The Department of Mammal Vehicles was tucked away from the commotion of city center, in a quieter area near the suburbs to the south of Savanna Central. The building was a stark contrast to the grand, organic architecture and bright colors of Zootopia proper, a squatty, monolithic block of gray concrete and colorless windows topped by an equally square brown roof that bore a muted zebra-stripe design almost as an afterthought.

Nick drove the tiny meter cart past the establishment's stone sign and into the crowded parking lot, thankful for once that he wasn't in his usual ZPD cruiser as he squeezed the little three-wheeler easily into a gap between larger vehicles. With a flourish of his tail he jumped out onto the pavement, and Judy followed.

Judy caught sight of the throng of mammals waiting in a serpentine line through the glass doors, and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Wow, good thing you get to skip past the crowd, right Nick?" she said with a slight chuckle. The fox just gave her a silent smirk and kept walking towards the doors.

"Oh come on Nick, tell me we don't have to wait in that line. We'll be here all day!" Judy sighed, her ears falling flat behind her head as she scowled.

"We don't have to wait in that line, Carrots," Nick said, still smirking as he walked right past the doors and rounded the corner of the building.

Judy gave him a quizzical look, one ear jaunting out to the side. "Wait... Where are you going?"

Nick turned around the back corner, his swishing tail disappearing from Judy's view momentarily before he turned and stuck his head back around too look at her. "I said I had a pal at the DMV, I never said he worked here," he said with a wink.

At the rear of the building was a service alleyway, occupied by the usual objects one would expect to find in an alley - two dumpsters, a large recycle bin, and a couple of broken wooden pallets. Only one thing was out of place; in the shadow of a fence was parked a weathered, bronze-colored van with a mismatched door, adorned on its sides with a painting of a grizzled warrior canine in Nordic armor holding an arctic fox maiden in his arms.

Nick approached the van and knocked in a familiar rhythm on its back door. The sound echoed through the quiet alley, but there was no response from the vehicle. "Well, nobody's home," Nick said, turning towards the far end of the street.

"Who was supposed to be home?" Judy asked, kicking aside an empty soda bottle from her path.

"Oh, just a friend. Tell you what, how about you wait right here for a minute? I think I know where he went. Just try not to chase after any more weasels while I'm gone, okay?"

The fox's sarcastic grin at the last sentence was met by a glare from Judy. Before she could respond with some choice words of her own, Nick had jumped on top of one of the dumpsters, vaulted the fence, and was sliding out of sight down a light pole on the other side.

Judy found the soda bottle again and kicked it further down the alley, pretending the plastic container was Nick's similarly-shaped muzzle and she was knocking the smug off of it. It bounced a pretty good distance, landing just beyond the corner of the building. Then the intense look left her eyes and she let out a breath as she walked over to retrieve the bottle intending to throw it in the recycle bin.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye as she bent over, and she turned her head to look. A small, tawny fox kit wearing some kind of purple onesie and suckling a pacifier was walking towards her down the side of the building. The kit froze as she made eye contact, and as Judy drew herself back up to a standing position it pulled the hood of the onesie over its face, revealing it to be an elephant costume complete with a little trunk. The kit tottered a few steps closer.

Judy smiled warmly at the costumed toddler as she approached. "Hey little fella, where are your parents? Are they inside the building?" she cooed in a higher-pitched voice.

The little vulpine-turned-pachyderm shook its head.

"Don't worry, I'll help you get back where you belong. Do you have a name?"

The kit blew twice into the trunk of the costume, causing a trumpeting 'toot' noise both times.

Judy laughed. "Okay little toot-toot, you just come with me, okay? I'll find your folks." she said, pointing back to the front of the DMV. The kit ignored her, arms stretched towards the alleyway as it wobbled onward, tooting several more times.

"Hey, wait!" she called after the tyke as it turned the corner, out of sight.

"THERE you are little guy, you had daddy worried sick!" called a voice from behind the building.

Judy looked relieved. "Oh good, sir, I just found him wandering... NICK?" she exclaimed as she once more cleared the building and saw who had spoken.

"Oh man, I thought for sure I was getting taken to Child Protective Services again!" said the costumed fox in a deep, gravelly voice as he pulled the costume's trunk from his face and spat out the pacifier. "You know this bunny, Nick?"

"Wait, you know HIM?" Judy said, utterly shocked.

"I told you, Carrots, I know everybody. But yes, I'd like you to meet Finnick. He was my partner in my old life."

Judy cautiously offered Finnick a paw, still looking very confused. "Hi, I'm Judy. Judy Hopps."

The tiny fox removed the hood, seeming to ignore the bunny as he continued looking at Nick. "Yeah, the GOOD life! Before you went and turned to the dark-blue side," he said as he turned to face Judy again, sizing her up. "AAAHAHAHA, Wilde, you are just too much. First you go running off to play 'Paw and Order', now you hangin' around with a bunny? She don't even look like a streetwise bunny, what did you do, scoop her up out of some little podunk and bring her here just to see the sights?"

Judy was not amused. "Actually, Podunk is in Deerbrooke County. I grew up in Bunnyburrow."

This only caused Finnick to laugh again. "Okay okay, enough. Nick, what did I tell you about showing your ugly muzzle around here in that suit? Get yo' fluffy butt in here before someone sees us." The smaller fox produced a set of keys and opened the van's back door, ushering Nick and Judy inside.

The van was pretty clearly lived-in. Behind the front seats was a small bed covered in rumpled sheets and some hastily-stowed bundles of Finnick's belongings, and the shag carpeting dipped in several spots where heavy objects had recently depressed it. The whole cabin was suffused with the unique, musty smell of vintage wood and fabric. Finnick tossed a large beanbag chair back to Nick and Judy, retrieving a smaller one for himself.

"Now, I can see this ain't a social call. What do you want, Nick? And how did you even know where to find me?" Finnick asked in a more serious tone.

Nick let himself fall bodily into the beanbag, the resulting surge of foam pellets nearly bucking Judy who had seated herself more gently a moment before. "Oh come on, Daddy knows his little boy better than that."

"'EY! Don't think I wont bite your face off right in front of this bunny!" Finnick snapped.

"Actually Nick, I was wondering the same thing. What is he supposed to do with that plate number that you couldn't get from the DMV?" Judy asked as she repositioned herself.

Nick gave her a sage look. "Did I mention which mammals run the DMV, Carrots? Well they're sloths. All of them. We would have been in there until my 48 hours ran out and then some, even if we were lucky and got my buddy Flash to help us out." He waved a paw up at his erstwhile partner. "This guy though, well he likes to keep track of where some of the, shall we say well off residents of Zootopia tend to go. Easiest way to do that is just to follow the fancy cars, and since our self-deprecating yak friend was nice enough to tell us our otter got into a fancy white car with silver trim..."

Judy's eyes lit up as she followed his logic, one foot beginning to thump into the carpet. "Then maybe he knows who owns the car and where it is!" She completed Nick's sentence, punching him lightly in the arm as she did.

Finnick just scowled disinterestedly at Nick. "Nuh-uh. No way, no how Nick. You ain't gonna catch me workin' with the fuzz! Find your own dang car."

"Gee Nick, some partner you found," Judy mockingly lamented at the red fox. "You told me you had been a hustler since you were pretty young, right?"

Nick knew immediately where she was going, and played along. "Did I say that? Yes, yes I did. Since I was 12, in fact, and Finnick was with me almost from the start."

"Wow," breathed Judy in mock surprise. "So, years of history being friends and working together, and now he won't even help you with your duty to find a poor, innocent otter?"

"Friends it stretching it a bit. It's gonna take more than a dumb bunny to pull a guilt trip on old Finnick," the fennec chided her.

Judy continued unfazed. "And even after all that money you must have helped him make, which was how much?"

"Two hundred bucks a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year," Nick proudly declared.

The rabbit pretended to tally the numbers on her paw. "Two hundred a day times three hundred and sixty-five, that's seventy-three thousand... Since you were 12, about two decades, so times twenty years, gives us one million, four hundred and sixty thousand I think... I mean, I am just a dumb bunny, but we are good at multiplying! Wow, Nick, I guess you can put a price on friendship."

Finnick burst out laughing. "I'll give credit where it's due bunny, you've got style. Now I'm gonna assume that when you get tired of hanging around with Saint Nick here and want to come learn to hustle for real, you'll look me up. You've got some real potential, might even out-hustle Nick! Hustle him GOOD! Heeheehee..."

"Don't count on that one, big guy," Nick said, snapping before pointing one of his claws at Finnick with a wink.

"Naw, for real! Won't be able to tell who's hustling who after a minute..." the little fox kept giggling, the hood of his purple onesie bobbing behind his ears. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll bite. Now what's this about a car?"

Judy reached over to Nick's belt and pulled his notepad out of its pouch, handing it to him with a very self-satisfied grin on her muzzle.

"Alright, don't let it go to your head," Nick admonished her quietly as he snatched the pad, flipping it open to the correct page. "Let's see... Big white car, silver trim, in need of maintenance, last seen in Sahara Square leaving the Mystic Spring Oasis. License plate number 29THD03."

Finnick nodded, his impressively large ears swaying as he did so. "Okay. Just give me a sec to get out of this get-up." He stood upright and unzipped the purple costume, revealing an outfit of khaki shorts and a black bowler shirt with a single red stripe as the elephant suit fell to the floor and he kicked it off of his paws.

With greater agility now that he was free of the restrictive fabric, the tan fox leaped over his bed and retrieved a plastic storage box full of hanging files, setting it on top of the wrinkled sheets. With practiced speed and dexterity his little ebony claws flicked across the tabs, finally settling on the relevant header and removing a thin manila envelope with a flourish.

Finnick's copper eyes darted across a page in the file, following his own finger which eventually settled on the information he was searching for. "29THD03... 29THD03... BAM! Got it," he said, victorious, as he turned his head back up to face Nick.

"Way to hustle, pal, I knew we could count on you!" Nick exclaimed, leaning forward expectantly as he waited for Finnick to continue.

Finnick just stared back as he held his place on the paper in his paws.

"Well?" Nick and Judy asked in near-perfect unison.

"You owe me BIG for this one Nick," he responded, his brow leveling into a more serious expression. "See, I got this idea a while back for a hustle. I'll spare you the details, but to get it rolling I'll need one of those huge Jumbo Pop popsicles they only sell to big mammals, elephants and hippos and the like. You're gonna help me get one."

"Okay, fine. We'll make it happen. So where is this car?" Nick growled.

Finnick donned his own toothy variation of Nick's usual expression. "I'll tell you just as soon as we get back."

"You want to do this right now? Are you serious?" Nick said, his left ear tilting down in irritation. "This really isn't the best time."

"Yeah, we're kind of running against the clock," Judy chimed in.

"So I heard," Finnick said, "48 hours, right? I'm guessing something important happens after 48 hours and it ain't this car you're looking for turning back into a pumpkin. I think I've got a pretty good idea what it is too. Sounds like we better get hustling!"

Nick jumped up off the beanbag and snatched the papers out of the other fox's grasp, turning immediately to look for the information he needed. The pages were blank. All of them.

"HAHAHAHAAAAA, you should see the look on your face!" Finnick guffawed. "You really think I'd keep that kind of thing layin' around here for anyone to find? Never forget who taught you how to play this game, Nick. Now, let's get this show on the road, or the only place you'll be writing tickets is in line at the unemployment office. Or you can try your luck with the sloths. Up to you."

Nick had never looked less amused. "Well then, let's go get us a Jumbo Pop."

Finnick jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine; as the van came to life, some very loud rap in a foreign language started blasting out of the speakers. The fennec fox took his sunglasses from the dashboard, slapped them on his face, and pulled out of the alley.

"We've probably passed twenty ice cream shops by now, where are we going exactly?" Nick said as he climbed up into the passenger seat half an hour later.

"You know the drill," Finnick replied, "can't start too close to home. I've been keeping tabs on the shops up here, this is the one we can work. Now get yourself outta those blues, I think I still have some threads your size in the back." The van turned around one final corner, coming to a stop along the sidewalk. "This is the place!" he said, pointing to the end of the street.

Nick looked out the windshield to where Finnick was indicating, and his eyes went wide; it was Jumbeaux's Cafe. "That's going to be a no-go on this place pal, I was just in there last week on patrol. The owner knows who I am. Got another place to try?"

"What? Dang..." Finnick swore. "No, this was it. Why do you gotta do this to me Wilde?"

Nick shrugged unapologetically. "Well then, since you're sans mark, I guess we're... Done?"

Finnick looked deep in thought for a moment, but then suddenly his eyes lit up and he spun around in the seat. "Hey bunny, how's your street game?"

Judy had been watching the city go by through one of the circular bubble windows in the back of the van, and was caught off guard. "Uh, what?"

"Can you act? Make stuff up as you go?" Finnick expanded.

"I guess so, I mean there was this talent show we had back when I was a kit..." she began.

"Okay cool, I don't need your whole autobiography. This could work." The tawny desert fox jumped from the driver's seat and went to the back of the van to explain his plan to Judy as he pulled his costume back on up to his torso and retrieved the pacifier.

"You catch all that?" Finnick said after hastily rattling off a scheme. Judy nodded. "Great. Nick, you just wait out front for a signal if we need backup. Let's move."

Finnick pushed the back door open and jumped from the tailgate, proceeding to wobble down the sidewalk with the stiff-limbed movements of a juvenile, befitting his cover. Judy exited next, buttoning a plain blouse over her blue shirt and vest as she hopped to the pavement. Nick casually stepped out behind her as he flicked his sunglasses back onto his face, shutting the door again behind them.

As they shadowed the little purple-clad hustler, Judy looked up with an uneasy expression. "I'm not so sure about this, Nick," she said in a hushed tone.

Nick didn't let the carefree grin fade from his face, though internally his mind was racing. This shop, of all places... The world has quite the sense of humor, he thought. "Don't sweat it Carrots, this is just like an undercover mission. We're not breaking any laws. If there was a better way to find Otterton right now we'd be doing it, that's the truth."

"You can't just go in and buy what he wants? I mean, you are a cop..."

"There are rules about that kind of thing. Not the best time to get into it. Just do your part, I'll be right outside."

Nick casually stopped to examine something in a shop window, allowing Judy to catch up to Finnick as the mock child entered the ice cream parlor. With the other two out of sight he let the defensive smile drop from his face. Despite his assurances, he really didn't like this plan either. Especially now that he was distracted by deja vu from the weird dreams the week before.

A bell chimed above the door as it was pushed open by a teenage hippo, allowing Judy and Finnick to slip through the massive entry behind him. They took their place in line behind a counter sized for the mammals behind it, a gruff-looking bull elephant wearing a pastel hat and apron, and a female behind him wearing a similar uniform. To the side was a glass display freezer which held their prize; three Jumbo Pops, yellow, red, and blue.

"Next!" called the pachyderm at the counter, making eye contact with an older female elephant who had fallen in line behind Judy.

The bunny took a breath and steeled herself. "Down here!" she waved at the clerk. "Hi! I'd like one Jumbo Pop please, for this little guy right here."

The cashier followed the voice down to look at the smiling bunny and wide-eyed, pacifier-suckling fennec fox. Taking on a weary look as he rolled his eyes, he said "what, there aren't any rabbit ice cream joints open on your side of town?"

Judy was taken aback at his harsh tone, but didn't let it show. "Oh, there are," she said, smiling brighter. "But this goofy little stinker here, well, he loves all things elephant. Even wants to be one when he grows up. Isn't that adorable?"

Finnick pulled the hood and trunk over his face, giving a quick toot.

Jumbeaux let out a breath. "Look lady, if I give that kid a Jumbo Pop, he'll never finish it. It will just melt all over the floor and then I'll have to mop up a sticky mess. We've got rules for a reason."

"We'll take it to go then!" Judy said as Ele-Finnick tottered over to the case. "Okay little guy, you want the red or the blue?" He pointed at the red pop in the middle, and as he turned his head he looked right past Judy and made eye contact with Nick outside, blinking twice.

"They still teach reading out in the tri-burrows, right bunny? Well read this." The shopkeeper pulled a sign into view with his trunk, pointing to each word as he read it. "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Now scram."

"You're holding up the line!" barked the older female pachyderm behind them. The door bell chimed once more.

Judy knelt down to Finnick's eye level. "Sorry little toot-toot, this has to be about the worst birthday ever," she said, planting a quick kiss on his forehead. He sobbed through the costume, producing two sad little toots.

"Did I hear a birthday boy in here?" Nick said from the doorway as he sauntered in behind another patron.

"Oh, hello officer. Actually, we were just leaving." Judy sighed, looking at the little faux elephant once more. "Maybe we can dig up a birthday treat for you somewhere back at the orphanage."

"And he's an orphan?" Nick feigned shock. "Well now, we can't let him leave without a birthday treat! Mr. Jumbeaux, don't you agree?"

The store owner glared; behind him, his employee scooped up a large mound of strawberry ice cream. "Afternoon, Officer Wilde. Like the bunny says, she was just leaving."

Nick looked pointedly at the worker, suddenly speaking in a louder voice. "Whoopsie, hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure that serving food with an un-gloved trunk is a health code violation! Class three, in fact. I'd hate to think of your customers getting SNOT AND MUCUS with their cookies and cream!"

Several of the onlooking cafe patrons balked, and one elephant unfortunate enough to have just taken a bite sprayed it all over his friend as he involuntarily gagged. The employee dropped the scoop of dessert, shuffling sheepishly into the back room while wiping her trunk on her apron. Jumbeaux looked horrified.

Nick smirked and went on. "Of course, I could overlook it for now if you were to glove up those sniffers and finish getting the birthday boy here his Jumbo Pop. Sound fair enough?"

The elephant's face sank back into a frown. "Fifteen dollars," he droned.

Nick pulled out his wallet and laid a twenty on the counter. "Keep the change," he said coolly to the shop owner before spinning to face Judy. "My treat, miss...?"

"Hopps," Judy supplied, shaking his paw. "Thank you so much, officer, you're too kind!"

Finnick stretched his arms up at the navy-clad fox.

"Oh, look at that smile! That's a happy birthday smile!" Nick said as Finnick bounced on his toes.

Jumbeaux handed the red Jumbo Pop over to Nick, and with the eyes of a score of cafe patrons on their backs, they took their leave.

"I think that might just be the first good thing that's ever come from you being a cop!" Finnick laughed as they got far enough away from Jumbeaux's Cafe. "And what did I tell you, this bunny is a natural."

Nick ignored him as he hefted the spoils of their victory from his shoulder and passed the frozen treat to his old partner. "So where is this car?"

"Just one more thing," the large-eared fox grunted as he took hold of the Jumbo Pop's stick.

"Hey!" Judy angrily interjected. "We did what you asked, you can't keep us on the hook forever. We don't have time for any more of your schemes."

"Keep your fluffy tail on, rabbit, it won't take long. I just need Nick's help getting this thing onto that roof." Finnick used his nose to point to a building with a terra cotta roof next to his parked van, where what looked like a roasting spit had been set up above the gutter.

Nick saw what he was supposed to do, jumping on top of a stack of wooden pallets high enough to climb onto the building's fire escape. Finnick passed back the popsicle, and he hauled it up the rickety metal steps to the roof and placed it into the holder that had been set up. He then gracefully slid down the roof tiles and jumped over the edge, grabbing the downspout with a paw and sliding down again to land on the sidewalk.

Finnick pulled the cover off what appeared to be a heap of trash, revealing several large glass jars. He placed one under the gutter pipe just as red juice began trickling down. "Okay, now that car you're looking for. I don't even need my list for that one, it almost ran me over a couple of weeks ago. I remember that plate number. You're gonna be looking for a refrigerated limousine."

Nick was suddenly alert. "A limo took Otterton? Well, only one place that could be!"

"Why would an otter need a refrigerated limo?" Judy asked.

"Not a clue," Nick replied, "but there's only one company that operates refrigerated limos, and they're in Tundratown." He pulled out his phone and checked the time. "If we hurry, we should be able to make it before they close!"

"What are we waiting for then?" Judy exclaimed, springing onto her toes.

"That's the spirit, Carrots. Let's go!"

Together they sprinted up the street and out of sight, leaving Finnick shaking his head and laughing to himself as he loaded a jar of red popsicle juice into his van.

"Closed. Great," Nick said, shaking the chain and padlock securing the gate of Tundratown Limo Service. "And I can't request a warrant to get in since I'm still locked out of ZPD resources."

"That just isn't fair, we are so close!" Judy said, leaning against the fence to try to see the license plates on the parked limousines. It was useless, the driving artificial blizzards of Zootopia's arctic district immediately coated everything with opaque snow and ice.

"Yeah, well you know what they say about 'close'. It only counts in horseshoes and... Carrots?"

The rabbit had disappeared; where she had last stood there was a bunny-sized hole in the snow. On the opposite side of the fence, two gray-furred ears with black tips poked up from a snow bank.

"Carrots! What are you doing?" Nick hissed. "Get back over here!"

"Why don't you come over here?" she teased. "I'm pretty sure I saw a shifty-looking bunny burrowing under the fence."

"Oh, so I have probable cause now, is that it? A few hours with Finnick and he's already rubbing off on you. Fantastic." Nick grabbed onto the chain link surface and climbed over the frigid barrier, trying very hard not to smile at Judy's sly ingenuity.

"It's called a hustle, sweetheart!" Judy sang the saccharine mimicry of Nick's usual line with a sassy swing of her hips.

Nick dropped softly into a snowdrift on the inside of the fence. Together they proceeded down the line of parked limousines, wiping snow off the license plates until they found the car they were searching for.

"29THD03, this is it!" Nick whispered loudly as he located the right tag.

The driver's door had been left unlocked, and a blast of air even colder than the artificial winter around them escaped as it was pulled open. The fox and the bunny climbed into the cab, shutting the door as quietly as possible. Nick was at home in the dark interior, the predator's eyes offering excellent night vision. Judy, on the other hand, needed to pull out her phone for its flashlight.

"Look at this," Judy whispered, picking up a tuft of something white from the floor beneath the driver's seat. "Looks like polar bear fur!"

Nick nodded in agreement, though as common as polar bears were in Tundratown he thought nothing of it, proceeding immediately to pull open the car's glovebox. "Oh my god!" he gasped, his tail sticking straight out as he grabbed onto something within.

Judy stiffened, turning her phone's light onto the fox as she responded almost involuntarily. "What?!"

"The Velvety Pipes with Jerry Vole!" the vulpine exclaimed as he pulled two jewel cases from the compartment and displayed their covers to the bunny, a mischievous grin consuming his visage. "But on CD, who still uses CDs?"

Judy rolled her eyes and allowed her ears to fall back down from their alert position. "Nicholas Wilde, you're one ridiculous mammal," she breathed, climbing on top of the seat back.

"Takes one to know one, Fluff. You know you're loving every second of it," Nick retorted.

"Uh, Nick?" Judy said, a slight quaver in her voice as she turned back from the limousine's partition. The fox's keen eyes turned upwards at the sound of his name and he saw the rabbit's nose had begun to twitch. "You might want to see this."

His smile faded as he jumped on top of the broad seat, peering through the divider to see what had his junior detective so frazzled. The scene he was met with caused his own ears to fall flat against the back of his head; nearly every surface in the passenger compartment was marred by deep parallel gouges, and sizable chunks looked to have been bitten from the upholstery in several places.

"Those are claw marks, right?" Judy asked apprehensively.

"Yeah," Nick confirmed. "If our otter was here, he had a very bad day..."

Something on the floor glinted as Judy scanned her light across the rear of the vehicle. "Look, there's something down there!"

Nick slipped through the opening, landing wraithlike on the plush carpeting, and picked up the item Judy had indicated as the bunny joined him. "It's his wallet! Otterton was here, all right," concern seeped into his voice as he inspected the ID and several cards inside.

"But why? Who would take him all the way out to Tundratown, and what in the world happened here?"

"That's what we've got to figure out..." Nick trailed off as another shiny object caught his eye, an ornate crystal drinking glass that had been knocked off a mini-bar. He reached a paw down to pick it up and turned it over in his grip. The cup bore an etched graphic, a single letter in an ornamental gothic script.

The long, copper fur on the nape of the fox's neck stood on end as he saw the design. "Wait a minute. Oh, no no no... I know whose car this is, we have to leave. Now." he said in a harsh whisper.

"Why, whose car is it?" Judy asked, wide-eyed.

"That night at your spot in Bunnyburrow, remember when I told you I had a run-in with someone powerful?" Nick began as he haphazardly replaced the cup on its rack. Judy nodded. "Well, that's whose car this is. He's the most dangerous mammal in all of Tundratown, and he does NOT like me, so we have to go!"

"I-Isn't this a crime scene?" Judy stammered as Nick grabbed a paw and pulled her to the back door.

"Yeah, and it's going to be an even bigger one if he finds me here, so let's go!" Nick grabbed the handle for the door and swung it wide. As his nose turned to point into the frosty night, he was met by the sight of two towering white-furred mammals blocking their exit.

"Raymond! And is that Kevin?" the fox exclaimed, trying to keep a calm appearance though the shock that jolted his entire body betrayed him. Judy was stunned into fearful silence behind his back. "Long time, no see! Speaking of 'no see', how about you forget you saw me? Huh? For old-times' sake?"

The two polar bears reached down in unison, grabbing the pair in vise-like grips that enclosed their entire bodies. "That's a 'no'," Nick groaned as he and Judy were plucked from the limo and hauled across the lot to another car which sat idling. The bears got in, unceremoniously deposited the fox and the bunny between them, and shut the door as the car's engine roared and carried them out of sight.

Hey! So, this was ready to post several days ago but for whatever reason I wasn't able to upload it until now. Also I apologize for my slower updates in general, I have been finding myself with less and less free time to write lately.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

~FoxStang

The cover image is used with permission, and is copyright of user "sweetmarshmella" on DeviantArt.