Alright, because this chapter is basically all bad news, I want to start with some good news: winerp is just fine, and was not in a hurricane zone. He just fell out of contact due to life. Also, Beecroft has talked me into writing a sequel to Christmas in Bunnyburrow, which hopefully won't be nearly so rushed as the first since I'm giving myself a couple months' lead. (UPDATE: The sequel is up and complete. Happy reading!)

(Other Update: This marks the point, I think, where I decided to start going back and revising past chapters. For those of you reading this on AO3, that may mean I can start uploading faster and get caught up to . No guarantees, sadly. In the meantime, by all means keep suggesting how I can improve!)

My thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 17. I'm glad the antics were as much fun for you all as they were for me to write. If only this chapter were as comical, but police work is seldom fun and games.

"If the man is caught, [the papers will say it's] on account of their exertions. If he escapes, it'll be in spite of their efforts. It's heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever they do, they'll have followers."

Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

By the time Judy finished explaining the whole story, she and Nick were in Nick's car, speeding toward the community center. She had grabbed her badge in hopes of placating any officers who caught them breaking the speed limit, but what she really needed was something to placate Nick. She had expected him to take the news badly, and for the first time that day (to her endless dismay), she was dead-on.

"So, let me get this straight," complained the fox. If he hadn't been driving he would have been folding his arms or gesturing with them like he did that time at the press conference. "You nearly got bombed, the sheep we're after are working for some new terrorist in town, they're going to dart mammals again every time we make some headway, and you're only telling me all of this now because there's been an attack?!"

Had it been possible, Judy would have liked nothing better than to sink into the seat and disappear. It didn't help that the traffic around them – and especially ahead – was forcing Nick to slow down, which gave him more opportunities to throw that look on his face in her direction.

"I wanted to," she protested, turning her head to him and tossing out her paws in a pleading gesture. "I tried to call you as soon as I found out about Obearon, but I was ordered not to."

He huffed. "You mean like when you were ordered to hand over your badge?"

She winced. Okay, so he had a fair gripe. He'd stood up for her, and she hadn't returned the favor. Still, it was a low blow, and not quite a fair comparison. "That was different," she insisted. "Look, Bogo doesn't trust you yet, and-"

"News flash of the century," he quipped sarcastically. "But I thought you did."

Again, the words hit like a poisoned arrow straight to the heart. "Nick, I have to be on my best behavior. If we don't satisfy Chief Bogo, you'll lose your shot at joining the ZPD and then I'll always be stuck keeping secrets from you." Feeling defensive, she added, "Besides, after that little stunt you pulled I could make a case for not trusting you if I really wanted to do it."

That brought Nick up short. Okay, so his intentions had been good, but in retrospect... yeah, the prank had been kind of a jerk move. Hilarious, but immature – and really ill-timed.

"I guess that's fair," he said slowly, his anger deflating. "Look, I'm sorry about the phone prank. I was just trying to liven your mood a little, that's all. I didn't know..." he trailed off.

She sighed. She'd probably make him apologize to Kevin later, and maybe prank him back on principle, but this wasn't the time. "Forget it. If it's any help, it wasn't about you being a fox." Seeing the dubious look he cast from the corner of his eye, she amended, "Not completely, anyway. It's because you're not a cop. I know you can keep quiet, but the other officers don't – yet. They wanted to make sure no one told the press and started a panic."

Shrugging his acceptance, Nick pulled into the sole open parking space and surveyed the mess of mammals ahead with a sorry expression. "Yeah, well, too late for that."

The police had cordoned off the whole area within a two-block radius of the community center, and as officers rushed in a swarm of civilians strained to get a glimpse of the action. Others, being perhaps a bit wiser, were getting out of the area with roars and bellows ringing in their ears. Over it all, in the distance, rose a thick cloud of black smoke which caught their attention.

"What in the-?" asked Nick, gaping upward.

A thundering blast from a very large vehicle horn sounded behind them, making them jump in their seatbelts.

"Move!" shouted a familiar voice.

Both of them looked back and street-ward to see Chief Bogo in a massive, rugged-looking boxy vehicle evidently aiming to pull into their space. At its wheel, rising up in his seat to look at them more freely over the titanic hood, was Chief Bogo.

Nick's surprise only lasted a moment. "Move?!" he protested. "There's nowhere else to park! And you called us here!"

Bogo snorted, put his car in park, and hit the blinkers. The two diminutive mammals, wondering what he was up to, couldn't help feeling a bit of fear spurred by plain sanity. That fear spiked when he stepped out, picked up Wilde's car, and moved it – occupants and all – onto the sidewalk.

"Hey, watch the paint! Watch the paint!" jabbered Nick as both he and Judy flailed to grasp anything solid within the cat. Despite their panic, Bogo set the car down with surprising dexterity. Then he pulled his own car into the newly opened space and emerged practically over their heads.

"Move, you two!" he thundered, shouldering his way through the crowd.

Nick, casting one last anxious look at his car, raced after with Judy at his side. "Wide load, wide path," he remarked mirthlessly as they used Bogo's bulk to their advantage in navigating the sea of mammals.

Under any other circumstances, Judy might have laughed. As it was, she couldn't help noticing that despite his attire – namely a T-shirt which struggled to contain his torso and cargo pants which managed to be a bit baggy even on him – Bogo exuded such an air of imposing command that even elephants got out of his way if they knew what was good for them.

"He must keep his pager with him on days off," she remarked aloud.

"I thought he was always a bit mmph!" Nick's reply was cut off as Bogo pulled to an abrupt halt, leaving both of them to plow smack into the backs of his legs. Whether the buffalo didn't notice or just didn't care, no one could tell. They had evidently reached the police barricade, and Bogo was grilling Officer Higgins. The hippo, in uniform, was one of a score or so of officers working to maintain a perimeter against mammals who clearly had more courage than sense – or maybe it was more madness than sense. Even with a good many firefighters, EMTs, and one or two Good Ramaritans lending their aid, it was a tough job maintaining any semblance of order.

"What's the situation?!" demanded Bogo.

"Savage lion, sir," Higgins reported, "and the community center's on fire."

"Knockout darts?"

"Ineffective, sir. They barely slowed him down, and he's put four officers in serious condition already."

Judy gasped. Darts had been their most effective weapon during the months-long Night Howler crisis. Tasers and net guns were useful too, but riskier. Hearing that they weren't working was as unthinkable as a black sunrise.

"We've got officers in there trying to take him down manually," the hippo went on.

"Let me in there!" called a rhino, nearly stepping on Nick and Judy as he tried to barge through. "I've got a black belt!"

Bogo turned to him with a glare, shoving him back with a hoof as if he were nothing. "You get out of here or you'll have a black eye – from me!" As the interloper retreated, Bogo turned to Judy and Nick.

"Light pole over there," he pointed. "Climb up and see if you can spot anyone suspicious. Whoever did this might still be around."

"Anyone suspicious?" echoed Nick. "With all the rubber-neckers around – no offense, ma'am," he added to a giraffe who somehow heard him amid all the other noise and kicked him for the remark.

Judy grabbed the verbal baton. "How are we supposed to identify if someone's a suspect in this crowd?"

"Weapons, laughing. Use your imagination." Looking pointedly at Nick, the chief added, "I understand you have a good track record for finding trouble."

Neither of them knew whether to take that as a compliment or a shot at Nick's trustworthiness. In a way, it was actually both. Though he didn't say it, Bogo's reasoning was that even if Nick didn't ID a probable suspect, the culprit might know Nick and be drawn into the snare that way instead.

"MOVE!" Bogo bellowed.

The two of them were off like a shot, leaving Bogo to talk to Higgins alone... and give an order at which the hippo paled.

The miniature sleuths hastily navigated to the light pole, which consisted of a central pillar too smooth to climb easily and an array of tree-like branches at the top, each tipped with a light.

"How do we get up?" asked Judy. There wasn't anything nearby to use as a springboard the way she had when she was doling out parking tickets.

"Leave it to me, Carrots," Nick promised. Then, stopping, he cupped his paws around his muzzle and hollered up to a moose who, like every other mammal in sight, was craning for a view of the action. "Hey, Mort!"

The moose looked down. He was wearing sunglasses, beige shorts, and a fuscia Pawaiian shirt decorated with little palm trees. "Nick! What brings you here?"

"Same as anyone," Nick shrugged, thinking it best not to advertise his real business. He flicked a thumb up at the top of the pole. "Mind giving me and my friend here a lift up?"

"Yeah, sure." The cervine bent down and grasped Nick with his hooves, expertly tossing him up to the branches. The fox caught a branch, swung himself nimbly up, and perched as neatly as a sailor in rigging.

"Miss?" asked the moose, turning to Judy.

Judy hesitated. She had never much cared for the indignity of being lifted and thrown in the air, except by her dad when she was a lot smaller. Still, they did need some way to see over the heads of the crowd. So when the moose interlocked his fingers, she hopped into the step and allowed herself to be propelled upward, leaping at the peak of Morris' throw and joining Nick in the canopy.

"Thanks Morris. Love ya. Owe ya." Nick called, pointing both index claws at the moose who now looked almost as small to them as they normally must have looked to him.

Morris tossed off a salute, then turned back to the action.

Judy had meant to start searching the crowd right off, but a crash from somewhere in the cordoned area caught her attention. She looked up, and saw a sight she could never forget.

The community center was now in full blaze, with orange and yellow flames blasting out on all sides. Dozens of windows seemed to have been blown out by the force of intense heat inside. As Judy watched, a pair of grappling figures tumbled into view: Officer Fangmeyer, and a very savage maneless lion. Both felines were torn and bloody, and before the bunny's horrified eyes the lion rolled over on top of Fangmeyer and thrust his slavering jaw down towards her neck. Desperately, Fangmeyer managed to throw up an arm and ram it crosswise under her attacker's chin, blocking him inches shy of her throat. A second later, two figures caught up: an equally haggard Officer Delgato, and...

"Chief Bogo?!" cried Judy in shop. The buffalo, still in plainclothes and apparently unarmed, had ordered his way through the barricade and flung himself into the fray.

"Flank!" ordered the chief, and hurled himself directly on the attacker. With precision belying his bulk, he skillfully caught Mr Killrahb – for of course it was he – and with a heave peeled him off of Fangmeyer as momentum carried them both into a roll. The maneuver ended with Bogo lying on top of Killrahb, where his weight – Judy hoped – would keep the lion trapped.

Killrahb, however, was not going down easily. Snarling and scrabbling, he managed to latch a set of hooked claws into Bogo and tear five long gashes down the buffalo's massive forearm. Then, gaining purchase against the ground, he threw himself upward just Delgato came around. The leonine officer's body blocked their view of the next strike, but Judy would learn later that he had delivered a solid hook to his fellow lion's left ear.

Nick let out a low whistle as Bogo, thrown loose in this scuffle, lunged back in almost as soon as he landed. "I may never sass that guy again," he uttered.

Judy was about to question that promise when she remembered what she and Nick were doing up on a light pole. "The culprit!"

They returned to their duty, each mentally cursing themselves for their distraction. If whoever darted that lion had escaped while they were rubbernecking, they might never forgive themselves.

It was Judy who spotted something out of the ordinary first. "Hey," she pointed, "isn't that one of those vixens we met in TundraTown?"

Nick whipped his head to follow her pointing paw, and saw a small white figure poking out amidst the crowd. "Awe, fudge," he muttered. "Yep, that's one of them alright. Amelia, I think."

"Bad news?"

"They're all bad news," he replied dismally. His ears were back, and his eyes had lost their usual spark.

Judy swung down so that she hung from a branch by one paw with her legs and free arm encircling the main pole. "Think we should see what she's up to?" she asked.

Nick considered. This was definitely not Mr. Big's style, but then the Angels had been known to make trouble on their own time. It was anyone's guess what they'd be doing mixed up in this matter – if they were at all, of course – but there was only one way to find out. "Guess we'd better," he agreed.

The two slid down like a pair of trained fire mammals, then ducked and dodged through the crowd to where they saw the vixen. When they got there, however, she had slipped out of sight.

"One of us should have stayed topside to relay info," Judy fumed, little suspecting that they were being watched. Even her ears, in the cacophony around them, could not catch a hushed exchange or the handing off of a long jacket.

Nick was about to agree when a sultry voice interrupted. "Well, small world after all."

Both of them turned and suppressed a groan. Vanya Zarra had come up and was now facing Nick, locking eyes with him and drawing in her arms to emphasize the slimness of her build. It didn't help that she was wearing a close-fitting white dress clearly designed to trap males' eyes like glue. The fabric was light blue and mostly sheer, which was understandable for her species in that setting. The overall style, however, was best not described at all except that it was barely passable for the public eye. Patches of faux fur, as white as her own, made it look at a glance as if it covered even less of her than it actually did. Dressed in this dubious attire, Vanya eyed her ex seductively from under a broad hat which shaded her against the harsh daylight – and which, conveniently, had also hidden her from view when seen from above.

"You look rather warm, Nicholas," she joked. "A bit red in the face, in fact." Lifting one side of her hat, she teased, "Perhaps you'd enjoy the shade?"

Judy cleared her throat. "Excuse me, but if you don't mind, we're not here to chit-chat."

Vanya eyed her skeptically, and with all the respect she might give to a mouse who had asked her for some trivial assistance. "Oh, did I misunderstand something? I didn't know the police had Casual Dress days."

"Very funny," Judy answered bitingly, doing her best to make up for the very un-commanding air of her blue T-shirt and black pants. "Now, would you mind telling me what you're doing so far from TundraTown? We don't get many Arctic foxes around here."

In answer, the vixen widened her eyes in a masquerade of offense. "Oh!" she cried, placing a paw on her chest in an exaggerated gesture of mock-innocence. "Are you profiling me because of my species, officer?"

Judy drummed a foot impatiently, wondering which of the two foxes present had taught the other entirely too well. Vanya mocked just like Nick used to do, except that from Nick it could seem funny in retrospect. Somehow, she didn't think she'd ever feel that way about Vanya's snark. Also, there was something eerily familiar hanging about the vixen like a cloud, haunting and in every way unpleasant in its presence.

"If you must know," Vanya went on, "I was on business for my employer. His other help lacks... well, a finer touch, shall we say. I finished my business, saw trouble, and stopped by to see what was the matter. Nicholas here can at least tell you that I never could stay away from a mess."

Nick, to his displeasure, had to nod at that. "Whether you made it or not," he added.

"Yes," added Judy, recognizing at last what had been bugging her. "I can't help noticing you smell like-"

"Ah! Don't want to say that in this crowd," Vanya advised holding up an index claw.

Judy fumed. "That you smell like Midnicampum holicithias," she concluded, comforting herself a little as Vanya's expression dropped in confusion. "Pretty convenient that you show up smelling like them here." As she spoke, she reached for her taser and undid the buckle keeping it in its holster.

Vanya saw the move, but never stirred. "Oh, you bunnies. So excitable," she taunted. "I'm so hurt that Nick never told you more about me. I happen to be very fond of perfumes which use this flower. Brings out the vixen in me, doesn't it Nicholas?" She purred this last, glancing to her former boyfriend.

Judy could hardly help pausing and glancing at Nick. She knew his past was messed up, but just how far had he gone with this witch?

Nick frowned. "I can vouch for you wearing Pwasson's Passion," he asserted, catching Judy's look, "but nothing else. Anyway, if it is just perfume, you won't mind Officer Hopps here taking you to answer a few questions, right?"

Vanya chuckled. "Why, Wilde, I'm surprised you of all foxes could be so naive. You must be losing your edge." Reaching out and grasping him by the tie, she went on in her purring tone, "I know a lot about you, you know; things which I'm sure even your friend with the badge would find quite interesting. So if I were you, I'd do everything in my power to convince the bunny in blue not to even try taking me in for questioning. You know me, and you know I do love to talk."

Nick's head was suddenly yanked down a bit as Judy reached up and grabbed his tie at the mid-way point, glaring up at the vixen. She didn't open her mouth, but her violet eyes gave all the signals she needed to convey. Nobody messed with her or her friend, especially not some bleached bimbo with a goddess complex.

Vanya just looked down on her – literally and figuratively – with a superior, haughty gaze and smirk before she let go of Nick and sashayed away into the crowd. She didn't hurry, for there was no need. Besides, it was much more fun to remind them by the very way she walked that pursuit could completely ruin them.

"That was fantastic," Amelia said in a hushed tone when her compatriot reached her.

"Thank you." Vanya donned the proffered garment, which was made like an overcoat much of much more breathable material than most. She would have preferred the dress without the jacket, but as much as she loved being the center of attention, she knew the value of being unobtrusive.

"I'm so glad we came," she remarked cheerfully. "I dare say Nick won't forget me soon after this run-in."

The vixens stifled their laughter as they made for the nearest subway station. It was time to get back to their usual stomping grounds.

Vanya had left Nick paralyzed with dread, and Judy in a similar state from shock. Nick was worried, but Judy was just plain ticked.

"Rrgh!" she growled, throwing her fists down at her sides. She forgot she was still holding Nick's tie, and jumped at his startled yelp as he tumbled to all fours.

"Sorry!" she cried, releasing him and hastening to help him up.

Nick accepted the apology, dusting himself off. "I'll live," he rasped, loosening his tie, "but next time, would you mind just grabbing my shirt or something? It just so happens I really don't look good in purple."

Despite the fox's banter, he was as decidedly bleak as their predicament. Strictly speaking, Bogo's plan had worked on both counts: Nick had spotted a definite suspect, and his presence had drawn one in. Unfortunately, the end result put them farther back than ever... and a roar in the distance reminded them both that the crisis was still very much at large.

Aw, snap. Sure enough, it's going from bad to worse. Why do I get the feeling Bogo's not going to be happy that his plan didn't work – if he survives to find out? What's Vanya got up her sleeves, and what lies in store for Regis Killrahb and the concert? Well, you'll have to find out with the next update.

On a lighter note, some of you may recognize the scene where Judy and Vanya both have Nick by the tie; I based it on the cover art by KungFuFreak of DeviantArt. Once I saw that a tie-grab would tie in, I just couldn't leave it hanging there (yes, I just said that).

Thanks again for all the reviews. I especially appreciate the ones noting what I'm doing well and what I need to work on. It really helps me flesh this story out. And in appreciation, I've decided to start something new: Post some constructive criticism, and suggest a mammal species you would like to see in the story. Hybrids are OK if they are ones which actually appear in the real world (e.g. ligers, coywolves, etc.). Limit one species per review, three entries per chapter. First come, first serve.

Not sure if I should count these as Easter Eggs, but you may recognize some lines reminiscent of...

Home Alone 2

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis