Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"We've got a new case." Fred Tigris informed his partner as he slammed the case file onto his desk. It alarmed Jake Wolfire, making him jerk up from his seat and avert his glance from the novel he was reading. He looked up, meeting the fierce but calm eyes of his Tiger friend. It was only a moment later when Jake realised Fred was holding out a file for him in his paw.

"What is it?" He asked as he took the brown, brand-new case file.

Looking at the wolf before him, Fred opened it up in his partner’s paws and pointed to the location that was written at the bottom of the page. Only an address was written there, there were no evidence markers or witnesses to interrogate. The case file detailed the murder of one Peralta Watertail. It made him raise an eye as his muzzle started to open to ask his friend what was going on.

"There's nothing here." He said finally.

"Exactly. No witness, no evidence to look for. No nothing. The case has been cold and dead for the longest time. That's changing tonight. I ain't one to get excited over things but two patrol officers found a dead body at a diner right smack on Acorn Avenue."

"Witnesses?"

"Nada. Just the body and we've got to go now. It's raining and they're afraid the evidence will be washed out by the time we get there."

Grabbing his jacket from the wooden chair he was seated on, Jake motioned for Fred to go and start the car. It was a rainy night, the streets would be dark and the roads would be wet. Acorn Avenue was named after the acorn trees that littered the little tree haven and the park right across the street. It wasn't odd that something like this would happen on a night like this. It was especially gloomy in the station, Clawhauser wasn't making a ruckus either replaying Gazelle's new hit single. Something would always go wrong when the station was at its quietest.

"Hey, Jake!" Jake's ears perked at the sound of his partner calling him from the station's doors. "Are we goin' or what?"

The diner was a small building with bright red neon lights that covered the front portion of the roof. In big, lighted colours, Denise's Diners welcomed almost everyone from Acorn Avenue. He could see that the inside of the diner was well-lit and that a good number of people were eating away at their meals. The ones at the booth, however, kept looking out to where the patrol car had parked.

Jake didn't like how public the murder was. It was in the middle of a busy night it would seem, with cars zooming by and splashing puddles onto each unsuspecting passerby. As Fred got out of the car, his partner pointed at the two officers trying to maintain a boundary by sticking yellow tape across the alleyway where the body was.

"It's that bunny cop." He said. It was a cold night, what with the rain and the cooler temperature. Fred pulled his cloak closer to his chest. Jake did the same with his jacket. "And that fox of hers."

"I've heard good things about them," Jake yelled over the howling wind that cut through the air like a sharp knife. The wolf's sensitive ears had to fold themselves inwards to avoid the pain that would ring in his ears if he hadn't done it sooner.

"Yeah, well, let's hope they cut off the place good. I donwanna deal with the press hounding on our asses again."

As they approached the yellow line, Officer Judy Hopps stepped below the line and let out a paw to shake. "Officer Judy Hopps sir, we were the first on the scene." She said, her bright blue eyes seemed to expect an answer. As such, Jake responded to her courteousness.

"Detective Jake Wolfire, Homicide." He said as he let out a silver paw to shake hers. His fur was of a darker shade than hers, probably just one tint darker. It looked brighter tonight though as the spotlight of a Moon casts bright rays upon them.

"Fred Tigris." The tiger said, nodding his head.

"Tell us what happened," Jake said as he pulled the yellow line up. He motioned for Fred to go under first, which he did.

"We noticed a commotion happening outside the diner and when Nick and I got out to check, we found the body with a dumpster toppled over. We didn't touch anything, we called the station straight away." She informed them as she showed them the crime scene. A red fox in the same patrol uniform waited for them there, his hands busy writing something on a notepad. His eyes raised when he saw the two homicide detectives.

"Nick Wilde." He said as he shook Fred's hand.

"What you've got for us?" Fred asked, taking out a notepad of his own.

"Found the guy's body like this. Looks like he was shot. Carrots, did the lady leave?" Nick asked jerking his head in the opposite direction. He was asking Judy.

"After I threatened to take her to the station, she left as quickly as she came onto us."

"What lady?" Fred asked, tapping the pencil he had taken out on the side of the notepad.

"Just a reporter, sir. Nobody important."

"Good. We don't want no press stopping us from doing our investigation." He replied to her.

Crouching down on one knee, ignoring the rain that was pouring down on them and the fact that he was now knee-deep in a puddle, Jake took a closer look at the body. It looked to be an Elk with two bullet wounds in his back and one in his head.

"Do we know who the John Doe is?" Jake asked as he stood up. He tapped Fred's shoulder to give him a look at his notepad. He noticed he covered it with a thin sheet of plastic to prevent it from getting wet from the rain. On it, he wrote: _Rain washing away all evidence_.

"It's a Paul Woodentop. Hopps here has his wallet." Fred informed Jake as he nodded his head towards the rabbit officer.

"It was in the dumpster. No other evidence to report, sir." She handed him the old, worn-out looking wallet.

Opening it, Jake was shocked to find his wallet completely intact. His driver's license wasn't taken; no money seemed to be missing as a thief wouldn't leave a hundred dollars without taking it. A picture of a deer and two smaller fawns were in his side pocket. "This his family?" Fred asked him.

"It would appear so." He replied. "If you don't mind, Hopps, we'd prefer if we had a look around ourselves. Could you and Wilde secure the area? Make sure no reporters get through." Jake directed them.

"Yes, sir. We're on our way. C'mon Nick." She said urgently, pushing at his legs.

"Relax, carrots. We're going."

"Anything out of the ordinary to you?" Jake asked Fred right when the two officers left the scene.

"Yeah, the perp wasn't in it for the money. He would've taken the money. Something ain't right here."

"Let's take a look in the dumpster. There's no point looking for prints on the ground, the rain is washing them all away." He said as he pointed upward towards the falling raindrops soaking his fur.

Looking into the dumpster, all they could see was trash and there were loads of it.

"Hey, Jake, over here! I found something." Fred called his partner with utmost urgency. Pushing the green, rusty dumpster aside, a silver revolver was stuffed behind it. Reaching his right arm inside the gap he had produced, Fred pulled out the weapon with a grin on his muzzle. "I still got it."

"Let's take all these back to the station. The coroner will get him in by then and we can go over the evidence together. And I'm sick of getting wet."

Chapter Text

The station was busier than usual tonight. Clawhauser was answering calls left and right; Judy and Nick had returned from maintaining the scene back at the diner and were now busily reporting to Chief Bogo. As for Jake and Fred however, all they could do was wait as patiently as they could for the coroner to finish her autopsy on the Elk they found earlier.

"I don't get it," Fred started to say as they got into the building, his hand heavily pushing the glass doors letting some of the rain blow in with the help of the loud, howling wind. "This guy was shot execution style. The only way that'll happen is if the victim was expecting the perp or something."

Jake placed a claw on his chin, thinking. What Fred was saying made sense of course, could it be nothing more than of a crime of passion. Perhaps the victim and the murderer were caught in a deadlock argument, and it drove the murderer to shoot his friend. But there was a strict rule about owning guns in Zootopia, and the only way he'd be able to own one was if he was a cop himself, or if he was in the military. He didn't know which was worse, the lack of security in their little haven of a city that enabled a civilian to easily obtain a weapon, or a man in uniform committing murder.

"We'd better get the details from Hawkes soon. The sooner we get the details and the sooner we interrogate this man's family, the faster we'll catch this asshole." Jake nodded as he spoke.

"Up for a cuppa, Wolfire? Lion Christ knows we're not sleeping tonight." Fred yawned, stretching his body by placing his two paws on his lower back. The crack that was produced from that particular action made Jake cringe and his ears perk.

"Get the coffee, I'll meet you in the break room."

"Got a call from Hawkes, Wolfire. She's calling us into the morgue." Fred said, popping his head into the break room after finishing his third round around the station. On nights like this, when the case they were working on stumped them to no end; when they had to pull an all-nighter, staying in the station for the remainder of the night, Fred loved getting up from the tiny stools of the tiny break room they had there, and walk a few rounds. He claimed it got his blood pumping; and made his head clearer.

"Let's go," Jake replied almost instantaneously, jumping up from his seat. Grabbing the case file from the white table, and taking one last gulp of the strong, black liquid Fred had gotten them only an hour ago, he made his way to the door, where Fred was already waiting.

"Did she say anything when she called you?" He asked his partner as they made their way across the station and up the stairs.

"Nada, just that she's just as stumped as we are. Unless we find more evidence, we ain't gonna solve this case." Fred replied monotonously.

"We'll find it. We always do, Tigris." He tried comforting him unsuccessfully.

"When ya start trying to comfort people, Wolfire, it's when the situation is at its most dire. Let's hope it's different this time."

Reaching the morgue and the far end of the corridor, the insides were an assault on the two predators' senses. The smell of the corpse laid out on the metal table was horrid. It was starting to rot, and Hawkes, yet again, refused to spray some NeutraScent. She claimed it helped her work when she could smell. It drove the both of them mad.

"Lion Christ, Doctor. The smell in here is horrible." Fred said, pinching his nose closed. "Kill ya to spray some NeutraScent?"

"That would be detrimental to my work, Detectives." Sarah Hawkes, the Bald Eagle coroner, replied in her usual scientific tone. Monotonous and all business.

"We know." Jake sighed, trying to ignore the smell. "What you've got for us?"

"Nothing much, unfortunately. I can tell you how this poor man died however, and unless you find me something else to work on besides just the gun and the wound, I won't be able to lead you on too much." She said matter-of-factly. She ushered them closer, beckoning them with her two sharp talons.

"See these two wounds on the back? There's hardly a gap between them. The perpetrator had to have fired his gun in quick succession one after another. This one on the left here," She pointed at the leftmost wound, a small red hole. Hawkes had already cleaned it out, or else Jake would've been able to smell his insides with his heightened sense of smell. The perks that came with being a wolf. It drove him crazy. "Was the first, I believe. Then he fired again causing this second wound." She pointed at the one right next to it.

"Poor bastard," Fred exclaimed, his eyes entirely focused on the wounds. "What about the one in his head?" He asked.

"That's a good question, Detective. It would appear that the wound inflicted on his head is not of a gun. Or specifically, the revolver you found at the crime scene." She drew their attention by circling the wound in his head in the air. "As you can see, the hole in his head is bigger and wider. The circumference simply does not match those of the bullet wounds in his back."

"What are you trying to say, Doctor?" Jake asked, perplexed now.

"I believe your victim was impaled with a pipe. One that could cause this wide of a wound. Also, your perpetrator has to be strong, I'd say a predator or a very strong prey."

"Doc, you sold yourself short. This is more than enough information to go by." Fred praised as he slapped her on the back.

"Yes, but more would be better. More helpful. I'm afraid this is all I can do given the circumstances."

"Then we’ll take your word for it, Doctor. Thanks for the help."

"My pleasure."

"So, what now?" Fred asked as he jotted down what the Doctor had said in his trusty notebook. He added two new lines: Perp has to be physically strong, and Wound in head and wound in back inconsistent.

"We check the gun out in the evidence room. If we're lucky enough, the serial number will be on its side like any revolver would have, and we can contact the manufacturer for the perps' details."

"Good idea. Lead the way, Wolfire."

Chapter Text

Fred remembered the time when he was seven. As a cub, he'd always dreamed of being a patrol officer; of being someone who was respected and regarded as someone you could trust. It wasn't a well-kept secret that he had a terrible childhood. His life was filled with nothing but abusive beatings from his drunkard of a father; his siblings thinking he was useless and abandoning him when they ran away from home; or the fact that his mother was too much of a coward to fight back and stand up for herself. This was what drove him to be the man he was today. He realised now, standing in the evidence room as Jake collected the revolver, there was no such thing as a black-and-white world. The world was a giant grey area and nothing was going to change that. Not even a similarly coloured Rabbit who fought so much for equal predator-prey rights.

"The serial number is sawed off!" Jake exclaimed, cussing as he did. He sighed and handed the revolver in the thin, transparent plastic bag to Fred, who seemed to have awakened from a daze.

"Nothing at all?" He asked, surprised. Most of the unsubs they caught were either dumber than a bag of nails or genius masterminds. The person who committed the murder last night had to be one of the latter.

"Damn, the guy must've planned every murder down to every fine detail." Jake was busy rotating the bag around now, trying to catch any other hints of the perpetrator. He always swore on one thing: people always messed up, no matter how hard, how fastidious they may be, they always do. He wasn't so sure if this guy was one of them.

"Check the barrel, see if it's custom-made," Fred suggested, pointing at the long cylindrical front.

"No, it looks like a factory model to me." Rotating it further, Jake cussed loudly causing the other officers in the room to glance at him. "Damn it, he sawed off the company logo too. I have nothing to go on."

"Let's grab another cuppa. We're not sleeping again."

Jake liked the way coffee tasted. He savoured every bitter, aromatic sip down to the very last drop. On days when he and Fred had to mull over a case together, the coffee was an added bonus; an extra incentive to keep him going through the night. However, as he sat in the break room now, the bag keeping the revolver safe from any foreign prints in his paws, Jake wasn't enjoying his cup of joe at all.

Each bitter sip was likened to another bitter defeat in his mind. He realised Fred was daydreaming quite frequently too, suddenly going into the lapse of times when he'd zone out and forgot everything he said. He checked the date on his wristwatch, hoping it wasn't an important one to his partner. Only then did he realise it was the twenty-fifth of April; the day his mother committed suicide. The traumatic scene must've been playing on repeat in his head.

"Hey, Fred?" He said, shaking the daydreaming tiger from his daze.

"Yeah, what? Sorry." He replied to Jake with a rubbing of his eyes.

"Why don't you take a nap? We're gonna be here a while anyway."

"Nah, it's alright. An extra set of eyes never hurt."

"That is unless they're a set of sleepy ones. Don't worry about it, I've got this."

"Alright, just a cat nap. Hah!" Fred said laughing, his grin showing his sharp fangs. "Ah, racial jokes never get old."

"Don't let the bunny cop hear that one," Jake said, shaking his head.

"Don't let me hear, what?" A feminine voice greeted them. His eyes darted to the door, where a defiant-looking rabbit was staring at them.

"Just some racial joke, Hopps. Don't get your panties in a bunch." Fred replied voraciously. Lying down on the couch, he propped his two feet on the edge of the sofa where the armrest was.

"That's what caused the initial predator-prey crisis a year ago in the first place." She wasn't backing down.

"Relax, carrots. Just some stress-relieving humour." The red fox beside her said, giving her a wink.

"That caused our falling out too." She said with a smirk, half-joking, half-serious. Nick gave her a confusing look, playing it up sarcastically by putting his two paws up.

"Did we ever fall out, bunny? I thought it was what we called a hustle?" He continued.

"Oh please, we all know it wasn't. You were actually saddened by it."

"Okay, no racial slurs then. You've got us." Jake said raising his paws up, tired of listening to the rant. "Listen," he started to say, grabbing the bag from the table and tossing it over to Judy. She caught it in midair, although it did fumble in her paws a little when she almost dropped it. "We're kinda stumped. Any insight would help."

"We're not homicide detectives," Nick said. He looked over at Fred who was now relaxing with a magazine in his paws. "Detective." He finished.

"It doesn't matter. Patrol Officers walk the streets. You might notice something I don't." Jake replied.

"Wait," Judy said eagerly. "This handle, it looks like it's made from the same type of material Nick and I busted back a few months ago."

The sly fox bent down to where she was standing with the bag. He took it in his and rotated the bag around, careful enough not to accidentally tear it open with his claws.

"Good catch." He nodded, confirming his partner's assumption.

"You've seen it before?" Fred asked from across the room.

"Yeah, we tried to arrest this guy who was outsourcing this illegal sort of metal to warehouses around Deer Valley, but he got away before we could."

"Can you take us to one of these warehouses, Judy?" Jake asked, excitement apparent in the way he was wagging his tail.

"It should still be there. The owner started operating it again, but we can't just walk in there. We don't have a warrant and frankly, he knows us by now." Nick added.

"But he ain't bright is he now?" Fred got up from the couch and made his way over to the table. "If he started doing what almost got him caught in the first place when he knows two stubborn cops who can identify him."

"Exactly. He doesn't know us. We'll get the warrant, Wilde. Just get us there." Jake acknowledged. "I'll go speak to Xander right now."

Chapter Text

Jake didn’t like this one bit. The warehouse was a run-down one, that was for sure. Brown patches of rust trickled down the metal surface like spiralling spores sprayed onto it carelessly. Fred was on the other side of the building with Hopps, slowly drawing his claw up and placing it on his snout signalling them to be quiet. He pointed at the entrance and shook his head. Jake knew what his partner meant; it was a sign he always used when they were on cases like this. He was telling the wolf that the entrance wasn’t a feasible course of action.

Fred jerked his head to the far side of the warehouse, to where the back entrance was. He was telling them to go around the sides and enter from the back. Nick, who was crouching next to Jake, nodded his head and jerked his head upwards to Judy. She knew what that meant. It was their own secret code. It was him telling her to watch her back. With all the fighting and arguments they had, she never expected anyone else but him to care about her the way he did. Perhaps, that was the reason why they worked so well.

“Let’s go. Keep low, and keep your voices down.” Jake commanded Nick as they started to move towards the side of the warehouse from the crates they were hiding behind. A damp smell emanated from the wooden boxes stacked in front of them. If they weren’t guilty of smuggling illegal metals, then they were surely guilty of poor hygiene.

Fred liked Judy. He liked the way she talked; he loved how gung ho she was, and most importantly, she was a good cop. As they moved from the rusty, metal containers to the side of the warehouse, he had to ask her the question that was stewing in his mind.

“So, you and the fox,” He started to say as they hid behind a couple of dilapidated crates thrown out from the warehouse. “You together or something?” He asked nonchalantly, his paw hovering above the pistol stowed away in the front pocket of his coat. He was expecting trouble.

“No, of course not.” She replied defensively. Her eyes darted to two wolves loading up crates with something she couldn’t make out. “Two wolves at the back.” She was thankful for a distraction to direct their conversation elsewhere. If news were to get out about her dating Nick; of a rabbit and a fox being together? It wouldn’t only make the whole world erupt in a frenzy of reporters and questions, but it wouldn’t reflect well on her either. Fraternisation wasn’t something Chief Bogo took lightly, and for it to be an interspecies prey-predator one? She had enough on her plate, she didn’t need this to pile up onto it. Not like they were dating anyway. It was complicated.

“I see em’. Alright,” He began to say. “You take the one on the right. See the one over there with the cigarette in his snout?” He pointed at a slightly older and muscular wolf. Black fur covered his entire body but only the tuff of fur from his neck and his arms could be seen as he was wearing a thin polo t-shirt that accentuated his muscles. The one beside him was just as muscular, but he was wearing a long-sleeved cardigan instead.

“It’s like they can’t decide if it’s winter or summer,” Judy said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, that always pisses me off. Alright, ready?”

“Ready.”

Jake and Nick didn’t have to do much. By the time they rounded the corner and reached the back, the two wolves were already down on the ground, handcuffed, and silenced by Fred. Judy gave her fox a sly smile and winked at him.

“How did you even manage this?” Wilde asked with genuine shock.

“He did most of the work.” She pointed a thumb at the tiger who was now fishing around in the crate they were loading up only minutes earlier.

“What’s in there, Tigris?” Jake asked his partner.

“Some sort of pipe made with the same material used for the grip of the revolver,” Fred said as he took one out of the crate and produced it for the wolf.

“Feels like it.” Jake ran his paw over the smooth, shiny surface of the pipe, looking through the circumference of the hole with his right eye. “Looks about the width of the wound in Woodentop’s head.”

“This is it, then. For sure.” Wilde piped in, nodding his head.

“Luckily for us, we have a warrant,” Judy added.

“We do this together. Make sure we get the boss if he’s in there.” Fred agreed.

Randy Ursa wasn’t supposed to be here today. The big, brown bear sighed as he ordered the horse who walked into the room to clear the next stack of crates for shipping. He was supposed to be home today, hiding out just in case that resilient bunny and fox cop decided to bust in unannounced. It made matters worse that he had to talk to his new client who was rather feisty.

“Look, uh…” Randy had to read his name off the clipboard. “Stripes.” He said finally. “The shipment won’t come in till’ you pay the bills. If I ain’t making myself clear, then maybe we should discuss this some other time.”

“No.” A deep, husky voice replied. Randy imagined he wouldn’t want to get on his nerves. “The payment has been made. Just get it to me before I have to leave town.”

“Now we’re talking.” He said with a grin, his fangs showing.

A loud clanking sound interrupted his phone call, making him jerk his head to the window of his office. “I gotta go.” Hanging up the phone, Randy made his way to the windows that overlooked the whole factory. They were back, and this time with two other cops he didn’t recognise.

“Police! Get down, hands in the air!” Fred yelled but it was for nought. A freakishly buffed-up boar decided it was best to rush at an armed detective. He would’ve regretted it only minutes later. He was the first to react, of course. Fred always was when they got into a fight. If growing up in an abusive home with useless parents and having to know the streets inside and out wasn’t beneficiary, then at least he learned how to be tough. He didn’t know how that would reflect on him though if he ever tried to find someone. Not like many guys would ever want to be with a cop anyway.

Reaching out with a clawed paw, Fred sliced at the boar who tried to ram him, producing a loud, guttural sound. Crashing onto the ground with blood trailing from the puncture wounds in his chest, the boar passed out before he could even get up.

A lion tried to land a punch on Wilde, but Jake easily tripped him with a sideswipe, making him land on the ground with a loud thud. Socking him in the side of his face, the lion wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

“Freeze!” Jake yelled, producing his gun from his holster. He pointed it at the remaining workers, all with looks of defiance in their eyes. He would’ve gotten it out earlier and ordered everyone to get down, but the boar and the lion prevented that. He had Fred to thank for that, as he always did.

“Look, we don’t want no trouble.” A young-looking hyena said from the back of the room. “It’s cool.” He got down on his knees, putting his paws on the back of his head. The rest of the workers followed suit, getting down on their knees and putting their paws on their heads.

“Hopps, Wilde, cuff em’,” Fred ordered as he holstered his gun. He motioned to the office with a quick flick upwards of his head. “Boss is probably in the office.”

“Come with me. Hopps, Wilde, keep them in line.”

“Got it,” Judy replied, cuffing a skunk to the work table.

Making their way up the rusty staircase, the two detectives piled up on the door, one on either side. Unholstering their pistols, Jake signalled for Fred to open the door. Entering with both guns pointing at nothing but air, both predators shouted out the usual warnings. Nobody was to be found.

“Where the hell is he?” Fred cussed, pointing the gun aimlessly at the walls. “I ain’t that old. I heard him scuffling around in here.”

“I did too. Biology doesn’t lie, Fred. Keep looking.” The precaution was for nought. With a forceful swing of a metal pipe, Fred was down, reeling in pain and shouting obscenities like there was no tomorrow.

Randy was out the window and onto the metal platform in a heartbeat.

“Get him! I’m fine!”

Wasting no time at all, Jake darted for the window, jumping out with a fluid motion that even Judy would be jealous of. Landing perfectly onto the metal platform, Randy was only a little ways away from the office, making his way down the stairs and to the back entrance which they came in from.

“Police, stop!” Wilde shouted, trying to tackle him to the ground. Randy was faster than him, easily sidestepping him and avoiding capture. Hopps was quicker, however, and smashed the side of his face with a powerful kick, making him stumble and fall to the round. As the eventful conflict ended, Jake had just jumped down the last step and was already on him. He recited the Miranda Rights to him, cuffing him ungently.

“Good work, Hopps. Might make a fine detective one day.” He praised, nodding at her. It made her fur prickle in delight.

They had caught their man. The case would be solved before they knew it. Fishing around in the front pocket of the bear’s jeans, Jake managed to find his wallet. Opening it, he read out his driver’s licence.

“Randy Ursa?” He named the criminal in custody. “You’re under arrest.”

Chapter Text

"Clawhauser!" Fred yelled out as they got back to the station. "Set this guy up in room 2, keep an eye on him." He ordered the obese cheetah gushing over the new Gazelle video. He hated that song. Randy didn't argue, he knew when he was caught. Running away now would've been idiotic at best.

"Right sir, right away sir." He said jovially as he squeezed through the narrow entrance of the counter. "Interrogation Room 2, straightaway."

"He grows on you." Nick sighed, shaking his head at the way Clawhauser acted.

"Any more and he'll explode," Fred said jokingly. He was elbowed in the ribs by Jake, giving him a stare of disapproval. It practically oozed out of him.

"Alright, alright. Just a joke, Wolfire." Fred laughed, raising his two paws above his head in mock surrender.

"Thanks, you two. That was good work out there." Jake let out a paw. Judy shook it enthusiastically; Wilde, in his usual sarcastic manner, shook it only after a brief pause.

"Glad to be of help, sir." The rabbit said, grinning.

"Let's have a talk with Randy." Fred nodded.

Jake was a terrifying force of nature when it came to interrogation. Of all the times Fred had successfully arrested the many murderers in Zootopia, it was Jake who actually sat down with them, got into their heads, and got them to spill everything out. And he did it all without ever resorting to violence. He was a smooth talker and a master at manipulating perpetrators to get the information he wanted. Fred was only glad that he was on their side and not the opposite side of the spectrum.

"You be the bad cop." The wolf said to his tiger friend as they walked past the conference room and to the interrogation rooms lined up door to door.

"Ain't I always the bad cop?" Fred replied, shaking his head. Jake always reminded him before every interrogation. He was always like that, completely and utterly thorough. Sometimes, it got on his nerves.

"Just, let me handle the talking."

"You always do, Wolfire. Go get him."

Reaching the furthest, wooden door on the right, Jake pawed at the handle, hesitating before opening it. It wasn't a well-kept secret that the officer who was in charge of reprinting the numbers on the glass panels miscounted the number of doors there were on this corridor. Numbers one, three and four came first and then number two on the right. Chief Bogo made sure he never forgot it.

"Something, wrong?" His concerned partner asked him. A perturbed expression was plastered on the feline's face.

"No, I don't think so. Let's go talk to him. Find out what he knows."

It was a dingy little room with hardly any leg space. A blanket of dust covered the metal table on which Randy rested his paws on. The chair he was sitting on wasn't that of superior quality either, sporting a ripped-out cushion and a broken backrest.

Jake liked this room. That's most probably why Fred told Clawhauser to set up this room instead of the other three which were in better condition. He liked how this room didn't have a two-way mirror. It was just the interrogator and the interrogated in this room. No second opinion. Nobody was looking over them in a hidden room with cameras eyeing their every move; their every question. The secluded environment also did wonders for their work.

"Randy Ursa." Jake greeted the guilty as they entered the room. "Do you know why you're here?" He finished.

"I ain't talking until I get a lawyer. You read me those rights. I know what I'm entitled to and ain't." The oversight, brown bear spat.

"Don't think that's a good idea, Randy. Unless you want my friend over here to take over." Jake motioned to the tiger with his claw.

"I don't play nice," Fred replied, deadpanned.

"You can't do anything to me. There ain't-" Randy couldn't finish his train of thought. Fred had slammed his paws down onto the table, producing a loud metal banging sound that echoed throughout the small, cramped and empty room. Little specks of dust exploded into the air from the table like ashes from an erupting volcano, irritating all three animals' noses.

"Talk!" Fred shouted, his deep, husky voice shocking even Jake, making him jerk up in his seat.

"Alright, alright! Look, I ain't done anything wrong!" Randy tried protesting.

"Then what's this?" Jake unlocked his smartphone and slid it across the table to Randy. It was a picture of the pipes in the crate and the handle of the revolver; neatly photoshopped next to one another.

"Look, I just smuggle the stuff in the crates. We've been doin' it a long time but I ain't know nothing about who-" Jake interrupted him again.

"Did you know one of the very same pipes ended up in Paul Woodentop's head?" Jake spat back, swiping to the left of his screen, revealing an extremely gruesome picture of the gaping hole left in the elk's head.

Randy's eyes widened in shock.

"Hey, man, I didn't do anything like this! You've gotta believe me!" He pleaded, his voice growing more and more urgent by the second.

"You know nothing bout’ this?" Fred chipped in, softening his expression for just the duration of the question.

"I just smuggle the crates! I've been doing that for years. The bunny cop and the fox caught me once but I got out on parole. I ain't no murderer!"

"Who do you smuggle the crates for, Randy?" Jake asked, completely perplexed by how honest the bear sounded.

"A Mr. Stripes. That's all I know."

"That's not good enough." Fred slammed the table again.

"Lion Christ that's all I know!"

"Not even a first name?"

"He was very discreet. Didn't want nobody to know his full name."

They had a long night ahead of them. Fred was already thinking of coffee.

"So whaddya think?" Fred asked as they exited the room, leaving a frightened brown lump cowering inside.

"He didn't do it, Tigris. I could hear it in his voice. He isn't the one." Jake sighed, rubbing his head.

"How d'ya know?"

"Call it a gut feeling. A guilty man is either completely silent or over-talkative. He's either a stone-cold murderer or-"

"Or he's just a pawn in a bigger man's game." Fred finished his sentence for him.

"And that man is a Mr. Stripes."

Chapter Text

Chief Bogo wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of having to face the press so early in the morning. The Bull always hated this part of his job; the way he had to divert sensitive issues; answer questions; being hounded by reporters and journalists who he believed never should've gotten the job if all they wanted to do was spout nonsense.

He realised, then, after mulling over a cup of coffee that Clawhauser had made for him, that he'd rather someone else do his job for him. But he didn't entertain the thought. He remembered the last time he allowed someone else to handle the talking, and it resulted in a humongous, outplayed and overplayed prejudice between predator and prey. He didn't want to deal with another hassle like that again and this case was leading up to it, he just knew it. He had to nip it in the bud. As quickly as he could.

"Chief, they're ready for you." A fat cheetah chimed as he came into the room, clipboard in his meaty paws. Clawhauser looked exhausted and that was an understatement. He'd been running up and down, herding the press. It was only minutes ago that he ushered them all into the main hall and set up the podium.

"Tell them I'll be out in a minute," Bogo replied, taking the last sip of his insanely dark coffee.

"Sir, Julie Woolace from the Bleater Monthly. Is it true that the victims have been mainly prey?" A bouncy sheep asked, the fur on her head bobbing up and down as she hopped on the spot, raising her paw in the air.

"That is true." The chief replied, sighing as he shuffled the papers on the podium and moving the glass of water Clawhauser had placed there for him, annoyed. He knew the questions were coming.

"And is it true that the two detectives in charge of this case are predators?" She continued, jotting down something on her phone. Bogo could tell it was probably notes. It was beyond him how reporters could type that fast.

"That is irrelevant," Bogo said hastily, hating the way his voice erupted from his throat like a terrified screech.

"It is when the case mainly deals with prey being the victims again." She said defiantly. Her tongue emerged from her mouth, lapping on the sides of her mouth. She was thinking of something and Bogo knew he'd hate what she'd say next.

"Is this a repeat of Bellwether's scandal? Can we expect something just as dividing again?" She didn't waste any time at all.

The murmurs from the crowd were deafening. The Bull cringed as they began whispering to one another and to add salt to the wound, they began typing furiously on their phones.

The crowd went silent as Bogo finally decided to speak out.

"The detectives in charge of this case have had nothing but success ever since they were paired together. Rest assured, we have our best on this case -regardless of species."

"Sir, George Wellington." A bull introduced himself, the pin on his overcoat denoted that he was from Channel 5 news. "Is it possible that the once thought-of symmetrical relationship of predator and prey has now regressed to that of fear? It's only been two years since Officer Hopps-"

"If I may interrupt," Bogo interjected, raising a paw. "The events that led to the unforeseen prejudice that plagued Zootopia still weigh heavily on the minds of everyone in this precinct. We have taken the utmost care to ensure what happened will never happen again. As such, we have a suspect in custody-"

Paws forced their way up into the air. Questions soon followed. Bogo couldn't distinguish one voice from another.

"I don't understand. You've always taught us to be true in what we do. You spout things about justice and being better than the petty criminal. What you're suggesting -it's wrong." Jake Wolfire said, slamming his paws onto Chief Bogo's desk a little bit louder than he had wanted to.

He couldn't help himself. What the chief was suggesting should've never even crossed his mind and for him to actually consider doing it? He felt betrayed as a detective. He felt guilty for holding his badge proudly as he always did. Now, he felt guilty and it wasn't a feeling he liked.

Fred, normally the one to be boisterous and rough, sat silently beside him. His ears folded when Jake slammed the desk and he didn't blame him for being angry either. It was wrong of Bogo to think of such a drastic, inhumane thing. But, there was a part of him that understood the reason why he wanted to do what he was planning on doing as well. So he waited patiently but, at the same time, somewhat impatiently. His leg was shaking. His tail bristled and hung low.

"It's the only way we can avoid another scandal. I don't want to see Zootopia become what it was two years ago before Hopps and Wilde fixed it." The Bull replied the currently seething wolf, getting up from his desk and ripping a piece of paper from his clipboard. Throwing it into the trash can, Bogo let out a much-needed sigh. It was as though everything he had said earlier was wiped clean. Out of sight, out of mind, Bogo always believed.

"By convicting someone who has nothing to do with this? It was just smuggling, Chief. He didn't kill anyone." Jake said, trying to maintain his composure. He was certain he'd snap anytime soon.

"The press needs someone to blame. The people need someone to blame."

"Ursa didn't kill anyone. We're right on this bastard's tail. Just give us another week and I'm sure Fred and I-"

Bogo's booming voice stopped him from continuing any further.

"And by another week, there could be riots on the streets, prejudice swelling up to uncontrollable proportions."

"So that's just it? We give the life sentence to a petty thief, a smuggler, and let a serial killer walk off untouched?" Jake's fangs were showing.

"We continue the investigation but we have our scapegoat."

"Sir, I can't-"

"It's either you back down or you give me your badge."

"Chief. You ain't saying what I think you're saying." Fred jerked up in his seat, his eyes filled with worry.

"So you're shutting anyone else down?" Jake asked, sarcastically.

"I am still your superior officer. It's either you stop this barking of yours or I'll have to ask you to resign."

Fred eyed his partner and best friend. He could see the hurt in his eyes; the way the fur next to his eyes was starting to turn brown, staining from the tears he was fighting to keep down.

Without a word, Jake removed the badge hanging from his belt and his pistol and placed them on the desk with a loud thud. With only a mere glance at the tiger, Jake walked out, the sense of hurry apparent in the way he moved. One of urgency.

Fred stared at the door as it was slammed close.

Chapter Text

He couldn't believe he was doing this. All his life, he had fought for his own freedom of speech, for always doing the right thing. It angered him exponentially whenever someone was wrongly accused. When someone didn't have the opportunity to defend himself just like how he couldn't defend himself in the past with his horribly abusive father and neglectful mother.

And now, the same thing was happening to Randy Ursa, a guilty fur, there was no doubt about it, but he was innocent of this and Fred felt in every fibre of his being and with every angry twitch of his striped black-and-orange tail, that Chief Bogo was completely going about this the wrong way. The worst thing about it, however, was seeing his best friend and partner being dismissed for the very reason he became a detective in the first place.

It made him sick to think about it.

The tiger closed his eyes shut, forcefully inhaling air into his nostrils, hoping it would calm his nerves. It didn't. It only made him vexed and enraged to think he was capable of this. Of making a false statement on an official report. The pen snapped in his paws.

"Fred?" He snapped out of his irritated daze as a feminine voice called out to him.

Judy Hopps stood silently next to the much larger figure. Her big blue eyes tried to discern the cause of the predator's snappy mood. He had already snapped at Clawhauser twice.

"Judy." He murmured irascibly.

“I don't like it either." She said quietly. How she mentioned the case so clandestinely made Fred even angrier at the bull.

"I can't lose this job. I ain't got anyone else to go back to like Jake does." Fred confessed, dishearteningly.

"Come with me." She said, eying the break room they had talked in only days before. "I need to show you something. Bring the forms along."

"I ain't gonna lie, Hopps. This is impressive." The tiger nodded, caressing the bottom of his muzzle with a claw. The evidence was irrefutable. The bunny cop was on to something, and Fred was more more Han determined to help her see it through. If not for Jake, then for himself.

"So you agree with me then?" Judy asked, pointing at a makeshift board made out of a large picture frame with various papers pinned onto the thin wood. "Everyone we have in custody is a predator. From Randy Ursa to the Lion we arrested for the homicide of a prey, to a leopard causing ’civil unrest’," Judy abbreviated with her two tiny paws; "and even to the fox making noise over at the precinct about prey being inferior." She nodded. "They've all been predators."

"It's like someone is trying to pin all of these crimes solely on predators. We have an ulterior motive." Fred agreed.

"Yes, we just don't know who it is. The most likely is already in a maximum security jail."

"You talking about Bellwether?"

"Yes. So it can't be her."

"What did I miss?" They turned around to see Nick standing by the door. "Y’know, you ought to close the binders if you're trying to be sneaky." He smiled slyly as he released the string holding the plastic binders, letting them fall in place over the windows, concealing them.

"Nick," Judy began to speak, ignoring the fox's comments. Fred assumed she was more than used to it by now, being partners for so long. "We think we're on to something."

"Not we." The tiger said. He pointed to Judy who beamed as he said his next sentence. "It was all her work. Would make a fine ass detective one day, believe me."

"Fine ass?" Nick reiterated, a smirk forming on his muzzle.

"Nick." The bunny was not entertained.

"Right, okay, so is this what you were talking about last night?" Nick asked casually as he walked to the not-frame-but-information-board.

"Yes, we were saying it couldn't be Bellwether because she's in jail."

Nick stood still for a moment, contemplating and processing the information. Not long after, he shook his head. "Why couldn't it be?"

"You've got another opinion?" Fred asked, albeit a little impatiently. It made him sound hesitant.

"As a matter of fact, I do. We know how conniving the sheep is. Why couldn't she be pulling the strings behind the scenes? That's what she did with Lionhearted. She could be doing it again now."

"And it's the perfect time to do it!" Judy exclaimed, clasping her paws together. "It's almost the anniversary of the predator-prey crisis. It's the perfect time to remind everyone about it. It could stir up unrest, it could-"

Fred finished her train of thought for her. "It could get her out of jail if people demanded it and she could get back at all the predators. Great job, Hopps." He nodded.

"The only thing now is," Nick started to say, moving up to his partner. "What do we do with this information? We're basing this out of nothing."

"I agree. There is no evidence that Bellwether is pulling everyone's strings. It'll be a false accusation. Chief Bogo ain't gonna do anything about it." The tiger sighed, his paws clenching and unclenching in frustration.

"Fred, when do you have to hand in the form convicting Ursa?" Judy asked as quick as lightning.

"By tomorrow morning. They're giving me time to 'mull' over it." Fred said sarcastically. He played with the thin piece of paper in his right paw. His claws slowly stroked the edges, careful not to get a paper cut but hard enough to feel it on his skin. He felt nothing but contempt for his boss at this very moment. He also felt nothing but sympathy for his closest friend. His only friend. He couldn't let Jake down.

"Then we still have time. Nick, get the car."

Nick performed a mock salute. "Yes, ma'am."

"What are we-" Fred started to ask but was immediately interrupted by the now highly energetic bunny.

"We're going to pay Bellwether a visit."

Chapter Text

"Are we sure about this, bunny?" Nick asked, apprehensively.

He remembered what Bellweather did to them two years ago. It almost tore them apart, and they've been working strenuously to keep their jobs and maintain a semblance of a professional relationship. He knew they didn't most of the time. He couldn't help teasing her whenever he had the chance. It always made his day. And now, with the two of them making the discussion to move in together, he was nothing more but terrified about the prospect of losing her in the line of duty.

The worried fox tightened his paws on the steering wheel, shifting in his seat and sitting up. Judy was writing something down on her notepad with the carrot pen. He smiled to himself. He liked how she still kept it.

"I'm sure. Bellweather makes you think she's all innocent and bubbly and fluffy but she's-" Fred growled an interruption.

"A conniving witch."

"I wouldn't have put it so bluntly -but yes. Succinctly put, detective." She nodded into the rearview mirror.

"Do we have a plan, or are we just hoping that she'd just tell us everything? Best case scenario: she has a heart attack. Worst case scenario: we have a heart attack." Nick said, shaking his head. Slowing the car down to a crawl to stop before the traffic light turned red, he looked beside him. Judy had her reassuring eyes.

"Don't worry about it. It's a hustle, honey." She said, winking. He smiled again.

Fred raised an eye to that remark. Ignoring their suddenly close proximity, his eyes darted outside out of poor awkwardness. There were a group of furs, all protesting about something. A slim and slender white arctic fox was leading it, shouting loudly into a bright blue loudspeaker. If anything, he could at least admire him from afar.

"Alright, we've got this." Nick continued, now with the divided attention of Fred whose ears perked up subconsciously. He tried reassuring himself by repeating it in his head.

"Hey," Judy started to say. "We’re fine, aren't we?"

"Yeah, of course. Are we not?" He asked, panicking.

"No, no of course not. Just, with everything going on-"

"Light's green." Fred interrupted, tapping on Nick's headrest.

"Right, right."

The jail looked exactly like how one would look in a high-budget movie. Two wolves guarded the main entrance, standing upright with zest. A skunk lazed around inside the small, air-conditioned office where the gate controls were.

"Judy, Nick." The skunk acknowledged lazily as they approached the gate. "Who's this?" He asked, pointing at Fred.

"Detective," Fred said nonchalantly, lifting up his badge.

"Business?"

"We want to talk to Bellwether." The bunny relied almost instantaneously.

Judy detested the way she felt whenever the thought of the Bovidae invaded the privacy of her mind. Nick always joked that it was like a palace in there, where she had many doors and many rooms from which she could recall memories. She also missed her parents daily, however, she was unsure how they would react if she ever brought Nick home. She didn't want to start thinking about that now.

She sighed as she let her mind race a little longer, waiting for Fred to ask the concierge lady, a panther, about which room Bellwether was being kept in.

It was only moments later that she realised that they were already done asking and waiting for her.

"You alright?" Fred asked, genuinely concerned but his rough voice betrayed that fact.

"I'm fine. Let's go."

"Alright," Fred started to say as he kneeled down to meet Judy in the eyes. "I'm gonna wire you up. I want to hear exactly what she's saying in there." He motioned for the nervous bunny to take the mini mic from his paws. It was designed specifically for her. They never had a rabbit police officer before.

"Why don't we just use the investigation room?" Judy asked.

"Because we want her to feel safe. Like she can say whatever she wants to say to you. We need to trick her into divulging whatever info she knows about the case and even if she doesn't have anything to do with it, get her to talk. We need all the info we can get." The predator instructed.

"Just press the button when you need us. You'll look like a monkey beating your chest, but you'll be safe." Nick joked.

Nodding, Judy made her way into the room.

It was a desolated room, comprised of only two colours. The first: is white. It was a funny thing indeed that the colour was associated with purity or innocence. That was completely untrue when it came to this devious sheep. The second: is orange. This, Judy particularly favoured. Seeing her restricted to being only in this room made her more than joyful. Unfortunately, having her own personal toilet might have been seen as a privilege. Still, having been moved from a normal prison to one of maximum security after the lobbying of the Predator-Prey Friends movement must be seen as a good thing.

"Judy?" The sheep asked, as innocently as she could but the bunny's ears could pick up the hint of contempt a mile away.

"I need to ask you a few things." She said, trying to remain non-committed.

"Is that how you're going to treat an old friend, Judy?" There it was again. Judy always liked it when Nick said her name but when it came to this deceitful person sitting in front of her, she could do without the constant naming.

"You know we've never been truly friends, Bellwether."

"Ah, how I hate that name." Bellweather spat. "It makes me sound all fluffy and-"

"Cute?" Judy said, degradingly.

Bellwether gave her a searing, incandescent look. "Say what you want to say."

"Do you know anything about the recent predator deaths?" Judy asked, finally.

"No, I don't think I have any recollection of deaths. I'm kept in a room with nothing in here except for a potty so I'd think you'll understand." She said in her horribly, condescending raspy voice.

"I believe you know more than what you're telling me." She said, rubbing her nose. Other thoughts invaded her own.

"Ask her about Randy Ursa." Fred's voice came out loud and clear in her ears. Judy had to remind herself not to touch the earpiece.

"What about the bear?" Judy asked, pretending not to have gotten the idea from someone else.

"I don't believe he's part of the death circus now, is he?"

Judy smiled slyly. She had her.

"So you do know who he is?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bellwether said, trying to cover up.

"He said he knows you're involved." Judy lied. "A little birdie tipped him off about you. So stop kidding yourself."

"Alright! I don't need any more maximum security than this already. I even have to ask permission to use the toilet." The sheep said exasperatedly. "But I'm not going to talk until I have a lawyer in here. And besides, no one cares enough about Ursa to take him seriously."

Judy reminded herself of Nick for just a moment. "I didn't mention any names."

Bellweather choked on her own saliva.

"It's what they call a hustle, honey." She said condescendingly. Reaching into the front pocket of her uniform, she produced her favourite pen. A recording replayed itself.

"I hate that thing."

"So, talk. Or do you still want that lawyer?"

"Great job, Hopps." Fred's voice complimented her.

Judy burst through the doors. "She's Mr. Stripes. That's her pseudonym. She goes through a liaison who brings her food every day. It's been her plan all along." Not waiting to stop and take a breath, she turned to Nick. "Nick, we have to go. Go grab your car."

"Bunny?" Nick asked, worriedly.

"Please just go. I'll explain along the way."

"Alright, stay right here." Fred waited for Nick to leave before he asked her.

"Hopps, what's going on? You ain't making any sense." He eyed her, and the door.

"She's after my parents."

Chapter Text

Jake was certain that if the mammals around the world still had their natural animalistic instincts, he would've been howling at the moon.

He was disgusted with the way Chief Bogo handled the case and honestly, he was now more than certain that he did the right thing. Well, at least that's what he tried telling himself as he watched television, obviously depressed.

The job was a tough one, being a homicide detective was never meant to be an easy job but the wolf loved every minute and every moment of it. From the pathetic excuse of a desk job to the exciting, scintillating moments when he was on the field, working the crime scene. And now, he was his father. A sad excuse for a person, to do nothing but complain about why and how he was fired than trying to find another job.

At least, in this case, he had Sarah. He could hear her cooking in the kitchen, the air tickling his nose with an assortment of different smells. He was more than thankful that he had her, and he was more than happy that he decided to tie the knot with her a year ago. It then occurred to Jake, that perhaps he should invite Fred for dinner. If not as colleagues, then better yet as friends. He knew Fred had no one else to go to after hours. It explained why Fred mostly slept in the break room and only returned when he hated the smell of his own breath.

He averted his eyes to the stack of magazines on the coffee table. On top, sat idly a pen and paper. Sarah always recommended putting thoughts to paper whenever he felt down and most of the time, he did. He didn't feel like writing anything down today. Perhaps, letting his thoughts summer and boil in his head would do him better for once.

Next to him, was the TV remote. However, reality shows with celebrities weren't going to cut it at the moment. He was never much one for fake, staged programmes. Fred was a sucker for them, however. Perhaps, it was because he made fun of them more than actually watching them.

If anything, he was proud of who he became. Who he grew into as a person. He didn't have the prettiest of childhoods either, albeit, not as bad of a one like Fred. He had a non-committed mother who left his father for another, a leopard if he could recall properly. His father was never the same. And it pained him to visit good ole' dad every time Christmas came around. He was nothing more but a shell of a man.

With Sarah, and perhaps a friend in Tigris; with newfound friends in Wilde and Hopps, it shouldn't be so terrible to start anew. A life away from the deep dark, convoluted world of police work and detective work. Maybe he could start that auto mechanic store he always wanted as a child.

"Jake, could you come here for a second?" His ears perked up from the sweet voice that flowed from the kitchen like honey. Getting up, he decided that he could at least, leave the thoughts that plagued him for another time.

The kitchen was in a mess. A cluster of pots and pans was dumped into the sink. There were dark, sugary stains on the table with a lone, slightly worn-out rolling pin resting right next to it. Sarah was baking. She only baked when she was worried about something, or when she was nervous.

"Is everything alright, honey?" Jake asked, worry apparent in his voice.

"I'm fine. Just doing some baking." She asserted, taking out a tray from the oven.

"You don't bake unless there's something on your mind."

"About that case. And your job?" Sarah asked in a half-question. She placed the tray down on the table, directly onto the sugar stain. Jake winced at that. Taking off the mittens from her paws, she took in a deep breath of air and placed both paws on his shoulder.

"Fred called and told me about it."

Jake let out a mouthful of air out of exasperation. He knew his friend cared about him, but he didn't want to talk about it until he was ready.

"Yeah, I felt really strongly about it." The wolf confessed. He noticed that Sarah's paws were still on his shoulders and, without thinking, started to stroke the top part of her paw where her silver fur was with a carefully drawn claw.

"Chief Bogo?" She asked, knowing fully well that it was indeed the bull who had made this decision.

"I get that he wants to avoid another crisis, I do. But, the way he's going about it is entirely wrong." Jake stated, in a matter-of-fact way.

"So, the badge and the gun?"

"Conflict of interest. He wanted it one way and I didn't."

"Here," Sarah let go of his shoulders and opened the drawer for a plastic container. She slid all the cupcakes she had baked into it. "Give this to your friends."

"Tigris is probably busy at the precinct."

"No, they're waiting outside. Fred called, and he said he was on to something with that bunny cop. What's her name again?"

"Hopps?" Jake asked confused.

"Yes, that's the one. He didn't sign the forms. They need your help with something. So, are you going to keep them waiting?"

Sometimes, he could just kiss her for how understanding she could be. And he did.

"Wolfire, welcome back." Fred acknowledged his partner as he entered the police car. He noticed how panicky Judy looked. More so than usual. Nick was trying to calm her down, making her write something down with that carrot pen of hers.

"What's going on? Has the case been reopened?" Jake asked, still confused. "Oh, and Sarah baked these."

"That's for me. I asked when I called." He continued with a mouthful. "Nobody bakes these like Sarah does."

Jake shook his head. "Someone fill me in, please."

Chapter Text

There was tension in the air. It was tinged with awkwardness and it wasn't coming from the tiger, stuffing his face with sugary sweets. No, it was from the two infamous police officers seated in front of them. Something was going on, and it wasn't something professional either. It wasn't entirely uncommon to hear of an interspecies relationship. Jake had a friend or two. One came to mind; a male tiger and a female panther. High school sweethearts like you'd ever see one.

But an interspecies, predator-prey relationship? Now, that was unheard of. The consequences ran in sequence in his mind, racing by at the speed Nick was currently driving. They could lose their job; they could lose their colleagues' respect. Heck, they could even lose each other if they let the secret consume them, or, in a worst-case scenario, let their relationship jeopardise their integrity.

"Let me get this straight," Jake began to say to break the tension and in disbelief. He was oblivious to the fact that Nick was swallowing as hard as he could to calm the knot that had formed in his throat, his paw entirely stiff on the steering wheel. Or the fact that Judy was nervously looking out of the window. He was, of course paying full attention to his partner, sitting next to him and eating the sweetened desserts that his wife had baked, voraciously.

"You went to a maximum security prison -alone." He said, eyeing the tiger who was now on to his third cupcake. "Not only that, you sent Hopps in alone, and you disabled the wire?" He finished.

"She found out I was using one. I saw it as the only way I could find out" Judy tried to defend herself. She caught herself midway, letting Jake cut in.

Jake finished the bunny's sentence for her. "Who was after your parents, right. And they're framing who now?" He asked, unsure of the name she had mentioned earlier in a hurried breath.

"Gideon, the fox who delivers them pies." She stated, closing her eyes and then opening them again in a forced manner. As though trying very hard to think. To get the gears moving in her head again, before something terrible happened.

"And this Gideon; he was your grade-school bully?"

"Yes, but he's changed. He's nice now. He said he was a jerk, I know something about being a jerk. We put it behind us and now -and now Bellwether is going to use that to her advantage." Judy said, not stopping for a second. The member of the same species mentioned in the car made a double take.

Fred noticed that again. A hint of jealousy, hidden behind a thin veil of concern and contempt. He didn't like the way Judy talked about her childhood bully-now-friend. He scoffed at the thought, choking on a piece of cupcake in the process.

"Tigris, chew," Jake said without thinking. He was used to it. The tiger always ate like it was his last day on Earth.

"Did you find out who Mr. Stripes was?" The wolf continued questioning. The inquiry was sound. Up until now, there was no mention of the identity of this 'Mr. Stripes'. He ignored Fred, who was now pointing frantically at the tissue box Judy had placed in the glove box just before picking Jake up.

"It was a pseudonym. It was always Bellweather. It's always been her pulling the strings." Judy passed the tissue box to a wheezing Fred. He nodded his head in thanks and proceeded to pull out a needless amount of tissues to cough into.

"Then who's the perp carrying out the murders for her?"

"A Gary Woodentop. Stag, and has a personal vendetta against predators. His family was killed in a car crash. The driver was, ironically, a fox." She replied, handing him a file in the process. "We went back to the station and pulled up Woodentop's file."

"Yeah, and she ain't lyin' when she said he had a vendetta against our kind," Fred said, licking the frosting off his paw. "Take a look at this," a claw caught Jake's attention, tapping at the crimes and felony section. "Two accounts of assault against a fellow worker in a factory. Racial slurs were made. Another, a rowdy protest against predators having the right to join prey majority tertiary education institutes."

"Probable cause and motive. Nice work, Hopps." Jake praised, nodding his head towards the bunny. "Tigris, you alright?"

"Peachy." Fred raised his right paw, waving at Jake. It was his signal to continue clarifying things. The wolf made a mental note to count how many times Fred choked on food in a single week.

"And he's after my parents next. He's going to frame Gideon. He's the easiest target. And Gideon would never do such a thing." Nick's eyes widened. Not in agreement, but in a very one-sided disagreement.

"That's plenty coming from someone who clawed your face before," Nick replied, sarcastically. The jealousy was now definitely apparent in his voice. His voice quavered as delivered the line.

"We were kids, Nick. We were young and dumb. He was young and dumb. He's a sweetheart now." Judy winced at the word. She could never bring herself to admit that Nick and she were closer than just friends. They had discussed it before. Even acknowledged at one point, that they were a couple. But, it seemed wrong now. Why was it so easy to call Gideon 'sweetheart', and not Nick?

"You seem to know a lot about that."

"We've been talking on the phone! He helps me keep an eye out for mom and dad for me. Nick-"

"Enough!" Jake took command of the situation. "You can settle whatever petty differences you have after we handle the situation. Nick, drive. Judy, calm down." He glimpsed at Fred, who promptly rolled his eyes.

"It's about an hour's drive to my barn house in Bunnyburrow from here in Zootopia," Judy said after a moment's silence.

"We'll get there in time," Jake reassured her.

"Nick, floor it," Fred said, tapping his headrest.

"You've got it."

Chapter Text

The usually sprawling, commotion-filled town of Bunnyburrow was nothing more but a deadly silence. A deafening one, as Judy would later recall to Nick, as her simple town was never known to be quiet.

There was a twitch to her step instead of the commonplace bounce that the fox was so used to seeing. She was nervous -anxious, and he wished he could soothe the bunny's scared mind but he knew that nothing would work at the moment. Not until her parents were safe and sound, and Gary Woodentop was put behind bars.

"Judy?" Nick asked, cautiously. Afraid of overstepping any bounds. He should've known better of course, that with them, there was nothing that could keep them apart.

"I'm fine. Let's just get this done." She replied, hastily.

"Alright, if Bellweather's Intel was correct, Woodentop should be holed up in your old barn house," Jake said as they crossed the desolated marketplace.

Judy eyed the carrot stall where the oblong and orange vegetables were always piled up onto the wooden desk Mr Karot stole from the school that one summer day. She stood dead in her tracks when she saw Gideon's pastry van, parked right in front of the same spot Judy first confronted him many years ago during the farm fair. The same spot that cemented her resolve to be a police officer.

"Spot something, Hopps?" The tiger asked, turning around to meet her in the eyes.

Judy looked over yonder, where a red-roofed barn house with dilapidated, rotting doors, and fresh carrots were awaiting her. "Let's just go."

"Alright, we need a game plan," Fred said, crouching down, his broad knee settled on the ground in a weird position. Jake did the same, but he was writing in his notebook. The velvet, leather-bound one that Fred got him for his birthday a year ago. Of course, it wasn't made from real leather. It was a synthetic one, seeing how leather was banned ever since the bull congressman brought out how inhumane it was over centuries of years ago.

Nick slowly pushed himself over the haystack they were hiding behind. He could see the two bunnies, their paws tied to each other and the chairs they were seated on faced back to back. There wasn't much lighting except for a dim lightbulb illuminating the part of the barn house they were currently being held hostage in. He could make out, just faintly, the sight of a stag with an antler missing, holding out what seemed to be a pistol right in their faces.

He had to stop Judy from bursting through the front doors.

"Are you mad?" Nick said as he straddled the bunny's back. "Judy!"

"He's pointing a gun at them, Nick!" She shouted, albeit not loud enough for the stag to hear them.

"And just bouncing in is suicide."

"Wilde's right. We need a course of action before we enter. Or not, your parents are as good as dead." The wolf stated with authority.

"I ain't guessing if I said you had a plan?" Fred said as he tried to peer down at the notebook.

"We can't see them, but a prey like Woodentop who's been through so much, isn't going to be playing around." Jake started to say. "He's going to have armed guards around. But they aren't in plain sight. You heard what Bellweather said, this is her revenge. She wants another prey-predator crisis. The best way to do that is to have a fail-proof plan. And I'm guessing Woodentop is just as much a pawn in this as the perpetrator."

"So, what you're saying is...?" Nick said, his head cocked to one side in confusion.

"What I'm saying is, that we should split up into two groups. Two to scope out the house and check for armed guards, and the other two to save the Hopps."

"I'm saving my parents," Judy said, without hesitation.

"I'll go with her. Make sure she doesn't get into no trouble." Fred told him. Judy simply nodded.

"We're prioritising the Hopps here. Don't do anything stupid, alright?" The tiger instructed.

The wolf was certainly right. Two armed guards were stationed at the front door, their prey eyes scanning the wooden fences and hot air for anyone who would get in their way. There was a ferocity in their eyes, the ones that Jake had only seen in those of predators. They were wronged eyes. He cursed the fool who gave them this horrible, personal vendetta.

Nick had his paw on his pistol, the holster still brand new and fresh. He didn't have to use his gun much, and he was grateful for that. However, if using it today meant he could ease Judy’s pain, then he would gladly do it.

"Not so fast," Jake said as he placed his paw quickly onto Nick to stop him from taking his weapon out. "We can do this without the weapons. We don't want to alert Woodentop to our whereabouts."

"Right," Nick said, dropping his paw. "So, what's the plan then?"

"We take them out silently, together."

With a well-executed signal from Jake's paws, their attack was coordinated and swift. Nick had never seen a wolf so agile, that he could leap over the cover they were hiding behind, right into a roll, and strike at the poor, Zebra's legs and smashing right into his muzzle with a powerful hook. Nick had to take twice as long but he got the job done.

"Good," Jake said as he got up. Don't think anyone heard us."

"You weren't part of some circus were you?" Nick asked sarcastically as he picked himself up. A beeping sound caught them by surprise. "That doesn't sound good."

Jake dived for the red light that was being emitted from the Zebra's front pocket. "A sort of homing beacon. Military grade for sure. We've got to get a move on."

"Wait," Nick said as he faintly gasped. "You're not telling me what I think you're telling me, are you?"

"We either have corrupted military personnel or corrupt police officers. And I don't want to be the one who says this but-"

"It's mean we've been compromised." Which was when the fox's eyes opened widely in panic. "Judy!"

The fox was off without another word.

"Hopps, you've gotta calm yourself down," Fred said as he rammed the deer's head into the brick wall. Jake was right when he said there would be many guards around. There were plenty from where they were coming from.

"I know. But the sooner we get my parents out of here, the safer I will feel." Judy replied.

"I think we're clear," Fred said as they entered the living room.

"Mom, Dad?" Judy whispered as she ushered for a knife from Fred. He clicked his tongue unfavourably at the thought of others thinking he just happened to carry around a knife wherever he went. With very little to no effort, the tiger unsheathed a claw and sliced the ropes binding The Hopps's paws together.

"Judy? What are you doing here?" Her ever-bubbly dad, now deadpanned and bruised all over his face, asked his daughter.

"We're here to get you out." The rope fell to the ground with a faint plop.

"No, Judy you don't understand!" Her mother insisted as Fred motioned for them to exit the house as soon as possible. "He's using us to get to you!"

"I don't understand, Bellwether wanted another predator-prey crisis. Why would she want-" Judy was interrupted mid-sentence.

"They want to make it seem as though Gideon killed us all so that they'd think predators as dangerous again!" Her father finished her mother's sentence for her.

"And thank you for making my job easier." An unknown voice said, making Judy look up in surprise.

It was a stag, with a scar running down the entire length of the right side of his face. His eye was slightly closed shut, as though it was bruised from consistent torture. His right antler was also missing, a tiny stub was all that was remaining. In his right paw, was a pistol pointed directly at his left. In his left paw, was Gideon.

"Gideon!" Judy yelled, without thinking.

"Judy, don't worry about me. J-just leave." Gideon said, slightly stuttering. Judy noticed how he developed that stutter when she began to talk to him again after all those years of animosity towards him. He turned out to be a humble, sweet fox. A very wild-mannered one and she hated now how he was being used against her.

"Why are you doing this?" Judy cried out.

Fred was eyeing the front door. It was directly behind the Stag. If he could just distract him, Judy could escape with her parents and Gideon.

"Why? You don't think revenge is good enough for an answer? That stupid, insipid fox ran my car off the road. Don't you think it's penance enough that I have to deal with their deaths when that fox got to carry out his life like nothing ever happened?" He spat, eyeing Gideon who was beside him.

"Gideon isn't the fox that killed your family. He's just an innocent fox that didn't do anything!"

"But they're all the same! And if you can't see that, then you're just as blind as Bellwether said you were." He told her.

This was a bad time as any to be caught in. Nick chose an even worse time to walk into it. A gunshot was all that rang out throughout the house. A loud bang, that ruptured the air and disturbed the tense atmosphere around them.

Nick fell over, his paws clutching his chest as he yelled out in intense pain. Jake was quick to react, turning over the blue couch in front of them and pulling Nick behind it.

"Nick!" Judy shouted but it was all for nought. Nick was shot, and Gideon was next.

Fred, without a moment to lose, tackled Woodentop to the ground as they struggled for control. As they did, two more armed guards appeared through the front door.

With a quick hop and a power kick to their faces, they were out before they could even think about harming Judy, her parents or Gideon.

"Let's go, now!" She shouted for them to follow her. She hated how she had to ignore the fox reeling in pain behind the couch. He hated how she couldn't help the tiger who was currently losing the power struggle on the ground. But she had to get out.

Chapter Text

It is said that the entirety of your life flashes before your eyes when faced with certain death. Nick Wilde wasn’t sure what it meant when two images popped into his head as he reached for his gun resting in the mint condition holster Judy had handpicked  for him  from the police armoury. 

The first image was that of his mother, taking the muzzle off his mouth as he wailed, tears dripping down his stained fur. He had arrived home after being publicly humiliated by the prey in the Boy Scouts. He was  certain  that he’d be able to impress them with his vast knowledge of rules and regulations. But they put him in the box as all predators were subjected to. This stayed with him up to his adult life.

He remembered what his mother had said, a  small  vixen whose bravery greatly towered over her minuscule frame. Her tail was bristled, her fur standing up in reaction to its owner’s  incensed  anger and the disappointment she allowed her son to experience. She should’ve known better. Those boys were too nice for their own good. Her son was never going to be accepted in the majority. 

He remembered how his mother had looked down at him, a handkerchief in her right paw and a calming, gentle stroke on his left eye to calm him down from all his crying. There was a look of pity. Of sympathy. Of genuine concern for her son. She was going to say something meaningful. Something that was going to make everything better. But she was at a loss for words.

Instead, she muttered the one thing that had stayed with him all this while. It had moulded his way of life, the way he thought. The way he processed things. He wondered if it was what damaged him so. His mother was only doing what she thought she was doing best.

“It was to be expected, dear. Don’t cry.” 

Nick brought his attention back to his holster, unbuckled it with precision as taught to him during his stint at the academy and started to pull it out as the second image that popped into his head became  clearer . Sharper. Vivid.

It was of Judy. The  incessantly  optimistic and enthusiastic bunny. His bunny. His Hopps. The scene set itself firmly in his mind ,  it  was  that of his graduation. As the first fox graduating from the academy, it was only appropriate that the first bunny cop was there to congratulate and support him on his big day. She was in her uniform, smiling and writing into her notebook with the carrot pen she had caught him lying with when they first met. Her fur was slightly damper from the jogging she insisted on embarking on before the ceremony. She said it was so she’d be awake enough to cheer harder for him. He laughed at it then. Now, he cherished this memory.

His mother and Judy. 

It meant something.

Nick trailed the sight of his pistol on Woodentop, now on top of Tigris, both in a power struggle for control. Judy had left the room, escorting both her parents out as a dutiful cop would without looking back to check for him or for Tigris. He was proud of her. 

He closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger. 

A bright flash erupted from the muzzle of the pistol and  then  followed a  deafening BANG as it went off. Smoke started to waft from the opening, and a piping-hot casing felt like it was falling  in slow motion  to the ground. 

As Nick opened his eyes, he was surprised to see how good his aim was. He knew he was at the top of his class for weapons training, but it was another thing to see it in action.  He  had hit squarely on Woodentop’s shoulder  a  pool of blood starting to form under the thin shirt he was wearing, staining it. He roared in pain, louder than any lion, tiger or panther he had the unpleasant pleasure of hearing a roar from in the first place. 

A prey, more feral and more aggressive than any predator he had seen. 

Woodentop fell to his side, clutching his arm as he  was unable to  reach his shoulder. The blood was now trickling down and splattering onto the wooden floors of the barn.  The tiger,  with one fluid movement, rolled over on his back and pulled his leg back.  Quickly, he sprung it from its locked position and accelerated into a mighty kick, knocking the Stag back  and  onto the ground, reeling in pain.

“They weren’t kidding when they said ya’ were one of the best with a gun, kid.” Tigris complimented the fox, who was now smirking at him. A sharp pain erupted as he clutched his abdomen in pain. The tiger had missed it, but Nick was shot earlier. 

Nick, slowly realising the shocked look on Fred’s face was not of being impressed but that of  fear  prompted the fox to place a paw onto his stomach. He could feel a rawness of flesh through his uniform, the thick fluid no cooler nor warmer than  that of  his skin. He clasped tighter as breath became  harder  to draw in, his lungs  having to work  harder than they  normally  would for a mammal-like him. Looking down slowly, it was blood. And there was a lot of it.

“I’m,” He collapsed before he could state the obvious. 

Woodentop had long gone  now , escaping from the barn as quickly as he came. 

“Fred! Wilde!” The loud voice echoed as Jake entered, sprinting as fast as he could. He had lost the fox earlier when the smaller canid had realised they were compromised. An old injury prevented Jake from running as fast as the younger wolves on the force could  but  he was still faster than most his age, doing what he was doing. 

The sight of  the red fox with an unnatural tint of shade permeating through his uniform made him stop in track. 

“Where is he?” Jake asked, clearly vexed. Fred knew what he was doing. His partner had an eerily productive habit in times of crisis. He was compartmentalising. He wanted to get the son-of-a-bitch before he left. The tiger would usually be amused by his line of thought  comparing  the deer unfavourably as a son of a dog or canine  but  it quickly subsided. 

“Out the back. But Jake, ya’ can’t go it alone. It ain’t-“ The wolf had already gone by the time Fred’s protests could be made. 

“It ain’t safe.” He muttered to  himself,  under his breath. He was now over Nick, both paws pressing heavily onto his wound  eliciting  a pained moan and an even louder groan from the fox.

“I’ve gotta stop the bleeding. Don’t pay no mind to it.” He explained, in as soft and  as gentle of a  tone he thought he could be considered of.

“Carrots?” Nick inquired, now coughing up blood. He had tasted blood in his mouth before. It always tasted metallic, like iron. He used to placate himself  saying  that, in the aftermath of a brawl, blood in the mouth meant it was building character. He thought he could do away without building character this time. Maybe he was satisfied with the character  that was  built over the last year or so.

“She’s safe. Ain’t no need to pay mind to that now.”

Judy ran as fast as she could, shepherding her parents by the hand as they  made their way back  to the police car they arrived in. 

“Judy! Wait!” She could hear her father calling after her. To stop for just a second and explain  but  she wouldn’t have it. Not until she knew her parents were safe and sound, locked up in the standard issue car and driving far away from here and somewhere else. Anywhere but here. It was too dangerous here. Her mind was racing. 

She thought of Fred. Of their new camaraderie and how much she respected the tiger. Not many other predators showed her the respect she felt she deserved. 

She thought of Jake, the calm and collected wolf she had started to call a friend. 

She thought of her fox. Her Nick. He wasn’t a Wilde to her at all  as  his name implied. They had always made fun of his name. He was nothing but gentle and soft with her. In their private moments, Nick was her biggest ally. She wanted to spend the rest of her free time with him. She wanted him to stay with her, never letting him go.

She thought she loved him. As the three bunnies reached the car, it cemented her resolve that she was building up the courage to admit to herself. 

She did love him. 

She loved the silly fox who’d have a remark for every stupid case they took and for every dumb thing they did together. She loved how he smirked and winked with one eye as he pointed finger guns at her with his paw. She loved how he’d place his paws on her own in the car when no one else was looking on the drive to Bunnyburrow. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind now.

She loved Nick Wilde. 

“Mom, Dad. I have to go back.” She said as she opened the car and handed them the keys. 

“ Absolutely,  not!” Her father was starting to protest. Stu Hopps couldn’t see anyone else but his baby girl. There was no way he’d be allowing her to go back into a harrowing situation such as this. 

“Stu,” her mother started to say, holding onto his arm. “She needs to do this.” 

“Why does our Judy need to do it. There were three other big predators with her-“

“Because it’s Nick.” Her mother nodded knowingly. She smiled at her daughter. Judy started to tear up  but  she swallowed it back in. She only nodded back in acknowledgement.

“What do you need us to do, honey?” She continued.

“Drive somewhere safe and radio back to ZPD. The frequency is already set. Tell them that Hopps and Wilde are at Bunnyborrow and  that they  need backup. Possible officer injured.” Judy instructed.

The older bunny exclaimed in shock. “An officer injured?” She gasped.

Judy only lowers her head slowly. She was too caught up in her thoughts to raise it. Her mother understood in an instant.

“Go  honey . Go to  him .”

“I love you both.” She wrapped them in a big hug, like the one she gave them on her first day taking that fateful train to Zootopia. This could be the last time she saw them.

“Nick!” Judy shouted as she saw him in Fred’s arms. 

“Hopps?” Fred wasn’t as much asking as he was confirming that this wasn’t a hallucination. It really was her. 

“Is he okay?” Tears  now  flowed without resistance, soiling the wooden floor below her as she crawled up to her fox and placed a paw on his muzzle. She could’ve sworn it was discoloured. Panic started to set in.

“He’s fine, Hopps. I stopped the bleeding. Jake went after Woodentop on his own. Took one whiff of the fabric that I scratched up in my claw as we fought and sprinted off.” Fred explained and   directed Judy’s eyes to the gentle rise and fall of Nick’s chest. 

“I can’t-“ she started to say, but only air escaped her lips  after that . She was choking back tears. Her throat became tighter and tighter as the emotions and reaction to losing Nick played like a broken record in her mind. It was eating her up. Her biggest fear. She had only just admitted to herself that she really did love him. Could she let him go now? 

They wanted to talk about their relationship one day. They were keeping it quiet , Wilde  had nodded once when she asked if there was something more before them. They never acted on it. How she wished they  acted  on it.

“Are your parents safe?” Fred interrupted, trying to distract her.

“I got them to the car. They’re driving off now, calling for backup.”  She reported,  like a well-oiled machine, reporting to a superior directly drilled into her brain from all her training.

“Alright. Then help is on the way. And ain’t no way I’m leaving Wilde here on his own.” Fred placed a paw on her shoulder. “I ain’t leaving him  Hopps . Not until they arrive.” He looked her in the eyes now. A predator looking into a prey’s eyes, the power clearly now rested in the latter. He was asking her as a friend, as a person in need. Not as a superior. 

“Jake needs you. He can’t do it  on his own , but he’s too righteous to admit it. That bastard.” The tiger continued. He nodded to her now, receiving one back. A slow, inconsistent and insecure one at first. But as he nodded to her again, she returned it  back  more defiantly. With purpose. With determination.

“Do it for him.” He said, looking down at her fox. 

“I’ll do it for us.” The bunny stood up, not waiting to see his reaction before she did. Not wanting to look at Nick anymore than she already was. It would’ve discouraged her from leaving. From chasing after the one who did this. To stop this for good.

She didn’t look behind as she darted through the barn’s doors, rushing into the general direction Jake had headed to. 

Chapter Text

It sprang to mind, the memory of how he managed to get this old injury of his as it impeded the speed of his running. Jake was never really a cautious fur, Sarah had told him this years ago when they first met.

He was young. Inexperienced. A fresh face trying out for the force, his first year in the academy. He should’ve known better than to intervene in a mugging when he didn’t have the training to handle it. But that was always his character. To stick his nose into places it didn’t belong. To stand up for the little people who couldn’t help themselves. He paid for it with a knife in his thigh.

Was it wrong to think of Hopps as one of them? She was a prey, that’s for sure but she had proven herself time and time again that she had the strength of two tigers when it came to her resolve.

He had to catch up to Woodentop for her. If not for her, then, for his own sanity.

The heavy drops of rainfall started to splatter onto the cobblestone walkway out at the front of the gardens, where the flow of water rapidly made its way into the streets. The odd collection of pots Stu and Bonnie had put out to collect rainwater for their plants were now overflowing, the liquid that collected inside cascading against the sides, spilling out with an inconsistent swirl. It was starting to get damp, and Jake could feel the humidity starting to rise as his fur reacted to the sudden change in temperature.

It was quite a sight to see it raining so heavily in Bunnyburrow. Jake was now used to the controlled weather of the biomes in Zootopia, and to see it raining out of schedule and so heavily without a regulated rainfall was nothing short of annoying. It also came with the price of having his vision impaired. With his keen sense of smell, Jake tried to detect the scent of the Stag through the piece of fabric covered in blood that he had found on the floor. It was to his understanding that it was ripped from his body during the scuffle Fred and he had on the floor. The blood from when Nick shot him bravely before passing out from the sheer will it took to keep awake after taking a wound like the one he did.

He couldn't make the head or tail of the stag he was chasing.

That is until the one-antlered stag crashed into him with enough force to knock him off balance, face-first into the side of a car parked in the middle of the road. No doubt the car was left there in the light of the evacuation. Woodentop had only let the citizens of Bunnyburrow leave. Jake was thankful that all of Judy's siblings weren't caught in the crossfire or that Gideon was only to be used in the name and not in the physical sense of putting him in danger.

"This is  your  doing!" He roared, laying a flurry of punches to the wolf's sides, quickly incapacitating him before he could make a move. The side of his grey snout was now pressed against the sideview mirror of the car. Jake snarled through his fangs, trying to get a word out to retaliate. Catch him off guard. But it was useless. For a prey, Woodentop had an unnaturally strong vice grip on his neck.

Jake tried to eye his attacker in the side-view mirror, craning his neck just slightly so that his snout created a gap, he was trying to get as much space as possible from beneath the anchoring weight of Woodentop's hooves.

The last visage of a stag who lost his wife and child in a car crash was long gone. Jake couldn't make up the entirety of Woodentop's face from his position, but it was telling enough. Whatever was left of this poor man was now long gone. Instead, his eyes were bloodshot red, a fire raging behind his small pupils. The rage boiled deep within him, empowering him. Suffocating him. Until every essence of a calm and loving father disappeared into thin air. The concern he had held of losing himself to this cause he devoted himself to dissipate. There was nothing left for him to lose. Nothing else for him to care about. All he could see was the fangs of another predator, snarling at him. A predator grimacing under his strength.

It felt good.

It felt invigorating. Foam started to build up at the sides of his mouth. It was drooling out, discolouring the collar of his shirt.

Jake knew what the symptoms pointed to. The very purple petals of the culprit were balled up in his hoof. The fool of a fur had ingested Night Howlers. And it was starting to affect him. Trying to escape, the wolf twirled around as Woodentop started to lose his grip. The stag was starting to be affected, every inch of his body giving into the savagery of his ancestors. Of his basic animal instinct. Jake wasn't sure how it would affect a prey of his size, but he didn't want to stay to find out.

Woodentop grabbed Jake by the back of his shirt as he tried to scurry off, slamming Jake back onto the hood of the car with a loud thud. His eyes welled up in horror as the stag gave him a devilish grin, balling up what remained of the Night Howler petals in his hooves and stuffing it down his victim's throat.

It wasn't easy to get it down. As all canines did when they didn't want to swallow something, Jake had shut his jaw tightly and was refusing to budge. The stag simply had to sock him once in the eye, snatch on the top and bottom of his muzzle, and force it in the back of his throat. Expending all his strength, the canine kicked his foe with all his might, making him fall to the ground on his back.

Jake choked on the horrible texture of the Night Howler. It tasted wildly different from what he had imagined it would when he read the case files of the Bellwether case back when Judy and Nick made the headlines back in the ZPD. It was sweet, almost like honey. This must've come from the nectar. It also reeked of a peppery and bitter aftertaste. The evil of the root is taking shape within him. His tastebuds scream at the confusion of the conflicting flavours. His brain yelling, protesting, at what would become of him. The wolf reeled back in pain as the plant took effect.

Woodentop, slowly got up, panting. This was his time to finish it. He brandished a pocketknife hidden behind his back pocket, waiting to finish the job.

He was knocked out before he could enact his plan. With a forceful smash, Judy had used the car as a springboard and brought down all her weight into him. He was unconscious before he had the time to think about what happened.

"That's for Nick!" She had shouted. Mostly to herself. The triumphant feeling of being the only rabbit cop in the precinct started to fade back in, if only for a fleeting moment.

A low, rough sound penetrated the din of the pitter-patter of the rain. It was the melody of nature that always brought joy to Judy. Maybe it was because it reminded her of days of old, laying in her father's lap as he counted the carrot harvest for the season. Or when her mother would bring her and her siblings to the fair to win apples in the bobbing competition in the summer. That calm was interrupted now. The wolf had started to growl. At her. In just a moment, Judy felt like the small prey she was when Gideon first pushed her after the play back home.

Jake removed his trenchcoat, letting it fall onto the road. He was starting to unbutton his shirt and loosen his tie. But the shirt started to irritate him. It was taking too long to come off. He needed freedom in his limbs. It’s been ages since Jake willingly clawed at someone else let alone himself.

He  needed  to get the damn shirt off! Pulling with the strength of wolves double his size, each button popped off in unison, rattling on the road. It rolled toward the direction Judy stood in horror.

There was also a terrible need to eat. To hunt. Oh, how he had the fundamental urge to  hunt . And a rabbit was the perfect source of protein for the insatiable hunger he was starting to feel deep inside him. He had no choice but to sate it. He felt it eating up his very soul. His being.

"Jake?" Judy tried calling, hoping some semblance of her friend remained. It fell on deaf ears.

The now feral wolf pounced at her on all fours.

Any approximation of the fur he once was gone without a trace.

Chapter Text

There was a certain sense of irony that came with the predicament Judy found herself in. The notion that playing the meek prey that was trying to escape from an aggressive, hungry predator during the school play quickly became real, was not lost on her.

Her father always said she had a knack for getting herself into trouble. Judy thought to herself how her other siblings weren’t like this. They were the perfect bunny children. Sure, they’d get into a heated argument here and there in school, but they never got themselves in any physical danger. Summers were spent harvesting the carrots Stu and Bonnie had planted for the season, while Judy vehemently refused to do the year after Gideon had bullied her. She spent that season in their cosy family home, reading all she could on police work and cold cases she saw on TV.

There was a tiny intrusive thought entering her mind as she stared down her friend in his soulless eyes. Maybe she should’ve stayed home. Be the carrot farmer her parents wanted her to be.

Jake let out a feral growl as he lunged toward Judy, only narrowly missing her neck as his maw snapped shut at empty air. The bunny realised she hadn’t seen feral fur, not since the case she tackled with Nick all those years ago. She didn’t miss the sight one bit. Not when it concerned her friend.

Solutions filled her head as she stepped in reverse slowly, away from Jake, but she had to stop as the back of her head hit the handle of the car door. She tried to reach behind her while keeping eye contact with the wolf. It was easier to do that now, seeing as they were at eye level with one another. The foam at the side of the wolf's maw sent a terrible chill through the bunny's body. She remembered how Nick and she had saved a pellet containing the serum back when they took Bellwether down together two years ago. She just had to get him down somehow, to give up chasing her. She could get him the help he needed. If only he would let her.

"Jake, I know you're still in there." She said, thinking that, perhaps with enough force, believing it enough on its own, it would stop him. It was for nought. "Fight it please!" She pleaded now.

Snarling, Jake thrust his whole body forward, aiming the sharp fangs riped for chomping down on bones and flesh, right at her petite body. She wasn't quick enough to dodge out of the way. The fuming wolf drooled from above her, slowly licking her face to sample what she would taste like.

There was something odd about the way he was standing, feral and on all fours notwithstanding. A slight give on his right hind leg, like an old injury of some sort. Judy noticed that he was limping and this could be the only way she got out of this chokehold situation she had gotten herself into. She hoped that Nick would forgive her for what she was about to do.

With a forceful shove, she pushed up, forcing him to destabilise and stumble to the right. Balling up, Judy rolled underneath as quickly as she could and lay herself flat next to his leg. Taking out the beloved carrot pen that she associated with Nick, she jammed it right into his leg causing the wolf to howl in pain.

Returning to a standing position, Judy jumped right in the nick of time as Jake snapped at her, bouncing off the wolf's head and onto the roof of the car, eliciting a whimper as the wolf whined in pain. She knew what she had to do. She didn't want to hurt him, but he wasn't going to give up. Not now. Not when the Night Howlers were completely in his system, eating away at his bloodstream, poisoning him more and more until the fur with enough righteous inclination to give up his badge was thirsting for blood.

From the roof of the car, Judy waited as Jake primed himself again, readying for another lunge. He scampered to his hind paws, gnashing with his fangs at her as he tried to bite his prey from below.

Suddenly, the wolf leapt upwards, learning that he wouldn't be able to reach her from his position below. The Night Howlers may regress a fur back down to their most primal instincts and drive for survival, but it couldn't take away their newfound intelligence from years of evolution and development. Judy hopped off, twisted her body in mid-air right as the wolf was about to come crashing back down, and slammed both of her hind paws into the back of his face missing just slightly. She exclaimed with a warped sense of pride when she fully made contact with the side of his maw as the canine looked to the side to catch a glimpse of his prey.

The impact alone was enough to send Jake crashing through the glass window, sending shards flying out toward them. Her paw slid through one of his fangs, ripping skin and tender flesh. She screamed in pain as she landed on the ground, the muddy rainwater splashing onto the wound.

The wolf trashed about in the car, clearly stuck and confused like a lost puppy. There was nothing in his mind, the hunger still overwhelming his senses. But he was calmer now, a humbled beast looking for an owner. Jake had his ears pulled backwards, whimpering. Whining. A submissive stance as he stared at the bunny with his piercing eyes.

Judy gave him a pitiful smile. Gently, she stroked the top of his head, trying as much as possible to keep him calm. To placate the animal within him. The petting seemed to work, but she could see the savage that he still was as every pet was met with a tiny nibble, testing the sweetness of her flesh.

She mustered up enough strength to leap one last time, crashing down on his snout. She heard an awful snap as it broke his nose, causing the wolf to yelp. And then, silence. He wasn't moving. Only the ragged rise and fall of his chest could be seen as Jake slowly drifted off to what Judy hoped was a prolonged slumber. At least for now.

The pain was too much for her to bear as the wound again flared up. Landing on both her hind paws shot a smarting sensation up all of her senses. She was starting to get sleepy. The tiredness seeped through her body with every ache as though someone had tied weights over her eyes. The last thing she remembered seeing was the poor feral wolf, with a broken nose and an even shattered dignity, lying unconscious.

Then, there was darkness.

Judy shot up from her deep slumber, panic overtaking her senses. The last thing she remembered was a severely injured Nick being cradled in Fred's arms, and the sight of a bruised and devastated feral Jake. Her own doing.

She was in a hospital, she was sure of it. Overlooking the street was a frosted pane of a transparent window, misting up from the cold inside. A line of I.V. ran out of her wrist, and as she forced herself to get out of bed, she could feel the cool wind from the air conditioner brush her fur from behind. She was in a hospital gown alright. Judy always hated the smells in hospitals. It was damp and overly medicinal, and the beeping of the machines was enough to make her anxious due to her sensitive hearing.

The room was dark, albeit for a small light coming from the washroom. She had a private room. Courtesy of the ZPD, she gathered.

Fervently, the bunny jammed her paws on the red button beside her bed. It signalled for the nurse, and right now, she needed answers. She needed to know if her friends were alive. If they were fine. If she killed Jake. She'd never be able to live with herself if she did. And she felt every draw of breath getting shallower and shallower at the thought of Nick not being there to greet her sarcastically when it was time to go home.

"Ya awake?" Tigris entered the room, rolling up the newspaper in his paws and bringing it down onto hers, stopping her from pressing the button again. "Relax, Hopps, I told the nurses to let me talk to ya first."

Judy relaxed, but only as much as she allowed herself to. It was good to see Fred unharmed. Well, unharmed was a little too generous. There were scuffs and marks but he was alive and well enough. He hadn't gone home to change. There were remnants of blood stains on his coat. How long had she been out?

"Is Jake?" Judy asked, afraid of the answer.

"He's fine. Just out for the count. Ya really did a number on him, didn't ya. Ain't waking up anytime soon." Fred stretched, popping a stiff back. "Serum is doing its job."

A sigh of relief escaped from the bunny's mouth. "And Nick?"

Fred gave her a big, wide grin. Judy knew from the gesture that he was all alright.

"You and him. Something's up, ain't it?" The tiger asked brazenly.

The bunny was taken aback at the bluntness of the question but perhaps she shouldn't have been so surprised that he was able to put one and two together. After all, this was a detective she was thinking about. They were trained to sniff out lies and discern the truth. Besides, Nick and her didn't really act their best in hiding their affection for one another. Even if they weren't really an item anyway. That was something she'd have to bring up with him when she's allowed to visit. If anything else, the intimate, romantic love that she felt for him when she saw her fox harmed was enough to reaffirm how she really felt for the vulpine.

"No. Not really anyway." She admitted.

"Not really? It's either you are or you ain't, Hopps." He chuckled, a toothy smirk. Slowly as to not shift the weight of the bed too much to his side, he sat next to her.

"I love him."

"Does he love you?"

She looked at him before answering. She hoped that prolonged eye contact would give her an out. Give her an opening to properly ascertain how he felt listening to her admit it. All she got back was a stone-faced expression. Or rather yet, no expression at all. That reminded her to never play poker with the feline.

"I don't know."

"Hopps..." He drawled. She knew where he was going with this.

"Yes, I'm sure he does. Just,"

Fred interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. "But not in the way you think you love him."

She nodded.

"I know a thing or two about that." Fred laughed.

"You had someone like this?"

"I did. It didn't go anywhere. Look what that got me." He sighed as he let out a heavy breath. It sounded more like a hiss than that of relieving the pressure that built up within him.

"Where is she now?"

He shook his head. He wasn't sure if he'd tell anyone else but Jake but he trusted her. No, Fred trusted the bunny with his life. Nick too. They saved his life in more ways than one and this was his way of offering an olive branch.

"He." He acknowledged.

Judy's eyes widened in surprise. Then, as easily as she was surprised, nodded and placed a paw on his. "Where is he now?" She asked, correcting herself.

"Not in my life anymore."

The bunny could see the sadness in his eyes when he said that. It dawned on her that this was a warning from him rather than just sharing about his past. "So, you're saying I should just tell him?"

He let out a gentle smile.

Nick Wilde hated the fact that he was restrained to the hospital bed in his room like the common thief he once was. At least, this time, he didn't have handcuffs on his wrists.

The fox looked to the door, wanting more than anything to leave. Hospitals gave him the heebie-jeebies, more so than they did to Judy. He smiled to himself. He's been doing that a lot lately now that he thought about it. It's been several times a day now that he's caught himself having a private moment, thinking about her. He tried to shake the emotions riling up inside him about his bunny. But thinking about how he'd already claimed her as his bunny made him chuckle at himself for the foolishness of it all. The pain from laughing immediately dissipated whatever thoughts he was going to form in his head.

A bunny and a fox? A predator and a prey? That was stupid for him to even think about it being a possibility. He reviewed the next 10 years of his life. Judy taught him to plan ahead, at least, in the non-conniving or sneaky sense. She was always a go-getter and he always admired her for planning her future as early as 9 years old. She was 26 now, and all those years of knowing who and what she would be definitely contributed to the beauty he saw in her.

Here he went again. Thinking about her in that way. It would never stop. He did love her, and he showed it to her in other ways. By buying her a coffee every morning or attending that Gazelle concert with her and Clawhauser which he had no interest in seeing.

He couldn't do this anymore. Small, insignificant touches like a paw on hers when she was worried might have been enough for her but it wasn't for him. Not anymore. he didn't want to hurt his friendship with her. What they had transcended much more than just a crush on one another. They had an intimate bond that could never be simplified by basic liking of one another. What they had was trust. He couldn't break that trust, could he?

No, he had to tell her.

He will tell her.

That is if he could get out of this infernal hospital in time.

Chapter Text

Chief Bogo didn’t take much convincing to believe Jake had orchestrated the whole affair. The wolf was more than happy to absorb the blame. He had already turned in his badge and gun. The prospect of spending more time at home with Sarah was honestly more appealing than returning to the force anyway.

He’d look at it as an early retirement. Find a safer job, one that could support both of them. Hell, it never crossed his mind before but maybe they’d even start a family, have a pup or two.

His leg still hadn’t fully healed, he supposed limping was going to be a part of his life again. With a tentative paw, he tried to massage where the wound was, but a sharp pain made him stop.

“Don’t touch it, honey.” He could hear Sarah say from the kitchen. He swore his wife had eyes at the back of her head.

“It hurts.” Jake protested, groaning.

“Whatever happened to that pen?” She asked, returning to him with a cup of coffee. Black, just like he liked it.

“Fred said they had to snap it to get it out.” He sighed. “Judy said it was okay but I could see she wasn’t really happy with it.”

“It meant something more to her.” She nodded.

“I think it has something to do with the fox.”

“Ahh…” Sarah smiled, taking a sip from her own cup. She hated black coffee so hers was filled with creamer and sugar. Something sweet to drink before dinner. “Young love.” She said wistfully.

“We’re not that old, Sarah.” Jake poked her.

“Go get ready, our guests are arriving soon.”

Fred was the first to arrive, brandishing wine bottles like they were weapons to take into battle. He placed the brown bag filled with alcohol onto the patio table and gave Jake a slap on his back, making the wolf wheeze in disapproval.

“Thank you for the drinks.” He said sarcastically as he took them from the bag and placed them nearer to the barbecue pit.

“Ya can always rely on ol’ Fred to bring life to the party!” The tiger exclaimed, humour apparent in his voice.

“And to get drunk at every party.” Jake shot him a glance making Fred tuck his tail behind him. “I know today is as much for you as for them. But let’s give them a nice night shall we?”

Jake nodded toward the door, where only moments later, the fox and bunny couple would walk in together. At least, Jake assumed they were a couple from the start. It took a whole night of discussion to understand there was something else underneath that both were too afraid to admit. He agreed that his earlier prejudice about predator and prey relations may have impeded his judgments. They saved their lives more than once. Maybe they do deserve this happiness.

Sarah was more than happy to give up their home as the matchmaking location of choice. She’d bought crushed grasshopper shakes, and Bugburga patties to grill the predators and of course made sure to get premium vegetables for Judy.

“I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought myself.” Nick joked, giving Jake his infamous finger guns.

“He’s kidding. We stopped by the store and bought these.” Judy placed a pack of frozen Not Dogs on the table. The furs in Zootopia had stopped eating each other ages ago. Vegetable Protein products were the obvious choice in moving forward as a society. No one knew if these tasted like real hot dogs of old.

“Thanks, Judy,” Jake said. There was still an air of awkwardness between the two of them. It was only a week ago that he tried to eat her. And the bunny was aware of the fact she had flared up an old injury. She didn’t have a choice of course, but it still pained her to see him limping to the Not Dogs and bringing them to the grill.

“Hey,” Fred greeted her, tapping the bunny on the shoulder. “Ya got a moment?”

She nodded, leaving her place next to the fox to follow him inside the house and to the kitchen where Sarah was pulling out a cake from the oven.

“Oh, hello!” The wolf greeted as she placed the cake pan on the countertop, both paws covered in mittens. Judy noticed how well-adorned she was, sporting an off-white dress and a small silver charm bracelet. She assumed Jake got her that. It was spotless, but she could see the scuffs on the side that denoted how old it was. She must take good care of it.

“Hi, Mrs. Wolfire.” Judy greeted her back and extended a paw to shake.

Sarah laughed and fumbled with taking the mittens off. She gave up after the situation grew awkward enough with Judy’s paw still extended out in the air and shook with one mitten on. “Just call me Sarah, dear.”

“Do ya mind giving us the room, sweetheart?” To any other fur, it sounded like Fred and Sarah were too close to one another. ‘Sweetheart’ was definitely a term of endearment but the two had known each other for a long time. Even longer than Jake and she knew each other. There was a sacred trust between them. Judy reminded herself to ask him about that later.

“Of course. I’ll see you both outside. Oh,” Sarah stopped in her tracks, looking at the scene outside. “It looks like Jake already convinced your fox to arm wrestle.” She pointed.

The sight was one to behold. Nick, struggling to even keep himself stable, had both arms and both paws on his opponent’s paw, but Jake looked like he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. “I’ll go intervene before he breaks his arms.”

Judy had no idea what she meant when Sarah said that. But it was best if both furs kept their limbs intact.

“What was it you wanted to talk about?” The bunny asked, hopping onto the countertop, and sitting on it. Her hind paws hung over the edge but at least this made her almost eye level with the tiger.

Fred walked over to the kitchen wall, leaning against it. “Wanted to talk to ya about what Chief Bogo said.”

“Oh.” She was afraid of this.

“Hey, a promotion ain’t something to be sad about.”

“I know. It’s just that,” she looked back to the patio where Sarah, Nick and Jake were laughing about something. The smoke from the grill could be seen all the way from here. The smell was delectable. “I don’t want to leave him.”

“Does he even know how ya feel?”

“I didn’t tell him yet.”

“Hopps…”

“I know! I will.”

“Do it tonight.”

“Tonight?” Judy asked, panicked.

“We all know, Hopps. It ain’t a lock and key secret, ya know.”

“I hate how transparent we’ve been.” Judy shook her head but smiled at the prospect of so many predators knowing and not caring much. Encouraging her even to tell him.

“Jake’s been meaning to tell ya to do it too but he’s too stubborn to admit things are still awkward between ya both.”

“I can feel it. I mean, I stabbed him in his leg.”

“He deserved it.”

Judy gave him a side-eye.

“Fine, it was unavoidable.” Fred sighed and placed a paw on her head.

“Listen, the promotion means the fox and ya aren’t partners anymore.” Judy frowned at that. “But it also means it ain’t fraternising anymore if ya were a couple.”

“I know. I think I’m afraid to tell him.”

“I was too.” Judy looked at him. “Not to your fox, to mine.”

“I could introduce you to another!”

Fred sniggered and returned to leaning on the wall.

“This ain’t about me Hopps.”

“Fine, give me that.”

Judy motioned for Fred to give her his bottle of beer. Warily, the tiger let her snatch it from his paw and she drowned it all in one go.

“Hey, I was drinking that!”

“Liquid courage.” She winked.

Fred smiled as Judy walked out of the kitchen and into the patio. He couldn’t make up what she was saying to the fox but the look of surprise on everyone’s faces when she grabbed Nick by the collar and planted a big kiss on his muzzle was enough to tell him what it was.

Operation Matchmaker: Nick and Judy was a success. Jake motioned for him to join them from the kitchen.

Judy waited impatiently in Chief Bogo’s office. The chair was still too big for her, and the desk even bigger. This was her first day as a detective. A homicide one at that. She had received most of the praise from her colleagues by stopping Woodentop.

The details of the case were harrowing, to say the least. It made sense now how the first victim Jake and Fred investigated that night shared the same last name as their perpetrator. Paul had discovered his brother was killing prey around Zootopia to frame a predator and confronted him about it. Imagine that, killing your own brother to fulfil a vendetta. She didn’t need to imagine it. She saw it first-hand.

The week had passed by quickly. Press conference after press conference answering questions about the CSS had drained her. She would always cherish the picture the reporters took of her signing the release forms for Woodentop to jail. At least the monster was behind bars now.

Judy smiled to herself knowing she had a fox to return home to. Nick said he’d wait for her in her apartment after his shift ended. His new partner was a bright-eyed fox, fresh from the academy. The second fox to make it to the ZPD. He was quite proud to be a good influence.

There was also a hushed discussion between Fred, Nick, Judy and the Chief about the apparent leak from the force. If there really were corrupted officers, that would be the next item on the agenda. Internal Affairs would be busy.

“Hopps.” Bogo acknowledged, entering the room. He carried several case files with him, all tucked away under his arm.

“Chief.”

“You’re probably wondering why I called you here today.”

“A new case?” She beamed, tugging at her trench coat. She had trouble finding a clothing store that sold it her size but Fru Fru had basically ordered the whole of Zootopia to their mansion just for her.

“And to introduce you to your new partner. He specifically requested for you.” Bogo pointed behind her.

Judy jumped from the chair as she couldn’t reach the ground from it to swivel it around. She grinned, showing both her bucked teeth as she did when she saw who it was.

“Fred!”

“Hey, Hopps. Only right to replace a wolf with a bunny, ain’t it?” The tiger gave her his signature grin, a fang sticking from the top right of his mouth.

She nodded, triumphantly. “Let’s get to work.”