**So, this first chapter has been pretty much retconned by other artists contributing to this AU. The second chapter is still good though**
Mike finished the assembly, shouldering the rifle as her peered down over Zootopia Memorial Park. A crowd of mammals formed a path as the casket was carried to the grave. For a moment Mike wondered how they fit the antlers in the rectangular box; did the mortician saw them off, or…no, worry about that later, there's a job to do. Mike tried to focus on the task at hand. He got out of the game years ago, trying to make an honest living as a nurse, yet here he was again, the earpiece he used to communicate with Doug the only piece of equipment missing from this familiar situation. That Doug had been roped into Bellweather's insane conspiracy was bad enough; now Mike found himself a pawn as well in the ewe's continued insanity. Her threats over the phone still gave him chills; he knew she was a master at manipulating people, and the fact that she'd come to be a top ringleader of Zootopia Penetentiary was of no surprise. He was, however, shocked by how much influence she still had over the workings of the prison now that she was out on house arrest. That is was unexpected didn't stop Mike from believing every word when Dawn told him just what she'd have done to his brother if he didn't comply with her demands.
So now here he was, loading a single dart into his rifle as the moment of action fast approached. The liquid in the dart was a deep purple, just like the nighthowler serum Doug had told him about. He tried to console himself, an inner monologue running in an attempt to downplay what he was about to do.
"This'll probably make her go feral but hey, she's a rabbit. What harm can she do?"
-he swung the scope up through the crowd, over the few civilians that turned out, over the lines of officers there to see off the deceased captain-
"There are a lot of bigger officers here, they'll restrain her and get her fixed up in no time."
-over the two moose standing closest to the grave, looking to be in their early 20's—
"The guy had a family? Wife probably left him, took the kids. Just makes what happened to…no, FOCUS, man, FOCUS"
-over the grave, over the headstone, onto her. Officer Hopps
"Nothing dangerous here. Bitchweather is trying to get revenge any way she can, just take the fucking shot."
Mike squeezed the trigger. He didn't stop to watch the dart sink itself into Judy's arm, or the pandemonium that broke out as she fell to the ground. He was already packing up the rifle into the backpack it had come in, sprinting down the stairs to the street, hurriedly making his way away from the park. The burner phone in his pocket buzzed. He flipped it open to the sound of Bellweather's voice:
"Good boy! Seems you're just as good as your brother. I'll be making use of your skills in the near future."
"D…Dawn, I can't…"
"Hush now, little lamb. I know just how to get you to do whatever I want."
She giggled; her 'innocent', pleased-with-herself voice both irritated and scared Mike. That such a monster could take up so unassuming a visage disturbed him more than he'd like to admit. Her voice maintained the unassuming, preppy tone as she continued:
"You'll find cooperating with my demands makes your life far easier than any alternative choices. I'll be in touch! Buh-bye." He pocketed the phone and continued down the street.
The headlines were the worst part. The first had been the most shocking, a delayed horror striking Mike, his blood running cold as he slowly realized what exactly he was reading:
**Hero Cop, First Rabbit Officer, Murdered at Funeral**
"…Officer Hopps was shot with a dart containing what is, at this time, hypothesized to be a variation of the nighthowler serum employed by Dawn Bellweather during the savage mammal crisis six years ago, commonly referred to as 'The Nighthowler Incident'…"
The cover photo, hastily taken, depicted officers defensively blocking Hopps from the direction Mike had fired, a tiger shouting and pointing towards the building he had been in, mammals running for fear of another shot. At the bottom, in a gap between two wolf officers, was Hopps, lying on her back as a fox officer performed chest compressions. The photo was slightly blurred, but it was easy to see the emotion in the fox's face, caught mid-yell as he tried to assist Hopps.
As the week went on, more details about the incident were released:
"Deadly shot was a potent concentration of altered nightholwer serum mixed with heave amounts of adrenaline"
"Intravenous delivery of the serum enhanced the effects dramatically compared to Bellweather's method of absorbing the chemical through the skin"
"Hopps initially went into cardiac arrest. Though her fellow officers supplied proper emergency treatment, she succumbed to cerebral hemorrhaging at the scene"
The burner phone buzzed on the table. He let it ring.