Disclaimer: I do not own Zootopia or any of it characters, they all belong to Disney. I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters, they all belong to AMC and Robert Kirkman. I do not own Destroyermen or any of its characters, they all belong to Taylor Anderson.

'Is This Hell?' is the prequel to this story

Escape from Hell?

Chapter 1

The APC just able to fit through the cave, but the tanks were much too wide. One of the small helicopters was slowly pulled through the cave behind the APC. They talked about blasting the cave wider, but since Ben was in charge he made the decision to wait for the combat engineers from the army to arrive. He did make the decision to contact the humans and their allies on the other Earth. He thought since Judy and Sofia had already made contact it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. He thought it was a good idea to get the humans and Lemurians back as fast as possible before their friends started looking to them.

He left fifty of his troops to guard the cave and took the rest with him. The helicopter was checked for damage and taken for a short test flight. Then it brought back and loaded. He smiled as the humans and Lemurians gawked.

"I never saw anything like it," Joe said.

"The helicopter like this one was invented by Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky in 1939," Ben said reading from his tablet.

"In only five year ago?"

"It's 1944 here?"

"Yes," Joe said drawing out the word.

"On that Earth it's 2020 AD and the one we're from its 1018 AD," Ben said and watched Joe's eyebrows rise. "How about if we talk about religion a bit later."

"Sound like that's a good idea to me," Joe said thinking about the implications. "Let's go visit my friends."

To say that the humans and Lemurians on the Easter Island base were just a bit surprised by a group bipedal animals and humans led by seven foot Cheetah would have been an understatement. When the helicopter flew over the base personnel ducked. When Ben saw a Lemurian and what he assumed to be guards running toward them he stepped forward to greet them.

They stopped ten feet away only to look up to watch the helicopter. He smiled and turned to his radioman.

"Have them set it down next to the APC."

Ben watched their heads drop as the helicopter settled only then to be surprised to see him.

"Brigadier General Benjamin Clawhauser commander of the Easter Island forces."

"Commander, there's a …"

"Portal."

"Thanks," Joe said and smiled at Ben. "Portal to another Earth on the other side of the Island. A bunny…"

"Rabbit," Judy said coming forward with her Fox.

"Judy and her daughter found us and we sorta followed them back to their Easter Island."

"You lead them here?"

"No sir," Joe said shaking his head. "Judy already saw our base and we just came back with them to meet everyone."

The Lemurian commander closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Commander, how would you like to see this island from the air?" Ben asked.

The explosion was so large it shook both islands and made the ocean ripple. The explosives were set to blow the rubble toward the sea. Only a small amount actually landed on the island. They used one helicopter on the 1944 side and another on the 2020 side to determine the size of the portal. It turned out to be an ellipse over a mile high and half mile wide. They breathed a sigh of relief that it didn't extend into the ocean after they heard about some of the life forms that inhabited the 1944 side. They painted the ground red on both sides of the portal for the aircraft that would soon be passing through and put up large balloons near the edges. So as long as a plane flew under 4000 feet and stayed in center track they would be fine.

There had been a short runway on the 1944 side and within a week it had been extended to 12000 feet. The first VTOL jets were flown through on the second day and setup a combat air patrol was setup over the island and 200 miles around it. The first heavy transports landed then next week disgorging heavy equipment, fuel, and engineers. Of course the same thing was being done on the 2020 Easter Island too.

The Lemurian commander watched the installation of the large rollers through the portal and beyond.

"Ben, what are your people up to?"

"We are going to bring some ships across."

The Lemurian just stared at him for a moment and then came to himself.

"What kind?"

"Let go for a walk."

They walk though the portal and they took a ride across the island to the bay on other side of the island. An entire battle group including an aircraft carrier was anchored off the island.

"So tell me about your airports at Manila, Hawaii, and Diego Garcia."

Matthew Reddy, Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces and the Captain of USS Walker read the message relayed from Easter Island the third time. A portal had been found connecting this Earth with another where there had been a plague of walking dead that had almost wiped out humanity. They had been saved from extinction by intelligent animals from different Earth that had moved their entire population there to escape an asteroid that destroyed their planet. It had read like one of those science fiction stories from Astounding he'd read when he was younger. An emissary from their Earth would be arriving today in just over an hour. He had to smile.

They had cleared bushes and trees in a square of 25,000 square feet and marked it as requested. He wondered how they could land a aircraft in such a small place. One thing had come to mind, but that was of course ridiculous. He'd sent up planes to watch for them and the first sighting come in half an hour before they were suppose to land.

"Sir, it's the largest plane I ever seen in my life!" the human pilot said excitedly. "I'd bet if you took the wings off a clipper you could fit two of them inside it!"

"Then it's a cargo plane."

"Sir, that would be my guess too," he said and lowered his voice, "and sir, it doesn't have any propellers."

Matt's eyebrows went up and Courtney Bradford clapped his hands and did a little jig.

"I can't wait to see it!" the Australian exclaimed. "Since their world is 76 years ahead of ours and they must be much more technically advanced. That plane must be a jet. I heard they were experimenting with them in Britain and the US before the war. I'll bet the NAZIs were too. I can't wait to see it."

Half an hour later he got his wish. The plane flew over at about 3000 feet and then circled. Each time it slowed and dropped lower until it hovered over the cleared area. Matt knew his mouth was hanging open and guessed that everyone else's was too. He was glad they heeded their warning and stayed far back from the landing site. But it was still so loud that he and everyone else had fingers in their ears. He watched as its wheels drop and then it floated down to the ground. Then engines wound down and a large ramp dropped from the tail. The first down the ramp was a Cheetah and human woman and followed by other animals, humans, and a few Lemurians.

The Cheetah walked directly up to Matt and saluted. Matt returned it.

"Major General Benjamin Clawhauser, commander of the Earth 3 Expeditionary Forces."

"Matthew Reddy, Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces."

Ben extended his hand and Matt took it.

"First, let me introduce some of people and animals that I've brought with me," Ben said and put his arm around the woman by his side. "This is my wife Beth."

"You married a human!" Courtney blurted out and Ben smiled showing a lot of teeth.

"You must be Courtney Bradford," Beth said and held out a hand. "We were bonded when I was 16 and married when I was 18."

Courtney took the proffered hand and then thought better of what he'd just said.

"I didn't mean to …" Courtney began.

"You're not the first human we've met who was surprised," Beth said smiling at his discomfiture and turned to Captain Reddy. "Captain Reddy, this is Judy Wilde. She discovered the portal and met some of your men and Lemurians."

Judy held out a hand and Matt dropped to his knees not to tower over the Rabbit taking her hand. She shook it and Matt was surprised with the strength of her grip.

"We had a long talk with them and told us a lot about your problems," Judy said and smiled. "I think we can help each other."

"How?"

"We just ended a ten year long war with an implacable enemy who had no thought of how many it sacrificed to kill one of us," Judy said. "From what we were told by your people it must sound a bit like your war. Trust me it wasn't. We faced seven billion mindless walking corpses. If they bit or scratched a human he or she would die and then be resurrected. If a human died of anything but head trauma they would resurrect too. It took us ten years to conquer that Earth. Fortunately we animals were naturally immune as are the humans and Lemurians on this version of Earth. Of course we didn't have any Grik to test."

"Are you sure?" Courtney asked.

"You can trust Judy," the Fox said standing behind her. "She's a great doctor and even a better fighter." The Rabbit's ears turned pink. "Why else would I have married her?"

Nick got an elbow in the ribs and Courtney's eyebrows rose.

"The genetic markers were not there in either species," Judy said looking serious.

"When you have time I'd like to speak to you about that," Courtney said.

"Sure," the Rabbit said and smiled.

"Captain Reddy …"

"Ben, please call me Matt."

"Matt, why don't we step over to our plane," he said and smiled. "We brought along some things that I thought you could use."

Matt started up the ramp and came face to face with a pair of fighters with folded up wings. A second pair sat behind them.

"Captain Reddy!" Courtney said excitedly. "These are jets like I was telling you about!"

"Your people told us that you're getting bombed every night," Ben said putting a hand on one of them. "They'll go out and destroy those Zeppelins before can get anywhere near this harbor."

"At night!"

"They have radar and we're going to set up a radar station here too."

The word radar seemed to tickle something in his memory and then he looked at Courtney. The Australian smiled and dropped into lecture mode.

"Radar means radio detection and ranging. A signal is sent out by an antenna and a receiver detects the echoes off any objects in the path of the signal. So they should be able to detect the incoming Zeppelins in at a distance."

"Then we'll vector in these jets and they shoot them down."

"They have cables strung between them."

"We'll just have the pilots attack them from below, above, and along the outer sides."

Ben led them deeper into the huge cargo plan and into an elevator. It took the elevator took three trips to get everyone to the upper deck. They were taken to a conference room which was actually cool! They sat at the table while the crew started to unload the fighter planes and cargo.

"So I'd guess you must have a few more questions," Ben said and smiled. "As I requested and with your permission we are sending planes like this on to Hawaii, Manila, and Diego Garcia. Our engineers will lengthen the existing runways and then we'll bring in heavy bombers. We also want to setup a launch facilities on the island Borneo and the Gilbert Islands to put satellites in orbit."

Matt, Courtney, and the others looked at him like he sprouted a second head. Ben chuckled.

"Yes, are quite accomplished at rocketry and we have two space stations in orbit and a base on Earth 2's Moon. We intend to do the same thing here too with your permission of course. And a long term goal will be to terraform Venus and now there are two."

"How?" Courtney asked in a ragged voice.

"From what I've read they want to use comet heads from the Oort cloud and drop them on Venus."

"Oh my!" Courtney exclaimed.

"Anyway that's something which won't happen for a hundred years or so," Ben said and smiled at looked on the human's faces. "First, we need to help you finish these wars."

"Why are you helping us?"

"Two reasons," Ben said holding up two fingers. "We rather fight with you now that you have a base we can fight from than wait until you might be defeated and have to fight from just Easter Island." Now Ben smiled. "Earth 2 is basically now one large Rabbit Burrow and farms with about 50 large cities. You wouldn't believe what 7 billion Rabbits can do in ten years. At least now they have their population under control. Earth 3 is basically an under populated planet."

"You want to settle some of your people here," Matt said.

"About 3 billion or so," Ben confirmed. "With the Rabbits here no one on this planet will ever starve. The other thing we can provide is technology in medicine, computers, mechanical engineering, aeronautics, space travel, etc. This plane could fly from here across the Pacific Ocean to North America in just a bit over ten hours. There is one I myself want to help you do regardless of what is decided. Your people told us that your wife is being held hostage. How would like to get her back, take Zanzibar, capture Kurokawa, and not lose a single person doing it.

Much as Matthew Reddy was on Madagascar the humans and their Lemurian allies in Manila, Hawaii, and Diego Garcia were amazed by the massive aircraft when landed vertically on the ridiculously small prepare runway. Even as the runways were being built more of the large cargo aircraft were being flown in. They delivered all the pieces and parts to build a modern military airbase. Within only two weeks all three runways were extended to 12,000 feet and the next day the dozens heavy bombers began to land.

General of the Sea Kurokawa awoke and tried to move. He soon found in was in a small room and seated in a chair that was bolted to the floor. He himself was in chains which were also bolted to the floor. After struggling himself to exhaustion a U.S. Naval officer and bipedal Cheetah entered the room. He suspected the naval officer was Matthew Reddy and the Cheetah must be a new race from this infernal planet.

"I demand…"

Matthew Reddy laughed until Kurokawa saw tears in his eyes. The Cheetah only smiled.

"He really is insane," the Cheetah said and the human laughed harder.

"Oh God!" Matt said and wiped his eyes. "I needed that. I haven't laughed that hard in years." Matt turned to Kurokawa. "I've been waiting for two years to meet you exactly like this – helpless and in chains."

"You …"

Matt had Kurokawa by the throat a moment later.

"Matt, don't you want to tell him what happened on Zanzibar?"

Kurokawa felt the pressure ease on his throat and after his vision cleared the Cheetah squatted before him. It held up a hand and expressed his claws. Then it reached for his throat and Kurokawa felt the claw tips just brush his skin. He gave a strangled cry and the Cheetah smiled and stepped back.

"Well Kurokawa Zanzibar is in our hands intact and we didn't lose one person doing it."

"That's impossible!"

"Unless you can put the entire island to sleep."

"How?"

"I'm from another Earth where it's the year 2020," the Cheetah said, "and we have technology you wouldn't believe. The simple answer is nerve gas. We put you all to sleep, flew in troops, gathered all the humans we could find, and then gassed it again. Then once Captain Reddy's ships arrived a week later we simply woke all the sleeping Grik. They turned out to be wonderfully compliant once they realized they were surrounded without their weapons. We had some our Grik talk to them and as long as they are treated well and fed they'll work for us. Simply to say you were just one small pebble we just shook out of our shoe."

Kurokawa's face turned purple with rage.

"Wait till you try to take on the Grik on the continent."

"They're another small pebble that will soon be removed in about …"

"Eight hours," Ben said and smiled.

"That's impossible!"

"As I said before we have technology you wouldn't believe."

Captain Reddy grinned.

Matt looked out the window at the formation of bombers their plane trailed. He still found it hard to believe that they were flying 700 miles per hour at 55,000 feet.

"We are now passing back over Madagascar," Ben said pointing to the flat screen TV mounted on the wall. "At home we would have to Global Positioning Satellites to guide us, but here we're using a map of the Earth system. This Earth is close enough to Earth 2 that we can get away with it."

"All this was just abandoned on your Earth."

"The plague had been going on about six months when the portal was discovered by Nick, Judy, and Maria. Once the portal was found by our military they just started crossing in force and they already knew about the asteroid. They only had 18 months to move our entire civilization to Earth 2. So we brought everything with us and really wasn't any choice since our planet was going to be unlivable anyway. A lot of things were destroyed on Earth 2, but a lot wasn't. These planes were simply abandon on their airfields in their revetments and so we were able to bring them back to being flight worthy. Also, we brought our own military planes and we are building new ones too."

"You took a big chance."

"We rolled the dice and got lucky."

Sandra and Beth returned from the galley with supper and drinks. Ben and Matt stood allowing them put it on the table and their respective mates sat themselves and then their respective mates joined them.

"This plane has all the comforts of home," Sandra said and smiled. "There's a kitchen, cabins, bathrooms, this conference/dining room."

"Are you feeling OK?" Matt asked just a bit worried. "I still don't think you …"

"Matthew Reddy," she began and he winced, "I'm pregnant not an invalid. We also have a doctor on board."

Matt looked at the large Wolf at the other table.

"I checked her when you came aboard and she doing fine," he said and smiled. "The only thing she need to is gain some of weight back. My only order to her is eat!"

Matt smiled and put an arm around her and she put her head on her shoulder. Beth smiled and leaned against her Cheetah.

"Well we better eat it before it gets cold," Sandra said and started on her Tuna.

The others had steaks and a selection of vegetables.

"Beth, can I ask you a personal question?" Sandra said.

"Of course."

"About you and Ben."

"He was fairly tame when I meet him," she said and looked at her Cheetah. "He only bit me once." Ben rolled his eyes and Beth pulled her blouse over showing the scar on her neck. "We are now of one body, one mind, and one soul. I am now your mate for life bonded by blood."

"We are now of one body, one mind, and one soul. I am now your mate for life bonded by blood," he said and licked her scar. "That oath of my people is older than living memory."

When they finished supper the lead bombers were crossing the African coast near the mouth of the Zambezi River.

Esshk was more than a little surprised to hear massive explosions while it was it was still daylight. He rushed outside just in time to see a massive explosion less than a mile away in Old Sofesshk and then another. The third one knocked him off his feet.

The next one tore the air from his lungs and then his lungs from his body. The one after that vaporized The Palace of the Vanished Gods. By the time the plane carrying Matthew Reddy flew over the city of Sofesshk – both old and new – and all the Grik in them was being consumed by a firestorm.

Courtney Bradford was on the south bank of the Ungee River with the Army of the Republic watching the Grik army gathering on the other side. They weren't standing on the riverbank, but everyone had moved back about a half a mile behind hastily dug earthworks. He looked at his watch and at exactly 5pm the entire army dropped to the ground. Massive explosions set everything on the north side afire for miles up and downstream. After ten minutes the explosions stopped. Courtney was first up over the earthworks and then wished he hadn't as his clothes began to smolder. He quickly dropped back and began to beat on his clothes. One of the Cats dumped a canteen on him before they actually ignited.

"You can feel the heat. We need to keep everyone behind these earthworks for several hours at least," he said and looked at General Kim. "It's going be a few days before we can advance and cross the river."

"What did you see?"

"Hell on Earth!"

A week later a face to face meeting was held on Easter Island. Since the war in the East was for all practical purposes over all the principals involved could be present. Even the Grik General Halik was convinced to come after a demonstration of the weapons used on Sofesshk and then a flyover of the remains of the city.

"I'm glad you all could come today," Ben said and smiled. "After this meeting we will take you across to Earth 2."

"And Earth 1," Kaiser Nig-Taak said.

"We came from that world before it was rendered inhabitable by a nickel iron asteroid 5 miles wide," Ben explained. "Earth 2 was struck by one about that size about 65 million years ago according to the humans and our own studies. Apparently Earth 3 either was struck by a smaller one or not at all. We would need to look for craters once the other war is over and the League of Tripoli is dealt with. After we dealt with the walkers our first priority was our space program. We don't want same thing to happen to our new home or this planet either."

"I've seen what you did to Sofesshk," General Halik said. "Could you explain about the weapons used."

"Those bombs were thermobaric," Ben said seeing incomprehension on his listener's faces. "It is a fuel-air bomb. As it nears the ground is disperses a fine mist of fuel into the air and then detonates. The resulting explosion actually sets the air on fire and the resulting fire storm creates its own winds. It's only extinguished when its fuel is exhausted. The yield of these weapons is approximately 100 tons of TNT. We only dropped 50 of them on the city." He saw the stunned looks on their faces. "We have weapons far more powerful than this."

"Fission bombs?" Courtney asked.

"And fusion bombs too," Ben said.

"Oh my word!" Courtney exclaimed. "You actually tested them."

"The humans had on Earth 2 in the past and we have in space to test moving asteroids."

"Courtney?" Matt said.

"I've read a theoretical paper on fission weapons," he said looking ashen. "Using an isotope of uranium and having it reach a critical mass it will explode."

"The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT," Ben said remembering what he read on the subject. "Also, the metal plutonium can be used. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb as a trigger. At the core of the plutonium the isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium and tritium – are placed. When the fission core detonates the hydrogen isotopes are compressed and fusion occurs much as it does at the core of a star. The largest fusion bomb the human built and detonated was 50 megatons."

"50 million tons of TNT," Courtney said awed.

Ben searched on the internet and found the correct website. The screen descended and room darkened.

"This is first fission bomb test on July 16, 1945, in the desert north of Alamogordo, New Mexico."

The screen showed the desert for a moment and picture flashed white. A few moments later it showed the distinctive mushroom cloud.

"This bomb used plutonium and was the equivalent to 19 kilotons of TNT," Ben said, "This is the largest fusion bomb." The movie played much as the other, but everyone could tell the explosion was much larger. "That fireball was five miles across."

"How many do you have?" Courtney asked.

"We found 4,287 since we have arrived," Ben said reading from his tablet. "Most have been move to the Moon."

"Most," Matt said.

"We've kept several dozen which were mounted on rockets at a ready state."

"We've spoken and find it interesting how ready you were for this," Matt said and started at Ben.

"I was wondering when you'd ask me about that," Ben said and smiled. "Actually we're been preparing for this day almost since we arrived on Earth 2. We thought if there was one portal there was the possibility there might be another. We've nine billion animals to protect. If was just been the Grik we would have defeated them and simply taken over this planet." He looked at an unhappy looking General Halik and shrugged. "But you and the Lemurians are here. You have a sense of honor and we feel we can trust you, but you haven't explored this planet. Who knows what's out there on this one or any of the other myriad versions of Earth."