WT: Y'know, I didn't realize when crafting the 'Renegades' that every single one wasn't a natural-born hero. That is, born with powers. Just happened to be a coincidence. However, with this next batch of heroes, you'll find that nearly all of them, save for maybe Mr. Mirage, was born with a power. So without further ado, let's get started.
Judith Laverne Hopps - Hero Name: Hoppspeed
Born to a very large, but otherwise unremarkable family in the rural backcountry of Burrow County, Judith Laverne Hopps had a very special power. However, it didn't manifest until her early kithood during a confrontation with notorious town bully Gideon Grey at the annual Carrot Days Festival. After already relentlessly mocking Judy for her dream of being a police officer, the tod had gone on to steal her friend Sharla's festival prize tickets. Judy, determined to defend her friends demanded the tickets back, earning a scoff from the bully before the tod lunged to push her down for defying him. At that moment, the world around the rabbit seemed to slow to a crawl, almost as if time itself had nearly come to a stop. In truth, it wasn't the world that had slowed, but Judy that had sped up, her fear and anxiety triggering her latent powers for the first time.
While Judy wasn't exactly a pro at utilizing these newfound abilities on the fly, her display of super speed was more than enough to leave Gideon and his toady dizzy before sending them fleeing in terror. In their haste to get away, they had left Sharla's tickets behind, which the young bunny triumphantly returned to her awestruck friends. With these new abilities, Judy's desire to become an officer was only emboldened. She was no longer just some unremarkable, soft little rabbit with the odds stacked against her, but rather a true 'powered' with abilities that would easily outmatch even the largest normal mammal's the ZPD had. Such a gift would not only pave the way for her getting into the ZPD with ease, but allow her to rise to the ranks of the city's most hallowed and revered peacekeepers, including her idol 'Unbreakabull'.
It would take years of training to hone her abilities, mostly on her own as her family couldn't afford to send her to a school for mammals with her kind of 'gifts' But eventually, all that effort and hard work would earn her a full scholarship to the ZPD Academy, being placed in a special 'powered mammal's' program. Of course, Judy wouldn't stop there. The rabbit would continue to press her nose to the grindstone, quickly rising to the top rank in her class, and ending her tenure as the graduating classes valedictorian.
Fresh out of school she is almost immediately drafted to Precinct One's Peackeeper Division, and the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bunny is eager to get down to business and thrash some criminals. However, her superior and idol, Unbreakabull, sandbags her almost immediately, denying her a spot working the case currently plaguing the ZPD's best minds in favor of simple hero patrol work. This leads to a warped version of the events of Zootopia and the Night Howler Case which ends with Mr. Mirage and her subduing Bleatdown (Dawn Bellwether) and saving the city.
When it comes to Judy's actual powers, it's rather simple. She's super fast. Not fast enough to travel through time or vibrate her very atoms in order to pierce through solid matter similar to some interpretations of the 'the flash'. But fast enough to use g-forces created by her own speed to easily render criminals unconscious, whip up unnatural vortexes of wind that can batter through most obstacles, or to be able to run from Zootopia to Bunny Burrow in less than five minutes without so much as breaking a sweat. That said, Judy has to stay significantly hydrated, as the energy it takes to run at such speeds burns through her reserves significantly quicker than most mammals. Also, without her costume to hold her ears down and back, her speed is nearly halved as her ears flapping freely add a massive amount of drag.
Judy believes in the righteousness of the system, and rule of law. She swears herself to uphold truth, justice and the Zootopian way much as she believes her idol 'Unbreakabull' does. She's a real Ranger Scout, as Mr. Mirage would say. So much so that Judy has a hard time seeing, and then eventually coming to terms with the corruption that has rooted itself deeply into the ranks of its Peacekeepers, as well as the 'hero-sanctioning' system Zootopia has in place and those who arbitrate its rules and regulations. Save for Unbreakabull, she is the longest hold out in terms of turning her back on the system, as she had dreamed to be a part of it as soon as her powers appeared.
Nicholas Piberious Wilde - Hero Name: Mr. Mirage
Unlike Judy, Nick wasn't born with powers. Instead, his abilities were unwillingly foisted upon him at a very early age due to a strange and mystical accident that befell him at an archeological dig site in Egyipt
John Wilde, Nick's father, was an archeologist. And while he and his family lived in Zootopia proper, the nature of his work took them to various parts of Animalia for extended stays. To a young Nick Wilde, it was something fun and fascinating, as not only did he get to see the world at a young age, he also shared his father's zest and enthusiasm for history and the ancient secrets of Animalia. But the fun and fascination in the little tod died almost outright on the night of his father's sudden disappearance at the site of his most recent dig. After a search party spent days searching the strange tomb, not a trace of the older tod was discovered. It was as if he had simply vanished, and that was something a young Nick Wilde could not accept.
The night before the family would be forced to return to Zootopia without him, young Nick would enter the cordoned-off tomb determined to find his father. Still being a kit however, it didn't take long for the big, vacant temple to send him running from shadows, driving him deeper into the bowels of the ruins until he was eventually forced into a massive and unfamiliar anti-chamber. At the far end of the room, the ornate outline of a door was etched into the stonework, and young Nick watched as it began to glow, taking on a shimmering mirror-like quality. To the little tod's shock, he could barely make out the shimmering and ghostly form of his father behind the unnatural door. It seemed to be reaching out, soundlessly calling out for Nick's help, and without thinking the terrified kit sprinted to the apparition, reaching his paws out in a desperate attempt to save him. However, the moment he touched the surface, the kit was infused with both knowledge and power that no mammal his age should know. Images of various worlds flittered past his eyes, his little body writhing in pain as strange and mysterious energy surged through it. A power so intense and unnatural that it eventually caused the little fox to collapse and pass out. When Nick awoke, he was back in the camp, sleeping across from his mother as if nothing had happened. But he knew better. What he had experienced, what he had seen was too intense and vivid to be a nightmare. And as dawn broke at the dig site, the disappearance of the ruins in their entirety only confirmed his deeper suspicions.
Filled with celestial and otherworldly knowledge, it didn't take Nick long to figure out how to use his newfound powers. But being so young, they were often subject to his emotional whims, for better or worse. This got the young kit into serious trouble when he attempted to join the Ranger Scouts a few years after his accident. The betrayal and cruelty of the other scouts tricking and muzzling him spurred his abilities into action despite not wanting to use them, which resulted in the entire troop save for himself going missing for several days. As it would turn out, Nick's abilities had ended up teleporting the entire group to one of Tundratown's snowiest mountain reserves. Thankfully, due to their ranger scout training, the group survived with minimal injuries. However, that didn't prevent Nick from spending the rest of his youth in a special Juvenile Hall for powered mammals, his plea's that he 'hadn't meant it' falling entirely on deaf ears.
It is there he meets Finnick, or (Deciyell) as he calls himself. The two form a tight bond during that time, and once released the pair stick together, pulling odd and sometimes questionable freelance jobs that make use of their abilities to get by. It is during one of their tamer business ventures, a 'popsicle recycling' racket that he comes face to face with goody-two solepads Hoppspeed and gets swept into the mess that would become the "Night Howler' Scandal.
With the city hailing them as heroes, and Hoppspeed pushing both him and Finnick to ride that title into an official capacity, she eventually convinces the reluctant tod into joining the ZPD Peacemaker division.
Nick's abilities are hard to quantify. If you needed a rough approximation to a similar existing hero to better understand his talents, you'd probably look to someone like Doctor Strange. Principally he works on illusion, both with powers one would deem 'real magic', and a mastery of prestidigitation that only serves to add a deeper level of misdirection to every move he makes. He is also remarkable cunning, and is perhaps mildly pre-cognitive due to his 'celestial knowledge'. This potent cocktail of abilities and talent make the tod a true force to be reckoned with, and in almost every case he seems to be twelve steps ahead of his opponent. However, what Wilde boasts in mental prowess and magical power, he lacks in physical strength. And all the tricks he has up his sleeves tend to fail him if someone manages to actually get their paws on his physical form. Depending on how strong his captor is, that could end up going fairly poorly for the lithe and fragile fox.
Nick is still the same snarky, sassy mammal he always was, although there is an even deeper emotional distress buried under his pelt than the Nick we know was carrying. He blames himself for the loss of his father and continues to try to use his abilities to find just where his father was transported to. He is also cursed with at least a vague knowledge of other worlds and timelines, and thus has seen both the best and worst he's capable of. Nick ends up joining Judy as a registered and sanctioned hero despite the whispers and rumors he's heard in the underground about how it truly operates largely because he quickly became smitten with the doe rabbit, although he'd be hard-pressed to admit it to her. That said, his 'Carrot's' is now the only thing keeping him on the legit path as he learns more and more unsettling secrets about who really runs the ZPD's Peacekeeper division. because of this, and his past tragedies, he identifies the most with the plight of the Renegades, and often is the one to leak information to them, as well as clean up their messes and cover for them. But he knows the inner workings of the ZPD suspect him of as much, and he knows it's just a matter of time before they try to 'deal' with him.
Finnick - Hero Name: Deci-Yell
Finnick is another mammal who had powers from birth, although his current mechanical augments amplify said power ten-fold. Finnick had a troubled childhood, similar to Nick's, although taking place entirely in Zootopia proper. Like Judy, Finn's power's didn't manifest until around grade school, in which he left a crowd of bullies permanently deaf after they had spent most of recess tormenting him. This was accidental of course, as the young kit's powers had triggered for the first time due to his heightened emotional state, but despite the circumstances Finnick still found himself shipped off to the Juvenile Hall for powered mammals.
Leaning into the skid so to speak, the rebellious little tod, feeling wronged for what had been done to him, continued to be a trouble maker inside the walls of the correctional facility before and after Nick arrived. Usually driving other mammals who bullied him there crazy by manipulating sound directly into their ears from the other side of the building, or scamming secrets and passwords off of the other inmates and faculty officials using his enhanced ability to eavesdrop. Between his and Nick's abilities, their propensity for troublemaking only heightened, and the pair didn't pull back on their mischievous schemes until it began to look like they might be transferred to an actual correctional facility come their respective eighteenth birthdays. With an exit on the horizon, the two began biding their time with good behavior until their release date came.
Once part of Zootopian society, the two began to take up various odd and sometimes questionable jobs that made good use of their abilities, Finnick's own work largely skewed toward acting as a DJ or wire for those who could pay a hefty sum. What money Finn made, he would pour into his van and augments, which grew increasingly advanced as the years went on, albeit not as streamlined as he would have liked. When Nick ended up dragging the smaller tod along with him into the 'real hero' racket, Finnick would take full advantage of the department's research and development division to perfect and streamline his augments, and better educate himself on just how to build and upkeep them.
Finnick is blessed with both super hearing and an incredibly powerful and flexible voice. Not only can he amplify his voice to deafeningly high levels, but he can manipulate the sound and tones he generates in a variety of ways. Concentrating it to specific locations, or using specific frequencies to mask or disrupt various signals and communication methods. He is capable of whispering in the ear of a mammal practically from the other side of the city. Of course, without his augments and technology to boost his overall range and amplitude, his abilities are only half as powerful. ironically Finnick's weakness is also the very power he utilizes, as without the use of controlled sound dampeners for his ears he's at great risk of being incapacitated by loud noises including that of his own voice. Despite this, however, it seems that he can't be deafened no matter how painful the offending sound is to his sensitive ears.
Finnick is still rather blunt and crass in this universe, with even more power to back up his threats than what we're used to. That said, he, like Nick is just as suspicious of those in charge of the ZPD's peacekeeper program, and is essentially waiting for the shoe to drop that will force them both to bail. Until then, however, he's fine with following orders if it pays well, and it being 'legit' makes it less of a hassle from a legal standpoint. His only concern is for himself, at least that's what he openly says. Although he does care for Nick, and to an extent, the rather naive Judy, and is secretly worried about just what a mess they'll have on their paws when this whole 'hero gig' blows up in their faces. After all, he'd rather have stayed under the radar than risked perhaps becoming hunted one day. But a part of him, one he'd never openly admit to, felt obligated to look after Nick.
Chief Bogo - Hero Name: Unbreakabull
Unbreakabull is one of Zootopia's most well-known and respected heroes and is considered the long-standing 'face' of the ZPD's Peacekeeper division. Not much is known about Bogo's past, or what his civilian life is like outside of the station. It's presumed that he has a family based on some of the short, begrudging admissions the large water buffalo has made to his subordinates. But generally, his conversation tends to limit itself to the office and duties that must be upheld within it. From what is known thanks to his registry information, he was born with his gift, and it is not specified as to when it manifested. As his name implies, 'Unbreakabull' is just that, invincible. He's never been sick, and can't be damaged by pretty much anything known to mammals. Bullets, Bombs, Fire, nothing can seem to pierce his impossibly tough hide, and no one knows if he actually has a weakness or not. That said, his abilities, coupled with his natural strength and physique are what made him the pinnacle of the Peacekeeper's, and the 'ideal hero' to many Animalian's, Judy included.
Bogo is both the Cheif of the ZPD, and its Peacekeeper Division for 'powereds', and ultimately makes the call in most cases for who gets inducted into both organizations. However, in the case of Hopp Speed it was his benefactors who pushed for her immeadiate inclusion against his wishes. Needless to say, this shows that Bogo is sometimes a figurehead for the machinations of those above him, and based on some of the calls they've forced him to make, it's clear he's not happy with the arrangement. Which leaves one to wonder, what could they possibly be holding over an invincible mammal-like Bogo to keep him towing the party line?
So there's your batch of 'State-Sanctioned Heroes', a look at just how some of them got to where they are, and the troubled state they all seem to be in. In terms of clashes with the Renegade heroes, it is through these confrontations that Nick and Finnick slowly have their fears and suspicions confirmed, and Judy is eventually woken up to what is really going on with Zootopia's hero sanctioning process and the organizations that run it seemingly trying to own mammals with superpowers. But how it all plays out when the rubber hits the road? Well, who can say...all we can say for sure is that well...things like that eventually fall apart. The center cannot hold...
