Chapter 36

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AN: I hope that with enough time passed, we can look back and laugh.

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Driving back to the Hopp's estate, Carm was in an even better mood than she'd left it in. For once, despite the threats they still faced and questions that needed answering (or not answering to those who were better off without them) she let herself feel truly carefree.

"Oh I'd be safe and warm…" She sung, roof down and her head hair billowing in the rushing wind. "If I were in L-Aaaaaaa…."

A horn parp from a truck going the other way spurred her to look up and flash a smile. "Califurna dreaming, on a cold winters daaaaayyyy…"

Turning the wheel as she entered the front yard of the burrow, she had to admit it.

She was so milking it.

Handbrake pulled, she let the vehicle turn and slide, coming to a halt in a billow of dust, her heart beating hard. Out she came, door behind her, pie in paw and a fluffle of excited bunny kits suddenly on her heel.

"Wow that was pawsome!"

"Are you like a racing driver and a super cop?"

"Why are foxes the cool ones…"

She smiled at that. "Because we are the most fantastic species out there. Why else are all you lot so envious."

"I'm not envious!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!

"Are too."

She left them behind her, jogging up the wooden steps and entering the main hall. Before her mood deflated… A little. "Oh, excusez-moi?" she asked a brown and white bunny to her right. "Do you know where Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are?"

He paused, blinking. "Wait, Judy's back?"

"...Yes. I came with them to take him to the medical bay. There was a whole group of bunnies out in front and everything."

He crossed his paws, scoffing. "Nobody tells me nothing around here." And with that, he walked off.

"Ah, sir!"

"What…?"

"The medical bay," she repeated, slower this time. "If you may."

He paused, before narrowing his eyes. "And how do I know you're not doing an 'act as you belong' or something. I mean, maybe Nick and Judy aren't back!"

This time her happy mood did take a hit.

A big one.

"Sir," she said. "That would have only worked if I'd come in and specifically known that you were the one, and I quote, 'nobody tells nothing'."

"Maybe you got lucky."

"And what did you think I was even doing here in the first place? You only objected when you decided I might by lying about being here for Nick and Judy."

"That's one of Gideon's pies," he said, pointing at the package in her paws. "I thought you were a new foxy delivery girl."

Her eyes narrowed, a growl just about suppressed in her throat.

"Slash kiss-o-gram. I mean, what's that, a strip-o-cop uniform?"

Just about failed to suppress. "Listen. The medical bay, now. I want to deliver this to my friend who got a little white nasty on him from a rather irritating floridian import."

"Floridian…?"

"Or Cuban," she waved off. "Manchineel, la Manzanilla de la muerte."

"…Okay, this is just too pervy. Take it somewhere else."

"Excuse me?" she asked. But he was already gone.

And now someone was tugging her tail. She turned around, her gaze softening as she saw a little brown bunny standing there. Their eyes meeting, and the little doe stood up, paw going up in a salute. "Aunty Judy told me to go get you!"

Carmelita sighed, smiling. "Gracias…"

"Just follow super bunny scout Cotton… And as a good citizen, may I remind you to always use your please and thank yous…"

"I did," Carmelita smiled, following off and about to explain it.

"-No, you called me a grassy ass. But I can forgive you if you say sorry." Only for Cotton to cut in on top.

Well, it wasn't going to be too long to get there, but she'd have enough time to explain it.

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She had more than enough time to explain it, thanks to the queue. "Hey, wait your turn!"

"There's a line you know."

"Important business!" Cotton announced, guiding Carmelita past the huge line as it turned around a long, bending corridor. Finally though, reaching the end, two particularly buff black bunnies in black suits gave them a nod and let them into the small medical area. Nick and Judy waiting.

And one of them complaining. "I'm not being a big baby. It's literally stupid."

"Now listen," Bonnie chided, pointing a finger at Nick. "It doesn't matter who you are, and I don't care how many call it 'the cone of shame.' You're in hospital so you have to wear it. It's for your own good"

Stuck with a plastic cone over his head, his ears shoved forward and giving him a permanently moody expression even before the mood he was in, Nick was not looking happy. "The problem was with my finger. This finger." He held it up. "Why do I have to wear the cone of shame? How is it possibly going to help my finger heal faster."

"By stopping you scratching yourself with it.".

Judy nodded along. "I can't argue with that."

"I for one can," the red fox huffed. "Look. My 'not bad paw'." He held it up, before scratching all over his body. "I can even reach…" He bent around, contorting, and put it down his cone, working his finger down and working on it.

"Nick," Judy sighed, rolling her eyes. "Just put up with it, okay."

"But I've literally proved it's useless. I've outsmarted it."

"Nobody likes a smartyfox, Slick."

"I thought you liked it when I was a smarty fox," he grumbled, crossing his paws.

"Tchhh," Bonnie said, looking over. "It's not all about you, you know."

"Okay," he nodded. "Who else here benefits from me wearing this?"

Four paws went up, Nick looking at all of them with increasing frustration. A particularly wrinkled one reserve exclusively for a pie carrying vixen. "And this is helping you, how?"

"By being highly amusing," she smirked, laying the pie box down in front of him. "Can you eat with that thing on or do you need spoon feeding?"

He sneered up at her before it mellowed somewhat, a cunning look growing as he turned to Judy. "Well, if a certain police bunny is available, maybe…"

"You feed yourself fox," she said, "and no taking the cone off. You may not like it, but democracy has spoken."

"Democracy is an ass."

"You're thinking of Democrats. And they prefer to be called donkeys Slick."

He rolled his eyes, cutting himself a slice. "Let me guess, next time there's a mixie outbreak in the burrows, you'll make those who can't even get it stay home."

"Well if they're all out my kits will just go on about how unfair it is. They can take one for the team like the rest of us," Bonnie said, packing up some of her medical gear.

"Wait? So you'd… What? During a mixie outbreak that only affects bunnies, want to have, say, lynx kittens playing outside who are at no risk, and pose no risk, get fined or something, just because the bunnies have to stay home and you don't want your kits complaining about something they probably won't even see?"

"It's called being part of a thoughtful and kind society," Bonnie spoke, crossing her arms. "Cross species solidarity."

"By force."

"Well we can't just tolerate intolerance. That just ruins it for everyone."

Nick's chewing slowed. "I'm getting an increasingly bad taste in my mouth. Remarkable really, as this pie is scrumdiddlyumptious." With that he swallowed, pointing to his cone. "Is this thing all part of some bunny tradition to shame those who get sick or something. He who makes themselves unproductive must wear the humiliating garment."

"No, it's to stop young bunnies with ear-root itch from scratching it until it bleeds," Bonnie said.

"Okay, and as I'm not a young bunny and I don't have ear root itch…"

"If you get out of wearing it all those bunnies who have to will complain," she scolded, sighing. "What part of this don't you get?"

"The bit where you have to bring everyone down to the lowest level. That bit. Exactly there."

"We all have to do our bit," she scolded, sounding a bit irritated at that. "For a family this size, if we let one mammal take a shortcut, then before you know it." She clicked her fingers, shaking her head.

"Okay. And are any bunnies, right now, suffering from ear-root itch?"

"We had a massive epidemic a few months ago where we all wore them as it also helps stop the spread."

"Right. Fair enough. But it's over now. You're literally making me wear this for the sake of making me wear this, because you want me to wear this."

Bonnie shook her head before looking at Judy. "I know you like him… But I really think having him stay at the burrow for anything longer than a short break would cause nothing but grief for all of us. I mean, are you sure you can get along with a mammal so… Self-centred?"

"It's not self centred! It's literally pointless. And I'm not gonna take it."

Judy rolled her eyes. "That's not what that song is for Nick." As Bonnie walked over and pulled down a banner display, a tweet by 'Dee Tiger' printed out. 'No, I did NOT write my song to be used for something as childish as that, especially by grown mammals. Stop being selfish.'

"The guy who wrote that song literally said that," Bonnie said.

"This is about the burrows spirit, solidarity," Judy agreed. "Besides, it's just a harmless bit of plastic, just wear it until we leave."

His eyes widened. "So you literally admit that when I leave, I can take it off, so it's only about sending some 'all in it together' message to the kids at this point…"

"Yes!" the bunnies agreed, even little Cotton, silent through all of this. She looked up at Nick. "I thought you were a big brave fox, but you're just being a big cry baby now. I wore it when I hurt my wrist. I didn't like it at first but now I'm happy with it."

The fox gave a long look at her. "Happy conditioning. How very non-depressing."

"Thank you," she smiled, turning up to Carmelita. "See, it's easy. No need to make it silly complex with your grassy ass!"

"Anyway," Bonnie sighed, moving to the door. "I think I have a nice and simple way to make sure our patient here follows our hospital rules."

"And what's that?" he asked.

"Your Hopps made… what were they, 'lovely drugs?'" she asked, holding up a bottle.

Nick's eyes widened.

"Now be a good patient, keep that on, and you leave with them."

"Yes matron," he said. "Thank you matron. I will matron."

Bonnie smiled, waving to Cotton. "Over here." And with that, the two went off, leaving Nick, Judy and Carmelita behind.

"Carrots, if you get injured and are taken to a city hospital will you ask for one of these?"

She laughed. "Oh carrot tips no. But that's entirely beside the point."

"So I gathered," he huffed. "So I gathered…" He took another munch of the pie, smiling a little as he tasted it. "Please, don't mind me."

Looking at each other, the girls each grabbed a slice, munching down.

It was good.

Very good.

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"So," Carmelita asked, pausing a little. "Silly but highly amusing rules aside… What's with the giant line outside?"

Judy paused for a second before rolling her eyes. "Seriously? They actually did it?"

Nick was giggling slightly as Carm looked on confused. "This some joke, or…"

"With so many kits and non-kit relatives asking about going on an adventure or something with us two after Nick was healed, it seemed like we weren't even going to get a chance to get him healed in the first place. Sooo… I may have asked them to write and print up formal adventure requests and then line up, so we could review them all."

Nick cackled. "And by the sound of it they actually did it. How many?"

"I don't know," the vixen said, chuckling a little too. "It went around the corner, in a long arc. I could not see the end."

"Ah," Nick said, smiling. "The Bunnyburrow arc. So many infinite possibilities."

"But so little time," Judy reminded him, pausing. "How's the finger?"

Nick raised it up, showing the small red welt. Small and nasty. Judy gave a terse look. "Well, that would get you out of any hard labour for sure."

"Yes!"

"Hard labour also being one of the few ways of getting out of the cone of shame," Judy said, tapping it.

Nick's mood soured. "One, that just makes the rules around this thing even more stupid. Two… I mean, do I have to say anymore?"

Judy shrugged. "I mean, if you're well enough to do hard labour you're well enough to not need the cone."

"And as was so repeatedly said to me, me wearing the cone has nothing to do with being well."

"Ah," Carmelita nodded. "But I am certain most young kits would rather wear the cone than do hard labour."

Nick nodded. "Fair enough. So it is a public shaming tool."

Judy rolled her eyes. "I mean, we'll be packing out of here soon enough anyway so I don't see why you're complaining."

"Because someone's got to get up and stand up, stand up for our rights."

Judy turned, walking up to another rolled up banner display.

"I get the picture," Nick groaned. "Right, let's finish up and get out before they put in a rule where all non-bunnies in the burrows have to wear them outside because of some obscure bunny disease or something."

With that, he gobbled up the last of his pie and made his way out to the door. "Sorry appreciative fan club," he began, opening it. "But we're… Where've they gone?"

Carm scratched her head as she looked out, seeing the former line of bunnies completely gone, their papers left strewn about.

"I told them about you not wanting the cone," Cotton said, smiling. "And they all decided you weren't brave cool police for, but baby fox throwing a tantrum so you weren't cool and they all left you."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Thanks for that."

"You're welcome," she smiled, turning to Carmelita. "See, it's that easy."

And with that, the four began making their way back towards the entrance. As they went though, Carmelita's phone buzzed, the vixen pulling it up and smiling as she saw an email from 'Captain Turtle', with a link attached. Pressing it, clicking accept, she watched on as some kind of custom app was installed. Good, there was plenty left to discuss. Putting it away, Carm stepped forward only to pause, looking around.

Her escort, not realising she'd stopped, had left her behind.

And she was hopelessly lost.

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"Uh Nick?"

"Yes Ju… Where's Carmelita?"

The bunny paused for a moment before groaning. "Ughhh, I knew I should have asked for a buddy system, or a warning, but…"

"So she's lost in this place?" Nick asked. "I mean, can't you do that 'voice relay' thing…"

"If it comes to it, but…" Judy drummed her foot before looking down at Cotton. "Okay, can you take Nick around searching for Inspector Carmelita. Once you find her, or I text you, take him back to the main entrance."

"I could…" she began, "but…"

"Pretty please with sugar on top?" Nick asked.

"See. Magic words. Why is it so hard for you grown ups?" And with that, the little brown bunny led Nick back on the way they'd gone. Judy followed off in a slightly different direction, covering more ground. She at least knew the little tricks, rules and cues to navigate around this place, so could always find her way back.

A left here…

A right there…

Walking down a corridor, Judy pulled her ears up and scanned around. She was in the middle of 'bachelor territory', or the 'boomerang rooms', depending on what you wanted to call them. Not that she imagined Carmelita going here on purpose, but by accident… She raised her ears, closing her eyes and scanning around to see if she could hear anything irregular or…

"Judy!?"

"GAHHH!" She leapt up, hitting her head on the ceiling, before landing back down hard on her tail.

"Come on," a tan rabbit with brown spots, most likely one of her cousins, said, pulling her up.

"Thanks," she sighed, "Cousin…"

"Devan," he said. "Litter of thirteen, after a year of multiple 'D' litters. There were not a lot of names to go around."

He stepped back, ears going down as he rubbed the base. "Well," Judy said back, "no worries. Just… Don't say it so loud, so close, when I'm radar scanning."

"Right, right," he said, his nose twitching slightly. "What are you doing back here? Did the ZPD finally force you out?"

"No, I…" Judy began, only for her nose to twitch a little. Sure, she still got the odd questions about if/ when she'd choose to settle down or return home, the kind she could easily tune out of. But the ZPD forcing her out? Unless this cousin had only heard her reports of her first few days and literally missed everything else… "Why would the ZPD force me out?"

"I… After what you did against predators during the press conference?"

The bunny rolled her eyes. "Everyone's well past that. Listen, I need to get going and…"

"Are, are you sure?" he asked, stepping forward. "I mean, I don't think we've really had much time to meet and talk, ever. But you have really inspired me lately! Would it be okay if we just caught up, for five minutes? It really would make the world for me."

Thinking for a second, Judy nodded. "Okay then," she said as he ran off to a nearby door.

"Please, come in."

While not sure why at first, the doe bunny quickly understood when she stepped into what was once his room. "Woah… This has been expanded."

It was an understatement, a long corridor stretching straight out where the back wall had once been. While at first one end was taken up by stuff expected in a normal room, bed, desk, a larger than normal number of bookshelves, beyond that it began to get sparser, until it all stretched back into unfinished expectations. "This is a lot of work."

"Yup," he said, smiling as he stood next to her. "I mean, here we are; bunnies. The lands beneath the earth are ours, unclaimed, until we put our stake down. The birthright of every bun, something I remember."

"You have cleared these with Dad, right?"

"I'm on the perimeter edge, so I asked if I could expand out a little. I was told 'sure', and here we are."

"Impressive," Judy said, bringing her phone out and shining a light down it. "How far does it go?"

"I haven't actually measured it," he said, "I've been at it just four months now. Splitting all my time between this and my podcast."

Looking over and seeing a desk full of recording equipment, Judy nodded. "Cool. What's its name, I might give it a go while filling in paperwork, or…"

"Burrowing into the Truth," he said proudly. "I'm on various social media platforms, and even getting my own T-shirt line."

"That's great," Judy smiled. "What kind of things are you talking about?"

"Well," he said, looking over to a stack of books, and a conspiracy board, centred around an old sketch picture of a mouse. "I recently completed a 57 hour, 12 part complete analysis of none other than Thomas cussing Mousus and the influence his ideas and Neo-malthusianism has had in justifying lagophobia and various attacks on our traditional ways of life."

Judy paused. With a huge family like this, having those who were a bit… different, was par for the course. Indeed, for however much certain mammals liked to insist that bunny families were temples of 'outdated and cruel 'traditional' family values', she'd always tended to find non-bunny families more hostile to those who were… outside the stereotype as it were. From saying you loved a different species or someone of the same gender, or thinking that so and so was the cause of the world's problems, to really wanting to do one thing when you grew up (guilty as charged) or saying you were born the wrong gender… By virtue of their size pretty much every bunny family, by rolling the dice, would at least have experience with a couple of such.

Which wasn't to say everyone was still accepting of them, of course. But the point remained though that what tended to be rare elsewhere tended to pop up somewhere in a burrow, including mammals who, for lack of the better word, were a bit conspiratorial in nature. Still, benefit of the doubt, and in all of these cases, bar obvious breaches of common sense health and safety etiquette, it was a 'keep it under wraps, out of others lives, and we'll let you indulge yourself in private, if being very cautious and nagging in public, until you mature out of it or get your own place to do your own thing' attitude that prevailed. And… There was also a little bit of Judy that was undeniably curious at what got Devan's nose twitching. "Thomas Mousus I… -Wasn't he that guy from a few hundred years ago who thought we'd all starve as the population got too high or…"

"Carrying capacity," he said, finger up. "And by 'population' he meant us."

"...I'm guessing you don't like him."

"D-don't like him?" Devan asked, paws out. "I mean, he's only the speciesist piece of filth whose tomes on 'carrying capacity' and 'sustainable population' and 'overpopulation' have been used to demonise, attack, and degrade our honest bunny way of life for centuries. Look at us, we're bunnies, we bring more new life, honest life, onto this planet than any other species. But rather than that being sung about and praised, guess what? It's demonised. We're degraded for what is the most holy act in any other species. The butt of jokes, the ones always slammed with aggressive get-fixed propaganda. And it's all," he slammed on the wall. "Because of…" He slammed again. "This piece of bunny hating…" Slam. "Cuss." SLAM. "He started it."

Panting in and out, Devan wiped his brow as Judy came in. "I mean, don't mice also have large fam…"

"-Oh yeah, but they're small so it's okay," he said, crossing his paws. "Projecting speciesist jerk…"

Judy nodded slowly. To be fair, bunnies were unique for being the one species to still give birth to full on litters full on every time, so maybe not the right line of questioning. Devan meanwhile had started up again.

"He started it, but other mammals have carried it on. Mammals who hold the government, who hold the influence, who are doing everything they can to hold back the inevitability of us achieving a democratic majority and being able to vote in what we want and need. That's literal hell in their neo-moususian worldview. They literally believe it's the end of the world, that we'll 'eat it all' and create giant famines. So they'll do anything and everything to stop it coming about… And that's why you're so important, and at such a risk right now."

"Risk?" Judy began, before bringing up her paws as Devan began to try and go off about something. "Okay, can you name some of these mammals?"

"The mayor, the whole editorial board of ZNN, the chief of police, the…"

"Woah, woah, woah," Judy said, cutting in. "I know Chief Bogo."

"Do you?" Devan asked, walking over to his PC. He booted it up, before scrolling through a thread. "Because recently I've come in contact with a whistleblower, or rather he's come in contact with me. And in doing so really helped spread my message. And he's got some real hairy news about what Bogo and many others in the ZPD are up to. And being a bunny up in there, not to mention that you're a paragon of virtue and trust. An actual good ZPD officer, and not one of them phonies?"

He shook his head. "They know you'll find out eventually, and they're ready to stop you when you do, by any means necessary."

Closing her eyes, Judy recalled the best of her deescalation training. This wasn't going to be another Honey situation. Hopefully… "Okay, if my Chief and so on are going to do this, what agenda or secret are they worried I might find?"

"The neo-moususian anti-bunny agenda has evolved a lot over the years," Devan said, picking out some books. "First were blanket exclusions like the Australian bunny ban and attempts to thin the population by violent means. Mass wars and conscriptions, aiming to gather up and cull rabbits as cannon fodder. Not to mention the fact that the pan-marsupialists, aiming to ally with their cousins in South America, worked with them to engineer myxomatosis. Germ warfare, so together they could step into the gap left by their unparalleled, unanswered holocaust. But of course, after that things got cleverer. Attempts to cut our population off from its roots, destroying our ways of life, encouraging us away from our farms and into the city for 'city jobs' and such. Soulless, pointless jobs, away from our honest farming roots. All based on an idea that it would kill our spirits and thus our virility. It failed, of course, but they still keep those policies because they hurt and cruelty is the point!" His nose twitched. "Do you have a garden?"

"No, I live in a flat."

"High up above the ground, rather than connected to the roots and soil, where you can expand naturally as is core to traditional bunny ways of life," he said, gesturing to his excavations. "That's a choice. A choice by them. And now, given that those methods are failing, they're aiming to destabilise our family units. Splitting us out from each other, putting in place disruptive elements in our burrows. In the end, they want anarchy, because that allows their social-predator allies too…"

"Woah, woah," Judy cut off, nose twitching. "We are not going there."

"Oh, it's not that predators are bad," he said. "It's just some pred and prey thinking they can act like predators of old, preying off of the small and weak. And what better prey than bunnies. That's their end goal Judy. Make it open season for us, hunt us, destroy us, have fun and laugh as they make us suffer. And because of that damned mouse, they think we're literally going to end the world, so they can get to do what they want to us and be the good guys! And with you standing in their way… Well sorry, but the moment you become trouble they'll move to end you. Combine that with you slighting predators at the press conference, they're going to make sure it's not pretty."

Judy paused, closing her eyes. "Okay, hear me out. Maybe those kinds of mammals do exist."

"Which they do," he began, pointing back to his research.

"But they're not in the ZPD," she said, firmly. "They're a bunch of crooks we're chasing. That dingo who got into an incident on Outback Island? That was them trying to stir up trouble like you got during the Nighthowler crisis. We at the ZPD are trying to stop them."

Devan began to speak, only to pause. "Are you sure, my source is very convincing… And I bet he's going to prove it tomorrow."

Judy's nose twitched. "What's tomorrow?"

"Only the anniversary of the day Dawn Bellwether was sworn in as Assistant-Mayor! Listen, the forces against us and our bunny way of life are planning something for that day. Something involving a red furred mammal, the first to resist. Trust me."

"You know what," Judy said, smiling. "Sure. But, if it doesn't turn out to be true, I want you to do something for me."

"Uh-hu. Which is?"

"Just attend some sessions I'll be setting up with a mammal who was once a lot like you are now," she said, smiling. "And think about it. Yourself. Okay?"

He looked on, unconvinced. "Okay…"

"Right, I really need to go now. Bye!"

"Oh, bye! Good luck! Seriously. Stay alert, stay safe, stay aware and…"

Closing the door behind her, Judy sighed with relief. Only for her phone to buzz to life, text after text after text coming through, along with voicemails and all sorts. Scrolling through them, she frowned. "Why didn't you come through when…"

She paused, opening the door again. "Uh, Devan? You haven't by any chance installed a faraday cage around this, right?"

"I… Of yes, of course! It's just a common sense thing really, I could give you advice on…"

"I know someone who gives good rates," she waved off, closing the door and calling back.

"Ah, Doctor Hoppsington I presume," Nick answered. "Guys, it's her. Call off the search parties."

"Ha-ha," she groaned. "Sorry, just got distracted by 'that one member' of the family."

"Ooof… Specifics aside, I guess I can guess how that went. Anyway, we actually found Carmelita real quick…"

"-Rather I found you," she cut in. "Literally just sniffed your trail and…"

"Anyway," he rounded off. "Meet at the exit, bye-byes and head back to the big Z?"

"-We made you three a hamper for the train ride!" Bonnie cut in.

Judy smiled. "Thanks. I'll be up right away." And with that, off she went.