Chapter 14: The Final Confrontation
Robert and Loren raced up a spiral stairway leading to the top of the Palm Hotel. They dared not to look back at their pursuers. Edgar and Louis were starting to catch up, but lost some distance as they managed to reach the helipad. Robert slammed the fence gate after he and Loren got through to try to stall Edgar and Louis as they were getting close. They rushed up a few stairs leading to the helipad, resting upon it was the helicopter.
Loren and Robert stopped for a second to catch their breath, "What are we going to do Robert? We're pinned up here."
"We need to make sure they can't escape. We've got to mess with the controls, something to make sure it won't take off."
They ran to the helicopter, but as Robert opened the door he was yanked from entering it by Edgar.
"Robert!" Loren saw what happened from within the helicopter and jumped out to aid him, but Louis impedes her by grabbing her right arm, "Let me go!" She demanded fiercely.
"What are you doing with this cop Loren?!"
Robert rolled to see what was going on, "You heard her, let go free!"
Edgar shoves Robert with his foot hard to get him to be silent, "You're in no position to command any one." He puts his foot on his chest to keep him from getting up.
"Quickly, you should get those chains by the gate to restrain them." Edgar instructed Louis since he had Loren under control.
As he goes for the chain a loud thumbing could be heard from one of the air vents. Then the vent flap cover kicked off by rabbit feet as Judy and Nick hop on out. Louis and Edgar were not pleased at seeing the two officers appear. The two see their friends in the custody of the culprits not knowing what they could do to help them.
Then Goldenfol showed up with Jeremy, clapping slowly and laughing, "That was a real good try you two had done, a real good try. But from the looks of things I win." He grinned and continued his way towards the helicopter, "So, I'll be heading off now, got a lot of work ahead. Jeremy, you know what to do." He waved off at him as he got on the helicopter. Edgar removes his foot off of Robert as Louis shoves Loren to him making her trip over him falling to the ground. The two henchmen board the helicopter as its pilots. The blades begin to spin as the motor started up. Everyone was standing in place otherwise Jeremy would shoot them with the pellet gun.
Judy looked at her friends on the floor and onto the helicopter, "Nick we have to do something. We can't let them get away."
Nick looks down in front of him seeing the vent flap cover and then Judy, "Carrots, I'll distract him and when I do take the vent cover and charge at him." Judy was going to turn, but Nick made a gibberish sound so she wouldn't, "Just do as I say and we'll be able to get us all out of this alright?"
Nick walked slowly looking real sly with his paws in his pockets, towards a small chimney pipe three quarters as tall as him, "So Jeremy." He gets Jeremy's attention pointing the gun at him. "Wouw easy there bud." He raised his paws up still keeping his sly look.
Jeremy knew he was up to something, "What are you doing? You won't be able to fool me fox!"
"Hey I just want to talk."
"You're not getting out of this one Nicholas." Jeremy cocked the gun.
"Look I know I was wrong in having taken the money. But you had to understand this just wasn't the life for me. And it isn't for you either. You are above this Jeremy, you can be more than this." Jeremy lowered the gun a little listening to Nick, "I thought this was the only kind of life for predators like us. But I was wrong, there's is so much more we are capable of doing out there. We can make a difference in not just Zootopia, but in the entire world."
Jeremy lowered the gun even more, shaking even less.
Inside the chopper Goldenfol saw outside and saw Nick was getting Jeremy to lower the gun. He unbuckled his seat belt and opens the door to his left, "What are you doing you fool? Get it over with!" He shouted due to the blades spinning.
Jeremy snapped out of Nick's words shaking his head, aiming the gun directly at him again, "Sorry Nick, but I have to do this."
Nick immediately hides behind the thin chimney pipe as Jeremy fired a round hitting the pipe
Without warning Judy crouches down and picks up the vent cover. She charges at Jeremy, who turns to her, holding the cover up protecting her from the Night Howler pellets. She then jumps and kicks Jeremy while in the air causing him to walk backwards until he fell off the helipad. Robert, Loren and Nick quickly get up and head to the helicopter hoping to stop it from taking off. Robert tries to open the door to pull Goldenfol out, but it was locked.
He pressed on the button on the bracelet to communicate with Chief Bogo, "Chief, tell the officers on the skyscraper the helicopter is taking off." He received no response.
Goldenfol laughed at the ocelot as he sat back without a care, "Let's go, take off now."
"Understood sir." He then pulls onto the cycling stick to get the helicopter hovering.
Loren walks by Robert's side smiling, "Don't worry Robert."
"Don't worry? What do you mean-" She holds up a green wire she had torn from under the dash board's controls.
Inside Edgar begins to have trouble getting the helicopter to turn away from the building. Then a red light flashes inside with a beeping noise.
Goldenfol looks around wondering what it meant, "What's going on, why is there a beeping?"
Edgar and Louis try finding out what the problem was, "It's the cycling stick sir, I can't get this thing to turn."
Louis looks below the dash and sees that a wire was torn off from little sparks flying and looks outside as Loren smirks by Robert showing the wire.
"We must abandon the chopper sir. They have sabotaged it." Louis inform the confused and frightened raccoon.
The helicopter began to turn in various ways and everyone could see they weren't going to be coming down.
"Oh no, it's not going to land up here, it's going to fall off the hotel." Robert looked around and notices Judy by the chains that were going to be used to restrain them, "Judy, toss me the chains!"
She looked at where he point and saw them. Judy rushed on over, grabs them as they're in a coil and throws them towards Robert catching them barely. He wraps one end to thick steam pipe, clipping it with the clip on its end and with the other he swung it over the helicopter's tail. The chain wrapped around the blades causing the helicopter to swing towards the roof, crashing next to the exit breaking a small part of the chain from the tail.
Everybody had partially turned away with their arms up to protect themselves from the flying piece of metal that came off the helicopter. They lowered them to see the state the helicopter was in. Above the ZPD chopper flew shining its light on the helicopter. Robert and Loren were the first to rush and check to see if everyone inside was OK. But as Robert approached the belly of the helicopter the left door opened with Louis lifting himself up out of it. Then came Edgar as the back door opened with Goldenfol climbing out as well, a bit injured each of them looked. Goldenfol rolled on the floor and kneeling up after hitting the floor, "Dang it, I was so close. Your persistence costs me everything! If I'm going to be locked up, then I might as well get rid of you all. Louis, Edgar, dispose of those two" He maliciously pointed at Robert and Loren. Then he turned his sight on Judy and Nick, "Jeremy and I will take care of these two."
Just then Jeremy had appeared, Robert and Loren moving towards the exit slowly away from them.
"Well? After them!"
Everyone immediately evades the scene with Robert and Loren heading down the stairs. Nick and Judy run off the helipad, as Nick had clipped the remaining chain off the steam pipe and ran onto the hotel's leaves that barely bounced up and down from their weight.
The ZPD chopper pilot picks up the radio's microphone to call the scene in, "Chief, the escape chopper went down, but our officers are being pursued by the suspects. They need assistance. It appears Wilde and Hopps are trying to flee by running on the leaves sir."
Chief Bogo had arrived on the top floors as his officers took Leonard and Jim into their custody, "We're on our way, stay on them!" He waved at the free officers standing by for orders, "You three follow me." And off they went towards Goldenfol's penthouse.
Robert and Loren made it back into the penthouse with Louis and Edgar right behind them. They had barely made it passed the door, but had to hold it shut themselves to prevent the two culprits from getting them. As they held the doors that were being banged on as Louis and Edgar kept pushing and charging at it, the duo looks around to bar the door.
"Loren do you see anything to seal the doors?"
"There's nothing near that'll hold them back."
But then the culprits charged at the doors at once, knocking Robert and Loren a distance from them onto the carpet floor. They turned around, helpless to fight back or run away. Edgar approaches the two slowly, grinning, "Well, looks like it's the end of you two. It was fun while it lasted." Edgar then makes his claws pop up from the tips of his paw, raising his right paw in the air, Robert graveling to hide Loren behind him, "Any last words?"
Just then the door to the penthouse was busted down and Chief Bogo followed with his officers appear.
"Freeze right there!" He yelled at the Leopard.
Edgar and Louis were surprised to see the ZPD had came in time. They lifted their arms in the air surrendering and then letting two of the officers handcuff them.
Robert helps Loren up, "Are you alright?" He places his paw on her right cheek.
"I'm fine." She giggled a bit, "I can't believe you were going to take the hit for me."
Robert chuckled. Then Chief Bogo stepped up, "Lyle, where's Hopps and Wilde?"
He turned to the exit, "They're back up in the helipad, dealing with Goldenfol and Jeremy."
"Alright, let's go help them."
Everyone one then rushes up the stairs not hesitating to help their peers.
Nick and Judy hop onto another one of the palm leaf, with Nick partially dragging the chain. Goldenfol and Jeremy kept the same distance on them since they were nearly of the same size. Jeremy manages to spring on to a higher leaf to get ahead of the officers. Nick looks back and sees only Goldenfol behind them.
"What?" He called out.
"What's wrong?" Judy replied panting as she was running.
"Jeremy. He's not behind us."
As Judy looked back Jeremy hopped on down in front of the duo surprising Nick causing him to grab Judy and make a sharp right turn. The pilots see the pursuers corner them at the edge of the leaf, getting closer step by step.
"We have to go help them some how." The copilot insisted.
The pilot then sees Nick gesturing his hand behind his back as to signal them to come closer.
"We got to get closer."
Goldenfol and Jeremy have their paws up, each with an evil malicious grin on their faces.
"Looks like there is no escaping this time officers. Don't worry, I'm sure the city will honor you two." Nick turns a little to see with the corner of his eye where the ZPD chopper was. The two officer were finally near the edge as they stopped stepping back. Judy held onto Nick as Nick held onto her, each looking at each other as if it was the last thing they'll do.
"Aw, isn't that sweet." Jeremy laughed as he was getting ready to charge, "Say good-bye!"
Nick whipped out the chain to extend in his, "Bon voyage." Giving a sly smirk, held onto Judy tightly and leaped off the leaf. Goldenfol and Jeremy couldn't believe what he just did starring in awe. But as it turned out the ZPD chopper had gotten close enough, Nick swung the end of the chain so the copilot waiting in the cabin could grab. The copilot did manage to get a hold of it holding on tightly as he had harnesses to keep him from falling out. Nick held onto to the chain, with Judy almost slipping off grabbing the chain, but managed to get a good grip. The chopper rose up a few feet pass the culprits whom were approached by Chief Bogo and two of his officers from behind. It flew onto the helipad, where they met Robert and Loren. The ZPD chopper dropped off the two officers and flew off after Nick thanked them with a salute of gratitude.
Robert and Loren were ecstatic to see their friends made it out OK. Robert hugged Judy and Loren hugged Nick.
"It's great to see you two." Nick said excitingly.
"The same goes for both of you Wilde."
"I can't believe you had gotten away." Loren was joyful reuniting with her peers.
The other officers came back onto the helipad with Goldenfol and Jeremy, whom the officer taking him in was having a bit of trouble with, into custody.
Chief Bogo approaches the four heroes and they all faced him, "You four have done well. You got us the perps without endangering any body. Especially you two." He looks at Judy and Nick, "Well we should get off this roof. No doubt the city will want to know what's happened tonight."
They nodded and off they left the helipad.