Chapter 1: A Crazy Idea...
Edited by Starfang's Secrets
Artwork by Knoton
The sight was one that a majority of the city had become accustomed to, a rabbit and fox, walking paw in paw, their other paw holding ice cream cones as they walked amiably outside Winter Park. Their wedding had been a city wide affair, even if it had been held in secret to prevent the massive gathering of mammals that were wanting to attend to see the two celebrity cops wed.
That was years ago, and today, was Tuesday; aka, date night, for the fox and bunny. The conversations were no longer just about them and how new their relationship was to the city, but had turned to other issues with how normal they acted while in public. They made themselves available to answer questions and their happy responses to the public showed how likable they were.
Two years ago they couldn't have enjoyed this simple walk without being bombarded by questions, but now?
Now they relished the time spent with one another with fond stares, held paws and enlightening conversations.
"So if a woodchuck, could chuck wood...how much wood, would he chuck?"
Or maybe not so necessarily that last part.
"Really Nick?" Judy laughed, rolling her eyes before pushing her ice cream cone into his muzzle. The fox jerked away, but still took a large amount of the sweet treat with him, a vanilla goatee around his muzzle and nose. The doe's laugh intensified as the tod's eyes crossed as she attempted to lick the cream from his nose.
As Judy wiped her eyes of the tears in them, she saw a white blur coming at her nose.
"Oh cheese and-"
The ice cream covered her muzzle, nose and Nick cackled with laughter as Judy blinked, nearly her entire lower face now covered in a creamy beard.
The ice cream war went back and forth, the conversation of woodchucks and wood completely forgotten as a bunny chased a fox down the sidewalk, waving an ice cream cone in her paw at the fox sprinting ahead of her. It was only a matter of time before she caught up; two streets and a sidewalk clogging mass of wildebeest spelled the tod's demise.
After helping each other clean up, peppering each other in sweetened kisses, did they find a bench to relax onto.
"Who knew ice cream could be so fun," Nick joked, glancing down at Judy. She smiled up at him, leaning into his side as his arm wrapped around her instinctively.
"I think we have a history with it," Judy replied. "Seems to be the one thing that can bring us together like this."
Nick nodded. The two sat in silent contemplation, enjoying each other's company until Nick broke the silence a few minutes later.
"Judy?"
"Mhmm?"
"Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we had never met at Jumbeaux's ice cream parlor?" Judy perked up, slowly moving so she could look into the tod's eyes which were unfocused. Nick continued, still deep in thought. "Not that, exactly. I mean, what if you never had to seek out Mr Otterton, finding him with that popsicle. What if Bellwether and the Night Howlers never happened? If the anti-predator sentiment didn't take root like it had?"
"Deep thoughts stemming from a pawpsicle," Judy mused, smiling at her fox. "You do realize there is a way we can find out, right?"
Nick's ears perked up as his eyes refocused onto his bunny. A slow smile crept across his face at the thought. "You know...I think you're right."
Scooping up Judy in both his paws, holding her bridal style, Nick began jogging towards a familiar arcade, never releasing the bunny who was whooping and hollering all the way there.
"Valedictorian of her class, our very first rabbit officer...Judy Hopps."
"Hey Hop-a-long, get my papers filed on the Hyenadez case yet?"
"We're excited, yet terrified..."
"Do you think she'll ever get out on the beat?"
"Really?" *snort* "I doubt Bogo likes even sending her out on parking duty. She can stick to her chair there."
"Welcome to Zootopia...where anyone can be anything."
...
...
...
Or not...
Judy sighed as she clicked send, pushing her paws over her eyes as she rubbed her head. She'd been sitting at the computer for the past five hours digitizing other officers paperwork. She'd read up all the files. Solving a domestic dispute off Palm and Tropical between two cheetahs was what Officer Rhinowitz did today. Officer Snarlov and Higgins sat tagging speeders on the motorway.
Judging by the stains on Officer Growlawitz report, the lion had been mainly sticking next to the Bugga-Burger on 12th and Mane.
Why can't I go out there doing anything like this...
"Hey Hippity Hopp."
Judy looked up as another stack of papers were dropped on her desk. She looked up in surprise, ears perked as Officer McHorn chuckled. "Just wanted to make sure you felt like a real cop."
The rhino walked away chuckling, shaking her tiny desk with his thunderous steps as he moved back out of the cubicle farm her rather cramped workplace was in. Letting out the hundredth sigh of the day, Judy slipped the latest form off the top of the pile and began entering the data.
"Tomorrow's another day."
It was a mantra she had been repeating whenever she felt down. A mantra, that she was frankly getting tired of. Her first day on the force she had been excited for the job. She had accomplished her dream of becoming a police officer and she was going to make a world a better place. When her boss, Chief Bogo had marched in and began handing out assignments, she was hoping she'd be paired up with a good trainer, someone who could help her in her quest.
What she got, was a vest, hat, and three wheeled meter-mobile.
After several days of ticketing parked cars, she had managed the courage to ask the Chief if he was going to be giving her a partner anytime soon. Entering his office, she soon found that asking the Chief anything was a bad idea. She was only halfway through explaining how it was standard procedure for all rookies to be paired with senior officers when the cape buffalo had slammed his hoof on the desk, and in none too subtle terms stated...
"If you were a real officer, then I would have assigned you a partner. But you're not. So double your tickets and get out of my office."
That had been five months ago. Two months of parking duty passed before she'd seen any action, when she'd spotted a robbery taking place in a nearby cafe. The hyena waving a crowbar and swinging it at the barista, a terrified gnu, while demanding money. Judy had swung into action immediately, radioing in the robbery before heading towards the cafe. Using her small size, she snuck easily into the building through an open window while the hyena watched the door. A single tranq round to the back of his neck had put the perp down and by the time another officer had shown up, the hyena was already in cuffs, Judy calling it in and requesting a pickup.
The barista and those in the cafe had cheered her.
Bogo, and those at the precinct, chewed her out.
She hadn't been on parking duty since. Instead, she had been stuck inside Precinct One, typing up other officer's reports and digitizing old records.
"Well, Mom and Dad," she groaned, finishing this latest report of a stolen vehicle in Tundratown. "You got your wish. Can't be much safer than the cubicle farm..."
Staring around the room briefly yielded only a pawful of officers so with a stretch and pop of her shoulders, she readied herself with filling in more paperwork. The sound of laughter rang out from a nearby cubicle. Judy rolled her seat back until her head poked out of the cubicle she was in. She spotted three officers strolling down the aisle in between the cubicle walls.
"Hey guys!" Judy chirped happily. Even with the monotony of her job, she still tried to make friends with the officers she met on a daily basis. However, it always seemed like an exercise in frustration as in each past instance, and now including this one, her fellow cops simply walked by, ignoring the tiny bunny in her compact cubicle with her tiny badge.
Ears falling and a sullen, morose look in her eyes, Judy rotated her chair, pushed off the cubicle walls and back towards her desk...only to have a wheel snap, tipping the chair over with the rabbit tumbling out of it onto the ground.
Pushing an ear from over her eye, Judy let out a heavy sigh as she stared at the chair, now missing one of its wheels.
"It's okay, Judy. You can fix it."
Fifteen minutes, a roll of duct tape, some paperclips and an elephant sized stapler later, the chair was still broken, but at least was level, even if it no longer rolled. She began typing in reports again, making it through several before the chair leg snapped, causing the bunny to sit askew.
"This is not my day..." she groaned.
Judy had never been more grateful for the end of her shift than at the moment she walked out of the precinct. The paperwork had just kept coming and even though she was able to keep up with all of it, the tediousness of staring at a computer screen all day was wearing on her.
Thankfully the subway train to her apartment was rather empty; only a few dozen mammals filling the train instead of a hundred it could contain. She took one of the standing grips, her legs aching from sitting all day.
I'm going to lose all the muscle from the academy at this rate...Judy thought wryly. She still managed her two hour morning workout, jogging several miles before lifting the small weight set she had bought at a garage sale outside of Little Rodentia a few weeks after moving to the city. All the physical records in the training room were now held by the first ZPD bunny, besides the weight lifting record of course. Her sparring record was still perfect which made for lonely practice sessions as nobody wanted to get in the ring with her anymore.
"Hey! My watch!"
Judy's gaze found the location of the shout, an elderly goat pointing at a stout dashing off towards the open door of the subway car, which in the poor thief's case, led him directly past Judy.
He didn't stand a chance.
It was less than ten minutes later that Judy, hauling the unconscious thief over her shoulder, walked back through the front doors of the ZPD. The elderly goat followed after her, praising the little bunny for her amazing take down of the burglar.
"One for booking," Judy stated as she reached the front desk, the stout groaning as he began waking up. The jaguar on duty rolled his eyes, pressed a button and spoke into the microphone on his desk.
"Chief Bogo, the bunny thought she could be a cop again."
A door slammed from upstairs and an enraged looking cape buffalo appeared, gripping the railings as he glared down at the bunny. A single hoof pointed towards his door. Judy sighed, then leapt up onto the desk, dumping the stout onto the table.
"He tried to steal Mrs. Baahndi's watch on the subway train towards Elm Street station."
Met with an eye roll, Judy sighed, hopped down from the desk, was again thanked by the goat before she made her way upstairs. She was not looking forward to this meeting with Bogo, no matter what would happen during it.
"You're making the world a better place," she muttered to herself before knocking on a familiar door.
Judy face planted onto her bed, placing her head into her pillow and groaning loudly. One of the portraits on her wall rattled.
"Hey bunny, keep it down over there!"
A second picture joined in its compatriots movements.
"Hey shut up! It sounds like she had a bad day at work!"
"She always has a bad day at work! And don't tell me to shut up."
"Oh shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"
Judy grabbed her pillow and thumped it against the wall, scattering the mass of her stuffed plushies that littered her bed in the process. The two neighbors paused in their nightly ritual, though she did hear much quieter grumblings coming through the wall.
Bogo had, like she had thought, torn into her for 'acting like a real cop when you are only good for being a meter maid or desk duty'. She had brought up the fact that she had graduated from the academy, had a badge and that as such, she was just as much a cop as any of the other officers at the precinct and wanted a partner to train her like all the other recruits had been given. What Bogo had said next infuriated her to no end.
"A bunny could never measure up to a real cop so why should I waste the time of one of my competent officers and drag them down to please a tiny little mammal that is good for two things; farming, and making more rabbits."
Judy's paws were clenching in anger at his comments. She already knew he didn't think small mammals should, or could, be a cop, but she hadn't thought he'd delve into speciest comments like that. She knew it wouldn't help to bring it up with HR as she'd already brought up the point of not having a partner after so long on the force, which was a requirement under police statutes. The ibex behind the counter had simply shrugged, saying she should bring it up with her boss.
You could always transfer to Bunnyburrow...she thought with a heavy sigh. She almost instantly discarded that. Sheriff Tobearon, though a sweet bear, was far too laid back for her. When she had gone on ride-alongs with him, she had almost torn off her ears in frustration at how many coffee and donut breaks one mammal could make in a four hour ride along. That and she'd have to live back at home and have to deal with her parents setting her up with buck after buck, trying to get her to settle down...
No...I can work through this...I can be a real cop. It might take time, but I can do it. Her good mood lasted about as long as her short pep-talk. If she couldn't even bring in a thief, a witness in tow to describe that she did an excellent job as an officer, what could she do to start making the world a better place?
With nothing better to do, and needing a distraction, Judy changed into her pajamas and flopped onto her bed, rolling under the covers as she brought up Furbook. She smiled at several pictures her siblings had taken at the lake near their home. A link to a carrot cooking blog posted by her brother Sal had her rolling her eyes while seeing a post from her littermate Jessica about 'not being in a relationship' with Jack Pawson had her heart clench. Judy typed out a quick message of support to her sister, saying she could call at any time if she wanted to talk.
A few minutes later she had nearly reached the end of her news feed as a large yawn escaped her lips. Blinking back sleep, she scrolled one last time and saw a video that her friend Trisha had posted, tagging the police bunny in it along with a smiley face and message saying, 'Making the world a better place, right?'. Wondering what she had been tagged in, Judy clicked the video link and began watching. It showed an elderly bear she recognized as Mrs Bearson walking down main street in Bunnyburrow in the far distance of the video. Two deer on a moped stopped next to her, spraying her with something. She clutched at her face, earning a scowl from Judy as the two jerks grabbed her dropped purse and drove off on the moped.
Then she saw something totally unexpected happen.
At the bottom of the video, a lone, young cougar was walking his bike down the sidewalk and had seen what had happened. Watching the two deer approach, he stopped, then just as they were about to pass him, he picked up his bike and tossed it into the path of the moped. Judy's eyes flew open as the moped hit the bike and flipped, sending the two deer sprawling into the road. The two mammals appeared dazed as the cougar waved someone off camera towards him. The video ended a few seconds later as predator ambled into a nearby alley, but the image of the cougar standing over the two dazed deer before walking off into a nearby alley and disappearing sparked something in her mind.
She didn't know who the cougar was. She doubted anyone else would be able to know who he was expect maybe a close friend. His hoodie prevented anyone from knowing his identity.
Judy looked down at the title of the video...
"The Vigilante Mammal..." she read aloud. Leaning back into her pillow, she placed the phone on her chest. "The Vigilante Mammal," she repeated, a soft smile crossing her muzzle. Judy glanced at her phone, smiled, then turned it off as she placed it on her desk. Double checking her alarm clock to make sure it was on, Judy went to sleep for the first time in months, knowing what she was going to do.
She was going to make the world a better place, whether the world wanted her to or not.
AN: Well, its finally here. Took me a while to get to this story (over a year), but here it is and I hope you enjoy. :)