Hello to all,

Long update time, I know. Sorry...

Not gonna bore you with anything.

Thank you for reading this story so far.

Chapter 3

Leaving the post, the small duo drove right next to the tall statue symbolizing the unity between The Desert Rangers of Nevada and New California Republic Rangers. It was made of varying pieces of metal melted together. Figures of a jackal in a combat armor and a hat and a coyote in NCR issued ranger armor, captured in a moment of shaking paws as a symbol of cooperation. Judy felt pride at the sight of the statue. It reminded her of the mission the NCR had in these lands - to bring stability and peace for all mammals. The statue reaffirmed her belief that enduring the rude company was her duty, as she has been entrusted with a task and her own comfort played no role in it.

The were now driving down the cracked road riddled with abandoned, rusting cars and trucks. A sad reminder of what used to be the primary mode of transportation in this country before the war. Now the roads seemed like a cemetery of metal corpses.

"So where now, princess?" The fox asked over the rumbling of the engine.

Judy rolled her eyes at another name he used for her. She hated what it indicated, that she was fragile and helpless. Still, with his apparent liking to give her names, the doe decided that it would be a waste of time trying to correct him every single time. Though it didn't mean that she couldn't talk back.

"New Vegas. I'd add 'prince charming', but you have no charm at all and stink so much that there's no way that you're a prince."

He let out a short snort that Judy would categorize as either amusement or approval.

"Unfounded accusations. I'll have you know that many vixens in the Strip would vouch for my charm!" Then his voice dropped into a mocking tone. "Though I doubt a prude like you would get it."

Judy felt a slight blush decorating the insides of her ears. Though a virgin herself, something her younger and more experienced siblings teased her about, the doe was fully aware of the mechanics of sex. Living for years under one roof with at least a dozen lust driven brothers and sisters, among a throng of normal ones, gave her enough knowledge to deal with suggestions made by the fox.

"Oh, I get it alright. But I can't help to think that none of them were anywhere near satisfied." She shot back, listening intently to his reaction.

He let out a chuckle. "Whaddya now? The cute, lil bunny can bark!" His voice was now clearly amused and not fazed in the slightest by her reply. The fox kept his paw on her stomach, keeping her in place, and driving with the other paw.

His words caused her to scowl. "Don't call me cute or you'll see that I can do more than bark!" The doe snapped at him, her arms actually itching to make good at her promise. She wanted to physically get back at him for what he did earlier, as well as shut him up regarding her skill.

"We'll see about that." Nick replied and turned left on a crossroad, directing them towards a ruined gas station nearby. "For now we need to make a stop here."

They pulled over by one of the rusty dispensers and the fox turned off the engine, taking his paw off her.

Still slightly on the edge after his comment, Judy hopped off the motorbike and surveyed the surroundings. The location consisted of the area meant for vehicles and refueling them, placed under a wide roof with Poseidon company mark right next to it, a small workshop and the general shop just nearby. It may have thrived in the pre-war days, but now it was nothing more than an abandoned pair of structures in the vast sea of dirt and sand.

Nick got off their vehicle too and undid the straps that tied his backpack to the motorbike and took it with him. He headed towards the workshop building. "What is it with bunnies and getting so worked up with being called 'cute' anyway?" He asked her while strolling to the door.

Judy folded her arms, sparing the vulpine's back an annoyed stare. "It's stereotypical." She gave him the shortest answer possible, not keen on dwelling more on this subject.

"Oh?" Nick shot her an amused look over his shoulder, apparently enjoying that he found a sore spot he could press on. "Care to elaborate?"

Judy narrowed her eyes. With how he approached the subject, she decided to reply in a fitting manner. "And why would a sly, shifty fox want to know?" The doe replied, putting extra emphasis on the adjectives, while following him with several feet of distance between them.

Upon hearing this Nick turned around, giving her a lazy smirk. "I am shifty, many can testify to that. Sly? You can bet on that. Those are the requirements to survive out here. If you can't adapt to the wasteland it will swallow you whole." He closed the distance between them in few long strides. "So that's it? You just hate being defined by your appearance?"

She held her gaze on him, adding a defiant layer to it. "My appearance has nothing to do with who I am."

His smirk widened. "Really? Then I can call you 'Fluff' whenever I want, right? Since it has nothing to do with you being a bunny."

Judy clenched her paws into fists, feeling that her annoyance started rising to dangerous levels. "I'm not going to tolerate when you call me names, just because you think that I'm small and weak!" She nearly shouted these words.

Then, Nick leaned forward with his smirk gone, replaced by a neutral expression. "I never said you were weak." He said only that and turned around to walk up to the door.

Judy was about to retort when he opened his mouth. She had a snappy reply at the back of her head, but after hearing his words she simply deflated. Did he just said what she thinks he said? Did he just told her the words she had never heard from anyone ever since enrolling to the army? Judy has spent many months on grueling training and always putting in extra effort in comparison with other cadets, putting more into the drill and learning new skills to prove everyone that she's as capable as the rest if not more. Her fellow cadets always judged her by her appearance and their crude jokes about does and how good they are at multiplying stopped only after she started beating them in sparrings.

Why would this particular mammal, and a fox at that, would say-

Click.

Her train of thought was brought to a halt when she heard a very distinct noise of a pistol safety catch being flipped. The doe's ears twitched, along with her nose, at the sight of the fox by the door with a gun in his paw. His teasing playfulness now gone, giving way for an alert expression. He turned his head to her and pointed with a finger to his nose, then pointed at the door. The meaning of this gesture was simple.

He could smell something or someone behind the door.

Judy approached his side, careful not to make noise with her hindpaws as she moved, and took a spot on the other side of the door. Her sensitive ears confirmed her companions' caution. She could pick up muffled steps and faint ruffling sounds. It was highly unlikely that it was some sort of a wasteland creature, given that the door was closed and only sentient beings were capable of using door handles. That left them with the option of a mammal, most likely a scavenger, rummaging for any valuable items left behind.

Nick reached for the door with his free paw, gun at the ready in the other. Judy cringed at the sight, the picture of an armed mercenary walking in on an unknown mammal was contradictory to her vision of a messenger of peace. Therefore she took a quick step forward and placed a paw on his wrist.

The fox shot her a look from the corner of his eye and Judy leaned forward, pulling him down a bit, shortening the distance between their faces to just few inches.

"I'm going first, hide that." She hissed at him, pointing at the gun, with a voice so low that only he could hear her. Judy didn't want to risk that the mammal inside overhearing them. Just in case. And before he could react in any way, apart from taking in a sharp intake of air, Judy reached for the handle and walked inside.

The interior was a small space with two long tables by one of the walls, their surface riddled with various tools. The floor was covered with trash and rubble, several empty bottles laying here and there. The bunny noticed also a closed door in the wall opposite to the entrance. A hunched figure was crouching right in front of it, its paws fiddling with the door's lock. The figure was rather short and slim, covered in a duster coat, a small backpack resting on the floor nearby.

Judy quickly went over the possible scenarios in her head and eventually decided to just start a conversation and see where it will go. She cleared her throat to grab attention of the mammal. "Excuse me."

Her words caused the figure to spin around, paw shooting to the holster on its hip.

"Don't even think about it, Weselton!" A low growl from Judy's companion made the jumpy mammal freeze in place. The fox trailed behind the doe like a shadow, his posture alert, ears directed at the male before them. He kept the gun down at his side, but still with the safety off, ready to fire. The sharp gaze of his emerald eyes was monitoring the mammal's movements, as if daring him to make a wrong one.

"It's Weaselton. Duke Weaselton." The small predators' reply was flat and instantaneous, suggesting an automated answer to the misspelling of his name. After that reply Judy watched the weasel's eyes widen at the sight of the fox. The slim mammals' paw very slowly left the area of the holster. He raised it to the level of his arm, so that there was no doubt that he's not looking for trouble. The bunny couldn't stop a curious spark in her mind that wanted to know how these two know each other. Especially with the fearful glint that flashed in the weasel's eyes when he noticed Nick. Apparently her vulpine companion had quite a reputation. She made a mental note to question the fox about it later.

"Sir, I am corporal Judy Hopps of the NCR army and we're not looking for any trouble." She hoped that her voice was soothing enough and words properly chosen to not cause any more tension. Last thing she wanted was a fight on the first day of her assignment.

"No trouble?" The weasel snorted, his gaze shifting from the uniformed bunny to the tod. "That's rich, travelin' in a company like this!" He sniggered.

Nick, on the other paw, didn't find this situation amusing, if the scowl on his face was anything to go by. "Well, we just accidentally stepped into some turd, so why don't you scrape yourself off our soles and get the fuck outta here."

Judy's gaze traveled from one predator to another and wondered what had to transpire between them to reach this level of animosity. She tried to defuse the situation by stepping between the predators.

"Alright, alright, let's not get hostile here. Mr. Weaelton," she addressed the weasel, "both sides can just go about their business without killing each other, right?" Though speaking to the scavenger, she directed the last part to Nick.

"Hah!" Weaselton snorted at her words. "Yer attitude doesn't match yer company, miss Flopps!"

Judy kept her annoyance about the name to herself and maintained a calm expression on the outside.

"It's Hopps, sir." She corrected him. "Back to the matter at paw, we don't want to fight," the weasel threw a quick glance at the gun in Nick's paw, "so feel free to continue whatever you were doing and we will just do what we came here for, right Nick?" Again, she addressed this part to the fox, trying to make sure that he understands.

All she got in response was a muttered 'whatever' and there was no change in his expression.

"Hah," Weaselton snorted. "Fine, just keep that maniac off my back, will ya?" He pointed at the tod, but checking the bunny's reaction.

Judy simply nodded with a friendly expression on her face, though she couldn't help but wonder why this mammal was so nervous around her guide.

Duke edged towards the door lock again, keeping his eyes on the fox, though now he was smiling slightly. The presence of Judy and her apparent command of the situation reassured the weasel a bit. Nick kept him in his sight too, the green stare not leaving the weasel for even a moment.

And said weasel seemed to be not too bright as he spoke again, his voice dropping to a mocking tone. "Still, for you to be NCR's bitch... You are one greedy son of a wh-"

"Get out." Judy heard a low voice from the fox, the tone itself being a threat. She noticed movement with the corner of her eye and turned her head to see her guide aiming his gun directly at the weasel's face.

Weaselton's body visibly sagged, deflating at the sight of the weapon's barrel pointed at his head.

"Out." The fox growled. "Now."

And that was it, no cliche lines, no threats or promises of any kind, only two words and a glare that turned the weasel's legs into jelly. And even though Nick's voice gave off a menacing vibe, his face was completely stoic. No part scrunched in anger, no raised lip and bared teeth, nothing to indicate this sudden display of hostility, save for the green orb piercing the smaller mammal with a gaze that stated Duke's impending death without wasting time for a blink.

Duke's survival instincts finally kicked in and, after swallowing hard, he very slowly raised his opened paws to show his submission and started shuffling towards the door, gathering his backpack on the way.

"Nick! What the hell?!" Judy finally found her tongue, the surprise at the fox's actions giving way to anger. However her remaining complaints were cut off when the mercenary used one paw to grab her shoulder and pull her behind him, all the time keeping the moving mammal at gunpoint. Nick kept his paw on her and steered them in a way that he was constantly between the bunny and the weasel.

"Stay quiet." He told her. The doe wanted to protest at first, but when she heard his voice her response got trapped in her throat. He gave her an order, one she couldn't bring herself to disobey. There was something in his voice… Something familiar but she couldn't exactly pinpoint it.

Weaselton finally made it to the door and quickly slipped outside and out of their view. Thanks to her sharp hearing, Judy could hear hurried footsteps, which at one point turned into a tumble and a thud on the ground followed by several curses, before going back to sound of running and fading into the distance.

Meanwhile, as if nothing happened at all, Nick holstered his weapon and strolled over to the door the weasel tried to open with a lockpick.

"Hey!" Judy finally found her voice and bounced over to the fox's side. "What was that about?!"

Nick took the lockpick left by the weasel and focused his attention on opening the door in front of him. "Just threw some trash out of our way, got a problem with that?"

"You don't just point a gun at someone like that! What's wrong with you? You could've just ignore him, but no, you threatened to kill him!" Judy raised her voice, pouring out her frustration at the fox's actions.

Nick simply kept picking the lock without even sparing her a glance. "You done?"

Click.

The metallic sound announced the opening of the door and the vulpine stood up.

The doe balled her paws into fists. "No! I'm not going to tolerate you pulling out a gun at every person we meet! Why did you do it?" She persisted while the fox opened the door, revealing a small storage room. It had two metal storage racks that were slowly succumbing to the progressing rust. Among several cardboard and wooden boxes Judy could see a dirty piece of rag in the corner, covering something bigger than the dusty clutter laying around. Nick set down his backpack and reached for the piece of cloth while letting out a sigh.

"That moron, even though stupid, would figure out that I really want to get something from here if'd just pressured for him to leave. Dumb as he is, there was no telling what dirty tricks he could've pulled off. He could trail us, lay an ambush outside..." He pulled off the rag, revealing a set of clothing and a piece of armor. "So playing a part of being pissed at his words was a more valid option." He cast her a lazy glance over his shoulder. "The third one was shooting him where he stood, but I figured you wouldn't like that. Satisfied?"

Judy's ears relaxed at his response, the tension leaving her muscles. She was surprised, to say the least, that he had such reasoning for that. The doe didn't expect him to be so considerate of her worldview after their initial exchange and his rude behavior. It suddenly occurred to her that there might be more to this fox than met the eye. That and the fact that even when he threatened the weasel with his gun, the fox kept himself between them, something that made her both irritated and slightly warm inside. The irritation came from the fact that she considered herself perfectly capable of protecting her own hide and didn't need anyone's help to do that. Ironically, the same fact of being protected was the reason of the faint feeling of internal warmth. Being an independent bunny all her life, never expecting anyone doing something for her, always first to do things for others, Judy never experienced anyone standing up for her or protecting her from anything. Even if this was under contract, it was a novel thing for the young doe and caused an unfamiliar, but pleasant tingle.

"Yeah… a better option." She muttered, eyeing curiously the stuff uncovered by her companion. And then her eyes grew wider when the fox dropped his backpack and shrugged the coat off his shoulders leaving himself just in the sleeveless shirt. Several pistol holsters came to her view - under his left shoulder, on the belt by his right side and even one on the small of his back. Judy was about to ask his reason for undressing when her gaze fell on his arms and her voice got trapped in her throat.

Almost every inch of his arms was covered in scars and wounds. Cuts, healed up holes, possibly stab wounds and even patches of fur missing, revealing burnt skin, there were even a few bite marks. The doe stared at the fox with mouth agape, her eyes shifting from wound to wound, travelling along the uncovered parts of his body. As she blatantly stared at Nick her own paw has risen to her cheek where it brushed the fur hiding several thin scars from a childhood incident.

Sweet cheese and crackers…

Judy couldn't stop herself from thinking about the origin of those wounds. Where did they come from? When did it happen? Who did this to him? All those questions flooded her mind as she stared in silence as the fox put on the chest-piece of the armor. He slipped it on his torso along with the shoulder pads, before strapping on also a couple of shin guards. To complete his outfit the fox put back on his coat, once again hiding the gun holsters. He also picked up a few items left on the floor and put them into his backpack.

Judy blinked when he turned towards her, the movement breaking her out of her stupor.

"We're going." He announced and passed by her without another word.

The girl opened her mouth to say something but the fox was already at the door so she closed her mouth and hurried after him. Once outside, her guide started strapping his backpack to the motorbike again, preparing for departure.

In the awkward silence between them Judy mulled over what she could say to the fox, not comfortable with such a quiet atmosphere. But asking about his scars right off the bat seemed improper, so she decided to go with a different topic.

"Say, how do you know that weasel? I'm assuming you've met before?" She folded her arms as she observed his work.

"When you're travelling across the Mojave," he pulled on a strap, "you're bound to bump into pieces of shit like him."

Judy rolled her eyes. "Why do I get a feeling that you don't like each other?" Her voice was now laced with sarcasm.

He shot her a side look of his green eye, pausing his work. "There are very few mammals that like me." Nick told her with a smirk as he leaned down, supporting himself with a paw on the dusty ground, to look at the backpack from a different angle and reached with other paw to check on the hold of the sack.

"That's not what I have meant, but I understand that feeling." She shot back, giving him a stare of her half-lidded eyes.

The vulpine's lips formed a wide smile and he pulled the last strap before standing up to face the bunny. "Aren't you a feisty one."

She locked gazes with him. "You'd be surprised."

Nick let out a sigh and moved his paws, mirroring her gesture of folding arms. "Alright, then let's put it to the test." He nodded towards the bunny, his smile suddenly gone, replaced with a serious expression. "Attack me."