This took too long to make.

I wanted to have this out before Thanksgiving, but a dental surgery and my family celebrating it early made that impossible.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, you may be wondering why this chapter is over 8000 words when the last one barley made 4000, that is because I don't end chapters based on length, I only end them when I feel they have a good point to stop.

So making this chapter and then editing it took way longer then last chapter, hopefully, the next chapter does not take as long.

Enjoy.

I awoke to a faint beeping in the distance. I almost couldn't hear it. Despite that, the noise managed to hit just the right note to annoy me, and prevent me from falling back asleep.

I raised my paws up to my face, but was shocked by a sudden throbbing. Letting my arms fall back to my sides, I waited for the pain to subside.

Once it did, I tried again to raise my arms, and the throbbing returned, weaker this time. Trying to power through it, I ran my paws all over my tired face, trying to get the sleepiness out of me. Finishing this, I opened my eyes to the room before me.

Said room was almost pitch black, with a little bit of light coming in through the window. In front of me was the control panel of a ship, which looked like they had suffered damage. I had only a moment's confusion before I remembered.

Right, yesterday happened.

Earth came under attack, graduation day was ruined, I ran up a bunch of stairs, almost got eaten by some freaks of nature, and used a minigun to free this ship from one of them.

And I also used human sized weapons the whole time.

Yeah, any fox would feel like shit after that.

With the throbbing now gone,, I began unbuckling myself from the oversized chair I was in. Eventually dropping down onto the floor, and nearly collapsing under my own weight.

Damn, I haven't felt this bad since the seventh year of training.

Holding onto the chair for support, I tried walking around it and looked towards the open door behind it. A fox could see better in the dark than most, but even I couldn't see anything in the blackness that laid behind the door.

But the beeping was coming from there, and it meant that backup power was on. I need to go and restart the ship's system before I can do anything else. As I started walking towards it, I tripped over the rifle on the floor, causing me to land face first on the floor

When did life decide to shit on me?

Continuing on, I kept a paw to the wall as I shuffled my way towards the ship's main computer. Hoping not to trip on anything else on the way.

The beeping got louder as I went on, doing nothing for my current mood.

If I ever meet the guy who made computers this way, I'm going to punch him.

Eventually, I got to the room housing the terminal, with enough light coming out of the computer's screen for me to leave the wall I'd clung to.

Coming up to it, I read the text displayed on the screen.

'FATAL ERROR: System unstable. Reboot necessary.'

While I had no idea about coding, I did memorize how to do basic fixes as part of my training. Pulling the keyboard out from the terminal, I started typing.

'cmd/ run '

'WARNING: System has taken damage, full restart may lose or corrupt data. Are you sure you want to restart? y/n'

Let's hope it's not too damaged.

'Y'

Immediately, the beeping stopped and a massive wall of text started scrolling by, too fast to even read. And far too complex to understand. After all, there was an AI being rebooted here.

I heard the reactor start up in the background, and the lights on the ship turn on as power returned to the ship.

The welcome jingle returned my attention to the terminal, which finished its restart and still had a command prompt over the operating system's welcome screen.

'System restart successful, no corrupt data found.'

That either meant that the system was not as damaged as it thought it was, or so much was lost it couldn't tell.

Hoping it's the former, a broken computer system is damning to any ship.

The command prompt disappeared and the whole screen went black.

A blue light appeared and grew as the computer announced it was restarting, ending that statement with a beep.

The soon faded and the digital avatar of Avian stood within the screen. What was immediately apparent was the swirls in place of her eyes and swaying motion, as if she was on a old cartoon show.

"I am AVIAN, your Artificial Visual Intelligence Assistance Network. I maintain your ship." She said, as if she had been activated for the first time.

I raised an eyebrow. Is this her idea of a joke?

The swirls in her eyes disappeared and straightened her posture, giving me a malicious smile as she did.

"I'm also here to make snarky remarks and funny comments. And maybe help you a little."

There it is.

"Now's not the time, Avian." I said, unamused at her attempt.. "Run a diagnostic on the ship, not sure what's damaged."

Avian looked disappointed at my response before she nodded and disappeared from the screen, while I took in the now fully lit room.

Whole thing was a mess, a few damaged lights giving off sparks, some metal plates looking like they bent under the weight of the ship, and the blast door leading into the engine room was stuck half closed.

Whole ship was probably just as bad.

My inspection was interrupted by the return of Avian to the terminal screen, her face looking grim.

"Something tells me I'm not going to like this."

"No, 'fraid not." She started.

"Almost everything is broken, FTL core is damaged, thrusters are down, comm system is broken, long range scanners are gone, short range just barely work, and almost every workstation the ship has is damaged beyond repair."

That…

"There's more too." She continued, interrupting my thoughts.

"The teleporter works, but with the damaged scanners, it's risky. Life support functions just enough to give you and only you air, and the auto surgeon is damaged."

"Mother of god." I said, voice going soft.

How the hell can everything be so broken? The ship never got into combat.

While I did shoot at the thing holding it with a minigun, any missed shots couldn't have damaged everything this so badly.

Sighing, I looked at Avian. She usually isn't this clinical, the situation must be getting to her.

Or maybe the damage to the system is.

Probably both.

"Distress beacon?" I asked, hoping to figure out my options.

"Part of the comm system, so it's broken too."

"Then where are we?"

"In orbit above an unknown world, I can detect the presence of a digital age internet on the surface, so it's home to a primitive race."

Damn, primitives always make things difficult, especially more advanced ones.

If I had any hope of getting this ship in good enough order to fly back to charted space, I would need to mine resources from the planet. But primitives ensured that some veins of resources would already be mined by them, making it harder to find what I needed.

But I had to do something.

Can't just wait here and starve to death.

"Can you connect to their internet?" I asked suddenly.

Avian seemed confused by the question.

"...Yeah, I get about a kilobyte a second, why?"

Good enough.

"Start downloading what you can about them, I'm going to see what we have in storage." I said, walking away towards the storage room.

Realization dawned on Avian's face as she got what I was thinking. A smirk then formed as she opened her digital beak.

"I don't think you can just put on a suit and not get noticed!" She yelled to my retreating form.

I let out a chuckle as I passed through the door.

Arriving at the storage room, I walked straight towards the lockers, ignoring the damaged workstations scattered around.

Opening up the closest one, I cringed.

MRE's.

I hope I never have to eat these.

Moving on, I opened up another one and started digging around its contents.

Mostly just standard maintenance tools. Not much interesting. Besides a flashlight, which might be useful later.

Putting the small item in my pocket, I was about to close the locker again before something in the back caught my eye. Reaching as far in as I could, having to get inside the locker to do so, I managed to get the item out of a pile of other junk.

It was a portable sensor plugin.

These can connect to any computer system on a planet to extend the sensor range the ship it's paired to.

Glad I noticed this, really good find.

Putting the plugin into my vest, I continued on.

Time passed as I searched through all the lockers. While many of them contained junk, I did find some things. Like a locker full of weapons, enough materials to make a mini-base, and ten thousand pixels.

The weapons would be a god send if they weren't human sized, making them hard to use for fox like me. And with all the enhancements the Protectorate gave me during training, I don't think I'll have to shoot my out of a city full of primitives.

Since this is a deep scout ship for the USH if I remember correctly, the materials here make sense. Being able to build a small underground base for recon would be helpful. With a small fleet of drones, it's easy to build. Even easier with the Matter Manipulator.

Ten thousand pixels would be an amazing find, but I am about to go on a planet that probably doesn't use pixels as a currency. Add to that a broken pixel printer, and all those pixels are completely useless.

Would have made escaping from this planet so much easier.

With all the wiring, computer parts, and titanium that was included for the mini-base, I have almost everything I need to build a distress beacon, only some essential ores that I will need from the surface.

Getting the ores will be tricky, as the moment I get seen by the native's, I will have to flee the whole planet. And since Digital Age primitives tend to be mining or already have mined everything of worth on the surface, I will need to get those ores from the native's themselves.

Given that, my main problem is going to be setting myself up at the start. Finding a place to build my little hideout and find a computer to plug the portable sensor into. Once I can get back in contact with Avian, tele back to the ship and grab what I need to build the base, things will go a lot smoother.

Once I build the distress beacon, it will be a waiting game until someone comes for me.

After that, it's a short repair job away from being able to get back to human space, and figure out what the Protectorate is doing next regarding the… Thing that attacked Earth.

That was the main problem though.

Even if everything goes just right for me to escape this planet, it would still take a month to do everything and build the distress beacon. And given how much shit has gone wrong, I shouldn't expect it to change anytime soon.

I sighed, trying to push the thoughts away as I moved on to the other areas of the ship. Looking for anything else that might be useful before I land on the planet.

After an half an hour of searching, I finally returned to Avian, having found nothing else useful in the whole ship.

Said AI was still on the monitor, with a thousand yard stare and a dropped jaw.

"Avian? You okay?" I asked, worried that her system crashed.

Avian lost the stare and looked straight at me.

"This planet? It's your homeworld."

I blinked.

I let out a 'what' without even realising it.

"Exactly as I said, this planet is your homeworld."

My annoyance drowned out my confusion.

"Avian, now's not the time for jo-"

"YOU THINK I'M JOKING NOW JOHN?! THAT I DID NOT RECHECK THE DATA AGAIN AND AGAIN UNTIL I RAN OUT OF ALTERNATIVES?" She screamed, forcing me to cover my ears as the ship shook from words.

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW UNLIKELY THIS IS? THAT A BADLY DAMAGED SHIP FLEEING A BATTLE WOULD NOT ONLY END UP IN ORBIT OF A PLANET, BUT IT WOULD DO SO IN UNCHARTED SPACE, AND THE PLANET WOULD BE HOME TO PRIMITIVES THAT JUST HAPPEN TO BE THE SAME RACE AS YOU?" She continued, the shaking intensifying as she got further into her rant, forcing me to close my eyes as my head felt like it would explode. Were it not for my enhancements, my ears would already be bleeding.

"NOT ONLY THAT!" She said, stopping to push a bunch of photos on screen. Some were pictures of various foxes I've never seen before, while many others were of races I could not even identify as they passed so quickly.

"BUT THEY ALSO-"

"Avian! Calm down!" I yelled, hoping to stop the rant before it shook what's left of the ship apart.

She immediately stopped. Digital beak closing as the ship fell into silence.

I sighed in relief before turning to her.

"Avian... " I started, very concerned over what had just happened. "...I've never seen you get angry over something like this, what's wrong?"

She sighed, looking at me with the saddest expression I've ever seen her give.

"Foxes…" She started, hesitating for just a moment. "...And all other carnivores of this planet are second class citizens."

I blinked

Bringing the photos she had briefly shown during her rant, Avian grouped them together. Foxes and a collection of others hovering over one hand, and another collection hovering over another.

All the photos had one thing in common, they were photos of Earth animals if they were two legged… And sapient, as Avian is implying.

"To herbivores…" She said, raising one hand. "...Carnivores are scum."

I blinked again, not entirely sure how to take all this.

"And to keep carnivores in check…" She continued, now looking disgusted to even be saying this. "...Carnivores have to wear…" She hesitated once again.

"You still have that collar from your mother?" She asked, snapping me out of my trance.

I digged through my vest and pockets, looking for the one item that I never went anywhere without. Pulling the shock collar out, I looked it over, undamaged from yesterday. It's little box not even having a dent in it, along with the key looking factory mint.

"Uuh, yeah?" I replied, confused by the question.

"Those…" She started, looking reluctant to even finish. "...Those are called 'Tame Collars.' Carnivores have to wear them."

Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the ship's reactor in the background.

"Uh, John?" Asked Avian, a little concerned over my response.

"Can you give me a moment, Avian?" I growled out.

Avian, spooked by the anger dripping from my voice, disappeared from the monitor entirely.

I sighed.

I didn't mean to be that harsh.

Not even angry at her.

I walked up to the wall opposite of the terminal, slamming my back against it and sliding down to the ground.

I let out another sigh, thinking back to my childhood.

I was born while my mother was in captivity, having been abducted along with a bunch of other foxes. When the Protectorate found out about the place and raided it, the criminals deleted all data regarding planet locations, ensuring all the abducted people from various primitive races were stranded.

I had always wondered why mom and the other foxes had not immediately tried to find the home world, like the other races had. My questions never answered by the grownups, I never stopped thinking about it, even after I became an apprentice at the Protectorate, a small part of me always wondered about what that world was like.

Now I had my answer. It was some sort of racist hellhole. Filled with sapient, two legged versions of every animal on Earth. Like some movie director decided that there was just not enough darkness in kids movies.

I looked down at the collar in my paws, feeling like a fool for thinking what I had about it.

I had always thought it was some sort of shock collar for a pet, but instead of a dog wearing it, my mother wore it. And instead of some feral beast being shocked for bad behavior, a sapient being was zapped for being born wrong.

And I had to go down into that world.

Me, some fresh out of training protector that has never actually faced the adversity I was trained to overcome.

I need a drink, no one should have to do this sober.

I don't know how long I spent moping against the wall, but I was interrupted by Avian once again appearing on the monitor.

"I know you wanted to be by yourself for now…" She tentatively stated, still shaken by my earlier outburst. "...But if you wanted to get started on getting back home, now would be a good time."

Home… That word felt so bittersweet now.

My home on earth is gone, and I don't have a home here.

First thing first though. "Sorry about earlier, Avian. Just… A lot on my mind."

Relief flashed on Avian's face for a moment before smirk took hold.

"Yeah, like I'm one to talk about being level headed. I'll start the teleporter for you." She said as her avatar disappeared from the screen.

I shook my head, she's never been one to let things keep her down.

AI's have never really been good with low probability things coming true. The sheer coincidence of not only a planet being populated with two legged versions of Earth's animal kingdom, but also us stumbling upon it like this must of threw her for a loop.

Getting up from my position, I made my way to the teleporter bay.

Time to visit a living tribute to the twentieth century.

Walking into the room, I immediately took notice of the four teleporters sticking out of the wall. Aside from the teleporters, the room was almost empty, only a few crates laying around.

Putting the state of the room aside, I called out to Avian. "So what am I looking at on the surface?"

Avian flipped a switch in my implant, giving me a tiny shock at the base of my skull.

'Because of the damage to the ship, I can only send you to wherever is directly below us..' Avian started, sending shiver down my spine

It's still so weird to hear someone else inside my head.. Avian had used the speaker system of the buildings to communicate back on Earth.

Just another thing I will have to get used to.

'Right now, that happens to be the outskirts of a city. With all the damage, I can't send you on the ground to avoid sending you inside the earth.' She continued.

'I know foxes like digging, but I don't think you like it that much.'

I could almost hear her grin.

Suppressing a chuckle, I replied: "Up yours."

'I would if I had one, guess we'll have to use yours.' She fired back.

I let out 'pfft' before getting us back on topic.

'The area is in the middle of a thunderstorm though, and I don't think it will let up anytime soon.'

That could be a problem, there weren't any enhancements that protected against electricity, let alone the high voltage doses found in weather.

"As long as you don't spawn me too high up I should be fine."

'No promises.' She said, failing to disguise her worry as a joke.

"Hey Avian…" I called out as I sat on one of the crates. "...I'll be fine, even with a damaged ship, I'm sure you'll get me on the surface safe and sound." I continued, untieing the shoes I was wearing.

'Just be careful okay? I don't want to be stuck here forever.' Avian responded.

"Okay Avian…" I paused, trying to pull the last shoe off. "...I… WILL!" I exclaimed, as I finally got the stubborn thing off

If Avian was not satisfied with my answer, she didn't say, as I continued to prepare myself for everything down below.

Pulling the socks off my feet, I flexed them out in the open air. Like most other foxes, I didn't really like wearing anything on them, the pads being more than capable of carrying me from place to place without injury. But formal events like graduation demanded I wear something, so I had to wear it.

I then moved on to the protectorate vest and pants, which themselves came off easy. What was less easy to part with, was the weapons and ammo I had stored in it.

As much as I wanted to take the rifle and pistol, those were far too big and would stick out like a sore thumb from under my clothes. So I was stuck with only the matter manipulator and my own claws for now.

As I finished getting ready for the planet, Avian gave a suggestion. "You should leave the Manipulator here too."

I let out an 'okay' before doing a double take.

"Wait, What?!"

"You should leave the Matter Manipulator here."

"Why would I do that?!"

"Because if anyone finds that on you, you'll lose your cover and we'll both be screwed."

I was about to argue more but stopped as I pondered it more.

She is right about one thing, if anyone finds me with the Manipulator, I will have a lot of questions I can't answer. While the device itself is not large enough to be seen from under my shirt, a simple pat down would reveal it easily. And with foxes being a persecuted class on the surface, I imagine I will be subject to those a lot.

Not to mention all the other possible situations where it could be revealed. Unlikely as any of them are, it's still possible, and with no second chances, I could not afford big risks.

I let out a sigh as I realized Avian was right.

Again.

"I hate it when your right Avian." I said as I pulled the Manipulator out and placed it with everything else I was leaving behind.

"It's in my nature to be right!" She responded with glee.

Feeling naked without my weapons, I pulled the finishing touch from my pocket.

Time to stop putting this off.

Bringing the collar up to my neck, I positioned its box to located on my right, trying to make it obvious that it was on me. Without much ceremony, I brought the ends of the collar together at my front, locking together with a click.

The feeling of nakedness subsided and was replaced with a new feeling.

I felt like I was someone's pet.

Adding to the feeling was all the ways the collar made my body felt. The weight of it on my neck, the way it rubbed the fur and skin underneath, and box that could be felt against the base of my skull.

Cringing at the feeling, I sighed in resignation.

I was going to have to get used to this.

Despite knowing that I have the key in my back pocket, the feeling of wrongness that this collar gave me refused to subside.

Attempting to push it all out of mind, I focused on my main objective: Getting back to the Protectorate.

Walking towards the teleporter, I saw that it was fully charged and ready to go. Small bits of blue light popping into existence and being pulled to the top and bottom of the device. Despite being vital to the modern world, most people could not even begin to tell you how it works.

And those who do are the most boring people in the galaxy.

I stepped inside the teleporter, not bothering to set coordinates on the keypad as I did.

Avian took care of that. 'Coordinates as close as I can get them, ready to beam you down.'

Hearing the nervousness in her voice, I tried to reassure her. "As I already said Avian, don't worry, everything will be fine."

'Easy for you to say, if I beam you into the ground, your regret will last for a second at most, while mine will last for eternity.' She responded, not even trying to hide behind her usual sarcasm now.

"And that's a risk we have to take, I don't like it anymore then you do Avian." I said, trying to play devil's advocate to her fears.

She gave a heavy sigh. 'Try not to die, please?'

"I'm built to handle this, I'll be back before you know it."

A lie, the weight of the collar reminding me that no one is built for what I'm about to go into.

Pushing my own fears aside, I said one final thing to Avian.

"I expect you to have a lot more snark when I get back!"

This seemed to cheer her up. 'Yes sir, Protector!'

The now orange light of the teleporter blinded me as I closed my eyes.

The light faded immediately after, while I felt myself plunge from where I had just been. As it happened, I felt thousands of stings all around my body as if I was walking through a hail storm.

My heart rate spiked as I flailed around a bit before I realized where I was.

Calming down, I opened my eyes ever so slightly to avoid getting hit as I looked around. After some searching, I found the ground, and my landing site.

It was going to be on a paved road.

Shit, this is gonna hurt.

Reorienting myself to hit the ground feet first, I bent my knees ever so slightly and brought my paws in front of me. Turning them pads down, I kept my eyes open to judge my landing time.

Seeing the ground rushing up to meet me, my heart rate spiked even higher.

Shit shit shit shit FUCK!

I slammed into the ground, limbs bending from the force but refusing to break. A shock wave moving out from my impact, cracking the pavement and sounding like a bomb hitting its target. I grimaced from the feeling of a dozen pricks in my paws, the feeling was lessened from the sudden absence of hail, replaced only by the calming feeling of rain splashing against my body.

I let go of my breath, not even aware I was holding it.

I stood up from my kneeling position on the pavement and looked at the damage my landing had caused. Most of the road had broken up, I even left a small crater.

"Couldn't ya have put me over some grass, Avian?" I asked, knowing she couldn't hear me as I brushed all the bits of pavement stuck in my paws.

Finishing that up, I looked around and saw the city in the distance.

Pretty far into the distance.

"And maybe get me closer to the city?"

I saw a flash of lightning in the clouds above, accompanied by distant roars of thunder.

I gave a chuckle. "Guess not."

With nothing else to do, I started making my way to the city, hoping to get there before the day was over. Alone with nothing but my thoughts and soaked clothes.

Heh, good thing I'm enhanced against disease, might've caught a cold otherwise.

And no one likes working with a cold.

It had taken a few hours to reach the city, the trek giving me more the enough time to take in the scenery.

All the plant life was remarkably similar to Earth, so much so that one could be forgiven for mistaking the planet as one of the terraformed inner colonies that the USH established.

A part of me wondered if the same precursors responsible for the Glitch were to blame for the similarity, but I left that line of thinking behind as I got closer to the city.

The city itself was nothing unique, while the architecture was impressive, it was nothing that had not already been done by pre-unification Earth. Let alone the feats some of the inner colonies had. Unless something is hidden on the inside of the city, I imagine this place won't feel much different from any Earth city.

I brought my paw up to scratch some fur under the collar, the damp material weighing heavy and chafing against the skin.

With some notable exceptions.

My thoughts on the city changed when I got to the top of a nearby hill and saw something that made my blood boil.

"Why is there a fucking wall in the way?!"

Seriously, what the fuck.

A massive fuck off wall is there, and it's going to force me to walk all around the city looking for a damn entrance!

My tirade went on for a few minutes before I calmed down and took everything in.

I could see behind the wall from my position on the hill, and I saw the landscape inside was covered in snow. Alongside that, I could see the heavy rain freeze as it fell into the area.

So, an artificial climate then.

Don't see the reason why, but whatever.

Continuing down the road, it brought me around the wall, but I still could not enter the city. The path being blocked by various natural formations that the city could not be bothered to remove or build over. I even saw some small mountains that looked to only be a few miles from what I assumed to be the downtown area.

Continuing on my quest to actually get into the city, I came across a raised pathway, just high enough to get over the walls set up at the river it crossed. The walls made sense here though, as I could see the river flooding over on my side.

Coming up to the raised path, I took in the construction. It looked more built for a high speed train then any car, and was similar to high speed rails that humanity built.

Which suits me just fine.

My claws broke threw my fur as I brought them out of their hiding place. Taking a swing at the support beam in front of me, my claws cleanly pierced the structure. Anyone else would have broken theirs, but my claws were enhanced to be stronger than normal.

Taking my other paw, I jumped up and jabbed my claws in as high as I could. They too pierced the structure as I found myself hanging ever so slightly off the ground. Doing a similar motion with my feet and the claws they had, I slowly pulled myself up towards the rails above me.

The climb was slowed by the weight of my soaked clothes and fur, but I reached the top quickly enough, taking a moment to look both ways for a train before I pulled myself on the rails themselves. From there, it was just a quick walk over the flood wall and into the city.

With all of the buildings standing tall around me, I wanted to get off the rail quickly. Before someone saw the strange fox doing something that was probably illegal. Looking at the closest alley I could find, I jumped into it, aiming for the side of the building with claws extended.

I let out a grunt as I hit the wall, claws digging into the structure as they tried to handle my weight. After just a few seconds of movement, I had stopped, hanging just a few feet off the ground with my claws keeping me in the air. After a moment, I detached from the building, landing on my feet as my claws retracted back into my skin.

I made it into the city… Now it's time to get situated.

Looking out towards the street, I let out a sigh.

"Well, no time like the present." I muttered, trying to build some confidence to go out into a city that supposedly hated my kind.

Time to find out.

Walking out onto the sidewalk, I was immediately blasted by rain. The alley having provided cover from the bad weather while I built myself up for this.

No one was around at the moment besides a few cars driving on the road, with a thunderstorm raging above, that was hardly a surprise. I would just need to get to a more densely populated area of the city.

I guess downtown would be a good place.

It didn't take long to get where I was heading, with towering buildings overhead providing a good beacon for the city's center.

As I was walking, I met my first inhabitant.

It was an elephant, dressed in some grey sweatpants and a dark blue t-shirt. Carrying a bag of food that could be seen poking out at the top and a umbrella that kept him dry from the rain.

I knew that I would see things like this before I landed. All the pictures Avian showed me providing a pretty good argument against it being one of her jokes. But seeing such a creature in person was something else entirely. The familiarity of the elephants I knew on Earth combined with the utter strangeness of seeing one walk and talk like I do, it shocked me.

My shock must of been written all over my face, as the elephant looked down at me and said; "What are you looking at, pelt?"

It was then that I noticed just how massive he was compared to me, as I had to rush out of the way as he continued past me. His footsteps shaking the earth as he did.

I watched, shocked at his size, but also at what he said.

"Pelt?" I whispered.

I haven't heard that in a while.

I first heard it when browsing internet forums during my teenage years on Earth. One user had used it to refer to me and other foxes, and his disdain for our presence on Earth. I had never actually heard it spoken to me before, as no human had the balls to publicly display racism.

Now that I have, I certainly know I don't like it.

I wasn't some feral beast you skin for a coat, I was a god damn super fox with enhancements out the ass. He probably thought that he could just crush me with a step, but oooh no. He would find out just how wrong he was if that asshole tried.

I sighed in an attempt to calm down, and continued on.

It only got worse from there though, as the denser the sidewalk got, the more comments I got from the friendliest people in the galaxy.

"Out of the way, pred." Said one

"What's a chomper doing out today?" Whispered another.

"Damn pelts getting cocky." Another muttered.

I tried my best to ignore it, I really did. But walking in the freezing rain, clothes damp, and no idea where to go, it was starting to get me depressed. Was there going to be no one I could trust in this city?

My spirits were eventually lifted when I spotted a wolf walking with a heavy jacket on, his white fur clashing horribly with his black jacket. I didn't say anything to him, wanting to merely see how he acted. I flicked my ears in his direction and tilted my head ever so slightly to hear what was said as best I could, even if some rain did land in my ears.

The wolf got similar comments as I did, and he seemed to shrug them off, as if he was used to the words being said. But when he spotted me, I saw his eyes widen from under the hood of his jacket, looking at me as if I was crazy.

With my wandering legs, I eventually passed him, going with the flow of the small crowd of animals that surrounded us. But he kept staring at me, even after I walked away I could still feel the eyes staring a hole in my back as I walked.

My wandering brought me to a crosswalk, where the green lights allowed traffic to pass through the mildly busy street. Pressing a button bolted to the to the beams holding said lights up, I waited to the crossing signal to allow me through.

As glad as I was for the city's similarity to Earth for that, my thoughts kept drifting back to the wolf.

Why did he look at me like that? What about me made me look so strange that he stared at me for that long? And why didn't the prey notice what he did?

I sighed, frustrated at the lack of answers to these questions.

Hopefully I find out soon, cause it's looking like other predators will be my only allies in this city, and I really can't afford being 'strange' in any way.

I wonder if there are pred gangs like there used to be bla- "OW!"

I turned around instantly to pick up my tail, the source of my pain as I heard a beep sound off from my collar.

"Aah!" I yelled, feeling the electric shock travel through my body.

My free paw rushed up to my collar, the shock leaving me dazed.

Unknown to me, the twin gerbils who ran over my tail gave each other a high five and sped off, their toy sized car working despite the heavy rain.

I didn't even care though.

...I got shocked.

Feeling an emptiness settle inside me, I found myself running. I didn't even know where, just trying to find a place to process what just happened.

Eventually, I found an alley and collapsed against the wall, wet and formerly bushy tail curling around me as I lost myself in my own thoughts.

Why does this world exist? How can this world exist?

Being forced to put on a collar, being shocked for things you couldn't control… Being forced to wear a constant reminder of your second class status.

And then having to live in a world that sees nothing wrong with this.

And who knows how many other things trigger the shock, I've only been on this world for a few hours. Never tested this collar, who knows how many other things me and my kind are banned from feeling on this world.

Just hearing about the situation is one thing.

Feeling it is another thing altogether.

No wonder mom never told me about home.

I really don't want to know anymore.

And I have to live this nightmare until I can get a distress signal out.

God have mercy…

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Getting up from my curled position on the ground, I saw three animals walking towards me.

One was what I first thought was a bunny, but realized was a hare from the larger size compared to other bunnies I had seen during my short time in the city. The hare was sporting a very smug grin, making me dread whatever his intention may be.

I heard a beep with a yellow light appearing from the corner of my eye as my heart rate rose. I could tell that the light was coming from my collar.

So it does trigger from high heart rate. As unsettling as that is, good to know.

Seeing my collar light up, the hare's grin only widened.

I frowned at the implication, this guy is bad news.

Following him on his right was a sheep who… why does he even carry the bat behind him if he can't conceal it? I can see it sticking out from behind.

The sheep was wearing some light jogging clothes under an unzipped jacket, and besides the bat he was carrying, he seemed unthreatening.

On his left, a rhino trailed him, beefed up with thick muscles that bulged from under the fur. He probably spent every hour at the gym. While he would be intimidating to any other fox, I was far from any fox. With my genetic enhancements, he was far less of a threat.

And far behind them, I saw a pickup truck sized for all these guys parked just outside the alley, with another sheep fiddling with a parking meter.

Making a quick check behind me, I saw that the other side of the alley was open to run away if I needed. Past the exit was a road then a wall twice my height, with a railing matching mine on top of it.

Turning back to the group, they closed the distance and stopped in front of me.

Never losing his grin, the hare spoke. "Looky here guys, a fox who forgot his place." He said, looking straight at me as he did.

"What's a pred like you doing in the Meadowlands?" He continued.

These certainly weren't cops, if their lack of uniforms were anything to go by. But I had no idea if there was a law against predators being in this district. With that in mind, I figured honesty would be the least damning here.

"Oh, just wandering around, I'll be gone soon." I cautiously answered, hoping it would satisfy what looked to be a vigilante group.

Unfortunately not, as the hare never lost his grin, and the other two started chuckling.

"Hehe, yeah you'll be going back to Happytown." The sheep said as the hare walked up to me.

"In a body bag." The hare finished as he threw his fist into my gut.

I let the fist hit me, hoping the result would intimidate them into leaving me alone. The fist slammed into me, though I barely felt any pain. I was more moved by the momentum of the punch, forcing me to take a step back to keep my balance.

The hare's grin faded, and grew confused as he noticed my total lack of response to what he assumed was a strong hit

I'm sure it was for him, but might as well be a toddler's punch to me.

The hare stepped back as the sheep drew his bat and moved towards me, ready to beat my ass for daring to defy them. While I got into a standard fighting stance as I took the coming fight more seriously.

Fists raised and knees bent, I was ready to wipe the floor with these guys, even with this damn collar on. The rhino, seeing that this was no ordinary fox, got into his own stance as well.

The sheep swung the bat at me with a little yell, seeing the attack coming, I dodged the swing and grabbed the bat with my right paw. Pulling the bat towards me, the sheep was unwilling to let go and stumbled forward. Raising my free paw up, I brought it down on the sheep's, breaking it with a concussive crack. The sheep yelled in pain as I swung the bat against the side of his head, a solid hit sending him sprawling onto the ground.

Turning towards the rhino, I was suddenly grappled from behind by the hare, putting me into a Full Nelson. Giving the rhino more the enough time to throw a few punches to my gut.

Grunting in pain, I slammed my head against the hare's, forcing him to release me as he fell the ground, clutching his face. I sidestepped another punch by the rhino, and grabbed him by the wrist. Pulling him forward, the rhino only had a moment to be surprised by my strength before he fell over, allowing me to whack him soundly on the back of his head, sending him to dream land.

As I turned to check that the hare had not recovered, I was grabbed by the sheep, once again put into a Full Nelson.

"Get up! Get up! I got im!" He called out to his wounded allies.

With the wall of the alleyway directly in front of me, I jumped from my position, arms staying in the sheep's grasp.. Getting traction on the wall, I ran up as high as I could, dragging my arms with me and unbalancing the sheep. After a second of wall running, I flipped over and brought us both to the ground, the sheep losing his grip as we did.

I immediately got off the ground, crouching as I threw punch after punch into the sheep's face, each hit emitting another crack as I ruined his dating chances. After less than a minute of punching, I could tell the sheep was out cold, and would need need some bandages for his poor face.

Moving from my crouching position, I looked to all three of the animals. The hare was still rolling on the ground, moaning in pain as he clutched his own face. The sheep and the rhino were out cold, the sheep bleeding far more than the rhino.

I sighed in relief as the tension left my body. I had done that without even much effort, or triggering my collar.

Maybe my luck's beginning to turn.

My admiration of my own work was cut short when I heard the familiar sound of a gun firing, followed by the wind as a bullet passed by my head.

I immediately got into a crouch, trying to make myself as small and difficult a target as possible. As I did this, I turned to the source of the shot, and saw the final sheep had finished doing his thing with the parking meter and was running towards me with his gun out and aimed right at me. And he looked pissed.

I saw a flash from the gun and heard the shot along with another bullet passing by me. Faced with a angry animal with a gun, I did the only sensible thing.

I turned around and ran away.

I may be a genetically altered badass, but I'm not immortal.

It would've only taken a few seconds to get out of the alley and into the street, but as I ran, I did my best to zig zag on my path in an attempt to become harder to hit. Eventually, I did make it out, being pelted once again with rain. I disregarded the traffic I was running into and didn't stop, neither did my pursuer, judging from the gunshots that continued to sound off behind me. Said shots sending all the pedestrians on the block into a panic as they ran from the sounds.

Hearing the sound of an approaching car, I dived over hood of a car as it passed. For the second I was over, I saw the face of a elk, utterly terrified of crashing into me. The elk's fear was unjustified though, as I passed before his windshield could strike me. I landed from the dive on all fours, using my momentum to get upright and running.

Got it! That sheep can't even hit m- "Gah!"

I had to stop myself as a car flew by in front of me, nearly hitting the car as I stumbled to a stop from the fresh wound the bullet had given me.

"Ah!" I gasped, as the collar punished me for the injury.

Seeing no other cars coming, I continued my escape towards the wall while pedestrians scrambled away from my path.

As I ran, I rubbed the flesh wound. Son of a bitch managed to hit me.

I endeavoured to get away from the gun wielding sheep as I came up to the railed wall, an obstacle I was sure the sheep could not get over. Crouching, I prepared myself for the jump, risking moments of stillness for the sheep to take a shot at me. While all around me, there were screaming animals as they ran, hoping to avoid the bullets.

After a moment, I pounced. Like a feral trying to catch his prey.

Reaching the height I needed to clear the wall, the angle of the pounce had me move forward ever so slightly as I did. Just enough to make it past the rail.

"Ha!" I called out behind me. "Can't catch you fu-" My words died as my body exploded with pain. The feeling of three bullets entering me then exiting out the front of my body leaving me paralyzed from shock.

My pounce turned into a fall, my legs hitting the rail as I just barely fell over the wall. All I could do is hope to land somewhere soft.

After a moment of decent, I smashed into what felt like concrete. Instead of stopping, I instead sunk below what I landed on. My eyes widened as water rushed into my open muzzle and I flailed my arms around in a desperate attempt to swim. After a moment I surfaced, coughing as water I hadn't already swallowed leaked out.

I landed in a damn river! It wasn't a wall, it was a god damn guard rail!

My tirade was interrupted as I felt myself being dragged down the river.

Damn, that current's strong! Can't fight that, need to get out.

I looked around for any possible exit to the river, but all I saw were smooth walls keeping the water in. I did notice a massive tree trunk speeding towards me.

Oh fuck me!

The trunk smashed into me, the impact pushing me under the water again. I screamed in a vain attempt to keep the water from rushing in, the impact leaving me too dazed to realize the impossibility.

I resurfaced, this time puking up some of the swallowed water, giving me no time to breath.

Shit! This water tastes like shi- "AAH!"

Something had cut my leg, leaving a deep gash that immediately pooled blood. So much blood that some of the water was light red in my wake. The loss was even leaving me light headed, making it even harder to keep my head above the water line.

As I submerged, I could almost make something out in the distance. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but in the hope it could get me out of the river, I vainly tried swimming towards it as I spun underwater, leaving me confused of which way was even which.

By the time I once again emerged, I only had time to notice that it was just another tree trunk, and I was speeding towards it. With no time to even throw up all the water, I slammed into it, hitting my head directly against its thick wooden frame.

Then my world went black.

I awoke with a start, throwing up river water from my position.

Forcing myself to get up on my knees, I supported myself with my paws as I threw up more and more water. After almost a minute of solid vomiting, I was finished, losing strength in my limbs and falling back to where I once was.

"I-I can't move…" I whispered, not even aware I had spoken it.

"So c-c-cold…" I stuttered, feeling frozen to the ground.

"Why,,, Why can't I feel my legs?..." I asked, forgetting the answer.

A part of me realized what was happening, but I didn't panic, I was too cold to panic.

"Get up John… Get up." I muttered, commanding my limbs to move, and get me out of here.

None of them obeyed.

"You're going to d-die John…" I continued my efforts, all in vain.

It was then I noticed something, from the corner of my squinting eyes I could make out two somethings making their way to me.

I can't survive them… Not in this state.

"I don't want to go out like this…" I whispered, not even caring who heard it.

The shapes got closer.

"Not like this…"

They were right on top of me.

"No…"

My world became blackness once again.

There is no respawning in this story, if John goes down, he's dead. And he wont be surviving this without some help. I'll leave you to guess who that will be.

While some might be disappointed by the introduction of Zistopia (Zoodytopia? Zoodistopia? Whatever we're calling that AU these days) instead of being in our normal Zootopia universe, I feel it was for the best. A lot more opportunity for conflict and interesting things to happen this way.

In any case, leave a review!

Seriously, I want to know what you think of the story so far, and hear any criticisms you might have.

See you all in the next chapter.