The Duke Of Hazards
They say that whatever happens in Sahara Square, stays in Sahara Square. Primarily because the place is so hot, even at night. The city of Zootopia had the testament to engineering that was the climate wall to thank for that. So when you go there, your blood boils and you feel an insatiable urge to act out, be passionate, do things you would never even consider doing in more sensible temperatures. Almost like a state of intoxication.
This was readily apparent at this time of evening; the streets, wide as they were, were filled with gamblers and clubbers in colourful attire and of all shapes and sizes, shuffling along in crowds or even spilling out onto the road if they had drunk too much. The sound of horns and screeching tires from motorists protesting the aforementioned spillages were not uncommon. This particular part of Sahara Square was to the west of the Oasis Circle, as it was known, where the famous Palm Hotel and Casino was located. The streets in this area formed the crevasses between artificial canyons, with buildings artfully carved into the sides like someone had been making wave paintings or honeycombs out of layered rocks. Down here, the place was so brightly lit in the evening that it was impossible to forget that you were in Sahara Square.
Yet in the midst of all this, there was one mammal who seemed strictly focused on his own business. A slender, brown-furred mink with a patch of white fur on the end of his snout, a pair of slim glasses and a tuft of well-kept fur on his head. He was dressed in a sober black suit, the only splash of colour being a golden tie; a far cry from the norm at this time and place. He currently sat at an intermediate-size table under a shining canvas shelter outside The Dunes, which fancied itself one of the more upmarket bars and restaurants in the area.
The mink's 'own business' at this moment in time was the fairly large glass of ice-cold orange juice, but as he was about to drink some, his phone – placed next to it – began to vibrate.
"Hello, is this Antonov?" the mink asked whoever it was on the other side in a high-pitched voice, speaking with a distinctly foreign accent. He soon found himself frowning. "I'll take that as a no. So, what are you selling? Please, do tell!" He asked, leaning back and putting on a smile. "No, I insist! I like to give sporting chance to any business. See if they're worth my time. Plus, keeps you in job."
As the telemarketer on the other end began his spiel, the mink began to drink some of his orange juice. "Mm… so, it's revolutionary piece of exercise equipment for extra-large offices? Interesting!"
As this was going on, another mammal watched intently from across the street. Hiding behind an elephant-sized pot cactus, a weasel in a grungy tank top and tracksuit trousers eyed the mink, and then he eyed the car that he assumed belonged to him, parked on the road just outside The Dune. It was a shiny, mustelid-sized sports coupe, painted simple silver. Presumably of Tanukyese make, by his estimation. Duke Weaselton chuckled, rubbing his paws together. The perfect mark. All he'd need was a distraction… and he had one.
About fifteen minutes later, the mink at the table had finished his glass of orange juice but was still chatting away to the telemarketer, now having evidently moved on to discuss things not strictly related to the sale. "…See, if some of my employees had exercise equipment like this, then perhaps they'd learn to calm down, and show more respect to authorities when chips come down! …Oh, I'm told it's a gambling analogy. Surprising how often that comes up in this business!"
Meanwhile, just down the street, a third mammal came into the picture. An elderly, gangly female goat, dressed in the distinct, high-visibility attire of a ZPD traffic cop. Or 'meter maids' as they were popularly known. As she strolled along with her walker – with two tennis balls attached to the bottom, for some reason – the much younger, hipper and/or less authority-inclined mammals that frequented this part of town threw suspicious glances her way, what with meter maids being considered the embodiment of all evil. But the old goat paid them no mind, instead remaining focused on her job of nearly fifty years.
Sauntering at a snail's pace, she soon came upon the Tanukyese sports car, so shiny it was that not even she could ignore it. More importantly, it was parked in a very high-demand place, so she knew the local restrictions would be very harsh indeed. She stopped to analyse the nearest parking meter. Squinting to focus her tired old eyes at it, she could see it had turned bright red. Of course; the sort of young hooligan that would drive a car such as this would pay no mind to even the most basic parking limits.
By now, the stream of clubbers and gamblers had cleared a bit, offering the mink outside The Dune an unobstructed view of his car for the first time in a while.
"So they're made using locally-sourced plastics? Is good to hear; speaking as an immigrant – and mustelid, at that – I insist on supporting local economy! …Hmm? Oh, Bearuska. Yes, just after fall of the wall. …It is rather shameful that some mammals hold these prejudices, but… well, it is instinct problem, really. I was no different as a… excuse me one moment."
The mink's spectacled eyes widened as he noticed the elderly meter maid just across the street, about to slap a parking ticket on his automobile. He raised a brow. That couldn't be right…
"Listen, I have to take care of some… uh, business. However, I have saved your number, and will continue this conversation later so I can place an order! Good luck with your sales!"
Wasting no time, he put away his phone and got up from his chair. He had to walk at a slightly quickened pace to cover the distance needed, since all the major streets in the city had to be scaled-up to at least elephant size, and the surrounding architecture tended to reflect that. But he kept his composure even as he pitter-pattered along, timing his crossing of the wide road well to accommodate the heavy traffic.
By the time he had reached the other side, the old meter maid had already stuck a ticket under his car's windscreen wiper and moved on to look for more 'targets'. However, her walking pace was sufficiently slow enough that the mink didn't have to walk very far to catch up with her.
"Excuse me, officer!" he called out, prompting her to very, very slowly stop and very, very slowly turn around, taking her about ten seconds in all. The mink could practically hear her old bones creaking as she did so. "I believe there's been mistake with my car."
The old goat narrowed her eyes at him, pointing with a hoof. "I'm afraid… there's been no mistake, son. See the meter? Red! That means… expired!" she emphasised like she was talking to an idiot, even miming an explosion when she got to 'expired'. The mink's mind was blown, certainly, but not in the way she wanted him to be.
He briefly rolled his eyes before standing up straight politely clasping his paws in front of his chest, almost like he was pleading. "I am well aware of that, officer! But I assure you, I double-check parking limits on this street; I read up on local language before moving here. It was for one hour only. I have only been here thirty minute," he said, playing up his Bearuskan accent; it often tended to provoke simpler, easier-to-understand explanations from the locals, he knew.
"Now, you listen to me, Ivan!" the old goat began, shaking a hoofy fist at him, "I've ticketed cars on this street for nearly fifty years, I think I know when these meters expire! Been like that for nearly fifty years; you got a problem with that, take it up with your grandpappy who voted on proposition whasname fifty years ago to make it that way; otherwise, you pay the ticket like everyone else has been for nearly fifty years!"
The mink furrowed his brow in confusion; she was certainly very big on the 'fifty years' angle. "My name is actually Dmitry, buuut… close enough!" he shrugged. "Anyhow, if my parking has expired already, how come horse in sedan behind me is still parked, ticketless, after forty minute or so?"
"Ohh, playin' the species card, are ya? Don't give me that, Ivan; for nearly fifty years, every mammal who comes 'ere has to abide by the same parking laws, for nearly fifty years! So it doesn't matter if you're a ferret…"
"Mink," Dmitry interrupted.
"Oh, whatever!" the meter maid snapped back, craning her head as far as her old back would allow to get her face right in his. "It doesn't matter if you're a mink, or a horse, or a mink riding a horse, you can't stay parked here longer than fifty year- I mean, one hour!"
"But I have not been parked here for one hour! Only thirty minute!" Dmitry responded in kind, beginning to lose his temper.
What neither of them realised, however, was the weasel watching the entire encounter from behind the same cactus, waiting for their confusion to fully set in. Duke slowly began to sidle his way out of his hiding spot as he noticed that the old meter maid was beginning to… slowly… turn to face the nearest parking meter. With how senile she was, he was starting to wonder why he even bothered hiding in the first place as long as Dmitry's back was turned.
"Don't get impatient with me, Ivan!" the old meter maid said, pointing at the meter. "Look at the meter! Red as a tomato that's been used to beat someone to death with!"
"…W-what?" Dmitry stuttered out, before shaking his head to erase the odd comparison from his memory. He proceeded to get up close to the meter, tapping straight on it. "Anyway, look closely. The 'red' is obviously cheap marker pen. Not even dry!" he emphasised, holding up a finger to display the red mark that had been left on it.
Responding, the old goat… gradually… slowly, but surely… inched her way over to the meter, craned her neck at it, and squinted as hard as she could. She looked at Dmitry's reddened finger, then back to the meter, then back to the finger, then back to the meter. Something clearly wasn't right here, but she couldn't put her hoof on it… anything red just looked solid red through her blurry vision.
Dmitry sighed. "Use glasses if need be," he said, helpfully offering the use of his mustelid-size spectacles. The old goat gave a silent nod in thanks and delicately took the undersized glasses, pinching them within her hooves, held them up to her face, and shut one eye to squint through them with the other. As she focused her vision, it soon became apparent that, to her amazement, the mink was right; the 'red' on the parking meter was crudely drawn on in marker, and it wasn't even entirely consistent, with plenty of gaps. They hadn't even bothered to write 'EXPIRED' on it; talk about poorly-researched.
By this point, Duke had closed in on the mink, arching his back in an almost cartoonish fashion as his pockets came within reach of his sticky claws; he was half-tempted to turn to some imaginary camera and make a 'shhhh' gesture to an imaginary audience. The old goat soon found herself coughing in astonishment as the mink's theory was proven right, giving the weasel his cue to strike. As they were both caught off guard, he lightly, but swiftly reached into Dmitry's back pocket and, gentle as a feather, clutched his car keys and slid them out. And when the goat decided to cough again, he figured he might as well take Dmitry's wallet as well. From his experience, most mammals he'd pickpocket would suddenly feel the emptiness in their clothes after some time; could be seconds, could be minutes. So it was imperative that he quickly stuff the goods in his own pockets and casually walk away, as if he'd just been passing by.
And to even his amazement, it seemed to work! To enhance the illusion, he sauntered a ways down the street to avoid suspicion. It was about six seconds after the deed had been done that Dmitry began to feel 'the emptiness'. It wasn't a conclusive sign they'd been pickpocketed, just some instinctual urge to look behind oneself. By then, Duke was at least three cars away. In his line of work, you had to walk fast.
"Oh, consarnit… I am so sorry, Ivan… Dmitry… whatever it was," the old goat said, delicately handing his glasses back to him. "I shoulda known some darned hooligans would try and take advantage of my tired old brain! Been like this for-"
"Nearly fifty years?" Dmitry interrupted, turning back to her.
"…Yes! How did you know?"
"Never mind. Question is, who is responsible for vandalism? They probably try to distract us while… wait…"
It was now that Dmitry began to start patting down his suit pockets, finally realising that he'd been had. He turned back again to catch another glimpse of the dirty weasel he saw, but by then Duke had disappeared. He had moved on to phase three of his scheme; circle around to the other side of the row of cars, skitter along on all fours to avoid detection, and upon coming back to the target car, execute a little stunt. The 'Ratalian Invasion', he called it.
It was simple… on paper, anyway. Most cars nowadays didn't require you to physically insert the key into the lock; all you needed was to push a button, which made life much easier for the enterprising car thief. All the weasel needed to do was hit that button, pull himself inside, execute a 180-degree 'stoat turn', shut the door behind him, and hit it again to lock himself in – and the owner out – all in three seconds. He grinned to himself in confidence; he'd been practicing with his cousin's van. This time, he was sure he'd be able to pull it off.
"Don't you worry yourself, Ivan! I may look like an old meter maid… and I am! But I'm still a proud officer of the Zootopia Police Department, and in nearly fifty years, not once has any no-good crook escaped my notice! You can rest assured that your belongings are-"
Beep, clunk, shuffle, clunk, vroom vroom, tire squeal. And before either of them even knew it, Dmitry's car had literally left them in a cloud of smoke as it sped off down the street.
"…Safe with us."
Dmitry's paw slammed against his forehead. "Never mind, I take care of this myself. Perhaps it is time for retirement, Officer…?"
"Mabel!"
"Pfthahahaha!" Duke laughed to himself as he weaved through the evening Sahara Square traffic. "I love it when a plan comes together!" However, the overjoyed expression on his face mellowed a bit when something rather irritating came to his mind. "…Ugh, right, o' course. Ma will probably wanna know about this…"
Thus, he proceeded to blatantly violate a basic driving principle by pulling out his phone, only paying about a third of the attention to the road he was supposed to, and calling up a certain guardian. As he waited for her to pick up, he approached the incredibly busy Oasis Circle itself, the Palm Hotel in full view.
"Come on, come on, pick up! If yer always askin' for the money, least y'can do is set up a garage or somethin'…" he muttered to himself as he jerked all over the place to avoid a practical fleet of much smaller, rodent-sized cars on the way to the Circle.
Unfortunately, however, as a consequence of losing two-thirds of his attention, he somehow managed to miss the enormous coach directly in front of him until the very last second.
"GYAH!" he went, as was custom, when he finally saw the massive white, metallic monstrosity in front of him. He was forced to abruptly jerk the car off to the right, causing the phone to fall out of his paw and into the driver's footwell.
"Oh, for the love of- why must this always happen every time I go for a drive?!" he moaned to himself as he ducked down to retrieve the phone, thus reducing his visibility from 33% to 0%. And if that wasn't enough, the extra pressure he applied pulling himself down there forced him to accelerate quite vigorously. It was only a matter of time before something went badly wrong.
Five Minutes Earlier…
Night was beginning to fall at the Oasis Circle. What with all the clubbers, the gamblers and the drunkards migrating around the Palm Hotel, you'd think that the Zootopia Police Department would have no shortage of work to do. And yet, here at one of the main roads leading into the Circle, an enormous ZPD-livery SUV remained dormant at the sidewalk. Its occupants – an older rhinoceros in the driver's seat, and a younger timber wolf on a booster seat next to him – spending their taxpayer-issued time slouched in their chairs, licking away at ice cream cones and generally looking bored.
But then, the silence was broken by a sudden, energetic gesture from the wolf; the label on his uniform identifying him as an Officer Wolford.
"SO! Ya got any jokes?" he asked in a voice surprisingly nasally for a wolf.
"Well, it depends." The rhino, an Officer McHorn, responded in a deep voice. "What kinda jokes we talkin' about?"
"Well, y'know. Funny ones! I mean, it's not like we got anythin' better to talk about!"
"That's very true, but I kinda already assumed you meant funny ones; unfunny jokes ain't exactly jokes. They'd more accurately be called 'torture'."
"Well, alright, Mister Comedy-ologist! I mean like… puns, wordplay, double entendres, that sorta thing!"
McHorn paused for a moment, scratching his horn. "…Nah, I ain't real good at that. I'm more into anecdotes. What, 'ave you got somethin'?"
"I have, actually! I heard it at the DMV the other day." Wolford proudly announced, turning in his booster seat slightly to enable better gestures. He cleared his throat.
"Whaddya call a three-humped camel?"
"Uh... Dromedary or Bactrian?"
"What?" Wolford asked, his face screwed up in bafflement.
"What kinda camel? Dromedary or Bactrian?"
"Well..." Wolford paused to think it over, "how the freakin' hell should I know?! Which one's the most common?"
McHorn shrugged. "Dromedary, I think."
"Okay, fine," the wolf conceded, clearing his throat again. "Whaddya call a three-humped Dromedary camel?"
"A mutant?"
Wolford paused again to let the build-up properly sink in, as any good comedian should remember to do. Or so he thought.
"Pregnant! Pfhehehehe!" he chuckled, lightly punching the much bigger mammal on the shoulder.
But the bigger mammal only reacted with a furrowed brow. "...I don't get it."
"Huh?" Wolford stopped smirking. "Why not?"
"Well... you said a Dromedary camel, right?"
"Yeah, so? What difference does that make?"
McHorn fidgeted a bit in preparation for a lecture. "Well, Dromedaries have only got one hump. I'm guessing the second hump is from her being pregnant and all, but where's the third hump comin' from?"
Wolford spluttered out some jumbled noises, having trouble forming words for a moment. "I… j… What?! I dunno, I didn't know there was a difference! This camel I'm talkin' about had two humps!"
"But you said she was a Dromedary. Bactrians are the ones with two humps."
Wolford briefly smacked his head against the dashboard before rising; making sure to hold his ice cream up, of course. "I only said that 'cause you asked! Look, no-one else is gonna ask what kinda camel, she's just a camel! Who cares?!"
"Oh, she's 'just a camel'?" McHorn snorted. "That's pretty speciesist of ya, Dennis."
"Hey, don't be an ass, you know that's not what I meant! Look, the kind of camel ain't important!"
"I dunno, the number of humps is a pretty crucial difference, as far as the joke's concerned. Besides, you asked for what the most common type o' camel is, not which one has two humps and which one don't. Dromedaries are the most common, so it stands to reason that most mammals are gonna think o' them when you just randomly say 'a camel'."
"No they won't!" Wolford raised his voice, stopping briefly to make sure his ice cream hadn't melted. "Look, I ain't bein' a speciesist, I'm just sayin' that most mammals ain't realistically gonna care! You say a 'three-humped camel', they're gonna assume you're talkin' about a two-humped camel that's got an extra hump, 'cause mammals ain't as stupid as you think! They know that two-humped camels exist, and three-humped camels don't!"
McHorn bit down on his entire ice cream minus the very bottom of the cone, and began to talk with his mouth full. "Firsht of all, I don't think everyone but me ish an idiot. Shecond, what if they're like me and they want a little extra clarification?"
"Yeah, well you're just…" Wolford wiggled his fingers in front of his face, "…different! I've told that joke to at least a dozen guys, and literally none of 'em asked what kind o' camel except you!"
McHorn quickly consumed the last of his cone, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "Look, I'm just sayin', it'd be better if you said a Bactrian camel instead of just 'a camel' precisely to avoid this kinda confusion!"
"There was no confusion until you decided to- okay, to hell with it, I'll start again!" Wolford cleared his throat for a third time. "What do you call a three-humped Bactrian camel?"
"I don't know."
"Pregnant! Ha ha ha, hilarious!" Wolford said disingenuously.
"Well… no, not really."
Wolford grunted, throwing his free paw in the air. "That's because you ruined the damn thing by overcomplicating it! Besides, it ain't just about that kinda hump, anyway! There's a whole second side to the joke, and when you figure it out..."
McHorn held up an enormous hand. "Uhh-bub-bub! Say no more, I get it!"
"Geez, Vic… why have you gotta be so uptight, anyhow?"
"What?! Where'd that come from? Why am I suddenly 'uptight' just 'cause I don't find crass jokes funny? We can't all be 'lone wolves' like you, Dennis; I chose to get settle down, get married an' have twin calves! Knock it all you like, but that don't make me uptight!"
"Well yeah, but I swear you in particular always act like there could be pups literally in the back o' the car! Y'don't always have to play the good daddy; sit back an' relax every once in a while! Besides, even if there were pups, I'm sure they'd find the idea of a pregnant, three-humped camel funny!"
"Oh, so the three-humped camel is pregnant, now? Does that make it a four-humped camel?"
Wolford proceeded to smash his head on the dashboard again. Three times. In rapid succession. "Okay, you're doin' this on purpose now, ain't ya? You're tryin' to wind me up, ain't ya?"
"Well, maybe… but I didn't start it."
"Grrrrrrrrr…" Wolford began to growl in a distinctly canine manner.
However, before their little argument could escalate even further, both their attentions were immediately drawn to the deafeningly loud shriek of a high-performance, Tanukyese-engineered engine rapidly approaching their position. Their looks practically 'snapping' to the source of the noise, they saw some kind of silver blur coming their way at blinding speed, and haphazardly swerving about the road on top of that. It was a minor miracle he hadn't hit anything. Looked like the officers would get some action after all.
"Let's roll." Was all McHorn said as he switched on the SUV's deeper sirens, started the monster, spun its wheels and sped off, heading straight to the Circle.
"Woah, woah, woah, lemme finish my freakin' ice cream, first!" Wolford pleaded before biting down on the near-entirety of his cone like McHorn did earlier, albeit with much less success. "GAAGGGHHH… brain freeze!" he growled out, clutching his skull in agony.
"This is the Police! You are in violation of multiple traffic laws! Pull your vehicle over right now!"
Duke's attention was brought back to the road as he heard that sadly familiar line over loudspeaker, combined with the sound of blaring sirens and the sight of flashing lights quickly emerging behind him. Unfortunately, the moment he chose to forget his dropped phone and rise back to a proper driving position coincided with the moment his new car veered onto the grassy separator between the two sides of the road on the Circle.
He yelped in surprise as he struggled to get the car back under control, barrelling as it was straight through ornamental bushes, getting covered in dust, and knocking Duke all over the inside of the car like he was a pinball because, of course, he'd forgotten to put his seatbelt on.
But that was only the beginning of his troubles. Once he finally emerged from the grassy knoll – going over the curb with an alarming bump – he found himself driving straight towards oncoming traffic.
"Oh… damn! Damn damn damn damn!" he blurted out. His face contorted into a twitching mess and his body not doing much better, he began to panic and frantically steer towards the nearest large-mammal vehicle; with a bit of luck, the ride would be high enough to let him drive straight underneath it. Narrowly dodging a convoy of mouse-sized taxis with a clumsily-executed slalom, he soon spotted a monster monster truck; the monster truck for bears and pachyderms.
"Holy… thank God I'm in Sahara Square!" Duke yelled, because only here would you find a vehicle so… unorthodox casually driving through an urban area. Of course, like any urban area, his driving habits were causing mammals driving towards him to abruptly stop and sound their horns, no doubt causing an accident or two. But that was the city's problem, as far as Duke was concerned right now.
Unfortunately, as he approached the monster truck, not only did the driver – some kind of bear hillbilly – sound the truck's equally monstrous horn to try and spook him, a local rabbit soccer mom in a minivan full of her kits, having been blocked off by some of the traffic Duke had halted, had the exact same idea as Duke and drove underneath the truck. Of course, Duke didn't notice the minivan until he was already sailing full-pelt towards it, forcing him to summon every last bit of driving expertise he had to avoid a horrendous accident.
"If this don't work, I am literally gonna kill my fake drivin' instructor!" he declared before attempting the feat in question. He steered sharp right and applied the brakes as hard as his uncovered weasel feet could accomplish, sending the car into a drift, its back end right in the path of the minivan. He then steered sharp left, sending the back of the car swerving in the other direction, narrowly missing the minivan.
"That's two rabbits now! Two rabbits!" he breathlessly screamed out as he turned sharp right again, so his car wouldn't get crushed underneath the oversized wheels of the monster monster truck. Once he was underneath it, he spotted a gap in the traffic to his right that would enable him to get back on track, and without thinking on it, floored the accelerator.
Luck would not be so kind to him, however, and before he could get back to the grass, an opossum on a pizza delivery bike suddenly drove straight into his path and stopped in a panic. His eyes bulging out in even more panic, Duke was forced to make yet another last-second course correction, pushing hard on the brakes and drifting back to his left… which left him face-on with a Tundratown truck. He knew as much from the snowplough mounted on the front. At this point, the car was lurching about at such high speed that getting it to stop in time would be impossible.
Duke gulped and closed his eyes. When his ma told him he should get more air, this was not what he had in mind.
The car soon drove straight up the right side of the plough like it was an unfinished loop-de-loop, sending the car hurtling upside-down off to the right, like an oversized bullet. Falling out the driver's seat and bashing against the roof, Duke opened his eyes and screamed.
In reality, his upside-down flight was barely a second long, but for a moment it felt as though he was flying in slow motion. He hurtled straight past the pursuing officers in their ZPD truck, briefly making eye contact with Wolford and McHorn… which was enough to distract him from the side of the big limo he was gliding towards.
The aquatic-mammal limo. Full of water.
The bullet comparison could only be strengthened as the car smashed right through the window, maintaining enough momentum to sail straight through the water, past some very shocked sea lions, and straight out the other end, turning the aquarium on wheels into an ordinary – but very damp – limousine.
What Duke didn't quite notice – understandably, given the screaming and the head injury – was that his car had been doing a corkscrew in mid-air. Luck had come back to him in a slightly twisted way, for his car was now perfectly aligned to land. On two wheels. Duke managed to get the car on all four wheels again by leaning hard to his right, a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that he was now sweaty, had taken a blow to the head and was on the verge of a having a heart attack. Nonetheless, soon the car was back on four wheels and he was heading off the Circle, down a less-busy side street.
Meanwhile, in the ZPD truck, McHorn followed police driving procedure and slammed his hoof on the brake to enable a safe turning, but what he didn't realise was that the road was now covered in water dumped from the aquarium on wheels, forcing him to rapidly spin the steering wheel back to its former position to regain control. Though braking with enough force to dislodge Wolford's booster seat and send him dropping to 0% exterior visibility, the slick road made actually stopping a difficult task. It was only when they crashed into the back of the now-empty water limo that they finally stopped sliding along the road.
All manner of noises ensued. Wolford grunted in pain from the seatbelt digging into his ribcage, though a preferable alternative to being launched out the windscreen. Behind them, a small mass of cars screeched to a collective halt to avoid colliding with them, themselves getting caught off-guard by the slick road, slipping and sliding and soon crashing into one another.
Before he'd properly recovered, Wolford opened the passenger door to get out and check the damage… only for the door itself to be ripped right off its hinges by an out-of-control bus before he could get out, making him jump back with a yelp, clutching his chest.
One rat's muscle car went into a spin, which was only lengthened by a fox in a convertible shunting him from behind. The fox was soon smacked aside as well by a cow in a pickup truck, forming a barricade for an extra-tall giraffe car to swerve and topple over, forming another barricade for a skunk driving a perfume van to crash into, the sound of smashing glass from inside swiftly following.
The pile-up soon settled, but in its wake was a cacophony of blaring horns and bellowed profanities as motorists demanded to know why a traffic jam was rapidly beginning to form around the Circle. Officer McHorn attempted to reverse and get back into the pursuit, but the vehicle wouldn't budge. Officer Wolford, having recovered from his brush with death with courage expected from a canine, decided he would inspect the situation. He dusted himself off, took a deep breath, clambered out the truck, and immediately noticed that they were blocked off by the toppled giraffe car.
"Well, ain't that typical?!"
Meanwhile, Duke had finally got his car back under control and was coasting to the corner at the end of the side-street. He took a moment to congratulate himself on the achievement in sheer dumb luck he had pulled off.
"Whooooo! Adios, donut dippers!" he yelled in delight, even throwing a mock-salute to his rear view mirror just to rub it in even further. He had to ask himself how much money Dmitry must have spent on modifying his car to enable it to drive so well. Not that Duke was going to let himself go without any credit, of course. Even if he was on the verge having an accident the entire time he was in the air; in more ways than one. Offering a brief, silent prayer to his fake driving instructor, he reminded himself that he was not out of the woods quite yet. But he soon would be!
Just ahead of him, he noticed the entrance to a pedestrians-only area; a series of steps leading down to the Oasis Marina, at the top of an artificial reservoir right in the middle of Sahara Square. He shrugged to himself; at this point, the car seemed pretty much unstoppable. What's the worst that could happen?
Instead of slowing down, he accelerated again, effectively causing him to bounce off the three platforms between each flight of stairs, repeatedly launching him out of his seat and making him bash his head against the roof of the car four more times. "OW! OW! OW! OW!" he went before finally returning to solid ground.
Upon reaching the right turn onto the Marina proper, he braked and hugged the corner very closely. However, his repeated blows to the head began to make him feel dazed and slightly queasy, reducing his focus. As a result, he failed to notice the kangaroo standing right there, and accidentally drove over his foot. Duke knew this because he felt a sudden bump, followed by the sound of a kangaroo bellowing in pain, which was enough to make him lucid again.
"Sorry!" he yelled; not that he could be heard, of course. It was more of a reflex thing. Not something he liked to admit.
The Marina road – not a pedestrian-only zone, but merely patterned to resemble one – was a massive, gradual curve outwards and largely devoid of vehicular traffic, giving Duke ample room to floor the accelerator once more. This was good news, because soon a ZPD helicopter emerged from view behind, annoyingly shining a bright light directly into his vision.
"You are under arrest! Pull over this instant!" an unseen officer from inside the chopper announced. Not that Duke noticed much, as he was too busy trying to shield his vision from the spotlight, which forced him to take his eyes off the road again. Soon he'd accelerated enough to get away from the light, but by then…
"YAAAGH!" he yelped as his vision returned and he saw what was coming. By that time he'd swerved a little off-course again, and couldn't avoid clipping a table outside a café, causing the table to topple over and spray the car with some kind of tiger's beverage. By this point, he'd ruined quite a lot of mammals' evenings, so he paid it no mind, besides switching on the windscreen wipers to remove the excess beverage.
He slapped himself on the side of the head; he had a real bad attention span problem, he knew. When he got this car sold off, he'd need to spend some of the money to see a shrink, or something.
Meanwhile, some distance down the Marina road, a grizzly bear whose job it was to clean a local souvenir shop was just finishing up his shift. He wandered outside carrying a garbage bag and crossed the road to dump it into a larger trash can. Placing the lid on the trash can, he dusted off his massive paws in relief before walking back to the shop door to lock it up. To heighten his mood, he was wearing earphones which blasted 'Try Everything' straight into his ears, rendering him totally oblivious to the incoming weasel.
About halfway across the street, he remembered that the garbage collectors the next morning usually collected straight from the fronts of the shops and would overlook the beachside entirely, so he wandered back to grab the trash can and move it further towards the store, unwittingly clearing the way moments before Duke in his stolen sports car zoomed past, creating a strong gust of wind. Said gust of wind caught the bear's attention and he glanced behind him. Not knowing that he'd barely averted an accident, he shrugged and concluded that it must have been a meteorological anomaly before placing the trash can in front of the store.
As the bear went back to lock the door, Duke finally made his way onto an actual road above the reservoir. He made a cocky grin; this was good news. Or was it?
Just above him, there was another road on a raised section of terrain, the two separated by a wall. The high road soon converged on the low road via a downward hill, and as he drove past it, he witnessed a familiar sight coming from the high road behind him.
Officers McHorn and Wolford were back, having freed themselves from the accident on the strip, and were now gaining on him with alarming speed.
Duke began to panic again. There was no way he'd be able to lose them in a straight-up drag race. He was faster than them, but their truck was no slouch either, and they were bigger. Looking in his rear view mirror, the increasingly-large sight of the truck started to look like a horror movie; the grille even resembled the maw of a vicious beast. Duke began to breathe heavily and clutched his chest, leaning over the steering wheel, desperately trying to think of a plan.
But then he remembered something. He sat up straight. Now they were on narrow, two-lane streets. Surely he'd be able to use his car's smaller size to his advantage. He clicked his claws together and chuckled as he noticed a massive old sedan just ahead of him.
"Keep up with this, Officer… uh… Icin'-berg!" he pointlessly taunted as he overtook the sedan, hugging close to its side to enable smaller vehicles driving towards him to pass, thus making life difficult for the ZPD. He chuckled once more, slapping his knee; looked like he'd be in the clear after all!
However, he soon emerged upon a roundabout arranged in-between three giant ornamental palm trees, right in front of a seaside casino – the Lucky Horseshoe. As Duke continued his overtaking strategy, a somewhat drunken cheetah in a tuxedo stumbled out the front of the casino. Another mammal, a similarly well-dressed hippo, dived in from behind and pushed the cheetah out of the way, spilling a load of oversized poker chips he was hiding inside his jacket all over the road, raining down upon Duke.
A few of the poker chips struck the car's windscreen and fractured it, making Duke jump and dodge in reflex. This was enough to make him jerk the car to the left, exposing the front-right wheel for another poker chip to bounce off the road and get lodged between the wheel and the rest of the car.
The steering was jammed, and Duke, now being forced to turn left, was heading for the brick wall separating him and a sizable body of water.
"GRNNNGH… I… hate… mammals who… cheat at… Poker!" he ranted to himself as he leaned to his right, pulling at the steering wheel with all his strength in an attempt to un-jam the steering. "C'mon, you stupid dried-up piece o' bull dung!"
Almost on cue, he heard a very loud 'SNAP', and suddenly the steering was un-jammed! Unfortunately, the car was now lurching dangerously close to the ground, making a horrific grinding sound and spewing sparks from the offending wheel. Or rather where the wheel was, for it had broken off and was now bouncing back down the road.
Once again, Duke found himself wrestling with the car as it uncontrollably dragged itself towards the wall, as much as he wanted to take his paws off the steering wheel for just one second to protect his ears from the bloodcurdling noise. His increasingly long list of problems was enough to distract him from the heat that was suddenly coming from the top of the car. The extreme heat. The fiery heat, even. The sort of heat you'd get if sparks came into contact with a strong beverage that had you had driven through earlier. And just when he thought it couldn't possibly get any worse…
"S-stop your vehicle! There's… n-nowhere to run!" yelled a rather perturbed police officer over a loudspeaker. A young wildcat from the looks of things, who had serious difficulty sounding authoritative even though he was standing in front of a roadblock of about three ZPD cruisers, completely shutting off any of Duke's escape routes by road. Witnessing a flaming, grinding thing heading straight for you will do that.
"Gah… like hell I'm gonna stop now, kitten!" Duke said, invoking his favourite of all logical fallacies: the sunk cost fallacy. After all, even in its current state, surely he could get the car fixed up; it'd be pricey, to be sure, but a fraction of the money he'd get for the car! All he needed to do was find an alternate route. And as luck would have it, there was one.
Just to his left, there was the entrance to the Sahara Square Country Club, a mass of green terrain on the western 'coast' of the Oasis Reservoir. It was a long shot, but then he remembered that he'd caused a massive pile-up back at the Circle. Compared to the stuff he usually pulled, that was pretty high on the law's list of 'no-nos'.
Relaxing his strong grip on the steering for a bit, he enabled the car's wrecked steering to pull him the wrong way down the exit road from the country club, praising the brief moment of respite he got before he had to continue struggling to turn into the club's parking lot.
Duke's cunning plan had been to drive into the parking lot and then back out the entrance road, bypassing the roadblock. However, he only realised that this would be impossible by the time he was already in the parking lot, and actually turning the car sharp-right at speed was something the car's ruined steering would not permit, at least not without flipping the car over. That's not to say Duke didn't try, though.
Despite applying all the strength his lacklustre weasel body could provide, the car didn't get anywhere close to the entrance road; all he succeeded in doing was driving diagonally across the parking lot, past the country club building itself – shaped like a giant golf cup turned on its side – and found himself skidding across the green, illuminated mostly by the spotlight of the pursuing ZPD chopper.
The green itself was smooth and well-maintained enough for it to not be especially bad on his ride, and it at least stopped the car from grinding sparks against the ground, and it curved to the left across the reservoir, so Duke didn't have to struggle with the steering. However, whatever modifications Dmitry had made to it, he hadn't given it off-road tyres. The ZPD truck soon followed him onto the green and did not encounter the same problem, so it didn't take long for them to catch up to him. However, once they were right on his tail, they encountered a different problem.
"Vic… Vic!" Officer Wolford shouted at his partner; a necessity, since the loss of the passenger door meant he had to make himself heard over the wind coming in. "This thing is too big!"
"What?!" McHorn offhandedly replied, too busy squinting his short-sighted rhino eyes on what was ahead.
"This truck, it's too big!"
"What?!"
"I said… this truck… IS TOO BIG! WE CAN'T! SEE! HIM!" Wolford shouted back, gesturing to aid his colleague in understanding what he was saying. "Hang back… and drive alongside! I have an idea!"
"Okay!" McHorn complied, softly applying the brakes and steering to the left, coming up alongside Duke's car. Wolford proceeded to viciously kick open the glovebox in front of him and pulled out a black riot shotgun, clearly designed for a slightly bigger mammal in mind.
"Wolford, is that… really necessary?!"
"YES!" Wolford bluntly replied, loading the shotgun with bright pink shells from inside the glovebox, marked 'RODENT CONTROL – BEAN BAG ROUND'.
"I've had! Enough! Of this freakin' scumbag!" Wolford confidently declared, pumping the shotgun.
What Duke saw behind him next was almost enough to make him curl up in defence at the wheel, trembling, like he was a kit all over again. The wolf cop used his seatbelt as a safety harness to lean outside the truck while standing up, aiming the oversized shotgun straight at Duke's flaming car. The wolf's teeth were bared and he had slobber practically pouring out his mouth; a side-effect of sticking nearly his whole body outside a moving vehicle, but to Duke it simply made him look like a savage. The fire giving him a bright orange glow in the night certainly didn't help.
"GYAH! Dear God!" he yelped at the sight, and responded by leaning further and further into his seat, twitching like he'd been on a coffee binge. "Come on, come on, go faster, go faster…" he muttered, feeling the bones in his feet strain against the accelerator. This didn't make him go faster but at least spewed dirt into Wolford's face, screwing up his aim.
"Stop doin' that!" the wolf yelled as he reflexively batted away the shards of mud flying in his direction. As he was distracted, his itchy trigger finger went off and he shot the front side of their own truck. The shock of the close-range ballistic impact against the truck made McHorn jump in his seat and suddenly jerk the truck sharp left, sending its left wheels into one of the green's bunkers, and Wolford flying back inside the truck, smacking against his partner's arm. "OOF!"
"You're a real menace, Dennis! Y'know that?!" McHorn said as he snatched the shotgun from Wolford's paw and jerked the truck a back a sharp right. Unfortunately, he overdid it a bit and headed straight into Duke's side at a speed too fast to stop.
Witnessing this, Duke chose this moment to curl into a ball in his seat and look away from the cause of his impending death, or at least traumatising injury. But after a monstrous rumble overhead, followed by a second or two, he gathered the courage to open his eyes again. He noticed the truck was now on his right side; its ride was high enough that it drove over him completely! This gave him an idea…
Meanwhile, McHorn took his massive hands off the steering wheel and pumped the shotgun himself, which looked a lot more natural in his hands. "Dennis… take the wheel!" he said, forcing the wolf to abruptly grab said wheel with a look of abject horror on his muzzle. Taking a moment to accelerate and get in front of Duke's car, he finally opened the window, stuck his massive torso out and aimed the shotgun behind him.
"Hehehe… okay, braking now!" Duke said uneasily before easing on the brakes. Which had no effect whatsoever. "C'mon, brake! Brake!" He demanded of the car, to no avail. The dashboard had so many warning lights at this point, it was lit up like a slot machine. Finally, he had no choice but to practically break his other foot and slam on the brakes as hard as possible, and only then did the car slow down, enabling him to barely evade McHorn's shot, which only left a mark in the green. However, he had braked too hard and found himself next to the wheels, which wouldn't work for him at all. As the rhino pumped his shotgun, he accelerated again and allowed the ruined steering to send him left, away from a second shot.
Finally, he applied yet more pressure to the steering in an attempt to drive underneath the ZPD truck; at this rate, he figured that his arms might pop right off and he'd have to become a pirate or something. At an almost torturously slow rate, the car finally began to edge to the right and underneath the truck, but not before McHorn got off another shotgun shot. This one actually succeeded in striking the car; the front left wheel, in fact, puncturing the tyre and making the car handle like it was on an ice rink slathered in mousse.
"GROAH… WOA-WOA-WOA-WOA-WOA…" Duke found himself going as he shook from left to right, almost in imitation of the police sirens. But he had already seen that they didn't have much green left to cover before they'd inevitably crash into the fence separating it and the artificial dunes south of the Oasis. This was his one and only shot.
Kicking open the driver's door – and reminding himself to get a golf cart the next time he decided to have a car chase on a golf course, like you were supposed to – he readied his natural weasel claws. He began to climb out the driver's seat and attempted to lean out the window, using the top of the door for stability. However, the massive heatwave behind him reminded him that the top of his car was still on fire, and more to the point, was blowing embers straight onto his shirt. So he resolved to make this quick.
He tried to reach up to the truck's underside, but the more he leaned out the car, the more it lurched off to the left. He tried to do it as gently as possible, which was a tall order when travelling at high speed down a golf course that wasn't even on flat ground, and the car itself was weaving about because one of its wheels was missing and the other had a flat tyre. He didn't have long to think about it before he felt an intense burning sensation on his back. His shirt had finally caught fire.
"GYAAAAAAGGGHHH!" he screeched from between his teeth, his eyes bulging out. The pain made his entire body latch onto one of the pipes on the truck's underside on all fours, out of ancient, self-preservation instincts everyone thought he'd buried. His eyes began to water from the pain. He haphazardly tried to bat the flames down, but it was no good, so he instead resorted to strengthening his legs' hold on the pipe, enabling him to use both arms for a limited time. He used his claws to rip his shirt open, causing it to fall off in a burning heap.
Hooking an arm around the underside of the truck, he took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief… but his respite didn't last half a second, as he noticed that, while he was occupied, his car had veered back off to the left and was now beyond his reach. Suddenly, the truck braked with such force that Duke scrambled to latch onto the underside with all four limbs again, until finally the truck stopped, Duke still vibrating almost as much as the truck's engine.
What he couldn't see was that the car he had worked so hard to steal was now, without a driver, making a beeline straight for the chain-link fence at the bottom of the golf course, just below a raised train track. It crashed straight through the fence, got caught on a number of small rocks in the Sahara Square sand, and flipped end-over-end. It landed on its front end, doing a couple more spins before finally settling on its roof, amidst the crackly sounds of broken glass and shards of metal, along with the still-burning fire.
"Agh… CAZZO!" Duke couldn't help but say to himself, punching the underside of the truck. "Stupid, stupid… whose stupid idea was it to steal a car an' sell it for a huge profit? Oh yeah, it was mine! Real genius, Duke! Ma's gonna be real pissed about this… GAH!" he grunted as he punched again, a bit too hard.
He soon felt a blast of air to his side, coming from the heavy hooves of Officer McHorn as he got out the truck, followed shortly by the lighter paws of Officer Wolford from the other side.
"Dennis, you go check the suspect vehicle. I've seen the movies. Dime-to-a-doughnut, the perp's right under my horn right now."
"Oh yeah, real non-stereotypical, Vic. An' when was the last time you've even been to a doughnut shop, anyway? Doughnuts cost more than one dollar nowadays, pops!"
"Just shut up and do your job, alright?"
Duke gulped quite loudly and began to tremble. He tried to get it under control, knowing that if he trembled too much he'd risk giving himself away from… subtle vibrations or something. But he had to try. He couldn't get arrested again. Not less than a year since last time. Not after what happened with Officer Flopsy. That was a special case. He could practically hear his 'uncatchable' reputation going straight down the toilet. Again.
However, while the truck's ride was high enough to have enabled his now-wrecked car to have driven under it, it wasn't quite high enough to allow McHorn to get a full, unobstructed view under it when on all fours. So he instead settled for blindly sliding and patting his massive hand around under the car, creating even more gusts of localised wind which made Duke latch even tighter to his perch.
Meanwhile, Wolford began a casual saunter over to the flaming wreck of the car they had been chasing, fully confident that no mammal could have possibly survived that… not that that'd be a good thing, he corrected himself, his smile faltering. In fact, it'd be very, very bad! Because a suspect died on their pursuit. Very bad. On second thoughts, there were good chances he survived. He began to smile again.
And then it was wiped off his muzzle pretty quickly when the flaming wreck suddenly and unexpectedly exploded in a huge, orange fireball, raining bits of glowing metal around the sand dunes like it was a brief shower of apocalypse. Wolford had flinched, shielding his eyes, and when he looked back, he thought… they were definitely screwed now.
"Um… Vic?" he said, meekly turning to his partner and rubbing the back of his head.
McHorn, for his part, didn't seem as fazed as he should have been. He grunted in exertion as he got back to his hooves, slowly turning around and placing his hands on his hips. "…What? Woah, that don't look good…" he said, himself flinching a little upon witnessing the exploded metal carcass beyond the fence.
Wolford's attention was drawn to something else, however. Upon noticing the shirtless weasel that was suddenly sitting directly on McHorn's snout, between his eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief, clutching his heart. Must have been hiding under the truck and climbed up Vic's numb rhino hide without him noticing. "Oh, thank God, he's alive. Phew…"
"Who's alive?! The perp? Ya seriously think he survived that?!" McHorn said incredulously, pointing at the wreck.
It was only then that the full impact of this revelation reached Wolford's brain. His face quickly changed from relieved to panicking and stuttering. "Uh… Vic… he's on yer…"
"…He's on my what? Who?" McHorn said, aimlessly patting around his head. The weasel looked very anxious indeed but made no attempt to move.
Wolford suddenly drew his tranquiliser dart gun and pointed it straight at the weasel. On McHorn's snout.
"Vic, don't move!"
"Wolford, what the hell are you doin' pointin' that at me for?!"
"I'm serious, Vic, Don't. Move! There's a weasel. Literally. On your face!"
"What?!"
Before McHorn could properly respond, however, Wolford fired off a tranquiliser. Unfortunately, Duke, having been given something of a warning, managed to propel himself from where he was onto McHorn's front horn, and from there, he jumped over onto Wolford's muzzle.
The tranquiliser dart struck McHorn right between the eyes, literally, causing him to reel back from the sudden stinging sensation. "Wolford, what the… why did… woah… oh, hell…" he said, his voice beginning to slur and his vision beginning to blur and spin. These tranquilisers were not strong enough to take down a rhino, but that's not to say they had no effect.
As McHorn was beginning to stumble around, Wolford was occupied with something a bit more pressing. Duke Weaselton was on his nose. He instinctively batted at him, but the little mustelid darted all over the place. And then he burrowed his way under Wolford's uniform.
"No… no! No! Get 'im off! Get 'im off!" he yelled, running out of breath. He soon dropped his tranq' gun as he frantically batted around his entire body, desperately trying to get at the weasel.
"Vic, help! Help! He's under my… under my… haha, under my shirt! Get 'im off! That tickles!" he continued, before he finally fell over, almost helplessly rolling around on the ground, laughing with his tongue sticking out. "GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Kill me! Somebody kill me!"
McHorn could hear him, without a doubt. He could even understand him. But when you're doped up on tranquilisers, it's hard to form rational thought processes. So he went for the next-best thing. He lumbered over to his partner, picked him up by the leg, and began to swing him around and around like a lasso.
"Wait, n-n-no, whaddya doin'- GAAAAGGGHHRAAARRAAR…" Wolford cried out as he lashed back and forth in a truly sickening way. The sheer force of the whiplash, however, was enough to push the clothes-intruding Duke out from under his uniform, leaving him hanging for dear life on the end of the wolf's paw.
When it had gotten to the point of whipping up a small tornado, McHorn finally whipped Wolford directly upwards. It was then that Duke's weakened fingers finally gave way and he was launched nearly thirty feet into the air, his lanky weasel body writhing about in vain. He screamed, like any mammal would.
However, he didn't fall the same thirty feet. As McHorn had decided to launch him into the air, he rose up above the raised train track at the bottom of the country club. One of the enormous trains heading into the city from the surrounding villages chose that moment to pass by. Duke landed atop the train, its speed forcing him into a roll, and he slipped and slid down and to the side, until he finally found himself hanging off the side by both paws, being blown about in the wind like a paper towel hanging out the window.
Speaking of windows, he noticed he was hanging right outside one such window on the train, beyond which sat a very well-dressed, haughty-looking antelope with round glasses, reading a fancy novel of some kind. Duke scrambled to pull himself back up by swinging his lanky body in the wind like a pendulum, until eventually the laws of physics pushed him up above the window, mere seconds before the antelope did a double-take to check that there actually was a weasel outside and he wasn't just hallucinating. He soon made the latter conclusion.
Duke bore the strong winds to look up at the police chopper. The spotlight wasn't following him. He grinned; at least he got to keep his freedom.
A short time later, the nervous young wildcat cop had made his way on foot to the bottom of the country club, following the tyre marks on the green, until he finally caught up with Officers McHorn and Wolford. He found McHorn clutching a tranq' dart in one hand, nursing his forehead with the other, leaning against his truck and generally looking rather dazed. But he at least seemed to be in better shape than Wolford, who was on the ground some distance away, noisily puking his guts out.
"So, uh… sitrep, Officer Silvio…" McHorn began to say, "…relay this to Ben back at base. Guh… I've been tranqed… I got a headache that ain't goin' away anytime tonight… could really use some water… an' Dennis over there is emptying his ice cream all over the grass… egh… those lemming brothers types won't be happy to know their top gettin'-away-from-the-wives spot has been closed for renovations…"
"Thanks, Silvio. I'll take it from here."
The wildcat and the rhino's heads almost immediately turned to face the source of this new voice. The wolf followed shortly. And went back to being sick after a second or two.
The voice belonged to a horse. A big, brown horse with a darkened mouth and off-white markings on his nose and his swept-back mane. He clearly wasn't an average ZPD officer; he was attired in a white shirt and dark slacks held up by suspenders, along with a purple tie. He had his sleeves rolled up and wore his badge around his neck, and was chewing on some straw. He had a stoic expression on his face which could, in both senses, be called 'long-faced', and his voice definitely had an air of the city's working class about it, even if he tried to hide it.
"Uh… hello…" McHorn said, scratching his horn. "Um… y-you look familiar, sir, are you…?"
"Detective Quail Oates. Yeah, that's me," the stallion replied, stretching his shoulder. "I was out for a coffee in town, an' the next thing I see is… this," he said, sounding puzzled as he rubbed the bristles on his chin. "Eh, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. It's just like racin'. When you get old enough, darkhorse victories… they 'appen so often, they ain't darkhorse no more."
McHorn nodded, but raised a brow. Yep, this was definitely Detective Oates, he thought. He wouldn't be the same horse without the tortured racing analogies. They even had a special name for them back at the station: 'Oatesisms'. "…Yeah, I guess you're right."
Oates walked a bit closer to Wolford, eyeing the sight of the exploded car beyond the fence. "I can tell ya one thing. When cars explode in public, there's usually somethin'… bigger behind it. Cars don't just explode. Not without reason. Not without a…" he trailed off, circling his hoof-fingers around in thought, "…cause. I reckon there's somethin' more to this than just a joyride gone wrong. The gallop that goes twice as fast lasts half as long, an' so when it happens, you bet your shoes there's a reason for it."
As Oates turned around to question McHorn further, he heard a noticeable 'plop'. Gazing downwards, he came to the realisation that he had stepped in Wolford's puddle of puke.
"Ugh… sorry…" Wolford said, finally catching his breath.
"That's okay," Oates said without changing his expression at all, wiping his hoof off to the side. "It'll get absorbed into the grass eventually, anyway."
So this isn't a new chapter of BvB, unfortunately. But I think I've discovered the root of my writing problem: I can only write at certain times of year! The spring seems to be a peak writing time, so I'm going to try and make the most of it with this here fic and hopefully write some BvB, too. I wanted to post this on Zoop's 1st Anniversary yesterday, but unfortunately I was too slow. Thanks goes to Berserker88 for pre-reading the 'fic.
