A Zootopia to Remember
Nick and Judy walked up to the store front. Judy cocked her head to the side as she read the storefront, it's archaic writing standing out in a street in FoxBurrow.
Judy turns to Nick "Really Nick? The Honey Badger Firearms?" to the snickering of Nick "yea, because when you need a weapon so you don't give a da…" Judy taps her foot "..rn."
Judy grins brightly "Good fox." and walks into the store, the bell chiming tinkling in the background.
An old honey badger walks in from the background with a grumpy face that immediately lights up, upon seeing who entered. "Nick!". The honey badger rushes around the counter and gives Nick a bone crushing hug, physically lifting him off the ground to deliver it.
Judy snickers beside Nick "I take it you know him?"
The badger lets go of Nick and turns to Judy then back to Nick "Really? A cop?" Judy's ears go down her back and Nick waves a hand "She's one of the few good ones, which is why she's here."
The badger gets a scowl and breathes in to berate his friend when he catches in the air of their mingled scent. He backups up a step, points to Nick… points to Judy… points to Nick "You.. her… you…"
Nick chuckles while Judy holds her head in her hands and mutters to herself "I need a better body wash. Yes… maybe something abrasive…"
Nick rolls his eyes and turns to the badger "Yes Tom, she's… special. Not only for a cop but for me. Now you know how much I trust her. We need to be set up, the works, full military, newest stuff you got."
Tom played his ears back "Nick…" staring pointedly to the bunny "That is… illegal."
Nick passes his P.I. license to Tom who takes it, raises both eyebrows then passes it back still shaking his head "That helps, but it's not a get out of jail card, for either of us. The high end military stuff get land us both in hot water."
Judy places a paw on Tom "It's for both of us actually, and we need it."
Tom blinks down to the bunny, and turns to Nick "Need? What the hell Nick?"
Nick sighs "We're going to war, and everyone is freaking clueless."
Tom just stares at Nick, turns down to the bunny, stares some more, sighs, and walks to the front door and flips the sign to closed, locks the door, pulls the shades, then heads back to the back room "Follow me. And Nick? This puts us square. All debts paid."
Nick nods fractionally "If it must."
Tom stops and stares to Nick "It's that important?"
Nick and Judy both nod at the same time which makes tom reach up and rub his head vigorously sighing "Fuck. Just… fuck. How bad, Nick?"
Nick sighs "FoxBurrow going away bad. Zootopia turning into a Dystopia bad. The world ending bad."
Tom stops again and stares into Nick's eyes "Fuck me. You're serious."
Nick breathes through his nose "Like a heart attack."
Tom changes direction to the back wall, and flips up a light panel on the wall revealing a button underneath he pushes.
Tom watches Nick and Judy's eyes bulge as the wall slides away revealing what would normally only be seen in sci-fi movies "Welcome to my lab."
Judy nearly hyperventilates "What the carrot sticks, Nick?"
Nick grins a bit with a smarmy smile "Did I forget to mention that Tom is X-military intelligence and was part of the R&D for weapon research?"
Judy glares daggers into Nick's skull "That must have been left out."
Nick shrugs and grins "Oops?" then punches his arm from an extremely violent punch. "Ouch! Dannit Carrots, that'll bruise!"
Judy "Good! Maybe when your coat goes from red to black and blue you'll stop trying to be cute and keeping important details from me." Judy looks sadly up to Nick "I can't help you if I don't know everything, Slick."
Nick, still rubbing his gut looks contrite down to Judy "I… I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I was trying to be cute and show off a little but you're right. Wrong time, wrong thing, wrong moment."
Judy, still smiling sadly reaches over and rubs the spot she punched "Nick, I love you, but we're in this together. I know you were alone so very long, and I wish that wasn't true. But we're here together now. Better or worse, you're stuck with me."
Nick passes his paw over Judy's on his stomach "I'm so sorry Judy, wasn't thinking it fully through, but you're right. Will you accept my apology? And I love you, too."
Judy sniffs a bit and slowly walks over and hugs her fox who wraps his arms around her.
Tom just stares at them both, eyes wide open with his jaw opened "Who the hell are you and what have you done to Nick?"
Judy laughs in Nick's fur and Nick again rolls his eyes "What is it? Pick on Foxes day?"
Tom answers "It's always that day, but I think I deserve an explanation or you're not getting a thing."
Nick and Judy glance over to Tom who stands there with a rather pissed off look and his arms crossed and both glance to each other and nod.
Nick sighs "We can't answer everything, but in summary, our minds are from the future, which was a living hell by the way, came back to change that future, and need to be weaponized to make it happen because we're up against some sadistically powerful individuals who would rather see us skinned and mounted to the wall."
Tom lowers his arms staring at Nick the entire time "You know I was part of military intelligence. I can tell when someone is lying."
Judy looks up "And?" She is getting fed up as well.
Tom sighed "You're not lying. OK. Who are we talking about? Three letter agencies? The corporate sins? The political engine? The criminal syndicate?"
Nick sighs "The commonwealth and all the above, in a joint bid of power and control."
Tom stumbles and sits on the floor "Fuck me, Nick. Are you serious?!"
Judy looks up, tears in her eyes "As a bullet to the body."
Nick just holds Judy tighter as she hiccups.
Tom pales and flips up a hidden wall and enters a long line of digits, the side wall slides up revealing another room "OK, screw the weapons of mass destruction, we're going for the home run. All my prototypes."
Nick and Judy walk in and do slow circles while whistling. Nick looks to Tom "Damn, Tom. This is shit right out of Star Wars!"
For once Judy doesn't even bother to hit him, stunned into silence herself with what is on presentation.
Tom gently pulls down a pair of pistols, both exceptionally small, to the size of Nick and Judy and a handful of boxes of rounds "These are, for lack of a better term, automatic high-yield crossbow guns."
Judy blinks "Wait wait.. why crossbow bolts and not bullets?"
Nick smiles grimly "Stopping power. The added weight and density means it'll push through damn near anything, including a good deal of military rated armor."
Tom raised an eyebrow "Exactly so. Both guns have 10 round cartridges, easy mag load, elite custom. I call the guns Honey Badger Elite Special. Because if you use these babies, you won't give a damn."
Judy again, says nothing taking the gun like it's an artifact of a lost civilization. Nick just cocks the gun and checks the mag "How's the accuracy and range?"
Tom smugly looks on "500 meters, pinpoint accuracy, zero. Let me repeat that. Zero. Recoil."
Nick just looks at the gun then at Tom "How the hell did you manage that?"
Tom grins "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you."
Judy smirks then stops smirking looking at Tom's dead pan look "Wait.. you're joking right?"
Tom and Nick both look at Judy, their faces betraying nothing.
Judy looks up to both and frowns "You're messing with me, aren't you."
Tom and Nick break up laughing "Damn Nick, she's a keeper. I hate cops, but that bunny is growing on me hella-fast."
Nick grins "That's my bunny. Get your own." Judy pulls her ears over her blushing face "Sweet cheese and crackers. Carrot picking foxes and their cherry picking badger friends…" and trails off muttering to herself.
Tom blinks and points to Judy "OK, that's adorable. If you were not together, I'd be keeping her."
Nick sub-growls "My bunny. Get your own."
Judy pips up with a chirp "I have a family of over 270 sisters and brothers if you're inttteerrressttted." ending it in a lolling tune.
Tom drops his ears back "I..uh…" (coughs) "… I'll get back to you on that."
Nick low-five's Judy as Tom looks back "What else you want?"
Nick gets serious "The works, and we'll need stunners as well as body armor."
Tom nods grimly "We have a layered gel based armor protector layer. It's quite thin and can fit under most outfits and clothing. It's rated to stop just shy of 50 caliber, and even that it'll slow down enough to let you live through it." Tom looks down at the gun still in Nick's hand "It won't do shit against that weapon though. You'll shoot through it like tissue. Don't lose it."
Nick rubs the gun in his hand and nods slowly, Judy does the same with the gun Tom passes her, a match to Nicks. She's instantly surprised how light it is and looks up to Tom.
Tom grins "The gun is made from a unique polymer. High heat resistance, shatter proof, made to be light. The ammo is made from a different material. The ammo clip will be slightly heavier than the gun itself, but the gun was made with this in mind which is why it'll be slightly off center when you eject the magazine. The ammo has intentional weight and length to them to give it punching power.
Tom, still digging in his box of delight gives a satisfied 'ah!' sound and turns around with two sets of smaller guns and hands them to Nick and Judy.
Capacitance gel shooters. It primes the gel bullet with electricity to fire off to the mammal. If they're wearing ballistic armor, it has minimal effect but should still give them a considerable jolt and stun them slightly. Try to aim for an unprotected part of their body if you plan to use them. It has a 50 shot magazine. It takes about 3 seconds to charge a gel before you can fire it, so they're slow firing. Be aware of that. It has a range of about 35 meters for on-target, with a total range of up to 100 meters though that'll include a ton of drift. So classifies as a medium range weapon.
Tom hands Judy and Nick conceal holsters, then pauses and reaches into the bin and pulls out two extremely small palm-sized weapons. Judy could hide the gun in her own palm it was so small.
Tom look at them "That is what I call the Hornet. It's a modified. .22 AP jacketed round 5 round clip hold out weapon. Keep it in your belt loop or somewhere you can easily smuggle in. It won't penetrate anything but the lightest body armor, but if your ass is on the line, it may save your life."
Nick, grim faced nods as he and Judy pack away the holdout pistol then Nick pauses and asks "Do you have any blades?"
Tom blinks "Oh-ho, close and personal? I got just the thing."
Tom hands Nick and Judy hilts, they look conspicuously like light saber hilts.
Judy reverently rubs them down "No… way…"
Tom pauses in expectation then laughs out loud "no, they're not ightsabers. Can't say I've not been trying, but we just don't have the power to generate a field like that currently."
Nick blinks remembering something he had 30 years from now that worked to power his prototypes "I… may have something."
Tom blinks "Wait what?"
Nick nods "I had a unique fusion capacitor I designed in the future that may work for a light saber, but it won't have a long life. Maybe 10 minutes. It was meant to generate fast and hard charges, not longevity."
Tom nods "Give me the specs, I'll work on it and see what I can come up with. Huh. A real to God light saber. That'd be something."
Judy just stares back and forth and waves her hilt at them "OK, then what is this?"
Tom grins "Oh that's an expandable monofilimant sword. It has a charge capacitor that rolls out the filament and the charge solidifies it into a static form. Discharge and it'll roll back into the hilt. Monofiliment me3ans it'll cut through damn near anything, except another monofiliment and some heavier armor. Be very careful with them."
Nick and Judy put the hilts away and grins to each other.
Tom grumbles under his breath "Didn't hear a word I said.. twitterpated fools."
Nick and Judy are still goo-goo eyeing each other an Tom clears his throat "OK OK, get out of here you two. Nick, I'll put it on your tab. Don't worry about paying, I know you're good for it. But if things are as bad as you say, we're going to be needing a lot more people. A lot more weapons. And I have a lot of work ahead of me. Keep me in the loop. Oh, and on that…"
Tom tosses phones to Nick and Judy. "Encrypted military communication. Uses a private channel just for me, even if someone traces it they'll just pick it up as background noise. Range on these is 500 miles, I have repeaters if we plan to need longer ranges. It does not do satellites. They are a man in the middle and will forcefully decrypt all traffic and drop anything it can't decrypt. They're ran by corrupt assholes."
Nick nods "yea, part of the problem we have to address."
Tom walks to the front of the store and flips the sign back to open, holding the door open to Nick and Judy "You both have a hell of a lot of work ahead of you and I don't envy you. Good luck. We are all going to need it."
Nick and Judy hold out paws and gets knuckle-bumped. Judy gives a surprised Tom a hug "Be safe."
Tom looks over Judy's head to Nick "Protect this bunny or I'll skin your ass and mount it over my workshop."
Nick gives a sloppy salute as Judy laughs into Tom's chest, pulls head his down for a quick peck on the cheek and back skips with a smile out the door and walks slowly away. Nick shakes his head at the blushing Tom and waves with a few digits as he follows Judy out, the door closing behind them.
Tom shakes his head "Damn Nick, where did you ever find that bunny? She's a keeper."
Tom puts his glasses on his head and pulls up a pad of paper and starts to take notes "Well, this is going to absolutely bankrupt me, but it's time to start ordering supplies."
With pad in hand, he picks up the phone and dials a number by heart.
"… yea, Jerry? Tom. I have an order for you. Yes. It's going to be expensive. No, I can't explain it. Level? Omega." Tom pulls the receiver off his ears and winces "Yes… YES damn it, I'm not kidding. Now pull up an order invoice and start typing, we'll be here the rest of the day. Yes. It's that bad. Yes, bring in the rest of the team. We're going active."
As they type away, you see an old, worn, badge by the pad of paper that Tom is working on. It's got a symbol of a death head, an arrow stuck through it ear to ear, and under it 'For Life and For Country.'.
it's a badge that shouldn't exist. A badge if seen sends fear into anyone who saw it. The badge of the Elimination Squad of black ops.