Caesar had gotten out of FoxFang's grasp by putting her in a difficult situation but now she was in another. If she didn't do something, the helicopter that she was in would crash into the automated power plant. This would destroy the power plant, knock out power to the whole city and possibly kill her as well. She had gone over to the controls of the helicopter but found herself facing the same problem that Cub had faced when he had to do a similar stunt in the January; the controls were too big for her to use effectively. Even so, she had to do everything that she could. She was then interrupted when her Fangwave sounded. Cub had found the helicopter and was driving nearby. He was contacting her. FoxFang took out her Fangwave and responded.
"FoxFang."
"FoxFang, are you ok?" Cub asked.
"Cub, I need to stop this helicopter from crashing into the power plant."
"I can see the helicopter. I have a plan to land the helicopter so we can obtain evidence, but first we need to save the power plant. Follow my directions and we can do this together."
"Right."
"Firstly, you'll need to raise the helicopter sharply so that it flies over the power plant. There isn't enough time or room to turn to the side." Cub was right. If the helicopter was turned, the blades would scrape against the power plant and cause it to crash. FoxFang kept the link to Cub open and pushed the control lever down sharply. The helicopter suddenly jolted and lurched upwards sharply, knocking FoxFang down to the floor but she quickly climbed back up. The helicopter in the meantime had climbed sharply and only just made it over the top of the power plant, with about 1 inch between the base of the helicopter and the roof of the power plant. However, the helicopter was climbing too high, so FoxFang very quickly climbed back up to the control lever and lowered it, levelling the trajectory of the helicopter to horizontal. There was now no danger of it hitting any buildings but there was still the matter of landing the helicopter safely. Cub was driving the Fangmobile on the ground below and had the helicopter in visual constantly. At the same time, he had to follow the road carefully so he didn't crash into anything himself. He was communicating to FoxFang with the Fangmobile's hands free communication system. Now that there was no danger of the helicopter crashing into anything, there was the matter of landing the helicopter. At the same time, he was looking at a map on the Fangmobile's screen to find a suitable place to land the helicopter. Eventually though, he was able to find a place. He had seen a large clearing to the left, large enough to allow a margin for error in the landing attempt.
"FoxFang, there is a clearing to the left of you. You can land the helicopter there." Cub instructed. FoxFang reached the steering system and steered the helicopter to the left in a similar way to how she had controlled the FoxChopper several times before. The helicopter turned successfully and began to head towards the clearing Cub had seen on the Fangmobile's screen. Eventually, FoxFang was able to see the clearing for herself. It was definitely large enough to land successfully even taking into account possible errors.
"I can see the clearing." FoxFang said into the Fangwave.
"Ok, landing the helicopter is going to be very similar to landing the FoxChopper. It will be difficult because of the size differences but the principle will be the same." Cub instructed. He took a shortcut and arrived at the clearing. The clearing was just grass, nothing else. It was a perfect place to land the helicopter. FoxFang then took control of the helicopter as best as she could. Cub was right; it was similar to landing the FoxChopper. It was still a struggle, but she was able to land the helicopter successfully. She did have a helping hand from Cub. He had driven the Fangmobile close to the landing site and fired his grapple gun towards the base of the helicopter. He then locked the grapple gun and used it to prevent the helicopter from drifting just in case something went wrong. As the helicopter was about to land, he unlocked the grapple gun and the line returned to him. He then jumped out of the Fangmobile and went over to the helicopter. The door then opened and FoxFang stepped out of the helicopter. She was almost exhausted from having to land the helicopter, even though Cub had given her help. She was so relieved when the helicopter had landed. If she wasn't in her outfit, she would've hugged Cub. She decided in her head to give him a hug when they got back to the Foxcave.
"Cub, thanks for your help." FoxFang said.
"No problem. Now we need to gather some evidence from the chopper." Cub replied.
"There's no need. I've met the person behind all of this. I need to tell everybody back at the Foxcave."
"Ok. We'll head back for now."
The two went from the site of where the helicopter had been landed to the Foxcave. FoxFang was slightly disturbed about the most recent development, though she had a good idea of how Caesar and his men had escaped from prison. She wasn't sure as to how everyone was going to react to this news. Zach himself had had bad experiences with Caesar's men. He was nearly killed by them. Daffy and Melissa were also wounded badly. She was expecting a reaction similar to the reaction that they had when they discovered that the formula printed off was the formula for the dip. In her mind, the situation was approaching a critical stage. Caesar had hostages that needed to be rescued. At the same time, they needed to stop him from unleashing the dip onto the city. She was thankful that they had a week rather than a day to stop him. However, this wasn't as much time as it seemed, so they still needed to hurry. The appearance of CatClaw wasn't helping at all. They team had too many things to worry about right now, and a limited time to sort everything out. When they were back at the Foxcave, the group gathered around the computer. While FoxFang and Cub were gone, Plucky, Shirley and Egghead Jr. were finding out as much as possible about Turpentine, Acetone and Benzene. Jessica and Zach had changed out of their outfits ad were now ready to start discussing the next steps.
"So… what have you found about the chemicals?" Zach asked.
"We have information about the chemicals. We're trying to create opposites to them now." Shirley explained.
"You guys do realise that you can't go against the dip head on don't you?" Plucky asked.
"What choice do we have? Whatever method we use, we could be killed." Zach said.
"Besides, we don't know who the person behind all this is." Shirley added.
"Not true." Jessica said. Everybody turned and looked at her. Jessica then stood up and looked up into the air. This was another moment that she was dreading. She had no idea of how everybody was going to react to the revelation of who the person behind this was.
"How do you know who the leader is?" Plucky asked.
"You know of the break in at the chemical plant don't you?"
"Yes, we were alerted about it by the Fangwave."
"When we got there, Jessica climbed into an escaping helicopter to try and stop the person behind this from escaping while I tried to stop the theft of the chemicals." Zach explained.
"Were you?" Jessica asked. Zach just sighed heavily before giving his response.
"I was overpowered and they got away, even with King's help." Zach gave a sympathetic look towards King as he said this. The fox was fast asleep next to Shirley, with Shirley stroking him gently. Jessica put an arm around him to stop him from getting too depressed.
"You did the best that you could."
"But I was able to attach a tracker to one of the vans. We can follow it now and find out where they are." Zach added. Egghead Jr. immediately took the hint and opened up an aerial view of the city and the surrounding forest. Almost immediately, a bleep appeared on the screen. The location was an area of land just outside the forest surrounding the town.
"The same area of land purchased by Barbara Lyle." Jessica said.
"Who?" Everybody asked.
"Someone at the auction I was at. That plot of land was the first item that went up. She brought it for $600,000." At the mention of the amount of money, everybody's jaw dropped. Jessica cracked a smirk and had to cover her mouth to hide it while everybody closed their mouths. Afterwards, they all looked cynically at Jessica, who had to suddenly stop smirking.
"Sorry." Jessica muttered.
"So Barbara Lyle is behind this." Plucky said.
"I don't think she's involved. She's a victim as the person behind this is using her land for the plan, probably without knowing that she owns the land."
"But if Barbara isn't behind all of this, who is?" Shirley asked. Jessica sighed deeply and sat back down.
"The person behind this is the first big enemy I faced, one year ago, Caesar Feralo."
Everybody in the room other than Egghead Jr. gasped when they heard Caesar's name. They all thought that he would not be heard from again. Zach then suffered a flashback to that incident one year ago when he was present when Caesar's men kidnapped Jessica's parents outside the supermarket. The resulting fight had left him in hospital and nearly robbed him of his life. Plucky and Shirley also remembered that incident. They attempted a rescue but ended up having to retreat. They also arrived on the scene when Daffy, Melissa and Zach were found unconscious after the attack. Jessica was also having flashbacks to that incident. She was holding them back ever since she had confronted Caesar in the helicopter but now they were coming through. She remembered her first fight against Caesar and his men. Now she was up against them again, and they seemed a lot more dangerous than before.
"Caesar is behind this?" Plucky asked. Jessica nodded.
"He also has hostages. I have no idea who but he used that threat to get away from me." Her head sunk into her hands and she began to sob. She was feeling guilty about letting Caesar get away. She stopped sobbing when she felt a reassuring hand touch her shoulder. She looked up and saw Zach next to her.
"Jessica, there was no way of preventing that. We have to put the pubic first, so you had to let Caesar get away in order to protect them." Zach explained.
"I'm sure I could've stopped him from getting away and saving his hostages."
"Look, if his other men got back to their base and their leader never returns, they would probably kill them before we could get to them in time." Jessica sighed, stood up and hugged Zach tightly. She had realised that he was right. There was nothing that she could've done. She was trying to be too ambitious because she wanted to end the situation early. They needed to formulate a plan in order to save everyone. Besides, she knew that Caesar didn't intend to kill his hostages for a week. That gave then some time.
"You're right Zach. We have to formulate a plan in order to save everyone." Jessica pulled away from the hug so they could discuss what they were going to do.
"Does anyone have any ideas?" Shirley asked.
"I did overhear some of the conversation between Caesar and his men before I got onboard the helicopter. We have a week to rescue everybody and stop the dip."
"That isn't very long, but at least we have some time." Zach said.
"What did you find out about the substances that make up the dip?" Jessica asked Plucky and Shirley.
"Enough to start attempting to create opposites." Plucky replied.
"I don't know how long that will take though." Shirley added.
"But once you've created an opposite, we can use it to sabotage the dip, right?" Zach asked.
"Exactly."
"But we should come up with a back-up way to destroy the substance. If the opposite doesn't work, the city will be in major trouble." Jessica added.
"We'll get back to you on that." Plucky replied. They clearly hadn't thought of a back-up plan to destroy the substance.
"Do you know of anything else that might cause a problem?" Shirley asked.
"Actually yes. Caesar is going to make his demands tomorrow. I don't know if he's going to make a public demand or a private demand to the mayor." Jessica replied.
"I hope it's the latter. If he makes his demand publicly, it will cause a panic." Zach said.
"So do I Zach, so do I."
