Disclaimer: So the story behind this one… It's a long one. But the story itself is here now and it's a bit different to the usual Zootopia fics out there. Let me know if you want more of this AU or it'll only be a concise 5 chapter story.
Mental Ruins part I
The hooded fox crept across rooftops, bow across his back and arrows in their holster, wrapped around his right leg, whilst a dagger sat comfortably in its sheath that dangled from his left leg. By that description plus a hood, you could tell what he was, an assassin.
But go back 1000 years to the high medieval period, it may not have been as easy to spot him in amongst soldiers who roamed the streets with halberds and Messers. The fox in his twenties preferred the rooftops to the cobbled roads and took lightly to the idea of completing assignments to hunt someone down and kill them. The fox named himself Nick after having no recollection of his family, origin or age, he knew that he was in his twenties and he called himself Nicholas Piberious Wilde. Quite a peculiar name for someone who doesn't even know their own name but at least it was convincing. He was well educated despite a lack of schooling and once he figured out his parents had been wrongly accused of a crime and they had been hung, he retaliated against everything the economically booming wooden city stood for.
He devised becoming an assassin, picking off at the city's population of law abiding citizens who got on the wrong side of the people he received his jobs from by killing senselessly for the money Nick ever so dearly desired. Despite being a fox and concealing his identity from his suppliers of the jobs he took, he managed to rack up quite the reputation in the criminal community. He was the best archer who was willing to go against the morals of the city and not join the army. He was the best archer in the city alone, out of the 20,000 people who inhabited it. He basically didn't exist on paper though, no records of taxes because he didn't own anything, he just napped down alleys and on rooftops rather than owning a house.
The hood he wore drew a shadow across his face and only outlined his muzzle which had the contrast between his lava red fur above his thin black lips and the cream tinted fur situated under his chin running back to the darkness. The tip of his muzzle was a midnight purple snout that was followed by a treble of black dots halfway down either side of his muzzle. He had been mistreated as a kit and had a small scar outlined a scratch he'd received across his cheek as a kit. It didn't take a genius to figure out he was being bullied as a child, but after holding the lid down to his pale of ire that occasionally spilt out onto a pedestrian by a shoulder barge, he eventually blew the top off and nearly beat one of the kids to death. The first time he did kill someone was when he found out who killed his parents and after a few months of misery for the mammal who made the definite decision to hang them, the misery inflicted being presented in the form of physical pain. The mammal was captured by the witty teenager who tortured the mammal day in and day out. That pain he caused was all for his parents and their lives being taken from each other and their son. In the city no one completely lost their parents as someone would find their orphan on the street and adopt them as their own, but who wanted to raise a peasant fox? No one. He was more raised by his friend in the future. The 6-year-old Fennec and the baby Red Fox were a meek face you couldn't say no to, racking up hundreds of tossed coins a day, just from purely begging. As Nick grew older and they both stayed on the streets, the Fennec, Finnick, had taught him all about the actually interesting things in the city and not the religion they were forced to learn about in school. They spent their time teaching each other things as they grew up, Nick was more the Outrider out of the pair and Finnick was the brawler. Despite his size, he knew how to take any mammal down, whether that be a bear or a mouse. They furthered each other's knowledge by teaching skills in combat and applying them to mammals they regarded as a waste of space. However as they grew, so did the distance between them. Eventually, Finnick ended up having to move many miles away due to being deemed as a nuisance who needed to be hung. Nick wouldn't let Finnick go the same way his parents did so, forced him to leave whilst Nick was learning how to throw a knife accurately, he still couldn't get the aim right and was set on teaching himself how to apply that very useful skill in combat. However, Nick was only 14 when he was learning this combat skill before Finnick had to flee and since, he has never returned.
Today was not the day of a falsely accused mammal or one of his friends to be hung and instead, it was the day of a suspected witch to be burned. Nick pitied almost every female who was hung because she was deemed as a witch. He knew it was all fake, he didn't know whether he thought that because the king believed strongly in witchcraft and thought repugnantly of anything that came from the king's mouth or anyone of a higher social class' mouth or whether it was because it never existed until now. Either way, Nick would believe that it's a bunch of junk that the fragile government made up in order to pick off thousands of innocent victims and each one they mindlessly murdered just gave them more authority over everyone in the country. That's the only reason Nick was opposed to it, he wasn't for the fact that people lost wives, mums and friends because of it. It was one of the traits that made him so hardy but yet so disrespectful.
The sun started to set as Nick was slowly closing his eyes after the days of sleep he'd missed and the time he had to kill persuaded him to close them fully. Just the thought of waiting another second made him further more fatigued. Before he knew it, he was head down on the roof in a deep slumber.
A few minutes later, he shot awake due to the sound of screams erupting from the burning mammal down by the centre of the courtyard the execution was being held in. He panted back to a steady breath in recovery from the nightmare he had. The screams he couldn't help but imagine as his parents' screams. Despite him having no recollection of his parents in the slightest, being only a baby when Finnick found him, his imagination still ran wild with thoughts of the angst they went through. The screams and exclamations of pain were mostly sourced by Nick's own killings and the pain he put his own victims through. But that was all for a cause, he lost his parents to a wrongful conviction, that wasn't a sufficient enough cause for him to accept and what he was here for today was a sufficient enough cause. He was there for a ram who believed in killing all people who didn't believe in his faith.
Nick spent roughly fifteen to twenty minute scanning the crowd who were waiting for the second victim of false accusations to be emasculated then disembowelled. This mammal committed treason and this was the one people were waiting for. Children were watching as the beaten mammal was pushed onto the wooden stage.
He knew that no one would care about the ram's disappearance, therefore making it far easier for everyone involved to get away with the murder. One thing that drove Nick to be extra careful with kills like this was that he may end up like the people on the stage if he was caught, that was if he was caught. Then he rejoiced as the scribbled scribing on the torn bit of paper Nick was holding matched to a face in the crowd.
Nick drew a wide smirk across his muzzle before stuffing the paper into his pocket. He carefully pulled the bow from across his back and held it with his right paw. Grabbing a lengthy steel tipped wooden arrow from its holster led him to line the stick up with the bowstring. He stood up with the night covering his identity by plastering the sky behind him, and he pulled the bowstring back, pulling tension on the arrow. His target was only a couple dozen yards away, he could hit that easy with concentration. He closed his left eye and held the bow up to his chest whilst aiming slightly above the target. He took a deep breath and distanced himself from the setting he was in.
As he released the tension, a shout from the next victim in line for death shocked him into slightly twitching and sent the arrow flying towards a rabbit beside Nick's target. He kicked the roof whilst exclaiming "Sard!".
Anyone who hadn't caught on to the archer standing on the slated roof from the shot he missed was now aware of his presence, especially after the curse he just shouted. In amongst the eyes that stared at the hooded fox on the roof, there were guards who of course tried to act like the heroes and do their duty rather than continue with their planned execution. Nick felt obliged to sigh and slide down the opposite side of the roof, away from the now fury infused crowd and the ram was part of it. The main reason for the mob being that an innocent bunny was ruthlessly murdered in front of children, in front of her parents. He didn't feel any guilt though, why should he? He was doing a job and it went wrong. Nick was more annoyed at the tyrant mammal who screamed when he was just about to take the shot. Now the ram was probably going to get away and kill more of Nick's contacts. Nick had messed up and this was the first and last time something like this would ever happen.
The heavily armed guards that stood like high rise apartments began to sprint towards the fox who had made the worst mistake of his life. If they caught him, he was going to be in trouble for many reasons. Mainly because the amount of distress he caused to the public and that they'd be able to put a face to the countless number of murders that occurred in the city, all sourcing from one fox outrider. They know that someone who was extremely skilled with a bow was causing the deaths due to the targets they were hitting and the fact that Nick accidentally left one of his arrows in one of his victims along with a little bit of his orange fur intertwined with the feather end of the arrow. All anyone knew is that whoever was the cause of these 'mysterious' deaths was a fox who possessed the skill of archery.
However, back in the moment, Nick was creeping behind houses in the shadows in an attempt to lose his pursuers and he was doing a pretty good job of it in the market. That didn't mean he was completely safe. He was only hiding under a farmer's stall, anyone could have lifted the cloth that covered him and found him under there. But as it was night, no one hung around the market and that was the place he was least likely to be found until the morning, so he stayed the night; under a wooden stall in amongst some boxes filled with carrots and lettuce.
Despite the silence, he could barely sleep. Every slight movement put him on edge. The shadows of drunk mammals returning their abodes caused shadows to creep across the floor to which Nick would dig his teeth into his lips and claws into the wood as the tension climaxed when they walked by. Nothing had put Nick on edge more than this and this was a serious life or death situation. Whilst the guards searched the area where he was last seen which was on the rooftops, he prayed that they wouldn't lift up the sheet of fabric to reveal his cowering body ripe for execution.
In the morning after he'd drooled away on top of one of the boxes his head was resting on, he almost got blinded by the intensity of light that poured in from a hole in the stall from the sunrise. That was when he came to the conclusion that he had to move, or the guards would be there within a few hours to fetch him.
Lifting his head up, he hit it on the wood that confined him and let out a short "Ow" filled with rage at the dark wood that was planted in the way of his head room. The sudden burst of pain was endured before proceeding on to push his weak woken body into action once more. He sighed and pulled his hood down whilst letting his head rest on one of the cobbles below, it was uncomfortable but it was the only way to breathe a sigh of relief in peace and quiet… so he thought.
"I am lifting them, Pa!" It was the shout of a young doe that made Nick want to snap someone's neck. The bunny that was shouting over to someone was most likely the owner of the stall Nick was using as a temporary safe zone.
A buck, presumably her father, dropped a box beside Nick's head causing him to flinch. The other bunny started to sniff in tears due to the emotional angst she was experiencing. "She just died and I didn't do anything to stop her or anything at all, I just stood there watching her corpse rot." Her compassionate father placed his paw on her shoulder.
"You couldn't have done anything more for her."
"She was my sister pa, my best friend and I watched her die because of that fox. If I see him, I'm going to kill him!" Nick couldn't help but snigger at that. Despite the conversation that orbited around melancholy, Nick found light in it. Death didn't faze him as it was part of his job; to bring death early for the unfortunate mammals who made it onto the wrong side of one of his contacts. "I swear I just heard something." He forgot about their sensitive hearing with them being bunnies and landed himself under the investigation of a rabbit who was supposedly going to kill him if she saw him.
Before she could warn her father out a possible danger out somewhere in the sparse streets, he was on his way back to the waggon they'd delivered their country produce in.
She lifted the sheet up in order to stock the box she was lifting under the stall and was greeted with the startled face of the criminal who matched the 'wanted' posters that were pinned around the town. He had a hood, he was a fox. He was the ideal person for the bounty set to be claimed or to be killed by someone who had a bone to pick or a family member to avenge. Nick knew that they'd have a bounty on him by now otherwise, people would be asking the fragile government why they weren't going to do anything about an innocent bunny that got murdered and consequently plunging the government into a state of becoming distrusted by the public, therefore diminishing the power they had over people. A power they thrived off and couldn't live without, it got so bad that anything the king said would be believed by at least half the population, despite its nonsensicality. The worst culprits for this were country mammals who weren't educated in the slightest so had no reason to think otherwise. This doe who gawped at Nick was included in that country mammal category, no matter how much she tried to escape to the city to get a taste of a life there, it wasn't easy to reverse a set bias towards whoever possessed the glorious crown.
The bunny gasped and turned around with her paws cupped around her mouth, ready to shout. "P-" Nick had ceased her speech as he slapped his paw onto her mouth to silence her. But it was too late, she'd already caught her father's attention and he was there in a heartbeat.
Nick groaned before restraining the weeping doe by her neck, letting her shout all she could, it didn't make a difference as it was too early in the morning for any citizens to actually be roaming the streets and the houses surrounding the courtyard wouldn't hear her small shout. "Pa!" she shrieked in an attempt to fuel her father to save her from the crazed fox holding her hostage in his arms.
Nick flipped the dagger he had on his right leg and held it up to her throat, silencing the doe into suffering more fear, this time from the blade that brushed against her neck. "If you move any closer, you know what's gonna happen." Nick pushed the blade up against her neck with added force to threaten her further.
"Help! Anyone!" The buck who Nick had warned not to come closer shouted for help and with his shout being a lot more dominant and vocally boosted than his daughter's, it was lucid that Nick had to move whether he killed her father or not. It was just down to the decision whether to trust this buck with the information that was most precious to the Reynard: His face. No one could forget a face and certainly, the buck opposite him wouldn't forget the one that was holding a knife to his daughter's throat.
He could either throw the knife at her father to prevent the information from spreading or he could kidnap her to hold it as a threat but cause a whole lot of trouble in the process. He growled at the anger that was brewing, not just from her father yelling at the top of his voice for help, but the annoying dilemma he was glued into. He started to cause yet another feeling of dread bonded with terror and fear within the doe in his arms as he displayed his set filled with the seemingly sharp teeth that were tailored to a mammal of exactly her species.
As he let out a curse directed towards the buck that went something along the lines of "Cunt!", the buck ceased to shout due to the insult he'd just received that stood to be morally more offensive than the one he'd exclaimed on the roof the night prior in anger directed towards no one in particular but this was intentionally aimed at him. The bunny in Nick's arms was now trembling with fear due to the sound of his shout protruding amongst the other yells and pleas her father begged.
Nick ended up choosing the second option of sparing her father as it would provide him with the opportunity to get away from the city that held the streets to his dark past. It would be an opportunity to breathe and take some time away from the jobs of continuously killing people for money, he had enough as it was, why did he need more? He could deal with trouble and if anything was wore than the predicament he was in right then, he would be drowning in a sea of negative consequences.
Nope, he changed his mind. Aiming the knife at the buck's head and throwing the non-aerodynamic piece of metal welded together, it, instead of hitting the designated target, had dug deep into the sinews of his shoulder, causing him to bleed excessively, the only thing to stop him from losing lots of blood was the knife that seemed to plug the stab wound. Nick was unsure whether he was going to die or not as he kicked himself wishing that Finnick was here so he didn't have to run the chance of missing that shot, but life got in the way and he was here now with a bunny in his arms and a buck yelping in pain on the floor. As Nick entranced himself in nostalgia, the bunny found a strength she didn't have before and ripped herself from his grasp to run over to help her father. Before he'd even got chance to say a proper goodbye, Nick began to sprint off in an attempt to flee from the scene and proceed with his original plan but unlucky for him, the doe heard his pattering footsteps trailing down the cobblestone streets so stopped her goodbyes and mainly focused on providing the little medical knowledge she knew.
The rabbit who was in an emotional wreck mere seconds ago was now wiping away her tears for fears of the fox who had taken to two of her family members away from her and instead replaced them with courage. She pried the knife from her father's shoulder and tied a ripped part of the table cloth around his shoulder. After completing all this in under 30 seconds she proceeded to close the gap between her and Nick, but she was at an advantage, she only had overalls one whilst Nick lugged around his bow along with the arrows in their holster that rattled around on his left leg whilst he had an empty sheath with a flapping flap wrapped around his other thigh. He was more fit than she was, however. The only anomaly to the chase was that Nick thought he was only putting distance between him and the scene where a buck had got murdered, unaware that his daughter was seeking vengeance and acting like the guard she never got to be whilst closing the gap that started at a chain and currently stood as a couple of poles.
Once Nick saw her shadow he was already fatigued and out of breath. He couldn't go further and with the knowledge that he had a doe thirsty for his blood closing the gap on him, he turned around and running towards her, he easily caught up. He grasped her arms and slammed her against a tree in amongst the dense forest he ceased their chase at. She dropped the dagger and Nick hastily flinched his foot in order to avoid the incoming blade. "Why are you following me!?" He was panting back to a steady breath as he pinned her against the tree.
Nick was annoyed at her. He killed some buck so she could leave him alone and now he was going to get followed anyway. He tore away someone's dad, friends and colleague, therefore, creating new enemies. That was the only thought that stopped him from killing witnesses right away but in this unusual situation, Nick had earned himself a bunny set on trying to kill him whilst he created yet more enemies on top of the Nemesis-like relations he already held with other mammals.
However, her reply was bold, courageous and caused a lot of respect to arise from Nick for her.
She only went and spat in his face.
