Authors Note: The following fanfiction uses characters from someone else's fanfiction series. Specifically 'Water Under the Bridge', by WriterAnon. I asked for his permission, and he gave it. Also, this story arc will be a very loose adaptation of 'Water Under the Bridge', which I'm sure the chapter title gave away.
But enough about that... enjoy the story.
XXXX
It was late at Precinct 1. This was typically when nocturnal officers would fill in the gaps caused by the night shift. Bats, raccoons, badgers, even a tasmanian devil. Among other creatures that could thrive in the relative darkness of the night.
With at least two notable exceptions. "Look, I know that you had your problems with taking the night shift, Sawa," Harry said to his exhausted-looking fox partner. "But look, we got that promotion to Detectives almost overnight, we got more spendin' money in general, and more importantly. To me at least... nobodies askin' questions about why Pronk and Bucky stop arguin' from our landlady."
"Well... it's nice that you've found something positive to look forward to." Sawa brooded.
Harry sighed. "Not this again. Look... I'm sorry that we've been workin' so much. But what else can we do?" He then took a quick peek around the office to see if anyone was looking in their direction. "And besides we're Vampires, we can't do our best work smellin' like formaldehyde from this here sunscreen."
"Then why do we still work the day shift?" Sawa asked glumly.
"Well... huh." Harry then pondered this. "Why, are we still takin' the day shift?" Then his office phone began to ring. "Sorry, but I think I gotta take this." Harry picked up the phone. "ZPD, Detective Harry Carrotson speaking." There was a click, followed by silence. "Hello? Look I can tell that you're there, so either talk or hang up."
"Congrats are in order for you're most recent case detective. It's a pity you were dupped." A voice finally said.
"And what do you know about that?" Harry said. "Some electronics got stolen, we caught the purp. We didn't recover the stolen merchandise I'll grant you but-"
"Look, I really don't have time for this." The voice said. "I'm going to say this as straightforward as I can. That robbery earlier today, that was just a ruse to throw off the police. And if you don't listen to me... millions of people will die." It said grimly.
Harry gained a serious look on his face. "You makin' threats boy?"
"What?! No, I'm just trying to warn you!" The voice said with exasperation. "I don't want that to happen... I just want to help."
"Sorry... I just... look let's start over. You got a name?" Harry said apologetically.
"Richard Richardson... yes, I know it sounds like it's fake. I've been hearing that one for as long as I can remember." Richard said.
"I've heard weirder names," Harry said as he got a pen and a pad of paper. "Actually, you mind if I put on the speaker? My partner is here and-"
"Do it," Richard said Harry wasted no time in turning on the phone's speaker. "Am I on?"
"Yep, now keep talkin'," Harry instructed.
"Look, I want police protection, so I'm going to tell you some things now, and the rest when I feel safe," Richard said. "I wouldn't do this... but... I'm scared for my life."
Harry could sense with his enhanced Vampiric senses that Richard was telling the truth. "You have my word, now keep going."
"Right... there were four of us. A ferret, a gnu, a lynx, and me, a dik-dik." Richard explained.
"Okay... so you're selling out former colleagues. Anything you could tell us about them?" Harry asked.
"Well, the ferret is named Finn. He's the most vicious and crazy ferret you'll ever meet. He does the break-in work for us... and our interrogator, all I'll say is that he likes to chew, a lot, and leave it at that."
"Anything else we can work with? Sawa, less sulking more looking through the criminal database for these creeps!" Harry said.
"Okay," Sawa said as she logged into the criminal database with her computer. "I'm in."
"Continue," Harry said.
"Then there's Elim Boayke, he's a brindled gnu. He's our leader of sorts, really smart. You're not likely to find much, aside from a suspect list as long as giraffes neck by Interpol." Richard explained. "And if you're not sure, his last name is spelled. B-o-a-y-k-e."
Sawa checked on the name. "And he's right. He's suspected for many crimes."
"Then there's the lynx, Grigori Yevgenyevich. He's one of the strongest Mammals I've ever met. I'm not kidding, this guy has taken down elephants and other Mammals bigger than him with his bare paws." Richard explained.
"Could you spell that?" Sawa asked.
"Y-e-v-g-e-n-y-e-v-i-c-h. Yevgenyevich." Richard said.
Sawa typed in the name. "Yikes, this Grigori looks awful." She said looking over the results.
"That he is, and that's despite being rounded off," Richard said.
"Rounded off? The heck is that?" Harry asked.
"Outside of Zootopia, you can get parts off you're body lopped off as punishment for violent crimes. Claws, fangs, horns, antlers, tusks, you name it. They'll remove it... of course, it doesn't actually discourage crimes."
"I know of this... one of my uncles was declawed for a crime they never proved he committed," Sawa said, looking at her own paw. "He was never the same after that."
"Exactly, now that's all I can tell right now," Richard said.
"Okay... why though? Why call my number specifically about this?" Harry asked.
Richard sighed. "Look... there ain't a lot of hope these days. But you two... and Detectives Nick and Judy. Honestly, I would've called them but... well it's three in the morning."
"That makes sense, I've known her long enough to know that she needs to get a full night's sleep. Or she'll be the crankiest rabbit in a three-hundred-mile area. Not even joking on that." Harry said.
"I'll take your word for it," Richard said. "Anyway, none of you let your relative size stop you from trying to change things, save people, for crying out loud. A year or two ago, you came out of the other end of the Battle of Zootopia alive!... I wish I had that kind of determination when I was younger."
"Well, that is true... and it was our first day on the force on top of that," Harry said. "Now... about the robbery. If you could tell us that?"
"I picked the front door, I hacked the security system the week before, Finn and Gori did the heavy lifting while Elim and I talked about... about the future," Richard said.
"And what about the future?" Harry asked.
"Again, I'm not saying more until I can get a proper guarantee for protection. I trust you guys, don't get me wrong. But I doubt you're bosses would be okay working with an ex-terrorist like this." Richard said.
"That's actually a fair point," Sawa admitted.
"At any rate, the robbery was a ruse. I think Elim set Matty up for the fall guy, and it seems to be working. The authorities are none the wiser, so they'd ignore anything... inconvenient regarding the robbery. Like, say, something that can cover up musks for instance."
"You know... Nick and I did smell something in there. But when we tried to bring it up, we got shouted down." Sawa said.
"Sounds about right. Anyway, I told Elim the job sounded rotten. But apparently, thirty million dollars is all it takes for him to turn a blind eye." Richard said.
"Thirty million?! Who's paying you to do... whatever it is you were hired to do, exactly?" Harry said in surprise.
"No idea, all I know is that Elim got the call. He took the offer, and had us working our tails off." Richard said.
It went on like this with Harry and Sawa taking notes, and corroborating everything Richard told them. "Okay... so they're going to poison Zootopia somehow."
"An oversimplification, but yeah. That's exactly what's happening..." Richard then sighed in resignation. "You've probably been wondering why I'm selling out my friends like this."
"That question did cross my mind a couple of times, yes," Harry said.
"Well... I saw a smartphone case for a kid. You know the kind, gaudy looking but... it got to me. This... this whole thing is going to kill kids! I'm not going to lie, I've killed people before. But most of them actually had it coming... sometimes. But never kids! I told them... I begged them to reconsider. But they wouldn't listen! I just... I had all could stand, and I couldn't stand it anymore! No amount of money could make me do it!" Richard said, choking up over the phone.
Harry and Sawa looked at each other. "Mr. Richardson... It's okay to feel afraid. And I'm sorry you've been dragged into something so heinous. But what you're doing now... that is the very heart of being brave. Doing the right thing, despite your fears. We're all afraid, but overcoming that fear is how we become better." Sawa said. "You're doing the right thing... even if it doesn't feel like it."
"You... you really mean it?" Richard said through his sobbing.
"Kid, we've seen our fair share of monsters of late. And you, Richard Richardson the dik-dik... are not a monster." Harry said. "You are a good person. Now repeat it back to me."
"I-I'm a good person," Richard repeated.
"Say it again, but without the stutter," Harry said.
"I'm a good person," Richard repeated. "I'm a good person!... wow, that actually feels... right."
"Exactly. Now, give us the address you want to meet us at." Harry said.
XXXX
Harry and Sawa arrived at their destination, deciding to use their Vampiric powers to get to the address... and found a gory mess. "Oh no... he said he'd meet us here!" Sawa said in shock at the absence of any dik-diks
"This place wrecks of ferret and tiny deer... I'm not even going to ask how that happened." Harry looked through Richards's pockets. "Think this is worth anything?"
"What do you think?" Sawa snapped back, she then sniffed the air. "And I've got a scent! We need to hurry!"
"Agreed," Harry said, the two made sure they weren't seen before taking to flight. Following the scent of their informant. The search took a few minutes, but they found the villain's hideout. "An old apartment building... how cliche."
They landed and transformed into their normal forms. They went inside of the building, following the scent of Richard. Eventually arriving at the apartment where he was being held. "Okay, I got the scents of a lynx, a gnu, a ferret... and a dik-dik and a LOT of blood," Sawa said as she sniffed.
"There's no time to go through the official channels. Richard would likely be dead from blood loss by the time the bureaucrats get the paperwork sorted out." Harry said. "We go in, take down these varmints, and get Rich to a hospital."
"No argument from me. On three." Sawa said. "THREE!" The two Vampire cops burst through the apartment door, rending it to blisters.
"What the?!- How'd the police find us so fast!?" Elim the gnu said in surprise.
"It matters not. Cops are tiny cops." Grigori the lynx said as he stood up from his chair and cracked his knuckles. "I'll save some for Finn."
"And we'll save something for the courts," Harry said. 'You ready for this?' He asked Sawa telepathically,
'I still feel dizzy from our training sessions with the Unseen eye, but what the heck?' Sawa replied.
The two of them quickly overpowered Grigori, knocking him unconscious. Elim looked absolutely confused by what just happened. "What just happened?"
"Ah, so you blinked. Well, keep your eyes open for this one." Sawa said as she and Harry repeated the same thing to Elim. "Now, to find Richard."
Then the ferret criminal exited the room where he was torturing Richard. He looked around, seeing that Elim and Grigori were lying on the floor. And a rabbit and fox police officer standing over them. "Hi... I'm Finnegan. Finnegan McNulty."
The detectives wasted no time in filling Finn with tranq darts. "Naptime, princess," Harry said with contempt as he pistol-whipped Finn in the face.
Sawa went to the door. And screamed in shock. "Richards here! And he's lost a lot of blood!"
Harry took a look at the maimed dik-dik. "Oh... oh putting that ferret through the legal system is too good for that degenerate," Harry said with disgust. "Richard, if you can hear us. We're going to get you to a hospital, and we're not going to let you die."
XXXX
About an hour later, Harry and Sawa were sitting in front of a desk with a tasmanian devil behind it with bloodshot eyes. This was the chief of the night shift at Precinct 1, George Harrisii. "Good news is... I'm not mad that you two went off to go save lives. The bad news is... I'm still going to drag you two through the mud."
"But sir, we found evidence of a terrorist plot against the city!" Harry said.
"That certainly seems to be the case. Some kind of mystery vial... a mammal being tortured for squealing... and of course the criminal records they have." George said, he then took a massive gulp from his coffee mug. "Of course, there's a couple of problems with this... know what they are?"
"We used our Vampiric powers to apprehend the criminals," Sawa admitted. "I know, it's against policy. But a man's life was at stake, and we couldn't know-"
"I sympathize with you're reasoning... did you at least use your powers outside of the view of civilians?" George asked. "That Vampire form anyway?"
"We ducked into alleyways to transform," Harry said. "But this plot could be real. We can't afford to overlook that some... madman wants to destroy Zootopia!"
George took another large gulp of coffee. "Tell me something, what's the distance between Precinct 1? The place you were supposed to meet up with Richard Richardson? And the apartment where you found these low lives?" Harry and Sawa hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. "Well... I'm sorry to say, I had Gloria compare address."
"WHAT?!" Harry shouted. "You got Gloria von Pigeon-Snacker involved?!" He said with contempt for a greater noctule bat that worked the night shift with them.
"I'm sorry, she's better at these computers than I am. But I didn't tell her that it involved you two. I just asked her how long it would take to get to each address in a police cruiser. She told me the overall time would be over an hour to two depending on traffic... and you wrapped the whole thing up and got back in less than fifteen minutes. Doesn't that sound just a little bit suspect?" George said.
"That's... not untrue," Harry said.
"Sir, Richard practically had a nervous breakdown when he called us." Sawa pleaded.
"Kids... let me make this clear to you," George said as he stood up from his chair. "When word about this inevitably gets to the press. Who do you think them vultures are going to pester with endless questions. Most of which I can't answer because it directly involves undead creatures of the night that they ain't supposed to know exist? And most people don't believe exist, or can exist anyway? Me." He said as he went to his coffee machine and refilled his mug. "And between the sleep deprivation, the stress of my work, working directly with honest-to-goodness Vampires, and my battle with devil facial tumor disease last month. I'm just one. Little. Push. Away, from completely losing my mind."
Harry and Sawa looked at each other. "We understand sir. Assuming circumstances like this don't happen again. We won't use our Vampiric powers to aid in an investigation." Harry said.
"I'm going to hold you to that," George said as he returned to his desk with a fresh mug of coffee. "Cause if you don't... I'm going to share my pictures of my DFTD pictures with the both of you. And believe me, even undead creeps can get sick looking at these."
"With respect sir... we didn't really have a choice in becoming Vampires," Sawa said dejectedly.
"Fair enough... now get back to work. And when you see Bogo, tell him I've developed an immunity to the laxatives he usually spikes my coffee with." George then took another swig of coffee.
"We'll let him know," Harry said. "One more thing... well Sawa and I are a bit overworked. Taking on two shifts, working all day."
"Sounds about right. Also, I'm tired of people complaining about the smell of your sunscreen. So as soon as possible, consider yourselves off the day shift." George said. "Of course I'd have to go through a mountain of paperwork. But for what you two have done for the department as a whole... well you've more than earned it."
"Permission to meet Mr. Richardson at the hospital?" Sawa asked.
"Only during visiting hours," George said as he took a hearty gulp of coffee. "Why do I always forget to put sugar in this?" He said as he went back to his coffee machine... and was livid to find that there were no sugar packets "Oh... oh Bogo. Tainting my coffee with laxatives is one thing but this- oh this is a new low for you!" He ranted. Harry and Sawa saw themselves out as the tasmanian devil started snarling and making random noises as he started
Then they ran into Gloria, hanging from the ceiling. The bat said in a singsong voice. "So... what did the boss say?"
"Ask him... I'm certain he's free right now." Harry said.
Gloria giggled. "Oh silly... I only ever went into Officer Harrisii's office once when he was in one of his moods. I'm never doing that again."
"Look, we're just going to get back to work. You just... do whatever exactly you do." Sawa said.
"I'm a Leitentnet, actually." Gloria clarified. "I have a partner, my sister Victoria. We'd be out on patrol right now, but we're SOOO behind on our reports."
"And if you'd stop goofing around, we wouldn't HAVE that problem!" Victoria shouted from their cubical. "Stop bothering the new guys and help me!"
"Ah, siblings. Can't live with'em. Can't live without'em. You know where I'm comin' from right Carrotson?" Gloria crawled on the ceiling towards her cubicle.
"Let's just hope that this matter ends soon," Sawa said.
TO BE CONTINUED.
"I jinxed it, didn't I?" Sawa asked in disbelief.
"I wouldn't think too hard about it," Harry said reassuringly.