Nick and Judy knew there was more to this. More behind the decision to force every Precinct One officer to only partner with members of their own species.

There had to be. Otherwise, they'd be losing much of their Precinct's effectiveness in enforcing the law.

And where does much of that effectiveness come from? The unique partnerships that the officers have, of course. You see, often, an officer may choose to be partners with another officer who succeeds in areas where they do not. For example, one may have a large amount of strength but is particularly slow, and they'll partner up with a different mammal who is inherently quick. Thus, one's slowness or other weakness will not hinder them as much because they have their partner to pick up the slack, and vice versa.

It is something that many of the partnerships here in Precinct One mirror. One mammal will lack in an area where the other succeeds. This way, the teams are useful in a wide range of circumstances, not just a few. Even Nick and Judy's partnership has this trait. For example, Nick can see very well in the dark while Judy can hear the faintest of sounds, and that is only one example.

But, by forcing your officers to work with members of their species and no one else, you're making the Precinct, as a whole, weaker and less effective than ever before. Now, every partnership will lack in at least one area and will, ultimately, suffer for it.

This decision just doesn't make sense, unless you consider something else:

Algarotti was appointed by a Mayor, Mayor Keegan to be precise, who is exceptionally "anti-predator." There is no doubt that this sheep shares the same opinion.

And by forcing every officer to work with only members of the same species, you are also separating the predators from the prey. It's just much more discreet. A little less likely to spark riots from anyone if the word got out.

But no one counted on Nick and Judy to be so particularly perceptive.

Though, they had no way to speak at the moment. They were, well, stuck on the middle of a room filled with angry officers shouting every cuss word known to mammal-kind whilst, somehow, making up a few new ones when even the strongest of cuss words failed to convey their anger.

Even the fox and rabbit wanted to join in. But they, somehow, repressed the urges.

"Enough!" exploded Algarotti. "I am your boss! You will obey my word or I will take away your badges and never allow you inside my building again!"

He shouldn't have said that.

Almost officer in the room were now up from their chairs, moving closer to him and yelling louder than ever. The entire building was shaking from this. Even the reception desk was feeling the disturbance, especially when an impossibly loud roar blasted through the building.

It was from Delgato, a lion and a veteran of Precinct One. His mane was puffed out and his claws were extended as far as they could go. "You have no right to do or even say any of this!" thundered Delgato. "You're just a worthless replacement with his speciesist head shoved directly up his ass! Get out of here!"

Nick and Judy, while angry, tried their best to calm down the raging officers, Delgato particularly. There was sure to be consequences for this type of behavior. No matter how much they were learning to hate their new boss, they still needed the help of their fellow officers, with their jobs intact, if they were to take down Mayor Keegan.

Then something tickled Nick's nose. Something he smelled before in a crime scene in Trundra Town.

A squirrel.

As if on cue, Delgato's voice could be heard shifting into something else. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at the lion as he continued to yell slurred insults at Algarotti. With each passing second, the lion's voice turned more gutteral and more incomprehensible.

Judy took special notice of his eyes that began to shift into something entirely not-Delgato. Different. Dangerous. Not the kind-yet-serious veteran everyone knew and loved.

Nick took a glance at Algarotti and noticed that he was calm, sitting behind his desk with a grin plastered on his muzzle.

There was little warning for what happened next. The lion twitched violently until he flopped on the floor with his eyes rolled back in his head. Silence filled the room for a brief five seconds until his body shook onto all four of its paws.

Without hesitation, it stormed out of the room while knocking down both Nick and Judy at the same time.

Regaining their senses, they ran after Delgato with the rest of the room following.

It didn't take the crazed lion long to make it to the street in front of the Precinct where he found a pedestrian unlucky enough to be there at that exact moment.

Judy, ahead of all of the officers with Nick beside her, watched in horror as the lion pounced on the pedestrian, a lone zebra, and jammed his claws deep into the zrbra's chest cavity before taking off again into the street.

Judy's hind-legs couldn't move fast enough.

Nick felt a small wave in his stomach as he, still running, watched the innocent mammal fall to the ground with blood splashing onto the pavement.

The sound of a high-powered tranquilizer pierced the air just as Nick and Judy slammed through thr front doors of their workplace. In the middle of the street, Delgato was shuffling and tripping on himself as the tranquilizer did its job in putting its target to sleep.

But who shot it?

That's when they saw Mayor Keegan once again along with at least fifteen bodyguards and a live news van.

They were broadcasting live footage.

"KEEGAN!" Nick shouted as Judy held him back from the smug hare. Every camera was pointed right at him.

"Nick, calm down!" Judy pleaded. Thankfully, he listened. She turned her attention to the Mayor, "You planned this, didn't you?! Do you have any idea what you're doing to this city?! To the innocent predators who helped create Zootopia?!"

"What are you talking about, my dear?" He was playing dumb. "Don't you see? They're going savage for no reason! Delgato, your supposed friend and fellow officer, just attempted to kill an innocent civilian! He nearly succeeded!" The bunny took a look back at the zebra and sighed in relief to see him standing up with the help of three officers. She couldn't believe she forgot to check on him. A twinge of guilt tapped at her. "Your boyfriend here could go savage and kill you right now, even!"

At those words, the crowd of police officers began to yell and scream at the Mayor as every cameraman pointed their cameras and leaned their boom mics towards Zootopia's protectors.

The bunny wanted to go up there and teach that hare a lesson.

Nick stepped closer, his fur on end and his eyes fierce, "I would never hurt anyone and I never have, you anti-predator jackass!"

"What of your conning days, hm?"

He didn't get a chance to respond. An enormous crowd of prey had just rounded a corner and sprinted towards them. Most of them were wielding a weapon of some kind and an anti-predator sign.

Keegan's plan was working.

The fox saw a bunny with purple eyes that greatly resembled Judy's and felt his heart jump into his throat. In her paw, there was sign with a picture of a fox with a slash threw it. Just under that, it said, 'Predators Must Go!'

The real Judy tugged at Nick. "We need to stop that crowd! They're going to riot!"

Nick shook his head, ragaining his composure, and muttered, "Ri-Right!"

The officers of Precinct One fanned out and surrounded the angry mammals. For several minutes, they attempted to calm them down, but none of it did any good. The crowd had started to riot, throwing objects and spitting out death threats for each and every predator of Precinct One.

Mayor Keegan clapped his paws together twice, signaling his bodyguards to start paw-cuffing the officers and putting shock collars around their necks. This was his plan all along and it was going smoothly.

Judy was the first to notice Keegan's guards coming towards them. She tried to warn her fellow officers, but her voice was drowned out by the constant screaming from the riot she was trying to stop.

Then she saw Nick with a collar around him.

Not a millisecond after, she sprinted towards Nick and kicked the guard that decided to put that disgusting device around her best friends neck. The guard slumped to the ground with a grown and held his stomach in his paws.

She looked up at him and saw his eyes were empty, gone. "Nick?"

No response.

Looking back at the crowd, she saw her friends being taken away by the Mayor's guards.

The worst part was the fact that the rioting prey were cheering and laughing at this. They were happy.

She turned away and started pulling Nick away from everything. They had to get out of here. Things were out of control.

…

What's a better hiding place than behind a smelly dumpster in a sketchy alleyway with who-knows-what on the ground? Well, a lot of places, actually. But this was the best Judy could do.

"Nick?" She whispered as he sat down on the ground, his eyws unmoving and his breaths rapid.

"Sorry, Judy. Sorry about back there.."

She knelt down in front of him. "Are you okay?" He didn't answer, instead looking at the ground. Judy felt like she was breaking. "Honey?" she whispered, grabbing his paw.

"It's nothing… let's just get out of here." The fox pushed himself back up only to have Judy's paw gently push him back down.

"Not until you tell me."

"Didn't you see what just happened? We're getting collared. I'm collared." He wouldn't look at her.

Her eyes ran along the platinum collar that clung to her best friend's neck. On the left side, there was a flashing green light and an IR reciever to recieve signals from a remote control. The left side had a keyhole in it - likely to unlock the collar so that its captive may be freed from its grasp.

"I'm going to kill that hare," she heard herself say. She instantly took back that statement in her mind, but thought that she would still make sure he got life in prison if they succeeded in kicking his butt out of prison.

Then she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and clicked on the new notification she had recieved. It was a news story of what had literally just happened.

Way too quick to not have been planned.

She skimmed through but saw that every officer of Precinct One was replaced with officers paw-picked by the Mayor of Zootopia.

Great. They were unemployed and no longer had the resources they needed to stop Keegan. Wonderful.

She sighed and looked into Nick's emerald eyes. They were still looking at everything but her.

"Please, don't blame me for what happened back there."

Nick looked up at her and brought a paw to her cheek. "I don't... I just don't know what to do anymore."

"We are going to get some dirt on Keegan and bring his little Empire down!" She smiled, but lost it. "I can't do it by myself, you know."

"When have you ever solved a case without me, Carrots?" he smirked, a little life coming back into his eyes.

"Ooooh, really, huh? You're playing that card?" Somehow, she felt herself giggling. "I'll have you know, Slick, that without me, you would still be conning mammals."

"Don't remind me," he groaned in an exaggerated way. "But I was practically rich!" Judy sent him a death glare. "I'm kidding, Fluff-Butt."

"Don't make me bite you."

"And people call 'me' the predator!" He started tickling Judy, accidentally making her trip and fall into his arms. "Well, hi there, cutie."

Judy couldn't help but to sink into his arms. Even a deep red blush became present on her cheeks. "Don't call me cute," she said, her voice muffled by his fur.

"Whatever you say, cutie."

*BEEP*

Judy scrambled off of Nick to see that the light on the collar was glowing a neon yellow.

*BEEP*

"Oh Nick…" Judy whispered, lowering herself onto the ground beside him. "This.. this is cruel!" She barely got out, her eyes starting to feel the coldness of fresh tears.

"This is exactly what we are trying to stop, right?" Nick whsipered, his head hung and his paw on the collar.

The beeping could be heard slowly getting faster.

"Why.. why is it doing that? You're not angry or anything."

"It…" he started, trying to relax himself, "…doesn't matter. Any strong emotion can set it off. Not just anger. Happiness, fear, anything." He closed his eyes. "They were like this even when they were first invented."

Judy, fighting back tears, cuddled against her boyfriend only to hear the beeping get quicker again. She leaned away. "I am almost ashamed to be a prey mammal. Is this all we are? Speciesist assholes?"

"Judy," his bunny's ears perked up, "don't you ever think that again. You're better than that and many of those mammals in that little riot are too."

"Then why would they do this? Why?! Look at you, Nick! You're collared! All your life you've been treated like you're a worthless waste of air who has no place in society!"

"Judy, please."

She was on her feet now, pacing the alleyway. "No! Don't, 'Judy, please,' me! Those… those idiots, they're despicable! Prey shouldn't have the power to do this to you!" She stopped her pacing and looked directly at her boyfriend. "You've read the history books. Prey have dominated predators ever since the beginnings of civilization! We've hurt you, we've killed you, we've.. we've…" she began sobbing, forgetting what she was going to say next. "And preds have deserved none of it! It should be us getting collared!"

"Judy!" He was having enough of this.

She stopped, letting silence once again hang in the air. The only thing that could be heard was Nick's collar beeping at least five times a second, the fastest yet. She immediately backed herself against the wall and slid down in it shame. "I'm sorry.."

"It's alright, Fluff… I just hate seeing you worked up like that." It was evident by the beeping. He sighed and walked up to his love, sitting in front of her with his legs criss-crossed. "Predators may not deserve this, but neither does prey. No one deserves to be collared." He stopped for a moment, thinking of the right words to say. "And stop putting yourself and your kind down. One, prey have more good in them than that and you know it. Two, I'd say that predators and prey are more similar than we are different, anyway. And three, the history books never paint the full picture." He chuckled, remembering reading those books and knowing that there is always another side to the same story. Not everything in them is true. He knew that much from many of the entries about predators. Much of them were untrue. His mother always made it a point to tell him the truth of what had happened. "And what's happening right now is because of Keegan and just him. He's manipulating everyone and doing a good job at it."

"But…"

"No, no but's. You are the sweetest mammal I've ever had the pleasure to meet. You're the last mammal I'd ever expect to see collared. Don't start saying that," he reached for her paws, "I love you, Judes." He could practically see her blush even under her grey fur. "You're better than that and so are they. We can't go blaming them and ourselves."

"But all throughout history, prey have supressed predators. It seems history really does repeat itse-"

"Judy, do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Stop acting so down in the dumps. It may be adorable, but it isn't my Carrots." Nick whsipered. Judy let a smile crawl onto her lips and reached for her fox, giving him a little hug. He hugged her back, the beeping still present but much slower than before. "They are not the bad guys. They have just been taught lies. We need to show them the truth. You're with me, right?"

"Am I with you?" She pulled away and tapped her chin. "You shouldn't even have to ask that. Yes, you dumb fox."

"Your dumb fox, remember?"

"Well, you keep reminding me of it," she chuckled.

…

The couple were just a few minutes away from their house now. Even with everything that had just happened, they needed to get at least some of their stuff before something happened to it. It was a little dangerous heading back there, but much of it was too important to leave behind. From family photos to priceless jewelry that was given to Judy by many of her, deceased, family members.

There were even a few police documents there. Admittedly, they shouldn't have had them in the first place, but they did and now they needed to retrieve them.

It had taken quite some time to even reach their old place. They had to stay off the streets, after all. It just wasn't safe anymore. Thankfully, Nick, from his conning days, knew many little-known routes to travel through that would undoubtedly keep them away from anyone intent on harming them.

Just one of the many things you pick up on when you 'work' in the fox's old 'profession.'

"You know, Judy, back in the bullpen, I smelled squirrel again," whispered Nick as they traveled through a non-funtional, and cleaner-than-usual, sewer system.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I might just be. Could they be the ones making predators go savage?"

Judy carefully hopped over a large crack that was in their way. "Ugh," she muttered, looking down it to see some fresh 'waste.' It would seem some animal literally went down here to relieve themselves. Guess the sewer system still had some use, albeit not the way it was intended. "It looks like that. Maybe."

"You know," the red fox grunted, jumping over the same gap, "It's actually a little clever. They're small, after all."

"But you're able to easily recognize their scent." Judy didn't want to give the Mayor any credit.

"But a lot of prey have difficulties doing that. Some do not have scent as powerful as predators."

"Some prey do, though."

"That just means they have to pick and choose when and where they turn another predator savage. Only in areas where it won't arouse suspicion from the civilan-prey populace. Like the bullpen. No civilians ever go there, after all."

"You're right," she sighed, kicking a rock into a wall. An echo rang through the corrider they found themselves in.

"Hey, Carrots, this door will lead us up." Nick was leaning on said door.

"Good. Let's go."

..

The light was blinding to Nick at first, but it didn't take long for his eyes to adjust. He saw that they were in the basement of an abandoned house, exactly where he wanted to be.

He looked around and saw that there were new support pillars that were put up. Seems someone had finally bought this place and is fixing it up. He made a mental note that he may not be able to use this route again, else he may find himself in a very awkward situation with a terrified family who had just moved in.

Judy finally emerged and stepped up next to Nick. "How did you even know about this place?"

"Trade secret. Can't let ya know everything about me."

"Nick."

"Fine, I've used it before. It was Finnick who first led me through here. It's been abandoned for at least five years."

The rabbit took a step towards a pillar. "Someone seems to be fixing it up."

"Which means we should leave."

"Right."

Judy, as they steadily walked up the steps, began to hear some commotion outside. "Hey, Slick, be careful. I hear a lot of mammals just outside."

"Good thing you have those ears." He playfully rubbed the back of one, sending a slight shiver down Judy.

"We need to focus, c'mon."

"I know, I know." He bagan picking up the pace. "You're just so cute!"

"I'm never going to stop hearing you say that, am I?" the bunny said, now in the living room of the house with Nick.

"No… What?" he said, looking out a window. There was a large crowd of prey, similar to the one earlier.

Just then, Judy heard her phone ring. She pulled it out and saw that her parents were calling.

"Hello?"

"Judy! Where have you been?!"

She mentally facepalmed. They must've called her when they were in the sewer where she had no reception. But why would they call? They.. they didn't see the news, did they? They never watch it.

"Just been busy doing some police work, you know how it is," she said with a shrill.

"Police work?! There's been rioting and I hear you've been fired! And please don't tell me that fox is near you!" Her father, Stu, said.

"That fox?" She took a glance at Nick who was staring intently outside the window. "Dad, he's my best fri-"

"He's a predator! They're going savage, Judy! Is he collared at least?!" This time, her mother's voice, Bonnie, erupted from the little speaker on her phone.

"Mom! He is a great mammal! You're not buying into this are you?!"

"Judy, where are you? We're coming to get you! And you two better not be dating like I heard!"

The young bunny had to fight back the urge to throw her phone.

*BEEP*

She turned to look at Nick who was now stuggling to open the front door of the house.

*BEEP-BEEP*

Judy hung up the phone and ran to the window, not caring about the consequences. "Nick, what's wrong?" That's when she saw it. Deep in the crowd, near their old house, a fox could be saw struggling to free herself from the clutches of the rioting prey.

It was Nick's mother. Why was she even at their old house?

*BEEP-BEEP-BEEP*