Ch. 1: Break the Mold

Judy wasn't one to shy away from the unexpected; she just came to not expect the unexpected.

Her life was a lonely but scheduled thing. She woke up, ate breakfast, tended to the small garden where she grew her food, making sure her small cottage that lived in a nice clearing in the woods was clean (cause this wasn't a long list to begin with), ate lunch, read her books, swam in a pond not too far from her home, ate her dinner then went to bed. The only thing keeping her from dying of boredom was her training.

When she wasn't doing the chores listed above she was practicing her skill with a sword and her fists, creating fake enemies out of bales of hay and logs. One could consider this a particularly depressing existence but Judy would take it any day over returning to Bunnyburrow and being average rabbit.

But she was getting off topic.

The point was when she went out into the woods she did not expect to nearly be ran over by a chubby cheetah that was fleeing from a flock of rams. When the terrified feline spotted her he gently jumped behind her, trying to use her back as a hiding place.

The chasing rams came to a halt when they saw Judy, the rabbit saw they were all dressed in the armor of the nearby kingdom Duloc.

Judy straightened her spine, seeing the cheetah was a victim and it was part of her fate to be his hero.

"You need to step aside, rabbit," the lead ram told her.

"Why's that? It's my land we're in." She felt the cheetah give a surprised/grateful look to the back of her head.

The ram pulled out a scroll and unrolled it, saying in a regal voice that Lady Bellwether had decreed all predators were to be moved to a specific location in the kingdom.
"He can stay here," Judy stated. The rams didn't know how to react to that, they blinked at each other and Judy could tell they weren't the brightest of the flock.

But the lead ram decided his answer was brute force and he held up the spear in his hoof, pointing it to Judy's chest and the cheetah behind her let out a squeak of fright.

"By the order of Lady-" he began but before he finished his words Judy's leg shout out as a gray blur and kicked the spear out of the ram's hands, sending the weapon spiraling into the air. Judy held her paw out and the spear landed smoothly in her palm, when it did so she jumped in shocked delight, grinning at the weapon, "That actually worked! I've been trying to get that right for months-I-I mean-" she cleared her throat and held the spear under the lead ram's chin; the flock had been shocked into silence by her spear trick. "This is my home and it is not on Duloc land, while the cheetah is here he has sanctuary but you do not. So you best be away to where your lady can protect you before I shear your wool to make winter clothing."
The rams' eyes widened in alarm and they slowly shuffled away from her and the cheetah and away from Judy's home. As soon as they vanished beyond the trees the cheetah lifted Judy into his arms and hugged her to his round belly, nearly suffocating the rabbit and making her drop the spear.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he cheered, sounding to be close to tears. "You saved my life!"

"It-it was no problem," Judy tried to push herself away from the cheetah's belly in order to breath, "But can you put me down?"

"Oh sorry," he released her so suddenly Judy almost fell onto her tail. "I'm Benjamin Clawhauser!"
"Nice to meet you, Ben, I'm Judy Hopps." She picked up the spear and looked back up at the cheetah, "I guess you don't have anywhere to stay, huh?"

Clawhauser shook his head mournfully. "I thought so. Would you like to stay with me? Until you figure out what to do?" To be honest the rabbit was missing company.

He looked at her with big eyes, looking more like a kitten with every second, "You'd really let me stay with you?"

She chuckled, "Of course, come on."

.

Clawhauser was, for some reason, blown away by the little cottage Judy called home. Squeezing through the two small door and making himself comfortable on her couch, the largest piece of furniture she owned but it still wasn't big enough.

"Are you sure you're comfortable?" Judy asked, checking her pantry for something a predator could eat.

"This is really cozy and adorable I love it," he gushed, accepting the carrot muffin Judy offered. "And you have it all to yourself? Lucky."

"Lucky and lonely," Judy admitted, sitting in her armchair.

"Lonely?" Clawhauser echoed around his muffin, crumbs covering his chin and chubby cheeks. "Don't you have a family?"

"I do," Judy admitted, "But they said they had no place for a rabbit warrior, let alone one being a female so I moved away. Now I get to train my sword fighting skills as much as I pleased."

"That thing you did with the spear was so cool!" Clawhauser insisted with a smile that was almost bigger than his face. "The way you kicked it and it flew through the air and-and you caught it without even looking!"

"I know right!" Judy nearly squealed then forced herself to calm down. "It's what I do."

Judy made herself comfortable while Clawhauser chatted on about his life story, from how his parents were once popular athletes but all he had wanted to do as a cub was eat cake, all the way to when Lady Bellwether was sending predators to a specific piece of land, though that land was unknown.

"Those poor predators," Judy said, her ears falling.

"Yeah," Clawhauser said sadly. "I wish this place was large enough for the rest of them."
"Maybe we can find a place for them to stay," Judy replied then glanced to her window, the sun was setting. "But that will have to wait until tomorrow."

Judy fixed a pallet on the floor for Clawhauser (he was too big to lie on the couch) and she bid him goodnight before retiring to her own bed, falling asleep with thoughts of adventure whirling through her head.

.

Judy was awaken by the sound of sniffing, she blinked her eyes open and could make out the sound of many voices. Stretching and yawning she opened her bedroom door, to see the rest of her cottage full of predators.

"What the-" Judy jumped back so suddenly she fell onto her rump, a few predators giving her weird looks.

Did Clawhauser decide to have a slumber party?"

"Ben?" she asked, wiggling through the little room she had until she ended up outside, where she saw tents all across her clearing and hundreds of predators loitering. She saw, with a sense of grief, that her garden had been pillaged. "CLAWHAUSER!"

Her yell caught the attention of the camp and all the predators dwindled into silence as the cheetah popped up from between a bear and jaguar and hurried over to Judy.

"I swear I didn't invite them," he said when he saw her expression.

"No one invited us," a black wolf with glowing green eyes stated sourly. "We were forced to come here."
Judy's eyes widened, "Really?"

He nodded, "Lady Bellwether, she moved us off her land. We don't want to be here."

Judy looked around at the predators and realized they all looked so sad, homesick. Her fingers curled into fists and determination fired in her gut. Sleeping would have to wait. It was time to prove she could be a warrior, be a hero.

"Who here knows the way to Duloc?"

All the sharp-toothed animals looked at her with surprise but only Clawhauser raised his paw.

"Alright then, let's go," Judy walked off her porch. "Everyone, don't get comfortable." She smiled, "You'll all be home soon."