The next one and a half hour passed rather quickly in Alex point of view, as he saw himself being paw-cuffed, with his paws behind his back, and escorted to the van of the SWAT, and he was put in there, with two armed animals to watch over him, at a buff buffalo request.
Alex remembered that a few animals around the crowd were protesting about it.
“Why are you arresting him!? He is a hero!”
“The cougar did nothing wrong!”
“He saved us all! You can’t do this!”
However, most of the members of the crowd remained silent, only watching as Alex was taken into custody.
Alex remembered that during the trip, these two guards were keeping a watching eye on him. But Alex barely even minded them, as he was far too busy wondering what was going to happen to him now, that he had revealed his true nature as an evo.
Alex imagined that now there was going to have a huge repercussion about it, as it happened when that girl jumped from the Ferris wheel at that carnival and regenerated in front of all of the reporters, revealing to the whole world the existence of the evolved humans, who were later named as “evos”.
Alex remembered that the following years were a mess, and he was part of it. First there was the act of forcing evos to register, and a lot of anti-evo protests all around the world, including into his own home. These were years in which Alex had to be really careful, and when occurred the summit bombing, in June 13th, and the subsequent broadcast that happened, and the coming of the Renautas, Alex had to be triple careful.
He remembered that during that time he spent nights awake, afraid that at any moment these guys were going to break into his house and take him as prisoner to “god-knew-where” and do several things to him. Alex remembered that these were hard times, and they lasted for almost three years, right before the Renautas were exposed as the true culprits, and their whole scam was exposed to the world by Micah Sanders.
Right after these twins saved the world from that “HELE” thing, things at least started to get better, with evos slowly starting to be accepted and to take back their place into the world, living alongside humans. Of course, the process was very slow, and it took around one year after that for Alex finally to feel safe enough to don’t afraid of using his abilities out of the sanctuary of his own home.
Still, Alex was still having recurrent nightmares of another guy who would find a way to make people turn against evos, or who would chase them to kill then, or that would otherwise want to use them as tolls for its own devices. For what Alex knew, there were plenty of people like that out there, and the fear of these situations repeating themselves with him, or with any of his friends, was something that always scared Alex.
And right now, it seemed that it was happening.
Alex had just stopped armed and dangerous criminals from committing a crime and hurting innocents, and there he was, being arrested and watched as if he was a criminal himself.
Sure, they were not threating him as if he was a monster, not yet, at least, but this did not diminished Alex feeling that he was being arrested because of his powers, and of his condition as an evo. He knew that he was probably into a very hard situation, and he had a feeling that he could not expect for a Petrelli Movement to come into his help.
Alex imagined that, in this moment, he was alone, and he was now questioning himself if he had taken the right choice into surrendering like that. However, he soon convinced himself that, if he had fought them, then it would have been worse, for he would fight the authorities and he would paint his own image as a criminal.
This way, he was showing them that he was not evil, and that he was going to cooperate, and that he didn’t wanted any trouble. The fact that he had just helped to catch those criminals, who were all arrested too, probably was going to help it, and Alex had a feeling of that because some of the animals actually had stood for him and they actually protested as he was taken. That made Alex feel that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be better in this world, even after he revealed himself as an evo.
Still, the thousands of worries crept into his mind as he reminded himself to even before the great revelation of the evos to the world, as the people who knew it, and who had all kinds of intentions with him, from testing him to simply eliminating him, had chased him down in the past. After the much that he had passed, he was not the kind of guy who would simply lower his guard in a moment like that.
His mind was kept into the edge as he was guided inside that windowless van to an unknown destination. His mind was only snapped back to reality as the van stopped, and the doors were opened.
Soon, Alex was being escorted to out of the van, and in direction to a great building, which had the sayings “Zootopia Police Department” in the front. As Alex walked inside, he made his best to remain calm and composed as he was guided inside by six members of the SWAT, but deep inside, he was very nervous. He was escorted pass more animals, both civil and wearing police uniforms, and many of them were gathered, looking at cell phones or tablets, and they looked as the members of the SWAT walked inside, and some of them had wide eyes as they looked at the cougar being escorted by the members of the SWAT. Alex, however, paid them very little attention.
He focused only into the path that the SWAT was taking him, which led to a dark hallway, and they stopped in front of a door in the wall. Alex also stopped, and he turned around to look at another animal who was coming in his direction, and it was a pig of some short. A boar, actually, with a scar over his right eye, which was milky and blind.
For a moment, Alex and the boar both looked at each other, before Alex was turned around and had his back at the boar. Alex suddenly felt his wrists going free as the cuffs were released.
Alex was surprised at this, and he looked at the boar, massaging his wrists. The boar himself seemed hard to read as he simply looked at Alex as if he was any other animal, but Alex noticed that the guards all around seemed to be holding their own weapons harder, as if they were ready to act if the cougar decided to try anything.
The boar simply opened the door, and gestured calmly for Alex to enter.
Alex looked at him for a few moments, before he started to comply, and he entered the room. He saw himself into a grey room, illuminated by a lamp into the ceiling, and in the middle of it, there was a metal table, with one chair in each end. One wall of the room had a big mirror.
It was an interrogation room.
Alex looked at the boar, who gave him a look and a shrug, before he closed the door without any other word, leaving the cougar alone. Alex heard the distinct sound of the door being locked, signaling to him that he was stuck in there.
After that, Alex decided to go to the table and sit in there, and he waited, as he looked at the mirror in the wall. Alex knew that it was a double-sided mirror, and that there was someone in the opposite room watching him now. He didn’t even needed to have watched many police programs to know that, and to know that there WAS someone on the other side, looking at him in that same moment, and that they were going to watch him very intently as he was interrogated.
Alex spent a good deal of time in there, before he finally heard the door being unlocked, bringing him back from his reflection of the past, as he saw a familiar buffalo walking into the room, with something under his arm.
The buffalo locked eyes with him, and his expression was hard to read, but as far as Alex could see, the buffalo had no fear, hate, or despise towards him. This made him somewhat calmer, but still, Alex remembered himself that he was still there as a prisoner, for all that it seemed, and he had the feeling that the buffalo was going to be careful with him.
The buffalo closed the door behind himself, and he calmly walked in direction to the table, sitting with his back turned to the mirror and facing Alex. The buffalo placed what he had been carrying under his arm into the table, and Alex could see that it was a box.
Next, there was a long silence between the two of them as the buffalo simply looked at him, and Alex looked back.
After a few minutes, Alex got tired of that, and he said: “Look, I already know the trick of using silence treatment to make a suspect talk.”
“Then why you spoke?” The buffalo asked, somewhat matter-of-factly. He was testing him. Alex knew it, and he was not going to bite any kind of trap that the buffalo could let to him.
“Look, I already know all of these tricks you make in these places, silence treatment, ‘good cop, bad cop’, reverse psychology, all of them.” Alex said, and he added, “So, can we please cut out the games and all of the crap and go to what really matters?”
The buffalo looked at him, and he let out a sigh, and he said, “Well, I guess there must be a few reasons why you are here.” The buffalo said, and he looked at Alex, as he added, “Starting with aggression to a law officer.”
“Detective Wilde.” Alex said, knowing exactly where the buffalo wanted to get. The buffalo nodded at him, and he said:
“Yes, the fact that you attacked a law officer is by itself a problem.” He spoke, “However, this is engraved by the fact that you attacked him with lethal force.”
Alex remained silent, as he simply looked at him. “Yes, I imagine so… but I did really used lethal force in your officer.”
The buffalo looked at him, and he said, “What happened into that street was recorded by a traffic cam. I saw exactly what you did to my officer.”
Alex knew what he meant, and now, Alex cursed himself for not having seem any cameras around that could get what he did on tape…
XXX
On the other side of the double-sided glass, Judy, Nick, and Razorback were all looking at the cougar, all of them wondering just what was about him.
They were still all trying to process what they could see that the cougar was able to do, and they all were still trying to get a grip on it. Judy and Nick were still trying to understand how it was possible that they had seem a cougar firing arcs of lightning from his bare paws. Razorback, on his end, was still trying to understand what he had saw when they apprehended the cougar, as well as what he had been told by these two little officers and at least more fifty eye-witnesses, all claiming that the cougar had superpowers.
Of course, it didn’t helped that, all the while, Bogo seemed to be avoiding to give to them any kind of direct answer, and he only answered their questions with brief things, that didn’t really explained anything. Also, the buffalo had, in the past one and a half hour, made a lot of calls from his cell phone to someone, and these conversations seemed to be long and serious, by the expression on the buffalo’s face as he made them.
Of course, they weren’t able to hear what the calls were about, not even Judy, with her keen hearing, once Bogo made sure to stay out of their hearing shot every time that he made these calls. But, whoever he was talking with in them, it seemed that it was a subject that only he and the person on the other end should know about.
Matter of fact, Bogo had just made one more of these calls with the mysterious person on the other end of the line before going there to talk with the cougar. Bogo made question of this, and he made it completely clear that no one but him should interrogate the cougar, not even Nick and Judy.
Still, they were all allowed to watch the interrogation from the other room, what they were all doing now. Judy and Nick were standing into a chair, so their eyes were on the same level of the glass. Razorback was just standing into here, with a tablet in his hands. Bogo had gave it to him, and it had some “delicate subject footage”, which Razorback could see to “put himself in pair of the whole situation”, as Bogo himself had put it.
They were watching the discussion that Bogo was having with the cougar, about what he did to Nick.
“I didn’t wanted to hurt your cop.” The cougar said, and Bogo answered back:
“Still, the footage is very clear on what you did to him.”
As Bogo spoke that, Razorback turned his attention back to the tablet, and he pressed the play. The footage they were talking about was one that showed the cougar chained to a bench by a pair of cuffs, and Officer Wilde with his back turned to him, talking into his radio. Suddenly, the cougar looked to one side and then the other, before turning his head back to the small officer.
The cougar then stretched his arm and paw, and then, a small arc of lightning jumped from his paw right into the fox, making him convulse and drop to the ground, twitching slightly.
The boar snorted. It didn’t matter how many times he saw that footage, he was still having troubles to believe what he had just seem. If he had saw it earlier this morning, he would have thought that it was some kind of computer-made animation. He only continued to look at it, as the cougar next outstretched his open paw to the fallen officer, and soon, the fox was dragged to him, as if he was pulled by some invisible force.
“So, you shoot a lightning into one of my officers, and you claim that you didn’t wanted to hurt him?” Bogo said, and Razorback returned to look at him, knowing that form that point on, the footage only showed the cougar picking up the keys from the cuffs, un-cuffing himself and cuffing Officer Wilde to the bench. What was happening on the other room was, for sure, a much more interesting subject.
The cougar looked back at Bogo, and he said, “I really didn’t.”
“And I should believe you why…” Bogo said, and Alex, looking into his eyes, said:
“Because I could have killed him if I wanted.”
This made both Nick and Judy have the feeling of their blood running cold, as the cougar was not saying this the way a criminal would say, but instead, he was saying that as if he was simply stating a fact. It was hard to say what kind of expression Bogo was looking at him, but all the three animals imagined that it was something somewhat serious.
The cougar let out a long sigh. “Look, you probably know that I knocked out an elephant with a lightning, so , you must know that I can make a lot of energy when I do this.” The cougar said, and he raised his paw, and then, small lightnings jumped in between his fingers, before they condensed into a ball of the purest electric force.
It only lasted for a few moments, before the cougar put it out and lowered his paw once more. He continued to speak: “I made completely sure to use a very low voltage into your fox officer, and I made sure to see if he was okay later. If I wanted, I could have left him crispier than a cicada chip.”
Both Nick and Judy shuttered at the analogy that the cougar was making. Nick’s paw moved to scratch the place in his back where there was the mark left by the cougar. Knowing that it had come from such a source, and that it could have actually killed him if the cougar wanted, it was something that scared the fox.
“You speak like you know a lot about killing animals…” Bogo said, and the cougar simply looked back at him, with an unmoved expression, and he said:
“I understand of electricity.”
He took a more comfortable position, as he continued. “When you shot lightning from your… paws, it is the kind of thing that you have to understand about, so you don’t end up killing other people by accident. Yes, I understand a lot about electricity and its mechanics, I learned since I was small, since my powers first appeared.”
The cougar continued to explain, while everyone watched his explanation. “I learned that what is really deadly about electricity isn’t the voltage, but the current. Hit an elephant in the torso with 10000 volts and you will wound it, but hit it with 10 amperes right through the heart, and you will kill it.”
“Your fox officer was really small, so I used very low voltage and current at him, I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t cause any serious harm to him.” The cougar said, and he laid back into the chair, his arms crossed over his chest. The animals watching the scene by the double-sided mirror looking at the scene, and wondering what was going to happen next, and just how Bogo was going to answer to the commentaries that the cougar was making. They could already notice that the cougar looked as if he really knew what he was talking about.
It took a few moments, before the buffalo let out a sigh, and he continued.
“There is also the fact that you broke free from the hospital against the recommendations of doctor Moosard.” The buffalo continued, and the cougar looked at him.
“You mean, the moose who wanted to lock me up as if I was a lunatic?” The cougar said, and the buffalo looked up at him.
“Why you think he wanted?”
“Because I already received many looks like the one he and that nurse gave me. I know when someone thinks I’m dangerous.”
“Well, considering what had happened, many would say that you ARE dangerous.” Bogo said, and the cougar simply looked at him.
Bogo was testing the cougar, Razorback knew it, and he also knew that this kind of thing was the kind that you didn’t did unless you were sure you had the advantage. Still, there was the fact that they all had witnessed what the cougar was capable of…
Razorback touched the tablet and he scrolled to another video, this one showed the side wall of a hospital. The same hospital from which the cougar had escaped.
The boar looked at it, and after a few seconds, small lightnings struck the ground, and soon, there was a cougar gently floating from somewhere up to the ground, with the lightnings coming out of his paws and feet, and connecting with the ground. The cougar landed gently in the ground, and looked to the sides, as if he was searching for any possible witness of what he had just done, and putting his paws on his pockets, he started to walk away very casually.
“I was under custody when I was into the hospital?” The cougar asked, and the buffalo looked up at him, and he said:
“No.”
“Then I had all the right to get in or out according to my will, right?”
Bogo remained in silence for a few moments, and he said, “But the doctor had authority to determine if you were or weren’t ready to get out according to his diagnosis, and you came out by a window.”
“Well, the doctor might have authority into the hospital.” The cougar said, “But, as a patient, I can decide either or not to follow the recommendations of the doctor, and I guess that I’m free to get out of a place by where I want, right? I haven’t broken any law or rule when I got out of the hospital, and so, I guess you can’t really treat me as a criminal because I have. After all, as far as I know, this is a free country.”
“That cougar is really smart.” Nick said to Judy, as they all continued to look at the scene.
“Maybe he is too smart…” Razorback said as he looked at the scene. The cougar was showing that he knew the rules, and that he was good in dancing with the law, up until now, he hadn’t let himself feel intimidate or pressured in any way by Bogo. Razorback knew that the buffalo was a master at making others feel pressured, and that he could make some people actually start to crumble down.
However, right then, it seemed that the buffalo had found his match. It took a few moments, before the buffalo opened the box, and pulled out a few papers, one in particular, he read as he put on his glasses.
“There might be also a charge for smuggling money, as it has been said by Officer Wilde.” He spoke as he read the paper, and the cougar continued to look at him, his ears perking slightly.
“I guess he got him now.” Nick said, and the scene continued to unfold.
“He bumped into the other animals, and in this moment, he picked the wallet. He removed only a part of the money into the wallet, and next he returned it to the owner, making it seem as the wallet had dropped. As the unsuspecting victim walked away, the cougar followed to the next victim. He probably had a lot of victims by the time I saw him, for he should have around five hundred zoolars in his paws.”
Bogo said as he read the paper, which contained Officer Wilde’s testimony, and he made a pause at each period to give a look at the cougar, who was looking back at him with an unmoved expression. When he was done, he put the paper down, and looked at the cougar.
“So, anything to say about it?”
The cougar looked at him, and he leaned over, supporting himself in his elbows into the table, and he said the same thing he had said to Nick:
“Your officer could very well misinterpreted what he saw.” He spoke very calmly, “He could have seem something that was in a totally different context, and he might have confounded things. You don’t have any other witness that supports what he saw, and neither you have any proof that the money your officer saw in my hands… paws, wasn’t really mine. You have no proof that I smuggled anything from anyone, and you can’t arrest me for that.”
Yeah, the cougar WAS smart, and he was showing that by being able to counter every charge that Bogo tried to land on him with great skill. That cougar really knew what he was doing, and that was for sure.
However, they all knew that Bogo had one more card up his sleeve…
XXX
Alex Hunter was showing a great deal of control in that situation, and Bogo had to admit that he was admired by how well the cougar could keep his cool and act without showing any signs that he was going to lose the battle, or his composure. However, Bogo decided to stop playing with the cougar, and go to what he had been holding into the box.
He reached out for the other papers, and spread them in front of the cougar.
Alex looked at it, and he saw that they looked like files, each one with an animal in them. One elephant. One lion. And several wolves.
Alex took only one moment to piece two and two together.
The criminals of the mall.
“Oh, so you know them?” The buffalo asked the cougar, having noticed the realization in his face, and seemingly having mistaken it be recognizance.
Alex looked up to him, a little taken back, and he looked at the files, and he said: “These… these are the animals who robbed the mall.”
“You recognize them without their masks.” The buffalo said, but Alex immediately said:
“I know that they were an elephant, a lion and many wolves. I’m not stupid!”
They stared at each other, for a moment, and Bogo said. “Can you give me the names of any of them?”
“How should I know that?” Alex asked, looking at the files, and taking a good look into the faces of each one of the criminals. They looked different without their masks, and Alex was pretty sure that, if he saw them again into the street, he would not have easily recognized them.
“You never saw any of them before?” Bogo asked, and Alex looked up at him.
“No.” He said, surely and firm, not liking where this conversation was going.
“Not even him?” The buffalo said, pointing at the file of the elephant. Alex looked at it, as the buffalo started to say. “Alfonse Trunkemor. 36 years old. He is an elephant who got famous for practicing these kinds of robberies. He is the head of the event, and he is famous for leaving the place without any clues, and for blending into the crowd and disappearing with what he stole. Quite an impressive record, don’t you agree?”
Alex looked at him, remaining in silence, and the buffalo continued: “In fact, all of his plans have the same operation: he analyses the place for a few days, makes the right preparations, and recruits a group of individuals to be his support during the robbery.” The buffalo gestured to the other files, and he continued, “He recruited quite a group for this one, some street criminals with little past, two or three have a record of violence, and one was caught for smuggling vehicles. None of them actually knew each other, that’s the way Trunkemor prefers, and they were all set to simply get their part of the money when the crime was done and go their own way, and they would, most likely, never see each other again.”
Alex heard very carefully, and he let the buffalo talk, and after a while, the police officer continued: “They all were recruited pretty much the same way. The elephant went to some areas around the town, and talked to them, offering them a chance to make money fast and easy, and they all accepted.”
The buffalo stopped, and looked at the cougar, before going straight to the point. “Did Trunkemor recruited you the same way?”
Alex muscles tensed involuntarily, and his nails came out of his fingers and scraped slightly into the metal. The buffalo surely saw it, for he had been monitoring all of the cougar’s responses from the very beginning, and now, he was seeing that he clearly had hit a nerve into Alex.
“Are you implying that I had anything to do with that robbery?” Alex said it slowly, trying his best to keep his composure with the buffalo, who simply looked at him, and said:
“I don’t know… You did?”
Alex knew very well when he was being tested, and that was the case. It has been the case ever since the buffalo entered the room, and Alex was doing his best to remain calm and answer, but now, the buffalo was definitely trying to make pressure on him.
“No.” Alex said, and the buffalo looked at him for a while, as if he was trying to look into the cougar’s eyes and inside his mind, to see if he was keeping anything a secret. After a while, it seemed that he hadn’t succeeded, and so he returned to talk.
“Well, I’m sorry if I have trouble believing it.” The buffalo said, and he continued, “You were in the mall just in the moment that they were robbing it, and right in the moment my two officers were hot in your pursuit.” He stopped, and he looked at the cougar once more. “I’m have a close friend of mine who doesn’t believe in coincidences, and I’m kind of on the same line. So, what do you say?”
Alex looked at him, and he said, “If I was with them, then why would I knock them out?” Alex was trying to rationalize with the buffalo, and he was doing his best at it. “What kind of plan would involve the one who was supposed to be helping you turning on you and attacking you with lightning, so the police could get you?”
The buffalo didn’t said anything, but Alex was sure that he could agree that his way of thinking was perfectly logical, but the buffalo said. “It could be part of a complex plan.”
“Oh, come on, now you’re forcing it!” Alex said to him, and the buffalo looked at him, as the cougar said, “What kind of plan you make for your own associate to attack you and make you be arrested for committing a crime?”
“Maybe the idea wasn’t his’.” The buffalo said, and he looked at Alex dead in the eyes as he spoke. “Maybe it was your idea.”
Alex felt his blood running cold as he heard the accusing tune into the buffalo’s voice, and the buffalo only continued. “You were there, coincidentally into the very place and moment in which there was a robbery. Then you suddenly stand up to the robbers and you save many mammals, with a lot of witnesses painting you as a hero. Maybe you even were with Trunkemor, but you betrayed him in the right moment, all so that you could be on the spotlight and pose as a great hero for everyone. Actually, seems like a pretty clever plan.”
Alex felt himself getting tenser and tenser as he was companying the logic of the buffalo, and he realized that it was the kind of thing that made sense. This left him very worried, for that was just the kind of logic that the buffalo needed to have the cougar wrapped around his fingers… or claws… or hooves? Whatever, the point was that, now, the buffalo was starting to make a score, and they both knew it.
“Listen here, officer…”
“Bogo.” The buffalo said, “Nathaniel Bogo.”
“Officer Bogo, I-” Alex tried once more, and the buffalo interrupted him.
“Chief Bogo.”
Oh, brilliant. Alex thought, as he realized that all this time he was talking with the Police Chief, and he knew that this animal surely had enough power and connections to put him into trouble if he wanted, especially if he wanted to sustain the version of the facts that he had just presented to Alex. Alex knew that he was in trouble.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Alex said, and the buffalo was still staring at him, and after a moment, he said, “Look I wanna believe you, but until we have all the right information, and we can say exactly what happened into that mall, you are going to stay under police custody.” He said, putting all of the paper back into the box, and he seemed to be ready to leave, when he stopped, and he sighed, before looking back at the cougar, and saying:
“I have nothing against you, Mr. Hunter.” He sounded sincere when he spoke that, and he continued to look at him, “Neither against the animals like you. I really hope you understand this, and understand that I’m not your enemy.”
The way he spoke that, almost as if he was apologizing to Alex somehow, caught him off guard, and the buffalo left the room, leaving Alex alone with his thoughts.
True to the buffalo’s words, the cougar didn’t had to wait for more than five minutes, before two officers, a hippo and a rhino, arrived, and asked him to company them. This time, Alex wasn’t cuffed or anything of the like, they simply asked him to come with them, and Alex complied, thinking that, if he really was into a difficult situation like that, then it was better for him to really show that he was going to cooperate, to show to them that he didn’t had bad intentions.
He was companied in silence by the two bulky officers, who were very silence as they companied the cougar past the hallways and stairs, until they arrived into a section of the ZPD that had the holding cells. As they walked past it, Alex could see that there was some animals in there, mostly wolves, and also a lion. Alex was soon recognizing them.
“YOU!” A sudden cry called their attention, and Alex jumped as he heard the sound of metal being banged. He looked to see a familiar elephant pressing himself against the bars of his relatively small cell, and he had a look of the purest, murder hate towards Alex.
“You freak!” He said, as his trunk extended to out of the cell, as if trying to grab Alex with it. The Cougar gave a step back, ready to charge up a lightning in his paw, when the rhino officer pulled a gun, and pointed at the elephant.
“Hey, hey, hey!” He said, pointing it at the pachyderm and making sure that he could see it. “Calm down, big guy!”
It seemed to take only a moment for the elephant to calm down, and he retreated his trunk to back to his cell, but his eyes were still glued into Alex. Looking at him, Alex only took a moment to recognize him.
“Alfonse Trunkemor…” Alex said in a low voice, and he looked around, recognizing the criminals from the mall. They all looked at Alex, two or three of them into the same cell, and they all traded whispers among themselves as they looked at the cougar. Some with anger, some with fear. Most of them surely with fear.
Once the elephant had calmed down, and was back into his cell, the rhino and hippo continued to escort Alex across the cells, and he passed by the animals who were into the mal, all of them looking at him, some whimpering when he passed, scared. Alex was guided to an empty cell, and they opened the door, and gestured for him to get in, what Alex did without any questioning.
Soon, they locked him in there, and they left, and Alex was left alone once again into that small cell.
Alex looked at it, and wondered how on earth… or whatever was the name of this new world he was in… he ended up into a cell again. Well, at least this time it was just a regular cell, not a fancy and strong thing, designed to prevent him from using his powers. And they weren’t putting him into heavy restraints or straightjackets, and neither giving him pills and medications that he couldn’t even speak the name, with the finality of preventing him from using his powers to escape.
It was just a cell, and for that, Alex was surprised to discover that he was actually quite glad. He sighed, as he walked to the bunk bed, and sat into the lower one. Alex was now back into wondering what he was going to do, and what was his next course of action.
Well, it was pretty obvious. He was going to stay in there and try to prove his innocence for these animals. Also, he was sure that he would not drink or eat anything that they offered, for he was still as careful as he had ever been, and he knew that they could drug him with something into his food or water, and Alex was not going to fall for that again.
Alex was still worried sick about his friends, and he was asking himself where they could be, and what could have happened to them. The idea of them being lost into that new world too was still in his mind, and Alex caught himself imagining if they were as scared and confused with their new forms as he was when he first woke up. Well, he knew that some of them would very likely freak out about the subject.
Still, now that Alex was being held captive, he had nothing to do but to wait. Alex knew that his situation had already been better, but he knew that it could actually be a lot worse. With that thought in mind, he decided that he would stay in there, and he was going to hope to have his innocence into that situation proven, so he could be out of that hole, and he could go on with his life, and try to find his friends, wherever they were…
Alex could only sit there and sigh, as he would relax, look at the bars of his cell, and wait…
XXX
Bogo sighed as he walked out of that interview room. The cougar had a good deal of self-control, and he was surely no strange to situations like that, this was for sure.
The buffalo walked into the hallway, as the other door right after the one of the interrogation room opened, and the three animals come out, all of them looking up at him. The buffalo sighed, and he knew that there were coming a lot of questions at the moment, and he was not exactly in the mood for all of them at that given moment.
Actually, he’d rather avoid them as much as possible. However, one look into the eyes of the other three had told him that this was impossible. And it was soon confirmed as they started to bombard him with questions and commentaries as they moved up the hallway.
“Do you really think the cougar had something to do with the incident?”
“Do you really plan to arrest him?”
“What did you meant by ‘animals like him’?”
These and more questions were all thrown at him as he moved up, along with some commentaries like:
“Bogo, I don’t think that the cougar actually was related to that robbery in any way.”
“Having participated only to save everyone? This seems a little forced, don’t you think?”
“Chief, I think we should interrogate the other criminals, maybe they all know about what really happened, and they all seemed to be really shocked by the cougar. It didn’t seemed that they knew each other at all.”
Bogo was now massaging his temples, as all of these questions were getting to him. He only hoped that he could avoid them long enough to think on a good explanation to give to everyone.
As he walked, he met Officers Krumpanski and Higgins right in front of the entrance, and they were both gathered around a tablet, but they both leapt to attention as they saw their chief erupting from the door.
“Krumpanski. Higgins. Good I found you two.” Bogo said, ignoring the boar, fox and bunny that had been following him, and he focused only into the hippo and rhino in front of him. “I have a cougar into the interview room three, the cougar that came with the SWAT, I want you two to escort him to the holding cells. He will be staying there for a while.”
They shared a look, and Higgins asked. “T-the cougar? The one the SWAT brought?” He asked, and Bogo said.
“Yes, that cougar.”
“The lightning cougar?” Krumpanski asked, and this caught Bogo’s attention.
“The what now?”
“Yeah, that is how they are calling him!” Higgins said, and gestured at the tablet. “There are at least ten videos of him into the internet.”
Bogo felt the blood being drained from his features. “WHAT!?” He said as he snatched the tablet from Higgins paws, and looked at it. It was currently into a video with the title: REAL LIFE SUPERHERO.
Bogo only had to press play to see the cougar shooting arcs of lightning into the criminals of the mall.
Bogo’s hands were shaking as he looked at it, and he saw that there were links to other videos, all with titles like: ‘WATCH THIS NOW! IT ISN’T FAKE!’, ‘A MAMMAL WITH SUPERPOWERS! FOR REAL!’, or ‘SUPERHEROES JUST GOT REAL!’
They all seemed to actually show the same thing, the cougar, filmed from several different angles by different cameras, and fighting the criminals and shooting lightnings from his paws. Bogo looked at each figure with sweat dripping from his forehead and into his hands, as it seemed that, despite them having confiscated most of the cell phones and other recording devices of the area, some of the animals in there managed to already upload the videos.
“Chief?” Krumpanski’s voice called Bogo back to reality, as he was facing the rhino, who asked. “These videos… they are real?”
Bogo didn’t answered, and he actually took a few moments to find his voice. “J-just… just go and put the cougar into the cell.” He said, and he walked away, leaving the two officer behind. They looked at the other three for answers, but Nick and Judy shrugged as they went after their boss. The boar too passed, saying to the two. “You better do as Bogo said.” He said as he rushed to keep up with the other three animals.
As Bogo walked, he saw many groups of animals gathered in circles, looking at tablets or cell phones, and they all seemed to be chatting among themselves as they gathered and saw something that was really catching their attention. Bogo didn’t even needed to think too much to know exactly what they were seeing that was catching their attention so much.
“Chief!” Judy’s voice called, and he stopped and turned around, to see Hopps, Wilde, and Razorback, all of them getting hot on his track. Wilde was looking around, seeing the animals gathered in circles, as he spoke: “Yeah, it seems our cougar has got himself some fans…”
“Chief, what is going on?” Judy asked, and Razorback said:
“Bogo, I think that now might be time for some explaining.”
Bogo looked at each animal, and Judy asked. “Chief, what do you know about this whole situation?”
She had the right to ask something like that, and Bogo knew it. They all had the right to know the answers, and now that it seemed that the bubble of silence had finally popped; maybe there was no problem in telling them…
“Judy! Nick!” Clawhauser’s voice suddenly snapped all of their attention. They had stopped right into the front of the reception desk, and the overweight cheetah was nearly dropping from his desk as he leaned to look at the two small officers.
“Have you seem this!? It is for real!? It is the same cougar you two have been chasing!?” Clawhauser asked all of these questions in a hurry, and Bogo was already ready to tell him to chill out and stop that, when his phone started to ring.
Distracted, Bogo picked it, and he saw that the call identifier, only for it to say: unknown number.
However, Bogo had very little need for the call identifier, for he already had a good idea of who it was and what it was about.
Taking a deep breath and a sigh, Bogo turned to them, and he said, “Will you all give me just a minute, this call is very important.” They did gave him a minute, but it was clear by the expression on their faces that he was going to give to them all of the answers that they wanted when he finished that call.
Bogo walked to out of everyone’s hearing shot, and he looked at his phone, which was still ringing. He took a deep breath, almost as if to steel himself, and he answered it, guiding the phone to his ear.
“Savage.” Bogo said, and the familiar voice in the other end came.
“[i[Bogo… didn’t you said that you had the whole situation taken care of?[/i]” That question hit Bogo hard. He had been talking with Savage a lot in the last one and a half hour, and he made sure to let the mammal on the other end of the line know that Bogo had the whole situation under control, and that he didn’t needed his help.
Now Bogo knew that he would never hear the end of the ‘I told you so’s from Savage’s end.
“Well, I just stumbled upon a few interesting things into the internet, and I have to say… What exactly ‘under control’ means to you?” Savage asked, and Bogo flinched at it, almost as if he had received a physical blow. The tune of Savage’s voice was not one of mockery and it didn’t sounded as if he was scolding Bogo in any way, it was simply as if he was asking him a question about why he didn’t made this own work right. To someone as proud as Bogo, hearing that kind of thing from a guy like this Savage made him feel like an incompetent.
Savage was one of the few mammals in the whole world that had ever been able to make Bogo feel like that, and that was one the reasons why Bogo had been dreading this kind of phone call.
“Things got out-of-hand.” Bogo spoke to the mammal into the other end. “I guess I didn’t predicted that some of the animals into the mall would already be posting it into the internet.”
“Well, it seems that some did it. Other hid out their phones and tablets before you could get them, or even posted the images into the internet before you could get your paws into the devices.” Savage spoke calmly form the other side of the line, and he added, “Some of them have made quite high quality images. Very good, considering that it wasn’t any professional material of recording. The cameras on these things are getting better and better, now it seems that anyone can make professional recordings.”
Bogo brought a paw over his own face and dragged it across it. He took a few deep breaths, to try to calm himself down, and he said. “Yeah, okay, I know. High-resolution recordings in the internet, everything is out now, and there is nothing we can do about it, I screwed it up big time, I know.”
“Not necessarily.” Savage spoke, and this caught Bogo’s attention, as the mammal in the other end. “I have been scrolling down at the comments into the videos, and it seems that most animals who seem it think it is some kind of fake video, maybe a promotional thing for a product or a new science fiction series.”
“So, no one believes it?” Bogo asked, and Savage soon answered.
“Oh, they believe! There is a good deal of animals who are questioning the video, but they seem to think it is real, or at least is that what it seems by the comments.” Savage spoke that very calmly, and he continued. “Anyway, the amount of animals who are taking the video seriously is enough for us to give it attention, not to mention that they haven’t stopped sharing the videos. It has been only half an hour, and the amount of mammals sharing these videos has already reached the house of the hundreds.”
Bogo nodded, and he said, “So, what do we do now.”
“Do you still have the cougar with you?”
“My officers are putting him into one of the holding cells as we speak.” Bogo said, and he added, “We are going to try to hold him for as long as possible, he didn’t tried to escape yet, so I guess that he really isn’t so dangerous after all.”
“Good, try to keep him out of sight. I’ll see if I can do anything about these videos. Hopefully we will have this whole situation controlled in a few days.”
“I’m not sure if that is possible.” Bogo said, and there was a silence into the line, as he spoke.
“Dozens of mammals saw that the cougar did into the mall, between them was Gazelle herself, and you know how mammals take her seriously. Even if you manage to erase these videos, I really doubt that we would be able to keep this all a secret for long.”
The mammal on the other line remained in silence for a few moments, before he sighed, and he spoke. “Maybe you are right, Bogo.” The buffalo heard as the animal spoke that. “Well… maybe it was fated to happen, after all. You can fool many animals for some time, and you can fool a few mammals for a long time, but you can’t fool all the mammals at all the time.”
Bogo rolled his eyes, it was one of these moments when Savage would paraphrase some other famous saying, trying to pass by a philosopher. Still, Bogo knew that he was right. He knew ever since the first time that he got involved with Savage, and with the kinds of things that he dealt with, that someday the bubble would pop, and the world would know about it.
“[i[Well, let’s keep an eye on everything, and we will see what will happens now.[/i]” Savage said to Bogo. “Keep an eye on that cougar too, see if he really is as nice as he claims to be, and be sure that he doesn’t escape.”
“You don’t even need to tell me that.” Bogo said, and Savage answered:
“Well, I guess this is all for now, we’ll keep on touch.”
“Wait!” Bogo said, and he added, “The chief of the SWAT team and two of my best officers have passed by a while of this, and they are pressing me for answers.”
After a few moments, Savage said, “Well, explain to them what you think that they need to know, I trust your discernment.”
With that, Savage hung up into the other end, and Bogo let out a sigh as he looked at his phone. He didn’t even bothered into trying to use any resource of his phone to try to track on the last call, he knew that it would have absolutely no result.
Bogo knew that Savage was the kind of mammal that was used to take care of these kinds of situations, even since Bogo first had contact with him years ago. Still, Bogo couldn’t help the feeling on his gut that he had every time that he deposited his trust into Savage. After all, it was very hard to trust into someone whose face he had never even saw in the past.
Still, once more Bogo was trusting him, for once more, Bogo didn’t knew who else could help him with something like that…
XXX
As Bogo spoke with Savage into the phone, the videos of what had happened into the mall were becoming, at least in Zootopia, viral. They were shared more and more with each passing minute, and the animals were watching it as if it was the latest edition of ZNN.
True to Savage’s words, many animals dismissed it as fake, thinking that maybe it was one of these things made using graphic computation, but there was a very good deal of mammals who took it as real. These animals, besides their opinion, shared the video with their friends, either to show or to ask their opinion, and this way, the videos of the “lightning cougar” were soon going to be the top subject into the internet.
They were been seen by everyone in Zootopia, in all of the precincts, including the Rainforest District, in which a familiar white van without windows was parked, and three animals were just watching the video of the lightning cougar in a cell phone.
“See!?” The wolf said, pointing at the image playing into the video of that cougar shooting lightnings. “See!? You believe us now!?”
The sheep with black wool only looked astonished at the image playing, loss of words. When the two wolves told him what had happened inside the mall, he literally couldn’t believe it. A cougar with electrical superpowers? It was just too absurd to be truth.
Of course, this seemed to be changing now that he was seeing so many videos of exactly what the two wolves had described.
“And you thinking we were crazy!” The other wolf said, and the sheep only continued to stare into the video, before he turned it off, and he only stared at the void for a few moments, before he turned his attention back to the two wolves.
“What do we do now?”
“Well, I don’t know you two, but I want to get out of sight before the cops or, God forbid, that cougar!” The wolf said, and the other wolf agreed with him. Even the sheep was forced to agree that all that was happening was surely not what they signed for, and that it was better to lay down and remain out of sight for a while, at least until the dust settled.
Turning on the van, he started to drive, when suddenly, he stepped on the breaks. He barely avoided hutting a rhino who was just passing in front of them.
“Hey!” The great horned being said, giving a step behind.
“Oh, what now!?” The wolf said, as he peered his head from out of the van, and he said. “Get out of the way!”
“Don’t you see where you are going!?” The rhino said to him, looking to be very pissed.
“Out of the way!” The wolf repeated, getting pissed off. The rhino was blocking their way, and they didn’t wanted to stay in there for longer than it was needed.
“Look, I’m having a very difficult and strange day now! Don’t make me angry!” The rhino said, clenching his fists, and the wolf finally had enough, he jumped out of the van, and soon, he was pointing a gun at the rhino. Most rhinos would feel confident if they were facing claws, teeth, or even blades, for they had a very thick skin, but with bullets, the story surely was different.
“Don’t talk to me about difficult days!” The wolf spat back at him, as the other wolf and the sheep both jumped out of the van and were now standing by the side of the wolf with the gun. Luckily for everyone the road was desert, so there were no witnesses around.
“I had a much worse day, which included getting into a brawn with a wolf that could shoot lightnings from his paws!” The wolf cried out, and this caught the attention of the rhino.
“Shoot… lightnings?” He asked, giving one step forward, almost as if he wasn’t seeing the gun, and the wolf said.
“Yes! A cougar that shoot lightnings in us! If you don’t believe than look into the internet! They are only talking about him!”
“This… cougar…” The rhino said, looking at him, “His name wouldn’t happen to be Alex Hunter, would it?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care what his name is!” The wolf said, and he seemed ready to shot to the rhino. “I just want to open the biggest possible distance between myself and that freak!”
The rhino looked at him, and at his gun, his eyes narrowed.
“Move out of the way!” The wolf repeated, and he triggered his weapon. He was really ready to give that rhino a bullet in the chest if he didn’t moved out of the way.
The rhino, however, didn’t seemed to mind very much, that until his started to slightly raise his two hands. However, it only lasted for a moment, before he threw both of them forward, in direction of the three animals in front of him.
In that moment, the three animals were propelled backwards, as if they were pushed back by an invisible force, reeling into the ground until the three of them slammed their backs into a tree.
During this, the wolf dropped his weapon, and now, they were all dizzy, trying to understand what had just happened. However, they didn’t had much time to think about it, for immediately, the rhino walked to them, and grabbed all of them by their shirts. He had the wolf in one hand and a wolf and a sheep into the other.
He raised them all at his eye level, and they recovered their senses just in time to see a very pissed look into the hazelnut-colored eyes of that rhino, as he spoke:
“Tell me all you know about that cougar…”
