Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.
The Fire Triangle—A Zootopia Fanfiction
Part One:
Fuel
Chapter 3 – Day of Carrots and Blueberries
(Continued…Pt. 12)
A thousand things were happening, everywhere at once.
In the fourth row of the amphitheater, each and every animal was halfway out of their seat.
Judy wanted the others to stay put. "Let Nick and me take care of this, guys."
Her mother was having none of it. "She's my daughter Judy!" And there was no arguing with her on that score—much less with the order she gave her husband to remain where the heck he was.
"No Stu; you'll just start blubbering again and that's the last thing Erin needs right now."
"'Kay," he nodded meekly and sat down again.
All right, that much was settled, but the Hopps party had all been seated stage right—and the performer's entrance was on the far left side of the house. Erin might be long gone by the time they got there, unless…
Nick Wilde was the first to size up the situation.
"Okay Carrots; you take the high road and I'll take the low road," (their private code for 'you go over and I'll go under'.)
Instead of responding, Judy looked at her mother for a second.
Bonnie instantly made a shooing motion.
"No, go…go! I'll catch up later." Every second was critical.
Judy nodded and sprang up out of her seat, leaping and bounding over chairs and spectators while Nick Wilde dropped to all fours and went scurrying underfoot.
"Excuse me…sorry…coming though…police business …"
"Sorry…'scuse me…family emergency…pardon…"
Three rows in front of them, Erin's girlfriends had also cleared their seats and were also racing for the stage gate. It was no contest as to who would get there first; the girl posse was not only closer but also had fewer 'obstacles' in the way.
When they reached the entrance however, everything became equal; the bighorn sheep on guard duty refused to them through the gate.
"Sorry, no one gets in without a pass."
"Please, that's our friend in there," Terri Blackburn pleaded,
"Erin needs us; she's hurting baa-aa-aad." Cara Combs added swiftly, hoping a little bleating might draw some sympathy from her fellow sheep.
She might just as well have growled like a tiger. The bighorn ram only eyed her coldly for a second.
"No one gets in without a pass." He sounded like one of those animatronic dummies in a theme park ride
"Dangit my father's a Sheriff's deputy!' Sue Cannon was almost screaming.
The sheep folded his arms and flexed his muscles.
"No one gets in without a pass."
Ten yards away, deep in the stage wings and out of their sight, Erin Hopps was crouching and holding the neck of her bass.
She might almost have been a shipwreck survivor clutching a spar, except this castaway didn't WANT to be rescued; she wanted to be left alone. Anyone who so much as glanced in Erin's direction received a wild-eyed glare in return.
No sound came from the young, creme-furred bunny as she huddled, shuddering with her guitar, weeping silently to everyone and to no one in particular.
It wasn't FAIR!
Why'd it have to happen here, why'd it have to happen NOW? Why…WHY couldn't her stupid bass have waited until she finished to die on her? Dangit, couldn't it at least have quit while she was practicing? If that had happened, if it had blown out this morning, she'd at least have had time to cancel her performance, but no….noooooo, the stinking little traitor had waited until she was standing onstage with a zillion mammals watching her!
As these and other hot thoughts went careening through Erin's mind, her mood made a fast shift sideways; in the space of a heartbeat the tears coursing down her cheeks were marks of rage rather than sorrow.
She felt her fingers constricting around the neck of her instrument, gripping it tighter and tighter as if she were trying to strangle it.
"You no-good traitor." she hissed, pulling the headstock close to her face. "You stinkin' piece of trash."
The bass did not reply and the silence sent a white-hot stab of fury straight through the young bunny's heart.
Her paws reversed themselves on the guitar's neck; they seemed to belong to someone else.
Slowly, almost like a wind up doll, Erin stood up, raising the instrument high over her head, preparing to bring it down and turn it into so much electric junk. No wait, she was standing on grass, but wasn't there a rock just to her right, a nice big rock? Oh yes, this was meant to happen; do it!
"Good…BYE!" she bawled, and spun a hard right, ready to…
"Wait, DON'T!"
Erin nearly lost her grip on her guitar. What the…? Where the heck had he come from?
Conor Lewis was standing right in front of her, arms raised like Pentecostal preacher.
"Don't!' he repeated.
Erin wanted to kick him right into the ER. If there was ONE animal she didn't want to see right now…!
"Get out of the way, creep!"
The silver fox refused to budge.
"Erin no, you don't want to do this!"
"Yes, I DO!" her voice had risen to nearly a scream. She feinted left, trying to dodge around the fox, but he moved with her easily, blocking her path.
"Don't, please. "
Erin raised the bass even higher
"I'm gonna wreck it!" Now she was screaming.
What happened next sent a chill up the young bunny's spine. Conor moved his foot backwards taking up a defensive stance, and then his ears turned backwards and his eyes narrowed into glowing embers.
"Not gonna let you." he told her simply.
Erin lowered the guitar but not all the way; now she was holding it like a baseball bat. Scare HER again, would he?
"You move or I'll break your face with it!" she hissed.
Conor stayed right where he was.
"Then that's what's gonna happen."
"Fine!" Erin's voice was a factory whistle and her thoughts were racing out of control. "Okay creep, you ASKED for it."
With a cry of frustration, she swung for the fences, aiming at the young fox's head.
She never connected. Instantly Conor ducked into a three point stance, nearly flattening himself against the ground as the guitar whipped harmlessly overhead. The move caught Erin completely unprepared and she spun around in full 360, coming to an abrupt halt when the fox's black-furred paws took hold of her instrument by its other end.
Erin screamed again, "Let go, you jerk!" and pulled frantically on the guitar. The silver fox didn't let go, but he didn't resist either. Instead he pressed forward, forcing the bunny into reverse. Instinctively she pushed back…and felt him easily snatching the bass out of her grip.
"Give me that!" she cried, grabbing for it
Conor pulled it up and away, out of her reach.
"No."
"I'll call security," Erin warned, baring her incisors at the fox. It was no bluff; there wasn't anyone onstage at the moment and they'd be able to hear her now.
But that was how Conor treated the threat, only smiling at her wickedly.
"Go ahead; in fact, I'll save you the trouble." He said, and turned and called through a cupped paw. "Security! Hey, need security down here!"
At once they heard hooves approaching, and then another bighorn ram appeared.
"Yes, what's the problem here?" he demanded, hooves on hips as he looked from one young mammal to the other.
Conor glanced sideways at Erin, saying nothing…but the expression on his face spoke volumes.
"Okay rabbit, it's your ball, you gonna run with it or what?"
Erin didn't run with it; she punted.
"No, no problem." She said, "We were just having a little argument, that's all." Somehow, she managed to give Conor a look of, 'You called security for THAT?' (And he actually seemed to admire her for it.)
"All right," the ram said, "but either keep it down or take it somewhere else. If I have to come back here again, you'll both be out of the Festival."
With that, he turned on his heel and strode away.
Even in her disconsolate state, Erin couldn't help but wonder; how could that sheep NOT know that she'd already been onstage? Never mind, it didn't matter. What did matter was how the heck had Conor gotten back here? He wasn't supposed to perform until tomorrow night, right?
She turned to look at him, and at once her confusion gave way to horror.
Conor's ears had shifted sideways and his neck and tail-fur had turned into a forest of needles. Both of his fangs—and all of his claws—were fully unsheathed as he stared at the trio of yellow letters on the back of the ram's shirt.
"He looks like he wants to eat that sheep." Erin thought to herself, never mind that the ram was nearly twice Conor Lewis's size. If he hadn't still had her guitar in his paws, she would have turned and run away.
Then he heard him growling under his breath; it sounded almost like a tractor engine getting ready to blow a gasket.
"A.S.M. dirtbag!" he snarled, and then all at once he seemed to shake it off, looking around bewildered as if he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten here.
Erin saw the opportunity and lunged for her guitar…too late; Conor whipped it out her grasp a second time.
"Give me that!" she cried.
The fox only lifted high it over his head, holding on to it with both paws as if he were wading across a stream.
"Why do you even want this back, if all you're gonna do is trash it?" he asked.
Erin's mind slammed to a halt as if it had been fitted with air brakes. Yeah, why DID she want that treacherous piece of junk anyway?
Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Conor held the bass closer, (but still out of reach.) "Do you REALLY wanna get rid of this?"
She answered him in a rush of tears. "I don't ever want to see that…thing again!"
The young fox seemed to deflate slightly, almost as if she'd won the day.
"Then don't destroy it, I'll buy it off you," he said.
Erin blinked, and then gaped.
"Say what?"
"I'll BUY it off you." He said again.
The young bunny felt her ears pull backwards and her face beginning to harden.
"Just where would you get the money to…?
"From the T-shirt sale, duh!" Conor cut her off; he sounded tired and exasperated. "Come on Erin, get something out of this."
For the second time that day, she only stared…
"Erin! Erin, are you back there?"
"Come on Erin, talk to us!"
Terri Blackburn and Cara Combs were calling desperately through the fence. It was no use; another act had just taken the stage, a trio of wolves performing (badly) a high volume version of the Beastly Boys tune 'Sabotage'. No way could the ferret and sheep's young voices get through that wall of noise.
And the ram minding the stage entrance wasn't making things any easier.
"All right ladies, let's move away from there."
"But that's our…"
"You heard me…"
Meanwhile six feet away, Tawny, Jill, and Lisa were watching from the sidelines as Sue Cannon tried desperately to get through to her dad on her cell-phone. Judging by the look on the young bobcat's face, she wasn't having a whole lot of luck.
Then Lisa tapped Jill on the neck. (She'd been sitting on the young bunny's shoulder.)
"Hey look."
Jill and Tawny turned Just in time to see Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps approaching.
The two young rabbits hopped hurriedly over, with Tawny Lloyd in the lead; (Jill Pepper still had Lisa with her and she didn't want to risk dropping the young squirrel.)
"Oh Judy, thank goodness." Tawny's ears were going in six different directions at once.
"Where's Erin?" The older bunny asked her, in no mood to waste words and/or time.
"Back there somewhere." Lisa Chatterton said, pointing towards the stage wings with her bushy tail flapping like a towel on a clothesline.
"But that jerk won't let us through!" Jill Pepper almost wailed, stabbing a finger in the security ram's direction as if the whole thing was his fault. (She sounded almost as distraught as Judy's sister had, just before she'd run off stage.)
"It's all right, we've got this." Judy assured her, and then beckoned to Nick with a sweep of her arm.
"Come on fox."
"Right behind you, Carrots."
When they got to the gate, the bighorn ram tried to throw them a variation of the shtick he'd given Erin's girlfriends.
"Sorry, no unauthorized fursonell are allowed backstage."
Judy instantly whipped out her badge, "Authorized!"
Not quite. The sheep gave it only a cursory glance and then slowly shook his head again
"Sorry, this isn't Zootopia and you're not ..."
Judy would later remember this moment as the closest she'd come to a meltdown of her own that evening; and so it might have happened, had Nick Wilde not pushed past her right then.
"Sir," he said, also showing his badge, "We have reason to believe that there's an escapee from ZPD custody hiding back there somewhere."
He flicked his eyes at Judy for a second and she smoothly took her cue, regarding the sheep with hauteur in her eyes and a paw on her hip.
"Technically, you're right; this isn't our beat, and we're not on duty anyway." She shrugged indifferently, "so it's no fur off my back if our perp gets away, but…" She looked directly into the ram's eyes, letting the sentence complete itself.
It worked; the sheep stepped quickly aside and opened the gate. Erin's posse tried to follow her and Nick through the entrance, but that was where the security guard drew the line.
"Only them," he said, moving quickly to block the entrance again as soon as the fox and bunny had passed.
"We'll handle this." Judy called over a shoulder, and then she and her partner were hurrying up the ramp in the direction of the stage.
It didn't take them long to find her; (though it might have, had it not been for Nick Wilde's ultra-keen sense of smell.) They caught up with Erin right around the first bend.
She was huddled in a gap between the lighting gantry's truss supports, invisible to any passersby, crouching in a fetal position, with her arms wrapped around her legs and face buried in the gap between her legs. No sound at all came from the young bunny; only the bobbing of her head gave any sign that she was weeping. Scattered all around her in a rough semicircle was a swatch of what looked like…
"Sweet cheez n' crackers, is that money?" Judy stared with a sensed of expanding dread, then pushed it aside and pointed, "Take care of that, Nick."
"Right." The fox answered, and quickly began to scoop up the cash. Judy watched him for a second and then took the younger bunny gently by the shoulders.
"Erin? Sis? It's me Ju…"
That was as far as she got; Erin instantly threw her arms around her older sister, sobbing hysterically.
"Ssss, it's okay Erin," Judy cooed, rocking her tenderly, "That's it, little sis; that's the way. Don't hold it back; it'll only hurt you more if you try to keep it in. Just let yourself cry, let it go."
She waited until Erin's sobbing began to diminish and then took her by the arms again, this time more firmly.
"Erin?"
The younger bunny only stared into the ground. Judy hooked a finger under her chin and lifted it so that their eyes met.
"Erin, where's your guitar?"
Her sister only started crying harder than ever. They'd get nothing out of Erin Hopps for a while; that much was obvious. Finally, after what seemed like hours, she recovered enough of her senses to let Judy and Nick to take her from the hiding place and walk her towards the gate.
Well, enough of her senses to allow her sister to help; she refused point-blank to let Nick Wilde near her. "Get away from me, fox!" The outburst only served to heighten Judy's sense of foreboding.
She turned and looked over her shoulder.
"How much, Nick?"
"How much wha…?" the fox started to say before catching himself. "Oh, right; there's two hundred dollars here, Carrots."
For some reason this news made brought Erin to the brink of more hysterics—and sent Judy's apprehension level spiking through the roof. Only THAT much? Oh no, Erin couldn't have…!
When they came through the gate, Erin's posse rushed quickly to greet her—only to find that now she didn't want anybody close to her.
"Just keep away from me, 'kay?"
They all did…except for her mother, (who had finally caught up with Nick and Judy, along with several other family members and also Bobby Catmull.)
Marching straight up to her daughter, Bonnie stood with her paws on her hips and a no-nonsense look on her face.
"Erin, look at me. No, not at the ground, you look at me."
The younger bunny reluctantly lifted her gaze.
"Erin where's your bass guitar?"
Judy wanted to shake her head. Her mother had seen nothing of the cash they'd found with Erin and yet she'd already guessed what must have happened.
"It's true, isn't it? Mom DOES always know!"
Meanwhile her sister was trying to look away again; Bonnie angrily thumped her foot.
"ERIN!"
"I…sold it." The younger bunny blubbered in a barely audible voice.
"Did what?" Bonnie's voice had also dropped to an only- just-perceptible level.
Erin spread her arms and screamed as if confessing to a crime against nature.
"I SOLD IT, OKAY?!"
Everyone gasped, Judy too. (Even if you see it coming from a mile away, a runaway freight train still has carries a hellacious impact.)
"Who, Erin?" Their mother was looking straight into the young bunny's eyes again. "Who did you sell it to? Who was it?"
This time the answer came back immediately.
"It was Conor," her daughter answered, stifling another sob, "That silver fox kid, Conor Lewis."
An ever louder gasp erupted from the gathering, but this time their shock morphed quickly into outrage. Bonnie's foot began to thump like a kettledrum, and so did a dozen of the other rabbits' feet—including Judy's. Over on the left, her sister's girlfriends looked ready to get a rope and find a tree.
But NOBODY was angrier than Nick Wilde. Had Judy not known any better, she could have sworn he'd accidently eaten some Nighthowler. His ears were laid backwards, his tail and neck fur had turned to spikes, and his quivering lips had pulled back completely, revealing not just his fangs, but ALL his teeth; his eyes were blazing with emerald fire and his paws had turned to talons. (Had Erin chosen to look in his direction just then, she would have beheld an even more frightful countenance than when Conor had spotted the ASM logo on the security guard's shirt.)
"Where is he Erin?" Her mother was asking, lips pursed, voice crisp, "Where'd he go?"
The younger bunny just shrugged and shook her head. "I…I don't know."
Judy turned to the security guard.
"Did you see a young silver fox come through here earlier?"
"No, no one like that," the bighorn sheep answered barely looking in her direction.
"Is there another gate anywhere back there?" her sister Violet wanted to know.
"Yes, the loading dock." The ram wouldn't look at her either.
"Could that…Connor boy still be hiding backstage somewhere?" Someone else asked.
"No, Nick would have smelled him." Judy answered, glancing warily at the fox for confirmation. At first he seemed not to hear her, but then he nodded tightly.
"No, but I know where that little jerk went." He snarled, and then pulled out his cell-phone and punched the speed-dial.
"Finnick? This is Nick. Listen, where's your van, where'd you move it to?" His ears lay back even further for a second. "Never mind why, just tell me… The camping area…which space? Okay, thanks."
He disconnected and slapped the phone back in his pocket.
"Okay everyone else stay here; let me take care of this."
The first to raise a protest was Judy.
"No Nick, I'm coming with you," she said, but for once the red fox wouldn't budge.
"Not this time Carrots. Erin may be your sister," he shifted his gaze to Bonnie, "and your daughter, but Conor Lewis is MY species!" He said this while poking himself in the chest. It seemed to take the wind out of his sails, and when he spoke again, he sounded almost resigned. "I need to do this Judy, let me deal with him, please."
"Okay," she answered quietly, while her mother only nodded. Nick nodded back for a second, and then his expression turned strangely abashed.
"Uhhhhh, anyone know how to get to the campgrounds from here?"