Chapter 28

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"Frío estúpido, nieve estúpida, departmento MR estúpido…" A few eyes looked back at the mammal in question, shivering where she stood, before she shot them a glare. "Don't just stand there looking at me, do our jobs so I can get into the warm and lodge another complaint why don't you?"

The various other cops went back to studying the snow and ground, as a brown and grey face popped out of the surface. "You should come down here Carla, it's real cool!"

"I can imagine," the hyena muttered, trudging forward through the knee high powder, only to pause as she felt something under foot. "Is that the roof or?" she asked, while the summer coated but still cold resistant arctic fox turned down and scurried through, slipping down into the depths, tail vanishing with a flick.

"No seriously, it's a bit warm outside, but it's real cosy in here," his voice echoed out.

Carla's bitter sneer increased as she walked further on, rising up as her footing increased.

"Hmmmm," the voice echoed from underneath. "Ample living space, low running costs, excellent potential for DIY… though a bit of a fixxer upper now. Just needs some tlc."

A cold blast of air cut across the surface, sending the hyena into another bout of shivers. "What was it you said your parents did for a living Jimmy?"

"Oh, they're in real estate," his voice echoed out. "Heh, guess you could tell, huh."

"Well," she muttered, "as long as they are not in the e-rostering or HR department, that's good news."

"Oh why's that?" Jimmy asked, before a new, slightly familiar voice, spoke out.

"It's 'cause you don't have to become an orphan!"

Carla grumbled, "annoyingly your stupid wallabeanie is right."

"Hey, don't call him stupid."

"Yeah, but keep on acknowledging I do exist."

Carla rolled her eyes, pausing though as the snow broke in front of her again and Jimmy popped up, his gloves held in his mouth. He dropped them down in front of him. "Well if you're not coming down into the warmth, at least put these on. I don't need them."

She picked one up, cradling it in her palm as she showed it to him, one of her eyebrows raised.

"Well, I was thinking you could stick them on your ears or something." And with that he let himself slip back down into the white depths, the hyena left to begrudgingly do as he suggested.

Right before her radio beeped. With a groan she held it up. "Sí?"

Her face grimaced. "Can you say that again?"

…

Groaning, she pulled off the ear mounted glove. "One more time."

"This is Hopps. We've followed back the polar bear blood down on the road. Only it doesn't come from the garage, it comes from an underwater stream and ends… nowhere. If there's a route down from this place to the stream, it might explain it. Can you see if you can find an entry down there? Maybe get some dye, see if it follows through."

"I can do that," she said, a smile on her face. "Hey, Frost?"

"Yeah," came the muffled response from below.

"See if you can find any access to an underground river of drain a polar bear can fit through, I'll do a supply run back to the precinct to get some dye."

"Right-o!"

Carla smiled. Ah, an excuse to get back in a warm cruiser, go back to the warm precinct, then spend a bit more time in a warm cruiser before her suffering from a colossal HR deployment desastre had to continue. She jumped with joy, only for her feet to shoot through the ground, followed by the rest of her until her arms caught the harder snow and anchored her to a halt, leaving just her ears above the powder level.

"Ooooh, I can see your feet Carla."

"If they're applying for the chandelier position, I think we can do better."

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Further down the slope, Judy looked down at the swirling mass of water down below. Shining her light, she could see frosted up spatters of red on the rungs leading up to it from where the bear had climbed and hauled himself up…

Except…

She couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, but what?

She looked down, imagining the bear in question dragging himself up. By the look of it, she and Carmelita had already established that it had been the front paws all cut up, something that could line up with a bent and bloodied ice auger found in one of the many snow tunnels. Were it not for the sheer size, she'd have imagined them all to be the work of a snow hare, maybe an arctic fox, and definitely not a polar bear. But regardless, that is what everything else told her, so be it. A polar bear who'd swam down this tunnel to escape those trying to flush him out of his invisible sanctuary, who'd found this shaft and grabbed on and pulled himself up, yanking down at the feeble paw holds and…

Her eyes widened.

"Carmelita?"

"You might have to settle for the superior model," Nick said, walking over. He'd been sniffing around for bullets, but evidently that had brought him back here.

"Sadly so," Judy said, pointing down. "There were two bears."

"How'd you figure that out then?"

"One we know about climbed up, paws covered in blood. But at the same time, one went further down that shaft, kicking off that paw rest there and bending it up."

Nick narrowed his eyes and nodded. "There's a fair cop for you," he smirked.

"Uh-hu," she said. "Which suggests he swam down that a little way, to where this goes out to the sea."

"Presuming it wasn't grated off," Nick said grimly. He shivered. "Not a nice way to go. Give me sewer pipe dropping me over a waterfall anyday." Judy's ears went down, only to go up again as Nick went on. "Anyhow, if he could get out of there, he could be anywhere now. Polar bears are pretty mean swimmers. Not the fastest, but just a little away from the shore and that water will be practically balmy to them. He can go the distance and be across the bay or midway up at Sahara Square for all I know."

"And it's not like cameras pointing out at the bay will have caught him," Carmelita said, walking over. "Even thermal, I've worked with polar bears before and they are so well insulated they are practically invisible in the water." She paused, looking up the slope. "Hmmm, I know most bears in the city are Russian, followed by Alaskan and Canidean… But do you think there might be some Svalbard in there too? This kind of thing reminds me a lot of what the panserbjørn build."

Judy shook her head. "I don't know," she huffed. "I know our runaway bear is very Russian."

"And I think I know why he was running now," Nick grimaced. "I've… I've never seen anything like it. They were trying to blast that place apart."

"No," Judy said, drawing his and Carmelita's gaze. "There's…" She backed off, paws up. "Okay, it's a very, very old rabbit nursery rhyme, so please don't judge." With that, she cleared her throat.

"Little one, little one, safe in their burrow.

Little one, little one, crying in their sorrow,

When the fox did come, did come,

Digging and letting the earth fall in,

Oh Mama left her son, her son.

To be food for him."

She breathed in, then sung the second verse.

"Oh Mama oh Mama, raced for the surface,

But the fox met her there, with his hungry face.

He'd scared her out from her home sweet home,

from a place he could never fit his big fat muzzle..

Little one, little one, still safe but all alone,

with no mama left for him to cuddle."

And with that she finished it, Nick walking over and looking particularly peeve off. "I mean can you believe it in this day and age," he grumbled to Carmelita, throwing his paws out at Judy. "She goes around singing that, and I'm the one who's vocal talents the Chief has a problem with?"

There were a few groans, though it quickly faded as Carm walked forward. "Intentional or not, you really could say that they did flush them." She was met with more groans, her ears going back. "Okay, first off that one was not. Second, it lines up with some of the evidence I saw down at the garage areas. Wolf hairs. Bits here and there, that I sampled up. I think some of them might come from the wolf that tried to 'interrogate' Dr Silverfox." She grumbled, huffing. "Seems like that idiot red fox gave him enough clues to find his bear after all. Regardless, we can have a double blind sniff test to see if it was the same wolf, maybe even followed by a DNA test. And I want mammals out searching and sniffing the shoreline for any sign of that bear. Get where he came ashore, then follow it on." She turned off, Nick and Judy following. "Not like there's any security cameras here or anything?"

"No," Nick grumbled, looking around. "This is less 'part the city' and more 'area to the side coincidentally covered by the climate works'. Perfect place for a bear with time on his paws to make an undersnow palace for himself, and for sneaky stuff to go down at night."

Judy nodded. "I mean, it was remote enough that no-one heard all the noise… Or at least, not enough to recognise it as what is was and call us. It was only when a trucker saw the blood later in the morning that we got the call."

"Uh hu," Carmelita said, looking back up the slope. "Could we look at who owns the land, trace it back?"

Nick nodded. "I mean sure, but chances are this is a long term squat or something on city land. Shame really, as once the city hears about it they'll send some bashers over to pat it down and collapse it in."

"I mean, given what happened it is at risk of collapse already," Judy pointed out. "Imagine some kits coming up and exploring it, only to get snowed in."

"If he trespassed on someone's land and built that, then it's up to the owner to do what he wants," Carms said. "At least over here you don't have dumb laws in place to stop that happenning, which I'm then annoyingly bound to follow."

Judy turned up to face her, ears pointing straight up. "So this kind of thing's common over in Furance."

"This?" she said, looking up the slope and pointing. "Not a chance. Instead you get all this… how do you say it in english, 'bleeding heart' 'rodent rights' stuff across Europe. Got a tree, have a squirrel build a treehouse in it or in a nook, well then you need a court order to get him removed. And that's the least infuriating and least irritating part of it. You also get rats and mice and such who claim it's their rights as part of their species 'traditional way of life' to build out a home or something in any building or wall or whatever and live in it, however badly they act and what the owner of the property wants be damned. I've had cases where brand new, airtight energy neutral passive houses home to young families have had the insulation systems wrecked by some mice coming along and carving out a space in the wall, ripping up the airtighting and everything before playing loud music right through the nights keeping the children up. And can the family do anything about it?"

She blew some air off. "Nope. If those mice start the registration for their place first, the family have to play catch up and prove that the mice haven't been there long term and that a permanent settlement will negatively affect them going on. All something the rodents can drag on and on. Often they do that to try and encourage the family to sign a settlement deal where they at least get a bit of rent out of it. Other times they know full well they're causing mayhem and noise and all that and will get evicted out, but do it anyways just to keep their stupid party going. In the end they flee the wrecked house, shirk off paying anything to repair the sometimes huge damage, and then just repeat the process. You can charge them with property damage and try to pursue them with that after its over, but proving it in a court of law…"

The vixen growled. "Urgh! It just makes me angry having to see this clear injustice going on, and knowing the law says you have to side with the little smiling jerks who play full blast rock music in the walls of the babies nursery at two in the morning for the heck of it, and then claim that exhausted parents are speciesists for not tolerating their way of life."

Nick nodded. "Yeah, cultural differences," he said.

Judy nodded. "Laws be damned, if some mice did that in our burrow and the sheriff didn't want to get them out, then my Dad would either bring out the vacuum cleaner or the expanding foam."

"Why not both?" Nick asked.

"Sí," Carmelita nodded, a smile returning to her face. "Both sounds very good to me."

Any further discussion though was brought out by a chirp from their radio. Judy listened in as Clawhauser spoke out. "Hey, you there Wilde and Hopps."

"There and with Inspector Fox," Judy replied.

"Yup," Nick added, leaning in. "What's the news, Spots?"

"Good, I hope! We got in an anonymous letter early today, giving us an address and telling you three to go look into it."

They all looked at each other.

"Please," Judy began, ears going down. "Tell me it's not night…"

"No," Clawhauser said, Judy sighing with relief. "-It just says 'someone very case relevant lives there'."

"Could it be Kozlov?" Judy asked.

"Only one way to find out," Carm said, as she began taking off for the cruiser, the others in tow.

"Oooh," Clawhauser added. "The address can take you past Precinct One. Drop in and you can pick up the letter too."

"Thanks Spots!" Nick cheered, a smile on his face. "Every little helps."

"Sí," Carmelita agreed, a smile growing big and wide on her face. "We're back on the trail."

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"So, back for more action!? Back for more excitement!? Back to learn more and kick awesome!?"

Limbering up in his white sports gear and wearing a determined grin, Ash moved his muzzle around as if chewing a toothpick before spitting it out the side. "Yes."

Po nodded. "A bit anticlimactic, but that's what I want to hear!"

"Well, I'm ready to fight like a hyena," Haida said, flexing his muscles. "And trust me. I'm highly qualified."

"Awesome! In and out, quick and fast. Scrappy and determined. With a crushing power you don't wanna meet on the field."

Haida paused. "Wait, I'm actually going to train to use my bite?"

"Well if I can use woks, bamboo, and other assorted items lying about in the random places where fights for the future of everything usually break out, then you can use everything too. Including your big badass bite."

"I mean, I've totally used that before," Haida said, smiling. "A certain nasty lion learnt the hard way that he ain't the king of the jungle. It's more the… practicalities of practising it."

"Why?" Po chuckled. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"I bite your paw off."

The panda's jovial expression was wiped away, replaced with a deep thoughtfulness as he stroked his chin. "Okay, I didn't think of that."

"What about a mouthguard?" Ash suggested. "Top, bottom, you'll just get aggressively gummed."

"Okay, interesting fact there, I was looking into those anyway if I wanted to do MMA and I actually have to book in a custom job." Haida gave an irritated little point at the trio of teeth sticking out from his left hand side. "Thank you once again, underbite."

"Well…" Po said, rolling on. "Once you get those, we can do that. But for now, let's focus on getting to the situation where you can use them. For now, just lick what you're 'biting' and I'll act as if it's been gnawed off by an awesome bone munching machine built by evolution for that job, and now kicking ass as a side hustle."

Into the ring he stepped, the two squaring off. And then he ran forward, Po taking up a defensive stance. The hyena launched one hard punch, his whole body twisting and launching his elbow forward while the rest of that arm rocketed out straight. The panda saw it and brought up his elbow to deflect it, letting the fur and fat absorb the force and skirt it off to the side. His eyes widened as the hyena's body then twisted the other way, other elbow launched forward and its arm rocketing straight too. He smiled as his other paw came up to catch the offensive fist, pushing back and dampening the blow as they hit his belly fur together. Haida then twisted his body the other way again, trying to twist his body and relaunch the first fist, only for his second to hold it all back, suddenly locked by the panda's grip. Haida didn't take it lying down, instead putting as much energy into the first fist as he could regardless, launching himself forward with his legs and aiming to hard punch his opponent.

Po stepped back and to the side, letting it miss him and using Haida's momentum to bring him in front of him. Then, paw still holding on to a now awkwardly twisted arm, the panda brought his legs in under the hyena's knees, toppling him over and letting gravity drop him onto his tail, hard. The same leg then planted on his chest, pinning him down.

All Haida could do was reach up with his neck as far as he could, stretch his tongue to the limit, and gently moisten a few furs on Po's leg.

"Nice try," the panda said, leg off before helping Haida back up. "And I mean, real nice try. You were practising those punches, weren't you!?"

"Yeah, you could say that…" the hyena said, drawing his voice off as he looked up into a corner of the room, idly rubbing the base of his tail as he did so.

"That's great to hear, you did your homework and passed with flying colours!"

"Eh… If ending up on the floor was flying colours, I don't want to see what a failing grade is."

Po chuckled. "Ah-ah, just because you did great on your math homework, doesn't mean it's useful in english classes."

"Can confirm," Ash said.

"Now, question for you hero fox. Where did he go wrong?"

Ash thought for a second. "He attacked straight on, didn't he?"

"Yup," Po said. "No high ground, no flanking, head on against an animal that can take the hits and hold their own."

"Well," Haida began, "I was thinking I'd put you on the back paw there, and while keeping you busy then circle around while you were distracted go around the sides."

"Smart move," Po agreed. "Only you built those punches up as the real thing, full on hits and all."

"Well, wouldn't you? You'd want to see if you can get off something before anyway. Where's the harm?"

"Where your paw lands right into mine and I've got you."

"Ah," Haida said, nodding.

"Uh-hu. If you're planning to go in-out, in-out, you gotta plan for the in-out. Not just the in and hoping your opponent falls back or anything. Because when I don't, then…"

"Bang, floor, ouch."

"Exactly! Bang, floor, ouch! Now Ash, I know you're not set up for the biting, but you give me your best non fighting scrappiness."

Ash nodded, stepping on and limbering up. He stared Po down. Po stared him down. Ash stared back. Po stared back. Ash stood there, face a mask. Po stood there, face confused.

Ash kept on looking.

Po looked around a bit.

Ash stood still.

Po looked up and away, scratching behind his ear.

…

"Uh kit, that was kind of a big opening there for you to strike and all."

…

"You know what then?" Po asked, smiling. He raced forward putting out a punch to where Ash stood, only for the fox to cartwheel off to one side. "Hey! I'm gonna catch you." Off he ran after the fox, who raced off on all fours, weaved around, pounced up to get away from kicks and punches and cartwheeled and threw his limbs around as he darted around the ring. "Hey," Po said, chasing after him again, only to find him on the panda's other side once more.

Haida watched on, an eyebrow rising as the fox ran circle after circle around the giant panda, currently starting to breathe heavily. "Come on… adrenaline…" Po panted, leaping fast to one side and then another as he failed to catch the jiggling, darting, ever evading streak of orangy-red that just would not stay still. "I know… this isn't… life and death… but could you… please… step in…"

It did not step in.

In the end, after pausing to count the number of seams in his cushion, Haida looked up to see Po slump forward, paws on knees as he panted hard.

Ash darted right in front of him, standing up and giving him a determined stare just like before. Po shot out his paws to catch him, only for Ash to race around to his side, the panda turning to guard his rear. Ash kept running though and Po kept spinning, faster and faster and faster.

Looking on, seeing the spinning black and white blur, Haida was briefly reminded of an old silent movie scene he'd seen, part of a series involving a legendary bunny, one of the true pioneering greats, and one of his lesser featured but also most iconic opponents, a tasmanian devil who, thanks to a unique inner ear defect, had no sense of balance. This all meant that along with the standard slapstick, the devil was able to do ludicrous spinning 'attacks' as if he were a mini tornado without ever getting dizzy yet alone sick. Ironically the idea that the species could do that was now so widespread that most attackers would focus on the threat of a 'Tarrabah Tornado', and not the rather more real threat that, in relative terms, they were facing the mammal with the single strongest bite in the animal kingdom.

…

And after all that Ash was still leading Po around in a circle.

Always at least far enough away to avoid any sudden trip ups or knock downs, so as long as he kept his vulpine energy up he was good. At the same time though, Po wasn't getting dizzy.

And, looking up, it wasn't due to any inner ear abnormality. Nope, the panda was instead using the classic 'focus then snap' technique that ballet dancers used to avoid getting too dizzy during long pirouettes. Heck, Po even managed to lock onto Haida for a second or two and give a 'haha, winning' look at the hyena. Well, he hoped it was that and not a 'turns out that year of lessons your parents made you go to actually was useful. Oh yes, I know, I even saw the home movies of you melting down on stage and yelling you ain't no girl, and your parents saying 'exactly',' look.

Pushing the haunting memory of a classroom of other, all female, seven year olds giggling and laughing at him to the back of his mind, Haida's focus returned to the matter at paw. Yes, Po was 'winning' in that he wasn't getting dizzy, but he was also not winning in that he was no closer to stopping Ash from just running circles around him.

Unless this was just waiting for Ash to tire and slow down, in which case this kung fu thing was getting surprisingly boring surprisingly fast. He sat back, running his fingers across the bench. "Do something!"

If anything, it seemed that somehow the pair were doing more of the same.

Haida scratched his head trying to work out just how that was possible, before realising that they were just spinning faster.

With that, he yawned, eyes closed as he pitched his head up to the sky and…

"Hot-Fox!"

"OOOOH!"

"HYA!"

"Oh no you…"

"Hyu!"

Snapping back down, Haida watched as Po appeared to be pulling out of a breakdancing move, his legs sweeping across the floor around him as he tried to get back onto his feet. All as Ash pounced up level with his head. Pulling his lower body up, he gave two powerful kicks towards Po's eyes, the panda closing them and pulling down his head to shield them. Ash's feet gripped onto his scalp and kicked him off, sending the fox into an escape-flip that landed him right on his…

"AHHH!"

-Head.

Po swept forward and clutched him up in one fast arm motion, cradling him while rubbing his head with the other. "Oooh, you okay there?"

Ash, shaking off the pain, mumbled. "I can stand on my own two feet you know."

"Right, right," Po said, placing him down.

A bit shaky at first, the fox settled down, pausing for a second before speaking again, his voice much quieter. "Thanks, I'm good."

"Uh-hu," Po said, stepping back. "In fact, that was more than good. You did great." He then turned to Haida. "Didn't he?"

"Uh… Yeah!"

The panda smiled. "And how was he great? What lessons did he take to heart? In what way was his performance awesome!?"

"Uuhhhhh… I mean, he made sure you engaged first, not him."

"Well, that's actually a bad move, a really bad move! You want to be the one that takes the initiative. Have your opponent reacting and reacting to what you do."

"-Which he did," Haida said, standing up. "You kept expecting him to make a move, so he didn't. He made sure to always do something you didn't expect. Even when you gave him that nice fake opening for him to strike first, he didn't!"

Po paused for a second. "Well, I actually didn't do that there but that's a total good point. If that was what I was doing…"

"Which I thought it pretty obviously was," Ash added.

"Which it obviously wasn't, then not falling into that trap was the right move. What next?"

"Well," Haida said, "he used his speed and mobility to try and tire you out."

"Yup. Agile fox, cannot catch, can't let him get behind me so just keep on running after him. Kind of what you can do, but as you're stronger you can do more powerful hit and run attacks to really weaken your opponent down."

"And then you two just kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning."

"Ha, I was waiting for him to tire out," Po said.

"And I was waiting for you to get dizzy," Ash said, throwing his paws out. "Why didn't you?"

"Ah, a technique learnt from the ancient French not-quite-a martial art, ballet."

"Well even though I wasn't getting tired and you were getting bored, I realised I needed to do something, so did."

"Oh, I'm never bored, and always pay attention. In a fight, that's rule one. But you took your chance, didn't you?"

"Yup."

Po nodded, looking over to Haida. "Didn't he?"

"Yup."

…

"Which was…"

"Uhhh…" the hyena mumbled, glancing away. "I kinda missed the first bit. Were I in a fight then, I'd have broken rule one."

"I bit his tail."

"What!" Haida said, jumping up, only for his expression to freeze. "Bit as in licked, right?"

"Oh yeah, he licked it," Po said, shivering. "That felt weird… So I then realised he was going one way so pushed out my leg to kick him back, only he was super fox-like and was already jumping the other way, giving a good but not as good as your punch to the back of my knee. I fell down, but wasn't out yet, as I landed on my paws and then swished my legs around to try and trip him up!"

"Where he pounced up and tried to kick your eyes in," Haida agreed.

Po nodded. "Which against a lesser enemy would have totally worked. My arms and legs were all outta the way, and being above the jaw means no sudden snaps from there. Only my long training as a kung fu master let me escape that, by tilting my head down."

"At which point I messed up the landing and lost," Ash said.

"Hey, you're doing great kit," Po reassured him. "You're working out how to do it, distract, run around, use your body. The only thing you're weak in is actually the coup-de-grace, the big bad push at the end, which was always your weak point."

"Yeah," Ash nodded slowly. "Guess I need to work on my punches and kicks a lot, get good there."

"Right," Po agreed. "And you know what, I think I know a way of helping you learn those real powerful finish-'em-off moves." He smiled, looking at both the fox and Haida. "Follow me."

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"Your balance is good," Tigress said, pausing as she passed the edge of the training area she'd set up. Still outside on the main plaza, the shadow of the central pagoda looking down, a mixture of training beams, poles and benches had been set out. All obstacles for Kris to run on, jump to and fro, keeping his speed up and body well off the floor. The silverfox was currently balancing on one leg, keeping himself in a meditative position, breath raised but a relaxed look on his face.

His new teacher had been working him hard, keeping his attention snapped one way or the other, and in the shadow of that there was a kind of peace.

A kind of peace he'd been chasing and trying to reclaim for a while now.

It struggled to last for a really long time, eventually the creep would start to flow back in, but before that happened he'd be ordered out of his well appreciated reprieve for the next block of action.

Perfect?

No.

Good.

Very.

His mind wandered back to the exercise sessions, before lunch and dinner, they made him and the others in…

Eyes darting open, his balance wobbled and the serenity snapped. He closed his eyes, stiffened his muscles, tried his best to get back to where he'd been before. But it wasn't quite the same.

It was very not the same.

Just a poor imitation, trailing off until...

"Over here," Tigress ordered, and opening his eyes Kris began setting off across the course. It was what she called a hunter's flow, racing across from one side to the other, leaping and balancing with it so ingrained into you that it took no more thought than walking.

Kris let his feet race across a bench, then he turned, leaping from one foot to the other, cutting across half a dozen laid parallel but offset. A gymnastics horse lay off to his right but he diverted to pounce up there, gripping it with his front paws before pulling himself back down, then using them to launch himself off across a long distant gap to a waiting bench. He was sailing down to it at an angle, and so let his feet lead the fall, one to land on top and the other to catch the edge.

They did just that, and he pushed back, shifting the bench under him and waving in the air as he killed off the sideways momentum, all the while making a two-footed jump off. Both feet came down together again, facing across the bench and pushing away the last of the momentum not in the direction he wanted. And then he pushed forward, one leg after the other, racing along and switching between one bench and the next like a train changing tracks. Tigress coming up on his side, he skipped over a last long bench, hopped over a following one at right angles and then grabbed a pole, letting his momentum swing him around and back onto it in the right direction.

He made one last jump onto a small pedestal and stayed himself there, bowing as Tigress came up to him. "Excellent work," she said. "But not without space for improvement."

His ears flagged slightly, before he pushed them back up and listened in.

"The jump from the horse," she began. "You know what was wrong with it?"

He paused, thinking back. "I had a lot of momentum going in that needed cancelling out. It might have been better to do a different route that needed more jumps, but had better flow."

Tigress shook her head. "No, there was nothing wrong with your call, just your technique."

"I stumbled a bit…"

"No more than anyone would have. You came in at a hard angle from height, you angled your feet to cancel it out and did the best you could with two feet."

"Then what's the better way?"

"Up to the horse you led with your front paws, but going down you let your back return to the fore. Using all four limbs in such a case would have let you make the transition down far easier. Observe."

And with that she raced over to the other side of the course, then jumped up onto a bench and began running. Picking up speed, she went down onto all fours and then leapt at the horse, hand paws pulling her over while her feet then gave a boosting kick. Just like Kris had, she came down at the much larger receiving bench at a hard angle, both hand paws grasping around the edge and pulling her forward, before her back paws matched it with a push. Her tail, off to the side and skirting the ground, stood at its angle to her body only to lift up as she tilted, front paws coming down again to grip either side of the bench and carry her along.

Her feet still touched down at a hard angle, backside trying to slide out from behind her, and she let one foot grip the edge and push into line. Her tail swung to her other side briefly all as she sailed along, body rippling as both her shoulders and hips worked together, letting her leap fluidly from bench to bench to bench until she pulled herself skyward, soaring up. Her body gracefully flipped over like a ribbon in flight and she came down onto a pedestal next to Kri's current one, landing hard and folding into a poised crouch before standing up again, perfectly graceful.

The fox looked on, silently awed.

She gave a small nod and stepped back down to the ground. "The last part isn't necessary," she said, a tiny little grin flashing on her muzzle.

"It is the best part though."

She paused, walking over. "I've studied your form, your movements," she said, beginning to circle him. "You're fit, you're confident, you have great control."

"Thank you."

"But, you have an… aversion if you will."

His ears fell back. "Do I?"

She nodded. "Just then you said that my leap at the end was the best part. Not the jump and the runs I originally did that to show you. Why?"

He paused, thinking. "It was beautiful. It needed all your strength, all your balance, all your poise and confidence. It was your body working at its most perfect, the very thing we're pursuing."

"And was me running on all fours before that not?"

Kris looked away. "Well it was less… dignified."

"That's an odd word to use."

"We're here to train our bodies to their best, not rely on something primitive and crude like that."

"So you think it's primitive and crude to use all fours like that."

"Well, isn't it?"

"So you say it's crude to use our bodies like that. Bodies that evolved over aeons for that form, for that range of movement, with muscles designed to pull and operate and drive ourselves forward like that, working together and optimised to the best of their ability. You think it's crude to use every part of your body, trained and ready since the day you were born. To have every muscle and fibre working against each other to pull and push you forward, even your tail drawn in to balance and help control you?"

"I…" he began, muzzle working over itself. "It's primitive."

"Another way of saying ancient, like our art form."

"It's the base, the crude untalented base that crude, nasty mammals use," Kris spoke out. "When they only want to hurt you, when they just want to cause pain, when they're too dumb or focussed on hate to think of anything better, they just fall back on it as they think it gives them an unearned strength. They think they were born better than others and always will be, it's what gives them the right to hurt them, and thinking they always started out better they never try to be better. So they use that, rather than ever aiming for something higher."

Tigress moved in front of him, a soft, concerned look on her muzzle. "Did they hurt you?"

"They tried to, they tried to draw me into their primitive feral scraps and I always fought them off. It didn't make things less scary though." He looked down. "In the end they realised they could hurt me by hurting others."

"I'm sorry."

"What's done is done."

"And you think it all taught you a lesson, one you're confident in. Are you always confident in it, sure of it, think it'll never be disproven?"

He looked up, about to agree, only for something his father said to echo in his mind. About maturity, and learning from others. "If you think you can, I'd be honoured to listen."

She nodded. "Maybe these mammals pivot into that, they think the old gives them strength, power, theirs to wield. But as you get wise you begin to realise that we are so much more than animals, and that if you put the strength and the effort in, you can ascend so much higher than there. But what if that's not the end? What if, when you reach the end of that, you go further by going back to where you were."

"I don't understand."

"We are more than animals, but we are still animals," she said. "And in the same way it is foolish to rely on that, to use it as your only basis, isn't it also foolish to spurn it? To refuse to embrace it. To know that you are an animal, one side, and an intelligent person, the other, and that they are one and the same, intertwined, always the most powerful when unified. And isn't there no better way to honour the skills and art you practise, than to pair it with the form nature has provided you with, weathered to perfection by the forces of nature over the millenia?"

Kris was silent for a second, before a smile grew across his face. "I understand, Master. I really think I do. And either way, what better way to spur those mammals than to show they don't have control over me."

He turned, looked on forward and then leapt out onto a bench and raced off on all fours. Tigress watched him, body briefly slumping as she shook her head, a relieved grin on her face, before she looked back up, stern. Her student in the centre of the course, she moved to a spot and told him to come.

That he did, this time trying to use a mix. Jumping across the short ends of some benches he stood upright, before pushing himself down onto all fours to race along the long ends. Ears down, feeling a bit different, certainly a lot less practised, but also… Sleeker, faster, foxier…

A grin grew on his muzzle as he felt his entire body work as one. A call made him change direction and he did so with the use of all four paws and his tail, swinging the fifth limb out hard to pull him the other way as he banked around. A high jump came up and he coiled himself into a vulpine spring before pouncing up, feeling his speed slow and gravity arc him over and down.

He let his forepaws pull his front out of the dive and send him onward, the back legs kicking him faster along. Another call, a different direction, he changed, swift and powerful and… perfect.

He was a fox.

Always a fox.

Powerful, sleek, agile, a perfect vulpine form and all the better for it.

Around a bend, perfectly taken again even as his leg muscles strained and pulled, before he leapt over to bounce over the short ends of some of the benches, one and two and he was gonna miss three! Down he went as his front paws hit the ground and did their best to pull up only for his chest fluff to graze the stones and his back paws to hit hard and bounce and splay and not send him up fast enough to clear the… "Oooooph…"

He lay there, arms and head sticking over the bench and body crumpled under it, spine bent back.

He let it push out, feet skidding back before gripping the ground again while his arms pushed him upright.

"Anything feel hurt?"

"No," he said, flexing a little. He had a flicker of discomfort as he felt along the impact zone, Tigress leaning in concerned. "Just a bruise," he sighed.

"Well," she said, "I must say, you took my advice to heart."

Despite how it ended, he smiled and nodded. "It seems I did."

"To the point you completely dropped your old way, which I'd have said would be far better for those last jumps."

Kris nodded. "Balance. Remembered."

"Indeed," she said. "And practice, more with your feral form and pose. And of course, switching from one to another. A great master of the art isn't just able to switch from one to another in an instant. They yield both at the same time, together greater than the sum of their parts."

"I understand," Kris bowed. "And with practice and effort, I look forward to getting there one day."

Tigress smiled. "And I look forward to teaching you. Come, let us rest for a bit."

Though he'd have wanted to continue, he also felt the ache in his chest, and understood the need to let it settle. And so Kris walked on with her. They were silent for a few minutes, until she spoke out of the blue. "These others," she said, "that hurt others to hurt you. Are they dealt with?"

"You could say that."

"Good," she said, looking away, and ear flicking. "Cowardly. Angry…"

"Trying to find their way in," Kris noted.

"Bullies always do."

"I don't like bullies. I didn't like them."

"But you do like me."

"You're not a bully anymore."

She chuckled. "I suppose so. Last time was with Po, though we've long made our peace."

"Good," he said, smiling. "It's nice that you're so close."

She chuckled. "You make it sound like we're in a relationship."

"Well, good friends," Kris said. "Though I mean with your shared passion you would make a nice pair, I don't see anything getting in the way there." She chuckled a bit harder, the silverfox tilting his head a little. "I presume there is something there then."

Tigress looked down and smiled. "A good few. Probably starting with his wife."