The strobe lights of the ZPD patrol car made a rave out of the bay of the parking garage. Officer Judy Hopps sat in the driver's seat, her paws clasped onto the steering wheel at ten and two with the engine purring away. The radio gurgled and sizzled with many voices that shouted a flurry of codes and advisories from Central. 10-15s, 10-31s, and even 10-96s were fired back and forth across the airwaves, raising the bar for the most exciting event of the week that wasn't just pulling over another super speeder. Nobody had arrived at the scene of the crime yet, but it wouldn't be too long now. It wasn't too far away, and Judy "Leadfoot" Hopps wasn't out to come in second place again. If only she could put that foot to good use right now...if it weren't for the lack of her partner in the passenger seat.
Crazily enough, she considered going on without him, but the loud banging of a car door pulled her out of "the zone" to find Nick scurrying into his seat. He quickly fastened his seatbelt and then leaned back, looking relaxed for the most part despite his heavy breathing. Judy glared at him, but her dejection didn't have quite the same effect as it used to. He smiled toothily at her, then waved her on. She smiled in turn, rolling her eyes playfully, then slammed her foot on the accelerator while at the same time firing off the siren, flooring it with unbridled enthusiasm that rivaled her love for her job.
They tore out of the parking garage with great speed, sirens blaring in the dead of night and giving more than a handful of citizens quite a shock as they zoomed on by. Nick plucked the microphone from the radio, regaining control over his haggard breathing beforehand. "Officers—" He swallowed hard, taking another quick breath before continuing. "Officers Wilde and Hopps responding. E.T.A. five minutes."
The voice of a dispatcher back at Central acknowledged him then he clipped the microphone back into its holster. He sat back again, chuckling as he crossed his legs. He turned his head to look at Judy, almost expecting to hear her speak her mind concerning his tardiness. She wouldn't budge, but he knew why. She was angry with him, or perhaps pretending to be. Cute. It wasn't an everyday thing, but it was less about punishing him and more about teasing him. It may as well have been her pastime. Still, he felt like humoring her.
"The janitor locked the bathroom door again."
Judy glanced at him for a moment, smirking as she pictured the predicament of holding in a day's worth of coffee while the janitor finds the right door key in her mind. "I'm not buying that one again, mister."
"Pffft! C'mon, that camel's older than all the sand in Sahara Square! It isn't that hard to believe, is it?"
Judy threw another smirk his way, but just as she was about to speak again her eyes returned to the road. They were getting close. She knew the route from here to there like the back of her hand. "Hang on tight."
Judy's driving skills were more than impressive for a ZPD officer. She would dart around corners and cut hairpin turns with almost surgical precision. Anybody thinking they were fast enough to outrun her had another thing coming, but they weren't chasing after another felon in a tricked-out ride this time. No, their destination was fast approaching, and it looked like they would be the first ones there; not that it mattered, but a more unruly side of her preferred treating it as a contest.
They entered into a subdistrict of Zootopia, one of many, this one being lined with warehouses and storage facilities of varying description. Judy switched her strobe lights to a less eye-straining pattern and slowed the car down. She and Nick then spent the next minute scanning the boring, featureless faces of the many buildings they drove by. Nothing stood out to them, until Nick tapped Judy on the shoulder and directed their attentions up ahead.
She gave the sirens a quick pulse, pulling the car onto the side of the road close to Warehouse #20. It was at the behest of a hippo wearing a safety vest and a hard hat directing them off to the side. There were others like him nearby wearing the same uniform, but they looked terrified of something. Mortified, almost. Many of them were cowering behind work trucks. Others were clenching their chests and hyperventilating next to their equally-terrified colleagues. Judy never thought she'd see a grizzly bear suck its own thumb like a frightened child.
The hippo came jogging towards them as they stepped out of the car, but either he wasn't too physically fit or hippos weren't quite meant for running on two legs. The pair shot each other strange looks when he arrived and nearly keeled over from exhaustion, sweat dripping from his forehead like an afternoon in the Rainforest District.
"Sir?" Judy started. Nick took a step forward, poised to help the big guy however he could, but he held his meaty hand up, declining the offer as he finally managed to catch his breath. "Sir, are you alright?"
"Guuugghh..." The worker groaned with some audible strain, standing up straight and putting a hand to his chest as though he were on the verge of having a heart attack. He looked down at Judy with a flushed face. "Sorry, Officer..Hopps, isn't it? Yeah, it's you. Who else would it be, amiright? You got here fast."
Judy's smile returned to her, reminding her of how seamlessly she had learned to take her speed and efficiency as a compliment rather than a detriment to the force, yet she always had this sneaking suspicion that it was Nick who was deliberately testing her. Nobody is ever late that often.
Nick reached into his shirt pocket and flicked out a pair of sunshades, flipping them open with another flick of his wrist and slipping them over his eyes like some cheesy movie hero, because tradition was a perfectly acceptable excuse for forgoing practicality, right? Judy shook her head with a teasing simper, then took out a notepad and pen for note-taking; ever the studious.
"What's the situation here, sir? Mind if I ask for your name first?" Judy spoke as the three strolled along the road towards the warehouse. She jotted down a few minor details of the immediate area while Nick kept his eyes and ears open. You don't get by on intuition alone. It wouldn't be the case either way. Sirens were approaching from seemingly everywhere at once. Distant, but gaining. Backup would arrive in full force within a minute.
"Benjamin, ma'am. Benjamin Bellows. Just call me Ben. I-I'm the deputy foreman for this warehouse district. I've seen some crazy stuff happen 'round these parts, but n-nothing like this. I swear! This guy just came out of nowhere, you know? C-Can you believe people these days? He just appeared out of nowhere and started breaking everything with those arms of his! We made it out of there not even ten minutes ago! We were helpless! Please tell me you got a plan, because we're sitting ducks out here!"
"Ben! Listen to me. Relax."
Judy took a few hastened leaps ahead of him to get his attention. The look she gave him was a caring one, compassionate. He looked tired and maybe overworked, and almost everyone had a tendency to be a little nervous around police officers, even if they were trustworthy. Her efforts paid off and bought the big guy the time to gather his thoughts. He took in yet another deep breath and exhaled. To her relief, it bore almost therapeutic results.
"Thanks, officer. Again, I'm sorry. It's just best if you understand what we've got on our hands here." explained Ben, shaking off his anxiety and starting forward again. He motioned for the pair to continue following him. "I was just getting ready to head out for the night when I got a call from some of my boys here. They were making their daily rounds to check for things like squatters, broken windows, stowaways, that sort of thing. Apparently they heard a lot of commotion around midnight coming from inside the warehouse just after they locked the place up. They called me down here to see what was up, but when we went in...h-hang on. I need a minute. It all happened so fast, y'know? I need some time to recall all of it."
Ben stopped to lean onto the hood of the nearest work truck. The color on his face drained into a pale, brownish grey as though he were sickly and was going to lose his dinner all over the beat-up pickup. Judy and Nick looked at each other. The fox nodded to her and turned, lifting his sunshades with his finger as his eyes stared off down the road they came from.
"Take your time, Mr. Bellows." Judy spoke with a calm voice, flipping her notebook shut. The sirens were closer now than they were ever before. She could see reds and blues flashing in and out of her peripheral vision.
"Backup's here, Carrots."
The grid surrounding the warehouse was lined with squad cars and officers within the hour. An armored van arrived not too long afterward, bringing with it a Zootopian special forces unit, one of the few in the whole of the city. It wasn't like they were needed as often as the regular officers. In fact, that was a good thing. If anything, when it came down to law and order, it meant their city was showing some definite signs of improvement.
Admittedly, her duties as a first responder could have been better, but at least the rest of the crew wasn't too far behind. That left her with some leniency. A scene size-up, a few names, and a brief physical checkup seemed good enough to suffice. Regardless, she and Nick were ordered to remain on-scene for the time being, so they resided to "hanging out" for lack of a better term, leaning against their patrol car while the seasoned veterans took care of the rest.
Judy watched as Mr. Bellows spoke to a small group of other officers. The other workers stood next to him, and appeared to be giving their own testimonials alongside him. A few squad cars, with their accompanying officers, left shortly thereafter, but still a sizeable force remained to do...whatever it is they were planning on doing. Raiding the warehouse? Whoever was in there must have really meant business. According to the radio, they were making an awful lot of noise inside too, even though her rabbit ears couldn't pick up much amidst the background noises of wind, running engines, idle chatter, and so on. Unsurprisingly, it made it difficult to concentrate on anything else, like her personal thoughts.
Fortunately for her, Nick wasn't too distracted by the events unfolding around them and was able to save the day; or evening—whichever came first.
"So, what do you feel like doing when we get home tonight?" He asked, burying his hands in his pockets and swinging his head down to meet her gaze.
"We?" Judy replied, surprised by how casually Nick spoke to her about it, as if it were a joke or a slip of the tongue. It wasn't either of those things. They had been in a secretive relationship for close to eight months now. There wasn't a soul in all of Zootopia that knew about it besides them, and the furthest lengths they ever went to express it publicly involved hugging, and even then that could be written off as something shared 'between good friends'. Interspecies relationships were finicky, convoluted matters. They weren't illegal, but they didn't sit too well with the general public for a myriad of reasons that, frankly, she conceded were somewhat reasonable outside of context. Predator and prey species living together, let alone in a relationship? Ludicrous, and on a scale where some might even call you mad. Granted, she and Nick were two unique symbols of Zootopia's ever-expanding borders of diversity, but the risks of losing their livelihoods, maybe even their careers, to bad PR were just too great.
"Yes. We, Carrots." Nick smirked, playfully flicking one of her ears with one of his fingers. She bent them backwards and turned her head to face him directly, her lips curled and uptight, only to then receive a sudden poke to her nose. "Boop."
"S-Stop!" Judy loudly whispered, throwing him a scowl that was, for all intents and purposes, completely ineffective.
"Boop."
"Stop, I mean it!" Judy whispered again during a fit of barely-contained giggling. "We could be on somebody's camera, you dope!" She grabbed his hand and yanked it downward as it reached in to deliver its third poke, which could have proved to be the most lethal of them all. Seeing a bunny with both a ticklish nose and uncontrollable laughter could cause a severe, haphazard shortness of breath for an indefinite period of time. "You've been on the force for...how long? A year?"
Nick sighed, crossing his arms and looking away as if what took place never happened. "I'm not that far behind you, if that's what you're trying to say."
"Which it is. What if Chief Bogo had been around, huh? He'd tan our hides!"
"But he isn't around, alright? Just, look, give me a break."
Judy could make out an arising tone of anger in his voice, but she was more annoyed than surprised by it. It wasn't the first time she had noticed this kind of behavior from him recently. "It was a rhetorical question."
Judy wasn't about to get complacent with Nick this time. She'd had enough. The officer stepped out in front of him and planted her hands on her hips, her ears drooping forward over the expression on her face that couldn't have read "we need to have a talk" any better. She didn't do this just to make a point, however. She was being dead serious, staring him down like an irate mother ready to unleash her parental fury on her unruly children who dared stay out past their curfew again.
And something was definitely wrong with Nick, that much she knew. He hadn't been himself this past week. He had been putting some distance between himself and his coworkers. Clawhauser's cheerful everyday greetings were received only in passing by him, maybe, and only maybe, with the inclusion of eye contact. Late paperwork was always met with an excuse to her about workload whenever she asked about it. He used to always get his paperwork in on time, every scrap of it, but something had been making him slip. To top it off, he even insisted that he stay behind during a call and let her go on without him. The chief didn't take too kindly to that request, and neither did she.
Nick's feeble attempt at placating her with a smile failed and faded. His eyes narrowed as he averted his gaze again. He watched as the special forces team, clad in thick body armor and helmets, started their approach in formation towards the warehouse bay doors, their stun rifles and fiberglass shields raised. Multiple police radios all chattered the same messages simultaneously, acknowledging the event and clearing others in code.
Judy huffed, forcing the added layer of noise out of her head. Her right foot rapidly tapped away on the pavement. "Tell me what's wrong."
It was time to come clean. Nick knew that he wasn't getting out of this one, and pretending it wasn't an issue would buy him less time and more of his partner's indignation. "It's personal." He replied stalely, his head turning to face her again.
She grumbled impatiently. "Not good enough."
"It's between us." He whispered loudly, clenching his fists. It was difficult to make out his intended expression. Anger, desperation, or frustration? Maybe a blend of all three.
Whichever it was, Judy intended to get to the bottom of it. She rolled her eyes, then gestured one of her fingers towards the ground. Nick swallowed hard, then complied, bending down until they met at eye level. Her partner sighed, slapping a hand to his tired forehead. "L-Look, sweetheart, I'm sorry. I'm just tired, I've got a some people I know riding my ass about a few things, Bogo's got me on edge, I've got a lot on my mind—"
"Then tell me what's on your mind, at least. It'll make you feel better." Judy reached forward and gently laid a hand on his knee, her smile returning to her. "C'mon, I've opened up to you before, haven't I?"
She was only trying to help. Nick knew he couldn't deny it with a straight face, and even if he could he felt he didn't want to. It would make him look like a jerk, like someone who just didn't care; someone who puts up with their wives and girlfriends, but he didn't want to "put up" with Judy. He wanted to love her. He was completely overthinking this. Getting mutual with her had yet to lead to anything even remotely damaging to their relationship. Why would it ever? If they had any hopes for this relationship to go in the direction they want then they would need more than just togetherness.
Maybe it was better for him to stop thinking about the potential repercussions and start acting instead. Interspecies relationships? "Predator" and "prey" living together? Judy mattered as much to him as the goal of putting an end to these backward tropes, even if he didn't come off as the ambitious type. Coming to fully understand the changes they were willing to go through would require some baby steps. Would pouring his heart and mind out to her not be one of those steps?
"Alright, Carrots. You win." said Nick, putting his cap back on and idly brushing off his partner's paw. Having kept track of the time they've been here, he continued with haste, expecting them to get called back to headquarters any minute now. "So...I've been thinking about what you said last week..."
Judy was ecstatic to listen.
Inside the armored van, from where the special forces team deployed only minutes ago, sat a lone radio operator—a wolf. A Lone Wolf, if you will. Sort of. The ZPD deputy, a bulky, horned bull, stood next to him, observing the video monitors livestreaming from the helmet-cams of each of the team members inside the warehouse. He had a baffled look on his face the entire time he was watching.
The interior of the warehouse was a disaster area. Crates were obliterated everywhere as though they were hit with the force of a speeding train, leaving behind innumerable splinters of wood and fragments of their unrecognizable contents scattered all over the floor. Shelves were toppled like dominos, their contents spilled everywhere. The team moved with both awareness and haste, making as little noise as they possibly could so as not to alert their quarry, whoever it was. A rhino most likely. Maybe, judging by the extent of the damage and the fresh cracks in the walls.
"This is Crouching Tiger," spoke the team's leading member. "No sign of the intruder. Hope you're receiving this feed, Lone Wolf."
The radio operator pressed a button on his microphone. "Roger, Crouching Tiger. We're receiving. Any ideas on who our 10-31 is?"
"No convicting evidence just yet, Lone Wolf. We'll keep you posted."
"Sir, activity!" Another team member loudly whispered into his headset. He whipped the end of his rifle up towards a catwalk at the end of the warehouse proper. Several doors lined this catwalk, but only one of them, a door at the very end, was open. Kicked in, more like. Bright light shone out from the opening, and a number of silhouettes danced in front of its source. It had to have been their perp.
They ascended the stairs leading to the catwalk as quietly as their armored boots would allow them. They could hear grunting now. Occasionally, an angry shout followed by a nasty swear. Oddly, whoever this was didn't sound like a rhino, nor a hippo, or even an elephant. They just might have a special case on their hands. The live feeds suddenly began to deteriorate, and a profound hiss began pumping out through the surveillance van speakers.
"Weapons at the ready. Bullworth, Sambo, take that side. Now—"
The video and radio transmissions very quickly faded into static and white noise, leaving the deputy and Lone Wolf staring a barrier of signal transposal warnings that plastered every screen.
"Wait, what?" The deputy exclaimed, looking to the radio operator for answers. "What happened?" But even the operator was stunned.
"I-I-I don't know! Faulty equipment? We're getting a ton of interference out of nowhere." He stammered whilst fiddling with several knobs and buttons on the nearby control panels, trying everything he knew to reclaim the feed signals. "Crouching Tiger, this is Lone Wolf, do you read? Crouching Tiger, do you read?"
The deputy stamped his foot on the ground, turned, and walked out and off of the back of the armored vehicle-turned-command center. "I'll be looking into calling in another team. You just do what you need to do to get a hold of them again."
"Yes, sir!" The operator gave a quick salute to the deputy as he walked away, then turned back to the console, continuing to fiddle with its menagerie of toggles and switches. "Crouching Tiger, do you read me? Come on, where are you guys?"
"Well, I'm glad that it's settled." said Nick with a shrug and a smile. "Guess we're starting with me first."
Judy chuckled. "See? That wasn't too hard, right?"
"Nch, sure, sure. I guess you were right."
"You know I was right."
Nick stood up straight, leaning against the car again. "Just pack your things and...well, I'll be sure to clean the place up a bit. A little sweep here, a spit shine there. The works."
Judy returned to her position next to him, stuffing her hands into her pockets like he did. "It'll be cleaner than my place, that's for sure. I still haven't gotten all the dust off the walls."
Nick turned his head, his ears perked up. He nudged Judy in the side and gestured towards the approaching Deputy. In unison, they stood to attention.
"At ease. We got what we need here, you two. Return to headquarters."
Nick chuckled. "No offense sir, but I'm pretty sure we have radios for a reason."
The deputy dismissively waved away the remark, his eyes fixated down the road as another armored van drove onto the scene. Just before Nick could open his door, he caught eye of it rumbling past and stopped to watch for a moment. When its back doors flew open, another special forces team hurried outside, and the deputy waved them towards the first van. They hustled without a moment to lose.
"Sir?" Judy piped up. She too had been watching, but from the open window of the driver's seat. "What's with the second team? What happened to the first team that went in?"
"We don't know." The deputy replied. "We're working on it." Suddenly, a loud, hazy mesh of static came out over everyone's radios. Vague words and code numbers filled the air amidst the eternally hissing background noise, as if reaching out to everyone who could hear it. The deputy was the first to answer. "This is Hornsby." There came no response. "This is Hornsby, come in." More static. "Do you read?" Again: static.
A marvellous thud shook the ground beneath their feet, catching everyone at the scene off-guard. The area fell completely silent when a second thud arrived, shaking the grody yellow streetlights above their heads with enough force to make their bulbs flicker. Suddenly, Judy's car shut off, taking its strobe lights with it. The same soon befell every other vehicle on the site. It like like the whole world had gone silent. Deeply confused, she turned the keys in the ignition but succeeded in only sparking one, maybe two strokes of the engine before it gave out completely. She tried the interior lights and the horn, but to no avail.
"It's...dead." Judy whispered. "What happened?"
"Deputy Hornsby, sir! All of our radios are dead!" A voice from the far side of the scene shouted.
"Deputy, sir! Vehicles too! Even the flashlight's went!" Shouted another.
Hornsby shook his head, growling. "Everyone pipe down! Maintain your positions! I want all eyes and ears open. Specialist Bosko!" He called, but the radio operator from the first van had already approached him, perhaps preferring to speak with the chief personally so as not to join in the shouting brigade. "Where in the name of Animalia is that team!?"
"Still inside from what we know, sir!" The wolf stammered out. "The second team is gearing up to head in and find out what happened to them. They're standing by and awaiting your orders."
"Just send them inside so we can get this over with. It can't be this hard to catch one lousy burglar." Hornsby turned. "Hopps! Wilde! Front and center!" The pair, ever loyal, were quick to approach the deputy. They glanced at each other, hoping for a moment that the other had even the slightest idea of what was going on. For the most part, they had been left in the dark since they got here. "Head down the road from where we came from and find a way to get in touch with the ZPD. We need some support. Pronto!"
Suddenly, a great crash of thunder came from the warehouse gates, startling the three and yanking away the diligence and security from all over the site. All eyes were upon the warehouse now. A second, more violent crash made the colossal doors shake like leaves in the wind, incessantly banging their thick sheet metal against the concrete walls.
The second team was not so easily startled. When a third crash rang into the night air, they picked up their weapons and formed a half-circle a short distance away from the entrance. They grounded and hid behind their shields, slotting their rifle barrels through a hole in the side so one arm wouldn't have to hold up all of its weight.
The deputy left Judy and Nick and made his way to the frontlines. He knew it was potentially dangerous, but being so close to the threat at hand got his heart pumping. It reminded him of the good old days when he was a linebacker in hoofball. His face got smashed in more often than he could count. Fun times. He swiped a megaphone from the back of the disabled armored van, pressed the button, and stopped after he evoked his first stroke of retched, angry breath once he realized that it wasn't working, just like everything else. He carelessly tossed it back into the van and strode up to the rear of the team.
"We have you surrounded!" He yelled with all the vigor of an angry drill sergeant. "Let's do this the easy way, pal! Come out with your hands up!" Hornsby repeated himself but more concisely. The thuds had ceased, but they were left without a response for close to two minutes of silence. He sneered, turning his head to the awaiting team leader. "Go get them."
The leader nodded and moved to stand, but then something new began to take place. Everyone, Judy and Nick especially, watched in utter astonishment as two clawed, spider-like metal limbs suddenly tore through the slit that divided the gate doors with an ear-piercing shriek of metal scraping against metal. The limb's joints bent and drove their claws into each door, burying them in the metal. They began struggling, shaking, and failing to find the leverage during their clear attempts at prying the monolithic doors open. They creaked like the hull of an old ship, but refused to budge, their weight and the strength of their many series of locks proving too great. They seemed virtually indestructible.
Until the metal began to crumple. Like paper.
Judy was suddenly torn away from the spectacle. Nick grabbed her arm and hurried them both to the safety of cover behind the nearest squad car. She was about to protest, but the pang of a high-powered pneumatic rifle striking the air caught her attention. The captain had fired a beanbag round in between the limbs and the crumpling slit. The limbs paused in their work, twitched, then continued unhindered. Their strength must have been enhanced somehow, because now they were splitting the gap with the ease of a can opener. Then, from a short length below them, two additional limbs appeared. They looked the same and were a lot smaller, but that didn't stop them from aiding their brethren peel the steel like an orange.
Judy jolted when she suddenly heard a trunk lid slam shut. She turned to find Nick returning to her side with a pneumatic rifle of his own. He proceeded to load it with taser rounds. Shocked, she reached for the barrel, but Nick jerked it away to just outside of her reach.
"You can't seriously be considering using that..." She huffed.
"It's just a precaution, Carrots." He returned his gaze to the scene of the spectacle.
"You're barely even trained to use that!"
"Shh! Look..."
The limbs had made a sizeable gap in the gate, permitting something to step through to the outside. What came out of it turned the whole scene on its head; a sight more strange and otherworldly than the events that preceded its entrance.
It was a tall, attenuated thing, or at least it appeared that way from Judy's perspective. In all honesty, a "thing" was the most accurate way of describing what this oddity of a being was. It lacked every distinguishing feature her peerless levels of training could identify—no snout, no horn, no muzzle, no ears even. It had two arms, with the exception of the mechanical limbs which sprouted out of its back, and two legs. It was clothed from head to foot—a big shirt and jacket, bulky pants, gloves, and some thick boots rounding out its apparel. Not an inch of skin or fur was visible. Even the head was wrapped in a gauze-like fabric with a pair of worn goggles covering the eye area.
It stood out like a tree in a desert. It remained there, hardly moving, its head turning to look out over the sea of officers ready to go into action. The special forces team had their fingers barely an inch away from their rifle triggers. Hornsby scowled at the creature. This guy looked far more dangerous than he originally thought. His thoughts drifted to the continuously-unknown whereabouts of the first team. Whoever it was, it must have had something to do with their disappearance. There were no signs of a struggle on its body, but those...limbs, and those claws, looked nasty enough to rip someone's skin off.
"Put your hands up!" Hornsby shouted. The creature's head snapped in his direction, staring the deputy down with its wide, expressionless gaze. "All of them." He punctuated, staring right back, fearless. He gestured to the team captain, who motioned for his squad to rise and approach the perpetrator who had been giving them all such a big headache.
"Hands up! Hands up, now!"
The team gasped and stopped moving when the creature put a hand onto its waist. It rummaged around until it soon fell into a pocket, retrieving a spherical object as it emerged. It was held up to the creature's blanketed face, turning it over as if examining it. Then, it pressed a button on its side. A red indicator began to flash, and a soft beeping noise accompanied it.
What was that? What was any of this? What was this guy doing here, and why? Who was it—what was it? Judy would have given her left foot in exchange for some context. Not being in the know was starting to wear on her.
"Any ideas, Nick?" She asked, but when she turned her head she found that no one was there. Nick had vanished, but he was here just a minute ago! She stepped out from behind the car and began frantically searching for wherever the fox had went. She relied less on her vision and more on her sense of smell, following traces of his scent. It wasn't often she got to do this, but when it worked it worked well. She gasped when it led her to spotting him a long way ahead, crouching behind a patrol car parked close to the front lines, still armed with the rifle.
He wasn't an idiot, but some of his street-smarts had to have worn off since he joined the force. Gallant as he may be, he was making a huge mistake getting so close! Fearful, and with her heart beating to the tune of a racehorse, she bolted towards him.
"This is your last warning! Drop it and put your hands in the air or we will fire on you!"
The creature looked up, its head cocked to one side as its stare shifted to the unit's leader. They were within brawling distance of each other. A quick-enough move on the captain's part and it would be a done deal, but even with its face masked the captain could tell that the creature was eerily complacent, like it knew what it was doing...
The creature shrugged and dropped the ball.
It landed surprisingly hard and the rate at which it beeped increased. Soon, it emitted a whirring sound, and by some means began to spin in place, faster and faster until it was but a blur of white. The whirring quickly turned into moaning, then groaning, then screaming like a banshee. It was incredibly loud and irritating, but the captain clearly had enough of this. He signalled his men to take the creature into custody.
That was the moment when all hell broke loose. The creature's mechanical arms swung down like a scorpion's stinging tail and dug its claws into the ground, narrowly missing the approaching specialists. It quickly turned its action into useful leverage by forcing itself away, just in time for the ball it had dropped to sprout a pair of metal claws and dig them into the pavement before splitting the whole device wide open, revealing a rapidly spinning contraption inside from which eminatted the source of all the noise. It rooted itself to the ground, and the device inside spun even faster and faster still, screaming more and more until the waves of sound was giving everyone within earshot many severe headaches, but it was too late for the captain to take any action. It began to shriek. The worst of it had come.
Only meters away from her partner, Judy tumbled to the ground and, without a second thought, slammed her hands over her ears. She screamed as the most intense pain she had ever felt rippled throughout her body. It anchored her knees to the ground and made her head writhe in unparalleled agony. Describing the experience was barely beyond her capability—some freakish, alien noise that did more than just rip apart her eardrums. Burning hot and freezing cold rippled from her head down to her feet literally every second like a metronome of suffering. Her ears rang incessantly, and the pain had sealed her eyes shut, but a part of her somehow persevered. One of her eyes peeked open and her head jerked up and back. She could hear nothing except for the mind-rending chorus, but even with only half of her vision and in the dead of night she finally realized what was happening.
Whatever the creature created an effect that spared no one. Everyone was thrashing about in pain as some invisible force turned their brains into jelly. Nick wasn't spared either. It tore her apart seeing him in so much anguish. He tugged his ears down and banged his head against the car he hid behind again and again in his many attempts to end it all.
The creature had moved, and was still moving when Judy caught sight of him. It was just...strolling along without a care in the world, as casually as one might travel down a city sidewalk. It looked so calm, so disgustingly pleased with what it had just done. It made her blood boil. It turned its head and looked down at her, staring as she edged on what she figured was going to result in permanent hearing loss. Her anger soared to new heights. Never before had a bunny looked so ready to rip someone's throat out.
The creature turned and began walking away, digging its hands into its pockets as if it were some normal day. No. She wouldn't let it get away with this, or at all. After seeing what it had done to her friends, and especially to Nick, her burning need to deliver retribution overwhelmed her commitment to the officer's code. Using what strength she had that wasn't tying her down to the ground, she unholstered her stun gun—useless in its current form—took aim, and threw it at the back of the monster's head.
The resulting thwack made its voice come out for the first time in a grunting howl, yet it was too suppressed by the layers of fabric that covered its face and mouth to discern its gender, but it hardly mattered. It was enraged either way. It whirled around to face the rabbit, clenching its gloved fists as it then stomped over to her. To her surprise, she could actually hear its footsteps clearly, and only then did she notice that the pain that enveloped her like a blanket of torment had subsided. The ringing in her ears was dying down rapidly as well. Whatever that thing it dropped was must have ran out of power.
Whether it knew that or not, the creature had not halted its thunderous advance. It grabbed Judy by the neck with one hand, squeezing and forcing gags from her with a gorilla-like grip. "You stupid little rabbit." It spouted. Hearing 'stupid' and 'rabbit' in the same sentence just made her loath this thing all the more, even as it slowly squeezed the life out of her. "I oughta' just...!" It shouted as it raised its free fist into the air, apparently winding up a punch. It hesitated. "Just—" She heard its voice crack. Then, by some miracle, it lowered its fist, then let her go, tossing her to the ground like one idly tosses a dirty rag into a laundry hamper. Judy put a hand to her throat and coughed repeatedly.
"Fuck this!" It roared with words that tore at the air with an anger and ferocity known only in legend—primal legend, that is. It was here and now that anyone could be sure that it was male. Its masculinity could give Chief Bogo a run for his money. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck everything about this! Fuck the BDF, fuck the Pelagius system, fuck EarthGov, and fuck the Didac Corporation! I'm stuck here because of you fucking fucks!"
As Judy inched away from the rampaging creature, dazed and confused, she took notice of an orange blur sneaking up behind it. The blur was short in stature and wielded what looked to be a stun baton, or as it was normally referred to as: "the Prod".
"Nick..." She wheezed loudly in a desperate attempt to warn him of the danger he was walking into, but the swelling in her throat made doing so very painful. She watched in horror as Nick, as quick and nimble of the fox he was, laid in wait for an opportunity to strike. The beast continued on with its tirade, yelling some nonsensical things about starvation and polar cities. Everything that came afterward was completely unintelligible on Judy's end—more rambling and excessive swearing. It seemed to go on forever until its back was turned. Nick seized the moment and leapt from his hiding spot, swiping his claws at the beast's back and ripping a deep gash in its clothing, tearing away some of the fabric and exposing its tender skin. The swipe had hurt Nick for some reason, and the fox reeled backward in pain, clenching the hand he had used. The beast jerked its head around, looking much angrier now than it did before, but before it could react Nick dealt to it the blow to end it all. In his other hand was the prod. His thumb cranked up the dial, and the rest of him thrusted it into the opening he had made. Metal met skin and flesh, and a single button press delivered a fifty-thousand volt powerhouse punch of electricity directly into its back.
The beast yelled out in pain as control over every muscle in its body was lost. It was as stiff as a board in seconds and collapsed to the ground, its march of drunken fury ended at the bravery of Officer Wilde. For this, he would no doubt earn a commendation. Several, even.
But something was wrong. It wasn't unconscious. Then again, as much as Judy had wished it to be true, that wasn't what the prod was meant for. It had fallen onto its stomach and the metal limbs went limp with the rest of him. It groaned as it moved to push itself back up. Fuming with rage, Nick bared his teeth and prepared to strike again, but was suddenly grabbed by the shirt collar and yanked aside by none other than the captain of the second team, followed swiftly by his small legion of highly-trained officers. Despite experiencing the worst of the device's effects their resolve made them the first to pull through. He yanked the prod out of Nick's hands and gestured with it towards the struggling creature.
"Put that thing in chains!" He snarled. "Get it in the back of the van and put it in the cage!"
The creature groaned more still as it was handcuffed and hoisted up by the arms. The team kept a tight grip on them, inhibiting any and every little struggle he made. One of his mechanical arms twitched, but another quick prod to the back kept it down before they too were bound in cuffs.
Nick watched them as they went, astonished in more ways than one. More people were starting to get up now. Hornsby and the other officers were recovering. Without him, the creature would have most likely escaped, but he felt little in the way of pride at the moment. The position for his biggest concerns was turned over to Judy immediately. He ran to her side and crouched next to her weakened, frail form. "Jude? Are you alright? How bad is it?" He asked with worry deep in his voice as he looked over her entire body, searching frantically for injuries. Fortunately, any injuries were isolated to her neck, but even then it was one injury too many, and for all he knew the beast could have done more to her that he had not yet seen, and bunnies weren't exactly known for their resilience. Here's hoping Judy was an exception to this.
Judy saw the concern on her partner's face and gave him a comforting smile, weakly reaching out a hand to lay on his shoulder. "I've been better..." She joked raspily, her throat red and expanding like a balloon.
"Good, good." Nick's eyes widened. "Well, obviously not good, but—"
"Get help, please." She pleaded sternly, finding it increasingly difficult to cough or breath. Nick nodded and stood to leave, but not before choosing to sneak a kiss to her cheek. It lasted longer than he expected, but it was less of a romantic kiss and more of a "please don't pass out while I'm gone" kiss.
"I'll be back." With that, Nick took off, heading in the deputy's direction.
Judy remained where she was, sitting quietly and hunched over on the cold, hard ground. Her breathing was labored, but manageable. She couldn't shake many of the things she wished to forget. All that occurred happened so fast that she couldn't muster the strength to push them from her subconscious. Every beat of her heart was like a fresh reminder of every second spent in pain that creature had delivered to her friends and loving partner. She was too exhausted to form a proper scowl, but she seethed with anger. Once its identity was revealed she might feel brave enough to spit in its face when nobody was looking.
Nick returned and remained by her side, but the pain and swelling were getting worse. Before long, several ambulances had arrived, among other vehicles. Fire trucks, more patrol cars, and a huge forensics units arrived almost all at once to cordon off the scene. Fatigue set in and she closed her eyes, hoping for some rest. "It'll only be for a minute," she told Nick when he asked with wide eyes. When next she opened them, she was in the back of a speeding ambulance. When next she closed them, she succumbed to a deep, much-needed sleep.