A/N: Glad to see some positive feedback on this one.
As promised, the chapters from here on in will be longer.
Nick Wilde sighed as he finished his second burrito sitting at his desk, just browsing aimlessly on the Internet. This solo lunch hour wasn't as fun as he had hoped it would be. The food was good but it wasn't the same without Judy's disapproving glare next to him. Nick smiled at how funny she looked whenever she gave that look. Some days he would purposefully turn up the off-color behavior just so he could see her scrunched up face and narrowed lavender eyes more often.
"Damn, that bunny sure grows on ya" he thought.
Judy really did make mundane things fun, even a boring stakeout or chained to their desks doing paperwork. Playing with his keyboard, Nick was appreciative of Judy coming before him in the ZPD. She told him that before they made the precinct smaller mammal friendly, it was a struggle. He almost squirted ginger ale from his nose when she regaled her gigantic task of simply turning on a computer, which was better fit for an elephant. Nick certainly felt little in the presence of the rhinos and hippos and big cats on duty. With Judy being at least a foot shorter than him, he couldn't imagine how intimidating it must have looked. He had to admire her in that regard, showing little fear even when the odds were stacked against her.
It inspired him to move out of his comfort zone and convince him he can do better things with his life. Nick, the former con artist, did enjoy being a cop. He remembered growing up in a bad part of town, a good chunk of the time on his own due to his mother's work schedule. It got scary at times and when he would get done from school, little Nick oftentimes ran home for fear of the street gangs and other bad people. The ZPD rarely used to patrol that area in those days, so as Nick grew he figured if you couldn't beat them then it was safer to join them. But things have improved and nowadays there isn't a corner of Zootopia that isn't considered part of the ZPD's beat. That was what Bogo made abundantly clear when he was appointed as chief. Every mammal had the right to feel safe.
Nick used to be part of the problem, giving into his imposed stereotype as a trickster. But today, he was still a fox through and through but he can go to sleep at night knowing he is part of the solution.
And he owes all of that to Judy. His life wouldn't be the same had he not met her. And for the sake of the city, it was fortuitous that they crossed paths.
It wasn't just a nice partnership they had going, but Judy ended up being one of the closest friends Nick ever had. And he liked to think he was held in a similar regard in Judy's eyes. A bond that strong will happen when you've had as many near death experiences as they did during the night howler case alone. Being now especially trained, he was more fit to handle calamity like Judy. Since then they've had a fair share of close calls on the force and their friendship only grew deeper. When out in the field, there's a level of trust that you must have in your partner. Judy had that in spades.
He trusted her. And that was something Nick Wilde was very protective of; he didn't put his trust into just any mammal.
The vibration from his phone made him almost jump out of his chair. Nick scrambled trying to fish the cell out of his pocket. The blues ZPD issued were pretty tight and left little to the imagination.
Nick sighed as he finally had the phone in his paws and saw it was a message from Judy. He smirked, thinking it was her saying she was on her way back. Opening the screen to read the message, his eyes widened while his stomach dropped.
"BANK ROBBERY IN PROGRESS. 6 MAMMALS TOTAL; 4 LG, 2 SM. WEARING MASKS. GUNS AND SOME DUFFLE BAGS."
Before Nick could frantically reply, a second message came immediately.
"NUMBER OF HOSTAGES UNCLEAR. SEND BACKUP."
That was his worst fear. Judy was inside the bank.
Without a second's hesitation; Nick bounded to the lower levels of the ZPD where they kept all of their vehicles. Most of them were already gone since it was in the middle of the day, including the one Judy took which they shared. Nick eyed a spare standard police cruiser and jumped into the driver's seat. His paws scrambled in search for the keys, until he got the idea to jump up and open the visor which the keys dropped from.
He was about to put the key in the ignition when a familiar hoof seized them.
"What are you doing, Wilde?" bellowed the Chief.
Nick breathed heavy, his green eyes looking intensely at the towering cape buffalo. He had a look about him like he was a moment away from fighting those keys from his grasp.
"Judy's in trouble," he said. Nick rarely referred to her as "Officer Hopps."
Bogo sighed, showing Nick his phone. "I know."
"She texted you, too?"
"Hopps probably figured you'd do something crazy..." the Chief pointed to Nick in the car. "...like this."
Nick slammed his paws on the steering wheel, frustrated.
"Sorry, sir but my partner just told me she's in the middle of a bank robbery. I can't ignore that."
The Chief glowered, "We're not, Wilde! Hopps gave us an overview of the situation so we know what we're dealing with. There's protocol."
"We don't have time!" Nick pressed.
"You're right. So let's get going. Move over!"
Nick hopped to the passenger side while Bogo got into the driver's seat. He started the car and grabbed the radio.
"Attention all units!" he ordered. "We have a Code 20 in progress. Officer Hopps is at the scene. There are six suspects that we know about. There will be civilians, repeat there will be civilians!"
Nick leaned back, folding his arms.
"Don't beat yourself up, Wilde."
"What?" he asked.
The Chief gave him a look. "I know she's your partner but that doesn't mean blaming yourself for not being there when she was by herself."
"But..."
"No buts. She's a tough one; you know that better than most. Hopps can handle herself and she also knows when to call for help. And that's what she did. It's going to be a bad scene down there so she'll need the ZPD to have her back. What she doesn't need is some fox rushing in trying to be a hero."
Nick rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Judy had been paying rapt attention while remaining hunkered behind the desk. Luckily, there was a litany of pens and envelopes around her that spilled over from the panic. Judy was sketching notes to keep track of the suspects. Listening closely, she caught wind of a handful of names. They might be aliases but she couldn't take the chance and copied them down anyway.
All of the robbers were clad in black from head to toe, so their species was difficult. Judy noticed a lack of outstanding features like antlers or horns. That eliminated a few mammals. One of the two smaller ones, referred to as Carter, appears to be the brains of the operation. He is directing the larger mammals for crowd control. Judy peered around the desk, all of the patrons and employees were on the floor, paws and hooves on their heads. It didn't take them very long to round everyone up.
They were fairly organized.
"Will you keep an eye on him!" ordered the diminutive leader to one of the burly mammals, indicating to another similarly-built one. "He's really bugging me."
"Relax, Carter - Ted's been out of the clink for only a few days."
"Newsflash!" snarled the smaller one. "So have you and the big guy over there. And neither of you are nearly as twitchy as Ted."
The one Carter was talking to made eye contact with "the big guy" who just stood silently, holding his weapon.
"I understand," he nodded. "I'll make sure he isn't any trouble."
"You'd better, bozo" Carter pointed.
The leader jumped onto the desk that Judy was stationed behind. She pressed her back against it, hiding herself from his line of sight.
"Attention, mammals!" the leader shouted to the crowd. "This will take just a few minutes IF you all cooperate." He pointed to the other short masked robber who was holding an open sack. "First, I want you to dump your phones into this bag and do it quickly. Calling for help and photos are not going to make our job any easier; you understand."
The one holding the bag moved with great speed, Judy observed, gathering up all the cells from the mammals. They were ordered not to move, so the robber deftly picked everyone's pocket until he was confident that every mobile phone was acquired. He even relieved the security guard of his walkie-talkie. It didn't take more than five minutes when the dozens of devices were taken.
He was quite fast.
"Have to keep an extra eye on that one," Judy thought. She glanced down at her notes, now having four names out of six. The speedy one and the largest mammal of all were both still a mystery. That they didn't say much made them even more unsettling in their anonymity.
"Now you!" the leader pointed to two of the tellers, a pig and tigress. "Come with me and my buddy," he indicated to one that he called Gary. "We're making a pretty big withdrawal."
Carter bounded down and joined with Gary, holding their guns with one hand and empty bags with the other. They followed the employees back to where the vault was. The rest remained in the main area to stand guard.
Bogo was quickly approaching the bank, feeling the intensity of his newest recruit rising from the passenger seat.
"Almost there, Wilde" the chief matter-of-factly stated. "Holding it together."
"Trying."
Bogo sniffed while grabbing the radio.
"Attention all units approaching First Bank of Zootopia; cut off your sirens now. It will be a couple of blocks until we reach it. We don't want to scare a bunch of armed mammals in a building with unarmed citizens."
Everyone copied in the affirmative, save for one car.
Officers Hayes and Welles, an elephant and hyena team, were taking an alternate route which took them through and underground tunnel, muffling the signal. So for that brief moment, the order from the chief didn't get through. They continued on their way, siren blaring.
The smaller masked mammal left in the lobby tilted his head, as if listening for something.
"COPS!" he shouted.
"Are you sure?" one of them questioned.
"I can hear them from a mile away!" he pointed. "CARTER! GARY! WE'VE GOT TROUBLE!"
The pair quickly handcuffed the tellers to the bank vault handle, and ran back to the front.
"What's going on?" demanded Carter.
The other mammal of almost equal height grabbed Carter's shoulder. "I heard sirens. No ambulance, no fire department. Its the ZPD."
Carter looked around, knowing that his friend's hearing was impeccable and he had no reason to make things up at a time like this. Sure enough, there came Zootopia's finest in about a dozen cars pulling up to the main doors.
"Gary, what the hell?!"
The tall, lankier of the group froze.
"What?"
Carter jumped onto Gary's torso like he was getting ready to rip his head off.
"You told me that you disabled the security cameras and alarms."
"But I did! I didn't screw up."
"Then how is the entire Z-freaking-PD knocking on our door, genius?"
That made Gary's blood boil more than anything. He hated when anyone questioned his intelligence such as saying things like "brilliant" or "genius" sarcastically.
"Listen, twerp!" Gary held his gun tightly but kept it pointed downward. "You gave me a job to do and I did it. Maybe one of these morons called for help!"
"How? First thing we did was get everybody's phones." he turned to his short counterpart. "Eddie?"
Judy now had a name for the other smaller mammal.
Eddie held up his bag full of cells "Right here. I got everyone."
"Well maybe there was somebody you missed," the biggest one said in a monotone but condescending voice.
"I never miss, tiny" Eddie pointed.
"WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP!"
Carter's echo boomed through the bank, the acoustics making this small animal's voice shake like a drum.
"We will find this out right now."
He jumps on top of an elephant's head, barrel of his gun pressed against his grey skin.
"SOMEBODY OUT THERE THINKS HE'S A HERO? SOME FOOL WHO THOUGHT HE COULD BE SNEAKY AND CALL 911?" Carter scanned the room looking for a reaction other than the wave of gasps. "Tell you what: if you don't come forward, I will shoot this pachyderm. And if you still want to stay hidden, then I will begin picking off another mammal every five minutes. Go ahead, try me. I know I don't mind but I bet you don't want other animals' blood on your hands!"
"Stop!"
Carter turned and locked eyes with Judy, arms raised with her phone in hand.
"You?" he asked, surprised. He wasn't expecting a meek bunny of all things to derail his daylight robbery.
"Me," she gulped, stepping forward so her body was out from behind the desk.
It was then he saw her badge.
"Well this got interesting," he said.