The weather outside of the Callie Marie Docks was pleasant, a breeze coming off the Zootopian waterway. However, within the shipping container that Nick and Judy happened to be in, the air felt cramped and choked. Judy smelled the medicinal odor inside, and it wasn't a good kind of smell. Her nose wrinkled as she looked after her partner.
Nick pushed off the last of the boxes in the container, taking in one last sniff for good measure.
"Anything?" Judy asked hopefully.
"Nope, everything's clean," Nick said. "Just run-of-the mill pharmaceuticals."
"Darn," Judy slashed her paw through the air.
The two headed out of the container and met up with an anxious looking otter. He was middle-aged and several pounds overweight for a normally slinky sea otter.
"You're all good, Mr. Seafert," Nick explained with a satisfied voice, "this one is clean too."
"Thank God," the otter hung his head and shook it, folding his arms. "What with the scare and all, it's not been good for business."
"Not that I mind being dragged all the way from Downtown to have my partner sniff around some boxes," Judy began in a voice that didn't sound genuine, "but you don't have your own security? Some wolves, maybe?"
"Oh, I do, yeah," Mr. Seafert nodded quickly, "but they think one of them is the one on the inside. That's how the stuff keeps getting in, so they say."
"You and I go way back, Randolph," Nick smiled patiently, "so I'd like to think this has nothing to do with you. It is a little suspicious, though."
"What, that my names 'Randy'?" The otter held his paws out helplessly. "Nick- er, officer Wilde... c'mon. It's been over a decade I've been in this business. Why'd I risk it all just because that drug... Randernephrol... just cause it's worth a bit of extra coin?"
"People can change, Mr. Seafert," Nick gave him an authoritative look, "even after a couple decades. There's a big profit margin to be made there, and it seems rather suspect we haven't caught any dirty paws since we got the anonymous tip about you. I'd like to believe you're better than this, but we'll have our eyes open. And noses, just in case."
"I got you, Officer Wilde," Mr. Seafert looked disappointed and started to make his way off. Under his breath, he muttered, "tch, what a badge will do to some mammals."
Judy's ear perked up and she looked in his direction with a moment's shock, then a furrowed face. "Nick, you hear that?"
"Yeah," Nick rolled his eyes. "Won't let it bother me. I have a sneaking suspicion ol' Randy wants to pay for some sort of midlife crisis. Saw him in a red convertible the other day. Shoo, if my salary would pay for one of those..."
"Rgh, this is so boring," Judy thrust her paws down as the two began to make their way back to their vehicle. "Because you've got this- this super scent, we keep getting thrown all over Zootopia to sniff out this stupid resurgent drug. Except now this kind isn't as 'pure' as before and apparently can be smelled out by nose wizards such as yourself, so here we are."
"You're just mad that we haven't made any arrests yet," Nick teased, his paws behind his back.
"You're darn right!" Judy balled a fist close to her chest. "I mean, what am I supposed to do while you're actually working? Stand here and look pretty?" She thrust her paws down and then out wide, her steps nearly stomps.
"Well, I mean, you are good at that," Nick said in a light, playful voice.
"Tuh," Judy rolled her eyes over to him, and barely half-smiled. "Ignoring that."
"Your prerogative," Nick beamed with half-lidded eyes.
Further off in the distance, there was some sort of photo shoot going on that caught Judy's eye, if only because of the size of the mammals involved. Most of them appeared to be giraffes, with one hippo, and one elephant that seemed to be the center of everyone's attention. The elephant looked young, perhaps in her early twenties, and she was dressed in some kind of sailor outfit and skirt, complete with hat. She looked to Judy like she was some sort of model, perhaps for a cruise line.
"Oh, oh!"
Nick turned his head in the direction of the shoot to see the elephant begin to move toward them, waving a hand above her head. Both Nick and Judy felt the instinctual urge to flee inherent when an extremely large mammal is rushing at you.
"Daisy! Come on! We're shooting here!" A male giraffe sneered in distaste. "It ain't time for break yet!"
"Just gimme ten minutes!" The elephant slowed her lumbering gait and waved at the giraffe. "I'm a big fan of these two!"
Judy gave a proud little huff at that, straightening up and looking official.
"Literally," Nick said under his breath. "And two big fans for ears!"
Judy's ear twitched. "Hush."
"Fine..." the giraffe swiveled his neck over to his crew. "Take ten, everyone..."
"Can we talk somewhere quiet, officers?" The elephant asked politely, craning her head down a bit.
"Sure, uhm, right over here," Judy said, rounding a boathouse out of sight of the photo shoot. "So, you've heard of the two of us, hm?"
"Actually, no, I have no idea who you are!" Daisy giggled. "Oh, but you're just the cutest little cops." Her trunk flicked playfully. Nick stifled a laugh.
"...Right," Judy's brow furrowed, but she quickly squashed her unpleasantness and looked bright and happy again. "I'm Judy Hopps! And this is Nick Wilde. We're here to help!"
"I'm Daisy Blackfeather, dunno if you've heard of me..." Daisy posed with a hip out and arm behind her head.
A desperate eye flick to Nick indicated that Judy had not, in fact. He nodded and held up an index finger.
"The famous model, right?"
"Yes! Up and coming!" Daisy tittered.
Nick winked at Judy and she almost laughed. Apparently, that was just Nick's best guess.
"Well, what can a couple of small, cute cops do for you?" Nick asked pleasantly.
When Judy turned her head to look back up at Daisy, she yelped, noticing that she was a bit too close to the elephant. She backed up and turned her head in embarrassment, holding a paw to block the line of sight. Daisy's skirt was quite short.
"Oh, sorry, ha ha," Daisy held up a hand and took a few steps back, "gotta titillate the males, you know." She wiggled the tip of her trunk at Nick, who just had his usual blithe smile on. "Anyway, I was kinda concerned... I've been hearing these rumblings of an attack on me."
"An attack?" Judy was suddenly all business, her ears alerting. "On you?"
"Yes," Daisy nodded seriously, looking concerned. She pointed over to the group of working mammals. "It was during the shoot. I overheard these two guys talking about me."
"And no one else heard it?" Nick pursued. "No one else at the shoot?"
"No, only I can hear the voices," Daisy claimed.
Nick and Judy shot each other a confused look, the expression on the bunny's face slowly turning to wariness as she turned back to the elephant. She looked the model over; she looked mostly normal, pretty for an elephant she supposed, but perhaps a bit ditsy.
"Ma'am... are you feeling okay?" Judy asked with a pinched, concerned face.
"Um, sure, except for feeling like I might be... jumped or something," Daisy placed her hands together worriedly, looking left and right.
Something seemed to occur to Nick, and he lit up. "Oh, these mammals you heard wouldn't happen to be elephants, would they?"
"Yeah, of course," Daisy nodded, pointing toward where they came from with her trunk. "Saw them on the other side of the docks."
"Ah," Nick smiled, nodding. "Okay, that makes sense."
"Uh...?" It clearly didn't to Judy, who's head tilted.
"You'll have to forgive my partner," Nick grinned widely, "she's a bit of a country bunkin."
"That's just so precious," Daisy replied in a cutesy voice.
A grumble half-escaped Judy's throat and her ears fell.
"Elephants can speak in a register that only they can hear," Nick explained.
"Only elephants?" This was rather surprising to Judy. "I mean, I'd like to think I have pretty good hearing..."
"Yeah, but it doesn't matter how quiet something is in this case, just how low it is," Nick explained. "Like, you know those high-pitched defense whistles that only work on like half of us mammals?"
"Ugh, I've been hoping they'd ban those things," Judy shook her head. "Even hearing one across the street makes my head split." She seemed mystified. "Really, though. Only elephants."
"And ferrets!" Daisy interjected, smiling demurely.
"Really?" Nick was shocked; even he didn't know this. "That seems a little random of a species."
"Hehe, you do have to be careful about what you say around the street," Daisy grinned. "Elephants can rumble some naughty things to each other, but there might be an eavesdropping furry tube underfoot!"
"Okay, maybe we could just get back to the issue at paw," Judy held up a finger, then drove it into her open palm. "So it was two elephants, and they said they were gonna attack you?"
"Yeah, I heard them during the photo shoot, about thirty minutes ago," Daisy nodded.
"Could you make out what they were saying?" Nick asked.
"Oh, some scandalous things," Daisy frowned. "'There she is, she's fully stacked'. 'I've been wanting to get my trunk on Daisy's junk for awhile'. 'No one's gonna stop us once we're in there'. They said they were gonna move in in an hour, and it's been thirty minutes, at least. I'm just getting really worried n' all. I don't think anyone on the shoot could stop a couple of bull elephants.."
"Ooh, this sounds serious," Judy looked alarmed, turning to Nick. "But you don't have to worry, Officer Wilde and I will take care of everything."
Daisy looked a little bit skeptical, though her expression was still pleasant.
"With some considerable backup," Nick assured, holding up his radio.
After the two broke from Daisy, Nick picked up his radio, while Judy outfitted her tranq gun with elephant-grade tranquilizer.
"As much as I want to say I got into a scuffle with two elephants," Judy took in a deep breath, "I kind of don't, you know?"
"With you there," Nick muttered, then spoke into his radio. "Officer Wilde to base. We have a possible situation. Two male elephant suspects may be committing a crime of some kind at 16:30. Request backup."
"You got it," Clawhauser replied from base, "your twenty?"
"Callie Marie docks," Nick said. "Will need Trunkaby and Snarlov definitely, maybe McHorn and Rhinowitz as well." Something seemed to occur to him, and a curious look passed over his muzzle. "Oh and could you patch me over to Skippel?"
"Um, absolutely!" Clawhauser sounded as confused by this request as Judy looked.
"Karen?" Judy asked. "Why's that?"
"A hunch," Nick wrinkled his nose.
"Officer Skippel, over?"
"Skips, is it possible for you to pull up a list of the currently moored ships at the Callie Marie docks?" Nick asked.
"Anything for you, Wilde," Karen replied with sarcastic bite. After several seconds, she spoke again. "What am I looking for?"
"Wow, that fast?" Nick seemed dully surprised. "Is there a 'Daisy'?"
Judy's face lit up; she punched a fist into the other paw and then pointed at Nick.
"Yup, one 'Daisy', cargo ship, looks like," Karen replied. "A big one."
"Thanks Skips, out," Nick said, dropping his radio back into its place smoothly.
"We can get one team to cover the model, and the other the ship," Judy said with a kind of nervous excitement.
"Which one are we betting on?" Nick frowned. "The only way to really stop a charging elephant is with another elephant. Maybe a couple rhinos."
"Let's... I'll go with your idea," Judy nodded. "We'll take Francine and check out the docks. If they're there we'll move in."
"Hope this works," Nick said, readying his own tranq gun.
Just about thirty-seven minutes later, Officer Francine Trunkaby was dragging a heavily sedated male elephant off a large cargo ship.
"Jeez Louise, what does this guy eat?" Snarlov tried desperately to assist, but the polar bear was basically only marginally helping.
"That was great fun, Wilde, Hopps!" Francine waved her trunk at them, dragging the barely-conscious elephant off. "Been awhile since I had to deck a fellow ellie, doncha know?"
"We might have missed them entirely if it wasn't for Nick," Judy beamed.
"I bet the rhinos are bored," Nick returned a sly grin. "We'll just, uh, Hopps and I will get the other elephant out to your cruiser."
"Pff, in our dreams," Judy laughed. Francine seemed to think this was funny as well, letting out a brief trumpet.
"Yeah, laugh it up, you guys," Snarlov grunted, struggling with the form Francine seemed to move effortlessly.
"Nice shots, Officer Hopps," Nick grinned down at her. "Were you a bit of a sharpshooter back on the farm?"
"I was pretty good with a BB gun in my youth," Judy said proudly, posing with both hands on her gun near her head. "I mean, that said, they were elephants and all. Kind of hard to miss...?"
"Still, you knew where to shoot to get them loopier faster," Nick was unrelenting in his pleasant smile, "if not, we might have had a couple of big problems..."
"Aw well," Judy semi-humbly rolled her head and eyes, batting her paw at Nick. She looked over the many shipping containers of the moored cargo ship. "Sheesh. I bet Bogo will bring the wolves in soon... wonder what was on this ship worth stealing? Randernephrol, you think?"
"Could be, but that'd be a massive coincidence," Nick said, the two heading back onto the pier. "There's more than one kind of contraband after-"
A thunderous report of footsteps startled Nick and Judy. The both of them nearly scattered before realizing was Daisy. She rushed up to them and came to a tentative stop.
"Nh!" The bunny turned her head as Daisy's halt left her right in front of them. The elephant giggled with little shame, taking a couple of steps back.
"So um... it's been awhile and I haven't been attacked yet," Daisy smiled. "I'm guessing it was because of those handsome, grumpy rhinos keeping watch."
"Yeah, something like that," Nick grinned up at her.
"Oh, thank you two so much!" Daisy wiggled her trunk coquettishly and placed her hands on her hips. "I'm glad I called on you."
"All in a day's work for the ZPD," Judy said proudly, standing up straight.
Daisy giggled. "Such a couple of cuties! If this whole police thing didn't work out for you two, I bet you could have been models! Anyway, byeee!" She waved and lumbered off, back to an exasperated giraffe and his crew. As soon as she left, Judy's bright face changed to one of frustration.
"One... two... three..." she grunted, paws balled into fists and squinting her eyes.
"Well, I did say you were good at looking pretty," Nick remarked confidently.
"Yes, I know, it was only like an hour ago," Judy said through her teeth.