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empress-imperia · 7 years

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CHAPTER I IN WHICH JERRY MOUSEKEWITZ KICKS THE BUCKET A wise bear once said that even the tiniest object can have the greatest impact. On a hot summer day in the great city of Zootopia, ten commuters would learn that wisdom. It was a quiet afternoon in Sahara Square. Ninety-five percent of the population was at work, at school or out of town. The roads were quiet and the heat generators were scorching. There were very few cars to block the path of the tiny black car as it tore down the asphalt at eighty miles an hour on a narrow road in the artificial desert that surrounded the famed resort. The first car it passed was a massive shiny black car that frequented the Tundratown District. A year and a half ago that very car had forcibly transported the duo that would solve the infamous Night Howler Case. The two bulky occupants of the car were too preoccupied with the Jerry Vole classics to notice the smaller black car as it quickly overtook them. The second car was not a car, but an old van bearing the image of a majestic wolf bearing the lifeless form of his beloved. Inside the van, the bright red juice of a melted Jumbo Pop swirled inside six glass jars. The occupant of the van saw the tiny speeding vehicle nearly hit his own and vowed to smash it with his bat if he ever saw it again. The third car was a common orange car often seen driven by college students and blue-collar workers. Neither speedy nor shiny, the car nevertheless served its purpose as a source of transportation for the two rowdy occupants inside. The sharp blast of the tiny black car's horn drew their attention, and they watched the tiny car speed ahead for several seconds before going right back to arguing. The fourth vehicle was a small farmer's truck native to the far-off town of Bunnyburrow. Arriving in Zootopia much earlier in the morning than expected, its three occupants had decided to go sightseeing before they reached the Grand Pangolin Arms where their daughter lived. Awed by the distant Zootopia skyline, they almost didn't notice the tiny black car as it overtook them. However, the driver turned his attention back to the road just in time to see the tiny black car lose control on the bend, speed under the rail and fly off the hill. Stu Hopps heard the car hit the rocks and roll further down the hill like a metal pebble. His heart nearly stopped as he hit the brakes, stopping the truck and startling his wife and Pop-Pop. Ignoring their complaints, he threw the door open and leapt out, the desert heat hitting him like a blast of wind. As he sprinted to the rail, his long ears caught the sound of three other vehicles screeching to a halt behind his own. The first two drivers to reach him were a kudu and oryx, dressed respectively in a red and blue shirt. "Hey, what's the big idea blocking the road?!" Snapped Bucky the kudu. "Didn't you see it?" Stu snapped back. "See what?" Pronk the oryx demanded. "Didn't you see that car?! Did you see the way it went sailing out there?! It just- just sailed out there!" Stu pointed down the hill. They saw a trail of little metal bits amongst the rocks and the car itself fifty feet down, and their anger evaporated like a puddle in a desert. "Oh, holy crap." Bucky muttered. That was when the driver of the van, Finnick the fennec fox, joined them. He noticed the carnage much sooner than Bucky and Pronk. "Woah. Look at the state of that car!" The deep baritone voice that came out of the tiny fox raised several eyebrows. "Has anyone called an ambulance yet?!" Stu pulled out his phone just as his wife showed up beside him. "Stu, what happened?" "Get back in the truck, Bonnie." Stu quickly said as he began to dial. Just then the two polar bears that occupied the large black car came running up, sweltering in their thick white fur and black tracksuits. They looked down the hill, shared a look that suggested that they knew the car, and quickly climbed over the rail. "Yeah, they're right, let's get down there!" Bucky yelled. "What're you nuts?" Yelled Pronk. "There might be survivors so shut up!" "You shut up!" "No, you shut up!" "Both of you shut up and get down there!" Finnick shoved at their calves, forcing them toward the rail. With his tiny stature he merely went under the rail rather than over it, his long ears brushing the heated metal. Stu ran back to the truck and passed the phone to Bonnie. "Call the rescue services. I'm going down there!" "Okay, but be careful!" Bonnie said, looking justifiably frightened. "Hurry it up, I'm cooking in here!" Pop-Pop snapped. Stu clambered over the rail to find that the others had almost reached the car. Accustomed to the flat fields of Bunnyburrow, Stu found the trek down the rocky hill very tricky. The boulders were uncomfortably rough and hot and the rubble shifted beneath his feet. When he finally reached the others, they were looking around and rubbing their scalps in confusion. "Where the heck's the driver?" Finnick was peering into the car, which was so badly wrecked that it looked like a crumpled up ball of black and grey paper. "With a car that size, he's gotta be tiny!" Pronk yelled. "We'll never find him in all this-" "There he is!" Raymond the polar bear pointed to the left of the ruined car. A barely moving shape with four limbs and a head with big round ears was lying sprawled on a flat rock. Stu and Finnick reached the mouse first, followed closely by the others. Outwardly the mouse was in astonishingly good condition considering what he had just been through. His dark brown fur was covered in dust and his black suit had suffered only a few minor tears. The only sign that something was wrong was his distant stare and heaving chest. Finnick leaned over the mouse and spread his arms out protectively, his instincts as a former army medic kicking in. "No-one touch him without my say-so. There's no telling how bad his insides are." He proceeded to shift himself and very carefully put a tiny paw on either side of the mouse's head to keep it from turning. If the neck were broken, one wrong move would lead to paralysis or worse. "Stu, the ambulance is on its way!" Bonnie called from the top of the cliff. "Good, Hun. Stay with Pop-Pop!" Stu called back. Raymond and Kevin shot agitated glances at the people around them. "Kev, called you-know-who. Make sure this guy's who I think it is." Kevin pulled out his big black phone, the one with the photo of a wolf in Kevin's headlock as his screensaver. He started to dial the number, but then the mouse spoke in a strained, squeaky voice, his ears pressed against his head by Finnick's paws. "Don't bother with me. I'm a goner." "Don't talk." Pronk said. "Try following your own advice!" Bucky snapped. "You wanna start again?!" Raymond silenced them with a growl. "Take it easy, mister. Hang in there." Stu spoke, leaning over the mouse while taking care not to touch him. The mouse let loose a ragged cough, his chest quivering. At first there was despair in his eyes, but then a grim resolve as he looked upon the six Samaritans. "I'm busted beyond repair. I'm done. And I never even got to spend a dime... but you can." To Finnick's alarm, he pulled away the paws and lifted his head, his ears hanging limply. The little fox tried to stop him from potentially doing lethal damage to himself, but what the mouse said next stopped him dead. "Look, there's this dough, see. There's all this dough... six-point-five million bucks. Do ya hear me? Six-point-five million bucks!" Stu stopped blinking completely. Raymond and Kevin went as stiff as white statues. Bucky and Pronk fell into a rare silence. "You'll find it- every last dollar- in Ripe Carrot Park, in the park, in Bunnyburrow. Along with the- hidden with-" He coughed wetly. Finnick's ears went flat at the sound. "Hidden with the Blue Goliath. The Blue Goliath! You can't miss it! Biggest Blue Goliath you'll ever see! Five years. Five years they've been laying with the big blue G!" "D'ya think we should call the asylum too?" Bucky muttered. "Shaddap!" Finnick snapped. The mouse kept talking, so desperate to get his last words out before the inevitable happened that he paid no heed to their interruption. "Just drive down and pick it up. Pick them all up! But watch out!" The mouse's gaze was suddenly intense. "Watch out for the fuzz! Blasted nosy fuzz is everywhere! Watch out for the ZPD and their friends on the outside! They're everywhere!" Stu tugged at his collar, feeling very uncomfortable as he remembered his daughter. "Watch out for them, make sure they're not around when you pick up the dough, ya hear me?!" "Loud and clear." Stu said quickly. The mouse lost his strength and his head dropped back on the heated rock. The end was near. "Pick it up, and it's yours. Every cent. I'm giving it to you, you hear me? Never let it be known that Jerry Mousekewitz never leaves his friends without a pot to whizz in. Don't let it be known... don't let it..." He closed his eyes. His chest stopped moving. Raymond and Kevin shared a troubled look. Finnick sighed, looking away from the body. Bucky and Pronk sniffled and wiped their eyes. Stu started to take off his hat, but hesitated. This whole situation was turning out a lot like that movie he saw a couple years back. Paws gripping his hat, he eyed the mouse cautiously, but he didn't jump up begging for closure from his Aunt Bull. He really was gone. Stu took off the hat and held it to his chest. The mouse's foot jerked. CLANG! The carrot-themed cap when flying as the rabbit tumbled off the rock, barely avoiding the banged up bucket as it flew past his nose. Bucky and Pronk shrieked and grabbed each other. Finnick's curse word echoed in the desert landscape. Raymond and Kevin leapt back from the mouse. Then they watched as the bucket tumbled the rest of the way down the rocks until they could no longer hear the clatter. Chuckling nervously from the recent scare, Stu retrieved his hat and put it back on. "Well he certainly went out in style, didn't he?" Finnick gave him a dead look. "Are you kidding, rabbit?" "... I guess." There was an awkward silence. Bonnie called for her husband from the top of the cliff, but Stu only replied with a feeble wave. "Sooo..." Bucky twiddled his thumb hooves. "What do you guys think about... you know?" "Raving." Raymond said immediately. "He was obviously raving." "I don't know." Stu rubbed his head. "Dying aside, he seemed pretty lucid to me." Finnick prepared to give his own response, when the sound of a siren filled the air. "The ambulance at last!" Pronk breathed. "Just a teensy bit too late, as usual." Finnick scowled. "That's no ambulance siren." They all looked up, arms held up to keep the sun out of their eyes. They saw the flashing blue and red lights of a ZPD car as it came to a halt next to their parked vehicles. Hearts sinking, they watched as one figure leapt out the driver's side and rushed to Stu's truck, while the bigger figure started making his way down the cliff towards them. "What do we do, what do we do?!" Bucky whispered. "We can't stay for questioning, we've gotta be in the Meadowlands district by twelve!" "Me neither, I've got... work to do in Tundratown." Finnick muttered. "So do we." Said Raymond, lowering his voice as the cop neared them. He soon recognised who it was. "We do and say nothing. Got it?" They all nodded, Stu half-heartedly, as the cop reached them and introduced himself. Stu's nose started twitching like the dickens. The cop was a fox. "Officer Wilde, from Precinct One." The fox removed his mirrored aviator glasses, his calm smirk fading when he saw the lifeless mouse. "Has anyone touched him?" "Me." Finnick said bluntly, inwardly pleasantly surprised to see his former partner in crime. Stu had frozen the moment he heard the cop's name. "How's it going, Nick?" "Sorry, not now. Police business." Nick flashed an apologetic smile before kneeling down before the mouse and checking for a pulse. He sighed silently and stood up. "Hopps." He spoke into the walkie-talkie, too depressed by the disastrous turn of events to shout up the cliff. "Call Clawhauser and tell him we've got a 10-50. The driver's dead." Stu glanced sharply up the cliff when he faintly heard his daughter's voice coming from the radio, but he couldn't see her. He'd forgotten that her new partner was a fox. "Mr. Hopps?" Stu didn't answer right away. "Mr. Hopps!" Stu blinked and looked at the fox, who had put away his device. Fighting back the ignorant fear that had been a part of him for decades, Stu tipped his hat. "Morning, Officer Wilde. So you're the fox my daughter's always talking about." On Muzzletime, Judy Hopps had described her fox friend as a persistent snarker with an omnipresent smirk that may or may not always hide sneaky intentions. Today, there was no smirk. There was no place for it at the scene of such a tragic accident. "And you're the wonderful dad Judy's always showing me pictures of. I'm sorry I've had to meet you under these circumstances." He held out a dark brown paw. Forcibly reminding himself of his promise to look past the stereotypes, Stu shook the paw. "Yeah well, these things happen, don't they? I suppose you're going to have to question me now, right?" "You're right. We can get to know each other later." Nick stuck the mirrored glasses in his front pocket so he could take out a notebook and pen. "How long ago did this happen?" "About five minutes ago, give or take." Stu said, taking off the hat to scratch his head. "And who was first on the scene?" Nick spoke gently but with a hint of sternness, a subtle warning to everyone present that lying would not be tolerated. Raymond and Kevin remained cold as icebergs. As for Stu, he felt even hotter than before as the reality of the situation hit him. "We all went down at the same time." Bucky spoke up. "But we didn't realise something had happened until the bunny stopped." "So Mr. Hopps was the only one who actually witnessed the crash?" "Yep, that's right. It was ghastly. He must have been going nearly ninety." Stu shuddered. "Okay, we might need a statement from you later. Carrots obviously knows how to reach you, so we'll leave it to her." "I'd appreciate that very much, Officer." Stu said, only slightly taken aback by the nickname. Judy had already told him about it and promised that it was solely a term of endearment. "Come on, is this really necessary?" Finnick asked, paws on his hips as his patience wavered. "Some of us actually have places to be, ya know!" "I know." Nick replied, with a hint of the smirk he was well known for. "But we have to be thorough. Just a couple more questions, I promise. Was the victim already dead when you got down here?" Stu swallowed and wrung his paws, not giving an answer right away. Finnick remained silent, lowering his gaze to the dead mouse. Raymond and Kevin buttoned their furry black lips. Bucky and Pronk looked like they'd love nothing more than to start another argument, but didn't dare speak. "Practically." Stu admitted, earning the irate glares of the other commuters. Nick wrote the latest info on the notepad, his growing smirk betraying his amusement at Stu's choice of word. "So he was alive. Did he say anything?" "What about?" "Did he give any hint or reason as to why he was speeding?" Nick specified. "No, Officer!" Finnick said quickly before Stu could answer. "No hint or nuthin!'" "That's right, he was just raving!" Stu added. Nick's ears pricked. "Oh for god's sake!" Raymond snarled under his breath, but there was nothing he could do to silence the thoughtless bunny. While Wilde was preoccupied the polar bear looked at the others. He could practically see the giant dollar signs flashing in their eyes. Things could go south, fast. "Raving." Nick repeated bluntly. "Yeah, he must have had too much cat-nip!" Bucky twirled his hoof next to his head. Nick gave a long, slow blink. "He's a mouse." "Okay, so he had too much mouse-nip then!" Bucky snapped with a hint of pink in his cheeks. "Someone has certainly had something." Nick said frankly. Bucky wiped the sweat from his brow. "For crying out loud, we're baking out here! We saw the guy crash, we stopped to help, he kicked the bucket, end of story! So let us get out of here, okay?" Stu nodded eagerly, wanting nothing more than to get back in the truck with his wife and father. But then his daughter joined them at the crash site and things got infinitely worse. His stomach churned and he started sweating buckets. He couldn't lie to Judy. Please don't ask me anything, please don't ask me anything, please don't ask me anything... "Dad, are you okay?" Judy asked, looking very unhappy to see her father here. "I'm alright, Jude." Stu said quickly as he wiped his forehead. "Horrible, it's just horrible..." "I know." Judy replied. "I'm just glad you weren't hurt." "We're all okay, thanks for asking." Finnick said with a roll of his eyes. "Can we get the heck out of here now?" Judy turned to her partner. "I've gotten all the info I could glean from my mom and Pop-Pop. How're you doing?" Nick pocketed his notebook. "I think I've gotten everything I need from these guys for now. Thank you, gentlemen, you may now take your leave." "Thank you. I guess we'll see you later, Officer." Stu said, already thinking hard about how to tell his family what the mouse had told him. "About freakin' time." Finnick growled as he led the long and difficult climb up the hill. Judy kneeled beside the dead mouse and waited until they were out of earshot before speaking again. "What do you think, Nick?" "So far it looks like a simple case of death by reckless driving." Nick said as he knelt down next to her, feeling a twinge of regret at the needless death. It was one of many accidents that could have, should have been prevented. "We saw him speeding through Savanna Central, we tried to pull him over to give him a ticket, he took off into Sahara Square and lost control on a curve. The only thing that's keeping this from being an open and shut case is why he took off in the first place." "It might have been something in the car. Something he didn't want us to see." Judy said. "I'll check the wreck, you check the surrounding area. Look for anything contraband. Nip, weapons, night howlers, you know the drill." "Wouldn't mind finding contraband money for once." Nick mumbled. Judy's ear twitched and she narrowed her eyes. "I'm joking!" "... You'd better not crack a joke like that at the dinner tonight." "Promise. Scout's honour." "I mean it. You. Will. Get. Smacked." "I. Get. The. Picture." Judy couldn't help but give a smirk of her own as they split up to scour the scene, unaware that the eight commuters who had by then returned to their vehicles and continued on their way were about to turn the simple case of reckless driving upside down.

#zootopia #fanfiction

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krissysbookshelf · 7 years

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