"Different" Pt. 3 Zootopia Fanfiction #7

"Oww, Carrots," Nick whined as he rubbed the sore spot on his arm that the rabbit had recently punched yet again. "Three punches in one day? That's a new record."

Judy rolled her eyes as she shook her head in playful exasperation at the fox. "Well, don't push your luck next time, and it might not have to be a new record."

"Yeesh, I'll keep that in mind then, Cottontail...Or maybe not," the fox smirked wryly at the rabbit, and she rolled her eyes again as she tried to suppress a smile. He was such a pain sometimes.

The pair was still walking down the sidewalk in the light sprinkling of rain while the late-morning sun was shrouded in clouds. They were only one city block away from their destination: Vapor Road, an area in the Meadowlands which was a district popular with grazing mammals. Once there, they knew that things were going to get serious so they mentally prepared themselves; undercover work was usually not as easy as everyone thought—there was a lot of risks involved.

To recap, the case file that they had been assigned said that there had been reports from locals of loud noises in alleyways, vehicles coming to and fro to pick up unauthorized and maybe illegal materials, and threatening, suspicious individuals near the area that seemed to stay in the same place, perhaps guarding something. The ZPD needed to find out more before they could just waltz in and start making arrests since the traffic cams hadn't picked up really anything suspicious in the area. At this point, anything could happen. Hopefully, though, they found something.

As she thought about this, Judy shifted her attention and noticed that it had seemingly stopped sprinkling. She promptly held out her paw just to check that it was true before expressing her happiness shortly after.

"Yay!" The rabbit cheered. "It stopped raining!" Judy turned to her partner only to see him almost unfazed by the change of weather as he sauntered beside her on the sidewalk, head held high with a wry smirk expressed on his vulpine features.

"I told you that it would—I am a weather man after all."

Judy scowled lightheartedly at the sarcastic, referenceable comment but didn't say anything as they continued to walk. She knew that the fox saw her scowl, however, because he suppressed a chuckle once she had emoted her slight irritation. 'Dumb fox.'

Taking his earlier statement into consideration, though, she began to think about it as they continued to walk. Of course, she had heard of how some mammals could sense a change in the weather before it even took place, and a part of her wondered if Nick was serious when he had told her earlier that the rain would stop.

Judy knew that because Nick was in the canid family, he had a hyper sense of smell. She had once read in a book that was the reason why canids had such long snouts; in other words, what is considered the visible part of Nick's nose was just the tip of the iceberg—his entire snout was filled with millions upon millions of olfactory receptors that could detect smells that she couldn't even imagine. Soon enough, however, her thoughts on the subject disappeared as she and Nick came across a street sign labeled Vapor Road, and to say the least, they were both perturbed and disgusted by its condition.

Everywhere, wooden crates containing who knows what littered its alleyways, some broken, some not. On the sides of the old apartment buildings, grime and graffiti lived while trash and muck were scattered along the filthy sidewalks. Untamed grasses and other various plants had sprouted through the cracked concrete wildly. The area almost seemed desolate if it were not for some silhouetted individuals talking in an alleyway and a few outlines of pedestrians—some walking hurriedly down the sidewalk as if they were uncomfortable or scared by themselves, and others not so much. The dim lighting caused by the overcast sky and the foggy atmosphere didn't seem to really help either.

Judy looked to Nick, and once their eyes met, they nodded to each other and continued to walk down the mucky sidewalk in silence; it was time to get serious. Once at the end of the sidewalk, when no one was around, Nick began to speak.

"This place has gone downhill—bad."

Although Judy had never been to Vapor Road in person until now, she agreed with him through nodding; the area must've been in better condition sometime in its life.

"Okay, so we stick together," Judy began, her eyes meeting again with her partner's. "That alley—the one where those animals were talking in—is where I think we should go first." Normally, some animals talking in an alleyway would not be enough to cause immediate suspicion in Savanna Central or surrounding areas, but this road was definitely a different story.

Nick nodded. "You read my mind, Carrots."

With that, they turned around and headed in the direction of the alleyway that they had seen and heard some shady animals talking in. Before they passed the opening of the alleyway, though, the pair stopped and casually hid from the view that the animals in the narrow passage had of the sidewalk; Nick leaned on a postbox near the opening of the alleyway while Judy took to sitting at an outdoor table of a run-down coffee shop only about 15 feet away from the fox. Almost immediately, the smell of tobacco smoke, alcohol, and other questionable things filled their senses. They could not see the animals inside of the alley, but they could definitely hear them; they were overly boisterous and seemed to be all male as the undercover duo eavesdropped.

"Oh, yeah! Those fools were all over that!"

"AHAHAHAA, AND THEY BELIEVED YOU?!"

At this point, Judy, with her tall ears upright in attention, pulled out her phone and began to record the alleyway, hoping to catch the suspicious animals say something that hinted to criminal activity.

"Yeah, it was CRAZYYYY! HAHAA!"

For about 30 long minutes, the conversation carried on in the same manner. Unfortunately, it did not reveal or hint at any information about illegal drugs, activities, and so on, much to the displeasure of the undercover duo. Deciding that he couldn't take anymore waiting, Nick eventually ditched his spot beside the postbox before walking over to Judy to talk of a new plan.

"Carrots," he whispered hastily, his ears down. "What should we do? They're not talking about anything new, just the same old stuff, and it's driving me nuts!"

Judy couldn't help but notice the faint crazed twitch of her partner's left eye. She promptly sighed as she put Nick's idea into consideration before stopping her phone's recording of the alleyway and putting her phone back into her pocket; it was true, they couldn't just sit there and wait for something to happen when there could be other things happening in the area.

"I guess we can walk around and see if there's anything else going on around here. If not, we'll come back to see if anything's changed with this situation."

Without further delay, Nick began casually walking down the dim sidewalk, his tail swishing behind him, before answering quietly over his shoulder as not to alarm the alleyway inhabitants that they had been previously spying on, "I'm definitely up for that."

Smiling, Judy hopped down from her seat and joined him.

"I can see how this road got its name," Judy commented as a cloud of fog enveloped them whilst they continued their stroll down the sidewalk of Vapor Road.

"Oh, yes, very vapory." Nick joked, and Judy rolled her eyes as he continued. "It's a wonder that this place hasn't been deemed a ghost town yet—there's no one here!"

"I know. For some reason, I expected this place to be loaded with animals," Judy admitted in a hushed tone. "I have yet to really see a single animal, though, other than the silhouettes that we saw walking down the sidewalk and the ones that were in the alley."

"Yeah, surprisingly, this ol' place used to be bustling but now…not so much," Nick added with a halfhearted look of acknowledgment.

Suddenly, the fox and the rabbit went silent as a group of shady grazing mammals walked past them going in the opposite direction; the group's eyes followed Nick and Judy like a hawk's, complete with a threatening glint. Although she tried to avoid looking at them, Judy had noticed that they were all prey animals. One was a smug-looking zebra sporting a shirt two sizes too big and baggy pants while the other two were a warthog and a wildebeest wearing similar thug-like attire; they didn't look like the types of animals that one would want to mess with at all, to say the least. Abruptly, Nick interrupted her observation with an elbow to the side.

"Ow! What was that fo—"

"Do you want us to get jumped, Carrots?" Nick whispered harshly.

The rabbit thought about the question carefully before responding with an equally harsh whisper. "No, but that doesn't mean you have to elbow me!"

"Yes," he paused, "it does…Listen, I don't want us to get hurt. In these parts, being seen with someone not of the same class—" He briskly gestured to himself and then to her, "is not kindly looked upon and can bring someone a lot of trouble…and we definitely don't need any of that." His emerald eyes shifted their gaze to her amethyst ones as he waited for some sort of response.

Judy just nodded.

Oh, yes, the rabbit definitely knew how one small difference can upset an entire society. She understood that some areas of Zootopia just weren't exactly…friendly towards seeing a predator and prey around each other let alone walk down the street together. Disturbingly, there were even hate groups that still sought segregation even though the law was against it.

Nick let out a small sigh before elaborating further. "I'm sorry for kind of snapping at you, it's just…bad things can happen if we're not careful." Looking at her, his expression brightened once he saw hers do the same.

"I understand. Now, do you wanna follow those guys or not, you dumb fox?" She quipped as she turned on her heel and began walking in the same direction as the sketchy group that had walked passed them about a minute ago. He smiled as he caught up with her.

Through the thick fog, they could see that the silhouette of the group was at least 30 feet in front of them, and the duo dared not to get any closer lest they wanted to give rise to the suspicion that they were following them.

Nick whispered, "It seems like they are going back to that same alleyway that those other animals were in." The fox had noticed that they were on the same path back to where he and Judy had first started walking from outside the alleyway.

Judy caught onto what he was saying and nodded in agreement.

"Maybe it's a meetup of some sort," she whispered her speculation to him. 'This undercover case could be over sooner than we expected,' she thought.

The suspicious group turned the corner, proving to the fox and the rabbit that there was, in fact, a very high chance that they were going to the same alleyway. After about 45 seconds, Nick and Judy cautiously turned the same corner, and to their surprise, the animals they were following were nowhere in sight; they had somehow vanished.

Nick and Judy shared a confused glance as they slowed their walk, wondering where the suspicious animals had disappeared to.

Suddenly, though, a dark familiar voice startled them from behind.

"Well, well, well. Lookie what we have here…"

The fox and the rabbit immediately flipped around to face who owned the voice—which they had realized belonged to one of the animals from the alleyway—only to find the same group of animals that they'd been following moments before now looming over their small forms maliciously. Nick and Judy shared semi-nervous glances as they stood their ground; these goons had known that they were being followed. With their sensitive ears, especially Judy's, it was a wonder that neither of them had heard the grazers sneak up from behind. The startled duo watched as the zebra towering over them continued his sentence.

"A bunny rabbit and a conniving fox."

"Sounds like the start of a bad joke," the wildebeest to the left of the zebra chimed in.

The warthog to the right of the striped equine then spoke, his threatening tone apparent. "What're you two doing skulking around our turf?"

Yep. The undercover duo recognized all of their voices as the ones they had listened to earlier from the alleyway. And the best part was because they were both undercover and wearing plain clothes, this gang really had no idea who they were talking to.

From what he could tell, Nick knew that anger had replaced the uncertainty Judy had initially felt for this situation, but he never expected her to speak out freely against these intimidating suspects with such contained animosity.

"First of all, sir," she paused, her ears slightly twitching with agitation. "This isn't your 'turf'; this area belongs to the city of Zootopia. And second of all, we could ask you the same question. So, why are you skulking around this area?"

At that, the zebra, warthog, and wildebeest all stood stock-still, a dumbfounded expression on their faces as they stared down at Judy with incredulity. For a second, Nick was sure they hadn't understood a single word that his partner had said as they stood there wide-eyed. Then, without warning, all three of the grazing mammals had busted out laughing defiantly with disbelief. Although it was brief, Nick had seen the discouraged look on Judy's face at being laughed at before it was quickly replaced with a look of determination with slight indignation. Nick took on the same look.

Once the animals before them had stopped their unnecessary fit of laughter, the zebra spoke, still somewhat giggly as he wiped a fake tear from his eye.

"You can't be serious, hahaaha! Bunny rabbit, you just asked us what we are doing here!"

Earnestly wondering what they had meant, Nick took a step forward as he pressed on sternly, "And what exactly do you do around here then?"

The warthog snorted and gestured to the surrounding area, "We run this place! We are the crime bosses, AHHAAHAAA—And if you don't beat it soon, we'll show you how we get rid of pests!"

'Wow, a confession, really?' Judy thought, slightly surprised at how easy that was as she tucked something orange back into her pocket. Nick had also caught onto what the warthog had said and immediately thought, 'How stupid do you have to be to confess openly to strangers that you are a crime boss?'

At this point, while the goons resumed their laughing fit, the fox and the rabbit exchanged a knowing look. Because their case file had reports of threatening, suspicious individuals roaming around Vapor Road (not to mention ones that could be involved in trafficking unauthorized and maybe illegal materials like the file had stated), and the grazing gang before them had just confessed to supposedly being crime bosses of the area in question, the undercover duo had probable cause to go ahead and make arrests. So, without waiting another moment, Judy looked to the cackling suspects and adopted an innocently compliant expression, but Nick wasn't so easily fooled; 'Sly bunny,' was his only thought as he knew exactly what was going to happen.

The rabbit's expression was just a façade meant to make her look innocent. Just when she drew the unsuspecting victim in, the sly and insidious undertone would be revealed shortly. Without further delay, Judy replied in a tone that matched her expression, "Oh, yes, of course, but before we go, I just have one more thing to say."

The grazing gang's small laughing fit came to a sudden but slow stop as all of them turned their attention back down to Judy, their uncaring faces filled with bitter contempt towards her almost as if they were now annoyed by her presence as the zebra spoke sharply, "What?"

With a satisfied smile, Judy pulled out her police badge and held it up proudly, finally revealing it to the gang as it shimmered in the dim light of the road. Nick suppressed a chuckle at the look on their gawking faces as he pulled out his badge too. As their shock sank in, Judy delivered their intended arresting statement complete with Mooranda rights.

"You are all under arrest on probable cause of conspiracy, organized crime, disorderly conduct, and for reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult with a lawyer and have that lawyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you if you desire. Do you understand?"

In an instant, the initial expressions of wide-eyed shock plastered on the accused mammals' faces were replaced with contempt as they glowered down at the fox and the rabbit, their arms crossed as they towered over the two officers menacingly.

The warthog was the first to speak. "You can't touch us," he assured confidently, "It's our word against yours."

Both officers internally rolled their eyes at the familiar statement.

"Actually," Judy drawled as she reached into her pocket for something. Nick smirked knowingly; he knew where this was going. On the other paw, the thugs snorted when they saw her pull out a carrot-shaped pen. Then, Judy pressed the pen's side button with a half-lidded smile as both she and Nick eagerly waited for the magic to happen.

Click. "~~~~~~~~~~We run this place! We are the crime bosses, AHHAAHAAA—" Click.

Instantaneously, the grazing gang's confident demeanor dissolved as they listened to the confession that the warthog had unsuspectedly given minutes earlier.

As expected, the gang soon recovered, regaining their smug stances as if saying that they didn't really care about the evidence that Judy had anyway.

In other words, these goons weren't going down without a fight.

"So what? You got some evidence," the zebra snorted, his large striped arms crossed in a defiant manner. "But what makes you think you can take us on, little bunny? What, is your little fox friend gonna help ya?"

'Oooh, he is sooo dumb,' Nick thought fervently. A normal rabbit would've just brushed off the nickname little bunny, but Nick knew from experience that Judy Hopps was no normal rabbit, and if the twitch of her right eye had anything to say about it, she was definitely not taking the nickname lightly. Thank the heavens that the zebra happened to be lucky enough not to use the "C" word on her.

"Why, yes," she replied casually in a slightly strained voice as she tucked her badge and carrot pen back into her pants' pocket, hardly caring for the anger that was currently boiling in the zebra's eyes. "Yes he is."

Almost without warning, the striped equine charged towards the gray rabbit, and in one swift motion, they all watched as Judy jumped towards the zebra's hooves and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick, knocking him hard onto his back with a loud thud and stunning him. Nick smirked at the other grazers' expressions of shock; they couldn't believe that a little bunny just did that to an animal almost four times her size. Their shocked expressions didn't last long, though, because when Judy stood up with smug triumph, they promptly snapped out of it and made a lunge for her.

She easily dodged their grasp and delivered some force of her own, punching the wildebeest in the gut before she kicked the snot out of the warthog's head, promptly sending him to sleep like a newborn baby all the while Nick enjoyed the show as a bystander; Judy was the Academy sparring champion after all so why not? By now, however, the zebra had gotten back up, and in seeing the fox standing to the side, he began to charge towards the oblivious vulpine. Luckily, just a second before being trampled, Nick took notice of the stampeding zebra and promptly stepped aside, causing the striped equine, who was unable to slow or stop, to faceplant into the wall behind the smirking fox, thus knocking himself out.

At this point, there was only one thug left. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, the wildebeest stood staring and stock-still, unsure of what to do as if he was still shocked at what he had just witnessed Judy do. So, Nick decided to intervene, pulling out large handcuffs as he spoke out to the grazer, a hint of smugness in his voice.

"Okay, bud. We can either do this the easy way," he held up the handcuffs. "Or the hard way," he promptly gestured to Judy who, after thrashing his buddies around, didn't look fazed at all while she still held a fighting stance that was ready for action. The fox smirked, "Your choice."

At that, Nick must've really irked the wildebeest because the grazer's look of uncertainty was immediately replaced with a demeanor of fury as he charged full speed towards the fox. And right before Nick was two feet from being squashed by the thug, Judy slammed into the wildebeest's neck midair with her feet, knocking him off course and causing him to fall flat onto his stomach all the while Nick didn't even flinch; he just held the same half-lidded expression as he stared down at the wildebeest that was now on the ground.

A second later, when the wildebeest attempted to get back up, Judy landed on his head, thus completely knocking him out.

Judy wiped her hands and smirked with satisfaction as she hopped off of the thug's head while Nick promptly walked over and leaned next to the downed mammal's ear. "Told ya so, bud. Should've taken the easy way out."

He saw Judy roll her eyes at his comment as she took the cuffs from him to cuff the wildebeest. "Nice line. It is a very, how should I say, overused one."

Nick seemed to deflect the sarcastic tone in her voice as he returned it with full strength, "Why, thank you, Jude-the-dude."

In that instant, he received yet another punch to the arm from the bunny. It was the fourth one that day.

"…Yep. I'm definitely going to start keeping a record."

Judy laughed a little at her partner's comment as she walked over to the other two gang members lying on the ground. She gently prodded them with her foot to which they didn't respond to at all; they were definitely out cold for a while.

'Serves them right for resisting arrest. Not to mention, insulting and threatening us,' she thought.

Leaning down a little, Judy began to check their pockets. As expected, among common things like keys or a cell phone, she pulled out a bottle of prescribed opioids and marijuana from the warthog's pockets while the zebra possessed a few small bags of cocaine along with marijuana as well, and unsurprisingly, a small gun luckily with no bullets. When she turned around, she saw Nick had pulled out some stuff from the cuffed wildebeest's pockets too. Sighing, she faced back to the two unrestrained yet unconscious arrestees for a moment.

She would cuff them as well but considering this was supposed to be an undercover case, she hadn't brought most of her equipment. In fact, it was a surprise that Nick had brought a set of cuffs, but it wasn't an unwelcome one.

It was also crazy luck that they had managed to run into the ringleaders of Vapor Road's street crime, and both she and Nick would be sure to interrogate any other animals that were involved out of the grazer gang once they were at the station. Speaking of which, they needed to call some officers so that the goons could be taken downtown to the ZPD.

"Nick," she turned to her partner, "you ready to call the station out here?"

"Readier than I'll ever be," quipped the fox as he pulled out his phone. He suddenly stopped short, however, to stare at the screen with wide-eyes like he did earlier when he supposedly received a message from his mom.

"What's wrong?" She walked over to him after seeing his look of distress.

Right before reaching him, though, Judy watched as he quickly unlocked his phone, almost fumbling with it in the process before composing himself with his usual half-lidded expression and hastily answering, "Just mom again."

She nodded slowly and watched with rapt attention while the fox put the phone up to his ear and waited for the line to pick up, his composed state still revealing a bit of anxiety if his lowered ears and his attempt to slow his quick breathing had anything to say about it. It was subtle, but his mannerisms were completely clear to her now; she knew he was lying to her again.

Although Judy had a tinge of hurt and worry go up her spine at these lies that were becoming frequent whenever he pulled out his phone, she urged herself not to pry. She knew that doing so could make things worse, and the rabbit didn't want to start a scene when backup was to arrive soon; an irritated fox was the last thing she wanted right now.

In short, whatever Nick was lying about, he wanted to keep secret, and secrets, she knew, were very difficult to get out of Nick.

When a 9 year old Judy first heard from her family that foxes, among being other things, were very secretive creatures, she didn't believe them. At that time, Gideon Grey was the only fox that she knew even if it was rather distantly. The former bully would goad and jeer others her age, and she never imagined him a keeper of secrets because of his outwardly rude attitude that seemed too uninhibited to hold any at all. However, her family's attitude towards foxes aside, now that she actually knew one personally, she could see where the notion had come from.

Judy just hoped that whatever Nick was lying about wasn't as bad as it seemed, and he would soon stop the behavior.

Just then, her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice, and she directed her gaze back upon her partner, whose worrisome behavior from earlier had completely disappeared as he conversed casually on the phone.

"Yes, Clawhauser, this is Nick…Yeah, you would not believe it, but we've got the main three baddies down here on Vapor Road after they resisted arrest. So, if you could send some backup down, that'd be great…Yeah, yeah, I'll tell her…Bye, see ya at the station."

With that, the fox hung up and turned back towards the rabbit nonchalantly. "Backup's on the way, and Clawhauser said hi."

She smiled, "I'll be sure to say hi to him when I see him at the station then…This operation might be over sooner than we all thought."

Nick nodded, a toothy grin in his voice as he spoke, "You got that right. And when I get home, I'll tell my friend 'Mattress' that it was over sooner than expected and that some bunny punched me four times today."

Judy felt the sudden urge to give him another punch to the arm for his silly remark but refrained. Nick seemed to notice this because he gave a small laugh while his tail, which secretly caught Judy's interest, was swishing behind him in contentment until it slowed to a full stop. She watched as he briefly looked at the unconscious criminals around them before meeting with her eyes, a familiar mischievous glint in his gaze as he spoke.

"Tell me if you've heard this one before, but I think that we make a pretty good team."

She smiled up at the dumb fox. Of course, many in Zootopia praised them for their work so it was no surprise that she'd heard the phrase before. "I've heard it before."

"Wow, what a surprise. I've heard it too."

Soon enough, backup arrived and the criminals were hauled off to the station to be interrogated. Luckily, Nick and Judy had gotten four other names out of the convicted mammals after revealing that they were, as expected, a part of illegal material trafficking, proving that Bogo's suspicion had been true. Now, the fox and the rabbit were making their way out of the ZPD, their hearts set on heading home as they walked alongside each other.

"Who knew that it would've been over so quickly," Nick commented, grinning.

Judy knew that he was referring to how quick the grazing gang's interrogation had been. When she had told them that their sentence had increased for resisting arrest among other things and could increase more if they didn't cooperate, the arrested mammals complied quickly and told them a few names of some other animals that were involved. Tomorrow, they would search the area for the others, and if all went right, they would close the case.

"Well, y'know what they say," she mused. "We make a pretty good team."

At that, they both smiled at each other before saying goodbye and going their separate ways.

That night, when Nick got home, he made sure that no one was following him, that both locks on his front door were in use, and that every window in his apartment was either covered by blinds or curtains. When that was done, the wary fox released a sigh and loosened his tie considerably before pulling out his phone to check his text messages, his eyes widening when he saw one in particular.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

The message that he'd seen displayed on the screen throughout the day, to his displeasure and anxiety, was from a forgotten associate-turned-enemy. If he had told Judy the truth, he knew that she would've dug deeper, and that was the last thing that he needed or wanted; she didn't need to be involved in his personal affairs. Besides, it would only get her hurt as well.

If he was going to settle this, he needed to do it alone, and if that meant not telling Judy, he would do it.

Sighing, he placed the phone on his bedside table, the message echoing in his wary mind as he walked away with weariness.

"'Nick. In three days meet us at the old place and don't even think about telling anyone or else your little rabbit friend might get hurt.'"

Author's Note:

*Dodges tomatoes and various rotten fruits and vegetables* Hey! Sorry about the late update! As you can probably already tell, I update very irregularly so it's safe to assume that this story will go on another small hiatus until I update it again, so I'm sorry in advance (it takes a long time for me to edit)! But, next chapter will be fresh and will alleviate this little cliffhanger, so don't worry! Thanks for reading and for your support! Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you liked, didn't like, etc. It would be greatly appreciated!