Hey guys, how are things?
Sorry for the long wait.
Big thanks to Nastia for the fantastic artwork and to MrShurukan for helping me with the corrections and everything else.
Zootopia – Springtime Circumstances
Chapter 52 – Friends with benefits
POV Nick
"Hopps, Wilde!" the speaker in my ear suddenly went off, carrying Jacks voice, "It´s time to play your joker! There is half an army in the backyard!"
Judy received that message as well of course, so we just gave each other a little nod and went straight to Rico and Anita, who still were dancing in the middle of the hall. It was not easy to get though the crowd quickly, but we reached them soon enough.
"Hey Rico" I asked him loudly, so everybody could hear me, I gave him a little wink so he knew what I was doing, "You´re up! I dare you to catch me before 9PM or you have to dance shirtless later!" With those words and a dirty grin and I rattled his shoulder for a second. Everybody around us was listening of course, and just as predicted they really liked to hear it.
"Good luck" I told him with another little wink and then Judy and I quickly gained some distance from them.
"Wait!" Rico acted, "What? No! Hey!"
The crowd around us started laughing in excitement, especially the girls, and then they were even blocking the way for him so he couldn´t reach us anymore. It worked just perfectly, they all wanted to see him shirtless apparently. That was the most effective thing to go for, since most of the city had seen that music video.
Half a minute later Judy and I disappeared into the kitchen corridor and out of their sight.
"God that worked well!" I chuckled, "We should ask him for that more often…"
"Well" Judy smiled, "We first of all should really think of something good to pay him back for doing that…"
"Finally!" Jack yelled at us from the other end of the corridor. We ran towards him as quickly as possible now, "What have you been doing for so long? Skye is on the roof already…"
Jack threw a riffle into our arms each and two more magazines right afterwards.
"Sorry Champ, wasn´t possible to get out of there quicker…" I told him while unlocking my gun and putting the magazines into my inside pockets of my suit.
"I can hear you by the way…" Skye told us over the headset lowly.
"Okay, great" I said, "What do you see?"
"They got out of their cars in the meanwhile. Two limousines, six black vans, three of them empty, the others carrying a lot of load as it looks like. Most of them are body-guards with heavy armoury…" she let us know.
"Did the gate close completely?" Jack wanted to know.
"It´s moving very slowly, but its closing. They are wondering already and not happy about it. Prepare for some company pretty soon!"
"Excuse me!?" a pig in a chef´s vest asked us harshly, "What are you doing in this hallway? You´re not allowed to be here, this is the kitchen area!"
Jack immediately showed him the dart riffle in his paws and the pig took a careful step backwards. "I´m sorry to disrupt your work" he told him, "But there is a very important dealership between two very powerful clans going on in your backyard."
"Alright" the pig told us, apologizing with his paws, "I´m sorry, I didn´t know that."
"You better tell your men to hide themselves for a little while" Jack advised him, "They´ll probably come into this building soon and they have a lot of armoury…"
"Alright! Good luck!" the chef agreed hastily and went for the kitchen right away to warn his cooks.
"They´re loading something from the first three vans into the empty ones now" Skye told us over the radio in this very moment, "A lot of big crates and bags, can´t tell you what´s inside sadly, seems to be quite heavy…"
"Take out the leaders if you can" Jack yelled almost immediately, "We´re nearly in the backyard, we´ll help you!"
Just when he said that last sentence, we already heard a lot of footsteps and a bang from a door to the backyard.
"Hide here for a second!" Jack whispered towards us quickly and we followed him, "I want to know what they´re up to!"
POV Rico
I wasn´t getting anywhere. For a couple of minutes, I acted like I was trying to find Nick and Judy in the crowd somewhere, but then I gave it up, waved it off and began dancing with Anita once again. I had so much fun on this evening, and in the end I wouldn´t really mind if I had to get my shirt off or not. The mood was good, the people were nice and I was with the most beautiful women of the whole gala.
But I also was sort of interested in what Nick and Judy were doing. I imagined them to be running after some criminals, possibly beating the crap out of them, being in a hectic and scary gunfight, and all that just while I was having fun here with all the other guests. But at least I was helping them out with their mission, and I had a great time nevertheless. I surely had worse evenings before.
POV Judy
It all went so much faster than we had expected it. The wolves and rams who stormed the building now found another entrance to the kitchen than were waiting at, pushed aside some kitchen trolleys, knocked things over and caused a giant mess for everyone.
"Search in every room!" their leader yelled loudly, "There must be a security office somewhere! We need to open that fucking gate!"
They split up into different directions faster than we could look, but they haven't spotted us yet, luckily.
"Shit!" Jack cursed lowly, "They must not find that switch! That´s our only chance to get them! Once they get out of there we can´t chase all of them anymore!"
"Can we call the ZPD for backup?" Skye asked though the headset.
"No" Nick said distinctively, "Everybody who´s on patrol this evening seemed very suspicious to us…we should really do this alone…I call the Chief for help later…"
"Now you said it…" Skye said, "I´ve seen a ZPD cruiser driving by just a minute ago. They weren´t even stopping when they came past the backyard…"
Nick seemed to have a plan all over sudden.
"Jack, Judy!" he told us, "Can you to go back to the security office and hinder them from opening the gates? I´ll make sure they can´t get out of here anymore! I have an idea!"
"Alright" I agreed, trusting him blindly once again, "Come on, Jacky! Show me what you´ve got!" I motivated him to follow me. He agreed with a little nod and then the both of us began running towards the stairs after the intruders.
There really were a lot of them. They had rushed the whole first floor in the meanwhile, opened every door they found and even slammed them in if they needed to.
The first two we encountered couldn´t even react before we fired at them and we just left them laying on the ground unconsciously. Back in the hallway of the first floor we found one more but neither of us hit him before he disappeared in the room on the right side. Now they knew about us and pointed their guns in our direction as well.
"Shit" Jack panted, as we hid from their shots in the doorframes of the rooms we just cleared, "Skye, this really is out of control here. What´s going on outside?"
"I got one of the two leaders unconscious, the other one hides inside his limousine. They haven´t spotted me yet, but I have no clear firing line either. Two of them are now carrying something to the door for some reason."
"Are they still exchanging the deliveries?"
"Yes. I can´t hit them behind their cars. They have armoured gunners who check every corner. I can´t move on the roof!"
"Give me a second!" we heard Nick over the radio, "I´ll distract them in the backyard!"
"Any ideas?" I asked Jack, referring to our own problem.
"Yes" he said dryly while pulling the pin of the cylindrical grenade he held in his paws suddenly, "Look away for a second, rush towards them when I tell you to!"
I nodded and in the same moment he threw the flashbang into the hallway with a lot of momentum. It made quite a loud noise and everything was terribly bright for a second, although I didn´t at all look at the explosion, but soon I got my complete vision back once again.
"Now!" he yelled, "Let´s get them down!"
I followed him as quickly as possible. He looked into the first room on the right, I took the one on the left. Two of the sheep had been hiding in there, and they both were literally blind because of the flash that hit them. I just used two shots to knock both of them unconscious, then I went back into the hallway again. Jack nodded contentedly. That had worked out perfectly for us.
"Alright. The office is two doors further on the right…" he whispered, "I´m pretty sure they´re in there already…so we have to keep moving!"
I nodded in agreement. He had the next flashbang in his paw already, ready to do the same move again.
"Let´s do it!" I told him, and then I took cover from the bright light once again, "I´ll take the one on the left again! Let´s get them down before it´s too late!"
POV Nick
I was running around like a maniac. Now I knew why Judy was training that so often. In the kitchen I found a bottle of oil and spilled all of it on the ground in front of the stairs to the first floor. That had worked pretty well in my flat already, so why wouldn´t it work here too? The staircase started exactly in front of the double doors that lead to the ballroom, so that potentially could bring the party to a whole new level later.
Now I was rushing through the kitchen again but in this case to get into the backyard as quickly as possible. Just before I reached the door Skye gave us some more info once again:
"The gate is still closed" she told us, "But now they have put something onto the electric motor and took some distance to it. I´m pretty sure that´s some sort of explosive charge!"
"Try to take them out!" Jack told her right away, and that was one of the rare moments where I had to agree with him, "One of them probably has a detonator!"
I opened the door in the meanwhile and sneaked around the garbage containers as quickly and quietly as possible. Just in that moment I saw the first of the two wolves collapsing, then the other one followed very quickly. All the other bodyguards searched for her on the roof now, so that was a good opportunity for me to attack a few of them down here.
"I got both of them" Skye told us hastily, "But I have to change positions now! I´m getting off the roof!"
I opened fire in the meanwhile and shot at everybody who was in my sight.
"One, two, three…four, five…" I counted the ones I knocked out, but then I had to get moving again. They noticed me in the meanwhile and opened fire on me as well.
"I got five of them" I informed them while rushing through the kitchen once again, "But they are chasing me now!"
"Try not to get that fight into the ballroom!" Jack warned me through the radio.
"I´m sorry, Jacky…" I chuckled, picking up my running pace a little because they followed me really quickly I just noticed, "I kinda have to…"
"Do not even think about it! That´s not professional!" he warned.
I just left he kitchen on it´s other end once again and began running through the hallway as quickly as possible. They were trying to hit me with their riffles, the darts were to be heard bouncing through the kitchen and the hallway already, but although it wouldn´t have made any difference, not one of those darts hit me right now. In the corner of my eye I saw Skye rushing down the stairs.
"Skye, wait!" I warned her loudly, "Mind the oil!"
She stopped herself just in time and watched me jumping over the giant puddle at full speed and slamming open the double doors to the ballroom with all the momentum I brought with me. Sliding on my claws I came to a halt in the middle of the ballroom and I was lucky that I didn´t hit anyone. I turn around just in time to witness probably the most perfectly timed thing I ever saw in my life.
POV Rico
Nick crashed through that door like a tornado. Everybody, including me, stared in shock at the scene as he came to a standstill in the middle of the dance floor. They immediately took a step back, and that was not only because he had a very big dart riffle strapped onto his back. There was a reason why he was in so much of a hurry though, because he was followed by quite a few wolves and rams. The double doors swung back pretty much immediately after Nick went through it and hit the first wolf that followed him right in the face. That hurt just from watching.
Nick went closer towards the double doors once again, but instead of entering he sneaked up to the left side of it and waited for his chasers to come out. Soon the double doors where opened again and two rams with dart riffles in their paws walked into the ballroom. Everybody held their breath in fear as they kept on looking out for him, pointing their riffles on the crowd at full focus. One more came through the door, followed by two more wolves.
"Where is that little fucker!" one of them yelled furiously. Nobody said a word. But they found him anyway, because most of the other guests were just staring at the red fox with big eyes.
"Heh" Nick chuckled now, totally unbothered about them, coming closer towards them with a relaxed step, "I bet he´s going to feel that for a while, that door smashed right into his face!"
All of them immediately pointed their guns at him, but nobody triggered theirs for now. They were just staring in disbelief at what he was doing. Just like all of us did.
"Oh, come on, guys! You don´t need five riffles to get down one little fox!" he told them teasingly.
"You!" one of the wolves yelled in anger, "You´ve caused enough trouble already!"
"I take that as a compliment" Nick chuckled, "…but trust me, I´m still not done with you. You´ve messed up my flat, you´ve taken us hostage, you´ve taken hostage two colleagues of mine and you´re not stopping with what you´re doing. All that has it´s price you know?"
"And what are you going to do about it? You want to talk us to death?" the wolf snarled while getting a few steps closer towards him.
In the corner of my eye I noticed somebody else coming though the double doors now. She was a white vixen and she carried a big sniper riffle on her back. She quietly closed the door behind her and took the big riffle into her paws carefully.
"No" Nick answered to the wolf´s question, "I´m going to beat you in a fair fist fight, I alone against you five big idiots. Because I dare you to fire a dart in here with all these people!"
To reinforce what he said, Nick put his own riffle back onto his back and acted like he was warming up for the fight.
"Do you really want to make me believe that bullshit?" the wolf asked, and then he simply took a shot at Nick that hit him right in his chest. The whole crowd gasped in fear at what they witnessed. A few of them even were filming the whole scene with their phones I just noticed. It was true though, Nick really was immune to those darts. He pulled it out of his chest and presented it to the wolf who just shot him.
"You little pussy" he told him teasingly, before he precisely threw the dart at one of the rams. The sheep wasn´t too far away from him, but Nick hit him right on his neck and immediately sent him to sleep with that dart.
"The fuck?" the wolf wondered loudly, "How…?"
"I even offered you a fair one vs five" Nick told him in amusement, "But that chance is gone now. And if you shoot one more dart at me, you´re the next one I´ll be throwing it at!"
"Fuck my life!" the wolf yelled in annoyance while he suddenly prepared himself to take a swing at Nick with his dart riffle, rather than shooting him with it, "You annoying little bugger, just what the hell is wrong with you?"
Nick jumped to the side quickly and the wolf hit exactly nothing with his swing. His mates just kept staring in disbelief, rather than helping him. Nick´s tactic worked out so perfectly. They were all fixated on him right now, totally unsure what to do because the tranquilizer dart showed no effect on him, and they still haven't noticed the white vixen with the sniper riffle yet.
"What are you idiots doing?!" the wolf now yelled at his mates, "Stop staring, attack him!"
Just when he said that, Nick suddenly rushed towards them with great speed and slammed his riffle onto one of the wolfs heads. He used that moment of surprise and started messing them up pretty badly, although they weren´t as clumsy as they looked like. Nick jumped onto the shoulders of the other ram quickly, did a spin around his own axis and hit the barrel of the gun right into his next enemy´s face.
While all that happened, the wolf who shot at him earlier tried sneaking up behind him, but just in the moment he wanted to hit Nick in the back, the lady with the sniper riffle hit his neck with a tranquilizer-dart and he collapsed right on top his unconscious mate. The white vixen calmly came a few steps closer to Nick´s fight with the last two bad guys, and when Nick took a quick step away from them she used the length of her gun and smashed it´s barrel right onto the head of the ram who tried attacking him. That hit was so substantial that it hit him right out of consciousness as well. That sniper riffle looked to be quite heavy and painful to get beaten up with.
"Wow, not bad" Nick remarked with an impressed little smirk. She just smiled in amusement and calmly hung the riffle over her shoulders once again.
There is some fantastic artwork to this scene on tumblr! Please look it up (... artvopros . ...I´m pretty sure you know how a tumblr-link works, stupid site wont let me post it here...) and show her some love! Thank you :)
Now that the last wolf realized that he was all alone suddenly, he raised his paws in surrender fearfully and dropped his gun onto the floor.
"Alright, alright!" he yelled, "You won this! Fuck me, you guys are insane!"
The white vixen simply crossed her arms with a little chuckle and watched Nick with us, who still looked like he just was warming up a little. There was still an utter silence in the whole ballroom, except for the music that was still to be heard in the background. Then a huge applause broke loose suddenly, which Nick tried calming down with his raising paws pretty quickly.
"I´m sorry to crash the party like that, everybody" Nick chuckled at us now, "But there was no other way, sadly…a few colleagues will come and take them to prison soon, don´t worry about it…" he informed us, but then he got interrupted.
"Hey, Dumbass!" somebody yelled at him all over sudden, emerging from the crowd with a dart pistol in his paws. He was a young wolf, a teenager, I guessed about fourteen or fifteen years old, and he was quite out of breath apparently. He pointed the gun right at Nick and came a few steps closer towards him.
"Look who we have here" Nick just chuckled, not at all concerned about the dart gun that was pointed at him, "How did you escape from your juvenile?"
"Yeah, yeah…" the young wolf spat at him hatefully, "Tell me, fox: Who´s the little bitch now?"
"In case you missed it: We just took out five of your mates right in front of all these people" Nick told him dryly, totally unimpressed by the dart pistol, "I´m not a little bitch and I´m surely not scared of a kid with a tranquilizer gun. Sorry pal, got to burst your bubble there."
"Don´t call me a kid! I have a loaded weapon!" he yelled at him, "And I´m not shy of using it!"
"Oh really?" Nick wanted to know, actually just smiling about it in amusement, "And what do you think will happen if you shoot me? Do you want to get all of those idiots out of here before our backup arrives? Do you really think that changes anything?"
"Do you want to try it out?!" the teenager with the pistol yelled at him, coming a few steps closer while still pointing his gun at Nick, "I dare you!"
"Just look around you" Nick tried to tell him, "All of those guys are going to prison! There is nothing you can do about it! And you can´t do anything to me either, you´re just going to embarrass yourself in the end, so I really recommend to just let it be already."
"Oh yeah?" the wolf asked, and then he simply pulled the trigger in front of everybody, "I show you something embarrassing, pussy!"
The dart hit Nick right in his neck, but he wasn´t at all getting unconscious from that either. Everybody around us gasped in fear once again, before they realized that Nick still wasn´t effected by that tranquilizer fluid.
"Yes, it is" Nick affirmed dryly, "Very."
"…what the…what the hell?" the kid asked loudly while looking at his gun in shock, "…why? What?"
Nick just pulled the dart out of his neck and slowly began walking up to the wolf who just took the shot at him.
"I´m wearing that suit for the first time tonight and you dumbasses already got a hole into it" Nick sighed while shaking his head a little. He showed us the dart that was stained with his blood at the tip and then he simply threw it at the other wolf who had surrendered earlier. He collapsed just as it had happened to all his mates and kept on laying on the floor unconsciously. The kid who shot him was very scared of him, suddenly. Just as scared as the rest of us were fascinated.
"…and that gun you have there is not a toy!" Nick told him distinctively while ripping it out of his paws. He carefully tossed it behind him towards the white vixen, who caught it with ease and put it into the inner pocked of her black suit for now, "You really could have injured somebody."
"I…I…" the kid yelled in fear while trying to get away from him backwards, but Nick simply grabbed him by his neck-fur and lifted him into the air with just his right arm.
"You?" Nick asked in amusement.
"Why…why didn´t it work?"
"It worked quite well on your friend who´s laying there now, didn´t it?"
"Y-yeah…" he confessed with tears of fear in his eyes.
"Do you think it feels nice to get hit by a tranquilizer dart?"
He just shook his head with wide eyes.
"Awww… " the white vixen chuckled, "Nick, I´ve got to say… you do know how to make a show out of this…"
"Yeah…guess Jack wouldn´t be so happy about it…" he grinned while reaching out for something in his pockets with his left arm. It was his police radio.
"This is officer Wilde, reporting from the ballroom of the gala event! We had a massive clan dealership in the backyard! We need a lot of backup for the clear-up! Thank you very much."
Then he released the button again.
"Copy! Are there casualties in the ballroom as well?"
"Yeah, there are, but I´m pretty sure the lovely guests here will make room for you quickly" Nick chuckled into his radio and winked us a little.
"Alright, thanks Nick!"
Nick put the radio away once again and then he turned towards the little wolf once again, who he was still holding above his head with his right arm.
"Do you still want to fight me, kiddo?" he asked him dryly.
"N-no…" he cried lowly, "Let me down! Please…"
"I tell you this one more time now" Nick said calmly, before gently putting him back down on his feet, "Stop pretending to be an adult or a gangster and make something out of your life!"
"Y-Yeah!"
"I´ve gone through the same thing, nearly, and it led me nowhere! It all got so much better when I got kicked in the butt back then! I wish for the same to happen to you as well."
"Okay…"
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. Now go and get your life together!"
A few of the mammals around us where still filming with their phones, a few of them were just staring and enjoyed the situation. The little wolf made his way out of the room as quickly as possible, which wasn´t that easy since everybody was standing in the way and watching with big eyes.
Now Nick turned his attention to Anita and me suddenly. He looked at his watch shortly and said: "It´s five past nine, Mr. Capaldi! You´re not supposed to wear your shirt anymore!"
They all were laughing even more about this. I couldn't help but grin widely.
"Yeah, yeah…" I laughed out, "…you just disappeared earlier! How was I supposed to catch you?"
"Not at all, that´s the point! I just wanted you to get your shirt off" he told us with a little wink.
"Oh, that´s your deal!" I chuckled.
"Seriously though, thank you very much for the distraction!" he told me smugly.
"You´re very welcome" I grinned, while he was making his way back to the double sided doors already, "Thanks for the show!"
"The show is probably not over at this point" he sighed with a little smirk
while holding open the door for the white vixen with the sniper riffle on her back like a gentleman, "I owe you one for your help! Have a good evening, guys!"
He gave us another short little wink and then he followed his fighting partner through the door.
They left us standing there like nothing had happened. I just shook my head with a happy little grin, just before another huge applause broke lose. An Applause that Nick surely heard behind those doors as well.
I was pretty sure that would make its way into the headline as well. That was more exciting than every action movie I had ever seen or made the music for.
A few seconds later Anita and I were completely surrounded once again.
POV Skye
"What was this guy doing at the ZPD?" I asked myself once again, "Where did he learn to fight and handle situations like that? Why isn´t he an agent as well?"
But I didn´t want to ask him that right now, there were more important things to handle first.
"Judy, Jack?" Nick asked them over his headset, "Where are you? What is going on?"
We nearly stumbled into the puddle of oil that Nick had spilled earlier.
"Didn´t you hear the giant explosion in the backyard?" Jack asked us in disbelief.
"We were kinda busy in the ballroom…" Nick explained.
"They blew up the gate and got away with their cars! We got everybody that rushed the house but they still got away somehow. We´re following them in Jack´s car now!" Judy explained.
"uhm…right…" Nick chuckled.
"Sorry to leave you behind, but we cannot lose them now!" Jack told us.
"We cannot help you without a car, and we haven´t got one right now…" Skye informed them about our situation.
"We just saw Bogo and our backup coming towards the gala hall, maybe you can borrow one of their cars! We´ll keep you notified!"
"If you want to arrive there before them you should not follow them onto the highway. Turn off the first exit, left and after a couple hundred feet you should take the path over the field, all the way till the end!" Nick advised them.
"What?" asked Jack and Judy pretty much at the same time.
"Just trust me, okay? I know about that sheep clan!"
"Are you sure, Nick?"
"Are they going towards the highway?"
"Yes, they are…" Jack sighed. I knew that he never really liked to hear something like that.
"Then I´m sure. 100%. They´re going to those old farmyard storage halls. That´s their main operating base basically."
"What do you know about that place?" Judy asked him.
"Well, I can only tell you this much: Don´t attack them there! They are by far too many and they have very much armoury. The only thing I would to is trying to find something out by sneaking in…maybe…"
"Wilde, where do you know all that from?" Jack wanted to know.
"I know a lot of people, Jacky" Nick chuckled, "But explaining all that would take quite a while…"
Nick and I had arrived in the backyard just now, but it was completely empty in the meanwhile. We turned around immediately and headed for the ballroom again.
"I wouldn´t mind a detailed explanation…" Jack let him know.
"Let´s do that later" Nick told him after jumping over the oil onto the stairs once again and reaching me a paw like a gentleman, "We´re going back into the ballroom and talk to the Chief for a second."
He held the door open for me and followed me onto the dancefloor. There still was quite a lot of excitement, especially when we arrived there once again.
Rico and his girlfriends where the only one who were not scared of talking to us though. They came right towards us quickly.
"Is everything alright?" the black and grey fox wanted to know.
"Yeah" Nick affirmed, "But we´re still not done for tonight…"
"Can we still help you somehow?"
"No" Nick told them with a thankful smile, "You helped us very much already! I want you two to have a great evening now!"
Nick hugged both of them shortly. "See you guys soon!"
We got moving again and ran straight into Chief Bogo.
"Wilde! What´s your status?"
"We got most of them unconscious, but a few of them escaped. Judy and Jack are following them already."
"Are you going to help them?"
"Yes. But we need another car for that I´m afraid…"
The big buffalo searched for his car keys in his pockets for a moment, then he threw them over to Nick.
"Just bring it back in one piece" he told him, "Otherwise I´m going to keep your new special high-speed-vehicle for myself when it arrives…"
"Special high-speed-vehicle?" Nick asked with a chuckle, "Are you serious?"
Chief Bogo nodded with a little grin, "You two are going to like this" he chuckled, "But only if you bring my cruiser home safely!"
"Alrighty, Chief" Nick chuckled, "See you later tonight, I guess…"
"Best of luck" he advised us as we went onto our way already.
The red fox gave the gazing crowd one last little wink, then we left the event altogether. In front of the gala-hall there were parked almost ten police cruisers, a few of them with the common ZPD colouring, a few of them undercover-painted completely in black. Nick held the key in the air and pressed the button to find out which one it was, we saw one of them flashing it´s indicator lights and it was a black one, luckily.
Nick closed the door on the driver´s side after he got behind the wheel and took a deep breath first of all. With his attitude I originally imagined him to set off with squealing tires and a big howl of the engine, but that was not the case. He really was kind of a show off, there was no denying it, but there was no denying either that there was much more to him than just that. He also seemed to have a thoughtful and calm side every now and then. We got onto the roads soon later and immediately turned left join the main road towards the highway later.
"Quite effective that tactic with the oil…" I started off the conversation after we had a few minutes of silence in the car.
He just nodded a little. It was quite interesting to see him this calm all over sudden.
"You know…" he sighed suddenly, "I lived quite a while all on my own, had to work with whatever I got, and I had to cooperate with people who I could make profit with…I was quite an idiot to a lot of people back then…and since Judy made me realize that my life doesn't have to be like that, I´m trying my best to make it all up for the troubles I´ve caused…"
"Looks like you have quite a lot of fun playing the big hero now…" I told him coldly, just to find out about his reaction.
"I do have fun" he confessed, "…but I honestly feel more like a clown than a hero sometimes…"
I just chuckled a little when he said that. I honestly could agree with him a little bit. He noticed that, apparently.
"You see" he smiled, "You do not disagree with me!"
"What about that whole SMA thing?" I wanted to know.
"That didn´t help with that problem either…" he sighed.
I couldn't help but slip a little giggle at that.
"Don't tell me you really watched that" he told me, actually looking over to me for a second.
"Well" I grinned, "I knew I could annoy Jack with that…but now this is getting even better…"
"Haha, very funny" he sighed, "Thank you very much…"
"Honestly" I chuckled, "Why did you answer that question?"
"For god´s sake! Really? Do you really want to do this to me now?"
I definitively found one of his weak spots right there. This was so much fun all over sudden. I just nodded with a sneaky little grin.
"Can we chance the topic, please?" he asked then, not wanting to get deeper into it, apparently.
"Yeah, ok" I grinned, "Where do you know Rico Capaldi from and what are you doing in his music video? Being shirtless on top of that…"
"You know…" he chuckled, "I have answered all these questions so many time already, and since you´re only doing this to annoy the hell out of me, why don´t we skip all that and talk about something more interesting?"
"Okay, okay…" I told him teasingly, "Should I tell you what I think about all that instead?"
"Yeah, great" he sighed tiredly, "Let´s do it."
"Okay, listen up, here is what I think" I chuckled, "About that question Gazelle asked you at the end, I´m pretty sure you were overexaggerating it a little…"
He just gave me an amused little chuckle for that.
"…and about that music video…I think you just wanted to show off a little more…"
Now he shook his head distinctively but still with that amused little smile.
"I was in that video because I wanted to give him and his music the attention it deserved. Rico is a very good friend of ours, just like his roommates Sarah and Ivonne. They let us in after we were running through that snowstorm that happened when we got abducted…"
"So…you just wanted to help him?" I asked.
"That´s what we did, yeah."
"And what about the…"
"Can I ask you something?" he interrupted, before I could even my sentence. I found that very suspicious and still pretty hilarious. I just grinned at him.
"That´d be?"
"How do you keep up with a bunny? I mean in training…because Judy still runs circles around me when she wants to…"
"You fight with Judy in training?"
"Well…getting beaten up by her would fit better if you ask me" he chuckled, "I think you´ve seen what she did to Freddy on the volleyball court in the Springs…"
"Yeah, that was quite impressive…" I confessed, "We´ve…we´ve never really done this to be honest"
"It´s a quite effective training-method I would say" he chuckled.
POV Judy
"…but honestly" Jack chuckled, just after we found and joined the field-track that Nick had told us about, "How do you control your fox that well?"
"Oh, I barely do have control over him" I grinned, "It took me a little while to get used to it, but since I did I couldn´t live without him anymore."
A tiny little smirk wandered onto his face. It seemed like he knew what I was talking about.
"What about Skye?" I asked then, "Do you have her under control?"
He just shook his head distinctively. "She´s not that easy to fool with either" he chuckled, "…and that´s exactly what makes me love her so much. She knows what she wants and she´s not shy of showing it."
"Oh, I bet you would like Nick too if you knew him better" I grinned, "He´s just not the one you should try to get under control…"
"Seems like it."
"You don´t seem to be entirely convinced" I giggled.
"I think I do not entirely understand it. Why would he want to get so much attention all the time? I mean first that giant waste of time with that TV show, then that music video…"
I just couldn't help myself but giggle about his little rant.
"You really don´t have to be jealous about all that" I told him, "He´s regretting most of that for himself, believe me."
"I´m not jealous."
"Nick is a good guy. He wants to help out where he can, but sometimes he´s just himself and does what feels right to him…"
There was a moment of silence in the car since I had said that, and it obviously wasn't very pleasurable to him. He really looked a little like all that was getting into his head, but he still was to stubborn to admit it. I still couldn´t help myself and chuckle about it.
"Why are you still working at the ZPD?" he changed the topic suddenly, "Why have you never thought about joining an Agency? Because you surely have the qualifications and the success rate…"
"We like our jobs at the ZPD" I told him the simple truth, "We like our colleagues, our tasks and everything that comes with it."
"And in your free-time you´re the rock stars of Zootopia?" he asked dryly.
"It wouldn't have been like that without that hostage taking" I explained with a little sigh, "And if Cammy hadn´t been in heat because of him…"
POV Nick
"…and she honestly asked you to have sex with her?" Skye asked with great interest. Somehow she had managed to bring the topic back to me and my image again, and she didn´t mind seeing me suffering because of it at all.
"Yeah…" I sighed, "She did."
"Was that exciting?"
"A little…"
"Because Judy doesn´t let you…?"
I shook my head again with another little sigh. "First of all: No. That´s not the case at all. Secondly: You´re very curious. Should I be worried? Do you want to talk about it? Do you want me to help you?"
"Oh yes, please!" she grinned teasingly, "I´m very interested, tell me more about it!"
I knew that she wasn´t totally serious about all this. It was obvious that she just had fun annoying me, like she must be doing with Jack very often I assumed, but at least it was not getting boring talking to her.
"Okay…" I began with an ironic chuckle, "You know…when a boy and a girl are deeply in love with each other, they are very gently coming closer to each other, start out with kissing each other passionately…"
"Yeah…" she chuckled in amusement, "I think I know what you´re…"
"…yeah…but when a police officer is told to have sex with somebody he has no feelings for whatsoever, and that somebody is arrested for a few illegal activities they don´t want to tell the whole truth about…"
"Oh…okay!" she grinned, "I see where this is going!"
"Yeah, and if you don´t stop asking me about that already…I might get into detail here, and…"
"And?" she asked with a shrug over her shoulders.
"And this is going to be ugly."
"I´ve seen quite a few ugly things before…" she grinned.
We just had arrived the field track I was talking about earlier.
"Oh, me too" I chuckled, "I´ve seen a few ugly things too! What have you seen before?"
"Well…" she began, "…that day we met you at the springs for example…"
I couldn´t help myself but hold my breath there for a second as she mentioned that. I took a look over to her and raised an eyebrow, mostly to find out what she was really on about. I really hoped that she was just joking.
She tried to hide it for a short moment, but then she burst out into a big laughter.
The headset I wore made a little noise suddenly, so the connection to Jack and Judy must have been up once again.
"…I…haha…I mean…hahaha…you´ve been in that little massage hut for quite a while…you can´t tell me you guys just went for a massage in there…"
"Ah…yeah, that…" I waved it off ironically, "…we just played a round of Monopoly, that´s all…"
"Monopoly…" she giggled, nodding ironically.
"Very interesting…" we heard Jack´s voice over our headsets, quickly followed by a lot of laughter from Judy.
"That was a lot of fun that round of monopoly" Judy chuckled ironically, "Wasn´t it?"
"Oh really" I sighed, "Why is that, Carrots? Because you´re always in charge of the rules all the time?"
"That´s just one reason…" she giggled.
"Alright, enough of that now" Jack interrupted now, "Where are you?"
"We´re on the field already, about five minutes away from you. Did you see anything yet?"
"There are three cars arriving right now, they look pretty similar to the ones that got away…" Jack told us, "Seems like you were right about that shortcut, Wilde."
"You´re welcome, Stripey-butt."
"We are on the far-left side of their main gate, we parked the car behind the little hill" Judy let us know.
"That makes sense" I agreed, "I think I know what you´re talking about. We´ll join you there in a second!"
"Very well, see you in a minute" Jack ended this conversation, just before he ended the headset connection once again. There was another little beep and then silence in the car.
"You know that he really is mad about that?" Skye asked me with a little chuckle.
"Yes."
"But you´re not going to stop calling him that?"
"It´s not like I don't like him or anything" I chuckled, "But the only one who is calling me by my last name is my boss, usually, and he does that to everybody. I´m the only one Jack calls by their last name, and he does that because he thinks that I´m just a clown who is taking nothing seriously."
She just looked at me with an ironic smirk and a slowly widening grin.
"…I do things a little differently than him…" I confessed, "…but normally it works out in the end. Don´t say I´m telling lies here…"
She nodded a little. She knew just as well as him that it was the truth.
"…anyway…I´m pretty sure he´ll understand it one day…and until that day arrives he remains to be my little Stripey-butt…" I chuckled.
"Or… we find a nickname for you as well and we´ll stick with that…" she proposed.
"If you really need to…" I sighed, as the other car finally came into view in the distance.
"The Sexiest Man Alive…" she suggested, "no…too long…what about…"
"Really?" I asked tiredly, because she still tried to think of something.
"Yes" she confirmed with a mischievous smile, "I will find a name for you some day, I promise!"
I just had parked the car besides the one Judy and Jack came with und turned off the engine now, ignoring it for now.
"And I´m going to find out if you lied in the show or not" she added with a little wink while opening the door on her side.
"If that makes you happy" I sighed, following her towards Jack and Judy, who were hiding on the hill they were talking about.
"Hey Judy" Skye asked when she arrived the two bunnies, "I need to ask you a few questions someday" she grinned, turning towards me while doing so, "I´m not quite sure if he´s making stuff up all the time or not…"
I just rolled my eyes with a little sigh. Judy knew what this was about of course, she was quite used to it in the meanwhile.
"Oh with great pleasure" Judy chuckled, "You wanna know some details about Nick?"
"No, she doesn´t" I replied for her dryly.
"Me neither" Jack agreed with me, adjusting his scope a little which he used to see what was going on behind the fence, "Let´s get back to business, shall we?"
What do you think? Do you still enjoy this story? I´d be glad for some feedback, thank you!
See you later, take care!
~furr