Prompt of the Week - Week 1

“You want me to do what now?!”

The assignment was absurd and both people in that room knew it, hence why Nick believed he could afford himself some leeway in regards to complaining about it.

“You heard me the first time,” Bogo growled back, “you’re the only person we have that even stands a chance at infiltrating that drug ring; I don’t want to hear any excuses, you even have an in!”

“Chief, I’m at least a third of the size of anyone in there, how exactly do you expect me to fit in?” the fox mused, trying very hard not to sound disrespectful.

“I don’t. I’m banking on the fact that you’re so amazingly out of place that they’d never suspect you were a mole.”

Nick wanted to say something to the effect that the plan was idiotic and highly likely to fail, but there was something about the sheer audacity of trying to bullshit a bunch of drug runners in the most blatant way possible that tickled his brain in just the right way; how could he say no to the biggest practical joke of his entire career, especially when it would let him catch the people responsible for plunging the police department into chaos for several months? It was too good to pass up!

“... you’re lucky I’m crazy,” the fox mumbled back.

“I know you’re reckless, but that’s exactly what I’m counting on; you could tell them you were a mole and they wouldn’t believe you. Now please, I have other things to take care of and we still have about a week to go before we can even start working on anything, so do kindly make yourself useful elsewhere.”

With that, the buffalo returned to the stack of papers precariously perched on top of his desk, barely giving a thought to the fox as he walked out without another word, meeting a very nervous Judy on the side with an expression that mixed equal parts confusion, regret and anticipation; this was enough to make the bunny go from terrified at the prospect of her partner being sent undercover to puzzled about just what Chief Bogo had proposed. The bafflement didn’t quite go away when Nick explained what the actual plan itself was, with Judy only having two raised eyebrows and a slightly open mouth to react with.

“So I guess I’m going to spend about five months pumping irons until I’m no longer a noodle,” the fox capped off, “hope you enjoyed me while you could, ‘cuz I’m gonna be bursting through doors when I come ba-ow!”

“Stop joking around!” Judy interrupted them with a well-placed bap to the muzzle, “This is serious! You could get hurt, or killed, or worse!”

“... wait, wor-”

“You need to take this seriously, Nick!” the bun carried on as if there hadn’t been a comment in there, “I don’t want to be the one to scoop you up from the gutter and have to patch up whatever those thugs do to you, alright?”

The fox wanted to say something to lighten the mood, always feeling constricted whenever things got too serious for his usual demeanour. But much as he’d love to crack a joke at his own expense, he had to admit that Judy was right; this assignment was far more serious than standard fare, and any one screw-up could mean a whole heap of trouble for him and everyone he worked with. It was important that he keep focused, and if there was anyone that could help with that, it was Judy.

Thus, the two spent most of their free time pouring through all available data regarding the gang Nick was supposed to be infiltrating: known members, suspected members, areas of influence, enterprises under their protection, the works. The amount of information compiled on the Fangs was immense, and yet none of it had ever allowed the police force to come anywhere close to breaking through their vast network of suppliers and sellers at anything more than base level; with Nick, however, Chief Bogo expected things to go differently.

Unbeknownst to the fox, one of his former partners in petty crime had far deeper associations with the gang than even Nick knew, and as luck would have it, just happened to have two officers stumble onto some drugs when they were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. While typically a dealer like that would never get the police anywhere, they figured that exploiting the badger’s connections and former dealings with the fox would finally get them the break they needed to crack the whole case wide open.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as that. The man barely knew anyone from the organization’s core members, serving only as a “boots on the field” style of drug runner; the only contact they had with the Fangs was their supplier, who they met at regular intervals, and no one else. While this would normally make for a massive obstacle in need of deconstruction, it was Nick himself who suggested he simply tag along with his former friend and “play it by ear” to see where it went, deliberately taking refuge in the sheer audacity of it in order to gain further access to the drug ring.

Surprisingly, it worked a lot better than expected; after the initial impact and distrust, to be expected from people who sold drugs for a living, the supplier, a young fennec whose supply bags were bigger than he was, agreed to bring in a “good word” for Nick wanting to start working for “the big boss”, whoever that happened to be. The prospect of running errands for a drug lord wasn’t the best, and the undercover officer tried to divert the whole arrangement away from such an outcome, but was told to shut up and deal with it like everyone else did.

In an entirely unexpected twist of fate, however, it turned out that the man Nick was supposed to meet to discuss entering the glamorous world of distributing illegal narcotics wasn’t a complete stranger, but rather yet another of the fox’s former accomplices. This bear, however, was very much aware of Nick’s attachments to the police department, and it took a lot of convincing for him to start believing the officer was looking to make some extra cash on the side without the Chief finding out about it. It fit in with Nick’s personality, all things considered; what better scheme to run than pretending to have reformed, only to then immediately turn around and start working for the same people they were meant to be arresting, all the while playing both sides against one another for some truly ludicrous amounts of spending money?

It made a lot of sense, for the bear at least, which is why Nick was happy to let his new partner develop that fantasy in their head without providing any evidence to the contrary, eagerly nodding along to every realization and jump to conclusions while offering the odd word of praise about how quickly they got on with the program. With his entry thus secured, all the fox had to do was wait for the Fangs to call him so he knew where to go. This would end up taking far longer than expected, with Nick being on hold for a good three weeks before finally getting a call back from his “friend”, long enough that he was starting to think his cover had been blown already and he’d wake up with a horse’s head on his pillow or something of the sort.

Instead, he was told to meet an address in the outskirts of the city, where a pair of very gruff-looking thugs were guarding a run-down house that looked like it hadn’t been used in quite some time. The dilapidated exterior, however, belied what was inside the building: the whole place had been set up as a gang hideout of sorts, where medium-to-top level enforcers and “bosses”, as they somehow liked to be called, would congregate to throw around orders and pretend to have any semblance of legitimacy. It was a rude awakening for Nick, who never really progressed past the level of petty crime, maybe some minor larceny before, to see what kind of stuff lurked just beneath the surface he was so happy to swim along. It almost made him sick when one of the people in charge, a massive lion who was practically as wide as he was tall, shook his hand and genuinely welcomed him into their little club, acting as if he wasn’t in the business of ruining people’s lives for money.

Something to fix. Nick would make sure of that.

Sadly, it wasn’t going to be as easy as walking in the door and acting like he owned the place; as it turned out, the Fangs had good use for people like the fox, who could be counted on to walk around the general populace relatively unnoticed and without raising suspicion. Far too many of the Fangs’ members had their faces plastered on wanted posters in every single precinct, quite a few having been seen by people who, as they put it, “got away”. Therefore, it fell to Nick to run errands and take messages from one place to another whenever they needed to be discrete.

It was… surprisingly monotonous work, and not unlike the kind of thing he’d do at the police station; if he didn’t know the contents of those letters were heavily incriminating, he’d think nothing of having to deliver them. It was a simple task of going from Point A to Point B, making sure messages exchanged hands, and then going back to nod and say the job was done. In fact, it was so boring that Nick began looking for ways to distract himself when he wasn’t busy doing any “runs”, and with very few options available to him inside the hideout, or any other place he was allowed in, it fell down to spending hours every day exercising.

As much as it had been a joke when he uttered it to Judy, he did end up spending a substantial amount of time lifting weights and using gym equipment, mostly because there was just not that much to do besides that. His new colleagues were initially suspicious about where he found all that free time, until Nick came up with some random excuse about using sick days and working from home as an IT systems manager, a job he wasn’t even sure existed at all. It sounded impressive, though, and that’s what mattered; none of the gang members bothered him much after the first couple of weeks.

His job, however, became progressively harder the longer he was allowed to do it, and not because the message delivery service he had been hired to be had suddenly became more difficult or had a higher workload. Scurrying from place to place unseen and unnoticed required speed, yes, but above all needed him to be beneath notice; the best disguise for anyone to wear was complete and utter mundanity, simply being so normal that no one would even think twice about what you were doing. He’d used that trick to his advantage several times before, putting on a bright visibility jacket and standing in front of a parking meter pretending that it was broken and he was there to collect the coins from anyone wanting to use the spot. It was surprising how much one could accomplish with a straight face and a clipboard.

This made it slightly awkward when the effects of all that working out began to pile up, and quite literally so.

Nick had always been on the lithe side, as befitting someone of his species, which was why it slightly worried him when his shirts started to get tight just about everywhere. Looking in the mirror every morning showed him a body that he would’ve been incredibly happy about were he not trying to lay low, but with stealth and finesse being the words of the day every day, the sudden development of a toned physique ripe with rippling muscles was not what he wanted.

And yet, he couldn’t exactly stop himself from just working out; whether it be because he needed to do something to kill the time or because it just felt so damn good, the thought of simply… not exercising didn’t occur to him. Every day he would wake up and check himself, noticing a couple of bulging veins and some more definition to his abs or biceps, and every day he would silently complain about more people openly gawking at him in the streets. Every day he’d run into an officer who he knew from the force, who had to be carefully reminded not to stare, and every day he would feel terrible knowing he was getting nowhere in the investigation.

And every day he failed to stop himself.

It was impossible to do it; it was a habit, something his brain had been accustomed to, and it got so bad that even when Nick made a conscious effort not to work out, all that was needed was the slightest distract and he’d be headed for the exercise equipment while on auto-pilot, working off muscle memory more than anything else. It didn’t help that everyone else in the Fangs seemed to love his development; he wasn’t about to lie, it did feel pretty great whenever he had someone shamelessly trace his musculature or outright fawn over him while making lurid comments about how hot he was. Used to being called variations on the word “skinny” for all of his life, it was surprisingly refreshing to know people genuinely found them to be an attractive hunk, and before he knew it, he was already lifting the closest thing to him, which oftentimes wasn’t even a barbell. Or something meant to be lifted, per se.

The end result was twofold: on the one hand, his ability to deliver messages between hideouts and individuals without being noticed was shot full of more holes than swiss cheese, therefore requiring the gang’s leadership to find some other use for him. On the other, Nick’s body turned into something that the lion he first met at the hideout would probably be jealous of, and the fox just couldn’t help but wonder what Judy would say when he finally saw her again; he hadn’t had the pleasure of running into her on the street yet, nor during any of the secret meetings with his handlers at the precinct, but if there was one thing he was eager to show her, it was how each of his biceps alone were bigger than her entire body.

The officers taking care of his case were quick to remind Nick that he was supposed to be getting results, not bodybuilding medals, and had to be constantly assured that tangible information was looming just over the horizon; with his “career” as a courier all but destroyed, the Fangs thought it better to keep Nick around as a bodyguard, recognizing that someone that was too hide to walk through doors straight could probably be put to use protecting the life of people that were too important to just ~go and die. The fox therefore was allowed unprecedented contact with many of Zootopia’s criminal overlords, expected to stand in the back of meeting rooms looking all menacing, at least until he took to bringing some weights to practice while he waited on the “big boys” to finish their negotiations.

It was genuinely amusing to him that no one suspected him of any wrongdoing, as they all seemed to assume that all of that muscle had drained him of brainpower. Whenever any of his charges wanted to address him, they’d make sure to speak very slowly, like they expected him to collapse from the exhaustion of having to comprehend words; Nick, for his part, was more than happy to perpetuate the charade, even taking to bringing his own, increasingly-heavier equipment when on a protection detail just so he could play the part of the dumb bodybuilder type.

Meanwhile, while everyone was busy not paying attention, he was using the vast canvas of muscular perfection that was his body to hide bugs in plain sight, having enough room on him that he could always find some place new to put them without ever having to repeat it. It was highly indicative of the kind of beast he was that he didn’t get noticed doing this even while wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of shorts, his upper body having become so immensely swollen that he couldn’t afford to buy any shirts that fit; hell, his shorts as well had to be custom-made, and he zipped them up in the back rather than putting the tree logs he called legs through them like normal people did. More than once he had ripped a door completely off its hinges when trying to open it gently, while others he just broke through the wall entirely without even noticing it was there. And every day he would grow more massive, heavier, more and more in love with his new self.

All good things must end, however, and his did when he felt he had compiled enough information to put the ruse to an end and go back to the force with everything he had discovered. His handlers helped him “disappear” for the couple of weeks prior to the first wave of arrests, after which Nick made his triumphant return to the station, whereupon he proceeded to leave everyone completely speechless.

Having not seen the fox for months, everyone refused to believe that the rippling tower of bulging muscle mass was Nick. Even the tallest among them couldn’t see his face, buried by neckbulk as it was, and the smallest herbivores outright refused to stand anywhere near him whenever he was within fifty feet. The fox tried his best to keep his presence as least imposing as possible, but with his chest alone being enough to stash most of the people present at his return with some room to spare, that was easier said than done.

But Judy, though… Judy was far less stunned and slightly mortified than everyone else. In fact, Judy was quite enjoying the new Nick, having spent those months wondering what the fox would end up looking like and adoring the hunk that he had become. She didn’t even think twice when she nimbly climbed up his legs and back, ending up hidden from view when dropping into the small dip created by his pecs being taller than his head was. There, she found the fox’s face and gave it a quick peck on the cheek, whispering her address to him before hopping off and landing deftly on the ground below, face as red as a tomato.

Nick was already wondering how the hell he was going to fit in there.