tear it apart and you would remove it from the board. They preferred this for it combines the use of zombies with the ability to make strategies and plans to win. The adults used to say that it was the perfect preparation game for any young necromancer. I got really good at this while I was a teenager."

She sighed as she finished, and she said:

"They still do it up to this day."

Silence followed these words.

Everyone was looking at Bonnie, and most of them were absolutely livid.

"Oh, Bonnie..." Stu said looking at his wife, his lip quivering. This was just too horrible.

"Damn." Emilia said, "No wonder the bunnies of the Höhle clan are so messed up."

"All necromancers are messed up." Bonnie said to the vixen, "In one way or another."

There was another silence after this, and Marceli decided to resume the questioning.

It were more ten minutes of casual questions, before he felt completely satisfied.

"Well, that was all, thank you for your time." The black tod said as he got up, "We might need to contact you for more information, so please remain in the city."

Bonnie looked at him, and it seemed that she didn't liked what he said.

"This, of course, does not applies to the rest of your family. They are all free to return to BunnyBurrow at any time they want." The tod asked, and this caused Bonnie to relax.

With this, the enforcers were on their way to the door. However, Judy and Nick both stayed behind, and they were still looking at Bonnie.

They were shocked to find out that kits could actually go through such things.

Being made to play with corpses? For real?

Judy looked positively mortified, and so did many of her siblings, as they looked at her mother. None of them could ever have imagined that she would have went through something like that growing up. She always looked so sweet, so kind, so... normal."

"Hey, guys." Emilia said, as she and her uncle walked to the door. "Aren't you two coming?"

As she said that, her uncle was opening the door and getting ready to go outside. He opened it right at the moment that another mammal was about to knock.

The bunny looked at the fox as he gave him a good look. The bunny was a bit taller than Bonnie, but not by much. He had a stocky body, with thick arms, but these looked more like body fat than actual muscle, although it did seemed that there was actual muscle in there. The fur of his body was black all over, with white speckles on his arms and around his ear. His eyes were of a deep crimson color, and they looked a bit surprised at the black tod. He was wearing a white and black shirt and a pair of long black pants.

By his side, there was another bunny, this one a female. She was around the same size as Bonnie, but being slender than her, and her face was rounder. The fur of her body was black and white, with being black on the top of her head and up her ears, and on the tip of her paws and feet, with the rest of the body being white. She had eyes of a shade of indigo, and they looked at the fox with an air of surprise. She was wearing a long white dress, the kind that a woman would wear to go out during the day, and she was carrying a bag on her shoulder. In her paw she was holding a scepter, which had a skull on top of it.

Marceli blinked, and he looked at the two.

"May I help you?" he asked, and the female black and white bunny soon was saying:

"Yes, by getting out of the way."

She pushed him to the side and walked in, with the male bunny soon coming after her.

Soon, the newcomers were noticed by the mammals that were already on the room, and they looked at the two, and many of them immediately recognized the male.

"Uncle Terry?" Judy asked, looking at her mother's brother. He waved at Judy with an awkward smile, and the female by his side looked intently at the bunny cop.

"Judith." She said, and she was looking at Judy in a very strange way. "How nice it is to finally meet you."

Judy looked at the newcomer, and she looked confused as to who she was. However, before she could voice it, the bunny herself said:

"Oh, right. You don't know who I am." She said, "Of course, I never really went to visit like Terel did." She said, looking at the bunny by her side, "That, and your mother has completely refrained from talking about me, just like any proper ex-mage."

Judy blinked, and looked at her mother, who was glaring daggers at the female bunny.

"How are you doing, Helga?" The black and white bunny said, to which Bonnie answered:

"That is not my name."

"Oh, right." The female bunny said, "I keep forgetting that you gave up your name. That is good; you didn't deserved to have a name so noble. So, since I am here, are you going to introduce me to my nieces and nephews, or I should do it myself?"

Judy blinked, as did many of her siblings. They looked at the newcomer, and then they looked back at their mother, who continued to glare at the female. She sighed.

"Stu... kits..." She said, "This is Helvetica Höhle... She is my sister."

They were clearly surprised by that, and they all looked back at the bunny that was just introduced to them.

"She is Mom's sister!?"

"She is our auntie!?"

"Does that staff has a skull on it...?"

This was clearly a surprised for the Hopps family. Yes, they knew that their mother had other relatives, but the only one that they truly knew was Terry, for he came to visit, and she never really talked about her family.

Helvetica stood in there, looking back at her sister, and it was Terry who walked forward.

"Hey, sis!" He said, rushing to her. Soon Bonnie was getting up, and she was actually able to open a smile as her brother hugged her.

"Sis, I'm so glad to see that you are okay." He said as he hugged her. He then broke the hug and looked at her up and down. "Are you fine? Didn't you hurt anything? I heard you actually went into a fight with some golems."

They talked like this for nearly a minute, with Terry expressing his happiness in seeing his sister okay, and his amazement that she was truly able to fight golems and win unscathed, demonstrating admiration for her doing that after "living without great emotions for the past decades".

Bonnie was really happy to see her brother, as it was easy to see by the way she smiled. However, this smile completely disappeared as she now looked at Helvetica. The bunny returned the look with one of contempt.

"So." Bonnie said, moving past her brother, who had a worried expression as he saw how the two females were looking at each other. "What are you doing here, Hel?"

"Just came to check on you, 'Bonnie'." Hel answered, and she seemed to have a tune of mockery as she called the other female by her name. "Just making sure that the enforcers really are following the mission that they received of seeing if any of the mages present in the mall had anything to do with the event. You know, we have to watch over our city."

Helvetica said it casually, and as she did, she crossed her arms, letting the staff that she was carrying to be on full view of everyone in the room.

Bonnie frowned deeply as she looked at that, and her nose twitched.

"Did you had to bring that?" Bonnie asked, as she looked at the skull at the staff and Helvetica noticed it, and she opened a smile at Bonnie.

"What? I thought you would be more happy to see Rose." Helvetica said, and she put the staff right into Bonnie's view. "I mean, you used to love spending time with her." The tone of her voice was almost sadistic, and Bonnie frowned even more, and the ones around noticed it.

"What's going on?"

"Is that a real skull?"

"Did Mom knew the mammal it belonged to?"

"What species it was? It is small."

"So many questions." Helvetica said, and she looked at all of her nephews. "Answering them, yes, this is a real skull. Yes, your mother knew her. It was a bunny, her name was Rose Höhle, and it is small because she was nine at the time of her death.

She spoke to it very casually, as if the theme was very normal. However, the things she said really did disturbed some of the mammals present in there.

Looking now, they could see that it indeed looked like a bunny skull. And they noticed that it looked too small to be from an adult bunny, but that it could be from a bunny kit.

Some of them found it disturbing that Helvetica was carrying it around, and Bonnie was among them.

"You still remember Rose, don't you, Bonnie?" Helvetica asked her, there was a hint of delight in her voice as she saw the expression that the other female had.

"How could ever forget..." Bonnie said, her nose twitching even more. "She was one of the few that was always nice to me... and I was the one who had to scavenge her body for parts."

"Yeah..." Helvetica said, and she seemed to enjoy the memory. It was a great contrast with the shocked expressions on the faces of the other bunnies present.

"You are not still in such a bad mood over this, are you?" Helvetica asked, looking at Bonnie. "Come on, it was so long ago."

"I was seven." Bonnie said, causing even more shock from the other bunnies. "I was seven and I had to carve open the body of my older sister to get her parts."

"So what?" Helvetica asked, "You have been playing with dead bodies since you were three. You were six when you first watched our mother dissect a corpse." She looked right at the bunny as she spoke that. "That shouldn't have disturbed you so much."

Helvetica was walking in Bonnie's direction as she spoke that, and the two females looked at each other with mutual contempt.

"Of course, it is unusual for one of our first corpses to scavenge to be one of our older siblings." She spoke, as she walked near Bonnie, all under the eyes of all of the other mammals in that room. "But mother thought it was appropriate that you should be the one to do, after all..." She looked Bonnie right in the eyes, at the same time that she held the staff so the skull was on full view.

"It was your fault that Rose died."

Bonnie said nothing, but her nose twitched even more, and her paws clenched into fists, so hard that a few drops of blood were dripping down from the palms.

They looked at each other, and Helvetica smiled.

"That's right, my darlings." She said, looking at the bunnies around. "Your aunt Rose died many years ago, and it was all Bonnie's fault." She seemed to have an evident pleasure in saying that aloud.

"Now, I'll spare of you the gory details, but I can say that it was all because of your dear mother's weakness." She said, looking at Bonnie, "They were in a dangerous situation, and Bonnie was not strong enough to save herself. This prompted our dear Rose, always so keen on helping her little siblings, to put herself on the line to rescue our dear little sister. She sacrificed herself for a bunny that wasn't strong enough to save her own life."

"Stop..." Bonnie said, and her voice sounded strange... strained... as if the older bunny was now fighting back tears.

"You know it's true!" Helvetica said, as she moved so close to Bonnie that their noses now were almost touching.

"You got yourself in trouble and weren't strong enough to get out of it by yourself. So Rose had to come in and get you out of trouble, and she lost her life in the process." Helvetica Höhle said, as she looked Bonnie in the eyes, and holding the staff with the skull really close to both their faces.

"Our sister would still be alive if you weren't so weak."

"You always says that!" Bonnie shot back, with a ferocity that caused the other bunny to back away, and certainly surprised the other bunnies on the room.

"Every time that you talk about Rose and about what happened it always goes there." Bonnie said to her, her expression stony as she looked at the other female. "At how weak I was. At how she died because I wasn't strong enough. How is was all my fault. What about you, Helvetica?"

They stared at each other with fire on their eyes, as Bonnie said:

"I was unable to get out of that situation, we both know that. But it seems that you can forget how we got on that situation in the first place." She was looking at Helvetica in the eye, as if daring her to try and dismiss it. "You forgot that it was not supposed to happen, and it only happened because of your actions."

"Shut it!" Helvetica said, but Bonnie did not allowed herself silenced.

"It was supposed to be a simple exercise, but of course, it was too tame for you, and so you decided to spice things up a bit." Bonnie said, "You made it a challenge so great that we all were forced to flee, and I ended up being behind. You make sure to remember how I was weak back then, but how about you?"

"You, who ran away while your two sisters stayed behind. You, who was scampering faster than I had ever seen before. You, who were fearing for your life so much that you abandoned your own family."

Helvetica's frown increased with each word that Bonnie said, her nose twitching now with anger.

"I might have been weak." Bonnie said to her, "But at least, I was not a coward like you."

Helvetica's reaction was fast.

She rose the staff in the air and brought it down on Bonnie's head.

The impact was so hard that the other bunny went right into the ground, some blood splattering in it.

"Sis!"

"Mom!"

"Bonnie!"

Soon it seemed that all of the bunnies in there were going to help Bonnie out. They were helping her get back up, and she was soon sitting on the ground. The blow left a wound on her head that was dripping blood, but Bonnie seemed to barely mind or notice it. She only kept looking at Helvetica, who looked at her with an angry expression, and eyes that denoted contempt, as if Bonnie was something that made the place dirty with her mere presence.

"Bonnie! Are you alright!?" Stu asked to his wife as he helped her up. However, Bonnie was not trully acknowledging him, as she was still locking eyes with Helvetica.

"This brings memories, doesn't it, sister?" Helvetica asked, "On the old days, it was our mother who used to do this kind of thing." She spoke very casually, now she was looking at the scepter, and she was checking it, as if to see if the skull had not been damage.

"I'm pretty sure that you still remember. How she used to beat us with anything she had on paw every time we did something to embarrass her or the clan, or every time that we failed at something." Helvetica said, "Sometimes she would make up reasons to beat us. Heck, sometimes she would just hit us out of the blue and say 'you are going to do something, so I'm getting myself ahead'. Yes, our mother was truly something."

She then turned to look at Bonnie, who had a glacial expression as she looked back at her sister.

"Of course, nowadays I can nearly say that I'm thankful to that woman. After all, she helped me us stronger." Helvetica said, but she looked at Bonnie, and added:

"Well, most of us, anyway."

All of the bunnies looked at her, and so did the foxes; and many of them had many levels of contempt and disgust as they looked at Helvetica Höhle.

"Don't give me that look, it is true." She said, and she looked at her sister. "The proof of it was that she choose to give up magecraft and live as a mundane. She even married one." She looked at Stu, who now looked with fury at that female bunny.

"One that was even weaker than her." Helvetica said, looking with disdain at the patriarch of the family, and then at the family in general. "No wonder that her offspring turned out to be like this. Inferior. Weak. Unimportant."

Now the entire family was looking at her with hatred.

"All as weak as their mother."

"You are wrong!" Judy said, standing up and looking at the woman in the eyes.

"My mother is not weak!" She said at Helvetica. "None of us are!"

"Oh, and looks who is talking." Helvetica said, looking at the bunny cop. "Exactly the one who is the proof that her offspring is a failure."

Judy looked at her with a hard expression, and Nick was the one to step in.

"Excuse me." The fox said, looking at that woman. "You might want to revise that statement. This bunny you are currently talking to just happens to be one of the more capable and strong mammals I've met in my life."

"Well, then clearly you haven't met many mammals." Helvetica said, looking at Nick with disdain, before turning her gaze back to Judy, who seemed to be ready for anything.

"You know, Judith, you are actually quite famous among the Höhle clan." Helvetica said as she looked at Judy. "Especially since you came to live in our beautiful city."

"Oh, am I?" Judy said, as she normally would be a bit flustered for being famous, however, she had the feeling that the kind of fame that she had among them was of the wrong kind.

"Yes." Helvetica said to her. "We all know how you fought hard to make your way into the police academy and become a cop. How dedicated you are into protecting the city and the mammals that live in it and fighting for justice in any and all ways you can. And on how much you work and dedicate yourself to your job and to Zootopia as a whole." She looked at the bunny in the eyes with a smile, "All because you want to 'make the world a better place'."

Judy looked at Helvetica, who looked at her with disdain and a hit of fun.

"This is all so... pathetic." The older bunny said, looking back at Judy, who knew that her suspicions had been confirm.

"Fighting for something as worthless as justice?" Helvetica said, "Risking your life to save some poor idiots who you barely even know? Dedicating your life to improve the life of strangers, most of whom don't even know what you do?"

The disdain was clear in her voice, and Judy looked at her with a strong glare, while the other bunny kept her look of superiority.

"Making the world a better place?" Helvetica finished, and only looked at Judy for a few moments, before she chuckled.

"The saddest part is that you actually believe that you can do it." Helvetica said, "That you can make the world a better place."

"And I can!" Judy said firmly. "Anyone can make the world a better place if they try!"

This time Helvetica laughed.

"Oh, my! It is even worse than they say!" Helvetica said, looking at Judy, "What, did you read this somewhere when you were five and it stuck with you during all of your life?" She was openly mocking Judy, and this was making the bunny cop clench her first, as she looked at that woman.

"The world cannot become a better place!" Helvetica said. "This world it unfair, unreasonable and unforgiving. That not to talk about the mammals who live in it, all of them making whatever they want and not caring on who has to suffer for them to get what they want. This world is plagued with war, prejudice, cruelty and injustice, and it will never truly change, simply because mammals cannot change. To think that a single mammal is capable of making it a better place, that it could ever become a better place..."

She looked straight at Judy's eyes, and finished her thought:

"It is not only childish and unreasonable, it is ridiculous and stupid." The two rabbits looked at each other for a long moment, "And if you truly, honestly believe in such childish ideals, that makes you someone with such a weak mind and spirit that it is amazing that you can even live in the real world, instead of locking yourself away in your room and living from dreams like most lost cases do."

Judy looked at her with ferocity, and the other bunny continued to look at her with that look of arrogance, of someone who think they are talking to someone inferior.

"Weak." Helvetica said simply, "Like the rest of your dear family." She then cast a glance at Bonnie, "And as the thief who you call your mother."

Now all of the Hoppses were staring daggers at Helvetica. Judy would be also, if she was not paying attention to what that bunny had just said.

Thief?

"Still." Helvetica said, looking away and now paying attention to the skull on her staff, as if it was more worth of his attention than any of the mammals on that room. "You are still considered interesting enough that we need to survey you."

"What?" Judy said, "'Survey me'? What does it means?" She said, and she looked at the bunny, who looked back at her. She was trying to understand, however, it was Nick who caught on.

"The crow." The fox cop said, and this caused Judy to look at him. From this point, it only took one second for Judy to be able to connect the dots from what the fox had said and revelations that she had received on that same day, from the interaction between the crow and Marceli Mieczyslaw.

She then turned her gaze back at Helvetica.

"You are responsible for that crow that's been following me!" Judy said, and Helvetica smiled at her.

"Congratulations." She said; the mockery clear in her voice. "You figured it out as soon as your dear fox mascot pointed it out to you, really impressive."

Judy was getting really pissed at this, she looked at Helvetica, and she was now trying her best to be professional.

"Who exactly is doing it?" Judy demanded, and she looked at the other bunny in the eyes, "Which one of the Höhle clan is using that crow to follow me?"

"Oh, that would be Erika." Terry was the one who spoke, and this caused everyone to look at him. "She's been using one of her crows to follow you around the city ever since you came to live in here."

"What!?" Judy said, looking at her uncle.

"And you knew about that!?" Stu said, looking at the other bunny, who smiled sheepishly.

"He could not really say anything." Bonnie said, causing everyone to look at her, "Neither he could do anything about it, since most of the clan probably backed the idea."

"Indeed." Helvetica said, "We all agreed that since Erika has so many of these things she could use one of them for something instead of just keeping them around and feeding them as if they were her kits... seriously, that creeps me out."

The bunnies and foxes on the room all looked at her.

She walked around with a staff with the skull of her dead sister and she got creeped out by birds being treat like kits?

"Helvetica Höhle!" Judy said, looking at the other bunny, "This is unacceptable! You have no right to use a crow to stalk and spy on me!"

"Oh, we do." Helvetica said, looking at her, "We already use some of these crows to watch over the rest of your family back in BunnyBurrow. Of course, only occasionally, for we get all the information we need from our dear Terel once he goes to visit." She said, acting as if this was not a big deal, and all of the Hopps looked at her, many of them looking quite surprised. Some of them even looked at Terry, who smiled sheepishly at them.

"What you actually should not be doing." Bonnie said to her, "You can watch someone who is in Zootopia, but BunnyBurrow is way out of your jurisdiction, so you have no right to watch over my family in there."

The two female bunnies looked at each other, almost as if they were making a staring contest. That was when Marceli decided to intervene.

"She is correct." The black tod said, causing the eyes to turn on him, "You can keep watch on mammals inside your area, but BunnyBurrow is out of your domain, so you cannot simply send a familiar in there to spy on mammals in there."

Helvetica scoffed, and she looked away. However, Judy still looked at fox, and she had a look of surprise in her face.

"Wait, are you saying that they can spy on me?" She asked, looking at the black tod, and then at the vixen. It seemed that they both were confirmed it with their eyes.

"But... but that is stalking!"

"They have the right to do that." Emilia said to her, "As the Second Owners of Zootopia, they have the right keep watch on anyone who is in their land if they decide that they are subjects of interest. You are the descendant of an ex-mage that used to be one of them currently living in their city. In other words, they have the right to classify you as a possible threat and use whatever means at their disposal to spy on you until you decide to leave."

Judy looked at her, incapable to believe that something like that could be truth. However, the look in Marceli's face said it all.

"That's right." Helvetica said with that arrogant smile still in her face. "Of course, someone like you could never be an actual threat to us, but since you are the daughter of our dear sister." She said, looking at Bonnie, "We are in all of our rights to keep watch over you as we see fit."

"Proving that you do consider her a threat." Bonnie said, staring back at her sister, "Otherwise, you would not be interested in keeping watch over her... unless you were afraid."

"Afraid!?" Helvetica said, looking at Bonnie, "Of this daughter of yours full of mistaken and childish ideals? Hah, as if!"

"Then you have no reason to spy on her." Bonnie said to her, "Neither on the rest of my family, for that matter."

"Oh, you mean, letting such a wild card out of our sight?" Helvetica said, looking at the other bunny. "Nah, we are not so foolish. What if your children start acting against us?" She said, "What if dear Judy starts to work under your command to sabotage our work here in Zootopia? What if she only came here as part of some elaborate plan from you to bring down your former clan as a small act of revenge?"

Everyone looked at Helvetica as she said that, many of them quite shocked, as all that she said just sounded absurd. At least to the ones who were hearing it.

Judy was among the ones who thought that the idea was the most ludicrous. She didn't came in there as part of any of her mother's plans! Her mother had, along with her father, tried to persuade her not to come to the city!

Bonnie looked at her sister for a few moments, before she chuckled.

"You know, Hel? That actually sounds a little bit like fear." Bonnie said, looking at her sister, "Either that or you are getting paranoid with the old age."

The prepotency and disdain disappeared from Helvetica's face, as she looked in shock at Bonnie.

"You... you didn't..." She said, as her surprise was soon replace by anger and outrage. "You didn't just called me old..."

Bonnie looked at her, and the outrage was evident on the eyes of the other bunny, as she was practically shaking with anger, her foot thumping madly at the ground.

"Oh, you little... You and your family of yours." She said, the contempt clear in her voice and face.

"You are nothing more than a little thief who used your connections to steal from us." She said, and Bonnie looked back at her.

"Neither you nor the enforcers ever found any evidence that I stole anything." Bonnie said, her face a cold mask that let no emotion come through.

"We know it was you!" Helvetica nearly screamed, causing many of the bunnies to jump back. "You were among the few who had ever had access to it! You were one of the few who knew where it was kept! You invaded our burrow and you took it with you, and all of us know it! We only don't know why did you do it! What was it, Helga? Did you wanted to have the chance to study it yourself? Use it for some particular plan? Did you sold it to someone? Or you just took it away to mess with our schedules as a little revenge? What did you did to our treasure, Helga!?"

"That's not my name!" Bonnie shouted back at her, her eyes blazing with both determination and contained anger. "That's not my name anymore! And I never stole anything from anyone!"

"Lies!" Helvetica shouted back, as the altercation between the two only kept getting louder. "You are nothing more than a thief! Curious that such an event happened just on the day that you came to the city along with some of your family, was it part of some kind of plan!? Are you plotting against us!? Have you been plotting for how long!? Answer me, you thievery wretch! Answer right now or I will-"

As she said that, she rose her staff as she walked to Bonnie, as if she was getting ready to strike her again. Bonnie clenched her fists and seemed to get ready to whatever it was that was coming.

All of the ones around were ready to do something before the situation could escalate even more.

However, Terry beat them all to it.

"ENOUGH!" The male bunny said, immediately putting himself between the two females. The way he spoke, and the force behind his voice, caught everyone in there off guard, as many of them now looked with surprise at the male bunny, who was looking back at Helvetica.

"Is that why you wanted to come here, Hel?" He demanded from her, "To accuse our sister and to try and pick up a fight with her?"

"How can you defend this thief?" Helvetica shot back, "She stole our most sacred possession!"

"There is absolutely no proof it was her!" Terry shot back. "We never found anything that surely proved that she had anything to do with the theft! Not in the last twenty years! Now stop this!"

"But she-" Helvetica tried to protest, but Terry was having none of that.

"We weren't even supposed to be here!" He said to his sister. "It were you who insisted that we should come to check! Was that only because you wanted to harass her and her children? Because if it was, I will have to report it to Verona!"

Now, the one known as Helvetica showed no fear of anyone that was in there. Not of Nick and Judy. Not of the rest of the Hopps family. Not of the enforcers. Not even of Terry himself. However, as the name of Verona was mention, anyone could see a brief shadow of fear passing by her features, as her nose twitched, and she gave a single step back.

She and Terry locked eyes for a few moments, before Verona looked away, seemingly defeated, and she grumbled something under her breath. With this, Terry turned back at his other sister.

Bonnie was now standing, looking back at him, and the rest of her family was by her side. They were glaring not only at Helvetica, but also at Terry himself. It was as if they were asking why he took so long to say or do anything, while others asking him if it was truth that he spied on them for these bunnies. Stu, in particular, was really glaring at Terry as if he was asking both things at once.

Terry shrunk a bit under the glares of the bunnies, and he looked at his sister.

"I'm sorry..." He said, "I'm so sorry, I should not have let her convince me to come." He said, and added:

"We will be going now, sorry for everything."

Soon Terry and Helvetica were both leaving, all under the eyes of the many bunnies and of the three foxes on the place. The bunnies were really close to her, as if they were ready to defend her in the case Helvetica decided to attack once more.

As they were leaving, Stu suddenly cried out for the two:

"With relatives like you, it's a miracle that Bonnie is normal!"

That was all that the two bunnies heard as the door closed behind themselves, and they were both walking away of the apartment where their sister and her family would be staying.

"That wasn't as productive as I imagined." Helvetica said as they walked to the stairs.

"Quite an understatement." Terry said, as he walked by her side, "I'm pretty sure that I won't be as welcome during my visits as before."

A brief silence followed this, before Helvetica asked a question:

"Do they really think that Helga is normal?"

As they left, the other mammals on the room soon were focusing on Bonnie, as all of her family was now paying full attention to her.

Stu and some others were checking on her, asking if she was fine, as they had been worried with the blow she had taken on her head, and the blood that was leaking from it. Bonnie reassured them all that she was okay, still, they insisted that they wanted to put some bandage on that wound and clean the blood, at least not to scare Cotton once she came back.

After what they had just witnessed, it seemed that the awkwardness between Bonnie and her family was at least partially gone.

Now they were definitely on her side, as some of them even thought that they understood the reasons why Bonnie decided to give up being a mage.

They would have given up as well.

The enforcers, who had remained respectfully silent until that point, now were talking to Judy, remembering her that they still had other places to go for their investigation.

Now, normally Judy would be eager, but she was still worried about her mother. However, Bonnie once more reassured her daughter that she was okay, and that she had nothing to worry about.

With this, Judy hesitantly followed along with the three foxes, and left the rest of her family to care for their mother.

Still, only because she was leaving, didn't meant that the subject was being left behind.

Judy still couldn't believe.

She would never have imagined that her mother, always so kind and comprehensive, could have had such a difficult life.

Being made to use corpses of tiny mammals as toys? Having to scavenge the corpse of her older sister at the age of seven? Being blamed by her death? Not to mention the clear indications that she faced domestic violence from her own mother! All of this classified as child abuse!

It was too much!

On top of it all, there was the fact that apparently most of the Höhle family seemed to think that she stole something from them.

"It was around twenty years ago." Marceli said as Judy had questioned him about that.

"The Höhle started to make a lot of noise because something very important was stolen from their residence. A very important object that only a few other than the Höhle themselves seem to actually know anything about. I was never told what it was, but I heard that it was something that had to do with True Magic. They spent the following weeks doing their own investigations on the subject, before they asked for the help of the Association." He said, "During this course, they apparently found indications that your mother was on the city during the time the object was stolen. They started to blame her of it nearly immediately, but there was never any actual evidence that confirmed that she stole anything. The case was dismissed, and the thing has still not been recovered to this day."

"And the Höhle clan still refuses to tell anyone just what the stolen thing actually is." Emilia added, and Judy looked down as she processed what she just heard.

This was absurd!

For them to think that her mother would steal anything from them only because she abandoned the family?

Just what kind of investigations they did to be able to come to such conclusions?

Judy now wanted to take a look at any records of the investigation, if there were any. She was sure that she would be able to find holes on it and prove that her mother never did anything.

Judy had to agree with her siblings. With a family like that, no wonder that her mother one day decided that she was done with the world of magecraft and with that clan.

She was thinking on it as she walked, and Nick was also in thought as he stood on Judy's side as the elevator started to go down.

He too was thinking on what he just heard, and he felt sorry for Mrs. Hopps. However, he could not avoid letting his thoughts wonder from Judy's mother to his own...