Chapter Text
The day you are born is marked on a calender for your entire life. Every day of that month you will celebrate becoming another year older, survivng the world for yet antoher 12 months. The jolly usually have hundreds of sent cards and the lonely seem to smile a little more thna before. Yet one eternal smile faded on that day, diminished into a tense look of concentration as he packed a suitcase full of basic clothes and toiletries. It seemed to him that the happy day most saw was by far the worst to him, and he glared at the callender as he looked at the red mark thorugh the 30th of June.
He was shockingly strong as he hefted the bags on his thick shoulders and left the small one bedroom apartment he'd called home for ten years after he had originally became a ZPD officer. The door shut softly behind the orange and black feline as he sulked down the hall and to the curb where his car was parked waiting for him. Yet instead of pulling out and driving the fifteen minutes to work he passed the police station with tears brimming in his emotionless eyes and got onto the speedway full of other cars all headding out of Zootopia towards the rough heat of the Chettah-county where the oversized feline had been born.
Bact in the police station three boxes of specialty doughnuts sat unopened at the front dest with the words happy birthday writted on the box. Everyone had been told to wait in the front beside the desk to surrpise the officer who came in at the same time every single day ten minutes early for his shift so he could prep his computer and tlak to the other animals there. Yet when an hour ahd passed they were all forced to go about their usual duties presuming that Clawhauser was simply sick and forgot to call in again. Sometimes happening in the summer when he'd get allergies from the pollen.
"Judy, take over with the theft cases i'm working on for the day. I'm goign to check on Ben." The rowdy, highly easy to anger chief announced, dropping two theft cases on the bunny's desk and grabbing the boxes of doughnuts to take to the only mamal all the police officers are without any doubt fond of. Somehting baout the Cheetah having ensnared everyone's hearts to him, thus making him utterly missed when he wasn't there.
The chief would never admit to having been to the officer's home every time he got sick to check on him, nor being given his own key to do so by the Cheetah himself. Dropping off files and sometimes reading material he throught the zeleaous friend would like. Though he did admit that he knew the officer better than any would imagine, so when he didn't spot the usual clutter all over the appartment or the large feline on the couch watching reruns of some old comedy show he was more than concerned. Only when he found hte note seated on the chair that Bogo would normally sit and talk with him from did he call in a missing mamal to the department and storm down to the landlady, a kind older sheep who hadn't heard him leave this morning, but had spotted him taking trash bags outside from his appartment late last night when she was coing back from dinner with her son.
"Thank you madam. I'm sure he's jsut fine and frogot to tell us he was going to be gone today." He lied, the not ein his hand worrying the large Buffalo as he hurried back to the station to find everyone outside his locked office at the call about him ebing missing from an unknown officer. None of those assigned to the front knwoing that the cheif had left and had simply driven everyone to his office until his arival.
"Wolford, find Fangmeyer and pull him from whatever he's doing immediately." He snaps to one of his most trusted officers, "Both of you report to my office in one hour."
In that hour every traffic camera in Zootopia was being searched for the vehicle of the missing mammal. The words of the note burning the mind of the worried animal as he scanned the path that the vehicle took out of the city and failing to follow it beyond a certain point. Finally managing to jot down the probable places that eh would be before a dark colored wolf and a tiger both padded nearly silently into the room obedient of the cheif's wishes for them to be there despite the undercover work they were both doing.
"This is a personal favor to me and Clawhauser, he left the city instead of ciming in for his shift and cleared out his appartment. Left a criptic note for me to find, and I am under the impression that he is not acting under his own motives. I'm asking you to come with me to find him." He spoke fact, handing off the letter to Wolford's careful paws who read over it before nodding his accecptance of the unpaid job before Fangmeyer did the same before handing it back.
"We'll begin by following his moves. He proceeded along the expressway out of town and disapeared from survalence after passing out of the city towards the desert outlying towns. I suspect he's likely there for protectiong against some form of threat that he hadn't told us about not linked to the ZPD. Likely the wave of predator hatred had caught him in their web and began scaring him." The buffalo revealed, showing them the screen of the retreating car with a crying clawhauser int he driver's seat as he left the city he had loved. His emotions proving that it wasn't under hsi own power leaving the city.
"Sir, about two months prior i was spekaing with him about going back home for the upsoming holiday. He told me he lived in a outlying town called Chettah-county before becoming an officer as a younger animal." Wolford remembered, pointing to the colection of chettah towns that was once called chettah county btu had long since broken up.
"Good, we will begin there. Odds are soemone may have noticed him coming or going through somewhere." He grunted, leading the rest of the trio out and assigning Officer Mchorn as temporary chief in hsi absense.