Chapter Text
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A black clapboard was held by an antelope’s hoof in front of the camera, which read, "SHOT 67_21, TAKE 1, DATE 4/25/24, PRODUCTION: Zootopia 2, LOCATION: City Hall.
"Speed! Marker!" the director called through a megaphone before closing the clapboard and moving it out of frame. "And action!"
Judy stared proudly at the cheering crowd while Nick cracked a little smile, trying to make himself comfortable in the limelight. All of a sudden, she tugged on his tie, nearly choking him, and tossed his sunglasses on the ground.
“We’re gonna crack a new case, make the world a better place and be the greatest partners of all time!”
She punctuated each word with a jab to his arm before landing a final blow to his stomach. Nick grunted an “Oof!” and collapsed to the ground, clutching his belly.
Judy gasped with drooped ears and wide eyes, covering her mouth with her paws as he kept on groaning weakly.
“Oh! Ow!” Nick cried with his eyes closed. “You hit my belly! You hit the soft part of my belly!”
She darted her eyes around the set and smiled sheepishly, her face instantly flushing red. “Oops.”
“Oh, my God. I think I’m gonna barf,” he moaned.
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"Marker!" the director closed the clapboard shut in front of the Lynxley Manor fireplace.
*cut to Gary’s journal speech
“And when I do, my family will finally be able to come home,” he explained, getting more emotional.
But just as she was starting to believe him, Nick arrived out of nowhere, whacked Gary from behind with a frying pan with a loud CLONK! and knocked him out.
“No!” Judy exclaimed.
Nick panted and whooped, “Hopps and Wilde. Dream team. We got him.”
Right when she was about to approach the snake, Gary’s eyes snapped open. His head popped up like a spring-loaded toy, neck extending just enough to slither into frame.
“Not dead!” he smiled with his mouth agape.
Nick yipped a high-pitched squeal, leaping back like he just got jumpscared. The whole crew erupted in laughter in the background, along with Judy, while the boom mic popped in frame.
“Wow, I’ve never heard you scream like that,” she teased with a little smirk.
“Well, it’s a first,” Nick kept his composure and cleared his throat, his heart still racing.
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"And action."
Winddancer struck a heroic pose and delivered his iconic catchphrase with deep gravitas. “You say justice is dead? I say…Hasta la vista, baby!”
After fighting henchmen with his karate chop, the whole crew roared with laughter once they understood the reference.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he chuckled apologetically. “Really, can you blame me, Arnold? Okay, let’s go again for real.”
“Okay, cut!”
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After the long, awkwardly drawn-out “Hey bub” interaction between Nibbles and Russ, the beaver asked, “Seen Jesús?”
“Yup,” the walrus answered nonchalantly.
He ate the humongous fish offered by them with his plunger and submerged into the deep waters. But the high splash soaked Judy instead, who was now drenched in water. She slowly removed her wet cap and threw it on the ground, sighing deeply with a scowl.
“Serves you right,” Nick chuckled to himself, grateful that he wasn’t soaked.
Russ immediately re-emerged to the surface. “Ooh, ooh, sorry, miss! I thought the director meant my stage right, not your right.”
“Apology accepted,” Judy responded, deadpan.
“Alright, let’s take five and get her dried up,” the director requested over the megaphone. “Somebody get her a towel.”
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Judy climbed onto the wooden resting bench and stood on it proudly. “If anything we should be going faster. As I always say…”
“Blech!—Huuk!—Eugh!—”
The shot cut to Nick’s horrified expression as he realized the carrot pen was replaying their gagging sounds from eating worms.
Judy looked down at him, irritated. “Nick…”
“What? It wasn’t me!” he frantically mashed the button repeatedly, attempting to turn off the recording, but it kept looping their dry heaving.
“Ble-ble-ble-ble-hu-hu-hu…”
Meanwhile, the crew behind the camera chuckled lightly from their little prank. Once that didn’t work, Nick, desperate, chucked the pen at the rocky wall, smashing it into many pieces.
Judy loudly gasped in shock and then glared at him like she was saying, “How dare you?!”
“What?” Nick shrugged with his usual smug smirk. “It was gonna break apart in the next scene anyway.”
“How much did that carrot pen record back there?” Judy muttered to herself.
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At the Lynxley Mansion, both Mayor Winddancer and Milton Lynxley sat below their individual portraits.
“Do you know how many mayors they’ve already destroyed?” Mr. Lynxley snarled, his paw clenched to his desk.
Mayor Winddancer thought for a moment and slowly tried to count by stomping his hoof as horses do. “One..two..was there a three?”
“That would be you, mayor,” Milton grumbled.
The mayor then gasped dramatically and fell backward like he collapsed with a hoof against his forehead. “Oh, no! My career is ruined!”
By then, everyone lost it and couldn’t hold in their laughter any longer.
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Once things were about to go nuclear after Nick roasted Captain Hoggbottom with the squeal mobile, Chief Bogo had to interfere.
“Enough! Everybody out,” Chief Bogo commanded with a voice-cracked falsetto.
“HAHAHAHA!” the crew behind the cameras giggled.
Everyone got so distracted by his crackly voice that while all of the cops were exiting the office, Nick and Judy followed behind them.
“Not you two! Both of you stay right there!” he pointed to the ground sternly, wiping the grins off their faces in an instant.
“Sorry, Chief. Honest mistake,” Judy looked up at him, nervously grinning.
“It’s alright. Not my best Mickey Mouse impression,” he scratched an itch on his thick neck.
“Alrighty,” the director could barely contain his laughter. “Let’s cut!”
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While chasing down Pawbert with their giant snowcat, Judy was about to jump out the window, just like she did in the opening car chase of the film. But, before she could, Nick grabbed her paw to join in with her.
“Zoogetherness! Ah?” Nick said with a dopey face.
Judy looked at him speechless with pursed lips, trying her darndest to hold in a smile.
“What, too corny?” he questioned.
She snorted, clapping a paw over her mouth and bowed her head, shoulders shaking as she tried to stifle her snickering.
“I’m sorry! It’s just that your goofy face…tee-hee-hee-hee!” she chortled between gasps, laughing so hard that she struggled to breathe.
Her contagious laughter made Nick laugh, which then made the rest of the cast and crew laugh along. Once she settled down, she said, “Ok, we can cut now.”
“Alright, let’s roll again.”
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Nick threw Nibbles a nearby log, which she nibbled into a baseball bat. She then threw it to Gary, who bonked Pawbert in the head. As he was losing badly, Pawbert tried to call for help.
“Daddy!”
“Daddy’s not here to save you,” Nick taunted, grabbing the bat from Gary.
“Hey, that’s my part!” Gary exclaimed, his slender body coiling like he was covering his snicker with an arm. “Stop trying to steal my thunder!”
Then, Nick was the next one to whack Pawbert in the head. “That’s for trying to poison my partner.” WHACK! “And this is for nearly getting us both killed. You good for…nothing…MANGY…LITTLE…”
“Okay, cut!” the director shouted on the megaphone. “I appreciate the cathartic release, but we really need Gary to do this scene.”
“Aw shucks, I was gonna do it a hundred more times,” Nick’s ears drooped in disappointment before tossing the bat back to Gary.
“Ugh, I’m really starting to get a headache,” Pawbert sat up and groaned, gripping his dazed head tightly.
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When Pawbert, Judy, and Gary were about to pull up to the tent, she had a question to ask the snake.
“I’m sorry, you are...?” Judy asked.
“Oh, Gary, Gary the snake,” he answered.
“And... your last name?”
“De’Snake.”
Judy pondered for a moment. “So, your first name’s Gary, last name's Snake?”
“How many times do I have to repeat this?” Gary ranted in disbelief, visibly flustered but still smiling and playing along. “It’s De’Snake, not The Snake.”
“Alright, enough fooling around,” the director declared in a semi-serious tone. “Let’s cut and get back into positions.”
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A shaky cell phone video recording showed both the fox and bunny chatting together in their trailer.
“Wow, it’s been almost ten years since we did the first Zootopia, and we’re supposed to act like we still have lots of suppressed feelings to sort out,” Judy said.
“Yeah, hopefully they won’t take another decade for Zootopia 3. We could probably be grandparents by then,” Nick responded.
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Right before Nick was about to get roasted by the weather wall, Nibbles opened the door just in time and swooped him in right before the wall went ablaze. Judy watched the close save unfold on the monitor and sighed a breath of relief.
She looked at Pawbert and said, “Sorry... last case there was kind of a... twist.”
"I know." Pawbert smiled, bittersweet. “And I’m totally not gonna backstab you right after this moment.”
Everyone then burst into laughter, and he involuntarily dropped his venom injector on the ground.
“Dude, spoilers!” a camera crew member shouted.
Judy then gasped with fright and hopped back as if this twist was some kind of new revelation.
“What? I thought she knew!” Pawbert shouted with a goofy grin, which made everyone laugh twice as loud.
“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” Nick popped into frame and snatched the injector off the ground.
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“Check the perimeter, snoop a little, we find nothing, we bail. But if I’m right, no one will question whether you and I belong together again. We need this.” Judy explained to him.
Nick thought for a moment, then stayed silent for a good while.
“I think you missed a line,” Judy broke the silence.
“Oh, right!” he facepalmed.
A scatter of animals chuckled in the background.
“Ok. Fine,” he said with an elongated tone. “There, I said it. Are you happy now?”
Judy snickered. “Yes.”
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Back at the Zootennial Gala, Mayor Winddancer was about to introduce Milton Lynxley while Nick took notice of the red hooded figure.
“Judy...can you hear me? I have a trail! Judy?” Nick whispered into his headpiece.
Once he realized his flub, he pressed the device again like he was getting radioed. “Oh, what’s that? I said the wrong name, Judy, instead of Carrots again? Eh, it happens.”
He then walked out of frame while the crew snickered again.
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After Nick found a safe hatch and saved them both from drowning in the water tubes, Judy whipped her ears and accidentally flung water at Nick.
“But we are alive,” Nick said. “So if we can’t find him, that’s great, what we can find is a truck outta here.”
Nick wrung out his soaked tail and swung it around, but he accidentally whipped her in the face with more water instead of him.
“Waah!” Judy squeaked from the wetness.
“Ah! I’m so sorry!” Nick got down to his knees. “I mean, okay, it’s kinda funny because the script said I tried to whack you with water, but still…it was just an accident. It should’ve been my face.”
Judy couldn’t help but smile at his earnestness. “Apology accepted.”
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Just when Nick and Pawbert were about to fall to their deaths, Judy dived in to save him, whose ankle was also held by Gary. They carried Nick back up like a bungee cord while Pawbert fell into the swirling snow below. After Gary pulled them both to safety onto the top of the weather wall roof, Nick ran straight for the ledge and peered down into the abyss while Judy ran after him.
“Dang! He ain’t gonna be in Zootopia 3,” Nick commented.
Nick and Judy then stared at each other and couldn’t help but erupt in laughter at that ridiculous statement. But, all of a sudden, a large paw with protruding claws leaped out of nowhere and caught onto the ledge.
“I heard that!” Pawbert climbed up the ledge with a crazed expression, desperate for survival. “Mark my words, I’ll always be back. I’ll probably make a cameo in…AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
His claws slipped off the icy ledge, and he fell from the weather wall again.
At the same time, Nick and Judy slowly stared at each other until Nick interjected, “He’s right. It won’t be the last time.”
”I’m okay!” Pawbert echoed.