A/N: Heyo, everyone! I am back once again with a brand new chapter for y'all. I am looking for cover art for this story (and for Fall) if any of you are interested. Thank you for the patience since I have just gone through the busiest time of the year for me. October got quite crazy and November only gets a little bit better. Leave a follow/favorite/review if you enjoy the chapter!
-Eragon
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Zootopia, just let me write my story in peace, Disney. Okay? Okay.
ZOOTOPIA: SEAFARER'S TALES-THE CHOSEN SIX
CHAPTER 1
LOCATION: THE MINOTAUR, VESSEL OFF THE WESTERN COAST OF BRITANTLER
DATE: JULY 12th, 1800
Life on a ship is an experience that few enjoy and choose over life on land. The salty breeze, the splash of waves breaking against the hull, the rocking of the ship, the sound of gulls when close to shore, the great expanse of nothing but blue. It seems like paradise, but the sea also shows a rage unlike that of the land. Storms, with waves that tower above buildings and gusts that threaten to tear the fur off an animal's body and rain that hits like needles. There is also the heat and exhaustion as well as the freezing cold and snow that varies with each passing month out on the ocean. How could any animal be drawn to this? For some, it is the only life they have ever known and experienced since a young age. For others, they just have this calling, a need to be on a vessel at sea.
Lieutenant Judith Hopps is one of the animals who has this calling. Ever since she was young, all she wanted to do was be out on the ocean. It didn't matter if it was swimming or sailing, in charge of the boat or a passenger, she just wanted to be near the water. This was worrisome for her parents at first, but as she became more and more comfortable at sea, they realized it was what she was meant to do. Her father was one of the four lords of Britantler, and all of these lords were loyal to King Lionheart. The Hopps family controlled the southern section of the island, an area with fertile soil and green pastures for farming. Due to her parents' positions, she was able to gain entry into the Royal Navy when she was twenty-two at the rank of Lieutenant, per the King and much to the anger of Commodore Bogo, whom she was assigned to.
The commodore was quite a gruff individual, showing little to no emotion other than anger, and very methodical and formal in everything he did. None could say he was not a fabulous leader, however, as he captained multiple ships both efficiently and successfully. In just the year before Hopps was assigned to him, he and the captains assigned under him had captured or destroyed approximately fifty pirate vessels and killed countless of the scoundrel. When he had been informed that this bunny would be assigned as a lieutenant under his command, the desk the message was sitting upon was nearly crushed under the slam of his hooves. After taking a deep breath and gathering his thoughts, he came up with an ingenious scheme. He would make this bunny quit.
And so he assigned her to the smallest of the ten ships under his command, Medina. It was a small ten-gun vessel, captained by an old tiger named James Moore. Captain Moore gave his newest lieutenant all of the jobs he was too lazy to do; such as waking up the men, writing and sending letters to other captains and the commodore, and distributing pay. She was treated horribly by the crew, being both the smallest and newest addition to the ship. Through all this, she did see her fair share of battles with pirates. Due to its smaller size, Medina could keep up with just about any ship and was tasked his hampering and slowing down pirate ships until the larger vessels arrived to finish the job. Hopps quickly learned how to help load and fire a cannon, and though her size made it difficult to load a cannon, she was a fantastic shot with a cannon. Many masts fell to the cannon she was firing.
Her success did not go unnoticed. Frankly, Bogo was impressed. He decided to assign her to the only vessel in the fleet as large as his own, Fortitude. He appointed her lieutenant to Captain McHorn, a rhino who was his second-in-command of the fleet. The crew of the ship were quite upset about her placement at first, until she boarded the next pirate ship they captured and took down four pirates on her own, including the captain of the pirate ship. With her continued success, Bogo wanted to begin teaching her the ropes of captaining a ship. Some of his captains were getting to an old age, and it was only a matter of time until he would need to begin appointing new captains anyway, so why not start with the most promising animal in the fleet?
This was why, while his fleet was docked in Liondon restocking on supplies, he had called Lieutenant Hopps to his ship, the Minotaur, for a conference. The commodore waited patiently in his cabin, looking over the maps the navigators of Britantler had drawn for the Royal Navy. He had marked off areas that were relatively safe for travel and areas that tended to be attacked and raided the most, as well as cities in the colonies he knew to be safe to dock in. Suddenly, there was a knock at the large door. His voice traveled across the room quickly, "Enter."
He heard a shuffle from outside the door before the door shook, but did not open. Realizing that the visitor was most likely the Hopps, who would be unable to get the door open since it was meant for animals his size, he walked over to the entrance to his cabin. The thundering hoofsteps echoed around the room and just outside of it. He opened the door and, seeing it was indeed Hopps, gestured for her to come into the cabin. With an embarrassed expression, the rabbit shuffled into the room and stood at attention facing Bogo's desk. Sitting in the oak chair behind the desk, Bogo spoke up first, "Lieutenant Hopps, you know I don't care about all that saluting rubbish. Put your paw down."
"Yes, Commodore!", the rabbit replied a bit overly enthusiastically. Once her paws were both at her sides, Bogo continued, "Lieutenant, you have done absolutely great work for me in the past twelve months. With major parts in the capture of eight pirate vessels and assisting captains in diplomacy with merchants and townsfolk alike, it's hard to miss the work you put into what you do-"
"Thank you, Commodore!"
"...So I have decided that you deserve another opportunity. I would like to appoint you as my lieutenant and begin training you for becoming a captain of your own ship one day. Do you accept this responsibility?"
The buffalo watched with curiosity as joy danced across the rabbit's features and she lost her composure, "Yes, Commodore! Thank you, thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
"Don't mention it, Lieutenant. Now, focus again. That was not the only reason I needed to meet with you."
After the bunny's excited expression faded back to a no-nonsense one, Bogo began speaking again, "Now, there is a cargo ship traveling to the colonies that is carrying extremely valuable and important items on board. These are items that could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, so I and the crew of the Minotaur will be protecting the cargo ship. Since you are now a member of the crew, that means you will be helping protect this ship as well. This cargo ship is the fastest in the Britantlan Empire, so hopefully the ship will have no issues on its trip. And due to this, I refuse to bring the fleet to protect the ship. The fleet will slow the cargo ship down and bring attention to it since a Navy escort screams valuables. So we and the crew will be on board the ship as it travels to the colonies. I have heard your hearing is without match in the Navy, so I want you in the crow's nest and informing myself of any approaching ships to the cargo ship. We leave tonight at dusk. Do you understand your job?"
"Yes, Commodore! I won't let you down!"
"I know you won't, Lieutenant."
Just as Hopps was about to turn and leave the cabin, she glanced at the map and had a question for her superior, "Commodore, where are we going in the colonies and what route are we taking?"
"Glad you asked, Lieutenant. We will be traveling to the Britlantan colony of Mane, and taking this route here..."
He pointed out a route that was a bit of a zig-zag, but relatively pointed straight to Mane, the southernmost part of North Animalia controlled by Britantler. At first, the route seemed perfect, until Hopps noticed one big problem, "Uh, Commodore, I understand that the route is relatively pirate free...except you're forgetting one big problem."
"And what is that, Lieutenant?"
She merely pointed at a symbol that was nearly on top of the route leading to Mane from Britantler in the Caribbearian Sea. A giant fox skull surrounded by flames. The buffalo became enraged, "Lieutenant, I will not let one mangy fox pirate affect the plan. So as much as I respect the concern, it is unnecessary. You may leave to prepare for the trip now."
Hopps bowed to Bogo, "Yes, Commodore. I apologize, Commodore."
With that, the rabbit turned and was gone. Bogo still stared at the map, and even more at the symbol that struck fear into many of his animal's hearts. He slowly growled under his breath, "I will not let him win again."
LOCATION: WILDFIRE, VESSEL LOCATED SOMEWHERE IN CARIBBEARIAN SEA
DATE: JULY 12th, 1800
It was quite the stormy night, but whether through good luck or good fortune, the ship was being carried directly where its captain wanted it to go with the winds of the storm. The ship rose and fell with the huge waves, but never once did the crew feel their safety was threatened. They knew the ship and, more importantly, they knew their captain. The ship was one of, if not the, most well-crafted vessels on the ocean. It was a bit smaller than most of the larger Royal Navy ships, but was sleek and faster than any ship any animal had ever seen. Sporting 54 cannons, it could also keep its own in a fight if needed, but that rarely happened due to the ship's speed and the ability of the crew to board opposing ship's and deal with fights that way. The hull was black, with bright orange sails that showed everyone that this was no vessel to be trifled with.
This ship was Wildfire, a pirate vessel with the orange sails depicting the crew's symbol: a grinning fox skull. For five years, Wildfire had terrorized the seas around both the mainland and the Animalian colonies. Some sailors claim it is merely luck that the Wildfire has never been sunk. Some say that it has been sunk and duplicates were crafted to create the illusion of the ship never being sunk. And still others say the ship is a ghost ship that could never be sunk by even a fleet of the greatest ships in any navy. Only the crew of the ship and the rare few who have survived encounters with the Wildfire know the truth. The captain is why this pirate ship has never been sunk. His cunning, craftiness, and intelligence are what keeps the Wildfire afloat.
The captain, a small and seemingly harmless mammal, a red fox, that has outsmarted every ship he has gone after. Captain Wilde was his name, hence the pun for his ship's name. Wilde had a tendency for using and telling obnoxious jokes and puns, purely for his own enjoyment. And while at many times he annoyed his crew, he had their loyalty to the bitter end, because his crew knew he always had a plan and always looked out for his crew above all else. Through every ship they pirated, every raid, every battle, he had proven this to them over and over again. And they hadn't always come away victorious, or with every crewmember still standing, but they had always survived. Wilde cared about his crew and took great care in keeping morals up, because there can be no captain if there is no crew to be captained.
He also showed this in battle, as he always was the at the front of the charge when boarding a vessel. He was the bravest pirate his crew had ever met, never backing down from a fight, even when seemingly outmatched. Never did his crew doubt him, though, as they had witnessed him single-pawedly taken down rhinos and elephants. The crew never ceased to remember when their captain had taken on six Royal Navy marines in sword combat and dispatched all of them with ease, or the battle where he saved the same lynx that had questioned his leadership hours earlier. Every crewmember would fight by the fox's side, knowing he would have their backs and fight until either they won or until every one of his animals had already escaped to the Wildfire.
None of the crew knew where Captain Wilde came from, only that one day he had shown up in whatever tavern they were occupying themselves in and asked for animals who wanted to live a life of adventure and riches at sea. He had started with a small crew, and this crew was quite wary of a fox captain. After a few successes on small merchant ships, a few of the crew got the brilliant idea of a mutiny on the captain and taking the ship and valuables for themselves. Unfortunately for them, Wilde somehow saw all of it coming and captured each one of the mutinous crewmembers one by one as they chased him around the ship. After making the three leaders of the mutiny walk the plank, he spared the remaining members, offering them the choice of walking the plank or pledging loyalty to him as their captain. The choice was quite an easy one to make.
With a loyal crew and growing renown as a pirate, Captain Wilde picked larger and more dangerous targets to pirate, and won most of the battles. He had only lost when navy ships had come to the aide of the merchant ship they were pirating, and even then the Wildfire and its crew always escaped. The crew of the ship grew as success became more and more common and well-known among the not-so-friendly groups of society. With a crew growing in both size and experience, Wilde began going after Britantlan cargo vessels. They had been challenging at first, due to normally having an escort of some sort, but with time, they had become common targets for the fox captain and his crew.
His crew didn't know how, but he seemed to always know exactly where a cargo ship would be sailing on certain days. Rumors went around that Wilde had some sort of magic powers that gave him the ability to know this. The truth was that Wilde had connections on the mainland that sent him letters that stated exactly what routes cargo ships would be traveling and what kinds of escorts these cargo ships would have. He had just received such a letter this morning, with a target too good to be true. A Britantlan cargo ship was traveling right through waters that every navigator knew was basically owned by the fox and his crew, with no escorting navy ships. While he nearly drooled at how open of a target this was, he was also fairly cautious about the news.
It made no sense that a cargo ship would have nothing protecting it other than the cargo ship's guards. Any captain, even a dumb one, would ask for escorts knowing of the dangers of not having an escort. He would have to scout the area once they were close to the cargo ship, darting in and out and around to see what exactly he and his crew were dealing with. As the storm tossed the ship back and forth, Wilde kept it pointed exactly where he wanted. His crew made sure to keep the everything on deck secured and the sails perfectly set to both catch the most wind possible and not be torn at the same time. They were heading for Tusk Island, the island that was farthest out in the Caribbearian from Animalia and the first island that the cargo ship would have to pass when taking their route.
While the journey was rough, Wilde knew it would be swift and painless, and in the end, they would reach the island with ease. Then, they could wait out for a few weeks until the cargo ship would actually arrive. And as a bonus, his crew loved Tusk Island. It was a dangerous and lawless place, but that was perfect for his band of pirates. They could drink themselves away for the next month with the gold they had gathered on their last raid of a colony village and enjoy themselves. Maybe he could finally relax for the first time in months at sea. As the rain and gusts pelted his face, he gazed down at his crew and his ship. He had created quite the life for himself after a tough beginning. The journey of life had come with some high waves, but he had rolled with whatever life had thrown at him and kept going, and now look at him; he was a renowned and feared pirate captain with all he could ever want.
As if the world knew his thoughts, the wind began slowing and the pouring rain became a mist. The moon's light peaked through the clouds, showing Wilde his destination. Tusk Island looked menacing. With two giant rock formations curving up and out from the base of the island, giving it its name, as well as nearly no grass visible on the ground of the island, the sight would chill the blood of most animals. But for pirates, mercenaries, and other less than savory occupations, this was one of the greatest safe havens ever built. The animals who lived their year-round would fish and ship in crops in order to provide food, collect the abundance of rainwater for drinking, special order in alcohol, and make sure their were places to stay and sleep. It was the closest animals of the pirate-type could come to a vacation in between different illegal activities.
Directing the ship into the docks and expertly maneuvering it to be easily moored, Wilde smiled at his crew before shouting out to them, "Go on, you fools, and enjoy yourselves!"
His crew gave a loud cheer as the four hundred or so animals poured off the ship and into the taverns and eateries of the island town center. Wilde was the last to leave the ship, passing a sizeable pouch of gold to an ox seated on a stack of crates as he strolled down the docks, securing a guard for his ship and an informant if any characters unsavory to his crew were to dock throughout the duration of the next three or four weeks. While he and his crew were the most feared pirates on the sea, they had still made enemies here and there, and he wanted to know if they would have to deal with any of them. Slowly and casually making his way off the docks and into the town, he admired the pirate haven.
The "town" was fairly simple, with there just being four streets in the shape of a box. The eastern street was the residences of the townspeople who lived at Tusk Island year-round. The northern street and western street were the recreational streets. The two roads were crowded with taverns, brothels, inns, and stores selling all sorts of goods. The southern street was the road along the docks, used mainly as guard stations and lookouts as well as as a way to monitor anything and anyone going in or out of the town. Wilde had never been one for the taverns and brothels and "merrymaking" as his crew called it. Rather, he would make his way up to the lookout towers and admire the rolling sea and the stars of the night.
Torches and oil lanterns lit his way down the southern street. Thankfully, the mist from the aftermath of the storm was all that remained and made the stroll quite pleasant. He continually scanned the surroundings around him, smirk plastered on his muzzle. Even if it was a safe haven for pirates, that didn't mean crimes weren't committed. Actually, it was the exact opposite, with pickpocketing and muggings happening constantly, especially at night around the taverns. Wilde noticed that there were a few animals huddled between two buildings around a small fire, trying to keep warm. Cautiously at first, he inched a bit closer, until he realized that the animals were a male grey wolf pup, a female red fox kit, and a male black leopard kitten. None of them could have been over twelve-years-old.
Wilde moved a bit more briskly towards them and they looked at him in fear, cowering behind the fire. He slowly crouched down and genuinely smiled at each of them, "Hello, you three. I'm Captain Wilde. What are your names?"
The three glanced back and forth at each other in fear before the wolf pup spoke up first, "My-my name is George. The fox is Robyn and the leopard is Abel."
"Well it is certainly a pleasure to meet all of you-"
The leopard was the next to use his voice, "You aren't going to hurt us, are you?"
The pirate fox gave the kitten a sad smile, "Of course not. You three are safe now. I'm going to make sure you get taken care of. How's that sound to you three?"
While the wolf and leopard beamed at each other, the fox kit just looked suspicious, "Why do you want to help us? You don't even know us."
"That is true, and it is good that you are suspicious. Keep that with you. It'll help you out a lot when you're older. As for your question, I want to help because when I was your age, I was living just like you three now. At least, I was until a very kind polar bear, named Kevin, brought me to his captain's home, and now here I am. So here's what I'm going to do. I have a good friend who is too old to sail, so she lives here on the island. You're going to live with her until you're old enough to be on a pirate ship, then you'll come help me out at sea. How's that sound for a deal to all of you?"
The fox captain held out his paw and, to his surprise, Robyn was the first to shake it, then George and Abel. "Well then, let's go introduce you to Honey."
And Wilde set off down the street at a slow walk, the three children scurrying after him.