I contemplated splitting up the previous chapter but decided to leave it the way it is post the climax all in one go. That way it's not as much of a cliffhanger as it could have been.
While Sarge, Marshall and the two trucks were taking control of the compound with the help of Sheriff and Smokey, Doc was tearing his way through the forest in order to follow the helicopter. The Hudson Hornet had never driven so recklessly in his life, but he had also never had so much motivation. The old car zipped through the trees never once changing his speed even though it was dusk and he could barely make out the trees in front of him.
Strip followed him, not because he thought they would be able to do anything but because it was important that Doc didn't go running off on his own. It was better if the cars stuck together in some sort of teams. Given that he was the only one (except for Sheriff maybe) who could keep up with the veteran racer, Strip followed him relentlessly. It wasn't easy. Strip was a good racer but it was clear that Doc was the king of dirt tracks and racing in forests in general. Strip had a hard time keeping up and not getting caught up in the roots and dirt. Back before Tex sponsored him he had raced on sand but dirt and trees were proving much more challenging to maneuver through than flat desert, even if the surface here was firmer.
His chase came to abrupt stop as the path dipped suddenly in front of him. Doc recovered quickly but Strip didn't have time to brace himself and landed hard. His rear axle screeched and he winced as the old injury came back in full force. Any movement now could make the damage permanent and he couldn't risk that. Instead he was left stranded as the sound of Doc's engine faded into the night.
At least he had heard Rotor earlier.
"Finn!" Holley protested as the car raced back out through the door and around the compound. "What are we doing? Now's the perfect time to join forces."
"Not enough time," the agent stated. "We've got one racer safe but McQueen is being air transported as we speak."
As if on cue, a helicopter rose above them with the red race car visible from the opening in the cab. He was jerked out of the way and Holley immediately aimed her gun as Grem's face came into view.
"That's him," she exclaimed, trying to get a clear shot but the helicopter was out of range.
"I knew it," Finn glared.
The two cars turned towards the compound as they heard a huge bang from inside. They raced to the front just in time to see Smokey and Sheriff race into the compound and Doc race after the helicopter with McQueen inside.
"He's getting away!" Holley exclaimed.
"Call Siddeley!" Finn ordered. "Tell him to ground that helicopter by any means necessary."
"But what about McQueen?" Holley asked.
"You'll have to catch him," Finn stated, and revving his engine, the Aston Martin sped forward behind Weathers who was hot on Doc's trail.
Holley sat still, stunned for a minute before pulling herself together. She called Siddeley and connected him to Finn's line.
"Siddeley, we found Grem," she explained, at the same time letting her wings come out. Using the road towards the compound as a runway, she took off.
"Where is he?" the voice crackled through.
"In a helicopter with Lightning McQueen as a prisoner," Holley explained. "Finn says you're to shoot it down. I'm in pursuit to catch McQueen."
"Bit of a problem there," the plane replied. "I'm above the main road and two semis are making their way towards the compound."
"Take care of them first," Finn ordered as he cut through the trees. "I am on pursuit on the ground and Holley is in pursuit in the air. The compound should be secure but if those semis come in it will tilt the odds against the good guys."
"On it," Siddeley stated.
The two semi-trucks didn't know what they were hauling and they honestly didn't care. All they knew was that they had been paid a lot of money and they weren't about to turn down an opportunity for any similar high-paying jobs.
They didn't expect to turn a corner and see a plane swooping down towards them. The two shouted in protest as the plane shot several rounds in front of them, blowing their front tires.
"Sorry blocks," Siddeley called out as he swooped over their heads and turned sharply around to head back in the direction he had come from. "You'll just have to stay put until someone comes for you.
Finn wasn't a race car but he had trained for all sorts of conditions, whether they were the streets of London or ever green forests. Even in the dim light he had more of an advantage than the Hudson Hornet. In the early days he would have had to rely solely on his instincts, but Holley had helped him install sensor beams a few months ago. He found that working with the sensor beams and his instincts was proving to be most successful. He had taken a bit of a different route than Doc, but he could still hear the powerful engine ahead of him. He saw a flash of blue on his left and realized that Strip Weathers was grounded. Knowing that he didn't have time to stop he shot a flare out of his tire. The Dinoco helicopter would find him. Right now he needed to capture Grem. The last of Sir Axelrod's minions would finally be behind bars!
Seeing as Grem was also the car that had helped blow up Rod this would be the perfect opportunity to repay back all the favors her had asked the car recently. Finn shifted into a higher gear and went streaking through the trees, just making out the Hudson Hornet in front of him.
Lightning watched Doc from the helicopter he was trapped in with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. He could barely make out the old race car's headlights though the trees, but he did know that Doc was going extremely fast. Faster than Lightning had ever seen him go. He felt both terrified for Doc's safety but the thrill of barely making out Doc's engine above the noisy blades made him want to cheer his mentor on.
"Why aren't we loosing him?" Acer, Grem's sidekick and the super whiny car Strip had noticed earlier stomped his tire. There were only three cars in helicopter, Lightning, Acer and Grem, and Lightning was pretty sick of both of them.
"I don't know!" Grem exclaimed. "Time to do something about it."
The orange Gremlin released a gun from his tire and pointed it down towards the race car.
"Time for your last race," the car said gleefully.
Lightning's eyes widened and he briefly considered ramming the car out of the helicopter and letting him fall to his death. But thinking fast he quickly shifted into reverse and raced towards the back of the helicopter as fast as he could.
"Hey!" The helicopter shouted as the sudden shift in weight tilted him back. Grem almost lost his balance and slid back into the cab.
"What are you doing?" He hissed at the race car.
"Making sure you leave Doc alone," Lightning replied before starting to do doughnuts in the back of the chopper. There was no Radiator Springs to rescue him this time - Time to take matters into his own tires.
"Hey!" The chopper shouted. "Keep him still back there!"
"Stay still!" Acer hissed as Grem pointed his gun at McQueen.
"Or what?" McQueen came right up into Grem's face. His anger at how he had been treated the last couple of days fueled his bravery. If Doc was racing through treacherous terrain to reach him, the least he could do was stand up to his captors. "You'll shoot me?"
"I just might," Grem cocked his gun, and McQueen's bravery wavered. But all three cars were jerked off balance as the chopper suddenly came to a halt midair.
Siddeley had followed the road back towards the compound and wasn't surprised to see the helicopter Holley had warned him about heading South. He quickly initiated his own hovering jets and ejected both small missiles in his wings.
"Alright, that's far enough!" He called out. "Stop right there!"
The helicopter hovered, looking with hesitation at the bigger, very intimidating plane.
"Why are we stopping?" Grem demanded, looking out, but only seeing trees and the road beneath them.
"He's got missiles," the chopper responded slowly.
"Whose got missiles?" Grem snapped impatiently. The helicopter turned slowly to the side so that Grem could see Siddeley. The orange car paled a little.
"Finn McMissile," he whispered.
"What? Where?" Acer went to the other door and looked down anxiously. Doc by this time had reached the edge of the trees and screeched to a halt, panting heavily and watching the standoff between the two pilots above him.
"He can't be far!" Grem exclaimed. "That's his pilot."
Lightning came next to the orange car and looked out. Yip, it was Siddeley. He recognized the plane from his visits to Radiator Springs. The plane caught Lightning's eye.
"Lighting, jump!" He called out.
"What?" Both Lightning and Grem shouted.
"Jump, now!" The plane called out sharply. Grem rounded on the race car and pointed his weapon.
"Don't even think about it!" He sneered. Lightning glances towards Siddeley and the gun confused.
Doc, watching below, caught Siddeley's words and saw Grem point the gun at Lightning. He was just about to demand what the blazes Siddeley was doing when he heard a familiar but uncommon whooshing sound behind him. All the pieces added up in his head.
"Lightning, jump!" He called out. "Trust me, kid, you gotta jump!"
Lightning looked down from the helicopter and even though it was dark and the cars were far away from each other their eyes met. Lightning was completely terrified but his blind faith in Doc won out. In all of Doc's years as his mentor, the Hudson Hornet had never led him astray. Before Grem could blink Lightning's engine revved and he shot out of the cabin of the helicopter. Just as his last tire left the surface Siddeley released the missile on his left wing. Gravity pulled Lightning down quickly and the missile sailed three feet over his head, straight towards the helicopter's propellers. It wasn't meant to be a fatal shot but the explosion threw the chopper off balance. Grem slid further into the cabin and slammed into Acer. The bullet intended for Lightning traveled over Siddeley's head and landed further down the road.
Lightning, however, was falling nose-first towards the road. Doc's whole world froze for the second time that day, except seeing Lightning's life on the line was so much worse than seeing his own life on the line. Lightning wasn't screaming but his eyes squeezed closed as he saw the pavement rushing towards them. Doc didn't close his eyes and because of that saw a purple flash of colour fly past him. A few moments later Lightning felt a hook latch onto his rear bumper and he was jerked upwards. He opened his eyes just in time to see the world spinning as Holley turned sharply to avoid the falling helicopter.
"Holley!" He shouted out, completely relieved at the sight of Mater's girlfriend. Holley took advantage of the road and landed underneath Siddeley and McQueen shifted into neutral so that he rolled to a stop.
"Hello McQueen," the spy unhooked him and greeted him with an apologetic smile. "Sorry for the rough save."
"No, no," McQueen said. "It's totally alright. Thank you. Thank you so much!" He didn't realize he was rambling until Doc came next to him. The Hudson Hornet looked over him anxiously and was about to say something when a flash of silver raced past them. Lightning saw Finn McMissile as a blur as the agent headed towards the outlaws. His gun shot out of his tire as Siddeley landed beside him, missile still pointing at Grem and Acer's pilot. The chopper had landed on his side but not too hard enough to cause an explosion.
"Don't worry," Siddeley said almost cheerfully as Holley drove next to Finn and pointed her own weapon. "No permanent damage."
Slowly, Grem crawled out from the chopper from where he had grabbed hold of the edge with his wheel. Acer followed behind him.
"Drop your weapons," Holley ordered.
The two lemon cars looked at each other and Grem dropped his gun on the asphalt.
"It's over, Grem," McMissile said. "We've finally caught you."
Standing a safe distance away from the criminals at the side of the road, Doc finally felt it was safe to look away from the actions and back towards Lighting. He frantically checked for any dents, scratches, or anything that would indicate a broken part.
"Kid, are you alright?"
"Doc, I'm fine," Lightning tried to assure him.
"What did they do to you? Did they hurt you at all?" Doc started prodding him as all of his worry from the past few days flooded out.
"Doc, really I'm fine," Lightning looked him straight in the eye. "Just adrenaline, look," he held up his tire and Doc saw it shaking slightly. It slowly started to dawn on Doc. The kid was alright, he was alive. All of the worry and fear from the past few days drained out of Doc and he sagged down.
"Thank goodness," he sighed. "But I'm still giving you a complete check-up when we get home."
Lightning grinned and watched Holley and Finn boot the two cars that had almost taken him away to some horrible fate.
"You should probably give the King one first," he said. Remembering that he had last seen the blue race car getting pulled away by Monroe, he asked worriedly, "Hey, is he alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, he's -" Doc was about to say fine but then he suddenly looked behind him. Strip had been hot on his tail last time he remembered.
Oh no!
Would this count as a cliffhanger? I'm not entirely sure but you guys might think otherwise.
