Sunderance Chapter 26.2 - Night Terrors (Patreon)

“You ready yet, Carrots?”

“Almost ready. I have to be at the courthouse a little ahead of time. But I woke up early,” she said as she flipped through the printouts and notes she had prepared without looking up at him. She already knew that he was sitting in the seat across from her, or looking out the window overlooking the front entrance to the small office as he often did. “So, there is no need to…”

Her voice died away when she raised her eyes and realized he wasn’t in front of the desk as she’d expected. For some reason, this sent a quick shiver of dread through her that had her setting the papers aside as she stood from the chair and walked around the desk.

“Nick?”

When there was no answer to her call, her heart quickened as an odd spike of fear shot through her. On a whim, she rushed to the bathroom door but already knew he wasn’t in there, then the bedroom, which was as still and quiet as one would expect an empty room to be. Frowning, her heart now racing as uncharacteristic dread gripped her, she ran to the door and flung it open.

“Nick!?”

“I’m telling you, nothing good will come of it,” someone said, causing her to turn to face the slightly blurry figure of the older buck speaking to her. Familiar scents surrounded her, a feeling of overall welcome and comfort. And deep annoyance as the voice continued. “No way you’re going to be taken seriously in a place like The Foxes Den! They’d as likely have you for dinner as listen to a bunny in a suit.”

“Dad,” she replied, thinking herself incredibly patient and wise for an eighteen-year-old who hadn’t even gotten into law-school officially yet, “just because there is a ban on bunnies in Zootopia doesn’t mean they eat us. That’s dumb. If they wanted to eat us, why would they have kicked us out?”

“Because they’re crafty,” the blurred image of her father said, making her roll her eyes towards the ceiling. “And they’re hungry. And you can’t trust them. They can’t suppress their base instincts. Ask anyone.”

“Foxes eat bunnies, that’s what they were sayin’,” another voice came, causing her to turn to face the bars of the cell that stood between her and the huskily built fox that sat curled in the corner like an animal. The signs that he had been beaten were clear, especially when he raised one swollen eye to look at her. “Sayin’ I was gunna eat him, that I was a predator and I shouldn’t-a been in the Commonwealth at all. Like I’m the only one here.”

“What they were saying doesn’t matter, Mr. Gray,” she replied, taking notes in the single notepad she had been allowed to bring into the holding area. None of them took her seriously, not that it was hard to understand why. The cheap, ugly, tan-colored goodwill suit she had managed to piece together didn’t exactly scream ‘Experienced Lawyer’ in her mind, but that wouldn’t really matter. And she was the only lawyer that would take this case willingly, so she was determined to prove, twice over, that appearances didn’t matter. “What matters is the truth. What matters is the law and justice. When someone is abused by the system, a victim of circumstantial evidence and a desire to quickly pin the blame on the obvious, then what you have is two cases of the law failing to defend the innocent.”

“What matters are the facts, Miss Hopps,” Bellwether said in a toneless voice from far away. Far away because the podium of the Chief Justice where she sat seemed three times taller than it should have been. This made the bunny’s stomach drop as she tilted her head back to try to see the tiny glowing white figure, almost godlike, above the courtroom. “Are you bringing me facts, or do you expect Zootopia to accept another second-rate defense?”

“I have facts!” she insisted, holding up the thick folder overflowing with photos and testimony. “You know as well as I do that he’s innocent, otherwise why would you have heard this case at all?”

“And why would I have let you into Zootopia, if I didn’t want this injustice cleared up?” came the smooth, feminine voice of the vixen that walked around her. The question made her mind wander for a moment. Why was she in Zootopia, if not for Otterton? The thought was short lived as Neveen walked in front of her chair, arms crossed over her chest as she looked down at the bunny with cool eyes. It was uncanny how much the orange fur and dark ear tips reminded her of Nick.

That thought that brought back a lingering dread as she glanced to her side. The seat where Nick was supposed to be lay empty, causing her to sit up a little straighter. And just as quickly, she shrank back with a whimper when the vixen leaned closer to her, her face a little blurred. A little deformed. Her teeth were too prominent, her eyes too bright, her smile too wide as she placed her paws on either side of the bunny.

A bunny that was now felt naked as she curled up, trembling.

“Did you think he was going to stay by your side forever?” the vixen said, her voice just as smooth and pleasant, even if the sound of it spelled death to the rabbit. “You’re not even food to mammals like my brother and me. You already know that you’re nothing more than a pawn in this city, so what would make you think that a Wilde would see you as anything more?”

“He’s not like you!” she shouted, gathering her strength to reach up with both paws and shove the vixen away. She turned into the alley, which was overwhelmingly dark and silent save for soft grunts and moans from directly ahead, coming from a tiny point of light. Her stomach rolled as she moved forward, through the darkness as her paws soaked in the wet filth from the hard street and the world around her became more twisted and deformed. Among buildings where the bricks were the teeth of predators, that point of light started to become clear even as the world around her darkened.

There was the snowy form of the reporter Harridan, her skirt up around her hips and her paws pinned to the wall, with Nick behind her, rutting into her urgently with his dark paws gripping her hips tightly. He didn’t even notice her when she weakly called his name. The stink of liquor filled her nose, adding to the sickness that washed over her when the obviously delighted vixen turned and grinned at her with a mouth filled with jagged, shark-like teeth.

“Don’t worry, little bunny,” she moaned, a snake-like tongue sliding over her muzzle. “He’ll get what you need out of me, once I get what I need out of him.”

Then one paw was extended, the receipt in hand.

Closing her eyes to push down the revulsion and pain of the scene, she turned to run just as the walls of the alley tried to close in around her. The teeth of predators snapped at her, slicing close to her fur and flesh almost playfully, tauntingly letting her know that they could have her at any moment. She screamed as one nipped her heel, tearing her skin as she stumbled. The savage walls started to close in on her, making her throw her hands over her head in a desperate attempt to defend herself from the city that intended to murder her.

“The foundation of every rising power has its fair share of expendables,” came a low voice from directly in front of her, causing her to open her eyes as her nose twitched. The walls - with their teeth now dripping blood that she knew wasn’t hers - started to draw away, folding back before the shadow that moved towards her. Wide purple eyes watched the almost shapeless mass with white glowing eyes move towards her, a billow of smoke rising from what might have been a head. The figure stood over her for a moment, exhaling audibly in a long stream of smoke that swirled around her, cutting off her ability to breathe as the tendrils became clawed fingers that gripped and squeezed around her. “Every pawn is expendable. But the mastermind?”

Her vision started to darken as the eyes leaned closer to her, narrow and amused.

“Will be immortal…”