Hello dear reader and/or Zootopia Trash: Thanks for checking out my story.

First, what exactly is this story?

There are many fanfictions out there that exploit a single AU, or even a few universes, like A Different Path, in which Zootopian Nick and Judy find themselves in the Zystopian universe. It, and a few other Zootopia fanfictions use the multiverse to form a premise, or maybe as a one time plot device. But what if the multiverse itself is the premise, rather than interpersonal drama, good vs evil, or a romantic honeymoon in Hell? What if each chapter took place in a different world, itself merely one of many millions?

OK, it won't be quite that crazy, but nevertheless, the multiverse is itself the premise here: Nick Wilde goes on one hell of an adventure, with some angsty nihilism in the background. A lot of people die, and quite a few alternate version of familiar characters get tossed around. In this story, there exists a governing agency, which calls itself "The Consortium." The consortium has, over the years, explored many areas of the multiverse, categorizing universes by a number, sometimes with a name, if it's special.

For example: V-284 "Zootopia." V-284 is universe #284, with the "V" acting as an abbreviation for "universe" (which is often shortened to just 'verse.), and it is nicknamed "Zootopia," both by the in-universe (or is it in multiverse?) characters because they use it as the literal textbook example of a "Zootopian" society, and by me, the author, because v-284 is the universe that the actual film takes place in. Nick Wilde-284 (the version of Nick who is living in v-284) is a cop who may or may not be madly in love with Judy Hopps, and was the same lovable, sarcastic hustler we saw on screen. Nick-284 is not our main character, either. Do not worry (or get your hopes up) though, for this is not a WildeHopps story. There are enough of those, and this story isn't about love: It's about running away from your problems whilst everything goes to shit in the background.

In short, if you've watched Rick and Morty (especially the episodes where the multiverse is invoked, such as the season 3 premiere), you will be familiar with the concepts used here.

This is one of the many things that the Wanderer's Unsophisticated Recollection of Events has to say on the subject of The Wilde Incident:

"It was a big fucking mess. Just one grade-A clusterfuck after another, and somehow this guy got off scott-free? We had multiple contaminations, an interversial invasion that he caused, and somehow, a Bellweather got lost, and one of those pesky [REDACTED:insufficient security clearance] got involved, and we promoted this guy? I don't think I will ever understand you crazy mammals. Then again, you're a lot more fun than the denizens of v-127, so maybe I will stick around."

END LECTURE

Tuesday, May 17th, v-294. Downtown Zootopia (well, Zystopia, really):

Nicholas Edmus Wilde had shoplifted before. He was a hustler, a huckster, a shifty sneaky snake-oil-selling sly fox.

Or so the world thought. And so the world hated him.

Sometimes the Pawpsicles sold well, and sometimes they didn't. But whether or not he could afford to, he had to eat. Yesterday, they hadn't sold well. And now, on this lovely Tuesday morning, Nick was at a convenience store, buying a cheap ass coffee, and palming an apple into one of his abnormally large trench coat pockets.

"That'll be $2.11"

Nick Begrudgingly paid, his shock collar going from green to yellow, both from the stress of shoplifting, his fear of Mr. Big, who he had some unfinished business with, and from his negative feelings surrounding the spending of what little money he had on something as seemingly trivial as coffee. As he left the convenience store, he noticed the police cruiser.

OK, don't panic.

Then he saw who stepped out. Judy Hopps.

Shit!

Nick wasn't exactly an innocent fox, and Judy was a very infamous rabbit in predator circles. Although Nick was already a tad worried, he was now on the verge of panic. This has to be a set up, he thought to himself, as he quickened his pace to get away from Judy.

Judy, who had already made one arrest earlier that day (Emmett Otterton had been caught engaging in pack behavior) and was mentally preparing for the arduous task of filing the paperwork. For that she needed some coffee, and she wasn't in the mood to drive all the way back the the nicer part of town for Starbucks. As she stepped out of her cruiser, she passed by an unremarkable red fox who she would've ignored completely if it weren't for the amber glow being emitted from his neck...

What's up with him?

Most chompers didn't just walk around with their collars yellow all the time. Seeing nothing at all unusual in the store that could suggest the fox had company, she turned to find he had subconsciously quickened his pace, as if he was running away.

Now he had done it. He was a fox, in the early morning of a shady part of town, with a yellow collar, running away from a cop. Guilty.

"Hey you!"

Her words sent electric icicles of fear down Nick's spine. He was subconsciously speedwalking before, but now he was running for his life. And who could blame him? He had heard stories of the ZPD: druggings, torture, declawings (which he could confirm were very, very, painfully real), and even one guy who claimed he had been branded by Hopps herself! That one guy had been drunk and high when he told this story, but Nick, who already hated the ZPD, was more then ready to believe it. Confirmation bias and all.

"Get back here!"

Nick's collar went off...then there was pain in his back. The last thing he could remember was lying face down on the cement, the world outside all woozy and fuzzy, already high off the tranquilizer darts.

Nick dreamed he was on a subway car. Of course, it couldn't have been the Zootopian Metro: The car was *far* too clean, all of the lights were working, and the ride was much too smooth. But to the illogical dreaming mind, it was the Zootopian Metro. Next to him, sat Nick Wilde, who was fiddling with his golden pocketwatch.
Oh how Nick loved the luster of gold! And how he cursed the fact that he would probably never have any for himself. He was 30 years old and homeless, with only a high school diploma he had gotten 7 years behind most of his classmates. Finnick was one of his only good friends, and he had considered doing it many times.
Who could blame him? Zystopia was a depressing place.
On the night his mother died, he had almost done it.

"Excuse me?"

Nick Wilde interrupted Nick's musings on suicide.

"Could you tell me where I am?"

"We just left central plaza station."

Nick Wilde seemed annoyed at Nick.

"Yes, I know *that*! What I want to know is where we are right now."

It was Nick's turn to be annoyed.

"Zootopia."

Nick Wilde grabbed him by the shoulders. Nick saw that he wasn't wearing a collar.

"No! Where are we?"

"I told you, Zootopia!"

"Which one?"

The train arrived at central plaza station. Two more Nick-doppelgangers stepped into the car.

And judging by the rotting, cracked pelt and shriveled, yellow eyes, one was clearly deceased.

Nick came to in the back of Judy's police cruiser, in cuffs. Somewhen between the store and now, he had been darted, which would explain the trippy dreams. As the sleep-inducing drugs worked their way out of his system, there would be more. But as he would soon find out, Nick's days were numbered.

Nick had been framed by some unknown character, and recognized by Judy as a wanted petty criminal. So he'd been arrested, and then the "evidence" started pouring in. The case against him was solid. Completely false, as Nick would've, and had told the jury on numerous occasions, but solid. And so perjury was added to the many charges from the judge. Someone (Mr. Big?) wanted Nick dead, and they had framed him for murder.

Of course he hadn't done it, and of course they didn't listen.
The courts never listened to preds. They were rigged events, little more than a staged performance to allow prey to pretend they lived in a just society.
One that had sentenced Nicholas Edmus Wilde to death by electric chair, and a month later, that horrid day had finally come.

And so he sat in his barren concrete cell, contemplating his demise.
His entire life, he had been taking it up the ass from the prey:
His bullies were prey.
His teachers were prey.
His landlords (back when he had enough cash to have one) were prey.
The cops were all prey.
The men who had started the war that claimed his father were prey.
Those bankers who had scoffed at Suitopia were prey.
Those who had driven society to hell in a handbasket were prey.
The ruling class, the conspirators, the corruptors: all prey.
Fucking prey.
They had taken everything: his childhood, his feelings, his parents, and even his claws!
And now a prey executioner was guiding him to the chamber, in which the wooden monolith stood, menacingly enticing its next meal. It had sent hundreds to purgatory, and would go on to devour hundreds more. Nick was nominally a catholic, but he had never really bought it, and was already dead set on joining the mob by the time his confirmation rolled around.

Not that it mattered. Just another tool of the preys.

Nick may have said that he was religious, but deep within, he knew this was the end. Consciousness was a flame, and when extinguished, it didn't go anywhere. It was simply gone.
Nick was terrified, but he didn't try to fight it.
He had been screwed over by prey his entire fucking life, and to start fighting back now seemed silly to him.
It also didn't help that he had almost killed himself several times.
Yet the hadn't done it. Perhaps out of some naive hope that it would get better, that the world was a bigger place, and that he would find a way away.
His favorite childhood fantasy had been nothing more than ripping off his collar and running away through an endless field of tall grass.
From Zootopia, from the preys, from Judy, who was overseeing this particular execution.
From everything he had ever known. In the end, that was his one regret: staying.
Who knows what could've happened out there? Maybe he would've starved to death in a week. Maybe he would've been a homeless bum who sold his body for a living. Even that would've beaten the life he had ended up living. At least he would've been free, even if only for a brief moment. At least he could've escaped.
And now, as he faced his death, escape was all he could think about. And in a way, the chair was escape.
But something else out there saw fit to fulfill his desire in a completely different, and far less depressing way.

Nick was brought back to the room from the recesses of his mind by a bright electric flash and a harsh saw-tooth wave echoing around the chamber.
When he looked up from the floor, he saw the most peculiar thing: A gentlemanly red fox with a white tapered Mohawk in a cheap black suit who stood in the center of the room, directly between Nick and the electric chair. He smelt of lavender, cigarettes, money, and some cheap perfume, the sort a male predator buys at the last minute to hide the persistent musk of joyous mating from the night before.
He held a small metal object in his left hand That Nick glimpsed for a few tenths of a second, and he was reaching for one of his many pockets with his right. He did not have a collar on his neck, although the guards were all too flabbergasted by his entrance to notice this last detail. But he knew how important the element of surprise could be in precisely this scenario.
And how quickly it ran out.

He instantly identified Nick as one of his own. As someone he could trust, despite his sketchy reputation and checkerboard past.
Or maybe because of it.

The warden had relaxed his grip on Nick, and approached the Fox with the Mohawk. This was the basement of a high security prison, so Nick wasn't going to be going anywhere, and this intruder needed to be dealt with. The intruder saw his chance to act, and took it.

"Hey you, come with me if you want to live."

The Fox in the suit removed a strange silver gun from his pocket that looked more like a bar-code scanner than a weapon, and pointed it at the chamber wall.
A flickering white rimmed portal opened on the wall, and through it Nick could see a sketchy downtown bar, which the Fox in the suit had already entered.

The others stood there in shock, and Nicholas Edmus Wilde, who we shall refer to as Nicky, or perhaps, Nicky Edmus, ran after him.

Who the hell is this stranger? Why is Nick's middle name Edmus? Is Judy the villain of this story? Who is the Wanderer, whose recollections are sloppy and biased? Who is the unknown person that framed Nicky? How the hell did that stranger find himself in the jail to begin with, and why the fuck is he wearing a Mohawk?

All of that and more in the next few chapters, so stay tuned!

EDIT: Yeah, I made a few edits for grammar, spelling, etc. Nothing that changes the plot. That would be cheating. I also made the dream sequence just a little bit more trippy, to go along with the general theme of death in this chapter.