A/N: … … Nope can´t think of anything, on to the story.
Rabbit Karma chapter 3.
With a startled gasp and a splash, Judy began her new life by flailing her limbs in the air in panic.
Coughing up some water, she quickly calmed down when she decided that the luke-warm water she was sitting in was not nearly deep enough to drown her. She was very confused, though. Where was she? This looked like some dirty and worn public bath. Hadn´t she died? She could clearly remember her body shutting down after she rescued those kits. This couldn´t possibly be heaven, but it was far too low-key to be any kind of hell.
Focusing herself, she let all her senses go to town on her surroundings, but didn´t really learn anything that wasn´t readily apparent. She was alone, this room was exactly as it seemed and there was no surveillance-equipment in range. She did hear other mammals of small to medium size in the building, but according to all but two, their heartrates and breathing indicated deep sleep. The exceptions seemed to be in close proximity with each other and their heavy breaths and elevated heartrates indicated some form of hard exertion. Oh. Never mind. Despite her age, she lowered her head in embarrassment. Her shock when her eyes fell on her paws made her focus in on herself, instead.
Her fur was grey.
A dark, rich silvery grey were last she looked it had been an almost translucent white from age. And her limbs were completely covered in it.
Where was the metal, the polymers and the hyper-strong alloys covering synthetic nano-fibres?
'Well I guess someone got a hold of my body before I suffered brain-death and either built or cloned me a new body. This could be a safe house they dumped me in then. Did they at least leave any messages in that case?'
With a fleeting thought that a cloned body might not have one, she attempted to activate her inbuilt in box. To her relief she found that, yes, she still had one. It contained a single priority message, the header read 'listen to this' and had an attached audio-file.
Curious, she felt it best to do as instructed. When she opened the file, her head seemed to fill with a powerful but pleasant female voice.
"Hello Judy, I am your spirit-guide of a sort. First off, before you get any silly ideas, yes you died. Died all the way, and your soul passed on to the astral plane. The problem with that is that it was your fate to live another few years before you were reunited with your soulmate. In this life and the next, I believe you promised each other. Well, he is serving a short stint in a branch reality meant for atonement, because of some indiscretions in his youth that tarnished his karma. With you pulling off a small miracle to save two innocent kids, you defied your fate and arrived in the afterlife before his destined passing. So you missed each other. This created a catch 22. Your karma was beyond good after the life you lived, so you could not be reincarnated in such a harsh reality. We cannot interfere in the mortal realm, so he is beyond our reach. Worse still, your karma did not allow us to deny you your reunion either, so we were stumped for a bit. However, a closer look allowed us a bit of… serendipity, you might say."
Judy felt the speakers´ voice softened a bit at the last part.
"The soul that inhabited the body and lived the life of Judy Hopps in this reality could no longer handle her deep depression and chose to end her life. We… jumped on the chance and inserted your soul into this body moments after it was deserted, thus sidestepping reincarnation. Technically, you are possessing this body, but with no other inhabitant it´s all good."
Judy was not at all sure how she felt about that. A bit queasy, at least.
"Your karmic state still would not have allowed it if we had not taken drastic action. You, Judy, are blessed no less then seven times. Listen."
A new voice, male and brimming with power took over.
"Judy WildHopps, you have always impressed me with your strength…"
Seven voices and seven blessings later, our intrepid rabbit felt overwhelmed… and a little annoyed.
'" I will help you with that." What does he mean? Annoying! And that last one? "Judy, you have my blessing." That's nice and all, but in what way? Something tells me that's not going to be explained for a long time. I hate not knowing stuff like that!'
"To give you a leg up as you start your new life, I have left all the memories of your body's previous occupant in your mind for your perusal. They won´t be your memories but you will have the necessary information. Also, as a small boon my college who sent you here made sure your body is as unblemished as a new-born since in this reality, you are just that.
I have no more to tell you, except to wish you luck and that you find your soulmate soon. I hope you feel we have done right by you in a difficult situation.
Farewell."
And then the audio-file and the message simply disappear, as if they never existed. Judy had just enough time to goggle at that before her mind is full of a life she never lived.
For a few minutes, all she could do was sit in the cooling water of the bathtub with her head in her paws. It wasn´t painful, luckily, just overwhelming. It was at least instructive. More luck, the memories were like remembering a movie you had seen, the sensations and feelings were there but they were diluted and removed from herself. As promised, and a good thing it was, for the other soul had had ample reason to commit suicide. Judy learned something very important.
This world is horrible.
Or rather, a lot of mammals are horrible here. Little barbs were sharper, the malice came easier and corruption was rampant and ubiquitous.
Finally, the bunny gets a hold of herself and sits up. A coppery smell, far too familiar from too many crime scenes, fills her nose. The bathwater is almost solid red.
With a jolt, she… remembers a memory? Is that correct? …of downing most of a big bottle of pills and slitting her wrists open. Even done correctly, with the cuts running in the direction of her arms. A quick inspection reveals arms without a single scratch, though. She feels neither nauseated or dizzy, so no effect from either the drugs or blood loss, the latter of which she knows all too well.
'Let's be safe, though. /Run complete systems diagnostic. /'
/SCANNING, STAND BY… SCAN COMPLETE… NO MALFUNCTIONS FOUND… ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT 100% CAPACITY…/
'Wow, it really is as if I came fresh off the assembly line, not a mark on me! Hold on, does that mean…?'
Overcome by curiosity, remembering how her body's previous owner had sought solace from her loneliness and sadness in the arms of a few out-of-town bucks, never amounting to more than a one-night stand, she reaches her right paw into the water between her legs.
'Nope, completely new and unused. Heh, Nick is going to be so surprised!'
With the happy thought of her mate, she hurriedly flushes the bathtub, washes the blood from her fur and cleans the "crime scene" of any traces. Not that anyone will ever know, considering the "victim" leaves in better health than she arrived, but her conscientious nature won´t let her leave anything to chance. She even dumps the pill bottle and the knife down a garbage chute on her way to her tiny apartment.
A completely different reality, a wholly different Judy Hopps, same old Pangolin arms. Just, you know, worse. She would never have believed it if she hadn´t seen it with her own eyes; incredibly, her room seemed even smaller, the floor and walls much more worn and the roof had visible water damage. This really was the shoe box Nick had accused her first flat of being. It had been acquired for the same reasons, close to the precinct and within budget.
And when her counterpart had the funds to do better, she had lacked the mental fortitude to make the change.
Judy had no plans to stay here any longer then strictly necessary, she had already made a simple plan; scout out this place to internalize her new memories, find Nick, convince him to marry her and then go from there, preferably while making the world a better place. Simple and straightforward.
For now, though, a few hours of sleep before work. She could use her resources at the precinct to get a lead on her unknowingly wayward mate. Swiftly putting away her toiletries, she then hangs up her bathrobe and turns to her small bed.
Only to jump back into a low fighting stance with a strange combination of a startled yelp and a furious hiss.
Perhaps a somewhat exaggerated response to the presence of a simple, red clock-radio.
That is, if you didn´t have Judy's experiences with such a device. She was absolutely convinced that it´s counterpart had been either possessed or cursed, considering its uncanny ability to play the exactly wrong/right song whenever it was turned on.
In her last life, that device had been with her until shortly after Nicks passing, when Judy had used it and it played "Sea of Heartbreak". The axe-kick that ended its days had cratered the concrete floor under the steel table it had sat on.
'Okay Judy, just relax, you can do this! It´s not even the same one, this one may not be cursed at all… …. …. …. Sweet cheese and crackers, it´s going to drive me up the wall if I don´t find out, isn´t it?'
With no little amount of trepidation, she slooooowly reaches a paw out, and…
Klick.
"Mental wounds not healing
Life's a bitter shame
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train…"
Klick.
"Now I look and then reborn Though I have just until dawn I remember every face Spirits show me every place…" Klick. "Yippie-aye-ooh, yippie-aye-aee, Ghost ridersin the sky…" Klick!"I'm a wandering spirit
I'm a wandering spirit
I'm a wandering spirit
I'm a wandering spirit, yes I am a restless soul…"
Klick.
"…One more time I'm waiting for the spirit of the past
To appear and trouble me again
Time goes by like a sail on the ocean
Sleep won't come though my eyes grow dim
And in the dark I see what I have seen a hundred times
The ghost, the ghost of might have been
Oh, it's you
You keep me hanging on
You're the one whose memory I see
Yeah you, you hang on till the dawn
And it's you and what we knew, that's killing me
The love we shared was the dream of a lifetime
The joy we knew, our reason to be
And if it's hard to live without some happiness or love
Worst of all is this hopeless misery…"
Ka-lick!
'Nope, a bit weirder but definitely just as cursed slash possessed as last time. That last song was nice though, got to zoogle it later.'
Putting the clock-radio in the drawer of her bed-side table for the time being she sets an alarm on her onboard systems instead and goes to bed.
-RK-
Judy opens the door to her joke of an apartment, walks listlessly to her table, sits down on her only chair, and promptly faceplants into the tabletop.
"Uuuuuurgnnnnnhhhh…"
Morlock noise?
Considering how little she had actually done today, she was strangely exhausted. She had arrived at the precinct rather early to get a feel for it, but all she had learned was that it really was just as bad as her second-hand memories had made it out to be. This world was probably Bellweathers wet dream, with all the segregation between predators and prey and all the laws against the former group. For instance, predators could not legally be officers here, amongst many things they couldn´t do. The complete absence of predators in the precinct felt wholly unnatural to Judy.
She realised later that when she entered the precinct, she had subconsciously gone into under-cover mode; be quiet, blend into the background, keep your head down and observe without being seen. Luckily for her, that apparently was superficially identical to the behaviour of a clinically depressed rabbit, so no-one noticed anything unusual.
When she got to the bullpen, no-one looked at her; no-one spoke to her; it was as if she didn´t exist. She didn´t get a case either, all she got was a stack of paperwork good for two days of work!
She had intellectually known what was coming, but seeing is believing and all that.
She took the papers to her office. The only good thing about the whole situation; she had her own private office, all to herself. No partner for her, either. She then proceeded to use her blessed advantages to their fullest to finish all the paper work in a little over an hour; not having first paw experience with all the local laws was a small speedbump when you could directly access your computer and literary think your reports into existence!
She spent the rest of the day searching for info about Nick and contemplating the differences between this and her former life.
While the former had been very frustrating (only a few misdemeanours in his teens and a rapport of him being involved in some ruckus downtown and no known address) the latter was if not good, then at least interesting. Her predecessor had grown up in a Bunnyburrow that was almost exclusively rabbits, so no Gideon Grey. That apparently made her father calmer and happier, with no predators around to worry about. But it also meant no Carla, her black sheep best friend who wanted to be an astronaut, and no Bobby Catmull, her silly musician of a gay friend. She had been so very alone among all those bunnies, so her decision to be an officer was more of a cry for freedom than Judy's wish for a better and more just world.
Nevertheless, this miss Hopps had worked just as hard as Judy had and made valedictorian in the ZPA the same way. Also, since this reality had no rules against it, she didn´t need to wait for something like Lionhearts Mammal Inclusion Initiative and could do so years before Judy had been able to.
Pre-Judy had come to precinct one just as Judy had, and while her welcome was luke-warm at best it was not like anyone disliked her. At first. She had simply been paired with an experienced officer to show her the ropes and see if the little rabbit could measure up.
Then she made her first arrest, and politics happened.
It really was no big thing, pre-Judy had been walking the beat with her partner, an elderly soon-to -retired moose named Steve Racks, when they heard someone shouting: "STOP, THIEF!"
Seeing a small mammal run out of a small grocery store, pre-Judy had merely needed to run ten yards to intercept the shoplifter and have him in a secure hold. When the scrawny, preteen coyote had panicked and snapped his teeth at her, the reaction was identical to what she would have done if one of her little siblings had acted out bad enough and was pretty much instinctive; a sharp "No!" and a quick slap to the arm. The poor little thing had immediately gone still and been very agreeable after that.
Normally, the parents and a social worker would have met them at the station, and they would have handled it as usual with under-aged mammals, just another day. Unfortunately, the pup was an orphan, the whole thing was caught on camera, and the city´s administration needed some PR. Suddenly she was the medias darling, the brave little bunny-that-could, the poor little coyote was vilified as an example of all that was wrong with those vicious preds, and it was all awful.
"Isn´t she brave?"
"Isn´t it amazing how a cute little bunny can stand up to a filthy pred like that?"
"Isn´t it just swell how she put him in his place?"
"Shouldn´t she be rewarded with, like, a promotion for something like that?"
"Oh yeah! Then she could really keep those horrible beasts in their place!"
Protests to any and all of this fell on deaf ears, she only got the equivalent of a pet on the head and a few condescending words basically saying "we-know-what-is-best-you-just-be-quiet-and-look-pretty". Trying to explain to Chief Bogo that she didn´t feel worthy of a promotion over all her far more experienced colleges only bought her a tired sigh: "I´m sorry, Hopps, this is from far over my horns and out of my hooves. I know this is not your doing, but right now all we can do is hope it blows over and pick up the pieces after."
The Mammal had found a use for her and cared little for her wants and wishes, it seemed.
Three weeks later when the furore finally died down her partner had retired, she was a sergeant, and all her fellow officers despised her for it. No one would work with her or even acknowledge her presence. Through no fault of her own, she had become persona non grata in the very organization she had worked so hard to join.
Worst of all, when she had contacted child services to find out what happened to the poor coyote pup, she was told that he had suffered an "unfortunate accident". The ram she spoke to claimed he had somehow gotten up on the roof, fallen off and "broken his damn fool neck, the little beast, he won´t bother you again, ma'am." He had smiled! There had been no investigation, of course.
Present Judy so wanted to find that ram and kick that smile down his damn fool throat!
Pre-Judy had done her best after that. She tried so hard to live up to her new rank, to show that she was deserving. She worked harder and longer than all the other officers, she took on all the additional training available, she got accredited for all possible extra duties her rank allowed. It just didn´t work. Bogo tried, he really did, but his hooves were tied; he couldn´t force his officers to change, there are rules for what jobs he could give a sergeant, and he couldn´t send her out solo willy-nilly. There was sadly also the fear that her colleges might not respond in a timely manner if she needed backup.
She was trapped in limbo, unable to go forward and too stubborn to give up and quit.
Thus, it went for a year and a half, with the bunny falling deeper and deeper into depression until she just couldn´t take it anymore!
"….roognutudjuu…"
Was that French or German?
Feeling rather depressed herself at the thought of her predecessors' fate, she tried instead to focus on what she had learned about Nick. Not that it was much; a birth certificate, name of parents, some school records, a few mentions of run-ins with the ZPD, but that was it. The only interesting fact she had found was that the local Nick was six months younger than her local self, a small detail that pleased her immensely. She wanted her fox around as long as mortally possible.
Apparently, in this Zootopia, foxes were considered out of sight, out of mind. Unless they ran afoul of the law, of course.
"…Grooooowrrrrrrrr…."
THAT was a growl of undiluted, if exasperated, rage.
The law and the ZPD here was a cabbage-be-damned joke! The precinct seemed to be a gathering place for the corrupt, the lazy and the incompetent. The technology they used was sub-par for what she remembered of this time, she still used a CRT-screen with the computer in her office for carrots sake! The lack of networked traffic cameras and other surveillance systems she could connect to had stymied her little foxhunt rather effectively. (It seems corrupt and totalitarian regimes can hinder both social and technical advances, who knew?)
Chief Bogo had a core of maybe a baker's dozen of good, competent officers that did all they could, but the establishment seemed bound and determined to hobble the police at every turn. Bigoted laws impossible to really enforce, hopeless and often contradicting rules of hiring and public relations, a constant influx of less-than-stellar recruits; all these were the order of the day in the ZPD.
"…sigh…"
The worst part, the one thing that, in her mind, proved that the political leadership here was simply no good, was the collars.
The never-be-damned-enough T.A.M.E. collars.
By law, all predators age ten and up had to wear them to, quote "suppress their savage instincts and ensure that they can be productive members of society" end quote.
'BOLLOKS!'
It was a torture device, pure and simple. If the wearer was anything but reasonably calm, it beeped in warning and then delivered an electric shock, and short of running out of juice would keep it up until the victim was calm, unconscious or dead. In the long run this produced a mammal that was at best controlled to an unnatural degree but more often turned into an unfeeling automaton.
Judy wanted to gather all those collars in a pile and drive them over with a steamroller.
Then douse the crushed remains in gasoline and burn them.
And dump the ashes in the deepest hole she could find, never to be seen again.
Cackling in glee all the way.
She was not entirely sure she would protest if the mammals responsible for those collars' inception ended up in that pile, too. They surely deserved it.
"…fuuurkurluuurr.."
With a last, incomprehensible sound she straightened up and leaned her head back instead. Morbidly violent thoughts aside, had she been spoiled in her last life? Blessed with a competent ZPD at her beck and call, and direct access to the mayor himself on a daily basis?
A small devious smile spread on her face when she contemplated the citizens reaction if they knew how many of the city´s ordinances had been thought up while her and the mayor had been in 'mandatory cuddle time'.
Snickering, she decided that while, yes, she had been a bit spoiled, that in no way excused the appalling mess that was the ZPD here. If she became chief again, she might be able to root out the worst incompetence if she had the political support necessary, but she just couldn´t see how anyone could have an effective police force without predators? If your job was to find and capture mammals, then the senses and instincts to do so was an incredible boon.
'Sweet cheese and crackers, how can you have a precinct without wolfs?'
Her ZPD had been 20-25 percent canines, because they were simply tailor made for the job. They worked well in a team under a top-down authority, they were naturally loyal and had great stamina. Furthermore, wolfs tended to be amicable mammals of just the right size to be effective officers in most situations without being too big to get around in more crowded areas.
All that on top of their amazing sense of smell? Wolfs made for great cops, you just had to establish yourself as the alpha of the pack. For Bogo, that had been easy, she had to make a bit more of an effort. She got it done, though.
She guessed her lupine husband had given her an appreciation for canines in general, but the fact remained that she had many fond memories of her wolfy subordinates. Being the de facto ZPD-pack alpha made them prone to show up at the precinct to show off any new family additions. It was some instinct, probably, but the result was that she had most likely held more new-born wolf pups than any other rabbit, ever.
Not that she minded too much, they were adorable!
One of them had grown up to become her recommended replacement when she retired, even. Richard Greyson had been one of her favourites from the first time she held him, but it was an incident when he was in his mid-to-late thirties that had cemented him for the position:
While on the way home from a trip downtown on his day off, he had come across a hippo making a smash and grab at a jewellery store. The hippo had some form of cybernetic enhancements on his forearms and the wolf was off duty, alone and unarmed. He had chosen to follow the megafauna at a light jog, waiting for an opportunity. When the thief reached his vehicle, he struck; swiftly diving under the front of the car, he reached up into the engine compartment of the large vehicle and snatched the distribution cable.
While the hippo attempted in vain to get his getaway-vehicle started, the well-muscled dark grey wolf had calmly stood himself in front of it and taken out his phone. Dangling the pilfered cable in his right paw, he called it in.
"Hello, this is officer Richard Greyson with precinct one, I´m off duty at the moment and would like to rapport a crime…"
It didn´t take many moments for the hippo to spot him, naturally. Equally natural was his displeasure with this state of affairs.
"YOU DAMNED DIRTY PELT, GIVE ME THAT BACK!"
The canine failed to respond, which caused the larger mammal to charge at him with a furious bellow. Now, hippos are remarkedly fast in a sprint, but nowhere near fast enough to catch a well-trained wolf. Also, they are not in any way long-distance runners. After only a block and a half, the big ungulate was huffing and puffing with his hooves on his knees. Not even breathing heavy and still dangling the distribution cable in one paw, the canine kept up a running commentary in a perfect deadpan to the dispatcher on call.
"The suspect is presently in the middle of Greenleaf street between 4th and 6th boulevard, he has stopped and seems tired. I guess he wants the money for snacks, that would explain why he is so fat and out of shape…"
"RAAAHHH!"
Hippopotamuses are also prone to be very short-tempered, which let the off-duty officer lead him on a merry chase through the streets of Zootopia, with occasional stops until he could rile the hippo up again. The pattern continued until the bigger of the two simply could not move anymore. Down on all fours, he could only yell imprecations at his tormentor between great, heaving gasps.
"Okay, you have my rapport, the boys in blue can take the rest from here. Ciao!"
"Wha…?"
That was as far as the large mammal got before he was dog-piled and paw-cuffed by half a dozen wolfs from the police station he was kneeling in front of. Officer Greyson threw the cable he was still holding to one of his colleges, gave a sloppy salute and went home.
Judy had printed the rapport, brought it home to Nick, and proceeded to share a half-hour long belly-laugh with her mate.
That was the funniest demonstration of calm and quick thinking in a stressful situation any of them had ever heard!
Having lost herself in memories of better times, Judy finally focused back on her current situation.
Deciding nothing more could be done at the moment, she got ready for bed in hope of better luck in the morn. Having finished her ablutions, she stopped in front of her bed, a curious thought on her mind.
Hesitating, she opened her bedside tables drawer and looked down on the contents.
"Do you have anything to add, I wonder?"
She reached a paw into the drawer…
Klick.
A husky male voice, accompanied by a single guitar, indicated an unknown ballad by a singer/songwriter.
"... wake up screaming in the night,
you allways, allways hold me tight,
you promise all will be all right,
and you say
and you say
and you say
that your love is most true,
that my fears are undue,
and I pray
and I pray
and I pray
if only you knew,
that all of my fears are for you?"
Ka-lick.
The bunny closed the drawer and went to bed.
As she turned the lights out and closed her eyes, a single tear spilled from her eye.
Burned, beaten, cut, shot, stabbed, crushed, disembowelled and dismembered; she had suffered it all and lived through it all. She had been around a little too long to feel fear of mere physical harm. That said…
"Nick…"
-RK-
Slam!
Kicking her front door shut behind her, sergeant Hopps walked into her abode, bag of groceries in paw.
Another day, another dollar.
It surely hadn´t brought anything else. Two days' worth of paperwork, finished in forty-eight minutes this time, and then a day searching for Nickolas Piberius Wilde.
With absolutely zilch to show for it. If she was not as tired as yesterday, it was only because she had expected so much less today.
Filling her mini-fridge with food-items, she came to a conclusion:
'It´s Friday tomorrow, so I´ll give it one more day at work, then, if necessary, I can resort to drastic measures on Saturday."
She hadn´t quite figured what the drastic measures would entail yet, but she was certain they would be as drastic as necessary.
It seemed to her that she had to put in a lot of work to find a soulmate that she had been guaranteed to meet.
Without Nick, she could feel this entire part of existence wearing on her; she felt her understanding of pre-Judy was rising steadily. That worried her, just a little.
Quickly finishing up everything she had planed for the day, she headed straight for bed.
And paused.
"Urgh, have to know…"
She opened her drawer again. Feeling a little bit silly for speaking to a non-sapient piece of plastic, she did it anyway.
"Look, just this once, give me something good. I don´t ask for much, just something to let me move forward, a tiny bit of hope, that's all I ask."
Klick.
"…their old hit, Standing Tall! Goodnight!"
What? An actual song title? This was the first time ever she had turned on this thing and it hadn´t started in the middle of a song. And another one she had never heard of. Intrigued, she listened to the intro, a simple rhythm of drums, the dummm-dah-dummm-dah-dummm-dah of a beating heart.
Then, a single, clear, male voice.
"For each of us who live this life,
we get our share of loss and strife.
For life´s not fair I´m sure you know,
it does not care, so when brought low,
remember well my friend, to never take a knee,
instead take this advice, rise up and you will see:
Its fall or stand!"
When the verse ended and the chorus began with gusto, a choir of male voices joining in, the bunny felt like she had been gut-punched by a rhino.
"Stand tall, stand proud
speak your faith
out loud.
Don´t give yourself to doubt and shame,
instead find truth in your own name.
Stand proud, stand tall
never let
yourself fall.
And should you still fall down in pain,
then square your feet and rise again.
yes, square your feet and rise again."
When the second verse began, she was panting from the feelings invoked in her.
"Starvation, war, decease and wear,
we each get some death and despair.
For young and old, for rich and poor,
each their measure get of this lore.
If you are blessed with friends, gold, health and love so grand,
take care for all things ends, if so then you must stand:
To fail or stand.
(Chorus)
Stand tall, stand proud
speak your voice
out loud.
Don´t give yourself to guilt and shame,
instead find strength in your own name.
Stand proud, stand tall
never let
yourself fall.
And should you still fall down from pain,
then square your feet and rise again.
yes, square your feet and rise again.
(End chorus)
No matter how little you have,
some one would think it up for grabs.
There's lots of folks who wants control
of your mon-ey, your life and soul.
Be it by religion, law or state, it's a brand
you don´t want on your hand, so throw off your yoke and...
Choose die or stand.
(Chorus)
Stand tall, stand proud,
speak your choice
out loud.
Don´t let them get your heart to mar,
instead find strength in who you are.
Stand proud, stand tall
never let yourself fall.
And should you still fall down from pain,
then square your feet and rise again.
yes, square your feet and ri-i-ise a-GAIN!"
Ka-lick.
"Groooowwrrrrrrrrrrr…."
"…"
"…"
"…thank you."
She turned off her lights an went to bed.
The apartment would be lit by a purple glow for another hour, though, as her slit eyes seemed determined to match the reignited fire of her soul.
-RK-
Undisclosed location, somewhere in Zootopia, that evening.
The three mammals gathered in their well-hidden HQ as usual at this time.
"Everything is going according to plan, the beasts are well under control. How is operation: Flower power coming along?"
"Quite well, the lab-test are well on their way. If things proceed as hoped, we might be ready for field trials within a few months. That would let us finally begin the last steps to get rid of the beasts for good."
"Excellent, then the only other thing of concern is the fox. He is still doling out hope to the beasts like some demented Santa Claws. We need to get rid of him. Thoughts?"
The first two turned to the third, who so far had held his silence.
"Not to worry, a plan is already set for tomorrow night."
His smile was… not kind.
"I´m thinking I´ll use the rabbit. She might as well be useful one more time."
-RK-
End of chapter 3.
I have a liking for symmetry. That is why, in chapter one, the last mammals Judy saved mirrored the two first: Fru-Fru Big and Emmitt Otterton.
Or I´m just really good at spotting weird details and claiming credit, you decide.
Song list for this chapter:
Crazy train by Ozzy Osbourne
12 by Insane Clown Posse
Ghostriders in the skyby Johnny Cash
Wandering spirit by Mick Jagger
You by Steppenwolf
'Unknown' by Anonymous
Standing Tall by Yours Truly
Yes, I don´t have a claim on anything else in this story, but Standing Tall is mine, all mine.
Maybe some day I´ll get around to record it, too.