"Put your paws where I can see them, chompers!"
Chompers? Isn't that a slang term from the days of Swinton's rule over this city? But those ended twenty-something years ago...
The rhinoceros before me seemed just as surprised as me-"What the- no collars?" He picked up his walkie-talkie. "Uh, Hopps?"
"What is it, Rhinovicz?"
"I got a whole bunch of collarless chompers here. What do you advise?"
"Well, Officer, there's a reason you have those spare collars, isn't there? Use them."
Oh, this isn't good.
"Pardon me, sir, but-"
"But nothing, fox! Shut your devil-spawn trap before I put a bullet through it! Up against the wall!"
"But-" Nick tried to protest again. He was already against the wall, it wasn't as if he could move any farther.
"But nothing! Didn't you hear me the first time? Now shut the hell up before I shut you up. You wouldn't want that, I promise you. As the Lieutenant knows, if I have to shut somebody up, it's permanent.
"Worthless as your lives are, I don't want to hurt anyone. Well, scratch that. I don't need to hurt anyone. Whether I want to though, well, what's a different story entirely. So, chompers, what seems like the best option? Surrender? That seems like a good one to me. But wait, there's another option, and it looks to me like you worthless pieces of fur are considering it- fighting.
But here's the deal- there's an awfully high demand for fox fur right now, and Mayor Bellwether's promised a bonus to any officer who can give her a fox, preferably dead. So by all means, run. Make my job easy. Seven foxes, two rabbits- there's quite the find. Boy, am I going to get paid well for this!"
"Yeah, right! That's what you think, but if there's one thing you'd better learn about foxes, it's that we never go down without a fight!"
Why do I have to be the only one to speak up? I'm only nine, and already I'm being hunted like I'm worth nothing more than my skin! Is that all a fox is good for in the 2020s? I mean, I'm new to this screwing-around-with-the-timestream thing, and meeting your middle-aged self is somewhat freaky (He's going gray!), so maybe he's gone soft, but I swear to Karma that I, Nicholas Wilde, am not giving in that easily!
"Oh ho ho, a feisty little one! 'Foxes never go down without a fight.' Like I'm going to believe that," he said, gesturing to everyone else, who were all huddled in the back corner of the room. "Looks to me like everyone else isn't fighting, and there's a whole lot of you who are foxes who aren't like you. But I was told to bag you up, and since you won't just go quietly like your compatriots here, well, then I'll have to force your compliance."
"Didn't you hear me, Mister? I said I wasn't giving in without a fight."
"And you think you're going to be able to fight me? A little scrap of a fox against a rhino." He snorted. "Yeah, right."
I hear the gunshot before I feel it- a whizzing sound, then excruciating pain. He shot me! He shot a nine-year-old kit! Why? What did I do to deserve it? I'm just a kit….
That's the last thing I can think before my brain hits the hard shutdown switch.
When you see yourself get shot (My, that sounds odd.), it tears something apart inside you. Unfortunately for me, it does so literally.
My mother always told me that I couldn't think things through; that I think with my tail and not my head. I always told her that she was wrong, but if she could see me right now, she'd be shaking her head and laughing her head off. When I saw myself get shot (That still doesn't make any sense.), there was no thinking involved, just pure rage.
Now, I don't get mad very often, but when I do, watch out! Call Mammal Control, mad fox! Little Nick goes down and before he can blink, I'm throwing myself at this so-called Officer Rhinovicz. After that, I don't have the time to feel anything. Rhinovicz sees me, and night-night, Nick.
"Look, Lieutenant, I can't explain it, no matter how hard I think about it, so please, sir, leave me be."
"Leave you be? Leave you be?! Like that's ever going to happen!"
"Hopps, please, cool it and try to see some sense here. As if that were actually possible."
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Curse those ears.
"You know what I'm talking about, Rhinovicz. But since you obviously don't get it, would you care for an explanation?"
"N-no, LT, y-you don't have to do that…"
"Oh, no? Sorry, but who's in charge here? Not you, that's for sure. Now sit down and shut up!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"That's better. Now, Officer, as I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted- I take it, Officer, that you remember the escapades of the MM Gang, no doubt?"
"Yes, I do think, Lieutenant, that most everyone here does. Are you insinuating something, Hopps?"
"Oh, no, and besides, what could a poor little bunny like me do? We're just harmless little balls of fluff."
"I've worked with you too long to have to deal with your sarcasm, Hopps. Now, spill."
"Careful. Backtalking your commanding officer? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Well, back to the point. Those mongrels you brought in two weeks ago?"
"What about them, LT?"
"Clear the Most Wanted List, Officer, we've got them now."
"Lieutenant?"
"What is it?"
"I know you're not known for your sense of humor, but are you serious?"
"Deadly. The MM Gang, three scrappy teenage foxes, one little fox, two unidentified rabbits, one large and one small, and lastly, Nick Wilde and Jack Savage. The five younger ones, they're not why I'm perky. No, Officer, do you remember what I said I wanted to do in my graduation speech?"
"Make the world a better place."
"Make the world a better place. Which involves, of course, eradicating all the predators. I've never been able to count on your memory, Officer, and so I don't feel I can -and therefore won't- count on it now. So, here goes. Do you know why I hate predators? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical.
"But for everything, there is a root cause. My root cause, my drive- take a look at my cheek, Rhinovicz. Take a good long look. What do you see?"
"I don't see anything, Ma'am."
"Look closer," she said, brushing aside the fur on her left cheek. "See them now?" Under that patch of fur, there were three faint scars, thin white lines almost lost to time, but not quite. "Can you guess who did that to me?"
"Well, not exactly…"
She sighed. "The species, though? Could you at least tell me that?"
"A fox?" Rhinovicz ventured a guess.
"Ding, ding! He gets it! Spot on, Officer, it was a fox. His name was Gideon Grey. Emphasis on was. When I came home from the Carrot Days festival that afternoon and they saw me sniffling- yes, I have feelings- they were furious, so when they asked who had done it, I more than eagerly told them. I wasn't one for revenge before that, but now, that was all I wanted. 'Gideon Grey,' I told them. 'He knocked me down and did this, and Mom, it hurts.'
'Mom, it hurts.' When Bonnie Hopps heard that, she was furious. A few scrapes never hurt anyone, but someone clawing her oldest daughter? Watch out and get out of the way! Let me tell you, the expression 'Mad as a March hare' certainly applied there.
Now, Bunnyburrow isn't a lawless place by any stretch of the imagination, but with so many of us, there are bound to be more disputes than any police department can handle, so most troubles are solved between families. She went straight to the safe, grabbed a Colt .45, and headed over to the Greys' place. Luckily for her and not so much for him, Gideon himself answered the door. She yanked the pistol out, and Gideon went down.
When Mister and Mrs. Grey heard the shot, they came barrelling towards the door. Upon seeing their only son sprawled out on the ground with a red puddle around his head; a rabbit with a smoking gun in her hand standing over him, Bonnie Hopps went the same way as Gideon Grey. The Greys were sent to Alcatraz for mammalslaughter and sentenced to execution. They would have sent my mother to jail too, but seeing as she was dead, they couldn't very well do that.
My father, Stuart, was devastated. 'Madder than a March hare,' though it applied very well to my mother, applied perfectly to Stuart Hopps. When my mother didn't come home, my father went hunting for her and found her cold and stiff on the Grey's front stoop, slumped on top of Gideon's corpse. He blew his stack about as high as it could go, then promptly collapsed sobbing right there.
When he finally managed to gather himself together some ten hours later, his next step was to go straight to the ZPD, crying literal bloody murder. He was always more levelheaded than my mother, so, when they didn't help, instead of exacting revenge in my mother's fashion, he called on the mayor's office for a favor.
Lucius Savage was my father's best friend in high school, he had gone on to become a widely successful lawyer before running for Mayor and winning. He was always able to convince people to do what he wanted, and as it just so happened, he owed my father a favor. Collars, anyone?"
"That was his idea?"
"Yes. I said I wasn't into revenge, but my father, well, he was the opposite, and he got what he wanted."
"So, Lieutenant, one could say that this whole thing, our entire reality is your fault."
"One could indeed, and they'd be right. If I could've defended myself against Gideon, this would be a whole different world. In a way, I'm always curious what could have been."
"In that case, Hopps, why don't you go chat with those mammals we hauled in earlier. It was the oddest thing- one of them was claiming she was you."
"Did this rabbit have two eyes?"
"Then considering the fact that I was here all last night- Karma, that was a long shift- and only have one eye, I'd suggest that you commit her."
Rhinovicz sighed. "Just talk to her, Lieutenant."
