Chapter Text
Prologue
~~ somewhere, in a familiar world ~~
The sun was still high above the horizon when Lars arrived at the train station on this scorching hot Friday. With an exhausting working week behind him, he was looking forward to the trip home and the upcoming weekend with his family. ‘That’s the life of a consultant - only seeing his family on weekends’ he thought to himself as the platform’s speaker announced his train was about to arrive. Many more commuters and other passengers were waiting with him for the express train to the capital. But Lars didn't even notice these people anymore. He was too lost in thoughts. With a quick glance at his ticket and a check of his reservation, he raised his head and watched the slim, snow-white train that was now decelerating and passing the platform in front of him.
‘Wow’ he thought, ‘That train looks like fresh from factory! It probably won't stay that clean for too long!’
With a slight squeak, the train came to a stop. Lars grabbed his travel bag and boarded. When he arrived at his seat, he let himself fall into the comfortable cushions and closed his eyes immediately. Whether it was the heat outside, the work, or simply the lack of sleep in the past few days, he didn't care, he was just dead tired.
He dozed for a few minutes, while the train departed. When Lars opened his eyes, it took a moment before he realized that something was different than usual. He was the only passenger in this car. Perplexed, he looked around, but there was no other person in front or behind him. A little insecure, he stood up to look around. He walked through the entire train, but nowhere did he find a single soul. The on-board bistro was closed, and in his part of the train there was not a single train attendant. His insecurity turned into fear as he frantically ran back to his seat to look for his cellphone.
‘Am I on the wrong train? Where are all the other people from the platform? I wasn't the only one who got on, was I? And besides, the train is always pretty crowded when it gets here. What the hell is going on here?’
Back at his seat he searched for his phone with shaking hands. He wanted to make a phone call. But who was he supposed to call? The police? Or the rail hotline? His fear turned into panic when he held the phone in his hand and the display simply announced “No network”.
“Damn it!” he shouted at the top of his voice, “The only time you really need that damn thing, it doesn't work”. He thought feverishly about what he could do next.
‘First, find out where I am. Then I'll just get off at the next station!’ He activated the map on his smartphone. But contrary to his expectations, it didn't show him a position, but stopped at the general view of the globe. “Tracking service not available” appeared on the screen.
Close to desperation, he gazed out of the window to see if he could recognize familiar places in the landscape rushing by. At that moment he realized that it had become pitch-black outside. Not the slightest blink light was visible. Horrified, he let himself plop into the next seat.
“Okay Lars,” he said to himself aloud, “Calm down and get your head clear. This can't be real! One minute you were surrounded by dozens of people, and it was late afternoon. It just doesn't turn dark in a few minutes, not here, not in mid-August. And besides, you can't be alone. You must be dreaming. Wake up!”
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. The panic began to subside, and his brain slowly but steadily took control.
‘Alright, you fool. If you open your eyes, everything will be normal again. You will be sitting in a crowded train as usual on Friday and will arrive at home in just under an hour.’ And lo and behold, he now could hear blurred noises over the monotonous rattling of the train on the tracks. ‘There you go!’
But when Lars opened his eyes again, he was still alone in the train. And the sounds were different from anything he had heard before. A mixture of a high-pitched whistling and a crunching sound seemed to envelop the whole train. With a sudden blow, his panic was back. The eerie noises became louder and louder. In addition, the darkness in front of the windows gave way to a soft blue shimmer. Lars became dizzy. He held on tightly to the armrests.
“What the hell is happening here?” he screamed, although he was aware that nobody would hear him. The glow became brighter and brighter, the sounds increased in intensity, and the dizziness that had already reached Lars' perception became almost unbearable. Just as the blue glow became so intense it seemed to burn his eyes through closed lids, he lost his consciousness…
~~ Snowy hills, northwest Tundratown ~~
“C’mon, slick, give me some rest”, Judy laughed with hardly muffled coughs in between. “Don’t use up all of your dirty jokes in one shift!”
The crimson fox in the driver’s seat just took a quick glance over his signature aviators and flashed his canines.
“Don’t just think that this is all I could deliver, fluff. We hardly scratched the surface here! Okay, what about this: What do you call a fennec fortuneteller escaping from the cops?“
Judy sighed. “I don’t know. What DO you call a fennec fortuneteller escaping from the cops?“
“A small medium at large!”
This time, Judy actually was laughing out loud. “Oh sweet cheese and crackers, Nick. That was a terrible pun!”
“… unit 32, dispatch, unit 32, Hopps, do you copy?” the screeching voice of the cheetah at the ZPD headquarter calling over the radio interrupted her burst of laughter.
“Thank god, Benji, you just saved my sanity” the bunny coughed with a small grin towards her partner before answering the call. “Unit 32, signal good. Go ahead, dispatch!”
“As if there was any sanity left, carrots… You’re partnering with a fox”, Nick giggled before listening to the radio as well.
“Unit 32, we have received an unconfirmed report of a – I quote – ‘extremely loud banging noise, accompanied by a flash of light’ in Northeast Meadowlands. Presumably somewhere in the outback. I will be sending coordinates to your tactical display. You’re the nearest unit, please respond. Use caution!”
The two mammals in the police cruiser exchanged irritated looks before Judy answered.
“10-4, dispatch. We’re on our way. Hit it, Wilde!” Nick adjusted is sunglasses and flicked on lights and siren of their cruiser.
“Strange, but interesting. Clawhouser did sound concerned for a change.”
“Yeah, that’s making me worry” Judy agreed. “The caller must have been quite convincing. Let’s be careful, I don’t want us to run into another kerfuffle like we did when you tried to arrest these ‘drug-dealing’ rams.”
“Oh, please, carrots. We did agree on not bringing that topic up again. How could I have known that they were in fact a theatre club enacting some scene from a mafia drama?”
“Well, maybe the lighting technician wolf right next to them could have given that away?” Judy smirked.
“Okay, Okay, I got it” Nick sighed, “I will step back and let famous and cute officer bun-bun lead the investigation.”
“Niiiiick – I told you not to call me…”
“What? Cute? Come on, carrots, I know you love me!” This made the bunny stop grumbling instantly.
“Do I know that? Oh yes. Yes, I do!” she said and blew him a kiss, while they kept on dashing through the dense mid-afternoon traffic.
~~ Northeast Canal District ~~
The 6-cylinder engine of the sleek low-wing aircraft with the “Airventure” logo on its fuselage was ‘purring like a lion right after climax’, as the fox at the control stick used to call it. In a steep turn, he tried to keep the lens of the wing-mounted camera focused on the mansion he was photographing for his client.
“What’s with these wealthy whippersnappers and their obsession for castles? They should invest their money in planes. That’s much more rewarding. And fun!” the fox radioed to his ground station.
“What’s with these crazy foxes and their obsession in planes?” came the snippy reply from the rat on the other end of the line. “You should focus on getting the job done, remember I need to complete the maintenance inspection on that flying piece of garbage by the end of today, or you will have to report in to the aviation authorities in Savannah Central again!”
“Yeah, yeah, thanks for keeping my back, mom!” the fox replied. “I’ll be back in less than half an hour, I just need to…”
A sudden flash of bright blue light made him freeze in mid-sentence. “What the hell was that?” he shouted, not realizing he was still pressing the push-to-talk button.
“What was what?” his ground technician asked in with more than just a little curiosity in his voice.
“I don’t actually know. There was a flash of light so intense it made me blink. Somewhere over in the Meadowland hills.”
The rat now sounded cautious. “Hey, Fero, don’t get any strange ideas. That’s none of your business. Fero? Do you copy? Damn it, crazy vulpine. If we mess up another assignment because of your attitude, I swear I’ll quit my job!”
“Calm down, Dust. I’m just going to have a quick glance what’s going on, and then I will return to base. The pictures are done anyway. Just let me have a bit of entertainment. I’ll go low. Airventure-1 out!”
Fero revved up the engine and steered the plane into a shallow decent towards the rough direction where he had seen the blue flash. It took him less than 10 minutes to arrive in the Meadowland hills. From his elevated point of view, he almost immediately spotted a shiny white object in the distance, right there in Meadowland’s countryside. He banked his aircraft and flew directly towards it.
What he saw there briefly took his breath away, and his throat suddenly became dry. Right before his eyes was a train, a model he had never seen before. Brilliant white, with a thin red stripe running around it, and very streamlined. And above all: the train was standing in the middle of the clearing, as if someone had carefully deposited it there. There were no trails to be seen, no railroad tracks nearby, and no signs of an accident.
His curiosity sparked, and he was so focused on the object in front of him that he did not notice the police cruiser he was just passing.
~~ Meaowlands ~~
Dazed, Lars opened his eyes. It was quiet. Eerily quiet. When his field of vision had cleared up enough for him to perceive details again, Lars saw that he was still sitting in his seat of the express train. And he was apparently still the only passenger. But something was different. He looked out the window and saw a green meadow, lightly wooded mountains and a bright blue sky. And he saw that the train was no longer moving.
With his legs still a little shaky, Lars stood up and walked towards the top of the train. Just like before, he did not see a single soul on the way through the wagons. The queasy feeling in him was suddenly there again, and intensified with every second he was wandering through the empty train.
”I have to get out of here, something is going on, and I want to know what it is!”
Without any further ado, he activated the emergency release of the next exit and pushed the door to the side. Warm, fresh air struck him as he stuck his head out of the train to look around. He jumped out of the car onto the soft grass, his feet gave way and he fell lengthwise on the ground. With a slight groan he tried to get up again, as his gaze froze on the train's undercarriage. And suddenly he realized that he was in deep trouble.
The train was no longer standing on a track but directly on the green, juicy grass. The queasy feeling now gave way to a full-blown panic. Lars jumped up and ran along the train to the conductor’s cab.
“Somebody must have been controlling this thing” he thought.
Arriving at the front he tried to open the door from the outside, but as expected he failed. So he climbed on the nose of the train to have a look through the windshield. But what he saw there was not what he had expected. Nothing! No driver. He let himself tumble onto the grass, where he crouched down close to the train and began to tremble all over his body.
“Where am I? What the fuck has happened here?” he murmured to himself repeatedly.
He was so engrossed in his panic that he did not hear the hum of the engine, which was slowly getting louder behind the next hill.
~~
“See that plane over there, carrots?” Nick pointed up to the sky, as the small single engine plane passed them in low altitude.
“Yeah, what are they doing here? I think I remember the logo from somewhere. I think they’re based in Savannah Central, Airventure Aviation or so. Gotta ask them if they are aware of minimum safe altitudes” Judy complained as they turned off the paved road to get closer to the coordinates provided by Clawhouser. “But maybe we can use them as a beacon, Slick. Look!”
She pointed towards the hill, where the plane was just about to disappear behind. “That’s where we’re supposed to be as well. Maybe they already discovered the reason for the fuzz.”
Nick shrugged. “And maybe they’ll mess up our work. Dunno, let’s see. And hold on.” he called out, as he sped up again and hammered their cruiser along the dirt road at a speed that was more than just a bit faster than reasonable.
Judy clinged to the handrest as Nick made their car jump over a little dent in the road. “We'll see, if we get there in one piece, stupid fox.”
He just widened his grin and drove on without even thinking of slowing down.
‘Oh, he’s so gonna get it when we’re back home’ Judy thought, while she desperately tried not to lose her grip.
~~
Suddenly Fero recognized something lying in the grass at the head of the train. He flew slower and deeper to have a closer look. It was definitely a person. But what kind of person? He had met many species, some of them alien, but never anything that looked even remotely like the creature sitting next to the train and now looking up at him. It had a head shape that he had never seen before. And above all - it had no fur, no scales, nothing!
‘Damn it, no matter who or what it is, I think it needs help,’ he thought to himself.
Quickly he assessed the situation. The train was standing on a long, flat surface. As it looked, it had barely sunk into the soil, which indicated a solid ground. He tried to estimate the length by the number of wagons and concluded that the distance was quite short, but probably sufficient for a landing.
He gently circled around the train once more, lowered the landing gear and set the flaps to maximum level. With a careful sideslip he reduced his altitude, while keeping an eye on his target before the plane touched down at the opposite end of the train and slowly rolled towards the ‘thing’. Just before he reached it, he turned the plane a little to get a better view, and to always be ready to accelerate quickly and disappear if the creature turned out to be hostile.
To his relief however, it remained huddled up, looking at him more fearful than vicious. Fero turned off the engine and opened the cockpit hood.
~~
Still panic-stricken, it had taken Lars a long time to realize that an airplane was circling above him. It was supposed to give him hope that he was apparently not completely alone after all, but in his situation, this feeling of relief just wouldn't come up. He watched skeptically as the sleek plane made a slow circle above him and then started to land.
Humming, it rolled towards him and turned slightly to the side so that Lars could take a look into the cockpit. And suddenly his panic peaked out. What he just had wildly assumed in his clouded head became overwhelming certainty. The pilot of the plane that was just a few meters away from him with its engine running - was not human.
As the engine stopped and the cockpit hood opened, Lars could fully see who or what was at the controls. The whole face was covered in fur, as well as the ears, which stood erect and twitched as the creature looked over to him. And he did not have a normal face either, but a long, pointy snout. In general, it looked more like an animal, dog-like perhaps, if it wasn't for the crimson fur which he had never seen in a dog before. Anyway, he had never seen anything like it before.
Fearful and trembling, he huddled himself up even more, unable to move or even escape. Then the creature suddenly straightened up and got out of the plane.
~~
For a few seconds Fero stared at the strange, furless thing, unsure if it could be a hazard to him. Then he noticed the creature's panicked look. He realized that whatever was sitting there was definitely much more scared than he was. He took a deep breath, loosened his seat harness and climbed out of the cockpit.
~~
Lars saw the pilot climbing out of the cockpit. Now for the first time he had the opportunity to see more clearly what he was facing. It was not human – not at all, even though it seemed to walk upright. As far as he could see, the whole body was covered with fur. A long, bushy tail emerged from the flying suit the thing was wearing. The legs also looked different. They apparently had two knee joints, but one of them appeared to be bent in the wrong direction. And the feet were very small in comparison to the long legs. The head really looked canine-like. Suddenly the picture of a fox came to his mind, a fox standing upright and walking on his hind paws.
‘This thing must be something like that. But that's not possible.’
Confused, Lars witnessed the fox (his mind had decided to call the thing 'fox') walking up and stopping just two steps in front of him, to offer him a hand - or better a paw. Even though the face was completely different to anything he had ever seen, he found something calm and friendly in it.
Just as Lars was about to take the offered paw, they both heard an engine sound and the wailing of a police siren. They turned around to see a police cruiser stopping just shy of Fero's plane, and a fox and a rabbit jumping out of it, both with tranquilizer guns in their paws.
The four of them carefully eyed each other, as all of a sudden something changed in the appearance of the train. The hull seemed to become translucent, emitting a faint but clearly perceivable blue glow from its inside.
“No, no, no, no .... not again”, Lars screamed. He was unsure of what to do now.
Maybe is was his instincts kicking in, but before anyone else could react, he jumped up and with a loud “RUUUUUUUN!” darted away from the train, whose glow was getting brighter and brighter.
Judy didn't have to think twice either. As perplexed as she had been when she saw the strange furless creature at the train, now her police training helped her to quickly assess the situation. The suspect could not escape unnoticed, as they were on open grounds, the pilot was no obvious threat, but that glowing train definitely was.
“NICK, COVER!” she shouted and jumped behind their cruiser. Nick followed her instantly.
The fox in the flying suit needed some more time to react. He thought of jumping in his plane for a couple of moments, until he realized he'd never make it in time. So he took the second best option and sprinted after the 'thing'.
His physique made this alien creature seemingly slow, so he decided to just grab him up and help him to get as much distance between them and the eerie train as possible, when a deafening, explosion-like bang and a bright flash made them tumble over and roll over the ground.
After their vision became clear again, and only a ringing sensation remained in their heads, everyone stood back up and looked around. The train was gone, only the indents in grass, where the undercarriage had been remained.
Fero looked to the creature next to him and asked: “Are you okay? Can you understand me?”
Lars was totally baffled. ‘That fox is able to speak?’
He only managed to nod, as the two police officers stepped up to them as well.
“Alright, everyone. ZPD, I am Officer Hopps, this is Officer Wilde. Somebody better explain what has been going on here.”
“You... can... speak... as well? Oh my god ...” Lars just stuttered before his mind became blurry again and he fainted.
“This is going to be a very interesting day, carrots!”