WT: Ohh, okay this is sort of cheating I guess, as I hadn't been thinking in terms of quirks when I thought about these previously. First, I should preface this by saying the first two of these ideas I had actually came from DragonMan1997 who was writing a fic called "Heroes of Zootopia" on Fanfiction.net. He had asked me a few years back if he could use Vernon in his fic, and came up with a very cool Batman meets the Scarecrow identity for him called the "Red Moth". Dawn was also in the fic, with the codename of "Knockout", where she was basically the hulk and working on...I guess a sort of suicide squad? As in she was still technically jailed, but this was...I guess community service or a way to get her sentence reduced? Sadly, Dragonman sort of dropped out of the writing scene, or at the very least gave up on Heroes of Zootopia at chapter 14, so sadly the whole thing didn't last very long.
Since then I've revisited the idea a few times in my head, wondering what would my BellHunterverse look like with hero versions of some of my key characters. I'm going to limit it to the main four characters for now, to save myself having to draw an entire hero ensemble in one night, (Twio nights actually) and as you'll see, some of the ideas were just too good not to use from dragonman's fic, although I've made my own background modifications to separate things from his own hero-verse. So let's start by listing off a brief bio of everyone. Ladies and gentlemam's, I present to you, Zootopia's "Renegade's"
Vernon Hunter - Code Name: The Red Moth.
After the fallout from the first Night Howler incident, night howler becomes a pervasive problem in the Zootopian drug market, with variants of the poison being turned into highly addictive designer drugs and flooding the city streets. This all comes to a head for Vernon Hunter, when his brother Wade is murdered during a sting operation meant to take down one of the biggest howler rings in the city. Reacting to his brother's death, Vernon takes up the mantle of hero cloaked in darkness, set on revenge against the kingpins of the city and their minions for the death of his brother. A dark figure with glowing red eyes that reduces his foes to a quivering puddle before him by using their own game against them. When the ZPD finally arrives on the scene, they find a bunch of restrained, gibbering mad mammals, screaming and shrieking about the beast with blaring red eyes. Those witness testimonies are what earned the wolf his title mantle of "The Red Moth". The Red Moth is a rather grounded hero, in that he has no actual superpowers. Vernon was already familiar with standard police takedown and defense tactics from growing up under Dorian, but after the death of Wade the wolf goes all-in on learning his way around martial arts and other fighting styles until he becomes an extremely skilled paw to paw fighter. The wolf also studied Night Howler and other psychotropic drugs extensively in order to craft his deadly arsenal of gadgets, however it took the combined help of Gus and Val to fully realize those devices. Nearly all of his hallucinogenic gas grenades and sprayers are based on night-howler derivatives, adding an extra layer of irony to the methods in which he uses to dispatch his foes.
Valerie Vulpes - Code name: The Red Whirr
Valerie Vulpes appears to be your average teenage vixen, but beneath her outward aloof and snarky facade lies a mechanical marvel, one who is able to work with nearly any type of machine with flawless efficiency and knowledge, and craft truly cutting edge devices. Don't get me wrong, she is still the loveably sarcastic vixen guys are all familiar with. However, in this universe she has more drive to really achieve, and push herself beyond her limits. This is due in part to her mother's cancer going into remission when Val was a kit, allowing the older vixen to act as even more of a driving force in her life. Unlike Cameron, who was supportive but fearful of his daughter's safety, Marian believed Val was capable of amazing things, and that the vixen owed it to the world to show them just how amazing she was. Sadly, Marian's cancer returned in Val's late teens. Although Marian did not succumb to the cancer itself, but rather a massive power failure at the hospital caused by the riots post the Night Howler incident disrupting her life support. In her grief, Val poured all of her emotion and efforts into what would become her greatest creation yet. Using her prized motorcycle left to her by her grandmother as a base, the vixen converted it into a suit of power armor that the vehicle can switch to and from. On that day, the "Red Whirr" was born. With Val's own excellent technical prowess, agility, and deadly accurate archery skills, as well as with a little bit of programming and hacking skills provided by her sister Ellie, the vixen became a force to be reckoned with in the wild. Val also took up helping her friend Vernon in the design of most of the technical gassing gizmos that allow him to help her torment the criminal community.
Gustave Hornsley - Code Name: Mammal Machine
In this universe, the Gus we know is an even frailer, sicker billy to the point of almost being unrecognizable. Born with Osteogenesis imperfecta, the young Gus spent most of his life hidden away indoors, unable to even attend public schooling due to his fragility. Thus Gus spent many of his years indoors studying and learning everything he could about biology and technology with the intended goal of one day fixing his broken body. With no friends or life outside of the house to distract his pursuits, the kid was able to spend his child hood and most of his early teens completely engrossed in his studies, as well as allowing him the time to invent and apply various prototype augments to his body, albeit with mixed success. Gus' interests in fantasy still remained however, and while most kids wanted nothing to do with him, or made fun of him in public for his condition as well as his weird 'machine' attachments, it was his frequent trips to the local hobby store would allow him to cross paths with a young, kind and accepting, Vernon Hunter. Had it not been for Vernon meeting the billy at said shop, it's doubtful they would have ever become friends. From that point forward, Vernon became the billy's best and only friend, as well as his reluctant assistant when it came to putting his experimental augments to the test. Eventually, the billy made a limited attempt to attend college following after his friend Vernon. Gus elected to take most of his classes at home while he continued to work on his augments, but did take some classes on campus as an attempt to get out an experience life now that he had a modest handle on his condition. It was while attending ZU that he met Melanie Gessenay, an up-and-coming geneticist and immediately found himself smitten. Thankfully for the billy the feeling was very mutual. While Gus eventually dropped out of college, finding the classes inadequate and well behind his own studies, Melanie became his mate and partner in crime in terms of perfecting the billy's augments, and thus the "Mammal Machine" was truly born. With his mechanical augments the billy sports super strength and a deadly set of chromium horns that can rip and tear through almost anything. Thisversion of Gus is probably the coldest member of the group, often being hardest on the criminals they face as they tend to bring back memories of the mammals that made fun of his conditions and experiments throughout his early life in the North Meadowlands and his brief stint at college. Mammal Machine freely admits that had it not been for mammals like Vernon, or his love Melly, he would have almost assuredly become a villain. It's also worth noting that Gus is the mammal who comes up with the psychotropic night howler compounds for Vernon's weaponry.
Dawn Bellwether - Code Name: Bleatdown
Dawn Bellwether's early life was more or less the same as we remember, however it is when we come to the night howler conspiracy that things take a strange turn as we deviate from my universe. During his dark work, Doug discovers a strange compound within night howler itself and works tirelessly to isolate it. He finally manages to separate the unique property towards the end of the events of Zootopia, and brings his discovery to Dawn's attention. Unfortunately for the ewe, she shows up to Doug's lab just in time to run into Hopps and Wild(Or as they are known in this universe "Hopp Speed" and "Mr. Mirage". This leads to the final confrontation occurring on Doug's runaway lab as it barreled through the city. The fight between our would-be heroes and Doug and his minions leads to inadvertantly trapping Dawn in the driver's compartment of the train. With the ewe too weak to pull the handbrake herself, and with little time remaining before the car crashes into the station ahead, Hopps and Wild are forced to make the dark decision to leave Dawn in order to save themselves. While the crash should have killed Dawn, her body is contaminated with the isolated night howler compound. The agonizing pain of her injuries wracking the barely conscious ewe end up triggering the anomalous effects of the elixir. On the upside, it causes Dawn's nearly fatal injuries to miraculously heal almost instantly, the drawback however is that the compound also caused her to morphe into a lumbering, rage-filled beast that would come to be known as "Bleatdown". After she is successfully subdued by Hopps and Wilde, the ewe is locked away in a maximum-security medical facility so her condition can be studied and reversed. A shock collar is affixed to her neck so that the staff can force her out of her 'rage' state if necessary. She is sentenced to the same sentence as I had given her in my fic, however, when parole time comes, the ewe is denied despite her best efforts to reform and control her anger. Melanie, who just so happens to work at the same medical facility becomes familiar with Dawn's case, and in the process discovers the real reason they are keeping Dawn there. They want to learn how her powers work, how to control them, and then sell the recipe off to the highest bidder. It is because of this that Melanie calls Vernon, Val and Gus to break Dawn out, and thus the ewe is inducted into their vigilante group. Since then, Melanie has modified Dawn's collar so that only she, Gus, and Val can control it, and they hold off on using it unless absolutely necessary to bring Dawn's power under control. Vernon however, after discovering his shared history with the ewe, rejected having access to Dawn's collar, and so far he is the only mammal that capable of bringing Dawn out of a rage state without it. Melanie has promised to work tirelessly to cure Dawn's condition, as the ewe still wants to be rid of her 'gift', however, progress remains slow.
You guys may have noticed I dropped some names of other characters in there. "Mr. Mirage", Hopp Speed". As well as referred to this little group as Renegades. That's because this version of Zoot has a sort of 'civil war' element to it. Hopps, Wilde, and the others are considered "state-sanctioned" heroes. Therefore they are allowed to operate in an official capacity, but have to follow rules and regulations set down by the Zootopian Government, some of which may or may not be the result of corruption embedded within it. Vernon, Dawn, Gus, Val, and their friends are Renegades. They aren't registered, and often take justice into their own paws/hooves to strike back at the inherent corruption within the Zootopian system. Needless to say, this puts them at odds with Hopps and the others most of the time.
There, I hope you've liked this little dip into this...Bellheroverse thing. I obviously do have ideas for the "Sanctioned' heroes as evidenced by Hopp Speed and Mr. Mirage, so lemme know if you wanna see them and Deci-Yell (Finnick), and Invincibull (Bogo) at some point.
Also...I went...waaaay overboard with the art for this ask...so you can probably gather why it was two days late. Sorry, but in the end I do hope you guys like it.
