Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank ADeadMissionary for helping me edit this chapter. You can check out his profile and stories at your own leisure.

www fanfiction net / u/1160012/

Disclaimer:

The following is a fan-based fiction. Zootopia and its characters are owned by Disney. The songs I reference here belong to their respective artists as well.

(The song Parade by Susumu Hirasawa begins to play)

Chesterization proudly presents

A Zootopia fanfiction

Parade of Savagery

(Song ends)

Chapter 1: Parade

"Good morning, Zootopians! Welcome to the Zootopia's 100th-anniversary parade, reported live from Main Street," said the all too familiar snow leopard reporter. Surrounding her were hundreds of cheering mammals. Some of them were waving colorful flags and banners. She kept her professional smile while turning to the sudden sound of drums. "And here is the parade that we've all been waiting for." The crowd's cheer became louder, as the first float was approaching.

The parade started with a float that carried the city's title. It also housed something that made the crowd go wild. It was a plastic model, which bore a striking resemblance to Zootopia itself. The team behind said float had a hard time, painstakingly putting it together over the past month. Judging from how well all the districts were portrayed, all their efforts were worth it. Walking beside it like a pair of paladins were a rhino and a lion officer. In their hands were the city's ceremonial flags.

Escorting this float was the marching band champion. After a weeklong battle filled with melody-bloodshed, the underdogs from the Rainforest District had the honor to lead the way. Their music was supposedly the best in the city, and the rest was sub-par compared to them. Regardless, the crowd did not care. They would not mind if a three-year-old kid who tried out drum for the first time playing in this. As long as the melody fueled the parade, they were fine with anything.

Shortly, the other marching bands started coming into the spectators' views. All were performing their best as if the competition from before had not happened. In their mind, they were still competing with each other. With the crowd as the judge and the cheer as the score, every band tried to outplay one another. The only exception to this ongoing competition was the mouse band from Little Rodentia. They knew far too well that their volume made it impossible for them to even have a chance to win at the competition. Still, they marched on. Although the sound of cheering from the spectator out-sounded them, they still marched on. Pride on their faces and tiny whispers from their instruments. Was I being too harsh on the little guys? That was a possibility.

Next was a string of private companies' floats. Companies that occupied and made up most of the buildings in Zootopia. There was a Zuber float: simple, slick, and of course jet black in color. The city's indoor bug farm. Its match made in heaven, Bug Burger, followed . The city's three major department stores joined in. The Uni corporation, the city's supplier of, well, everything from shampoo to candies. Many more floats followed suit. The crowd just cheered and then forgot these floats and their order almost immediately. All companies' floats just somehow looked the same to spectators after a while. The crowd gave them the same cheer of "YEAH!" or "WOO-HOO!" along with applause, regardless of what kind of company they were.

Then came Gazelle's float. The word 'float' was used extremely loose here. The thing looked and functioned like a mobile concert that you can fit on the street. There were lights, smoke makers, speakers, and everything. The stage was not a simple box design, either. No, it had multiple columns and pedestals. Each had a member of her personal predator dancers. On the top column was the star. That day, Gazelle wore a glamorous (yet somehow, sparkling) dress. She was performing the unofficial anthem of modern Zootopia: "Try everything". Despite the fact that the song had been blasted across the city, 24/7 during the past year or so, most animals still hummed along.

Following her float was the one owned by Zootopia's movie industry. Unlike what most would expect from such a business, the float did not resemble anything that would remind you of the industry. So, no giant box office (or was it miniature?), instead, the float was a chunk of a movie set. Yet, it was not just any movie set. It was the fourth installment in the Savage franchise. A multi-millions film series that kept on harvesting more and more money after each sequel. Of course, the producer and the cast were on the float. They did the same routine, smiling, waving, soaking in the cheers and applause.

Next was ZFM, the voice that accompanied the Zootopian who drive to work in the morning. They did not have any fancy stage like Gazelle, and their float was pretty standard. However, their panther DJ possessed beats that messed up the formula of cheer and applause a bit. The crowd started dancing. I would not call that dancing, more like, spontaneous, random, awkward motions of the hip, sprinkled in some strange hands movements. Creative dance as the cool kids these days would put it.

After that was the University of Zootopia, the future of the city. Personally, I always love the ones made by university kids. Only the ones pursuing a career in engineering had their own float. Said float would always follow the school's main float, which was boring to look at. For the 100th university, the engineering student tried something, new. By new, I meant walking pop culture references, sci-fi TV shows, dragons, and... On second thought, I take back what I have said about them. Let's move on.

Like any parade, you always need the essential charities groups and societies. First was the Shelter for the Homeless. Nick from the past used to call it: free lunches on Sundays and the occasional roof on rainy days. Then it was the Children's Dream Foundation. They provided small, homeless cubs the small chance of being on TV. The religious diversity and animals' rights association, always an important part in a city like Zootopia. Next came the LGBT community in their flamboyant glory. Not all, though, some remained low-key. They were sticking to hold hands and marched along with their straight allies. There were many smaller organizations, as well. Despite looking less spectacular than the previous floats, these charity groups earned the same amount of applause. Some even thought that these floats earned more cheer and applause than Gazelle's. These floats would look much better without logos from certain brands and companies. Nevertheless, who would blame them? Communities like them need sponsorship for this sort of grandiose event.

The newly elected mayor's float finally arrived. In front of it was a large sign that said, "Mayor Mark Thumper". With a name like that, I wonder how animals in City Hall would take him seriously. However, his supporters, mostly young female preys, and some predators but mostly preys, did not worry about his name too much. They were here at the parade as well. Their hands were waving banners with his name plastered on it. Along with it were slogans like "Changing Time", and a variety of optimistic buzzwords. The females all shouted his name at such a loud and high pitch, that it was borderline shrieking. Scratch that, it was full on shrieking.

The one standing on the float's podium was an ashen colored rabbit, wearing a fine black suit and blue tie. His eyes sparked what appeared to be hope. If what they said about the eyes being the window of the soul is true, you could see a deep blue sea of ideal in those eyes. The females swooned as his smile flashed toward them. Soon the females' borderline screeching died down, probably because they all had fallen down. Then, the sound of booing could be heard, somewhere. Most of these noises were made from the elderly among the crowds, along with a few other mammals. These animals probably believed that the mayor was nothing but a pretty face. They learned that from all the attack ads during the election. The message of, "Thumper is not ready," seemed to color their view of him. Despite a few less than positive responses, the rabbit kept on waving and maintaining an optimistic smile.

Behind his float was the ZPD's, which was surrounded by the larger officers. The float was a strategic placement to ensure the new mayor's safety. Those on the float, who got to do all the parade routine were: the chef (no surprise) and the city's heroes: Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

"Man, I can definitely get used to doing this," Nick said, his usual smug expression drawn across his face. Judy slowly leaned to his direction

"Don't," she whispered, still smiling at the crowd. She leaned away, returning to her usual tone and pitch, "The hero title is not going to stick around for long."

The Chief looked down. "Hey, you love birds. Stop what you are doing." His head quickly resumed its original location, allowing his eyes to return to the spectators. The buffalo then whispered, "Just smile and wave."

The music went on, and so did the floats.

After half an hour of marching, a mysterious float drew up, taking the title of 'Last Float' away from the Jensin Foundation (An insignificant company, I might add. Back to the mysterious float). The new float was made to look like a wild savanna. It resembled the original land where Zootopia was built upon. It had a small mountain in the back and two baobab trees in the front.

"Hum, well. That's new," said the news reporter as she checked the schedule on her smartphone. The sides of the floats opened up, allowing two set of speakers to be seen. With these, the mysterious float blasted a song. The first minutes of it were what one would expect from parade music: fast, loud and energetic melody with the heavy use of drums. However, as the beats go on, sounds of what could be described as a lunatic moaning mixed in. The spectators from both sides of the street stopped waving their flags. The smile on their faces deteriorated as the incoherent moaning got louder and louder. The town had become the song of a demented theme park. As the spectators began to feel that something was wrong, the lyrics of the song kicked in.

Electric soul in my heart

Streets filled with fumes, burning rubber, blood and chemicals

Behold a parody of utopia

A sparkling street of consumers and summer blockbusters

Social anxiety is a joke, La Vie en Rose on the billboards

They say: "You are happy, don't deny."

Ignorance is automatically repackaged

By machines powered by broken visions and dreams

Fake sweeteners grease the gears

Pouring money into chambers of mega churches

The future is for investors, the rest have to wait in line

Forget that and dance along to the pop song Déjà vu

Now it is coming for you, eating away your façade

The parade of terror is coming, and it is in your name

The radio becomes a droning voice

Concealing the homeless streets that sells rhinestone smiles

Behold a parody of a utopia

Rely on computer algorithms that determine one's worth

Shout "HEY HO", and forget who pulls the strings

You can no longer cut it, so don't bother trying

Now it is coming for you, eating away your morals

The parade of terror is coming, and it is in your name

Your shadows shall change shapes; your hands will touch the ground

The parade of lunacy is coming, and it is in your name

The song repeated its instrumental and moaning intro one more time then shut off completely. Its absence drew the spectators' attention to the float. Conveniently, the float stopped advancing. A compartment hidden in the fake mountain opened up. From within, mechanical parts screeched as they lifted a pedestal and an animal up. That allowed the world to see who was piloting the float. He was a silver gray snow lynx. On him was what appeared to be a faded military officer's trench coat. It was a rather old and somewhat battered coat, indicated by the worn white marks and dashes of explosion char. In his right hand was a cane with pieces of machines strapped on it. The state of his face fur suggested that he was way passed sixty. Yet, his posture and body build suggested that he was much sturdier than most animals his age.

The back of his head was bald, but not because of how long he had spent on the Earth. It was shaven clean. A clear effort to expose what appeared to be long bulging scars. There were only three of them, all placed in random order. Signs of messy operations and clumsy stitches were lying around them. It took the spectators a while to realize that he had a prosthetic left leg. Started from his knee to toe was a curious limb chalk full of hydraulics, cogs, and springs. All were clinging on a metal skeleton frame. He stretched his lips, allowed a smile full of malice to shine through. The silence that descended on the crowd seemed to demand an answer, so the lynx put his smile away and picked up a megaphone.

In the time it took him to prep the megaphone, the ZPD's float stopped. The parade in front of them seemed to stop as well. Nick turned to Judy

"What's going on? Why did we stop?" he asked. Judy tried to reach her head out, looking for a way to see behind their float. She could not see anything but floats at a stand still.

"I don't know," she said. "Chef?"

"You are asking the wrong mammal, Hopps," he said, trying to have a look around himself.

However, they did not have to worry about missing anything. The ZNN's live cameras were about to fix it for them. The giant TV screen installed on a building near them changed. The transmission of the mayor's float transformed to the lynx's.

Seeing how the cameras were looking at him, the lynx turned to their general direction and spoke.

"Testing, one, two, three. Have I got your attention?" His voice sounded like any Zootopian, but the hint of a foreign accent reared its head in from time to time. The animals just turned their heads. All looking at each other, confused chatters emitted from the crowd. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." He slammed his cane down. "Don't you worry, I'm not here to protest or ruin your parade in any shape for form. Why would I want to stop your celebration? Your feeble attempt at covering atrocities with a rosy tint?" A grin cracked on his face. "Nah, I'm just here to make the parade a bit more… wild." The crowd began to murmur, even more confused than before.

"What the hell is he talking about?"

"I don't know."

And other, similar responses came from the crowd.

"How am I going to do that, you may ask? By fixing the things that ail this city, and our world." He continued speaking through the megaphone. "Corruption, justice, greed, generosity, prejudice, acceptance, hedonism, restraint, false morality, ethics, and values. Why do you 'civilized' animals try so hard to make your lives miserable with these murky concepts? Why don't you just let Mother Nature decide? Wouldn't it be better that way?" He pressed a button on his cane. The baobab trees exploded into confetti. The sudden explosion made the spectators jump a bit, but they soon reassured themselves. Telling their children and themselves, "It is an act," (just one in bad taste). Nevertheless, that thought was thrown right out the window the moment the confetti cleared. "After today, all of you will be wild." The spectators could finally see what was hidden within the fake trees. "After today, all of you will be true." There were two multi-barrels machine guns. "And after today, all of you, will be free." With the help from some elaborate machinery, the guns then pointed at the spectators. "The parade of savagery is coming, and it is in your name." He let out a laugh that oozed pure, concentrated mania.

The weapons prepped up their laser sights. The beams aimed at two mammals, predators, specifically, one on each side of the street. The barrels started spinning, spitting out pellets that left behind dark blue spots on the fur of the two spectators. The two thin red beams moved from predator to predator at blinding speed, staining each with dark blue color. The spectators started screaming, while those who had been hit dropped on their knees and gagged. The blue spots vaporized, turning into a haze of the same color. The mammal's panicked breathing easily drew it in. The sweet smell of flowers mixed in with chemicals blinded their judgment. Their higher brain functions shut down, allowing more primal instincts to take over. Soon, the predators were on all fours, just like animals from millennium past, snarling and growling at the prey fleeing the scene

The lynx tossed the cane then reached down for something. When he stood again, he was holding a machine crossbow. It had a compartment filled with military standard Taser arrows. Strapped on its side were two traditional arrow, accurate enough to pierce the heart of a rabbit and powerful enough to pin said rabbit to a wall. He inhaled some of the blue fumes wafting from the panicked crowd.

"It's a SHOWTIME!" He pressed a button on the crossbow, allowing it to auto load the first arrow.

Author note:

Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed what you have just read and wished to see more, please follow or leave a review. They would give me the motivation to write more for everyone. All feedbacks will be appreciated. If you find anything lacking or flawed in my story (grammar, word use, etc.), please tell me in the reviews as well. I shall do my best to update these chapters sooner and make them more polished. This is one of my first stories so please forgive possible mistakes in the future and help me fix them.

Thanks again and have a pleasant day.