Author Notes:
Hello everyone and thanks for your patience. I want to give you some warnings about today's chapter:
Because the development became a bit more... let's say... 'exciting' than normal, I set the rating to T in FF. Don't scare, I didn't go crazy, but I think the following scenes could be a little strong for the most sensitive readers. I don't want to frighten you, but I want to warn the narration may become a bit bizarre. If you don't understand something, I suggest you keep reading until the end of the story to clarify your doubts. If you have any other question, feel free to ask me, Now keep reading a new Dumb Fox chapter, I hope you like it!
Chapter 9: Nick vs. the ZPD
The fox was between a rock and a hard place, although he couldn't see by the height of the hall, he knew he was surrounded, inside the desk there was a small monitor connected to the reception's cameras allowed him to see what was happening outside. The black and white screen showed 6 mammals: a hippo and five tall rams, one of which was very, very large. They all circled the desk and aimed with tranquilizer guns. There weren't as many as the hippopotamus warned him, but he knew soon more will arrive.
"Got damn!" Nick cursed, "If I run out, I'll be shot. I need to distract them, but how?"
Nick searched through the stuff around him: paper sheets, pens, scissors, a stapler, tape, among others, typical office items. He couldn't find anything useful, although he noticed there were a lot of Clawhauser stuff, especially boxes full of food, drinks and Gazelle's merchandise.
"What is this? Is this a... minibar?"
The vulpine found a small fridge at Clawhauser's former work station.
"Meh, I think Clawhauser hide the big guns here, doesn't he?" The fox joked out, hopeless.
He opened it not expecting anything useful, and indeed, he only found more drinks, and some frozen candies, though, he came upon with something frightening.
"Animal Head!?" He read the tag on a circular bag, then cleared it with a paw and reread again, "Oh, 'Schanimal Farm Head of Lettuce'. Feh, I don't know what expect... Shoot! This doesn't help...! Argh!"
Nick accidentally kicked a heavy box next to the appliance.
"Good heavens, rocket launcher please, rocket launcher please…"
Nick opened it and found several ketchup bottles inside.
"Great! This is it," he sighed, "I give up."
Nick sat resignedly waiting for the police to grab him at any moment, to fill his body with tranquilizing darts, to have Bogo or anyone else subdue him, preventing him to look for Judy that day.
"Damn it!" The fox lamented, "I'm an idiot! Why...?"
'Where is the back up I requested five minutes ago? We have a possible 10-91!' said the voice of the hippo, but from Goodwool's radio, the ram who still was unconscious, 'Someone respond! Over.'
Nick approached the fainted ram, picked up his radio, and listened to the conversation.
'This is McHorn.' answered another voice, 'I have a problem with the new recruits, it seems instead of big and strong rams, they gave me a couple of cowardly sheep! I cannot join you at this moment, Higgins; and Rhinowitz recently told me the sheep team assigned to him ran away when they heard the alarm. I'm sorry, but I think you're on your own. Over.'
Nick turned up to see the screen where the mammals were around him, and he noticed all the rams were scared to death, they were aiming their guns towards the reception but they didn't stop shaking their legs and their faces full of anxiety showing how terrified they were. The only one who looked a little braver was the huge hippopotamus, but he seemed unsure of coming in for Nick without more support officers. At that moment, the canid remembered what Finnick had told him about collective hysteria and the natural fear the prey have for predators.
"Hysteria ... fear... I've got it!"
The fox looked around, and he gathered together the useful stuff he found, then took a pair of scissors, approached to Goodwool's unconscious body, and raised his tiny head.
"Sorry, Cotton, I didn't want to do this, but it's you or me; you seemed like a good boy."
The fox grabbed the wool with his paws and without hesitation, brought the scissors close to the little ram.
Outside the reception desk, police officers were still hesitant to act.
"Mr. Higgins, no one will come," said one of the rams, "we better get outta here before…"
"No way, rookie!" the hippo yelled at him, "We are the police, it's our duty to protect the city from any threat!"
"But not dealing with such dangerous beasts, I heard yesterday they injured one of ours," said another ovine, "What if he attacks us? He already hurt poor Goodwool...!"
"He's probably already dead," another ram said.
"Enough!" Higgins yelled again, "We all know the risks of this job, it's too late to regret, so shut your mouths and get ready to cover me, I'm coming in…"
The huge mammal was interrupted by noises coming from the central desk, it was the sound of blows, scratches and objects being thrown against the ground, and the most shocking one: gruntings.
"By my grandmother's wool! He's a savage mammal! We have to wait for backup and…"
"No freaking way!" he kept bellowing, "We can do it!" We are 6 well-trained officers against a silly wild animal, and we have guns!"
"GGGGGRRRRRAAAAAAA, GRRRRR, GRAAAARRRRRR!"
"Oh, but it sounds dangerous!" said the biggest ram of all, "I'd better go outta…"
"Don't be frightened! Let's get this over with. Everybody watch out and shoot everything that moves, understand?"
"Yes sir! Ahhhh...!"
Suddenly, a spherical object flew from the desk, crashing against the floor with a strange red liquid. The ball-like thing dropped at the feet of one of the smaller rams.
"This looks like Goodwool's cap... For heaven's sake!" IT'S A HEAD! IT'S GOODWOOL'S HEAD!"
"WHAT?"
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH! It's over, I'm out of here!"
"Wait, calm down!"
The ram saw something looked like Officer Goodwool's head in front of him, covered with wool and a lot of blood, and he still wore his cap and dark glasses covering his eyes. One of the rams ran off from the station, while the others were shocked by the scene, including the same officer Higgins, scared to death, turned on his radio.
"I-I-It's Hi-Higgins. I confirm the presence of a very hostile savage mammal, we have a 10-0! I repeat 10-0, officer down! I need the whole damn department here at the reception, RIGHT NOW! OVER!"
'McHorn here. What's going on there, Higgins? Over.'
"I can't speak! I have to take care of this before I get out of control, bring your ass and as many mammals as you can here right now! Also, call the Homicide Unit and an ambulance. Over and out."
'WHAT? Higgings, what are you gonna do? Higgins? Higgins!'
The remaining rams were still in shock, but the hippo brought them back to reality.
"It's not time to panic! We must stop him before he does more harm. Cover me and I …"
"There he is!"
"What?"
From the desk came a ferocious red fox walking on all fours, his nose was full of blood and showed a deadly glare, his shirt was torn and with red spots, but the most frightful part was the body of a small ram in his maw.
"Shoot him!"
"Fire!"
No one did anything. They were shocked and paralyzed by fear. But the fox looked at them gloomy, dropped the corpse, and walked swiftly toward the others.
"Oh no, here he comes!" said one of the rams.
"Stay back, stay back!" shouted Higgins, scared to death, "STAY BACK!"
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!"
The vicious fox pounced against the biggest ram of all, the others were terrified watching the scene.
"Help me! He's gonna eat me, he's gonna eat me! TAKE IT OFF ME!"
"Shoot him!" cried out the hippopotamus.
"But sir, he doesn't stop moving! We could hurt...!"
"It's just tranquilizer, nothing will happen if you fail!"
"But it takes 3 minutes to take effect, if we unsettle the fox, it would make him angrier and could kill...!"
"The Fox! Where's he?!"
The savage predator was gone, but the huge ram kept moving.
"Help me, it's inside my clothes! Ouch, he bit me! HE'S EATING ME ALIVE!"
"No! Take this!"
Higgins gathered all his courage and fired 3 darts at the ram, but he kept moving and writhing in pain, while a bulge inside his clothing was running down his body and shedding blood. The other rams did nothing and the hippo shot him countless times, but the struggle continued for more than 2 minutes.
"Help me...! I don't... I don't feel anything," he smiled, "I don't feel pain or suffering... actually I felt... well…" the big ram whispered about to lose consciousness, "Thank... you…"
The ram fell back to the ground on his own blood and stopped moving; for a few moments, there was a disturbing silence. Within a few seconds, strange sounds and rumble were been heard from the ram's body, the prey were astonished, and only Higgins was able to aim with his weapon, waiting for the fox to show itself. In less than a minute, an odd bulge formed inside his clothes and something seemed trying to come out of his shirt from the ram's chest.
"There is the bastard! Fire!"
Higgins tried to shoot but the darts had run out.
"I'm out of ammo, someone else shoots at him"
"I-I-I... ca-can't d-d-do it…" stammered one of the ovines without being able to grasp firmly his own gun.
"Damn! Then give me your...!"
The hippopotamus was interrupted by a horrible sound. From the chest of the fallen ram, the fox erupted violently covered in blood. All the mammals were shocked and horrified by the creepy spectacle, but the thing impressed them the most, besides the grim appearance of a fox coming out of another animal's body, was the cop's red guts in the beast's maw.
"Aaaaggghhhhhh!" a ram screamed.
"Beeelch!" another ovine puked from the awful impression.
"It's not possible! This must be a nightmare!" said Higgins altered.
"GGGGRAAAAAAARRRRR!" roared the wild fox.
The canid sneaked out of the body of the huge animal and looked at the rest of the animals with a soul-piercing glare, then spat the guts off his snout, drooled a little, pulled out his tongue and licked his lips as if he was savoring his next prey. That was the trigger for the rest of the ovine mammals to flee away; the only one left was Higgins, who resigned and scared to death, dropped his weapon and let himself into the ground defeated.
"I'm screwed." said the hippo expecting the worst.
The fox ran at full speed toward the gray-skinned animal, the cop closed his eyes and waited for an imminent attack, which never came. He opened an eye afraid but saw nothing. He turned around with fear, but there wasn't a single fox in sight. Officer Higgins sighed in relief and leaned back, grateful to still be alive.
The ZPD was empty, most of the staff had left the headquarters because of the wild animal threat, the place seemed deserted except for a fox running at full speed down the aisles.
"Ha, ha, ha" Nick laughed as he jogged. "I can't believe it worked!" mentioned happily, "If I remember right, the map said Records should be in the basement."
The sly fox kept trotting around the place until he reached the downstairs.
Again, at ZPD reception, Higgins was still on the ground trying to catch his breath. At that moment, several police officers entered wearing black riot gear with helmets and armed with clubs, shields and non-lethal artillery. An elephant ran up to Higgins, flipped up her helmet's visor, and took the hippopotamus with both paws.
"Higgins! Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm sorry Francine, it's all my fault, I tried to stop it but... I underestimated that savage animal... I must... I must... I must have waited for backup!"
"Calm down Higgins, it's not your fault, it was a difficult situation you couldn't know... Holy Peanuts! What happened here!? What kind of huge, grotesque animal did this?" said the elephant, frightened to see the big ram body.
"It was... it was... it was a fox."
"How horrible... wait, a fox? A little fox did that?"
"I know it sounds unbelievable, but it's true! That freaking bastard beheaded the new receptionist and...!"
"Beheaded? What? What are you talking about?"
"There, look at it with your own eyes!" the hippo pointed to the little ram's head.
"Swinton!" Francine called to a pretty little pig with a little blond hair on her head, "Bring me that!"
The female pig approached it with fear and disgust, closed her eyes, picked up the head and brought it to the hippopotamus and the elephant.
"Is this the head?"
"I know, it's horrible…"
"Higgins, open your eyes and look at this…"
"No, please no...!"
"Do it!"
Much to his dismay, Higgins opened his eyes fearing the worst, but instead saw something very odd.
"This is... a lettuce...? A lettuce head!?"
Higgins held between his paws Goodwool's supposed head, which actually was a lettuce stained red with the ram's cap and what appeared to be wool.
"I don't get it, it seemed like a real one...!"
"I think you were rused, Higgins."
"But we all saw the rest of Goodwool's body at ...!
"The little lamb in the reception desk?" interrupted the pig, "He's alive and with his head where it must to be, just look at him."
From afar, two goats dressed as paramedics was carrying Goodwool on a stretcher.
"How is our 'officer down', guys?" Francine asked.
"Stable, he just fainted and lost a lot…"
"Blood!?" asked scared the hippo.
"No, wool; it seems he has been shaved with scissors, very awful," mentioned the caprine paramedic, "he will need some minor healing and... ugh... clean pants, but apart from that, he'll be fine." the goat answered.
"B-b-but, the blood! There is blood everywhere! How do you explain...?"
The hippopotamus quiet down suddenly when saw the piglet licking the blood from the fake head.
"What the hell are you doing, Swinton?" he yelled to her.
"Don't you smell it? It's not blood, it's tomato sauce. Ketchup."
"What, WHAT?" Higgins cried out hysterically.
The hippo stood up and went to check the huge fallen ram; he saw the huge wound from where the fox had erupted out and the guts he had scattered. With some disgust, he picked up the alleged intestines and got a big surprise.
"What is this? It's cold... are they freezies?"
The supposed ovine's guts were actually small freezies or frozen candies, stapled together like a chain and covered in ketchup, they looked like real bowels.
"He breathes," Swington said, checking the ram's pulse, "he's alive, just sleeps."
"From what I see, the reason he fainted was for the tranquilizers and the scare of being attacked by a 'savage predator'."
"I can't believe it... we were hustled by…"
"A fox!" said a deep, gravely voice from behind.
"Chief Bogo!" the three animals exclaimed in unison.
"Clawhauser!" Nick shouted outside the door.
A chubby and sad cheetah opened the door almost instantly.
"Yes? Nick? Nick!"
"No time, get in!"
Nick entered the place with him but it was a bad idea because inside there wasn't much room. It was full of file boxes, an old computer, the station mainframe, electrical wiring switches and even a boiler, the place made the former office of the now-mayor Bellwether looked like a spacious palace.
"Oh Nick, it's good you come to visit me, you won't believe what happened! Yesterday they moved me to Records. And it's horrible, horrible horrrrrrrrrible!" the cheetah complained incessantly.
"Clawhauser, I don't have…"
"The worst part isn't this little room, nor the bad smell, nor I can't put more food here, but my Gazelle's stuff! Heavens, I don't know the new receptionist, but I hope he doesn't do anything to my small collection of the beautiful and talented angel with horns Gazelle because…"
"Clawhauser, hear me out!" the canid interrupted and crying out him.
"Oh, my bad," said the cheetah, calming down, and looking closely at the fox, "Geez Nick, are you okay? I heard there's a savage mammal loose in my former workstation," he sniffed at him, "and why do you smell catsup? Yummie! Can I lick you?"
"What? Hell, no!" said the fox, disgusted, "I have no time for this, just tell me, did Carrots really quit the police?"
"Yes, Nick," the feline reapplied sadly. "yesterday I found out about it and this morning she came to say goodbye and leave me some stuffed donuts, I felt so bad I ate them right away and…"
"Clawhauser! Sorry, but I don't have much time left. Did you know where she went?"
"Yes, she said is going to return to her apartment for her suitcase and then to wait for her parents to taking her away from Zootopia…"
"What!? Is Carrots leaving today?"
"Yeah, Judy sets off before noon. Nick, I…"
"Berries! Clawhauser! Please, I need Carrot's address, phone or whatever, quickly!"
"Nick, I'm sorry but I can't…"
"Please, Clawhauser, forget the stupid protocols!" the fox pleaded on the verge of tears, "I couldn't contact Carrots before, and now the whole department is after me and I have no more time. Please, you're my only hope!"
"Nick," the cheetah began to cry, "I'm so sorry! But seriously I can't. The savage animal alert has just been activated and this or any other threat to the station blocks the servers for safety." the feline spoke between sobs, "Even if give it a try, the ZPD network will be blocked until the chief declares there are no more threats in the department and reactivates the net himself. Nick, I'm so sorry!"
"That chief buffalo-butt! Damn it... one moment, if I leave the station, then Sergeant Bogo will deactivate the blockade…"
"Or if they catch you first…"
"I wanna see them try it! But you're right, I must get outta here as soon as possible. Clawhauser, quickly, your phone!"
"Here." he handed it over, "For what?"
"This is my number," he said, typing on the feline's phone, "when the ZPD network comes back, find out Carrot's address or number and call me, got it?"
"Okay, but …"
'Attention all units! Chief Bogo here.' it was heard by Goodwool's radio from Nick.
The fox pulled the intercom from his shirt's pocket, he and Clawhauser listened attentively what the buffalo was going to say.
'I confirm a wild mammal is roaming freely at the ZPD…'
"What?" said the incredulous canid.
'The suspect is an adult red fox, he's considered extremely dangerous, he has already seriously injured more than 25 officers; if you see him, subdue it immediately with non-lethal weapons and inform me.'
"25 ?!" exclaimed the vulpine.
"Nick... did you really...?"
"He's lying!" shouted out furiously "Everything was just a hustle, I just scared a few animals, but I didn't hurt anyone. What are planning, Sitting Bull?"
"It's strange, Chief Bogo would never lie on the radio with something sensitive like this, unless he…"
"Feh, he's a braggart, he's challenging me, he... he wants to catch me!"
'To all the remaining officers, I need you to block all the exits.' the buffalo spoke from his communicator, 'Others patrol the area with a partner, never alone. If you see him, don't act on your own and call me immediately. This is it. Over and out.'
Chief Bogo finished the transmission, Nick put the radio in his shirt's pocket and began to look for all the useful objects at the Records room; officer Benjamin Clawhauser saw the fox with great sorrow, though he feared to ask, swallowed hard, and dared to speak.
"Nick ... what are you going to do now?"
"Feh! Isn't obvious? Looking for another miracle in this pigsty!"
The fox was desperately searching for something he could use as a distraction; he nearly gave up when an object on the wall caught his eye, then turned with a smile to Clawhauser.
"Hallelujah!" claimed the fox with joy.
Author Notes:
Sorry for have taken so much with this update, but I was busy with personal issues and finishing my other Rock Dog fanfic, 'Declaration', actually this chapter is sorta incomplete because I wanted to post at the same time the second bonus chapter 'Impossible Love' this one is a bit lighter, so I probably submit it soon. See ya and thank you for your patience.