Zootopia: Brave New World - Ch 9 - Aftermath by PlatineDragon < Submission

Keywords male 1200471, female 1091088, fox 249224, bunny 112717, zootopia 11275, ferret 10655, clean 10287, crossover 8393, adventure 5854, drama 4615, cougar 4498, action 4350, boar 2520, gazelle 1683, moose 1655, aftermath 983, buffalo 791, heroes 709, no-yiff 566, plot development 558, journal 477, news 355, superpowers 258, faniction 1

"Okay, everyone! We air in fifty seconds!"

"Do we have the teleprompter ready?"

"Just finish the make up already!"

"Okay, everybody get ready! We will air in thirty seconds, and this might be the biggest story that we have had in our lives!"

"Checking the cameras… all good!"

"The illumination is good!"

"Didn't we finished the make up already? Someone please reduce the lights a bit!"

"Fifteen seconds!"

"Okay, everyone remember what you are going to say? The images are good? Do we have the videos ready to be played? I really hope we have! We might not have another chance!"

"Everybody out of the stage! We air in five. Four. Three. Two…"

After the moment, the music started to play, as the opening theme of the ZNN, the number one news network of Zootopia and the surrounding states. The illumination was set on stage as two animals were sitting into the desk placed into the middle of the stage, a female snow leopard and a male moose, both wearing suits and looking seriously at the camera as the leopardess started to talk.

"Less than two hours ago, there was a bank robbery in progress, with many animals being taken hostage." As she spoke, it was being shown a recording of the video that was being transmitted live just a few hours ago, showing the bank surrounded by police. "The authorities soon arrived into the place, and the bank was surrounded. However, the situation took an unpredictable turn as one mammal entered the building."

There was a video of a cougar entering the bank, and soon after, many animals, which were the hostages, rushed out of the bank.

"Now, the following images were broadcasted live two hours ago, and though many of you might think so, I can assure you that they are not fake." The leopardess said, and right after, there was images of the front of the bank exploding, and the cougar being pushed outside, and soon, a rhino that had a small hurricane around himself came out.

"It seems impossible, but this is what happened in front of the Furs National Bank, as two mammal who, believe it or not, had super powers, started to have a fight." As she spoke, the images changed to show the rhino controlling the winds to attack the cougar and blow him away. The cougar, in return, was emitting bolts of lightning from his paws, trying to hit the rhino.

"The battle came to an abrupt stop due to the intervention of the police force of Zootopia, resulting into the rhino escaping, while the cougar stayed in the scene and was seemingly apprehended by the ZPD."

The images showed a close-up of Judy Hopps delivering a blow to the rhino's temple with a baton. Followed the rhino floating into the air. Before changing to the cougar, who now seemed like he was receiving help from the officers of the ZPD, between them, a bulky cape buffalo who seemed to want to keep the cougar away from the cameras.

"These events happened roughly one-and-a-half an hour ago, and the following aftermath was covered by our local team." She spoke, as the images changed to animals who were interviewed and who looked to have several stances over what had happened.

"Have you seem that!?" Said a lion, "Did you saw that!? The rhino was like vhowwsh! Then the cougar was like zap! And the Rhino went WOOSH!" He said, and he was making great gestures as he described the scene the best he could.

"I… I still can't believe I really saw what I saw…" Said a deer who was being interviewed, "I mean… All that I saw was just… I mean… It is impossible. I know it is impossible, but still it happens… What does it means?"

"Super heroes are real!" Said a stallion who seemed a teenager "I always knew it! They told me I was crazy for saying that one day the super heroes would be real! But I was right! In your face, Mrs. Cavalla!"

"That cougar just helped us get out." Said an antelope, who was one of the hostages. "He entered and the rhino blasted him with wind, and then he shot lightnings at him. They fought and the cougar sent him to the ground and then he told us to get out of there. We did get out, of course, what else would we do? And good thing we did, because hell broke loose right after that. I don't even know what would have happened if that cougar had not come…"

"That guy stole my car!" A rhino said, seeming very distressed and confused.

"It is the lightning cougar!" Said a beaver who was pointing at the scene. He is all over the internet! My cousin was in the mall when he stopped the burglars! Man, he was telling the truth! I was sure that it was only one of these publicity things! Maybe something for a movie or a sci-fi series… Man, I own Melvin apologizes…"

It cut back to the studio, and they focused on the moose. "Earlier, images of a cougar fighting robbers into a mall using electric powers were broadcasted all over the internet through different videos. This one was called the "lightning cougar", and was considered to be part of a media campaign of some kind by many people. Now, however, many associate the video with the cougar who fought the rhino into the mall."

Now they showed, on a screen on the side, images taken from the internet of the time when a cougar, with the same appearance and clothes of the cougar from the bank, fighting armed criminals by shooting lightnings at them and knocking them down. The images froze to compare the cougar from the videos with the cougar from the footage of the Furs National Bank, showing that they were identical, and anyone could easily assume that these two were nothing else than the very same cougar with electrical powers.

"Some of our reporters have been trying to contact the authorities to get more information about this event and about the two strange mammals who had super powers, but no one has yet manifested about these topics." The leopardess said as the image changed to show the stage in whole. The moose said:

"While this, there is repercussions in the whole Zootopia, as many mammals are commenting the events of the bank and the mall all over the social medias and other sites. Animals are demanding answers or sharing their own opinions about the matter, which right now are very mixed between people being thrilled and scared."

As he spoke, the leopardess took a hand to her ear, and as he finished, she spoke, "Wait, we have information that one of our teams is on the hospital to where the ZPD took the cougar after the brawl with the rhino. They are in there now, trying to get into the hospital and talking to a few officers."

*****************************

"No one is going to see the cougar!" Officer Fangmeyer, the tiger, was saying, while his rhino partner was by his side, trying to keep the crowd of reporters from breaking into the hospital to go searching for the cougar themselves. It was proving hard, once the reporters from all districts of the city seemed to have come to there to try to find the cougar that was the source of all the commotion they were having.

Luckily, no one was able to get past them, or the other five officers that had been designed to stay behind. While this, everyone from the hospital could go on with relative calm as they went to their business.

However, even as they continued without the reporters getting in there, the hospital itself had some commotion, once the ones in there slowly took knowledge about the one that had been brought there a while ago.

Talking about him, Alex Hunter was into one of the rooms of the hospital, into a more secluded area. He had peeled his shirt and there were a few machines plugged into him, most of them checking his vitals. But Alex was barely minding them, once he was focused into a glass cup that had been placed right in front of him.

Alex looked at it for a few moments, and he sighed, before pointing his single finger at the cup. Immediately, a small bolt of lightning jumped from his claw into the cup, causing it to explode and break into pieces.

"Unbelievable…" Said a familiar moose doctor as he had watched what could be the tenth demonstration of what Alex could do. The cougar turned to the moose, and said:

"Well, it truly must be, if you are still saying it after all the ten times that you made me demonstrate it."

"What? Oh! Sorry, is just… I'm still trying to process all that is going on." Doctor Moosard said as he looked at the cougar, and he was checking on the equipment that was connected to the cougar. "When I heard about it and saw in the internet it was really hard to believe, even after I saw it on tv. But seeing it with my own eyes… wow…"

Alex sighed as the moose continued to act with a lot of interest in him, even though Alex was glad that he had taken care of his wounds when he was brought.

The police officers decided to take him into a medic after he was done fighting the rhino, to be sure that the cougar didn't had internal injuries or any other problem from the fight with the rhino. Of course, this brought the discussion of where to take him and about who would take care of him. Nick was the one that brought the solution in the form of doctor Moosard, the medic that already took care of Alex, and he had even taken sample of his blood, so it made sense that they would go to the doctor.

This suggestion was quickly accepted by the others, and they soon took him to the hospital for the moose doctor to check on him.

After a quick check up, the doctor saw that Alex only had a few bruises and gashes (impressive, considering what he had just faced against that rhino), and after it was clear that Alex was fine, and had no internal bleeding, the moose soon was deeply interested into the cougar's powers.

Alex sighed, finding this interest to be somewhat familiar, and that worried him. However, the moose was being very nice to him, and he was not forcing him to do great things, neither was him trying to discharge his own electric currents into him to see if he could interact with electricity at this level. In general, the doctor was being positively amiable, even though the way he was interested into Alex's powers was something that made Alex a little uncomfortable.

Alex almost felt relieved that there were four officers in there: Bogo, Wilde, Hopps, a white ferret into a coat lab with a tag reading "Ferris", and even a boar named "Razorback", who apparently was from their SWAT Team. They all looked at him with some wonder, but they didn't seemed as shocked as other officers looked when they looked at him (the ferret, actually, looked particularly in wonder at the cougar), and that was something that for Alex was positive.

"Your body seems to generate a massive amount of bioelectricity, much like an ell." The doctor said, as he made yet another check into the machines that were reading Alex's vitals, and he added, "But you go a step further and weaponized it in a way of long-range aggression. This is the most impressive, I never even heard about a creature that was able to really generate electrical arcs to attack far enemies, even less a mammal! This is amazing!" The doctor said as he seemed like a child who just got his birthday earlier. The other animals into the room shared looks, while Alex sighed.

"Yeah, I know, it is impressive." He said, in an almost monotone tone. "Well, anyway, thank you doc." The moose stopped for a moment to look at him, while the cougar said, "Thank you for taking care of me and for, you know, not being freaked out by my abilities."

"Who said I am not?" Moosard asked Alex., and the cougar looked back at him, and the moose said "Believe me, I am freaked out. But is not the 'town folk with forks and torches' kind of freaked out. I think it is more of a good kind of freaked out." He said, as he continued to check the vitals that were attached to Alex, and the cougar could only look at him, and then at the other animals who were into the room.

Most of them shrugged at the cougar as the way that the doctor was acting, but the ferret, who was also interested into the signals of the machines, said, "Even when he is not channeling his electricity it seems that his bioelectrical signals are greater than normal…" He spoke.

"Yeah, I noticed it, is amazing!"

"It surely has to do with the great deal of electrical energy that he generates. Maybe his cells are able to produce a much greater deal of natural energy than regular cells do." The ferret said.

"Or maybe there is a specialized organ somewhere into his body, like ells." The doctor offered. "Maybe we can detect something out of the ordinary about his anatomy with a few more x-rays, we didn't noticed anything out of the usual with the ones we already took-"

"AHEM!" Bogo's powerful throat-clearing made the two animals stop and look at him, and they noticed that all the eyes in the room were on them, in particular of Hunter, who seemed not to be liking the way they were talking about his "anatomy"…

"Sorry." Both the moose and the ferret said at the same time, seeming ashamed for having acted like that when they were supposed to be acting more professionally.

"We are just thrilled, you know…" Ferris said, and Moosard agreed:

"Yes, I mean, I spent years studying mammal anatomy and biology and what Mr. Hunter can do go against most things that they had taught me." He said, and he turned to him, "I mean, a mammal that can effectively generate great amounts of natural electricity from their body and is able to weaponized it effectively, it is something astounding!"

"Yes! It opens so much possibilities in so many areas, and it makes us rethink many of our previous assumptions!" Ferris said, and he and the doctor were soon starting to sound like fanboys.

"AHEM!" Bogo cleared his throat again, and the two stopped, and they recomposed themselves, and Bogo, on his turn, was starting to regret having allowed Ferris to come and be present during the examinations.

"Well, Mr. Hunter, it really seems that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not wounded and show no signs of internal bleeding of any kind." Doctor Moosard said, and he added, "Well, aside from the… unusually high bioelectric charge, I don't see any anything out of the ordinary about you. Well, at least nothing that could be seen without the use of a more profound examination."

"I'm not in the mood for 'profound examinations' at the moment, doctor." Alex said, and the doctor nodded at him.

"Yeah, I imagined."

As the doctor checked on a few papers, the door of the room opened, and a few other animals entered. They were two gazelles, a she-wolf, and a hippo, all of them dressed either as a medic or as a nurse. The she-wolf, who was dressed as a nurse, walked forward, with a few papers in her hand.

"Doctor Moosard… The radiology just sent in these papers with the X-rays…"

"Oh, right, thank you, Jessica." He said, as he picked up the papers, but the she-wolf and the other animals continued where they stood, none of them moving. The other animals noticed it, and the doctor said, "Something wrong?"

Neither of them answered, as they were only looking at Alex. The cougar sighed as he already knew why they were there. Ever since he arrived, it seemed that a few individuals of the hospital were searching for excuses to come to search for him, to see the "lightning cougar".

Well, if they came for this…

Alex raised both hands at the level of his chest, and put them around a foot apart from each other, and focused slightly. Small arcs of lightning travelled in between his hands, before he formed a sphere of electrical energy in between his paws.

He heard four gasps as the animals who came there to see him got a show of his true abilities live. The gasps were followed by sounds of wonder, right before Bogo's voice cut them. "Okay, this is not a live show! If you don't have anything important to do in here, than you better leave and attend to the other mammals in this hospital! Now out!"

Soon the animals were nearly kicked out of the room by Bogo, and Alex was actually quite thankful for this, and the room once more returned to the silence that it was before, with only small commentaries made by Moosard and Ferris. After a few more moments, Razorback seemed to finally having had enough of the silence, and he said:

"Okay, how much longer will we wait until we talk about this whole situation?"

All the eyes fell on him. Razorback turned his good eye to Bogo, and soon, the eyes followed him, as the buff mammal sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew that they all were wanting an answer from him, including Alex, and now, even doctor Moosard.

The buffalo looked at all of them, and after a few moments of silence, Razorback said, "Well, Bogo, now I think it is time to finish that talk that we started to have back in your office."

"I'll have to agree." Ferris said, and the buffalo eyed him. The ferret flinched a little, but he continued, "I mean, you were explaining to us about all that we had seen, and about Alex Hunter, and about the things that he could do."

"Yeah, you were the only one who never seemed to be really surprised with my ability." Alex said, looking at the buffalo, and the buffalo looked back at him, but Alex didn't felt intimidated by him in the slightest. "Almost as if you already expected to find someone like me around…"

Bogo pressed the bridge of his nose even harder, knowing that the questions were getting more difficult, and he knew that the cougar wasn't wrong. Many others would become scared, shocked, maybe somewhat disoriented by what the cougar could do, but Bogo himself wasn't, and there was a good reason for it…

"You said something about 'animals like me' back into the police station…" Alex said, and the buffalo looked at him, "What did you meant by that?"

Bogo looked at him, and he saw that all the eyes in the room now were on him, and waiting for an answer. Bogo saw himself with no other choice but to talk and give them answers. After all, they all had been through a lot recently, and now that the information was being broadcasted over all of Zootopia right then, who cared?

Bogo decided that they deserved to know at least a bit more, and he could deal with Savage later. BY the way, the mammal was taking a lot of time to call, was he trying to remediate the situation? Bah, who cared?

Bogo only looked back at the cougar, and he sighed, before saying, "When I talked about 'animals like you'…" Bogo said, looking at him and trying to find words that he could use that would not be offensive. "I meant that I have nothing against meta mammals."

Alex looked back at him. Alex was an evo, an evolved human. Or, at least that was what he was before he turned into a cougar. Now that he was that, it made sense that he would be called something else, and the term "meta mammal", while not being exactly what Alex would come up with if he was designed to think, it was actually not the bad, and quite appropriated. Alex thought that he could get used to it, given enough time…

"I mean that I have nothing against animals that have the powers that you have." Bogo continued, and the other animals in the room all looked at him. "I don't care if you can shoot lightnings, or make things explode, or if you can pass through walls, I won't judge you because of it."

Alex nodded, and the others shared looks as the buffalo was making a point in there. However, the way that he talked, said something that they were all thinking in there:

"So… are you saying that you don't mind if I have powers, but you will arrest me if I try to use them to break the law?" Alex asked, and Bogo looked back at him.

"Yeah, pretty much." He said, rather casually, and the others into the room all looked at the buffalo, and back at the cougar, who was looking back at him, before he shrugged and said:

"Yeah, I guess it is fair enough."

The cougar seemed to relax into the place he was sitting, and some of the tension that had been cumulated into the room seemed to have dissipated, but there was still a lot of questions hanging into the air, as the others wanted to ask their own questions and even their commentaries, including Alex himself.

"What about Rhinehart?" Alex asked, and the eyes all turned back to him.

"We are still searching for him, but by now he can be very far." Bogo said.

"So, you do know the rhino?" Razorback asked at the cougar, who sighed, and he spoke:

"Only by rumors." He looked away, and he continued to speak. "I heard about his powers of wind control, and that he is dangerous. He is prone to violence and he doesn't mind hurting others to get what he wants."

Alex looked back at the animals into the room, before he spoke. "Long story short, he is a bad person."

The other animals nodded, and Nick was very tempted to ask the next question: "So… how did you heard about him?" The eyes turned to the fox as he asked the question, "I mean, there is a social site only for mammals with super powers, or do you guys trade letter among yourselves?"

The cougar looked at him, and he wasn't sure of how to answer that. He knew that Finn Rhinehart was a guy that got somehow famous in the human world, but of course that they had absolutely no clue of who he was into that new world that he was in. How Alex could explain to them the fact that both he and Rhinehart came from another world that was inhabited by creatures called "humans", that they were a particular variant of the species called "evos" and that they had both been turned into other animals by the events that had taken place into the previous night.

Well, Alex surely didn't knew, not unless he wanted to make himself look strange or crazy. That was something that Alex didn't wanted at the present moment, when they finally seemed to be putting a little trust in him and to be taking him more seriously.

Luckily for him, Bogo intervened, "What else can you tell us about Finn Rhinehart?"

Alex looked at him, and he shrugged, "Not much. The guy is violent. Hates cops. Has powerful wind abilities. He is smart and is able to stay out of the radar for a while if he needs. Oh, and he is very easy to anger. I don't know much more, I never really met the guy before today."

"Then how he knew your name and asked for you to be taken to him?" Ferris asked, and Alex looked at him, but all of the eyes were now turned at the cougar, as the ferret had taken a very important note, and one that was into the minds of everyone: even if Alex was telling the truth, and he didn't knew the rhino, it was obvious that the rhino knew him.

That was something that Alex had absolutely no way of denying, and he knew that if he tried to escape from the talk, then the others around would notice and find it strange. Alex remained in silence for a few moments, as he pondered into what to say to them next. After a few, Alex thought about what to say to them, and he decided:

"You see… last night something happened."

The eyes were all on him, and Alex continued, "I was into a place with a few of my friends… and we were taking care of something important…"

Alex would have continued to talk, but there was a light knock on the door.

"What is it!?" Bogo nearly shouted, making all of the animals of the room jump slightly, and the one who was on the other side of the door hesitated before opening the door.

The head of a cow peered from the other side of the door, and said meekly. "I… huh… I just thought that you could want some coffee." She said, and there was a brief silence into the room, before Wilde said:

"Well, a coffee would be nice right now."

The eyes all turned to him, and after a while, Bogo sighed, and gestured for the young cow to come inside. She opened the door and walked forward. She was dressed up like a nurse, and she had a nice body. She was carrying a trail with a few cups of coffee in it, and she soon was distributing it among the animals of the room.

"Decaffeinate with cream. Pure black coffee. Hot cocoa with marshmallow. Double express. Two simple coffees with sugar…" She said, giving each mammal the kind of coffee that they wanted, and soon she reach Alex, and she said, "Sorry, I didn't knew if you liked in your coffee with soy or with some kind of nut milk, so I got you one with soy milk."

Alex looked at her, as he had earlier asked for some coffee and milk, if they were willing to give it to him. Alex liked to drink coffee with milk to help himself calm down when he was too nervous. He was about to say that he meant that he wanted his coffee with real milk, but as soon as he realized that the one offering the coffee to him was a cow Alex had serious second thoughts about that, and he simply accepted the coffee with soy milk that was offered to him. He still didn't understood very well how that world functioned, but he had the feeling that it would not be appropriate say to a cow that you wanted the milk of her species into your coffee. The cow nodded to him, and soon she was leaving the ones in there to drink the coffee and go back to the awkward silence that there was just moments before.

Alex took a few sips of the coffee that was brought to him, and he found out that it tasted around the same thing as milk. It was easy to say that it was not milk, but it was good. Alex found himself wondering if there was option for coffee to come with milk from cows, but as he thought about it, Alex found himself blushing slightly and feeling somewhat awkward with the thoughts, as several new implications came into his mind, referring to this new kind of society where he found himself into…

"So, you were saying?" Bogo asked, and this snapped Alex out of his thoughts, and he looked at the other animals, who were looking at him, as if he was something very interesting. Alex didn't knew if he was thankful for having his thoughts driven away of the milk subject, or if he was nervous for having his attention brought back to the subject of the explanation that he was giving to the ones in there.

"Oh, right…" Alex said, putting his coffee down, as he looked at the others in there, and he continued, "So, I was saying that my friends and I were on a place last night, and we were doing something important… Well, Finn Rhinehart was there."

"He was with you?"

"No!" Alex said immediately, and he took a breather to calm himself down. "Finn Rhinehart was in the same place that we were, but he was not on our side. He was hired to be there."

"Hired?" Asked Razorback.

"Yeah, by the guy we were trying to stop."

"Stop from doing what?" Judy asked.

Alex looked at her, and he remained silent. If he was going to explain to them, then he would have to explain a lot more things for them to understand, and Alex was pretty sure that it was going to take a while and was going to raise a lot more questions, some of them which Alex was not sure that he wanted to answer…

They noticed the silence that the cougar was making now, and they were all looking at him. Ferris tried to break the tension by asking something else. "But… didn't you said that you and the rhino never met in person?"

"And we never did."

"Then… how do you know that he was in there?"

"Because he said that in the bank." Alex said, and the others continued to look at him, "Well, the guy we wanted to stop knew we were going, so he hired Rhinehart and a few others to hold us back. Rhinehart was there because he had been hired to protect the guy."

The animals in the room all shared looks, and Alex continued to explain. "Well, remember how earlier I was lost and confuse, and how yesterday I dropped in your car?" Alex looked at the animals into the room, as their eyes were all back on him. "It was because, last night, something happened into that place. Something that was very strange, even for me. One moment I was into a room with my girlfriend by my side, and those two bastards threatening to kill my friend, and in the next, I was… I don't even know how to explain where I was… The next thing I knew was that I was waking up in a hospital… in a place I've never been before in my life, surrounded by animals I don't know…"

There was a brief silence as Alex took a deep breath, and the other animals kept a respectful silence as they looked at him. "Well, I guess that Rhinehart passed by the same thing, and that he was searching for someone that could tell him where he was and what had happened last night."

"And he went after you?" Razorback asked, and Alex shrugged. "I guess anyone would do. He knew that I was going to be in there, and I guess that he heard about me somewhere…"

"Yeah, you were all over the internet earlier." Nick said, taking another sip of his coffee, and all the animals in the room were forced to agree. Alex really was all over the internet earlier, and anyone who had a computer, or a carrot phone, or anything else that could access the internet would have known about him. It would not be hard for the rhino to hear about Alex, and also to learn that he was under the custody of the police.

"He figured out that I could give him some answers." Alex concluded.

"But… how he knew that you were into the same place that he was last night?" Ferris asked, and once more all eyes were on Alex. The human-turned-cougar was starting to feel uncomfortable with animals eyeing him like that.

"Well, I guess for the same reason that he was in there in the first place…" Alex said, and he took another sip on his own coffee, before saying. "Because the guy who hired him was actually expecting me to go in there."

There was a brief silence, as the other animals took in this information, and Bogo asked, "And the guy who hired him would be…"

Alex sighed, "A worthless bastard who would do a great favor to the world if he dug a hole in the ground and hid in there forever…" Alex said, without even thinking about anything as he spoke that, and the other animals shared looks.

"So, I suppose you and this guy don't get along?" Nick asked.

"That… would be the understatement of the year." Alex said, and he drank down more of his coffee, which was now almost on half. Alex rarely had soy milk in his life, but now that he was having, it was starting to taste quite good. Alex thought that he could very well get used to this, if regular milk was really of the menu, (what Alex had a strong feeling that was) it was rather good, and it didn't tasted bad like everyone said…

There was another silence into the room, and after a while, Judy spoke, "So… what exactly happened last night, and where?" Alex looked at her as she asked that. "Why were you there, and why the guy knew that you were coming? What happened last night?"

Alex knew that she wanted to see that question answered, they all wanted. However, Alex would have to go through many explanations to be able to answer that, and he was sure that some of them would make them really nervous. So, Alex choose to remain silent.

Once she saw that the cougar was once again remain silent, she found it suspicious. Well, a lot of things about that cougar were really suspicious, and that was something that Judy had no way of denying.

After a few more moments of silence, doctor Moosard asked the cougar: "Your friends… they were… like you?"

Alex looked at him, and he saw a curiosity into the face of that moose. Alex knew by his experience that this was the natural curiosity of a scientist. Medics could very well have their minds and knowledge set into a very specific field of science, but they were still, to all intents, scientists. At least that was what one of his friends had told him some time ago.

Alex soon realized that the other animals were all looking at him, and they all wanted to know the same thing: if the friends that he said he had, the ones that he seemed to be looking for, all had super powers, just like him.

Alex sighed, and he knew that he should give them some explanations, at least the ones that they truly needed or deserved, after all that they went through. So, he decided to speak.

"When you are like me, one of the things you learn is to be afraid of the world." Alex spoke, and he looked at all the animals in there. "When you live in a world where the others can be cruel to you only because you are what you are… only because you are… different, you learn to be afraid of the 'normal' people."

The cougar spoke the world "normal" with a tone of irony, and it was easily perceived by the other animals in the room. "So, if you avoid these people, it is natural for you to end up getting close to the ones that are more like you, that understand you, that share your pains, fears, and doubts, and who are not so easily scared by what you can do."

"Others who are like you." Alex concluded as he raised his head and looked back at the other animals, and he sighed. "I made friends. Both like me and normal, and they were with me last night… They were with me in there, because they knew that it was important. They knew that they had to come with me, because I would end up going with or without them… They wanted to be there to help me."

Alex spoke that with a crescent tone of dread, and the other animals looked intently at him.

"And… what happened?" Judy asked him, and the cougar sighed.

"Things went wrong…" Alex said, "First those bastards caught one of my friends as a hostage, and they were about to win. Then something really strange happened." Alex placed a hand on his face as he started to relieve the events from last night. "There was light, we were all moving, I felt hot all over my body… I thought I was going to die."

Alex sighed, and lowered his hand, and now he was just staring at his half-empty cup of coffee, and he continued. "I don't know what happened to my friend after that… I didn't saw them, neither I saw these bastards… I only saw Linda… Right before she…"

There was a moment, and the cougar seemed to become slightly distressed by the memory, and Judy asked. "Linda was… is your friend?" She had corrected herself, knowing that she should not talk about her as if she was dead, at least not yet, not until they knew exactly what happened last night.

Alex sighed, looking at the coffee, seeing his own reflection into what was left of it, to the face that was now his, the face of the cougar. Still, Alex looked at it as if it had always been him, as if it had always been who he was, as if it was himself just like Alex felt in the inside. As if Alex was still the very same guy that Linda always said to be a strange mixture of a trouble-maker with a very well behaved boy. The same guy who she claimed that could always make her feel better no matter what would happen at any moment.

"She is my girlfriend…" Alex said, and he took a last gulp of his coffee, gobbling it all down at once, and the room fell into another wave of silence, and this one was somewhat deeper than all of the others.

Anyone would think that Alex was deeply worried, even taken by dread, by the thought that his girlfriend had vanished, and she could very well be dead. That was what the other animasl in there thought.

Actually, it was quite the opposite. After what had happened earlier, Alex actually felt more hopeful, because knowing that Rhinehart, a guy who was also in the same place that he was last night, and who had been caught by that strange vortex of light, had also ended up in there too, had confirmed Alex suspicions.

He wasn't the only one that had been brought to that strange place.

If both he and Rhinehart had been sucked by that vortex and came out of it alive and well, then it meant that the others in that building could have all shared the same fate. That meant that all of his friends could all have been brought to that world and be somehow turned into animals, and they could very well be walking around, all of them trying to understand what had happened.

Misty. Jeff. Linda. They all could be roaming around that world somewhere, and even if they had turned into something else, they could still be around, and be fine (as far as possible considering that they would have turned into animals just like him) and they could actually be searching for one another, and for him.

Knowing this actually filled Alex with hope, for now he knew that he truly had a chance of finding them.

He knew that he still had a chance to see Linda's smile again…

******************************

"If you are not a doctor or a patient you won't enter the hospital! And that's final!" The rhino in police uniform bellowed, as the crowd of reporters and curious mammals was still trying to force their way into the hospital.

"You can't do that! What about the press liberty!?" Demanded a female lioness reporter, with a llama cameraman following her close behind. Many others into the crowd agreed, and they continued to try to force their way inside the hospital, for they all wanted to see if they could catch a glimpse of the cougar or maybe (with some luck) an exclusive interview.

The cops, despite being big and burly, were starting to have troubles to hold back all of these reporters, and they did the best that they could while they let the patients and doctors walk inside the building. It was easy to them, they just had to make sure to let in anyone that seemed injured or sick, was dressed as a doctor or nurse, or that was not carrying any form of recording device that you would expect from a reporter.

Actually, that was all that they could do, since holding back that mob of news people was proving to demand a lot of their attention and time. They had just now let in a group of mammals in: a llama walking with the help of two stags as he was limping, a hippo with a bleeding hand enveloped into a white tissue, and a gazelle with a pair of sunglasses and a tissue tied in her head, with a corner of it passing between her horns.

The group entered and the cops immediately closed the way again, the prevent that flock of vultures from entering the hospital. The group that they just let in continued inside the hospital, many already searching for the medics to try to get some attention, but not the gazelle.

She walked into the lobby, seeing many animals in there, both staff and patients, all tacking care of their business. As she walked past them, she could hear parts of their conversations, and she noticed that there was one particular topic that seemed to be quite popular:

"He is in the east wing, in the room 462, doctor Moosard is with him along with a guy from the ZPD's forensics."

"The lightning cougar is really here, I know that because I saw when they brought him earlier!"

"He really has powers! He can create lightnings from his fingers! I telling you man, I saw that with my very own eyes!"

The gazelle passed by them, getting all the information that she needed.

He was in there. East wing, room 462.

Now that she knew it for sure, she just needed to get in there.

So, she asked to a zebra nurse for directions.

"Huh, excuse me, my boyfriend is in here, and he is in the East wing, can you point me the directions?"

"Sure! Take that elevators, the rooms for the patients are on the second floor, when you get out take the left hallway and turn on the first right. Do you need to know the specific room?"

"No, I think I can find it out myself, thank you." She said, and she moved away from the nurse, already knowing exactly where she needed to go to find him, and she knew that she was going to have to make it quietly and fast, if she wanted to have success in what she came there to do. She knew that if they saw her coming she would be in trouble.

Entering the elevator, she took it in direction to the second floor, with the company of three other animals who were taking it along with her.

She felt nervous as she patted her hoof into the floor of the elevator, and it stopped on the first floor, allowing two animals to get out of it. She felt relieved when it arrived on the second floor, and she was able to walk out of the elevator, leaving behind the antelope doctor who was checking on a few papers.

She barely minded him as the doors closed again, and she saw herself in the middle of two hallways, and she took the one on the left. She walked for a bit, and as soon as she saw another hallway opening to the right, she took it.

She saw herself into a hallway that was filled with doors that surely led to rooms in which the several patients were, each one with a three-digit number printed on the front.

"462. 462. 462." She said to herself as she passed by each room and checking on the numbers.

She continued to walk, and after a while, she heard a voice.

"There is something that he is not telling us."

"Yeah, it is pretty obvious, ain't it?"

She stopped right on the corner, and she stayed hidden behind it. She peered behind the corner to see two animals talking to each other. One of them was a buff bovine who wore a police uniform, and the other was a grey-colored boar who had a scar over his eye and was wearing what seemed to be a tactical clothing of shorts, telling that he was no ordinary guy.

She tensed when she saw these two, and they continued to talk, unaware of her presence.

"Well, I admit that the things that he does are pretty strange, and it kinds of scares me a bit. But that Hunter actually seems like a nice boy." The boar said.

"Yeah, I noticed that too, that is the only reason why he isn't cuffed to the bed." The buffalo said, and the boar snorted as he smiled, as if it was some kind of joke.

The gazelle tensed as she heard that, her hand clenching slightly into a fist as she looked at these two animals.

"Anyway, he surely is hiding something… and he ain't the only one." The boar said, and he looked at the buffalo, who looked back at him. "Oh, come on, Mason, I know you well enough to know when you are holding back information. You can't kid an old pig like me. Look, if you don't want to share everything you know, that is fine by me, just don't take me for a fool, okay?"

The buffalo looked at him, and he sighed. "Yeah, fair enough." He said, and immediately after, there was the sound of a cell phone ringing. The buffalo reached for his pocket and pulled out his phone. The gazelle could see his face making a slightly scowl as he looked at it.

"Sorry, I have to take it."

"Okay, I'll go see if they have some decent food in here." The boar said, and he started to walk in the opposite direction, while the buffalo was now walking in the direction of the gazelle!

"Bogo talking." The buffalo said as he continued to walk into the hallway. He turned the corner, and he continued to walk into the empty space. "Yeah, you were taking a while to call. Look, before you say anything, I…"

He didn't finished what he was saying, and he stopped walking for a moment, before he said. "What?" He continued with the phone on his ear, as the one on the other end of the line talked to him. "Wait, what do you mean more complicated than you thought?"

He continued with the phone on his ear as the one on the other line talked to him. "Oh, oh, wait! Look here, I have been through a lot in the past hours, and I'm doing my best at the moment! So you better give me a break in here, okay?" He said, and he continued to walk, and he walked past the hallway.

Behind him, the sound of hooves could be heard as the gazelle was watching him walk away, trying to be as silent as she could. The buffalo was too busy talking on his phone with someone to actually pay very much attention to her, and that was all that she wanted.

Turning her head, she looked back at the hallway, and she went to there as fast and silently as she could, passing by the rooms one by one.

After a while, she finally saw the room she was looking for:

462

That was the room he was into.

She was about to go inside, when she heard carefully.

There were people in there, and she knew it because she could hear different voices.

He was not alone in there…

***************************

"So, there are places where you can get real milk from mammals?" Alex asked to Officer Wilde. "Not soy or nut milk, but the real thing?"

"Of course there is." Nick said to him as he took another sip of his coffee "But you have to go to some shady corners of Downtown if you want to get it. They take it from some females who get paid for this, and they even make things out of it. Like cheese, yogurt, butter… much like the things that you can find in the super markets, but with milk used in the fabrication."

"What is slightly disturbing, if you ask me..." Ferris said as he and the doctor were still into the machines, analyzing some data. "I mean, make food using something that came from a living mammal?" He shuttered as he thought about it.

"Yeah, there are a lot of people who frown over it." Nick said.

"Is it illegal?" Alex asked, and the fox said.

"Nah, not at all. People just thing it is strange. But there are guys who like these things and pay high for a taste."

Alex nodded. In fact, it seemed that the milk thing was really as complicated as it seemed to him in the first place. While it was not against the law or anything, it was clear that it was a heavy taboo. Alex could only imagine what would be the reaction of the ones in the room if he said that he wanted milk from a cow into his coffee…

Nick finished his coffee, and he said, "Man, this one is really good." He put it down, and he turned to his bunny friend. "Hey, Carrots, want to get another one?"

The bunny looked back at him, and she shook her own cup, seeing that it was nearly completely empty. She looked back at her partner, and then at the cougar.

"I'm not going to try to escape." Alex told her, looking her in the eye. "Besides, where would I go?"

She locked eyes with him for a few moments, and she sighed. "Yeah, I guess we need a little more coffee, and maybe we can also grab a snack. I haven't eaten anything all day…"

Nick chuckled, and soon both he and the bunny were walking outside.

"Well, I have to go check these results with a few of my colleagues." Doctor Moosard said, as he fixed a few papers and seemed to be getting ready to leave. "I know a few professionals that will surely be interested in seeing this, besides, they have more expertise in this kind of thing than I do. Maybe they can give me some important input."

"I go with you." Ferris said, causing the two mammals to look at him. "I mean, I am interested into hearing the opinions of professionals, and I guess that my own inputs could be very useful, right?"

He doesn't want to be left alone with me. Alex thought to himself. The ferret, along with the other mammals, was showing that they didn't blatantly feared or hated Alex, buy like all of them, he was showing what Alex supposed that was a good amount of mistrust on the subject of someone that could do the things that Alex could.

Doctor Moosard accepted, and he turned to Alex, asking "Will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes?"

"Yeah, sure." Alex said, and the doctor seemed to take it as enough for him to leave the cougar on his own. Soon both ferret and moose walked out of the door, and Alex was left completely alone.

Sighing, Alex got up from the bed after a few moments, and he picked back his shirt, and soon he was wearing it once more. Walking over, Alex stopped in front of a mirror, once more looking at the face that now was his own face.

Alex had always recognized the face of the young man with short blonde hair when he was a human. That was himself, and that was something that Alex thought that maybe he always knew, and was always going to know.

Now, however, as he looked at the cougar looking back at him in the mirror, he had this very same feeling. The feeling that the cougar on the mirror was him, that it was who he was, who he had always been, and who he was probably still going to be.

It was that automatic sense of self-recognizance that Jeff told him about one time. The ability to recognize one's own image, and one of those things that separated humans from many other animals. However, now that Alex was no longer a human, he seemed to still have this natural sense, and it told him that the cougar looking back at him was no other than himself.

Alex remembered when he freaked out by seeing this, and he was still freaking out just a bit.

Alex son caught himself wondering just how his own friends were taking it. How Jeff, Linda, and all the others were talking in their new appearances, wherever they were. Also, Alex asked himself just what appearances they would have now. Of course, this led Alex to ask himself, once more, if he would actually be able to recognize his friends if he saw them again.

After all, Alex turned into a cougar, and that Rhinehart guy had turned into a rhino. What had his friends turned into? Could they be walking around that city in their new forms? Could Alex have passed by any of them and just didn't recognized them because they were no longer human but something else?

As Alex thought about it, his ears (which now seemed to be more sensitive to sounds then they were when he was a human) caught the sound of the door opening, and of someone walking in. Someone who had hooves.

"Have you forgotten something?" Alex asked, not turning around, as he continued to look at the mirror. The one who entered didn't answered, and Alex said, "If you are looking for doctor Mossard he just left, and the officers too. Doctor said he would go to find some friends of him to discuss my exams. Bogo and Razorback went somewhere to talk. Hopps and Wilde went to have coffee and food."

There was a little more of silence, before the voice said.

"Good… because I wanted to find you all alone."

Many people would be creeped out by the female voice saying something like that. But Alex wasn't, for he knew that voice.

In the moment he heard that voice, his eyes widened, and he almost got a backlash from turning his head so fast to look at the one who had just arrived into the room.

It was a gazelle, and she had soft-cream colored fur in her body, with a light-brown tuff or fur in the top of her head and a white muzzle. She was wearing long jeans shorts and a pink tank top, that Alex found very familiar.

However, more familiar than that was the face of the gazelle, as she removed her shades and the cloth that she had tied to her head, revealing her face completely to Alex.

As he looked at her. As he looked at the face of the gazelle, and deeply into her hazelnut colored eyes, and that smile in her muzzle, he could instantly recognize her. Much like he did every single time before.

"…Linda?"

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Zootopia: Brave New World - Ch 9 - Aftermath

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