Chapter Text
The Molotov cocktail hit the Happy Town sign with all the force young Winona Hite could muster. The glass shattered in the same instant the alcohol and gasoline mixture ignited, a fireball that set the wood and metal entranceway to the predator-only block ablaze. Paint blackened, visages of smiling predators twisting, disappearing into the acrid black smoke and embers rising into the evening sky.
The white liger watched the spreading fire a moment longer, the heat close to unbearable in her heavy duster and scarf, before turning to face the crowd of uncollared predators gathered behind where she stood upon a wrecked police cruiser. A few faces she knew, but so many more, hundreds more, that she didn’t. A lesser mammal might have balked at the waiting horde, at the weight of the scavenged collar key in her pocket. She resolved to be a greater mammal.
“No more Happy Towns!”
A deafening clamor rose up at this proclamation, howls and roars and snarls and cackles that echoed across the city blocks all around them. Winona let it go on, looking around to the surrounding buildings, relishing the gazes of frightened prey mammals watching the proceedings from behind the safety of locked doors and barred windows. She had no interest in hurting them, but if they wanted to work themselves into a lather over nothing…
“No more!” She let the two words quiet the crowd, waiting until she had their total attention once more. Then she held aloft her collar, the bane of 18 years of her life. “No more collars!”
The shouts of excitement here rose higher, louder, shaking the city. A snap from behind Winona, the crunch of wood giving way, and the Happy Town sign collapsed beneath the ever-hungering flames. A shower of hot sparks peppered her back. She ignored it, basking in the sight before her.
Before the excitement of the crowd had a chance to start dying down again, Winona knelt down and grabbed the riot shield she’d taken from the police cruiser after dragging the antelope officer out. Standing to her full height once more, she slammed her collar against the shield like a drum. “No more collars! No more hateful police! No more unfair, speciesist government! NO MORE! WE WILL MARCH TO CITY HALL, TO THE SAN DINGO POLICE DEPARTMENT, AND WE WILL TELL THEM NO MORE!”
The clamor of before didn’t hold a candle to what came next, every predator and even the handful of preys that had joined the crowd taking up the chant of NO MORE.
Past the assembled mammals, Winona Hite spied the sudden flashing of red and blue lights, police cruisers gathering up several blocks down. Snarling, she hopped off the wrecked cruiser, dropping her collar to be forgotten as she hefted up the riot shield. Lions and bears parted before her, a trio of Arctic foxes practically bowing as she passed. A few others began noticing the assembling police response and added their snarls to hers. Fangs were bared. Claws unsheathed. Someone offered a baseball bat to Winona, which she declined after a thoughtful moment. “I’ve had shields like this one bashed against my head enough to know what they can do, friend.”
This got a rumble of approval from those mammals close enough to hear, and Winona continued on through the crowd. She reached the other side just as a crackle and buzz of a megaphone turning on caught their ears. “THIS IS THE SAN DINGO CHIEF OF POLICE! THIS IS AN UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY! YOU WILL REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE AS CERTIFIED POLICE OFFICERS RETRIEVE AND REATTACH YOUR COLLARS! AFTERWARDS YOU WILL DISPERSE BACK TO YOUR HOMES! THAT IS AN ORDER!”
Winona Hite huffed and spat on the ground. Hefting the riot shield up into a ready position, she started marching forward toward the growing wall of police officers in riot gear, prey mammals cowering behind shields and batons. The rumble of a hundreds of paws marching behind and around her brought a grin to the liger’s muzzle. “Here comes trouble.”
***
Many decades later…
Five beers and two platters of cheese-drenched nachos, and Nick Wilde knew he was in trouble.
The night began simple and safe enough. He and Judy had come in from their patrols through the Rainforest District to clock out and catch dinner together, only to find half the ZPD waiting in the lobby for them. Turned out, to Nick's surprise, that day had marked the 5th-year anniversary of his joining the Zootopia Police Department.
"Not that I particularly care," said Chief Bogo, the cape buffalo going about the "celebration" with all the grim fortitude he would have used when approaching a hostage situation. “However, Clawhauser was squeeing all day while you were gone and it was making the hardened criminals uncomfortable. I had to do something. Don't get used to it."
"It" had involved a cake the size of a pool table with the heartwarming message "Here's to 5 years of not getting lethally shot" written on it in thick butter frosting, as well as... well, even as kind a soul as Judy hesitated to call it a speech, but Bogo had certainly said a few words just so they all knew who exactly had written out the cake's message.
"When I first met Nick, he was unlike any fox I'd met before. Brave, loyal, clever. Oh, how I wanted to strangle him where he stood. But I didn't, and Officer Hopps managed to find the missing mammals. So there we go. Have a good night everyone, get out of the way for the night shift."
"A real inspiration, that guy," said Nick, before getting whisked off by Judy, Clawhauser, and a few other officers for what they promised to be a real celebration.
The location of that "real celebration": Mc'Shammy's, one of the few bar & grills Nick had never gone to in his days as a conman, mostly for its heavy cop patronage. The insides were seedy and smoke-dimmed, the walls covered in a mix of old band posters and traffic signs. The pangolin manning the bar looked halfway to death's door, while the pool table looked like someone had attempted to make it into an actual pool at some point in the distant past. But the beer was free (paid for by Officer McHorn), the food was plentiful (accounting for Clawhauser's appetite), and Judy's paw grabbing his as they entered was soft and warm and made his stomach pull a perfect swan dive, so it was easy enough for Nick to go into this situation with a smile.
That smile was much harder to maintain 3 hours, five beers, and two platters of cheese-drenched nachos later. Wedged between Wolford and Delgato at a corner table, a half-awake Judy at some point having taken up residence in his lap and McHorn and Francine rooting Clawhauser on at the other side of the table in some sort of eldritch nacho-eating dare, Nick had little choice but to regret his recent dietary decisions and listen as the wolf and lion threw out increasingly embarrassing (and oft preposterous) stories of their own cases with the fox of the hour.
"Hey Wilde, you remember that time over in the Canal District, with the three little piggy jewel thieves and that exotic camel assassin? Who knew it was so hard to get the stench of sewer water out of your fur?"
"Yeah," said Nick, face flushing at the memories and Judy's giggles. "How could I ever forget that case, Wolford..."
"That's nothing," said Delgato, slamming another finished beer bottle to the table and signaling for the waitress. Words starting to slur, the burly lion threw an arm around Nick's shoulders and hugged him tight. "This guy here... this smug little jerk... God bless this smug little jerk. It was uh... two, yeah, two and a half years ago, it was. Hopps, you were out sick that week, I remember because you didn't go home to rest and get better until you threw up all over the interrogation room and Chief Bogo himself drove you back to your apartment. Anyway!" He paused long enough to accept his new beer from the doe waitress with a smile and wink that Nick could only scoff at, before continuing, "Anyway, two years ago, Tundratown, cold as one of the Chief's glares. Standard breaking and entering, or so it seems at first. A toy store that maybe said no to one of those protection rackets that pops up every few months when they think Mr. Big won't notice them."
"And Mr. Big always notices them," said Francine, chiming in as she stood up from the table. "Off the record, but sometimes I gotta bless that little shrew. This place is too quiet. I'm heading to the jukebox and I'm not taking suggestions."
Delgato continued his story to the sweet tunes of Led Sheeppelin's Immigrant Song. "So while I'm inside picking through to see what's been stolen and taking the owner's statement, old Wilde here's outside keeping an eye out for anyone looking like they're trying to see how their handiwork's being treated. 10 minutes there and a herd of kids, polar bear cubs and arctic foxes and all that, come over looking like it's the first day of Christmas break—”
"It was the first day of Christmas break," Nick chimed him, a paw stroking over Judy's head. "Bunch of kids hearing their favorite store got trashed and worried sick for the owner."
Delgato nodded. "Mr. Bartleby, that was the guy's name. Creaky little antelope, not the kind of guy you'd expect in Tundratown. Anyway, this soft-hearted little jerk here, he listens to the worries and whimpers of that gaggle of kids for what can't be more than five minutes before he goes into the store, shoves a fat $100 into Bartleby's hooves, and comes out with that year's hottest-selling toy, one for each of the little munchkins."
"Aww!" McHorn reached over the table and, gentle as a rhino could be, gave Nick's shoulder a playful shove that still made the wood wall behind him creak. "Never took you for such a softy, Wilde."
"What can I say," said Nick, contemplating trying to finish the half-full bottle in front of him before deciding he likes his liver in one piece, "I have a soft spot for kids."
"I can attest to that," said Judy, popping up on the other side of Wolford with a cheeky grin that belied the pair of fox-sized beers she herself had drunk. Nick started at the sight of her and looked down, having not even noticed her leaving his lap. "You guys want a softy, you should see him whenever family visits. You'd think all my little sisters and nieces and nephews and cousins were his own, the way he dotes on them."
A chorus of laughter rang around the table, and Nick decided that sixth beer was worth finishing after all.
“You know, Nick,” said Clawhauser through a mouthful of chips, “I’m surprised you haven’t thought about settling down and having some kids of your own. The big 4-0 isn’t that far away and those lady-killing looks aren’t gonna last forever.”
Despite a heavily muscled and inebriated wolf sitting between them, Nick could still feel Judy’s flinch at this statement. Keeping a better grasp of his mask even with the alcohol coursing through him, Nick shrugged and made an “ehhh” gesture with one paw. “Do I like kids? Yes, yes I do. Do I think I’d be anything resembling a good parent worthy of kids? No, no I don’t. Also yes, thank you for the reminder of my ever-encroaching mortality, dear Benji.”
The tubby cheetah had the decency to blush, though it seemed Wolford’s drinks had finally gotten to him as he gave Nick a punch to the shoulder that somehow seemed so much harder than McHorn’s. “Oi, quit it with that bloody defeatist talk, Wilde! Being a dad’s easy! Just do as your dad did, like I do! My darling Alexis is turning out alright!”
Judy’s voice came next, flat and unamused, not an ounce of the beer she had consumed that evening. “Your Alexis likes to blow up trashcans with firecrackers and once went riding through Little Rodentia on a unicycle.”
“Exactly, lass! And how many other kids her age do you know that can make firecrackers and ride a unicycle half as well, eh?”
Nick drained the last of the bottle and signaled for another, feeling all the while Judy’s gaze on him growing more alarmed, her voice when she spoke (not over him, not past him, only for him) growing cold now, starting to fill with that police sergeant’s harshness he can’t help but feel chills at. “Wolford, I mean it. Drop it. Nick, come on, I think you’ve probably had enough to drink—”
Maybe it was his guzzling down the entire bottle of beer down in one throat-burning go, maybe it was the rapid TAP-TAP-TAPPING of his extended nails against the wood of the table that Nick couldn’t get a hold of, maybe it was the bristling fur he decided not to get a hold of, but some of the others around the table seemed to start catching on that something was wrong with the whole topic. McHorn and Francine exchanged LOOKS, the kind cops in Zootopia always did at the first inkling that a predator might start causing trouble. Wolford and Delgato looked utterly taken aback as they stopped squeezing the fox between them, while Judy’s nose, despite whatever efforts to progressivism she aspired to, began twitching like the rabbit she was.
“Uh, Nick?” asked Clawhauser, food before him forgotten as he reached across the table to place his paw on the fox’s. “Is everything okay? Look, we’re really sorry if this is a sensitive topic, we didn’t know… I mean you hardly ever talk about… Judy! Has an amazing family, and you and Judy so we thought—”
“My father.” The words came easy and calm from decades of playing the con. “What do I remember about my father? Let me think… Corduroy slacks. The spiffiest little ties you ever did see. A dusty clothing store that always seemed too empty. Orange, heh, orange-flavored root beer, if you can believe they ever made such a thing. My mom always hated how it made his breath smell, but honestly, I thought his cologne was worse. And let me think…”
“Nick…”
Nick ignored Judy’s pleading tone, grabbing a bottle off the table even though he knew it to be empty. “Let me think… and yeah, the thing I remember most clearly about my old man; the back of that rotten scoundrel’s jacket as he walked out the front door one June day, saying he was going to the store, and never coming back. Yeah, just doing what my dad did… probably not the best advice.”
The table sat in silence from the story, none of the other mammals there quite able to meet Nick’s eyes. Minutes passed until Nick felt less angry and more stupid for everything he said. Sliding off his seat between his wolf and lion compatriots, he slunk under the table to the other side and gave a half-hearted wave over his shoulder. “Well, guess uh… guess I’ll be seeing you guys tomorrow. Take care, don’t drink any more than I would, thanks for the… for the wild time.”
A few similarly-weak farewells followed Nick across the bar and out the front door into a crispy Tundratown night. There he waited on the sidewalk, watching snow as far as the eye could see glisten in light of a hundred neon signs, the only sign of life out on that cold, lonesome street.
The door creaked open behind Nick and Judy joined him outside, passing him his winter coat he’d left behind in his haste, her own already wrapped tight around her. He took it without a word, imagining for a bizarre moment as he slipped it on that the ZPD emblazoned on the back of the dark blue coat had transformed into a bulls-eye. He could not come up with where the thought had come from and quickly discarded it. They were in Tundratown, Mr. Big’s land. Trouble didn’t happen to cops here that they didn’t go snooping for.
“I’m sorry, Nick. I shouldn’t have let them get going that far.”
Nick shrugged, slipping one paw into a pocket, letting the other hang free as he started down the street to the nearest bus station. “It’s cool, Carrots. You heard Ben. I hardly ever talk about myself.”
Judy slipped her paw into his as they walked, fingers entwining to return his needy squeeze. “You do with me.”
Nick rolled his eyes as they turned a corner, instinct driving him to pull the rabbit closer against him at the sight of a dark alley ahead to their left. “Yeah, but you’re you. What, are you supposed to go blabbing to them about my deepest secrets or something?”
“Sure!” Judy smiled, a little wildly, a little drunkenly. “The girls in the precinct loved hearing all about International Women’s Day!”
Nick stumbled, and not only from the snow and the six (seven?) bottles of beer starting to work their magic. Cheeks feeling like they were ready to burst into flame, he turned a theatrically affronted look Judy’s way. “You didn’t!”
They passed the alleyway. Nothing happened.
“Nope,” she said, grinning in such a way that Nick couldn’t help but grin back. “But I had you there for a moment, didn’t I? Hehe, hah, what, what’s the word I’m looking for? A… bustle? A trustle?”
Nick rolled his eyes, but kept smiling. “It’s called a hustle, sweet—”
The frozen gale swept up the street from behind them, driving claws of cold into their backs and the howls of the damned through their ears. A half-formed comment about the weather died on Nick’s lips as a scent carried along by the gale invaded his nose, bringing him to a halt. He barely noticed when Judy stopped walking a moment later and looked back at him. “Nick? You’re not going to lose your dinner all over the sidewalk, are you? The cheap beer getting to you?”
He didn’t answer, not until another gale, another blast of that curdling stench, sent every hair on Nick’s body on end. He turned back behind them, taking a deep sniff and nearly gagging. He looked at once to the alleyway. “Oh damn it.”
Judy returned to his side, one paw clutching the radio at her belt, the other pulling her stun gun from its holster. “What do you smell?”
“Blood.” Nick swallowed, throat suddenly dry, beer and nachos threatening to come back up, before his paws found wit enough to reach for his own stun gun. “Lots of it.”
Judy let him and his night vision take the lead. Nick started walking back toward the alleyway, weapon drawn and eyes focused on that stretch of black in the sheer white of the ice buildings and fallen snow. Three feet off and they saw the slowly growing pool of blood edge out of the alley, stark red against the surrounding white. Nick’s stomach fell at the sight of it. He turned to his partner and already Judy was on the radio, reporting their location and the possible crime with a forced calm the conman of Nick’s earlier years would have killed to possess.
Shuddering at the poor choice of words his inner thoughts had given him, Nick started again for the alleyway entrance. “Hello? This is Officers Nicholas Wilde and Judy Hopps, ZPD. Is there someone hurt in there? Please, respond if you can!”
No answer came. Nick looked over his shoulder at Judy. “Carrots, you got a flashlight?” She answered with her phone’s flashlight tool. “Ow! Carrots, watch where you aim that! Night vision, right here!”
As he rubbed the spots from his eyes, the beam of light turned down the alley past him. They saw a mottled green dumpster, walls plastered with graffiti and posters for performers long gone, a fire escape, a short pyramid of cardboard boxes and blankets that might have been some hobo’s winter home, a red spaghetti-string purse—
No, thought Nick with a start. Not red but tan, colored in blood.
Judy turned the beam of her phone deeper into the alley, and there they saw it. Judy letting out a scream, Nick barely making it back to the sidewalk and out of the crime scene before emptying his stomach. Even out there, in the fresh air and the lights of neon signs and flashing of approaching cop cars, the image of the alley remained seared into his mind, threatening with every breath to bring up more burning stomach juices. Even as he looked up to the approaching forms of Officers Grizzoli and Johnson, he saw the nightmare.
A woman, some kind of antelope, propped up against several bags of trash like a puppet with its strings cut. Her black winter coat and scarf had been drenched in blood, so much blood, more than any antelope’s body should have contained, all of it pouring down from-from—
Nick retched again, narrowly avoiding Johnson’s legs. The slim lion danced back and out of the way, face a war between disgust and concern. “Jesus, Wilde, the hell’s gotten into you?”
Several seconds of catching his breath, before Nick managed to stand up and look back to the alley. Judy still stood there at the entrance, arms hanging at her sides and ears down. A splotch of grey and white against the red and black.
“Officer Wilde! Nick!”
“C-call a… call an ambulance…forensics, call…” Nick clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, turned to look up at the ever-more panicked lion officer. “Call everyone you can.”
Johnson spared a moment to look at Judy at the alleyway before backing up toward his cruiser. Grizzoli took over, the veteran officer ducking to one knee to more easily look Nick in the eyes. “What is it, Wilde? What did you see?”
It was Judy who answered, finally turning from that blackened alley to stare at them with the eyes of the lost. “No face. She has… she has no face.”