Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Disney, least of all Zootopia (yet)

Judy watched as Nick placed one paw right in the middle of the huge door and there was a bristling sound as a barrier repelled his advances. But he just pushed against the barrier that could not be seen, but certainly felt, until it suddenly collapsed send of a gentle wave of magic energy in all directions as it did.

Judy readied herself, she knew that this was it, the door would open and they would meet whatever was behind it.

She knew that there was no going back at this point and she gripped the handle of her sword which was still resting in its sheath that much tighter because of this.

She watched in awe as Nick slowly pushed the door open with relative ease using only one paw while the sound of metal scraping over stone could be heard erasing the calming silence that had filled the room before.

Just when the door had opened enough for both of them to get through he let go while Judy came closer in order to pass through, but the door did not stop.

It continued opening on it's own revealing complete darkness behind it.

Judy paused, was this it? She thought as she stared into the darkness that lurked in the room like an impenetrable wall.

Nick noticed her anxiety and turned his head towards her, giving her his signature smile while bowing slightly with his arm extended towards the room,"after you my lady." He said turning his smile into a smirk while also bringing her back to her senses.

She could not be scared now!

Not here!

Judy took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway into the room. Leaving behind the comfort of the floating lights and replacing it with darkness that happily embraced her, at least the room was filled with, as much, if not even more magic energy than the first one.

She could hear Nick behind her as he entered the room, that was Nick, right? She could not tell since even Nick's glowing eyes were not visible in this unnaturally thick darkness. Which meant that it had be a magical one!

Maybe this was a stupid idea after all she thought to herself, but just as she wanted to turn around she heard the sound of metal scraping over stone and she knew that the door was closing behind them.

She also though about the fact that if she ran towards the door that her back would be exposed to whatever may be lingering in the darkness.

The door finally closed behind them, making her indecisiveness irrelevant since there was no way out now anyways.

And just a moment after the door had closed it happened, magic fires ignited in pairs of two. Always one on each side of the room slowly lighting the room from the front to the back. They were resting on top of huge pillars that formed rows on both sides of the room. With the darkness now being mostly vanquished by these magic fires Judy was able to see the room clearly.

The room itself was fairly wide, wide enough to make the room seem large even to an elephant but that was not the most impressive thing, no! The room was also very deep for an underground structure, Judy was sure that it had to be about fifty meters from where she was standing to the other side of the room. It was huge!

Which begged the question, why?

What kind of guardian would need a room this big?

A shiver ran down her spine and her eyes darted across the room in search for more details.

The room consisted of giant stone slabs that made up the floor and the walls where decorated with larger than life statues of cloaked mammals in between the pillars. Every statue had a staff which lead to the conclusion that these were representing mages. Each staff had a giant gem at it's tip that seemed to glow from within with a rune in it. These gems were all big enough so that you would only need one in order to live the rest of your life like a king. But Judy knew that they were likely part of the barrier that was placed upon this room and that messing with a barrier that was put in place to banish a demonic weapon would likely warrant death.

The room itself was awfully clean, not just clean like there was not dust or anything like that, but clean like no mammal had ever set its paws in here. Judy continued looking and her gaze suddenly locked onto the other end of the room, there was a throne there. Said throne was made out of the same kind of stone as the rest of the room and it was certainly large enough to accommodate a any large mammal just like the rest of the room was as well. It also had nine crystals encased in it that were akin to the ones the mage statues had, only these ones were a little bit smaller.

And then she saw the sword, it was leaned against the center of the throne and it was probably big enough to be a two pawed sword that a buffalo or a bear would use, nothing a bunny could ever hope to lift at all and with it being so far away, it was hard to make out the details of the swords appearance.

Just when she was about to turn and ask Nick how she was supposed to use a sword that was much larger and heavier than both of them something else happened.

The crystals on the throne seemed to glow and the shadows near the throne seemed to move like a living being rather than a lifeless absence of light, these shadows formed threads that snaked their way onto the throne. Where they formed into a small ball like structure which had a constant moving surface.

It looked really surreal.

Judy wondered what this shadow ball was exactly, and she had a pretty good idea what it could be but she hoped that she was wrong. If this was the guardian of this place then this could be really dangerous.

Nick had told her that beings like this one did exist, beings that had no real body or form. Beings that needed to be fought with magic or special artifacts since physical attacks would not harm them at all.

She glanced over to Nick and saw that he seemed nervous as well.

"So what do we do now?". Judy asked in a half whisper, which was silly since they were clearly standing at the entrance of the room right in the open. There was no way that whatever these shadows were, had not seen or felt them.

Nick stared at the throne while he answered casually,"we go up to the throne and introduce ourselves."

And after saying that he started walking towards the throne all even though she could tell that he was still nervous.

Judy's eyes must have been at their maximum size at that particular moment. Not only had Nick just told her to get closer to the weird shadow thing without explaining what it was! But he had also just started doing just that without even waiting for her okay.

But Judy knew that she had to follow, she knew that splitting up was even worse than getting closer since there was at least two of them if she followed Nick.

As she approached she felt the intensity of magic energy in the air around her increase dramatically, so much so that her neckfur stood on end.

But she pushed on even though she had a weird feeling of anxiety in her stomach. She was basically walking straight up to the dangerous unknown being that was in possession of a demonic weapon.

She could now see the sword more clearly and it was truly a two pawed sword with a long ash gray blade that had red runes engraved on its fuller. It had a simplistic curved cross guard with pointy ends in a slightly darker color than the blade itself that resembled an ax head. The grip meanwhile seemed to be made up of dark brown colored leather from whatever poor creature might have died for this. The grip then ended in a pommel that was shaped like a rounded cone with riffles in it that looked like it could be used to split the skull of an enemy right open.

It looked like a formidable blade even from afar.

Judy was now only around five meters away from the throne when the shadowy ball moved and said movement startled Judy so much that she literally leaped backwards a bit.

Great, she thought, now you made your first impression on whatever that thing is and it was you fleeing in fear. Good job Judy she could hear her own thoughts sarcastically mock her.

She focused on the shadows now that had started reshaping the ball into another shape. First Judy had no idea what they were shaping but after a moment it hit her like a charging rhino.

The shadows seemed to disappear and made way for what they had shaped beneath while still enveloping the shape beneath like a weird kind of fog or aura.

Before Judy on the throne was sitting a mirrored version of herself that was casually sitting on the throne with leg one leg angled so that her mirror version could rest her arm on her knee .

Only this other Judy was wearing a high quality dark leather armor with steel plates on it that looked really menacing and sturdy compared to Judy's cheap cloak and light chainmail armor.

The only other difference between the two of them where the eyes. While Judy's eyes were of a beautiful amethyst color the eyes of her counterpart where weird to say the least.

The sclera of he eye which was normally white not matter which kind of mammal you were, as far as Judy knew, was jet black.

The iris then was surrounded by a thin golden ring while the iris itself was devided into two parts a blood red outer half and a poison green inner half both of which were seperated by a thin golden ring. Surrounded by these two halfs was an retilian looking almost savage looking slit like pupil which in turn was once more surrounded by a thin golden outline that seperated it from the green half of the iris.

These eyes were mesmarizing to watch and Judy felt herself being entranced by them without even noticing, while they seemed to stare deep into her soul.

She had no idea how long she just stood there but she snapped out of her trance when Nick stepped between her and her shadowy counterpart.

She felt a little bit dizzy and she knew that something was wrong.

Like always though things were moving faster than she would like them too and she heard an familiar yet unfamiliar voice,"Nicholas, my brother, it has been eons." The voice was a lot like her own but it felt more surreal. It sounded slightly distorted like if two voices were mixed together. While it was not particularly loud it seemed to be everywhere at once and it felt really overpowering to her.

Whatever this being was it was definetly very very dangerous. And once more she was glad that Nick was by her side to protect her from harm.

Nick answered the voice and Judy wondered wether she could just stay behind his back the entire time,"Indeed it has been forever, I am so glad to be able to meet you once more brother."

Nick stopped and the voice continued,"I see that you travel with an adventurer. Is she the reason why you are here?"

Judy heard movement and she moved to the side so that she could peek at the throne.

The demon that had taken her form stood up and jumped down from the throne. It then proceeded to walk towards them with its paws behind its back.

Nick nodded,"yes this is Judy. She is my master and I am her personal spirit and as such I want her to grow stronger so that she can fulfill her goal."

Judy gave a meek smile and waved,"hello", was all she could think of right then.

The demon stopped just about a meter in front of them and flat out ignored her, "And so you lead her here so that she could obtain my power?"

Nick nodded once more,"yes that is correct."

The demon tilted its head slightly and raise a brow,"why would you think that I would help out a mortal? I mean you seem to feel comfortable to present her to me. So she needs to be somewhat strong or else you would not have risked bringing her here."

Nick shifted his stance and brought his paws behind his back as well and Judy wondered why they both had their paws behind their backs. But other than that she was terrified of what the demon had just implied. Nick had said that as long as she stuck with him that his brother would be reasonable. And that he could be argued with. But said brother had just stated that she had to be strong or Nick would not have risked presenting her to him.

RISKED!

That did not sound like the situation was going well at all.

But when she looked at Nick he still seemed really calm and he continued the conversation,"Judy is not that strong. In fact she is rather weak and you should have noticed by now, so am I. That is why I need your help in order to make her strong enough."

The demon just stared at Nick for a moment before he said,"true, you are very weak. I guess they placed more seals on you than on any other demon since they could not seal you into an artifact."

A smirk found its way back onto Nick's muzzle,"yeah they went really overboard with that. But then again, they did worse with Arya."

Judy saw a shift in the demons facial features at that point, which was still weird considering that she was looking into her own face. And it seemed like the interest of the demon was peaked,"what did they do to her?"

"They placed some seals on her that made it only possible for her to use power when permitted by a mortal and said mortal had to also be a descendant of that pesky white knight. Meanwhile, I can use my magic freely but I can only draw limited mana from the void. So yeah she is probably worse off than me." Nick said while laughing.

The demon suddenly started laughing hard as well and put its paws over its stomach while it did.

Judy was flabbergasted. What was going on?

They both laughed for a moment then the demon said,"well I guess someone knew exactly what they were doing when they sealed her. Did anyone ever manage to talk her into actually bowing to a mortal?"

Nick sighed contently,"I have no clue. I have a hard time imagining that."

"Why not go and ask her for help? I mean she must have more power than both of us combined as long as she obeys a mortal."

Nick scoffed,"Arya? Helping out a mortal? I think it is more likely that you help us, besides Judy is not a descendant of the white knight. So even if Arya was willing to help then she could not do it."

"I still don't understand why you think that I would be willing to help you.",the demon stated casually while crossing its arms in front of its chest.

Nick's expression turned serious,"because I know you. You yearn for freedom don't you? Just come on this adventure with us. I can't be worse than rotting away in this room for all eternity in isolation."

Now it was the demons turn to scoff,"I get my fair share of visitors over the centuries Nick. You would not believe how many adventurers yearn for a demonic blade that would make them all powerful. Crushing them is all the joy that I need."

Nick seemed to be thrown off by this comment but Judy realized something and finally joined the conversation,"but there must be something that you wish for right?"

The demon turned its head and focused directly onto her eyes but Judy stood her ground and did not move or flinch.

Then the demon answered irritatingly enough with a question,"what does that matter here?"

Judy felt more confident though since she was neither entranced nor ignored and she knew that she could do this,"well we are asking you to help us or more specifically me to help me fulfill my dream. So it would only be fair that I give you something in return right?"

The demon seemed to be taken aback by this statement but it continued the conversation none the less,"true that is how an exchange between my kin and yours usually works. But what makes you think that you could help me whatsoever? I mean the only reason that you are here is because you are too weak on your own, right?"

Judy nodded, got him, "yes exactly! But with you and Nick I can be strong. Maybe even strong enough to help you. So what is your price?"

She saw a panicked look on Nicks face but she ignored him. The demon came closer and she could feel the demonic aura that radiated from her shadow counterpart, almost her entire fur stood up as it came closer and closer. It came so close in fact that she could feel its breath against her muzzle.

"You ask what my prize is?", the demon asked in a dangerously low tone while its weird eyes were far too close for comfort. She was almost paralyzed by fear but she managed to answer with a meek ,"yes" regardless.

The demon smiled,"you know what? You are stronger than Nicholas is giving you credit for, dealing with me like this little rabbit. That is very brave of you."

Judy held her breath as the demon turned on its heel and walked back towards the throne where it stopped in front of the sword and gently placed one paw on its blade. She could then see her shadow counterpart gently stroke the blade of the sword with a dreamy look on its muzzle.

"You know rabbit, I would do anything for a real body."

Judy looked at the demonic rabbit before her somewhat confused. She had seen it move around and even felt its breath on her fur. What else could it wish for?

Wasn't this its real body?

A shadowy mass that could take any form it so desired.

"What do you mean by that?",she flat out asked,"that body looks pretty real to me."

The demon smirked,"sure this is a body I made from pure magic energy."

Her jaw dropped, making a living body from magic was something that she had heard of in fairy tales. And she was pretty sure that only gods could perform miracles like that.

But the demon was not finished yet,"it is really unpractical if you think about it. I takes an immeasurable amount of magic energy to do this and I can only do it when I am in this room since it is set up to give me the power necessary to defend myself. And even though it is a body it is not really something desirable since I cannot leave this room."

Judy was confused once more,"so that is not your body?"

The demon smirked,"no this is!"

And with that it kicked against the tip of the giant sword causing it to be lifted from the throne and fall forward towards the room. The demon sidestepped and reached for the falling sword that reduced its size dramatically and turned into a rabbit sized broadsword which shadow Judy then fished out of the air with trained ease while real Judy watched in awe. The demon then proceeded to whirl the sword around with a flick of the paw so that it was now holding the sword in front of its muzzle as if it was checking that the blade was perfectly straight. It was then that she remembered that this demon was the demonic sword itself! Of course it would not be this shadowy thing at all times. The demon lowered the tip of the sword towards the floor and started moving back towards Judy.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see a very satisfied Nick and she knew that she was on the right path.

The demon was now right in front of her once more,"You know, sometimes I wish that everything went back to the way it was before the cataclysm. And sometimes I just wish for revenge on the gods. But I really would do anything for a real body. And the lifetime of your kind is not that long anyways." The demon threw the sword from its right paw over to its left and with another flick of its paw it pointed the tip of the sword towards the ground before moving it behind its back and extending its right paw towards her.

"So let's take a vow and seal a pact."

Authors Note:

So I read a book on writing stories and I noticed that I do lots of things wrong and while I am trying to improve lots of stuff will still be bad for a long while I guess. Anyways I used the time I usually use for writing for reading and thus this chapter is this late.
I also choose the present to continue thanks for all the feedback it is always appreciated.
I will inform you that I shall use my OC's from other stories in here as well since it is easier than making 100% of the characters up so I will stick with making up around 70% new characters.
And now I can finally eat those blueberries that I bought as a reward for finishing this chapter.