(Sixteen years later)

A chubby buffalo was eating breakfast cereal at his desk, seemingly oblivious to the fact said desk was directly facing the entrance of the large building, with a large Zootopia Police Department emblem hanging right behind him. In addition to the cereal, there was a half-empty box of donuts. The only things on his desk that weren't food were a microphone and a name plate that read "Bogo".

As he munched his cereal, the buffalo noticed that someone had walked in, a fox in a neat police uniform, who then took off and stashed his sunglasses in his shirt pocket. The fox was shorter than him; in fact, if that fox were to stand right next to the desk, he probably could have only seen his ears, and that was if they were standing.

"Morning, Bogo," the fox saluted the buffalo.

"Hey, Wilde," Bogo greeted back, the quickly shoved his cereal aside and offered the box of donuts to Nick, "Want some?"

Nick was amused at how efficiently Bogo had shoved his cereal aside that nothing spilled onto the desk. He then got back at Bogo's offer of donuts.

"Sure, thanks," Nick picked a blueberry donut from among them, though he then realized that every single one of the remaining donuts was blueberry. He shrugged. Sometimes he felt bad that he took a donut that Bogo bought himself, and yet with Bogo's cheerful enthusiam in sharing donuts, he felt that declining too many times would be just as rude.

"I figured you are more likely to share donuts with me if I bought the blueberry ones," Bogo chuckled (oh, so that's what happened), then pointed out at the clock, "Anyway, the roll call won't be until another hour. You have anything to do?"

"Nah, I guess I'll just hang out at the canteen, get some coffee, read the news or something before I get in to the bullpen," Nick replied while taking a little bite from the donut.

"Okay," Bogo the pulled back his cereal, again without spilling anything.

After giving Bogo another handwave, Nick walked to the canteen, every now and then saluting officers whom he met along the way. He whisked back to two plus months ago, when he first got into ZPD. He was the first fox officer in the precinct, and many were surprised or amused when they first saw him. Maybe because he was considerably smaller than every other officer. That sentiment still remained until now, especially given that he hadn't been doing any serious police work.

Nick sighed when he reminisced about his first few months. On his first day at ZPD, Bogo was the only one who actually greeted him. Nick remembered how he was taken aback at how affable Bogo was, and had always been ever since. It made working at ZPD feel more tolerable. Some of the other officers showed clear disbelief upon seeing him, at least on the first few days. Meanwhile, most of the senior officers barely cared that someone like him made it to the precinct. Either that, or apparently nobody cared about introductions, just like how the chief merely walked into the bullpen on his first day, announced the roll call for the day and just left. It wasn't that ZPD officers were a quiet bunch; the contrary in fact. Perhaps the best term to describe it was that they were task-oriented. Very task-oriented. Nick had accepted that perhaps that's how police work was. Even if his work was just parking duty.

Nick huffed. Zipping around Zootopia in a buggy (and a slow one at that), issuing tickets to whoever parked too long or violated parking regulation. For all his physical trainings at the academy, Nick found that task to be extremely dull. Then again, he was new. Complaining about a boring job was not really a wise thing to do now; it could have been worse. Nevertheless, Nick sometimes wondered how long more he would be doing parking duty, as not only had he gotten tired of such unstimulating task, he had gotten tired of trying to assure his mother that he was fine with his job. She had been ever so supportive, always telling him his time of doing what he called real cop duty would come, and that he just needed to be patient and diligent. Yet as months passed, he couldn't drown out his worry that she had become disappointed at his career progression. It annoyed him sometimes how meaningless being among the top ten graduate at the police academy seemed to be.

Nick was already on his way to the bullpen five minutes before the scheduled roll call. The waiting was very uneventful. The one news that he somehow got interested in was that the Mayor was still away from the city, having gone south for some business trip or something, so that meant whatever business the City Hall had would be handled by the Deputy Mayor. Nick sometimes found it amusing that the Deputy Mayor seemed to show up more often in the news than the Mayor, but that mattered little; whatever the big boys at the City Hall did was often too much for him to digest anyway.

Nick arrived at a familiar atmosphere at the bullpen. Officers Andersen and Johnson were arm-wrestling, again. Did they never get tired of that? Officer Wolford acted as if he didn't hear Nick's arrival, but Nick knew Wolford was actually very attentive; there was one time that he offhandedly asked Nick if he had left his sunglasses at home after several days of not commenting about how Nick tended to dock said sunglasses in the pocket. The only thing that he found unusual was that Deputy Chief Higgins, who just came in, was the only prey mammal in the bullpen today. Nick wondered what happened to the rest. Were they still out on duty somewhere? For several days, or even weeks, already? Whatever. Nick climbed his usual seat at the front row and found officers Fangmeyer and Howliwell at the same desk, so he gave them a silent salute and they merely nodded in kind. As he did so, Higgins issued an order Nick had been hearing every morning before the Chief came in.

"Atten-hut!"

The other officers rose, unlike Nick who had been standing this whole time. Then again, he was too small for the chair; He remembered how embarassing it felt when, on the first day, he tried to sit down and realized he must have gone out of view of the other officers. Amid the officers' chanting of ZPD anthem, a muscular cheetah made his way onto the podium in the bullpen, his somewhat weathered nametag read Clawhauser.

"Enough, can it," Chief Clawhauser tersely ordered the bullpen to quiet down.

It was right after Chief Clawhauser walked past the map on the wall that Nick noticed three photos of some mammals tacked onto the map.

"Officers Delgato, Fangmeyer, Grizzoli, Rainforest District SWAT," the chief could be heard distributing tasks.

Strange, Nick thought, those photos weren't there yesterday.

"Officers Wolford, Andersen, Snarlov, missing mammals at Tundratown."

Missing mammals? Tundratown? Nick compared what he just heard with the photos on the map. A photo of a polar bear was linked to Floe area, and one of a snow leopard to southern Tundratown. Oh, so that's what those photos are for. Nick then looked at the third photo, a brown bear linked to Downtown area. Someone went missing from such a central area. Wow.

"Officers Howliwell, Wilde."

Two things alarmed Nick. One, he had always been alone when doing parking duty. Two, the chief had paused for an unusually long time.

"Sahara Square traffic enforcement. Dismissed."

Chief Clawhauser then made his exit shortly after. Officer Howliwell, a grey wolf, jabbed Nick, and he realized he was lost in thought.

"Let's go, Wilde."

"Oh, uh, yeah."

Nick's parking duty had taken him throughout a large chunk of Zootopia, including Sahara Square. He usually would loosen up his uniform to deal with the heat at the locale, so given that now he was doing traffic enforcement patrol while inside a shuttered, air-conditioned cruiser unlike his usual buggy, he felt a bit weird not doing it. Especially when he compared his uniform with Howliwell's t-shirt. That reminded Nick; he had never seen a ZPD wolf officer who didn't wear a t-shirt.

"What did you ever do to that moose we stopped just earlier, Wilde?" Officer Howliwell asked Nick, at the same time adjusting his glasses, "He seemed very obnoxious to you."

"Oh," Nick tried to recollect his previous encounter with said moose, "Must be one of those times I issued a ticket right as the meter expired."

"Goodness," Howliwell chortled as though he had gone through something similar, "Are you actually that enthusiastic about parking duty?"

"Oh dear, no, Howliwell. He was just unlucky I was standing right next to the meter when it went off," Nick chuckled, "Nearly spilled my slurpee. I didn't know those meters could be so loud up close."

The two erupted with laughter until Howliwell took a glance at the time.

"Say, Wilde, with everyone probably off for lunch break, why don't we take one too?"

"Sure, oh," Nick perked up, especially when he realized where he was, "There's this really nice bakery a block away from here. I love the blueberry pies, especially."

"No offense, but from what I heard from Bogo, you only love blueberries."

Nick laughed it out.

"Ok, you'll be the GPS. Show me where this bakery is."

A short while later, the two of them were already lining up at the bakery. Nick didn't even read the menu; he had known full well how delicious the blueberry pies were, and besides, he had been well-acquainted with the owner. The two cops eventually left the bakery with their respective food.

"Thank you for visiting," the bakery's owner, a portly fox with tidily combed hair, waved at Nick and Howliwell, both of whom replied in kind.

"Seriously, Wilde, that bakery has the cutest name I've ever seen," Howliwell mused once they reached a sitting area near where they parked.

"I know. 'Gideon Grey's Real Good Baked Stuffs'", Nick repeated the bakery's name, "That Gideon, the owner, once told me he was from the south."

"The farmlands at the south, you mean?"

"Yup. Bunnyburrows. You know, the carrot haven."

"That explains," Howliwell suddenly paused and Nick raised an eyebrow, "no, that reminds me of a few things."

"Of?"

"Erm, no, nevermind."

Nick had a feeling that Howliwell felt what he wanted to say might sound rude, but Nick decided not to dwell on it. Everyone had their own opinion after all. The two merely finished their lunch and headed back to their cruiser. As he randomly gazed around, Nick saw a grey mammal coming out of an alley across the road, a bunny. That wouldn't be worth noticing had the bunny not looked rather fidgety, looking around as though suspecting a stalker. Nick pondered for a while as the bunny waltzed off to who-knows-where after dusting off paws.

"Something wrong, Wilde?"

Howliwell's words jolted Nick. Oops, what was I doing?

The patrol session after lunch break was interestingly more peaceful compared to the morning one, as though full stomachs helped mammal drivers focus better on the road. Nick and Howliwell ended up going round and round doing almost nothing.

"Never thought traffic enforcement could be this peaceful somehow," Nick mused, "I mean, I was unlikely to go for more than 10 minutes without issuing one parking ticket."

"Don't you know what they say, Wilde?" Howliwell remarked.

"Oh, right," Nick chuckled, "Don't say something you don't want happen."

The two officers laughed. Not long after, they ended up ticketing a hippo who went over the speed limit, and they couldn't hide their snickers over the turn of events after they got back on the roads.

"This is Dispatch to Howliwell and Wilde."

Bogo's voice could be heard from the transceiver, and Nick nodded at Howliwell, who understood what the fox wanted.

"This is Wilde, Dispatch, what's the matter?"

"Oh, hey, Wilde," Nick snickered at Bogo's usual bubbliness, "So someone called 911 saying there's an injured hyena found in an alley at 41 Saguaro Lane. Ambulance's on the way, so see if you can find clues."

"We're on it," Nick concluded as he and Howliwell nodded to each other.

The injured hyena was already loaded into the ambulance when the two officers arrived at the scene. The two didn't manage to get useful witness accounts; The medics said the hyena was laid against the wall inside the alley, and nobody saw what caused his predicament.

"Looks like they'll have to ask the hyena once he's good for questioning."

Howliwell sighed as the two were looking around inside the alley. There were hints of a brawl, though they didn't see the extent of the hyena's injuries. Nick decided to walk towards the other end of the alley. As he gazed around, he recalled that this side of the alley seemed familiar; If he was not mistaken, Gideon Grey's Real Good Baked Stuffs was a few block away ahead. He remembered the bunny and decided to check the time. 3:30, which meant it was at least two and a half hour ago when he saw the bunny. That seemed too long.

"I agree," Nick huffed as the two proceeded to continue their work after all was taken care of.

That late afternoon, Howliwell and Nick had finished their day patrol and now were back at ZPD headquarters. Howliwell had told Nick he would help archive whatever happened that day, so he nudged Nick to leave for the day as there had been other officers being assigned for any night duties. Nick was on his way out saluting Bogo when the buffalo stopped him.

"How's the day, Wilde?" Bogo cheerfully asked before presenting the donut box, which now contained only one blueberry donut, "I heard from Chief that he assigned you something different today."

"Oh, it was okay, thanks," Nick replied as he picked the last donut.

"Kinda envy you, I tell ya what," Bogo started chatting, "My first days were on records, looking at archives day in and day out in the HQ, maintaining database and such. And I think I started that after the previous records officer had retired and they weren't able to get a replacement for a week. And I was twenty minutes late on my first day too, oh silly me-"

(Five minutes later)

"-and then Chief walked up to me and said in front of everyone, 'Bogo, given what you did earlier, I was thinking of promoting you to receptionist duty'. Ooooooh, I was super excited. Well, I did learn later that being a receptionist also doubled as a dispatch officer, which reminds me earlier that Officer Krumpanski called in to catch some slippery perp at Savannah Central-"

Bogo suddenly stopped when he looked at the clock.

"Oooh! I'm so sorry, Wilde! You're going home soon, right?"

"It's ok."

Nick knew the bubbly buffalo sometimes trailed off into random stories when talking with anyone, maybe even the chief. He was actually impressed that Bogo could stop himself in the midst of monologuing like that, thus Nick had learned not to interrupt Bogo's chatter out of some kind of respect.

"Ok, so anyway, see you tomorrow," Bogo waved at Nick who made his way out.

The walk home was mostly the same as the days before. As his usual, Nick wore a light jacket over his uniform. He knew some other officers had personal lockers at the HQ that they used to store their personal belongings, such as civilian clothes, but the idea of changing clothes outside home never caught on to him. Anyway, he wore the light jacket because he'd rather not advertise himself as a ZPD officer when he officially had clocked out for the day. Still, being a police meant that he felt responsible to maintain peace, protect civilian and whatnot, and it's reflected on his habit of glancing around whereever he went just in case.

Nick then caught sight of a van sprayed with kitschy grafitti and two figures shorter than him beside it, standing in a way to shield themselves from the traffic. One was a yellow fenned fox in black-and-brown ensemble, and the other was a grey bunny in pink-and-grey. Nick surmised based on what the bunny wore that he had seen that bunny earlier. He was slightly amused at how the bunny repeatedly thumped her foot.

"I said quit it!"

The fennec's size belied a ferociously loud voice. As Nick slowly approached, he saw the fennec making what appeared to be some threatening gestures towards the bunny, who snarled in return in addition to waving fist. Imminent brawl? Nick hoped he was overthinking.

"Fin, come on! If this goes well, I can make enough to-" The bunny was clearly annoyed.

"By asking for their help?" The fennec swatted the bunny's paw as it it were too close to face.

"You think I'm ok with that? Look, I was- Oh, ahem," the bunny, her voice now clear on Nick's ear, immediately placed a paw on her face, and Nick already could tell he wouldn't learn anything else from the spat.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I'm butting in," Nick quickly tried to think up an excuse, or maybe a bait, "I'll excuse myself then. Have a nice day, and hope you can settle-"

"Shut it, big guy!" The fennec lashed out at Nick, then threw his hands up as he snarled at the bunny, "Mark my words, Fluff, you keep working with them, they'll bite your face off!"

Nick sighed as the fennec jumped into the kitschy van and drove off. Hopefully that was proverbial, but then again, who were they? Nick then turned towards the bunny, who was shaking her head with her paw still on her face. She then noticed that Nick was staring her.

"What's your problem?" The bunny fiercely questioned, her purple eyes glaring at his green.

"Ah, uh, nothing... much," Nick tried to relax a bit. At least there was no brawl; having to arrest two fiery mammals for a public disturbance all by himself would have been a mess.

The bunny then began walking away, although towards the same direction as Nick's home. Great, Nick thought. Continuing his trip home like this would cause the bunny to snap at him, or worse, accuse him of stalking and would cause her to call the cops. He then just stood, waiting for the bunny to leave the scene. She instead looked back and noticed him standing still as Nick tried to look busy by checking his phone.

"What do you want?" The bunny was already beside Nick now.

"What? No, nothing," Nick tried to compose himself, "Anyway, I'm on my way home. Have a nice day."

Here I thought I was stopping an imminent brawl, and now I have a bunny getting needlessly suspicious of me. Well done, Nick.

Nick could surmise the bunny was behind him even as he made his way as relaxed as possible. He sighed in his mind occasionally, imagining whatever stupid situation that might happen. He saw a tiger officer along the way, Officer Jackson if he wasn't mistaken, and as the tiger recognized Nick from across the street, the two flashed smiles to each other. To his relief, halfway in his trip, he noticed that the bunny was no longer following him. All right, now to get back home as soon as I can. Oh, and tell mom I finally got to do something different; can't forget that. Nick began to haste cheerfully.

#####

#####

Author's Note:

So I have mentioned in the intro summary that there will be a few swaps here and there. It's time to explain a bit about it.

I got the idea of this story while browsing Zootopia fanarts and saw a few species swaps, such as bunny Nick and fox Judy. This particular fanfic is primarily based on the swap between Bogo's and Clawhauser's species, as you can see. There may be a few more swaps down the road, stay tuned :)