The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One

The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 21

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle—A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 3 – Day of Carrots and Blueberries

(Continued...Pt. 13)

By the time Nick reached the Midway he was high up in his dudgeon; every rabbit he encountered moved quickly out of the way and one mother bunny even put her paws over her little girl's eyes.

The fox didn't care; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been this angry.

Nick Wilde was no saint and had never claimed to be one; he'd been a hustler for most of his life and there were things in his past that made him wince when he thought of them now.

But there were limits; even on his worst day, back when he'd been working the street, there'd been places he wouldn't go. (If he hadn't spotted a canister of Fox Repellant clipped to Judy Hopp's belt for instance, he would have insisted on paying for that Jumbo Pop himself.) There were boundaries, there were lines you didn't cross—and that blankety-blank little silver-fox jerk hadn't just crossed them; he'd zig-zagged all over them with a marking pen.

"When I get my paws on that punk...!"

All foxes, even the ones who happily embraced the shifty-and-dishonest stereotype, had rules to live by. Whatever else Nick might have done back in the day, he could still hold his head up knowing he'd never broken them.

Rule number one, you never, NEVER took advantage of another mammal's misfortune; the guy you hustled was the one leaving the card game with a wad big enough to buy a new car, not the poor sap down to just enough cash to make the rent. You never turned someone else's bad luck into a disaster.

That led straight to rule number two; a good hustle always appealed to someone's greed, not their grief. "Your Mark should be someone with dollar-signs in their eyes, never tears." Nick couldn't remember where he'd heard that, but it was true. Scamming someone who wanted a quick payoff for practically nothing; you could pull that off and actually feel good about it. But cheating a poor soul who was hurting and not thinking straight? That was something YOU didn't even think about.

Conor Lewis had done a lot more than just think about it. Oooo, when he found that kid...!

Nick stopped for a second, peering ahead while shading his eye with a paw. Yep, there was the sign, right where Bonnie had said he'd find it; 'Camping Area,' with an arrow pointing right, towards a space between two stalls. Nick followed it, and found himself on a footpath running parallel to a gravel road. In the middle distance he could see a dim glow and the outlines of various humpbacked shapes; motorhomes and travel trailers, he assumed. Somewhere in that mix was Finnick's van, and somewhere inside that van was that sneaking, low-down...!

It was no use, Nick couldn't help himself; if there was one thing guaranteed to get his dander up, it was when another fox gave their species an even worse name than they already had. That was bad enough, but to do it by taking advantage of Judy Hopps's sister...