The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 46

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 4 - The Wizard of Chaos

(Conclusion)

Back inside The Carrot Days Festival, a hundred things were happening all at once.

Jack LaPeigne was staying holed up in back of the stage, directing his security mammals from a makeshift command center set up in one of the trailers. The big bunny didn't like the idea of hiding at a time like this, but at the same time, he understood the necessity.

Nick and Judy had left him there; they had duties of their own to perform. Making their way to the Sheriff's station at the other end of dance, they found only one animal on duty...but fortunately for them that one, single deputy was Mac Cannon. On the way there, they had passed by the electrical substation, now fully inoperative thanks to the tender mercies of a young silver fox (and his white furred bunny companion.) While Nick appreciated Conor's efforts, holy foxtrot kid, does the word 'overkill' mean anything to you?

Chip Fielding had also departed, having insisted upon fursonally delivering the message that the power would be down for the rest of the evening, even though he knew he'd have to make that announcement from center stage-directly in the line of fire when the Guilford brothers arrived. Not only that, he'd have to remain there and keep repeating the message until the exodus was at least half-way complete. Nonetheless, he'd all but demanded the job.

"Whoever's going to tell that crowd we can't get the power back on, it has to be someone the animals of Burrow County know and recognize." he'd said, just before taking his leave. Nick could hear him even now, repeating the announcement for the fifth time. He had to admire the beaver. A sleazy politician he might be, but he was possessed of both courage and a commitment to the mammals of Bunnyburrow.

"Ladies and...(inaudible) we're sorry to...(inaudible) due to a technical mishap..."

He'd had to say it three times before the dance attendees had stopped their grumbling and begun moving towards the exits. Only in the last few minutes had the trickle become a steady stream, with everyone being guided along by Jack LaPeigne's security guards. Nick had to admit, they knew their job; they were taking the larger animals out through the stage exit, and the rodents by way of the secondary exit. The mid-sized and small mammals, by far the largest group, were being directed out through the main entrance.

All well and good, but it wouldn't be enough and the red fox knew it; there was no way on earth they could get this place cleared out before the Guilford brothers made their move. (Judy's family at least had already made their exit, not through any effort on her part, but because they'd happened to be close to the main gate when the announcement came. )

Not all of them had made it out, though. Bonnie Hopps had called only moments ago, asking if Judy had seen Erin anywhere. She'd had to tell her mother no, although Nick could swear he'd caught the young bunny's scent again when they'd passed by the electrical substation a while ago. Agggggh, grrrr, if only his crazy idea would work. But not only was that a remote possibility, even if the plan succeeded, it could still backfire and in the worst possible way-as Mac Cannon had succinctly pointed out only moments earlier.

"What if either of those planes goes down into the crowd, did you ever think of that, fox?"

Nonetheless the bobcat had endorsed the scheme-reluctantly, and only as a last resort. There simply wasn't time to come up with anything else. "But only if I give the word," he had cautioned Nick.

By now the Burrows County Sheriff's office was well aware of what Jerry Guilford had something planned for the Big Dance; they had heard it from Chip Fielding, they had heard it from Aker Security; they'd first heard it second-paw courtesy of Conor Lewis. But that was all they knew. When the Burrows County SWAT team had swooped in on the Guilford homestead, Brother Darrel had offered them no resistance-or anything else. "I ain't sayin' nuthin' without a lawyer," he'd told them.

Nick of course knew everything, but he had nothing in the way of hard proof, only circumstantial evidence and a gut feeling; he could only reveal so much of what he believed was about to go down without destroying his own credibility. Yes there were a couple of planes out there, but how did he know that they were being flown by the Guilford brothers? That had been the Mac Cannon's first question, and that was why the fox had said nothing about the Harequateline.

That was what made Jerry Guilford's plan for revenge so truly diabolical; if Nick had suggested that the coyotes were planning to spray the dance with fertilizer, the Burrows County Sheriff's Office would have accepted it without question. If he'd said they were coming in with a low-level pesticide like Malathion, that also might have flown...but Harequatilene? Forget it, being sprayed with that stuff was literally too horrible for anyone to contemplate. Mac's superior, Sheriff's Lieutenant Cal Hornaday, a bull bison not only believed the electricity going out was the Guilford brothers' act of vengeance, he was all but certain that they had nothing else planned, at least for tonight.

(But at least he'd agreed that the dance should be evacuated.)

Now as the patrons streamed towards the exits, Nick was all too aware of the steady drone of the two aircraft circling somewhere out beyond the perimeter. At first, only Judy had been able to hear them, but now he could as well.

But there was another thing he was aware of as well, the first rule of a good hustle said that it didn't matter what the mark believed, as long as you got him to behave in the manner that you wanted. Even without knowing that the Guilford brothers were carrying such a dangerous cargo, the Burrow County Sheriff's Department had done everything Nick could have wished; they had dispatched a SWAT team to the Guilford Family Compound, they had greenlit the evacuation order, and they had repeatedly ordered the two coyotes to, 'turn those planes around right now!' The department's helicopter had also been ordered to head straight to the Carrot Days Festival after dropping those car crash victims at Burrow County General, but it wouldn't arrive for another hour at least.

So far, so good, but Nick Wilde knew that if it came down to putting his plan into action, the BCSD would NEVER give him the okay unless they knew those planes out there were loaded with Harequateline...and he couldn't just tell them outright.

Fortunately, he had an idea...but even that wouldn't help if they couldn't get everything set up in time.

Raising the binoculars he'd borrowed from the Deputy Cannon, Nick rolled the focus knob and looked to the north. He had a good view of his surroundings; the Sheriff's station was equipped with a raised platform that offered a bird's eye view of not only the Big Dance but also the entire Carrot-Days festival.

Out past the fence-line, in a field just beyond a row of telephone poles, a pack of animals of varying sizes was hard at work. At first glance, they might almost have been mistaken for farm-workers, planting crops for the new season-except that this well after dark and these were no vegetables they were pegging into the soil; they were thick sections of PVC pipe, about three feet in length and with the approximate diameter of a softball.

And the speed with which they were working was also much more feverish than any sort of farm activity.

Returning the binoculars to Mac Cannon, Nick exchanged them for a two way radio and pressed the talk button.

"How's it going over there? Over." he asked.

The voice that came back was sketchy, scratchy, and more than a little aggravated.

"Not as good as if we could work if we weren't being pestered alla time. Over"

Nick's ears went flat and he let out a soft growl, this was exactly the second time he'd called for a progress report. He was about to say so, when the voice came back again.

"We got about a third of the tubes planted, maybe a few more. Over" He had a rough, deep voice that conjured up images of a large, hooved mammal in Nick's mind. You never knew, though. Finnick had a voice like a double-bass rock crusher and how big was he?

"Okay," the fox answered, suppressing another growl, (only a third; that wasn't nearly enough.) "Just keep at it and forget the smaller stuff. Wilde out."

Instead of acknowledging the sign-off, the voice returned sounding even more vexed, "What in heck do you think we're doing?" And then Nick heard someone else talking in the background. "Roy, ask if him if this run'round has anything to do with them planes up there."

He hurriedly switched frequencies before the question could be posed.

Nick had no sooner returned the radio to Mac Cannon than the bobcat abruptly tensed. "There they are!" he said, rolling the focus knob on the binoculars.

"What are they doing?" It was Judy talking, her nose twitching curiously.

"Just cruising it looks like," the deputy answered, sounding even more bewildered than she did.

"I think I know what they're up to," Nick told them, tapping the side of his muzzle, "Whenever one of us canid species can't navigate by sight, we always fall back on our sense of smell. They're trying to get wind of the big dance and home in on it that way," he sighed and felt his ears drooping, "and it won't be too hard for them with so many bodies all packed together like this."

The tone of his voice was not lost on his partner.

"At least you bought us some time Nick," she said, patting his arm, "If you hadn't gotten the lights out, they'd probably have hit us already."

He just smiled wanly at her; that unintended benefit was rapidly coming to the end of its shelf life; already the dance-floor was peppered with the glow of a hundred cell-phones...to say nothing of the beams of at least two dozen flashlights. Why the Guilfords hadn't spotted them already, the fox had no idea.

Right then his cell-phone came alive.

It was Conor Lewis on the other end. In his agitated state, Nick came that close to addressing the kid by his correct name but then hurriedly caught himself.

"Finnick, did you get him, did it work?"

"Yeah, I got him," the young fox answered, speaking between gulps of air, "and yeah, I fooled him; you were right, big guy. When I told him that big jerk was talking with Chip Field..."

"Okay, good work," Nick said and then rang off. He would love to have heard the rest of it, but time was precious.

"Well?" Judy asked him, raising an ear, "did he go for it?"

"Finnick thinks so," the red fox answered, hedging his bets. He hadn't quite given her the true version of his plan; no way could the deep voiced fennec-fox have passed for Jerry Guilford's son. So instead he had told her that his former partner was pretending to be the coyote's brother Darrel, (who, unbeknownst to Nick, sounded even less like the desert fox than Craig did, but never mind, Judy had no way of knowing that and so she'd bought the story wholesale.)

But now that he knew the message had been received, this was the time for Nick to play hi ace; and so he motioned to Mac once more. (He could only pray that the bobcat would know what they were when he saw them-IF he even could see them.)

"Okay, I need those binocs again."

"All right," the bobcat answered passing them over. "But nothing happens unless I give the order, got that?" It sounded as if he was starting to like Nick's plan less and less with every passing minute.

"I understand," the red fox answered raising the lenses to his eyes. "Where are they?"

"There," the deputy pointed, "About three clicks right of the Ferris Wheel, two, maybe three hundred feet in the air. See 'em?"

At first the fox saw nothing but black wool and fuzzy dots. When he adjusted the focus knob on the binoculars, things improved only a little. The view was clear enough, but he saw nothing except the night sky. Hold it, wait a second; there they were, a pair of indistinct shapes moving against the darkness. Nick wondered for a second why there weren't any lights showing and then nearly gave himself a face-pawlm. D'ohhh, right...of course they'd have the lights turned out, they didn't WANT to be seen. He tweaked the focus-knob again by just a hair and finally the two aircraft sharpened into clarity, still moving lazily out past the west-side boundary of the Festival. But where were the...? Yes, there they were, or at least one of them anyway.

Okay this was it, he lowered the binoculars again and looked over at Mac Cannon.

"Say Mac, what's that weird-looking thing on the underside of those planes?" he asked, offering the deputy a look of casual curiosity.

"Weird-looking what, now?" Mac was tapping his arm and motioning for the binoculars.

"Some kind of turbo-gadget...looks almost like a siren." Nick told him, and the bobcat all but ripped the binoculars out his paws. (Yes! He knew what the fox was describing.)

Raising the binocs to his eyes once more, Mac yowled and almost dropped them.

"Holy Catgut...those are CEDS units! Those planes are loaded with..."

He practically threw the binoculars back to Nick and made a fast grab for his radio.

Nick no sooner found the planes again than he felt his throat go tight and his tail starting to frizz. They had gone into a sudden, sharp bank, turning directly east, homing in directly on the Carrot Days Festival; they seemed to be coming straight towards him. His plan hadn't worked, he had messed up again; they were heading in from the wrong direction.

But then as he watched, the aircraft continued to turn, sweeping around and heading north.

"It's working!" he said, feeling his tail fur standing up again, but this time with a sense of exhilaration, "Holy foxtrot it's working, they're headed for the north side."

He felt Judy grab his arm, "Don't let them out of your sight, Nick."

Mac Cannon said nothing; he was still talking on his radio. Nooo, not talking; it sounded more like he was having an argument with somebody.

"Forget about him, keep your eye on those planes," the red fox reminded himself.

For the moment, the pair of crop-dusters just continued on their course. Turned at a different angle than a moment ago their colors had finally become visible to the fox, if however faintly, crystal white with fluorescent orange trim.

He felt his tail shivering in derision.

"Oh for fox's sake, what do you super-geniuses think this is; an air-race or something?"

But then something else occurred to him and he glanced over at Mac Cannon.

"Bright orange and white, are those the colors of...?"

"Yes, that's the Guilford brothers." The bobcat answered tersely. Nick let out a small, short breath. If he intended to get the okay for his idea, every bit of evidence mattered.

For another moment, the two planes continued to recede into the night sky and the red fox was tempted to hope that they'd given up and were calling it quits.

But deep down, he knew better. Jerry Guilford wouldn't walk away, not now, not when he had not one but two of his most hated enemies almost directly in his sights.

As if to confirm this, the planes went into another turn, wider this time. As they wheeled around, Nick saw them settle once more into a side-by-side formation, coming out of the north, aiming directly for the heart of the big dance.

Judy's grip on his arm tightened and he saw her ears go up.

"Nick, they're revving their engines, give the order!"

The red fox swiftly lowered the binoculars and held out a paw to Mac Cannon.

"Mac? Give me the radio."

The bobcat appeared not to hear him, huddled over the two-way and speaking in a low, anxious voice.

"Mac?" he repeated, this time more urgently, "Mac, come on." Now he could hear the engines revving too.

Again, the deputy seemed to take no notice.

"Mac!" Nick almost shouted, grabbing for the two-way. The bobcat hurriedly pulled out of reach... and in that motion, the radio came away from his ear and the fox could hear the speaker on the other end.

"And you tell that bushy-tailed idiot his crazy scheme is NOT happening. Of all the irresponsible, lame-brained..."

"Mac please!" It was Judy Hopps, "Nick knows what he'd doing, give him the radio!"

"Please, it's our only chance." Nick was practically begging.

For half a second, Mac Cannon seemed to waver, but then with a heavy look on his face, he opened his jacket and prepared to put the radio back where he'd gotten it.

"Hey Judy, Judy Hopps, is that you up there?" a familiar voice called from below.

She leaned over the railing with her nose twitching. Who in heck...?

"Oh yeah, thought it was you. Hey, have you seen your sister Erin around anywhere?"

Before Judy could answer, Mac Cannon was there beside her, gazing downwards, wide eyed and shaking.

"Wha...S-Susie?"

"Yeah Dad," the young bobcat answered looking up bewildered. "What's going on?"

Mac didn't answer her; instead he turned on his heel and tossed the radio to Nick.

"Do it fox, stop those planes!"

Nick grabbed the paw-held and frantically changed frequencies. In the distance he could hear the Guilford brothers, revving their engines faster and faster.

"Nick hurry," Judy cried, "they're pulling up and getting ready to dive."

The fox had no idea how she knew that and didn't care one bit. He keyed the mike and shouted into the radio, "Fire in the hole!"

What he got back was an irritated groan.

"Light 'em off now? Are you nuts or something, son? There's a couple of airplanes 'bout to fly right over us."

"I know!" Nick almost fox-screamed. "That's the Guilford brothers!"

The voice on the other end promptly shifted from prickly to perplexed.

"The Guilford brothers, who the heck are the...?"

"The Guilfords!" a voice cried out in the background. "Oh my God... Bobby, light those fuses, hurry!"

"But why...?"

"There's no time, light 'em all, light 'em NOW!"

The radio went silent again. At the same instant he heard, Judy's breathless whimper.

"Ohhhh, sweet Cheez n' Crackers."

Nick looked and saw that the two planes had gone into a steep dive; even without binoculars he could see them clearly now.

Both aircraft were trailing thick, white, chemical plumes from their undersides. He'd been right after all, but finding out this way it was no kind of comfort.

Out towards the line of telephone poles, Nick thought he saw movement and perhaps a spark or two but...

THAMP!

With a noise like a basement door slamming a white-hot, glowing orb shot up into the sky, and then another and another...and then whole barrage of mortar-rockets burst upwards out of their tubes , trailing tendrils of gray smoke behind them.

But even before the first firework detonated, Nick could see that they had launched too late; the Guilford planes had already passed overhead, the rockets would explode in their wake.

All he could do was watch helplessly as the first one detonated behind Jerry Guilford's plane, a green and white flower. The next one went off behind Joe's aircraft sending a cascade of tracers screaming in all directions. The two aircraft wavered slightly but continued to come on, sowing their toxic clouds behind them. Another rocket exploded; a red and orange fireball and then another one, a blue and white peony. With every launch, the detonations seemed to be falling further and further behind the approaching planes.

Then a purple starburst exploded perhaps 20 yards behind Joe's plane, directly in the center of his herbicide contrail...and set it on fire! With the speed of a lit gasoline trail, an incandescent carpet of flames shot forward in the direction of the crop-duster, swiftly engulfing the undercarriage. At once the aircraft began to violently turn and jink, as Joe tried desperately to snuff out the fire in the slipstream.

His older brother might have escaped the conflagration and completed his mission-none of the fireworks were detonating anywhere close to the plume trailing behind his plane. But then, in his panic Joe swerved right through it, and with a flash like a thousand camera-bulbs, the second trail of herbicide became a luminous sheet of flame.

Nick watched the spectacle with a mixture of fascination, horror, and something resembling pity. As the two planes wheeled and turned, trying vainly to put out the fires, they resembled nothing so much as a pair of giant moths that had passed too close to a candle flame.

"Why don't they shut the release valves?" he heard Judy say from beside him. (They would later learn that the heat had melted them open.)

From everywhere around them they could hear the sound of 'Ooo's' and 'Aaah's'; at least some of the crowd seemed to think the scene there were witnessing was all part of the show.

That fantasy ended in a chorus of alarm when one of the planes turned and appeared to dive straight for the center of the dance floor. Nick screamed and so did Judy, but then the crop-duster pulled up and away again, making a fast beeline for the northwest, with the other plane following close behind.

Only then did Nick allow the air to escape from his lungs. Safe, the dance was safe.

Then someone grabbed his shoulder and he heard Mac Cannon's voice. "They're heading for the irrigation pond, look!"

Nick looked...just in time to see one of the planes vanish in a tall geyser of steam and smoke. A split second later, the other one came in at a shallower angle, sending up two-story rooster-tail of dirty-green water before it too disappeared in a fog of its own creation.

"Come on!' the bobcat said, and then he, Nick, and Judy were bounding down the stairs and running for a nearby Sheriff's cruiser. As Mac passed by his daughter, he aimed a fast finger in her direction.

"Susie, go find your mother."

"But dad..."

"Don't argue!"

By the time they reached the irrigation pond, several other first responders had already gotten there ahead of them. Nick counted an ambulance, a fire truck and at least two other Sheriff's cruisers, the flashing red-and-blue roof-lights looking ghostly in the dust kicked up by their tires. The pond itself was not visible from ground level; it remained hidden behind a tall berm of packed earth.

Exiting the cruiser, Nick and Judy found themselves in the midst of what seemed like total chaos, shouting voices, running figures and more swirling dust. Then they saw what looked like an armored command car with 'ASM' stenciled on the side, pulling up about 10 yards away. Then the doors opened and a pair of wolverines exited, followed by Jack LaPeigne. (No need for him to stay hidden any longer.) The big bunny nodded a brief greeting, and then everyone was scrambling up and over the earthen levee that formed the bank of the reservoir.

What they found on the other side was a scene of almost surreal tranquility

The water's surface looked as black as midnight and as smooth as a sheet of glass, crisscrossed everywhere by the beams of what seemed like an infinite number of flashlights and tactical searchlights. Several of these were focused on an object jutting out of the water, about half way towards the center of the pond, the tail section of a crop-duster plane. Standing at an almost vertical angle, it conjured an oddly incongruous image in the depths of Nick Wilde's mind, the rear end of a fox who'd just dived head-first through the snow, in search of a fleeing rodent. No sound was present except for the crackling of radios, not even the croaking of frogs or the hum and buzz of insects.

But then the breeze shifted slightly, and something hot and unpleasant rose up in Nick Wilde's throat. The pond's aroma was sickeningly foul, and not just from the fertilizer that infused its waters; an unpleasant, bitter-burning odor was present underneath it.

It was not only the stench that was making the fox's gorge rise however; the full impact of what he'd done was just now starting to hit home-and it didn't feel good.

The idea behind the fireworks launch had been to put a stop to the Guilford brothers' plans; Nick certainly hadn't intended to hurt them, (although he'd realized from the get-go that such was a distinct possibility.) Like every other ZPD officer, the last thing Nicholas Wilde had ever wanted to do was take a life in the line of duty, not even if he found himself in a kill-or-be-killed situation-not even if there were many other lives hanging in the balance besides his own.

Without warning three of the beams moved to a single point on the surface of the water. In less than a heartbeat, they were joined by practically every other light-source on the levee.

About twenty yards away, perhaps ten feet in front of where Jack La Peigne was standing, something was moving in the water.

At first, nothing was visible but a swirl and an eddy...and then all at once something broke through the surface, flailing and splashing like some primordial thing that had suddenly awakened after centuries of hibernation.

Nick gasped, so did Judy, so did practically everyone else standing along the shoreline. A few of the animals even took a step backwards.

Jerry Guilford had his paw around this brother's shoulder and was half guiding, half dragging him towards the shoreline. Joe Guilford seemed to be barely conscious, his head lolling lazily to and fro and his tongue hanging sideways from the corner of his mouth; his left eye appeared to be swollen almost completely shut.. Nothing was left of either the two coyotes' flight suits except a collection of shreds and tatters.

But it wasn't any of this that was causing the spectators to draw back in horror. Neither one of the Guilford brothers had so much as a strand of fur remaining on their bodies. They were bald as pair of newborn naked mole-rats; the herbicide with which they had planned to take their revenge upon the mammals of Bunnyburrow had instead become an instrument of karma.

Then Jerry Guilford's gaze fell on Jack LaPeigne. His lips pulled back, exposing his teeth, (several of which had broken) and his voice became the guttural shriek of an engine trying to run at high speed without sufficient lubrication.

"You!" he screamed, "You dirty, no-good... I'LLBITE YOUR DUMB-BUNNY FACE OFF!"

He dropped his brother and came charging out of the water.

Jack LaPeigne did not run, instead he turned and grabbed a T-baton from the wolverine standing nearest him, taking hold of the weapon as casually as if he were only planning to inspect it.

Then he turned and leaped to the attack.

Jerry saw him and came on with his jaws wide open, aiming for the big bunny's throat. They snapped shut on empty air as La Peigne slid underneath him, aiming for the coyote's midsection with the baton. Jerry instantly doubled over and the next blow sent him sprawling on his face, out cold.

Then Nick Wilde saw the big rabbit start to raise the baton a third time, as if preparing to finish off his opponent once and for all. He opened his mouth to shout something, but La Peigne seemed to realize what he was doing and calmly returned the baton to the wolverine from who he'd taken it.

And then he turned and walked away from the fallen coyote without even so much as a backwards glance.

For what seemed like a long time afterwards, nothing happened. No one wanted to touch Jerry Guilford...or his brother, (who had luckily dropped into only a foot of water, face up.)

It wasn't until a foursome of EMTs in Haz-Mat suits arrived that the two coyotes were finally loaded onto gurneys and wheeled away towards a pair of waiting ambulances.

Only after they had gone was Nick Wilde able to summon up the courage ask it, the question that had been gnawing at him ever since he'd stepped out of the Sheriff's Cruiser.

"Is...Is everyone all right?" he queried in a high, shaky voice. It had been intended as rhetorical, but a voice behind him responded anyway.

"Yes Nick, everyone's okay."

He turned and saw Mac Cannon, once more in the process of stashing his radio.

"Everyone's fine, no injuries, except for the Guilford brother s," the bobcat assured him, and then smiled and held out his paw, "thanks to you; that was some darn fine police work, Wilde."

Nick took the bobcat's paw and shook it, or rather he let Mac shake with him; his arm felt utterly drained of strength.

"Well," he smiled wanly, "That's what we do at the ZP....the ZP..."

The words ended in strangled, choking sound as everything the fox had been holding back finally breached the gates, overwhelming him in a flood tide of emotion. He sank to his knees, shivering and hugging himself.

And then another set of arms was wrapping around him and he heard Judy Hopps murmuring in his ear. "Shhhh Nick, it's okay; you did good, you did real good."

Nick just took her and held her close to him; he had never needed Judy more than he needed her right now.

"Ahhh you foxes," He heard her say, "you're so emotional." and held her even tighter.

But neither he nor his partner was aware that not far away, another rabbit was watching...observing them with baleful intent, determined that he wasn't out of this game yet...

...not by a long shot!

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Easter Eggs: Reference to a certain well-known coyote and also to a certain Pixar spin-off.