Hello again my good and loyal readers. Welcome to chapter 4 of A Fox in the Machine.

I do not own Zootopia or its characters, that's Disney. I only own my own OC's. Though with hints and teases of Z2 at some point in 2024, one can only hope it will come up to the standard we hold Z1 to.

Anyway. On with the show, such as it is.

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Chapter 4

Some time later, after an impromptu performance by her band at the other business she owned with Fin, an ostensibly underground club. Underground in that it was actually underground and you needed to know about it. Judy dragged Chet to her bed and put the poor fox through his paces. Gasping as Judy continued to grind on him and grip down on his knot. "Fuck! Judy! What has gotten into you? Not that I don't love the new body, you're like, super extra sensitive tonight."

Judy groaned as she came, again, gasping. "Turned up the sensitivity just to see what that would be like, now that it is an option." Laying across Chet. "Fuck, almost too much to take. I think I came like six times." Laughing lightly. "Note to self. Don't turn the sensitivity up to eleven unless I really mean it."

Chet nodded. "Yeah. Wow. The new parts feel extra real, too."

Judy smiled. "Yep. Top of the line, of course. Thus the adjustable response. I could turn it all the way down and it would take a gang bang train a mile long to get me off. I'd never do that to you, but I may turn it down for a short period so I can ride you until you can't take it anymore."

Chet laughed. "I believe that. Do I get to stay tonight?"

Judy nodded. "If you want. If you are up to it after a rest. I want you in the shower, too. We haven't done that in a while and I'm feeling especially frisky."

"No kidding." A lecherous grin taking over his muzzle as he leapt up and chased her into the bathroom with a screech of laughter.

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Late that next morning, Judy was woken when she got an alert from Fin that Angie was awake. As she and Chet were still entangled with each other, she projected herself using the holograms and appeared in the recovery room, seeing Angie hooked up to so many machines to keep her alive while they built her new parts made her heart hurt even though she didn't have one anymore.

Judy stepped up to the bedside. "Angie. Oh sweetie. I'm so sorry. It was a muscle spasm in the wolf's paw, and they were using some outlawed ammo. Nasty business."

Angie looked up at Judy. "Hey… I can't really feel my body."

Judy nodded. "Yeah, they have a neural block in place. It just short of killed you. If we didn't have as advanced a set of facilities as we do, it would have. You're going to have a lot of reconstruction and cybernetics. But don't worry, in this case it is completely covered by being my employee. Even maintenance. So don't stress. There are a few questions for you, if you feel up to it.."

Angie grinned. "Would that happen to include the install of a chip, if I wanted one?"

Judy grinned in response. "Was actually one of my questions. But only one of them. I'll update Fin and Honey. Now… You know I'm a hunter, right?" Angie gave a nod. "Well, you know I'm a cyborg, but you probably didn't know that I was a full conversion borg at this point. The so-called vigilante, The Borg, is not a vigilante at all. That's just me using a customized combat unit."

Angie's eyes went wide. "No way!"

Judy laughed lightly with a nod. "Very much, way. I'm actually still at my apartment with Chet. I'm projecting using hologram emitters and such. That said, we have decided that it is time we add to the team. That means you'd train up to be a hunter, take the courses and such, and then get access to The Borg level tech, in the form of a custom cyber-suit, to help me hunt down criminals and scum across the city."

Angie blinked and looked away for a second before turning her head back. Her head being the only part she could move due to the neural block. "Hang on. You're telling me that my boss, the unassuming cyborg rabbit who was once a ZPD cop, is in fact, The Borg. Who is actually just her acting as a Hunter, and you're asking me to join you as you build a team of hunters? I'd get power suits, weapons, and we'd get to kick criminal tail. Like the scum that nearly killed me?"

"Basically. Yeah. There is a lot more to it. You have to qualify as a full hunter. There are confidentiality agreements, cyber monitoring by Honey, things like that."

Angie let out an almost manic laugh. "As if there was a question. I'm in!"

"Not even going to think about it?"

Angie smiled. "No need. I overheard Fin talking to Honey about needing to convince you to add to the team, months ago. I knew you were a hunter, and you don't keep a license like that without using it. So I assumed he meant you setting up a team of hunters, which I guess is true. Just didn't make the connection with The Borg. It's a terrible name."

Judy rolled her eyes. "Don't have to tell me that. Once we have an actual team, we'll need code names, and maybe I can finally lose that name. One reporter couldn't come up with something better and you get stuck with a stupid name." Seeing Angie starting to fade. "Anyway. I'll let Fin and Honey know, we'll get you back on your feet. You rest. One of the others will be by to check on you and when you're awake again, ask you about some of the upgrades you want."

Angie yawned. "Sounds Anubis."

Judy shook her head as she returned herself to her body and Chet. "Kids these days. I don't get why they use the name of an ancient god of the dead in place of awesome, or great, or…"

Chet chuckled sleepily next to her. "Every generation has such a thing. What got you started on it though?"

Judy smiled. "Just thinking. Anyway, are you up for that shower?"

Chet yawned. "You mean, another shower. But, yeah. You may not have to worry about it, but us still organic people have to deal with sticky fur. Planning on helping me with that?"

Judy got up, pulling Chet with her. "Sure, and helping you get sticky again."

"I'll never understand how Nick kept up with you."

"That ZPD training was good for more than just making him the sexiest fox alive."

"Fair."

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Later that week, Judy was standing on the top of a building in her fully upgraded combat chassis. She was watching a group of less than reputable mammals make an arms deal. She already had the chief on the phone and he was watching through her video feed, ready to send in SWAT and such.

Her combat Chassis was slightly larger than Lizz, while mostly fox in shape. There was no fur, just metal and a coating that acted as an active cloak, which she had turned on at the moment. It was, as Fin put it, a fucking tank with legs. The tail had clusters of laser emitters, nearly a hundred micro-missiles with a range of about one mile, as well as thousands of razor sharp needles that were able to be charged up and then deliver that charge like a capacitor, discharging into whatever they struck, all the while looking like metal fur.

The body itself was physically stronger than an enraged bull elephant, was armor plated, had missiles, tranqs of the new variety she had tested in the store front, as well as multiple lethal firearms. It also carried dozens of restraints designed to hold anyone from a mouse to an elephant. She could remotely hack all but the most thoroughly air-gapped system and the claws were sharp enough to rend steel like warm butter with a hot knife. There were some new plasma blades as well as untold other new toys.

Watching the deal go down, Judy, with Chief Wolford listening in on her feed, quietly chuckled. "Dude, did you hear what Barry's crew did? Got pinched by the cops. One of these shredders barely grazed some deer and just about splatted her."

The other mammal nodded. "Yeah. We heard. At least they have the sense to keep their muzzles shut. Do you? I can promise you. You open your traps if you get pinched and you won't have to worry about seeing a trial."

The first mammal, an elk, put up his hooves. "Hey. Hey… No worries here. We know which side our bread is buttered. Besides, these are meant for the Kelvin's, just as you asked. No survivors if we have a say in it."

The second mammal smiled, an Iberian Ibex, though there was nothing pleasant about it. "Good. Now, enough chatter. You got the cheese to pay for this or not?"

"Yeah. I got it." Pulling a large stack of bills from their jacket. "Right here. That should be enough, based on what you said, for the guns and the ammo."

Quickly counting the bills. "Excellent. Good doing business with you."

Taking aim, Judy fired a tracker, hitting her mark. The little rubber ball cracked open silently upon impact with the ground next to the ibex's feet, a spider-like tracker quickly crawling up his hooves and into his pant leg. Over the comm link she spoke to Chief Wolford. "Okay Chief. I've got a signal from the seller. You have the frequency on the weapons I already tagged."

Chief Wolford chuckled. "You make this almost too easy. What're you going to do with the seller? He's the bigger fish, here."

"Simple. Follow him for a while. See if I can find out where the stash is, or get a tracker on whoever delivers the goods to him, etc… etc… until I find the source itself. Hopefully… What's that?"

"What's what?"

Judy ignored the chief, focusing on a new mammal approaching the mammals conducting the deal. Judy talking to herself over the link as it was being recorded. "Tiger, but moving a little funny. Scan suggests he's high, but something is off. Going to get himself killed." She exclaimed and lept from the building a second later, the feed cutting off to the chief, though she kept up her monologue as it was still being recorded. "Power spike. He's one of those new GenoM military models. They must want to keep something about the weapons or the ammo secret. No wonder the chief has been having a hard time tracking this stuff down. Or the weird combat they keep hearing about."

Judy charged across the street. "Halt and stand down! You're under arrest!"

The buyer and seller looked up and assumed she was talking to them. The seller yelled. "Shit, it's The Borg. Get the fuck out of here. Don't say shit!" Turning and running for his car.

The buyer had already bailed, with the GenoM cyborg giving chase. Judy cursing. "Damn, that thing is fast." Firing several laser bursts at its legs, and while scorching the clothes it was wearing, it didn't slow the thing down. At first she wasn't sure if it even noticed. Deciding she needed to get ahead of things, she performed a power leap, propelled even faster with a burst from the jump jets in her feet and back. Landing past the GenoM cyborg and the buyer, she side stepped around the buyer who barely noticed her. If anything he ran faster after he realized who he just ran past.

The GenoM cyborg grinned, the visage making it clear that this was not a normal mammal. "Excellent. While I don't get to complete that mission, someone else will. I do get to take you out and collect your tech. My boss will probably love that even more."

"Don't count your chickens before they've hatched, Fuzz Face. Again, stand down. You're under arrest."

"For what? You're not a cop. You're some over-teched vigilante that thinks they're Iron Mammal or something."

Judy chuckled. "Hey, I'm required to say it. What for, is being an unregistered cyborg."

"Well, you're wrong there, not a cyborg, but it doesn't matter what I am." Acting as if to yawn, the emitter of a very powerful laser appeared, firing off a blast that melted and shattered the road where Judy was a moment before. She saw him begin the yawn, picked up the energy spike, and spun out of the way, flicking a dozen tazer darts from her tail, then a dozen explosive darts. The borg was staggered for a second but otherwise unphased as it grew in size, expanding, until it had nearly doubled in size and clearly not a mammal, exposed metal and cables clear to see.

"Nice toys, but hardly enough to even chip the paint."

The Boomer deployed a pair of weapons from its arms and began to open fire with high explosive rounds, leaving Judy to dodge and weave to keep from being hit. Her analysis of the weapons stated that the laser would have caused damage, the explosive rounds would as well, but not significant damage like the laster would. It was also super hot still and clearly had the heat problem that Honey solved with her new units.

Moving in, she engaged the borg, getting inside its firing line and using her claws to destroy the weapons as it tried to kick her. She rolled through it and added a hip toss into the nearby building. She then delivered four missiles into the borg as it tried to pull itself out of the rubble.

Cursing, the borg looked to see the destroyed joint of its knee. "Damn it. Well, you win this one, Borg. We've got a read on your capabilities now. It's all about the tail, and gotta watch the claws. Judy however was not sticking around. She had picked up the dangerous build up of energy in the borg's power core and bailed, leaving a little drone to observe and record. Around the side of the building she was airborne and moving away as fast as she could. The blast still almost knocked her out of the air.

She returned later to find only a smoking crater and scrap metal at best. Her drone picked up that it was some kind of plasma explosion that glassed everything in a ten meter radius. Thankfully there was nothing flammable in the immediate area, just concrete and brick.

Returning home after a thorough scan to make sure she had no trackers, or tags of any sort. Since the borg she had fought was clearly under orders to take her down, one could not be too careful. After switching bodies, she found Honey and Fin. "Hey, guys. Did you see all that?"

They nodded, Fin growling. "You got a target on you now. That was no cyborg for sure. Now that I know what to look for, we can pick it up sooner, but it gives off every indication of just being a normal mammal until it goes hot. Probably call it combat mode. They'll be ready for you, so I am going to add some surprises. I'm givin you those whip swords you always wanted, but they'll be equipped with the plasma blade boost. I'll be upping the yield on some of your missiles, etc… Next time you encounter one, don't talk to it, just kill it."

Judy nodded. "Yeah. I can agree on that. Also, I had a thought. Check the data environment in and around the fight, filtering for my stream. I wonder if that thing wasn't remote driven."

Honey nodded. "I'll check on that. Certainly possible, given what we saw and what it said. Though GenoM calls them Boomers. Not sure why, or wasn't. Until we got to watch one go boom."

Judy smiled and nodded again. "Okay. How's Angie doing?"

Fin chuckled and shook his head. "She's coming along great. She's a great add, but she is going to take a few months before she is ready for the test and longer still before she is ready for the field. Still, we will get her there."

"Okay. I'm going to get some rest. Let me know if you find anything."