Disclaimer: I do not own Zootopia or its related characters. All is the property of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Clark Spencer, and Byron Howard. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Under a Green Hood

Chapter Four: A Merry Ol' Chase

It was like one of those horror movie gags where everything is all fine and normal when the victim opens their medicine cabinet but when they close it again there's a ghost, or a monster, or a murderer standing behind their reflection.

In this case, it was another red fox lurking behind Nick's reflection. Dressed in a light linen shirt, long sleeves tucked into gloves, under a vinyl hooded vest, all in shades of dark forrest green. The hood was pulled low over his head, obscuring the fox's face so that all Nick could see was his snout poking out with a frown.

"Ach! Crivens!" Nick exclaimed, practically jumping as he spun around to stare at the intruder. He didn't bother asking how the other fox got in. He was dressed as a Brother of the Hood and it wasn't like his apartment was the most secure building in the city. "What are you doing here?"

The hooded fox didn't waste any time or mince words. He held out a gloved paw to Nick and said in a cultured, Old Country accent. "You have something of mine. The badge of Goodfellow. Give it to me."

Damn it! Nick knew it was to good to be true. He didn't deserve the badge. He was no Robin under the Hood. It had to have been sent to him by mistake and now it looked like it really had been. Of course this guy was the real Robin under the Hood, and Robin wanted his badge back. Nick was perfectly ready and willing to give the feather over to its rightful owner -except he didn't have it anymore. He gave it to Judy less than an hour ago.

He stared at the hooded fox's outstretched paw. Then up at his face -what Nick could see of it- and offered an apologetic smile. "I, uh, I don't have it anymore. I gave it away."

There was an asymmetrical twitch to the fox's face. The elegant red snout marred as his frown deepened. "You gave it away!?"

Then things went sideways. The Hood's already curt and impatient demeanor shifted to quiet rage, a change that happened so quickly, it was like the crack of Zorro's whip. The paw that was held out expectantly suddenly surged forward, grabbing Nick by the collar of his ZPD uniform and slamming his back against the sink. Hard. Nick felt the porcelain grind against his vertebra as his ears were pressed against the cold glass of the mirror.

"You were sent the badge of Goodfellow, the symbol of the Robin under the Hood, and you just... gave it away!?" And when he said 'gave it away' it sounded uncomfortably like 'threw it in the garbage'.

Reflexively, Nick's paw gripped the handle of his ZPD issued taser. But to spite the clear assault, the fox hesitated to draw the weapon. Was he really going to taze Robbin Hood? Did he wanna be that guy? Mammals who set themselves at odds against the infamous trickster fox usually didn't get a spot in the 'happily ever after' ending. They were usually either imprisoned or dead.

The pressure of the sink forcing Nick's spine forward while the Hood pushed his collar back cracked the fox's back. It actually felt good -for half a second- before it was immediately followed by incredible pain! He snarled in discomfort.

Then again, this particular Robin under the Hood didn't seem as warm and friendly as his predecessors -at least, not the way the stories made his predecessors sound.

"Who'd you give it to?" Demanded the Hood.

The image of Carrots flashed through his mind. Sitting on his mother's plastic-covered couch, pouting up at him with a book in her lap. He did not want to send this rougher, meaner Brother of the Hood to her. Sure, the bunny was more than capable of taking care of herself. In fact, she had been the one to save Nick's life a couple of times. She was perfectly capable of taking care of not only herself, but those around her as well. But just because he knew she should handle herself didn't mean he wanted to send danger to her. Not to his bunny.

"Someone I thought deserved it more." Nick evaded the question.

"I deserve it!" The Hood growled, that Old Country accent making him sound more like a petulant kit. "I'm a descendant of the original Robin under the Hood!"

"What a coincidence." Nick growled back, channeling his inner-Bogo. "I don't care!"

The original Robin had a dozen kits with Maid Marian, after somewhere around 300 years, Robin Hood would have countless decedents. Nick himself was a descendant of the Longstride line -on his mother's side.

He pulled his taser. The awkward position making his arm's movement unusually sluggish. The Hood saw the movement and jumped back and out of the way just as Nick brought the weapon up and pulled the trigger. The twin bolts sailed through the air where the hooded fox had been standing, until their wires were pulled tight and the bolts clattered to the floor. Sparking impotently at nothing. Nick dropped the taser gun and went for his radio instead, but froze when he realized the Hood had drawn his bow and he now had a -very sharp and intimidating- arrow aimed at his chest.

Lowering the radio, Nick glared at the other fox. He held it at his side, holding the talk button down with his thumb and wondered just how good its microphone was, and if Clawhouser would hear it over whatever video of Gazelle he was watching at the reception desk. "As I understand it, Brothers of the Hood don't kill in cold blood."

"A Robin of the Hood does what he needs to achieve his ends." The other fox countered.

Nick was beginning to understand why this guy wasn't given the badge. He might have the look, and -if the bow was any indication- probably the skills too. But he didn't have the heart. Not only did Nick not want this shady and violent hood knocking on Carrot's door, he didn't want him getting his gloved paws on Goodfellow's badge either. A Robin was supposed to be a Noble Outlaw -emphasis on the 'noble'. Not violent and self-serving thugs with delusions of grandeur and inflated ideas of their own importance.

"So... what?" Nick asked, wondering if anyone was listening on the other end of his radio. "If I don't tell you who has the feather and where they are, you'll shoot me? Gotta say, you're not really as good at motivating Mammals to help you as the original Robin Hood."

"And this other fox you've given the badge to, he is?"

The assumption that the Mammal Nick gave the feather to was both a fox and male made a smirk stretch across his lips. "Oh, you have no idea."

Not only was Judy more than capable of motivating a self-serving and jaded con-artists into helping her. She also motivated said jaded and self-serving con-artists to save the city, become a hero, and aspire to become the first fox officer of the ZPD. So... yeah. Judy certainly did have Robin of the Hood level motivational skills.

"Then let me meet him." The words, said in any other voice, might have sounded friendly. But growled out by a hooded intruder with a weapon trained on him, all Nick heard was a challenge.

"Oh, don't worry." The other fox grinned. "Keep talking and you will -a long with a squad of the ZPD's finest!"

"What!" The head was tilted up and Nick saw emerald green eyes identical to his own flash with from under the hood in sudden alarm. The Hood's green eyes darted to the radio in the other fox's paw and for the first time noted his thumb on the talk button. This whole time, their conversation was being broadcast straight to ZPD headquarters! The Hood shifted his aim from Nick's chest to Nick's paw and let the arrow fly.

It impaled the radio through the speaker. Shooting it right out of Nick's grip and nailing it to the bathroom wall behind him. The pointed tip of the arrow just barely grazing the short hair of the fox's palm.

Nick had only a moment to marvel that the near impossible and utterly fantastic shot. Right through the middle of the radio -such a small target!- and not harming his paw at all. If this guy wasn't such a self-entitled jerk, Nick would have considered admiring him. Even if he didn't have the disposition for a Robin under the Hood, he certainly had the skills.

Then the Hood turned. Bolted from the bathroom and made a b-line for an open window. He jumped out before Nick even had the opportunity to register that his attacker was running.

He paused. Looked back at his radio. The smart thing to do would be to wait for whomever had heard their conversation to come. Give them a statement. Collect evidence. Ya know, cop stuff. Everything they taught him at the academy told Nick that was what he should do. Stay and wait for backup.

Then he thought of Carrots. Of Judy. Carrying a badge she didn't fully understand the significance of, unaware that there was someone after it and unprepared for an attack. If this stranger had found Nick, then he wouldn't have to much trouble finding her either. But the thing that really propelled Nick out the window after the Hood was the fact that Judy wouldn't even be in the possibility of danger if he hadn't given the stupid feather to her in the first place.

Leaving his radio nailed to the wall by an arrow and his taser spent on the floor, Nick uttered a silent curse and followed the Hood.

…

Clawhouser was engrossed in a riveting Twitcher debate over whether or not Gazelle might be in a predator/prey relationship with one of her tiger backup dancers. Apparently, the pop diva had posted a picture to her Instaram of herself kissing said tiger on the cheek and the internet exploded. Half her followers saying that it was her way of coming out, while the other half pointed out that it was on the cheek and passionately insisted the relationship was completely platonic -even if it wasn't strictly professional.

Ben was in the Coming Out camp. Hashtags 'loveislove' and 'speciesdoesntmatter'.

He was so absorbed in the celebrity drama, that he almost didn't notice the crackle of dialogue over the radio. Faint and unclear. As if the speaker wasn't speaking into the receiver like they were supposed to but rather just had it on in the room while they talked.

"...don't kill in cold blood."

The cheetah froze. Thumbs hovering over his phone screen and a half-typed Twitcher post. He turned his head to the radio on the reception desk. At the phrase 'kill in cold blood' the celebrity gossip was instantly forgotten, his attention fully captured and held by his actual job.

"A Robin of the Hood does what he needs to achieve his ends."

Clawhouser didn't recognize that voice. It had the tenor of a small Mammal, but also the low growl of a predator.

"So... what?"

That voice sounded like Nick's. The cheetah hadn't seen him since he received a suspicious envelope earlier that morning and ran out of the precent like he'd seen a ghost -or several ghosts. Judy went to see him on her lunch break. She said he was fine then. Apparently in the space between her seeing him and now, Nick managed to find some trouble to get into. Trouble of the delusional crazy variety from the sound of it. Did someone say Robin Hood?

"If I don't tell you who has the feather and where they are, you'll shoot me? Gotta say, you're not really as good at motivating Mammals to help you as the original Robin Hood."

As soon as Clawhouser heard the words 'you'll shoot me' he slammed his paw down on the talk button and all but shouted into the receiver. "Nick! Wilde! This is dispatch, are you hurt? Are you in need of assistance?"

Then he realized that if the fox was still holding down the talk button on his own end, nothing the cheetah said would get through. That was how radios worked. You had to let the button go if you wanted to let the other Mammal speak. Then Clawhouser realized that maybe Nick didn't want his attacker to know the radio was on. He was calling for help without actually calling for help. Just leaving the channel open and hoping a competent officer at headquarters would realize he had a weapon trained on him and needed back-up.

"Oh, you have no idea." Nick's smug voice sounded a little tense to Clawhouser. He was stalling, the cheetah realized.

He should go to the Chief. Let Bogo know that the fox had gotten himself into something.

Instead, when he ran from his post at the reception desk, it was Hopp's cubicle he went to first. "Judy!"

The bunny jumped, startled, and closed several tabs that the cheetah didn't have time to register as non-ZPD related content. "What! Ben, what's wrong?"

"Nick's gotten himself into some trouble." Clawhouser informed her, short of breath. The quick sprint from lobby to cubicle farm had him winded.

She looked at her friend skeptically. "What? But I just saw him. He's spending the day with his mother." Then added after an unsure pause, "There was recently a death in the family, after all."

The cheetah shook his head. "No. No. Call just came in over the radio. Don't know where Nick's voice talking to someone else holding him at gunpoint. Threatened to shoot him if he didn't tell him about some feather -or something."

At the word 'feather' Judy's paw flew to her badge and the red robin feather that was behind it -sandwiched between the metal of her shield and the fabric of her uniform. She might not have understood its significance when he tried to give it to her, but Nick acted like it was something important. Something valuable. Now he was being threatened by someone because of it. Some deeply held fringe beliefs that she didn't fully understand but were no less significant.

She thought about how upset his mother seemed when he gave her the feather. If a vixen she was familiar with, whom knew her and liked her -more or less- reacted that strongly to a non-fox taking the badge of their folk hero (idol?), then how would another fox who didn't know her, or Nick, or the nature of their partnership at all react?

Not well. That was for sure.

Judy shot to her feet. "I'll find him. Tell the Chief what's going on."

And she bolted from the ZPD.

The last place Judy saw Nick was at his mother's so as she was climbing into the squad car, she MuzzleTimed the vixen to see if he was still there and if he was in trouble, make sure the old vixen was okay.

"Officer Hopps." She gave a polite -if a little curt- nod to her phone's camera. "To what do I owe the pleasure so soon after this morning?"

"Is Nick still with you?" Asked the bunny, not bothering to waste time of pleasantries. Even if Nick's mother didn't like her, Judy was pretty sure both of them could agree that it was far more important to find Nick and make sure he was okay than it was to tip-toe around each other's feelings.

"No. He left a little after you did." A pause. "Why?"

"No need to worry, ma'am." Judy assured the vixen in her best 'trust me, I'm a cop' voice. "I'm sure your son will be just fine."

She ended the call and sped off to Nick's apartment in the Rainforest District. She threw aside his soggy door mat to get at his spare key and let herself in. "ZPD! Make your presence known!" Then, "Nick? Its me. Clawhouser said you put in a weird call. Are you okay?"

But there was no answer.

She checked every room and concluded that the apartment was empty. The only signs of a struggled being Nick's gun taser that was left expended and not reset on the floor, and his radio nailed to the bathroom wall by an arrow. An arrow! Like from the Hunger Games or Alpha of the Rings. Clawhouser said there was a gun. But guns weren't the only things that could 'shoot'.

Judy pressed a paw over the red feather Nick had given her. Well, all this trouble did seem to revolve around the legend of Robin Hood. Why not throw in a psycho with a bow and arrows?

She pulled out her own radio. "I need a CSI team to Officer Wilde's apartment A-sap. Signs of a struggle no body's found at scene. Door was locked when I arrived, looks like Wilde might have been taken out the window. Hopps in pursuit. Request backup."

Then Judy left the apartment -thought he door like a civilized Mammal- to find her troublesome partner.

…

It wasn't like the time Nick had to dash frantically through the Rainforest District.

For starters, he wasn't running for his life. In fact, he wasn't even the one being chased. He was doing the chasing. Following a much more nimble red fox through the tree branch walkways, climbing parts of trees and structures that probably weren't meant for public pedestrian transit, and jumping on the roofs of sky tram gondolas. He was acting completely bat-guano crazy and Nick knew it. But when the Hood jumped out the window, all he could think about was keeping the vigilante fox away from his bunny.

Then again, he reflected, what was a tale of Robin Hood without a merry little chase?

The Hood sprinted down a wooden catwalk, Nick not far behind him. The path dead-ended at a temporary pedestrian barrier with a Caution sign on it that read 'Closed for tree trimming'. The Hood ignored this sign, however, and hopped right over the short pedestrian barrier. Nick followed after him.

Beavers from city planning and capybara native to the District paused in their work, turning off saws and pawing lifts to shout warnings and profanities (mostly profanities) at the two foxes that had just charged into their hardhat zone.

"Police business!" Nick pointed to the badge on his chest, not sure if any of them actually saw it with how fast he was moving just trying to keep up with the Hood. He had never been the most physically gifted fox in the world, but he did track and field in high school and graduated top of his class at the police academy, so Nick liked to think he was pretty fit and in shape. But this other fox was still making him work for it.

They reached the other end of the tree trimming. The walkways and branches ending abruptly at a sheer drop down into the depths of the Rainforest. The Hood paused at the ledge, looking down, looking up, looking out. Weighing his options.

Nick came up behind him, reaching for his taser only to realize his holster was empty, the gun left abandoned on the floor of his apartment. He pointed an authoritative finger at the hooded fox instead. "Alright Bother Hood, you've got no where else to run. Come with- Aw, hell!"

No sooner had Nick started to speak when the hooded fox gave an amused grin and jumped off the ledge, doing a showy little backflip for no other reason than to wave patronizingly at Nick as he fell. He drew an arrow from his quiver, pulled the bow back and shot the trunk of another tree close by. Nick watched more fascinated -and maybe with just a bit of admiration- when he realized there was a cable attached to that arrow and the Hood swung Tarzan-style to safety.

"Damn. I picked the wrong extracurricular in high school." He muttered for no one's benefit but his own.

Now it was Nick's turn to look down, and up, and out to try and figure out how he was going to follow his quarry. The tree the Hood swung to wasn't all that far, it was just a little to far to jump to. Even if Nick went back for a running start, his best long jump distance on record still fell short.

Then he remembered the fantastically terrifying first time he was involved in a chase in the Rainforest District. How Carrots, swinging on a vine, used the sky tram boarding platform to propel them up and out of danger. He couldn't make a straight jump to follow the Hood, but he could catch a vine and swing around to intercept his path.

Nick got a running start. Uttered a prayer to Goodfellow -which he was sure the trickster god would just laugh at (trickster gods were like that) and threw himself off the ledge, paws out, grasping of a vine that hung just within the range of his long jump. He gripped it tightly, earning himself some hot rope burns for his effort, and swung away in the exact opposite direction he wanted to be heading.

The vine caught under the branch of another tree and swung up. Nick let go just as his vine was cresting the branch, before he could get tangled up in it, using its momentum to sling himself to another vine which would take him where he wanted to go. The second vine swung him just over the Hood and Nick let go at just the right time to miss his target and land behind the Hood, not in front of him or on him. He grabbed at the other fox's ankles and the two of them went tumbling off the path and falling through the dense foliage.

Both foxes landed on a large leaf, big enough to hold the both of them with enough space for a bunny if she was here.

"Ugh. You're relentless." The Hood muttered as the leaf bend under their weight and both cop and vigilante slid off and were once again falling.

Nick grabbed onto the Hood mid-fall just in time for the other fox to draw another cabled arrow and shoot them a lifeline. They landed on the roof of a sky tram car, startling a pair of ocelot teenagers that looked like they had been kissing before the cop and the vigilante dropped in.

"Well, I may not think I deserve it, but I was given Goodfellow's badge for a reason." Nick replied.

He made a grab for the bow, trying to pull the weapon out of the other fox's paws. But the Hood in some quick thinking unstrung it, causing the wood to straighten suddenly and smack Nick in the face. He staggered for a moment, dazed, and nearly fell off the sky tram. If he hadn't dug his claws into the fiberglass of the gondola roof, Nick definitely would have fallen.

The Hood, meanwhile, hopped down into the gondola proper -scaring the crap out of the teenagers in it. He hooked his unstrung bow over the gondola cable and used it to zip-line to the next gondola, which was blissfully empty.

"I can't wait to meet the one you thought deserved it more!" The Hood shouted back to him.

Reminded of why he was chasing the hooded vigilante, Nick pulled himself back up. His paws were already injured with rope burns from earlier, what's a little cable cuts on top of that. He was beginning to understand why the Hood wore gloves as part of his uniform. They were useful for other things besides not leaving behind prints. Psyching himself up and preparing for pain, Nick grabbed the sky tram cable and pulled himself along to the Hood's gondola.

He pulled back his hood just enough for Nick to see those emerald green eyes so like his own widen in sudden admiration. "You're relentless."

"I won't let you anywhere near her!" Nick snarled back. He let go of the cable and fell into the gondola. Almost falling on top of the Hood in the close quarters.

Unfortunately, it was the Hood who tackled him to the floor in stead of the other way around. "'Her'?" He echoed, sounded intrigued. "You have Goodfellow's badge to a vixen? Then I definitely want to meet her. I want to meet her very much!"

His tone did not leave much to the imagination as to his motives -which were most ungentlemanly. The idea of this guy -or anyone really- doing ungentlemanly things to his Carrots filled Nick with a righteous rage that bordered on Savage and he bit the paw that was holding him.

"Ow! Son of a-"

Nick climbed back to his feet and spat the blood out of his mouth. "No. I gave it to a doe."

"A deer?"

Now it was Nick's turn to tackle the other fox -just as they sky tram reached one of the Rainforest landing docks. He wrestled the Hood out of the gondola, finally getting the upper hand for once and pinning him to the ground.

"Put your paws on your head and spread your legs." Nick kicked the bow away and knelt to pat the Hood down for other weapons as he read him his miranda rights. "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney-"

"Nick!"

Both foxes looked up to see the small gray bunny in the police uniform coming towards them.

"Carrots." Nick muttered suddenly wishing she hadn't come.

While at the exact same time, the Hood said, "Officer Hopps."

His eyes darted from the bunny's concerned face to the badge over her chest and the little bit of red that was just poking out from behind it. Just a little bit of crimson on a diagonal at the top and bottom. A robin's feather. Goodfellow's badge. The mark of a Robin under the Hood. Nick had given it to her! Not a doe-deer, a doe-bunny. He gave the badge of Robin Hood to a bunny! That was inexcusable.

In hind sight, Nick's big mistake was not cuffing the Hood the moment he got the other fox on the ground.

The vigilante rolled over onto his back and kicked Nick in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and forcing the fox-cop back. The Hood retrieved his bow before lunging at the bunny. One paw outstretched, claws extended, to the shield on her chest and the feather behind it.

"That's mine!"

...