Trucks, cars and station-wagons drove this way and that outside Zootopia's precinct one on a cold and cloudy night. Some heavy officers lined up, others geared up. Chief Bogo was making rounds whilst some military looking folks all stood around a truck being briefed by a wolf with Major's clusters on his shoulders. This was the scene that Judy, dressed in an all-black field uniform, was presented with.

"Chief!" she called out, hoping to get Bogo's attention.

The hefty cape buffalo silently acknowledged the address, finished his words to Officer Krumpanski with a pat on the shoulder and walked over to greet the rabbit.

"Ah, Hopps. Five minutes early. For you that's about ten minutes late," he said with a slight grin.

"Well, I'm still trying to get this new getup broken in," said Judy.

The chief of police tapped a pen on his clipboard, "ah, yes. Speaking of which, there's a technician here," Bogo paused to look around, "somewhere to walk you through it's features."

'Features?' thought the rabbit, 'What kind of features? That fact that it's black and not blue?'

As Delgato passed the two officers, Bogo grabbed the tiger's arm, "Hey, where's that representative?"

"East side," he said before swiftly departing.

Bogo turned back to Judy, "there. It's somebody from the company that designed your new gear."

"Right. I'll make my way over," said Hopps with a nod.

It took little time for Judy to find the only white van in a space full of mostly-black police vehicles and some olive drab trucks.

The rabbit saw a slim yet curvy figure leaning next to the open side door of the van. Even in a casual posture, scrolling through a smartphone with a bored look on her face, Judy could tell she was the type that'd turn heads. To put it one way, if the word 'beautiful' were applied to the vixen in question, it'd be a considerable understatement.

The arctic fox spotted Hopps out of the corner of her eye. This prompted her stand up straight and step towards the rabbit officer, displaying an overtly feminine gait.

"Officer Hopps, I presume?" she said, in a rich, silky voice.

Maintaining her enthusiasm, Judy replied: "Y-yes, that's me!"

The fox took one further step closer to her and held out a paw, "Watterson. Lilith Watterson, I'm here to give an overview of your new gear."

Judy shook outstretched paw and said, "Judy Hopps. Though you already knew that."

Lilith motioned Judy to follow her to the van, "Yes, in fact I've heard a lot about you."

"Don't believe a word of it, I'm really quite a sweetheart!" said the rabbit, rather coyly.

"Oh there's no doubt about that..." said Lilith whilst retrieving some crates and a clipboard.

The slender creature set up a laptop, opened some cases and laid some gadgets on a table with Judy looking on. She picked up the clipboard again as well as a pen from her blazer pocket.

"So how's the fit, eh?" she asked the rabbit.

Judy shuffled on her long feet, "Hmm... Well... Not great."

"Thought as much," said Lilith as she ticked a box, "it's what happens when you use measurements that are two years old... But what would a vixen know about clothes, hmm?"

Judy decided that question was rhetorical.

"That being said, it provides us with an excellent opportunity," Said Lilith, picking up some sort of vest and something that looked like a strapless wristwatch.

She passed the vest to Judy, the front of which was fairly plain, save for a few aesthetic looking seam lines however the back had a flat rectangular plate that resembled some kind of body armour. She jumped with fright as once the vest was resting on her shoulders, the straps tightened and the interior surfaces moulded to the shape of her upper torso.

"Fancy, huh? Like it's giving you a hug, give me your paw," said Lilith, brandishing the watch-thing, "this'll fix the body suit."

Judy held out her paw and the fox placed the gadget on a round spot on the garment's sleeve, flipping a switch to activate it. The thing beeped and dozens of blue lights blinked all over the entire ensemble.

"Disco mode?" queried Judy.

"Ha. That's a good one, I ought to remember that for later." Said Lilith.

The arctic fox pressed some buttons on the wrist device's keypad. Judy watched words come and go on the attached LCD screen, things like 'SYSTEM SETTINGS', 'POWER SETTINGS' and the like. Eventually, Lilith pressed 'START' while 'AUTO-CALIBRATE' was selected.

The wrist device emitted a computerized voice: "Beginning garment cali-bration. Hardware detected: Version one conforming hard vest. Onboard sensors: Active. Environmental control: Not applicable. Battery status: Discharging. Power level: 98 per-cent."

The little machine was silent as the rabbit's new clothes adjusted to a perfect fit.

"Calibration complete. Welcome to the Lagomorph Patrol Dress Uniform Mark II Semi-powered Recon and Patrol Suite." Said the device, this time in a more cheery voice.

"Pretty fancy, eh?" said Lilith rhetorically, "yes, my father was supposed to run this little errand, but he figured his time was better spent hunting lost prototypes and visiting prospective sites for a branch here in the city."

"Well I think I'm gonna have to call my partner. He says he's going to sit on his sofa to 'rest his eyes' and ends up falling asleep. What's the bet that's the case here?" said the rabbit to the arctic fox.

"If he's anything like my father, it's at least 50/50."

"I'd take that wager..." said a casual red fox, strolling up to the pair of mammalian females, "though it depends, what are we talking about, carrots?"

"You."

"Ah. Right. Then all bets are off because I'm fantastic," he said.

The newcomer took a moment to admire Judy's new outfit. At the same time, Judy could see Lilith looking him up and down with an off-putting gleam in her eye.

"Lilith, this is my partner, Nicholas Wilde," said Judy in an introductory manner.

Lilith greeted the red fox in turn, holding out a paw: "Hello, Nicholas. My name is Lilith. Lilith Watterson."

Officer Wilde accepted the pawshake, "Charmed. And please, call me Nick."

Nick put on a scowl whilst retrieving a pair of dorkish square-framed glasses. "They're making me wear these... Things for the duration of this little op. I just don't think they're my style.

Judy knew just what to say. Lilith beat her to it, "Sure they're not aviators... But I'm sure they'll look just dapper on you."

Nick donned the spectacles and it was at that moment that Judy spotted he was wearing a corduroy jacket over a striped polo with black jeans.

"All in all, it's very different to your typical ensemble," She said.

"Yeah. You see, the glasses have a camera and all that," Said the red fox, tentatively tapping the glasses' frame.

Judy turned to Lilith, who had a funny sort of vexed expression on her face, "Well, we'd better get moving. Thank you Lilith."

Lilith just nodded. She waved with a friendly smile as they walked away.

"I caught you looking," said Judy.

"Well it's rude not to look at someone when they're speaking to you," replied Nick.

"Well, she was certainly looking at you..."

Nick stopped for moment, "Really? I mean... Are you jealous, Carrots?"

Judy rolled her eyes and said rather playfully, "Yes, because I'm totally hung up over-"

"A vermillion bombshell?" Nick interrupted.

"-An orange wise-ass," Finished Judy.

The two spotted Benjamin Clawhauser inside one the ZPD's stakeout vans. Just outside it's open doors stood Bogo, speaking with the overweight cheetah. Nick flicked his ears in their direction, Judy nodded and they both jogged over.

"Radio status?" Bogo asked Clawhauser.

"Green!" Said the cheetah with a confident smile.

"And you've been over the maps, double checked the routes, street layouts, et cetera?"

"Of course!" said Clawhauser, showing the chief his clipboard, riddled with check marks.

Bogo huffed and turned away with a sort of 'trapped wind' expression on his face. He spotted our heroes approaching but said nothing. He stood a little straighter when he saw a wolf approaching, it was the Major.

"What's wrong, boges?" he said in an odd sounding accent.

"Ah, Major Pearce. How are your mammals?"

"Well, a lot of em' have never been to this city before. Nevertheless, urban is their forte," he said with an air authority before adding rather sternly: "and hey, don't deflect, I asked you a question."

Bogo sighed, "Just a bad feeling I can't shake..."

Pearce gave him a hard slap on the shoulder, "Years ago, I had a stop-over in this city and was grabbing a bite to eat. Then this young-ish looking Cape Buffalo rocks up, tries to arrest me for quote-unquote 'eating suspicously'."

The chief said nothing.

"That's the Bogie I thought'd be here, the take-charge, tough officer I came to know and... Be fearful of in a respectful way."

'...Bogie?' thought Judy. She turned to Nick, his expression was a reflection of her own vexation at the evident rapport between the two before her. The Major just shook his head as Bogo was still silent.

"Well, anyway. The birdwatchers have eyes on the nest. Got some positive IDs, suspects entering the building marked as the hotspot," explained the Major.

Bogo was noncommittal, simply saying, "Good good."

"The rest of my lot are split into two teams just as planned. We'll pile into our trucks and stay on station until your lot do the recon," Maj. Pearce pointed at Judy, "once the fly on the wall gives the signal, we'll kick it in, section it off and lay them out – with tranqs, of course."

Bogo nodded. Pearce stepped towards Judy and kneeled in front of her.

"When they told me I was going to be taking orders from a civillian I was... Suitably unimpressed. I've read your file. You'll do great," he said, smacking her shoulder, "right. I'm off to hold up my end, I'll see you in the soup."

Judy said, "Ow," rubbing her shoulder.

"He respects you," said Bogo.

"Kinda got a funny way of showing it, huh?"

The chief sighed, "Major Pearce has a checkered history and to be honest, he's a little broken."

Bogo took a long pause to watch the Major. The motley crew of mammals under his command saluted him and started boarding the trucks they had arrived in.

"He's dealt with a lot of death. He hasn't killed many himself, he's just had countless comrades die around him. Don't ask him about it," he said with a tone of finality.

"Right..." said Judy.

Chief Bogo, Nick and Judy all huddled around the map in Clawhauser's van to recap their plans.

End Notes

It's nice to have a bit more Pearce. I was definitely going for a sort of HEV vibe with the computer voice.

[In accordance with feedback, I've been fixing my dialogue punctuation. Oh what a mess I've found myself in, it's like mowing an entire lawn without realizing there's not a bag on the mower.]