Author's note:
Hello everyone! This is my first ever Zootopia fanfiction! While I have written plenty of fanfiction before (for nearly two years now), I have never written Zootopia, and especially since I found this chapter difficult to write, I want to know how well I did.

"There, that's the end of it…" grunted Nick Wilde as he finally filed the last folder of his last case into his desk drawer, rubbing his forehead with his paw in a vain attempt to cease his headache.

How a simple case of two young wolves holding up a liquor store had to have a twenty-page file attached to it still baffled the fox, even though he had been in the force for two months, not counting his six-month training at the Academy.

"It was simple enough. Those little wolf-gang wannabes robbed a place, me and Judy happened to be close by and apprehended them." Thought Nick as he leaned backwards in his chair, paws behind his head. Only that it wasn't just that, Nick had knocked one of them unconscious…

The wolf that tried to kill Judy…

Nick clutched the pen tightly as he grimaced in anger and recalled the events:

Nick parried the young wolf's knife by clutching his wrist and twisting it away from him, a technique he learned from the academy, perfected by his sparring sessions with Judy.
The youngster grunted in pain and tried to kick the much shorter fox's shins, but Nick used this opportunity to dodge and trip the wolf over.
Once put down, Nick disarmed his opponent completely, set his knee on his back to subdue him as he drew his pawcuffs.

"You have the right to remain silent." Said Nick as he clicked the cuffs on the young wolf. Saying those words never got old for Nick.
It gave him a certain feeling of certainty and victory that being a conman never offered. The wolf hadn't even managed to knock off his trademark shades during the brief scuffle, Nick noted with pride as he set them higher on his snout.

Nick heard a dull punch and saw that Judy had apprehended her own suspect by dodging his blows then jumping on a shelf high enough to reach the enraged wolf's face and then launched herself at him with her powerful hindlegs in a scissor-kick.
The leather-jacket wearing thug crumpled to the ground, flabbergasted that a tiny bunny had managed to beat him with a single blow. Nick whistled in astonishment.

"Nice one, Carrots." He said, leaning against the counter, relaxed that the job was done. Judy got on the wolf's back and took out her pawcuffs.

"You know, I could get you a pair of shades, you'd look so much cooler while cuffing lowlifes. Like I do." He said in his trademark snarky tone.

Judy groaned. "Nick, this isn't about looking 'cool'! Those sunglasses are a serious vision-impediment which could one day-" she was cut off by a sudden snarl as the wolf below her suddenly threw her off across the store out of Nick's view and lunged after her with a look that Nick only saw in animals that went savage.

The wish to kill.

Nick's heart skipped a beat as he heard crashing, groaning, and most terrifying of all, snarling and howling.

Judy was in danger. His precious Carrots was in danger.

"JUDY!" Nick screeched as he ran after the two.
Nick drew his baton and turned a corner. The wolf was crouched over Judy, snarling savagely. Judy had managed to put her elbow against the young wolf's throat, pushing him off little by little.
It looked as if Judy had this handled, but Nick wasn't going to leave her alone either way.

Nick lunged at the two of them and slammed his baton in the perp's ribs. The wolf screamed in pain and fell two feet away, clutching his side.

"Carrots!" yelled Nick as he rushed to Judy to help her up. Only that she jumped to her feet before he could do that.

"Gosh, Nick, stop worrying! I should remind you, I took down RHINOS in training! That little punk was no match for me." she said with a smile. Nick sighed in relief and smiled his signature, knowing smirk.

"No one messes with my Carrots!" he said, playfully flicking her ear, making her groan and roll her eyes. However, as she rolled her eyes, Nick noticed something: a spot on the fur of her neck was darker than usual. Nick caught her chin and touched the stain: it was wet. Not only that, it felt like… drool. His keen nose smelled traces of cheap bubblegum and cigarettes, confirming that it came from the wolf.

Nick put the pieces together in an instant: the wolf had tackled Judy and… tried to rip her throat out. If Judy hadn't raised her elbow in time, she'd have been…

Judy looked at Nick with concern. She saw how his expression turned from happiness to horror to… fury.

Pure, unaltered fury. She had never seen the happy-go-lucky fox so blatantly furious before.

"Nick, it's okay, he was drunk and more than likely high on something, he didn't know what he was doing." She said as she saw Nick turning toward the wolf with murder in his emerald green eyes. The young hoodlum was struggling to get up, still cradling his ribs.

"Nick, please don-" she didn't even get to say anything else before he roared in anger and kicked the wolf in the face, doubling him over on his back. Nick then pinned him while roaring with such fury that she heard only from animals hit by Night Howler. The enraged fox brought the nightstick down over the wolf's face with a dull crack.
And then again, emitting a roar of anger each time the tough rubber truncheon hit the junkie wolf's face.

"Try. To. Rip. My. Partner's. Throat out? HUH!?" snarled Nick, underlining each word with another blow from his baton.

Nick suddenly felt small, slender, yet strong paws pulling him from behind.

"Nick!" yelled Judy with undisguised shock and horror in her violet eyes. Nick only calmed after he saw that Judy was, indeed alright. But it wasn't enough to prevent him from imagining what it really would have happened if Judy would have been stunned by the wolf's tackle and couldn't have acted in time…

He imagined her screams of death, her tiny lifeless body, and worse still, that it was all his fault… why hadn't he helped her arrest her own suspect after he cuffed his opponent rather than tease her about her lack of sunglasses?

Now she was lying lifeless on the filthy floor of a liquor store, because of him…

"Nick!" Judy's voice took him out of his dark thoughts. He was thankful for that. It was just that he couldn't help but imagine what atrocity could have happened because his cockiness… "

Nick… you're crying." Said Judy with concern.

Crying? Yes, yes, thinking about his Carrots like that… he couldn't help it, he didn't even realize it. Nick looked behind him at the wolf. He was unconscious from the beating, both eyes swollen and snout broken.
Nick was lucky that in his state, he didn't even look at what his baton was aimed at, proof by the fact that some of the tiles were now cracked around the wolf's head, therefore, the beating wasn't as severe as it could have been.

"Let's radio this in, Cottontail." Said Nick, rushing out of the store to his cruiser as quickly as he could, not wanting to face Judy, feeling the hot embers of rage turning into cold ashes of remorse. What had he just done? A young wolf, barely out of being a cub, not even thinking straight due to alcohol and substance abuse…

Nick winced once more. He had never felt so furious in his life…

That thug… Nick didn't care that he was drunk, or high, or whatever the hell that wolf was (toxicology report showed that he was actually both when he robbed the store), he tried to kill Judy…

The bunny that turned his life around, the first rabbit to become a cop, the one who reunited him with his mother after ten years. The one who made him proud for the first time in his life that he was a fox.
And that bunny, his little dumb bunny, his Carrots, could have been killed in the blink of an eye by a lowlife wolf junkie… If Judy hadn't stopped him, Nick was pretty sure that he would have beaten the wolf to death.

"Nick?" came Judy's voice from behind. The fox turned around and saw Judy with two coffee cups in her paws. She handed one to her partner.

"Black. One sugar, no milk, hot. Just the way you like it." She said, handing him one of the plastic lidded paper cups. Seeing her alright, purple eyes beaming and that smile on her muzzle was all that Nick needed to get out of his dark thoughts.

"Thanks, Carrots." He said smiling, taking a sip of his coffee, wincing slightly at its hotness. His keen nose also picked up what his partner was drinking.

"Really, Cottontail? Vanilla cappuccino with mint? That glorified sugar milk? Real cops drink black coffee." He proclaimed proudly, raising his cup, downing a good part of its contents down his throat.

Only that he completely forgot in his bravado that the coffee was hotter than Hell on a summer day.

"Agh!" he groaned as the coffee burned his tongue. He ran to the water cooler, grabbing four stacked plastic cups at once, filling the top one to the brim and downing it over his burning throat. Nick cursed under his breath as he filled the cup once again. Looks like his next two meals will be completely tasteless thanks to hot coffee…

"What, Nick? You said it yourself that you like your coffee as hot as possible. This is why I always take mine warm, not burning." She said mockingly.

"Sly bunny." He murmured to himself, not being able to control his growing smile.

"Dumb fox." She retorted. He turned around dumbstruck.

"How the heck did you hear-? Oh…" he facepalmed. Of course she'd hear him with those ears, she was a bunny…

"You know, these ears aren't here just so that you can flick them." She proclaimed smiling, running a paw over them.

"Oh, and I just finished interrogating the perp that tackled me. Here, you can finish up the paperwork on that." She said handing him three stapled papers. And just when he thought he had finished his paperwork… Nick cursed under his breath.

"I heard that, too!" said Judy cheerfully. Nick smiled back.

"Come on, Nick, these papers are just formalities! Just read them once and sign that you've acknowledged everything." Said Judy.

"No, Carrots, it's not that." Said Nick seriously.

"It's that wolf. The one that tried to…" Nick couldn't even finish the thought, let alone say it. His paws clenched into fists without his consent.

"Nick. I've talked to him in interrogation. He was high, he didn't know what he was doing." Reasoned Judy.

"He's just some kid who ran with the wrong crowd. Really, you shouldn't have reacted like that! You know what he did when I told him what he did? He started crying Nick, he didn't even realize what was going on back at the store!" she almost yelled.

Nick said nothing as he looked down at his paws. He had acted solely on instinct, not thinking that the young intoxicated wolf didn't even know what he was doing when he tackled Judy.

"So, after I told him all that, he decided not to press charges for police brutality." She said more calmly.

"Good, in that case I won't press charges for attempted murder of a ZPD officer." Replied Nick.

The image he created of Judy dead in the liquor store still lingered in his mind, like a throbbing wound that wouldn't heal.

In that split-second, it could have been over… And he would have had only himself to blame…

It hurt, it physically hurt him to think back on that moment. He already couldn't imagine his life without Judy. Mainly because his new life was owed completely to her.

She was the best thing that ever happened to him.

When Nick was at the academy, the hardest part of it wasn't the training, his days as a conman kept him in shape running from the law as well as the occasional brawls with weasel ghetto gangs. Sure, he got a few scrapes and bruises at the beginning, just like Judy, but he got on top soon enough, even going as far as beating some of Judy's records (which he'd tease her with every opportunity he got)
It wasn't the change of scenery, either, in fact he was glad of finally seeing some place other than Zootopia for once.
And it sure wasn't his fellow candidates, who didn't poke fun at him for being small or a fox, as he half-expected them to, in fact his colleagues were what had made his six-month training tolerable.

No, it wasn't any of that. The hardest part was going months without seeing Judy except for the odd phonecall or seeing her Furbook updates. And now, that they were finally partners, he had almost lost her, on a "mission" that seemed as routine as anything.
It gave Nick a wake-up call just how dangerous police work truly was. Especially for Judy…

"Nick?" she said again, concern and confusion in her voice. Nick realized that he was hunched over in his seat, elbows on knees, ears droopy. He massaged his chest, which seemed to ache slightly. Must be heartburn from the coffee, Nick thought, lying to himself.

"You've… never been like this." She said, carefully placing a paw over his forearm. Her reassuring touch seemed to fix everything for him. Everything was going to be alright.
The station was buzzing with activity, chatter, phones ringing, the faint crackle of paper, yet everything seemed to go silent when Judy was by his side.

"It made me think. The… incident…" Nick paused, knowing that Judy had figured out what he was talking about. Judy's violet eyes stared into his own and he found himself looking away.

"Tell me what's bothering you, Nick." She said, rubbing circles on his forearm in an effort to comfort him. She was his best friend, and she knew that, there was no way she was giving up on him. Nick shifted slightly, feeling his throat tightening. "Judy, I…" he began. The rabbit's ears shot up suddenly. He never called her that.

He called her "Carrots", "Cottontail", "Whiskers" and other assorted nicknames that coming from anyone else, she'd have found offensive, but from him, they always made her smile.

"I… I don't think I'm ready to see you die, Judy. And we risk our lives everyday…" He finished, the sob in his throat begging to be released, his eyes burning with emotion. Still, he refused to give in to his emotions and break down.

Never let them see that they get to you…

He felt her paw rubbing his eye as if to wipe it and he realized that he had let a single tear escape his eye. "You think I don't know that?" she said softly, forcing him to make eye contact. "You think that I would be ready to see my best friend die? I'm just as scared as you are." She said.
"But we have to keep going, to right wrongs, to do what's best for the public. And don't say that just the two of us can't make a difference! We singlehandedly stopped Bellwether from segregating Zootopia! Think of what we can do now!" she finished.

Nick took in a deep breath, feeling his fears melting away. He fought the urge to hug Judy in a tight embrace. He still had his doubts, and he still knew that the paranoia would never truly leave him, but he also knew that Judy would always be by his side to listen to his worries, big and small.

"Thanks, Carrots." He said smiling, ruffling her ears. "You know I hate it when you do that." She complained, fixing her ears back, but her smile was a dead giveaway.
"Yeah, I know that. And I also know that you love me." He finished, leaning back into his chair, paws behind his head, a grin plastered on his muzzle. A real one, this time. Judy smiled back.

"Hey, Wilde." Came a friendly, raspy voice from outside. It was one of the other officers, a tall middle-aged panther, Harry Clawhan.

He was lean, for a panther and his small eyes were of a predatorial blue-green.
Despite his sincere smile and friendly personality whenever he saw Nick and Judy, he could be a criminal's worst nightmare. His green gaze could freeze the blood of a polar bear thug.
He occasionally got in trouble for police brutality, Chief Bogo having suspended him twice in the eight month interval since Judy returned.

"I only give animals what's coming to them." He'd say. And it was true, he was a good case mammal and an intelligent animal with great deductive abilities. A veteran of the ZPD, having been promoted and demoted respectively across a lot of departments, making him one of the most experienced officers in the precinct, which has often helped Nick and Judy when he offered to give them tips on cases.
Nick met Harry Clawhan at the Academy, where he had a temporary position as a CQC (close quarters combat) and firearms instructor there due to getting suspended for storming a weasel drug den without a warrant.

"Clawhan, buddy! What brings you here?" asked Nick cheerily as he shook Clawhan's much larger paw.

"Heard of what happened with you and that young wolf, Alex." Said Clawhan, lighting a cigarette that was almost half the size of Nick's forearm. Nick's smile faded once Clawhan mentioned the wolf that tried to… he didn't want to finish that thought.

"Don't get me wrong, cub, I understand why you did it. And I know I'm not exactly the best officer in the precinct to give advice about restraint of force." Clawhan cracked a smile at the last comment. "But you need to be more careful. That right there, beating him after restraining him? That usually costs an officer his badge and six months in the can." Said Clawhan taking another drag from his cigarette and opening the window to let the smoke out as Judy was already beginning to cough and wave her hands in front of her to escape the smoke.

"Then you also heard that he tried to rip my partner's throat out." Hissed Nick with far more venom than he wished to direct to his friend. The fox only hoped that Clawhan could figure out that it wasn't directed to him.

"Yeah, I do. I've had a few run-ins with Alex the Wolf myself. I pity the poor kid, actually. Got into a gang to provide for his dying mother a year ago.
His mother has since died, but he can't get out of his gang. They pretty much gave him no choice. You've only been with us a short time, Wilde, but you should know gang hierarchy. Once you get in, there's no getting out. It's either getting shot or a one-way ticket to jail. Also, he got addicted to drugs, and the only way to afford them is to continue enforcing for his gang.
He was high when he robbed the store. He had no self-consent.
You need to be more careful, Wilde, that wolf didn't deserve it. You're lucky he felt so guilty about trying to kill your partner that he decided to not press charges." Continued the panther.

"Besides, being angry doesn't fit you." Finished Clawhan with a smirk. Nick dropped his head and looked down at his paws. He'd have scolded himself not to become angry so easily again, but this was the first time he had truly lost it…

"Only because Carrots was in danger" he thought.

"And Judy, try to be more careful. Stopping in the middle of cuffing a violent suspect just so that you could respond to Wilde's snark? Don't get me wrong, you two are good cops, the best rookies I've ever had the pleasure of working with, but know that we're cops, not vigilantes. There's rules. Rules that I don't like either, but we don't have to like them, we have to respect them." Lectured Clawhan as he puffed some more smoke out the window, careful not to bother Judy with it, but she still scrunched her tiny button nose, muttering something about ruining Clawhan's health.

"Well, I should get going. Chief Bogo is right up my tail to finish the paperwork on a case. Wouldn't want to get suspended for another two weeks without pay. Nick… Carrots…" waved Harry Clawhan as he walked away smiling.

"Hey, hey, Clawhan!" called Nick after the panther. Judy was surprised to hear Nick somewhat angry.

"Yeah, cub?" asked Clawhan turning around. He seemed equally surprised at Nick's stern expression.

"No one calls her that but me." Said Nick as harshly as he could, despite the fact that he was smiling. Clawhan giggled himself.

"Noted, cub. Won't happen again." Said Clawhan, walking away giggling in his old smoker voice.

"And you too, Carrots, don't let anyone else call you that. You're my little dumb bunny." Said Nick smirking.

Judy punched his shoulder. Hard.

"Ow!" exclaimed Nick, rubbing his sore shoulder.

"I'm not yours, Nicholas Wilde." Spat Judy with a lot more venom than Nick ever heard her say. She then turned on her heels and started walking away.

"Now you've done it, you dumb fox." Nick thought.

"Wait, wait, Carr-, I mean, Judy! Come on! I was just kidding around!" pleaded Nick.

Judy stopped dead in her tracks, but her paws were still clenched in anger. Nick sighed.

"Okay. I admit it. I went a bit too far. I just wanted to have some fun. If it bothers you that much… I'll stop calling you "Carrots". Judy's a really nice name, after all." Said Nick.

He felt a twinge of regret after saying those words. He never considered how it bothered Judy to be called by what was, at the end of the day, a racist slang against rabbits.

"I'll stop calling you "Carrots". Judy's a really nice name after all." Nick heard his rewinded voice.

What the-? Oh, no, she didn't… Nick thought. Sure enough, Judy was holding that blasted carrot pencorder.

She turned around and she looked as happy as she could be, smirking in a way that was not unlike Nick's con artist smile.

So she wasn't angry after all… She tapped the erase key on the recorder, much to Nick's relief.

"I just wanted to get back to you after you recorded me crying. I still haven't forgotten that." She said, coming back to their desk.

"And for the record, you can call me Carrots. As long as I can call you Duster-Tail." She said, flashing her signature buck-toothed smile.

"Duster-Tail?!" asked Nick, suddenly laughing.

"Yeah. Really, next time you come around Bunny Burrows with me to visit my parents you can help my mom with that tail. Living underground tends to make a house dusty. You could clean a room in two swipes." Said Judy, crossing her arms and smiling.

"Sorry, Carrots, but I make a point out of not letting one speck of dust on this emperor's mantle. Besides, I think my tail got assaulted enough at Bunny Burrows without it being turned into a duster." Nick cringed at that last sentence.

The second time Nick visited Judy's parents at Bunny Burrows, Judy's father ended up trusting Nick enough to also have his younger kits around the fox.
Judy's youngest set of siblings were "only" about twenty in number. While Nick had fond memories of playing with those little sacks of fluff, one thing he wasn't so fond of was the time one of the boys decided to sit on his tail to see how fluffy it was.

Once he claimed to his siblings that it was "softer than a pillow" all the little bunnies took turns to sit on his tail. When it was finally over, Nick thought it was more painful than when he got drunk during his earlier days as a conman and let his tail swoosh to the side while walking on the sidewalk and a rhino's van ran it over. Who would have thought that bunnies' games could have become a fox's worst nightmare?

"Yeah… sorry about that…" chuckled Judy sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, we're done with paperwork, but it's barely two PM. Chief Bogo hasn't got anything. We should do our patrol run." Said Nick.

"Sure, Nick!" said Judy, putting on her equipment belt.

Their patrol had been quiet for the first few hours, save for them arresting one of the members of Yak's "Naturalist Club", a young lioness, for public indecency and exposure.

Even though the predators around her didn't mind the "view", someone had eventually called her in.

"Wow… that really was something." Said Judy wincing after they dropped off the lioness at the station, giving her a towel to cover herself as Clawhauser booked her a cell for 24 hours. Nick had seen Judy investigating gruesome crime scenes without as much as cringing, yet seeing nude animals seemed to bother her a bit too much…

"Though I bet you enjoyed it…" said Judy in a challenging tone as she shifted her gaze from the steering wheel to Nick.

"What!? No way!" said Nick shocked. In fact he had tried his best not to look as he pawcuffed the lioness.

"Well, you're a male predator after all… She was lean, blue eyes, young and stark naked! Come on, don't get me wrong, I'm not against interspecies relations or anything!" she said, chuckling as Nick looked away.

"She's not my type." Grumbled Nick. 'Not like you' he almost added…

"-Yeah, I mean, what would she do with you, tiny fox? Replace her dil- ?

-SHUT UP!" snapped Nick desperately just before she said… that.

Judy started laughing hysterically, punching the steering wheel. Usually it was she who cringed and desperately yelled "shut up!" right after Nick made a dirty joke, and turning the tide was such a satisfying victory…

"Eyes on the road, Carrots." He said annoyed.

"Oversensitive fox. " said Judy, wiping away a tear as she struggled to stop laughing.

"Cheeky bunny." He responded, regaining his smile. He once again found himself staring into her large amethyst eyes. Purple eyes were so rare, and oh so beautiful…
She was able to hypnotize him without even trying… Nick Wilde, the great confox, dominated by a little dumb bunny…

But he liked it…

Nick's thoughts were interrupted by his smartphone ringing with his default tune, Gazelle's "Try Everything"

Judging by what he was thinking about, that was rather a good thing.

What the hell is wrong with you, Wilde? Thought Nick as he fished his phone out of his uniform pocket.

"Duke Weaselton?" asked Nick aloud, looking at the caller ID. After the Night Howler case, Duke Weaselton had continued his bootleg DVD trade as well as petty cons, but he decided to turn his life around (slightly) and become a police informant.
He did this once he found out just how dangerous Night Howler truly was and that in his mind, he was guilty of all the animals going savage, even if it was in a small way. He felt so terrible, that he thought that the only way to redeem himself was to at least try to do some good.
His information had helped Nick and Judy solve many gang-related crimes (as long as said gang was not Mr. Big's. The mutual respect between the mouse and Nick and Judy was too powerful for them to start meddling in his affairs)

"Answer it, maybe it's something." Said Judy, pulling over from the traffic into a back alley so that they could listen to it properly. Nick answered the phone, putting it on speaker.

"Hello? N-nick, J-judy? You there?" asked Weaselton's nervous voice. 'Way too nervous' Nick thought.

"Yeah, we're both here. Anything to share with us, Duke?" asked Judy. Though Nick wasn't sure, he could have sworn he heard Weaselton gulp.

"Remember that catnip drug bust you did a week ago?" asked Duke.

"Sure we do, weasel. Couldn't have done it without your intel." Said Nick smiling, leaning back into his chair.

"T-there's still one base left of the cartel." Said Duke.

"What are you talking about? We even arrested their leader, Pawblo Escatbar." Said Judy.

"Yeah, but these are just… uh, small timers! They're just a couple of Pawblo's goons who were lucky enough to not around when you busted them. They took some scraps and are now dealing out of an abandoned warehouse. They're not much, it'll take months for them to become anything to worry about, but I say kill the snake young before it becomes a dragon." Continued Duke quickly, taking a deep breath as he finished.

"Duke, is something wrong?" asked Judy. Her ears picked up Weaselton's overly nervous tone way better than Nick.

"Uh… yeah, it's just that I'm calling from an alley behind a wolf biker bar, and one of the goons may be listening in. I-I mean, of c-course th-they're not, but, uh… you know…" continued Duke stuttering and ocassionaly pausing to take a breath. Nick and Judy looked at each other, brows furrowed in confusion and suspicion.

Duke Weaselton had always been fast-talking and nervous, sure, but not like this…

"Alright, Duke. Where is this warehouse?" asked Nick. Though Judy wasn't sure, she could have sworn she heard Duke let go of a tiny sigh of relief.

"Right. It's Talon Street nr13, the old warehouse with the Mountain Deer fizzy drink billboard attached to it . It's in that seedy neighbourhood just west of Lionheart Ave, outskirts of Savanna Central. Shut 'em down, coppers!" said Duke with forced enthusiasm.

Judy was about to ask something else, but Duke quickly hung up. Her and Nick stood in silence for a minute.

"Think something was up?" Nick broke the silence.

"I have to admit, he did sound nervous. But then again, he said he was behind a wolf bar, and it's reasonable to assume he was nervous because of that." Said Judy.

"Right… Well, no point in not checking it out. We can at least stake it out for a bit, see if anyone gets in or out." Said Nick.

"Right." Said Judy as she brought the engine back to life and steered through the crowded street.
She still couldn't get out of her head how nervous Duke sounded. Then again, what harm could it be to stake out an old warehouse? Besides, while Duke was a crook, he was strictly small time, not ruthless.
And he had proven his value as an informant multiple times. There was nothing to worry about.

Right?

Duke Weaselton began to breathe heavily, nearly hyperventilating as he finally hung up.

He had felt the need to do that ever since he had been speaking to Nick and Judy. Almost as much as he wanted to tell them that it was all a set up, but the gun pressed against the back of his head made him think otherwise.

"I… I think they bought it. They'll come…" He finally whispered to the figure behind him. To his surprise and dismay, Duke felt tears beginning to form in his eyes.

He had just betrayed the only two mammals in the world who saw him more than just a filthy street weasel. He had signed their death sentence to save his own sorry hide…

"Good." Said the tall figure simply, removing the barrel of his silenced pistol from Weaselton's head.

"Can… can I go now?" asked Duke, trying in vain to mask his tears from his ruthless captors.

"Are you stupid?" asked the figure, handing his silenced gun to one of his henchmen, a fierce-looking ram in blue combat fatigues.

Duke gasped for air, almost screaming. His eyes began darting around the dimly lit concrete basement, as if looking for a way out. But there was no way out. These guys were professionals, they had made sure of it.

This was it…

"You said you wouldn't kill me if I called them!" Yelled Duke, marching up the much larger figure.

He couldn't believe it. He had just betrayed the two closest animals to him, the closest thing he has ever had to friends, he had killed them, for nothing.

Though he was small, for a zebra, his captor still was four times larger than the weasel, easily, not counting his two henchmen. The short zebra's cold, dark eyes made even rhinos or tigers think twice before crossing his path.

His voice held no emotion whatsoever, the only thing one could conclude from it was the fact that he was male. Even his stripes had almost no curve to it whatsoever, making anyone who looked at him uncomftarble. But his most striking feature was the clawmark scar across his right eye, courtesy of a tiger, his own proof that predators hadn't evolved that much since their bloodlust in what civilized animals called "The Dark Ages" thousands of years ago.

As soon as Duke walked to the zebra, the ram aimed the gun and fired. The well-aimed bullet went straight inbetween Duke's ribs. These mammals were marksmen, they would only aim for vital organs.

"And I spoke the truth. It wasn't me that killed you." Said the zebra coldly, nodding to the ram. Duke let go of a muffled scream of pain, clutching his side in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding.

"You… bastard… This won't- Ungh! This… won't be… the end… of them! You won't kill them this easy!" spat Duke with as much venom he could muster as his vision went hazy and his willingness to not sleep was lessening more and more. He had to stay awake, at least to tell these bastards off.

But the darkness seemed so inviting… Just close your eyes and the pain will go away…

"No. I won't kill them. Only one will die, and by the paw (and fangs) of their partner. The other will do the rest himself. Electric chair or suicide, depends of wether or not they'll find it in his veins." Said the zebra.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Duke thought.

Even with his hazy vision, the weasel was able to see the zebra open the dusty from a worn steel desk and retrieve something which looked like a tranq gun.

However… the tip of the tranquilizers he loaded wasn't green, but purple.

Purple...

Even now, his sins within the Night Howler case were catching up to him.

It would now be the downfall of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps. And it was his fault…
It was the last thing Duke Weaselton had time to think of before the much-awaited darkness overtook him completely.
His final thoughts were hope that Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde could outsmart these bastards.

And if that malefic zebra's plan would succeed… he only hoped that Nick wouldn't blame himself for killing his partner all his life...

Author's note: Do you guys smell that?

Yup! It's the smell of an evil Cliffhanger of BBC Sherlock proportions! XD
But unlike them, I'll only make you wait about a week, not two years (or four, in Season Four's case. Seriously, Moffat and Gatiss!?)

Also, special shoutout to whoever got at least some of the name references

Again, please leave your thoughts in a review as I've never written a Zootopia fic.