Credit
* All Zootopia characters that debuted here belong to Zootopia
* Elena Hopps in this chapter is mine with the scene idea was indirect give to me by BlehBluhBlah of having Judy's sister presented in the bedroom to set-up the strategy, which was the altered scene from what BlehBluhBlah had in his Zootopia story in order to prevent the copyright conflict.
* Deputy Aiden and the "suspect" towards end of this chapter are also belong to me, serving their purpose to proceed the storyline.
* Two Easter Eggs appear in this chapter are referring to "Assassin's Creed 2" Trilogy, lessee if you can find them!
* Crediting to "Uncle Scrooge (1953)" comics for giving me an idea of "donut-shaped hole".
Author Note
Here's the new chapter focusing on how the whole details of Gideon helping our cops duo out as well as Elena's interesting in being with Judy. Well, my apologize for shuffling the chapters around and put this chapter almost to the end of the story! After this, only 6 more chapters left to fill up and post.
Oh, also the title name is "Bunnyburrow Festival and Gideon's Case" - this was added in here due to the characteristic limits on the title up above.
~First Saturday Afternoon~
After they got on the train at the Zootopia Train Station, Judy hauled her tail onto the seat then sat down next to Nick. They reached the train just at the last minute before it departed from the station and they were now on their way to Bunnyburrow. She was now wearing a pink long-sleeved shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Her partner wore his usual clothes.
"You did great on the stage," she said, lightly nudging his ribs with her elbow. She received a hearty laugh from him in response.
Once their train arrived at the Bunnyburrow Station, they got off and put their suitcases away at Judy's family house. Then they went through the crowd, searching for someone important. She wanted to introduce her partner to her former bully, ergo the reason she had to do some paw-work through a bunch of rabbits to find that mammalian. They moved past various food stalls to find her neighbor's stall. The mammalian she was looking for was another red fox, cubby and friendly, known as Gideon Grey. Earlier, while they unpacked their stuffs in the family house, they were informed by her siblings that he had barely sold one of his home-cooked pies since this morning. Once they arrived at his stall, the rabbit-doe introduced Gideon to Nick, helping the foxes to get know each other. Then they moved to the next part; talking about how Gideon wasn't able to sell a pie.
"The thing is tha' they kept accusing me of stealing their food - if ya know me tha' well, I am a changed mammalian. I am sure tha' you understand," Gideon explained.
Judy raised an eyebrow suspiciously and crossed her arms then she asked, "Yeah... well, how long have they pointed at you? I think that it's better to learn the background details and investigate the problem of how you were put under suspicion."
Her former bully nodded, walked around his stall, and sat on the small wooden seat next to it to prevent her from straining her neck by looking up at him. She felt his tired eyes on her.
"Well, to be honest... I don't know why they are doing this... the way they started to accuse me this past week. Your family is an exceptional as they sent me the blueberries to prepare my pies," Gideon started to explain. He inhaled to continue, "I only used the food from your parents and from my own garden to make them. And for this week, the neighbors ganged together and planned as if they were planning to start a war, and then they started to point at me."
Officer Hopps nodded, started to get an idea, and grabbed the garbage beside the stall, opposite from where her chubby neighbor rested. She lifted the lid of the garbage bag, turned her head to give Nick a cheerful grin.
"Hey, do you want to get in there, then we can work it out tonight?" she suggested curtly.
The fox cop kept his expression blank as he rejected the idea, "Hey, how about you jump in there and do the paperwork?"
"Spoilsport fox," the rabbit grunted, dropping the bag and walking off.
Nick and Gideon exchanged the awkward glances. The slender fox shrugged and started to walk, following his partner.
"Workaholic rabbit," Officer Wilde pointed out. That drew a soft chuckle from the pie-selling fox.
~First Saturday Late Evening~
In Judy's bedroom of Hopps house, the cops had their information and papers all over the mattress. They had brainstormed and written all the idea down on the papers, setting up a strategy to capture the true culprit who framed Gideon Grey. The ideas included the night batwing, a surprise party, and a feline calling. An hour before, Officer Hopps had to phone her boss to receive permission to cover the case. Though she knew that it was their weekend vacation, she insisted on taking the case just for Gideon. Chief Bogo immediately agreed to let her take charge of it only because he wanted it out of the way as soon as possible.
"Okay, the surprising party plan is no good, so that's off the list," she said, flipping the surprise party paper over.
Nick sighed, shrugging, "At least it was worth a try."
"Thinking, thinking..." the rabbit cop talked in monotone, pacing around the floor in a circle.
She was trying to figure which plan was the better method to hit the culprit since their chance occurred during the nighttime. However, it was their first time on the night shift and all of their plans were for daytime. In other word, they lacked experience to do it posthaste.
"I get that you're a rabbit, but we have to get the plan set tonight. And we are short on the time," her partner pointed out. He shook his head, "Or do you prefer to spend the rest of your evening digging a donut-shaped hole in your bedroom using those power hind-paws of yours?"
"I. Am. Thinking!" Judy said, almost screamed at top of her lungs.
"Ah..." Nick sighed, reaching to grab her shoulders, which stopped her from pacing. She turned to him and glanced at him as he spoke, "I know that it's hard to make a plan, but please don't take it too far on your own. It's all part of teamwork."
The small hiccup popped into the room, making their ears perk up. They turned their attentions to the entrance door of Judy's bedroom. She gasped as she realized that sound of hiccup.
"Em? Elena? What are you doing here?" the rabbit cop called out.
It was an orange female rabbit of thirteen years standing beside the door; she squeaked when her name was called out. Em sighed in disappointment then turned into the open to look at her older sister.
"Well, Judy, mother said that it's dinner time," the young rabbit admitted.
Judy nodded, turning away from the fox cop, and spoke, "Ah, thank you. Also, how long have you been eavesdropping on us?"
"Since the point you turned the party idea down," Elena answered honestly.
The grey rabbit nodded, "Fair enough."
The three of them left the bedroom to go eat their dinner. After they crawled out of the sea of bunnies on their way back to Judy's bedroom, she crossed her arms and shook her head. Her young sister moved closer to her to get her attention.
She turned her head to the orange rabbit as the latter spoke, "Why do you need all of those plans? Let's just go with a Sneak Attack?"
"Whoopie One," the red fox said, pointing his index digit at the ceiling.
"Shut it, Wilde," Judy growled, slamming her elbow onto her cop partner's stomach. She cleared her throat, "Alright, what do you think that we- er, I meant, Nick and I need to use instead of them?"
Elena walked to the bed, sweeping the pointless plans away and putting a clear white paper on the empty spot. She drew a map of the garden in the backyard on the paper. Once she covered the garden details on the paper, she turned her head to her sister and poked the pencil on the map.
"You have a pair of super hearing ears, right?" Em said. Judy nodded and her sister continued, "Then all you need to do is to take your post and listen to where they - the culprits - go. And to take an advantage of your partner's sight since he's a nocturnal mammalian, he can see where you're pointing your ears and go where you last heard them."
Officer Hopps blinked and raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn't known how well her sister had developed the plan this quickly. That gave them an advantage they hadn't thought of. She turned her head to Nick, who raised his same forepaw with two digits up. She pointed a digit at him, halting him on a dime.
"I told you to shut it!" she snapped then turned her attention to the young bunny and spoke, "So, Em, how did you make that strategy so fast?"
Elena smiled warmly, "I had been playing some board games and video games that involve various strategies. The night plans were easy for me to get around."
"Hmm..." Judy nodded then looked at her red fox partner, "Try everything, right? Then I take her strategy in the morning."
Nick nodded and walked to get the bed cleaned up. The orange rabbit grabbed her sister's attention.
"And one more thing that I want to give you. It's about you being a rabbit, I want to give you a flashlight that's usable at nighttime but not detectable," Em explained, pulling out a paw-sized flashlight with purple cap on it. The rabbit cop received the item and she tested it out on her notepad.
She nodded with a smile on her muzzle, "Ah, thank you. This will come in handy."
~First Sunday Early Morning - before Sunrise~
It was two o'clock when Judy's ear twitched, picking up a quiet noise that tingled up in the background. She opened her eyes and threw the blanket off her fully clothed self.
"Nick, it's time," she hissed quietly, getting off the bed.
"Oh... really?" Nick mumbled, producing a yawn. He turned his sleepyhead to her, "Now?"
Officer Hopps turned her head to the red fox, having her sight used to her dark bedroom, as she pointed out the advantage, "How else can I make the plan work in the dark and extract the robber to their implosion, you lazy fox?"
That got him to crawl out of bed, much to his chagrin for all the warmth he gathered in the bed.
He stood up, mumbling with his eyes still closed, "Well-prepared rabbits."
Since he joined ZPD, they had each other as their partners and they developed a habit of slipping in and out of the building without drawing attention. That included them being quick on the claws of their hind-paws. Once they were outside the family house, the first rabbit cop grabbed Officer Wilde's forepaw with hers due to the pitch-black place they were in. She allowed him to guide her towards the source of the sound that she had first picked up. Her paw was squeezed, signaling her that he had someone in his sight.
"Looks like Gideon was right - he wasn't responsible for this trouble," Nick mumbled to his prey partner, taking an advantage of her sensitive ears to pick up his words. He continued, "So is now a good time to start your sister's strategy?"
Much to her chagrin to scream at top of her lungs, she could only make a soft grunt and squeeze his paw.
She whispered slightly higher than his, "Good. After all, he turned his life around and worked to make up for what he had done. And... to earn my trust."
She glanced at him and looked at his green eyes when she felt him looking at her. They had to proceed with the strategy quickly since they were short on the clock. She let his paw go and crouched down, positioned like a baseball catcher.
"Nick... go and do the Plan H then once he spills anything related to Gideon being framed, hit Plan C. That's the strategy," she said quietly, giving out the details she learned from her sister as well as taking an advantage of being a witness, despite her having terrible eyesight.
The red fox smirked then he started to move towards the scene as he continued whispering, "Well, you better be ready to handle the paperwork, Carrots."
"Yeah, as long as I get this down," she pointed out, pulling her carrot pen, notepad, and her sister's flashlight from her pocket.
She turned on the flashlight and put it in her mouth so she could use both forepaws to write down the details on the notepad - like her sister had told her earlier, it was customized with purple light to avoid being seen right away. She listened to the conversation and wrote word by word on her notepad. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a cuff clicked into place. The strategy that her sister built for her and Nick did the trick.
~First Sunday Morning - Sunrise~
At the deputy Office, Judy wrote the information on the paper, doing the 'paperwork' as Nick had expected, with her carrot pen. Once she covered the details on paper, she pawed it to Deputy Aiden behind the desk at same time her partner hauled the culprit, who was a weasel, into the room. She turned her head to him and grinned warmly.
"What's taking you long, Slick? Did he weasel you to bruit him in or something?" the rabbit cop asked, mispronouncing one word of her sentence.
"Naw, Officer Fluff," the fox cop responded, moving and shoving the rude mammalian past her. He continued, "All he did was weasel my time."
Judy wasn't the only rabbit to glance at the fox. Deputy Aiden was another rabbit that gave him a strange glance. That rabbit turned his attention to the first rabbit cop and gave her a curious gaze. She sensed him looking at her and returned her attention to him. She grinned, lifting her paws in the air to defend herself.
"Ah... we love to test each other with vocabulary, Deputy Aiden. It's sort of... our hobby, you know?" she explained nervously.
The rabbit deputy closed his eyes and shook his head, packing the paperwork into the drawer. A pair of mammalians; the lax red fox and the orange rabbit, entered the room. The fox was wearing his cooking uniform while the rabbit was dressing casually.
"I have heard tha' you captured the suspect! Thank you so much," Gideon said, moving closer to the older female rabbit.
"No problem-" Judy responded, getting interrupted as she was picked up from the ground by her neighbor's hugs. She continued, "Just doing our job, Gideon. Also, be sure to give my sister thanks for her brilliant strategy. Couldn't have done it without her quick planning."
"Ah, o'course," the mellowed fox nodded, lowering Officer Hopps back on her hind-paws.
He turned to Elena, who was the rabbit dressed casually, and sprawled his arms in the air, "Thank you, Lil Elena!"
The older rabbits smiled as the red fox and the orange rabbit exchanged a hug. Nick joined the former two. His cop partner turned her head to him as he moved closer to them.
"Now he's off the suspended list," the fox cop said, put his forepaws in his pockets.
The former bully was kneeling next to Em as they exchanged a grin. He turned his attention to the cops and the deputy with a delighted gaze.
