Most of the drive over to the oryx's house turned out to be in complete silence. Finnick was concentrating on driving, although both Nick and Judy could tell that he was still pretty angry that he was being forced to chauffer them around again.
Nick, meanwhile, was busy keeping an eye out for where the house actually was, considering he was the only one to have ever visited it before. However, his attention wasn't only on the road ahead, as he kept glancing over at Judy, who was once again sitting next to him in the same seat. This time, though, her expression was furrowed, her nose twitching every so often as she was buried in the case file she still had on paw.
"You do know that you're going to go cross eyed if you stare at that folder that closely, right?"
Judy nearly jumped, her ears way too used to the silence that had initially pervaded throughout the van.
"What? Oh…sorry about that." she said, chuckling awkwardly as she looked up at the fox next to her.
"Seriously though, what are you trying to get out of reading that file, anyway? I don't even know what's in there besides that picture, and even I can tell it's pretty light on details."
"Well…" began Judy, admittedly unsure herself at first. "I'm just trying to take a closer look at the picture to see if there was anything I missed."
"Ah, well as I've said, you're going to strain your eyes if you're not careful, especially with a picture of that kind of quality."
"Thanks, mom." said Judy sarcastically, her quip earning her a look and a half-smile from Nick.
"Good, now you're learning to lighten up a bit."
This random comment ended up getting Nick a curious look from Judy.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Nick paused, slightly caught off guard by the sudden questioning, but he quickly managed to get himself back on track.
"Well…" he said, spinning his paw around in a circle as he tried to come up with a good explanation. "I'm not saying that it's a bad thing for someone to be dedicated as they are to their job as you can be. I'm not going to lie, though. You can be a bit of a tightwad sometimes."
Even though Nick was fully expecting the retaliation, it still hurt quite a bit when Judy punched him in the arm again, an indignant look on her face. As Nick shook out his arm to relieve the pain, Judy spoke up.
"I am not a tightwad!"
"Sure you are." said Nick disbelievingly. "And I'm the king of England."
Judy immediately groaned in annoyance, but there wasn't really a good comeback that she could think of, so she just decided to go with the first thing she could think of.
"You are such a jerk sometimes, Nick."
"At least someone agrees with me." said Finnick, rolling his eyes before returning his focus to the road.
"Well, that's not very nice, Fin."
"Do I really care what you think right now, Nick?"
Nick opened his muzzle to reply with a snarky remark, but before he could do so, he was silenced by a dark glare from the fennec fox, a stop light giving him the opportunity to point it right at the fox who forced him into this mess.
Unfortunately, Nick wasn't really fazed by the way Finnick was acting. Still, he decided that it probably wasn't the best idea to rile him up any further, so he quickly returned his focus to the road, and just in time, too.
"Oh, looks like we're almost here. Take a left and stop on the side of the road."
Finnick grumbled in protest, but he did as Nick asked and parked the van near the beginning of the street.
"You stay here. Carrots and I will talk to our friend inside." said Nick as him and Judy began inching their way out of the van.
"As if it was any different…" Finnick said, once again rolling his eyes.
However, Finnick's complaint fell on deaf ears, as the door was already closed, and Judy and Nick made their way up to the house.
Once they made it up to the right house, though, Nick quickly stepped in front of her before she could walk up and knock on the door.
"Hey, listen Fluff, I think it's best if you let me start with the talking."
"Wh-I'm a police officer, Nick! It's kind of supposed to be part of my job to interview witnesses. Why can't I start off?" she said, slightly flabbergasted at the direction Nick was going in.
"Well, here's the thing. As you can imagine, my friend in there's not exactly on the up and up."
"Alright, what did he do?" asked Judy, sighing in exasperation.
"He sells bootleg DVD's, kind of like Duke Weaselton, but more subtle. I assume that someone at the station must have mentioned Duke?"
"Actually, no they haven't, but that's not important. Go on." she said, not wanting to mention the fact that she only heard of Duke's name straight from Nick's mouth.
"Oh…well anyway, the guy's pretty paranoid about cops. This is his third place of residence after the last two places booted him out after he got arrested."
Judy was admittedly a little disappointed that things were going this way, but she was pretty sure that Nick was only looking out for her well-being, so she reluctantly decided to go along with Nick's suggestion.
"Alright, if you think it's best. What is the guy's name, anyway? I don't really want to be fishing around for it while I'm in the middle of asking him questions."
Nick ended up giving Judy a curious look.
"You're not going to use it to get him arrested again, aren't you? I don't think he'll like me anymore if I get his butt sent to jail."
"No, I won't." huffed Judy.
"Alright then. His name's Buck Wildman."
Judy immediately gave Nick a disbelieving look, not buying his name for a second.
"Okay, okay. It's not his real name, it's a pseudonym he goes under. I can't tell you what his real name is, though."
"Why not?"
"Well…let's just say he knows how to use those horns…all too well."
Unfortunately, Judy didn't exactly manage to catch the meaning behind Nick's vague explanation, but they were already wasting enough time standing outside, so she quickly jogged up to the door and knocked, Nick joining her a few seconds later after a slightly slower saunter.
After a few seconds of waiting, the door opened, but before Judy could say anything, Nick stepped forwards, taking charge of the situation.
"Buck! How's it going, buddy?" he said, his arms spread wide and a smile on his face.
"What do you want, Nick?" asked Buck, an unimpressed look on his face.
Nick recoiled at bit at Buck's tone in his greeting, but he managed to remain collected as he continued speaking.
"Well, that's not very nice. Don't you miss your old pal Nick?"
"Nope."
Nick's expression faltered at that moment, but before he could actually try and convince Buck to change his attitude, the oryx spoke up instead.
"Alright, I'm getting sick of this. Tell me what you want or I'm shutting this door in your face right now."
Instead of answering, Nick stepped to the side, allowing Judy to step forwards and take charge.
"Officer Judy Hopps, ZPD." she said.
However, before she could get any further, Buck immediately recoiled, pointing an accusing hoof.
"Oh, I knew that something was up! I can't believe you, Nick…leading the cops right to my house!"
"Hold on, sir. I promise, I'm not going to arrest you. All I want is to ask some questions." said Judy, holding her paws up in an attempt to placate the agitated oryx, but Buck was barely even listening at this point.
"Buck, stop! Seriously, I would never do this kind of thing to you!" yelled Nick over Buck's ranting.
Somehow, this ended up quieting Buck down some, but to both Nick and Judy's surprise, Buck quickly slammed the door in their faces.
Caught off guard, the two of them stared at the closed door in their faces for a few seconds before Judy looked over towards Nick, who had a puzzled look on his face.
"Well, that was rude." she said, huffing.
Nick ignored Judy's comment in favor of staring at the door, wondering just what happened to make Buck that jumpy.
"That's strange."
"What is?" asked Judy, her interest piqued.
"I've never seen Buck act this way. I mean, sure, he's always been incredibly paranoid about cops, as I've told you about, but he's never been this over the top."
Both Nick and Judy paused as they thought about the reasoning behind the way Buck was acting. They didn't get much of a chance to do so, though, because after a few seconds, the door suddenly opened and Judy's eyes widened in shock when she saw what was in Buck's hoof.
"Take cover!"
Judy grabbed Nick, and with a surprising amount of strength for someone her size pushed Nick down the stairs on to the sidewalk.
As Nick quickly took cover against the side of the house's porch, Judy immediately formulated a plan of attack, knowing that it wasn't going to be long before the gun that Buck had in his hoof was going to be pointed at her, which appeared to be a Desert Eagle. Needless to say, the vest that she was wearing probably wasn't going to do much against a gun with that kind of power.
Rolling out of the way, Judy lashed out with a sweep kick, sending Buck off of his feet. She hoped that this would lead to the oryx being disarmed, but unfortunately this wasn't the case, as Buck was able to hold on to it.
Thankfully, though, this stunned Buck long enough for Judy to take cover herself, planting herself on the opposite side of the steps as Nick.
Once she was safely in cover, Judy reached down towards her side, only to mentally kick herself when she realized that she forgot to grab a tranquilizer gun in her haste to get the case moving.
Groaning in annoyance, Judy knew that she had to try and take this guy down another way, so after creeping as far as she could to the edge of her cover (nearly getting her ear blown off in the process as a 50 cal bullet whizzed by), she slowly let out a breath, hoping that her negotiating skills were still up to snuff after academy.
"Sir, please put the gun down and come quietly! I told you, we're not going to hurt you!"
Judy peeked out of her cover, attempting to see if she'd managed to convince Buck, but she was quickly forced to jump back into cover as another bullet flew past her, Buck launching into another long-winded rant about the police as he waved the Desert Eagle around.
"This isn't working!" Judy hissed, more to herself than anything considering Buck was bellowing at this point.
However, to her surprise, when she looked over towards where Nick was, she found that the fox was crawling on all fours, heading towards the edge of the house.
"Nick, what are you doing?" hissed Judy once more, narrowly ducking away from another shot.
Unfortunately, by the time that she spoke up, Nick had already disappeared around the corner, his tail the only thing left that she could still see.
Judy couldn't help but be worried as she wondered what exactly Nick had in mind. She really wanted to just chase Nick down and pull him back to the porch for his own safety, but there was no way that she was going to keep up with him without completely exposing herself, so she reluctantly decided just to focus on keeping Buck distracted.
"I've called for backup, Buck! The ZPD is going to be here any minute, and your living arrangements aren't going to be the only problem you're going to face."
Of course, she was completely bluffing, considering she wasn't anywhere near a police scanner to call in to Clawhauser, but the important thing was that Buck didn't know that.
Thankfully, Buck appeared to fall for the bluff, but not in the way that she expected, as the implications only agitated the oryx even further.
Judy was forced to duck further behind her cover as the shots began ringing out at a quicker pace, but luckily they soon came to a stop. As Judy peeked out to check what was going on, though, she was surprised to find out what was transpiring in front of her.
Nick had his arms wrapped around Buck's neck, trying desperately to reach for his gun and remove it from his hoof. Buck was putting up a fight, though, struggling to reach behind him and pull Nick off.
Judy was admittedly a little stunned at first to see what Nick was trying to do, but she quickly managed to pull herself together and rush forwards, not wanting to wait until Buck gets the idea to use his gun.
By the time she actually managed to make it, though, Nick had already managed to get his paw around the hoof that was carrying the gun, and quickly thinking, unsheathed his claws.
"Sorry, buddy." he quickly apologized before digging into the hoof as deep as he could with his claws.
Thankfully, this did the trick, as Buck successfully dropped the gun. Unfortunately, the shock of landing on the ground ended up making it go off one more time, but luckily no one was hit, as the bullet sailed harmlessly past Judy, although it still came pretty close.
After taking a few seconds to register how close the bullet came to hitting her, Judy rushed forwards once more just as Nick managed to get his arms around Buck's throat, intending to choke him out. Using her impressive leg strength, she hopped up off of the ground, flying towards Buck and successfully catching the oryx in the chest with a textbook dropkick.
This ended up knocking Buck over. Unfortunately, it also had the side effect of Nick banging his head into the front door as they fell against it, but thankfully he was able to keep his grip on Buck's throat.
After a few seconds of struggling to remove Nick's arms from around his throat, Buck finally passed out, his thin frame preventing him from lasting very long in the sleeper hold.
Once Buck was finally fully out cold, Nick finally released his hold, rolling the unconscious oryx off of him as Judy walked up, breathing lightly as she helped the fox up to his feet.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I'm alright." he said, breathing heavily from the exertion. "Though I'm probably gonna end up having a wicked headache after banging my head into that door later."
"Sorry about that." she said.
"It's fine. So…what do we do about him?" he asked, gesturing towards Buck on the ground next to him.
"Well, I'm going to have to take him in for attempted murder. I doubt he has a license for that gun, either, so there's that. Heck, I think we could use this as an opportunity to get him to answer some questions without him trying to kill us."
"I would definitely agree with that sentiment." commented Nick.
After pausing for a few seconds to take a look at the unconscious Buck, Judy walked over to the oryx's feet, reaching down to grab them.
"Here, help me carry him over to the van."
Although Nick was slightly caught off guard by what she was asking, he willingly walked over to Buck's other side, wrapping his paws under Buck's armpits as he lifted him up off of the ground. He was doing most of the heavy lifting, but he wasn't really one to complain much, thankfully.
As the two of them made their way to the van, Judy couldn't help but comment on what she had seen out of the fox.
"So Nick, where did you go, anyway? I was kind of worried when you disappeared around the house."
"Oh, I just snuck in through the back door. This guy left it unlocked for some strange reason." he said, gesturing with his face towards the unconscious Buck in his arms.
Judy made an impressed noise through the effort of carrying the surprisingly heavy oryx.
"Well, I'm not going to lie, it was a bit reckless."
"But it worked out in the end!" said Nick defensively.
"And I'm grateful for that! Honest! Look, I know you're probably still thinking about whether to join the force or not, right?"
Nick nodded, although he still looked a little perturbed by Judy's assessment.
"Things aren't going to work out the way they did back there all the time. Doing something crazy like that more often than not would only end up with you getting yourself shot."
Judy sighed, pausing for a few seconds before continuing on.
"All I'm asking is that you think your options through before acting, okay?"
"Yeah, I understand." said Nick.
At first, Judy was unsure if Nick was being truly honest, but when she saw the sincere look on the fox's face, she acquiesced, smiling.
"That was a pretty good sleeper hold, though. Where'd you learn that?"
"Oh, Fin convinced me to watch some wrestling one time. Not a big fan, but you can learn some things."
Judy couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the sheer absurdity of Nick's answer.
"Well, if you decide to join us, maybe the academy could make you an even better fighter."
"We'll see about that." said Nick, although he did look a little contemplative.
