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 6-Nick's Story
(Continued...Pt. 2)
Judy listened to Nick Wilde's's reminiscences with a growing sense of disquiet. The way he'd described the Lanny Braunwald hustle, he might just as well have been talking about dealing with a roach infestation. That sort of callousness was nothing like the Nick Wilde she knew. Yes, Braunwald had been a crook, a sleazeball who shouldn't have been elected street-cleaner, never mind to the Zootopia City Council, but still...
Nick hadn't scammed that squirrel as part of any moral crusade to remove a corrupt politician; he'd done it to put him under the thumb of a crime boss. And okay, maybe it had happened more than ten years ago, but to hear Nick talk about it now, the con might have gone down last week.
(And he still hadn't gotten to the ticklish part of the story, the part where he'd supposedly done something that could get him ousted from the ZPD.)
And yet...and yet...
Nick's anger at the duplicity of the arctic fox Tommy Baldorsson had been both sincere and genuine; even back in his rowdy youth, there had been lines he wouldn't cross, rules that he wouldn't break. It gave Judy something to hold on to.
She settled back in her chair and continued to listen, as Nick continued to warm to his story.
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"Only another fox, another hustler would have caught it, Carrots. It was a-blink-and-you-miss-it kind of move. Lucky for me, I was sitting directly north of Tommy, otherwise I'd never have..."
"What does that have to do with...? Hm, wel-l-lll, I never told you this before Carrots, but us foxes can use the earth's magnetic field to navigate and to sense movement; it's how we used to track prey under the snow, in the days before we evolved."
"No, I'm serious; it shows up as a shadow at the edge of our field of vision. It was how I first got a sense that Craig was nearby, after I left the dance and went wandering up into the hills, like I said at the press conference. Any time you see me staring hard at something while tilting my head from side to side, that's how you know I'm using it."
"Well, because it's a sense that most of my species has pretty much forgotten, Carrots. Another fox who has it down has to teach you how to use it. Tommy hadn't re-learned it, really surprising, considering he was an arctic fox; neither had Robyn or she'd have seen what he was up to. Oh yeah, Finnick uses it all the time; he's the one who taught me in fact. Oh, and I'm pretty sure he taught that Conor kid... Oops, sorry, I'm getting sidetracked again."
"Like I said, it all happened very fast. Someone a few tables away knocked a plate onto the floor and broke it. When Robyn turned to look, I saw Tommy pretended to reach for his drink...but then he pawlmed something out of his sleeve and dropped it into her glass. By the time she turned around again—and she'd been looking away for less than a second—Tommy's paw was already back where he'd left it; she never suspected a thing."
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The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One
Mystery / ThrillerIt's been two years since Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps broke the Savage Predator conspiracy. Now a brilliant and effective team, they're only a few steps away from making the detective bureau and growing closer with every passing day. But even as thei...
