Zootopia – Spirit Chronicles

Sorry for the wait, here is chapter 7! Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions!

Chapter 7 – Wild Times with Wilde!

Wild Times, an very large indoor amusement park located on the outer edge of Zootopia. Originally it catered to predator animals to help them unleash their wild side and have fun but it was recently renovated to accommodate all animal species. The reason for this change was when the owner realized everyone needed to have fun and go wild even prey animals. It contained a variety of rides that catered to animals of all sizes, a large arcade, food court, and a stage for concerts and special events.

There he was, a lone wolf standing nervously in front of the entrance to the park. Alex got nervous in large crowds but he was braving it to hang out with Nick and Judy. He was wearing a black collar around his neck, one of his favorite shirts, a short sleeved dark blue hoodie with a yellow crescent moon on the back of the shirt and a smaller one in the front. Along with his gray shorts and glasses, he was wearing the silver wolf necklace, a memento of his late father. Suddenly his phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked and it was a group text message sent from Judy addressing both Alex and Nick. It read, 'Sorry guys, will be a few hours late, have to take care of some business, go ahead without me, I'll find you inside!' This made Alex a little nervous, he never spent time with Nick one and one. He remembered that Nick was a former con-man and couldn't help feel a lingering sense of doubt. Yet Alex felt the worst thing of all is the Nick refuses to call Alex or pretty much anyone by name.

Nick soon appeared at the front of the park walking casually towards the wolf. He was wearing his usual attire of green Hawaiian shirt and tie with brown pants. Nervously Alex said, "Hey N-nick, did you get Judy's text? If you guys want to cancel today I don't mind. I don't mind waiting either."

Nick smirked and replied, "Hey Howler, yup got her text, but we are here anyway so let's just go on in. It'd be a waste to cancel since we are already here. Besides, I spend time with Judy all the time at work. It's nice to take a break every once in a while or else we get on each other's nerves."

"Really? You two seem really in sync and get along great! You two are like a perfect match!" Alex said happily. Nick shyly looking away embarrassed at the compliment. Perhaps Nick had slightly romantic feelings towards Judy or perhaps Nick isn't used to compliments. Either way Alex was too oblivious and had too little information to make any assumptions.

"Hahaha Thanks...well let's go on in!" Nick said quickly changing the subject. Alex quickly followed suit.

It was his first time in Wild Times it was quite a large indoor amusement park. Various attractions were scattered around the area catering to animals of all shapes and sizes. One of the newer rides, the Wind Tunnel, consisted of sitting in a car driving through a large tunnel of high speed wind. The park encourages the riders to stick their heads out the window of the car. Nick pointed out that the Wind Tunnel is nothing but trouble for young drivers. He explained he had to arrest a lot of young canines who wanted to replicate the ride in real life and stick their heads out the window when driving in the streets causing major accidents.

Still Alex assured Nick that he'll be fine since he doesn't own a car so he would be fine. As the two went on the ride the wolf was super nervous to let loose and give into his wild tenancies. Climbing into one of the cars of the thrill ride. Slowly nervously he stuck his head out of the window on the car. Feeling the wind blow in his face at high speed was exhilarating. He never felt so free, the wind blowing against his fur, his tongue wagging out, it felt so addicting. Nick didn't see the appeal of the ride at first but as soon as he stuck his head out like the other riders he could feel why all those youths would want to replicate the feeling. For safety reasons he felt he shouldn't ride this again and let Judy take over the squad car driving for a bit.

After the ride Alex and Nick proceeded to head over to the carnival games which included tests of strength, speed, throwing. It also included tests of how well you can strong you can bite things, and guessing games. Alex wasn't good at carnival style games he felt they were rigged but Nick was excelling at them for some reason. It was like the fox knew all the tricks of the trade. The fox amassed a large collection of prize tickets.

"Wow Nick you're amazing at this stuff. How did you know where the coin was? That guy rotated the cups so fast I couldn't keep up!" the wolf said in amazement as he watched the wolf trade in tickets at the prize booth.

"Stick with me kid, I'll show you the ropes." the fox said jokingly wearing some wacky sunglasses that he got from his prize tickets. For some reason Nick also got a small toy recorder pen shaped like a carrot. He looked at it grinning. "Heheheh now that I have one too...Judy's going to be in for a surprise." he mumbled to himself menacingly. Alex felt that the carrot recorder pen must have had a big impact on him in the past but was a little weirded out to question it further.

Alex and Nick soon headed to the arcade area which included a wide variety of video games for large and small animals. There a small weasel spotted the fox and proceeded to shout and walk angrily towards him. The weasel was wearing basket ball shorts and a white sleeveless shirt. "Well now if it isn't Nick the cop. Why are you sticking your nose in a place like this and where's the bunny?"

Rolling his eyes the fox sighed and said, "Alex this is Duke Weaselton, a petty harmless thief, just ignore him and he should go away."

"Hey! Don't ignore me fox! I still got a score to settle with ya! How about a rematch at Ultimate Animal Fighter! I've been practicing a lot so let's make a friendly wager... double or nothing!" the weasel said taking out 50 dollars.

Nick smirked, still wearing his sunglasses and said, "Sure you're on weaselbutt! But on one condition, this wolf here will play for me."

"Huh...wha me? But I never played that game before." Alex said shyly shirking away timidly.

The weasel looked at Alex and started laughing. "Haha this pathetic wolf!? He's the shortest scrawny wolf I've ever seen. He looks like he can't fight his way out of a paper bag! Easiest money I've ever made! Let's go!"

Alex tried to about face and walk in the other direction but Nick calmly grabbed his wrist tightly and dragged him unwillingly to the arcade machine. Ultimate animal fighter, a fighting game developed recently in which different animals compete in a fighting tournament. Each had special and unique abilities to topple their opponents. Larger animals had a lot of power but were slow and easy to hit while the smaller species had weaker attacks but were fast and harder to hit. The machine had four different heights on each side of it and screens to accommodate the animals standing at each height. Alex had some experience with fighting games so hopefully he doesn't do too badly.

"Don't worry Howler... I have faith in ya! Kick his butt!" Yet to think Nick would make a bet like this, how can the fox be so confident in him. Duke picked his character a large lion named King. Alex looked at each of the character choices looking at the different combat parameters and chose a goat named Billy. It had high speed and decent power plus he didn't want to make an obvious choice and pick a wolf. He felt like the goat would be fun to play as and soon the match began.

It was a best of three match. In the first round Alex got used to the controls, his inner video game knowledge trying to figure out combos and hit boxes of the opponents. Knowledge that someone like Weaselton would not consider. He did pretty well but managed to lose giving the weasel an advantage.

"Haha what a loser! Let's end this quick, there is not way your puny goat can beat my lion!" the weasel sneered.

"Hmph... Sorry Duke... I think I have this game and you figured out... things are going to be different now." Alex said confidently. He was getting into the game now, he only got competitive when playing video games. The wolf started to exude an unseen confidence that Nick saw once before. It was hard to tell under his sunglasses but Nick was starting to admire the wolf's spirit.

The weasel's playstyle was very aggressive but left him wide open. Alex quickly managed to dodge the attacks and lock his opponent in a large damaging combo ending the match in his favor. The final round was about to begin, the weasel was starting to get nervous as Alex started to smile bearing his fangs. "It's over!" he shouted as his character landed a final attack on the lion, the goat's horns bashing his opponent repeatedly and finishing with a very powerful charge knowing out his opponent. Alex had won and even managed to win the last round without losing any health causing the words 'PERFECT' to appear on the screen.

"What the heck! This wolf is a natural! Did you know this Nick!? You tricked me you dirty fox!" the weasel yelled angrily.

"It's called a hussle!" The fox said grabbing the $50 from the weasel's greasy paws. "Besides you did this to yourself underestimating your opponent."

The weasel grumbled to himself as Alex walked over to him. "That was a fun match Mr. Weaselton!" he exclaimed, his personality slowly reverting back to normal. "I have a lot of experience in fighting games and you have potential but you need to study the weakness and strengths of each character." The wolf went into a long lecture on the basics of fighting games going into specifics that made the weasel's head spin.

"AHHH I can't take it anymore I'm outta here!" The weasel said running away with his tail between his legs.

"Wait! I haven't finished talking about air combos and dash cancels yet!" Alex shouted at his retreating opponent.

"Wow I've never seen him run away that fast! That was impressive Alex." The fox said giving him a high paw. Alex met his paw with his own.

"Thanks! But how did you know that I would be better than him at that game." Alex asked curiously.

"Well for one he isn't that good and two it's my intuition that tells me that a nerd like you would rock at video games. It was a no brainier choosing you as my ringer." Nick said smiling.

The joy that Alex felt at the fun he was having with Nick was soon replaced by dread. He felt a chill run down his spine. Feeling a presence in the air similar to what he felt in the past. Without a word he started running towards the source of this eerie feeling. It was like he was drawn by an unknown power.

Soon he reached a roller coaster and saw a bear cub playing on the tracks. It was so small wearing a baseball shirt and pants and holding a baseball in his paws. How did such a small bear get on the tracks? The fence was large enough to turn away anyone dumb enough to go near the tracks but the bear cub might have climbed over it. The roller coaster was rolling at an alarming rate towards the cub, blissfully unaware of the impeding collision. Alex quickly and without thinking climbed the small fence and raced towards the cub. "Run! Run!" he shouted at the bear cub. The coaster had almost reached the bear, Alex prepared to throw himself at the bear to knock him out of the way. Suddenly he felt a sharp and powerful force bash him on his side. The force charged at him and knocked him out of the way stopping his momentum towards the track.

The force was none other than Nick, whose police training managed to quickly catch up to Alex and knock him out of harms way. Nick pinned Alex to the ground who screamed at the bear cub to run away and soon all he saw was the coaster run over where the bear cub was standing moments ago.

"Alex! ALEX! What is wrong with you!? Do you want to die?" Nick shouted angrily at the wolf.

"But there was a bear cub on the track! I wanted to save him but it was too late...he..he's..."

"What bear cub Alex!? There was no one on the track!" the fox said continuing to scold him.

"What but I saw him! If he wasn't there than that means... no..." Alex said stopping mid sentence. Did he just see a ghost? In the middle of the day?

Park security soon came to pick up the wolf. Nick flashed his badge and helped park security escort Alex out of the restricted area. He was dragged by the large burly security lions the park hired out of the roller coaster area and was being taken to the security office for questioning with Nick following in tow.

Alex was in despair, he couldn't distinguish between what was real and what wasn't and now he was in trouble and might get banned from the park... He looked around once more at the park he might never came back to and then he saw it on top of the ferris wheel. There for all who had a special gift to see, a large blue sphere sat at the top, the gate. An entryway into the spirit world, they finally found another.

"Nick do you see it? On top of the ferris wheel?" Alex asked the fox who was still steaming mad.

Nick angrily looked at the ferris wheel and his eyes widened. "No way... so that must explain why you saw that bear cub." the fox said putting two and two togther rather quickly. "Sorry for being so rough with you Alex. Let's get all this straightened out and let's head for the ferris wheel. Judy just texted me she is about 10 minutes away."

"Right..thanks Nick.. and I'm sorry... thanks for saving my life." Alex said trying not to tear up at the kindness the fox showed by saving him.

"Anytime bud... all part of my job." Nick said grinning and taking of his sunglasses laying them to rest on top of his head.