Just because the sun was no longer in the sky didn’t mean Zootopia fell asleep. A solid chunk of Zootopia’s citizens were nocturnal mammals, and they had to work and play just as hard as everybody else. The night shifts clocked in for what work could be done fairly quietly, and bars and clubs with decent soundproofing catered to those animals who didn’t want to be quiet tonight. But they could only do so much to dampen the din, and there was nothing to be done about the wolves who’d compulsively start howls at the moon every night (they tried, but there was always some prankster who’d start a howl just because). Residents of the busier sections of Zootopia learned the importance of earplugs fairly quickly. Of course, not every member of the day-shift (‘diurnal’ was the scientific term, but nobody used it) was in a hurry to go to sleep either, especially on a Friday night.
The Baa-ar was one of the better bars catering to both the night shift’s breakfast and the day shift’s late-night snacks. A mid-size bar with an old-fashioned style, prey and predator alike were welcome so long as they could pay. It was just far enough away from the busiest parts of Savannah Central to avoid the worst of the drunken crowds, and just popular enough to avoid the worst of the pretentious hipsters. Oh, and the food and booze was pretty good too.
The promise of something new and interesting brought two unusual off-duty cops to The Baa-ar. It was hard to imagine the grey-furred bunny and the red-furred fox as Zootopian officers without their patrol uniforms, but a few patrons faintly recognized Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde as the two trailblazing heroes of Zootopia. The unspoken agreement was not to bring it up out loud, though…every patron was here for a drink, and they deserved to have it in peace.
“Take a seat, Carrots.” Nick made a playful show of chivalry to his beat partner as they sat down at the bar. “It’s been a long day.”
Judy sighed in agreement. “I’ll say. Everyone was just nuts today. Three cases of public nudity, two drunken assaults before noon , the weirdest protest I’ve ever heard, and a street race.”
“It’s the full moon,” Nick said matter-of-factly. “All animals go a little wild when it’s a full moon, not just wolves.”
“I can vouch for that.” The sheep bartender with ‘Lambert’ on his nametag casually interjected as he arrived to pour the two new customers their drinks. “My weirdest customers are always on a night like tonight.”
Judy squinted in confusion. “But it’s only just nightfall. The moon hasn’t been out this entire crazy day.”
“Then tonight’s gonna be interesting. ” Lambert replied with a smirk. “Good thing you officers are here.”
Judy just shook her head and ordered a small beer. The eagle-eyed rabbit couldn’t help but note that Lambert was almost fully sheared except for the top of his head, either as a fashion choice or to comply with food safety regulations. Some animals would willingly shear off their fur and have it converted to building insulation, coats for animals without fur, or…rugs, she couldn’t but smirk at Nick at that thought.
“What are you thinking about?” Nick was no less eagle-eyed, and he gave his partner a broad smirk. “How handsome I am?”
Judy shook her head with a smile. “Nah, just…our first case together. Still seems like yesterday to me.”
“Don’t know how it does, Hopps.” Nick chuckled. “It’s been, what, over a year since I became a cop? And we’ve had way more interesting cases since then.”
“It just does, I guess.” Judy took the glass of beer that Lambert had reappeared with and took her first sip. “I’m just a rabbit with an elephant’s memory.”
“Just not Nangi’s.”
Judy blinked. “Who’s Nangi?”
Nick let out a laugh as he drank his usual drink. “So much for your elephant’s memory. Or maybe you’ve got that elephant's memory.”
Judy squinted in confusion before just shrugging it off and returning to her drink. Not bad, all things considered. And she did deserve a drink after that full-moon…day. But she was a little hesitant to gulp it down. After all, if Lambert hadn’t been kidding about the customers going wild during a full moon, now that the moon was actually in the sky…
Just then a grey-furred cougar wearing a ZASA t-shirt stumbled towards the bar. “Hey, I got ann-nother joke for you, bartender. I wanted to be an astronnnaut as a cub, but then it turned out there was soooo much MATH in it!”
Lambert blinked. “...I don’t get it.”
Judy’s ears perked up. She’d heard that joke told by that voice before…
The cougar tried to explain the joke. “You…you know, you gotta factor in gravity and circumfererence and the speed of light for basically everything until it makes your head shpin. A-and there’s another funny thing, when you’re good at math, the math doesn’t make sense, you know…it’s like everything’s way smaller than it should be, like the sun and the m-moon and the planet we’re s-supposed to be on, and…wait, what were we talking about?”
Lambert sighed. “Whether or not your comedy can pay your tab, Bobbie.”
“Bobbie?” Judy blinked in surprised delight, “Bobbie Catmull?”
The cougar turned to look at the new voice, and his jokey demeanor disappeared. “Judy Hopps.”
Nick blinked in surprise, “You know this guy?”
Judy was much happier about introductions than Bobbie was. “Yeah, we were classmates back in Bunnyburrow. Bobbie was the one who did the sound back at the school play where I announced I’d be a cop. It’s been years, Bobby! How have you been?”
Bobbie squinted. “Could be better. Finally got that… job as ZASA…”
“Awesome!”
“...then lost that job at ZASA after a certain press conference. ” Bobbie let out a growl as he grabbed Judy’s drink. “‘Possible danger to others in the workplace’, they said.”
Judy’s ears fell hard. “...oh.”
Nick winced. “I, uh, thought that Bellwether’s arrest-”
“Didn’t make no difference. They already had me replaced. Stupid shqueaky-voiced…never mind.” Bobbie took a shot, not caring that it was bunny-sized. "Haven't had much luck since then. Sharla’s gonna hit the moon tonight and I’m missing out on what I spent years working on. So thanks for that. ”
Judy crumpled herself up. “I’m sorry, Bobby. Really. If there’s anything I can-”
“You’ve done enough.” Bobbie groaned, a mix of bitterness and resignation in his voice. “And this isn’t something you can fix with a nice speech. Just go away. ”
“But-”
“Hey, Hopps…c’mon.” Nick gently pulled his partner away before she could make things worse. Placing a few bucks on the counter to pay for their drinks, the two cops walked out and left Bobbie to deal with his grudge and his tab.
“But Nick-”
“I know how he’s feeling, Carrots. And seeing you in person brought it all back up to the surface. Trying to fix things or apologize right now is just gonna make things worse for everybody. Let him sober up and sleep it off, and maybe you can try again tomorrow.”
Judy bit her lip as she glanced at the closing door of the Baa-ar. “You…sure?”
Nick nodded with a surprisingly somber face, “Let’s just say it’s a good thing you didn’t find me right after that press conference. Come on…I know a nice place where we can check out the night sky.”
It was hard to stargaze in Zootopia. Savannah Central had too many streetlamps and skyscrapers, and the Rainforest District had an almost perpetual cloud cover because of the misting machines. That left Tundratown and Sahara Square, both of which felt too extreme at night for most animals.
But Nick’s ‘nice place’ was a bench at the border between a low-light Savannah residential district and a wide Saharan desert. It was far enough away from the brightly-lit city centre that it didn’t drown out the sky, but close enough to a dim streetlamp that the dark didn’t swallow you up. It was quiet, but not too quiet…slightly distant sounds of late-night camel joggers, the comforting rumble of traffic, and the occasional wolf howl kept Nick and Judy from feeling too isolated as they stared up at the sky.
Judy couldn’t help but sigh as she leaned into Nick’s side, staring up at the moon without really looking at it. Nick was looking in the same direction as her, but he could somehow read the expression on her face. He’d seen it far too many times before tonight.
“You’re still thinking about that conference.” Nick sighed.
“...I guess so.” Judy confessed. “Seems like every time I think it’s in the past, something else comes up. First, there were the counter-protests, then the conspiracy theories, then the revenge sheep-shearing epidemic, and now Bobbie…”
Nick’s arm somehow found itself around Judy’s body. “And every time, we end up having the same conversation. That’s not on you, Judy. It’s on Bellwether, the animals like her, his jerk boss…you cannot keep blaming yourself for what they do.”
The rabbit just sighed even deeper. It was true, they had spoken this conversation several times over by now, and Nick was right, but…she still remembered every word she’d said that day, and had gone over what she should’ve said so many times she could write the perfect press conference off the top of her head. Not that it would do any good now…
“You made it right, you dumb bunny.” Nick assured his partner with a warm paw on her shoulder. “You made it right with me and you made it right with Zootopia, whether or not you believe it. You can make it right with Bobbie, no problem.”
Judy actually looked up at the stars above her. It was admittedly a lot fewer stars than she could see in Bunnyburrow, but they were still beautiful. Ursa Major and Aries weren’t buried in a sea of endless white dots, standing out all the more in an endless velvet carpet. And then there was the full moon, the thing that was driving everyone crazy tonight. It seemed bigger than usual tonight, and Judy could just about make out the rabbit on its surface.
“You were right, Nick.” Judy finally said as she finally actually looked at the night sky. “This is a nice place. Do you see the rabbit on the moon? You know, the one making pancakes?”
Nick smiled that smile back at Judy and winked. ”No, but I can see the fox on the moon.”
“The…fox?” Judy squinted as hard as she could, “I don’t see a fox on the moon.”
“That’s because you’re looking for me, dumb bunny. I’m talking about Finnick. He showed me when we found this spot.” Nick gestured vaguely in the direction of the moon. “See? That’s him hard at work at his…entirely legal business venture.”
Judy blinked, imagining FInnick’s big ears…okay, she could kinda see that fox on the moon. “You mean he’s working a hustle, sweetheart.” Judy chuckled back at her partner, looking up to see his expression…
Which wasn’t what she expected at all. Nick’s eyes had widened and his mouth was hanging open, his fur standing on end as if staring at some kind of threat. But he was looking up at the sky…
“Nick? Nick, what’s wrong?”
“Judy…” Nick’s eyes widened as he pointed up at the moon. “...Are you seeing this?”
The rabbit followed Nick’s wide gaze and saw something… impossible. The moon was supposed to be full. A few seconds ago, it was full. But it had suddenly become a half-moon, the bottom half vanishing into something darker than the night sky.
“I-it’s an eclipse…” Judy tried to rationalize what she was seeing, but Nick shook his head.
“Eclipses don’t move like that. ”
Nick was right. The darkness overtaking the moon wasn’t a passing shadow, a cloud, or anything that made sense. It was something that slithered and writhed like liquid moving across its surface until the rabbit in the moon had been devoured by utter blackness.
They weren’t the only ones to notice. Wolf howls in the distance were getting louder, morphing into a confused din of horror as the moon vanished into a blackness darker than the night sky, empty and infinite…
Wait. Nick froze and looked around at the rest of the pitch-black sky. What had happened to the stars ? Even with Zootopia’s light pollution, they still should’ve seen some stars without the moon, but now even the persistent north star had vanished from view and it didn’t feel like it was due to a simple cloud suddenly arriving…the entire sky was somehow becoming darker than the blackest shadows, a color that filled Nick and Judy with pure dread. The moon and the stars…all gone in the blink of an eye.
The two very worried animals were on their feet and turned to walk back down the road toward their car. “Let’s…let’s get out of here, Carrots.”
“Yes, let’s…what the…?”
It was Nick’s turn to follow Judy’s wide eyes, to the faint outline of the Zootopia skyline…far fainter than it should’ve been. The skyscrapers were supposed to be lit up with late-night workers and the occasional skylight, but they could barely be made out. The shining city was growing darker and darker moment by moment.
“Blackout.” Judy tried to assure herself. “Eclipse and a blackout. We’ll probably get called in, so much for our night off…”
“Yeah…so much for that…heh…”
Neither of them believed what they were saying. The lights weren’t acting like it was a blackout. A blackout would’ve just cut the power and rendered the city dark for a few seconds before the backup generators activated. It was more like the lights were being smothered in an ever-growing blackness. Zootopia, the brightest city in the world, was vanishing from view. At least, that was what Judy could see. Nick could see thousands of small dark shapes, distinct yet indistinct, a titanic swarm of black ants rapidly covering the entire city.
It wasn’t just the lights, either. The distant sounds of honking traffic and confused wolves were getting quiet. It wasn’t as if they were getting quiet themselves, though…Judy’s sensitive ears could pick up distant screaming. It was simply getting drowned out by…the sound of nothingness. Like white noise, but…darker?
No, there was an actual noise now. A low clicking and chittering and tapping like a thousand insects, quiet at first but gradually getting louder and louder as what felt like a… stampede of giant insects rushing towards them as the streetlights around them got dimmer and dimmer…
The rabbit and the fox pressed themselves together, not sure who was hiding behind who and not caring. Judy’s nose was twitching wildly as her eyes desperately squinted for something to focus on in the omnipresent darkness, somewhere to go that wasn’t vanishing into the blackness. Nick held onto his partner tightly, his brain racking for some clever plan or just something to say that wouldn’t expose him for the scared kit he was right now…
Suddenly, there was only one streetlight left in all of Zootopia, the one right above them. Everything else was… gone. No lights, no sound, just the loud chittering and hissing of whatever surrounded them…
Dozens of pairs of small yellow lights suddenly appeared all around them.
No, not lights.
Eyes.
These weren’t normal animal eyes, or even the glazed-over look of Night Howler victims. These were alien eyes devoid of personality or feral instinct, but nevertheless hostile.
The streetlight above them flickered as one pair of eyes stepped a little closer than the others. It was…a rabbit? No, it was pure black, not just black fur but made of black like it was pure shadow. It chittered and twitched and gestured with claws and it was something Judy could hit.
CRACK!
A furry leg lashed out and the creature was knocked back into the darkness, Judy recovering just enough of her fighting spirit to feel good about it.
“G-good kick, J-Judy,” Nick forced himself to smirk as every other eye turned on them balefully. “Think you can do that a b-billion more times?”
The monstrous yellow eyes started converging into each other, and the clicking noise was replaced with a deep rumble, like a wave building strength before crashing into the shore. Judy’s momentary bravado disappeared as she saw the swarm of eyes rise up above them like a pillar of ants. Taller than Nick, taller than Manchas, taller than the streetlight, ready to collapse onto them and make them disappear like everyone else in Zootopia.
Nick’s arms wrapped around Judy as the darkness roared and pounced onto them, their eyes closing tight as they awaited the end together…
Only the end didn’t quite come. The rushing sound stopped just above their heads with a strange clang sound, like the roaring tide had slammed into a metal bar. But they couldn’t have hit the light switch…And they could feel another warm body standing close to them.
Nick and Judy gingerly looked up to see someone standing over them. Judging by the ears poking out from underneath the pink hood, it was a white fox, but were foxes usually this tall? It seemed like their savior was at least a head taller than Nick, and in their hand (were they sheared? There wasn’t any fur) was…Judy couldn’t even describe it. It was like a pink and white ornate staff, but they were holding it like it was a sword…
“Are you alright?” The white fox asked, a young-sounding woman.
Nick glanced at the rearing horde of eyes in the distance. “...Could be better.”
“Who are you?” Judy tried to demand. “What is going on?!”
“There’s no time to explain.” The fox turned around to look at them, revealing strange blue markings on her muzzle and a…half-sheared face? Something was off, but there wasn’t any time to figure it out as she raised her ornate staff into the air. A light started cascading from the tip, growing brighter and brighter. “Hold on.”
“T-to what?” Nick asked.
“To each other.”
There was a blinding flash that forced the two Zootopians to close their eyes, instinctively holding onto each other tightly as the floor suddenly fell out from under them…
…
When they finally opened their eyes, they were lying on soft grass that didn’t quite feel like anything from the savannah or the rainforest. At least there was light…a dim light that felt more like candlelight than city lamps, but it was enough to make them feel just a little safer. The fact that they were so close to each other also helped, wrapped in each other’s arms…
“...Nnnick…”
“Y-yes…?”
“You pinch my tail, and I’ll kill you.”
“W-wouldn’t dream of it, Carrots, Aheheh.”
Slowly but surely, Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps separated themselves and sat up to look around. They were in a wide field of green grass and scattered flowers, only a handful of which Judy recognized. There were a few fruit-bearing trees around them, and Nick couldn’t help but inhale the scent of nearby apples, suddenly aware of just how hungry he was. His partner must’ve felt the same since he could hear Judy grab a handful of grass and start chewing furiously.
“That’s unsanitary, Carrots.” Nick smirked.
“Shut up.”
The fox let out a small chuckle and looked up at the sky simply so he wouldn’t be looking at his partner’s glare. The stars were back in the sky, and there seemed to be even more of them than before. Judy hadn’t been kidding about how the constellations could disappear in all those stars on a clear night, but he could just about trace the ones he recognized with his paw.
Judy hurriedly finished her panic meal and tried to wipe the evidence from her face. “Okay…Nick, do you recognize this place?”
The fox tried to focus his night vision on whatever was in the distance. Tents in front of a bunch of mid-sized buildings made of wood and cobblestone, lights no brighter than streetlamps and the occasional candle, a pronounced lack of car sounds… “I don’t think we’re in Zootopia anymore. Not unless they suddenly built a historical district. Maybe…Bunnyburrow?”
Judy sadly shook her head. “No, I would recognize-”
Her ears twitched, and so did Nick’s. Someone was coming towards them, carrying a lantern and a basket full of apples. She looked like a sheared… animal of some sort, with curly black fur on the top of her head and brown-ish skin. Between her dark freckles and her round glasses, she looked quite young for someone much taller than Nick.
“Um…hola?” The girl asked awkwardly. “...Can you understand me? Or do I need to get Antonio?”
Nick and Judy blinked at her. She didn’t seem like a threat, and they needed someone to make things clear. “Um…Hello there?”
“Oooh-kay, talking animals with clothes. Maybe Robin can…” The stranger shook her head with embarrassment when she registered their expressions. “Oh, I’m sorry, you probably have a lot of questions. My name’s Mirabel. Mirabel Madrigal.”
Nick was quick to take charge. “Officers Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps of Zootopia PD. Hopps is the bunny, if you couldn’t tell-oof!”
Hopps was quick to elbow him in the side before looking up at the tall sheared animal. “Can you tell us where we are? We were in the Savannah district when…”
“...when the darkness swallowed your world up?” Mirabel asked.
Nick and Judy froze. There was something…weirdly normal about how Mirabel had asked about it, like it was a common story for her. Which just made what she said sound so much worse.
“Our…world?! Not just Zootopia?”
“Swallowed by dark…d-does that mean our world’s… gone?!”
“No!” Mirabel could tell she’d just messed up, placing her lantern and basket down to wave her hands in an attempt to gesture ‘calm down’. “Nonononono…it’s not like that, I mean…it’s not completely gone yet… Okay, let me start over.”
With no small amount of trepidation, the two officers waited for Mirabel to slap herself on the cheeks and shake her head clear and try to make everything make sense.
“Ok…” Mirabel finally spoke, doing everything in her power to keep her voice level. “When a world gets…lost to darkness, it gets… frozen, basically. Everything and everyone gets stuck where they are, except for…anyone who escapes. They end up here . Traverse Town. The good news is, once the darkness gets beaten, your world will be back good as new, everything and everyone right where they were last. That’s…something to hold onto. You know?”
Nick and Judy didn’t speak for a moment. Their entire world, their families and friends, everything they knew was…frozen? Because of that monstrous darkness? But they were here, now, outside in this…town, and they were so confused and scared and…
And just so very tired. Any chance that their home would be ok, even if it was something they couldn’t wrap their heads around…it took some of the weight off. Mirabel didn’t seem like she was lying to protect their feelings, and she seemed nice, so they felt…just a bit safer. Just a little calmer. And it sounded like the town they were in was full of people in the same situation, so they weren’t alone at least. That was something to hold onto.
“What do we…do in the meantime?” Nick finally asked after letting out the breath he was holding.
Mirabel sighed with some degree of relief. “Ok, my abuela can help set you up in town with someplace to sleep…unless you’d rather sleep in the field, which is totally fine?”
“No thanks.” Judy rubbed her eyes of tears that weren’t there. “I… need a roof over my head right now.”
“Same.” Nick agreed.
Mirabel smiled and picked her basket and lantern back up. “OK, follow me.”
As the three of them walked across the field towards the collection of tents in front of what Judy guessed was the main square, Nick decided to try and make some small talk. “Thanks for the help, Mirabel. You know, you’ve got a pretty good shear going on.”
Mirabel blushed a little. “Thanks…um, what’s a Shear?”
“You know…what you did with your fur.”
Mirabel blinked and rubbed her face before she figured it out. “Oh, I guess you’ve never seen a human before.”
It was Judy’s time to blink. “Human?”
“Yup. There’s a lot to explain, but we generally don’t have fur. Just hair on top of our heads and…sometimes on our faces if we’re guys.” Mirabel squinted in thought. “...and a little on our…okay, that’s not important. But yeah, you’re gonna see a lot of them here.”
As they came closer to the main town, the three of them passed a white plane, two fire trucks, and a few black SUVS parked on the grass. They were clearly built for animals roughly Mirabel’s size, more humans if Judy had to guess. Nick tapped the number 118 and tried to sound jealous. “I guess some folks didn’t have to fall here.”
“Every arrival is different,” Mirabel remarked, “At least people aren’t waking up in alleys in the middle of the city. This new field helps…ease folks in a little before we get them settled in the town.”
“Then…” Judy pointed to the large collection of big tents they were walking towards, “...what’s that?”
“Some folks like to wait here for their houses to get finished or fixed, others…stay here so it feels more like a camping trip,” Mirabel explained as walked through.
There were plenty of these ‘humans’ milling around, most of them were gathered around a small wooden stage with a piano. A dark-colored man wearing a black turtleneck was playing piano, while a light-colored woman with a long green dress was enthusiastically dancing to the music. Judy willed herself not to look at the singing naked black cat leaning on top of the piano, much to Nick’s bemusement as she became very interested in whatever was on the other side of the stage. There was a group of children (the shortest was still taller than Judy) roasting marshmallows over a campfire under the very watchful eye of a very old lady with a green dress and pointy glasses. Sitting with those kids was a…koala? With bright blue fur and no clothing again…
“Are all the animals naturalists here?” Judy couldn’t help but groan.
“Really, carrots?” Nick chuckled before his eyes fell on two foxes who were wearing clothes, a male in a green tunic and a female in a pink dress. “Well, those guys aren’t. Looks like they’re from decades ago, though…want me to double-check that they don’t eat bunnies?”
Judy rolled her eyes but didn’t stop Nick as he stepped towards the two foxes to say hello. As she rolled her eyes, however, she caught something big and white and fat and wearing nothing right next to her…
Flashbacks of the naturalist reserve played in her head as the bunny instinctively closed her eyes. “Is that a naked human?!”
“No, that’s a naked robot.” A new voice dryly informed her. This human was another girl around Mirabel’s age, a brunette with purple streaks in her hair and a yellow-and-black jacket.
The naked robot looked down at Judy. Hello. I am Baymax, a personal healthcare companion. Rabbits do not usually walk on their hind legs, I will scan for any broken bones.
Judy tried to wave the offer off, her ears picking up a high-pitched sound behind her. “Er, no thanks. I’m Judy.”
“I’m Gogo, and the tea kettle right behind you is Honey Lemon.”
Judy turned around to see a much taller girl with long honey-blonde hair and a bright pink jacket looking down at her with wide eyes and a wider grin. Honey Lemon definitely sounded like a tea kettle ready to burst.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”
Judy had seen that expression before, many times. “…uh oh…”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”
The rabbit took a step back. “…you’re one of those…”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…”
“Imanoffic- GMPFGHFGH!”
Within a second, Honey Lemon had caught Judy in the tightest hug that the rabbit had ever felt. And then she inevitably said that word…
“SOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT-“
KZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTBANGCRASHCRASHBAMPTHUMP
Within another second, Honey Lemon was on the ground with Judy on top of her, rubbing her paws together in annoyed accomplishment.
Gogo gestured at the scene to Mirabel. “I like her.”
“Me too.”