Disclaimer: Zootopia and all related characters are owned by Disney. All other characters, product names, trademarks, and copyrights, belong to their respective owners.

…..

Judy huffed and set the printout she'd been reading down on the table in front of her. She'd been excited when Clawhauser had given her the report from Dr. Badger's office as she walked by his desk on the way to the morning brief, but after a few minutes of technical reading, she was now pretty discouraged.

Dr. Badger's lead lab tech had described the various tests that had been run on Katie's blood, the problems with identifying substances that have had hours to be flushed from the body, and then summarized Katie's blood tests pretty succinctly by saying, 'Nothing unexpected was detected in the victim's blood.'

The tech had then written a more extensive report on the lab's testing of the liquid Nick had tried so hard to save. He described how unstable the liquid was and that its components had broken down and deteriorated too quickly to be adequately tested. He'd gone on to say that it wasn't so much the evaporation, but that something was probably missing that allowed the liquid to destabilize when exposed to the atmosphere. About the only useful thing the tech had figured out was that the liquid was definitely a botanical, he just couldn't identify from which plant or plants it had been processed from.

Judy shook her head, what had Nick said before he left, "A bunch of nothing," well that's all she had right now. What she needed was for Nick to text her back. She'd sent him a couple of texts last night, but he never replied. Judy chuckled, he was probably stuck in another pile of kits, what a goof. She'd try him again after the morning meeting was over.

Speaking of the morning meeting, 'Where was Bogo?' Judy started to drum her claws in frustration on the table while she waited for Bogo to arrive. Bogo was late. He was never late. It took another couple of minutes of officers whispering and wondering about what could happen to make the most punctual mammal on the planet late before Judy began to worry about what was going on with the Chief.

Judy was the first to hear the pounding hoofsteps just before the door to the bullpen was nearly ripped off its hinges by a very pissed-off buffalo. Slamming a fistful of papers on the podium, Bogo pointed at Judy and yelled, "Hopps, my office, immediately after the meeting."

Judy jumped to her feet without thinking, "Yes, sir."

Bogo glared at her for another few long seconds before addressing the rest of the officers. "I was just informed by the Mayor of Bunnyburrow that Officer Wilde was attacked by a group of unknown assailants and hospitalized late last night."

"WHAT!" Judy yelled.

"Shut it, Hopps. He's alright."

Judy relaxed a little until her ears swiveled to hear a whispering voice behind her. "I win, barely three days and the pelt got his ass kicked by a horde of fluffy bunnies."

Judy spun around and waved her finger in the direction of the voice, "If someone needs their tail kicked by a bunny, tell me and I'll be happy to oblige you in the ring."

"Stand down, Hopps. And the rest of you, can it." Glaring at everyone to make sure they knew he was serious, Bogo continued. "Wilde rescued a couple of kits. A little boy who had been washed down a river and almost drowned, and his older sister who was injured while pulling him from the water. After tracking the kits down, and carrying them to safety through about three miles of rough terrain at night, Wilde was attacked by some mammals near a local beaver pond."

Judy tensed up, she knew where that pond was. For the life of her, she couldn't believe it hadn't been torn down by now.

"This appears to be a local issue, but If any of you hear anything about the attack being sourced from the city, pass the tip on to Clawhauser, and he'll get it to me.

"I also want to remind you of precinct policy with regards to talking to the media or posting to social media. If you are asked about Wilde or the ongoing case in Bunnyburrow, you are to refer the reporter to the ZPD media liaison. If I hear of anyone breaking policy, they'll be on parking duty for a month."

After Bogo finished the brief, Judy headed up to his office and waited outside his door. She pulled out her phone and checked to see if there were any texts from her family about Nick. Seeing nothing, she sent a text to Janae. I heard Nick was hurt, what's going on? Why didn't you call me?

Judy heard Bogo approaching, so she put her phone away and waited.

Bogo led her into his office and pointed to the large mammal chair in front of his desk. Hopping up onto the chair, Judy remained standing as she waited for the Chief to let her know what he wanted.

"Have a seat, Hopps."

Judy reluctantly sat down in the large chair and waited.

"I take it from your reaction in the bullpen that you hadn't heard Wilde was assaulted last night."

"No sir, I texted one of my littermates to find out what's going on."

Bogo huffed, "Wilde is still in the hospital…"

Judy jumped up again, ears erect and focused on Bogo, "But, you said…"

"For observation, Hopps. He'll be released this afternoon, relax."

Before sitting back down, Judy heard her phone ping with a text alert. She looked at Bogo, who nodded once. Pulling the phone out, she saw Janae had replied. No idea, he never came back last night, will ask mom.

"My littermate doesn't know anything about Nick getting hurt, she's going to ask my mom if she's heard anything."

Bogo grumbled, "I'd think his host family, especially since it yours, would know if something had happened to a guest under their roof. I'm also a little concerned that the Mayor was overly worried about the media reaction to the assault on Wilde."

Picking up a printout from his desk, he waved the paper in front of Judy, "Have you read this article about Bunnyburrow that was posted last week?"

"Yes, sir. My dad called me about it when it came out."

Setting the paper down, Bogo put his hooves on his desk and looked Judy in the eye, "I want your honest opinion, how safe is Wilde in Bunnyburrow, and I don't mean doing his job as a cop, I mean safe from the citizenry?"

Seeing a blank look on Judy's face, he continued, "Hopps, the bottom line is, I don't have a warm-fuzzy that your people tolerate predators and as unhappy as I was about Wilde participating in this PR stunt, I will be seriously pissed off if one of my officers is being set up for another beating because of his species."

Judy wrung her paws in her lap, "Sir, Bunnyburrow has its problems, and they aren't always the most predator friendly, but the majority of the people are decent. I met Mayor Ackerbunn before she ran for office and she's passionate about bringing Bunnyburrow into the modern era, especially with regards to social issues like equal rights. I voted for her in the last election, and I remember she won by a wide margin, so I think most of the population is supportive of her ideas."

"And the ones that aren't?"

"There are a few families that are more speciest than most, but no worse in attitude than what you would find in Zootopia. Sir, since the Accords, rabbits have been pretty non-confrontational, and even back then, they only defended themselves when they had to. Nowadays, maybe four or five percent of the population is the type that would be willing to take action over a cause and far fewer anything close to violent action."

Bogo rubbed his temple, "Alright, but if I catch wind of any more problems, I'll pull the plug on this little social experiment. And understand this, if Wilde is ambushed again, I'll be sending my own people to Bunnyburrow to take action regardless of what Ackerbunn wants or whose turf I cross."

"Sir, I'd like to go to Bunnyburrow, if I leave now, I can pack and be there late tonight."

Bogo sat back in his chair and tented his hooves in front of his muzzle. After a few moments, he replied, "No, with Wilde gone, I need you here."

"But sir, Nick's my partner, and I'd like to help find whoever attacked him. And sir, he's all the way in Bunnyburrow, and I'm here, hundreds of miles away from him, I should be there, with him…helping."

Bogo leaned forward and glared at the fidgety rabbit in front of him and coolly replied, "Did you or did you not read the same report from Dr. Badger's lab that I read this morning?"

Judy cringed, "Yes, sir. I read it."

"And did you not tell me yesterday that a CI of yours had a lead you were going to follow up on."

"Yes, sir."

Bogo raised an eyebrow and waited.

Defeated, Judy said, "Of course, sir," sighing, she continued, "I'll talk to my littermate about keeping a better eye on Nick and letting me know if it looks like he's getting into any more trouble."

"Alright, that will do for now, you're dismissed. Go find Pawson and start your patrol."

Judy slid off the overly large chair and thudded to the floor. Turning to leave, she plodded toward the door, head down and ears droopy.

As Bogo watched his smallest officer trudge past his desk, he groaned to himself and wished again that he'd never agreed to let Wilde go to Bunnyburrow. He didn't know exactly what was going on between the two of them, but Hopps hadn't been the same since Wilde went on parking duty and it had only gotten worse when she found out that her partner was going to Bunnyburrow. As much of a pain in his tail that Wilde was, he and Hopps were one of his best teams, and he hated to see anything interfere with that, especially if it meant that he was going to have a distracted, unhappy officer investigating an important case.

"Hopps."

Judy turned back to her boss, "Yes, sir?"

"I've already approved your time off for next month so you can attend that festival you wanted to go to." Taking a breath, Bogo reluctantly added, "Keep up on your caseload, and I'll see what I can do about getting you a few days off before then, so you can visit with your partner and make sure he's staying out of trouble."

Judy instantly perked up, "Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! I won't let you down," and then hurried out of Bogo's office.

…..

The Mayor's office was silent except for the tinkling of ceramic shards falling to the floor.

Sheriff Hoofson, Ken Quillbert, and Daisy Moses, all watched as the remains of the Mayor's mug settled into a pile. With trepidation, all three mammals moved their focus to the enraged rabbit doe sitting at the desk in front of them. For nearly half a minute, Karen Ackerbunn glared at Hoofson until he visibly cringed and tried to look away.

"Look at me!"

Reluctantly, Hoofson looked into the dark pools of rage that were the Mayor, and as she stared at him, he felt as if his soul was being sucked out of his body. He gulped, trying to breathe under the onslaught from his boss.

"Don't you EVER make me have to talk with Chief Bogo like that again!"

Using her paw to emphasize her words, the Mayor quietly asked, "Now, I need you to tell me exactly how it is that Nicholas P. Wilde; first fox Officer of the ZPD; our poster child for improved pred-prey relations; who single handily found two injured bunnies in the pitch-black night; carried them both to safety on his back through miles of rough terrain with an injured arm, and then dehydrated and exhausted was attacked and might have been killed if not for Sarge Gardiner's kits coming to his rescue."

Ackerbunn looked at Hoofson with one of her best fake smiles, cocked her head to the side and waited.

"Umm…"

"Have the animals responsible for attacking Officer Wilde been apprehended?"

"No, ma'am."

Standing up, Ackerbunn pounded her balled up fists on the desktop and yelled out, "HOW. THE. HELL. DID. THIS. HAPPEN?!"

"I'm sorry ma'am, I asked Wilde to stop by the Thrasher's warren on his way home. We've gotten so many false alarm calls from the Thrashers that I thought this one was going to be the same thing. Everything that happened was a combination of bad luck, bad cell service, the dark, and a random group of drunk animals."

"Fine. Tell me why those animals haven't been found yet?"

"Ma'am, I spoke with both Officer Wilde and the young buck, Alex Thrasher, this morning and neither of them saw enough of the mammals to be able to make a positive ID. Alex heard some of the fighting, but with the music going, he couldn't hear any of the voices well enough to recognize them or figure out how many animals there were. Wilde told me that when he hurt his arm, he face-planted into the mud and from then on all he could smell was the river muck, so he wasn't able to get their scent. Wilde didn't see much either, between the truck lights blinding him and getting a bunch of dirt kicked into his eyes he pretty much couldn't see anything but blurs moving around."

Shrugging his shoulders, he added, "Wilde said that it was a group of rabbits that attacked him and that they had probably been drinking, but he couldn't say exactly how many there were, and with all the rain that came through before anyone from my office could get out to the pond to investigate, we don't have any footprints or tire tracks or any other evidence we can use. I'm sorry, but we have no way of figuring out exactly who attacked Wilde."

Karen ground her teeth in frustration, everything's gone to shit, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Wanting to tear into something, she pressed her stubby claws into the desktop and tried to gouge the surface.

Ken, sitting closest to the desk, whispered, "I ordered the claw resistant surface, sorry."

Karen turned her head and focused her ire on Ken. Lifting her paws off the desk, she reached toward Ken and made a gimme motion with her fingers. Ken reluctantly reached under his chair and pulled a mug out of the almost empty box and placed it in her paw. In a quick motion, she hurled it into the corner and watched the broken pieces fall in a cloud to the floor.

Sitting down Karen huffed, "Any chance I had of getting those grants approved or getting predator equal rights passed just got flushed down the toilet. When the media finds out about the attack on Wilde, and it spreads to the internet, we are screwed. There will be protests, our products will be boycotted, and some people may lose their farms or businesses. If it gets bad enough that the Commonwealth has to step in, the town will explode, and then the city council will push back on everything I want to do. This is a complete and utter disaster."

Shaking her head, Karen said in a softer voice, "I know I could've made this work; I just needed a little more time. Now…" Sighing, she added, "Yup, unless someone's got a brilliant idea they'd like to share, I think the youngest Mayor in history is about to have the shortest term in history."

All the mammals looked at each other, as much as they hated to admit it, they knew the Mayor was right. No way were they going to survive this.

Ken reached down under the desk again and pulled out another mug. Setting it on the desktop, he tried to lighten the mood, "Looks like there won't be a statue of you in the town square after all."

Picking up the mug, Karen shifted it back and forth between her paws as she quietly laughed, "Yeah, the only award I'll be getting is an 'Epic Fail' meme that will follow me on the internet for the rest of my life."

Tossing the mug back and forth a couple more times, Karen suddenly stopped and looked at Ken, "An award."

Ken thought for a moment and then smiled broadly, "Yeah, he saved those kits." He got up and started to pace, "Something big, we need to downplay the assault and highlight the rescue." Stopping in the middle of the room, he looked at Karen, "Brilliant. What have we got that we can give him?"

Hoofson cleared his throat, "Well, we have an award we give school kits for following rules like using the crosswalks and cleaning up trash from the roadside."

Everyone stopped and looked at Hoofson. Karen lifted an eyebrow and was about to say something when Hoofson broke the silence.

"Never mind."

Daisy spoke up, "Would any of the Harvest awards work?"

Karen made a face, "No, unless he rescued the largest cucumber ever grown, I don't think so."

Ken snapped his fingers, "Hey, what about that guy who rescued that family when their house caught on fire? That was like fifteen or sixteen years ago. Didn't he get something for bravery or service to Bunnyburrow? I remember reading something about what happened in an old article."

Karen furrowed her brows as she tried to remember, "Yeah, there was an award, um…"

"Madam Mayor, it was the Burrow Meister award. You probably don't remember much about it because it's only been given out a half dozen times in the last century."

Hoofson shook his head, "No, that award won't work, the Burrow Meister is only given out posthumously, Wilde is still alive."

"Actually Sheriff, that's not entirely accurate." Daisy turned to the Mayor, "Since I started working for the mayor's office over forty years ago, I've seen the Burrow Meister awarded three times. If I remember right, the award can be given out posthumously to as many recipients as you want, but only one living mammal can hold the award at a time."

Brushing back one of her ears, Daisy continued. "Mayor Owens, god rest his soul, was the real expert on the award, I remember him explaining it to me the first time he gave it out."

Karen leaned toward the older doe, "Daisy, please tell me you remember what he told you about the award."

"Yes, ma'am, he told me that the Burrow Meister is an Old Law award and that the Mayor can give it out to any deserving mammal as long as they have standing in the community and if another living mammal holds the award, they need to give their blessing for it to be passed on."

"Any mammal, not just a rabbit?"

Tapping her chin, Daisy replied, "I've only ever heard of the award going to a rabbit, but I do remember Mayor Owens saying that unlike the New Law, the Old Law doesn't reference species, so you should be able to give it to any mammal you decide deserves it." Pausing and then nodding to herself, she added, "Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure there's a copy of the Old Law translation downstairs in a box somewhere, if you give me a day or two, I believe I can find it and then you can read all about the award yourself."

Hoofson shook his head and interrupted, "Mayor, you heard what Daisy just said about that award, it's pretty special and has only been awarded a few times, are you sure you want to give it to Wilde?"

Karen shook her finger at Hoofson, "You just told me that those kits, injured, wet, cold, and lying in the muck all night with nothing on but swimsuits, weren't going to last two more hours let alone overnight. And you also said that we were lucky Wilde was around because no one else could have tracked them down and carried them out the way he did."

Looking Hoofson in the eye now, she continued, "So, unless you're telling me something different now, Wilde deserves that award, and if it just so happens that giving it to him solves another couple of problems, then I'm good with that."

"No, ma'am, you're right."

Karen nodded at Hoofson and looked over at Daisy, "Okay, is there someone living that has the award, or can I give it to Wilde?"

"Oh, my, yes. Mayor Burns. He was awarded the Burrow Meister about twenty-five years ago. All that good work he did to have the rail station located here in Bunnyburrow; everyone was so proud of him."

Karen looked perplexed, "He never told me he got an award from the town."

"Yes, ma'am and he'd know all about the award too, so if you'd like to talk with him about it, I'm sure he'd be able to help."

Karen nodded at Daisy and then refocused her attention on Hoofson, "He filled out the paperwork to work for the sheriff's department, right?"

"Yes, the first day he was here."

"Good, and we're paying him, and he's living with the Hopps family, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sounds like someone of standing to me."

Ken grimaced, "A Deputy for two and a half days? Kind of thin, don't you think?"

Karen nodded, "Yeah, well, today 'thin' is my middle name." Pointing at Daisy, "You go figure out what the award looks like and gin up a plaque or a ribbon or whatever it is." Switching to Hoofson, "Make sure all his employment paperwork is in order and sit on any info about the attack for a couple of days until we can present the award."

"What about Mayor Burns?" Hoofson asked.

"Leave him to me." Now focusing on Ken, "Quietly work the ceremony prep and prime your media contacts, once Mayor Burns agrees to help, I want to be able to move quickly. I'm thinking we do the presentation three days from now."

Scanning the room, "Any questions?" Everyone shook their heads. "Good, get moving. I want this to happen before the media catches wind of the fact that Wilde was attacked because he's a fox."