The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 4

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 1 - With This Ring

(Continued...pt.4)

This time Ahmed al-Rafaj wasn't bothered; the latest pair of animals to enter his store were both prey species. (As if anything would prey on a Cape Buffalo and full-grown elephant!)

And even if the new arrivals had been predator and prey, it wouldn't have mattered; they weren't a couple. The buffalo had arrived a full two minutes after the elephant walked in-and afterwards they had only barely acknowledged one other.

In fact the only thing they seemed to have in common was that both of them were browsers rather than buyers; while the buffalo studied the males' ring display, the pachyderm was looking over the large-mammal necklaces.

Ahmed could live with it; if these two weren't going to buy anything, at least they hadn't been inside the store when that...that FOX had insisted upon kissing his bunny.

(It never would have occurred to the golden jackal that sending Nick and Judy in to purchase the lavender diamond had been a calculated ploy on Chief Bogo's part. With his blood up, Ahmed's natural wariness had been compromised-and now, adrenaline all but spent, he had dropped his guard even further.)

Even better for the Chief's purposes, Ahmed had another customer in the store right then; one who WAS a buyer, a pretty-face wallaby who had just completed the purchase of a diamond tennis bracelet. Thus the jackal remained blissfully unaware of what had just transpired right outside his door. Only a few seconds previously a Bengal leopard had been approaching the shop...and then turned quickly in a different direction upon seeing the ZPD SWAT Team hunkering beneath the windows.

Meanwhile the wallaby was hopping happily towards the entrance, with Chief Bogo graciously holding the door for her. As she passed him by, he whispered, "Please do not be alarmed, Ma'am. Just keep on your way, police business."

The wallaby gave him a quick look of apprehension, (luckily unnoticed by Ahmed,) but then did as the Cape buffalo suggested.

With her gone, Bogo and Trunkaby moved rapidly. While the Chief made a beeline in Ahmed's direction, Francine quietly put herself between the golden jackal and the front door-not to cut off any avenue of escape, but to block his line of sight. Watching her on the monitors, Claire Swinton passed the word to the others; "It's coming down, get ready to move."

Ahmed al-Rafaj saw none of this of course, only the Cape buffalo coming his way. Ah, so perhaps he was a buyer after all.

The jackal immediately put on his most obsequious manner, bobbing his head and clasping his paws as Bogo came closer, "Yes sir, how may I assist you?"

The response he received was the rare spectacle of The ZPD Chief in distress.

"Yes," Bogo started to say, "I was wondering if you might..."

His words ended in a bellow of pain and then he was doubling over and grimacing.

"Sir, what is wrong?" Ahmed cried out in alarm. 'An ill customer is an ill omen'; that had been another one of his late father's pet aphorisms. In a careless move that he would never have made earlier, the jackal rushed out from behind the counter...away from the shutter controls and the panic button.

"Are you all right?" he asked, laying a paw on the Chief's shoulder.

"I-I'm fine," Bogo answered through clenched jaws, and then suddenly straightened up again, apparently as good as new.

"But you're not!' He snorted, pulling out his badge and holding it up for the jackal to see. "ZPD!"

That was his signal to Francine Trunkaby and she blew a fast note through her trunk and stepped quickly aside from the doorway. Right behind her, the assault team came charging in through the front, sending the door chime flying off its mount to land in a jingling clatter behind a counter.

At that same instant Chief Bogo was looming over Ahmed like a thundercloud.

"Ahmed Rachmann Ali al-Rafaj, you're under arrest...for illegally trafficking in blood diamonds." He looked to his right, nodding curtly "Wolford, cuff him and read him his rights. Barrow, Fangmeier...check the back."

"Right Chief."

"Yes sir,"

Readying their weapons, the tigress and the polar bear went plunging through the beaded curtain and into the rear of the store.

Officer Wolford watched them go and then coldly instructed Ahmed, "All right bub, assume the position."

It all went just as the Chief had specified-like fine, Swiss clockwork. In mere moments, the storefront was secured with yellow tape and less than half a minute later, Dr. Hocito was inside the shop, attaching tags to certain of the display cases.

"Not much out here worth checking," She told the Chief, "But that's not surprising; they probably keep most of their blood diamonds in the vault. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have ANY dirty stones out front. That'd be really brazen."

The Chief snorted. "Given how long they've been at it Doctor, I shouldn't be surprised if they've got a few stolen gemstones in the vault as well."

"Coming out." A voice called from the back, and seconds later a kangaroo rat came hopping through the beaded curtain, followed by a ground-squirrel. Behind these two were a mongoose and Ismael Rafaj, the latter looking as if he was about to suffer a nervous breakdown. Trailing him was goat with a broken horn, and bringing up the rear were a camel and an Arabian oryx, all of them with their arms raised. At the end of the procession was officer Fangmeier, herding the oryx along with a T-handled baton.

Chief Bogo let out a small rumble. "Fangmeier, how many times have I got to say it? Smaller mammals in the rear, so they won't be trampled by the larger ones."

The tigress let it pass without comment; this was just Bogo being Bogo, ever the stickler for protocol. She waved her stick at the troop of suspects, speaking in a purring, Sabra accent.

"We caught them trying to lock themselves in the vault."

THAT got Dr. Hocito's immediate attention.

"Wait, what? The vault's open?"

(Her tone of mild surprise would have ranked as full-blown astonishment in anyone else.)

She moved quickly towards the beaded curtain, but pulled up short when Bogo hastily threw an arm in her way.

"Not yet Doctor, there's still a very dangerous hippo on the loose back there somewhere."

And with that in mind he grabbed his radio.

"Bogo to Barrow, acknowledge, please...over."

The polar bear came back immediately.

"Chief, this is Barrow. Read you five by five, over."

"Barrow, any sign of that hippopotamus? Over."

"Uhhh, that's a negative Chief. No sign of him anywhere...I say again, no sign...over."

The Chief let out a small, pungent, rumbling sound.

"Well, stay sharp back there, Barrow. An animal that size can't conceal himself for very long. Bogo out."

He disconnected and looked around the store.

"Grizzoli, where are you?"

"Right here, chief." The white wolf answered, hurrying forward.

Bogo poked a thumb at the beaded curtain.

"Right, get back there and assist Barrow...see if that lupine sense of smell of yours can pick up our missing perp. If you get whiff of anything that smells even remotely like hippopotamus, call immediately for backup. And if you spot him, tag him with a trank dart and save the questions for later. This is one EXTREMELY aggressive individual we've got to deal with."

"I'm on it, Chief." Grizzoli answered and then hurried into the back of the store.

At the same time, in the alley behind Rafaj Brothers, Officer Sam Simmers was...well, simmering.

"I don't know why HOPPS is complaining, rookie." The brown bear groused to Officer Tad Howell, the red wolf who was earlier posing as a street-bum.

"I know, right?" Howell nodded his head like a bobble-doll, but privately he wished Simmers would just shut the heck up.

"At least she's inside the command truck where it's cool," the bear grumbled on, "while WE have to stand out here in the heat...in full tactical gear! And we're just as far from the action as she is."

It was as if Simmers just uttered the words to a forbidden spell. All at once, the brick wall behind him burst asunder as the hippo Rashid came crashing into the alleyway...colliding head on with the bear and burying Howell under a pile of masonry.

Under normal circumstances it would have been an even match, but Rashid had both the momentum and the element of surprise. Heaving Simmers over his shoulder, he pitched the bear into an open dumpster, throwing the door shut and slamming the lock-bar into place.

And then he was running hell-bent-for-leather down the alley.

At the alleyway exit, the big hippo nearly slid off his feet as he surged into the side street. He stopped...breathless, looking around frantically. Which way to go? To the left? To the right? Bismillah, where were the other police officers? No use trying to run, he'd be spotted in a heartbeat; what he needed was a place to hide, but where...? Wait, over there, in the other alley...a produce truck!

Inside the 'produce truck' Nick Wilde was feeling highly aggravated...not with Chief Bogo, with Judy Hopps.

"Dangit Carrots, will you quit that thumping?"

Normally, he wasn't bothered when she did this, but here, inside a soundproofed trailer, the noise seemed to amplify itself by a factor of five. (And he was already in a bad mood at having been left behind.)

Judy's foot slowed down but didn't stop.

"It's not fair Nick: we've been helping to work this bust from day one, and now Bogo won't let us in for the takedown?"

"I know Carrots, I agree." The fox told her quickly, "Believe me I don't like it any more than you. Only don't take it out on the truck for crying out loud-or my head."

Claire Swinton looked over from her console for a second.

"Patience Hopps, they also serve who only stand and wait."

The Bunny-cop's foot made final, hard slap against the floor.

"Swinton, were you brought in on this sting to bug me?"

The pig-cop pointed to an image of the jewelry store on a flat panel.

"No Hopps, to bug THAT."

Nick sniggered and Judy groaned.

"When I signed on for this op I never thought I'd end up playing straight-bunny to a..."

Without warning the back door of the truck flew open...and then she and the others were looking straight at Rashid while the hippo stared back, everyone too dumbstruck to move.

Then Judy was moving. Grabbing a tranquilizer gun off a tac-vest she dropped to the floor in a prone position, taking aim at the hippopotamus.

"Stop right there!"

But Rashid was on the move as well-slamming the door shut with all his strength.

Judy pulled the trigger and fired, but the dart only embedded itself in the door paneling, and then the whole truck shuddered as the door banged down and the latch was thrown.

Outside in the alley Rashid jammed the door-latch with a piece of rebar and scanned his surroundings. He had to get away from here and fast. Even before he'd pulled the door closed the pig running the console had been calling for backup ...and it wouldn't take long for them to get here.

Marbles of sweat rolled down his face as the hippo tried to think. Where could he go now? Wait, look... another alleyway.

He turned and ran for it, full-tilt...unaware that in his blind panic he'd made a potentially disastrous mistake.

Back inside the command truck, Judy struggled furiously with the door-latch but it refused to budge by even a centimeter. She tugged on the handle a second time, a third time...nothing.

And then finally she gave up.

Or...not quite; "Oh no, you don't!"

She hopped over to the center of the cargo box, reaching down to the diamond-plate floor, and pulling a hidden lever.

A metallic groan answered as a section of the floor bucked upwards. Judy grabbed edge and heaved, but the escape-hatch was built for an animal more than twice her size; she only managed to get it halfway open it started to fall back again. Gritting her teeth, she took a breath and pushed with all her might. This time the hatch arced up to a vertical position; it held there for a smidge of a second, and then finally tilted open. Judy heard it but didn't see it; she was already buckling on her tac-vest.

"You coming?" she said, looking up at Nick.

The fox just raised his paws.

"We were told to stay here the truck, Car..."

But Judy had already dropped through the bolt-hole.

Careening into the alleyway, Rashid had just come face-to-face with his error. He was right back where he'd started, behind Rafaj Brothers Jewelers; without realizing, he had retraced his steps.

Or...had it been such a mistake? The way ahead was all clear; the bear still trapped inside the dumpster. And while the wolf had managed to clear away most of the bricks covering him, his tail was still pinned beneath a section of wall.

Even better, Rashid could also see that not only had the wolf-cop's radio has fallen beyond his reach; it was laying in five easy pieces.

Best of all, the alley beyond was completely deserted, there wasn't another cop in sight: without meaning to, he made the proper move. Doubling back had been the last thing the ZPD had expected of the hippo.

Rashid began to work his way forward, moving carefully and stepping lightly, lest the vibrations alert another one of the other officers nearby. If he could only just make it to the street, then perhaps...

All at once, the hippo stopped in his tracks.

That...wolf.

Rashid's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, spewing hot jets of air like a pair of blow dryers.

He hadn't noticed before, but now that he was closer the hippo suddenly recognized the wolf. Disheveled and covered in masonry dust, there could be no doubt; this was the same 'homeless' mammal he'd been chasing away from the back of the shop all week.

A police officer! This filthy maggot had been a cop all along!

Rashid's mouth yawned into a deep chasm and he let out deep, guttural sound from the back of this throat, "Haawwww-waw-waw-waw-wawwww," the sound a wild hippo makes, right before it charges.

It was a breathtaking transformation; only scant seconds ago, all that had mattered to Rashid was making it out of the alley and into the street; now he couldn't have cared less. The only thing that mattered was...a COP!

He made the hawing noise a second time and then began to move once more-straight towards Howell.

The red wolf saw him and began fighting frantically to extract his tail from beneath the slab of rubble; it was no good, he was caught like a mosquito on flypaper.

A leering smile panned across Rashid's features as he noted this. Oh, and look-right there beside a refuse barrel, a length of iron pipe. How fortuitous.

He grabbed the pipe, and began lumbering towards the hapless wolf, but this time stepping slowly, taking his time and savoring the moment.

Howell raised his paws and began to make pushing motions.

"Stop, wait! I'm a police officer."

The hippo just kept coming.

"Stop, think for a second!" Howell was almost howling, "If you hurt a cop, they'll throw away the key when they catch you."

Rashid just slapped the pipe into his hoof...and smirked.

Something odd happened then: Tad Howell's eyes screwed shut for half a second, and a hiss of air sucked inward through his teeth. For another couple of seconds he seemed to be talking to himself. "Okay...all right....do it!"

Reaching upwards with a paw he slapped at his shoulder, just below the left collarbone.

And then, in a shaky voice, he began to recite as if from a book.

"Epsilon Override..."

The oncoming hippo was only now ten feet away from using him for a piñata.

"...Alpha, Golf, Sierra..."

Only five feet away...

"...Six, Three, Seven, Bravo..."

Three feet away....

"Initiate!"

Less than one foot...

Howell lowered his head and began to shake it from side to side, his breath turning hot and ragged.

Rashid was right on top of him now, raising the pipe in a high arc.

And then it clanged to the pavement behind the hippo...while his eyes flared wide and his mouth dropped open once again. This time, he made no sound and his lower lip trembled like the lid of a boiling pot.

And then he uttered a single dry, rasping word...splitting it in two.

"B-Bis...millah!"

The sound of deep, hoarse breathing filled the alley, underscored by the noise of masonry falling to the pavement.

...and then crashing against the surrounding walls.

Judy was five feet away from the alley when a brick came whistling out of the entrance with the force of a cannon shot, neatly decapitating the bubbler fountain across the street and sending a six-foot geyser of water arcing into the air. Instinctively the bunny-cop flattened against the pavement, ignoring the stinging heat.

"What the heck?" she asked, of no one in particular as she started to get back up again.

Then she heard the wolf howling.

It was like no howl Judy had ever heard before; deep and throaty, it was almost a roar. The next thing she heard was the sound of a frenzied battle; a wolf snarling, a hippo bellowing, and one violent impact after another...and then a ripping sound followed by a scream of terror and agony.

She pushed herself against the wall, back-first and breathing hard, dart-gun at the ready, ears rigid and trembling. Had she really just heard-nooo, hippos didn't scream...did they?

Then she heard another scream, and saw Rashid come flying around the corner, headed straight at her.

No time to shout a warning; Judy dropped to one knee and took aim with the dart-gun. She had better make this one count, or...

The hippo threw himself on the ground in front of her in front of her; at first Judy thought he must have slipped in the water from the destroyed fountain. But then he began trying to grab at her ankles, like a drowning mammal clutching at straws. In another time and place it would have made for a humorous spectacle, a huge hippo trying to snatch hold of a tiny little rabbit's legs.

Except...Rashid was sobbing wretchedly and his uniform was nothing but shreds and tatters, the body beneath latticed with slash-marks-and he was trembling as if an ice-storm has just blown down the street.

"Please...help me!" he begged, looking up at Judy with wet, beseeching eyes, "Don't let him hurt me, don't let him GET me!"

Judy felt her own eyes widening and her nose beginning to twitch...but then she heard another sound, a deep, metronomic rumbling. Wha...what the heck was THAT?

She looked up.

...and gasped.

A face was peering around the corner...wild, incandescent eyes, neck fur spiking like a hedgehog's quills, wet, slavering lips drawn back to expose a phalanx of sharp teeth.

It was a face the bunny-cop had seen before, behind the bulletproof glass in the Cliffside Laboratory...and earlier, right before Mr. Manchas had come blasting out of his bungalow, ready to turn both her and Nick into mincemeat.

But then the animal's brow performed two quick push-ups.

"You were told to stay in the command truck, Hopps!" he growled, sounding almost...what, annoyed?

And then he disappeared back around the corner.

A paw fell on Judy's shoulder. She nearly jumped straight out of her skin.

"Cheez n' crackers Nick, don't DO that!"

"Sor-ree!" the fox said, backing up with his paws raised.

Judy pointed towards the alleyway

"Did you see that?"

Nick tilted his head sideways.

"See what?"

"That animal..." the bunny-cop started to say, but her partner had just taken notice of Rashid, lying trembling on the ground in a semi-fetal position.

"Holy smoked grasshoppers, what happened to HIM?"

Judy didn't answer him, but only drew her dart gun again. They could talk about the hippo later; right now she had other concerns.

"Cuff him and read him his rights." She said, nodding towards the prostrate Rashid, and without waiting for an answer from Nick, she began padding towards the alleyway entrance. Taking a deep breath, she pulled up hard against the wall and swallowed hard, readying her weapon and preparing to move in.

And that was when Howell came limping around the corner, helped along by Officer Simmers, freed from the dumpster at last. If anything, the red wolf appeared even more trashed-out than he'd been in his street-geek disguise...and NOTHING like the animal Judy had seen peering around the corner a moment ago.

As he hobbled past her, he lifted an ear,

"Didn't Chief Bogo tell you to stay in the truck?"

He told her this as if it was the first time he brought up the subject.

And then Judy's ears went up as she heard more officers approaching. Someone was speaking into a radio, it sounded like Van Horn.

"Dispatch, we have two injured officers...need an ambulance. Over."

For a long, hard moment, Judy stared at the alleyway entrance with her nose twitching-and then finally, she turned away.

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Easter Eggs: This episode borrows a bit of dialogue from one of the lesser-remembered Disney movies, The Black Hole