Editor's note: Hey guys, I'm not internet dead. So it's been about a year and half since my last chapter and you're probably want an explanation on what was going on with me in between then.

To be honest, I lost interest in the story.

As I was writing the last chapter, letting Howard go into the woods to seclude himself from society was pretty much what I did (Society as in , in short sense). Life got in the way, I had no time to write, and eventually I just stopped all together on the story.

So you might be saying to yourself that I'm done with this story and I won't continue it, right?

Yeah, no. This story is getting finished.

See, during that long period of time I had an idea for a sequel, and it has always lingered in the back of my mind for literally a year. I had no motivation to do it but the more and more I thought about it, the more intrigue I had on the narrative.

And now, that intrigue has pegged me to upload a new chapter because I want to see how this "sequel" writes out.

Apologies if I seem rusty, like I said it's been a couple years since I wrote. If my style seems slightly different, let me know (if it's better, wow, that's… amazing). Plus, I haven't seen Zootopia since its initial release.

TL;DR: let's wake Howard up, shall we?

Awake

Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years.

Time either flies by or slows down, and usually for me, it speeds past me like a bullet. It didn't really bother me though. I like being busy, and as long as I'm traversing the city or out and about in Tundra Town, I'm fine.

Except I never made it to Tundra Town.

AAL had short-circuited minutes after he gave me the coordinates to Tundra Town. The cause of his sudden failure was unknown to me, but I was lucky enough to have him in the first place when I warped into this world, and the fact that he was still programmed to do as he did was even more impressive. For the first time in a while, I was completely alone.

My watch read 09:32 April 4 2016. Three weeks have gone by since then, but time told me that it felt like months.

I had no idea where I was or what district I was currently in. All I knew that I was in the outskirts of downtown and not in Tundra Town, the place I needed to go away initially. Somehow, I manage to stay cold without been noticed while traversing the area. I secluded myself from society really. In the span of three weeks, I went from being a military operative to someone that's a sleeping dog. I was just waiting patiently while this blows over.

I donned a new look as well. I wanted to make my disappearance look real and got rid of mostly of my gear. Now, I looked like a regular citizen… okay, maybe not regular in the sense that I would blend in well, but I made sure to get rid of some things so that I could at least leave some breadcrumbs lying around. Hopefully that was enough to send them the message.

What I did keep was my pistol, which I used as my last resort. Getting rid of that would be sacrilege, but I keep hold of it as a fear tactic to others.

As I walking, I managed to reach a place. Civilization I thought. After managing myself for the past three weeks I found myself outside a little town called "Bunnyburrow."

"Wonderful."

I thought about turning around and ignoring the place, but I figured since it's been awhile, the locals won't know who I am. They might discriminate me for my looks of being a predator, but that was the least of my worries. I'm human, and we fall under both categories anyway. Shark hunts human, human hunts deer. The thought went through me and somewhat eased me but I was still on guard in case anything would happen.

As I made my way into town, I was getting looks from everyone. I tried keeping my head down and keep moving forward but I could her murmurs of rabbits saying shit about me. I knew this was bad idea. What am I even looking for here, Judy? Judy wasn't on my mind. In fact, I totally forgot about her. Was she even here? Or was she still the head cop of Zootopia? As if she would help me. I'm already on ZPD's shitlist.

Suddenly, I almost walked right into a food stand. That's what you get for not looking ahead and paying attention. As I stumbled, I startled the mistress that was running the stand as she wasn't paying attention either, and we both looked at each other with the most awkwardest of looks you could ever imagine. She finally broke the dead air by introducing herself.

"Hel-hello sir, how are you toda-ay?" She said with a cautious smile. I immediately played the predator card, sensing her endangerment.

"Are you afraid of me?" I asked.

"Well, you are quite an irregular customer that visits here. As a matter of fact, I don't even know what you are. If you're a predator, we're going to have to call ZPD and have you detained."

Shit. "Well, I'm not. Look, I'm lost. I just need… some things, do you know where a general store can be found?"

"Down the street here, make a left and keep going for 3 blocks and then a right. There you'll find Eden's Garden. What things do you need?"

"Supplies. It's nothing important, I'm just a regular hitchhiker, don't you see?" Obviously I was bullshiting her, but I had to leave. I left the stand but at the same time looking back to see that she was on the phone. Fuck, I better make this quick and hightail out of here.

I reached Eden's Garden, which was a name beyond coincidences that I could ever imagine in a town called Bunnyburrow. The store looked empty as some of the lights were shut off. However; the door seemed to be opened. Has someone broken in? Is this a trap for me? These were just some of the thoughts that traversed my mind. I decided to push the door open to find no one inside.

"Hello?" I shouted to no response. I don't like this.

My plan was to go in and hopefully extract more information on the Nighthowler case, since the buzz around town was that it was closed thanks to Judy Hopps. But looking around and seeing that no one was inside the store, it made me weary to think that I wouldn't get what intended seeking out.

I made my way to the very end of the store to where there was a hat and scarf section. Seeing that there was no-one around, I decided to take a hat and small grey scarf. I wouldn't even call it a scarf, It was more to conceal from the nose down. Whatever, it would hide my identity for a little while before someone became suspicious.

Then, a load bang rang in at the front of the store. Shit, they're here. ZPD finally found me. It all started with assaulting a police officer and running away, and now that the new predator rules were in place, I was toast.

Except, I didn't hear a siren from outside. No indication that they were here before that grand entrance. No matter, I hid behind one of the isles with my back against to it and just hoped for the best.

And then there were two voices. Two male voices as a matter of fact. They made no indication that they were the ZPD.

What the fuck was going on here?

"Come on X1, do you know what time this store re-opens? We don't have time to kill."

"A4, may I remind you that it was you who replicated Miss Eden, correct?"

Replicate Miss Eden? Wait, are they talking about… cloning, to some sort of degree? I stayed quiet and let the two quarrel back and forth. I did take a glance to see what they looked like.

They were wolves. One was grey, which I assumed was A4 and the other was black. These wolves were wearing long black looking lab coats with sunglasses. If I had to guess, it was some secret organization they were working for. They were also dragging a lifeless looking body, presumably Miss Eden. What were they doing with her? I listened in as they were by the counter.

"I told you to lock the door on the way out, and look, the door was open when we got back. Do you have any idea how much shit we're going to be in if this gets leaked out?"

"Heh, not unless we catch them first."

"Meh, good point. Alright, is she ready to go?"

"Yep, T5-99, activation code Oscar November."

Phoenetics? So these guys are military, but… My thought was instantly erased when I saw the lifeless body of Miss Eden come to life, is if I saw the dead being reanimated. It was staggering, and I was speechless. I don't know what I was witnessing, but that was soon answered when I saw Miss Eden functioning like a normal… person.

I had to intervene. I knew something wasn't right as soon as they walked in, so I pulled out my pistol and came from the corner.

"Freeze" I said calmly. I had two guns pointed at might as soon as the "F" left my mouth.

"See X1? This is what happens when we do things according to your way. Now we have… this thing."

"I'm a human to be exact. Howard Clauson, known fugitive to the ZPD and currently resisting to put two bullets in you two."

"The human? A4, this is the project Haj has been talking about."

"Indeed X1, indeed."

"What the hell is the project, and how do you know.. my species?" I stammered, being flustered with new information. How the hell do these guys already know who I am? What the hell is this so called "Project?"

"Let me introduce myself. I'm A4-04" Said the black wolf, "my assistant here is X1-92. We work for Haj. He runs the Bellows."

The Bellows? This was new information that was being introduced to me. Were they the ones causing this Nighthowler mess? I had to ask.

"So you guys are behind this Nighthowler debacle, huh?"

A4 snickered "Ahhhh, that mess? Please, that's nothing compared to what we're doing."

He took a sliding glance to his right and showed Miss Eden, who was just standing there but at attention. She was just staring straight ahead at the cracked entrance door, like she had some sort of fixation on it. Then A4 spoke up.

"T5-99, operation code November Oscar Romeo Mike. Proceed as usual."

Miss Eden then suddenly snapped out of her stare and proceeded to look at me and ask "Hi, how may I help you today?" without any hesitation.

I just stood there with my gun pointed at A4, while giving a muttering look at Miss Eden, or what I would call an abomination of Miss Eden. I knew right then there what was going on. These guys know about Nighthowler, but they've developed something worse. And for the first time, I saw the glimpse of the kind of future that could unfurl. Something so out of this world that I thought could never happen here, in Zootopia… until now.

"…you motherfuckers." I said with a grimace, "you're… you're building… robots? Hu-animal related, mirror image robots?"

"Synths, actually." Said A4 "This is our first prototype, T5. We're testing to see how well she does in a normal environment. So far, things are looking okay."

"So what do you plan on do-"

I was interrupted when I heard police sirens come flying by outside. It didn't come towards a shock to me since I knew going into town was risky.

"Well, would you look at that. I guess it's our time to go." Said A4, "We'll leave you here with T5."

"What do you mean, leave me here?"

"Hmmh. T5-99, operation code Papa Alpha November Charlie. Make sure this fugitive is arrested."

After A4 spoke, Miss Eden started panicking, not in a self-destruct sequence, but as if I was the worst thing she's ever seen. "PO-POLICE. HELP M-ME!" she stammered "THIS THING HAS A GUN."

I just looked over to A4 in disbelief, while he looked back with a cold expressionless face, as if he too was one of them.

"I'll let the ZPD deal with you. You're a wanted criminal anyway." A4 said, "Besides, we'll be leaving now."

"How? There's only one place ou-"

"Homebase, this is A4-04. I'm here with X1-92. Teleport us back, please."

All of sudden, the space around them was sparking, like lightning being struck but from no source at all. A4 looked back at me one last time.

"We're the Bellows. We'll be watching." And both A4 and X1 disappeared in thin air.

I had no time to react because I was stunned in silence, both mentally and physically.

I was mentally stunned in the sense of what I just saw. Robots, synth, teleportation, etc. It all happened so fast. I couldn't tell if it was real or not, I was just dreaming the whole thing. I wanted to believe the whole thing was just dream.

However, it wasn't.

I woke up in the back of a police car, and could see that outside I was no longer in Bunnyborrow, but on my way back to Zootopia. Apparently the police either tranquilize me (knowing that I could be a predator to me) or just passed out on the floor from the spark shock that overwhelmed me.

"Whe-where am I?"

"Hey! Quiet down, or else we're bringing you in for going savage." shouted the cop, who I could make out was a large hippo. I know hippo's are already large, but this guy remind me of your typical donut cop.

"What?"

"You heard me. Pipe, down."

I was so confused to what was going on. For the first time in a long while, I did what I was told to do. I said to myself that this could very well be the end for me. How was Judy, and was Nick? It felt like years but only weeks ago that I made contact with them. I barely knew Judy, only meeting her twice in the time that I've spent here. Nick on the other hand I already knew a little bit about. Him being a predator and all, I shared some similarities that I never realized I had before.

My daydreaming was halted when the car stopped. We were at ZPD headquarters.

"We're here" said the hippo cop, "Mayor Bellwether and Chief Bogo want to interrogate you face to face."

Bellwether? That's a name I haven't heard before.

After being out of it for so long, a little part of me was somewhat eased to be back in the game again. But that easiness went away when I say the chief standing outside the front door.

And I knew, whatever was facing ahead of me, wasn't going to be good.

Editor's second note: That's chapter 8 guys! I apologize if it seemed all over the place or it felt rushed, but this part of the chapter is somewhat a prelude to the second fanfic I plan on writing. I'll be honest, even I was a bit rusty trying to write this but hopefully it comes back to me and I can give this original story the conclusion it deserves. Chapters are most likely going to be released weekly, but don't be surprised to see two in one week.

-MM