Hello there, dear readers! I'm back with the newest chapter of The Keyhole! Once more, I need to give my thanks to my friend Trismegistus Shandy for proofreading this chapter! I hope that you enjoy it!

"Okay, I'm just lost," Roger said, leaning back on the couch.

"It's simple," Erik explained. The teen otter stood up to address his hippo and human friends who were both stuck on the same question in their algebra homework. "You just use the F. O. I. L. method. First, you use the first parts of the two equations, then the outer parts, which means the first part of the first equation and the last part of the last equation, then the inner parts here, and finally the last parts. And boom, you've solved the problem!"

Roger scratched his head and looked a little helpless, math having never been his strongest subject, while Russell seemed to be starting to get it. The three were having a study session at Russell's foster home, with Mr. and Mrs. Spitz checking if they needed anything fairly regularly.

"I don't even understand why we need to learn this anyway," Roger complained just before Erik rolled his eyes and started to walk him through the problem, explaining everything along the way. Russell felt he was being watched and looked up just in time to see a tiny grey-furred face duck away under the nearby coffee table, making Russel smile.

"Wanna come out from your hiding spot, Ethan?" the human teen asked, setting his text book down. There was a giggling fit as a grey and blue blur dashed out and into Russell's arms, the little fox kit hugging him close. Today he was wearing a pair of blue overalls and a blue shirt.

"I thought that you were supposed to be taking a nap," Russell said as he held the giggling fox close, his little grey tail a blur of pure joy.

"And I thought we were gunna study together so we don't fail the upcoming test," Roger said with a huff as he started to understand Erik's advice.

"FOIWEW!" Ethan proudly said, making Russell and Erik chuckle and Roger roll his eyes.

"Everyone's rubbing it in," the hippo said with a smile as he watched his friend and his friend's adopted little brother interact.

Elsewhere...

"And that last dozen carton of eggs should just about do it," Marian said as she wrote on a clipboard, smirking.

"Uh... Marian? Sweetheart?" Robert said, having been the one putting away the bake sale supplies.

"Yes, Robert?" Marian asked as she set her clipboard down and walked over to the kitchen sink to wash up, turning the oven on to 350 while passing it.

"Don't you think that you might," the older fox looked nervous as he continued, "just might, dearest, be taking this a little too far? I mean, it's just a bake sale..."

Marian looked at her husband and rolled her eyes, internally grateful that she had ensured that he kept his appointment with the eye doctor. "I swear, Robbie, I have no idea where you get this notion that I get way too competitive. I'm just making a large batch of baked goods to help the homeless mammals of New Dawn."

Robert relaxed his shoulders a little. "And if I happen to show up Bonnie in the process, well, that just makes it all the more special." Robert immediately tensed up after hearing this.

"Marian, remember that this is about Eli and his troop helping others, alright?" Robert asked, with a pleading note to his voice. Marian let out a huff.

"Oh, I know," Marian said, smiling at the thought of her grandkit.

Back in Bunnyburrow...

"Uh... Bon-Bon?" Stu stood in his kitchen, looking nervous.

"Yes?" Bonnie asked in a sing-song voice.

"Uhm... you do remember how... uh... heated that little competition between you and Marian got, right?" Stu asked, looking ready to run.

"I think that you and I are remembering last year's Carrot Days differently," Bonnie said with a chuckle as she used a rolling pin on the cookie dough she had made.

"I... uhm... I agree with you there, Bon-Bon... but... uh..." Stu gulped and steeled himself. "I'm remembering the rapid escalation and I... oh... I just wanted to make sure that you know that this event isn't about you or Marian."

"Yes, Stuart," Bonnie said, using the bunny-shaped cookie cutter on the flattened dough. She then turned her attention to the other bustling bunnies in the kitchen, all working on various baked goods.

"Tiffany, I need an ETA on those blackberry pies," Bonnie said, getting a rapid "Four more minutes, Mom!" in return.

"Terrance, remember to knead the dough," Bonnie addressed to a chocolate-colored male bunny.

"Mom, I really need to work on the tractor!" Terrance complained, growing silent at the sharp glare from the matronly bunny.

"Yes, Mom," he dejectedly said. Stu let out a sigh.

At that moment...

"Hey there, Squirt," Thomas said after waving his younger, but significantly taller, cousin over. The teenaged rabbit was standing in front of West Mammalia Middle School, his blue backpack slung over his shoulder. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans.

"Hi, Thomas," Eli said with a smile as he approached, Isaac in tow, with Big Mike riding on his head.

"A couple of friends of yours?" Thomas asked as he looked at the coyote with the mouse on his head.

"Yeah, this is Mike and Isaac," Eli said, introducing them. "Th-this is my cousin, Thomas."

"Hiya!" Isaac said, his tail wagging, bouncing where he stood.

"Hey, Isaac, cut it out!" Mike called out, nearly being shaken off of Isaac's head.

"Oops, sorry," Isaac said, reining himself in. Thomas smiled at the antics of the two before turning back to address Eli.

"Uncle Nick called a little while ago. They got a report that your school's buses were all vandalized a little while ago. They're both a little tied up at work at the moment, so they asked me to walk you home."

"Oh?" Eli asked.

"Yeah, I would have been happy to drive you home but... well... the truck Mom and Dad got me is a little on the... small side," Thomas explained while Eli nodded.

"I understand," Eli said, before frowning. "Do they know who it was that did it?"

Thomas shook his head, understanding perfectly the real question. Was it the work of the crazy armadillo?

"The police aren't sure, but, that's why I'm here," Thomas said, sounding cheerful, to try and help keep Eli from feeling too scared.

"All they told us was that the buses were temporarily out of service," Mike said. Thomas nodded at that.

"So, ready to go?" Thomas asked just as a white tigress jogged over.

"Hey there, Eli," Kimi said as she strode up to the human boy, stopping when she spotted the bunny before them. "Who's your friend?"

"Hi, I'm Thomas, Eli's cousin," Thomas said, looking the white tigress up and down. He took note of how much closer to Eli she was standing as opposed to his other friends.

"S-since the buses are out of order, Thomas was gunna walk me home," Eli explained.

"We've got a science project that we're working on together and we were going to work on it tonight at Eli's place," Mike explained to the bunny; "can we come with?"

"Well, sure," Thomas said.

"Oh! My house is on the way and my mom's stuck in traffic, so can I tag along too?" Kimi asked, making what her parents call the 'kitten eyes' at Eli, who then turned to Thomas. Thomas had to keep from smirking.

"I don't see why not. So long as you guys' parents are all okay with it." That statement resulted in three different sized phones being whipped out and a series of quick texts. Once the last parent, Mike's dad, had responded with the okay, Thomas started to lead them away from the school.

"Hey, Thomas?" Eli asked after a moment of walking, unaware of Kimi staring at him.

"Yeah, Squirt?" Thomas asked while Isaac and Mike snickered at the nickname. Kimi was trying not to giggle.

"Is your school nearby?" Eli asked, looking around.

"No, it's quite a few blocks away."

"Then how'd you get to our school so soon?"

"Oh, well, we get out an hour earlier on Fridays," the rabbit explained as they started to cross at a crosswalk. The group was unaware that they were being watched as they walked. The ones watching them were none other than Edwin and Honey. The armadillo and honey badger were currently in a red van that Honey had stolen, wearing disguises.

"I told you that it wasn't a good idea," Honey hissed to Edwin as they both looked through binoculars, her blonde beehive wig jiggling as she turned her head to face him.

"How was I supposed to know that it would think to stay with a group?!" Edwin hissed back, his voice a little muffled in the fake beard and mustache. "And before you go criticizing, maybe you need to remember that we must remain inconspicuous, yet you chose a vehicle for us that is the exact opposite!"

"It has tinted windows!" Honey argued back.

"It has a grey driver's side door and a mural of a fox warrior holding some fox maiden being struck by lightning on the side!" Edwin's voice was starting to rise.

"I only stole this van because we needed a vehicle that could house the creature once we captured with your ever so brilliant plan! I didn't exactly have time to go car shopping!" Honey threw her hands up into the air, her wig going all askew to reveal her fauxhawk.

"Well, it would seem that it's a moot point," Edwin said, calming down, his eye twitching, "I suppose that we will have to wait for the bake sale to make our move, as you originally planned. I just thought that we could expedite things if the students, and therefore the creature, didn't have access to their usual busses." Edwin let out a sigh as he slid over to the passenger seat. Honey frowned, but said nothing further, and started the van back up. She checked to make sure that the radio was off. The very first time she had started up the vehicle, the speakers had blasted some form of rap in a foreign language.

Meanwhile...

Shortly after being found by the very large and imposing-looking cape buffalo, Alex found himself being loaded into an ambulance by a cougar and a hyena pair of EMT's. He had looked all around himself at the people gathering, their phones out and filming, and saw all sorts of different species of mammals. Alex hadn't been sure if it was the lack of water, the starvation, the isolation, or the infection, but he had been sure that he was hallucinating. On the ride to the hospital, he had promptly passed out. It was when he had initially awoken in his hospital bed that Alex had started to think that this was no simple delusion.

Presently, Alex stared at his reflection. He had managed to take a shower, and gotten ahold of some scissors and a razor. He ran a rough and calloused hand over his freshly shaved face. He would have to find a barber to get a proper haircut, but was satisfied with getting all the mats and knots out of the wild brown growth atop his head. A single steel grey eye stared right back at him from the reflection. His right eye was under a patch; the doctor, a panda, had informed him that they'd done what they could, but the eye was too badly damaged to be saved. Much like Alex's leg.

He looked away from the scarred, burned, bandaged, stitched up, sickly pale, almost skeletal figure staring back at him, down to the bandaged stump where his left leg from the shin down had been. Alex had been informed that the infection was quite severe, but was responding to the antibiotics that they were keeping him on. He put on the scrub shirt, a light blue that matched the pants he had been given, the left pant leg rolled up, and gathered up his crutches. Alex exited the bathroom to see the chatty male beaver nurse, Robbie, waiting with another IV bag of the fluids that they were also keeping him on to treat the dehydration.

"You have a visitor," Robbie said after Alex got into bed, climbing up a small step ladder that folded up beneath the bed, in order to hook up the IV.

"I can't imagine who," Alex said, his voice not as raspy as it had been.

"It just so happens to be the local chief of police who fished you out of the ocean a few days ago," Robbie said as he climbed down.

"Oh," Alex said, unsure of what to say. Robbie flashed the human a winning smile before heading off. A little bit after the beaver had left, Bogo entered, knocking on the doorframe. Today he was wearing his uniform.

"Mr. Harcourt, glad to hear that you're improving," Bogo said as he pulled up a chair next to the bed.

"Nice to meet you again, Chief... Bogo," Alex replied.

"Mr. Harcourt... I have some questions that I would to ask you," Bogo began.

"I have a feeling that these questions are going to relate to how I came to be here, but sure, ask away." Alex smiled as Bogo nodded.

"You were found in a very severe state. Starvation, dehydration, the... infection." The cape buffalo looked uncomfortable as he motioned to the missing leg, to which Alex just nodded and signaled him to continue. "You had many cuts and bruises, and I was informed by the doctors that they had to remove four bullets, which amazingly missed any vital organs. And you were covered with many cigarette burns and had a severely broken leg."

"Sounds about right, sir," Alex said before taking a sip of water from the glass on the table next to his bed. There was a freshly filled pitcher right next to it. "And I take it that you would like to know how I amassed such a collection."

Alex waited for Bogo to nod before diving right into it.

"I was captured by pirates," Alex said frankly, "or at least that's what I think that they were. I couldn't understand most of what they were saying. I was sailing on a sailboat one day, when suddenly four little boats came out of nowhere and surrounded me. Everyone was wearing black hoods and screaming in another language, oh, and brandishing guns. After that they took me to some island that they'd turned into a fortress, and tossed me into a small room that I'm pretty sure that they'd been using just for keeping hostages."

"I see... is something like that a common occurence of your world?" Bogo asked.

"I'm not really sure... the news was commenting on something like that happening for a while, but I never really paid that much attention. I kinda changed my tune about that when they were breaking my leg with a hammer."

"So they broke your leg?" Bogo clarified.

"Yup. Right after the first time I tried to escape. And then they broke it again the second time I tried." Alex said. Bogo heard the casualness of Alex's voice, but noticed the trembling hand that held the glass of water.

"Not once did I ever seen anyone's face, they always kept them covered around me. There were a few who spoke English though, but they all had accents. When they found out who I was, that's when they started to burn me, well, every time I told them that I didn't have any money to give them. My father is Bastion Harcourt, the eighth richest man in the world... and he had completely cut me off long before I took my little sailing trip."

"May I ask why that was?" Bogo queried.

"He and I never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things, and after our last fight, he threw me out and cut me off... hence why I stole the boat." Alex noticed the raised eyebrow on the Police Chief and elaborated. "He had originally given it to me as a graduation gift, back before he realized that I hated him. So I decided to take it back... obviously not one of my smarter moves."

"Did these pirates come to understand that you had no access to any funds?" Bogo asked, choosing to gloss over the theft.

"Oh yeah," Alex said before setting the glass down, "so they dragged me to some room with a satellite on it with some cameras-- everything looked patched together, by the way-- and then somehow managed to get ahold of him. There was a live video feed and I'm assuming one for me, because one of the English-speaking guys was telling my father that if he wanted me returned home alive, he was to transfer to them one hundred million dollars to some bank account that they sent him. That's when he... told them to go ahead and get it over with... and the live feed of him ended. They kept me alive because they thought that maybe it was some kind of negotiation tactic, but I could tell that they were starting to realize, in the days that passed, that that was not the case. I think some months had passed at this point, total, in my captivity. I figured that I was gunna die, so I ripped out a piece of the box spring under the mattress that was my bed, and fashioned it into what I think is called a shiv."

Alex took a breath as he looked down at his hands, before he continued.

"I... waited... until the guy who brought me my food came... and that's when I made my third escape attempt. I'm surprised that it worked, actually, considering I was hobbling around on one leg. I'm also still surprised that they had a huge propane tank in the main building of their compound. And that they kept flares near it. I opened the valve a little and hobbled away outside and hid behind a rock formation. By then, they were already looking for me, so when I threw the metal food tray I had kept with me into that main building, they all ran in. I left a door open, fairly certain that that was gunna be the end of me as well, and fired the flare right into the room." Bogo listened, enraptured by Alex's story.

"The blast happened and a piece of shrapnel is what caused this," Alex said, pointing to his eyepatch.

"And you got them all?" the cape buffalo asked.

"Well, there was one who was hobbling around after I came to. He had been burned all over, and he's the one who shot me. He couldn't really aim at that point, just waved his automatic gun around, getting off a bunch of shots, before he finally collapsed." Alex's hands shook again.

"Why the patchwork boat?" Bogo asked after a moment of silence.

"There were a few boats that had gone out somewhere, I don't know where, the day before, and the few that remained were all pretty badly damaged from the explosion, including my sailboat. So I put one together, and loaded up what water and food I could, a lot of it canned and out of date. I realistically figured that if the remaining pirates didn't return in time to start searching for me, then that I would probably sink. But at that point, I was kinda beyond really caring. I drifted for a while, after trying, and failing, to find land or another passing ship. The wind died for the longest time, and then I started to run low on food and water. And then they were gone."

"Eventually, I went to sleep, and was woken up by my boat running aground on something and... well... you know the rest." Alex took another deep breath and made his hands cease their trembling. Chief Bogo was at a loss for words.

In Sahara Square...

"I gotta say, Carrots, I'm looking forward to giving the speech at the academy," Nick said as he slowly drove their squad car down the busy street, nodding to a few camel joggers.

"Well, it is pretty exciting, getting to be the one to give the very first human officer his badge," Judy responded, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

"True enough, not that I'm surprised by their asking me to give the speech this year, what with being the very first fox cop. And I get it. I mean, it's not like there is anyone better to ask." Nick said with a smirk, waiting for his bunny to respond.

"Except maybe the very first bunny cop," Judy responded, knowingly taking the bait. She had long since learned to recognize when her mate was feeling playful.

"Meh, that's old news, and not nearly as controversial," Nick said as casually as he could, risking a single peek beneath his aviators to see Judy's pink nose twitch. She opened her mouth to speak when she saw two camels roll into the road ahead of them, very obviously fighting. Nick pulled to a stop and parked the car as he and Judy went to go and break it up, preferably without having to tase or tranq anyone.

Savannah Central...

Lily Blackthorn looked herself over in the mirror. She was wearing a simple white blouse and jeans, smiling at her reflection. She heard a knock at her door, and made her way to it. She grabbed her purse from the couch as she did, and opened the door with a smile at the sight of the very nervous-looking black jaguar before her.

"Hello, Renato," Lily said. She took in that he was just wearing a green shirt and jeans, keeping it casual as well.

"Lily, y-you look wonderful," Renato said, smiling, but also nervously. Lily blushed just before she stood up a little to kiss him on the cheek, and then offered him her arm, which he quickly looped his around. She took a moment to shut and lock her apartment door before they started walking down the hall together. Lily found his nervousness about going on their first official date to be adorable.

"So what movie are we going to be seeing?" Lily asked as she allowed herself to be led towards the elevator.

"I w-was thinking of a double feature, Shriek and Shriek 2," Renato offered.

"That sounds lovely," Lily said, resting her head on his shoulder. Renato started to become much more relaxed and smiled down at the human female.

And there you have it, folks! I hope that you enjoyed the new chapter! Be sure to let me know what you think!