A.N.

HAPPY WEEKEND! Let me present to you chapter 3 to celebrate! Thank you guys so much for reading, I'm glad most of you like it so far :D And good guesses so far... but sorry, no one has actually predicted the outcome I have planned at the moment! I hope you like this chapter and please review :) Oh and I also want someone to make a cover for this fic, if you're interested in making one please PM me with a link to your artwork. I will pick one winner around April 6th or 7th ;) it's kind of like a contest, isn't it :P The main idea will probably be revealed in this chapter (not how she gets pregnant though, there are 2 weeks left, be patient).

To those who review: thank you so much! Every review means a lot to me :D

Nick felt rather threatened taking the case that they did. He was way paranoid than before, and today was only the fourth day on this case. He had heard the day before that Judy was going to be leaving for the weekend -at least today was still Thursday- to visit her family for some kind of reason. Speaking of family, his would definitely be proud to hear that he actually had a job, but would they really be happy, especially his father, a con-man like he use to be, to know that he was stopping some people from earning what little they could earn in Zootopia by using... a few fraudulent methods? He didn't know, nor did he want to know. He was happy for Judy though. That morning, before he went out, he found Judy at his door.

"The thieves are auctioning the box!" She said between breaths.

"What?"

"I saw the logo on the box, it was that box, they were carrying it inside an science equipment auction or something," she panted, though now her breaths less rapid. "We need to go!"

Being dragged and breakfast-less, Nick went out the door with Judy and into the car.

"Woah, did you already go to the office?" Nick asked, surprised.

"I've been there all night," she put the keys in and started the engine. Even through her determination, Nick saw her exhaustion.

"We still have time, cottontail. There's no time limit for this. You need rest."

"And money, if we're going to win this auction. We can't let anyone else have the box, it might be our only chance!" She exclaimed, all stressed out. She was now heading towards the bank.

"Does the chief know about this?" Nick asked curiously, and she nodded.

"He gave me permission to withdraw from the ZPD's account. We can't lose."

"Okay," Nick simply said and looked out the window. He didn't really want to bother her determined mood at the moment. But really, money wasn't necessary if they were just going to take the thing for investigation. Judy was in too much of a rush to be thinking clearly.

At the bank, Nick waited in the car while Judy went to withdraw money. His stomach growled, and he sighed. He was so hungry right now, he could eat a whole sheep. Maybe that Bellwether, who was now in jail thanks to him and his partner, but she probably wouldn't taste that good. Wow, his thoughts had trailed off. He hadn't had any meat since the day he met Judy, mainly because he avoided going to the black market that butchered prey criminals. Then he saw someone selling food on the street. It was that stupid bunny Ronnie. He was right there, selling different types of berries, telling everyone about how good they were or what type of berry was good for what. Because of his pride, he couldn't lower himself to need someone like Ronnie. And so he left his stomach growling. Judy had finally come back with a briefcase, which Nick presumed was full of money.

"You do realize this makes no sense, right? You want us to buy the box? Don't we have special privileges as police officers?" Nick asked, while Judy turned on the engine.

"Just in case," Judy grinned, "think ahead, Nick."

She drove right past Ronnie, and it was quite obvious that she did not see him making a fortune of her parent's berries.

The auction hall was not large, and it was already packed with people; almost all the seats were full. The only thing notable about it was were the multiple chandeliers. It didn't seem like a legal event, so Nick insisted that they changed into anything that wasn't their ZPD uniform. In the end, Nick was wearing a suit and tie with his favorite sunglasses, while Judy wore a poofy pink dress. Nick snickered at the sight, and Judy furrowed her brow.

"This is ridiculous!" She huffed. "Why do I have to look like a baby? I'm an adult, for heaven's sake! If you were such a good con artist, I don't see why you couldn't 'borrow' something nicer!"

He grinned. "Who said I didn't think this was 'nice'? I've always wanted to see a bunny in pink."

"Where did you get the clothes anyway? They couldn't have just been lying around and there aren't any stores nearby."

"Let's just say that two people would look terrifically fit for going to Mystic Springs Oasis."

"You mean the naked place?" Judy asked; she didn't recall the exact name of the place where all the animals were naked. She shuddered at the thought of it. An elephant doing yoga was something she could never unsee.

Nick smirked. "Maybe."

There was nothing Judy could do now and an idiotic smile was tugging at her lips, she could only hope that the animal without this poofy pink dress was better off without it. Nick though... did look excellent in a tux. So she just rolled her eyes, pretending to be annoyed, and motioned to go into the hall. It had started a while ago, and they were still bidding on the third item. Some kind of microscope. The weasel wearing a tux and a red bowtie up on stage looked extremely eager to sell.

They stood there bored until the box came out.

"$4000, anyone?" The weasel called, and Judy immediately put up her card.

A hippo had put up his or her card too. "5000," he said crisply.

"6000!" Judy shouted, and another card went up.

"8000," a lady said. Her voice was familiar, but Judy couldn't remember who that was. She couldn't even tell what animal she was since she was wearing a cloak that hid all her features.

"10000," the hippo managed, though there was a strain to his face.

The lady looked like she had given up, and immediately left the hall.

"10001!" Judy yelled, and everyone turned to look at the bunny in the pink poofy dress that cried out such a large amount of money. Her face turned as pink as her dress.

"100000," the hippo said, and Judy's blush paled. The ZPD didn't have that much money in the account. $10000 was already pushing it.

"Going once, going twice, AND IT'S SOLD TO YOU, SIR! I will be giving out the items at the back, so those who have won the bidding, please climb on up here backstage to pay and receive your item."

Everyone else in the hall left, while those who bought items climbed the stage and walked to the back of the red curtains. The two officers followed those who had bought items with their badges and weapons in hand.

They waited until the weasel was giving the hippo his item.

"ZPD," Nick said as he walked up to the weasel. "We would like to investigate that box."

The hippo in the baggy hoodie beside him looked disgruntled. "I bought this for a large amount of money! No one is taking this..."

"We would just like to open it, if there's nothing that's that big of a deal, we will gladly let you have your box," Judy said calmly in an attempt to appease the hippo.

The hippo turned to the weasel. "Sir Weaselton, do you allow this!?"

Sir Weaselton shook his head. "Look, I'm sorry. I've sold it to him, it's his property now. See you guys."

The weasel in the tux left with four checks that no doubt had large numbers written on them.

The hippo grunted in... was that joy? and spun around to leave.

"Oh no you don't. We could easily arrest you and bring you in for questioning," Nick said smoothly and raised his gun, which had sedatives as bullets.

The hippo smiled menacingly. "You think that can stop me?" He began laughing. Nick shot, aimed right at his chest. Seeing that nothing had happened, he shot three more times. He knew that larger animals required more to put down. But there were only ten of those darts in his gun and he could only hope that they were enough to stop a huge, heavy animal. The hippo easily took them out, showing no sign of drowsiness or any of the symptoms that were suppose to accompany the sedative injections.

Then, the hippo swiped at Nick, who swiftly dodged it by stepping back. Now, Judy had her gun in her hand. Her's was actually filled with bullets. The hippo was about to hurt Nick, and this would obviously be self defense. She fired two at the hippo's legs but the hippo didn't even budge. Instead, he lunged for Nick, and clawed -his hand was mutated, just like Professor Ploddenton's- at Nick, who was still firing. He only had one more shot left. The fox didn't fire the last shot, and instead, grabbed Judy by the wrist and ran. Judy was still firing, she still had quite a few bullets left.

"Run all you want. I won't forget you two though, Officer Wilde and Officer Hopps," the hippo snarled but it turned into another vicious smile, "if you can run away quickly enough."

The hippo started chasing them, while Judy fired, the bullets making almost no dent in his thick skin. Nick and Judy kept running towards the car, but the hippo was gaining in on them. Nick jumped off the stage with Judy and fumbled -foxes couldn't jump as well as rabbits could- and Judy ended up pulling him up. But it wasn't quick enough. The clawed hippo managed to jump down without hesitation and claw Nick's back. Four red streaks of blood appeared from the back of his suit as she heard him wince. The enemy seemed satisfied for a while, but it wasn't enough. Judy kept shooting, but nothing seemed to harm the hippo. He was laughing as loud as ever. Judy dragged Nick, who winced every step. The claw marks were probably deep.

"It hurts, a lot. I'm slowing you down. You can go get backup. I can handle it," Nick said, teeth clenched as he tried to keep up with Judy. Looking at Judy's worried face, he gave a weak smile. "I'm slick remember? I'll figure something out. Go."

"I can't leave you like this! If you think I could then-" Judy started to protest, but Nick launched her forward but not before whispering something in her ear. She almost cried, but she held the tears in. She was an officer, duty came first. When Nick stopped running, the hippo stopped chasing and smiled deviously. It took a second for the hippo to actually halt because of its weight. At times like this, Judy hated Nick so much. So so much. Him thinking that she would be okay if something happened to him while she was unharmed. It wasn't okay. And then whispering into her ear I've always like liked you. She thought they agreed to not bring it up since the day before. Though she wanted to stay and do something, anything, she ran in the opposite direction, knowing that this was the only way she could help him. Once she was out the auctioning hall, she took out her phone and called the ZPD. Clawhauser answered with his usual jovial tone.

"Backup! We need it RIGHT NOW!" Judy shouted into the phone, thinking she could apologize for killing off some of his ear cells later. She quickly told him the address, which Clawhauser copied down correctly the first time.

"They'll be there in five to ten minutes, you guys will be okay!" Clawhauser said to her before he hung up. Yeah right, she thought bitterly. She needed to find weapons, something that could bring the hippo down. She went down the building's hallway, looking for anything useful.

Nick kept running. And he took off the stupid tuxedo jacket. He knew he lost a lot of blood, everywhere he looked at was red and every move was pain. Right now he was on top of a chandelier, which he managed to climb with the help of staircase and the curtain that he climbed and swung on. His claws had come in handy. At least I have natural claws, he thought, remembering the hippo's artificial, extremely sharp ones. There were about ten little chandeliers on the ceiling, and each was accessible from another when he swung by the right force. The hippo looked like he was going to climb up with him, but he didn't. Instead, he began throwing things from the ground like chairs or tables, anything that would get Nick off the chandeliers, or anything that would get the chandeliers off the ceiling. He dodged three to four times, but bit by bit, the hippo was getting closer to getting him off. Every time something hit the chandelier, bulbs broke and glass cut into his skin. Everything hurt. If only he could... Unscrew the chandeliers from the ceiling. Quickly, Nick dropped one of the last three chandeliers remaining, and swung to another one. Luckily, they were easy to unscrew off the ceiling. This chandelier landed close to the hippo, but it didn't hit on spot. One more. If he fell from here, maybe he'd get a severe back injury or a broken leg. Or worse case scenario, death. At least he had seen Judy in a pink poofy dress. The hippo threw another chair. Nick swung from that chandelier to the last one on the ceiling. The dropped chandelier crashed with the chair, sending hundreds of small glass shards down. One of them, or more, he hoped, managed to pierce the hippo's eyeball. The hippo cried in pain, and Nick felt himself relax for a second. Hopefully, he wasn't going to die today. His adrenaline was all burned out, he felt a bit dizzy. To avoid falling, he clutched on to the fancy lights as tightly as he could with the remaining energy he had.

The hippo was, for the moment, blinded and trying to get the glass shard out of his eye. Judy had found a rope, which she found from the curtains in another room and nibbled off using her teeth. She ran around the hippo, and pulled the rope after she made sure that the rope was around the him. It wasn't easy -she had pulled more than four times- to bring the hippo down, but she had managed to make him lose balance. The hippo fell with a large thud, almost like an earthquake. It was then, through the few seconds of silence, had she noticed the amount of the blood that was around the floor. Glass stained in red were everywhere, as well as part of the floor itself. The curtain near the stage was coated in maroon, which was obviously blood. Only one chandelier was left on the ceiling, and Nick was on it, covered in blood. He had taken off his tuxedo and was now in a plain white collar shirt, which was in tatters and stained in red all over the place.

"Nick," at first a whisper, "NICK!" She shouted, hoping that he was still conscious. There was no response. Tears began welling in her eyes, and once they started coming out, they wouldn't stop. I like like you too. Maybe I always did. Why do you like childish terms like 'like like'? I don't know when I fell for you. From far away, she heard sirens. The backup was here. They were late. If they had come earlier... But he might not be dead. Though the amount of blood he lost looked like a huge amount, he still might be alive. He has to be, Judy thought furiously. He has to be.

Chief Bogo came in and observed the scene. He looked startled, not expecting so much blood everywhere. Then he looked up to where Nick was. He ordered the rhino to find a ladder and take Nick down from the chandelier and send him to the hospital immediately; calling an ambulance might take extra time. He ordered the others to take care of the hippo on the ground.

"Report," he said in a tone, less harsher than usual. He didn't even question why Judy was dressed in such a girly and idiotic fashion.

Judy wiped her tears and told him everything: about the serum and about what it could do, why they were here, who the hippo on the ground was and what they had learned from Dr. Grass.

"A hippo with claws is interesting indeed," he murmured. "The serum is still here then? After you show me you are dismissed. I wish for the best."

Judy nodded, and led him to the stage and to backstage, where the box was. The hippo had put it down before he went to fight. Or was he working with others? The box was gone, the only sign that it had ever been there was the label that Weaselton had put on before selling it in the auction. The serum was gone.

Meanwhile

Amelia Grass sat down at her desk, replaying previous events in her mind. She had watched all the way of how the fox and the bunny had helped each other and then manage to take down the Roger the hippo. Though she didn't get the serum in the auction, she had learned something extremely valuable. Nick and Judy were the perfect test subjects for her experiment. She already had their DNA, which she had collected from their saliva when they sipped through the straws when they had ice tea. All she had to do was start the process. Of making an Amalgam.