Icelocker district was quite a unique location in Tundratown. When you combine the fact that the placement of taller buildings would block the sun for most of the day along with the location near a port that was frozen most of the year created a spot where permafrost coated and covered everything. Nick remembered old collegues of his who lived here and how they'd complain that heating and water would almost always be busted as the city refused to undergo the renovations necessary to fix the aged pipes that worked everywhere else in Tundra Town. The upside was that rent was cheapest here.
He wouldn't be surprised to find out that the inhabitants of the icelocker were the poorest in zootopia and just had no means of getting out as no mammal would willingly subject themselves to this. Even still crime was non-existent here as it was just so mind numbingly cold that even hardened polar bears refused to risk themselves trying to mug mammals here.
One thing Nick had discovered as a side effect of his condition is that his body was capable of surviving in climates that would otherwise endanger or kill other mammals of his physiology. He wasn't really sure what it was specifically that allowed it but it was as if his body was capable of self-regulating itself to a much greater degree than should be possible. So for example when he entered the frozen district his internal body temperature went up to the point where frostbite and pneumonia wasn't something he worried about. The colder he got the stronger the effect which was great for a stealth mission like this in which his cat disguise was covered in only a thin jacket rather than a typical puffy one that would certainly give away his position when it would crunch and shuffle as he moved around.
The downside with this self-regulation is that he wasn't magical and so to get this increased temperature would require his metabolism to power up which meant that he had to eat a tremendous amount of food before arriving, inhaling as many calories as possible to give his body to burn for heat. It was why his apartment would have empty jars of peanut butter littering his apartment. It was the easiest way he could think of for consuming a tremendous amount of calories, was cheap and most importantly an average sized fox buying a few jars of peanut butter turned far less heads than if he were to buy overflowing carts of food almost weekly.
Back to the task at hand Nick moved through icelocker with practiced ease. Making sure to step carefully and skulking slowly to avoid slipping and causing noise. The report stated that Bellweather was located on the third floor of a run down apartment complex located near the piers.
'Her wool was pretty soft' the thought came unbidden to him as he found and entered the apartment. 'It's probably why she can tolerate living in a shitty place like this at all' his thoughts continued although it still didn't really explain much, that's why she COULD stay but why was the more important question lingering.
He reaches the door to the apartment after slowly approaching the floor, not only did Nick had to be careful of any potential cameras that might have been installed without his knowledge but if any other inhabitants saw a mammal that clearly didn't belong here it would raise some alarms. He couldn't simply scale the side of the building even though it was so dark outside due to the permafrost making the walls far too slick for him to climb and he was batmammal, no magical utility belt for him.
He kneels down, a claw extends past one of his digits as he uses it to pick the lock. Now this trick was something he learned from his youth for honestly nothing nefarious. He just wanted to make sure that if for some reason he was trapped in some cage he could escape. The skill served him very well since then.
The light click of the door as the lock was opened was all he needed when he stood back up and very slowly pushed the door. The chilled hinge causing a light squeal as it was turned but unless Bellweather was some sort of secret ZIA agent he doubt she was trained to listen for these disturbances.
Sneaking into the opened door and shutting it carefully behind him Nick spent a second to allow his night vision to adjust and took in deep breathes to smell the history of the building. The distinctive smell of lamb certainly permeated here most likely confirming that Bellweather does live here but there was some other scent he didn't recognize. It had a rich musk mixed with spice that he simply couldn't place but made him think of the market at Sahara Square, how the sellers would frequent trying to sell bulk native spices to the inhabitants. Judy loved going there to see how other cultures ate and what they enjoyed but all the lingering spices just made Nicks nose stuff up.
Cataloging the scent for later thoughts he moved around the apartment. It looked clean enough, there were a few things sitting around but nothing that he could plainly see of interest. He doubted that someone as smart as her would just casually leave anything dangerous or incriminating sitting around for someone to find especially if she was risking her life by staying in Zootopia.
Nicks swift movement in her apartment covered large amounts of ground and he was silent as he searched, his predator instincts kicking in to silence his hunt for her. Until he pushed his disguised muzzle through an opened door and was confronted by a gun pointing straight at him.
"Who are you and what do you want?" the ewe confronted him.
It was such a weird feeling, the surge of adrenaline and enhanced survival abilities flowing through his system. Nick was normally a very intelligent fox and was capable of quickly reading a situation and learning a vast quantity of information, it's why he was able to crush the academics at the academy. However this feeling was beyond that, every second that passed in the real world was a minute for his overclocked brain. He was able to pick up every single detail and see everything that was happening. The way her stance was shoulder width apart for stability but her knees still shook lightly out of fear, or how her wide eyes scrunched the skin on the ewes aged face. The way that the scent she was giving off reminded him so much of how she smelt back when they first caught her, when the carrot pen crucifying her was revealed.
He moved so quickly that Bellweather didn't even see the feline move until the gun was no longer in her hands and her face was shoved hard against the hardwood floor with her hooves behind her back. At first she experienced shock, both because of the sudden movement but how the balance of power changed so rapidly. Then fear flowed through her as she struggled as hard as she could against the impossible grip of the feline.
But the grip was unyielding and fear was quickly replaced with anger.
"Get off of me!" she yelled out and she continued to struggle.
Nick wasn't sure how to proceed in this but maybe it was the sadistic pleasure he felt with handling a former tormentor or it could just be his own nature he calmly spoke out "Dawn Bellweather I have come to kill you" which he then emphasized by placing a paw next to her head and extending his claws out - the razor sharp talons more than capable of lopping her head clean off her shoulders.
With this she froze up and stuttered, no air could escape her mouth as she wracked her brain to figure out what to do.
"But -" Nick continued, retracting his claws and using the paw to turn her over to give her a look at him "I am not an unreasonable mammal and if you give me what I want I will spare your life."
'Well we have a crazy mammal that has me cornered. That's faster and stronger than me. I no longer have my gun and in a compromising position' she analytically thought 'so my choices here is either I can give this guy what he wants or die here.'
"What do you want" she said without a moments hesitation, ceasing her struggles.
Silently thankful she was being reasonable Nick released his grip and pulled her up to lead her to the chair in the corner of the room. Nick wasn't going to kill her as he was not that kind of mammal but that didn't mean that he wasn't above a little advanced interrogation as the ZIA liked the call it if it came to it.
When she was settled and her heart was settling he opens his muzzle "I just want some information from you, let's start out with the most obvious one" with that he steadily walked away with his back facing her but ears lifted up and twitching. Bellweather knew from his stance that he was just begging her to try something with that casual stance and wasn't about to get baited so she sat firmly in her chair. "Why are you still in the city that hates you?"
She was expecting something like that, even Lionheart had left Zootopia when he was ousted all those years ago and he wasn't even the one that initiated the conspiracy, so why is a lamb like her still doing in a place where obviously she was not welcome? Still if he expected her to just give her all her secrets and motives just because he caught her off guard he had another thing coming.
"Well what can you expect me to do cat? This city is my home, it was everything I knew of growing up - it's not that easy to let old dogs rest" she stated.
'I know that feeling' Nick thought as he didn't outwardly respond but rather said "You didn't answer my question lamb, there is nothing here for you now so why come here and live here?"
She wasn't sure what this mammal was trying to accomplish and was puzzling it out 'So he knows where I live and was told to kill me, that only means the Great Apes are out for me. But if that was the case then why is he asking me questions, why would a killer for hire care about their mark?'. She should have just answered the question but instead what came out of her mouth was "Why do you care?".
Nick was surprised to hear Bellweather ask this and turned around to face her, to look at her face - his honed ears heard the fluttering of her heart as he looked at her, she was afraid.
Instead of succumbing Bellweather powered on "Let's cut the crap here" with that exclamation she crossed her arms across her chest "the only reason I'd have someone out to kill me rather than arrest me is if they felt I was too much of a threat to be here. The only reason they'd think of little ol' me as a threat to whatever scheme they had was because I know too much about their scheme and the only group that have the right to think that are the Great Apes" she finalized with a nod of her head.
Now Nick was very surprised at how quickly she deduced the potential assailants origin but he guessed someone who was able to turn the city inwards would be a pretty sharp cookie.
She continued "So that explains why you're here, I know too much and was told to be killed I can understand that. But what I don't understand is why you're instead risking yourself to stay here and play 20 questions rather than executing me and moving on your merry way" she sneered at this point at him "So let's make a deal."
Curiosity piqued Nick acquiesced "Well looks like you're smarter than you look" he jabbed "So I guess I'll play along, what's the deal?"
"I will tell you everything you want to know if you tell me why you care."
Nick mulled it over, seemed reasonable enough so he decided to tell her but left out details that would let her connect the dots on who he was.
"You're right, I was sent here by someone. Not directly from the Great Apes but I suspect the orders came from them originally and yes I was told to silence you. Now the thing is here I have a juicy looking lamb" he licked his muzzle for visual effect "just sitting here against all sense of logic in the very town where she is persona non grata. You know us cats, killed by curiosity and all that and I just refuse to let something just so interesting die when there is obviously more to this story." At this he turned around to face away again "Now that I'm interested I just can't go ahead and kill you now you know? I've always been curious about the Apes so I want to know more."
Bellweather felt as though there was something more to this story but as stupid as that explanation was she really couldn't put it above the cat to have that honestly be the explanation for his involvement. She had known plenty of who she felt were incredibly smart and accomplished cats do stupid shit and chase dead leads just because it made them curious.
Sighing in defeat Bellweather responds "I'm here to give my knowledge on the Nighthowler serum."
Nicks interest was spiked now, he suspected that was her involvement but there had been no recent reports of the Serum since her arrival so he couldn't directly connect the two together.
"Nighthowler? You mean that stuff that hit Zootopia over a decade ago? Isn't there an antidote for that now?"
Bellweather shook her head "Yes and no, it's nighthowler but it's different. It's just..." suddenly her eyes sparked in recognition "You know" she said abruptly.
Nick didn't know where this came from "Know?..."
She slapped her hooves together infront of her "Yes, that must be why you took this case, you suspected nighthowlers. Oh don't play dumb with me I can see it on your face" as Nick grimaced when some hidden information was revealed, he had to be much more careful before she really did know too much.
Suddenly she stood up and Nicks instincts screamed to aprehend her but he recognized the face of someone on a mission before and let her retrieve whatever it is she needed to, even allowing her to leave the room.
"So I always suspected they were doing something more with the formula when I heard about what had happened a while back. The media hadn't said much of what happened but I have my sources" she said as she came back pushing a large box into the room. Opening it up revealed documents and papers to him.
"What do you mean?" Nick asked as he looked down at the labeled journals and documents with the names of chemicals he couldn't even begin to pronounce.
"So the story was apparently a gang was meeting in some abandoned warehouse you know stereotypical mafia stuff then the famous Judy Hopps comes in to stop them alone for whatever reason." At the mention of her name Nick involuntary shifts but notices no hint of malice in the ewe's tone when she says that. "Then the story ends with her partner Nick Wilde coming in to attempt to save her. Judy dies and everyone mourns her and that's the end of the story."
"But it's not the end of the story" she continues "We are led to believe that somehow in a room full of giant ruthless mammals who are known to be killers was somehow defeated by a single rabbit and fox with her being a casualty." She kneels up straight from the box and looks at him "Now look I know they're good, those two managed to figure me out."
He cooly responds "You seem rather unphased when talking about the pair of cops that did you in", she frantically waves her hooves infront of her "Obviously I'm pissed at them for getting me but hey I respect that they were able to, you know? I mean it's not like it's personal and the time in prison gave me time to think about how if our positions were switched I'd have done the same thing. So sure I hated Hopps for capturing me but I didn't want her to die, well at least I didn't want her to die now couldn't really tell you how I felt back then" she chuckles lightly.
Not really sure how to interpret this side of Bellweather he motions with her hand to continue her story which she picks up on "Ok so like I said, I just don't believe the story is just they capture them and she dies. First of all none of the mammals in the building were reported on after it happened which was the first suspicious thing. Usually they would say names or show them being led out in cuffs all heroic like to show how useful ZPD is and how much safer the city is" her attention was back in the box shuffling through it.
"So there were two questions that had to be answered, one was why didn't they announce any of the criminals which I assume meant that the powers were hiding something" she struggled as she found what she was looking for and tried to pull a file out from the bottom of the box "and second how was a bunny and fox able to overpower them at all which I think is this" she says as she pulls out a thin folder and hands it to him.
'ADONIS' read the front of the file, looking through it shows a few medical documents full of what looked like vital information. "What is this Bellweather?" asked the disguised fox.
"It's something I remember working at during my graduate studies at the ZBU" she replied. He knew about her time at the Zootopia Biomedical University as Bellweather was an aspiring doctor before deciding to develop the Nighthowler formula and tear the city apart. "Basically it was kind of a strengthening agent. Our department gets a grant from the military asking to develop some sort of injection that would increase strength and endurance."
"So basically a super soldier serum?" Nick asked while looking at her, he heard rumors about this but this was the first time it was confirmed that someone was trying to make it.
"Kind of but I doubt we'd make a captain Zoomerica out of it" she joked while milling around the box to see anything else of interest.
"So what happened to it, did it not work?" he asked, she shook her head "No it worked perfectly fine. The subjects were experiencing significant increases in their strength, some even up to 1000% their nominal max for their species and they were able to endure harsher conditions longer. I remember a tiger subject was able to stay submerged for over 20 minutes and have no lasting impact from it."
"If the serum did so well then what happened to it, why aren't we hearing about super mammals running around and jumping tall buildings?"
"Because a side effect of the serum was it destroyed the bodies cardiovascular system. We just couldn't figure it out but over time their heart rates would slow down and just stop, blood pressure would skyrocket and it became too hard for the heart to keep pumping blood so it would quit. We had to can the project and have the results sweeped up when our subjects started dieing off" she stated somberly "That file is all I was able to get from the project, everything else was either confiscated or destroyed."
There was a piece he was missing "So then if you had to stop because it killed people then what does this have to do with anything now?"
"Because I think they combined Nighthowler and ADONIS together and don't want anyone knowing about it" she finalized to him.
Ah, there it was.
"Nighthowler is most well known to increase aggression in the subject but what people don't know is that it operates on the Limbic system and overdrives your natural instincts. It also leaks into the brainstem and impacts involuntary things so like heart rate goes up and you breath heavier and so on." she had stopped searching through the box and was now pacing around the room, becoming fevered as she was able to recount her knowledge to the first interested party in years. "My thought on ADONIS was that it was not a blood thing, none of the subjects blood was any thicker or less pumpable after taking it. The heart wasn't injured in any way so I thought it was the side effect ADONIS had on involuntary reactions. It basically forced your heart to stop."
"But you think that they created a mixture of ADONIS and Nighthowler, one that counteracts the heart issues but retains the increased strength and ability from the ADONIS" Nick helpfully supplied, mentally connecting the dots.
"Yes!" excited that the cat was following along "Now I don't know if it works, how they did it or anything about it. My first thoughts was that the meeting was about the compound and when the cops showed up the fox, Wilde, was hit by it and that's how they managed to escape but he didn't show any signs of savagery and his blood screen didn't show any traces of it so I don't think he was hit."
The information was coming in faster than he was processing so he put his paws in front of him to indicate her to slow down "Wait, how exactly do you have the ability to see a ZPD officers blood results?"
"I have connections" she stated neutrally.
Nick thought about it "So what? Because you know about ADONIS is why you think the mafia wanted to kill you?"
She nodded in assent "It's the only thing I can think of, obviously they have some sort of secret serum that only I know about".
"Then why not harass the other researchers, you can't have me believe you were the only one on this thing" he stated.
She appeared glum and looked away, "They were all killed". He didn't know what to say other than "I'm sorry".
She shook her head "It was after I was locked away, they started killing off members of my old research team, I sort of kne back then it was because of the new Nighthowler serum I made but couldn't make the connection."
"So then I don't understand, if your team is obviously being hunted then why are you here basically right there in their backyard. Do you have a death wish or something lamb?" he jeered.
A few moments of silence passed before she responded with a soft "No".
"Then what is it?"
Her reply shook the foundations of his entire world "Because I wish to atone."
"Atone?" he begun which she nodded.
"I had so much anger and hate in me. Growing up I dreamed of being the mayor you know, little ol' Dawn being someone important. But as I grew up my dreams kept getting shoved aside. I was just the lamb nerd and played second or third fiddle to everyone, even on my own research team all the credit was taken by the Wolf who was the senior in the group. When I joined with Lionheart with promises of being critical to his role, without me he would have never gotten the prey vote, and then being basically his bitch was just..."
She gulped, trying to reign back tears.
"I was so angry and took it out on predators. I hurt so many mammals with my actions, broke so many families and made things worse. It took me a long time to come to the conclusion that everything was already done and over with."
She wiped her face, cleaning silent tears "It hurts so much to know what happened was because of me, Zootopia was tearing itself apart. I regret it so much that I had to come back. If they had really developed an ADONIS serum working with Nighthowler then there will never be hope again that a Zootopia could survive. My contacts are all here and I need to do something to stop them."
She was now shaking so violently that she was going to fall apart at the smallest touch, but still Nick went in and wrapped her arms around the ewe who froze up in shock at the touch "There, there.." he soothingly said as he ran his paw gently down her back. At the touch the dam broke and she cried deeply into his chest. Allowing her a few moments to let it all out of her system he bit back the instinctual urge to joke that all lambs were so emotional.
He knew she was sincere. Not only because of the way her heart was beating or the subtle ways her body shifted or even the fact that she was giving him so much more than he had even expected. He knew she was telling the truth because he knew what this feeling was like, he knew the sorrow and regret and he knew she had changed.
She took deep calming breaths as she composed herself and asked the feline "So now I told you what I know, what is your actual stake in all this?"
Her simple statement pierced through the facade he built up of a curious cat and he replied seriously "Because whoever 'they' are or whatever 'they' want, I'm going to stop them."
"Why" she asked.
"Because the world is ready and deserves to be saved."
Staring at him for a few moments, trying to judge his sincerity and character from watching him she nodded once "Good then if you will let me I will help you achieve that goal cat".
'What a strange alliance I'm making' but he couldn't find anything wrong with having an experienced and intelligent lamb on his side "I do need the help but even still you need to get out of here, out of Zootopia. We can work together with you out but you're useless if some other hit man comes by."
"Alright I'll leave" and with that she scribbled a number on a spare sheet of paper and placed it in his paws, "Contact me, it's a disposable phone. I'll try to figure out a way to get you more documents and information to work off of. Basically everything I have."
Agreeing at the terms he reached out with his right paw and without flinching she put out her hoof to shake, cementing their alliance. With things settled the cat turned away and started to leave the room.
As he was about to leave he heard her soft voice sing over to him.
"Oh and Nick, rubber shrinks in the cold. Just for future reference."
Chuckling softly he left.
Obviously a rubber disguise is more a plot device. It's not like it's magic or anything but in the movie when the wolf puts on the sheeps disguise and looks like him I assumed there would be some crazy way it could work out so yeah.
That being said I'm moving soon so may not be able to update for a little bit. Will continue writing and updating when I can though. Let me know what you think of the story so far :^)
That being said let me know what you think of the overall story. It's one of those sort of things that will take time to really flesh out all the details so be patient in regards to overall plot (Unless of course there is something specific it seems like I've forgotten) but let me know if there's any structural problems (Like grammar/spelling/structure) so that I can fix it up.
