Nick lounged on a chair in McHorn's office, tapping away at his phone. Beside him, Judy was reviewing the report she had done on Harris's disappearance. She checked her phone for the time in frustration. "He's doing this deliberately. He's nearly half an hour late."

Nick shrugged. "Ever since he had that run-in on the Susslun case with Hunter, he hasn't like us much. Can't be fun to have a homicide case taken away from you and given to a patrol officer."

"It's not right. He can at least be professional about it."

The door suddenly opened and McHorn, a rhino detective who had been fairly recently promoted from patrol, stumped in. "Hopps, Wilde," he said dismissively. He sat down behind his desk. "So you're going to be working for me on this missing mammal case."

"With you," corrected Wilde.

The rhino looked at him. "I'm the detective, you're the beat cop. I'm in charge of the case, Wilde."

"We did the initial legwork, McHorn. What have you turned up so far?"

The detective hesitated. "I've got a lot on my plate."

Wilde eyed the bulky cop. "Doesn't look like your plate stays full for very long."

Judy sighed. "Nick, this isn't helping. Be professional."

"Hey, I'm as professional as hell."

McHorn snorted. "Yeah, right. How professional is it to date your partner?" Judy glared at him.

Nick bristled. "You want to bring personal lives into it, McHorn? How's wife number- what, three?"

"Four. And she's just great!"

"Finally picked one that could stand you, huh? Well, they do say practice makes perfect."

"That's enough!" shouted Judy. Both male cops turned to stare at her as she stood on her chair, practically vibrating with anger. "Stop acting like children and let's see if we can't do our job and try to help an innocent mammal!"

Nick and McHorn glanced at each other, then looked abashed. "Sorry," muttered Nick.

McHorn started to say something, then thought better of it when Judy cocked an eyebrow at him. "Okay, fine. You asked if there were any other missing mammal reports- here you go." He brought out a stack of folders from behind his desk and set it down with a thump. "Thirty in the last month."

Nick and Judy glanced at one another. "Thirty?"

The rhino shrugged. "Street mammals. Homeless. They tend to disappear, sometimes their families actually report them missing. They usually turn up. It's getting to be winter, so quite a few of them sort of, well, migrate to where it's warmer."

Nick picked up the first folder, glanced inside. He showed it to Judy.

"There's less here than in the Otterton case," said Judy.

"Hell, Otterton was a 'priority' case," said McHorn. "Family man, goes missing? That's unusual. Mammal diagnosed with schizophrenia? A lot less so."

"This is normal for the time of year, you said?" asked Nick, flipping through some of the other folders.

"More or less."

Judy looked at him. "Yeah, that's what we asked. More? Or less?"

McHorn sighed in annoyance, turned to his computer. "Let's see." He typed carefully at it, pecking away slowly as Nick gave Judy an exasperated glance.

Finally, he looked up. "Okay, according to this, we're about average, though maybe a bit higher than usual. Call it two to three more cases than we might expect." He shrugged again. "Well within normal variance, though."

Judy sighed. "Well, I'll take the reports anyway. Maybe there's some sort of connection."

"Suit yourself." McHorn pushed the stack of folders towards them. As Nick and Judy each took half, he spoke up again. "Mammals go missing, Hopps. Most of them because they want to be. You can't save everybody."

"But we can at least try," said Nick.

Judy looked at him and smiled.

McHorn shrugged. "Easy to say. Of course, you realize that you might be trying to save them from themselves."

Judy hesitated as she was walking out the door, looked back at the older mammal. "Maybe they just need a friend, someone to take an interest in them."

"We're not paid to be someone's friend," said McHorn dismissively.

"No," replied Judy. "It's something we do on our own."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"How do you feel, rookie?" asked Hunter, his tone cheerful to mask his worry. Tavi sat on the back of the ambulance. Nearby, another ambulance crew was checking out the restrained human who they had taken down, his wife hovering anxiously nearby.

"Like someone picked me up by the tail and slammed me into the concrete," replied Tavi. A rabbit medic was shining a light into her eyes.

"Any nausea or dizziness?" asked the medic.

"No, I feel fine, just sore," said Tavi.

"I'd like to get you checked out at the hospital," said the rabbit. "If you lost consciousness-"

"She did," put in Hunter.

"-there's the possibility of a concussion."

"I feel fine," insisted Tavi.

Hunter leaned towards her. "Tavi, listen. You need to go see a doctor right now. And probably take some time off, just in case."

"You just want to get rid of me," she said lightly.

He snorted. "Well, sure, but it looks bad if a rookie dies on me. There will be all sorts of paperwork."

"Who will watch your back if I'm off?"

"Hey, rookie, I can take care of myself."

She grinned at him. "You know you've got something on your neck?"

He frowned. "Huh?"

She grabbed an alcohol wipe from the ambulance and moved up next to him. Deftly, she wiped his neck and held it out to him. "See?"

There was a bluish-purple smear on the cloth. Hunter sighed. "Wilde. He wiped blueberry filling on my jacket yesterday. I could have sworn I had gotten it all off."

"See? You need someone to look after you," said Tavi. She smiled at him. After a moment, he smiled back.

The rabbit paramedic glanced between them. "Um, maybe I should, er, leave you two alone..."

Both cops looked at him incredulously. "What?" said Hunter. "No, it's not- she's my rookie!" He paused. "And a mongoose."

The rabbit pursed his lips. "You have something against mongooses- mongoosi-" He stopped.

"Mongooses," muttered Tavi.

"It's mongoosen, don't listen to her." Hunter shook his head. "She's like, a tenth my size. Geeze, this planet is weird sometimes."

"But interesting," said a dry voice.

Hunter froze. Tavi was about to say something, but stopped when she saw his face. His dark skin had paled, and his eyes were wide. She shivered.

It was the first time she had ever seen her training officer look frightened.

Slowly, Hunter turned to face the speaker.

A man wearing a nondescript gray suit, neither shabby nor flashy, who stood a few meters away from the ambulance, an expression of dry amusement on his face. Hunter stared at him.

"Where did you come from?" he asked, his voice cold.

"From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it," said the man. "Do I know you?"

"Stay here," ordered Hunter to Tavi.

She looked at Hunter's set face, at the man leaning casually against a wall. "But-"

"Stay. Here." She watched him walk towards the man.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hunter got closer, and the man looked at him with vague interest. "Is there a problem, officer?"

"You're dead," said Hunter calmly.

For a long moment, the man just looked at him. "I'm trying to decide how to refute your argument, and I haven't come up with anything better than, 'No, I'm not.'"

"How are you- why are you here, Lucas?"

Lucas shrugged. "I go where my work takes me."

Hunter moved closer, Lucas remaining in his casual position, hands in his pockets. "That's your game, then? More cryptic answers to simple questions?"

"Oh, it's a game to you, is it?" Lucas glanced over his shoulder at Tavi. The mongoose had hopped down from the ambulance, but was just out of earshot. "I'm willing to play. I'll give you the first move. By the way, is that your partner? She looks to be just adorable. I wonder what she's really like." He paused, looking Hunter in the eye. "You know. Inside."

His eyes bugged out as Hunter punched him hard in the solar plexus. With a gasp, he doubled over. Hunter followed up with an uppercut with his other fist.

Hunter grabbed him by the collar, preventing him from falling to the ground. He leaned over to speak into the man's ear. "You watch your mouth, Lucas."

"An interesting-" Lucas tried to catch his breath. "-first move. A bit-" he gasped again. "Direct, don't you think?"

"You want a game, Lucas?" With a smooth motion, Hunter drew his sidearm, brought the muzzle up under Lucas's chin. "How about a rousing round of Russian roulette? You go first."

The other man eyed him. "That's a semi-automatic, Hunter."

"I never said it'd be a long game, did I?"

Lucas's eyes flicked towards the ground. Immediately afterward, Hunter felt a familiar tug at his pants leg. "Hunter!"

He glanced down before returning his eyes to Lucas. "Tavi."

"What are you doing?" she half-shouted. "There are mammals everywhere!"

He looked around. Sure enough, a number of shocked mammals were staring at Hunter and Lucas. Several had their cell phones out, recording.

Lucas grinned. "They don't have the death penalty here, do they? Still, I doubt you want to spend the rest of your life in prison, Hunter. I assure you, I'm not the man you think I am. I have identification to prove it."

For a long moment, Hunter stared at him. He cocked the pistol.

Lucas's smile slipped, just for a moment.

With a nod, Hunter stepped back, de-cocking his sidearm. "I'm going to find you, Lucas."

The other man straightened his jacket. "I suspect I'll find you first." He started to turn, then glanced back. "After all, I already have."

With an insouciant wave, he walked off.

Hunter looked down at Tavi, who was staring at him in shock. "Who was that?" she whispered.

Hunter watched the other human walk away. "A dead man."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"He did what now?" Judy stared at the mongoose as they walked together down the hall in the police station.

"Punched a guy in broad daylight!" said the rookie, who was shivering nervously. "Twice!"

Nick and Judy exchanged looks. "Where is he now?"

From down the hall, they heard the sound of a door slam, then Bogo's voice. "HUNTER!"

"Talking to the chief," said the mongoose miserably. "Are they going to fire me?"

"You didn't do anything," said Judy reassuringly. "And I'm sure he had a reason."

The sounds from the chief's office rose, though muffled enough that they couldn't make anything out, until the door swung open again.

Hunter walked out, his face carefully neutral. He walked down the hallway, coming to a sudden halt as he saw the three smaller mammals approach him.

"What the hell, Hunter?" asked Nick.

The human looked at him, then without answering turned to his rookie. "You're fine, rookie. You didn't do anything and reported the incident right away."

"I didn't report anything!" protested the mongoose. "I-"

Hunter held up a few pages of a document. "Yeah, you did. Or someone did, using your name, maybe a more experienced officer that wanted to make sure you didn't get in trouble because of his stupidity." He paused. "It was me, in case that wasn't clear. Keeps you out of trouble."

Tavi stared at him.

"What about you?" asked Judy.

"Suspended. Would have been fired, but Lucas never complained- I sort of expected that." Hunter shrugged. "I'm not a complete idiot. Although I'm probably still going to get fired once the investigation is complete."

"Who is this guy?" demanded Nick. "Someone from AlphaCen, I take it?"

"His name is Lucas. That's all you need to know."

Both Judy and Nick glared at him. "You got suspended because you punched this guy, and it sounds like he was threatening you from what Tavi said," Judy pointed out. "And we're your friends."

Hunter shook his head. "Sorry, but it's safer this way. I can take care of myself."

Judy tapped her foot in frustration. "What's with this guy? What has he done?"

For a long moment, Hunter tried to stare her down, but finally looked away. "What has he done?" he repeated tonelessly.

"Whatever he wanted to."

With that, their friend walked past them.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Author's Note: For those who don't know firearms, Russian roulette is a "game" (actually a sophisticated form of suicide) where the "player" puts a single round in a revolver then spins the cylinder. Then they pull the trigger with the gun to their head. If the chamber is on the loaded round, the gun goes off and they die. A semi-automatic is magazine fed, so there's no cylinder and no randomness- there will always be a round loaded assuming one is carrying with a round chambered, as cops generally (read: virtually always) do. Playing Russian roulette is a Darwin Award. Playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic is a Darwin Award with Honors.

In case anyone is wondering, Hunter would (and will, assuming nothing else happens) get fired and almost certainly indicted for this incident regardless of whether the victim came forward, since it's on video and there are other witnesses. I generally follow police procedure, but Rule of Drama intervenes occasionally. Still, there will be consequences.

So this is the point where this story starts to get darker. I still intend to include jokes to try and lighten the mood, but it's not going to be quite as funny as I've tried to be before. However, as an antidote to that, I've been toying with the idea of some parody fics using Zootopia characters. For example, a Zootopia version of Dragnet. It would look something like this:

This is the city. Zootopia. A place where predators and prey live together in harmony. Founded on the site of an ancient water-hole where evolved mammals first began working out how to live together, it's a place where mammals can be anything they want to be, where the range of choices are near-endless. Most mammals make themselves successful, raise their families, create a home. Other mammals make other kinds of choices, preying on the honest and hard-working. That's where I come in. My name is Hopps. I carry a badge.

(Dragnet title music)

The story you are about to read is true.* The names have been changed to protect the innocent.**

*This story is not true.

**The names are made up because this is fiction.

This is primarily writing practice for me, so this opens up a lot of possibilities. If you want to see a parody of a particular work, please note it in a review or PM me. I will try to do one, though subject to the following caveats:

Some works just won't, er, work. For example, a Terminator parody has little to do with Zootopia. It doesn't have to be a police drama/comedy, but it should be something that would be interesting to parody using the Zootopian universe. Examples of non-police works that I've already considered include The Dresden Files, Scrubs, and Burn Notice.

If I'm not familiar with it, and it's something that will take a long time for me to familiarize myself with (such as most anime, which tends to have very long and detailed story-lines), I probably won't be able to do it. If it's a single movie and I enjoy it, I may watch it and then try to do a parody.

Most parodies will have me run out of good jokes pretty quickly. So they'll tend to be short (maybe 2500-5000 words, tops).

Some things just won't click with me- humor is difficult to write well. I'll do my best- this is intended to challenge me- but if I can't come up with something good, I can't do it.

But feel free to ask me for anything. This will be fun for me and you guys, I think, and will also challenge me creatively, which is my main goal here. Thanks!