What ? This soon after Alternatopia ? What the hell ? What is he doing ?

Well, I was writing a couple of one shots parallel to my main story, and it kind of devolved into a 60 000 word mess, that will probably turn out to be 120 000 in the end or something like that.

It was inspired by my twoparter about Gideon Grey that I posted a little while back on my collection of One-Offs. There are going to be corelations between the stories, but they technically aren't happening in the same universe.

I'll try to post every week, but :

1. No guarantee

2. The chapters' length will STRONGLY vary.

So, expect no consistency whatsoever.

Prologue : Switching Topics

"You should do tutoring."

Fourteen years old Judy Hopps, best student of her 9th grade class of tri-burrow high, stares at her school career counsellor, Mrs Catmull with a perplexed expression. The feline's office is painted in a pale yellow, the morning sun giving enough light so that she doesn't need to turn on the light. The cougar is leaning against her desk, cluttered with files that probably have an organisation to them. Part of the walls are covered with drawings and thank you notes, a testament of the feline's willingness to help guide the students and her effectiveness at that task.

"I thought you'd tell me to sign up for one of the music clubs." The doe answers with a thin smile. In truth, she doesn't have anything against the cougar, she's only doing her job, and most of the time, she's great at it.

But if feels like a punishment to Judy to be forced to meet with her in such a regular manner. She doesn't fight, she doesn't break rules. In fact she's enforcing them. And that doesn't always pleases the school staff, as it would seem.

"You and I both know your sense of rhythm or melody leave to be desired." The older mammal smiles mischievously while the bunny blushes. The tales of her feats in her middle-school music class appear to have made their way to her ears, which certainly isn't surprising, given that her own son was an unfortunate witness to the multiple disasters.

"So, Bobby's a blabbermouth." Judy answers with mirth.

"And you're bad at switching topics."

The cat seems to enjoy the verbal jousting, and has no qualm bluntly putting her back on tracks. What's really annoying, is that Judy knows that if it was anyone else facing her, she'd have no difficulty waving her grades in her face to get out of that situation. She wants to focus on her studies and her goal of becoming a ZPD officer, how is that so hard to understand ?

"Judy, I'm not doing this to annoy you or make you lose your time, but trust me, you need something to take your mind off of your goal once in a while."

The bunny narrows her eyes. That's the moment the feline will undermine her dream, she just knows it. It wouldn't be the first time it would happen, but it would still be a bit disappointing coming from the career counsellor. She knows what she wants to do, wouldn't her job be to help achieve her goal ?

"I talked a bit with your parents. Even at home, when you're not doing your chores, you're training or studying. You even take martial classes for that exact purpose. It would honestly make me happy if more students had your focus, but I would give them the exact same speech. You need to let out some steam, do something unrelated to your dream. Hang out with friends-"

"I hang out with my friends." The bunny rebukes.

"Outside of school ?"

Judy looks away. Well, she does, sometimes, when there's a birthday. Sharlah's was pretty nice. "Yeah…?"

The cougar rolls her eyes. "Listen, I'm not asking to give up on your dream, or to stop pursuing it. But I know your kind of teenager. You can't turn off. If I told you to relax or try meditation, it would just make you restless. All I'm asking is that you find a task unrelated to your dream and focus some energy on that. Discover that there might be other things that you might be good at or want to do."

"So ?"

The bunny leaves the counsellor's office with slight scowl that disappears as soon as she sees that her friends waited for her.

"Your mom thinks I can't relax." The bunny groans. "I don't need to relax. I'm relaxed."

"Aha." Smiles Bobby, her cougar friend, wearing a blue vest over a buttoned up shirt completed with a red tie that makes him look like he's always ready for a job interview.

"What ? You think I'm working too much too ?"

Sharla nods as she straightens her long back pleated skirt. Everything in her attitude screams nerd, down to the way she hold her bag or how neat her clothes always are. "Why do you think we used to call you Judy on duty ? Even at my birthday, you looked like you were on a mission. You spent more time helping with the organisation than actually enjoying the party."

Judy's ears drop. Did she do that ? She only wanted to help.

"Hey, it's fine. I know you wouldn't have come if you didn't want to. And you also helped with the cleaning, so it's not as if I was complaining. But you're my best friend, and I'm worried about you sometimes. And if even the school counsellor is worried for you, maybe you should listen to her. She just might know how to do her job."

"Maybe you're right." Concedes the bunny. "But I don't know how tutoring would help me relax."

"She recommended that you do tutoring ?" Asks the wooled mammal in surprise.

"Yeah. How's that for relaxing ? I'm pretty sure you'd be better suited for it, with your grades and all."

As they walk away in the hallway, the sheep reflects on it. "Well, I'm not the head of the class."

"You could be."

"If I didn't suck at sport."

"Maybe I could tutor you in sport !" Reacts the bunny. "Oh, I could actually put into practice the training drills from the ZPA, and-"

"You do realise that it would defeat the whole purpose of you doing tutoring." Remarks Bobby with a playful smirk.

Judy shrugs. "It's not as if your mother had to know."

"So you would lie to a figure of authority ?" Innocently asks Sharla.

There's the corner of a grin on the ewe's face, and Judy groans. She just had to go there. "You could just say you didn't want to train with me."

"I can't follow your workout. I'm pretty sure that even most of the soccer team would struggle. Anyway, if she suggested tutoring, I'm pretty sure she was talking about regular topics. Math, litterature-"

"Maybe I could even give some law courses !" The bunny reacts eagerly, having already started studying to get to college for her bachelor's degree.

"Going right back to defeating the purpose. You'd just use it as an excuse to spend that time the face buried in the law and regulations books." Says her cougar friend, reminding her way too much of his mother.

Judy glares at him. It's starting to get a bit worrying how him and Sharla just know where her mind is going before she does. "I just don't see why I should "relax"." She says, making air quotes.

"She doesn't want you to relax. She just wants you to focus some of your energy on other things." Remarks Bobby. "Is it such a bad thing ?"

"I just think it's going to be a waste of time."

The sheep put a hoof to her shoulder. "Let's make a deal. I'll train with you-"

The bunny can't help but cut her friend again. She has been looking for someone to train with, so that it wouldn't get too dull. And having Sharla with her to do so would be fantastic. Why she finally proposes it as the bunny has been bugging her since the beginning of the year, she doesn't know, but she's not about to look an ewe in the mouth. "You will ? It's so great !"

"But, only if you consider Mrs Catmull's offer seriously."

"Shar', you know I-"

"I said consider it. Seriously." The ewe states, pointing a stern hoof at her, before resuming her walk with a little smile. Judy's clever. If she really think about it, she'll understand she needs to have something on the side of her dream. If only because if it fails, she won't have anything to grab on to.

"Bobby, do you want to train with us ?" The bunny asks eargerly.

"Heh. Pass. I have band practice."

"Not every day !"

The feline gives her a half smile. "Yeah, but I'm already soooo busy."

Judy rolls her eyes. She knows he isn't that busy, but as a feline, he's still quite lazy.

"One more lap !"

"You're killing me, Jude." The ewe huffs in a ragged breath, as she starts her seventh lap around the field, while Judy passes her to start her twentieth.

They've been training together for two weeks, and Sharla's been complaining. A lot. But not a single time as she asked the bunny to slow down or go easy on her.

That's one of the reason they've remained friend since primary schools, they both believe. True, Sharla isn't as brave as her friend, but they have willpower to spare in term of effort they put in their work.

"Okay, ready for the pushups ?"

"Depends, do I get to die afterwards ?" Sharla groans as she gets on all four, Judy checking her posture as she starts pumping up and down.

"One, Two, Three, four, four, four, four…"

Sharla straightens her core with a scowl.

"Five, six, seven…"

Judy believed that she should take into account the weaknesses and strengths of Sharla when she devised her training regimen. There are a lot of the former, and basically none of the latter, so she's focusing on building stamina first. Once her will be supported by cardio, she knows she'll be able to throw anything to the ewe, and she'll be able to take it.

"So… Have… You… Been… Thinking…?" The sheep asks as she heaves herself up.

She actually has.

She isn't sure she'd be great at tutoring, but she found that training with Sharla actually showed her that teaching wasn't a useless skill to have. Plus, she could put it on her resume for college.

"I think I'll do it, if only to get Mrs Catmull off of my back." Answers the bunny. "Ten more."

After the push-ups, which the bunny made with one arm in her back, they moved on to crunches. Sharla's holding Judy's feet as she moves up and down, her ears following her movement, occasionally swatting her in the face.

"Does that mean you'll stop training with me ?" Asks the bunny.

"Why would I ?"

"Well, you got me to think and I'm going to do it, so..."

"Believe it or not, I've been meaning to start training for a while. I just… Didn't want to."

"Oh ?"

Sharla shrugs. "I don't like sports, I get sticky, and the wool makes it unbearably hot. Plus I always feel like everyone's waiting for the clumsy sheep to fall down. But I need it, so..."

"You… Need it ?"

"To become an astronaut. There are physical aptitude tests. What, you think you're the only one with unreachable dreams ?"

Judy smiles. Sharla understands better than anyone else the struggle of being told to settle down for less. But if someone deserves to get her dream, it's her. "So, you were going to ask to train with me either way ?"

"Hm-hm." Nods the ewe with a little smirk.

"We're switching." States the doe with a threatening smile. "If it's for your dream too, I think you need to put in more efforts."

"This is going to be my death, isn't it ?"

"I wouldn't dare hope."

"I'm glad you changed your mind."

Mrs Catmull is wearing her usual little smile. It's a bit infuriating how it feels like the feline knew which way it would go. "I guess I could use something to take my mind away from my goal once in a while."

"And you figured that kind of extra-curricular would look good on a resume."

Judy freezes, and realises it's no use denying it. "Maybe."

"Good enough for me. Let's go meet your student."

Leading the way, the cougar leaves her office to make her way toward one of the empty classrooms the student can use to work or study. Tri-burrow high is pretty lenient about the way it lets its student dispose of the rooms, as long as they take good care of them. "Here's the key, you'll be responsible for it, as well as the room… Well you know how it works, don't you ?"

The bunny nods. It's really hard to get some quiet at home, so it wouldn't be the first time she would use one of the school rooms to study. "Just so you know, he's really struggling with- He's really struggling. It's the second time he's repeating a year, so he's a bit older than you are, even though you're in the same year. You're going to have to be patient."

One of Judy's ear twitches. Patient really isn't one of the word that could be used to describe her. It's going to be a challenge. Fine, she eats those for breakfast.

Mrs Catmull opens the door on an empty classroom that looks like it's barely used. Of course, it's regularly cleaned up by the staff, but the furniture seams older and worn, and probably hasn't been changed in years.

There's a single student sitting at one of the desks, a rather rotund fox with his arm crossed, his head resting over them on the table. He has stitches just above his right eye that haven't been removed, and he's wearing and lumberjack shirt with baggy overalls in what is more of a hand-me-down situation than a real fashion statement. His tail poofs a bit when he recognises the bunny, and she narrows her eyes at him.

Almost ten second pass before either utter a word.

"Yeah, nah, I'm out."