Author's Note:
Hey everyone, this is my first fanfic, so please go easy on me in the reviews! :P I've been trying to think of an original idea for my own story (if I can stay motivated to finish it), and this was probably the best idea I could come up with so far. This story was prompted by me wondering how the movie might have gone if Judy had been born a boy, and Nick had been born a girl. I have seen several other stories on this site where Nick was the cop, and Judy the con artist, but I haven't seen any that swapped the genders of the two main characters, but I apologise if it has in fact been done, and I'm not being as original as I thought. So here goes nothing...

***AUTHOR'S UPDATE***

To any new readers, I would like to let you know that as I have continued writing and learning through this story, I feel as if my technique and originality have improved somewhat over the course of it. So, I only think it fair to warn you that my first few chapters are of, what I would consider, sub-standard quality, both in terms of writing skill, but mostly in terms of story line. It is my intention at some point to come back and clean up what I can, but I am focused more on finishing the main story arc at the present time. Therefore, I ask that you do not judge me too harshly on the earlier chapters, and if you are able, to soldier through to where things begin to improve and my story develops its own character.

***Chapter edited on 18 July 2017***

Chapter 1: Carrot Days Festival

"Fear. Treachery. Bloodlust. Thousands of years ago, these were the forces that ruled our world. The world where prey were scared of predators, and predators had an uncontrollable, biological urge to maim and maul and-"

"Rraar!" A young leopard cub pounced on the young rabbit buck narrating from the spotlight on the otherwise darkened stage.

"Ahhhhh!" Judas screamed, "Blood! Blood! Blood!" he continued as he threw red streamers from his chest, then fell backwards onto the stage convulsing dramatically, leaving the cub standing awkwardly in the middle of the brightening stage. Judas cast about with his right paw frantically looking for the tomato sauce bottle he knew was hidden behind some fake grass. Finally clasping it, he pulled it to his side and clenched it between his arm and side, spraying sticky red liquid all over himself and the stage. "...and death…" he gasped, giving one more squeeze of the sauce bottle for good measure.

In the audience, Judas' mother sighed and buried her face in her paws, while his father looked up from his video camera with surprise, and a little awe. Many of Judas' younger siblings had also crammed into the barn, and all of them watched in rapt fascination, several bouncing up and down on their seats trying to get a better view of their big brother.

A young mountain lion cub, Steven, started beating a drum off the side of the stage and the audience quieted down.

"Back then, the world was divided in two," chirped in Judas, jumping up from where he had only moments ago suffered a horrific 'death', sauce staining the grey fur-coloured costume he was wearing. "Vicious predators," he pointed to Max, the young leopard cub who had attacked him, and then stood awkwardly on stage for Judas' prolonged demise. He now struck as aggressive a pose as he could manage and hissed at the audience to emphasize Judas' point. "And meek prey!" finished Judas, pretending to cower away. Two large cardboard boxes, labelled according to the roles Judas had just listed, descended on ropes to cover both actors. Lilly, a black lamb dressed in a white dress with a cardboard rainbow fixed above her head pranced onto stage. Throwing flower petals around, while Steven played more dramatic music.

"But over time," Judas' voice came loudly from within his box, "we evolved, and moved beyond our primitive, savage ways. Now predator and prey live in harmony!" The boxes slowly lifted up to reveal the two former adversaries dressed in clean white robes, all traces of 'blood' gone from Judas and the stage beneath him. They moved forward to shake each other's paws in friendship, before turning to face the audience. "And nowadays, every young mammal has multitudinous opportunities," he finished, looking over to his left where Lilly stood.

"Yeah, I don't have to cower in a heard anymore," Lilly exclaimed. "Instead, I can be an astronaut!" she pulled off her white robe and rainbow headpiece, revealing a homemade spacesuit. She quickly fished out a matching helmet from behind a fake bush on stage and added it to her costume. Steven blew a short warbling tune on his tin whistle, reminiscent of so many older science fiction movies. A few surprised laughs broke out from the audience, and a smattering of applause could be heard.

"I don't have to be a lonely hunter anymore," Max stepped forwards, a shy smile on his face. "Instead, I can hunt for tax exemptions," he removed his robe to reveal a rather smart looking business suit. He picked a stylish fountain pen out of his pocket and continued with more confidence, "I'm gonna be an actuary!" Cash register sounds played from Steven's stereo this time accompanied by more laughs and applause from the audience.

"And I can make the world a better place," claimed Judas stepping forward to centre stage, "I am going to be…" Steven pressed the on button for his radio, and an upbeat tune began spilling out of the speakers, "a police officer!" declared Judas loudly. He ripped off his own robe with a flourish to reveal a perfect replica of a real police uniform, complete with badge and utility belt. A matching blue cap flew in from the side of the stage like an over-sized frisbee. Judas snatched it out of the air and slapped it onto his head with a broad grin. In the audience, both Stuart and Bonnie Hopps went wide eyed with shock, while the rest of the audience had mixed responses. Some clapped, some gasped and still others laughed. In fact, one laugh could be easily heard over all the rest.

"Hehehehe! Bunny cop! That is the most stupidest thing I ever heard!" cackled a slightly chubby fox in the audience.

"It may seem impossible to small minds, like yours Gideon Grey," replied Judas easily with a light smirk, "but just 211 miles away, stands the great city of Zootopia!" The curtain at the back of the stage began to rise up revealing a colourful, hand painted poster of the city. "Zootopia! The place where mammals of all kinds came together and declared that anyone can be anything!" Judas practically yelled the last few words as Lilly and Max raised a banner behind him with those last four words emblazoned across it. "Thank you and good night!" he called as the three actors bowed, and Steven played a final fanfare on his keyboard before the curtain closed and everyone filed out of the barn.

After he had finished thanking and congratulating his friends in the play, Judas bounded off, still in his miniature uniform, to meet his parents at the door to the barn, each of them taking one of his paws in theirs as they went off to enjoy the rest of the day at the Carrot Days festival.

"Hey Jude," Stu began cautiously, "have you ever wondered how your mother and I got to be so darn happy?"

"Nope. Not really." The sun was out, the air was warm and Judas could smell the delicious scent of carrots frying and roasting rising from different stalls. There was too much going on about him for him to concentrate fully on his Father's question.

"Well, it's because we gave up on our dreams a long time ago, and we settled for the life we had, right Bon?"

"Oh yes that's right Stu, we settled hard!" she smiled.

"See, that's what's so great about complacency, if you don't try new things, you never fail at them."

"But I like trying new things actually," Judas answered easily. He bounded up atop a row of hay bales that lined the edge of the popular hay maze. His parents quickly bounced over to try and keep up with him.

"What your father's trying to say," Bonnie chimed in, "is that it's going to be extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible for you to become a police officer!"

"Right! There's never been a bunny cop. Never! Bunnies just never do that stuff, ever!" Stu continued.

"Oh," Judas ears drooped for just a second before he perked up again, "Well, there's a first time for everything, I guess that I'll just have to be the first one then!" The spring returning to his step with his latest conviction. "Because I am going to make the world a better place!" he declared, bounding ahead of his parents and springing off a food vendor's cart to do a somersault. His parents looked worriedly at each other before racing forward to catch up with their deviant son, grasping at straws now, Stu tried a new tactic.

"Well, uh, heck, you talk about wanting to make the world a better place? No better way to do it than providing good quality fresh carrots and other vegetables to mammals. I mean, imagine if there were no carrot farmers like us?"

"Yes! Your dad, me, your 275 brothers and sisters! Changing the world, one carrot at a time!" Bonnie continued, while Stu agreed vigorously next to her.

"Carrot farming is a noble profession. Enjoying the fresh air every day," he looked to his wife, a lazy smile filling his face.

"Mmmm, just putting the seeds in the ground."

"At one with the soil! Just getting covered in dirt-"

"You're starting to ramble dear," Bonnie smiled at her husband "I mean it's great to have dreams-"

"Of course! Just as long as you don't believe in 'em too much-" Stu turned back to his son, to find that he'd disappeared. "Oh cripes! Where the heck has he gone now?"

Judas had quickly lost interest in his parents' rambling, and his eyes began to wonder. As he glanced around a flash of burnt orange caught his eye. It was of course that big bully of a fox, Gideon Grey. Judas' eyes narrowed as he watched the shifty character and his weasel goon, Travis, start to follow a group of two lambs, one of them Lilly, and a young rabbit kit. So, just like any good cop, Judas decided he'd best follow as well to see if that sneaky fox was up to no good again.

Peering around a tree trunk, Judas watched as Gideon marched up to Lilly, and demanded all of them hand over their carnival tickets, "Or I'll kick your meek little sheep but!" he threatened as he pushed Lilly backwards.

"Ow! Cut it out Gideon, they're ours!" pleaded Lilly, struggling to keep the fearful quiver out of her voice.

"Baaaa!" he sneered "What're you gonna do? Cry?" He snatched the tickets straight out of Lilly's hoof with a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Hey!" interrupted Judas in a loud voice, "You heard her, cut it out! Go get your own!"

"Nice costume dweeb! But I think someone forgot to tell you that Halloween isn't until next month!" Gideon laughed. "What crazy world do you think you're livin' in where a stupid bunny like you could be a cop?" he spat.

"Kindly return my friend's tickets!" Judas ignored the expected insult and stuck his paw out, hoping, but not really expecting, that Gideon would do just that. Instead, the fox laughed and patted the front pocket of his denim overalls where he had put them.

"Come and get them!" he sneered down at the much smaller rabbit, "But you'd better watch out, 'cause like you said in your dumb play, predators like us foxes used to eat cute little prey animals like you. And that savage instinct's still in our denna!"

"Uh, Gid, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced dee-en-ay," interrupted the weasel from behind Gideon.

"Shut up Travis, I know that!"

"Well guess what, you don't scare me Gideon!" Judas declared, standing tall and doing his best to look intimidating.

"Yeah? Well we'll see about that!" Gideon replied with a grin. The fox quickly closed the gap and pushed Judas. Hard. The buck stumbled back several paces before he managed to regain his balance. The other three prey decided that now was a good time to get out of the way and they quickly ran unnoticed to hide behind a nearby tree. Meanwhile Judas stood up tall, and took a step forward.

"One more chance Gideon, give back my friend's tickets now!" he demanded, sounding more confident than he felt.

"Ha! You just don't know when to quit do ya?" the fox menaced as he stalked forward to meet Judas, but instead of doing what he was told, he went to push Judas again. But this time Judas was ready for it. Sidestepping to the left, he let the bully's momentum carry him forwards before landing a moderately good punch to his side, momentarily winding the larger predator.

"Ow! Oh now you're in for it you piece of trash!" he snarled in response, before quickly lashing out with a right hook, catching the rabbit on the jaw. He immediately followed up with a left jab to his stomach, causing a now crying Judas to stumble backwards once again. But before he could fall over, he felt someone grab his right arm to steady him. He looked up with confusion, blinking through his tears to see Gideon leering down at him with all of his sharp teeth bared.

"I bet you're scared of me now you stupid rabbit!" he spat as he drew back his right paw with his claws extended, "And I want you to think of this day whenever you think that you can be anything other than a dumb carrot farming bunny," he suddenly slashed down with his claws. He laughed to himself and high-fived Travis as they walked off. Judas looked down in shock to see three long jagged rents in his carefully made police uniform tracing from the left side of his chest, almost down to his right hip. Underneath he could see blood starting to well up from the long, painful scratches. They weren't deep enough to be dangerous, but they still hurt like the devil! He gingerly placed his paw to his chest, and stared as it came away covered in blood. His three friends raced up to him to see how he was.

"Jude! Are you alright?" asked Lilly,

"That looks bad!" the other lamb fretted. "Do you want me to go and get your parents?"

"No John, I'll be fine, plus they'll only freak out more if they see me like this," Judas winced as he reached into his back pocket to pull out the carnival tickets that had started the whole affair. "Anyway, I think these belong to you guys-"

"Wow! How'd you get those?" John exclaimed.

"I managed to grab them when he tried to push me the second time, and then I put them in my pocket so he wouldn't see them."

"You're amazing Jude!" Lilly gushed, "That fox doesn't know what he's talking about! You'd make a great cop!"

"Well, he was right about one thing," Judas said with a thin smile, before answering the confused looks he got from the other three, "I don't know when to quit!" They all laughed together at this for a minute before Judas shakily stood up, leaning heavily on John's arm. "Um, by the way, do you think that one of you could go and grab my spare shirt from my bag in the back of my dad's truck? I don't want my parents to see me like this, they'll probably never let me out of the house again if they do. Oh, and some bandages as well!" he called to Lilly as she jumped up to do as he asked.

"What are you going to tell them about your face then?" John asked indicating the black eye that Judas was quickly developing.

"Well, I'll have to tell them that Gideon was just being a bully again, but this time he got a bit more, uh, 'vocal' about it. They won't like it, but at least they won't lock me in my room for the next 15 years! Remember, I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to become Zootopia's first rabbit cop!"

Little did Judas know just how right he was…

AN:
So, obviously a lot of this chapter was taken directly from the film without much modification, however, as the story progresses, I aim to have the characters develop along different lines to the characters in the movie. Small differences in their past will cause larger deviations in their characters in the future (ripple effects and all). For example, I intend to have Judas being a bit more sarcastic, yet still naive, and Nicole (Nicky) to be a bit more defensive and withdrawn, yet still cynical. This is why I wrote the altercation between Gideon and Judas differently, as I have a feeling it may have played out if both were male.

Also, I was originally planning on waiting until I had a few more chapters ready to post, but since today's my birthday I thought I'd go ahead and post it to see what people think about it. I don't know how often I will be able to update as my Uni workload is only going to get more intense as the weeks go by, but I'll try and make updates semi-regularly. Also, I appologise to all you American readers, I'm an Aussie and we spell some words differently, so I've tried to make an effort to adopt some of your American spellings, for the characters sake, but I refuse to adopt them all! :)