Chapter Text
1955 Nick’s POV
Time and date: 22:03 - Saturday, 12th November, 1955
1 minute until lightning strikes
Soon, lightning would strike. Nick looked up at the lightning rod above him, then down at the road. He could see the time machine’s headlights approaching rapidly.
Finnick went diving into the tree branch in a chase for one of the disconnected ends of the cable. The red fox hoped he would find it but what would that accomplish? It was only barely long enough to make contact, the little vulpine would be unable to carry it several meters towards the lamp post and climb up with it to connect it up again, it would be completely out of reach. Nick realised what he had to do.
He plugged the socket into the plug to connect up the lightning rod with the cable down in the tree. Then, he tied them together, forming a circle. With precision, he placed the looping cable on the clock’s minute hand, securing it firmly.
The vulpine tested the strength of the tied connection to make sure they wouldn’t come apart again. They were secure. He took a deep breath, then gripped the line tightly.
Nick jumped!
The red fox slid down the wire, as if it was a zip line. For all intents and purposes, Nick had become a flying fox! He screamed out in horror.
Upon reaching the tree limb and the ground, Nick relieved Finnick of his work. He was winded from the fall but that could not get in his way now. The red fox looked for the end of the cable in the broken off tree branch. Meanwhile, without having a ladder available to him, Finnick climbed up on the lamp post and grabbed the end of the cable hanging there. He would be ready to meet Nick half way with his own end of the plug.
The vulpine finally managed to untangle the cable. It was once again dislodged from the tree limb, granting more than enough slack. The red fox took the end of it and ran towards the lamp post as quickly as he could. Finnick waited there already with the socket he needed to connect his end to.
The fennec had prepared his end of the cable and already pointed it towards an approaching red fox. The wind was very loud but a roaring engine challenged it for auditory dominance.
Nick reached up with his end of the cable. They contacted each other. The wires were connected once again, from the lightning rod to the clock, down to the first lamp post, and across the street to the other one.
The minute hand on the clock moved one final time. It showed 10:04.
The most spectacular bolt of lightning in the history of Bunnyburrow struck the lightning rod! Sparks flew high up in the air like it was a giant firework.
The entire cable became electrified in an instant! The Jokemobile passed under the cable between the lamp posts.
The extended hook on top of the vehicle made contact with the electrified wire. A blinding glow of light announced the activation of the flux capacitor with a loud discharge.
Coils lit up brightly and the time machine vanished, as it was instantaneously sent back to the future!
Time and date: 22:04 - Saturday, 12th November, 1955
Nick and Finnick were drenched by the heavy deluge wind of the time jump. They fell to the ground. Both stared at the whole scene in awe.
The sudden extra wind subsided. With wide eyes, Nick got up and assessed the situation. Fire trails indicated where the time machine would have gone, had it not made the time jump. The fox looked up at the clock tower. It had stopped precisely at 10:04. Lightning cracked behind it and all around. The storm had only just arrived here. Soon, there would be pouring rain.
The cable the red fox had hung up over the street had caught on fire. It had wrenched not just the hook but the entire pole out of the rear of the time machine. The device was left dangling there, winging from the cable.
Nick let out a whoop of delight and relief. Overjoyed, he ran through the fire trails left behind by the Jokemobile. The fox cheered and laughed in celebration and his face displayed the widest grin ever. The vulpine looked at the clock tower once again. Surely, a minute had passed since the lightning and the time jump but the clock still showed the precise time of 10:04.
Finnick finally got up too, his eyes were likewise wide in awe. “Looks like the bunny wasn’t lying about the whole time travel thing,” he said with apparent surprise in his voice. He grabbed his camera and snapped a photo of the aftermath.
Finnick’s POV
Time and date: 22:05 - Saturday, 12th November, 1955
It was five minutes past ten, the clock on the clock tower just didn’t show that time anymore. It would firmly be stopped at 10:04, just one minute prior, for at least the next thirty years, as far as the fennec could assume. The tan-coloured vulpine took in the scene, he was not as ecstatic as his friend but rather more laid back. Of course, after talking to an older Nick and seeing him interact with himself from several decades earlier, Finnick knew without a doubt it would work.
There was one thing he needed to do, however. The tan-furred vulpine went back to the broken off tree branch. While he and Nick had been working hard to free the cable, miraculously, the ripped off part of the bunny’s letter had remained firmly in place. Finnick put one foot on it, then grabbed the branch and used all his strength to lift it. He shifted the wood aside carefully, not ripping the paper one bit. He retrieved it and shoved the object into his friend’s brown wooden toolbox.
Then, something caught his attention. Out of the corner of his eye, right between the fire trails left behind by the departed time machine, there was something… Somebody… Somebunny… A rabbit dashed past Carrot Theater like a madmammal, he spotted Nick admiring the aftermath of the lightning strike.
No… This wasn’t a buck, this was another doe and she looked very familiar…
The rabbit’s black leather jacket looked nothing like what the other bunny had been wearing but her face looked the same. Did all bunnies look like that? No, it couldn’t be. Finnick glanced to Nick, who by now had turned to his tractor to take some notes on the ‘weather experiment’. “Slick! Slick!” came a frantic yell from the newly arrived and out of breath bunny.
No way… It was actually that same rabbit! No one else before or since had called the red fox ‘Slick’. If the fennec hadn’t seen his buddy twice at the same time, he would simply have assumed this whole thing was just an elaborate hoax and that she had made Nick waste his time this past week. But even then, he had to admit, it would have been a very impressive magic trick by itself already.
The taller tod was so dazed by the amazement over witnessing time travel that he didn’t even hear the time traveller herself. She grabbed his arm and pulled him around. “What?” the disoriented fox asked absentmindedly.
“Nick! Nick!” repeated the bunny. Finally, he turned to face the future doe and snapped out of his wondrous daze. Now, Nick was positively flipping out! He yelped and screamed in surprise.
“Calm down, Nick! It’s me! It’s Judy!” informed the lapine. It was pretty clear to Finnick, however, that the red fox would need to take some more time before he would come to terms with this new reality. He was leaning down to face the doe at eye level. Or maybe, that lazy tod was just too surprised to stand upright right now. “No! It can’t be!” he protested in a whisper. “I just sent you back to the future!” The bunny nodded. “Yup, mhm, I know,” she agreed. “You did send me back to the future. But I’m back. I’m back from the future.”
“Bunny, you can change your clothes fast,” deadpanned the tan-furred vulpine. “Fin, I’m back from the future!” Judy protested. “I came all the way from twenty sixteen this time!” The fennec chuckled lightly at the doe’s immediately more alarmed tone. “I know, I know,” he waved her off dismissively. “I’m just pulling ya tail.”
Nick stood up tall with wide eyes. His ears were alert, he tried to wrap his head around this shocking revelation. “Great Tod!” he exclaimed, before promptly staggering back, stunned, rolling his eyes back… and fainting.
“Nick!” the doe called out in alarm. She bent down to attempt to revive the unconscious vulpine. The fennec burst out laughing, concern for his friend taking the backseat for now. “Slick… Oh, yes… Of course…” Judy murmured, as she tried and failed to shake the red fox awake. It was no use. Finnick only kept laughing wholeheartedly.
Just then, out of nowhere, he spotted another person approaching. The tod had been too focused on the bunny that he hadn’t seen the other guy until now. It was another fennec, oddly enough. Finnick knew no fennec other than himself or his own parents.
Recognition slowly overcame him. The compact fox stood face to face with himself! This other Finnick carried a strange pink object and Officer Blueberry, of all people, but was otherwise dressed very ordinarily. “I don’t remember Nick passing out,” the older fox commented. “What didja do, bunny?” The younger fennec kept laughing even harder than before. He was as delighted as if he had just received an impromptu birthday present…
“So what now?” the older of the conscious foxes asked, eyeing his sleeping buddy. Judy looked for a clock, finding only the broken one atop the old courthouse building. “What time is it anyway?” she asked. “I guess maybe ‘bout three minutes since the lightning hit,” estimated the younger version of Finnick, as he caught his breath again.
Judy’s POV
Time and date: ~22:07 - Saturday, 12th November, 1955
“Ten seven,” the doe mumbled. “Great, let’s go.” They would not go right away, however. It took more than ten additional minutes until everything was packed up and ready to go.
Rain was pouring down, the roads were wet, the fields were muddy, lightning and thunder had subsided. Shortly after the weather had turned into something that could have been mistaken for a strong shower, two fennecs and a bunny cumbersomely lifted an unconscious red fox onto a tractor’s trailer. A mouse meanwhile waited patiently on one of the steps of the motorised vehicle, where its geometry shielded her from most of nature’s raw force.
The younger of the two awake vulpines gathered up everything of relevance, including a plain wooden toolbox. While Judy did look inside and was happy to find the entirety of her ripped up letter within, rather than only half of it, both time travellers were confused about the lack of a light blue and light green container for Nick’s tools. This caused equal questioning thoughts from the youngest conscious predator in the group. The fifties version of Finnick had no idea what the other two were talking about. Eventually, they all departed Carrot Square to head home to Happytown.
Time and date: ~22:3? - Saturday, 12th November, 1955
A bright green tractor with large yellow wheel caps was rolling up the driveway to a large house where Nick and Finnick resided. The vehicle traditionally used for farming purposes did not enter the garage but was stopped right beside the front door of the main building instead. Judy shut off the engine and hopped down from the driver seat, she headed to the trailer in the back. There, the doe found two little fennecs dragging the unconscious form of a young Doc Wilde to the edge of the moving platform while a mouse waited patiently once more. It had been decided she would accompany the adventurers and go to work from here the next morning. The weather made this the most sensible option.
The future bunny was surprised to find the trailer’s back panel missing entirely. The storm must had ripped it off, she couldn’t think of a different reason why it would be absent. Two time travellers and one young fennec laboriously lifted Nick off the trailer and carried him towards his home while Officer Brie hung on to his arm to get carried along herself too. It was exhausting, especially for Judy because her arms were still rather sore after she had held on to a rope for ten minutes. The far smaller fennecs weren’t slacking either while carrying Nick. With soaked clothes, the five mammals entered the Wilde den.
Time and date: 0?:?? - Sunday, 13th November, 1955
Judy was resting on a comfy armchair with her feet propped up on the hoverboard. Before heading to sleep herself, she had found a few fresh batteries lying around, which she inserted into the hoverboard to provide new energy for it. Nick was dozing on the sofa, covered in a thick and warm blanket. The younger of the smaller foxes had found a bread basket and promptly repurposed it for a rodent sized bed for the mouse. Both the young Finnick from 1955, as well as the older Finnick from 1985 laid cuddled up on their comfy miniature armchair between the two bigger mammals. They were probably starved of physical contact with anyone other than emotional bunnies with a love for hugs.
And both of the fennecs snored. Loudly.
It had been irritating initially but soon enough, exhaustion had caught up with the bunny and she had fallen asleep. The TV had been turned on all night, Judy hadn’t noticed until she was already comfortable and nearly dozing, so she hadn’t bothered to get up again to shut it off. It hadn’t mattered, there was no signal getting picked up anyway because of the storm. At least, that had been the case until now. Suddenly, the television service resumed.
“Hey kids, what time is it?” asked a scruffy announcer. A group of children answered cheerfully. “Woody’s Roundup time!”
A groggy red fox got awoken by the sudden sounds emitted by his box of technology. He sat up as if waking up from a nightmare. “Great Tod!” he gasped. Undeterred, the TV continued playing whichever signals it received at the time, which at this moment was the theme song of this Woody’s Roundup program.
Nick got up and started fixing his coat he had slept in, he stepped up to the fireplace where he kept his framed images of Sir Isaac Meowton, George Westingmouse, Thomas Alva Ebison and Albert Einsteinbock. The slender vulpine was visibly very disoriented. He spun around and noticed the TV, stepping over to it and accidentally kicking aside the hoverboard without noticing. Judy opened her eyes and watched the fox for now, there was no need to get up right away. The tod crouched down right in front of the TV. “Woody’s Roundup time?” he asked in surprise. Nick checked one of his numerous watches, then he turned off the television. Outside, it was still raining but much less violently than the previous night.
With purpose, the vulpine stepped to a shelf on the side of the room, to a recording device, and began producing a verbal diary in the form of an audio tape. “Date: Sunday, November thirteenth, nineteen fifty-five, seven-oh-one a.m.”
Time and date: 07:01 - Sunday, 13th November, 1955
“Last night’s time travel experiment was apparently a complete success. Lightning struck the clock tower at precisely ten-oh-four p.m., sending the necessary one point twenty-one gigawatts into the time vehicle, which vanished in a brilliant flash of light, leaving only fire trails behind.”
As he spoke, Nick subconsciously paced back and forth in the living room. The recorder’s cord was luckily long enough to allow that. The piece he was talking into was connected via a cable to the main device, which held a magnetic tape strip inside. “I therefore assumed that Judy and the time vehicle were transported forward through time into the year nineteen eighty-five,” the red fox continued in awe.
The bunny he was talking about meanwhile got up, she stretched and yawned, only because the last day was quite tiring. Her arms especially had been exhausted the previous night but now, they were very sore. Usually, she wouldn’t have much trouble getting out of bed. What would she do now, though? Maybe, the lapine could go back to sleep a little longer. After all, she had all the time in the world right now, maybe even too much of it. Could the doe even return to 1985 at all anymore without waiting thirty years?
“After that…” continued the vulpine, before he paused again with a gasp. “After that…” He put a hand up to his forehead, touching the spot where he had hit his head a week prior. This fox was deep in thought. “I can’t recall what happened,” he finally admitted to his diary. Nick was still facing towards the shelf, which stood right up against a wall, he hadn’t noticed the bunny in his living room yet.
“In fact, I don’t even remember how I got home!” observed Nick, starting to ramble a bit. “Perhaps, the gigawatt discharge… coupled with the temporal displacement field generated by the time vehicle caused a disruption of my own brain waves, resulting in a condition of momentary amnesia.”
Judy stepped towards the fireplace. Last evening, after helping the fennecs drying off Nick and tucking him in to get some sleep, she had hung up the letters herself and Finnick had received from an older Nick in 1885. The three pages of ancient paper had dried completely since then. Just like the five mammals, they too had gotten soaked completely the previous night. Thankfully, the handwriting was still perfectly intact. The bunny collected the pages and put them back in order. Nick was still oblivious to her presence.
“Indeed, I now recall the moments after the time vehicle disappeared… into the future…” he rambled. The red fox gasped another time and his eyes were full of awe and wonder. The lapine didn’t see it but she assumed that was what was happening. “I saw a vision of Judy say she had come back from the future.” The bunny could just barely see the tod furrow his eyes at that assessment. It was an odd vision to have for sure.
“Hey, Slick,” chimed Judy. The red fox didn’t react. “Undoubtedly, this was some sort of residual image…” he theorised in confusion, then his ears and tail lowered slightly. “Or perhaps… My suspicions have been correct after all…” Finally, he turned around, bringing the bunny into his own field of view. “Nick,” she tried again with a grin at her friend’s antics. The tod spotted Judy and yelped in alarm. The doe jerked back in surprise too and her ears shot up in alert. Nick stepped back trembly and accidentally tripped right over the hoverboard, as he tried to put some distance between himself and Judy. He ended up bumping into the audio recorder, it started playing an earlier tape unasked.
‘Date: Saturday, November twelfth, nineteen fifty-five, one forty-two p.m. Preparations for the time travel experiment later today are in full swing. Carrots and Big Guy are currently moving all necessary tools and equipment from my lab onto my tractor. I will join them immediately after recording this acoustic documentation of my studies and experiments.’
Nick widened his eyes further while Judy couldn’t help but roll hers at the tod’s antics. The red fox did not, however, think to shut off the taped diary. It kept playing.
‘Judy has provided undeniable proof that she is telling the truth, though I would be lying if I didn’t admit to having some doubts left in the back of my mind. As much as I hate to say it out loud or even think about it, it is a distinct possibility that she had simply found another fox with similar facial features to my own in order to record those video tapes. The photograph of her siblings could still be a simple result of fakery.’
This was awkward to say the least. Judy lowered her ears, she was a little hurt to hear this fox still distrust her after all they had gone through together in the past week. Nick looked to the ground, ashamed, though his eyes were furrowed. It would seem he considered his suspicions confirmed, which was simply incorrect.
‘I fear there might be no lightning tonight, even the weathermammal said there won’t be any rain… I don’t know… Some part of me expects Judy to simply use me for her own goals while I’m merely wasting my time. Even so, my thought process, which I intend to keep as rational as I can, still makes me glad about the massive boost in motivation this supposed future bunny has given me. I’m grateful to have met her and I hope she really is a time traveller…’
There was a click, as the tape ran out. Judy had wide eyes, her ears were droopy. The vulpine let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Judy,” he said with a heavy heart. “I’m afraid your mere presence has proven my suspicions right.” The bunny huffed. “Nick, really?” she asked incredulously. This was outrageous! “We’ve been through so much this past week, you looked at all the items I brought from the future, Carrotsticks, I nearly faded away at the dance! Officer Brie saved my fluffy tail at the last moment!” The fox kept staring with furrowed eyes. “I could see through my hand, Nick! You’ve seen the photo of my siblings, remember?”
“I supposedly sent you back to the future yesterday,” retorted the upset fox. “How are you still here if you’re meant to be back in nineteen eighty-five?” This was a fair question, Judy would gladly explain it. “I came back again,” she reasoned. “I came back from the future. Don’t you remember last night? There was the lightning, the time machine did its thing right in front of your eyes!”
Suddenly, the conversation that might have been mistaken for an argument got interrupted, when a new voice chimed in. “Doc Wilde,” said a certain mouse. Two lapine ears and two vulpine ears perked up. “Good morning. Sorry for interrupting but it was impossible to sleep with this argument so close.” Nick shook his head. “Officer Blueberry? What are you doing here?” the red fox inquired curiously.
“I’ve stayed here because of the storm. You see, Trish… uhm, Judy is telling the truth. Last night, she looked awful but then when I asked Stu Hopps to go back to the doe he had invited, she got all her strength back. It was so confusing but she explained it to me later. I didn’t believe it either at first but then I’ve seen a newspaper change right in front of my eyes! The ink just faded, I thought I was seeing things.” The fox huffed, he looked greatly conflicted. “Well, I trusted this bunny too, I really did, I promise. But the only logical explanation for her still being here and not in the future must be that she is no time traveller after all.” The mood wasn’t great to say the least. “Slick, think about all the things you found out about the future. I couldn’t possibly make all that up on the spot, could I?”
The fox perked his ears up tall, he suddenly appeared oddly hopeful. “Perhaps…” he started, before promptly leaving the room. The bunny and the mouse exchanged wary glances. “Pickled onions with basil dressing…” swore Judy. It was a funny habit of hers to name various vegetables and other foods instead of using real cuss words. “He invented time travel, right?” the rodent asked. “Yup,” confirmed Judy. “Just last week but he won’t complete his time machine until nineteen eighty-five.” This gave the doe an idea. “Speaking of,” she said. “Once Finnick and I hopefully get back home somehow, don’t mention time travel to anyone.” Officer Brie tilted her head. “Not until late October, nineteen eighty-five, at least.” The mouse nodded. “Is that where you are from? Who else knows about time travel?” The future bunny thought for a moment. “I think only Nick, Finnick and me. And you too now. Maybe my boyfriend, if he remembers anything.”
The door burst open another time, Nick stepped inside with an outrageous but familiar contraption in his hands. “You told me things only I could have known,” he started. “Obviously, I concluded you must be from the future.” Judy nodded warily, she was sceptical of what the fox had in his mind. “Now, with you still being here, I must assume there has to be a different explanation for your intricate knowledge about me and my personality.”
Judy and Officer Brie exchanged wary glances. The fox approached the table and laid down some things he had brought from his lab, then he clipped a little device onto his ear. It was connected by several wires to a certain collar. “My new theory would prove that my Thought Associated Meaning Extrapolator - Collar does, in fact, work after all. I simply got the wires crossed up somewhere, causing the polarity to be reversed.”
What was Nick talking about? How would that prove Judy’s knowledge about the fox? “Excuse me, Doc Wilde, I don’t think this…” the mouse got cut off when the fox motioned her to stop speaking, he wanted to finish his train of thought. “This means when I attempted to read your thoughts, what was really happening was quite the opposite. You got a good and detailed look into my own mind! You knew everything about me from that moment forth.” Judy’s ears shot up at the idea. “What?!” she blurted out. “No, that thing didn’t work, you said it yourself.” The thing, in fact, did not work, the bunny was convinced.
Instead of replying, the tod grabbed the collar part of his useless invention and carefully clipped it around the doe’s neck. The little indicator light turned on. In the reflection of the TV set which had awoken the mammals, the bunny could see it was glowing yellow. The device just felt uncomfortable and nothing else. “Slick…” tried Judy but she got cut off when the fox wanted to concentrate. He put a hand to the clip on his ears and closed his eyes. He was deep in thought.
“You are here to… pass your free time… by wasting my time… trying to…” The tod didn’t continue talking. “Nick, you’re not even close,” declared the bunny. “Just admit that this scratchy thing doesn’t work.” The fox shook his head adamantly, though. “Not a word, I’ll keep reading your thoughts!” He took a deep breath. “You are… actually…” where was he going with this? ‘From the future’, the doe thought. “from… No, this thing isn’t calibrated right,” Nick continued. After briefly removing the clip from his ear and fiddling with the connected wires, he returned to guessing whatever Judy was supposedly thinking. At this point in time, it wasn’t much, merely scepticism of this device. Should the bunny give her friend something to guess?
She was stuck in 1955 anyway, hopefully this younger version of the fox could help her get back home. She might as well entertain herself by giving her stubborn buddy something to look for. Memories of Skippy came to her mind. Nick as an old fox, explaining the time machine, his lab in the future, the morning all those clocks had started ringing after the big amplifier had gotten destroyed by an overenthusiastic bunny. Her mind kept wandering to Finnick in crazy costumes, then back to Nick, as he tried out a recipe for ice cream he had found in a book about the topic.
“You…” the scientist tried again to read what was on Judy’s mind. “I see something!” he declared. “Images… Ideas… Of various things…” Those vague descriptions could apply to just about anything. Unlike last time, the bunny made sure to remain sceptical of the functionality of this device. In the reflection on the blank TV screen, she saw the collar’s light turn green. Just then, her ears twitched lightly, one of the two fennecs stirred and got up.
“I can clearly see now that… Officer Blueberry…?” The addressed mouse perked her ears. Nick shut off this idea, he shook his head. “She is right there, making both of us equally likely to subconsciously think about her…” Judy would give him that. Who was not present, however, was the rodent’s granddaughter. The bunny’s mind thought back to a few days ago, when she had been required to help bust two foxes out of prison. “Officer Blueberry…” the fox repeated. “There is a hallway… It looks dark… and abandoned…” Judy’s ears shot up.
Was the collar actually… functional?
With a beep from the doe’s neck, the light turned yellow again. “You are angry… because I… What was going on in the future? You were missing? You saved her career…”
Judy was speechless. This invention of Nick’s actually worked! It really was functional! The future bunny’s eyes widened, her ears were already on full alert. Another beeping sound signalled the light around her neck turned red.
Sparks came flying out of the machine, Judy received an electric shock!
“We… Great Tod! It’s terrible! We need a book!” Nick’s eyes shot wide open, he had been too engulfed in the functionality of his device to react to the unexpected electrical shock. Before anyone could respond, the fox quickly removed the clip from his ear. He was suddenly out of breath. “Carrots…” he stammered. “No more information about the future!”
The doe found her nerves again, warily taking off the collar and rubbing the spot that had been attacked lightly. Then, slowly, relief overcame her, she was happy. “I told you, I wasn’t lying.” Nick shook his head, catching his breath and likewise growing a faint smile.
“Are you all right, Petals?” asked Officer Brie caringly.” Yeah, the zap wasn’t too strong,” calmed the bunny, then she gave the rodent a warm smile. “And It’s Judy Hopps.” The mouse briefly widened her eyes, then she nodded emphatically. This was short-lived, however, as concern grew evident in her face. “What do you mean, you saved my career?” Officer Brie inquired nervously. “Was it in danger?” This greatly worried the dutiful rodent member of law enforcement. “No, it was about your granddaughter. Don’t worry about it, her career won’t be in trouble anymore, it’s all good.” This probably didn’t serve much to reassure the mouse, though she dropped the topic for now. “Nick, what do you remember from last night?” Judy asked. She laid the collar onto the table, The fox put the clip down too.
“I…” he was unsure how to respond. “I forgot,” the tod admitted. “But before I did, I recorded a diary tape, let me listen to it.” Judy was impatient, though. She would help her friend along. “After you saw the time machine jump to the future at Carrot Square, I came back. You fainted, I brought you home. Do you remember?”
“Any appreciation for the real heroes?” asked the seemingly middle aged Finnick with his deep voice, he and himself had gotten up while the other three mammals were preoccupied with their conversation. His upgrades in the twenty-first century were very impressive, Judy thought. “No?” asked his fifties counterpart. “All right, then,” accepted the future fennec. Nick looked at him. It sounded like the shorter vulpine was talking, because he was, but something wasn’t quite right about it. Nick furrowed his eyes. “Big Guy, why do you look so tired?” inquired the red fox. “Did you pass out too?”
On second thought, maybe the future upgrades to the fennec were only impressive if one had a more direct comparison to the individual from much closer before the procedures conducted by those health clinic things, not just a thirty year younger version. “No,” replied said earlier variant of the small predator. “But after carrying you home, I was just about ready to.” Nick turned around. He spotted the mammal that had just spoken in his little armchair. The red fox turned around again and did a double take between the old and the young Finnick.
“Nick, we…” started Judy but she got cut off, when the slender vulpine started yelping in concern. “Aah! This can’t be happening! You can’t be here! You mustn’t interact with yourself from the future! Argh! I refuse to let you stay here!” Before anyone could react, Nick picked up the young version of his companion. He carried the fennec into his bedroom and slammed the door shut, leaving Judy, the more mature of the two short vulpines, and Officer Brie outside, stunned.
“Did I just witness the kidnapping of Doc Wilde’s fennec assistant?” asked a rodent humorously. “Yup,” came a low and grumbly confirmation. “Name’s Finnick, by the way.” The rodent nodded. “Oh, right,” she said awkwardly. “But you can call me Big Guy,” the little vulpine added with a toothy grin. “Well you are a big guy,” responded Officer Brie. “You all are.” She let out a giggle. “Now, what do we do about Doc Wilde?” Finnick displayed the largest smirk ever.
“One of us is already enough for him,” he mentioned. “This is getting out of hand, now there are two of us. He’s gotta feed both of us.” The older Finnick displayed a wide grin. “Don’t encourage his stupid pet jokes,” complained the other fennec from behind the closed door. “Nick, quit the nonsense.” Judy opted to ignore the two and tried her luck knocking on the bedroom door. “Slick, we are here and we can’t change that right now!” she insisted, getting reminded of her own spewing of words when she had first come to the young Doc Wilde a bit over a week ago. Now, the situation was nowhere near as urgent but Judy let her words flow regardless.
“Look, Finnick already saw himself yesterday, it’s no big deal! And the reason we came back here in the first place is because we had to get a book from Gideon. So once we got the book back, that is the you from nineteen eighty-five… were in the Jokemobile and it got struck by lightning and you got sent back to eighteen eighty-five! And now we need your help!”
The bunny took a breath and stepped away from the door. Nick would come out on his own eventually, she figured. “Oh so you guys came from the eighties, not twenty-sixteen?” a slightly confused but certainly muffled fennec asked for elaboration from within the bedroom. “Yeah, we’re from nineteen eighty-five, just on a bit of a road trip through time,” explained the other tan-furred vulpine. The lapine wondered why Nick was so hard to convince of things sometimes. Apparently, Finnick pondered on the same. “Is he still like that in the future?” he questioned through the closed door. “Yup,” confirmed Finnick’s older self. “Great guy but a very thick head sometimes. “He sounds fun,” mentioned Officer Brie, getting a nod from Judy in response.
“Eighteen eighty-five?” came a call through the bedroom door. Judy turned in time to see the red fox peek out from the doorframe. “It’s a very interesting story, Future Bunny,” he said, calmer than before. His frantic confusion had turned into a more concentrated smug, Judy could work with that. “But there’s just one little thing that doesn’t make sense.” The doe stared at her friend with a deadpan expression. What about her story didn’t line up? It was exactly how things had happened. Nick had already redundantly confirmed Judy’s truthful words twice with two independent methods. “Nick, will ya let me out again?” deadpanned a young fennec who sounded as indifferent as he could.
The red fox had wide eyes from his newest brilliant idea, at the same time, he looked so very smug and sure about whatever he was thinking and was about to say. “If the me of the future is now in the past, how could you possibly know about it?” he requested to get told. Now, it was Judy’s turn to be smug. “You sent me a letter,” she deadpanned while shoving the mentioned item in the vulpine’s face.