The Fox, the Bunny, and the Zootopia

File #01: Shooting Range

Cover image edited by Arya Rift. Original images belong to their respective owners.

Here it goes, the first chapter of my series of short stories, make sure you read 'After All of This' first because this series continue from that. It's a story of mine right on the list.

There was an ambulance, there was a tree fell down, and there were police cars around. Zootopia had another day of peace with a small spice of crime everyday. Nick brought a medikit from the ambulance to the side of the road where Judy was holding her left arm, it was more or less limp. Nick bow down and opened the kit taking a cotton. He reached for Judy's left arm but she distanced away.

Nick narrowed his eyes. "Carrots, let me see that," he said as she backed away.

"What? See what? I'm perfectly fine," she said while cocking a smile across her face, but Nick could see through that from that round face. "Why don't you file up the report while I buy you something, eh?"

The fox was unfazed. "Judy," he called her actual name, this time a little louder.

The bunny cop finally gave in and released her hold of her left arm. There was a visible cut on her shirt sleeve and around it was red. Nick grabbed her arm and rolled the sleeve up. There was a minor cut so it wasn't too serious. Nick sighed in relief. He had her arm leveled before tapping the cotton around the cut to clean any dirt.

"Hang on, it's clean now," Nick said while taking a bandage from the kit. "Now it might hurt a bit," he warned and Judy closed her eyes as she prepared for the pain. "Okay, good."

Nick put the bandage to the cut and pressed on it, Judy winced at first but then settled down. "Much better."

"See, not too bad," Nick said while smirking. "Let's go back." Nick offered a paw at the bunny which she took to help her stand up.

Nick already briefed the field officer about the scene so they could go back. The scene wasn't that farm from the base so after a short walk, they arrived at the lobby. Clawhauser was there receiving visitors as he always do and were surprised when he saw Judy holding her arm.

"Judy!" he put down his donuts as the duo approached the counter. "What happened?"

Judy put on a smile to ease him. "Eh, just a cut. No big deal."

"Knife?"

"Bullet," Nick corrected.

"No, don't take gunshots lightly, you hear me, Judy?" the cheetah said as soon as Nick finished talking. "Gunshots can make traumas and shock. Look you already looked traumatized!" he said when he see that Judy wasn't as cheerful as she always have.

"It's not that." she sighed. "When he took his gun, I could have shot him, but I missed and get shot instead.

The topic immediately became Judy's dislike. The case just now was a stakeout gone wrong. She and Nick were assigned to investigate a suspect of drug dealership and after a day of investigating, they ended up stalking the suspect. It was awesomely boring. The followed the suspect for around three hours from the time the suspect left his house to him visiting a cafe that was under suspicion that he made contact with them there. After the suspect left the cafe, the two followed him into an alley where the suspect interacted with a customer.

Judy pulled out her tranquilizer gun and shouted at them to surrender. All of the sudden the suspect pulled out a gun and started shooting, making Judy retaliate with two shots of her gun while Nick called for backup. She missed her shots and a bullet of the suspect made a cut on her left arm. Nick was surprised to notice that and promptly used his own tranquilizer and released two shots. One hit the suspect's chest while the other hit past his leg onto his customer's right leg as they run, disabling them.

Nick and Clawhauser looked at each other. "You sure you can shoot?" Nick teased.

Judy glared at him. "Of course I can!" she said. "Your shots back there were just beginner's luck!" she said, claiming Nick's shots were purely out of luck.

Nick felt accused, but he smiled mischievously as he said, "Oh, so you're saying I'm just lucky for shooting two villains in the center while you with your eagle eye hit the air?" he teased again, this time with annoying tone.

"Wanna see who's better?" she challenged.

The fox wanted nothing but to annoy his friend. "Suit me fine."

Clawhauser just backed away when he saw electricity sparked between the two.

Five minutes later, they were in ZPD's shooting range underground.

"I've never been here before," Nick mentioned. "The shooting range I trained in was in Shepherd Meadows," he said as he looked around the rather big room.

"Mine was near Crocodile Delta," Judy said. "How many are these shooting ranges out there?"

But at a corner, she bumped into someone. She slipped but Nick supported her from behind.

"Ah, sorry. You okay?"

It was a lynx, with reddish fur similar to Nick's and lynx iconic black tuft behind the ears in a uniform the same as Nick's. What really caught Judy and Nick's attention was his sniper rifle he was carrying. He immediately put down his rifle as he helped Judy stand back up.

"I'm very sorry, I didn't see you I was checking on my rifle. Are you hurt?" he asked worried.

Judy cocked a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. No problem. I'm sorry too I didn't see you too," she offered a paw and they shake hands.

"Sorry I'm in a hurry. See you again another time!" the lynx said as he ran toward the elevator.

Nick just stood there dumbfounded. "You see that sniper rifle?"

"Yeah," the bunny responded. "Cool, right?"

After some minutes, they were prepping their weapon of choice which were surprisingly the same: RX type 4 pawgun, a gun designed to the size of dogs and small cat species. Which also include bunnies as well.

"Two magazines, a total of twenty bullets, and two minutes. The loser buys the winner a drink," Judy said as she cocked her gun.

Nick just nodded with his usual calm face. "Go."

The targets immediately appear after them. The two instantly aimed their guns and shot it. Testing their reflexes as they shoot target after target. After one down, they quickly switched to another one and try to shoot them before the other does. Judy was picked up by her adrenaline, shooting quickly and cycles between the targets, shooting the ones she got locked with her eyes "I'm gonna beat you, just see!" she thought. Nick, on the other paw, was shooting in a calm and steady rate of fire. Adding a pause between shots and quickscoping his targets. "One thing I know about shooting is to keep level-headed" thought. Otherwise, he was thinking about the free drink.

Two minutes were up and the two looked at the score, which reads:

Nick Wilde:

Double Hit: 2

Perfect: 8

Great: 6

Good: 4

Miss: 0

Judy Hopps:

Perfect: 4

Great: 8

Good: 2

Miss: 6

"What?!" Judy exclaimed and looked at Nick furiously.

Nick grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Wow, I turned out to be gifted in this thing. Don't forget the drink, Carrots," he mentioned.

Outside, Judy bought two coffees in a bottle and handed one to Nick. "Here, Mr. Eagle Eye."

"Thank you. Don't be mad because you lost to your junior, Ms. Blur Eyes," Nick said as he grabbed the bottle.

"WHY YOU!" Judy jet to his way while Nick instantly run away. "DON'T RUN!"

The first is done. It came to my mind an idea that Nick actually better in shooting than Judy. A kind of junior-senior like thing when the junior is actually better in abilities than the senior.

PM or review to tell me what you think about this. You can also tell me you suggestion of future chapters if you want to and I'll consider it.

See you next time!