Chapter 41 El foso de la desesperación

Edited by Euphonemes

AN: I know it was a bit of a wait, but, I'm trying to be more descriptive in my writing so that took quite a while to go through this and try and fix some things up to sound better. That and I was working on another story for the "What if...?" collaboration as well as for "Zootopia 2: Sequel to the Movie". I'm already working on the next chapter, and getting the permissions for what is going to be coming up soon. Also, I'm finding my plans for this story are constantly shifting in regards to specific scenes and how I want them to go, so that has delayed this chapter quite a bit as a make plans for future chapters. But not to worry, I think you guys are going to love what I have in store for you all coming up.

So with that, enjoy!

The sun rose to the sight of a fox and bunny, cuddled together in their cliffside cave. At some point in the night, Nick had slumped to the ground and wrapped himself around Judy, his tail covering her nearly completely. Judy must not have minded, as when her eyes blinked opened, she found herself cuddling his tail like the carrot shaped pillow she had back home as a kit.

Finding the warmth of his tail too intoxicating, the bunny closed her eyes, her paw aimlessly stroking Nick's tail. She giggled when a purring sound came from the tod, and she wished she had some way of transcribing that sound to use against him later as it was too cute.

Snuggled deep into his warm tail, with Nick's arms wrapped around her, Judy paid no attention to the slight cough from the entrance of the cavern. She simply burrowed herself further into Nick's fur until the coughing ceased.

A few minutes later, she was nearly asleep once more…when a sudden downpour of icy water bathed her in its frosty chill.

Judy and Nick jumped to their feet, crying out in alarm, eyes wide in shock as they quickly took in their surroundings. Nick was the first to spot Ake'cheta, the coyote smiling while leaning against the cave wall.

"You…" Nick growled.

"Should have woken up the first time," Ake'cheta said with a shrug. Judy and Nick stared at the coyote as he wandered to a corner, collecting his gear as he went. "We're less than a day's walk from el foso de la desesperación. Take only what you need, we're hiding the rest here."

Grumbling from his sudden shower, Nick wandered through his gear on the ground and began packing up his unused sleeping pad while Judy did the same. In a few moments they were on the road again, their gear safely stored in an alcove within the cavern they had tented in for the night as they decided travelling light would be best for now. The mood from the previous night, while not jovial, was better compared to the feelings that settled upon the three travelers as they travelled towards their destination.

They knew nothing about what they were walking into, except the rumors and stories that Ake'cheta's tribe had passed down for thirty years. The tales of missing coyote braves who thought they could face the perils within the steep canyons and raging rivers, or of wayward travelers who became lost within the winding paths and stumbled upon the remains of ones who weren't fortunate enough to escape.

After the third story, even Judy had a feeling of nervousness pooling in her gut, tempting her to grab Nick and run back to Zootopia and…

...and then what? As they continued their cautious trek forward, she pondered that thought. What would she have to gain by turning around now? She wasn't a Capitán anymore so she had nothing to go back to at the fort. Her career was over, ruined by that insidious ewe. If they went back now, what would she be able to say she'd accomplished in her short tenure at Fort Zootopia?

Nothing...Judy thought before looking to the fox walking beside her. Nick held a thin grimace as he walked forward, nose twitching slightly as if catching an off-scent now and then. I'm doing this for him...she thought, before mentally amending the statement.

We're doing this for Zootopia.

"We're here…"

Judy and Nick halted. Ake'cheta stopped, turning to face them, yet their attention wasn't so much on him, as it was on what lay before them.

The path before them sloped downward at a steep grade, entering into a canyon that was as foreboding as the stories that described it.

"El foso de la desesperación," Nick and Judy said together.

Nick chuckled nervously. "Well I can certainly see how it got that name." He spotted several dead and dying trees littering the walls of the canyon, as well as a few tumbleweeds scattered along the canyon floor. "Not much to be happy about in there."

Ake'cheta flicked an ear in irritation. "Countless mammals have died within these walls," he stated, nodding towards the bluffs standing barely fifty yards apart. "Their spirits cry out in anguish if you listen with your own."

"Alright, well, that's not at all creepy," Nick said while clapping his paws together. "Carrots, hear any morose cries from within?"

Judy shook her head. "I only hear the river and the wind coming through the canyon."

Ake'cheta spoke up as he turned and strode towards the path between the bluffs. "That would be the río de la muerte."

"Oh, great!" Judy forced a laugh. "So we're entering the pit of despair while walking beside the river of death."

Nick cocked a smile. "Hopps, is it just me, or do I detect a bit of fear in your voice?" The fox gave the air a good sniff and grinned. "Because I sure do smell it."

"It is okay to be afraid in here," Ake'cheta warned as the three moved forward, their paws a little closer to their weapons than before. "The fear will keep you alive...hopefully."

"Great…" Nick muttered. "And why is it that we can't just simply walk atop the bluffs?" The fox pointed at the tops of the cliffs that were steadily rising to either side of them.

"One way in, two ways out," the coyote huffed before turning his head to look at the pair behind him.

Judy raised an eyebrow. "Why two ways out? Wouldn't it be the same going in as coming out?"

Without turning, Ake'cheta replied. "You can leave either alive, or dead."

Nick and Judy looked at one another, nodded once, then went quiet as they took their first few tentative steps into the canyon, chills running down their spines as they entered.

The canyon was toying with them, playing tricks on their ears and eyes. At least that is what Judy felt after nearly an hour within its shadow filled walls. With each new noise, each echo off the darkened walls, she felt more eyes, more...somethings bearing down on her.

"I know that I heard something that time, Nick!"

Judy was pointing towards the top of the canyons around them. "Someone is up there and I could definitely hear someone up there not a moment ago!"

Nick glanced at the spot Judy pointed to, scowling when he saw nothing but an outcropping of rocks. It was the fifth time she had claimed to have heard something. With ears like hers, he wouldn't put it past her to have heard something, but he hadn't seen anything besides the lizard from the first time he had glanced to where she had pointed.

"It's just the spirits playing tricks with your mind," Nick replied. He heard her agitated huff and walked closer to her, grabbing her paw and squeezing it gently. "I don't blame you mi conejita for being nervous. I can't tell you how many mammals I've smelled since we entered this cursed canyon, yet only one counts to me...you."

Ake'cheta huffed. "You're smelling mostly dead ones from long ago, Don Wilde."

Nick frowned, glaring at the back of the coyote. "That's a mood dampener if I've ever heard one."

"This canyon is not the place for good thoughts. Happiness comes here to die, according to the stories my people tell around campfires."

Thunk...thunk, thunk-tha-thunk thunk thunk splash.

Three sets of eyes shot towards the northern wall of the canyon. Several small stones were bouncing down the side of the canyon wall, cracking and breaking before plopping into the river, disappearing into its current.

Nick looked at the top of the canyon, then to Judy. "Did you hear something that time, Carrots? I really hope you did."

She shook her head, ears angled towards the spot less than fifty yards away. One paw tightened along the grip of her sword, while the other squeezed Nick's paw. She walked forward carefully, ears alert to anything that could tell them if they had company. There was no use in hiding or walking with caution. They were at the bottom of a canyon, no cover in sight and the only escape they could possibly make if they walked into an ambush would be to jump into the river and pray for their survival.

"Now I'm kind of feeling this was a bad idea…" Nick grumbled. His own ears were alert and tail frizzled and puffed out behind him. He glanced over to Judy. "So, any plans in case we've walked into an ambush?"

The doe glared at the path ahead. "Can you swim?"

"Of course I can swim," Nick replied before pausing. "Oh no...rabbit, no. No...

Shrugging her shoulders, Judy kept walking forward. "That's the only plan I have. That or hope we meet nobody on our way-"

An earth shattering explosion shook the ground, sending the three travelers to the dusty trail. Nick jumped atop Judy, shielding her while looking around for where the explosion came from.

"Nick!" Judy grouched while pushing and shoving at him. "Get off!"

"Sorry," Nick mumbled when he saw the coast was clear. "Just...wanted to make sure you were going to be okay."

Judy sent Nick an appreciative smile as they stood, dusting themselves off. "I understand, mi zorro."

They saw Ake'cheta dozens of meters ahead at a dead sprint. They looked at each other, then to the coyote, before bolting after him.

"Ake'cheta!" Nick yelled. "What are you doing?"

The coyote paid them no heed and kept running. It took minutes for them to catch up, and when questioned, the canine remained silent to their requests. It wasn't until a second explosion, one not so distant, did the coyote stall in his sprint.

Breathing heavily, the three jogged around a corner, slowing even further as the canyon widened and the path became littered with debris and refuse. Large boulders dotted the landscape while scattered stones created a rocky terrain as if a landslide had at some point filled where they currently stood.

"What happened here?" Judy asked, marvelling at the destruction.

Nick brought his nose close to a larger rock near the canyon wall and sniffed. "Black powder. Someone's been dynamiting this area." He looked around, confusion in his eyes. "But why?"

"Are they searching for something?" Judy wondered aloud as she ran across several piles of dirt dumped by the river. With no cliff dropping to the river below, she was able to walk straight to the edge of the channel. Kneeling in the loose soil, she too took on a confused look as Nick padded up to her. She turned to him and pointed at the dirt. "This isn't natural."

"The dirt?" Nick asked. "It looks like it to me, but I'm no carrot farmer, so I'll take your word for it."

"Har har…" Judy faux-laughed. "No, I mean how it's piled along the river. This whole area is rocky and covered with loose pebbles, except for the edge where the river touches. It's like someone dug this up and tried to toss it into the river to get rid of it."

Nick scratched his head. "Now this really is confusing." He counted his fingers. "First we have random explosions, second, haphazard dirt tossing?" He again looked around the area they were in. "What are they doing here?"

"Or more importantly…" Judy started to say as she rose and looked around at the mess before meeting Nick's eyes. "What are they looking for?"

"Are you two really that daft?"

The echoed voice rippled around them, jolting both of them from their thoughts. "I know that voice," both exclaimed at once, drawing their swords. The echoes of clapping could be heard ricocheting off the walls of the canyon.

"Bravo on making it this far, ex-Capitán Hopps and mi amor Wilde."

"Show yourself!" Judy shouted into the wind, grinding her teeth. "Ex-Capitán Skye and Ex-amor of Nicholas."

The clapping stopped immediately as a growl punctuated the air. At the opposite end of the canyon, about twenty yards away, an arctic fox clad in all black slowly appeared from behind a boulder.

"You!" Judy snarled, unsheathing her sword as she stood between the vixen and Nick. "We should have known you would have been involved in all this."

"Well bravo to you for your increíble deduction, Capitán Hopps," Skye stated in a demure voice, almost a purr as she advanced on the pair of mammals. Her eyes, narrowed while looking at Judy, took on a wicked gleam when she turned her attention to Don Wilde. "Nick, you really picked a second rate companion to replace me in your bed. I'd have thought you would have chosen...well, not, this." Skye waved at Judy with a glimmer of mirth in her eyes as she shrugged. "Eh, we all slide eventually."

Judy ground her teeth together as she advanced a step. Skye raised a paw to halt a bored yawn leaving her muzzle, continuously watching the rabbit. "By all means, take another step. I'd enjoy beating you again, little bunny."

"Judy…" Nick rasped as he looked around them, letting his sword fall by his side. "I think we should listen to her…"

"What?" Judy snapped back at him, glancing only quickly behind her, only to do a double take a moment later. Her raised sword faltered when she saw mammals appearing over the top of boulders, armed with crossbows and, to her greater worry, muskets. The tip of her sword touched the ground and eyes widened as she looked around further, spotting mammals already pointing guns at her and Nicholas from atop the cliffs nearby while more entered the area from the direction Skye had come.

"Well, well…" Skye sheathed her sword and took several steps forward, Judy following her advance with an ear turned behind her. "I've heard you rabbits like leaping before you look, but this…" The arctic fox waved a paw around them and laughed. "This takes the carrot cake."

Judy turned to face Skye while cautiously backing up towards Nick, and it was only then she noticed something.

"Nick…" she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear her. "Where's Ake'cheta?"

"I've been wondering that myself…" Nick growled.

Skye marched to within five feet of the two mammals, close enough so that her sword was uncomfortably close to them. She circled them, sizing them up with an appraising gaze. "I am impressed that you made it this far, though that won't stop me from ending your lives."

Judy shivered at the uncomfortable feeling of cold steel sliding against her neck from behind. Looking down, she saw the tip of a dagger just in the corner of her vision. Glancing at Nick, she could see the look of cold fury in Nick's eyes. The fox took a step forward, only for the blade to connect with Judy's flesh. The bunny gasped at the pressure, halting Nick in his tracks.

"Well, well, well…" Skye mused. "You can teach an old fox new tricks." The vixen grinned, staring coldly towards her former fiancé. "Now let's see you learn another one….beg. Or she dies."

Judy saw Nick gritting his teeth, as well as the mass of armed mammals surrounding them drawing closer. Only when she saw Nick beginning to drop to his knees did Judy react.

"Don't Nick! It's a hustl-ah!"

The edge of the dagger kissed her neck, a thin line of crimson appearing along its lethal edge as she heard Skye growl. "Did I give you permission to speak, little bunny?"

"Judy," Nick warned, as Skye's eyes flicked back to him. It was only then he smiled. "Thanks for the tip, Fluff."

He watched in satisfaction as Skye blinked, then narrowed her eyes. As her mouth opened, Nick raised a paw.

"Ah, ah, ah!" he said, waggling his finger. "You said that your being impressed wouldn't stop you from ending our lives, which means, that something else is why both Judy and I are still alive, no?"

Skye grit her teeth, removing the edge of the knife from Judy's neck, the rabbit breathing a sigh of relief as she jumped away from the arctic fox towards Nick. Instantly she was facing Skye again, who looked even angrier than before.

"You were always a clever one," she said, jamming the dagger back into its sheath on her right leg. "And yes, you are correct. If it were up to me, I would have already happily removed her head from her body and taking you as my prize."

"Not happening on either count," Nick rejoined, his confidence growing by the second and passing along to Judy. The doe smiled, bumping Nick with her elbow before giving him a wink. She turned to face the vixen while the mass of troops finished closing in on the three mammals.

"Now," Judy began. "I assume that you are here as the welcoming committee and will be taking us to your leader? As I know you can't be the one leading this ragtag group."

Skye's face remained neutral, yet the agitated swish of her tail showed Judy she'd gotten under the vixen's fur. Judy continued. "You seem to enjoy working alone, so I couldn't see you working with anyone who you considered beneath you, especially as you were a capitán once. I'm positive that these outlaws wouldn't enjoy taking orders from you, right? You might never have left your former job after all."

A few guns lowered slightly around them, as several of the bandits muttered amongst themselves, yet to Judy's excellent hearing, she could hear the quiet words questioning the arctic vixen's motives. A hedgehog in blue was arguing with his compadre, a scowling echidna with a red bandanna. The zebra right behind Skye was whispering harshly towards his lion companion, the predator nodding and scowling at the vixen.

Judy smiled. It's working...

Looking up at Nick, she saw the tod smiling all too smugly, with him hopping on her train of thought. "You know," he began, noticing how quickly Skye's gaze switched to him, one filled with a mix of contempt and...something else. He shrugged the latter off. "I seem to have remembered all those undercover operations you pulled while capitán." He chuckled, raising his paws while shrugging. "I'm sure it would be easy for you to do the same here. Work your way up the ranks, stepping on those below you who have been here for years…"

The muttering around them rose as Skye now looked around here. "Silence, whelp! Before I cut out your tongue!" she snarled, stepping forward.

Nick just smiled more broadly. "I thought you liked my tongue?" The brash comment raised some snickers from the ragtag group surrounding them, as well as a very shocked bunny to his right. "Sorry Carrots," he whispered, in a voice so low only she could hear. "Just following your script. If we can get them to turn on her, I'm thinking we're in for a swim together, no?"

He watched her barely nodding at his comment, though also giving him a look that he knew meant he'd be explaining himself later. "In fact," Nick continued loudly, chuckling more so than before. "I remember you mentioned that the night before you disappeared. You know, the night you said you had another undercover mission you had to-"

Nick never finished his sentence, as the sharp crack of a sword pommel against his muzzle silenced him.

"Nick!" Judy yelled, ears shooting up in alarm as the fox fell to his knees, groaning and shaking his head to clear the stars swimming through his vision. Her angry, amethyst gaze turned on Skye, a vibrant snarl escaping the rabbit's lips. "I don't think your master would appreciate that, Capitán Skye."

Skye pointed her sword at Judy, snarling as she spoke. "Don't you call me that." The tip of the blade pressed against Judy's chest, the rabbit suddenly breathing much heavier than before as she felt the pressure of cold steel against her breast. "And you have been talking long enough, vermin."

"The only vermin here is you," Judy stated, then instantly regretting it as the point of Skye's blade pressed tighter against her. "And you might want to get that blade away from us. Again, I doubt your master would like us harmed."

The barest hint of a smile appeared on Skye's face. The vixen began to chuckle, stepping back a foot as it turned into full blown laughter. Judy watched her for a moment, confused by the state of the vixen who was smiling widely now. "Oh, poor, poor, Capitán Hopps." She took several slow, sashaying steps forward. She reached out her left paw, roughly grabbing the bunny by her muzzle and jerking her forward. The vixen's aquamarine eyes bored into Judy's own with a chilling gaze.

"You simply don't understand my master," Skye simply purred into Judy's ears, sending another worrisome thought through the doe's mind. "As long as I simply deliver you to him, I don't think he'll mind in what condition you show up."

CRRRACK!

Skye's sword-holding right paw smashed into Nick's head, knocking the fox onto his back, his eyes rolling back as he lay motionless on the grimy ground. Judy blinked back her horror at seeing her love unmoving on the ground, bleeding slightly from his right brow.

She turned when she saw movement, watching Skye's fist smash into her own muzzle...and all went dark.

Skye looked down at the two unconscious mammals laying at her paws. She wiped her pommel clear of both their blood, spitting on the ground between them, their paws barely inches from clasping each other. Snarling in rage, she kicked their arms, splitting them further apart as she trudged past them, tail waving angrily back and forth.

"¡Únete a ellos y llévalos al calabozo! ¡Ahora!"

Skye watched with satisfaction as a donkey grabbed the bunny and fox by their legs and dragged them deeper into the canyon. Her gaze flickered about the cliffs above them as her troops marched behind the two prisoners. With a final flick of her tail, she departed.

Unseen by the vixen, a pair of eyes watched the troops move out. Once they were gone, the coyote rose from his hiding place among the debris and refuse underneath an overhang in the cliff wall. Shaking his fur of the dust that clung to it, Ake'cheta rose, looking at the spot where his companions had fallen, then to where they had been dragged off.

"Lah teioiánere..."

Spanish Translations

El foso de la desesperación- The pit of Despair

Increíble- Incredible

¡Únete a ellos y llévalos al calabozo! ¡Ahora!: Bind them and take them to the dungeon! Now!

Mohawk Translation:

Lah teioiánere: "Not good