Well well well, Hello again! Sorry it took a while to get the first chapter posted. Vacationing with family is difficult, especially when you have no WIFI. I hoped you enjoyed the prologue; already 10 followers last time I checked. Thanks so much for those who have reviewed it, and I hope you enjoy the first part of Primal: A Zootopia Fanfiction!

"Officer Hopps!"

Even Chief Bogo's thunderous voice couldn't quite shake the cold out of Judy. She turned and looked back through the small hole her fellow officers had drilled through the concrete barrier. This miniature entrance was now the front door to Arctic One.

"Yes Chief?" She replied, her shivering arms curled around the thick purple jacket tightly hugging her chest.

"I'm putting the generator through now!" A yellow and black motor appeared in the entrance, temporarily blocking out all sunlight. Judy grasped it by its handles and pulled it through, the creaking of its wheels adding to the noise of the arctic wind gently streaming through the hole.

The machine was heavy, but she could handle it. Years of policing had turned her small body into a muscular powerhouse. Once inside she slumped beside it, resting her head while quick pants escaped her. The cold was already beginning to take its toll on her, despite it being only ten minutes into the recovery

"Officer Hopps, Is the generator safely through?"

Lifting her head, Judy stopped panting and shouted back.

"Yes Chief!"

"Good. Remember your goal. Left at the T. Code 223."

"Understood," She responded, rising slowly and gripping the handles again. The chief had drilled the annoying rhyme through her head over the two weeks the boat had taken to get to the prison.

Step by step, she made her way until the sunlight from the hole shinned no more. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled her flashlight out and flicked it on. The light revealed very little new. A long concrete hallway greeted her, tall enough to allow even Officer Francine, an elephant, to stride with comfort.

She squinted. In the distance she vaguely saw a doorway leading from the left wall. Absolute darkness lay beyond that. Placing the flashlight in her mouth so she could use both arms to pull, she began again.

Her progress was slow; her sense of smell waned because of her sinus congestion brought on by the freezing temperatures. She had always hated the cold. It never snowed in Bunnyburrow, except for one or two winters early in her childhood which had made her a very happy kit. But these experiences had been unique and brief. Sometimes Chief had tasked her and Nick to patrol Tundratown, but, again, that didn't require her to pull an engine equal to her weight in -50 degree weather. They had had their share of chases, but most of the action took place within the confines of their cruiser. Judy snickered, halfway to the door. There had been more than one awkward moment when she and Nick had to share warmth in order to stave off the brutal temperatures encroaching on their paradise. She and him hadn't done anything - that was flat out wrong! They were best friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

Several more moments of hard work, amusing thoughts, and deep breaths and Judy reached the doorway she had seen before, arms sore. Her eyes wandered up the wall, reading the sign. The office. She peered in with clenched teeth, hoping her flashlight wouldn't slip. There was a stillness to the air; papers lay scattered across the floor, just like the witness reports said.

She couldn't help but feel angry at the sight. It had been the wardens who kept the Grizzly Brother in check, and up until her partner arrived at Arctic One they were doing a fine job. But as soon as he entered the cell all heck had broken loose. It was then that they failed at keeping their single inmate restrained, and as a result her best friend was killed. Yet, deep down, she knew she couldn't hold the wardens accountable for her partners death. The guilt and public scrutiny they had to go through cost them the community's respect - and their badges. All because they failed at a job they spent their entire careers preparing for. In the end they were just unlucky, not guilty of murder. That verdict was saved for another mammal.

Judy turned and got back to her mission. The concrete door had to be opened. Whether or not the prison had been abandoned for just over two years, it was still a crime scene. And now that she had captured him, the operation to recover her partners body was the last chapter to the investigation.

The generators' wheels stopped squeaking. Judy stared up at a large metal door, her flashlights glow eerily reflecting off it. She didn't need to read the sign to know what room this was. Solitary Confinement, she thought grimly. Behind this door was the body of her partner. The only postmortem image of him appeared in her mind, making her shudder. He had come to this remote, desolate place - to this very room, in fact - for the interrogation of his to be killer. Arctic One was reserved for the most brutal of criminals, and the monster that slew him did apply. During Nick's final meeting the huge bear had torn off his chains and thrown the table used during the session straight at him, pinning him between concrete and metal. When the table fell his body had been there, slumped against the wall. Lifeless.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In just a few weeks, justice would be served, and Nick would be at peace, buried as a hero. Her mitten-dressed paw touched the door.

"Soon," she whispered, flashlight still in mouth. Chief Bogo's irritating rhyme sprang into her mind, putting her back on track. Left at the T.

In this situation, the T was the intersection of three hallways. To her back was the office and the entrance. To her right and left lay impenetrable darkness.

With clenched teeth, Judy turned away from the room her friend lay in without looking back. Her arms felt ready to quit. Her breaths became shorter and shorter, and eventually she decided that It was time for a break. However, as soon as the thought passed through the elaborate system of decision making in her head a reflection caught her eye. She knew exactly what It was. The Generator Room, she thought. There would be no break for the moment.

Reports said that the door had been closed on the day of the ... Judy shivered ... murder, but she found that it was cracked open ever so slightly. She never liked using that word. It felt disrespectful to use such brutal language.

She shrugged as much as she could with her arms drawn out, still attached to the generator.

The vessel she and Bogo had used to sail here was a research ship, and there were several scientists which had accompanied the ZPD to the arctic for unrelated reasons. One of these researchers, a rather shorter giraffe which Judy hadn't gotten the name of, was an expert at physics. He had told Judy about the properties of metal when exposed to the cold after long periods of time. He said the information may come useful during the investigation, and in Judy's mind it had.

The door must've popped open, She thought as she pushed her way through the door.

Her flashlight illuminated the entire room, thankfully, and the previously multitudinous black vanished. Against the wall opposite her were all the plugs and switches which made up the electrical grid. It didn't have a casing over it like other grids she had seen before - It was too large for that, so the architects of the building instead put the entire system on a wall, unprotected. The frost gently layered on top of the buttons and plugs gave the room a ghostly white glow.

Judy made the last push - or pull, toward the backup power socket, conveniently located at her eye level. She dropped the generator behind her and took the flashlight from her mouth. She had clenched it a little too hard with her teeth, but ignored the annoying feeling in her jaw as she studied the plug.

This is the right one, she thought to herself as her paw reached behind and grabbed the cord to the generator. The lights flicked to life a moment after the plug was in and the switch was activated.

The flashlight returned to her pocket, and she smiled to herself. That soon is now, dumb fox! she thought in a bittersweet voice. She'd miss his little comments and nicknames until the day she died. Turning to return to the hallway, something next to the doorway her caught her eye. Well, to be exact, It was 208 somethings. The smile on Judy's face became still as ice as she looked over the irregular marks.

A sudden, dark realization washed over her. She knew exactly what these marks were. Her already exhilarated heart began to beat out of her rib cage and her paws moved up to cover her mouth, finding that it was wide open. Against the wall there were carvings, but not just carvings. Scratch marks. Single lined scratch marks, almost resembling tallies. All were horizontally and vertically parallel to each other.

Judy, shocked and upset, shakily picked up the radio which hung on her police belt and held down the talk button.

"C-Ch-Chief?" She stuttered out. There was no response from the cape buffalo.

"Chief! There's something here..." She continued, her eyes beginning to glaze.

Still no answer. Chief Bogo would've responded if he received the message, but the huge concrete walls of the prison prevented all transmissions from leaving. Judy kept her eyes on the scratches as her feet began to move, at first at a snail's pace but turning into a cheetahs sprint. She had to get the chief to see this - he had years more experience than her. He'd know what to do! The glazing over her eyes became an icing. It wasn't just the cold - her heartstrings were being pulled in a dozen different directions. She hadn't been this upset since she had learned of his passing...

All because she had a suspicion of the meaning behind the scratches.

All her previous soreness from pulling the generator gone, Judy reached the office in seconds. In the light she saw the papers still scattered on the floor and the door control on a nearby desk, surrounded by open filing cabinets. She clumsily hopped onto the desk, falling as her foot caught on the rim. She scrambled up, her nose sore from the impact, and looked down at the control. Over her panicking, Bogo's stupid rhyme echoed in her mind. Code 223. Her paws punched in the numbers, and she faintly heard the huge concrete block begin to rise. Rushing into the hallway, her panicked eyes saw Chief Bogo at the head of a group of officers trudging out of the deep snow and into the building.

"Chief!" she shouted with a little too much emotion, "Something's wrong in the generator room!"

Within the same moment of her exclamation she was rushing back to the room, vaguely hearing the chief barking orders. She didn't know if they were for her or the other officers, but right now she didn't care. As good an officer as she was, the thought of her partner being left alone to die inside a prison didn't sit well with her.

In seconds she was back at the scratches again, staring at the nearly unending pain carved into the wall. She couldn't take it anymore. Her breathing rapidly increased along with her heartbeat. The air had begun to warm, and the tears now slowly descending from her amethysts didn't freeze immediately. Instead, they made it halfway down face, encasing her cheeks with a thin layer of moisture.

The Chief rushed into the doorway, staring down at her with a stern expression.

"Hopps, what is causing you concern?" He almost shouted.

Judys' eyes flicked between him and the scratches, and eventually she raised a shaking, pointed paw.

"That," she whispered.

Chief Bogo moved into the room and stood next to her, slowly taking in the horror. Judy watched him closely. His eyes frowned, his breathing became heavier, and his mouth cracked open in outrage and shock.

Now it was her turn to freak out. Her eyes were really beginning to let the tears flow, and a sick feeling crawled into her stomach. What was it? She had felt it before, right after she and Nick arrested mayor Lionheart. Right at the press conference...

Judy's heart stopped and her eyesight became distant. The feeling was guilt. Guilt for leaving Nick to die in these terrible conditions. She was on the verge of absolutely breaking down. Oh, why couldn't it have been her instead of that dumb fox? They were both great officers, but she would gladly swap places with him at the drop of a hat. As long as he was still alive...

Judy nearly jumped when she felt a hoof shaking her, and her eyes returned to see Chief Bogo's intense stare.

"Officer Hoops, as I said a moment ago, do not let your feelings get in the way of your duty. This is no birthday party when you can cry and smile as you will, it's an active crime scene."

Judy blinked heavily, the tears disappearing from her eyes and all emotion leaving her thoughts. She knew the Chief was right. Over the four years she had been in the ZPD she had only shown emotion on the job twice. Once was during the Night Howler Incident, but Nick had saved her behind there by standing up to Bogo, and the other in the days after she learned of her partner's death. No matter her relationship with the victim or those involved in a crime, she was still an officer of the ZPD, and it was her duty to investigate any crime committed within its jurisdiction.

She stood up from the concrete floor she didn't even know she had fallen to and looked at Chief Bogo with an unwavering stare.

"I understand, Chief ," She said, slowly striding up to the wall and running her fingers over the scratches. "I am an officer of the ZPD. My duty lies with the mammals of Zootopia first and foremost, and I shall serve them by investigating this scene."

Her purple gaze swept over all the scratches, noting every little detail. Her feet carried her small frame up and down the length of the wall. She was deep in thought, putting her years of police investigation to work. Chief Bogo observed the scene and the officer quietly.

The scratches were large enough for someone of Nick's stature to carve easily without damaging his claws, and most were parallel to one another. Judy counted how many parallel scratches there were until the change. 168. She turned toward Chief Bogo and closed her eyes, preparing what she was going to say. Her radical suspicion of the meaning behind scratches was correct- and he wouldn't like it one bit. It'd be a lot of paperwork.

"Chief Bogo," She began, staring up at him as he stared down at her curiously and folded his arms over his heavy navy blue jacket. "Based on the evidence from the scene I believe that Officer Wilde survived his 'murder' and used scratches carved into the wall as a calendar."

Chief Bogo raised an eyebrow.

"A radical statement, Officer Hopps. How can you prove it? What you said reminds me of some of the tabloid garbage which I've seen come out of the slums of Savanna Central."

"The scratches are the size of Nick's claws, sir. And since there weren't any other mammals here-"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Hopps. Trust evidence, not instinct."

Judy smiled.

"Chief, how long does the standard ZPD generator last after a lock down has been initiated?"

Chief Bogo looked down at her without flinching.

"Officer Hopps, if I didn't know basic information like that then I wouldn't have become police chief," He said. Judy's ears perked up as she heard a tiny curse escape from his lips.

"But I could be reminded."

"24 weeks. Or 168 days," She responded enthusiastically.

Chief Bogo raised his hoof and rolled it. "Get to the point, Hopps."

Judy spun around and pointed at the first unparalleled scratch.

"All scratches are carefully cut, completely equal to each other in size and depth. Up until day 168. Then you start to see much more stressed and unparalleled scratches. That's when the power and heat ran out, so if my suspicions are correct then Officer Wilde was probably under large amounts of stress when he scratched in these last ones," she continued, a satisfied grin coming across her face but her heart hurting at the words.

Chief Bogo looked at the scratches past the point she had mentioned. Judy looked up at her boss, watching him take in the whole situation. She was about to speak in another attempt to convince him when his eyes reached hers and his hooves became crossed against his chest again.

"Excellent work, Officer Hopps. Not as tabloid as I expected," He congratulated. Judy's insides warmed. That was, by far, one of the nicest compliments she had ever received from the hard-headed buffalo. But his intrusive stare returned to her in less than a moment.

"But where is Officer Wilde's body? If this is where that fox spent his days, as you think, wouldn't he be resting here?"

While he did have a point, Judy knew he was wrong. Thank gosh she had met that short giraffe! It all had to do with the concrete.

"Nick did spend his days in here. Up until the power went off. This room is directly connected with the ventilation systems, so when the heat went off this room would've been much colder than it is now." Judy said, her eyes quickly darting to a small vent above Chief Bogo, "Concrete acts like a refrigerated cup with your morning coffee inside. If your coffee's hot then it'll stay hot. But if your coffee is cold, then you'll be a very sour mammal."

Silence fell between the two as Chief Bogo pondered on her words. Judy knew where her partners' body was but decided that It was time to give her boss some credit for the discovery.

"So if Officer Wilde left the room once the heat failed, then he would've gone to the next warmest room. So his body is where it was originally..." Chief Bogo said, his eyes widening ever so slightly as he stared down at the small mammal below him. Judy nodded. A slight feeling of dread overcame her as he smiled.

"Officer Hopps, I believe it's time that you and your partner were reunited."

The door to solitary confinement, which doubled as the only cell in Arctic One as well as the interrogation room, had already been opened by one of the half dozen officers which had accompanied Judy and Bogo. As they walked, the only sound the two mammals heard was hooves and booted paws quickly making their way to the entrance of the tomb of their deceased co-worker.

Judy entered first, surveying the scene. The chains which had kept the Grizzly brother in check were lying neatly on the floor. Had Nick cleaned before his death? He never cleaned anything! The table and chair he had been using during the fateful day also didn't match the last photo from inside the room. Instead of being slammed against the right wall, they were propped up neatly against the left one.

Judy's calmness which had aided her with the scratches began to fade. This was her best friends final resting place; the same place she had longed to visit for the past two years. Once she had learned of her partner's death depression caught her violently. She had been excused from policing for two months with full pay, and within that time her parents came to visit her on several occasions, usually no longer than a few days. Even though they had only met Nick once before - when they came to the city to celebrate her first Birthday outside of Bunnyburrow - and never knew him personally, they felt the same loss which she did. Since then, with their help, her depression had stopped dead in its tracks. But the feelings of sadness and anger which nearly destroyed her life continued for months after she returned to the ZPD. To combat these cases of raw emotion, she focused on the happy memories she and Nick shared. Bellwether's reaction when she learned of her defeat was one of her favorite moments, along with her partners annoyance during the "Teleporting Pickpocket" fiasco. But, in the very back of her head, she knew that the "19 days with no tears" record would be reset to 0 very soon.

As Chief Bogo followed her into the room Judy felt a hoof on her back guiding her toward the right corner. In said corner was a ZPD uniformed wolf, whose name escaped her for the moment, squatting over something equally mysterious as his name. Above her, a booming voice disturbed the silence of the room.

"Officer Wolfenstein, give us some privacy."

The jet-black officer stood and walked toward the exit, his gaze full of distress as he looked down at Judy. He paused for a moment as he stood beside her, dropping something orange into her outstretched paw.

"You're gonna need this," He murmured, eyes full of concern. She looked down and immediately choked up for words. It was her carrot pen, covered in frost. A memory flicked to life in her mind. It was of her and Nick at the docks, on his final day in Zootopia. The sun shinned on their last embrace, a smile in both of the their faces. She pulled away first, her uniform slightly damp with sweat as the hot July sun beat down on it. Nick was much more relaxed than she was. They stood, staring at one another, waiting for the other to make the first and final move. Judy did, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the same pen she held in her paw now. She wanted Nick to have it to remember her by for his weeks away. She handed it to Nick, who accepted it with a slightly mocking grin.

"Cottontail, I don't want my last words to be recorded on a carrot pen," He said playfully. Looking back on it his words seemed very morbid, but at the time she had just playfully hit his arm.

"Yeah, but it's all I got," she replied.

He had snickered at this and turned to board the ship.

"See you in a few weeks, Sweetheart!" He had called behind a wave of his arm as he walked up the boarding ramp.

"You too, slick Nick!"

The memory ended in darkness. Judy moved her thanking gaze to where Officer Wolfenstein had been, but only a shadow remained. Now she had a chance of hearing her best friend's voice one final time. Chief Bogo gave a tiny huff and both mammals began walking toward the corner again. When Judy finally saw what Officer Wolfenstein was squatting over her mind whirled, her heart stopped beating, and her eyes became glued to the sight.

All because of the body of Nicholas P. Wilde before her. He was curled into a circle, his snout resting on top of the base of his tail. His eyes were closed, the green glow gone from them forever. His uniform was ragged; you could see his matted fur in some places, and even more frighteningly, the outline of bones beneath it. In one word, he looked defeated.

Judy was shaking furiously. Even with Bogo's hoof to steady her, her heart continued to beat out of her small chest. She felt the dams in her eyes beginning to burst. Nick was here, dead. Not killed by some enraged criminal, but by starvation and freezing. She could've saved him from this frozen hell. But instead she just cried and wept like a kit. Why had she done that? It wasn't like her at all. But the pain, the suffering she had experienced after losing him. Losing such a big part of your life...

Judy looked down at the carrot pen with heavy breaths and clicked the play button. Her gaze flicked back to her partner's body as his last words echoed around the room after several shivering breaths emerged from the device.

"Well, Carrots, looks like my last words will be recorded on a carrot pen," His words were shaky and tired, but she knew his sarcastic voice when she heard it. A small, sad smile etched its way onto her face.

"Now before you get your ears In a knot, let me tell you that you're the best friend I could've ever asked for. You took me off the streets, made me a cop, whether I wanted to be one or not, and gave me a reason to get up in the morning. Judy, thanks for what you've done to me," The recording continued. Nicks' voice progressively got more and more shaky. Judy held both her hands and the carrot pen up to her quivering lips.

"Don't blame yourself for this - I was the one who volunteered for this mess of a trip. But I don't have any regrets about our time together," the recording played before a sigh echoed out of it, "Life..." there was silence.

Judy hadn't realized she was sobbing as the recording played on but felt ice cold tears rolling onto her paws. Bogo kept his hoof on her back in an attempt to comfort her, but his words fell on ignoring ears. Nicks final words made her collapse, her head bent over as she wept over his body, the carrot pen still held up to her face. Never again would she hear his oddly amusing nicknames, or his sarcastic comments during inappropriate situations. Her Nick was gone forever...

But his last words weren't.

"I always love a good hustle, sweetheart."

This chapter was last edited August 21, 2016