Just a heads-up. Some people have called attention to pacing issues with previous chapters. When/if I get the time, I may or may not head back and "kill some darlings" and maybe merge a chapter or two. If you're one of those who complained about my pacing, the next few serials will be more action-focused, and hopefully shorter.

Once again, let me know if you prefer the current arrangement of having the Background Music listed on top, or at the bottom, as with previous chapters

Background Music:

1) Kenji Kawai - "T-City" - from Patlabor: The Mobile Police TV series

2) Masako Iwanaga - "TIME TO COME" (vocal) - from Super Robot Wars

"BEGIN!" Bogo repeated. Had Lee and Judy not heard him?

Unit 3 had jolted briefly, but had now returned to a neutral pose. The two Ingrowls just stood there, stone still. Bogo wished he could see what was going on with the two mammals, but he could only see the Ingrowls' impassive, mouthplated, visored faces.

Inside Unit 3, Lee clenched her teeth. She had expected Hopps to make the first move. What was she doing?!

In Unit 1, Judy sighed in relief. She and Nick had both figured Lee would wait for Judy to slip up. Therefore, they figured the best plan was to make the opossum come to Judy rather than the other way around.

Nick's eye was kept on Unit 3, smirking a little at how Lee had obviously been caught flat-pawed, but he didn't know how the marsupial would react to Judy's inaction.

Bogo was beginning to wonder if this match was going to be a bigger waste of time than it already was when suddenly, Saeko Inaba jumped up and grabbed his megaphone from his hooves.

"C'mon! Let's see some action!" the hare yelled.

Bogo glared at Inaba and grabbed the megaphone back.

Evidently Judy had decided to throw the plan to the wind, for she bent Robin down and charged toward Unit 3.

Lee was quick to react. She had already raised her cockpit to the upper position, and now flicked a switch on Unit 3's control panel. Parts on Unit 3's head began to open up, with short antennae extending from the forehead and "cheek guards".

In Robin's cockpit, Judy's monitors suddenly changed to static. Disoriented, she wound up making Unit 1 slam into Unit 3. Her tackle had connected, but not true. Her left shoulder slid off Unit 3's abdomen, and Robin tumbled to the ground, flattening a barrel underneath its chest like an empty beer can. Unit 3 stumbled a bit from the impact, but adjusted its footing and avoided falling over.

"Hopps! Penalty!" Bogo's voice came over the two Labors' comms systems.

"Hold it, hold it, hold it!" Nick clambered up onto the folding table. "I call shenanigans! The ECM pod is cheating!" At least now he knew why Lee had picked Unit 3.

Inside her machine, Lee grimaced. How had Hopps closed the distance so fast?! "We should be prepared for anything in the field, sir," she explained through Unit 3's loudspeakers.

"Thoughts?" Bogo turned to Captain Polecatsky on his right.

The spotted skunk leaned on the table and tented her fingers. "I've not known Labor criminals to use that kind of sophisticated equipment – then again, we've not known them to use firearms either."

Bogo turned to Chief Mechanic Camazotz on his left. The spectral bat just shrugged.

"The penalty stands," Bogo finally said into his walkie-talkie. "But no more use of the ECM. You got that?"

"Yes, sir," said Lee.

[OST1]

Judy had finished getting up. Lee took a step back. Robin sprang at Unit 3 again, but this time, Lee took out Unit 3's pellet gun. However, to Lee's amazement, she wasn't quick enough on the draw, and Unit 1 delivered a clothesline to Unit 3, sending it sprawling to the ground.

Lee had to dodge two barrels as she fell, and a third as she got up. She pointed the pellet gun at Unit 1 again, but once again, Judy closed the distance in the blink of an eye, using the shield on Unit 1's left arm to bat the gun out of Unit 3's hand.

Lee wasn't sure what was going on. Unit 1's movements were fluid and controlled, as if it were an actual mammal.

In Unit 1's cockpit, Judy's focus was laser-like. She swung again and again at Unit 3, forcing it to back up further and further.

"Wow!" murmured Clawhauser, breathless at the spectacle.

"She's good," Lt. Sanderson admitted. "She's not giving Lee any room to breathe!"

"I don't think I've seen a Labor move that fast before," muttered Captain Polecatsky.

"Come on, Lieutenant!" pleaded Hylander, visibly nervous. "Beaverbrook, show some support!"

"Uh…" Beaverbrook, caught off-guard, adjusted his glasses. "Uh… 'One! Two! One-two-three! We! Are! All for Lee!'" The beaver did a half-hearted fist-pump, then hung his head. "…Ah, woodchips! That was terrible!"

Nick smirked. Judy had this in hand.

All Lee could do was continue to dodge and block with her shield, waiting for an opening to present itself where she could go on the attack. However, before it did, Bogo's voice came over the opossum's comms system.

"Lee, you're out of bounds. That's a penalty."

"What?!" Lee examined her surroundings. Two blue barrels were to either side of Unit 3. Lee had been so focused on defending against Judy's attacks that she'd backed her Ingrowl out of the boundaries marked by the blue barrels.

Judy raised her cockpit and made Robin a few steps back so Lee could re-enter the boundaries. The rabbit had obviously been taking smirking lessons from Wilde. "You sure you're not the careless one?"

Lee's brow furrowed. Her grip on Unit 3's controls tightened. Her breathing became quicker. Her heartbeat escalated.

No! Lee would not let this cocky little upstart bunny get the best of her! She said she'd show her what it meant to be a Zeeplabor pilot and damnit, she meant it!

Judy was worried for a moment that Lee was injured. But then Lee's teeth clenched, and she began to make a growling noise.

"So that's how you want it, huh?" Lee seethed. "You have no idea what you're up against, Hopps..."

[OST2]

At that moment, the possum uttered a long, deafening, screech. Unit 3 bent its arms and tilted its head up, as if it were screaming at the sky.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The spectacle startled Judy enough that Robin took a few steps back.

"BOOST KNUCKLE!" Lee shrilled.

Judy had time to utter a quick "What." before Unit 3 delivered a punch to Unit 1's head.

Nick's jaw dropped, as did everyone else's.

"Ingrowls don't respond to voice commands," said Wanda Hickory, tilting her head. "…Do they?"

"CALAMITY BLADE!" Lee yelled, pulling out her machine's inflatable stun-stick substitute from under her machine's shield.

"What is she doing?!" sputtered Captain Polecatsky.

"Embarrassing me to no end," Captain Bogo deadpanned, silently kissing the idea of a mentally balanced Division goodbye.

Judy backed up carefully and unsheathed her own inflatable baton. What had gotten into that marsupial?!

"CHES-TOOOOH!" Lee yelled, swinging her baton at Robin's midsection. Judy parried with her rod, and began to back off. Gone were the surgical, calculated movements Lee had exhibited earlier. Now they were replaced with something raw, primal, and unrelenting.

"Well, that flipped in a hurry," muttered McTachy.

"For the love of Nocturna, those aren't swords!" said Chief Mechanic Camazotz, as Judy continued to parry Lee's attacks.

"ONE! TWO! ONE-TWO-THREE! WE! ARE! ALL FOR LEE!" barked Hylander. Beaverbrook stood there, stunned at his own ramshackle chant.

Clawhauser chanced to look down at Nick. The portly cheetah grew a little concerned that Nick would swallow a fly given how long his mouth had hung open.

Judy swung her machine to the left, hoping to get around and "insert" the baton into Unit 3's batteries. However, Lee caught on, and used her shield to deflect the rod away.

But this led Judy to find another opening. She took advantage of Lee's distraction to deliver a kick to Unit 3's leg, upsetting its balance. Judy then dealt a blow to Unit 3's back with her free arm, sending it tumbling forward. Robin then charged forward to administer a killing blow to the batteries.

However, Lee spun Unit 3 around as she fell, dropping her baton and landing on its hands. With another scream of raw determination, Lee made Unit 3 kick Robin's inflatable baton out of its hands.

Judy backed up and drew Robin's pellet gun and fired two shots. Lee saw what Judy was doing and dodged. One paintball missed, but the other splattered over the lightbar on top of Unit 3's left shoulder.

"That'd take out some armor," observed Camazotz. "But the inner mechanics would be grazed at worst. Still, another hit there and that arm'd be useless."

While Unit 3 wasn't as fast as the somehow-sped-up Unit 1, it still got close enough to Robin that Judy had no choice but to discard her pellet gun and resort to another round of hand-to-hand combat. This time, the rabbit was ready for the opossum. She kept her hands up and used her shield to deflect a blow from Unit 3 before grabbing it by the midsection. Judy would have forced the other machine down, but Lee planted Unit 3's feet into the ground and pushed into Judy, knocking both Ingrowls down like dominoes.

"We should've charged admission," chuckled a pig mechanic.

Judy was down, but not out. She tried to grapple Unit 3, hoping to roll both Zeeplabors over, so that she could pin it down, but she noticed there were orange barrels to either side of her and relented. Lee took advantage of Judy's confusion to stand back up. Robin did the same and stepped away from the two barrels.

"INAZUMA ROUNDHOUSE KICK!" Lee yelled, swinging Unit 3's leg around.

However, to the possum's chagrin and amazement, the grey bunny was once again too quick to react. Robin took a step back, and in one swift movement, caught Unit 3's leg as it came toward it.

Robin then pulled the leg towards it, swinging its left arm around to catch the back of Unit 3's neck and forcing it down onto the ground. Judy clenched her teeth as she tried to hold the machine down.

Now it was Lee's turn to mount an attempted comeback. She'd noticed an object in the grass in front of her; the pellet gun that Unit 3 had dropped earlier in the fight. Thinking quickly, Lee lurched her Ingrowl forward, grabbing the gun in her hand and swinging it toward Robin. Robin abandoned the attempted pin to grab the gun, and the two Labors writhed in the grass to gain control of the weapon.

Three shots were let wild in the scuffle before Bogo's irate voice broke over the comms systems.

"THIS MATCH IS OVER! YOU'RE BOTH PENALIZED! KNOCK IT OFF!"

"What?!"

The two combatants looked at the knoll where the spectators were and realized what had happened.

All three of the pale blue paintballs fired in the struggle over the pellet gun had splattered on the knoll. Sanderson and several of the mechanics had been knocked to the ground by one. Clawhauser had taken the brunt of the second shot, and he now blinked in confusion, looking like a great feline blueberry. Hylander had escaped the deluge by taking cover behind the cheetah's girth. Enough of the second shot had still done enough to knock Nick onto his back and Beaverbrook onto his belly, and the two blue mammals slowly got up. Bogo had realized what was going on in time to see the third shot coming, and had tipped over the folding table for cover, protecting Polecatsky and Camazotz. However, being the largest of the judges, the buffalo hadn't ducked down behind the table in time, and now half of his face was pale blue.

"I repeat," Bogo rumbled into his walkie-talkie. "That's penalty number three! This match is over!"

"Three, sir?" Lee slowly got Unit 3 to its feet, startling Judy with how quickly she'd returned to her old, reserved persona. "Counting this, Hopps and I only have two each."

"I said three penalties in total would lead to an automatic loss." Bogo glared at the two Ingrowls. "Once when Hopps hit that barrel, once when you went out of bounds, and once when you both opened fire on spectators!"

"Wait, the penalties were counting against both of us?" squeaked Judy.

"In the field, public safety doesn't give a damn about who damages what," Bogo huffed. "It's not enough for you to avoid damage – your jobs require you to make sure the other Labor doesn't wreck anything either."

Nick cleared some of the paint from his face with some uprooted weeds before glaring up at Bogo. "Why didn't you tell us?!"

Bogo returned the glare tenfold. "In our line of work, I shouldn't have to."

After everyone returned to hangar to examine the Ingrowls or wash off the paint (which thankfully was biodegradable), Lee mulled over the events of the sparring match.

Judy's movements had been elastic and graceful, as if Lee had been fighting an eel. And how had that rabbit been able to move the Ingrowl so fast?! Any faster and Judy might as well paint Unit 1 red and start donning a mask for no reason.

She was mulling this over, glancing at the two Zeeplabors as the mechanics checked them over. Just then, Captain Bogo passed by her, having already cleared the paint from his face.

"Captain?" said the possum. "Just so I know, which of us lost the match?"

"Both of you." The buffalo seemed distracted, judging by his offhand tone.

"I-I see…" muttered Lee. "But what about the forfeit lottery?"

"That'll have to wait, Lieutenant," Bogo grumbled. "We're out on a call now."

"What?"

"The storm outside's only getting worse." Bogo glanced at the papers in his hooves. "The Climate Control Office thinks the heavy winds are going to slip through to Little Rodentia."

Lee's brows shot up. Zootopia's highly sophisticated climate control systems were immensely powerful – in fact, the need to maintain and more recently refurbish them was one of the main reasons for the proliferation of Labors and rodent-scaled Microlabors. That said, even they couldn't completely control the weather, and some phenomena occasionally "slipped through" the system.

If the rodent-scaled Little Rodentia was going to be hit by the winds, that was cause for panic considering how susceptible the miniscule Borough was to strong weather. The city kept a prefabricated geodesic dome in storage that could be erected over the borough for this sort of emergency.

"Has something happened, sir?" said Lee.

"No, not yet," said Bogo. "But they're putting up the big dome to be on the safe side. Bureau Chief Buckminster and Borough Chief Brie want us there in case something goes wrong."

"I see…" Lee sighed. "I'll get the others ready."