The Fox, the Bunny, and the Zootopia

File #05: Covert and Covered Part 2

What's the last thing happened in the last chapter again? Oh yeah, a loud explosion. Then suddenly Judy rushed to it, wanting to know if the fox is in one piece. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Let's just hope Nick's OK.

[Two hours earlier. 10.00 AM]

Nick was standing in a sidewalk near the train station. He was fully awake though his actual expression couldn't be read easily behind those sunglasses he wore. He wasn't in his police uniform. He was in his every day clothes that consisted of green Hawaiian shirt with a dark tie and brown slacks. He didn't bother to wear a different wardrobe. This one was like his identity after all. It didn't mean he don't have other clothes. He had a suit in his house from his father, but he never wore it. It didn't match him.

A pair of mongoose walked past him and sent him a dismissive look. Nick just returned an annoying smile to them as he always does every time. He didn't have to, but he just had to. He was a fox and foxes are often stereotyped so badly that they're rarely welcomed by others. Maybe others behavior toward him was softening and they were starting to accept him as a friend but that's not a reason to let them know that they get to him as he vowed not to.

He reached a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "Blitz Street the 14th by the Tigressa Restaurant," he said, reading what was written on it.

He looked to his surroundings. Across the street he saw a pretty much obvious restaurant with a large shiny sign that rear 'Tigressa' above the entrance. Then to the right of it was a four story apartment. It was dark themed building. A small lime front door was the only bright object.

"Really?" he said, not believing the place he was looking for.

He walked into the building where he was greeted by a not so friendly goat that was reading a newspaper, occasionally scowl at it. He didn't seem to aware of Nick's presence. There was a bell on the table between them. Nick rang it, redirecting the goat's attention onto him.

"If you're here for a room you came to the wrong place," he said venomously before returning his eyes to the newspaper.

Nick clicked. "Actually I'm here to meet a friend of mine."

"And what? Plotting another crime inside my door? Nope, I'm full of accusation already," the goat exclaimed, not letting his eye part from the newspaper. "The only person in this apartment that is quiet is that honey badger, that Costra or something guy."

"Yes, he's the one," the fox said, keeping his grin on.

"Second floor fourth room." The goat said quickly. "Now get outta my face!"

"Alright."

Nick walked upstairs where he saw five rooms. He stopped on the fourth and knocked three times, but no one answered. He knocked again, but still no answer. When he was about to knock again, though, a voice was heard from inside.

"Okay. Okay. I'm coming!"

The door opened. From it came out a honey badger with messy white coat and grey slacks. He was clearly not expecting any visitor. Especially Nick, a fox.

He stepped back when he see the fox in front of him. "What can I do for you, Nick?" he said, paws in pockets.

Nick waited a while before talking. "It's complicated, Costra. May I come in?"

The badger was reluctant but let him in anyway. "Yes. Of course."

Nick walked inside. It was a real mess. There was a pile of dirty clothes on a corner, a closet by it already broken, a TV with cracked screen, and a bed with no cover. What kind of room is this? Did he ever clean these things? The light didn't even on. It's pretty hard to believe the badger was a chemistry scientist with all of this mess.

"Yeah, I know. Messy, right?" Costra said. "I'm only here at night so I don't really bother cleaning up."

Nick could only throw a chuckle. "Well, at least I'm not bothered. Now, back to business," he said, suddenly a bad feeling stung the badger's body. "I know where you're going this afternoon."

Costra yelped and tumbled to the wall. "Wha-?"

"What? You think I wouldn't know?" Nick cocked an evil grin. "A fox like me won't let a chance like this just pass like some wind, don't you think so?"

Costra went to his knees. "B-b-but this is the only chance I've got, please don't take it," he pleaded. "I got nothing else! I'm already out of money."

"Not a chance. Either you bring me along to the deal and give me some or get your butt behind bars," Nick threatens, Costra backed off from him. "The police would want to know your connection with Bogey-One. How's it?"

The honey badger gulped before giving up. "O-okay. We'll split it up."

His normal grin returned. "Good choice." Then he took a glance at a wall clock. "Oh my, it's already eleven. Shouldn't we be going to the location now?" Costra just stayed silent before standing up and walked out with Nick following close behind.

That was a blast. Nick only showed that side of him when necessary. Yeah, he might be cool and collected and those easily broken when things gone wrong. If he need to, though, he could outcold Chief Bogo. But, as lazy as he was, he rarely show that side of him, often keeping it in reserve for dangerous situations, hoping he could catch his enemy's off guard, allowing him and his friend to act.

He wasn't the type of doing that to his friends but he wasn't a con artist anymore. He had decided to enforce justice as member of the ZPD. He just hope he don't have to face his friends like this too much.

They passed the goat earlier who was still busy with his newspaper. They walked to a parking lot and entered a dark blue car with two seats. Without any word exchanged, Costra drove them to the destination.

It took ten minutes for Nick to see the Beau Plains in the distance. Nick saw many people walking on the street and out of the corners he saw familiar faces of ZPD officers undercover. He just grinned a bit before returning his sight to the road. Costra suddenly stopped before the meant alley. Caught off guard, Nick bumped his head to the windshield. He peered at Costra but the badger didn't seem to notice.

"What are you doing?" Nick asked in annoyance.

Costra was breathing hard. "Just taking some air. Nick, try to keep harmless, OK?" Nick just made an 'OK' with his fingers. "Right," he said as he turned the car into the alley.

It was a rather dark alley. It was large enough for two cars to pass but the canopy on the buildings prevented light from reaching most of the alley.

Costra stopped the car and turn off the engine. He opened the door and stepped out. Nick did the same shortly after. The alley was awfully quiet. The light rays were playing along the canopy that wavered with the blowing wind.

"So," Nick said, an elbow to the car. "What did you offer him?"

Costra brought a black suitcase with silver trim. "Neurotoxin bullets."

Nick's eyes widened. "What?" Nick said in disbelief.

"They inject temporary neurotoxin that's really painful. Only last a minute, but it'd hurt like hundreds of thousands bullets on every inch of your body, but it doesn't kill."

Suddenly images came to Nick's mind. "Don't tell me . . ." Nick tried to get rid of the horror images in his head.

"For torturing."

The exact moment Costra said those two words, sound of cars were head. Two black cars, a sedan and a limousine came into the alley and stopped before Nick and Costra. From the sedan came out three panthers in black coat and dark shades. They lined in front of their car, each had their arms on their back and they stood upright. From the limousine, two wolves with same coat came out along with a boar. Behind them was a large bear. That boar was no other than Bogey-One himself.

Costra shivered and Nick could only observe them behind his sunglasses. The limousine had a window on its roof. He could throw the tracker there. Other than that, he just as calm as always, not intimidated by the criminals in front of him.

The boar stepped closer to Costra and Nick along with the wolves and bear. "Who's that?" he asked. The panthers looked at Nick, as if waiting for a command to take him out.

"My companion," Costra said shortly. "I got what you want."

Costra brought up his suitcase and opened it. Bogey-One approached him. Inside the case were sets of bullets the size of a medium gun, like the one Nick used in the shooting range. But they were shaped weirdly they might built for a specific weapon.

Costra then closed the suitcase. "Good." The boar then snapped his fingers.

The bear nodded and as fast as a blink of an eye he slammed Costra to the wall and took the suitcase. The honey badger let out a pained groan as his back met the brick wall.

"But we had a deal!" Costra exclaimed.

"Yes, we had. But I already said no cops!" Costra blinked in surprise before Bogey-One moved his sight to Nick. "Like you, Officer Wilde." Costra sneered, the panthers moved forward and before Nick could do anything he was kicked away and landed on a dumpster.

How could he know that Nick's a cop? Nick certainly wasn't famous about anything so how could Bogey-One figured that? There wasn't any spy, was there? But before Nick could think of other things, he saw Costra struggling to break free from the wolves.

The wolves took Costra by force and the criminals returned to the cars. Hadn't plant the tracker yet, Nick jumped to the limousine's back as the cars were getting away. The Wolves noticed him and started firing their guns at him. Struggling to keep on the car, Nick managed to evade the bullets but they hit Costra's car on the engine. Nick closed his eyes as it exploded into bits.

The explosion was not too big, but it was loud enough to surprise nearby citizens. Even more when the two vehicles got out from the alley and trashed some tables of a café.

The wolves fired again and managed to make Nick lost his grip, but as he fall he managed to throw the tracker into the limousine by the roof window. Nick groaned as he stopped rolling on the road.

A police car stopped beside him and opened the door. "Come on!" a tiger officer said, offering a paw to which Nick took to get into the car. The officers behind him gave him a police ballistic vest which he quickly wear.

The car immediately chased after the two vehicles joined by four other police vehicles. The citizens that were on the sidewalks quickly get away as the chase started to get wild. Bogey-One's vehicles kept getting blocked by police before finally going straight to where the arrest point was. To Judy's direction.

The chase went to a rather straight road. It was cleared out after the explosion so it wasn't too difficult to surround the fugitives in a formation. A police RV slammed the sedan into an abandoned building while from the other end of the road came a police car Nick know well, Judy's car. Out of option, the limousine followed the sedan into the building while the police vehicles stopped in front of the building. The officers inside immediately stepped out and aimed their guns at the building.

An officer was about to say something with a megaphone but Nick took the mic from him much to his annoyance. "Bogey-One, drop your weapons and surrender at once! You are surrounded and we're armed and we got orders to terminate you if we must!" said the fox officer. But when he got no response, he repeated his warning. "I repeat, sur-!" before he could finish, gunshots were released and it really ended in a shootout.

Nick grabbed his tranquilizer gun under his shirt and started shooting at the criminals inside the building. He saw a glimpse of a panther and he shot it as fast as a lightning, hitting the panther on his shoulder, knocking him out.

Suddenly and officer was shot on his hand out of nowhere. Then Nick noticed the movement from the second floor. "Tango on second floor!" he warned, making other officers crept closer to their cover to prevent themselves from being shot by the ones on the second floor.

Out of the corner of an eye, Nick noticed Bogey-One and his bear bodyguard fleeing to the other building on the left. He carefully move between cars and arrived at Judy's place.

Seeing Nick, Judy immediately punched him on his shoulder. "You had me worried!" she said while shooting.

"I'm fine, just some scratches," Nick assured her by a smile. "I saw Bogey-One escaping to the left building, we gotta catch him!"

"Right!" then she glanced to her side. "Travis, Lahar, cover me!" she shouted and the two nodded.

After that, they both ran to the cover of the walls. Some bullets scratched them. After making sure they weren't targeted, they ran as fast as they could to catch up with their main target.

They ran into an empty hotel lobby where they were confronted by the bear. He was unarmed and charged toward the duo before they could fire at him. He swiped a paw at Judy but the bunny cop was too fast to hit. Nick shot a wolf that was shooting at him from behind but missed. He was in a bad cover: a small table. He couldn't shoot the bear because Judy was moving fast that he might hit her and left her unable to move to be crushed by the bear.

He decided to go after Bogey-One, but when he was about to shoot the boar, he was stopped by a voice. "Don't move!"

Nick looked at the source and his eyes widened and then narrowed in anger. "So that's why we couldn't catch Bogey-One. It was you. You let him go every time, don't you? " He said venomously. "Officer Terra Veil. No. You don't even worth the title officer."

The white wolf in uniform was pointing a gun at Nick, waiting to trigger it. "Ya got it."

Judy also saw him and was distracted long enough for the bear to had her in his big paw. "Why?!"

Nick didn't skip a beat. "He is Bogey-One's lackey from the beginning. Joining the ZPD just to help his master accomplish his schemes," he explained. "No wonder we kept failing to catch Bogey-One."

Judy was more than angry when she finally got it. "Shame on you. You piece of- Argh!" she groaned when the bear's fist was getting tighter.

Nick snapped when he heard her, but when he was looking at Judy and the bear, he just noticed that the other wolf was in front of him, aiming his gun at him. The gun was just inches from Nick's muzzle. To Nick, time felt slowing down as the wolf pulled the trigger.

Then, SPLAT! A bullet hit the wolf's chest, making the bullet he fired missed and scratched Nick's cheek, saving his life. Regaining his senses, Nick was about to shoot the bear when another bullet from nowhere knocked the bear out, releasing Judy that was in his paw. Nick took the chance of surprise to take his gun and aimed at Terra, but he was already shot. Nick and Judy just stand there dumbfounded. Then they looked to the previous shooting only to see the panthers and the remaining wolf got shot by bullets that weren't from the officers in front of the building.

Bogey-One was about to run away from his hiding when Nick blocked his way and pointed his gun at him. "Put your paws up," Nick ordered.

Bogey-One put his paws up as per Nick's orders before Judy cuffed him. "Bogey-One, or whoever your real name is, you're under arrest for illegal weapon selling and murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the state," Judy said as she dragged him out of the lobby where outside, the other officers were waiting.

Nick and Judy were applying bandages to their injuries near the medics when Chief Bogo arrived.

The two immediately stood up and saluted him, to which he saluted back. "Good job. At last, we finally arrest Bogey-One, and the reason why we kept failing to catch him." He glanced back to see Terra being cuffed into a police car followed by Costra.

Nick grinned while having his usual face on. "Well, thanks, chief. Let's just hope in the future, I have the luck to stay alive again," he said but winced when Judy poked his bandaged cheek.

Judy giggled at him but then turned to the chief. "But, sir, when we were fighting, the hostiles suddenly fell one by one. What happened?"

"Didn't the chief say your backs are covered?" a voice came from behind the duo.

Walking from the building across the scene was an officer. He was a lynx with reddish fur, black tufts behind his ears, and wore the same type of uniform Judy wore. What was sticking out, though, was the sniper rifle on his paws.

"You're!" Judy gasped when she remembered him. "You're the lynx that we met several days ago, right?"

"That's right," the lynx chuckled and then noticed Nick's blank stare. "Howza doing, Pi?"

Both Nick and Judy gasped as soon as they heard the last word. Judy staggered with her words, "Y-you're the one in the café . . ."

"Rey!" Nick said, cutting Judy off. "It was you all along?!" he exclaimed in disbelief. The lynx just grinned mischievously.

"Wha-?" Judy alternated between staring at Nick and the lynx. "They know each other?" she thought.

The lynx laughed before saluting. "Officer Layrey Nightclaw, pleased to meet you, Officers Judy Hopps and Nicholas 'Pi' Wilde. Usually I'm called Rey." He put a pressure on the 'Pi'.

"Nightclaw . . . so it was you who talked to me during the graduation!" Judy snapped.

Nick had his ears up. "You don't know?"

"He was talking behind a door!"

Rey laughed at the two. "Man, you guys are funny. Go easy on him, Pi, I did talk behind a door."

"See?" Then she changed the subject. "What's with the Pi, anyway?"

Nick suddenly panicked as Rey was about to answer. "It's what I call Nicholas. With his middle name, Piberius," he said with a mischievous grin plastered to his face.

Judy instantly turned to Nick. "That's your middle name?" she asked excitedly. "Well, hi, Nicholas PIBERIUS Wilde!"

Nick frowned. "Oh. Thank you, Rey." He said, sarcasm dripping. Then he growled at the lynx.

Rey burst out laughing. "Well, since this is over, why don't we come to the Sunset to chill out?"

Chief Bogo, who was watching the conversation finally cut in. "Then who will file the report?"

"We'll do it," said Travis, appearing from behind.

"Yeah, you guys take a break," Lahar added. "But we'll probably ask for details later."

Judy pointed a thumb. Chief Bogo nodded and walked to the other officers.

Rey came in between Judy and Nick. "Well then what are we waiting for?"

Judy picked her keys. "I'll drive."

"Lead the way, Carrots."

Okay, a note: Originally I planned to reveal Nick's middle name in this chapter (that is, for people who don't know it, yet) but looks like some readers couldn't help themselves from revealing it. Well, worry not, I'm cool with it.

And there goes the second half! I'm not so good at writing combat scenes, but I hope you guys like it.

Reviews would be appreciated. See ya in the next chapter!