Summary:

Sergent Wolfard and Corporal Wilde are out on late night patrol, shooting the shit and trying to stay awake. Wolfard tries to pass on some wisdom, Wilde counters with some knowledge, and they both end up going to Wild Times looking for burglars. They get jumped, and spent the next few days recovering. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Judy has branched out to the video side of things, and finds that it's not what she thought it would be, but she still makes a friend along the way.

Notes:

I refer to both police officers in this chapter by either their rank and last names or their last names when referring to them in a professional capacity.

Flashback: 7 Years ago in Zootopia

"Here's one: A deer walks out of a gay bar. 'Dude, I can't believe I just blew fifty bucks in there.'" Corporal Wilde guffawed.

Sergent Wolfard groaned as he gripped the cruiser's steering wheel, "Gawd… Where do you get these? Some bad joke website or something?"

"Maybe… Ooo what about: 'How do you get a squirrel to like you?" Wilde tried again, as he turned in his seat to face his partner.

"I'm gonna regret this, I know it." Wolfard shook his head, "Oh I don't know. How?"

"Simple, act like a nut." Wilde chortled.

"Oh, that's awful. The first one was sexist, and the second was speciest. Can you be anymore offensive tonight?" Wolfard shook his head.

"Hey, at least I'm not talking politics, yah know? I'm keeping it clean in comparison." Wilde pointed out.

"Oh, don't I know it. Six weeks till the election, and the opposition's screaming is starting to hurt my poor aching ears." Wolfard's ears twitched in sympathy.

"Yeah, like they have a chance in hell of dislodging Lucky Leo and his attack ewe… What's her name again… Bellwether?" Wilde asked him.

"I think so. Have you seen her? She's like some miniature sheep, not even full size."

"Yeah, but I bet she's still fluffy! Oh… So… Fluffy..." He grinned at the wolf as he made squishy motions with his paws.

"What? Are you on that sexual shit again? Dude, why oh why, would you want to take that runt of a herbivore to bed? You got a thing for small prey species or something? You must be trying to give me nightmares!"

"Maybe?" Wilde drawled, "But at least I'm keeping you awake."

"Small miracles, that." Wolfard grumbled as his eyes scanned the darkened streets, "Yah think, with our nocturnal biology and shit, that we'd be primed for this sort of thing, hunting in the dark."

"Sure, if we had naps before we went on patrol, but after 5 hours of this seat, my butt's turned to lead, and my eyes just want to fall out. And what do you think we're hunting, you big bad wolf? It may be the witching hour, but this isn't the Nocturnal district. That's on the other side of the bridge. This here is Hay Market, the divine promise land of ungulates everywhere, and they're all asleep, tucked into their big beds, dreaming of tomorrow's cud." Wilde shook his head, "Sorry buddy. There's not hunting here for you tonight."

"Well, I need something. How else am I ever gonna teach you how to track?" Wolfard mused.

"Hey, I can track just fine! Blueberries are usually on isle three, behind the produce section, and tofu is found in the refrigerated section at the back of the store next to the discount bin." Wilde pointed out.

"That's not tracking, that SHOPPING!" Wolfard shook his head, "No, you need to know how to track your prey if you want to be a real predator!"

"Omnivore."

"What?"

"I'm an omnivore."

Wolfard exclaimed, "I know that! It's the principle of the thing! It's an important skill you need, and it will save your life one day, I promise. Why, when I was a rookie..."

"Don't you mean, 'Long, long, ago'?"

"What?"

"You're about to tell me a fairy tale. They all start, 'Long, long, ago!'"

"No, no what? Fairy tale? What are you yapping about, pup?"

"You said when you were a rookie. That was a long, long, time ago. Do you mean back sometime in the Paleozoic era?"

"Paleozoic? There wasn't a single mammal alive in the Paleozoic. I ain't that old, Corporal Wilde!" Wolfard fixed an eye on his younger partner, "Listen, Mr Trainee Fox, you will respect your elders, or I will drive behind that building there, pull out my official manual of Zootopia Police Procedures and Revised Statutes, and I will box your ears with it! I will go on for hours and hours..." He threatened his partner. "Besides, I had to listen to your awful jokes, so you have to listen to my enlightening words of wisdom." Wolfard tacked that on to the end just a bit primly.

Wilde grinned, as the bullshit was getting deep in the cruiser, "I'm sorry, Dad. I'll listen."

Wolfard, glared at the smart mouthed fox for a moment, before he turned his attention back to the road slowly passing under them. "Anyway, back when I was a rookie." He glanced over at Wilde, to see if there was any feedback to be given. Wild just gazed back, a slight smile on his muzzle. "I was sent out to assist the Bunny Burrow Sheriff's department in tracking down an escaped fugitive."

Wilde quirked his brow, "What? Bunny Burrow? That's a 200 mile hike for a ZPD officer, and way outside of our jurisdiction. Why didn't they call the in the Marshals? That's their thing."

"Yeah, well, apparently the Sheriff did try, and the Marshals just laughed at them. So they called in a favor with the ZPD."

"The Marshals laughed? They don't have a sense of humor, Wolfard. It's surgically removed during their swearing in ceremony."

"No, the Sheriff said they laughed over the phone. I mean, I don't know why they didn't take it seriously. She was a dangerous kit and the Sheriff's department had a right to be concerned about it."

Wilde quickly did some math in his head and asked Wolfard, "Kit? What was her name?"

"Jessica, Jill, Jenny… Something. Started with a J." Wolfard gestured off with his paw.

"Judy." Wilde offered him.

"Yeah! That's her! She had escaped for some three weeks, and they had gotten pretty desperate to find her." He nodded to the fox.

Wilde sighed, "Wolfard, we're talking about Judy Hopps here. She was all of, what, ten years old at the time, and maybe a foot and half tall. She was not that dangerous."

"Hey! She had killed a mammal! What, Carl Latrans, right? That made her a murderer." Wolfard objected.

Wilde, exasperated, explained, "Wolfard, she shot a coyote she obviously thought was a danger to her family, with her dad's 22 magnum revolver. It was so heavy that she couldn't even get it aimed higher than his stomach, and when she fired it the recoil knocked it right out of her hands. Had it been loaded with a straight 22 magnum round, the coyote would have probably survived. But her dad used to it shoot snakes, so it was loaded with snake shot. One of the pellets nicked open an artery in Latrans' liver, and he bleed out into his abdomen before they could get him on an operating table."

"I heard he died cursing her name." Wolfard pointed out.

"I'm pretty sure that Latrans cursed a lot of mammals before he died. Funny, the things that go through your mind at that moment, I'd imagine." Nick mused.

"Wait a minute? How do you know all this? They teach this at the academy or something?"

"No, I read most of her patient file, back during the Horizons investigation. She was one of the patients at Cliffside, don't you remember?" Nick leaned forward.

Wolfard shook his head, "Nope."

"What do you mean, 'Nope'? Didn't you read any of the stuff we were shuttling around?"

"Not my job, so double nope."

"Not your job? How was it not your job to be informed about our investigation?"

"My job was to play the big bad dumb wolf, and that that meant staying in character. It was your job to shuttle the stuff around, and it was my job to make sure that nobody popped you one while we were doing it. If you wanted to read all of the that stuff, that was up to you." Wolfard pointed out to him.

"Ooo... The big bad dumb wolf, eh? So is that why you do the driving, and I do the paperwork, huh?"

"Yup, that seems to me to be an equitable exchange, the perfect balance of mature wisdom passed down to youthful energy."

"You're mangling your metaphors there, old wolf." Wilde grinned.

"Whatever. Hey, it sounds to me like you sympathize with the rabbit, or something?" Wolfard looked over at him.

"It was a fucking travesty of justice, that's what it was." Wilde spat out.

"Whoa… Really?" Wolfard was taken aback by his younger partner's vehement response.

"Yeah. We're an enlightened mammal society, supposedly, and we just don't do that shit to kits. Hell, she was three years under the minimum age limit for a juvenile delinquent, and they tried her as an adult? How the fuck did the judge let that stand? And then they end up sending her to Cliffside? What the hell? Just because she defends herself from the older inmates in juvenile who tied to beat her up? Ooo 'That just proves she has a history of violence.' Fuck that. She was defending herself, plain and simple."

"She got beat up?"

"She got hospitalized several times from the beat downs. Finally she had enough with playing the model prisoner and she started fighting back. Broke some bully's jaw or something."

"Whoa… Ow.." Wolfard popped his jaw as he thought about it.

"Yeah, rabbits have hella strong legs. Don't ever let one kick you in the face, old wolf. You'll lose what little teeth you have left."

"Har, har, little fox." Wolfard grinned, "So you think they should have done something different with her."

"Yeah, I do. Hell, the whole thing about her fighting was just a setup anyway." Wolfard looked over at him in askance, "Yeah, the guards there had some side betting going on, watching the local fight club, as they liked to call it. It went on for a couple more years, and then there was a rash of kits dying from their injuries, and the Tri-Burrows finally launched an investigation. Eventually the guards got arrested, and the warden got sacked. But that didn't help her any." Nick shook his head, "They used to say Cliffside was the roach motel. Roaches check in..."

"But they don't check out..." Wolfard finished. "Damn."

"Yeah..."

Crackle… All Units be advised, 10-66 in progress at Wild Times Amusement Park, white van seen entering gates. Crackle….

Wolfard looked at the time on the dashboard, "3:20 am. Odd time to be doing maintenance."

"At an out of business amusement park? Yeah, no shit." Wilde reached for the mic as Wolfard hung a U-turn and rocketed back the way they came. "Dispatch, this is unit 111, we are 10-8 and responding."

Crackle… Roger, 111. We show you en route to Wild Times. Crackle…

"You thinking thieves?" Wilde asked his senior partner.

"Probably. There for the copper in the pipes and cables, I would think. Or they could be there to dump a body." Wolfard observed.

"Better to do that at the locks and docks district, nobody would notice the smell in the stench of rotting fish." Wilde suggested.

"Or dump them in a river in Tundra Town. It's so cold there they'd never rot." Wolfard countered.

"You think that's how Mr Big gets rid of the competition? Tosses them in the river with concrete overshoes?" Nick asked his partner.

"Mr Big? Naw, he's an upstanding citizen of Tundra Town. He's a legitimate business mammal!" Wolfard deadpanned.

"Legitimate, my furry red butt… Here it is." Wilde pointed at the Wild Times entrance.

Wolfard pulled up to the gate, "Huh, gate looks closed, and the chain's still wrapped around it. False alarm?"

"Maybe," Wilde acknowledged, as he popped open his door, and stepped out. He scanned 180 degrees on his right, looking for lights or movement, but he saw nothing. Leaving his door open, he jogged over to the gates to examine them in the headlights glare. He found the chain wrapped around the two gates, but no padlock. It was missing – some mammal took it but left the chain behind, wrapped around to make it look like it was still locked.

Wilde briefly considered his options, as unwrapping the chain and opening the gates was technically breaking and entering. But they did have a report of a white van entering, and the padlock was missing. With the park shutdown due to bankruptcy and receivership, he supposed it belonged to the government anyway. It was a stretch, but it worked for him. He unwrapped the chains and opened the gates for Wolfard. Hopping back in the cruiser, he explained to Wolfard, "Padlock's missing."

"Ooo, Definitely thieves then, looking for a quick getaway." Wolfard killed the cruiser's lights, and slowly crept into the lot, trusting their eyesight to adjust to the dim moonlight. Nick called it in, "Dispatch, this is 111. We are 10-97, front gate is unlocked and the padlock is missing. We are investigating. 10-23, Dispatch."

Crackle… Roger, 111. 10-23, Dispatch. Be careful. Crackle…

"111, Always, Dispatch!" Wilde smiled at that. Dispatch officers was always worried about the patrol officers.

Wolfard slowly crawled the large police cruiser off the parking lot, and on to the maintenance roads. At slow speeds, the cruiser was nearly silent, except for the crunch of gravel under the tires, and even that was enough to make him cringe. Wait, there, in the lane ahead. What's that?

A white square loomed in the darkness, hovering over the lane. Wolfard parked the cruiser and shut it off, blocking the lane and any potential escape. They both quietly exited the cruiser, and quietly crept forward. Wolfard drew his taser, but Wilde opted for his tranq.

They approached the back of what quickly resolved to be a white panel truck, and they split to go around it. Wilde looked up on the wording on the side that read 'Zootopia Discount Floral Supply' with a phone number emblazoned under it. He wondered if the truck was stolen.

They crept up to the cab, and peeked in. No one was in the cab. Wolfard sniffed around inside while Nick checked the front bumper. No plates, and the DOT number was missing as well. He met Wolfard as he was climbing down. He whispered to the wolf, "No plates, no DOT."

Wolfard whispered back, "Sheep." and held up two fingers.

Nick crouched down, and called it in a quiet voice. "Dispatch, this is 111. We've found the van, no plates or DOT number. Possible two sheep occupants. There's a business name and phone number on the side." He read off the lettering to them. Dispatch called back on his earbud and asked if he needed backup. He looked up at the wolf, who tapped his nose, pointed at his eyes, and then into the park. He called in, "Dispatch, 111. Sergent Wolfard want to find out where they are. It's a big park, and he doesn't want to spook them yet." Dispatch wasn't happy with that. Wolfard just shrugged, and led the way into the park anyway.

Big Bad Wolf, thought Wilde as he shook his head, gotta show me his hunting cojones.

True to the fox's prediction, Wolfard quickly pointed out hoof prints in the dirt, "Trail sign," he whispered and pointed for Wilde.

Wilde moved over a few feet and pointed down at another sign in the dirt, "Wheelbarrow," he whispered back with a grin. Wolfard rolled his eyes, and preemptively motioned to follow the trail. Wilde swallowed a snicker.

They tracked the sheep further into the center of the park. Peeking around the edge of a shuttered game stand, they heard the sound of shovels hitting the dirt, and the squeak of a wheelbarrow wheel. The two officers spotted the two sheep digging in the overgrown flowerbeds. Wilde whispered, "I suppose that's one way to get your discount floral stock – steal it."

Wolfard nodded. He motioned for Wilde to around the far side to block their escape, while he went straight up the middle. Wilde scampered off to the far end, so he didn't have eyes on his partner when he heard the sound of empty garbage cans crashing to the ground. He quickly peeked around his corner at the flowerbeds, but the two sheep were gone.

Oh Shit! We've been spotted! He called over his radio, "Wolfard, Wolfard?" No answer. Shit, shit! He quickly called it in, "Dispatch, this is 111. we are 11-99, officer down, in the center gardens. Sergent Wolfard is non-responsive. We need that backup now. Two assailants, classified as large male rams."

Dispatch crackled in his ear, "Roger, 111. You have three units inbound your position, medical response is two minutes behind them. Sit tight, stay safe, help is coming! Dispatch, out."

"Roger, Dispatch." Nick looked around, feeling a little exposed on the edge of the gardens, so he turned around and started to retreat back to their jump off position. He froze as he watched a ram run between the store fronts in front of him. He brought his traq gun up, but the ram was gone before he could get a shot off.

A tingle on the back of his neck and a swish of sound, just a millisecond of warning, and he looked up in time to see a large sack descend towards his head. The force of the impact knocked him flat to the ground. His chin hit the ground and his teeth pierced the side of his tongue.

Dazed, he struggled to his feet, blood trickling from his mouth and ears, trying to be ready for what he knew was going to hit him next, when out of his left peripheral vision he spotted an arm snake in towards his head. He tried to dodge out of the way, but his head slammed into the wall on his right, just as a loud crackling sound thundered in his left ear. He convulsed and bit his tongue again as the taser fired into the side of his neck, just below his jaw. As he began to lose consciousness, sliding down the wall headfirst to land in a heap, he dimly realized why the two officers had gotten jumped first. There had been three rams, not two.

The pain was intense, and as the light before his eyes grew and blanked out his vision, he thought, This is how I die… Mugged by stupid sheep stealing stupid flowers...

Darkness claimed him as he slide into oblivion. But echoing out to meet him from that infinite void came a whispering voice with thunderous force…

Not yet!

He awoke to ringing in his ears, and bright lights flashing in his retinas. He blinked several times, and most of the lights started to fade on their own, left only with the blurry red and blue flashes all around him as he lay on the cool concrete.

Like voices down a long tunnel, he dimly heard a voice calling his name. Looking over to his side, his vision still blurry in the darkness before him, he could only see a white throat and muzzle surrounded by gray fur. He whispered up to the form, "Heya, Carrots."

The head cocked to the side, as it whined back at him. He smiled as he slid back into unconsciousness.

He blinked. Several times. Well, he must not be dead. Cause if they had stained ceiling panels and off color florescent lights in the afterlife, he wanted to register a complaint. Where were the angels and fluffy clouds, after all?

He heard slightly labored breathing to his right, and he turned his head that way. There, sitting on a recliner, his torso wrapped in bandages, was his big bad wolf partner, reading a book. Wilde swallowed against the dryness in his mouth and croaked out, "Thsince when tho you reath anything, you thumb wolfth?"

Wolfard's head snapped up, and he smiled. "Hey, hey, hey… Look who's back?" The wolf set down his book, and gingerly stood up out of the chair. Holding on to his side, he walked the few steps to his partner's side. Putting one paw on the railing, he reached over Wilde's head and pushed a button.

"How yah feeling, little fox?" The kind blue eyes looked down at him.

"Like steam wolled sthith." Wilde mumbled back. His tongue wasn't working right. "My tongue thoethn't worth." He frowned.

"Yeah… You bit it twice, the first time when your chin hit the ground, and the second time when the taser was fired into your neck. It's kinda swollen right now." Wolfard gestured to his head, "Beyond that, you've got several deep gashes in your scalp, now held together with more stitches than a Tundra Town sweat shop, a severe concussion, and burns on your neck from the taser. The docs are still arguing if it was one single concussion, or three separate concussions based on how your skull got impacted. They're not sure."

"I'm thorry, I wathn't fasth enough..." Wilde started to mumble.

"Hey, hey. Enough of that. It wasn't your fault." Wolfard gripped his partner's paw. "If it was any mammal's fault, it was mine from the start."

"I openth the gathess firth." Wilde admitted.

"Yeah, but I drove the cruiser in, and prevented you from calling for backup, and then when we found them, I split us up. I got cocky, underestimating sheep of all things, and I paid for it. You paid for even more than I did. So no apologizing for you, Corporal Wilde. You didn't do anything wrong." Wolfard shook his paw.

He continued as he looked off into the distance, remembering, "When you had left, I started trotting out toward the gardens, and I never even saw him. He came blasting out from behind the shops, and hit me right in the ribs. Knocked the wind right out me and sent me flying in to some garbage cans. And while I was lying in a heap, he stole my taser, which he then used on you."

"Bogoo..." Wilde looked up at him.

"Bogo's pissed, sure, but at me. Not you." He poked Wilde in the chest. "I'm the senior officer with the tactical experience, and I should have know better. But I got cocky, and I was showing off a bit." Wolfard shook his head slowly, "Actually, that's not all Bogo's pissed at me about. They also grabbed my keys."

"The cruther?" Wilde's eyes went big.

"Yeah, it was gone by the time the backup showed up. The ZPD doesn't know where it is right now. Apparently they knew how to turn off the low-jack system. We'll probably find it in some abandoned alleyway out in the Sahara district, stripped for parts."

There was a knock at the door, and Wolfard turned. A deep booming voice asked, "Can I come in now?"

Cocking his head, Wilde could see Chief Bogo standing in the doorway, and behind him a flash of red in green scrubs. He waved them in. Bogo strode into the room and around to the other side of his bed. The red resolved itself to be a very concerned looking vixen, who positioned herself at the foot of his bed. She had never looked so good to him as she did in that moment.

Bogo began to speak, and Wilde tore his eyes off of her to look up at the big water buffalo. "How are you doing, Corporal? How are you feeling? You need anything?" He gazed down at the smaller canine.

It was a very bizarre feeling for the fox, laying vulnerable to all that power and controlled fury, yet he could swear there were tears glistening in those big oxen eyes. Wilde tried to deflect the emotions of the moment with some wit. "I really canth complain, thir." he smiled up at his chief, "I findth mythelf a bit tongue tiedth at the momenth from all the attenthion, thir."

Bogo snorted at the joke. His gaze then fell on Wolfard, "Sergent?"

"Yes, sir" Wolfard tried to stand up straight.

"Where is your cruiser, Sergent?" Bogo mildly inquired.

Wolfard looked down at Wilde for just a moment, a grin in his eyes, before he replied, "I don't know, sir."

"Well, find it." Bogo suggested.

"Yes, sir." Wolfard responded.

With that, Bogo nodded. He glanced down the small fox, and reaching down, he awkwardly patted Wilde's other paw. Looking back at the impatient vixen, he abandoned his post a Wilde's bedside, and strode from the room.

Wolfard whispered down to Wilde, "I think he likes you." Wilde just rolled his eyes in response.

Miki watched the water buffalo go, before slipping around to the other side. She reached up, and planted a kiss on Nick's forehead. He sighed. There would be screaming later, he was sure, followed by sobbing, and more likely than not a whole lot of very passionate lovemaking, but right now there was peace. "Do you need anything, Nicky?" She asked.

"Sthom wather would be grandth." He smiled at her.

She cocked her head. "You still have stitches in your very swollen tongue, so how about some nice ice chips instead for you to suck on?" She smiled brightly, and looked down at him like he had absolutely no say in the matter. He nodded slowly. She kissed the tip his nose, and slipped back out of the room.

Wolfard, watching her go, commented to the fox, "You know, if you actually do wind up marrying her, you're not going to win many arguments."

"I never tho." Wilde smiled.

Wolfard turned back to him, and in a serious tone he asked. "Alright, I do have a serious question, Fox. Why the hell did you call me Carrots?"

Wilde looked back up at the wolf in confusion, "Why would I call you carroths?"

"No, Carrots, with a capital C!" Wolfard shook his head, "I distinctly remember you saying, 'Heya, Carrots' when I first found you on the concrete!" He waggled his finger at Wilde.

"Why would I uthse the name of a rooth vethtable to desthribe you? Other than you thearly habe a headth filleth with carroth. How do you noth thmell the thirth ram, Mithter My Nothe is Bigger thanth my Brainth?" Wilde mumbled back at him.

"What!?"

They continued to bicker until Miki returned to his room with the ice chips, and she ejected Wolfard so that her Nicky could rest.

Two days later, Corporal Nick Wilde's tongue was working much better. Nurse Miki, love of his life and absolute arbiter of what he got to eat today, was feeding him vegetable soup and apple sauce, one spoonful at a time.

"You know, my paws work just fine, Miki." Wilde pointed out to her. "I can feed myself."

"I don't want you to choke." She replied, carefully sliding another spoonful into his mouth.

There was a knock at the door, and it slid open. Sergent Clawhauser struggled through the door, a basket of flowers overflowing in his grip. "Hi, Corporal Wilde! The officers down at ZPD got you some more flowers!"

Wilde looked around at his room, which was already overflowing with flowers, get-well cards, and candies he wasn't allowed to eat. Wolfard got up from his chair, and went over to clear some space on the window still for the new basket.

As Clawhauser handed off the basket, he casually remarked, "Oh, they found your cruiser, by the way."

Wolfard stood up and asked, "Where? Was it stripped?"

"Well," Clawhauser temporized, "The divers said it looked mostly intact."

"DIVERS! What divers?!" Wolfard demanded to know.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't say where, did I?" He tapped his paws tips together, as he grimaced, "They found it off one of the piers down in the Rain Forest district.

"Off?" Wolfard asked, his expressions playing across his face; shock, denial, acceptance, dread.

"Yeah, it's currently in 10 feet of water. A fishing boat had run across it when they were coming into dock, and gotten it stuck under their keel." The big cat explained, "The ZPD garage techs are organizing the recovery. You can ask them which pier it is."

"Oh Shit." Wolfard exclaimed, as he tried to run out of the room, only to be brought up short by Miki's paws as she stepped in front of him.

"Sergent Wolfard, you have cracked ribs and bruised lungs, and have no business driving anywhere!" She scolded him.

"But I need to see it!" He pleaded with her.

Nick took advantage of her distraction to grab the applesauce and try to put a spoonful of it into his mouth by himself. He got most of it in before he hit one of the puncture wounds in his tongue with the spoon. The blast of pain that shot through his mouth caused him to spit the applesauce back out of his mouth, and down the front of his hospital gown. Oww…

Wolfard and Miki turned to look at him. He tried to grin back at them, applesauce dripping down off the end of his muzzle, but the effect just came across as slightly demented. Miki just shook her head. Her fox never listened, so she had better be proactive before the two jokers tried to do something stupid on their own, she knew. "But I will ask if we can take one of the patient transport vans down to the docks. Wait here, and clean up your partner. Clearly, he has developed an eating disorder of the stupid kind." Miki spun on her heel, and marched off to find a doctor to clear them for temporary release.

"Upon reflection," Wolfard observed as he hunted for a towel, "It's entire possible that when you finally do ask for her paw in marriage that she'll say 'No!'. That would be the sane thing for her to do, don't you think?" He asked the embarrassed fox, who could only hang his head in response.

They stood next to the idling van, Miki sitting at the wheel, as they watched the recovery operation that was currently underway. The large mobile crane swung it's boom out over the water, and dropped it's hook down to the waiting divers. The otters hooked up a pair of straps to the hook, and gave the fore-mammal the thumbs up. He ordered the crane to start pulling up the cruiser.

As the rear of the cruiser broke the surface, they could see that what was once a machine of power and authority had been reduced to a crumpled waffle of steel and plastic. They watched as the rest of the crushed cruiser slowly cleared the murky surface, water cascading out of the open doors.

"Wolfard, can I say something horribly speciest as we stand in witness to this event?" Wilde asked him.

"What's that?" the wolf asked him.

"I hate sheep." Wilde confided.

"I hear you, brother, I hear you." Wolfard nodded.

As the former cruiser finally ended up out of the water and dangling from the end of the cable, swaying in the air like a crushed beer can and resplendent with muck and water weeds, Wolfard moaned, "I am so screwed."

"Yup. Screwed." Wilde simply agreed.

Meanwhile, On the West Coast

The rabbit leaned against the pole as she knelt on the stage floor, slowly spreading her knees. She pumped her hips slowly as she moaned, "You like what you see, honey?"

The black rhino sat back from the stage, dressed in a black tux. He pulled his shaft from his pants, and started to stroke it. "Oh, yeah, baby. Daddy likes..."

"Ooo that's quite the pole you have there. Maybe I should dance on that instead of this cold stage..." She cooed at him.

He beckoned to her, "That sounds like a fine idea, baby. My tower is always ready for a hot lady like you to come climb it."

BWANG!

They both jerked and turned to look behind the rhino. The boom mike operator had fallen over, and dropped his boom mike on the stage.

"DAMN IT, DANNY!" The weasel director yelled from behind the camera.

"I'm sorry boss. I didn't see the cables. They got caught in my feet." the raccoon stammered, as he tried to pick himself.

Judy stifled a giggle, as she knelt on the stage. Here she was, naked as a jaybird, save for an itty-bitty thong, and she was surrounded by males who were completely ignoring her as they focused on the unfortunate raccoon. Her co-star caught her giggle, and he threw her quick grin and a wink, sharing in the humor of the moment. She looked down at his rather impressive member as it quickly went from tower to submarine. Yeah, I don't blame him. This is hardly anything I would call erotic, she thought.

The weasel sighed in frustration, as he hopped up to go help the hapless procyonid. Grumbling, he untangling the cables from the sound mammal's feet, and stood up, muttering "Great, well, we'll just start over at the point when Amber comes in." He looked up and around, but he didn't see her anywhere.

"Where's Amber?" He demanded to know. One of his assistants nervously pointed back down the hall to the dressing rooms. Fuming, the weasel yelled, "Take five everybody, I'll be right back." and he stalked off to the dressing rooms.

Judy slide across the stage to pull out her rather abbreviated script. Looking it over, she whispered to her co-star, who was busy stuffing his meat popsicle back into his pants, "Who writes this stuff? What are they, twelve?" She stared at the ridiculous lines.

He zipped up his pants, and leaned in to whisper back, "That would be our esteemed director, Ricky Tails. He's not what one would consider a playwright, but he pays good, so what he writes goes." He held out his enormous paw to her, "I'm sorry we weren't formally introduced. I'm Randy McHorny."

She giggled, "That is such a porn star name for a rhino!"

He shrugged, "Yeah, well, what do you expect, in this business? But you can call me Lance." He caught her look and her grin, "No, it's not another porn name. It's my actual name." He laughed.

She smiled back at him, "Alright then, Lance. I'm Jessica Lapin, but I strip under the alias JJ. Jessica, or JJ; either works for me." She shook his massive paw.

He nodded at the sheet she was holding, "First time working on set?" He asked.

She looked down at the sheet, and then back up at him, "For video? Yeah, this is my first video shoot. But I've done a lot of photography work; glamour, bike babe, kink, lesbian soft-core, and what not. But the photographer I used to work with moved back home Down Under, so I was stuck twiddling my thumbs up in Gateway Bay City. Eventually I ran out of new clubs to work at up there and I got bored, so I came down here to Angels City a couple of months ago, and I've been working the circuit ever since. My agent called me about this last night, said this weasel he knew needed a tiny stripper for a gig, and asked me if I was interested. And here I am." She shrugged, "You?"

"Not my first set, obviously." He laughed, "Been doing this gig for five years now, maybe? Before that I did some Mixed Martial Arts competitions, and some pro wrestling for a year, but they didn't renew my contract, which was just as well, because I didn't need any more concussions. Same as you, my agent called one day, and wanted to know if I was willing to go do some soft-core stuff, standing around on set and looking pretty, and I said sure. And here I am, five years later, waiting to see if Amber Cloud, hippo diva extraordinaire, is sober enough to act today, much less walk."

Judy quirked a brow at that, and he laughed. "Tell you what. I'll give you 3 to 1 odds that he comes out and tells us she's too stoned to work."

Judy exclaimed, "No way! She can't do that!"

"Amber? Watch her." He turned to look down the hall, as he heard the weasel come down the hall muttering.

Ricky quickly made his way over to Lance and Judy. "Um… Shit. We got a problem, Randy."

"She stoned?" The rhino asked.

"Maybe, I don't know. Damn it. Yes. She's out cold now. What the hell am I going to do now?" He looked at Lance.

"Sorry, Necrophilia ain't my thing, boss. She has to be awake and moving, or I just limp out." Lance assured him.

"Damn it..." Ricky looked at him, and then pointed at Judy, "Say, would you two be able to..."

Judy, figuring out what he was asking for, burst out laughing. It might be unprofessional but she couldn't help herself.

Lance just snorted and said, "No… Hell no. She ain't anywhere near big enough for me, Ricky. Tell you what. I'm gonna break for lunch, and either Amber will be awake when I get back, or you'll have found a replacement for her in my size by then, okay?"

Leaving the weasel to froth at the mouth over this, Lance stood up. Looking down at the little rabbit, he asked, "You hungry, JJ? Wanna head over to Alfalfa's for a salad, and maybe talk motorcycles?"

She looked up at him, and grinned impudently, "You buying?" She asked him.

"Sure, rabbit, I can buy." She's just a little rabbit, how much can she eat? He wondered. "You got something decent to wear?"

"Absolutely. I'm easy! Shorts and a halter top, and I'm good to go." She ran over to her bag behind the curtain, and pulled out her clothes. Slipping them on, she jumped down off the stage, and beamed back up at him. Free food and motorcycle talk always appealed to her.

"Alright then." He smiled down at her, and led the way out of the club, leaving Ricky behind to yell at his phone.

Notes:

When I first plotted out this story, Nick Wilde was going to be bookend character, appearing first in chapter 11, and then not again until chapter 35. Any character development was going to be alluded to as comments by other characters. Except that as the story developed, certain feedback lead me to believe that Nick was being interpreted as a two dimensional character. He certainly wasn't to me, since I'm the author, but what he appeared to my readers was something completely different. I began to realize that he need to be part of this story in a much more active way, and this chapter is the start of that.

P.S. For those of you who sat through the unguided and unfunny travesty that is "A Working Solution!" I am profoundly sorry. I tried to write Funny and Fluffy, and what came out was Dark and Dismal. I will try harder next time I write for that work.