I can't sit here anymore! I refuse to lay around and do nothing! Nick had his paws crumpled to his chest, laying woozily on Judy's small creaky bed.
His eyes were glued to the white popcorn ceiling, watching the dark, deep blue light from the blinded windows move like snails across the room.
His stomach tickled with anxiety, but his brain was heavy with laziness. He was tired of sitting around in Judy's apartment all day, and doing nothing but keeping himself locked up in there.
Maybe it was because he felt safer in there. Away from the harsh wind of the real world.
The sharp barbs of reality.
He felt like everything was okay there. Like everything was fixxxed.
The fox's eyes darted to the window, where the dark blue light of the evening city pressed through the pane of glass.
Sighing, the fox kicked his fuzzed body off of the bed, landing on his feet, and stretching his back with a dizzying yawn. Regaining stability, the fix walked towards the front door, and opened it to find the woes of the outside world.
The air was sweet with the scent of cut grass and fresh rain, and the world was painted blue from the neverending coulds shrouding the city in its eternal December-esque twilight.
The fox felt a billow of cool air curl between his legs, and he rubbed his arm with the opposite, shivering.
"Momma look, it's a fox!" A voice echoed from down the balcony, where a little bunny and her mother at their apartment a few doors down.
The mother held her child's paw tight, her other arm clutching a brown sack of groceries; and Nick saw her face drain of blood. "S-sir, no predators are allowed in the c-complex."
Nick cocked his brow, and felt a little anxiety build in his core. "J-Judy didn't tell me about that."
The mother's face suddenly relaxed just a fraction, and she twisted her head, somewhat confused. "Judy? The police officer who lives in 304?"
Nick swallowed hard, and turned around to see the door number, which he never really noticed. Small black numbers stapled out 304.
He turned back to the mother. "Y-yeah."
Nick had nothing else to say. What would stop this mother and her daughter from having him removed from the apartment? Arrested for being there, or even, killed from the collar? All of it was rational thinking, that was the scary part. Anything that could even be considered crazy in an irrational world, well, had every reason to be rational.
Silence covered the balcony again, only to be interrupted by a sudden crack of thunder across the deep blue sky.
The little bunny squeaked, and the mother flinched with a fleeting shock of instinct, and she spilled everything in the grocery sack under her arm.
Nick watched pitifully as the mother sighed discontently, squatting down to attempt and salvage the mess of food, sundries, and.... a remote.
Nick felt a little tinge in his stomach, as he saw the remote was an exact clone of those the ZPD used to kill or forcefully shock predators via their collars.
Only the ZPD logo was non-existent on the deep blue remote. The same, deep dark blue of the world around Zootopia.
Nick's anxious feeling ebbed away, into some sort of... dull anger. His hand snatched the remote, and he almost snarled at this thing.
The mother gave a whine, and tried her hardest to seem demanding. "Hey, give that back, thief!"
Nick looked down to the mother, his brows furrowing into a condescending fury. "Thief? These are illegal for citizens to have!"
Nick took a double take to stare at the remote, and look back to the mother. He attempted to come up with words to scream, to roar, to figure out what the fuck this thing was doing with her. All he felt were hot coals burning in the background of his throat, propelling his body into a bottled rage. The fox spun around and hurled it over the railing, where the thing shattered into hundreds of plastic and electronic pieces.
The mother took a few steps back, leaving her groceries on the damp, puddled floor.
Nick spun back to her, and felt violence surge into his paws. He felt hate breath through his soul. The fox knew better than to go and rip her apart, so instead, like a bottle neck exploding, the fury leaped to his jaws.
"WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT?" He stuck his claw out to her, his fangs revealing like ivory peaks of death. The mother fell back into a puddle, and her daughter began to cry.
The fox took slow menacing steps, growling uncontrollably. His feet splashed small puddles into rivers and mist. "YOU TELL ME RIGHT NOW!"
The rabbit woman began to heave her chest, her heart beating visibly out of her dress.
She shook her head, as if she was trying to convince herself a fox, so encased in fury, was not threatening her.
It was real.
Her mouth quivered, and her nose twitched, and her ears winced at the combination of her daughters sobs and Nick's heavy breathing and growling.
"S-sh-she-Sheffield Avenue, in the alleyway! I-I was looking for one!" She cried, scooting away from the advancing fox. Her paw clasped her daughters paw, dragging the young kit along with her. "A-A- A sphinx was selling it to me! Please leave me alone! I won't tell anybody you're here! Please leave us alone!"
Nick had heard all he needed. His breathing slowly calmed, and the anger seemed to reside, but not disappear. A kind of red serenity settled into his veins, and with hesitance, rather sloppily picked up the rabbit's groceries into the sack, and left them at her feet.
She gave back a frightened, confused look. Nick stared her down, and with a quick glance of some kind of hesitation, turned back around, storming out down the balcony stairs.
His mind was set on getting to the street the woman mentioned, then the ZPD, to find and... show Judy. This was something she wanted to hear... no, see...
Before the fox knew it, he had exited the complex, turning to his right from the drive way into the parking lot, onto the sidewalk. Cars whizzed by, splattering the heavy falling rain across the sky. Everything was a bluish-grey, and the continuous slaughtering of the rain upon Nick's fur seemed to start bringing that anger back to brew.
A truck blasted by, and the mist from the busy street infested his nostrils.
A cool shiver ran up his spine as he waited for a stopwalk sign to signal to walk. Nobody was on the sidewalk with him, only the iron monsters of automobiles on the water slathered streets. The signal was given, and the fox continued to stomp on down, his fur now dripping and heavy with the world's discontempt for mammal-kind. He shoved his paws into his soaked sweatpants, hoping to receive some kind of warmth. None was received.
Visibility was reduced to almost twenty feet, as the constant stream of cars speeding along the road splashed water into a thick, freezing mist that coated the sidewalks, newspaper vendors, and the windows to shops lining the busy streets.
Next up, was a left turn, then another painfully long crossing section, then another right turn.
Before the fox knew it, he was staring at the opposite side of the street, where he could see the figure of a black furred sphinx in a trenchcoat, hiding out in am alleyway.
The fox gripped his knuckles, and drew out a long, hard breath. His claws extracted, and a growl formed in his throat.
XXX
"
It's nice to meet you in person, Ms. Hopps," Patrick Woods sat at the far end of the steel table in a questioning room. The blinds were drawn, and the lights were dimmed to make it seem like it was out of service for repair.
The bear looked beside Judy, who resided on top of the table on the far side. He observed the figures of Jimena and Diego, who were sitting in the same steel chairs as he was, lined up to his right.
He adjusted his tie, breathing a little heavily. "Although I am not sure as to why these two are hear."
He took a gulp when he heard the light snarl of Jimena sound. He forced a little laugh, moving his paw to the back of his neck. "B-But they are pleasant company."
Jimena exhaled, standing and leaning on the table, shifting her hips. Diego watched her hips on the downlow.
"Listen, Bear, I have heard from you on the news, and know well of you and Judy's meeting."
Patrick looked over to Judy for help, or anything to say. He had never even met the African Wild Dog before, and here she was pressing words into him. It was all a little daunting.
"Y-Yes, but what does bringing me here have to do with this? You said you'd make this worthwhile, a-and I have testimonies to rehearse and prepare for when my case gets into the course in a few weeks--"
Jimena interrupted by crouching down, and plopping the file boxes of information from the D.P.C.U. they retrieved. His attention was immediately peaked, even though the boxes were not labeled, and the contents were all but a mystery to him.
Jimena placed her claw on one of the boxes. "In here, is hundreds of files we retrieved from the D.P.C.U, along with photos we took, and the file from a case we were assigned yesterday. And it's all classified, confidential, the whole goddamn nine yards."
In an instant, the bear reached over the table, gripping the box handles in his paws, dragging them towards him, removing the tops, and dug through the contents. He was at a loss for words, his heart hung in his throat, as he quickly scanned over file after file, and picture after picture. Their were huge, freshly printed books of death dates, causes of deaths, and death records. They were printed from the gargantuan files Judy had downloaded onto her flashdrive.
"I'm not even going to ask how you got this," The bear stuttered, and looked back up to them. "Do you realize you rookies have done more for the civil movements for predators, than any other mammal in history? In what, a day?"
Judy liked the sound of that. She tried to suppress a grin.
He breathed heavily, observing more of the files, before stopping, looking over the pile on the table, and then attacking the next box for its contents.
"This is all a morbidly disgusting..." He held up a picture of dozens of predators at a protest, laying in a clusterfuck of dead bodies. "But this is... this could very well get rid of collars for sure. The mistreatment, the lies they spread about their procedures... this uproots everything."
He looked to them, and saw Jimena looking upon him with a small grin. "I can only ask, how am I to be allowed to use this?"
Jimena's grin ceased to ever exist. "You aren't, by law."
The bear's excitement faded to nothing. It too died, just like Jimena's grin. Then Diego leaned forward, sharing his words. "But, Patrick, we are all willing to risk our jobs, and even prison time, to leak all of this information to you. If this illegal act can uproot, well, downright, sensitized genocide, then we're willing to do it. You just need to help us craft some elaborate lie."
Patrick's grin reappeared, but in a thoughtful sort of sense. "Well, I'm not the best at lying."
Judy finally chimed in, hopping off the table to pace around. She brought a knuckle to her mouth, and gently chewed to attempt to generate a thought. "Well, I have a friend, who's generally seen as shifty, he might be able to help us out..."
Her words were interrupted, when the door clicked, and everyone's blood froze.
If the officers were found sharing the information, they would be fired, and thrown in prison for, God knows how long.
Judy tensed up, and was totally unprepared to lose everything... until the doorway revealed something else completely different.
Nick was standing there, soaking wet, and in one paw, held the collar of a rain drenched sphinx who appeared to be bleeding in multiple places, and in the other, a briefcase that was also equally drenched, he threw the sphinx into the room, and Judy then could see the blood on his paws. He realized that the sphinx's injuries were not scratches, they were claw marks, and a large bite mark on his head. He then tossed the briefcase into the room, where it exploded open, and dozens of ZPD collar controller clones scattered the floor. All the officers in the room's eyes widened at the scene, and Patrick scampered from the chair to pick up the remote duplicate.
He put a hand to his head. "This is all so overwhelming..."
Judy's first instinct was to run to the fox, throwing her arms across his chest in a hard hug.
"Nick! How could you come in here like that! The security cameras are going to pick you up, and they're going to throw you in jail!" She looked up to his eyes, and hers were already starting to water with worry.
Like a magician, Nick instantly reached under his shoulder, and pulled out a CD in a case.
A small grin was pulled up onto his sopping wet fur. "I wonder if they'll ever notice their security camera footage is gone."
Judy laughed hysterically, pressing her face into his chest. She looked back up at him, letting her chin move her head on his chest while she talked. "Where did you even find the CCTV room?"
The fox shrugged hastily. "Maybe the ZPD shouldn't label where all their rooms are on maps every twenty feet; they're everywhere on the walls."
From the background, the bear held a bootleg remote in his hands, and tossed it on the table.
His attention turned to the fox, who she saw Judy holding on to so tightly. The bear couldn't help but smile.
"Ms. Hopps, is this not the friend you were talking about with me?" He stepped aside the table, walking towards the fox to shake his hand. Nick complied unhesitatingly.
Judy released herself from him, and nodded up at the bear. "Yes, this is Nick Wilde."
Nick looked down at Judy, and then back up at the bear. "Nice to meet you, Nick."
Nick nodded back. "Likewise."
The fox's attention turned to Jimena and Diego, who he assumed was Judy's Co-workers. He waved subtly.
"Hey."
Jimena waved coolly. "Hey."
Diego was a little more enthusiastic. The coyote skipped over the body of the unconscious sphinx, and came to shake the paw of Nick.
"Diego Fornian, nice to meet you! Judy's talked about you when we we were driving back to the station from the D.P.C.U... So, you used to work there? How was it, did you--?"
Jimena came from behind and gently nipped Diego with her claws, making him yelp loudly. Nick chuckled at their dynamic.
"You'll have to forgive him, he's loud most of the time." She wrapped and arm around his neck, and gently leaned on his side. Diego blushed madly.
A friendly silence consumed the room, and Judy then looked to the unconscious sphinx.
"Did you bloody him up like that, all alone?" She asked, nudging his side. Her gaze trailed up to his face, where a shameful, yet slightly prideful expression creeped onto his muzzle.
"Yeah..."
His gaze too, fell on the body of the bloodied sphinx. Soon, every mammal in the private room observed the body, which snored loudly in a beaten sleep.
Nick's voice filled the room. "You're gonna want to interrogate him after he wakes up--" The sphinx interrupted him, and cried out in his sleep for his mother, like a little kit would; And the whole room chuckled.
Judy gave a flat, sort of half annoyed expression to the fox. It had no real anger behind it, it was more sarcastic if anything.
The fox rubbed the back od his neck, laughing a little. "Geez, I might've hit him a little too hard."