Okay, I know that this chapter is almost two weeks late, but writer's block does NOT help when trying to come up with something to give to an audience. It also didn't help that Left 4 Dead 2 got an update and I've been playing that for a while now.

Anyway, sit back, relax, and put on an inspirational song, (mine is Wish You Were Here by Incubus) and enjoy the chapter!

Judy awoke abruptly from a dream as her alarm began to blare. She groaned and pressed the off button for it. She clicked the light to her apartment on and looked at her mess of a bed. She was going to have to wash her sheets and blanket as soon as possible.

The rest of her morning was done less enthusiastically than normal. Her mind was still hooked to the dream she had been having. Nick had gone down on her like a wild animal in said dream. And she had enjoyed every bit of it, up until the part where she woke up.

Before she knew it, she had gotten dressed and was ready to leave. She grabbed her keys and wallet and left her apartment. It wasn't long after that she walked through the doors to the precinct.

The first greeting she got was one of a rather sad tone. Everyone seemed downcast as if someone had rained on their parade. She sighed and decided it was going to be one of those days. The first face she was met with was always Benjamin. Even he was downcast.

"Morning, Judy." He said as the rabbit approached the front desk. Judy took note that there weren't any boxes of cereal or donuts in front of the cheetah.

"Morning, Ben. Is the entire precinct so down this morning?" She asked him. He nodded solemnly. It confused her to no end. Everyone was usually in a good mood despite their job.

She waved goodbye to Clawhauser and walked down the hall towards the bullpen. She didn't see many mammals on her way there, but the few she did were somewhat down. She didn't hear anything coming from the bullpen this morning. It wasn't normal to hear silence.

When she opened the door everyone seemed to be minding their own business compared to usual mornings. She looked to her seat. Nick was already there, his paws crossed behind him. Her eyebrows drew down in thought as she watched him. She jumped up into the chair next to him and bumped him to let him know she was there.

"You know what's going on this morning? Or is it just the weather?" She asked her partner in a low voice. He shrugged in response and jerked a thumb in the direction of the wall behind the podium. She turned and looked at it to see a note. It read 'Rollcall will be taken in the gym this morning. Meet there at 8 o'clock sharp'. To Judy, it didn't seem like something to be downcast about.

She hummed for a moment before jumping down from the chair and walked out of the bullpen. She decided that it was best to be early so she could warm up for whatever training. Her ears tweaked as she heard small whispers going between the rest of the officers. It confused her even further.

Judy took a deep breath as she walked into the gym. There were a few officers there at the moment. The special agent was sitting in the middle of the ring in what seemed like a meditative pose. She jumped a little when he spoke.

"Hopps. Punctuality. A good quality. Even a little sooner than I expected." His eyes opened and trained on her. He rose from his sitting position in one smooth motion. His paws went behind his back and his face relaxed. "Do you know if Wilde is going to be here anytime soon?" He asked. It came as an odd question to the rabbit. She wasn't aware of any reason that he would need her partner for anything.

"No. Why?" She said to him, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"I was under the impression that the two of you have the best teamwork record here in Zootopia. I wanted to see that for myself in some form." His ears perked as the door opened to reveal Nadine and Ralph walking in one after the other. They seemed to be having a somewhat hushed conversation. Judy noticed that Ralph's tail was flicking back and forth. She had seen Nick do that a few times, but she still wondered what it meant for canines.

"Fangmeyer. Wolfard. Fifteen minutes early. Good." Fangman said. This made both of them nearly jump out of their skin at his voice. A smile seemed to tug at the edge of his lips.

'So he does have a sense of humor. I wonder if Nick will try one of his horrible jokes on him.' Judy shook her head to herself at the thought. Of course, he would try that. He always tried telling those awful jokes to the next person he saw.

Little by little, the rest of the morning shift filed in behind Nadine and Ralph. Nick arrived just after the wolf and tiger duo.

"Agent Fangman wants to see our teamwork firstpaw." She told Nick as he approached her. This made him raise his eyebrows in surprise. This confused him as well it seemed. Judy chanced a look at the clock. It read 7:59. One minute.

"Alright. Now that all of you are here, I'll be explaining why I brought all of you here for rollcall." Ardenhu began, "The ZBI has assigned me a case that has become increasingly difficult for me and my team to complete. This is why I've asked Cheif Bogo to select his best detectives for this. I know many of you here are very good at finding clues and believe me, my team is no slouch at it.

"The problem is that there have been absolutely no leads at all, and the ones that we did manage to find, ran cold. Even our reliable sources haven't come up with anything. The group we're looking for had evaded us time and time again. That's where you all come in." He said, his tone and expression darkened. A chill ran up Judy's spine as if the room was colder than it had been moments ago. "That aside, training today will be a little different from what you have been doing. I will be giving all of you rubber knives to test your combat ability with a melee weapon." From his pocket, he pulled something and threw it.

It flew past Judy's ears and thunked into Wolfard's chest. The air in his lungs left him and he grabbed his chest. A few chuckled ran through the crowd.

"I suggest you pay attention, Wolfard. I don't care if you're the son of the Alpha, I'll treat you like any other subordinate." Wolfard picked up the rubber knife and threw it back at Ardenhu. Using both paws, the wolf caught the blade between them and narrowed his eyes. "Now then, let's begin."

Over the next several hours, all of them went through Fangman's basic knife training. It was the same as what was taught in basic training. The difference with this training was that after they refreshed themselves, they were taught more advanced techniques. Most of them were defensive but had their offensive uses. They were also put in pairs and asked to try and dodge each other's strikes. Fangman himself walked around and watched everyone's forms, correcting where needed.

This training gave Judy time to stare Nick down more than she normally got to. Her mind went back to the dream she had been having the previous night. Nick had pinned her up against the wall of his decently sized apartment, whispering sweet words into her ear. His front canines had found the base of one ear and lightly dragged upward, sending a shiver up her spine. It hadn't been long after that that she found that both of their clothes had hit the floor and Nick had thrown her onto the bed, pinning her against it.

Judy blinked a few times to make the memory of the dream go away. In the time she had fantasized, Fangman had stopped the training to let everyone go about their day. He had gotten a phone call. Something about a breakthrough in the case or something like that. The wolf had left shortly after that and had everyone return the rubber knives to a bag by the mirror. After Judy put her knife back, she made her way to the locker room to change. Her ears perked when she walked in. Nadine and Francine were talking.

"...and he just doesn't seem to be picking up what I'm putting down. It's starting to piss me off." Nadine was saying.

"Nadine, Ralph is a wolf. They're courting tendencies are odd to felines. Trust me, I know. I've dated a few wolves." Francine said to her. Both of them looked down at Judy as she approached her locker. "Wouldn't you say, Judy?"

"I wouldn't know all that much about canine courting tendencies, honestly. I was so hyper-focused on becoming a police officer in high school that I never really dated anyone." She said as she began undressing. "Now that I've gotten here, I haven't played the field and looked for a date." Her eyes turned down. "Not that anyone would be interested in a bunny cop, to begin with.

Nadine and Francine looked at each other and smiled knowingly. Judy's eyebrows drew down in confusion as to what the two were thinking. She finished getting dressed and stuffed her workout clothes into her bag. "But, that's not to say that whoever's eye you're trying to catch won't or doesn't notice. It might be that he waiting for you to make a move first?" She said it as a question and smiled as she walked out of the locker room.

She giggled a little to herself at the thought of Nadine's face to that response. She didn't know much about canine courting but what she did know was pretty much universal for them. It was all the basic things. They mate for life, their mates are usually part of a political agreement between packs save for foxes who were much more nomadic than most canines'.

Letting the thought leave her mind, she made her way to her desk so she could start filling out some of the paperwork that she had yet to catch up on. She passed Ralph on her way there and gave him a quick wave. It looked like he was trying to hide something behind him so that she couldn't see it as he walked by. Judy ignored this and continued on her way.

When she arrived at her desk she found that Nick that already gotten there and was nearly done with the stack of files that had been on his desk. She looked over to hers and saw that there was hardly anything there, save for a few manila folders laid on top of one another. She looked back at Nick.

"Nick, did you do all of my paperwork while I wasn't here?" She asked him. He looked up at her and shook his head. All the while his smirk was plastered to his muzzle. Judy smiled at him and sat at her desk to open the files that were laying there.

The moment she did, her smile was wiped away. The first page was in big bold red letters that said: "CLASSIFIED." She flipped the page over and drew her eyebrows down. These were files that seemed like they belonged in the ZBI archives. The first one was a written report of a murder victim. She skimmed it and went to the next file. It and the third were all mostly the same save for the victim, their profession, and species.

She closed the last file and turned her chair around to face Nick. "Hey, have you gone through these already?" She asked him.

"Yeah. An arctic fox came in and set them down a few minutes ago. Said that Cheif Bogo wanted us to take a look at them." He told her while still having his muzzle buried in the last of her paperwork. Judy hummed to herself for a moment and scratched her ear nervously. She began to pick her brain for anything she could to help with the case.

There hadn't been a bigger bust since the night howler case that she knew of. Most anything else was minor busts in comparison. This seemed so much larger. Although, she couldn't place why she felt as if this was connected to the night howler case in some way. It felt uncanny to her.

Before she knew it time had passed and it was time to clock off. She left her desk with a sigh and a headache. She needed some dinner, sleep, and a good dream. In that order specifically. She figured she'd get something quick and cheap on the way home and eat when she got there.

"Welp, see you in the morning, Nick." She said as she waved to her partner. He nodded and waved back at her. 'Tomorrow is another day.'She thought to herself as she left precinct one.

Alrighty then! Chapter four is in the bag now. I hope you all like it. I still have more planned for the future and I will try to get it all out to you as possible.

Now, review time!

GhostWolf88: I'll be addressing that soon. :)

Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps: I appreciate you so much going through the VERY old chapters of The Deepest Shades of Red and comparing them to this rendition. I hope this chapter satisfies you for the moment.

Okay! Done. Now, I hope to have the next chapter out to all of you very soon if life and my creativity allow it.

May inspiration light your paths,

Leon