"You're lying!" Judy shouted at Laurence from around the table. "All traces and research on the Night Howler's effect on animals was ceased and destroyed and deemed illegal by Mayor Lionheart himself…" And the angered little bunny was cut off by Laurence who again came forward to lean on the table. "Who if I am correct; tried to cover up the whole thing and denied any actual involvement in the whole thing? Is that the same mayor we are talking about? Oh come on Officer! Do you really think that someone like Lionheart; whose reputation has been built on power and obscurity would really let such a profitable substance slip through his fingers?" He then leaned further forward over the table and feigned a look of discomfort at Judy as he taunted, "Then you truly know nothing of the city you claim to love."
Judy had heard enough, and before any of the others around the table could react she had hopped on top of it and was making a go at Laurence. She was quicker than any that sat at that table, save for the 'Creature' as she had come to mentally title it; who before she even knew what was happening had had a firm grip on one of her legs, and as she tried to make a jump off of the table and onto Laurence he pulled down on her leg hard, forcing her flat on the table stomach first with a grunt from the force. The Creature then hopped on the table himself and flipped Judy over, using both of his arms to pin hers and Judy could not even struggle. Before when she had been restrained by Laurence's men she could at least thrash about, but this creature that was only slightly larger than Nick, had a supernatural strength about it.
"I won't let this happen!" Judy shouted out while being held still to the point where she couldn't move at all. "In any case we have a deal! Nick and I walk away from this, so take me to him and we will be leaving."
Laurence who had been forced to take a step back at the sudden display right in front of him stepped forward again. "Yeah, about that…" He started while un-holstering a gun from underneath his shirt and pointing it right at Judy's head. "Nick seems to have 'run off' and left quite the mess behind him." Suddenly Judy's eyes shifted from staring down the barrel of her imminent doom, to the pile of metal that had once been a helicopter at the other side of the warehouse. "Nick?" She whispered underneath her breath, and a million different thoughts began to flood her head.
"Now between the grief that that fox of yours has caused me, past and present, I don't plan on letting him live anymore. Also, I can't let you go because you'd just run off and tell the world and even though at this point the whole world probably couldn't stop us, we'd rather not find out. So Officer Hopps, you get the honour of being the first to die for this cause, and you can get added to the list of animals Nick has gotten killed."
Behind the scene of commotion the machine still hummed along, it's counter now reading fifty-five percent.
Chief Bogo pushed through a large bushel as he made his way through the forestry on foot. Flexing his shoulders from the weight of his special forces armour and the assault rifle he held in his hands, he gazed ahead of himself into the never ending forest and looked up into the sky, there had been steady and thick stream of smoke in the air not too long ago, but now that it was gone he had to use his gut feeling that he was headed in the right direction. He then looked behind himself and let out a low and subtle whistle, one that could easily be mistaken as 'just another jungle noise', but to ZPD's twenty-three best officers it was a clear signal and they emerged from seemingly nowhere and crowded around their chief.
Looking around at his finest; Chief Bogo gave a nod in approval, seeing them all kitted out as himself, black boots, black trousers, black jackets, camouflaged-bullet proof vests and camouflaged helmets. The only thing separating him from his men was the two narrow red rings that circled the right bicep of his jacket, this served purely so that they could recognise their leader when in a flurry of battle, and that is exactly what Bogo expected to find at their destination.
Bogo then crouched down and his men did the same, gazing at each one of them in regard for a moment, he made note of the diversity before him; from bear, to wolf and hound, to the otter and the pig. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde had broken new grounds when they had not only joined the force but proven to be two of Bogo's finest, and today he stared at each of his most loyal and trustworthy animals with equal respect for taking up the task that lay before them. He would gladly put his life in any of their hands and know he would be safe.
"Alright…" He started in a low tone, trying to adjust everyone into a somewhat stealthy manner as he assumed they were getting close to their destination. "I'll go through the situation one last time for some of the 'slower' animals here today. I asked for twenty-five of Zootopia's finest and instead I get only twenty-three. And that is because today we are not only saving Zootopia, not only saving everything we uphold and believe in, but we are saving two of our comrades; Officers Wilde and Hopps." Glancing around he saw silent nods of agreement coming from his entire squad, and then Chief Bogo continued. He relayed the essential details of how less than two hours ago he received classified footage of Judy gaining access to vault fourteen and stealing the encoded recipe and entire database knowledge of an undisclosed chemical weapon. He also touched on how when trying to track Judy's cruiser back to its destination; that conveniently all the traffic cameras were down, making Bogo believe that whomever was behind all of this had an inside animal in the department. Also were it not Judy's clever little idea to do morse-code with her ears when passing specific cameras in the bank then they wouldn't be in this jungle right now. "We don't know why Officer Hopps has taken what she has, but she would not have lead us here had she no reason to. With both Hopps and Wilde unreachable we can assume that they have either gone rogue or are in serious danger. So we are going to play the situation as though it could go either way."
Bogo held his gun forward as he moved on to his final piece of information for his squad, "Each of your guns has been equipped with one extended magazine of sedative rounds, and strapped to each of your jackets is five standard magazines of lethal rounds." He let his gun rest against him once more as he continued, "Remember that as part of the ZPD it is your duty to uphold your vows and never use lethal force until absolutely necessary, so make that extended sedative magazine last as long as you can, if you are still required to shoot after that magazine is finished then you have full permission to retaliate incoming fire with your own lethal rounds." Standing up and looking down at his crouched unit he raised his voice slightly and stated, "Let's go save our city and our comrades." And without waiting for a response, Chief Bogo turned once more and continued his cautious trek through the forest.
Nick crouched behind one of the last trees that broke into the clearing that was where the warehouse stood. The now midday sun beaming down on the forest district had Nick sweaty and uncomfortable on top of stressed, exhausted and full of pain. With both hands resting on the tree's trunk and his body leaned against it to lessen his visibility, Nick brought his tail around and over his head to shade his eyes as he surveyed the area ahead of him.
Between him and the warehouse stood 200 meters of open area that would obviously in most cases be used for parking or loading, but with the animals Nick knew were involved, it was a perfect dividing area for dispatching your criminal militia. He could vaguely make out the 5 main open garage doors on the warehouse itself and knew that within it was all he cared about; Judy. He needed to get back in there, but couldn't risk running across such a large open area, and any small chance of that happening suddenly vanished as the fox caught a reflection of the sun in his eye and he was blinded momentarily. Looking out to where the glimmer was coming from, he saw it was from the roof of the warehouse and Nick was forced to curse under his breath. They had snipers on the roof top.
They must have really wanted Nick alive to let him get away like that. He was such an easy target at so many points through his escape that he got an immediate headache when thinking about it. The fox closed his eyes for only a moment to reflect upon how Laurence had said that he was going to ruin Nick's life before killing him and he knew that that would probably mean him having to watch Judy get hurt or worse. He could walk back in right now and he probably would not get shot at, but no, Nick needed that element of surprise. Taking out his empty pistol and looking at it with a blank expression, Nick backed his way back into the thick of the forest. He needed to think up a plan, and fast.
Laurence pulled the trigger and a shot fired out of his gun, smoke trickling from the tip he smiled as his point had been made. There was now a small hole in the table next to where Judy's head rested and suddenly she went quiet and stopped her ranting; that was as close as warning shots come. "You know I have to say Hopps, that after the grief you gave me last night I really want to kill you, and I am going to. However it's just no fun without a certain fox to watch me scatter your head across this table." Laurence then shrugged at his companions around the table as he holstered his firearm, "Also I don't want to get our maps bloody, a few holes in them are fine, but blood would ruin the poor things." Looking over to the machine what was still ticking away, Laurence shouted to all who were in the warehouse, "Seventy Percent!"
And all the animals that were in the warehouse suddenly fell in line, as though they were proper military. Turning her head as far as she could, Judy could make out fifteen rows of ten animals and down each row walked a jaguar handing out a small, glowing band like item to each of them, which Judy couldn't really properly make out and determine what they were. Turning her head Judy saw all those around the table also take out these illuminated blue bands and place one around each of their left wrists.
Laurence held one out to the creature that restrained Judy, "Last chance X." And Judy made note of the name. The creature titled X almost growled as it spoke in its doubled over voice, "For the last time; I want no part in your sick biological manipulation, all I want is the end results of what we agreed upon."
Unable to physically retort, Judy scoffed and chirped in stating, "Yeah good luck with that, I don't know you guys too well, but you don't seem to be very good at holding agreements." And she was quickly caused to cringe in discomfort as this X creature suddenly applied pressure to where he held her arms while he replied, "Shut it, prey." And Laurence was forced to laugh, "Well said Hopps, although I wouldn't be cracking jokes right now if I were you. In any case, don't forget the abomination you are, X." X then looked up and glared at Laurence as the jaguar went on, "There is nothing normal about you as it stands, but a deal is a deal."
The machine's number rolled on to seventy-one and Laurence glanced at it before sighing, "The last thirty percent is always the longest."
Being the inquisitive bunny that she was, and at this point literally just poking fun at her imminent demise, she flicked up one of her ears and used it to tap X on his oddly shaped face, causing him to snap from glaring at Laurence, to staring down at her. Staring deep into his eyes Judy noticed something, although from a glance you wouldn't have noticed; his two eyes were definitely different colours. His left eye leaning towards an olive sort of green and his right eye leaning towards a murky yellow, you had to really stare to notice the difference.
Smiling innocently up at him and using one of her ears to scratch her head, Judy prompted, "So, uh, since this is probably going to take a while and time seems ever so much longer when you're waiting to be killed, would you mind explaining the actually process of what's going on here?" The look of anger disappeared from X's face as it rested neutrally, or as close to anything that's naturally neutral, Judy thought. X raised its head and looked at Laurence before asking, "Care to explain to the girl?"
Shrugging once more Laurence replied, "I don't see the harm in it, and it's as good a reason as any to try and drum the idea of this into Greg's thick head again." The giant bear sat across the table with a vacant stare. "My point proves itself." Laurence finished before taking a deep breath as he then paced circles around the table.
"You know what is on the device you brought me, but you have no idea how the device works. Well it has been specially programmed to respond only to a specific electrical frequency, the slightest variation to that frequency and Boom!" The jaguar made a show of an explosion using his hands, "The device blows up. The machine it rests on has two very specific purposes. One; to replicate the required frequency to unlock the code, and two; to respond to biological contact. Each of our wrist bands it synchronized with the machine, so the second it is one hundred percent unlocked, it will upload the information to our bands, and the bands will feed small electro pulses into our bodies and apply the information from the device."
Stopping his pacing between where Judy lay on the table and the machine, Laurence finished by stating, "Look, there is a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo to it all, but just know that whatever biological organism is connected to that machine when it hits one hundred percent, will receive all the genetic knowledge it needs to master near limitless physical power."
Judy's eyes went wide with horror as she crunched the numbers in her head, over one hundred and fifty animals with a near limitless potential for strength growth could cause devastation, and she was sure it would not stop with the animals here today, but grow, and grow fast.
Removing a set of cuffs that were attached to Judy's utensil belt; with one arm X lifted the bunny and placed her on one of the steel chairs around the table, and before she could even lash out he had her hands cuffed behind it, the chain of the cuffs weaved through the back rest bars which left Judy little to no room for struggle. Walking behind the chair she was now restrained to, X grabbed the chair from the back and started to drag it.
"Where are you taking me?" Judy demanded to know.
"I'm half fox, just so you know." The strange mixed creature began while dragging Judy away from the table, a huge and obnoxious smile from Laurence while he waved goodbye to her was all she needed to know that she was off to a bad place right now. "I need to use that part of me to get our friend Nick back here right now, because the other half of me is cheetah, and that part of me can't stand waiting anymore." He let the chair rest and Judy now noticed that she was back in the room she and Nick had been locked in. "If you want something done right, you'd best do it yourself." He then walked out the room for only a moment, just to walk back in with a microphone attached to a stand and placed it in front of the bunny, adjusting it lower to her height. Judy's eyes followed the cord of the microphone as it went out of the room before looking at X questioningly. "I hope you have a good radio voice, prey." He stated bluntly as he started to walk circles around her. "What I am about to do… Don't take it personally; after all, I like to play with my food."
And after flicking the microphone on, within the blink of an eye Judy felt immense pain from her stomach, and looked down to find X's fist pressed hard against it. "Now we get to see what your time with Nick has done to him." X stated while reeling his fist back for another blow, "Is he still a fox, or does he actually care."
The sound of fist meeting flesh could be heard all over the warehouse and was projected even outside the warehouse by numerous speakers alone with grunts and whimpers from Judy as she was struck again and again. Her discomfort was projected for everyone to hear, but seemingly no one to help.
And somewhere in that warehouse, a machine with a very specific purpose ticked on eighty percent.
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