Bladeslayer Online

Chapter One

Missing Files of the ZPD

Judy Hopps

Occupation: One of our very own police officers.

Last seen: Exiting Zootopia to visit her family.

Witnesses to abduction: None

Suspects: None, though a weasel is being held for questioning, it is unlikely he had anything to do with it because he has not left the city.

Other evidence supporting this case: Her family's only car was returned to them by a partner to their farm who specializes in deliveries. The animal in question did not see Judy or her little sister, who both supposedly had gone off in this car to a city east of Zootopia called Wayburne. It is believed thatJudy's abductors picked her up at Wayburne but they could've gone anywhere from there.

NIck chugged down his third bottle of Seltzer's Finest. The warm beer didn't really solve the problem. But what was a cop without his partner to do?

"I feel ya, man," said a badger who took the seat next to Nick. "Girlfriend walked out on you and now you need to drown your sorrows in a cuppa."

"I didn't lose my-" Nick started to say. But the badger was staring at another badger at a booth with friends who wore a pink tank top and looked to be very tipsy.

Slinking away, hopefully unnoticed, he traipsed toward the exit. When a rhino paw clamped down on his shoulder...

"Hey Gormimull," said the rhino. "I know where your partner went."

"What?" Nick asked. How could other police offers know anything? Nick had read the file many times. Judy's whereabouts were unknown. These were the team who couldn't find any of the missing predators in the first case Judy and Nick solved together. Back then they didn't vie a damn about Judy, because of her species. And though they respected her now, Nick was the one who cared the most about her well-being as a person and not as a mere fellow enforcer of the law.

"I said I know where she is. Honestly Reynard, are you like a sloth when you've drunk yourself a keg?"

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't call me Reynard," Nick said, feeling the fur of a rather skimpily-dressed young elk as she passed by him. "And if you have any leads on where Judy is, I'd like to know."

"Leads?" I don't need leads," the rhino said. He took a wine bottle from the tray of a passing bartnder calico who winked at him, then leapt on his shoulder, cooing. She whispered in his ear, then saw with whom he was speaking. She hissed because when she had tried to cozy up with Nick earlier, he had pushed her away.

"Where is she, then?" Nick asked.

"The boss will tell you," Officer Rhino said as the Calico did a tushdown on his shoulders, and he was lost to all form of communication. (A tushdown is sort of like a lap dance except not done on one's lap but having a similar effect.)

"Well, that's the last time I come to the Quaffensnooze," Nick said as he stood on the pavement outside. "So Chief Bogo knows where to go, eh? I'd better go ask him."

He hailed a taxi and got in, before seeing who was driving. It was a llama he had known in grade school.

"Er, hello, Emily," he said, in as casual a voice as he could manage considering his throat was drenched with beer and his ability to talk smoothly a bit more impaired by the effects of said drinking, since once or two glasses he had may've been something a bit stronger than that, a martini perhaps, or Vodka...

"You married yet?" the llama asked, looking at his claws. "Ring free, it looks like."

"No, I'm not-hic-married," Nick said. Once after grade school, Emily had come to his high school formal dance and asked him out, and he had told her that llama fur maqde him hiccup, so he was very sorry but he couldn't date her. Just in case she remembered, he laid it on thick-or as thick as he could given present circumstances.

"Still got the hiccups, I see," the llama said, pulling at the gear shift and getting the taxi going. "Where to, unbetrothed Nick?"

"Zootopia Police Department headquarters, pronto!"

She looked back at him, nearly running into a truck being driven by a very irriated looking tiger in green overalls. "Going to have me arrested, you studly fox, you?"

"Emily, the road!" Nick exclaimed, the idea of dying en route to figure out what happened to Judy alarming him temporarily out of his stupor.

"Oh, Nick, you know me, always living on the edge."

"Actually I did not know that. Now will you please get us to the police department?" Nick asked, as they narrowly avoided getting crushed by a cement truck. "In one piece, mind you."

"Oh you sily boy," she said, reaching back to pinch his cheek. "As cute as the day I first met you."

"Llamas pinch too hard," Nick said. He had forgotten about this species typical greeting of someone they hadn't seen in awhile. One of his friends who had gone through school and went to college invited him to several parties thrown by a rather pretty lalama who always wore the latest fashions. She pinched everyone at her parties when she first encountered them there, and she always pinched guys she thought were hot the hardest.

Nick closed his eyes and an image of himself and the Party Llama Plecine in a hot tub together entered his head. He opened his eyes and shook his head vigorously. Why was he even thinking that? Was it because he wanted Judy but because she was his partner, them being in a romantic relationship would interfere with their work?

"Woolgathering is best left to us llamas, you stud, you," said Emily as she squeezed between two cars and the side mirrors on the taxi tore off.

"Uh..." Nick said. "Just out of curiosity but is this your first day?"

"Nope. This is my fourth cab though. These things just aren't sturdy, last one fell apart after I made two trips. They should really build taxis like tanks, don't you think?"

"If you say so," Nick said, resting his nose against the window. He just wanted to be with Judy. Was this what was meant by really caring about someone? Deeply and truly? He did care about other animals of course, their well-being, protection, etc. He was a cop after all. But this...this was different. The need to have Judy near, to know she was safe, to see her face again.

Could she be dead? Nick sat up straight, wondering if he should be mourning. His heart skipped a beat. He really would rather this taxi crash into that Frito-Spade truck than Judy be dead. Was this what people meant when they said investing somuch time in a person can lead to irrational thoughts? But Judy! Nick would gladly die forher...so long s it meant she could live on! But if she was already dead, if it was too late...he couldn't bear it, or lion it, or even tiger it. This was just too much.

For the remainder of the trip, Nick's mind played horrific images of Judy lying soomewhere in someone's garage, blood stained and with a butcher's knife near her to feed to some monstrous predators...

It can't be...that's the stuff of fiction...it can't be, Nick kept repeating to himself.

"Here's your stop," Emily said at last. "That'll be $5.50."

"What?" Nick asked. His head was filled with horrific images of Judy being drowned by some sinister animal who held her underwater while she struggled...

"We're here. Zootopia Police Department. This is where you wanted to be taken, is it not?"

The pistol was raised to Judy's temple. Judy would not give in, tell the potential bank robbers the combination for the safe. So they pummeled her body with cold lead...leaving a fox behind to gtieve with her family at her funeral...

"You gonna pay up or what?"

"Uh yeah, sure," Nick said, extracting his wallet from his shirt pocket. How much again?"

Emily repeated the amount he owed and he fished out a one and a five, handing them to her. "Keep the change."

"Oh, but I need a tip too," Emily said.

"The change is your tip, if you want to perceive it as such. Now I've got to ask my boss for information."

Emily reached forward out of the driver's seat. She pinched each of Nick's cheeks iwth her hooves, irritating him. "Well, I'm off," the llama said. "If you ever need pinching, you know where to look me up."

And with that she shifted gear and took off, leaving Nick semi-pleased to not be in her company anymore, b ut distraught because he feared the worst from what Chief Bogo would tell him.

He wished he could hop up the steps the way Judy could. She made everything seem good and worthwhile.

With a feeling of dread he pulled open the door and entered the police station. The lights inside were dim as they presumably usually were at 2:00 a.m. every morning.

Officer Clawhauser stood behind his desk as usual.

"Hey, Claw. What'cha doing here after hours?"

"Oh, Chief Bogo wanted me to be here to greet you, make it a little less unsettling, you know, with the news he has to tell you."

"He knows where Judy is?" Nick asked, trying to keep the tremors out of his voice and not sure he had succeeded entirely.

"Er, I can't say that he does," the jaguar said. "He didn't tell me one way or another. Btu I hope you have good luck with him."

"I hope so too," Nick said as he headed to Bogo's office. He took a deep breath as another sickening image of centuries old torture being used on Judy, claws being scratched in her belly before she was coerced into laying her head on a guillotine and waiting with dread for someone to release the pulley which would culminate he r life...

"take a sea," the chief said when Nick entered. His back was turned to the fox as he stared plaintively out the window. "And be prepared for news of a -not necessarily benign nature."

Nick sat in the chair but was braced for the worst, such as a combination of any of the horrific happenings to have come to Judy that his mind had conjured up on the ride here...

The wildebeest turned to face the fox who had been a very dutiful partner of a tag team who really helped clean Zootopia of ctrime, better than any other team the chief had seen in all his years at the ZPD. Which made what he had to communicate to Officer Wilde all that more unbearable.

"First things first," Chief Bogo said, taking his own seat. "did you hear about the new virtual reality game, Bladeslayer Online?"

"I have not," Nick said, getting frustrated with the chief. "Look, I came here to discover news about what happened to Judy, not engage in chitchat."

"I was coming to that," said the wildebeest. "I'm sure you've seen the reports. Officer Hopps was last seen leaving Zootopia to visit her family."

"I know this, Chief. What I don't know is where she is now."

"Yes, I'm aware of your need to know the whereabouts of your partner, which is why Iasked you to come here this late at night, soon as we could confirm all the info we have gathered. It has not espaced my notice that your work for us has slackened a bit since she went missing. And yet you're one of our ablest officers when you're on form. You and Officer Hopps are an unstoppable team in upholding the law and catching those who attempt to abuse it."

"I'm sorry, sir, if my work has been subpar recently. I need to know Judy's all right."

"And if she weren't?" the wildebeest asked, raising his eyebrow. "What then?'

"Well, if Judy were taken from me permanently by someone with a sick bent on ending her life, or for some reason that would prevent me from seeing Judy again, well, if that were to happen, I'd have to resign."

"I understand, Officer Wilde. If Judy's predicament is so severe that you'll never see her again, you'll turn in your badge."

"That is correct. I do not see myself returning to normal productivity should that be the case. I might make more and more errors, which just wouldn't be right for a police officer. So for the good of the citizens of Zootopia, the best thing for me to do in such a scenario would be to leave the force."

"I see," the wildebeest said, looking disconcerted.

"Tell me I'll see her again. Please. If I have your word on that, I'll be okay."

"I'm afraid I can't promise that," Chief Bogo said.

"She's not dead, is she?"

The wildebeest coughed hard, using his hoof to cover it. HIs shoulders heaved as if he were on the verge of given Nick the worst news he could possibly hear. A dozen new envisionings of Judy's fate flitted into Nick's mind. "Er, not dead, no," said the chief, once his composure retrned. "But there's a chance she might not come back."

"She might not come back? From where? Who has her?"

"No one has her, per se. Or perhaps I should tell you that though her circumstances are certainly dire, her whereabouts are not unknown to us. "

The fox's ears pricked at this. "But the report said-"

"I know what's in the file," Chief Bogo said. "Officer Hopps is still missing, sort of. But this afternoon some new information arrived here which has since been verified, and this information tells us where we can find Judy, or not find her as the case has turned out."

"What did you find out?" Nick asked, bracing for the worst.

"We discovered this evening that Officer Hopps did in fact visit family on her time off, as she said she was going to. She and her-harummm, much young sister went to a convention center to test out a new virtual reality that same sister helped devlop."

"So she was abducted at the Convention Center?"

"No " said the wildebeest. "Or I suppose in a manner of speaking," he added, stroking his goatee.

"Meaning?" Nick inquired, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Meaning her body is accounted for. But her mind is in the virtual world the game contains."

"Then why don't I go down there and unhook her or take off her headgear or whatever?"

"Because, Officer Wilde," said the wildebeest, sighing as though what he was about to say might truly shock the fox, "any means to yank her out of the virtual world by force from this end will result in her death."