Zootopia - Loves Blind

by OneWolfe

Office Judy Hopps finally has the life she always wanted as a police officer with the perfect partner. However her growing personal relationship with Nick is putting a strain on her job that everyone else can see except them. Love can be so very blind at times. (Drama)

23. Loves Blind 23 - Blind Truths

Chapter 23 - Blind Truths

A scorching, desert wind blew through the hard baked city streets. It picked up small piles of sand and litter as it swirled and twisted its way past rusty cars and abandoned buildings.

The street was beautiful once, a thriving district with dozens of small shops around every corner. Elegant trees once lined the sidewalks and bistros served delicate meals on quaint, round tables under colorful parasols. Now, after years of neglect, only trash and weeds filled the street and the boards covering broken windows were plastered with the remains of flyers, movie posters and old newspaper ads. The only trees that still remained in this city slum were baked and broken stumps.

Caught by a sudden gust, a years old poster advertisement flapped wildly before being torn from the dry and cracked wall. The last staple holding the sheet firmly in place, finally gave way and fell to join the other piles of rotten trash. Amidst grains of sand and hot air, the cracked and weathered paper skittered across the street where it joined fellow bits of paper and light trash before swirling away down a shaded alley.

Twisting and turning in the hot breeze, the old paper flew down the alley. It rolled over the cracked and weed choked asphalt before it was nearly caught by a large, overturned dumpster as the wind died for a few, brief heartbeats.

Only a moment passed before the sand began to swirl again. The stinging wind lifted the sheet from its resting place, hurling it down the alley with a vengeance until it struck the shiny, black door of a police cruiser.

The black car had been freshly washed and polished til it reflected the summer sun with a piercing blindness. On the side, was painted a large, white 'Z' and despite the air conditioner running at full blast, both front windows were rolled down allowing the sweltering hot wind to enter the car along with the pawfulls of sand that it carried.

Strapped into the driver's seat, was a large, dark gray wolf wearing a standard police uniform and a heavy bulletproof vest. He wiped the back of a large, furry paw across his eyes to clear the offending sand from where it had landed. Turning to look out the window in the direction the sand had come from, he spotted the wind-blown litter slide off the back of his car. Seeing nothing else out of the ordinary he returned his gaze to watching the abandoned storefront across the street.

Wolfard, and his temporary partner, were currently parked out of the way in a narrow alley across from a run down and boarded up shop. It's warm, brown, stucco walls had long ago faded to a dull gray after several years in the brutal Sahara sun. Many of the boards that covered its broken windows had come loose or were missing, leaving large, gaping holes that gave the impression that a multi-eyed monster glared back at him.

Even as unsettling as the many dark holes seemed, they, and the storefront that held them, were not the main focus of the old wolf's attention. Attached to the old building was a newer, and much larger structure. After the district had started to decline, other businesses moved in, and a large warehouse was built to supplement those businesses

This warehouse had been built by a young and enterprising transportation company that wasn't terribly concerned with the district's seedy past. They had left the storefront connected and used it as the building's main office.

Unfortunately, that company was driven under by it's competitors shortly after the huge, steel building was constructed, leaving the structure abandoned with many of its goods inside forgotten and discarded. Soon after that, the local gangs moved in.

"They are late," his partner declared with irritation from the passenger seat.

"We haven't even been here twenty minutes," Wolfard replied, glancing briefly at his old fashioned watch.

In the seat to his left, past the military-hardened laptop, sat the ZPD's smallest officer. She was a light gray rabbit with deep purple eyes and black tips on the ends of her long ears. Tall and exceptionally strong for her species, she still seemed tiny sitting next to the large canine.

She wore a miniature version of the wolf's own combat vest over her light blue uniform. The rabbit-sized vest was thick and reinforced by enough graphite plates that it could stop most small or medium rounds, while leaving the mammal a fair amount of room to move. Unlike her standard issue breastplate, the combat model covered more of her front and back thus protecting more of her vital organs. It also came equipped with numerous pockets and clips for attaching various policing equipment.

The combination of her uniform and the combat armor gave the small rabbit an almost predatory look. Her vicious determination matched with an intense glare helped complete that picture. But what really drove it home for the wolf, was her scent. It took all of his will to not gag in her presence, and thus, he left the windows rolled down on his cruiser when she rode with him.

"Did you stay at his place again last night?" he choked, as a gust of wind blew the scent she carried into his muzzle and up the long, powerful snout.

Judy slowly turned her head and directed her intense, purple glare across the car at the old wolf, "What? Why do you ask?" Her tall ears tilted slightly and her expression quickly changed from irritation to curiosity.

"You're covered in his scent again." Wolfard never had any trouble dealing with the fox in person. It was obvious that Nick used a musk-mask when he went out in public to help tone down the painfully strong scent that his species gave off naturally. However, today, Judy was covered in the raw, unfiltered scent of the fox. "Did you even shower before showing up for work?" She smelled exactly like his apartment had on the first day that he had gone missing.

"Of course I showered." Her body suddenly straightened and her ears fell behind her head as they turned a bright shade of pink. A brief shadow of anger crossed her muzzle before it vanished.

"Use any scent mask?"

"Ah, no," she admitted. Ever since her fox's disappearance she had spent every night at his apartment hoping that he would eventually walk through the door.

It had started with her only sleeping on the couch and waiting for his return, but after three days of tears, and no fox, she had finally crawled into his bed. Once surrounded by his musky aroma, the tears vanished as she tried to drown herself under the ocean of fox scented sheets. "I like his scent. It keeps me calm and helps me stay focused"

Letting out a loud snort, Wolfard nodded across the street at the large warehouse, "I only mention this because we're about to get into a very dangerous situation."

Judy turned from the old cop towards the old and vacant looking building, "It doesn't look so bad to me." She gave him a pleasant smile of encouragement.

"We're right in the middle of gang territory. Most cops don't venture this far into Happy Town without backup." His serious expression made her smile fade. "You are also a prey mammal that strongly smells like a predator. I understand your relationship with him, but the other officers won't. And now we are about to barge into a warehouse that is probably full of ruthless thugs. At best, your scent will only confuse any predators we find inside."

"And what is the worst?" she asked cautiously, nose twitching.

"It will piss them off, they will treat you like another predator, attacking you on site," the wolf said with a snarl, emphasizing his point.

Unfazed by his show of aggression, she sighed, "Oh." With a fierce nod, her determination returned. She glared out the reinforced glass window in front of her, while her tiny, plush paws balled into tight, little fists. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for the fight ahead.

The rabbit let out a bold grunt that turned into a feral squeak as the phone in her pocket rang.

"Hello Clawhauser," she answered cheerfully, with the device held in her open paw. It was still the same phone that she had brought when she first moved to the city, but she had recently bought a new, bright green cover for it. The new cover had a floral pattern that reminded her of the tropics.

"Hopps, Officer Hopps," the cheetah's anxious voice spilled from the phone. "Is Wolfard there?"

Looking up at the taller officer sitting next to her, she nodded before realizing that Clawhauser could not see her, "Yes. He is here, and you're on speaker so he can hear you."

"Great, you both need to hear this."

"Go ahead Officer Clawhauser," Wolfard leaned towards the small phone and responded with an official sounding tone. "What is so urgent that you couldn't have radioed us?"

"It's about the suspect you were just interrogating," the rotund cheetah's excitement could be felt across the few miles that separated them.

"Dr. Walia?" Judy asked, remembering the snobbish goat they had spoken to less than an hour before. "What about him?"

"He just left in an ambulance," the big cat blurted out with a shaky squeal in his voice.

Raising a paw to her small muzzle, the rabbit asked, "Rushed to the hospital, but why?"

"As the paramedics wheeled him out," Clawhauser's voice kept changing in pitch and volume like he was trying to yell and whisper at the same time. "I overheard them mention something about a soluble arsenicosis and a gastro-something evacuation. Then they ..."

"He was poisoned?" Wolfard asked, cutting off the large ball of fur that was the ZPD's radio dispatcher and receptionist.

"Poison!?" Judy exclaimed.

"That's what everyone here is suspecting," Ben nodded, shaking the phone. "But we won't know anymore until we get the hospital report back. His cellmate started yelling when the goat collapsed in a pile of his own vomit. Luckily the paramedics were already on site or we might have lost him."

"How could our suspect have gotten ahold of a lethal dose of poison while in custody at the ZPD?" the large, gray wolf queried.

The rabbit's ears leapt straight up and her fierce eyes widened. "Clawhauser!" She yelled into the phone. "What happened to that glass of water we gave him during the interrogation?"

"Everything a suspect touches is supposed to be filed as evidence. It's standard procedure." Wolfard stated offhandedly.

"The glass was clean," Clawhauser uttered cautiously.

"You didn't find any poison on it?" Judy asked.

"No, I mean the glass was scrubbed clean," he explained. "Not a single print or anything. The lab guys are saying someone washed it out with hand soap from the washrooms"

Nearly jumping in her seat with frenzy, the armored rabbit leaned into the phone, "What happened to his lawyer?"

Puzzled, the large, round feline paused for a second, "That well dressed reindeer?"

Calmly, Wolfard replied with a nod, "Yes Officer Clawhauser, where are Mr. Wade's current whereabouts?"

"Ah, um, um," Clawhauser stuttered, "well, um. He left right after you did."

A frown crossed the full length of the old wolf's long muzzle at the cheetah's hesitant reply, "Clawhauser, what are you not telling us?"

"Nothing," came the shaky reply. "That's everything I know."

"Don't make me hide your Lucky Chomps again," Wolfard threatened as his lips curled back to show a long line of very sharp teeth.

"You wouldn't dare!" the big cat cried.

The wolf's only reply was a subvocal growl that sent shivers up Judy's spine, causing her to nearly drop the phone.

"Fine. You don't have to be so mean to me, Wolfard," the cheetah sighed. "I screwed up."

"What do you mean, Ben?" Judy asked sweetly.

On the other end of the line, the big cat shielded his wide muzzle with a black and yellow spotted paw, "The lawyer's credentials were completely bogus. They, they checked out when, when he first came in," he stuttered. "But when I tried calling him back it ended up being a wrong number, and, and the only registered lawyer named Ryan Wade died almost ten years ago."

"Yellow spotted zucchini and butternut squash!" exclaimed the tough looking rabbit while clutching the phone tightly in a fluffy paw. The cold tone in her voice rivaled the car's air conditioner and paled the staunch old wolf.

"You could say that again," Officer Benjamin Clawhauser replied.

"We need to send out an APB on him immediately," Judy declared forcefully.

"Right, right. I'll get right on it," the cheetah stammered before hanging up.

Moments later, his voice crackled with static across the radio, "All units be on the lookout for a tall reindeer that goes by the name of Ryan Wade. He was last seen heading west from Precinct One, wearing a coal gray suit and carrying a black briefcase." The message was repeated amidst the usual radio static.

"The name Wade may only be an alias."

"It's also possible he may not even be a reindeer," Wolfard added after recovering from his earlier shock. He had never heard the small mammal sitting next to him swear so vehemently.

"I thought something seemed off about that guy," Judy snapped her fingers and nearly hopped out of her seat in excitement. "He didn't act like any deer I have ever met."

"Yes, appearances can be deceiving."

With a swift punch to the wolf's arm, Judy smirked at her partner, "So says the wolf who used to dress like a ... a" She suddenly paused mid sentence.

"Like a what?" Wolfard asked, puzzled by her new expression.

She had gone rigid and was intently staring out the front window of the car. Her jaw was moving but no words escaped. Lips curled back in a snarl, brows furrowed, a deep growl eventually escaped the tiny rabbit's lips. The growl eventually formed three slowly spoken words, "like, a, sheep."

"What's wrong Hopps?"

"I know that sheep," she said darkly. Animosity thickly coated every word like a dark glazed donut sprinkled with malice.

Turning to follow the rabbit's gaze, Wolfard spotted a coarse, gray sheep exit the abandoned shop that they had been watching. He was rather large for his species, with a pair of dark, curly horns prominently mounted on each side of his head. A black patch covered his right eye, while he wore a green t-shirt with the image of a ram's skull in the center and a pair of tight, blue jeans. With the eyepatch and the way the sheep swaggered, he gave Wolfard the impression of a pirate.

The ram casually strutted past the detritus that lined the street in front of the boarded up store. He turned a corner and headed down a wide alley towards the back of the building where the large, steel warehouse stood.

Wolfard never saw the blue and gray streak as his partner leapt from the car in a flash. When he finally looked back, the rabbit was gone and the door had gently clicked shut behind her swift, cottony tail. A pair of black tipped ears bounded towards the front of the car.

"Hopps," the wolf cried as he struggled with his seatbelt. "Hopps, wait!"

Freeing himself from the straps, he watched as the little, gray blur sped across the street, towards the alley where the sheep had disappeared. When he finally climbed out and locked up the cruiser, the rabbit officer was gone. "Officer Hopps," he quietly yelled across the street trying not to alert the gruff-looking sheep that passed by only moments ago.

---

Judy was solely focused on Jesse as he slipped around a large crate and into the wide alley. He looked exactly the same as when she had stumbled across that drug lab nearly a year ago. The one eyed sheep was one of the goons that was guarding over the old rail car where Doug was growing toxic flowers and converting them into a serum that made mammals go savage.

If Jesse was here, and he remembered that Nick was part of the team that had brought down the sheep's conspiracy to subjugate and expel all the predators in Zootopia, then the fox's chances for survival would drop significantly. These thoughts and more raced through the rabbit's mind as she flew across the wide street in only a couple of bounds. She had to follow the ram and force him to tell her where to find her fox before something terrible happened to him.

Jesse had come from the building that Wolfard and her had been watching for the last half hour, and now he was walking down a wide alley full of old, wooden crates and other warehouse equipment. Almost every surface was covered in years of graffiti, most was lewd and even crude. She barely noticed the chipped and peeling markings while her prey turned a corner behind a stack of crates.

Something kept nagging at the back of her mind, the sound of her name drifted lightly on the scorching, stinging wind, but she shoved it down and dove into the alley with a spring of her powerful legs. Dodging rows of boxes and piles of trash she came to a long passage that was relatively free of debris. With her dart gun in paw she rolled across the cracked and overgrown pavement before she bumped into a stack of crates where she had seen Jesse pass only moments before.

The large crates had been broken into years ago and their contents removed, but their sturdy construction held up even after years of slowly dry rotting. Piles of sand and trash had accumulated inside the open box and she even spotted what may have been the tracks of a large insect that had scurried away out of the hot desert sunlight.

Peeking around the crates with her dart gun at paw, she caught sight of the tough sheep across a wide, clear section of the alley. Her view was partially blocked by a large, rusted forklift. The years had not been kind to this heavy utility truck, it's bright yellow paint had been slowly replaced by lewd graffiti and gang markings. Any surface that wasn't covered in the crude spray paint was rusted and pockmarked by the never ceasing wind and sand.

On the far side of the clearing, Jesse strolled between two large stacks of crates that divided the alley and loomed over the clearing like a pair of silent guardians. He turned another corner and quickly disappeared into a maze of boxes and broken equipment.

Several skittering noises near her hind paws did not deter the fiercely determined rabbit from her quickly receding prey. She stepped around the crates where she was hidden, gripped the gun tighter, took a deep breath and squatted til her puffy tail nearly touched the ground. A tingle from her ears threatened to send a shiver down her spine, but she forced it down with a second slow breath.

Closing her eyes she cleared her mind as the image of a grassy hill replaced the inner turmoil. In her mind, she climbed over that hill to spy a long field of orange wild flowers. Two brilliant green pools sat in the center of the field and they somehow brought her a great deal of calm and clarity. Letting her breath out in one long exhale, she leapt into the air with enough force to propel her halfway across the clearing.

With the added weight of the heavy kevlar vest, she would have to put a lot of extra force into the jump. She had intended to land directly on top of the forklift, but she had miscalculated and almost came crashing through the rear window.

Twisting in the air, she was able to reach out and grasp a lightbar that was still partially mounted on the top of the vehicle and quickly hauled herself up onto the roof. With a soft thwump she crashed into the sunbaked metal roof, but the rust on top of the machine was so severe that the small but heavily armored rabbit fell through like a dropped stone.

Still holding tightly onto the loose bar after her hind paws sank through the crumbling metal, she clung for several moments with her body stuck halfway inside the roof. After a few seconds of scrambling, she was able to pull herself back up. Squatting on the scalding hot metal, she tested the surface for any more weak spots before looking ahead for the criminal sheep.

From her new vantage, above most of the stacked crates, Judy was able to spot her quarry deeper in the maze. Beyond a tall wire fence, where broken crates had been carelessly pilled, Jesse stood rifling through the remains, and smashing open a few of the more solid boxes.

She could have easily jumped the distance, past the large boxes that created short walls between them, but she knew that he would have seen her approach so she quietly climbed down off the forklift and raced to the end of the clearing. She didn't want Jesse to know she was after him until her hind paws suddenly slammed into the side of his thick skull.

The bunny sprinted through the maze of boxes and refuse, trying to remember the quickest route to where the ram was still smashing through the pile of smaller crates. She could hear the breaking wood under the one-eyed sheep's hoof as each step brought her closer.

Turning the final corner into a small cleared out area where she had last spotted the crude thug, all she saw was a pile of trash and kindling. Another quick glance around the area revealed the sheep stepping through an open door into the large, rusty and graffiti covered warehouse.

Framed by the half open door, Judy could clearly make out the back side of the large, gray sheep and strange iron pole in his hoof. Jesse was now armed.

The pole was about half again the sheep's height, and had smaller cross bars that gave the whole thing an oddly tree strange pole wasn't much of a weapon but it still gave the rabbit pause. One strike by the strong looking sheep could split her in half so she chose the second option at paw.

Carefully she raised her dart gun and aimed it at the soft spot at the back of the ram's neck. Even though it was still early summer and the wool on the sheep's body was at its thinnest, the matted whorls of hair were still thick enough to easily trap any needle from her small dart gun. A precise aim was absolutely necessary for a proper penetration of the tranquilizer dart. She set the dart strength for a medium sized mammal and took aim

In the seconds that it took for her to aim the gun, the steel door slowly closed, blocking her shot at the ram. "Sweet cheese," she exclaimed under her breath.

With another leap from her powerful legs she landed in front of the door and pulled on the handle moments before it clicked shut, sealing her outside. Before she could haul the heavy door open again, the radio mic mounted on her shoulder began to sputter and crackle like someone was preparing to speak. No voice ever followed the static and it quickly stopped as soon as it began, only to begin again. The brief static pop and silence was repeated again several times in a pattern that she didn't immediately recognize.

If Jesse was on the other side of that door the static noise would quickly give away her position so she reached up and turned off the mic before putting all her strength into the doorknob. The door gave a slight metallic squeak as it opened and she quickly jumped inside.

Before her soft, hind paws touched the cold, hard cement floor, the heavy door closed behind her and she was struck completely blind.

---

Wolfard had barely taken a step as he watched the fleet rabbit cross the wide street in two swift hops. Her powerful legs easily hefted the weight of her body and all of the police gear it carried over the broken and litter strewn pavement like a child jumping over puddles.

The wolf took a single step away from the car as the uniformed rabbit charged down the cluttered alley, past a rusted old fence and behind several stacks of crates.

"When will this rookie ever learn?" the frustration clear in the old cop's voice.

Rushing up to the mouth of the alley, he could see a pair of fuzzy, gray ears hastily bouncing around more piles of trash. As his partner disappeared behind another stack of crates, he stopped and grabbed the radio pawset mounted on his shoulder.

"Dispatch this is unit 112, where are the rest of the units for the Happy Town Picnic?" He groaned at the name Clawhauser had given to this current operation.

Several seconds passed before a voice replied in his radio, "Sorry unit 112, the Picnic has been delayed. A large multi-vehicle pileup on the Sahara By-Pass has diverted all available units to assist. Any additional units will be sent to your location as they become available."

"Roger that dispatch." With a mild curse under his breath he loped into the alley where the rabbit had recently passed.

Climbing around smaller boxes and over piles of rotting trash he spotted the rabbit quite some distance ahead. With her dart gun in paw, she was crouching behind a stack of large crates that were piled against an old brick wall. The crate on the bottom of the stack had been broken open and was filled with many years worth of wind blown sand.

He was about to yell and draw her attention but the smell of sheep was strong in the breeze, so he picked up a pawful of pebbles instead. Tossing the small rocks far down the passage most fell short, but a few kept enough momentum to skitter and roll past her paws. With her sensitive ears she must surely have heard them, but without even glancing down, the rabbit swiftly bolted around the corner and out of sight.

Sprinting again he tried to catch up with the quick rabbit. "Damn she is so fast," he exclaimed. "I hope she doesn't rush into too much danger before I can catch her."

Skidding to a halt in the pile of sand where Judy had stood only moments before he spotted the small mammal barely a few feet out of reach. A large clearing opened up just beyond the stack of boxes, and the rabbit was squatting down in clear view of any mammal that happened to look her way. Despite being completely exposed, her large eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and steady.

"Officer Hopps," he whispered towards her.

Bewildered by her calm exterior, he failed to react before she moved again. She took a long deep breath moments before his paws began to move. Thrusting out with her hind paws, her entire body lifted gracefully into the air as the wolf crashed into the pavement seconds too late. He tucked into a roll and came up on his paws to watch the rabbit sail through the air.

Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion. The tiny blue and gray officer traced an elegant arc through the sky. With the way her arms were outstretched he almost believed that she could fly.

He could only sit and stare at the delicate flying mammal, not realizing how quickly she was out distancing him. It was only when she suddenly crashed into the top of a rusted and broken forklift, over a dozen paces away, that he realized how hard he would have to push his old body to catch that young and energetic rabbit.

It wasn't until she had climbed down and was once again sprinting across the clearing that he started moving again. Despite years of police training he was breathing hard when he reached the other side.

Stacks of old crates and broken machinery created a variable maze ahead and he crouched at the intersection of three divergent paths. The rabbit was long gone when he arrived, but she had left a strong scent to track. He leaned down and sniffed around the pavement that was overgrown with weeds that poked up through the many cracks. Judy had taken the path to the left and the sheep had gone straight, while the path to the right had not been used in many days.

Taking the path on the left he chose to follow his partner. The sheep was not his concern and he knew that Judy was already on his tail. It was also possible that she might have seen a shortcut while sailing above the crates in the alley.

Following the scent of rabbit that had been mixed with the thick, pungent musk of fox, Wolfard wound his way slowly through the maze. After the third intersection his pointy, gray ears picked up the cracking sound of breaking wood and he quickened his pace.

Two more turns and the smashing sound was replaced by the bang of a metal door. He stopped and sniffed around. No longer able to detect the ram, but Judy's scent was nearby so he stopped to grab the personal radio mic mounted on his shoulder and pressed the talk key.

With the key depressed, the radio emitted a burst of static. Holding the key for half a second, he then released it, cutting off the static sound. Pressing and releasing the button in a quick series, he created a short message in an old police code, "Danger." He only hoped that Judy would understand and respond.

After repeating the message several times, he continued to move forward sniffing the air. The rabbit's scent was getting much stronger and he further quickened his pace.

Around the next corner he let out a sigh of relief when he saw the rabbit still standing and unharmed, with her dart pistol firmly in paw. However, his relief was quickly dashed to pieces when a large steel door slammed shut between them.

---

The hard, metallic click seemed to echo around the immense space. Judy's tall, plush ears were not as sensitive as those of a bat, but she could still tell by the sound of the echoes that she was inside a very large building with a vaulted ceiling far above her head.

Inside, the air was stagnant but much cooler than standing in the direct sunlight outside. Everything smelled like trash and rotten wood, accented with a hint of unwashed wool. Even to the rabbit's small nose, it smelled terrible.

Her eyes were taking their own sweet time to adjust from the brightness of the summer sun to the murky gloom inside the warehouse. Without her eyes, she was forced to rely solely on her powerful ears. Sighing, she regretted not taking those blind fighting classes at the ZPD last year. Now she was stuck in the dark with an armed sheep that was more than twice her size. Luckily, he was a fairly noisy mammal and his thick hooves would clatter loudly on the cement floor with each move. Inhaling with determination, she promised herself to sign up for those classes when they were offered again in the fall.

While the warehouse was not exactly silent, the racing of her heart thumped loudly in her ears making it difficult to pick out any specific sounds. Holding her breath, she tilted her head slightly to the right while rotating her ears around each side of her head.

Hushed voices seemed to echo off the high ceiling and surrounding walls, making it sound like they were coming from all directions. Closing her currently useless eyes, she focused instead on the sound of voices. She tilted her head back to the left and turned it from side to side allowing her large ears to collect as much of the sound as possible. Heartbeats passed until she was certain that the voices were all grouped together on the far side of the building.

She could also hear the clack of receding hooves. "Jesse," she whispered. Another tilt of her head let her know that he was only a few meters ahead and to the left. With the way the sound was muffled, she was certain that there was some kind of high wall between them.

Opening her eyes again, the black gloom still pervaded her vision and she could not even make out the dark shape that she knew must loom only a few feet in front of her. With her back to the door, she reached out her paws and took a step forward. Several steps later she felt the coarse texture of aged and weathered wood under her paws.

Before the rabbit, stood a wooden crate that was similar to those stacked outside, only it was much larger. In the dark she was unable to see the top of the crate, so she decided that it would be a bad idea to try and jump over it to reach the escaping sheep. With her right paw gently pressed against the old wood she slowly walked around the crate, to the left.

The large crate Judy followed quickly turned into another, and another. It soon dawned on her that these crates were stacked up to form a long wall just inside the outer wall of the warehouse.

She eventually came to a dead end against the steel wall and turned around to follow the crates back to where she had started. In the dark she had no idea when she had reached the door where she had first entered this dark maze, so she kept walking with her paw clutching at the line of crates.

When her paw grasped nothing but air, she knew that she had reached a gap in the stack of crates. Her vision was slowly beginning to return since the inky blackness had now become a dull gray and there was a thin, hazy glow high above her. She could almost make out the empty space between the stacked crates.

Reaching out her paw to the familiar crate wall, Judy stepped into the gap and tilted her head to once again listen for the clacking of sheep's hooves. All was silent, except for the sound of her own heart and an ever present, static hum. She knew that Jesse had headed left so at the next intersection, she turned that direction.

After a few more turns, she stopped at the end of a short passage to stare at a very strange looking machine. Her eyesight had nearly fully recovered as much as it could in the ever present darkness.

At the end of a short passage, she peered inside one of the large, broken crates. The large wheel on one side gave her the impression of some kind of bicycle, but on closer inspection, the long, steel rods, opposing plates, and thick rollers appeared to be something much more sinister. Anyone who sat on the plate, that at first looked like a bike seat, would be crushed and forced between the massive rollers and squashed into a thin sheet of paper. It was another dead end and she had to turn back.

Her ears twitched as the sound of distance voices returned. They didn't sound any closer than when she had first stepped into the darkness, but she thought she could make out Jesse's voice this time. "So he has joined the others," she thought, groaning.

Gripping the small pistol tightly in her paws, grim determination filled her muzzle as she stepped around the next corner. Her ultimate goal was to find Nick. All the clues had led her here, and when she saw the gruff sheep, she knew that he was somehow involved. He had to know where her fox was, and she was going to wring that information out of him, even if it was the last thing she did.

So focused was her mind on how to get Jesse to tell her where Nick was, that she failed to hear the clatter of approaching hooves until it was too late. Only her prey instincts, and police training saved her from walking into a tough looking sheep in a tuskball cap, that was patrolling the warehouse.

Distracted by her own thoughts, Judy didn't look, or listen, before strolling around the corner. Luckily the dart gun was in paw and pointed forward. When she finally reacted, the large, black woolen sheep was so close that she hardly had to aim.

Faster than a rabbit's racing heartbeat, she raised the weapon to eye level and pulled the trigger. To her sensitive ears, the sharp click followed by a tinny sproing and the whoosh of air from her gun echoed loudly around her, but the sheep seemed deaf by comparison.

Ducking back around the crates she never saw the sharp needle strike the mammal on the tip of his large, 'Y' shaped nose. Judy threw her back to the wall and held the gun tightly to her chest. Ears twitching and turning, she waited for the thug to suddenly charge around the corner. Her breath short and shallow, her heart racing, ready to spring into action, she was not prepared for what happened next.

"Ouch," declared the ram as he swatted at his nose in confusion. His voice was deep and heavily slurred, "Damn desert insects. Jesse need a call an ex a mah oar." The last few words were spoken slower than a sloth and were nearly meaningless.

Puzzled, she peeked around the edge of the crate to watch the tough looking ram crash slowly onto the floor. His nose promptly planted into the cement as he began to snore loudly.

Quickly looking around, with blood pumping loudly in her ears, Judy hoped that no one else had heard the commotion. After a second's thought she grabbed the fallen thug's collar and dragged him around the corner and back to the end of the passage. She tried to shove him into the half broken crate with the strangely wheeled machine, but struggled with the larger mammal's fluffy bulk. Figuring that he would be out of the way and relatively safe inside. The machine had obviously not been run in many decades so there was no chance of him being crushed by its torturous instruments.

With the thug well and fully stowed away, she checked her weapon, loading another dart into the chamber. Pawing through her pockets she recovered only two more darts. "Crackers," she exclaimed.

In her impulsive rush to follow Jesse, she had forgotten to grab another clip of ammo. It was still sitting in the weapons case back in the car. By her count, there were at least three other voices in the distance besides Jesse's and she didn't have enough darts left to take them all down. She wondered if Wolfard would bring her a reload.

"Wolfard," she sighed, her ears falling behind her head. "Oh, cabbages. I left him back at the car." Thinking back on her crazy race through the alley, she thought she saw glimpses of the large, gray wolf behind her. Her clearest memory of him was from the top of the forklift where she had scouted the area. "Why was he laying on the ground at the time?" she asked, but that thought was soon replaced by more questions.

The wolf had been following her that was for sure, but where was he now? She lifted her head and looked around the warehouse, but all she saw were the tall walls made from hundreds of crates stacked on top of each other, some as high as the ceiling far above. The giant, looming boxes stacked tightly together made her feel small and alone. Was he here somewhere, or outside in the alley? She should try and find him again.

Remembering the radio perched on her shoulder, she lifted a paw to turn it back on and call her partner. As the radio clicked to life with its static hiss, she heard a gruff voice coming from around the corner at the other end of the passage, "Kyle, is that you?"

---

The door was firmly locked. No matter how hard the wolf tugged and twisted the knob, it would not budge. Only a rhino at full charge could bust through that thick, steel portal, and the shiny knob had no slot for a key so it was unpickable.

Speaking of rhino's, where was the backup he had called for? He keyed the mic again and spoke into his shoulder, "Dispatch, this is unit 112, where's that backup we requested?"

After a moment of static the cheetah's voice responded, "Affirmative 112, unit 310 has completed their assignment and is en route."

"What is their ETA?" Wolfard asked. Only garbled static replied. "Say again dispatch. What's their ETA?"

The static was still thick but the wolf was able to barely make out the message, "ETA five minutes."

"Roger that, unit 112 out," he spoke into his shoulder again before turning away and cursing. "Damn, Judy could be hurt in five minutes, or worse." He had to find a way into the building, and quickly.

He stepped back from the steel door and looked around. The immediate area around the door was solid steel siding with no obvious way inside. To his left, past more piles of crates, the alley eventually opened into a large lot that was obviously the main entrance to the building. The door in front of him must have been the side access.

Turning to head towards the front of the building, he paused for a second remembering that he had seen a broken window back where the stacked crates created a large clearing. He stopped, trying to decide which route to take. Continue moving forward and hope that he might find another way in? Or head back to the clearing and try crawling in a window? His hind paws shuffled back and forth as he weighed the choices in his mind.

Finally, his right, hind paw launched forward pulling him back towards the clearing. Two more steps and he was sprinting back into the piles of stacked and broken crates. Turn after turn he unerringly followed his own trail back to the empty clearing where the rusted forklift silently waited.

The broken window was part of a string of windows that sat above a pair of rusty double doors. A chain bound the doors tightly shut, so trying to break through here was not an option. The hole was too far out of reach for him to jump. He was not some young and spry super rabbit, so he was going to need help reaching the window.

All of the boxes around the clearing that looked like they would hold his weight were too large and difficult to move or too rotten and simply crumbled in his paws. The other medium sized crates were on the far side of the open area and stacked into piles that the wolf figured would take too long to disassemble and restack where he needed them to be.

His only option was the old forklift that seemed to have been carelessly parked in the middle of the clearing. It sat just far enough from the window that he might be able to make it. Looking over his good fortune he wondered if some omniscient mammal hand placed it there just for him to use, or some enterprising gang member hand broken into the building the same way years ago.

Climbing up the side of the forklift, he picked up the strong scent of rabbit and remembered how Judy had so easily fallen through the roof. Carefully checking the roof before hopping up, he found that it had almost entirely rusted through. Most of it simply crumbled at his touch and was unsafe to stand on.

A thick, iron roll bar surrounded and supported the cheap, thin roof. Like everything else in the alley, it was covered in graffiti and gang signs. The crude paint however, helped protect the old iron from the ravages of rust and sand so it easily held the wolf's weight.

He quickly climbed up onto the large bar and balanced himself precariously on its thin edge. Taking a slow breath, he steadied himself and prepared for a standing long jump. Unlike his smaller partner, his legs were not built for long jumps, but he was confident that the window was within his reach.

"You can do this," he said to no one in particular. "If that bunny can leap halfway to the moon you can surely make this little jump."

With his confidence shored up, he squatted down, pulling his leg muscles taunt. His long tail brushed the rusted out roof sending clumps of red dust down into the rabbit sized hole. The tail gave a second involuntary swish as he pushed off hard with his legs.

Unlike his partner's graceful flight across the clearing, Wolfards jump felt awkward and clumsy. He pictured a heavy, gray stone being hurled at the open window. In his mind, the boulder tumbled and rolled as it fell. His legs thrashed and his arms flailed as he collided into the side of the steel building with a loud thump.

One paw managed to grasp the opening before he slid down the outside of the wall. Claws screeched painfully on the hard, slick surface as he scrambled to find a pawhold. Quickly, the panic subsided and he reached up with his other arm to grasp the edge of the window.

Straining, he managed to pull himself up with the strength of his arms alone. Not only did he have to lift the weight of a full grown wolf, but all of his police gear, and the combat rated ballistic armor was anything but light.

Letting out a heavy grunt, he pulled himself inside the broken window. Some of the shards of broken glass bit at his uniform, tearing a small hole in the shoulder. It would have to be mended when he got back to the ZPD.

Nothing but open air waited for him inside the window and after pulling both legs through the flimsy frame, he simply let go and fell several meters to the hard, concrete floor. His large, padded paws landed quietly on the cold, poured stone, and he immediately began to look around.

The gloom inside the warehouse was not as pervasive for the wolf while his canid eyes quickly adjusted to the dark. His sense of smell also, had been so well trained that he often found himself subconsciously using it more in his daily life than his sight. It often caused difficulties in public. Many mammals did not appreciate a large wolf literally sniffing around with his big nose. Sniffing other mammals in public was considered a taboo in Zootopia and the wolf society took great pains to curb their natural instincts. Sniffer training had stripped away all those generations of social niceties, but left him with one of the strongest noses in the city. He could smell in the dark almost as well as he could see in the daylight.

Despite the inky blackness that surrounded him, a flood of smells entered his long snout. He sniffed back and forth in the air around him trying to sort out all the many scents. Several scents were familiar while others were difficult to identify, but as a whole, the place smelled like an abandoned warehouse that had been taken over by a small gang of prey mammals.

Dry rotting wood was the strongest smell, followed by rust and garbage. There were hints of motor oil and other metals, the stone at his feet even had its own smell. The smell of a group of ungulates also filled the building. They must have been the resident gang. After several moments of sniffing the air and the floor, he was able to discern that the gang consisted of a mix of sheep and goats.

A few of the gang members had passed this spot recently, and if he wanted to, he could have easily found each of them inside the large, dark structure. Very few mammals could escape his nose, though many had tried. Only a heavy Rainforest District downpour could wash away a suspect's trail, and even then, it usually pooled on the side of the streets where he could still follow it. He was not as big as a rhino, or as fast as a cheetah, but he was doggedly persistent and would never give up the pursuit.

To his left, the faint scent of rabbit mixed with fox drifted along the corridor. Judy was over there somewhere, or had gone that way. Sniffing the floor, it was clear that she hadn't been here or come this way. She was still chasing after that sheep so he took a step in her direction intent on catching up to her. Once they both got out of this place alive he was going to give her a good scolding for running off on her own like that. He even planned on giving the Chief a full report of her conduct in this investigation.

His step faltered as a new scent interrupted his angry thoughts. A sudden gust, filled with the smell of oil and trash brought something unexpected to his nose, the scent of another predator. It wasn't the stale, dry scent of a mammal that had walked through, or rested here days ago. No, it was fresh and very strong.

Turning around, he sniffed at the air trying to find the source of this new smell. What was a predator doing here in the middle of a warehouse, filled with a prey gang? Was it from a rival gang? He walked away from Judy's scent, towards where he thought the breeze had come.

The air was still for long moments, but his diligence paid off as another wisp of air brought him a fresh dose of the other predator's scent. This time, he recognized a familiar odor. Along with its unique flavor, the smell brought images of an orange mammal dressed in a blue uniform, and the strong, burning musk of an empty bedroom where his small partner frantically searched for her fox. A whisper escaped his lips, "Nick." The fox was here, and with how strong and fresh the scent was, he was still alive.

Quietly, trying not to let his long claws clack on the floor, he raced towards the source of the scent. It was on the opposite side of the warehouse from where Judy had gone, but the fox had been missing for three days without a trace. He had to find Nick first.

Wolfard didn't want to leave Judy alone, but she had proven to be a capable officer thus far and he firmly believed that she could take care of herself, at least until they rescued the fox. He had never believed that Nick would have run off on his own, but that something unsavory had befallen the rookie cop.

When he reached the inside corner of the building, he pulled up short and ducked around a stack of crates. The strong scent of an unwashed sheep reached him moments before turning the corner. It was pretty dark inside but he was sure that even a dumb and drunk sheep would notice a large, uniformed wolf charging at them down the passage.

Moments passed before he heard the clacking of tough hooves on stone, and the ram eventually came into view. It was a regular gang member, with the typical demeanor of a gruff thug. He had two curled horns just behind his ears and wore a dark blue biker's jacket. On the back of the jacket, was a large ram's skull, and each of the shoulders held several gang symbols that the old cop didn't recognize.

The sheep's posture suggested that he was bored with patrolling the area, and he never once looked into the alcove where the wolf was hiding, ready to pounce at any moment. Once the sheep had passed his position, Wolfard leapt from his hiding place and dashed around the corner towards where the strong scent of fox seemed to be coming from.

---

"Kyle, is that you?" the squeaky voice asked from the darkness ahead.

A single, metal clink could be heard alongside one of the sheep's hoofsteps. There was a short pause followed by a grunt before the voice returned. "Kyle? Are you back on the brown sugar again?"

The clacking steps slowly approached and would soon turn the corner where Judy was still standing in the dead end passage next to the open crate where she had just stashed the other sheep. Her ears stood straight up on top of her head as she frantically searched for an escape. She didn't want to waste another dart on a random sheep, and fighting the larger mammal would cause enough noise to alert everyone in the building who wasn't sound asleep, so evasion was the best option.

She had been wandering in the dark for several minutes, giving her eyes more than enough time to adjust, but everywhere she looked was cloaked in thick shadows. Those shadows would not be deep enough for even her small form to slip past the larger mammal. Looking behind her, she thought about climbing inside the crate along with the comatose sheep, but the thought made her cringe.

Maybe she could run for it and hope that this new sheep wouldn't hear her pass. Slowly, she padded along one side of the wall of crates until she bumped into something that was sticking out from the edge of the wall. Looking down, all she saw was a deeper darkness among all the other shadows.

It took her a second to realize that the crate next to her was slightly ajar, creating a gap that was barely wide enough for her to slip inside. Without a second thought, she dove inside moments before the curious sheep turned the corner. Her head and vest passed through the tiny portal smoothly, but her hips and utility belt got snagged on something.

Rolling her whole body to the side, she felt her hips loosen and she was able to slide the rest of the way inside the gap. Now, with more room to move around, she turned and looked back the way she came in time to see the dark shadow of the ram pass.

From her vantage point, it was too dark to discern the color of his wool, but she could clearly make out the biker jacket that he was wearing and the various patches on the sleeves. Before he passed out of view, she caught the faint glint of metal from something small and thin held in his hoof. It was the needle from the tranq dart she had forgotten and left lying on the floor.

"Kyle, where did you go?" Clearly this sheep was both blind and stupid. Judy did not have a great deal of time to stash the other sheep's body, but even with her poor eyesight, she could tell that someone, or something was hiding in the other crate. Maybe this sheep was also drunk as well as blind. It never crossed her mind that he didn't particularly smell of alcohol as she gave up trying to understand the motivations of dumb sheep.

The back of the gap between crates seemed to widen as she moved further in. It eventually opened up into another dark passage where various bits of broken machinery had been stashed. Most of the parts were unfamiliar to the rabbit raised on a farm, but she thought she could make out something that looked like an oversized wood chipper.

Ears raised, she could hear the sheep bumbling around in the passage she had just escaped. He was still looking for his friend and kept calling his name. While listening intently to make sure the sheep wasn't headed in her direction, she clearly caught the sound of Jesse's voice, "Yes of course I understand."

There was a brief pause before the sheep continued, "All this means is that we need to find another chemist."

Judy could tell that his voice was very close with only a high wall of crates separating them. However, the passage she found herself in did not seem to have any obvious entrance or exit. She was completely surrounded by the high walls, and she wasn't going to crawl back through that tiny hole again. Maybe there was a way to go over the crates.

A pale light pored over the top of the wall allowing her to better see the height of the walls, yet the shortest stack of crates was still too high for even her powerful legs to jump. She needed something to climb or jump onto first. There weren't any meter maid-joke-mobiles in sight, and most of the machines had been disassembled and lay on the floor in broken piles of parts. The only machine that was still fully assembled, looked like a larger version of the chipper/shredder that her dad and brothers had used back on the farm to turn an old tree into a pile of mulch.

Climbing around on a wood chipper in the dark was a terrible idea. One false step and she could easily tumble into the machine and wind up with more than a few serious cuts and bruises. She looked around for another option.

"It's unfortunate of course," the tension in Jesse's voice slowly grew as it floated over the wall, "since the Doc was so close to reaching Doug's original formula. At least the new guy won't have to start over from scratch." Whomever he was talking to was either not here or outside of hearing range, but for the long eared rabbit, that was the more unlikely of the two.

"Doug's formula?" Judy wondered out loud. Were they making another Night Howler serum here? Her urgency only increased with the implications that dreadful thought could mean for the entire city. She had to stop these evil sheep from carrying out whatever plan they were cooking up.

Throwing caution to the wind, the rabbit raced to the end of the passage where the dangerous machine stood, waiting hungrily. A few hops from the chipper, she stepped up on one of the small, box-like parts to give herself a slight boost. Before her momentum carried her past the metal box, she pushed off with her strong legs and leapt into the darkness.

Twisting her body ever so slightly, she collided paws first into the wall of crates about a quarter of the way up. Another push with her taunt muscles and the rabbit rebounded off the stack of crates and sailed towards the giant hopper.

Without knowing how much clearance there was on top, she chose to grab the outside edge instead. Her choice proved to be the correct one since the top of the hopper was hollow, with steep, slick sides that led directly down to the biting, grinding teeth that would have chewed her into tiny bits.

Clinging onto the top edge of the huge, steel basket like funnel, she was able to work her way over to the stacked crates. From one corner, she was easily able to reach the top of the stack and haul herself up on top.

The crates were so old and rickety, that it was a surprise that they were even able to hold up under their own weight. Judy could feel them move with each step. Carefully working her way along the top of the stack, she crawled to the edge and peered over into a large, open and lit area where she could still hear the sheep's voice talking to some unknown mammal.

Below, a large area was cleared of crates in front of what looked like the main entrance to the warehouse. The entrance was a series of huge, sliding doors that when slid open they revealed a huge, gaping hole in the side of the building that three or four semi trucks could drive through simultaneously.

In the middle of the huge, makeshift room was a ramshackle living area, complete with a few folding tables, an old couch, and ancient, analog television with a very snowy image and the source of the faint, static hiss that she had been hearing since she entered the warehouse. A fridge sized for medium mammals, sat next to an old, rusted stove in a crude semblance of a kitchen area. Along the far wall of crates were stacks of gardening supplies.

Two sheep and a small goat were sitting at one of the flimsy tables playing cards, while a third sheep was attempting to mount the strange tree-like pole onto the old television set. All of the mammals were wearing similar printed t-shirts to the one Jesse had on, or had a similar ram's skull marked plainly on their jackets.

Jesse was leaning on a long, metal table with a hooded lighting apparatus attached. The whole thing looked like it could be used to grow plants. The potting soil in the trough had dozens of little mounds lined up in neat little rows, but the lights on the table were not turned on and the soil seemed far too dry for anything to grow.

In his hoof, he held a cell phone and his expression slowly turned from annoyed to dour, "Ok fine, but did the old goat happen to reveal any information to the cops before he left us?" At the 'goat' comment, one of the mammals at the table snorted in offense.

As Jesse was speaking, another ram passed under Judy and entered the large living space, "I didn't see Kyle. Did he happen to come through here?" This was the same sheep that she had dodged earlier. He had dirty, white wool, a black muzzle and black ears. A few of the other mammals looked up from their game, but they just shook their heads. Without paying much attention to their responses, he plopped his tail onto the old couch and stared at the old TV indifferently.

The black-nosed sheep looked up with a grin on his muzzle when he noticed that the image on the set was much clearer. "Oh, great. Where did you find a working antena?" The other sheep, who was still trying to attach a series of wires between the TV and the antenna, simply pointed at Jesse, then held a finger over his lips.

Pausing for a full minute, Jesse listened to the voice on the other end of the phone as his eyes wandered around the room nervously, and he shifted from one hoof to the other. When he finally spoke again the words sent a cold shiver down Judy's spine, "What should we do with our unwanted guest?"

The gruff, gray sheep's muzzle slowly split into an evil grin as he listened to the response. "Excellent!" he replied almost gleefully. Pressing the disconnect button, he placed the phone into the front pocket of his blue jeans and stepped away from the cultivation table.

He looked over at the black-nosed sheep on the couch and called to him gruffly, "Randle."

"Yeah, boss?" Randle muttered with as much concern as a racing snail.

"Go ahead and dispose of our guest," the one eyed sheep ordered before turning to the other thugs lounging around the living space. With a sharp tongue, he began barking orders to evacuate and dispose of any evidence.

Under his breath the black-nosed sheep replied, "Oh great, and he was just beginning to grow on me." He climbed off the couch and headed past the card players into the tall maze of crates.

Judy never heard Randle's words nor any of Jesse's other orders, since she was focused entirely on finding out who this unwanted guest was. Intense determination on her muzzle, she followed Randle into the maze.

While the black-nosed sheep had to follow the path along the ground, Judy could silently leap from crate to crate. Now she could easily follow him anywhere in the maze and still remain hidden.

Randle seemed to be walking down the entire length of the warehouse towards something huge built into the back corner. As they approached, a shape slowly formed out of the darkness. It was a grid of iron bars welded together into a hexagonal pattern with large-gauge chicken wire filling the spaces in between.

It was a full minute before she realized that she was looking at an immense cage that could have held a whole herd of mammals. Along the rim of the cage, she thought she could make out makeshift balconies and cat walks that slowly appeared out of the darkness.

From her vantage near the ceiling of the warehouse, she spotted a familiar, orange blur sitting solemnly in the center of the cage. It was very dark in this corner of the warehouse, but even from this distance she was still able to recognize the fox she cared so much about. "Nick," she gasped, before a paw could cover her muzzle.

The red fox was still wearing the same clothes he'd had on when he took her on their date, that wonderful evening felt like it had been so very long ago. He looked like he was in pretty bad shape, his fur was badly matted, the shiny shirt was torn in several places and was barely hanging onto his thin body. Even in the thick gloom, Judy could tell that Nick had been through a pretty rough couple of days.

Below her, the sheep stood in front of the cage door. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and began testing each one in the lock. It took him several tries before he found the one that matched the lock. With a dull click, he turned the key and the lock sprung open.

High above, the sound of rattling keys pulled Judy's attention away from the bruised and battered fox. She looked down to watch Randle fumbling with the key ring until the lock clicked open. Once the cage door stood open, she made her move.

A blue and gray streak in the darkness, the fierce rabbit dove off the top of the crates and into the vast, open space. Three stories she plummeted, building up a tremendous amount of speed as she fell.

The force of her hind paws was enough to knock down a fully grown rhino, but compounded with the force of gravity, the blow could have been devastating. However, the rabbit's fury was not aimed directly at the sheep's head.

Instead of falling straight on top of the sheep's thick skull and into his tough horns, she bounced off the wall. Redirecting the momentum with her powerful legs, she shot towards the ram like a rampaging herd of a thousand enraged bunnies. The pain she saw inflicted on her fox driving her fervor into a deep growl. With a quick twist of her body she rolled around mid air to point her deadly legs towards her enemy.

Randle heard a loud thump from the crates to his left and slowly turned in the direction of the sound, but it was far too late for him. In the blink of an eye, a blue and gray bullet slammed into his chest with more rage than an angry tiger.

The first strike knocked the sheep off his feet and threw him back into the wall hard enough to shove all the air from his lungs, but she didn't stop there. Her momentum carried her forward as the ram fell and she continued to kick his muzzle again and again.

Breathless and with his head repeatedly pummeled, the sheep thug simply collapsed to the floor under the onslaught. Back forced against the wall, his knees buckled and he slid onto his rump.

Once her frenzy had subsided, she looked down at the unconscious sheep as his nose began to bleed freely and she realized that she had been screaming the entire time she was kicking him in the snout. A little ashamed, she thought she might have overdone it. She could have simply shot him with a dart, but looking over at Nick again she felt that level of violence was fully warranted.

Stepping away from the fallen thug, she leaned down and picked up the keys that he had dropped. As she grasped the large, metal ring in her paws a loud thunk echoed from high above near the ceiling. The thunk was repeated several times as it drew closer, when the sound was directly overhead, the darkness that surrounded her was suddenly replaced by bright pale light.

For the second time since she had entered this building she was struck blind.

---

Wolfard raced down the long passage, sniffing the air as he went and the rank odor of unwashed wool slowly faded. The trail was still there, it covered the floor and seemed to cling to the sides of the wooden crates, but the biker ram was heading in the opposite direction. He had walked this route many times and his scent seemed to cover every surface.

The sheep was not the wolf's goal as he worked his way through the twisting passages formed out of the many stacked and broken crates. His hurried lope came to a sudden halt when the fox's scent seemed to vanish. The wolf's paws skidded to a stop across a tile floor that was difficult to see in the dark.

This new area was different from the rest of the warehouse. Ceramic tiles lined the floor and walls, and broken benches created two neat rows. Along the walls, were tall, steel boxes that had been thoroughly broken into. The mixed scents in this long room were very old, it may have been years since anyone had been here. Even the scent of sheep seemed to avoid this place, like it was cursed.

On the benches, the ancient scent of many different mammals lingered. Most were from predatory species or the larger and more aggressive prey like buffalo. There was also alot of dried blood scattered about, and he even caught a hint of burnt gunpowder.

"What was this place?" Wolfard asked himself. It seemed like some kind of locker room. "Maybe this was where the warehouse workers prepared for the day," he thought. There had also been some kind of gun fight in the recent past. "Was it from one of the gangs that occupied this place before?"

He continued to sniff around for several minutes, unable to answer all the many questions burning in his mind. It seemed that this place had a long story to tell. He should have done some more research into the warehouse's criminal history. Knowing the full story of this place might help in his report after this mission was over.

Nearing the end of the locker room, he once again picked up Nick's scent. The fox was most certainly alive, however, there was also a trace of freshly dried blood to his scent. Nick must have been injured within the last day or so.

With all the rotting wood and rusted metal, this was not a good place to be getting an injury. Tetanus was probably rampant on every surface in an abandoned building like this. The wolf considered calling in an ambulance, but decided against using the radio until he knew the condition of the fox's injuries.

It was also possible that it was the gang members who were injured and not the fox. Wolfard shook his head at the last thought, no, no it had to be the fox's dried blood that he smelled.

Exiting the locker room, the wolf once again followed the outer wall of the warehouse until he found himself under large, iron girders that had been welded together into a series of scaffolding. It looked like it was part of the original construction. A broken ladder had once led to the upper levels.

Near the top of the scaffolding, was a large, open box with a sturdy window that stretched the entire length. Was it some kind of control room or an office that overlooked the entire warehouse? With the ladder broken, there wasn't currently any easy way to get up there and find out.

Under the scaffolding, he spotted a large, gray box mounted to the outside wall. On the right side of the box, was a long handle with a red, plastic grip on its end. A few similar boxes had been mounted to the wall next to it, but they were all smashed and broken. The fox smell was much stronger here, making it hard to pick up anything else, but a quick sniff of the lever told him that no one had been near this box in many years.

On the front of the remaining box, was a well-worn label. Wolfard could not make out most of the letters. What remained spelled out, " I HT NG."

"This must be the breaker box for the building lights," he thought. "I wonder if it still works."

As he was about to leave and return to tracking the fox, he heard a loud crash followed by a grunt. The sound was close, possibly a few rows of crates over. It sounded like a sheep had fallen. Had one of the thugs tripped and stubbed their toe, or was Judy in the middle of a fight?

He sniffed the air but with the fox so close all he could smell was the vulpes' strong musk. It filled the air and seemed to wash out any other smells. If his partner was in the middle of a fight with one of the sheep thugs he could not tell by smell alone.

Not long after the loud crash, he heard a familiar scream echo around the piles of crates. He had heard that yell many times at the ZPD as he watched the small rabbit officer in the fighting ring. It was the sound of Judy's martial arts yell as she performed an exceedingly fierce strike. However, this wasn't her normally short cry but a long continuous shriek. To the wolf's ears, it sounded like she was hitting something over and over again in a fit of rage.

"Judy is in trouble," was the wolf's only thought. He frantically paced back and forth trying to find a way through or over the wall of crates that separated him from the fighting rabbit, but the wall would not concede. The only route was to continue following the outer edge of the building, or return the way he had come.

Before he could make a decision, the screaming ended. He wasn't sure who had won the fight, but he knew that he would not want to meet that much rabbit fury in the ring. Judy had a great deal of speed, and a powerful kick that most combatants could rarely stand against. Paw to paw, he was sure the rabbit could come out on top.

With the urgency abated, Wolfards mind came up with a new plan. If he was unable to join the rabbit he could at least create a distraction that he hoped she could take advantage of.

The wolf turned away from the endless wall of crates and sprinted towards the power box under the iron scaffolding. He grabbed the red handle and pulled.

At first the lever would not budge. It had nearly rusted in place, which is why, he assumed, that no one had tried to use it in years. Pulling on the lever proved futile, so he gave it a swift kick instead.

As his paw struck the long shaft, it gave off the acrid scent of rusted iron powder. He kicked it again and was rewarded with a shower of red dust falling to the floor. Several more kicks and the lever eventually broke free.

Now that the lever was free of its thick coat of rust, Wolfard was able to lift it into the "ON" position. As the breaker clicked into place, he heard a low thunk from the other side of the building. The sound repeated several times as it came closer and with each thunk, the darkness slowly retreated. Finally the lights above the wolf came to life, bathing him in a pale, fluorescent glow.

Most of the bulbs in the fixtures high overhead were broken, but a few sputtered and flashed, creating an eerie discotech ambiance. With the passage now partially lit, the wolf could now see the path ahead.

Past the scaffolding, the passage turned sharply and came to an abrupt end, as a fence made of chicken wire blocked the gap. Beyond the fence, was what looked like a large room that contained one bruised and battered fox, one chair laying on its side and one rabbit, who was wrapped tightly around the fox.

---

The dream had changed. Instead of the pervasive darkness that surrounded the fox, there was now a bright, white light that flooded everything. Oh, the darkness was still there, but it had skittered away to hide on the edges of his vision waiting for him to turn away before it would once again pounce.

He had been wrapped in the darkness and pain for so long, that it began to feel like an old friend. It came for him day or night and wrapped him in it's warm, crushing embrace.

His body had grown numb to the pain, but the darkness slowly ate away at him bit by bit. The only thing that held it at bay and kept the hungry emptiness from devouring him whole, was the gray angel with her glittering, blue dress that was filled with an ocean of stars.

She came to him every night, to hold his paws and whisk him away from the oppressive blackness. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there, but lately her image had begun to fade. Her wings seemed more transparent and wispy, and there were definitely less twinkling stars on her dress.

This bright light that had replaced the darkness had also brought back the pain. It bore into his skull like a scorching, white torch and burned his fur. He tried to flee, but the light held him in its searing grasp, burning everything it touched.

Unable to flee, he pushed out his paws to hold it back, but like a giant wave, the light washed over him and peeled away the remaining darkness. It singed all of his fur and left him bare and shivering.

The light was relentless and brutally unforgiving. It burned him through and through. He longed to return to the darkness. The dark was soft and gentle, it held and comforted him in its inky clutches. He could hide in the dark and nothing could reach him there.

Holding up a scorched paw to his brow, he squinted into the center of the light. There was something waiting there. A shape formed out of the painful glare that surrounded him.

He had seen this shape before. He thought it would only appear to him in the darkness, but he was certain that it had come here to save him from this blazing heat. As the shape grew larger it formed into two shining blobs, one gray and the other blue.

The beautiful angel of his dreams had returned. Her gossamer wings carried her through the air to flutter around him. She seemed completely unaffected by the heat and light that filled everything around him.

As she approached, she spoke a single word, "Nick." Somehow he knew that word. It seemed to describe a red fox who sought to be more than just another shifty fox. It belonged to him.

"Oh, Nick," the angel cried as she fell to the ground before him. Her fluttering wings collapsed around her and landed on top of her head. All that remained of them were two tall strips of gray fur that gave the angel a curiously familiar shape.

Standing before him, was now a tall, gray rabbit dressed in a tough-looking blue uniform. She was tugging at the ropes that bound him while calling his name. In seconds, she had united the rough, itchy bonds that held him tightly to the chair.

Nick opened his eyes and was immediately brought back to the dark cage where a cruel sheep needed to work on his right cross. Instead of the sheep he saw Judy trying to shake him awake.

"Judy?"

"Nick!" Judy cried while tears streamed down her fuzzy cheeks. "You're all ok."

With a snarky expression, the fox lifted a dark paw to his chest only to find that his dress shirt was torn and barely hung from his bruised body. "Never been better, Fluff," he declared despite the pain in his voice.

"Nick," the rabbit stated seriously, while at the same time she looked like she would hop right out of her skin. "I have something to tell you and it can't wait."

"Ju," the fox began before a small, fluffy finger was pressed firmly against his lips.

"I should have told you this so long ago," she started to explain. "But I didn't know it myself."

With her finger still covering his mouth he only nodded as she continued.

"Nick," the sound of her voice saying his name rang like a silver bell in his ears. Even dressed in full body armor she was still the most beautiful mammal he had ever seen. He wanted to reach out and hold her and to tell her how he felt, but the serious expression on her muzzle made him stall his paws, and he let her continue.

The rabbit's eyes looked at the floor as her ears drooped behind her head. When her gaze returned to the tall fox her paws were held out before her with the white palms facing up like she wanted to reach for him, "Nick, I have been so blind." Taking a step forward she placed her paws on her chest, "Everyone else saw what was going on and they have been trying to tell me. But I didn't want to listen, I didn't want to see the truth."

Nick tilted his head, puzzled by where his small partner was going with her words. He tried to open his mouth, but she grabbed his jaws with a single gray paw and he just mumbled, "Mmm hmm."

"I didn't want to believe that there could be anything between us," she held her paws together in front of her chest and tried to look anywhere but at the fox. "But every time we are together you do your best to make my heart race. When we are apart you fill my dreams. I can't stop thinking about you, Nick."

She stepped away from the fox and turned in a complete circle to collect her thoughts before balling up her tiny fists and looking him straight in the eye, while her little pink nose twitched. Tears streamed down her muzzle, she choked on the next few words, "I love you Nicholas Wilde! I have for a long time, and I am sorry that I never told you that I loved you, but I don't care if you feel the same way or not. I don't care who knows how much I love you."

She could barely speak through the emotions as they flowed freely from the passionate bunny, "I thought that I had lost you forever, Nick. I was so worried that I would never get to tell you how I feel about you. So if you don't feel the same way, that, that is ok, but I just have to tell you now before it's too late."

Her head fell against his nearly bare chest with the river of her tears soaking his creamy fur, "I love you, Nick, I need you in my life." She let out the rest of her pent up emotions in a deep sob, and then took one slow breath, then another. Her heart was racing from all that had happened today, but she was with her fox, and everything felt right with the world.

Letting the bunny cry into his chest, Nick placed a paw gently on her head. "There, there," he said calmly rubbing the soft fur between her ears. "Did you really miss me that much, Carrots?"

"What?" her head popped up and she glared into his deep, green pools. A new bout of tears threatened to break their dam under her eyes.

"Do you think that I don't love you?" Nick asked, the snark thick in his voice.

Judy's head tilted to the side and her fists raised in the air.

"Of course I love you too, Judy. I just didn't know how to tell you. You showed me how to be more than just a sly mmmffff," he never finished his explanation when a pair of soft, warm, bunny lips pressed firmly against his mouth. He wrapped his paws around her small body and pulled her closer.

In moments, the rabbit's fierce passion was reignited and she pulled tightly at the fox's bare chest fur. Her small, pink lips hungrily sought every corner of his mouth like she would devour him. Once again she was overwhelmed by her emotions and let out a needy growl.

"I love you so much," she said breathlessly as she pulled away for a brief pause before continuing to fervidly kiss every inch of the fox's long muzzle, from the tip of his fluffy ears to the end of his dark black nose.

Wanting to be pulled deeper into the kiss she opened her mouth and brushed her tongue against his sharp teeth. Before the kiss progressed any further, a chill voice drifted down from behind her, "How disgusting."

From a catwalk overlooking the cage, Jesse was holding his hooves over his muzzle at the sickening sight of the passionate couple. "This is just the kind of disgusting behavior that has been plaguing the city lately."

Judy quickly turned around to glare up at the sheep. Firmly holding Nick's paw in hers, she reached for the weapon at her belt.

Not paying attention to the small rabbit, Jesse continued, "That is why me and the boys here have been working so hard to cleanse the filth from the city. And now here you are flaunting your smut in our midst."

"A mere handful of sheep can't stop all the mammals across this city from loving each other," Judy yelled back at the sheep in defense.

A loud chuckle preceded his reply, "You really think we are the only ones who want to see that inters are driven from our fair streets? This goes all the way to the top little bunny."

"Those so called 'inters' have rights too."

"Inters go against Nature, they are an abomination, a blight on society. Predator and prey can never live together peacefully and there could never be any love between them," he pulled a familiar looking air gun from his pocket and pointed it at the couple. "And I am going to prove it."

He started to laugh again as he pulled the trigger and the gun gave a dull thunk. "I am going to enjoy watching this again and again. Smile for the camera before that filthy predator rips you to shreds." He pointed to a small camera that had been mounted in the upper corner of the cage.

Judy turned back to Nick who had fallen on the floor with a yelp. A large, blue splatter stained his orange fur. She leaned over him looking for a way to wipe away the blue goo without touching the dangerous substance.

"No, no, Nick. Not again!" She grabbed a torn corner of his shirt and started to frantically wipe the dark ugly mess from his beautiful orange fur, but the fox had already begun to shudder and convulse.

She looked into his eyes as they slowly changed into narrow green slits. Her own eyes filled with tears, "Don't leave me, Nick."

On the catwalk above the scene, the gray sheep wrung his paws together waiting for the brutal ending.

"I can't live without you," Judy cried as she wrapped her small paws around the fox's shuddering body. This was no con. This was not part of the plan, and that was not fresh a blueberry stain on Nick's fur. The smell of Night Howlers was strong from the mess on his shoulder. The rabbit inside her knew that she should run, that she should flee from the vicious monster that was changing before her, but she was tired of running. She had been running from her feelings for months. Today she was going to stand her ground.

The fox seemed to grow larger as his mind slowly went mad, and the fancy shirt that still clung to his skinny frame, tore and fell to the floor.

As the fox began to growl, she planted a warm kiss on the end of his long muzzle and laid her head in his bare chest. Humming softly, she began to run her paw gently through the soft, tan fur on his chest. It felt like a lifetime ago when she had dreamed of this very act, but she had never imagined that it would feel so soft.

Rolling over, the fox stood on all fours with a deep, angry snarl, his eyes completely savage. His lips curl back to reveal rows of sharp white teeth.

Despite the savage beast looming above her, Judy continued to hum and rub his fur. She reached one paw up to gently caress the side of his muzzle. Her small, gray paw was dangerously close to the savage's deadly incisors.

Judy lifted her head and a single tear rolled down her cheek to fall silently to the floor. "I love you," she whispered.

Up on the catwalk, Jesse was nearly ecstatic in anticipation. He thought they would put on a good show for the camera, a real, stone age scene like from the old black and white movies. He thought the fox would chase the rabbit and eventually kill her, but this was so much better. The rabbit was so love struck that she was practically giving the fox her neck to chew on.

Jesse imagined that the video would go viral and prove to the world why preds and prey could never coexist, but all his hopes came crashing to the floor in the next instant.

Lowering his muzzle, the savage gave the prone rabbit a good long sniff that caused her to giggle. He turned quickly and sunk his front teeth into her shoulder where the strap of her vest prevented the sharp fangs from drawing any blood.

Judy realized that it was only a gentile nip that predators still used to show intimate affection. She reached up her other paw and patted at his cheek, and a long tongue leapt from his jaws to lap across her muzzle.

As soon as the long, pink tongue left the soft, gray fur, a deep growl began to build in the fox's chest. His eyes narrowed and his lips curled back in a vicious snarl.

Dreamy eyed, Judy scrambled to a sitting position and tried to back away from the fox, but his attention was not focused on her. His back was hunched and he was snarling in the direction of the evil sheep. When the savage fox began to bark at the sheep, the rabbit stood and began petting him on the back trying to calm him.

"Hey, what's going on down there? What are you two doing?" Jesse screamed down into the cage. "Foxes are supposed to hunt rabbits." Looking at the air pistol in his hoof, he let out a gruff snarl, "Doc, promised me this was the correct formula." He shook the gun, and hit it with his hoof.

The savage barking continued and Judy gave the fox's rump a sharp smack with her paw. As the small, gray paw collided with the fox's black pants, he charged ahead. In three easy strides he was out the cage door.

With shaking hooves, Jesse pointed the weapon at the fox and fired again. His shot hit the concrete inches from where the fox had been standing and splattered across the floor.

"Judy," a voice called from behind. The rabbit turned around to see Wolfard pressed against the far wall of the cage, near a second, locked gate.

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" the wolf asked, fear for the bunny's life evident in his tone.

"No, I am fine. Nick would never hurt me," she called back at him.

"So it would seem," he muttered under his breath.

"Hey here," Judy yelled as she tossed the ring of keys across the cage to land at his feet. "We could really use your help right now." Once she saw him bend over to pick up the keys she turned and ran after the savage fox.

The fox had run through the cage door and was frantically trying to jump and climb up the wall of crates to reach the sheep that continued to curse and shoot at him. No matter how hard he tried, the fox could not reach the ledge where the ram stood.

Seeing that the fox was unable to reach him, Jesse began to taunt the savage animal. Throwing curses and bits of wood, and even stomping on the crates only pissed off the fox even more. After one overly heavy stomp, the crate at the bottom of the stack where he was standing cracked and began to split apart.

Then, with a sudden jolt, the lowest crate broke into a thousand pieces, throwing dust and rotten wood in all directions. On top, the sheep nearly slipped and almost fell over the side, but he managed to catch himself and climb back onto the catwalk. The broken planks and smaller boxes now provided the fox with a ramp to climb up to the scrambling sheep.

Hopping from one box to the next, the savage fox climbed over the rubble to reach the level where the sheep was frantically trying to escape. With a loud grunt, he managed to pull himself back onto the catwalk where he had first arrived to shoot Nick. However, the fox was suddenly right behind him.

Jesse ran down the catwalk with savage fox fangs nipping at his hooves. When he was about to turn the corner, the fox pounced and the one-eyed ram raised his arm to protect himself. Both fox and sheep fell to the wooden walkway in a cloud of grey and orange fury.

Viciously snarling and shaking his head, the savage tried again and again to get at the sheep's neck but the ram held off the deadly fangs with a wooly arm.

Wolfard and Judy quickly arrived on the catwalk where Jesse continued to fend off the savage fox. He looked up at the two cops pleadingly, "Will one of you please help me?"

Judy looked up at the taller wolf. "Do you think we should?" she asked.

"I am more concerned about Nick," he replied sadly. "But I think you should be the one to do it," he held out his large paw. Sitting on the soft, black pads was a single tranq dart.

Nodding, a small tear rolled down her cheek as she took the dart and began slowly walking towards the fox.

When she arrived at the struggling pair, the fox turned and gave her muzzle a quick lick before he turned back to the evil sheep. Judy began to gently pet the orange fur while humming softly, "I am sorry sweetheart, this is for your own good." She slowly raised the dart over her head and then swiftly drove it into the crevice where his neck met his shoulder and depressed the plunger.

Nick let out a high pitched whine, but continued struggle with the ram. After a few moments, his movements lessened and he stopped tugging on the sheep's arm. A full minute passed before he gave up and laid his head down on the edge of the wood and began to snore while Judy petted his soft fur and hummed the same tune she had earlier.

"Thank you," the sheep replied gratefully.

"Don't thank us yet," Wolfard declared as he rolled Jesse over and slapped a pair of steel cuffs on his wrists.

Judy wasn't paying any attention to the wolf or the sheep as she hummed and lay her head in the soft, fox fur. She even failed to notice the sound of police sirens that seemed to surround the building. All she cared about was the sleeping fox beneath her paws.

---

A cool breeze gently blew past the carrot print curtains that framed the window, signaling the end of another sweltering hot summer in Zootopia. It was still hot inside the tiny apartment, and the dilapidated old window had been left open to let in just such a breeze.

The squeaky oak floors of the apartment were scrubbed clean and the rickety bed was well made. The original sheets that came with the room had been neatly tucked in at the corners and the pillow was properly fluffed. On the bed sat several plush, rabbit dolls facing the window. They formed two neat rows, as perfectly straight as plush rabbits could be of course. One row on each side of the bed, they created a gentle aisle between them.

In the middle of the room stood a tall rabbit wearing a two tone t-shirt and a pair of comfortable stretchy pants. Judy took several pairs of clothes from her pale, brown dresser, folded them, and placed them into a suitcase with tiny, orange carrots printed around the outside.

A second, newer suitcase sat next to the first. It had already been filled to the brim and seemed to want to burst its seams if you looked at it the wrong way. It had a black vinyl handled that extended when you pressed a button and a pair of small wheels on the bottom.

When she pulled the last shirt from the empty dresser she folded it neatly and packed it into the smaller case. Standing, she looked back at the bed with a warm, happy smile on her small, gray muzzle, "I will be back for the rest of you very soon, so be good while I'm away." Her tall ears stood straight above her head and she seemed to hop in place with excitement.

She raised one paw to her warm pink lips, made a very wet, smacking noise then lowered her paw and blew a soft puff of air across the furry, white palm towards the pillow at the far end of the bed.

Bending her knees, she leaned down to pick up both suitcases before she turned and hopped out the door while humming a song that reminded her of spring blooms on the hills behind her family's farm. The tall, wooden door closed behind her with a soft click.

Back on the bed, leaning against the silky soft pillow, was an old, and well worn rabbit doll. The doll's stitching had come loose and had been replaced years ago by a careful paw. On its flat face were a pair of round, purple buttons for eyes and a heart-shaped, pink, button nose. Laying nose to nose with the well-worn rabbit doll, was a new, plush fox with bright, green gems for eyes and a small chunk missing from one of his black-tipped ears.

~fin (maybe)

---

[A/N] That is the end of Part 1 / Book 1 of this story. It has really been a very long run since I started this back in February of 2017. That means its only one month shy of four whole years! WOW. I honestly thought it would only take me a few months, or even a single year at most. But at the time I wasn't working and had alot of free time to write.

I hope everyone enjoyed the ending. It didn't exactly turn out how I had planned when I was first working on the idea for the story, but I thought showing the two characters different points of view turned out rather well. The original plan was to have Judy rush in guns blazing, but I think she has grown a little a learned to be a little more cautious, maybe ...

Part 2 is currently in the works. I do have a tentative outline laid out with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, so now all I need to do is come up with all the bits that go in-between. If you have been following this story for any length of time you will notice that I tend to do my best writing in the spring. I just seem to be able to focus on fluff better that time of year for some reason. With that in mind I would like to have the opening chapters published soon. I am not going to promise any kind of strict schedule, since I wont be able to keep it up anyways. With only being able to write on the weekends and my editor's random days off the two week schedule could be a little tight. Once a month might be a more manageable pace for me going forward. What im trying to say is that you can look forward to chapter 1 sometime in March.

Thank you everyone for reading this story, it has been alot of fun writing it and reading all the awesome comments. I hope to see/hear from all of you in a couple of months,

-OneWolfe