With a soft whump, the lightly frayed and crisp looking form of a weasel dropped to the floor of the entry hall of the ZPD. He exhaled a small, smokey breath. Judy Hopps adventurously leaped next to the apprehended weasel.
"One mustelid, light toasted!" she declared.
"HOPPS!" Chief Bogo bellowed, pointing to his office. Judy soon found herself sitting in a too-large chair, being stared at by a very angry buffalo.
"Sir, I-" Judy started.
"I don't want to hear it!" Chief Bogo shouted. "What were you thinking, using fire magic in Little Rodentia?"
"Well, uhm," Judy poked her fingers together. "I was kind of thinking about aiming diagonally upwards with each shot so that none of the fireballs would hit the buildings?" Chief Bogo stared daggers at her.
"It's a miracle we didn't have to call any of the water mages in the fire department," Chief Bogo grimaced. "But this reckless behavior of yours, I will not tolerate any more of!"
"Sir, I..." Judy placed her hands on her midsection. "I caught a criminal. That's what I'm supposed to do as a member of the police."
"You caught a petty thief who was stealing onions!" Cheif Bogo snarled. "Your job is to issue tickets for establishments overdrawing their mana allotment!"
"About those 'onions', they're actually the bulbs of a flower called a Night Howler," Judy explained. "It can be a powerful reagent. You see, my family are farmers, of course, how typical of a bunny, right? We grow all sorts of plants that are useful in-"
"You shut that tiny mouth!" Chief Bogo snarled. His intercom buzzed.
"Chief Bogo! Mrs. Otterton's here to see you. She's really insistent!" Officer Clawhauser said anxiously.
"Not now, Clawhauser," Bogo said evenly. Then, he sneered at Judy again.
"Chief Bogo, I don't want to be a meter mage, I want to earn my keep here at the ZPD. Let me investigate a real case, like one of the missing mammals!" Judy looked earnest and pleading.
"Thanks to the Mayor's Mammals Inclusion Initiative, I don't get what I want either," Bogo snapped. "A loose canon fire-innate bunny? You'll be lucky to last another-" Chief Bogo froze as his door opened and an otter scurried into the room.
"Chief Bogo, please," Mrs. Otterton rushed over to them. "It's been two weeks. Is there no one to help find my husband?"
"Mrs. Otterton," Bogo's voice was suddenly pleasant and gentle. "All of our officers are very busy with these cases, so-"
"I will find him," Judy said in a determined voice. Bogos eyes quickly darted over to her.
"You will?" Mrs. Otterton rushed over and hugged her. "Thank you. Bless you, little bunny. Take this and find my Emmitt. Please. My babies and I are waiting for him to come home..." She began to leave after handing Judy a photograph. "Thank you both so much."
"Yes, please give us a moment," Chief Bogo said through his teeth, though he was smiling. When he shut the door, he fixed an intense glare on Judy. "Pack up your things. You're through."
"What!?" Judy sputtered. "Why!?"
"Insubordination!" the buffalo spat. "Now, I'm going to open this door and you are going to tell that otter that you're a mere meter mage who got some big, incorrect ideas into her head. Above all, you will not be taking her case!" The door swung open.
"I just heard Officer Hopps is taking the case!" The perky, slightly scratchy voice of Assistant Mayor Bellwether said on the other side of the door. She patted one of Mrs. Otterton's hands.
"Ah...!" Chief Bogo seemed floored. He spoke in a cautious voice: "To what do we owe this honor, Assistant Mayor Bellwether?"
"Oh Judy," Bellwether ignored him, coming up to Judy and placing her hands on her shoulders. "It's just so great that a little mammal like you is starting to be taken seriously in this world of big mammals. The Mammal Inclusion Initiative sure paid off, huh?"
Judy nodded. "I won't let you down."
"The mayor will be so happy to hear his Initiative has borne such fruit!" Bellwether giggled, texting him. Bogo winced and held out his hand. "There! Ah, technology makes communication so easy nowadays. Don't have to memorize so many spells, use so much mana. Anyway, toodles!" She waved the fingers on her hand and left. Chief Bogo moved his lips and his teeth in irritation.
Chief Bogo opened one of his hands slowly. Rocks and sand conglomerated to form a fair-sized rock into his hand. He closed his hand, crushing it into gravel, and let it run out of his hand. His anger slowly fled from him, then he sighed. He re-adopted his angry look and stared at Judy.
"You get forty-eight hours to find that otter," Chief Bogo pointed at her gravely.
"YES!" Judy leaped up and punched at the air.
"However! Should you not find him, you turn in your badge," he warned. "The only place you'll be casting fire spells will be at firework displays."
"Oh!" Judy felt her stomach sinking. "Well... deal."
"Good..." Chief Bogo cooed. "Now, please see Clawhauser for the case file."
"Here we go, for Mr. Otterton, right?" Clawhauser said, plopping the file down on his front desk. Judy flipped through it incredulously; there was almost nothing, just a bio and one picture. "Yikes! That's the smallest case file I've ever seen! And we've done some for mice!" Clawhauser laughed at his own joke.
"This can't be it..." Judy said, panicked. She looked over the picture. Mr. Otterton was accepting a claw-shaped frozen treat from a fox. Judy's jaw dropped an inch. "Wait wait, I've seen this fox before! He almost got hit by a truck. I didn't think anything of him, but... here he is selling Otterton a frozen treat..."
"So maybe the fox saw where he went?" Clawhauser asked, but then gasped. "Or maybe he killed him? How are you going to find the fox from this picture, though? Looks like his little operation is mobile!"
"I just need to use a little magic," Judy said, placing her hand on the bangle on her left arm. The metal band had four gems set into it at various points: a ruby, a sapphire, an emerald, and a topaz. The ruby began to shine brightly. Judy focused on both the picture of the fox and her memory of him. "Light: Afterimage!"
A negative three-dimensional image of the fox displayed in life size before them. Clawhauser flinched. The ruby still glowed and Judy gestured toward the image. "Light: Direct!" The image was absorbed into a shining point of light that sat in Judy's hand, with one of its rays pointing much further in one direction than the rest.
"Light magic..." Clawhauser marveled. "That's advanced fire magic, isn't it? I'm a fire-innate and I can't do that."
"Well!" Judy smiled with some degree of pride. "I'm a fire-innate too, and bunnies are known to be pretty good at magic, so..."
"I guess so!" Clawhauser said. "Um, how do those spells work together again...?"
"The negative image will seek out its opposite, and I contained it in a directional light spell so I have kind of like a magic compass," Judy smiled. "It'll lead me right to that fox."
Judy found the spell fizzling out in Tundratown. She took refuge behind a snow bank and looked out. She saw two foxes, a red fox and a fennec, working together. The red fox was conjuring up water and sprinkling each floating blob of water with another liquid, and the fennec caused cold wind to spin around the water blobs, turning them into icicles tinted red from the other liquid. The red fox stuck sticks into the bottom of them before they fully frozen, then they collected them into an ice chest.
"Hey! Hey! You two!" Judy charged out and shook her finger at the two.
"What seems to be the problem, officer?" The red fox barely gave her a look.
"You two are casting magic without a focus!" Judy tapped on her wrist bangle. "That's illegal!"
"Uh, not if the spells you're casting match your innate element," the fox sucked at his teeth as if disappointed.
"Okay then, let me see your IDs!" Judy accused. The fennec looked disgruntled, but pulled his out, along with the red fox, who rolled his eyes." "Nicholas Wilde, water. Finnick, wind." Judy frowned. "Well that's all well and good, but you can't just sell magically-formed consumables without a-"
"Permit?" Nick smiled, producing one. "Got one of those, too. Anything else you'd like to try?"
Judy sneered, placing her hand to her chest as if the words stung her. "Rgh! You two have got to be up to something..."
Nick gave a long sigh. "Check it out, Finnick, a profiling specisist hick bunny. As if that's new." Finnick turned his head to look at Nick in sudden alarm. "We're not up to anything at the moment, though I don't exactly pay income taxes for these products." Nick's eyes flew open and he slapped his hands over his muzzle.
"Nick!" Finnick snarled in a deep voice. "The heck's gotten into you!?"
Judy smirked and pulled a gemmed, carrot-shaped amulet out of her uniform, where she was touching. "Amulet of truth. When I touch it, it forces everyone around me to speak only truth, and even records it!" She wiggled her fingers at the amulet and Nick's voice came out:
"Though I don't exactly pay income taxes for these products."
"Ha!" Nick gave a challenging smile, his brow falling. "Testimony gained through magical coercion is inadmissible!"
"It's certainly enough to get you audited," Judy said in a sing-song tone. "Say goodbye to those profit margins."
"Listen, Nick, I gotta go. Ciao," Finnick said abruptly, gesturing and shooting a burst of wind in front of him that pushed him way out in the other direction. He then summoned a tailwind to aid his running.
"Hey!" Judy shielded herself from the wind burst.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good plan," Nick nodded tersely, causing a diagonal geyser of water to shoot up from under his feet and propel him forward, taking striding leaps, a geyser with each one. Judy looked back and forth and started to run after Nick. Her amulet's emerald began to glow brightly.
"Rgh! Not so fast!" Judy shouted out, gesturing forward. "Gravity: Well!" A dark hole opened up in the path of where Nick was running.
"Whoa...!" Nick flailed around as he ran past it but was then yanked backwards by the hole, and awkwardly began to spin around the singularity, ending up upside down. "Well, this is awkward."
"Gotcha, fox," Judy smirked.
"Advanced Earth magic?" Nick asked idly. "So you're an Earth-innate?"
"Fire, actually," Judy replied flippantly.
"Ah, so you're just a show-off," Nick's eyes half-lid as he grumbled. Judy responded with a humming laugh. "Anyway, what are you harassing me for?"
"I need your help, actually, regarding a case," Judy said. "Agree to help me, and I'll dispel the recording on my amulet."
"Ah, so you like blackmail with your black magic," Nick sighed. "What do you want from me? And could you let me down? This feels really weird and I feel like I might be sick."
Judy snapped to dispel the gravity well and Nick plopped to the ground gracelessly. "Try to run and you'll find yourself in another one of those."
"Okay, no need to make threats, you psycho," Nick rubbed his head. "What do you need from me?"
Judy showed him the picture of Emmitt Otterton. "I need to find this otter. He's missing. Has a wife and kids. You sold him one of those frozen treats."
"Clawsicles," Nick corrected. "You know, because they look like claws?"
"Whatever," Judy shook her head. "Do you know that otter?"
"I mean, not personally, but I've seen him a few times," Nick twisted his muzzle this way and that. "I can take you to where I last saw him going. Should be a perfect place for a cute smarty-pants bunny witch."
"You don't get to call me cute, or a witch, I'm an officer. I use magic to uphold the law!" Judy said sternly. Her expression soon softened and she beckoned him. "Anyway, let's go! This place you describe sounds fun."
"Can't wait," Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, rolling his eyes.