"…Now onto other news. Three days ago, the Humanology Archeological Research Organization (HARO) uncovered a new dig site near the Northern Arctic ice floes. A Human dwelling frozen in ice. While some things were unsalvageable, one item was still whole and, surprisingly, functional. While whatever is within the item is unknown, it is with bated breath that the whole of Zootopia awaits for the results of cracking open one of the mysteries of this mythical Human Race that had come before us."
Thump-thump…
Thump-thump…
"It's still out of it, doctor… the dig site has been sealed off until we can figure out what this is."
Thump-thump…
"Good, we don't need them to panic too much than they might when they wake up. How are it's vitals? The thawing process should be about a tenth of the way done, right?"
Thump-thump… thump-thump…thump-thump-!
"They're improving… abnormally fast for something that was just starting to get thawed out.. in fact, these scans show it's heat signatures are… rising…? Wait, it's-?!"
He let out a gasp as air rushed into his lungs, expanding them in a sudden inflation that made him feel fit to burst as pins and needle pain raced through his lungs. Ice-blue eyes fluttered, rolling towards the back of his skull as he fought to drag himself into consciousness. Wings flailed and smashed into objects, eliciting screams from those that were around him, and his tail slammed into the ground, cracking the floor as easily as plywood.
"Someone get me something to put them back under! NOW! They're destroying the room!"
At that word, ice blue eyes shot open as a mouth curled into a feral snarl through a ragged gasp. A scaly hand lashes out and grips the wires and tubes scattered over his body, blue pulsing in his chest as a heat of epic proportions threatens to spew forth, only to be swallowed thickly back. With a harsh pull, the wiring connected to machinery is tugged loose, and a clawed black talon slams into the floor, cracking the linoleum tile like it was a thin sheet of ice on a pond.
Everything around the awake subject was blurred, noises too loud and smells too strong; staggering to the side much to the fear of those surrounding him, he gasped for breath, trying to catch his bearings. "Pump him! Pump him now!"
Teeth flashed as a hand with a syringe blurred forwards, and an ear-piercing scream ripped the air as blood flew.
"It fucking bit me!"
"Take it down!"
"Whatever you are, calm down! We're here to help you!"
"Call security, now!"
He had to escape.
Run.
Fly.
Something.
Anything.
With a growl, he lurched to his feet and ran for it, crashing through a wall in an explosion of plaster and hearing many shrieks and screams as he barreled into a corridor, blurry shapes and loud sounds around every corner, but he didn't care. Out, out, out he needed to get out.
With that in mind, he took off, instinctively heading in a direction that screamed upwards.
"Halt! ZPD!" the subject bared his teeth at the blurry blue shape and tensed his legs, not slowing down in the slightest, before leaping over the blur, cracking down on the ground before instinctively falling on all fours to gain speed as he thundered around a corner. Wings were tucked in tight to his body, and the space around him grew closer and closer, as if it was closing in on him.
His skin and scales prickled and rippled, reacting against harsh, sterilized air. He tripped, his left foot catching on something, and sprawled on the ground, wings, tail, and limbs askew.
"There it is- freeze! ZPD! Put your paws where I can see them!"
getoutgetoutopenskiesgogoGO-!
There!
Light just to his left grabbed at the subject's attention, coming from down a corridor. standing and leaping away from the voice, the subject squinted towards the glimmer, trying to assess what it was. A window…? A Door? It didn't matter, it was a way out. Loping along again, the subject tripped again and skid into a wall, stunned for a moment before shaking it off on hearing the angry shouting voices closing in, and scrabbled to his feet, scratching the linoleum with his claws and talons in his hurry to turn around. Thundering forwards the subject stood on two legs again, heavy footfalls cracking tile and wings moving anything out of the way that barred his path. Clawed hands reached for the freedom just inches away now… and with a crash, he breaks through the doors to a blustery blinding outside.
The subject gave a cry of pain as the light seared his eyes, staggering around the open space and flailing about to try and ease the burning, and unknowingly moving closer to the edge.
He was on the roof, seven stories up, with very little railing to keep him from plummeting. Luckily, he fell forwards, curling in on himself to speed his adjustment to the sunlight by darkening his vision.
"Freeze!" the subject stilled, only minute twitches showing he was still conscious.
Chief Bogo stood in the doorway of the roof of Zootopia Mammalian Hospital, gun trained on the shivering mess that was supposed to be a comatose patient. The world had been scrabbling for a glimpse of what could be a lost human relic, but when the call came in to ZPD that a dangerous… creature had escaped the emergency treatment, the police had been there in under five minutes. It had taken fifteen to find the creature running blind through the hallways, leaving destruction and chaos in its wake, before the final five minutes had them realize it was making a beeline for the rooftop.
The water buffalo was amazed at the physical prowess of this thing, but it was a grudging respect for shoving a polar bear over like it was a cub and leaping over an elephant officer. Looking at it now, however, Bogo huffed in disgust at the twitchy mess.
"I want your paws, hooves, whatever you have in the air where I can see em, or I'll shoot." A low groan was Bogo's reply, the strange limbs on the creature's back twitching erratically. Bogo narrowed his eyes and cocked the trigger on his gun.
"I'll ask only one more time," the sound of his men coming up behind him made the mammal step to the side, allowing them to surround all possible exits- the edges of the roof and the door. "Put your paws in the air where I can see them, or I will shoot. Last warning."
The creature was muttering, and the chief's ears twitched, catching some of the chatter. "what's happening- Captain- war- Am I-?"
The chief snorted, and the mumbling stopped.
Then a blast of wind pushed the surrounding mammals off their feet as the limbs on the creature's back flew open with the sound of a thunder's roar, and Chief Bogo was astonished at their reveal- they weren't just any limbs, they were goddamn wings.
"OPEN FIRE!" he bellowed, swinging his gun around to aim. "DON'T LET IT TAKE OFF!"
The air was filled with the cracks of gunfire and the smell of gunpowder, and the pained grunts of the creature when its wings suddenly crashed down around it and became a shimmering metallic blue and black surface, a dome, protecting it from the harm of the bullets as it absorbed the impact they made so the projectiles would clatter harmlessly to the ground. In the crowd, a little bunny and her fox partner paused, hearing something no one else did in the rage of the one-sided fight.
"Stop it…! Leave me alone! STOP IT!"
Judy Hopps' violet eyes widened as she saw a twitch run through the flailing creature's body, and a sudden lurch make it lean forwards with it's upper body, head covered in fur so white it put a polar bear to shame. Blue eyes were wide and glowing with power. It looked like it was going to be sick, but the rapid, violet, blue pulsing from its chest sent a shock through the rabbit's body and her legs into action, sprinting for the chief.
"Carrots, what-?!"
"Chief, look out-!"
The creature gave a roar of anger and fear, opening its mouth and spewing forth a brilliant burst of blue and black fire, sending a wave of destruction, heat, and death at the mammals surrounding it on the rooftop in a wave of chest-high, searing flames of the coldest colored blue the animals had ever seen.
"EVERYONE DUCK!"
The mammals hit the ground, and the creature staggered back, coughing, and choking.
The chief growled in anger at the sounds of pain from his subordinates who got burned by this monster and brought up his gun to point at the silhouette of the creature through the fire and smoke. Pulling the trigger, he fired, and a scream of pain made him grit his teeth in grim satisfaction.
He managed to hit it.
Ash sprinkled around the subject as he held his injured side, staring at his own blood in a dazed sort of shock. Red fell from the wound, mixing with the powdery black substance that came from his sudden display, and the subject staggered back at the sight.
Only, there was nothing to step on when he made that move, eyes wide and unseeing, the subject plummeted seventy feet from the roof to the concrete below with a startled cry.
At least, he would have, if his wings didn't fly open on instinct, allowing him clumsily glide over the heads of hundreds of Mammals before colliding painfully into another rooftop. Rolling hard, the subject didn't have time to stop his forward motion before he fell. It was a much smaller height but still enough to cause jarring injury.
Falling the four stories from an apartment building, the subject grunted when he felt something in his left wing burn with pain, forcing him to bite back a painful shout before the pain faded away.
The subject lay there for several moments, groaning in pain, before clenching his available hand into a fist. He just wanted to lie there and sleep. Forget the panic and the pain and the confusion in waking up somewhere he didn't know…
'Get up,' a voice ordered, sounding firm and comforting at the same time, making glazed eyes flutter. 'Ashe… get UP. You cannot die here, understand?!' Ice blue eyes blinked languidly. 'Ashe… Ashe… is that my name?' It sounded accurate enough, that word being his name. Hearing his apparent name, Ashe felt renewed vigor flush his limbs. Pushing himself onto all fours, Ashe finally looked up, eyes adjusted to the light now, and looked around.
He was in an alleyway, that much he knew. Isolated and blocked off, it provided a sort of haven from the sounds of the main areas, such as where he had escaped from. White hair tipped in ice blue fell in a mess around his eyes and face, and Ashe huffed before painfully raising a hand to brush it away.
He froze, gritting his teeth at the pain that zinged in his side. Right, he forgot about the bullet wound. Slowly as to not cause himself any more pain than necessary, Ashe lifted his bloodied hand to assess the damage, only to blink in astonishment.
His wound was beginning to close.
Visually, he could see his muscle and flesh knit back together, though it was a slow process. Blue eyes narrowed before flicking up and around him again, cautiously moving backwards to lean against one of the three walls that made Ashe's enclosure. His tail flicked nervously before curling around his body in a form of self-comfort.
"Where am I…?" he asked himself hoarsely, voice ragged from disuse. His wings fluttered, their black and blue webbing reflecting the sunlight before settling against his back.
"What am I…? How did I get to… wherever this place is?" his white-blue eyebrows furrowed; Ashe leaned his head back, only to notice that something knocked against the stone wall behind him. His head felt a dull contact, but other than that, no pain. Blinking owlishly, Ashe reached up to feel two large, hard bony protrusions coming out from the sides of his head. Feeling the growths out, he found that they were horns, growing from the sides of his head and curling forwards and up when they reached his temples, making a kind of pseudo-circlet or crown.
Groaning, Ashe let his hands fall to his sides, shuffling against the wall to stand up.
Tapered ears twitched as the sounds of the surrounding area reached the creature's ears, particularly one furious buffalo.
"I want an APB for whatever that thing was." Ashe stiffened, wings stilling at the enraged voice, rumbling like an oncoming storm. "Hopps, Wilde, you two are on this case. It is an unknown and though unarmed, extremely hostile and has abilities we don't fully understand yet."
'I can't stay here…' Ashe thought to himself, standing on his taloned feet and leaning back as dizziness briefly clawed at his mind.
Curling his fingers to enunciate his claws, Ashe rammed them into the building's wall and began to scale it upwards, flapping haphazardly as he went. He had no real understanding of how to fly yet, so until he can get it figured out, Ashe would have to make do with what he has for now- wall scaling apparently among them.
Judy sighed when she and Nick made it back to their cruiser, shaken and afraid after what they had witnessed today.
They had interviewed the hospital staff, hoping to get some leads on what this creature was and why it was in the hospital and not a controlled environment in the HARO medical facilities and labs, but hadn't turned up much.
"Doing alright there, Carrots?" Nick asked gently, putting a paw on his partner's head as she seated herself in the driver's side. The bunny hummed, but her mind was miles away. The intense blue eyes burning with fire and those massive wings struck a fear unlike any other in her heart, worse than when she felt like her prey-ancestors during the Nighthowler Incident. "What was that thing..?" she muttered. Nick narrowed his eyes, and his ears went back as he thought.
"I dunno…"
The fox pulled out his notepad and went over the information they got from the staff in the hospital who were treating the creature. "They were calling it a human relic that was excavated from a new ruin up in the Arctic a few months ago." Judy turned to her boyfriend, bunny ears perked up as he went over their notes. "Evidentially, it was alive, so the first thing they wanted to do was thaw it out and revive it, maybe bring it back to life. But-."
"It looks like they didn't take into account how alive it would be, right?" Judy finished, nose twitching. Nick nodded. "Right. Wings, tail, no fur, but scales… those horns. It looked like some kinda devil, to be honest."
Green eyes looked up at the rushing city they swore to protect, frightened civilians gathered outside the hospital, wondering what was wrong. "That thing wasn't normal, Judy," the fox murmured. "It was unlike any animal I had ever seen before, and I know a quite a few from my time on the streets…"
"We'll catch it," Judy assured him, paw coming up to grip his own. Nick looked down at the grey rabbit in worry before sighing and shooting her a weary smile. "Yeah, we will." He said. "ZPD's first Fox and Rabbit cops at it again, huh?"
The bunny smirked, starting their cruiser. "You know it."
Hours Later…
Ashe stayed low as he crawled, rolled, and leapt from rooftop to rooftop. When he needed to, he would clumsily glide a distance before latching to a window or colliding with the ground of another complex before climbing upwards and continuing his way. With a wince, Ashe had to come to a stop, glancing down at his gunshot wound to see the hole finally close the last millimeter, making the creature sigh in relief.
Standing upright, Ashe took a moment to breathe and get a look at his surroundings, noticing he had made it to a less populated area. The sun had started to set hours ago, and Ashe's horns pulsed a dim blue to light the way through the darker areas of the city, but his body was so darkly colored that it didn't make much of a difference if he knew where to position himself.
His wings flicked at a cool breeze that came over the rooftops, and Ashe huffed at the prickle of his scales rising to stand on end.
He should probably get some form of shielding from the elements before looking for a place to sleep for the night. Glowing iceberg eyes flicked to the streets below, scanning the storefronts that were closed for the night, before spotting a window with a large shirt size being displayed. Miss Gigantopithecus' Giant-Sized Emporium!, the billboard read, and Ashe's lip twitched.
That'll work.
A shattered window in the back and quite a bit of trying on later, Ashe climbed onto the top of the building with a large dark blue hoodie on his shoulders, big enough to accommodate his massive wings, and a pair of ripped cargo pants to support his large tail. Slicing a pair of holes for the extra limbs was easy enough, and the creature was now crouched on the edge of the building, trying to work out how to use the limbs he had to accommodate his new vest for. Curiously, Ashe ran the pads of his fingers down the leathery membrane and almost shivered at the sensation they gave him.
Curling his tail around so that he could get a good look at the appendage, Ashe cautiously gripped it, fiddling with the fins at the ends gently before letting it go. He slowly lifted and lowered them to test their mobility, getting faster and faster in the motions as he went until the air around him was thundering with the displacement of the air.
Ashe curiously looked up at the pinkening sky, the sunset casting an array of colors over the city, before he backed up from the edge of the building. Crouching on all fours, Ashe took a breath before kicking off in a sprint, flapping his wings to gain lift before shooting himself over the edge of the roof, launching himself into the air…
Only to crash to the ground with a startled yelp of pain.
Ashe shorted, peeling himself form the new pothole in the road before reaching up and brushing his white hair back, eyeing his claws forlornly.
His belly rumbled, and Ashe grunted, looking around and sniffing the air. Hopefully there was some form of food somewhere.
"…ookie… elle!"
Ashe's ears twitched upwards, pupils thinning at the new scent that hit the air.
"…all… ere… on'?"
"I'm… but I… -ing… ow… -ive… auto- if you…-."
Eyes widened at the sudden shift in the air, a smell that spelled only trouble and anguish for the recipient of it's heavy, unpleasant musk. Without thinking about it, Ashe moved. The street cracked under his strength as he dug his talons into the concrete, his tail balancing him as he bounded down the block before making a left turn. His forward momentum almost carried him past his corner, but Ahe leapt for the building and landed on the wall, cracking the brickwork, before launching himself from that and one hundred feet down the street.
Rounding a right corner, Ashe raced onto a rather compromising scene under the streetlight- a golden-furred gazelle with wide brown eyes filled with fear, a large stag with a leering face and clenched hooves, and two Hippos with a look in their eye that matched the deer.
No introductions were needed- Ashe hated them instantly.
Cracking down to the ground on all fours, Ashe glared at the party of animals, mind running a mile a minute.
He sniffed the air again, gathering the scents pf fear, irritation, anger, aggression… lust, and pupils slit farther. His clawed hands bit into sandpaper-scaled palms, drawing blood, and his tail lashed at the concrete.
Then, one of the Hippos opened their mouths.
"What the hell is that?!"
SO! Ashe wakes up, we see things from the ZPD's point of view for a little while, Ashe is rooftop racing for the rest of the afternoon in the high-rise areas, sees he's naked, grabs some clothes, and finds Gizelle about to be grabbed by a bunch of overzealous fans(?) who aren't getting their way.
Next chapter will be started in Gizelle's POV, then will focus on Ashe. I WILL be adding songs to this story, so let me know in the comments what songs you want to see here! the only rules I have is that they need a Male and Female singer in it together (covers are allowed), and since this story has a 'Romeo and Juliet' vibe between Ashe and Gizelle, Rewrite the Stars from The Greatest Showman, Tightrope by The Score, This Beating Heart by The Score, and Nangilima by Smith and Thell are non-negotiable.
I'll leave it up to you who the one adverse to the love they'll receive will be, but it won't affect the plot I've already laid out~!