Everything had been going perfectly until she stabbed him in the gut.
The thought almost made Nick smile as he collapsed to the ground, Judy's torc clutched in one paw. I really should have known better, he thought as the dull walls of the tunnel started swirling around him and an icy coldness with a burning core spread from where the blade had entered his stomach, The gods wouldn't let it go so smoothly.
Nick had planned his trap in meticulous detail, the power of his stolen philosopher's stone making it almost trivial to set up. Transmuting raw stone into a copy of his own arm had felt as easy as activating an alchemical torch with the force of the stone behind his alchemy, and even the fake corpse had been no more difficult than turning lead into gold. Making blood had been simpler still, although as his vision started dimming it occurred to him that he could really use some more of it inside his body.
The worst of the pain was gone, and he wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Probably bad, though. He could feel how cold the ground was against his cheek, but almost nothing from where he had been stabbed. That was kind of funny, wasn't it? Not the sort of joke he'd laugh at, but still. Funny.
Nick coughed weakly, noticing the droplets of blood that sprayed out with a calmly detached air, and it was as though a brand had been touched to his stomach. Ah, there it is. The pain exploded back with a vengeance, and he might have curled up into a ball if he had still had any strength with which to do so. Judy wasn't moving, but it was hard to worry about that.
Sorry Carrots, but I've got my own problems right now, he thought as he tried pulling himself along the ground with one arm. He had been stupid in a way he never was; it had seemed so obvious in the moment that all he'd have to do to break the hold Cerdo had put on Judy was to cut off the alchemical power in her torc. That the control wouldn't simply instantly end hadn't even occurred to him. And when he had activated his cunningly concealed anti-alchemy array, it had seemed to work perfectly. Seeing Judy clawing at her head, leaving bloody tracks where her blunt nails dug into the skin, had hurt as much as a sword through his heart. Nick coughed again, and Judy's sword shifted slightly inside of him, bringing with it another agonizing wave of pain. Vivid colors danced before his eyes in a riotous explosion, and Nick amended his thought. It hadn't hurt quite as much as being stabbed, but seeing Judy clearly so distressed had hurt. It wasn't the sort of thing he would have ever admitted to anyone else, and it seemed like he might never get the chance to admit it to her, but the depth of his feeling had been almost shocking.
When was the last time he had ever cared so much about seeing someone in pain? Had there even been a last time? He had stepped past the poor and the broken of Zootopia's worst slums, always confident that he'd never make a mistake like whatever it was they had done. He had pulled himself up from nothing, from being a fox, and made a comfortable living. If he could do it, certainly anyone else could.
It was what he had always told himself, anyway.
Better to think that he was somehow special in his will and his drive alone, that he had done it all alone and without luck. That if a few things had tipped the other way, he would have still come out on top, that he'd never be reduced to crawling and begging for scraps. And yet, here he was. Bleeding out from a sword that had gone right through him, while the mammal he had come to care about lay limp and unresponsive on the floor near him.
He had been overconfident. Not just in his plan for saving Judy, although he had been overconfident there. He had been overconfident his entire life, and why shouldn't he be? Every sticky situation he had ever found himself in he had gotten out of. He had suffered, certainly, but he had never truly lost.
Until now.
Nick let go of Judy's torc and let it hit the ground, trying to use both paws to pull himself along. As he crawled inch after agonizing inch toward the edge of the anti-alchemy array, it was as though he had nothing but time to reflect on his mistakes. And that was the funny part, too. The wound to his stomach was terrible—he didn't have to be able to see it to know that—but the power of the philosopher's stone meant that he could easily fix it. If, that was, he wasn't stuck in his own trap, the stone a dull and lifeless red with its power blocked from his use. He was going to bleed out in a trap of his own devising, it seemed, and if there was any sign the gods had a sense of humor that was it.
Nick chuckled and immediately regretted it. His forward motion stopped entirely as the pain blossomed again like the world's worst flower unfurling in new and exciting ways. He hadn't even known his guts were capable of feeling such pain. And that was his fault, too. He could have left his breastplate on rather than carelessly casting it aside. Even as sharp as Judy's sword was, it wouldn't have penetrated the armor, he was sure; the blade would have glanced off. Then he could have gotten about actually saving Judy from what he had done to her, which was also entirely his fault. Cerdo had done something to her mind through the torc's power, and he had tried cutting off the alchemy from the torc entirely and in a single instant. What if the only way to safely end the pig's control was for him to release it? If Judy hadn't died—and he had never wished for something as much as he wished for her to still be alive—he might have broken her mind, like he was trying to remove something tacked onto a crystal vase by using a hammer. If she did wake up, would she have any sense of herself anymore, even the version who was fanatically loyal to Cerdo?
But he had been so confident he had succeeded. She had called out his name, after his trap activated, and there had been genuine pain in her voice rather than loathing or hatred. Nick had believed that she had come back to her senses and was reaching out to him. He had been so eager to believe it that it hadn't even bothered him that she had called the name "Nicholas."
The edge of the anti-alchemy array couldn't have been more than three feet away—why had he made it so large?—but it might as well have been on the moon. The idea of dying, deep under Phoenix and having failed Judy, should have been more bothersome, but the emotion seemed to be draining out of his thoughts. It was almost comforting, in a way, that the sourness of his regrets was leaving him just as the blood oozing from his wound was. There was almost something peaceful about it, but Nick kept pulling himself along.
He wasn't sure how much time was passing for each inch of progress. How long did it take to bleed to death from a sword wound, anyway? It wasn't something that he had ever had to know. Judy probably would have been able to tell him, but he was in no shape to ask and she was in no shape to answer. So, if nothing else, it'd be a surprise. Maybe he could make it another foot. Maybe all the way out to where the philosopher's stone would work.
He had to try.
That was what Judy would have done, too. He had thought it a little ridiculous when they had first met; clearly she was just behind the curve. The world, with its casually cruel indifference, would surely pull her down as it had him. But she had never stopped trying.
And so, for her sake, he forced himself forward. It felt like a supreme effort of will for such a pitiful amount of progress, but Nick kept going. The next foot was harder than any transmutation he had ever done, harder than his fumbling and desperate attempt to save Judy's arm. He was panting with the effort, the coppery taste of blood strong in his throat. He forced himself onward again, and the edge of the anti-alchemy array grew closer and closer.
And then there it was. First only the tips of his claws made it over the glowing border, and then the rest of his body slowly followed until he was on his side just beyond the edge of his trap. Nick reached for his pocket, and for one heart-stopping moment he thought he had lost the philosopher's stone until his fingers finally closed over something smooth and warm. When Nick drew it out the philosopher's stone burned with the most beautiful light he had ever seen, but his paw didn't seem to want to obey his commands. His fingers were stiff and clumsy, his entire arm shaking. He stopped for a moment, trying to hold himself perfectly still, and for an instant his paw stopped trembling. As slowly as he could manage he tried bringing his fingers to his wound and then it happened.
The philosopher's stone squirted out of his fingers, and it was all he could do to watch it roll away, the light inside it winking out like an extinguished candle as it crossed the line of the anti-alchemy array and kept going. It bounced on the uneven floor of the tunnel before finally coming to a stop near one of Judy's ears. Nick laughed, and even the pain of it couldn't make him stop. It wasn't as bad as it had been, at least, everything fading into a sort of dull numbness, and it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Everything leading up to this moment had only been the setup for the punchline, and here at last he knew what it was. It wasn't that he was going to die due to a combination of his own arrogance and poor planning. That would have been too simple. No, he was going to die after having made it far enough that he could have saved himself, if only his blood-slicked paws had managed to keep a grasp on the slippery little stone. The gods have to be enjoying this, Nick thought as his laughter petered out. He didn't have the strength to keep himself even vaguely supported and he let himself fall to the floor.
There was no making it back to the stone.
Getting outside the circle had cost him everything he had, and there was nothing left inside him to do the crawl back to the center to grab it and then back out to actually use it. The only other philosopher's stone he could have used—the one inside Judy's torc—was a little closer, but still within the confines of the anti-alchemy array. Nick realized he ought to have kept it—why hadn't he taken the effort?—but it was too late. There wasn't enough time left to save himself, but...
Judy wouldn't give up.
If it had been her, having almost bled to death with a hope, even a slim one, available to her, she would have gone after it. She would have tried. And so Nick tried to pull himself back toward her limp body and the stone near her, but there simply wasn't any strength left in his paws. The blackness at the edges of his vision was spreading, and his heart was beating sluggishly in his chest. Nick feebly reached forward again, but his body was impossibly heavy, far too much for him to move.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
His vision swam in and out of focus, Judy's inert form doubling. Was she still breathing? He couldn't tell. And then there was something in front of him, blocking his view. Nick tried protesting, but the only sound that came out of his mouth was a vague and meaningless noise. There were two objects, he realized, not just one that he was seeing two of as his eyes failed him. Two pillars, covered in something with an unusual texture that looked ever so soft. Nick tried reaching for one, but his paw only twitched before falling to the floor again.
The next moment, there was a face looking into his eyes, one he should have known. The objects had been legs, then. Maybe it should have meant something, but it didn't seem to matter. The face wasn't Judy's anyway, and that had been all he had wanted to see. It was... The name wouldn't come. He had always been good with faces and names, but that connection in his mind seemed to have been lost. It was an odd face, though. A peculiar blend of predator and prey, of sheep and jaguar. Almost like the princess.
There was only a dim flicker of recognition as Nick realized it was the princess. It didn't seem terribly unusual that she had made her way down to the ruins. Why not? Having a royal witness to his death was more than any of his ancestors could claim.
Her lips were moving, but Nick couldn't quite make out the words. There was nothing but a rush of sound, getting louder and louder, until suddenly he knew what she was saying. "Captain Nicholas!" she shouted, and Nick's ears pricked back at the thunderous noise, "What do I do?"
There was panic etched into her youthful face, and Nick felt a twinge of sympathy. He knew what it was like to be young and in over his head. "Stone," he managed, and although he didn't have the strength to gesture he twitched one finger vaguely in the direction of the philosopher's stone, "Get stone."
He wasn't sure if she had understood him or not, but speaking had drained the last of his reserves. His eyelids closed, and he knew no more.