"These," Judy stated, spitting loudly, "are not real vegetables."

Nick cocked his head just slightly to the side. "You had to taste them to know that?"

She rolled her eyes, laughing as she tossed the wax cucumber back into the opened crate. "Well, I just wanted to be sure."

"Seriously Carrots, with insight like that it's amazing you didn't make detective sooner."

"Okay, that's enough out of you, Mister Smarty-Fox." Judy shot him an amused look. "My point is that it's pretty strange for a refrigerator truck belonging to a Podunk-based vegetable wholesaler to be hauling wax vegetables."

"I'll admit that it stretches the imagination a little."

Jumping down from the trailer, Judy turned to face her partner. "Y'know, this would have been so much easier if we'd just found a bunch of drugs in the truck."

"And it would have been easiest if we hadn't pulled over at all." Nick grumbled. "Considering we're off-duty."

"I know, but it happened right in front of us!".

He groaned, running a paw wearily over his face. "Carrots, we're detectives. All this side-of-the-road patrol nonsense is supposed to be behind us."

"Come on, Nick. A jackknifed trailer truck in the middle of the city? A driver who tries to flee the scene the second he sees flashing lights?" She gestured to the morose-looking skunk handcuffed to the truck's rear bumper. "This kind of thing just begs to be investigated."

He glared down at her as one of his ears flicked in annoyance. She grinned unrepentantly back up at him.

"Fine." He muttered. "We'll stay until forensics arrives, and that's all."

"Woo!" She pumped her fist joyfully. "We're on the case!"

Shaking his head, he watched her run back to their unmarked cruiser to request the forensics team in question.

"Is she, like, insane?"

Turning to regard the handcuffed driver, Nick offered the skunk a simple nod. "Yes. Yes, she is."

Despite its open-and-shut appearance, Judy was insistent that they dig deeper into what Nick had begun calling, 'The Case of the Faux Produce'. She was so certain there was something more to discover that, two hours later, the pair of them stood in front of Chief Bogo's desk trying to convince the buffalo of the same thing.

"The vegetable wholesaler that owns the truck, Spring Harvest LLC, is owned by a bighorn sheep named Grant Shepherd." Judy handed a file folder to the Chief. "Shepherd has suspected ties to some criminal organizations, but nothing definitive enough to investigate."

"Fascinating." Bogo drawled. "Kindly explain why I should care in the slightest?"

Nick chose that moment to weigh in. "When the forensics team was looking over some of the truck's crates, they found a chemical residue resembling a pharmaceutical-grade stimulant. What's strange is that the compound doesn't match anything we have on file, and that hints at the possibility of a new designer drug."

"That's a bit of a stretch, Detective."

"Maybe, but we think it's worth looking into." Granted, the 'we' in that sentence was a bit of an exaggeration. But Judy had convinced him that there might be more going on, so as far as the Chief was concerned, they were a united front.

"Fine. If you want to dedicate your time to this, go right ahead. Talk to every store that Spring Harvest supplies, see if we can't find out where this mystery compound was going."

"I don't think so, sir."

The Chief blinked. "I beg your pardon, Hopps?"

"I said no, sir." Judy repeated, meeting the buffalo's glare with a calm, steady gaze. "If we start doing that, we won't even have visited a third of them before word gets back to someone at Spring Harvest. We're better off leaning on the driver. If we put enough pressure on him, we may be able to get enough for a search warrant before Shepherd knows we're on to him."

With a mildly impressed snort, Bogo handed the case file back to her. "It's your investigation Hopps, so it's your call. Follow your instincts, but I expect to see results."

Judy grinned. "You will, sir."

"Very well, then. Carry on."

As soon as they were out of the buffalo's sight, Nick leaned over to give his partner a playful nudge. "Damn, Carrots. Way to bust out the confidence. I betcha old buffalo butt didn't see that coming."

"Thanks." She frowned. "But now we actually have to solve the case."

"Just believe in yourself, Fluff." He grinned as they reached their shared desk space. "You know I do."

As he started rifling through his disastrously cluttered desktop in search of their suspect's arrest record, he failed to notice that his partner hadn't responded to his comment. In fact, all she'd done was stand back a ways, eyeing him speculatively. After a long moment, she glanced from side-to-side to see who was in earshot as a slow smile crept onto her face.

"Hey, Nick?" He turned to find Judy gazing at him in a decidedly non-Judy kind of way.

"What's up?"

"Do you have any plans after work tonight?"

The question was innocent enough, but something in the way she asked it left Nick feeling a little warm under the collar. "Nothing in particular. Why?"

As she moved closer, the fox found himself entranced by the look in her amethyst eyes. "We should go out to dinner."

"Y-yeah. Sure." His mouth had gone inexplicably dry. "We can hit the diner down the street and grab a bite to..."

"No, Nick." She interrupted, placing a warm paw over his mouth. "We should go out to dinner."

"Oh." He blinked as his brain tried to catch up. "You mean like...dinner?"

"Mm-hm." She nodded as she ran her paw along his muzzle, tracing a line down his neck to idly play with the fur at his collar. "Does that sound like fun?"

Not trusting his voice, the fox nodded dumbly.

"Good. It's a date, then." She smiled, leaning in closely enough that he could feel her breath on his whiskers. Then, with a playful wink, she stepped away from him. "But right now, we have a suspect to talk to."

With that, she turned and sauntered out of the bullpen, leaving the stunned fox with his back still pressed against the wall. "Oh boy..."

"You say you didn't do anything wrong, Brad?" Leaning uncomfortably close, Judy was playing her role as 'bad cop' to a hilt. "Then why did you run?"

"I wasn't running." The wide-eyed skunk stammered. "I was going to get help, I swear!"

"Running to get help when the police were already there? In the opposite direction, I might add." Nick asked, the very picture of the politely skeptical 'good cop'. "C'mon, Bradley. We want to help you, but we can't do that if you lie to us. You need you give us something we can work with."

"I've told you everything I know!"

"The hell you have!" She snarled, sweeping the coffee cups off the table. The skunk jerked back in alarm, wondering where the grinning bunny from earlier had gone.

"Take it easy, Carrots!" Nick pulled her back into her chair. "Let's dial it back a little, okay? Why don't we let Mr. Mason think about his situation for a while?"

Holding the door open, he gently ushered the fuming bunny out into the hall. Casting on last look at the agitated skunk, Nick carefully schooled his expression to convey a balanced mixture of sympathy, authority, and concern. Just enough to plant the seed in the suspect's mind that confessing to the fox was safer than facing the bunny.

Gesturing to a nearby uniformed officer, he directed that Bradley be escorted back to the precinct holding cells before hurrying to catch up with his partner. He fell into step beside her as they walked in tense silence back. Settling into his seat, he took a moment to gaze at his partner across their connected desks. "Carrots, you know I love your 'bad cop' routine, but you might want to ease up a little. The poor guy looked like he was about to have a stroke."

"He's lying to us." She grumbled as she tried logging into her computer, incorrectly entering her password twice and slapping the side of the monitor in frustration. "Piece of shit."

Nick's eyebrows rose at the uncharacteristic curse. "Maybe. Or maybe he's just a regular truck driver who didn't know what he was hauling."

"Then why did he run?"

"There are plenty of reasons he might've run. Forensics found a dime bag of nip in the cab, and Brad does have a couple of minor possession charges on his record." Nick shrugged. "Maybe he was afraid of getting arrested again. Mammals have lost their jobs over a lot less."

"Since when do you have faith in mammals everywhere?" Judy grumbled.

"Since you woke up on the wrong side of the burrow, Carrots." He returned. "Besides, challenging one another is a key part of our distinctive investigative technique."

"Right." She sighed, running her paws over her ears. "I think you just get a kick out of being contrary."

"There's that, but it's mostly the investigative technique thing." He frowned at the unamused glare she aimed at him. "Look, I think you're getting a little intense about this. Not every case needs to be solved in forty-eight hours."

"I know what I'm doing, Nick." Judy screwed her eyes shut, reaching up to rub her temples. "I've been doing it longer than you, anyway."

"C'mon, you know I'm just trying to look out for you."

She scoffed. "As if I need you to."

"Okay, that was kind of mean." He gently lay a paw on her shoulder. "I'm starting to get a little worried here."

"Get the fuck off me!" Judy snapped, taking a swipe at the startled fox. "Is that how it works? I ask you to dinner and suddenly you're all paws?"

He staggered back a step. "Judy, what are you..."

"Just go take a walk, Nick." She muttered, turning back to her desk. "I have work to do."

Bogo watched the bewildered fox make his way out of the bullpen, then turned to consider the bunny muttering angrily to herself as she sifted through the documents strewn about her desk.

This wasn't the first time he'd seen this kind of behavior. The job was stressful enough without putting extra pressure on oneself. Skilled as Hopps was, perhaps her responsibilities as a detective were proving to be more taxing than she had expected. The rabbit had always been driven to excel, but she wouldn't be the first officer to overwork themselves in a misguided effort to prove something.

Fortunately, the remedy was simple – just ease their workload a bit, give them a chance to catch their breath and find their stride. As much as he expected results from the mammals under his command, their health and well-being always came first.

He strode purposefully toward the rabbit's desk until he was standing over her. "Hopps. A word?"

With a frustrated sigh, the rabbit threw her pen down and pushed away from her desk. Standing on her chair, she glared up at her superior. "Yes?"

He raised an eyebrow, hoping that would sufficiently communicate his displeasure at her tone. "I'm concerned that you may be over-extending yourself, so I'm reassigning the Spring's Harvest investigation to a more senior detective. Please gather up the relevant documents for hand-over."

"What? What do you mean you're reassigning the investigation?" She cried. "This is my fucking case!"

A hush fell over the bullpen as the other officers glanced at one another uncomfortably. Bogo's temper flared for a brief second before he clamped down on it, reminding himself that such an outburst was deeply uncharacteristic for her and was almost certainly a symptom of the pressure she was putting on herself.

"Hopps, there's nothing wrong with taking a lighter workload for a little while." The buffalo responded evenly. "You are clearly under a great deal of stress and not in any frame of mind to be leading an investigation on your own."

"So, what? The first sign of trouble and you're just going to put me back in that goddamn meter maid outfit?"

"Go home, Detective. Get some sleep and we'll discuss this further in the morning."

"The hell we will! We're going to talk about it right now!"

Realizing that there wasn't any more to be gained from this discussion, Bogo sighed and began turning to leave.

"YOU LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Judy snarled, her paw coming to rest on her sidearm.

The entire bullpen went silent as Bogo froze in place. Carefully avoiding any threatening movements, he slowly turned back to face the infuriated detective. "Hopps, you need to take a breath and consider what's happening right now. Take your paw off that weapon, then we can talk."

Taking a closer look at his smallest officer, he began to see that stress wasn't her only problem. The bunny's pupils were massively dilated, two black pools surrounded by thin purple rings. Her paws trembled as her nose twitched wildly. "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

"Alright, Judy. No one needs to get hurt today." He made an effort to speak in a soothing tone and began to take a slow step forward, halting when Judy's thumb deftly unsnapped her holster.

Glancing down at her weapon, he recognized the distinctive black and yellow hazard stripes of a maximum-dose tranquilizer dart and felt an uncharacteristic shiver of fear. Aptly nicknamed 'The Killer Bee', it was loaded with a highly potent neuro-sedative and intended only for use on the largest of suspects.

Although every ZPD officer was issued one, carrying it loaded when there wasn't an immediate threat was grounds for suspension. If Hopps fired that in the crowded bullpen, the result could be devastating. Trunkaby or McHorn might be able to fight the effects for a few seconds, but it would probably put him into a coma. Not a comforting thought when he seemed to be the focus of the bunny's rage. If she were to hit someone as small as Clawhauser or Wilde, they'd be dead in a heartbeat.

"THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES?! THIS IS HOW I GET YOUR RESPECT?!" She had begun shaking in earnest now, a hint of froth gathering at the corner of her mouth.

Likely attracted by the commotion – and showing a spectacular display of poor timing - her partner chose that moment to shoulder his way to the front of the crowded officers. "What the hell is going on?"

Hopps spun toward the sound of Wilde's voice, her sidearm clearing the holster in the blink of an eye. The entire bullpen flinched as she leveled her weapon on her partner. "N-Nick?"

"Carrots? What are you...?"

"They're not listening to me! Tell them they just need to LISTEN TO ME!"

"Okay, Carrots. No problem." He raised his paws and looked at her pleadingly over the weapon sights. "I promise that everyone is listening, alright? Just please...please put the gun down."

"What?" The frantic bunny glanced around the room. "Are you...you're on their side?!"

He shook his head, keeping his voice steady. "If there are any sides, I promise that I'm on yours."

"Nick, I..." Angry tears began to fall from her eyes. "I...I don't..."

"It's gonna be okay, Judy. I'm right here." The fox took a cautious step forward. "I'm right here with you."

For a second Bogo thought Wilde might have gotten through to her, then her eyes narrowed dangerously. "LIAR!"

Bogo felt his muscles seize at the sharp crack of Hopps' sidearm, his heart coming to a brief but jarring halt. Fangmeyer, however, acted without hesitation. The tiger's lightning-fast reflexes were the only thing that saved Wilde's life as she jerked him out of Judy's line of fire.

The high-velocity dart, loaded with enough sedative to kill the fox before he hit the ground, passed by Wilde with only inches to spare. It hadn't even hit the wall before Wolford had his taser drawn and leveled at the enraged bunny. She didn't have a chance to react before the twin barbs embedded in her side, sending ten thousand volts of electricity screaming through her nervous system. Even at its lowest setting, the bunny shrieked in agony as she collapsed to the ground.

"Stop! She's down!" Nick howled, madly struggling against the tiger's grip. "Please stop! You're hurting her!"

Nick's mind was drowning with a hundred different thoughts, each of them competing for his full attention. Unable to process them all, he let out a shuddering breath and reached up to place his paw on the reinforced glass barrier between himself and Judy.

The sight of his partner strapped to a hospital bed was almost more than his heart could bear. She'd been up for most of the night, spewing obscenities and straining violently against her restraints. She eventually had to be sedated to prevent her from hurting herself.

He'd tried, briefly, to achieve some kind of professional detachment. He'd thought back to the original Nighthowler case, made an effort to picture her as just another savage mammal; he couldn't do anything to help her while his brain was stuck in this endless cycle of meaningless noise. It was a futile attempt, though. Nighthowler victims were one thing. As frightening as they could be, they were ultimately so far removed from rationality that it was tough to imagine the mammal underneath. Despite being consumed by rage, however, this was still his Judy.

"Will she recover?" He asked hesitantly.

"At this point, it's impossible to say. Whatever toxin is affecting her, it's like nothing I've seen before." The doctor beside him shrugged helplessly. "It appears to adapt itself to the user's..."

"Victim." Nick glared at the shorter badger. "Carrots isn't some junkie. Call her a user again and we're gonna have a problem. You got that?"

"Y-yes, of course." The doctor stammered. "It...err...adapts itself the victim's individual neurochemistry. I'm afraid it's too early to determine what long-term effects there may be."

"But will she recover?"

The doctor sighed, recognizing the signs of a mammal who needed to be told their loved one would be alright. He'd seen it countless times before. Nevertheless, he'd decided a long time ago that - as a doctor – he had a duty of honesty to his patients and their families. Clearing his throat, he shook off the momentary fright the fox had given him.

"I don't have the answer you're looking for, Detective." He informed the taller mammal. "I'm genuinely sorry, but I just don't know."

END PART I