Zootopia: A Tale of Two Foxes

Chapter II: Life Seems Perfect

From the outside, if one was to look at what Zootopia had looked like 12 years ago to what it looks like now, one would barely notice a difference. However, from an ideological perspective, and especially in terms of how prey and predator treated each other nowadays, Zootopia had been completely flipped on its head. Indeed, this drastic change could never have come without a catalyst, and in this case, that catalyst was two heroes. From simple observation, the two heroes were nearly polar opposites to each other; one of the city and one of the burrows, one of the predator family and one of the prey family, an unlikely duo: a sly fox and a dumb bunny (or was it the other way around?).

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Judy Hopps was one of 276 little bunnies born to Mr. and Mrs. Hopps, both of whom were residents of Bunny Burrow. Her parents were both carrot farmers, and it was tradition to pass on that farm work to their kids, but Judy Hopps did not want to be a carrot farmer. She wanted to be a police officer in Zootopia. As such, even though she faced great opposition from not only her parents but often even fellow trainees and bullies, Judy persevered and was top of her class at the Zootopia Police Academy when she graduated. With a ceremony which gave great honor to such a small mammal like herself, Judy became the first rabbit cop in the ZPD, assigned to Precinct 1, City Central.

From there, Judy Hopps immediately began to face discrimination from the other officers within the department. The chief was only willing to make her a meter maid, a job which she resented even though she did it quite well. During one of her days on duty, she caught a thief and stopped a robbery from taking place...and she found herself rewarded only with scolding and berating from her chief, a gruff buffalo by the name of Bogo. She was only given the opportunity to solve a case after she promised the chief that she would solve it in 48 hours, a case which the ZPD still had not cracked in two weeks! Nevertheless, Judy never gave up and proceeded to solve the case, leading to her blackmailing Nicholas Wilde (a fox con-artist whom she had become acquainted with during her days as a meter maid) into helping her solve the case. Though reluctant, Nicholas Wilde did what he could to help her find the leads that she needed, even if it meant making it as torturous for her as possible along the way.

To make a long story short, the unlikely duo did end up finding the missing predators, including the one predator that they had been assigned to find. However, Judy and Nick separated shortly after a press conference at the ZPD, in which Judy connected the "savagery" that the newfound predators were exerting to DNA (a.k.a. a "biological component"). Nicholas saw that the reason she offered was filled with nothing but discrimination, something of which he was well acquainted with, and he could not bear to stay any longer with a friend whom he felt had betrayed him. The situation had slowly deteriorated from there, and more and more predators ended up going "savage" as the days went by.

Fortunately, Judy Hopps found what would likely be the true cause behind the predator's "savagery," stumbling upon it almost accidentally back at her home in Bunny Burrow. Returning to the city as quickly as she could, Judy found Nick and confessed that she was wrong, apologizing sincerely for unintentionally hurting both him and making other innocent predators suffer. Nicholas Wilde had already found it in his heart to forgive her, and together they solved the case at last, catching the mastermind behind the distribution of the "night howler serum."

And yet, it still was not over between Judy and Nick. Judy had begun to realize how much she valued Nicholas, and deep-down Nicholas felt the same way about Judy. They had both saved each other's lives and changed each other's worlds, and there was no one that Judy trusted more. When all was said and done, Judy gave Nicholas one last offer to join her as a partner in the ZPD (the first offer rejected the day that they had separated after the conference). To her great joy, Nicholas accepted the offer immediately. With enough time and effort, Nicholas passed through the police academy with flying colors, and the following two days would remain in Judy's and Nick's minds forever.