A/N: These last few weeks have been a roller coaster for me. Sorry it came this long, especially where we left everything. Hope this climax makes up for everything.


Nick's keen eyesight immediately caught the glimpse of flashing lights half a mile before they even approached the collection of police cruisers. Bogo pulled over and the cops at the scene stood at attention, recognizing their superior straight away.

"What is the situation?" asked the cape buffalo.

A jaguar, not a rookie but still very young, stepped forward.

"Sir? Um, we had one of the suspects Officer Hopps reported cornered here."

The Chief raised his brow "Just one?"

"Yes, sir" he nodded, moving to the side, revealing the slain grizzly brothers.

"Good grief," he grumbled. "So, where is the mammal you had cornered?"

The other officers just looked at each other, too nervous to tell the chief of the escalation of the problem.

Bogo but his hooves on his hips, losing what little patience he had.

"Well?"

The lot was surprised at the source of that question. They looked down at the livid fox officer. Normally Bogo objected to one of his mammals overstepping their bounds, but there was no time for such things. Instead, he stood his ground and allowed Officer Wilde's query linger.

Once again it was the hapless Jaguar who broke the silence.

"Uh...look up, sir."

"Pardon?"

"Chief?" said Nick. "You should really look at this."

Bogo obliged and saw the last thing he expected. The simian was indeed still on the run, but this time he was making his getaway vertically.

"You have got to be kidding me." he thought.

"Where is Hopps?" demanded Nick, practically jumping on one of the officers.

"Wilde, I'm afraid she's with the mammal in question."

Nick gazed up at the eight story building the suspect was climbing. He was almost to the roof and the lack of efficient lighting made him rely on his natural instincts. He was carrying something...grey...dammit, it was someone.

The red fox shot the arresting officers a glare.

"So all of you could not take down one mammal and allowed him to put Hopps in danger?"

Bogo placed his hoof on Nick's shoulder, mentally telling him to calm down.

"Please do something constructive and have Gilbert send us a chopper."

"One is already on the way, sir" spoke up a zebra cop.

"Well what do you know, finally something useful from you bunch." Bogo chastised his officers.


"Let me down this instant!"

James ignored the threats from the rabbit in his clutch. His focus was getting away.

The money was long gone, the bags discarded on the streets below. Surely they were now in the possession of the ZPD. The primate didn't care at this point. The ill-gotten gains from the day's daring daylight burglary was a means to an end.

All he could think of was avoiding the clink again. James was determined not to go back and while having the tiny officer with him was a quick and desperate move; it succeeded in bemusing the cops. For now. And she kept him alive.

For now.

It didn't take very much longer for aerial support to arrive. A long helicopter with the ZPD emblem hovered menacingly overhead, shining its spotlight down on the ape.

Feeling panic, he started leaping to the next rooftop. Then another. And another.

The buildings were relatively close together and had similar heights. However, the very next jump was extremely difficult. James was in mid-air when ZPD fired upon the mammal, making him miss his mark and tumble down violently like a rag doll. The flat portion of the roof he was aiming for was a couple stories above. Now he landed on a level surface in between two sloped sections of the neighboring roof.

In the heat of the moment, he relinquished Judy.


"What's happening?" demanded Nick on his radio.

The pilot replied, "Positive on the target but he fell down a ways."

"What about Hopps?"

"Uh...no confirmation on her yet, Wilde. Chief?"

The cape buffalo then took the receiver from his subordinate.

"Go ahead, Barry."

"Sir, I'm sorry but Gil is giving me the big warning to return to the precinct. I'm running low on fuel."

The Chief grumbled, "Where is our backup?"

"They're coming in about five. Sorry, Chief. It was the best we could do at last minute."

With a sigh, Bogo softened his tone with the mammal who was only doing his job.

"Roger that, Barry."

"Do you want me to come back after I refuel?"

"Negative, officer. Just report to Gilbert and be prepared to give your statement."

"Yes, sir."

It was common practice for any officer, under any circumstances, who unloaded live ammunition on a mammal to be debriefed by a superior. In the case of a killing shot, psychological counseling is required. Some mammals have issues when they finally fire a weapon at another fellow mammal. Its a natural reaction.

"You think she's alright, Chief?"

The usually confident fox was visibly shaken during this whole experience. Bogo rather preferred the cocky little cuss because it meant things were relatively under control.

"I've known her for only a bit longer than you but I believe she is. At least not dead."

"How can you be so sure?"

Bogo huffed, making a smirk.

"Because she wouldn't allow it. You'd have to drag that rabbit from the situation."


James held his arm, wincing as he rolled over onto his back.

Judy was already on his feet staring down the robber turned kidnapper.

"There's nowhere else to go!" she warned, her chest heaving like mad from erratic breathing. "Give up."

The gargantuan mammal sat, staring up at the helicopter flying away. Judy saw it too.

"Whomever sent this will likely send more to finish the job," the rabbit added.

"No doubt," the primate thought.

James was determined to escape from all of this a free mammal but nothing about today was going off as planned. He cursed himself for associating himself with that damn raccoon and his cronies. He also resented how he was saddled with a couple of saps like those grizzlies he left for dead (well one of them anyway). Everything was just falling apart by the minute. James fooled himself for long enough; he knew in the back of his mind that there was no way out.

He's too exhausted to go on. He gives up.

"Go ahead, Cottontail" grumbled James. "Just step aside and let your buddies mow me down. It's over."

Judy had never seen anything like this before. He was waiting for death.

"You're right," she finally said. "It is over."

Her paws were quick; the gorilla blinked and totally missed the rabbit's movements. Before he knew it, he was tethered to the cop by the wrist.

The ZPD, long before the induction of smaller mammals like Nick and Judy; were wrestling with the dilemma of dealing with criminals (and later officers) of varying sizes. It made the usage of generic handcuffs impractical. So Chief Bogo implemented a special bracelet custom-sized to the officer it was assigned to. And this bracelet was attached to a very strong plastic ribbon that could wrap around any sized mammal with little difficulty and could as easily be tied and tightened, if necessary. Your average scissors or knife could not penetrate this material and crooks wouldn't dare try to cut it themselves. The amount of force you would have to use to make a dent in it would run the risk of slicing your own limb off. The precinct had the preferred tool to unhitch arresting officer from suspect.

"What the hell are you doing?" James asked, his deep voice a combination of annoyed and confused.

Judy took a deep breath and let it out calmly.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you."

All he could do was gaze at this small but brazen cop.

"Sorry, but I'm not letting you take the easy way out. You deserve to stand trial and do your time."

He chuckled. "By the book, eh? Well let me ask you something; what makes you think I won't just jump off this building and take you with me?"

Judy swallowed nervously. She couldn't entertain that possibility because it would hurt her composure.

"You won't," she said shaking her head.

"Oh?" he titled his head. "And why is that?"

"Because I'm giving you a choice. You may have chosen a life of crime but one isn't born a criminal. Life can at its best be messy and at its worst be horribly unfair. I don't know what you had to go through to make all of...this look like a path to take. But that was the past and we are here in the now. And right at this moment, you are being given a choice. If you cooperate and surrender, I will speak on your behalf. That will have an effect on your sentence."

James looked around at the Zootopian skyline, never remarking how beautiful it looked at night before until now.

"Why go through all this trouble?" he asked the bunny. "Those guys shoot me and you can wipe your paws of this whole thing."

"Again..." Judy stepped a bit closer. "The easy way out was never my style. And I'm not gonna start now. Now are you coming with me or what?"

James grimaced.

"It's that important to you, rabbit?"

The lagomorph nodded sternly.

"But you still haven't told me why."

"You want to know why?" she asked.

The gorilla nodded.

"Because enough mammals have died already today. A life is a life."

He was not expecting that answer in a million years. His experiences on the wrong side of the law got him acquainted with cops, lawyers, judges and prison guards. Majority of them were all hellfire and vengeance toward him. No matter what level of verbal or physical abuse he had to endure; it was morally justified by the likes of these mammals because he was at the end of the day: a bad guy. But here was the most diminutive of animals (without being a rodent) standing before him like she was ten feet tall. And she said to his face with no sense of sarcasm that even his life is worth a damn.

James wasn't familiar with Judy's aversion to deadly force. She did what she had to do, even putting her own life at risk, before taking another mammal's life. In her eyes, such a thing was not her call. She knew that the badge she wore gave her a little more justification for self defense in the eyes of the citizens. However, Judy argued before with her peers, her expert training on numerous ways to take down a suspect should make her even more willing to not kill. A civilian can carry a gun but a cop knows more than one way to subdue a threat. Killing should always be a last resort to Judy Hopps.

And she prayed this was one of those times it wasn't necessary.

"What's it gonna be?" Judy asked the hulking mammal.

He silently stood up, dwarfing the bunny's size even more.

"Alright," he sighed heavily. He was clearly tired. "You win."

Judy breathed a sigh of relief. It really was over now.

The increasing sound of rotor blades snapped her out of her sense of peace. In the corner of her amethyst eyes, here came two ZPD copters with their guns trained at the primate. Judy jumped up, waving her free arm and shouting as loud as she could. Unfortunately, she was not in the sights of the spotlight and her cries were overridden by the loud choppers.

"NO! ! ! ! ! STOP! ! ! ! ! !STOP! ! ! ! !"

Her warnings unheeded, the helicopters began firing at James. The bullets from the machine guns pelted him, bursts of blood exploding all over his back. He lasted for maybe a couple of seconds from sheer nerve but that wasn't enough. He began to fall over, his massive body hurtling down the sloped roof.

Judy panicked as she was being dragged on her belly down with him.

She fought hard, scratching the roof until it hurt too much. Nothing was going to stop her. Judy might as well have been chained to an anchor from a ship. As James' body began its decent, the copters followed with their searchlights and ultimately caught glimpse of Officer Hopps helplessly tied to the suspect.

The last thing Judy heard was desperate shouting from a megaphone somewhere above her. It was incomprehensible and became even more fuzzy as she felt the tremendous weight from below forcing her paws to depart from the edge.

"It's over."


A/N: Stay tuned for the final chapter. I will try to crank this out soon.