The next day felt like a blur to Judy, even considering the fact that she had to stay an extra half an hour to cover the time she missed the previous day.
Luckily, though, when it came to her little white lie about having a date to go to, she managed to get off scot free, as word had apparently not traveled through the precinct. If Clawhauser was still there, she would have had to fend off questions for the next week, so she was thankful for that.
Eventually, the end of her shift came along, and Judy immediately clocked out, waving a quick goodbye to Johnathan before rushing out and heading towards her apartment.
On their way back from Eric's apartment, Nick and Finnick had laid out what they wanted her to do so that she would be ready for the heist tonight. At first, it seemed like what you'd expect to do when trying to break in somewhere, like with wearing clothes that help you blend in and staying focused so that you don't make any stupid mistakes.
What came as a surprise to her, though, was that the next thing they asked was for her to bring along her police-issued tranquilizer gun. While she was definitely very confused at first, wondering why they would need something like that, after some careful explanation, she soon realized that there would be a surprisingly good use for it.
"That tranq gun has got to have a pretty decent dosage if you have to take mammals double your size out. If we bring it along, you can use it if we run into any trouble," she remembered Nick saying.
While she was definitely a little worried that it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought it would be, she pulled the gun out of her pocket, having snuck the pistol out of the building while no one was paying attention.
With her priorities now set, Judy placed the gun on her bed before shuffling through her closet, trying to find something that would work for what they were planning on doing.
Unfortunately, being the eternal optimist that she was, all of the clothes she brought with her on her journey from Bunnyburrow were on the brighter end of the color spectrum, so she would most likely stick out like a sore thumb if she tried anything that was in front of her.
The closest Judy could get to actual darker colors turned out to be a gray ZPD branded T-shirt with blue sweatpants also with the logo branded on the side. While it wasn't the best colors you would choose when trying to stay out of sight, it was the best she could do on short notice, so she quickly changed before stuffing the tranq pistol in her back pocket and began heading back down to the streets.
Just like last night, when Judy exited the building, the van was parked along the sidewalk waiting for her.
Heading inside, she was greeted by the two foxes in question, as the bigger one looked at Judy with a slightly disappointed look on his face.
"Really, Carrots? That's the darkest you could get?"
"Yes, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not someone who normally would be purchasing clothes to steal things, need I remind you," she said, a slight air of annoyance in her voice.
Before Nick could make a snide remark, Finnick decided to step in, knowing that this was quickly going to devolve into an argument if he didn't make a move.
"That's enough, you two! We're being expected back at the apartment in thirty minutes, so I don't want you delaying us."
"Then what are you doing sitting around then? Let's go!" said Nick, gently making a shooing motion with his paws towards the windshield.
Finnick grumbled in protest, but he remained silent, choosing instead to focus on driving.
As for Nick, he spent the first few minutes of the trip staring out of the nearby window. However, it didn't take long before his eye caught the presence of Judy in the back seat through the rear-view mirror.
While he was happy to see that Judy was smart in what she chose to wear, he still felt that she looked more like she was going for a light jog than preparing to break into the most secure building in the entire city outside of the First Zootopian Bank.
Unfortunately, they had no real time to go out and buy black clothing for her, so Nick knew that he had to take a different route to go where he would be satisfied that her clothing choice wouldn't hinder their mission.
Nick unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbing hold of the armrest nearby for a few seconds considering he chose the exact moment when Finnick took a corner a little too quickly.
Thankfully, despite being lightly flung into the armrest from the force of the turn, Nick was unhurt, and he took the opportunity once Finnick had straightened the van out to hop into the backseat, leaving the fennec fox with a bewildered look on his muzzle.
As Nick managed to climb up on to the seat, he noticed that Judy was still staring out of the window herself, and his jokester side couldn't resist playing around a bit.
"Hey, Carrots," he whispered once he got close enough to her to where she still wouldn't be able to see him coming.
The work he put in soon came to fruition, as Judy let out an un-rabbit like squeal before whipping her head around to face the giggling fox.
Predictably, this led to him getting a punch in the arm for his trouble, and after a few seconds spent calming himself down, Judy finally got the chance to ask the question that she'd wanted to ask since he came back.
"So what possessed you to risk getting flung into the windshield to come back and see me, Slick?"
Nick was admittedly a little reluctant to actually share what was eating him, remembering how she reacted when he first brought it up not too long ago. However, after a few seconds of thought, he soon realized that what he had in mind was more important than risking hurting Judy's feelings, so he sighed before finally speaking.
"Alright, Fluff, I know that we've been through this whole thing about how I'm not thrilled with the colors you're wearing. Let's not get into that right now."
Judy gave Nick a weird look as she wondered what he was getting at, but she remained silent, allowing him to continue after watching him root around on the floor of the van for a few moments.
"Anyway, I have an idea for how we can work around this."
Judy was a little weirded out by the smile that Nick gave, but she didn't really get a chance to protest, because by the time she was able to move, Nick had already stuffed something over her head.
Ignoring the muffled words from the rabbit inside, Nick finished pulling the clothing over her head, slipping her arms into the sleeves before pulling it tight.
"Wow, look at that! I didn't think it'd actually fit you, but it actually doesn't look too bad," commented Nick as he looked at Judy.
Judy looked down at her body, quickly noticing the fact that she now had a black turtleneck on, which did make her look a bit like those robbers that she usually saw on TV, except without the masks.
Her full attention, however, was on Nick as she gave the fox an incredibly annoyed look.
"Seriously Nick? Did you really have to almost smother me under this thing?" she said, adjusting one of the sleeves that had slipped over her paw a bit.
"Hey, I needed to get it on somehow. Besides, I wasn't even sure if you would be up for wearing it anyway."
"All you had to do was ask. I would have said yes," said Judy, exasperated.
"Right…sorry," apologized Nick.
"Who does this even belong to, anyway?" she asked as she tugged at the slightly loose fabric.
"It's Fin's. He usually carries a spare, as you can see. I was a little worried it wouldn't fit, but it looks good enough."
Nick paused to snicker a bit.
"I mean, who would've thought that fennecs and rabbits have similar body types?"
Thankfully, Judy didn't punch him for that comment, but he did get a dirty look.
As for Judy herself, while she wasn't entirely thrilled with what she was given, considering how much of her frame the sweater covered, she resolved to roll up the sleeves and hope for the best.
When the three of them finally made it to Eric's apartment, they pulled up to find that there was no one waiting for them, not even Clawhauser.
While Judy clearly remembered how secretive Eric was, she was a little surprised to see that he wasn't there to meet them.
Her concerns were quickly assuaged, though, as she was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Eric himself through the back door of the van, carrying what looked like the schematics of City Hall under his arm.
"Get moving. Now!"
Even though Finnick was a little surprised by the otter's sudden entrance, he quickly pulled out of his parking spot, and they were on their way once more.
"You guys were cutting it close," commented Eric.
"I know, I know. We've still got time, though, right?" said Nick.
"Not a whole lot."
Despite the general bumpiness of the moving van, Eric rolled out the schematics and placed it on the floor in front of them.
"The night shift comes in at 8:00 tonight, which gives us about 45 minutes to actually get into the building and out of our entrance vent. We're going to use the change-over to our advantage and get as close as humanly possible to our target while there's no one around, if not all the way in to the office."
"Sounds good. How far away are we, Fin?" asked Nick, looking towards the front of the van.
"We're just getting out of Happytown. Should be about twenty minutes."
"Good. That should still give us just enough time," said Eric, nodding.
What came next came as a bit of a surprise to Judy, as Eric scampered over before placing both of his paws on Judy's shoulders. After briefly noting her current attire (which he didn't comment on, so Judy assumed that he didn't find anything wrong with it), Eric spoke up.
"I need to make sure you're ready for this, bunny cop. There are no redo's in this line of work. So, all I'm asking is are you absolutely prepared to pull this off?"
"Yeah, I am," said Judy, wincing when she realized that her voice cracked a bit.
"I'm not letting you go in there unless I'm confident that you're ready. Now, try again," said Eric, a stern look on his face.
"I'm ready."
This time, her voice remained steady, and Eric could tell from the determined look that she had on her face that she was ready to do this.
Satisfied, Eric released Judy, quickly going over the path they were going to take through the building before rolling it up and stuffing it into a nearby corner.
The rest of the trip was spent in silence, as everyone was busy preparing themselves for the task ahead. Even Judy was doing it as well, although she was admittedly way more nervous about what they were going to do than the others.
Still, it was too late to back out now, so she steeled her resolve and spent her remaining free time focusing.
Once they all finally arrived at City Hall, they parked in an out of the way spot where they wouldn't be seen, which turned out to be in an alleyway a few buildings down from the Lemmings Brothers Bank.
Nick, Eric and Judy quickly slipped out of the van while Finnick remained behind to serve as the getaway driver despite the fennec fox looking like he didn't want to spend his entire night waiting inside said van.
Thankfully, though, he stayed put, and the other three quickly made their way over to City Hall, reaching their way inside in almost no time, which they had thankfully taken into account considering all of the security was focused more on the inside of the building.
Once inside the vent, the three of them began crawling with Eric leading the way through twists and turns. Judy was beginning to think that they were eventually going to get lost with how labyrinthine the vent system was turning out to be, but soon enough they finally managed to make it to their bathroom destination.
With Eric still leading the way, the three of them made their way into the hallway, using the patches of darkness created by the lowered lights (in an attempt to save money on power) to avoid being seen by security cameras.
The plan was surprisingly going pretty smoothly, as by the time they actually got into the building, the guard change-over was going on just as Eric said it would, which gave them some leeway thanks to the lower number of guards.
Unfortunately, the plan turned out to be not as perfect as they thought, as just down the hallway from Bellwether's office they nearly ran into a guard that had not vacated the building, if his lack of flashlight was anything to go by.
Eric was just about to lead the others into an adjacent room so that they could come up with a plan of action, but to his surprise a dart suddenly slammed into the guard's neck, and the tiger went down without any real trouble.
"What was that?" whispered Eric, whipping his head around to face the others.
Nick remained silent, choosing to adopt a nonchalant look on his muzzle. Judy, meanwhile, poked her head out from behind Nick, waving the tranquilizer pistol in her paw.
"Sorry about that. I was worried we were going to get caught, so I knocked him out," she said apologetically.
Eric opened his mouth, knowing that the tiger was going to be way too large for them to drag out of sight, but after a few seconds, he sighed, shaking his head before gesturing for the others to follow.
It didn't take much longer for them to finally reach the door to Bellwether's office, and as Eric set to work picking the lock, Judy couldn't help but notice something very strange going on.
"Why are there still no guards around? Shouldn't the night guards be in by now?" she asked.
"Let's just take this as a good thing and move on, Carrots," whispered Nick, his anxious expression showing that he really wanted to get this whole thing over with by this point.
After a few seconds of tense silence, Eric finally managed to get the door open, and once the three of them slipped into Bellwether's office, the otter quickly spotted a painting hanging behind Bellwether's desk.
Being the professional thief he was, he's seen more safes behind paintings than you can count, and this one was no different, as a decent sized safe appeared once he set the painting down on the ground.
However, the otter didn't get much of a chance to start working on cracking said safe, as a suspiciously feminine voice coming from the door made all three of them freeze in their tracks.
"Hands up, now!"
