New Reality | Chapter 3
The trip so far had been a living hell for Nick, he just couldn't stand country music. The forest ranger was playing Backtown Baaa's latest album. Nick felt he knew too much about the country band. The ranger given the two officers a small lecture on how the band started busking in small towns around Zootopia and slowly grew an audience and they accidently got an offer for a gig, that launched their career. Though luckily for Nick they were on the final stretch as they pulled onto a dirt track. Judy knew Nick's dislike for country music, so she did the only thing that the fox deserved "Personally I think Country of Carrots is better" Judy stated, in that back seat she could hear Nicks deep sigh.
"Country of Carrots? Bah! Backtown Baaa is the best band. They may not have as much sales as those big city bands or even _Country of Carrots,_but they have emotion in their music. I have yet to hear another band that can achieve that," the ranger passionately responded.
Nick leaned from the back seat and sighed "You win, you win. Carrots, just make it stop".
The deer gave Judy a knowing smile, "Some people just don't know what real music is" the ranger exclaimed. While he changed to the radio, Judy glanced back at Nick who giving her a playful growl.
"Hold on. It looks like we have some potholes ahead. But don't fear, its nothing old Bessy can't handle." The ranger exclaimed proudly as he taped the steering wheel. In the back seat, the fox cringed at the car's name, to him cars were nothing more than a quicker way to get from A to B. 'Bessy' as the ranger called it just looked like a big bucket of bolts to the vulpine. All their thoughts were cut short as they hit the first of a group of potholes. The whole car rattled. The review mirror actual fell off after a bigger hole and hit the centre console with a plastic Tink. "Ha, a few strips of tape and that will be good as new," the ranger boasted as he glanced at Judy and gave her a full smile. When the he turned back to the road he saw a massive pothole quickly swerving, but it was not enough. All three of the occupants were thrown up by the force of hitting the hole. While the trio were sitting in the stationary vehicle they heard the tell-tale hissing of a punctured tire. They were all stunted by the bump as they got out in almost complete unison with the thunk of the doors closing only slightly off. They all made their way to the source of the sound, which was their front left tire. As they looked at the tire Nick caught the scent of blood and sweat. But before he could say something Judy puzzled, "It looks like we hit some sticks. Wait," as she bent down and pulled one out she saw that it was sharpened.
"Get your fucking hand on your heads." A strong voice demanded shortly followed by stomping footsteps as the assailants approached. All three of them froze, though unlike the deer the two officer's brains went into overdrive. Nick started to reach towards his dart gun but before his hand could touch it he felt the cold seel of a gun pushed through his fur on the back of his head.
"You heard him," a second voice growled. As Nick was processing what was happening he realised he could smell the faint sent of fear on his attackers. The deer and the doe already had their hands raised when Nick started to bring his paws up. The mammals still had not managed two see who their assailants were.
"Keep still," the first voice warned. That's when the two officers heard the iconic sound made by Zipties as they were placed upon the ranger's wrists. Then Judy was bound, but the plastic never touched the Vulpine's fur, but his dart gun was confiscated, as was Judy's. "Well mechanic time to get to work" the first voice spoke. Nick only then turned where he was met by two strange creatures. He had seen plenty of mammals and some marsupials in his line of work. But the two exotic creatures in front of him were strange. He had seen white furred mammals and he even works for a furless mammal, but he had never seen any thin, white and furless animals. They were almost completely covered in camouflaged light brown fatigues. In their paws, which he noted looked like a monkey's paws, were to assault rifles. All guns were outlawed except for their SWAT unit in extreme cases.
*
Shane and Paul were happy with how well their small operation is going, besides the fact they were standing in front of anthropomorphic animals, of course. It is important to them that no one was hurt because they were still unused whether they are in hostile or friendly territory. Paul walked the two cuffed animals off to the side of the road and kept his F88 Austeyr trained on them. Shane waited as the fox stood looking at him not moving. "Come on fox, I don't have all day. You need to get a new tire on the car!" Shane huffed.
"Not my car boss," the fox responded with a shrug as he returned Shane's stare with defiance. Shane immediately realised the fox was trying to test him.
"Get working," Shane coldly demanded, nodding towards the other animals, "for your friend's sake,". The fox held his stare for a second more before breaking off and moving to the back of the car. Shane never liked making threats, but he just didn't have the spare time. He watched as the creature open the rear door and started trawling through old papers, cups and tools to reach the tire at the bottom. "I am going to ask some questions, I want clear simple response from you. What the fuck are you?" the lieutenant asked as he bit his lip. the whole walking, talking animal deal was far above his pay grade.
"I am an elephant. I am a fox of course!" The Anthro fox said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which Shane knew he was telling the truth, but it was not what he meant. He knew what a normal fox was, he had worked with foxes, well, against them as they were pest back in Australia. But what was in front of him was a fox, but it could talk, think and was bipedal, it was also clear to Shane from its comment that the vulpine thought it was normal for animals, or at least for some foxes.
"Where are we?" Shane questioned hopeful that fox wouldn't exploit his vast lack of knowledge of his current situation.
"Did you hit your head, or are you just stupid?" The orange creature was enjoying the change to wind up his captors.
*
Nick was starting to get more suspicious as his captor questioned him. He still couldn't help himself, he always let his mouth slip when he was in high stress situations. It was a habit from his old life, Judy had been working with him to try and break it. "Where just outside of Zootopia," Nick finally replied to the to the armed mammal as he finished dragging out the tire from the back. '_Why can't he repair the dam tire for himself? He is more than twice the size of me!' _Nick thought to himself. He knew if he could delay the pair long enough someone might stumble upon them. As nick answered more of the criminal's menial questions he started to notice his unique accent, he knew had heard it before, but he could just not place his claw on it.
Once the spare wheel's bolts fastened onto the car Nicks captor sent him back over to his partner and the civilian. The two captors step back from the trio and started speaking quietly, though they did not account for Judy's sense of hearing, but even still she only picked up parts of what they were saying. From the few words that doe could hear it sounded like the mammals where worried about their current situation, and that they needed to regain radio contact. Judy knew that if she let Nick push their captor's boundaries that their current predicament might turn violent.
"Excuse me," Judy interrupted, "I think this has all been a massive mix up. We know that the crash you were in must have been traumatic, but we are officers of the Zootopia police department. We are he to help mammals, if you could just take a moment to release us we can go back to our station and we can get in contact with your colleges,". Judy knew that there would be almost no chance they would take her offer but that was not her objective. She wanted to delay them as long as possible, Rihorn would realise that something was wrong as they were meant to arrive at the crash five minutes ago, but also Nick's and her radios were turned off.
While Judy was thinking about how to save their small trio the soldier had been planning to and what they decided surprised Judy. She did not plan for what happened next. The two soldiers raised the two confiscated dart guns and fired. "No, Nick!" Judy cried as she saw the dart piece her partners red fur then his skin underneath. To Judy's right she could her the whimpers of the deer as he slowly drifted off into an involuntary slumber. The doe was now at the mercy of her captors.