"Legoshi, are you sure you're okay?" Gosha asked the younger and smaller wolf one more time as he held him by the shoulders. "I heard that there were attacks and that you and Melor got into fights with other mages? Are you sure none of them hurt you? Please, tell me they were not from any of the Three Clans."
Legoshi looked up at the older and taller wolf, before shaking his head.
"I'm fine, grandpa." The said, looking down, as if ashamed. "We didn't got in any problems with the clans."
"Well, that's a relief." Lumia said as she came near with her husband. They walked calmly, while Gosha had practically sprinted to his grandson as soon as he saw him, while everyone else watched. Many of them looked interested on what was happening, and on seeing what would be happening next.
"If you two had gotten in problem with the clans, you can be sure I would have been glad to beat both of you up for them." She said to the wolf with a hard glare. Legoshi flinched as he heard that, and some of the people on the room traded looks.
She... would not actually do that. Would she?
"I'm really glad you are okay, Legoshi." Gosha said, pulling his grandson in a hug. As he did, Lumia placed a hand on the wolf's shoulder.
"We all are." She said with a sincere smile and a gentler expression. Legoshi had his snout still pointing down.
"I'm sorry for causing trouble." He said meekly, to what Lumia answered:
"You better be."
Then, she shot her hoof up. Not at Legoshi, but at the other mammal who was just trying to tiptoe his way out of that room. He let out a surprise exclamation as his mother grabbed his horn.
"And you as well, young man." She practically growled as she pulled her son back by the horn, before pushing him off, making him stumble as he was spun around by that single, fluid movement.
As he recovered, Melor looked over and saw, with a lot of horror, that his mother and father were both looking his way. Both of them had non-amused expressions.
"So, this is the 'bonding trip' that you wanted to make with Legoshi, huh?" Lumia asked her son, as both she and her husband walked in direction to the hybrid, who stepped back as they came closer. "A travel to Zootopia to find a rick family who you guys could trick out of their money?"
"No...?" Melor said, as he looked at his mother. She grimaced as she looked at him. "I mean, yes? I mean... is there even a valid answer?"
The people who were looking at the hybrid could not help but be surprised, or even amused. That same mammal who, on all of the times he talked to them, always seemed so confident and sure of himself, as if there was not a single thing in the planet that could scare him, all of a sudden looked like a meek little boy who was scared to death and desperately looking for a way out as his parents cornered him.
"I knew there was something up." Lumia said to her son as she and Tibor walked closer, and Melor continued to back away slowly. "I knew that there was something suspicious on the way you insisted on you and Legoshi going alone on this trip, not even two months after your classes started, saying that you two wanted this time to bond and feel more like adults. I could feel in my bones that you were plotting something."
Melor would have continued backing away, if it had not for him having hit a wall on the side of the room. Now the only thing behind him was a window, and he then looked back at his parents.
"But you convinced me by saying that you had mature and was an adult now." Lumia said to her son, "That you were old enough to go to pubs and that you would be responsible to look after Legoshi and yourself. I did wanted to believe it, you know? That was why I agreed to let you go and take Legoshi with you, even though all of my instincts were telling me that you were going to do something stupid!"
Lumia's voice was growing louder as she stepped closer to his son, with her husband right by her side and looking at Melor with the same seriousness as his wife. The hybrid seemed to shrink as they came closer while the two mammals looked like they were growing to gigantic proportions.
"I gotta say, you truly went all out this time." Lumia said to her son, and she rose her hoof, showing the two objects she had on her hoof. "You lied about your age once, but this is the first time you resorted to actually using fake identities. And those are finally made, quite impressive. I would almost feel proud if you hadn't been so stupid in doing this."
There was a brief silence, which Lumia herself broke:
"Speaking of stupid..."
She rose her other hoof, showing now the plastic bag with the familiar weed inside of it.
"Catnip?" She asked, sounding just about done with her son's bullshit as she showed the proof of his crime. "Seriously, Melor?"
The silence on the room was about so heavy that one could hear the individual breathing of every present animal. Melor continued to look at his parents, as immobile as a deer caught on headlights, and occasionally letting his eyes wander to the rest of the room, either looking for an escape route or for someone who would come and save him.
Then, he started laughing nervously.
"O-okay." Melor said in between fits of laughter, while both of his parents looked at him with an expression that said they would not laugh along with their son. "Right, I know what it looks like. I know it looks bad... But there is an explanation!"
"Really?" Lumia asked, still looking at her son.
"Yeah, really!" Melor said, a nervous smile on his face as he looked at his parents. "There is a really, really, really good explanation!"
Lumia continued to look at her son, crossing her arms as she did. It looked as if she was just waiting for the said explanation. And so was her husband.
"Speak." Tibor said after nearly a minute of silence, in which the hybrid continued to look at his parents with that smile on his face. Then, he opened his mouth. It seemed he would be speaking now.
However, he then reached out for a vase on a pedestal right by the side.
For a moment, everyone thought that he was going to throw it at his parents, as he was now holding it above his head and ready to toss. His parents, however, were not impressed, and both continued to look at him with those same expressions.
Melor then made a 180 and tossed the vase on the window.
Adrian let out a loud curse as his treasured Egyptian vase shattered in a thousand pieces upon hitting the window. The window itself, however, seemed completely undamaged by the impact.
Melor looked at it for two seconds, before looking back at his parents, who were still looking at him as if they were waiting for the explanation he promised.
Melor then reached out for another item that was by the side of the window: a chair.
Letting out a loud cry, Melor started to attack the window, as he clearly was trying to break it so he could use it as an escape route. However, the window proved to be much stronger than he anticipated. The glasses shattered as the legs of the chair hit them, but the wooden frame of the window held firmly.
"Who made this window!?" Melor cried out as he tried in vain to open his escape route, while everyone on the room looked at him in shock. Save for his parents, who continued to look at him with those same expressions.
As if this was not the first time he did something like that.
Crying out in frustration, the hybrid tossed the chair to the side, and then he reached for another, much bigger and much heavier object that was by the side.
Adrian's eyes widened as he saw the hybrid struggling to lift the "Mammalgamation". A sculpture made of pure black marble with the heads of several different species of mammals all gathered into a single mass. A work made by no other than Anish Kanpoodle, and which costed him quite the value on the auction.
Immediately, the horse began to yell at the hybrid to "put it down", while the boy continued to lift it while struggling a lot, while his parents did nothing but watch as their son took the valuable sculpture into his arms, lifting it as much as he could with one clear intent in mind.
"That sculpture costed me eight million zollars!"
Then, with a mighty cry, the hybrid gave a humongous show of strength as he tossed the entire sculpture into the window. This time, the window could not resist, and it completely shattered as the statue of black marble was hurl through it.
Once the window was destroyed, the hybrid, still panting, leapt through it, practically hurling himself after the sculpture, before dashing off into the distance, letting out scared gazelle noises as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him.
The animals on the room were all baffled by what just happened, all of them expressing various degrees of surprise, and some of them asking themselves what the heck just happened.
And the parents, of course, remained where they were, looking at the destroyed window through which their son just escaped.
Lumia then let out an exasperated sigh.
"Get 'im, honey." She said, as she turned around and walked into the room, while her husband growled and got on all fours like a feral animal. With a roar, he jumped through the window, and was now in pursuit of the runaway hybrid.
Needless to say, this only left the people on the room even more baffled.
"Soooo..." Nick said, looking at Mrs. Horne. "Does this usually happens with..."
"Unfortunately, yes." Lumia said before Nick could finish the thought, and then she looked at all of them, and said:
"I'm terribly sorry for the trouble that my idiotic son has caused." She sounded very sincere as she said those words. "I did suspected that he was up to something, but I really wanted to believe that he had matured and was really willing to act more responsibly and not get in trouble. I should have known that he would not start acting as an adult just because he turned eighteen."
"Becoming legally an adult does not makes one automatically one." Yahya concluded, as he looked at the gazelle, and she could only nod back at the horse.
"My son is not a bad person." She said to all of them. "He makes stupid decisions more often than good ones, but I assure you that he is a good person deep down."
"I bet Jack the Ripper's mother would have said the same thing had the police ever caught him." Charles whispered to his wife after the gazelle said that. He looked back at her only to find that she was giving him a murderous glare. This was enough to cause Charles to back down nearly immediately and be quiet.
"You said that it was less than two month into his studies." Yahya asked Lumia, who looked back at him. "So, I'm assuming it means that your son has not completed his education as a mage, right?"
Lumia looked at the horse for a few moments, and then she nodded.
"Melor was taught magecraft since he was five, as per procedure." Lumia said, "But he was only taught the basic. He started his studies on advanced subjects on the Association's headquarters last month, around the same time he turned eighteen."
"In other words, he literally just started college." Yahya concluded, his arms crossed over his chest. "All the while convincing us that he was a professional with a great deal of experience."
Lumia shrugged.
"Like I said, my son makes stupid decisions." She said to the horse, and then she said, "But, you don't have to worry about it."
As she said that, there were sounds coming from the outside, entering the room through the broken window. Desperate cries of a person who sounded like they were being dragged against their will.
"Children do make bad decisions." Lumia said, apparently ignoring the cries as she walked to a nearby table and picked two chairs from it. "That is where parents come in. They are the ones who have to deal with the problem that the children have caused. And teach the children that what they did is wrong and that they should not do it again."
She placed the two chairs one by the side of the other. She then turned to look at Yahya.
"I may not have been fully successful on my job as a parent, but you can be sure that I take it seriously, and that I will continue to do it for as long as I have to until the day that my son has finally learned how to act like a proper adult. Until them, I'll continue to be his mother, and making sure that he understands what he can and cannot do."
Everyone looked at the gazelle, who was extremely serious as she spoke those words. Meanwhile the cries of the person being drag back were getting more and more desperate as the voice got louder. It was Melor's voice, and he was practically screaming his lungs out.
"I said let me go! Let me gooooOOO! NOOOOOO!"
Then, the hybrid who had been screaming once more entered the room through the same window he left. He was toss into the room, landing hard into the ground and looking dizzy. Right behind him came Tibor, who jumped through the window and landed on his feet just above his son, before grabbing him by the horn and the arm and starting to drag him in direction to the two chairs his wife prepared.
Melor, on his end, was squirming madly as he screamed on top of his lungs, all of it sounding like unintelligible gibberish.
Everyone watched as the hybrid was, quite literally, dragged kicking and screaming in direction to the chairs, before being forced to sit in one of them.
Melor final stopped screaming, and he was panting as his eyes were wide in panic. His mother walked on his field of vision, and Melor looked up to meet her cold glare.
After two seconds, the hybrid tried to get out of the chair, to make a dash for the broken window to try and escape again. However, his father was right behind him, and he placed a single paw on his shoulder to stop him on his tracks and force his butt back on the chair, while Lumia continued to look down on her son.
A weak whimper escaped the hybrid's mouth as he looked up at his mother.
Lumia looked away from her son, in direction to Legoshi, who was standing by the side of his grandfather.
She moved, letting the two chairs be in clear view of the wolf and, without saying a single word, tapped on the seat of the empty chair with her hooved finger.
The order was clear.
The wolf whimpered, his tail tucked between his legs and his ears flat against his skull. He was looking down as he walked to the chair and obediently sat on it.
As this was done, Lumia turned to the other mammals on the room.
"Now, I'd like to have a discussion with those two idiots on what they have done." She said very politely to everyone. "It is a family matter, so I'll have to ask all of your to give us some privacy. So, if you don't mind, I'll have to ask you to leave this room now."
"No!" Melor cried out suddenly, startling a lot of the presents. "Don't go! She doesn't wants witnesses!"
"Go." Lumia said, only for her son to say:
"Stay!"
"Go."
"Stay!"
"Go, please!"
"Please, don't leave!"
Everyone's eyes went from the hybrid son to the gazelle mother, and then Lumia said:
"Please, let me speak to my son and godson in private." She said it in a firm tone. A tone that was so firm that it might as well have been a command of the likes one could not refuse. Everyone on the room traded looks, before they were all making their way out of the room, leaving only Lumia, Tibor, Gosha, and the two teenagers on the chairs.
"No! Wait! Don't go! Please stay! She will kill us!" Melor continued to plead, but everyone made their way out of the room as per Lumia's request. Not one of them seemed like he would be staying to give any support to the hybrid. Not after Lumia had give them that look at every woman, that every mother, instinctively knew.
"Please! Josh!" Melor cried out. "I love you!"
But not even Josh stayed behind. In fact, he was the one who closed the door behind himself, leaving the five mammals alone on the room.
Melor looked back at his mother, who looked at him with those same severe eyes.
Another whimper escaped the hybrid's throat.
"That was a pathetic scene, if I ever saw one." Angus said as everyone walked to another room, referring to how the hybrid screamed and trashed like a mammal being take to the electric chair as he was taken to face his mother.
"Yeah, it was a bit pathetic." Tyson agreed, as he and Gazelle both walked forward. He, however, didn't seemed as amused by the memory of that scene as Angus clearly was. "He seemed like a five-years-old. Not an eighteen."
Everyone had to agree that it was true. And many of them were still reflecting on the information they were given.
"I cant' believe those two are teens." Adrian said, more to himself than to anyone else. "How they managed to trick me like that?"
"Because you are not actually that smart?" Josh asked the horse, and this caused Adrian to snap at him.
"Oh, and what about you?" He asked to the cheetah. "What is your excuse for not having seem through Horne's lies? Was your mind-reading magecraft hindered by your lower head?"
Josh said nothing in return for a while. The look on his face made it clear that he was upset about the subject.
"I don't go around reading everyone's minds without a good reason." Josh said to the horse. "It is bad manners. And I thought that I could trust his word."
There was a bit of a silence after the cheetah said those words, which was eventually broke by Yahya.
"Mammals lie all the time. It is to be expected." The dark horse said, making the attention on the room shift to him as he focused all of his attention on the muscular cheetah. "You should have looked into his mind, at least to confirm what he was telling you. I heard you could do it if you wanted."
"I was giving him the benefit of the doubt." Josh said.
"And we all see how that worked for you, right?" Yahya said to him. "You ended up going to bed with someone who is just barely on the legal age. If he was only a month younger, your name would be going on the list of know sex offenders. You realize that, don't you?"
Josh said nothing, but his attitude made it clear that he understood.
"Okay, that's enough." Caitlyn said, moving forward and getting in between Yahya and Josh. "You can step down."
As Caitlyn put herself to face Yahya, everyone looked at the developing scene with interest, including Angus. However, his attention was diverged from it by a servant.
"Excuse me, Mister Angus?" Said the alpaca, who called Angus by his first name, and who called him "mister" in place of "master", as he would have done five years ago before his disowning.
"This arrived at the door just a few minutes ago." He said, showing a box to the horse. "It is addressed to you and there is no return address. It does has this strange stamp, however."
Angus took the box from the alpaca and looked at the symbol. The alpaca didn't knew what it was, but Angus did.
Angus opened the box with no ceremony, and he found an object inside that he recognized, along with a card.
LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR PARTNERSHIP was written on the card in embossed golden letters. Angus couldn't help but smirk.
Glad to know I already have an ally. Angus said, as he looked back at the object inside of the box, and his smirk widened.
"Are you saying you don't mind if your son goes to bed with a minor?" Yahya asked Caitlyn.
"Don't twist my words, horse." Cailyn said to him, "I'm just saying that my children are correct enough not to do something like that unless they were tricked into it. I know and I trust them."
"Well, other people don't, and let me tell you, having his name on the list of sex offenders would not be good for your son." Yahya said to her, "Which is why he should perhaps not go to bed with people he barely knows."
Everyone was looking at the two as they continued to discuss, and some of them were getting the impression that it was better to get them to stop talking to each other, as the discussion was starting to escalate.
Right on cue:
"Yo, dudes!" Angus said, looking at everyone. "Wanna take a look at those two losers being scolded?"
As Angus said that, he was raising something on his hoof for everyone to see. Something round, smooth and clear.
"A crystal ball?" Nick asked, looking at the horse with a "are you serious" expression. Angus only smirked back at him.
"Is that a remote-view crystal ball?" Marcy asked, as she recognized the object that the horse was holding. "Where did you got that?"
"Oh, it is a gift from a new friend I made." Angus said to her, "Anyway, want to see if the gazelle is chewing out those two as well as it seemed she was going to?"
Without even waiting for her answer, Angus was soon getting seated on the table with his brand new possession. He picked up a small cloth on the table that was serving as decoration and folded it to make an improvised support for the crystal ball, which he carefully set in it.
"Wait, does that thing actually work?" Charlie asked, as some people started approaching Angus. "You can see the future with it?"
"No." Angus said, "But I can see what is happening right now on places I'm familiar with. Now, let's see."
He placed his hooves near the ball, moving the closer to the smooth crystal surface without really touching it, as he activates his circuits and poured magic energy forward.
"From what I understood, those things are mostly instinctive. So, I just need to think of the place I want to see where I have been recently and..." Angus said, as he conducted his magical energy in direction to the ball. As he did, the inside of the ball got turvy, as if the object was being fill with mist. Then, colors started to appear and then to form shapes. An image was slowly coming into focus, as sound could be heard coming from the ball, seeming distant at first but getting more and more distinct.
"What were you two even thinking!?" Lumia's voice came from the ball as the image came into focus, and now everyone was paying attention to the ball. It showed the room they had just left, and Melor and Legoshi were sitting on the chairs, both looking at their own laps, while Lumia walked back and forth in front of the two of them.
"No, you know what? Scratch that! I KNOW you two were not really thinking anything! Because if you were, you would have realized how stupid this plan was and wouldn't have gone forward with it!"
"Ha ha! She is tearing them both new ones!" Angus said as he enjoyed the scene developing on the crystal ball. At this stage, everyone on the room had gathered around him, and many of them were looking with interest as the scene developed.
"You know, it is not nice to spy on others like that." Penny said as she looked over, and her mother agreed with her.
"Oh, don't give me that crap." Angus said to the two of them. His voice was only barely audible above the angry voice of Lumia Horne as she admonished both the wolf and her hybrid son for their stupidity. "Come on, don't tell me you girls don't love some family drama? Hey!"
As Angus was looking at the two of them, his hooves were batted away from the crystal ball by small bunny paws. This, of course, caused the flow of magical energy to be interrupt, and the image on the crystal ball went out of focus and vanished.
"They are right, you should not spy on others like that!" Judy said to him. "It is not only 'not nice', it is illegal!"
"So what?" Angus said to her, "This is better than reality shows and soap operas! Don't you know that mages love intrigue and drama? I'm just playing the part! Now, leave me alone!"
With that said, Angus placed his hooves back near the ball and resumed what he had been doing. Soon, the images on the crystal ball were back, as well as Lumia's voice.
"I really though you wanted to bond with Legoshi, since you two have been apart for three years and have been awkward since he came back last year! I thought it would be good for you two!" Lumia said, jamming a hooved finger on her son's chest, while Melor looked up at her. "That was the only reason why I signed that permission for you to be absent for two months even though it was your first year on the Clock Tower! I knew that otherwise I would never have allowed you to miss two months worth of lessons! Especially my lessons!"
"Instructor Horne teaches advanced alchemy and personal defense for us back on the headquarters." Penny said, "Her husband teaches advanced exoteric principles on elemental magecraft."
"But, as it turns out, you lied straight to my face!" Lumia said, "Anything to say about it?"
He son's answer, as he looked up at his mother, was:
"I'm sorry, Mama."
"Seriously?" Adrian said, barely believing that this was the same mammal who nearly ripped his throat with his bare hoof. Lumia, on her end, scoffed.
"You lied to me to skip on your lessons..." The gazelle said, as she got up. "You dragged Legoshi here with you to play this trick, and you came to Zootpia, of all places. You know this is the more dangerous place in the world for any hybrid!"
"Wait, what?" Hannah said, looking at the crystal ball as she stood by her boyfriend's side.
"So, not only you come here, to the most dangerous place you could possibly come, dragging Legoshi on tow, and you make money by lying to an important family just because a member of them used to have connections with Gosha! I had to hear about it from an old friend of his' from the enforcers, who heard that the agents they send here sent back a report speaking about a hybrid of leopard and gazelle who could be connected to dangerous events on this very same house! You know how worried I got when I heard that!? Don't even answer! You know I was worried sick! I could hardly even think! I would probably have snapped at half of the Mineralogy Department was not for your father calming me down! I had to book the first flight to Zootopia! I had lectures to teach, you know!? I had to call in your uncle Lazarus to cover my classes for me so I could go to the airport and take the goddamn plane! You know of my motion sickness! You know how much I hate planes AND my brother! I'm still worried about what that scumbag could be teaching my students while I'm away! What do you have to say about THAT!?"
Horne looked at her for a few seconds, and then he said:
"I'm very sorry, Mama."
Lumia looked just about ready to kill him. And that was when Judy once more batted both of his hooves away from the ball, causing the image to once more dissipate as the mana flow was interrupted.
"Will you quit doing that!?" Angus said angrily at her, only for Judy to snap back at him to "stop spying on people" and citing over a dozen of local and state laws about spying on people without their knowledge. This, of course, did not deterred the horse in the slightest.
"You know I'm a mage, right?" Angus looked at him. "Your rules mean nothing to me. The only laws I obey are those of the Codex, and only because I don't want the enforcers breathing on my neck. And, let me tell you, none of the laws of the Codex says it is forbidden to spy on other mages when they are inside of MY house!"
Adrian wanted to protest that this was no longer Angus house. However, he was far more interested in seeing what the gazelle would be doing to her delinquent son.
He was hoping she would punch him right in the face. Or at least spank him. That stupid brat certainly could use a good beating.
Soon, Angus was asking the bunny to "stay out of his way", and then he was activating the ball once more so he could see what was going on in the other room. As they caught sight of the mammals on the other room again, it seemed that Melor, to Adrian's disappointed, had not been punched or even slapped by his mother. However, Lumia was still having at it with the two boys.
"IF I CRACKED BOTH YOUR SKULLS OPEN AND SCOOPED OUT WHATEVER WAS INSIDE, I WOULDN'T HAVE ENOUGH BRAINCELLS TO FILL A TEASPOON!" Lumia screamed at the two as she walked in front of the two of them, while the two of them looked down and said in unison:
"We are sorry."
Lumia only became all the more exasperated at the two, and continued to admonish the two as if they were little children. They certainly were behaving like that.
"It was all Legoshi's idea." Melor said at one point, when his mother demanded a better explanation from him than a simple "I'm sorry". She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, while he explained to her that Legoshi was the one who had the idea of coming to the house of the Manechester family to try and get money out of them.
"Oh? So it was his idea for you two to pretend to be freelancers and trick them out of their money?" Lumia asked her son, and the hybrid only looked at her in silence for a few moments.
"Well?" Lumia asked, and when her son still didn't answered, her husband, Tibor, who was standing directly behind the chair Melor was sitting, said:
"Answer."
This was enough to make the eighteen-years-old finally admit that it had been his idea "because Legoshi's was too dumb and would not work".
Lumia looked at Legoshi, and asked him what was his idea on this whole story. This was something some of the people who were watching through the crystal ball wanted to know as well.
However, the wolf didn't answered, and simply looked away. This caused Lumia to ask him to answer her questions. Some noticed that she seemed to be a lot kinder with the wolf than with her own son. The canine still refused to answer, and that was when the other wolf on that room stepped forward, placing a paw on Lumia's shoulder and making her open space for him.
"Legoshi..." Gosha said, crouching to be on eye-level with the younger wolf. "Why did you wanted the money?"
The wolf again didn't answered, and this caused the older canine to look at him worriedly.
"Legoshi, puppy boy, look at me." He asked, and the younger wolf did not. "Legoshi... please..." Gosha pleaded, and this time his grandson did looked his way. He looked sad and ashamed, and the older canine only looked at him.
"You have grown so much. Legoshi." He said, and reached a paw to touch the other wolf's face. "When it was the last time I took a good look at you? I hardly even remember. It feels like forever ago."
Legoshi said nothing in return, and he only looked down. Gosha sighed.
"Legoshi... I know things have been hard. I'd have to be stupid not to." Gosha said to his grandson, sadness clearly showing into his voice. "After we lost Leano... it was hard on both of us. More on you, because you were just a pup back them. I know you miss her. And I know you blame me for her not being here. Heck, you said it right to my face before you went to Nippon with your father..."
The younger wolf didn't looked up at him. He only continued to look down at his lap.
"Legoshi, I don't know if you still hate me, but I want you to know that I love you." Gosha said to his grandson. "I always will. You are the only family I have left. You are all I have left, and I'll never give up on you, no matter how much you resent me. I just want you to understand that."
Gosha seemed absolutely honest when he said that. Everyone who heard his voice and saw the expression on his face could tell it. And many of the people around the table became all too aware that they were looking at something they were definitely not supposed to spy on. That they had no right to spy on.
"Okay, that's enough." Yahya said, "Angus, turn that thing off."
"That's why I'll never let anything bad happen to you." Gosha said to the younger wolf, who still looked down. "I'll always do whatever I need to support and protect you, and I'll gladly do it. Because that is what a grandfather is supposed to do for his grandchildren."
"I told you to turn that off, Angus!" Yahya said, "Now!"
"Legoshi, why you needed Yahya to give you money? Is there any problem? If you tell me, then maybe we can-" Gosha was saying, but he was cut off when Legoshi spat out:
"I needed the money so those tigers wouldn't kill you!"
Yahya was with his hoof moving in direction to the ball, wanting to cut it off. However, as soon as he heard the words of the younger wolf through it, his hoof halted a few inches from the ball, and he just looked at it.
He seemed surprised, but not as much as Gosha seemed as he looked back at his grandson, who rose his head to look back at him.
"Grandpa, I know about your debt!" Legoshi said to the older wolf. "I know you borrowed money from the Clawhara clan, and that they are threatening to kill you if you don't pay them back before winter!"
"Oh, crap!" Tyson said in surprise.
"No way!" Caitlyn said, "Why would he do something so stupid!?"
"Grandpa, I heard how you needed to go to them for the resources for your last mission back in Germanein, and how you wanted money to pay for my admittance fee for when I start on the Clock Tower next year!" The wolf said, "How they were one of the few willing to borrow you anything and how you promised to pay them back for what they did for you or they would rip out all your limbs! I don't wanted that to happen! I don't want you to die!"
"Legoshi..." Gosha said, and Legoshi continued:
"That's why I had to come when I heard that the old friend you always talked about was rich! I thought that I could ask some money for him! I thought that maybe he would if I asked him enough and promised to pay with interests! He could not be as bad as the Clawhara! He wouldn't kill us for not paying like they would!"
Legoshi paused, taking a few breaths, seemingly to calm himself down.
"I..." The younger wolf said, "I just wanted nothing bad to happen to you..." He looked up at Gosha. "Grandpa... I knew things were bad since you got fired from the enforcers... but I didn't knew they were so bad..."
"Wait, fired? I was old he retired..." Josh said, and that was when someone finally put an end to this. Marcy stepped forward and yanked the crystal ball from Angus' hooves.
"Okay, that's enough. Give people some privacy." The cheetah/fox hybrid said.
"Hey, be careful with that! I just got it!" Angus said, as he looked at his precious new crystal ball. All the while everyone else processed what they had just heard.
"Wait, who are the Clawhara clan?" Hannah asked, to what Caitlyn told them that they were an influent family of tigers back in England. They were know for loaning money and resources to other mage families in exchange for favors, but always with the promise of said resources being returned two-fold, at the very least. And bad things tended to happen to anyone who didn't paid them back like they were expected to.
"They are complete savages." Caitlyn said, "The kind you don't get in debt with. Not unless you are either stupid or overly optimistic."
Apparently, Gosha Drachenwolf fell in one of those two categories.
"And he was fired from the enforcers?" Adrian asked, "What did he do?"
"I don't know!" Josh said, "You know, this makes no sense! The guy is a legend! Why would they ever fire him?"
"Oh?" Angus said, looking at the muscular cheetah. "So, you really don't know, do you? That's a surprise."
Angus sat back on his chair.
"I mean, I have been a mage for only a few months, and even I heard the story of how the most legendary enforcer of the last centuries ended up losing everything and becoming just a cheap freelancer." He said, looking at the cheetah. "So cheap, in fact, that I heard he can barely even scrape by."
Everyone looked at Angus, who shrugged.
"But, I have to say, if that old wolf had to borrow money from the Clawhara clan, and if his grandson was ready to come here and beg this family for the money, then his situation must be even worse than I heard."
Everyone reflected about this in silence. Then Charlie broke this silence:
"Well, that's none of our business. They tried to scam us, so we don't care. Their problems have nothing to do with their clan and they can solve it themselves. Ain't that right, Yahya?"
The younger horse looked at the dark one, seemingly looking for his approval. However, Yahya gave him none. He was still deep in thought...
"We are very sorry for what we did." Legoshi said as he bowed to the horses before him. "Please, forgive us."
"Yeah, sorry for anything." Melor said as he stood by the side of the wolf. By his side, his mother and father were glaring at him as he apologized along with Legoshi to the Manechesters.
"Here is all the money you paid us." Legoshi said, giving them a box filled with wads of cash. "It is all in there, save for the seventy-hundred zollars we had to spend for some of the rituals and on Melon's catnip. You can bill us this money along with the money of the damages we caused and we will pay you back. We are terribly sorry."
The wolf bowed once more as they took the box. Yahya and Adrian were both looking at the bowing wolf and at the hybrid standing by his side, who was now not showing even a hint of the sash he had been showing to them on the previous weeks.
All the while the other guests and family members watched from the sidelines, all of them still wanting to know how this story was going to end.
As the money was count by a llama butler, the wolf continued to bow and apologize profusely, while Gosha looked at him as he stood by his side.
"You said you spent seven thousand zollars of this money, Mister Ogami?" The llama asked, "There is around twenty thousand missing from the value."
"Eh?" Legoshi said, looking confused. Meanwhile, Lumia was looking at her son, who all of a sudden seemed to find the chandelier on that room to be extremely interesting.
"Melor."
"Hmm?"
"Give them their money." Lumia commanded, and her son looked at her for a few moments.
"What money?"
Lumia reacted immediately. Her hooves shot forward, one grabbing her son's wrist and the other one grabbing his horn. Soon, the hybrid was crying out as his mother put him into a hold that seemed to be quite painful.
"Okay! OKAY!" Melor said in between cries of pain, before he used his free hoof to open his belt and the fly of his pants, and then shoved it inside of his underwear.
He pulled out a lot of cash he had been hiding in there.
"Here." He said, offering it to the horses, who looked at it for a few moments, before Adrian gestured at the llama butler to get it for them.
"Warm..." was all that he llama said as he picked the money that Melor was hiding on his underwear. After this, his mother let him go, and the hybrid was rubbing both his neck and shoulder to alleviate the pain from the hold she was putting him into.
As soon as the butler finished counting the money, it seemed that the situation was finished. However, Gosha Drachenwolf seemed to have something else to do with the Manechesters:
"Here." He said, as he handed the poster transport tube to Yahya, and the horse looked at it with a raised eyebrow, before taking it from Gosha's paws and opening it. Inside they found something that Yahya unfurled and both he and his son looked at...
"A painting?" Yahya said as he looked at it. Adrian also looked at it, and the rest of the Manechester family also came to see. The painting depicted two horses, a male and a female. The mare had pure-white fur and blue eyes, and she was sitting on a chair while wearing a white dress, her hooved hands together on her lap as her long mane spilled on her shoulder. By her side, was standing a stallion with black fur and red eyes, and he proudly wore fine clothing as he had an serious expression as he looked back at however was looking at the painting with a piercing gaze.
"That's a nice painting." Adrian said, as he looked at the style, which did seemed somewhat familiar to him. "But, why are you showing us this?"
"Look at the stallion's hoof." Gosha said simply, and they all did. They looked at the hooved hand of the stallion, as he rested it on the shoulder of the mare. They saw something red in there, and they realized it was a ring.
"Wait..." Adrian said, looking at this, and Chandler soon looked on his pocket and pulled a familiar object from there. He held the Manechester red-diamond ring to the painting, and they realized that the ring that the stallion had on his hoof was identical!
"What is this?" Yahya asked Gosha, and the wolf answered:
"The horses on this painting are Lord Klaus of Manechester and his wife Elena. They lived on England back on the seventeenth century. They were the great-grandparents of a horse named Daniel of Manechester, who would immigrate to Animerica after his family was victim of a coup that made them lose their fortune. He brought his grandfather's ring with him to the new land, and settled on the newly created colony known as Zootopia, where he lived as a merchant. The same profession of his son and, eventually, of his grandson, Archibald Manechester."
Everyone heard the wolf with a lot of attention, and all of them had already made the connection.
"Those two are... our ancestors?" Effie asked as she looked at the two horses depicted on the picture.
"Is this real?" Adrian asked, looking at the painting with suspicion, as well as to the wolf. Gosha nodded. "Where did you got this?"
"Yes, it is." He wolf said, seeming unfazed by the mistrust on Adrian's gaze as he looked his way. "I received it for a person a few months ago after doing a... service for him. This painting called my attention because of the ring. It reminded me of the ring you had, Yahya. The one that belonged to your dad and that you always carried with you."
Yahya looked at Gosha, seeming surprised that the wolf still remembered that, even after so many years.
"So, I started researching, and that was how I found out who were those horses." Gosha explained. "I looked through history records, talked to some people back in England, talked to some old acquaintances. Heck, I even went as far as to have a meeting with Christopher White to be sure that the painting was authentic."
"Christopher White?" Effie asked. "The famous polar bear art historian?"
"Wait a minute." Adrian said, looking at the wolf. "Why would you need to go to Christopher White, of all mammals, to authenticate this panting? I mean, the bear is the world's greatest authority on Rambrandt, but..."
Adrian stopped talking when he saw the look on the wolf's face. He looked at him for a few moments, blinking, and then he looked back at the painting, all of a sudden he knew why the style seemed familiar.
"This..." Adrian said, taking the painting on his hooves. "This is a Rambrandt?"
Gosha nodded.
"Klaus of Manechester's mother was from the Netherlands. He still had businesses in there which he inherited from his maternal grandfather, so he made regular trips there." Gosha explained. "In one of those travels, he ended up stationed on Hamsterdam, on a lodge with sight to the Hamstel river. By pure chance, Rambrandt was renting a lodge right by the side, and he was looking at the river one day when he saw Elena by the edges of the river."
"He was so enchanted by her beauty and grace that he felt the need to paint her. He talked to her husband and, according to the accounts I found, he begged him to allow him to make a painting of his wife, as she was the most beautiful mammal he had seen on his life." Gosha explained, and the Manechesters all looked at him.
Chandler looked at the mare on the painting very intently. She was drop-dead gorgeous...
"Klaus eventually relented to his requests to paint her, but he stablished two conditions." Gosha continued his explanation. "First, Klaus would be on the painting with her. Second, once the painting was complete, Rambrandt would give it to Klaus, so he could take it back to England with him. Rambrandt accepted both terms."
The Manechesters now looked between Gosha and the painting. Adrian, in particular, was nearly shaking on his hooves as he looked at the painting. Rambrandt was the artist that he admired the most, after all.
"And, Christopher White did authenticated this?" Adrian asked, and Gosha nodded.
"He evaluated the style and the materials used with the help of professionals, and he checked the historical records, which matched the information I gathered. He said himself it is a genuine Rambrandt, and perhaps one of the most valuable ones ever found. He asked me if I'd like to donate it to the British Museum, but I refused." Gosha said to them, "According to his professional opinion, he evaluated the painting as being worth around 24 million zollars."
They all looked at him for a few moments, and that was when Adrian asked:
"Is that how much you are asking for it?" He was cautious as he asked this question. He had to be. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to rip him off by selling him a fake painting for the price of a real one.
However, Gosha shook his head.
"I'm not asking anything." Gosha said, "I'm giving it to you."
"Grandpa?" Legoshi asked, looking at the wolf, and everyone else looked at him with surprise.
"This panting was on Klaus' house during all of his life and after it, as he left it to his descendants as well as the rest of his state." Gosha said, "It was stolen from the house after Daniel left for Animerica."
"I'm returning it to the rightful owners." Gosha said, looking straight at Yahya as he said that. The horse, on his turn, looked back at the wolf, before nodding.
"Okay, so I guess that's it." Lumia said, "Those two idiots returned the money, Gosha retuned the painting, so all is over, right? Then we can all leave this city before-"
"Excuse me?" Said a mule butler, as he interrupted Lumia as he made his presence known, and he presented to them an antelope in white uniform and with rings on his antlers, saying that he was there to see Mr. and Mrs. Horne, as well as Mr. Drachenwolf.
The antelope walked forward, his eyes on the animals he was there to see and ignoring everyone else. He even ignored Adrian, who asked him who he was, and instead addressed the three mammals.
"I'm here representing Asher Bellwether." He said, bowing to the three mammals, before pulling something from inside of his clothes. He unfolded the scroll and began reading aloud from it.
"In name of the Bellwether clan, one of the Three Great Clans who rule over the sacred land of Zootopia, Lumia Horne, her husband Tibor Horne, and the former enforcer Gosha Drachenwolf are now called on for violation of the rules established by the Bellwether clan in conjunction with the Höhle and Wilde clans by entering into the land of Zootopia without previous authorization." He said, using a tone that was so formal that it nearly seemed robotic. "For those violations, the offenders will pay a penalty to be decided by the three clans upon an extraordinary meeting of the current patriarchs and matriarch in the near future. Until then, the three offenders are, therefore, forbidden of leaving Zootopia until the penalty has been decided and settled appropriately."
Everyone heard the words of the antelope, all of them with varying expressions.
"Wait, so now that they invaded they are forbidden of leaving?" Judy asked, to what Angus said:
"To be sure they won't try to escape from being punished by the clans for pissing them off."
"This limitation also expands to the ones known as Legoshi Ogami and Melor Horne, who committed similar offense and are associated with the three offenders aforementioned and, therefore, will have their penalty evaluated together and to be paid by their respective guardians and/or clan leaders." The antelope continued. The message there was clear: none of them five of them was allow to leave Zootopia until the clans said they could.
The antelope then rolled up the scroll, placed it back on his clothes and bowed to them while saying:
"Thank you for your time."
And left the room without saying another word or giving any attention to anyone else. This left everyone looking at him while he left.
"Let me guess, that guy is a golem too?" Nick asked, to what Angus only chuckled, seemingly in amusement.
"Great, now we have to find a hotel." Lumia said, feeling now that she should have brought more money than just the one she used to buy the tickets to come to Zootopia. And those were two-way tickets... Once more, she was mad that those two idiots for having this whole plan and putting them into this situation on the first place.
"Well, I guess that's it." Gosha said, as Lumia was making Legoshi and Melor go with her, with her husband right behind them. Gosha cast a glance at Yahya, who still looked at him while Adrian continued looking at the painting he just received.
"It was good seeing you again, Yahya." Gosha said, "Goodbye..."
And he turned around to leave, while Yahya looked intently to him.
"What do you mean by 'goodbye1!?" I asked Gosha, demanding to know what was the deal. Why he had packed all of his things and was talking to me as if this was the last time we were seeing each other.
"I can't do this anymore." Was all that Gosha said to me in return. I didn't understood. I could not understand no matter how much he tried.
Why was he leaving?
Why was he abandoning me?
After everything we went through together? What happened to the plans we made? Why was he just abandoning everything and leaving? And he didn't even looked me in the eye when I talked to him and demanded him to explain himself!?
All he did was apologize, and say that it was better if we parted ways, and told me not to contact him anymore.
There were no words to describe what was feeling as that wolf said it to me. The hurt, the betrayal, the feeling that he was throwing away everything we had together. It was too much for me.
"Fine!" I said to him, "Then leave, and don't you dare to look for me again!"
Gosha looked hurt as I said that. Was he changing his mind? No. He just apologized once more and picked his luggage, before walking to the door.
Seeing him walk away made me feel like my heart was tearing in half. I looked away, but my cursed wide vision made sure that I could still see him leaving.
I didn't wanted him to leave. I didn't wanted to lose him. However, I could not say it. My pride would not allow it. It would not allow me to break down before a carnivore and make myself look like a poor fool who was asking someone else for something.
So, I just stood there with my arms crossed an a scowl on my face as he left, walking closer and closer to the door. Once he went through it, it was all over. He would be gone from my life, and I'd never see him again.
He was almost crossing the threshold of the door now. The point of no return. And I had to grind my teeth and bite my lip to keep me from saying...
"WAIT!"
The cry was so sudden and loud that many of the animals around jumped back in surprise. Gosha turned around, looking at Yahya, who looked at his way, and everyone else looked at the horse in shock.
Ignoring all of them, Yahya gave a few steps forward, looking Gosha dead in the eyes. Looking at the mammal he had not seen in decades since he left on that one afternoon. The mammal who he missed for so many years, and who he thought was gone from his life forever.
And then, as he was about to leave again, Yahya said to him the one word he wanted to have said all those years ago as he was walking to the door:
"Stay..."