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Maleperduis Military Base
Zootopia Outskirts
Noon
    The black uniform was pressed into crisp lines that fell over his body like a second coat of fur, brass reflecting the sheen of studios polishing that made General Valter proud of whichever soldier had done the job for him this time. One paw moved to adjust his various ribbons and medals proudly as he examined himself in the mirror with a practiced eye. One finger-pad ran over the bridge of his muzzle, checking to make sure that the artificial touch up to his fur coloring was impossible to detect before he tilted it this way and that. A smile that was as warm and charming as any he had ever managed parted his aged muzzle at the male in the mirror, whiskers lifting as he showed just the right amount of bleached white canines. The vanity was not without reason. He had fought his wars, had kept the peace in Zootopia for more than two decades now. And he had done so with the respect of his men, a mind for tactics, and looks that managed to charm even the unreachable Administrator.
    It had been years since the last time she had visited his office. Years since she had convinced him, with both pleasure and logic, that she was the right vixen to lead Zootopia into a new golden age. The pleasure had been a perk and a condition, though her reaction to his advances had been anything but reluctant. All thoughts of her giving her body to him simply to gain his help had been washed away under the heat of her passion, the taste of her mouth when she had taken the lead and guided him towards his own desk. The memory of that evening of passion remained, as clear to him as the scent of her fur and the sound of her desire when she had called his name with her claws raking down his back. They had both been younger then, though she more so, and in the following days he found that her thirst for power easily overcame her thirst for pleasure.
    This was one reason that he was still pleasantly surprised by her acceptance of his invitation to share a meal and relive the pleasures of the past. Turning back to his desk, he ran the conversation over in his mind again to savor the subtle nuance of seduction. The thought did occur to him that she knew he was responsible for the attempt on the lawyer’s life, something that he had been sure would please her. And from her reaction, and her invitation, he had been correct. The grin that crawled up his muzzle when he realized that the advice he had been given from their mutual friend had been genuine was delighted. He would have to repay this favor and repay it soon.
    The soft tone of alert drew his attention from his thoughts to the monitor attached to the surface of his wide and elaborate desk, drawing deep orange eyes to the screen as it flared to life. Leaning forward, the leather of his chair creaking slightly in the silence, he tapped Incoming Message on the screen. The slightly annoyed expression, as he steeled himself to dismiss almost any emergency rather than disappoint his dear Administrator, relaxed into a smile when he saw the golden crest slowly rotate on the screen. As a member of the Council, the crest was a familiar if uncommon sight and in this situation a welcome one. Assuming that Kyubi was letting him know that she was on her way, he lifted his paw again and placed his pad against the screen to allow it to read his pad print.
    When the image of the fox like crest remained unchanged, he frowned slightly in annoyance and tried again. Again, it didn’t clear to show him the message so he punched the button on his desk, dialing for his adjutant. Because the line was direct and always ready to be opened, he waited until the connection clicked through before he spoke without waiting for a greeting.
    “Captain, I have a very important communique coming through and the screen is not responding. I need someone here to fix it now. Redirect the message to my phone if possible.”
    The lack of response was unusual, so he raised his finger from the button and pressed again to ensure that the connection had been made. Ears twitching slightly, realizing that he was hearing the normal background noise from the other side of the line, he almost spoke again. His attention was drawn away from the monitor, however, by the very slight sound of something sliding down the wall outside of his door. Frowning, as it wasn’t the first time he had caught one of the honor guard sitting down on the job, he spared the screen one last glance before he stood from his desk. It figured, he decided as strong strides carried him to the door to discipline the lazy solider on his way to find out why his adjutant wasn’t responding. Things always managed to go wrong when he needed them to go perfectly…
    His train of thought was cut off when he opened the door, only to have it abruptly stop. The jarring impact caused pain when his fingers slipped over the knob, furthering his annoyance when he realized that the door had only opened a few inches. It also set off alarms in his mind, sharpening his senses as he slowly released the handle and stared at the crack in the door. Eyes that were no less sharp than they had been in his youth narrowed when he saw the almost invisible wires that held the door closed. They were needle thin and translucent, something that could easily have been missed in a moment of panic for a lesser mammal.
    He was not a lesser mammal.
    There were dozens of them at a quick count and, from the rigid hold of the door when he had tried to open it, he doubted that they would budge. He was trapped in his own office, on his own base. The idea that it could be the ever-growing resistance was first to enter his mind but was quickly dismissed as he turned and calmly walked back to his desk without a word. Slowly, calmly opening the top drawer as his eyes made a quick scan of the room, he retrieved the holster that held his sidearm before he returned his attention to his desk. Orange eyes dropped to the still spinning crest of The Administrator on his monitor and paused there when the rotation came to a stop as the eyes faced him.
    A sudden flicker of the screen, followed by warping of the image, came just as the lights in his office did the same. All of them pulsed, almost quivering before blinking out. Even the buttons on his desk and the face of the digital clock on the far wall grew dark. There was no sound to it, beyond the sudden silence that fell when the almost unheard hum of the lights went quiet. With his shades drawn in preparation for his pleasant afternoon of conversation and sex with a beautiful vixen, the darkness was almost complete before the screen flared to life again.
    The golden crest was gone, the color drained from it to leave a bone white mimic in its place which began a single slow rotation before it, too, came to a stop facing him. The red of what served for the eyes flared brighter, causing the fur on the back of his neck to stand on end as he drew the shining chrome weapon free to savor the familiar weight in his paw. The feeling of dread was one that he had not experienced in years of command and politics, but he welcomed it like an old friend. There was a reason he held the seat he did. There was a reason for every medal and ribbon on his chest, every bar on his collar, and every scar on his flesh. Even with the whispers of rumor, warnings that red eyes meant death, he had no intention of bowing down or cowering.
    A ghost of motion in the corner of his eyes was all he needed to level the gun on the face of one wall, his paws as steady now as they had been the last time he had marched the fields himself. Both eyes open down the sights and ears erect, he did a slow sweep of the room as he stepped out from behind his desk. Another ghost of motion came, causing him to swing his aim towards the door, where he found that the lights in the hall had almost been put out. Tension tightened his gut. The complete lack of sound even though he knew he was seeing motion was disorienting. He had never known anything to move in such perfect silence that it couldn’t be heard in a soundless, dark room. Frustration and the inkling of fear that started to squeeze through his calm had him turning the weapon at the next motion. The flash and roar of the single shot he fired filled the room with light for less than a second, but it was enough for him to see… something. A shape, a figure. And when the black descended again, the glow of luminescent red eyes less than a foot from the barrel of his gun.
    Red eyes. It was not only referring to the crest, then.
    “Yurei.”
    Even as the word escaped his lips in a bare whisper, he leveled the barrel between the eyes only to have them vanish as he pulled the trigger again. The grip of a paw on his wrist was strong, fast, and ruthless as it twisted the weapon from his grasp before he could react, sending it sliding across the carpet. He swung out with one paw, his claws curled in the hopes of drawing blood, but there was nothing there to receive the blow. The snarl was mostly one of surprise when the scruff of his neck was gripped, two paws holding him secure as the backs of his knees were kicked out. The hold on his scruff kept him upright when he crashed to his knees painfully, yelping sharply as his head was drawn back and his feet were pinned by the weight of his assassin. Any attempt to resist was lost when he saw the glimmer of the long knife slide towards his throat, felt the bite of pain when it slid into his neck just below his muzzle.
    Then there was a moment of stillness. He expected death, waited for the warm spill of blood to run through his fur and saturate his perfectly prepared uniform with crimson, but that moment didn’t come. The grip on the back of his neck was still firm as he stared at the ceiling without moving, finding it difficult to breathe. When he tried to speak, to question the one who now had him at their mercy, nothing more than a whine of air escaped him. It wasn’t until he felt the brush of a muzzle near the base of his ear that he felt real fear. The voice was soft, low and quiet, but cold enough to make the air around him take on an icy feel.
    “Your vocal cords have been severed. My blade is sharp, so you will not bleed until I decide it is time. Struggle, try to turn your head, and you will cut your own throat.”
    To test the truth of the words was to risk his own life, though he had little doubt in them. Panic tried to rise, but he ruthlessly shoved it back as he tried to think of some way to survive. No thoughts of the next day, or the next week. Just to survive the next minute would be a triumph, even if a painful one.
    Why, Kyubi?
    As if to answer his silent plea for answers, the voice spoke.
    “Your mistake was thinking that you were her equal when you were little more than a tool,” the voice whispered, the closeness of the mouth to his ear almost intimate. In a way, it was. There were few more intimate acts than ending the life of another.
    “She never wanted you.”
    The last words struck him in his final moment. There was a cold anger behind them but also a hint of what might have been a longing for confirmation. As if his killer as trying to assure himself of the truth behind them even as the blade slid smoothly and effortlessly through the flesh of his throat, slicing it open until the full blade was able to slide free of the gaping wound left behind.
    Blood choked him as his heart tried in vain to provide the blood flow his brain had suddenly been denied, quickening in his death as soupy crimson spilled through the fingers that clutched at the wound in vain. The weak gurgle was all he managed when he was freed, the weight lifted from his back and the paw releasing his scruff as his lungs filled with blood. He quickly stumbled to his feet, spinning around so suddenly the droplets of thick crimson life rained over the surface of his desk. The cold of the voice was replaced with a much deeper cold that crept quickly over his body, the dark of the room growing darker as bright orange eyes started to dim. General Valter struggled in vain to make their last vision the face of his assassin, his head turning with agonizing slowness as he took a few weak steps towards his desk. Yet even as he reached it, the paw placed on the surface to support himself leaving a bloody print, he was denied even that when he saw that the dark office was as empty as it had seemed moments before. Blackness started to cloud his vision - a blackness that in his vanity he had never prepared himself to meet - as he used the last of his strength to sketch in the surface of the desk in his own blood.

    One of the most powerful mammals in Zootopia, General Nathanial Reinhart Valter, slumped forward over the desk as his final breath gurgled free from his muzzle, never knowing if his last attempt to be heard was successful.

________________________________________________________________

      “We have vague reports of some sort of small scale attack at Maleperduis military base,” the perfectly white vixen said into her microphone, sharp blue eyes seeming to meet the eyes of every viewer watching the news cast. Well behind her in the distance the air-base loomed across the night sky in all its intimidating majesty, marred by the flashing of emergency lights and the barricades that had been thrown into place to keep the camera from getting too close. “Though our sources tell us that there was only one fatality, the base remains on high alert. There has been no statement from the ZAF or the Council on what took place.”

    Nick remembered it had not so long ago that he had considered looking up the arctic vixen for the sake of distracting himself from the idea of helping a bunny get herself killed. Having watched multiple reports and come into close enough contact with her to be questioned, he knew that it would have been a mistake. She was the sort who needed answers and was very good at finding them, something that was apparent in this single report. She was the only reporter on the scene, in what otherwise would have been a very hushed affair. Who her sources were, he could only guess, but the fact that she had been the first on scene for almost every major event of the last year did give him some clue. Whether or not it would become an issue in the future depended on how interested she was in Judy. Or him.

    Muting the TV when the report ended with a promise of more information as the story progressed, he leaned forward to look down at his phone for a long moment.

From the desk of The Administrator

Your results are excellent Nicholas.

    He considered the message and the golden crest that marked the header of the message in silence before he slid his paw up to the Delete icon. Once he was sure that the message was gone, he returned his attention to the television.

Council Member, General Valter, believed dead.

    He didn’t bother to unmute the TV as the vixen returned, this time interviewing a large brown wolf in a ZAF uniform with other reporters who had managed to arrive in time for what might be the only unofficial statement. Knowing that they would be given nothing of substance beyond what they already knew was a given, largely because Nick knew there would be no evidence for them to sort through. Nothing beyond a dead body and a lot of questions, anyway.

    His ears twitched slightly when the sound of a folder being slapped onto another folder from the bedroom was followed by the creak of bedsprings. She had not left the bedroom for most of the day, pouring over the files that Bogo had delivered as promised, rummaging through her notes, coming out once to grab a sandwich and talking on her phone a few times. Something told him that she had been avoiding him, an idea that was perfectly understandable given his behavior the day before. Her father had not annoyed him so much. The blatant dislike of foxes was just another part of being a fox. But hearing her mother even imply the belief that she would have to whore herself for his protection had increased passive disinterest to anger. Anger that led him to squash the idea that he would want sex as a form of payment before it was able to root itself firmly in her mind. A move that he had decided was necessary to ease the growing tension he had seen in her every time he was close to her.

                What he had not planned for had been the quick and obvious rise of arousal in her scent when he had broached the subject or his own sharp reaction to it. Maybe it was because bunnies lacked the heightened sense of smell, but the rush of that sweetly feminine scent had struck him like a very soft blow to the libido. When he had seen how she struggled not to react to how close they had been in that moment, the desire to taste even the slightest bit of her had been overwhelming. So overwhelming that he’d nipped her ear and almost failed to resist the desire to do more when the arch of her back and the hitch of her breath had told everything male about him that she wanted him.

    That had passed. A temporary insanity on both their parts, one that would not rise again so long as neither of them pressed the issue…

    Which might have been a simplification, as he felt a fresh jolt to his system when she walked out of the bedroom wearing her night shirt and no pants covering toned, gray legs. Not that she seemed to notice or even care as she walked into the kitchen area without a glance in his direction and pulled open the mini fridge. Taking a moment to blink away the surprise as she stood beside it before deciding on the carton of celery juice, he considered the way she moved as she set the carton on the counter. Her mind was clearly still in motion from the far off look in her eyes and the fact that she paused every few seconds to tick her ears as if running through a mental checklist. It was when she reached into the cabinet above her head for a glass that the night shirt slid up her hips. Not far enough for the fabric to pull over her tail and uncover the curves of her rear, but enough for him to catch the barest hint of white panties before she plucked a glass from the shelf and turned to pour.

    What concerned him was the fact that he had been hoping to see more and the fact that when she took the first drink she watched him from the corner of her eye.

    She knows I’m watching. Wants me to see her. Teasing? A test? Curiosity?

    “You could dress yourself,” he said, mimicking her words while keeping his tone lightly sarcastic. He didn’t take his eyes off her, however. Simply watched when she turned and leaned her hips back against the counter with the glass in her paw and her ears perked in his direction.

    “I could say the same for you. Again,” she commented, making a broad gesture to the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up his arms even as he sat in the middle of her office space.

    “I can’t be expected to wear a suit all day waiting for you, Carrots,” he replied, his muzzle curving into a toothy smirk as he stood, tail swaying noticeably behind him as he walked towards the kitchenette and her. “Unless you would rather I do. In which case, I am going to insist that you put some pants on. Just to be fair.”

    She didn’t move away or even move to the side when he came closer to her. To her credit, simply scorched her rear over a bit on the counter when he reached for the mini-fridge himself. He would need more time to decide if she was being brave or if she had reached a point where she understood that he wasn’t going to eat her. Or ravish her. “If we’re going to be living and working here, I don’t see any reason we both can’t be comfortable,” she replied, giving a slight shrug when he pulled a bottle of soda from the fridge and turned to lean against the counter beside her. “Though I still don’t understand this open-door policy of yours. It’s not as though these walls are so thick that you wouldn’t hear me cry out.”

    “Hm,” was his only reply for a moment as he considered exactly how comfortable they would really be in such close quarters when she made unintentional comments like that. Then he turned his attention to the small flat screen on the wall. The scene playing across the screen was of multiple trucks, all carrying the markings of military Criminal Investigation Command, blew past the reporter blockade on their way into the base. “The tiger that tried to kill you on the streets was a decently skilled fighter. Probably military trained. He was also a blunt attempt by someone who believed that you would be an easy target. That is to say, they did not expect you to have proper protection if any at all. This is the result.”

    He motioned with one paw towards the TV, where her gaze lingered when she saw the words that still scrolled slowly by. He saw the frown form when she stepped away from the counter, leaving the glass behind as she walked over to pick up the remote. She looked vulnerable when she unmuted the report, wearing a light blue night shirt and a look of concerned concentration on her face.

    “We have confirmation from military sources that Council Member Valter has been killed,” the vixen was saying, that slight edge of excitement in a tone that she tried to keep somber. “We are not being given any further information at this time but as you can see from the CID vehicles that passed by only moments ago, it seems likely that foul play was involved.”

    “Now, everyone knows you’re being protected,” he said, drawing her gaze to him when he took the remote and muted the report again. “It is hard to cry out when your muzzle is taped shut or they slide a knife across your throat before you see their face.”

    “Is that what happened there?” she asked and he was glad to see that she didn’t seem disturbed by his words so much as she was focused on the drifting subject.

    “I don’t know what happened there,” he admitted, even if he could harbor more than a few guesses. “But killing him with no other fatalities? That is why the doors stay open. My ears may not be as sharp as yours, but your average mammal will easily dismiss subtle sounds. Mental filters that some have been trained to understand and can use to mask their movement as background noise.”

    “Like this ‘Yurei?’” she asked, her ears quivering slightly as she glanced at the screen before she returned her eyes to him with a slight tip of her head. “Did they do this?”

    “Hm,” he grunted, scratching the side of his muzzle as he considered the idea before lifting his shoulders in a slow shrug. “I can’t say for certain because I don’t know who Yurei is. But given then rumors, it is possible.”

    “So, the door stays open,” she concluded for herself, keeping her eyes locked on his until he nodded. When she forced her attention away from him, she looked back at the screen. “Do you think that has anything to do with me? Do you think I caused it? You mentioned the tiger…”

    Her voice softened a bit, making it impossible not to have her aversion to killing come to mind. Though this time, her words were not an attempt to make him see her side of things. It was simply concern on her part. Concern that she was the cause of more death in the city. More death that had never been her intention. And while a part of him was tempted to remind her that being here was her choice, he remembered that he didn’t want to see the city itself drag her down until she was just one more broken product of The Foxes Den.

    “It may have something to do with you,” he replied, setting the remote down before he reached down to place one paw on her shoulder. When she looked up at him with haunted eyes, he was almost stunned by how small and soft she seemed without her suit and hard-nosed attitude. “We can’t be sure of that yet. But that doesn’t mean you caused it.”

    “If I had not come to Zootopia, possibly two might not be dead,” she amended, shaking her head slightly even if she didn’t move away. “I can’t ignore that.”

    “No, you can’t,” he agreed, dropping his paw away before his perception of her vulnerability made him want to pull her closer. “But if you had not come, Otterton would simply rot in prison. If you had not come back, the tiger who tried to kill you would have been sent to kill someone else. Weaselton wouldn’t have come to your door, but he would have harassed other mammals because that’s what he does.”

    She searched his face, maybe trying to decide if this was another one of his ‘You should run while you can’ speeches. “I’m the flame.”

    “And the moths are circling,” he agreed, walking to the counter to retrieve her glass of celery juice and his bottle. Once she accepted it when he returned, not taking her eyes off him, he continued, “You didn’t create this city or the rot that eats it from the inside out. Your presence has caused a change in focus for many. Caused them to expose themselves as they try to reach this new… Light among them.”

    “That’s all very dramatic,” she mumbled, a small smile crossing her muzzle as she raised her glass for a small sip to hide it.

    “Your first day in the city was nothing if not dramatic, Carrots,” he replied, opening his own drink and raising it slightly towards her. “Just be ready. The longer you stay, the darker corners you will expose. And the darker the corner, the bigger the moth.”

    Nick wondered a moment later, when the half-dressed bunny returned to her room and her work, if that wasn’t exactly why she had been invited to the city, to begin with.

Description
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Maleperduis Military Base
Zootopia Outskirts
Noon
    The black uniform was pressed into crisp lines that fell over his body like a second coat of fur, brass reflecting the sheen of studios polishing that made General Valter proud of whichever soldier had done the job for him this time. One paw moved to adjust his various ribbons and medals proudly as he examined himself in the mirror with a practiced eye. One finger-pad ran over the bridge of his muzzle, checking to make sure that the artificial touch up to his fur coloring was impossible to detect before he tilted it this way and that. A smile that was as warm and charming as any he had ever managed parted his aged muzzle at the male in the mirror, whiskers lifting as he showed just the right amount of bleached white canines. The vanity was not without reason. He had fought his wars, had kept the peace in Zootopia for more than two decades now. And he had done so with the respect of his men, a mind for tactics, and looks that managed to charm even the unreachable Administrator.
    It had been years since the last time she had visited his office. Years since she had convinced him, with both pleasure and logic, that she was the right vixen to lead Zootopia into a new golden age. The pleasure had been a perk and a condition, though her reaction to his advances had been anything but reluctant. All thoughts of her giving her body to him simply to gain his help had been washed away under the heat of her passion, the taste of her mouth when she had taken the lead and guided him towards his own desk. The memory of that evening of passion remained, as clear to him as the scent of her fur and the sound of her desire when she had called his name with her claws raking down his back. They had both been younger then, though she more so, and in the following days he found that her thirst for power easily overcame her thirst for pleasure.
    This was one reason that he was still pleasantly surprised by her acceptance of his invitation to share a meal and relive the pleasures of the past. Turning back to his desk, he ran the conversation over in his mind again to savor the subtle nuance of seduction. The thought did occur to him that she knew he was responsible for the attempt on the lawyer’s life, something that he had been sure would please her. And from her reaction, and her invitation, he had been correct. The grin that crawled up his muzzle when he realized that the advice he had been given from their mutual friend had been genuine was delighted. He would have to repay this favor and repay it soon.
    The soft tone of alert drew his attention from his thoughts to the monitor attached to the surface of his wide and elaborate desk, drawing deep orange eyes to the screen as it flared to life. Leaning forward, the leather of his chair creaking slightly in the silence, he tapped Incoming Message on the screen. The slightly annoyed expression, as he steeled himself to dismiss almost any emergency rather than disappoint his dear Administrator, relaxed into a smile when he saw the golden crest slowly rotate on the screen. As a member of the Council, the crest was a familiar if uncommon sight and in this situation a welcome one. Assuming that Kyubi was letting him know that she was on her way, he lifted his paw again and placed his pad against the screen to allow it to read his pad print.
    When the image of the fox like crest remained unchanged, he frowned slightly in annoyance and tried again. Again, it didn’t clear to show him the message so he punched the button on his desk, dialing for his adjutant. Because the line was direct and always ready to be opened, he waited until the connection clicked through before he spoke without waiting for a greeting.
    “Captain, I have a very important communique coming through and the screen is not responding. I need someone here to fix it now. Redirect the message to my phone if possible.”
    The lack of response was unusual, so he raised his finger from the button and pressed again to ensure that the connection had been made. Ears twitching slightly, realizing that he was hearing the normal background noise from the other side of the line, he almost spoke again. His attention was drawn away from the monitor, however, by the very slight sound of something sliding down the wall outside of his door. Frowning, as it wasn’t the first time he had caught one of the honor guard sitting down on the job, he spared the screen one last glance before he stood from his desk. It figured, he decided as strong strides carried him to the door to discipline the lazy solider on his way to find out why his adjutant wasn’t responding. Things always managed to go wrong when he needed them to go perfectly…
    His train of thought was cut off when he opened the door, only to have it abruptly stop. The jarring impact caused pain when his fingers slipped over the knob, furthering his annoyance when he realized that the door had only opened a few inches. It also set off alarms in his mind, sharpening his senses as he slowly released the handle and stared at the crack in the door. Eyes that were no less sharp than they had been in his youth narrowed when he saw the almost invisible wires that held the door closed. They were needle thin and translucent, something that could easily have been missed in a moment of panic for a lesser mammal.
    He was not a lesser mammal.
    There were dozens of them at a quick count and, from the rigid hold of the door when he had tried to open it, he doubted that they would budge. He was trapped in his own office, on his own base. The idea that it could be the ever-growing resistance was first to enter his mind but was quickly dismissed as he turned and calmly walked back to his desk without a word. Slowly, calmly opening the top drawer as his eyes made a quick scan of the room, he retrieved the holster that held his sidearm before he returned his attention to his desk. Orange eyes dropped to the still spinning crest of The Administrator on his monitor and paused there when the rotation came to a stop as the eyes faced him.
    A sudden flicker of the screen, followed by warping of the image, came just as the lights in his office did the same. All of them pulsed, almost quivering before blinking out. Even the buttons on his desk and the face of the digital clock on the far wall grew dark. There was no sound to it, beyond the sudden silence that fell when the almost unheard hum of the lights went quiet. With his shades drawn in preparation for his pleasant afternoon of conversation and sex with a beautiful vixen, the darkness was almost complete before the screen flared to life again.
    The golden crest was gone, the color drained from it to leave a bone white mimic in its place which began a single slow rotation before it, too, came to a stop facing him. The red of what served for the eyes flared brighter, causing the fur on the back of his neck to stand on end as he drew the shining chrome weapon free to savor the familiar weight in his paw. The feeling of dread was one that he had not experienced in years of command and politics, but he welcomed it like an old friend. There was a reason he held the seat he did. There was a reason for every medal and ribbon on his chest, every bar on his collar, and every scar on his flesh. Even with the whispers of rumor, warnings that red eyes meant death, he had no intention of bowing down or cowering.
    A ghost of motion in the corner of his eyes was all he needed to level the gun on the face of one wall, his paws as steady now as they had been the last time he had marched the fields himself. Both eyes open down the sights and ears erect, he did a slow sweep of the room as he stepped out from behind his desk. Another ghost of motion came, causing him to swing his aim towards the door, where he found that the lights in the hall had almost been put out. Tension tightened his gut. The complete lack of sound even though he knew he was seeing motion was disorienting. He had never known anything to move in such perfect silence that it couldn’t be heard in a soundless, dark room. Frustration and the inkling of fear that started to squeeze through his calm had him turning the weapon at the next motion. The flash and roar of the single shot he fired filled the room with light for less than a second, but it was enough for him to see… something. A shape, a figure. And when the black descended again, the glow of luminescent red eyes less than a foot from the barrel of his gun.
    Red eyes. It was not only referring to the crest, then.
    “Yurei.”
    Even as the word escaped his lips in a bare whisper, he leveled the barrel between the eyes only to have them vanish as he pulled the trigger again. The grip of a paw on his wrist was strong, fast, and ruthless as it twisted the weapon from his grasp before he could react, sending it sliding across the carpet. He swung out with one paw, his claws curled in the hopes of drawing blood, but there was nothing there to receive the blow. The snarl was mostly one of surprise when the scruff of his neck was gripped, two paws holding him secure as the backs of his knees were kicked out. The hold on his scruff kept him upright when he crashed to his knees painfully, yelping sharply as his head was drawn back and his feet were pinned by the weight of his assassin. Any attempt to resist was lost when he saw the glimmer of the long knife slide towards his throat, felt the bite of pain when it slid into his neck just below his muzzle.
    Then there was a moment of stillness. He expected death, waited for the warm spill of blood to run through his fur and saturate his perfectly prepared uniform with crimson, but that moment didn’t come. The grip on the back of his neck was still firm as he stared at the ceiling without moving, finding it difficult to breathe. When he tried to speak, to question the one who now had him at their mercy, nothing more than a whine of air escaped him. It wasn’t until he felt the brush of a muzzle near the base of his ear that he felt real fear. The voice was soft, low and quiet, but cold enough to make the air around him take on an icy feel.
    “Your vocal cords have been severed. My blade is sharp, so you will not bleed until I decide it is time. Struggle, try to turn your head, and you will cut your own throat.”
    To test the truth of the words was to risk his own life, though he had little doubt in them. Panic tried to rise, but he ruthlessly shoved it back as he tried to think of some way to survive. No thoughts of the next day, or the next week. Just to survive the next minute would be a triumph, even if a painful one.
    Why, Kyubi?
    As if to answer his silent plea for answers, the voice spoke.
    “Your mistake was thinking that you were her equal when you were little more than a tool,” the voice whispered, the closeness of the mouth to his ear almost intimate. In a way, it was. There were few more intimate acts than ending the life of another.
    “She never wanted you.”
    The last words struck him in his final moment. There was a cold anger behind them but also a hint of what might have been a longing for confirmation. As if his killer as trying to assure himself of the truth behind them even as the blade slid smoothly and effortlessly through the flesh of his throat, slicing it open until the full blade was able to slide free of the gaping wound left behind.
    Blood choked him as his heart tried in vain to provide the blood flow his brain had suddenly been denied, quickening in his death as soupy crimson spilled through the fingers that clutched at the wound in vain. The weak gurgle was all he managed when he was freed, the weight lifted from his back and the paw releasing his scruff as his lungs filled with blood. He quickly stumbled to his feet, spinning around so suddenly the droplets of thick crimson life rained over the surface of his desk. The cold of the voice was replaced with a much deeper cold that crept quickly over his body, the dark of the room growing darker as bright orange eyes started to dim. General Valter struggled in vain to make their last vision the face of his assassin, his head turning with agonizing slowness as he took a few weak steps towards his desk. Yet even as he reached it, the paw placed on the surface to support himself leaving a bloody print, he was denied even that when he saw that the dark office was as empty as it had seemed moments before. Blackness started to cloud his vision - a blackness that in his vanity he had never prepared himself to meet - as he used the last of his strength to sketch in the surface of the desk in his own blood.

    One of the most powerful mammals in Zootopia, General Nathanial Reinhart Valter, slumped forward over the desk as his final breath gurgled free from his muzzle, never knowing if his last attempt to be heard was successful.

________________________________________________________________

      “We have vague reports of some sort of small scale attack at Maleperduis military base,” the perfectly white vixen said into her microphone, sharp blue eyes seeming to meet the eyes of every viewer watching the news cast. Well behind her in the distance the air-base loomed across the night sky in all its intimidating majesty, marred by the flashing of emergency lights and the barricades that had been thrown into place to keep the camera from getting too close. “Though our sources tell us that there was only one fatality, the base remains on high alert. There has been no statement from the ZAF or the Council on what took place.”

    Nick remembered it had not so long ago that he had considered looking up the arctic vixen for the sake of distracting himself from the idea of helping a bunny get herself killed. Having watched multiple reports and come into close enough contact with her to be questioned, he knew that it would have been a mistake. She was the sort who needed answers and was very good at finding them, something that was apparent in this single report. She was the only reporter on the scene, in what otherwise would have been a very hushed affair. Who her sources were, he could only guess, but the fact that she had been the first on scene for almost every major event of the last year did give him some clue. Whether or not it would become an issue in the future depended on how interested she was in Judy. Or him.

    Muting the TV when the report ended with a promise of more information as the story progressed, he leaned forward to look down at his phone for a long moment.

From the desk of The Administrator

Your results are excellent Nicholas.

    He considered the message and the golden crest that marked the header of the message in silence before he slid his paw up to the Delete icon. Once he was sure that the message was gone, he returned his attention to the television.

Council Member, General Valter, believed dead.

    He didn’t bother to unmute the TV as the vixen returned, this time interviewing a large brown wolf in a ZAF uniform with other reporters who had managed to arrive in time for what might be the only unofficial statement. Knowing that they would be given nothing of substance beyond what they already knew was a given, largely because Nick knew there would be no evidence for them to sort through. Nothing beyond a dead body and a lot of questions, anyway.

    His ears twitched slightly when the sound of a folder being slapped onto another folder from the bedroom was followed by the creak of bedsprings. She had not left the bedroom for most of the day, pouring over the files that Bogo had delivered as promised, rummaging through her notes, coming out once to grab a sandwich and talking on her phone a few times. Something told him that she had been avoiding him, an idea that was perfectly understandable given his behavior the day before. Her father had not annoyed him so much. The blatant dislike of foxes was just another part of being a fox. But hearing her mother even imply the belief that she would have to whore herself for his protection had increased passive disinterest to anger. Anger that led him to squash the idea that he would want sex as a form of payment before it was able to root itself firmly in her mind. A move that he had decided was necessary to ease the growing tension he had seen in her every time he was close to her.

                What he had not planned for had been the quick and obvious rise of arousal in her scent when he had broached the subject or his own sharp reaction to it. Maybe it was because bunnies lacked the heightened sense of smell, but the rush of that sweetly feminine scent had struck him like a very soft blow to the libido. When he had seen how she struggled not to react to how close they had been in that moment, the desire to taste even the slightest bit of her had been overwhelming. So overwhelming that he’d nipped her ear and almost failed to resist the desire to do more when the arch of her back and the hitch of her breath had told everything male about him that she wanted him.

    That had passed. A temporary insanity on both their parts, one that would not rise again so long as neither of them pressed the issue…

    Which might have been a simplification, as he felt a fresh jolt to his system when she walked out of the bedroom wearing her night shirt and no pants covering toned, gray legs. Not that she seemed to notice or even care as she walked into the kitchen area without a glance in his direction and pulled open the mini fridge. Taking a moment to blink away the surprise as she stood beside it before deciding on the carton of celery juice, he considered the way she moved as she set the carton on the counter. Her mind was clearly still in motion from the far off look in her eyes and the fact that she paused every few seconds to tick her ears as if running through a mental checklist. It was when she reached into the cabinet above her head for a glass that the night shirt slid up her hips. Not far enough for the fabric to pull over her tail and uncover the curves of her rear, but enough for him to catch the barest hint of white panties before she plucked a glass from the shelf and turned to pour.

    What concerned him was the fact that he had been hoping to see more and the fact that when she took the first drink she watched him from the corner of her eye.

    She knows I’m watching. Wants me to see her. Teasing? A test? Curiosity?

    “You could dress yourself,” he said, mimicking her words while keeping his tone lightly sarcastic. He didn’t take his eyes off her, however. Simply watched when she turned and leaned her hips back against the counter with the glass in her paw and her ears perked in his direction.

    “I could say the same for you. Again,” she commented, making a broad gesture to the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up his arms even as he sat in the middle of her office space.

    “I can’t be expected to wear a suit all day waiting for you, Carrots,” he replied, his muzzle curving into a toothy smirk as he stood, tail swaying noticeably behind him as he walked towards the kitchenette and her. “Unless you would rather I do. In which case, I am going to insist that you put some pants on. Just to be fair.”

    She didn’t move away or even move to the side when he came closer to her. To her credit, simply scorched her rear over a bit on the counter when he reached for the mini-fridge himself. He would need more time to decide if she was being brave or if she had reached a point where she understood that he wasn’t going to eat her. Or ravish her. “If we’re going to be living and working here, I don’t see any reason we both can’t be comfortable,” she replied, giving a slight shrug when he pulled a bottle of soda from the fridge and turned to lean against the counter beside her. “Though I still don’t understand this open-door policy of yours. It’s not as though these walls are so thick that you wouldn’t hear me cry out.”

    “Hm,” was his only reply for a moment as he considered exactly how comfortable they would really be in such close quarters when she made unintentional comments like that. Then he turned his attention to the small flat screen on the wall. The scene playing across the screen was of multiple trucks, all carrying the markings of military Criminal Investigation Command, blew past the reporter blockade on their way into the base. “The tiger that tried to kill you on the streets was a decently skilled fighter. Probably military trained. He was also a blunt attempt by someone who believed that you would be an easy target. That is to say, they did not expect you to have proper protection if any at all. This is the result.”

    He motioned with one paw towards the TV, where her gaze lingered when she saw the words that still scrolled slowly by. He saw the frown form when she stepped away from the counter, leaving the glass behind as she walked over to pick up the remote. She looked vulnerable when she unmuted the report, wearing a light blue night shirt and a look of concerned concentration on her face.

    “We have confirmation from military sources that Council Member Valter has been killed,” the vixen was saying, that slight edge of excitement in a tone that she tried to keep somber. “We are not being given any further information at this time but as you can see from the CID vehicles that passed by only moments ago, it seems likely that foul play was involved.”

    “Now, everyone knows you’re being protected,” he said, drawing her gaze to him when he took the remote and muted the report again. “It is hard to cry out when your muzzle is taped shut or they slide a knife across your throat before you see their face.”

    “Is that what happened there?” she asked and he was glad to see that she didn’t seem disturbed by his words so much as she was focused on the drifting subject.

    “I don’t know what happened there,” he admitted, even if he could harbor more than a few guesses. “But killing him with no other fatalities? That is why the doors stay open. My ears may not be as sharp as yours, but your average mammal will easily dismiss subtle sounds. Mental filters that some have been trained to understand and can use to mask their movement as background noise.”

    “Like this ‘Yurei?’” she asked, her ears quivering slightly as she glanced at the screen before she returned her eyes to him with a slight tip of her head. “Did they do this?”

    “Hm,” he grunted, scratching the side of his muzzle as he considered the idea before lifting his shoulders in a slow shrug. “I can’t say for certain because I don’t know who Yurei is. But given then rumors, it is possible.”

    “So, the door stays open,” she concluded for herself, keeping her eyes locked on his until he nodded. When she forced her attention away from him, she looked back at the screen. “Do you think that has anything to do with me? Do you think I caused it? You mentioned the tiger…”

    Her voice softened a bit, making it impossible not to have her aversion to killing come to mind. Though this time, her words were not an attempt to make him see her side of things. It was simply concern on her part. Concern that she was the cause of more death in the city. More death that had never been her intention. And while a part of him was tempted to remind her that being here was her choice, he remembered that he didn’t want to see the city itself drag her down until she was just one more broken product of The Foxes Den.

    “It may have something to do with you,” he replied, setting the remote down before he reached down to place one paw on her shoulder. When she looked up at him with haunted eyes, he was almost stunned by how small and soft she seemed without her suit and hard-nosed attitude. “We can’t be sure of that yet. But that doesn’t mean you caused it.”

    “If I had not come to Zootopia, possibly two might not be dead,” she amended, shaking her head slightly even if she didn’t move away. “I can’t ignore that.”

    “No, you can’t,” he agreed, dropping his paw away before his perception of her vulnerability made him want to pull her closer. “But if you had not come, Otterton would simply rot in prison. If you had not come back, the tiger who tried to kill you would have been sent to kill someone else. Weaselton wouldn’t have come to your door, but he would have harassed other mammals because that’s what he does.”

    She searched his face, maybe trying to decide if this was another one of his ‘You should run while you can’ speeches. “I’m the flame.”

    “And the moths are circling,” he agreed, walking to the counter to retrieve her glass of celery juice and his bottle. Once she accepted it when he returned, not taking her eyes off him, he continued, “You didn’t create this city or the rot that eats it from the inside out. Your presence has caused a change in focus for many. Caused them to expose themselves as they try to reach this new… Light among them.”

    “That’s all very dramatic,” she mumbled, a small smile crossing her muzzle as she raised her glass for a small sip to hide it.

    “Your first day in the city was nothing if not dramatic, Carrots,” he replied, opening his own drink and raising it slightly towards her. “Just be ready. The longer you stay, the darker corners you will expose. And the darker the corner, the bigger the moth.”

    Nick wondered a moment later, when the half-dressed bunny returned to her room and her work, if that wasn’t exactly why she had been invited to the city, to begin with.