Hello dear readers! :D ZooCross0vers here! And welcome to my first of what I hope to be many more crossovers to come!

In celebration of the new live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, I decided to make my first crossover a Zootopia x Beauty and the Beast crossover! Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Bunny and the Beast

Prologue:

Once upon a time in a far away land there lived a young fox prince named Nicholas Piberius Wilde. He lived in a shining castle along with his father and mother, the Zootopian Kingdom's very first fox...or better said - the Zootopian kingdom's very first predator king and queen.

Although the prince had everything his heart desired, the young prince was bitter and rude to many of his subjects, particularly to prey mammals. For you see, when the prince was very young, he was betrothed to the beautiful hare princess of the Tundra Region. Contrary to what one might think, the prince greatly looked forward to meeting his intended, however, the feeling was not mutual.

When the day came that the two should meet, Prince Nicholas and his family made the long trek to the Tundra Region to meet the hare princess. Upon laying eyes on his betrothed, the prince could not help but stare in awe at her radiant beauty. Her fur was white as snow and her eyes, icy blue like the Tundra sky. The young prince found himself instantly enamored with the hare at first glance. Eager to speak with her, he immediately approached his princess, bowed before her and politely took her smaller paw in his own. As the prince prepared to kiss her paw, the hare princess managed to catch a glimpse of his razor sharp fox teeth. Taken aback by fear, the princess quickly pulled her paw away from his grip and with a noticeable shudder ran behind her father. Prince Nicholas could only look at her with wide confused eyes as she cried mercilessly into her father's back, her nose twitching wildly. Such an action left both Nicholas' parents and the King of the Tundra Region speechless. Though seeing how his daughter would not stop crying and claiming that Prince Nicholas would eat her, the Tundra King was left with no other recourse but to end the union between the fox prince and the hare princess.

Though the fox king and queen were greatly saddened by this news, their disappointment could not compare to the prince's broken heart. For the longest time, the prince could not understand what he had done wrong. Had he said something? Done something to cause fear into the princess. Why did she claim he would eat her? Why did she quiver before him as if he were nothing more, but a monstrous beast?

Much to the prince's dismay, it would not be the last time a mammal would cower at his mere presence. In time he came to realize that most of his family's prey subjects would also tremble at the sight of the royal fox family. Such behavior would continue to puzzle the young prince for many years. Why did the prey fear them so? As far as the prince was concerned, his family was always very kind to their prey subjects and servants. They would never snarl at them, or snap at them. They would never even raise their voices at them, yet the prey constantly had this look about them that made it seem like the royal family would pounce on them at a moment's notice.

As time passed their meek behavior grew to irritate the prince. So much so, that he began to develop a deep hatred and resentment towards all prey mammals. He began to believe that all prey were irrational creatures and deep down were incapable of respect or love.

This of course brought much concern to his parents, as they made every attempt to make him understand that the prey were not to blame. They were simply not accustomed to having predator leaders, and in time would eventually grow to accept them and their fear would subside entirely. The prince however, felt this was not enough of an excuse for the prey to fear them. It was simply unacceptable for the prey to cower at them when they had done nothing wrong.

Things only worsened upon the young prince's fifteenth year when a terrible illness swept across the entire Zootopian Kingdom. Many mammals were afflicted, including...the king and queen. Though the royal fox pair received the best medical treatment available, the illness still overtook them...

Their passing left a deep hollow gash in the prince's heart. His parents had become his entire world. The only creatures who truly understood him and the only creatures who were ever patient with him. Now, they were gone and he again was left broken-hearted and...alone…

The saddened prince denied any preparations for a coronation. He did not want his father's position. Much less, he refused to have any hypocritical royal Prey families attend his coronation, when all they would do is quiver behind their false smiles in his presence.

From that tragic day, the prince's bitterness only grew as his anger began to cause concern to those around him. Prey servants who had not previously feared him, began to cower beneath him as he purposely began to snarl and growl at them. He came to believe that if his prey subjects feared him so much, then he would give them reason to fear him. He would become the monstrous beast they believed him to be.

As the fear among his prey servants increased, the prince could take no more of their meek demeanors and instead opted to relieve all of his prey servants of their duties. A move, that left many homeless and destitute.

His prey servants were not the only ones to leave, however. Many of his predator servants left voluntarily as they considered the prince's behavior toward prey, unjust and uncalled for. In the end, there were only a handful of predators who remained in the now unloved prince's service. Those who remained, consisted of the late king and queen's most loyal servants. And those who believed that deep, deep down, there was still an underlying kind heart hidden beneath the prince's cold exterior.

A belief, that would be put to the test… one winter night...

It was late and cold outside, when the bitter prince and his loyal servants heard a faint knocking at the castle's gates. The angry prince himself answered the door and saw that it was an old beggar mammal - a sheep. She offered the young prince a gift, a single rose, in exchange for shelter from the cold. Confusing the sheep's shivering and her meek, cold-afflicted demeanor for fear, the repulsed prince shunned her away. But the sheep warned him not to be deceived by appearances. For beauty is found within, even in the most unexpected of places. The prince still did not listen and dismissed her again. That's when the old sheep's meek and haggard appearance melted away and revealed herself to be a beautiful, lioness enchantress.

The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late. For she had seen that there was no love in his heart for prey mammals. And as punishment, she transformed him into the monstrous, savage fox, he believed himself to be. And placed a powerful spell on the castle, and to all those who lived there.

Ashamed of his monstrous form, the beastly fox concealed himself inside his castle. With a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose the lioness had offered, was truly an enchanted rose. Which would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love a prey mammal and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell...THEN! The spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope. For what prey mammal could ever learn to love a beastly predator?

Author's Notes:

Just so you guys know, the rest of the story will not have this storybook format to it. This is just for the prologue to keep it somewhat reminiscent to the movie's opening.

Hope you guys enjoyed the prologue so far. I originally contemplated on making Nick initially be a natural born bunny transformed into a fox, but I decided against it on the grounds that I wanted to keep everyone as they are. The Nick we all know and love is naturally a fox, so I wanted to keep him that way. I will describe in a future chapter what Nick looks like as a beast, but for now I want to keep it as a sort of mystery.

Another reason I decided against Nick being a bunny was that I plan on using some familiar faces as the castle servants and they're all predators, so I don't see how being transformed into a normal fox would make him seem so horrible when he's surrounded by some larger predators like Clawhauser...even though he is such a sweet and gentle cheetah :)

Also, I know Nick and Judy have a bit of an age gap, but just pretend they're a bit more near age in this fic.

By the way, I know the actual movie's prologue is a lot shorter, but I wanted to give Nick more back story. Hope you guys like Nick's sad origin and hope to see you all at Chapter 1, next week! :D