Hey readers, so I saw Zootopia, and was very much interested in it, I loved the character growth and plot, I was very much by impressed by it, (that is especially hard to say since I truthfully hate Disney, and don't often like the stuff they do) and it gave me a few ideas for stories, and this is simply one extreme one. This idea comes from the tv show Fringe, heavily inspired in fact. Anyway, I really was simply inspired to kind of blend Fringe and Zootopia, I just thought it was a perfect idea, so here we go.
Also if anyone can guess the English name (and the language...if you'd like), I'll give them a virtual cookie (and if you're fine with it a shoutout). (Hint:They are stripped down English-ized phonetics by the way, and they aren't conjugated) And that is only the first mystery needing to be solved here. Good luck, now on to the prologue.
Prologue
Night Howlers, a pretty pack of conspiracy now. A plant that can be refined to cause aggression. Interesting is it not? That a plant, a beauty to look at, can cause so much havoc and pain. Yet the strangest thing was how unknown a purified form of this plant would react, a host turned into a aggressive snarling beast, quite unexpected for most, few even saw it could be them. But this is not the first time an unknown danger has threatened this city, nor is it the strangest.
These types of events, which hang at the edge of science, or fringe science if you will, they've been known about for years, much longer than can actually be remembered. And yet, few actually knows of them. Odd no? But there is reason for that. If people knew of the existence of these 'fringe' events, there'd be mass panic, hysteria across the board, a city of chaos. That is our task, to prevent these fringe events, hide and solve this pattern before they get out of control. But who knows how much longer we can keep these problems hidden?
A gray furred rabbit walked into the precinct, with her red furred fox friend. Their work day began early at seven and thus they had to be at the department by six forty five or risk penalties for being late, which neither had yet received. Judy, the hare, walked forward with her usual optimistic smile plastered on her face as she entered the bullpen with Nick. Nick, her best friend and partner, who happened to be a fox, quipped and chuckled. "Still can't sit still, Carrots?" As he noticed his partner's rather squirmy behavior when he reached the seat. It wasn't uncommon, but he still loved to tease her on it "I just so love working here. Got a problem slick?" She smirked back.
Within five minutes, the Chief entered the small hall while the last of the force to appear that day came in. They eventually got their reports for the day, Nick and Judy's being normal patrol. Nick wasn't much affected by the assignment, though he was usually apathetic anyhow, but Judy was rather bored of patrols. They'd been given it a lot lately, not that she doesn't like the time spent with Nick, but she'd prefered to have a day with a little more action sometimes. So they ended up driving down a busy main street, leaving nothing interesting to actually do.
So they invented a game for their usual patrol days. Judy would tell a Nick a specific color or kind of car to look for, and he'd point them out. After some time, the script was flipped and whoever had more call outs would win. This latest round was won by Judy, making Nick give a half-hearted pout. "Yes I win, in your face once again Mister Fox." She whooped, causing 'Mister Fox' to chuckle. "Oh so relentless, and on a rookie." He said in mock offense. "Is this how the force treats foxes?" He joked with a paw over his heart as they laid parked on the side of the road. She socked him right in his arm for the comment. He yelped slightly before both laughed at the whole short situation.
And then an out of control bus crashed into a nearby shop. That turned the mood in the car from joking to morbid as Judy started the engine. Nick held the button on his radio. "Uh, dispatch..." he called in, both looking at the horrific scene of the crash as they tried to clear the scene. "We got a nine o one on uh..." He searched for the street name for a moment. "Bark Boulevard." His voice uncharacteristically startled as he tried to gain control while they pulled up by the bus.
They left their patrol car to investigate the scene and to prevent spectators from getting close. Judy went to calm down the civilians and keep them away, as Nick went through the busted window carefully, to find an injured armadillo on the ground, unable to get up. "Here, stay there until the ambulance arrives." As he carried the armadillo to a chair, he heard more sirens ring outside. Nick was grateful Judy was gonna have help keeping people in line, so he went to investigate the bus, only to find the windows were unusually yellow tinted, and nearly opaque. He went to the door, and when he finally got the door to budge, it opened to a solid block of reflective yellow.
He tried to call Judy over, except she was taking her time arguing with an unfamiliar tiger in a SWAT uniform. He looked out to find that exact scene, specifically asking how it's not a police issue when it's a crashed bus. When that was done, and the ambulance arrived, the tiger told them to leave, who was apparently the captain of the 'operation'. But Judy decided to try and get a good look at the bus before doing that, it was late and they had been there for a few hours trying to resolve the whole thing, and Judy wanted to get a look in the bus before she left.
As she peaked in what she saw shocked her to the core. She could barely see through the yellow tint but what she could see was every mammal frozen, as if fear removed all time from the bus. Almost all were standing up, and looked as if they were trying to scream. Not a single one of them moved a muscle and they all looked on forward with horrified faces on them, some looked as if they were frozen mid panic and were locked in that position forever. Even the furs on each respective animal were frozen.
That one look scared her beyond belief, she felt as frozen as the mammals aboard the bus as Nick pushed her into the patrol car. He was scared that the tiger she was fighting with might actually do something, they were getting heated earlier, and he really didn't want something stupid to happen. His partner didn't even bother reacting until she moved passed the open car door. She was still shocked by what she saw as Nick drove away from the scene. He soon started talking to Clawhauser over the radio about how no paperwork was needed for this event, that everything was waved. He was suspicious but he was more then happy he didn't need to do anything about it.
When he finished the call, he tried to start another conversation to break the new strange ice. "So Carrots, want to just ride out the night for an hour before we go back?" She didn't respond, still haunted by what she saw. "Hey Judy." He poked her, trying to get her attention. She turned to him with a horror look still on her face. "You look like you've seen a ghost, you alright?" He tried to grab her shoulder with his right paw, which finally cracked her, mostly. "Nick," she said weakly to which he glared at her during a red light. "Those mammals, in that bus, they were frozen, like it was ice."
Nick looked at her with disbelief. "What do you mean like ice?" He asked, barely cracking a nerve in his voice. "I mean...it was like...they weren't moving...even their fur...nothing was moving." Judy tried to emphasis her point but Nick was confused, his partner wouldn't exaggerate, but what she described was insane at best. "Are you sure? Maybe it just looked like that?" He rephrased to confirm what he heard. "It was frozen."
After fox and bunny made it back to the precinct, they were next told they could just go. Immediately they were told to take the rest of the day off, which struck Nick as especially odd, which gave him more reason to be suspicious, but less work to do wasn't entirely unwelcome. However Judy was a little more upset, not only shocked from the events at the crashed bus, but she was sure it was the reason they were laid off for the remaining day too. They still had two hours to go, and they must not have wanted her to know about it.
She was stuck deep in this thought when Nick tried to get her attention. "Hey, fluff, you still there?" He waved his paw in front of her face. "Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She said without enthusiasm. "You sure Carrots?" He asked with increasing concern. "You've been down most of the day." Nick remarked. "How about we go get some ice cream?" He asked, hoping the little ball of usual joy returns, even if he knew the reason for her sorrow probably won't get resolved soon. "Yeah, that sounds good right about now." She looked back to the fox, still missing her usual enthusiasm, but trying anyhow.
They soon reached the shop, a small corner shop not far from the precinct, on the route to Judy's house. They went in being the shortest mammals, and had to wait in a small line, and which they were eventually served, Nick getting a vanilla flavored while Judy had a carrot cake flavor. "Hey Judy," Nick said, hoping to get her attention with the unusual use of her actual name. "You alright? I mean bus crashes are usually worse, and we didn't have any paperwork on that. Is it the early dismissal?"
Judy looked up to him as he called her name, and listened to him speak. "No, its not getting out early, at least not entirely," She started, then sighed with even more defeat. "It's just...there was something odd about that bus, the mammals were all frozen, that isn't normal, something's wrong, and then we get tossed by whoever those heavy geared mammals were? I just...I just feel unnerved by the entire thing. Mammals shouldn't get frozen in a bus, something isn't right." She finished, holding her head in paws, which rested on the table where they ate their ice cream. Her ears were drooping behind her head, showing obvious distress when Nick decided to talk. "Yeah, it was odd," Nick pondered for a minute before continuing. "I don't think we'll get a chance to check it out, but don't torture yourself on it, and don't forget, I'm here for you, even if you're easy to read," He gave his classic smug smirk back at her for a moment before it softened back to a gentle caring smile. "I still prefer you tell me."
Judy returned to her apartment building with Nick, who walked her home before going to his. They said the usual goodbye and she watched Nick leave before entering to go to her room. She went to her bed and flopped herself right onto it, feeling exhausted and saddened, that bus still sat at the forefront of her mind. It was driving her even crazy, and she really wanted to know what that was about.
Her next idea was to use her phone to search things about it. So she slowly rose from her bed, to sit on the chair in front of her desk and used her phone. She started the Moogle Zrome app on her phone and searched multiple thing in the search box including 'frozen bus', 'freezing time', 'mammals time freeze', and 'frozen yellow mammals'. That last one eventually brought her to an article on an experiment by Walter Bishop about using amber to freeze organisms.
Her first clue to solving the frozen bus mystery was through this Walter Bishop, and she was prepared to find him.
HEY READERS!
Anyway, first Zootopia fic, so I suppose that's cool, anyway, I saw Zootopia, and I was like "This is pretty good" and then I had the idea to pull Fringe, watching that tv show has given me lots of ideas, and after being in the HTTYD fic section for a good while, I was so interested in Zootopia, I was like "This should be done, it needs to be done." And thus I'm mixing Zootopia, and lots of Fringe. So this fic will not be more than T rated, I shall never write above T, and the focus will not be the relationship between Judy and Nick, I might ship (IDK, truthfully, the shipping on this section of FFN has been 90% cliche and it's annoying me, so I might but no guarantees) but that is not a focus. Also if you guys haven't seen Fringe, you should, it's on Netflix, and it's amazing, if you've seen the episode involving the bus and amber, I actually haven't seen the episode in a long time and forget most of it, so at the moment, it will not resemble it much as far as I know. Also, tell me if you like those jokes I put in.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and don't forget to fav and follow if you liked it, and give me a review whether you liked or hated it, just make please help me with the reviews though, I want to get better. Anyway, have a good day, Spartan out.