Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Things had been going according to Clockwerk’s plan.

The Fiendish Five had killed Conner Cooper and his insignificant spouse, and Raleigh had found the Thievius Raccoonus behind a family portrait rather easily. It was almost pathetic how unprepared his nemesis had been for the assault on his home. Oh, he had done his best to fight back, but the Fiendish Five were top of their class, hand-picked for this moment even if they didn’t realize it. The raccoon hadn’t stood a chance.

Yes, everything was going perfectly. They were splitting the book into five equal distributions right there in the living room above the master thief’s body, the last defilement to the Cooper family name, and were planning to make a quick getaway soon afterwards when there was a loud thump from the coat closet, followed by a child’s gasp.

The Five grew deathly silent.

Clockwerk knew the child was there, of course. He had seen the innocent eyes through the cracked door; had taken great pleasure in eviscerating Cooper in full view of that closet. He’d been planning to let the kit live - to show the world that without their precious book, the Cooper line was nothing, and then once it was proven he would destroy this last living descendant. End the cursed family for good.

But the rest of his team hadn’t known about Cooper’s son. And now, with the child’s foolish mistake, it might be too late for this plan. But Clockwerk would not have his victory taken away so easily.

It was Muggshot who ripped the closet door open, pulling out the famous Cooper cane in one hand and the struggling kit in the other. He held them both aloft by his head with a scowl on his face.

“What the hell? Cooper had a brat!” He growled, completely unconcerned by the tiny feet kicking at his arm. “Whaddya we do with ‘im?”

“Well obviously we finish the job, you dullard,” Raleigh scoffed, barely giving the child a glance before looking over the pages he’d claimed. “Otherwise he’ll go running his mouth to the authorities and tie this back to us.”

“Or claim vengeance, as would be his right.” The Panda King said it solemnly from his place at the owl’s side.

“King’s right about that,” Mz. Ruby hummed, claws already contorting as she read into the future. “If we let this child go tonight, it won’t be near ten years ‘fore he comes lookin’ to do us harm.”

Muggshot scowled harder. He shook the kit by the scruff. “That true, brat? You gonna pick a fight with the likes of us? Huh?!”

He tossed the child to the bloodstained carpet and dropped the Cooper cane right after. It fell in the kit's lap, who latched onto it like a lifeline.

“There you go, yer all ready to fight us right now. Why wait a century?”

“Ten years is a decade, you blasted idiot,” the frog jeered.

“Shut up! I know that!”

“Enough.”

They all stopped at the metallic voice. Even the child froze. The leader of the Fiendish Five regarded the scene in detail, considering how best to recapture his carefully-laid plan. This was not how it was supposed to go, and he’d be damned if the Cooper line ended on anything other than his terms, and his alone.

Clockwerk stepped over the elder Cooper’s corpse and bent his head to study his offspring. The kit shook head to tail, smart enough to fear for its life, but it clutched its family cane with fierce protectiveness and locked its jaw audaciously. The tears in its eyes were not just from grief.

“I think,” the owl mused in slow thought, already calculating the parameters of a new idea, “we should ask Cooper’s son what it wants.”

Raleigh and Muggshot began protesting immediately, so Clockwerk gave them a single look to silence them again. The Panda King remained soundless from behind. Mz. Ruby’s eyes narrowed and she started tapping out deliberate patterns into the air. The leader lowered his talon and placed it under the kit’s chin, forcing it to look up at him. The tip of his claw was wider than its neck.

“Well, Cooper child? What do you want? Be honest.”

It shuddered, eyes flickering briefly towards its dead father. Then those eyes came back up, angry and hurting. “I…I want you to g-go away.”

“And so the cycle continues,” the Panda King said as he came up beside the owl and regarded Cooper’s son. “This child will fight for his family’s honor and the blood that has been spilled tonight. We do not need Mz. Ruby’s foretelling to know that.”

“It will not have been the first time a Cooper has tried to do so,” Clockwerk responded quietly. “But none have succeeded, and none ever shall.”

“I don’t want some orphaned waif causing me trouble!” Raleigh hissed. “I don’t care how young he is. Let me squish him and be done with it!”

“No.”

Clockwerk stretched one giant wing out to prevent the frog from carrying out his threat. He did not want the Fiendish Five to kill the last of the Coopers for him, or even with him, and certainly not in this...anticlimactic manner.

“No,” he said again, that idea in his head growing insidiously. “I have something better in mind.” He tilted the kit’s chin up further, addressing it directly now. “You want us to go away, Cooper child?”

The little raccoon nodded, mindful of the razor claw at its throat. Clockwerk watched its careful swallow.

“I suppose it could be enough to do that. To leave you with only our shadows to fear in your mind, and the knowledge that we would be ready to take your life if you ever came after us. Unfortunately for you,” Clockwerk flipped his talon and knocked the kit on its back, pinning it effortlessly under his foot. “I’ve never abided by what a Cooper wants, and I will not start tonight.”

The rest of the Five tensed as one, perhaps anticipating a third death this night. But the owl wasn’t done. He raised his head and met each of their gazes; two were solemn, two were bloodthirsty.

“We won’t kill Cooper’s son. Not now.” He clicked his beak to keep any counter-arguments quiet. “But neither will we leave him be.”

Mz. Ruby’s claws drew out predictions and then stopped abruptly. She stared at her leader, intrigued. “You gonna do that? You sure?”

“Do what? What are we doin’, boss?” Muggshot scratched his head with his gun.

“We agreed, before arriving here tonight, that we would share Cooper’s legacy among us and lay claim to what pieces we wanted.” Clockwerk pressed the kit a little further against the carpet, making it cry out. “His child is part of that legacy. And we will be claiming him as well.”

Everything was quiet for a single moment. And then it wasn’t.

“You can’t be serious!” Raleigh screeched in outrage. “Are you suggesting we - we what, we adopt him?”

“I’m with Raleigh on this one, boss.” Muggshot crossed his arms with a scowl. “No one ever said nothin’ about this being a babysittin’ job.”

The great owl breathed in and out in a single, patient, barely-restrained emotion. He had chosen his team for their abilities, but their short-sightedness was often…vexing. His yellow gaze strayed to Mz. Ruby, who nodded and looked into the future again.

“If Clockwerk takes the child tonight,” she murmured, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, “he’ll kill him within a month at most.”

Ah. He couldn’t say he was truly surprised. Even now, feeling the tiny, rapid heartbeat reverberating against the metal of his foot was pushing all his self-control to its greatest limits. To hold out a full month sounded nigh unbearable.

“I don’t see you volunteering, though!” Raleigh rounded on the alligator, puffed up in indignation and agitation. “Why don’t you take the waif since you’re so concerned about whether he lives or dies, hmmm?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, lip curling. “My work is sensitive. A troubled soul like his will spoil it unless I change him, and I don’t make it a habit to torment children.”

“Your work is sensitive? Yours?! I’m the one building our bloody tech, you ungrateful, unsophisticated-!”

“I will take him.”

The words were said much quieter than the arguing, but the whole group heard it. They all turned to stare at the Panda King.

“I will take him,” he repeated, crouching to study the sobbing, trapped kit. It tried desperately to hush its cries as it realized it had someone’s full attention again. “I have a…relative, who is close to his age. He would make a suitable servant.”

The fireworks forger reached forward, grabbing the Cooper child’s chin and turning its head so they could meet each other’s gaze. The raccoon’s breath hitched, caught on a whine, but the sobbing ceased. Clockwerk watched the exchange with narrowed eyes.

“That’s all well and good,” Raleigh grumbled, “but how long are you going to keep him? Until he’s old enough that your conscience won’t guilt you for snuffing out a child?”

The Panda King looked up at his leader, waiting for his answer.

“Until he is old enough to prove whether he will be a help or a hindrance to us,” the owl said. “Are you so quick to forget what he is a part of? The reason we came here? The legacy we drove to destroy, and the secrets we are claiming?”

Collectively, the Five each glanced at the pages they had taken for themselves. Mz. Ruby clicked her tongue and eyed her boss in disbelief.

“You want us to teach him his family’s ways?”

“No.” Everyone in the room went stiff, but Clockwerk did not act on the threat. “He will not learn a single thing from that book. He will learn and struggle like the rest of us did, and we shall see what a Cooper is truly worth.”

“Yeah? When do we figure he’ll be ready to swim with the big boys?” Muggshot asked. “Cause some of us got places to be, and I don’t wanna wait ten or twenty or whatever years till he’s all grown up. What if we retire by then?”

“There ain’t been a future I’ve seen where that happens,” Mz. Ruby tittered. “You’ll be up to your shoulders in crime ‘til the day you die, Tony.”

The leader of the Five lifted his wing to bring back his associates’ attention before they could be pulled further away from the matter at hand.

“We will know with certainty when he is ready - or when he is not. Coopers have always had an infuriating talent at boasting such things.” Clockwerk lowered his head to stare at the kit, who stared back without a sound. “What is your name, Cooper child?”

The racoon shivered. The owl resisted the powerful urge to close his talons into a fist.

“S-S-Sly…”

“Sly Cooper.” He said it like he didn’t already know; like he wasn’t acutely aware of every detail of this child’s life, the last Cooper that had taunted him since its birth. “Your skills, your future, your very existence belongs to us now. We, the Fiendish Five, lay claim to your life just as we have laid claim to your Thievius Raccoonus.”

The kit’s eyes filled with tears, but they didn’t spill over. Instead, its head fell back against the bloodstained carpet as it looked away. Clockwerk followed its gaze and would have smiled if he was still capable.

“Let us see how well you measure up to your father.”

Chapter Text

“FOX!”

In any other job setting, the sound of the head honcho yelling an employee’s name at full volume would be enough to make everyone jump straight out of their skin. At Interpol HQ in Paris, France, the most that people did was glance up momentarily from their computers. Working under James Barkley, Head of Criminal Investigation, made such things more of an occupational hazard than anything else. It was as common an occurrence as the daily lunch break.

Even more so with the particular name being yelled across the entire floor.

Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox leapt out of her chair and flew out of her office. She practically sprinted to her superior’s open door, where the badger was standing with his arms folded and a downright thunderous expression on his face. He met her eyes very briefly before stomping inside his office, and she followed like a wounded animal.

“Y-Yes, sir? What is it?”

Barkley didn’t respond. He sat down heavily behind his desk, then pointed one stiff, angry finger at the chair opposite it. The fox immediately did as instructed, folding her hands nervously together in her lap as her boss glared at her. Finally, he spoke.

“What is the meaning of this?”

He slid an open file across his desk, making it all too easy for her to see the name in bold at the very top.

Firestone of India, Bombay

Carmelita inhaled slowly through her nose, knowing exactly which case this was and why it was staring treacherously up at her.

“Sir, I can explain -”

“Oh, by all means, explain,” the badger cut her off. He crossed his arms back over his chest so tightly she could see veins popping under his fur. “Explain how you had five out of six criminals attempting that heist apprehended, only to lose all of them when you blindly charged after the sixth without fully securing the rest!”

She had to fight the powerful urge to sink in her chair. “Sir, I - the last perp couldn’t be allowed to get away. She had the Firestone! If my team had shown up at the scene on time like they were supposed to -”

“Do not push your part of the blame elsewhere, Fox. This entire fiasco was just as much your fault as it was theirs. All you had to do was wait an extra ten minutes for your back up to arrive and secure those thieves before running after the last one!”

“But sir, ten minutes would have been too long! She would have escaped by the time I left!”

“She escaped anyway!” He roared, slamming a fist down onto the file and making her jump in her chair. “You had an entire group of criminals in your grasp and you let all of them get away because you wanted to play hero!”

The inspector shut her jaw with an audible click. There was nothing she could say that would calm her boss down, and even if there was, she couldn’t find it in herself to come up with the excuses. She had dropped the ball on a case she was supposed to be leading and came out with not even one arrest to show for it. He had every right to be furious.

“I…I’m sorry, sir,” she eventually mumbled, head bowed and face burning with shame. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s what you always say, Fox,” Barkley replied with a frustrated shake of his head. “How many times has it happened where you have a perfectly reasonable chance to cut your losses and take what you’ve already got on a case, but instead you blow it all up because you can’t just let that last perp go?”

Her chest swelled in offense. “I can’t just watch and do nothing while a criminal gets away scot-free!”

“That’s not the point! The point is that you’re so narrow-minded that you get tunnel vision. You’re so caught up in the small details that you lose the bigger picture.” He gestured to the Firestone of India file. “I can think of four other cases in the last two months like this, Fox. It’s becoming more of a pattern for you to lose more criminals than you catch them. Do you realize what kind of reputation that creates? For you, for me? For Interpol?”

Carmelita stared at the photos in front of her. The giant red gemstone glittered mockingly back.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Fox?”

“...Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good.” The badger looked her up and down with a gruff, critical eye. “I’m not doing this because I want to, you know. You’re one of the best detectives we have when it comes to finding who we need to find. But if you keep losing them once we find them…well, there’s a few others who don’t think you were ready for this promotion to Inspector yet.”

It wasn’t quite a threat, but it still hung heavily in the air. She swallowed and clenched her hands into fists.

“I won’t let your trust in me be all for naught. I’ll show I have what it takes to wear this title proudly.”

Barkley nodded, then closed the case file and pointed towards the door. “You’re dismissed.”

Carmelita didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she was back out in the hallway. She exhaled slowly, trying to release all the stress that had created a tight ball in her chest. Her coworkers moved around her with sympathetic glances. As much as they were used to their boss’ temper, no one liked being on the receiving end of it.

Brushing her bangs out of her face, the inspector began heading back to her office, and nearly ran right into someone carrying a huge stack of paperwork as she turned the corner. She caught the perilous stack before it could topple, then peered around it to see who she had just rescued.

A tiny purple otter looked up at her with an anxious smile.

“Hi, Inspector Fox!”

“Oh. Hi, Winthorp.”

Winthorp was…nice, she supposed. Technically an Interpol detective, but not one who worked in the field. His job consisted of record-keeping and following paper trails, and the closest he got to criminals was during bookings. Not someone who she could really relate to on any level.

He also had a massive, obvious crush on her, which was a pain, but at least he was respectful about it - more than she could say about a few other coworkers.

“Sorry about almost knocking you over,” she said, swerving around him and his paperwork tower with the intention of ending the interaction right there. The red door of her office was in sight, and she wanted very badly to hole herself up in there for the next hour at least.

“That’s okay!” He chirped, moving in tandem with her to maintain eye contact. “You seemed to be in an awfully big hurry - is it because of whatever the Chief wanted you for?”

The first retort on Carmelita’s tongue was admittedly not a very professional one. She bit it down and managed a thin, awkward smile instead, inching away towards the other end of the hall.

“Sort of. I’m just, uh, on the lookout for a new case.”

Wrong thing to say. His eyes lit up and he waddled after her despite how much she very obviously wanted to be left alone.

“Oh! I bet I could help with that!” Winthorp held up his stack of papers as high as he could, which wasn’t very high. “I’ve got a whole list of stuff that hasn’t been assigned yet. Would you like to take a look?”

The only reason the fox hesitated was the earnestness with which he asked. What would have been easily ignorable any other day was now something she couldn’t quite say no to after the harrowing experience with Barkley, when all her mental steeliness had been blown apart.

Again.

“...Sure.”

“Great!” He beamed, following her the rest of the way into her office. “Anything specific you’re looking for? There’s a lot of different kinds of cases here.”

Carmelita watched him place everything on her desk. She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. “I’ll take anything at this point.”

Winthorp nodded and began flipping through files. “Okay. How about this – rumors of art forgery here in Paris?”

“Not big enough.”

“Alright, then…illegal spice smuggling rings in India?”

“There’s no way Barkley will let me back on a case in India anytime soon,” she said, more than a little bitter because that did seem like something right up her alley. “Give me something else.”

“Unusual rates of pollution in Venice, Italy?”

“That sounds more like a city ordinance issue than a police issue.”

“Okay, uh…” The otter looked up at her. “Do you want some coffee? You look a little tired.”

“No, I’m fine. Keep going.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Ten minutes later, they’d gone through the entire pile with not a single one grabbing Carmelita’s attention. She had started pacing somewhere around the four-minute mark and hadn’t stopped.

“Well, that’s all I got from this list,” he said, somehow managing to sound both discouraged and chipper at the exact same time. “Would you like me to go grab another stack?”

“No. It’s just going to be more of the same. Nng…” The inspector rubbed her temples. Her headache was still going just as strong as when they’d started. “There’s got to be something I can use. I need a case, a big one, and I have to do it perfectly or else my promotion might not be worth anything.”

It was probably unwise to vent about this subject to Winthorp of all people, but he was also the most likely to keep it a secret out of respect for her. Respect or reverence. Whatever kept his mouth shut.

“Oh no, they can’t demote you!” The otter said in shock. “You’re one of the most valued officers on our force! Valedictorian at the police academy! Youngest graduate and youngest ever Detective Inspector! You’re the living embodiment of law enforcement and all that it stands for!”

“Thanks,” she replied, annoyed more than anything at the pedestal he was putting her on. Her tone flew right over his head, as always. “But none of those things are going to matter if I can’t catch a break, and soon.”

“Hm…” Winthorp put his hand to his chin as if in deep thought. Then his face lit up in epiphany. “What about the Contessa? I’ve heard she’s willing to help out Interpol officers from time to time.”

“Ugh, pass. The last time I asked her for help, she made me do a whole day of ‘motivational speeches’ to the criminals in her rehabilitation program in return. I’m not owing that woman any favors unless I’m really desperate.”

He nodded his head emphatically like he had any clue what that was like. He’d never had to take any risks or make split decisions to save his life. He’d never have his job on the line like she did. The train of thought irritated Carmelita more than she cared to admit.

“Actually, Winthorp, I changed my mind. Coffee sounds great right now. Do you mind…?”

“Oh! Not at all!” The otter headed for the hall. “I’ll be back in a jiffy!”

As soon as he was gone, Inspector Fox quickly strode to the door, closed it, and locked it with a quiet click. A small part of her felt bad for it, but the rest of her was drained and disheartened and didn’t want an additional write-up for accidentally “creating a hostile work environment.” Her patience was too thin to risk snapping at Winthorp for something he really didn’t deserve.

With an exhausted sigh, the fox collapsed in her chair, staring vacantly at her desk and the lack of casefiles on it. One big break was all she needed. One case to prove herself to her superiors; to show everyone that Barkley’s faith in her wasn’t unfounded.

Carmelita closed her eyes and prayed to whatever was there that something would finally come her way.

For her sake.

An ocean and several time zones away, the Mesa City Police Precinct was having a busier than average evening. There had been a concerning uptick in crime over the last two weeks; robberies, break-ins and many, many calls about public disturbances. Only a few of these incidents had actually resulted in the perps being caught - all canines, coincidentally - and the fact that it still hadn’t been enough to slow down the sudden surge of misdeeds had put most of the officers on edge.

Even worse, there were rumblings among their informant circles that a particularly dangerous presence had made itself known in the city’s underbelly, but no one could or would give any clues as to who it was.

As a result, almost half of Mesa’s force was out on patrol tonight, hoping to catch more unlawful acts before they could be completed, or at least find any hint of the so-called big bad that had so many of their criminal turncoats quaking in their shoes. It left the precinct itself running on what was essentially a skeleton crew, although one wouldn’t be able to tell from how many people were running around in an attempt to keep up appearances.

A raccoon sat in the front lobby, a few seats away from every other civilian around him. He drummed his fingers on a red backpack sitting on his lap, waiting patiently like everyone else, and his leg bounced idly as he glanced at the wall clock every minute or so. The fingers went still when a pacing officer made eye contact with him and decided to approach.

“Can I help you?” They asked in a voice already rife with impatience.

The raccoon smiled up at them, easy-going and relaxed. His leg didn't stop bouncing. “I’m just waiting for someone. Once he's done in here then I'll be out of your hair.”

His expression didn't change as the cop squinted at him. After a moment they pursed their lips and crossed their arms.

“Fine,” they said grumpily, “but I want you out of here immediately after. We don’t have time to deal with loiterers.”

“On my honor, you won't see me again after tonight. Oh! Hang on just a sec!”

He stood up abruptly, suddenly and accidentally in the officer's space.

“Is there a restroom here open to the public? I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here and -”

“Over that way,” they pointed down a separate hallway with a huff, taking a few steps back so that they weren't almost touching him.

“Thanks.”

The raccoon sauntered off, mindful of the cop's eyes staring down the back of his head. As soon as the bathroom door closed behind him, he hurried to check every stall to make sure he was alone before locking himself in the one closest to the exit. One hand came up to a tiny earpiece barely visible in his ear. The other reached into his pocket to pull out the ring of keys he had just lifted off the impatient cop.

“Got the keys and in position,” he whispered into the static of the earpiece. “Ready when you are.”

There was no response, but the raccoon didn’t expect one. He flipped his jacket hoodie over his head and pulled a black mask out of his backpack to place over his nose and mouth. Then he leaned back against the stall wall, closed his eyes, and began to wait. He’d have his answer soon enough.

Out in the lobby, the front doors swung open and in strode a large group of canines all armed to the teeth. The hustle and bustle of the station stopped entirely as cops, criminals, and civilians alike all caught sight of it. In particular, as they caught sight of the leader of that group.

“Greetings, troglodytes!”

Muggshot - infamous gangster, world-wanted criminal, and member of the Fiendish Five - sauntered into the room as if it was a perfectly normal thing for him to do so. Everyone in the precinct stared in slack-jawed shock as the bulldog walked right up to the counter and leaned against it like he wasn’t in every police database from here to Timbuktu.

“A little birdy told me you’ve got some of my boys locked up back here,” he said to the stunned uniformed receptionist, checking his nails for dirt and gunpowder in total nonchalance. “Now, I like ta give people the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to me there was some old-fashioned profilin’ involved here. You mind lettin’ them all out on account of they haven’t done nothin’ to warrant arrest?”

One of the officers began slowly reaching for the gun at his holster. In response, three of Muggshot’s dogs clicked off the safety of their own weapons with teeth bared in warning. The mobster watched it out of the corner of his eye, remaining completely relaxed.

“I - I’m sorry,” stammered the officer behind the desk, “but I’m not at liberty to -”

“You hear that, fellas?” Muggshot cut him off with a loud bark of laughter. “This jerk is claimin’ that liberty’s involved. Do any ‘a you see any liberty in a place like this?”

A chorus of raucous “no”s was his answer. The bulldog swiveled back around to tower over the receptionist who was trying very hard not to shake in his seat.

“Lemme spell it out nice and slow for ya since ya seem to have trouble understanding - you’re gonna release all of my men in the clink, and in return, I won’t fill you full ‘a holes. Capiche?”

The officer stared up at him and the entire gang behind him. For a single, tense moment, it seemed like he would comply. But then he leapt to his feet, reaching for his gun.

That was the most he had the chance to do.

“Wrong answer!” Muggshot grabbed him by the head and smashed him face-first into the desk, cracking the wood with the force of the slam.

All hell broke loose in an instant. Cops started shouting and shooting, civilians screamed and ducked and hid, and the canine criminals fired right back in a frenzied bloodlust. The bulldog himself threw the unconscious cop straight into the closest one of his comrades, then tore the desk itself right out of its floor attachments to use as cover.

Amid the chaos and noise and flying bullets, no one noticed the raccoon slip silently out of the bathroom and through the back doors marked “police personnel only”.

He flattened himself into a crouch between the wall and a set of chairs at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Three officers thundered past without noticing or caring that he was there, with guns drawn and orders being barked into their radios. As soon as they disappeared into the front lobby to join the firefight, the raccoon jumped up and started running in the opposite direction.

Around corners, through hallways, stopping only to avoid the sight of frantic cops rushing to help their comrades, he finally found his destination - a set of holding cells containing nearly a dozen agitated dogs. They all flocked to the front as he pulled the key ring out of his pocket and began unlocking doors.

“You didn’t bring our guns?” Asked a burly doberman who flexed his hands in anticipation.

“You think I’d be here right now if I had tried walking into a cop den armed from head to toe?” He asked sarcastically as the first door came open.

The doberman’s lips curled into a snarl and he took a swipe at the raccoon as he stepped into the outer room, who swerved easily out of the way and to the next cell.

“I don’t need no damn gun to take out a bunch of pigs in uniform,” growled another dog as he hefted a ball and chain in his hands. His eyes were manic with murderous excitement. “Which way?”

A second door opened; he made a beeline for the final one, sensing their impatience for violence and not wanting to catch the brunt of it.

“Down the hall, take the first left turn, then a right, then the second next right after that.”

The final lock came open, bringing the number of freed thugs to eleven.

“Muggshot and his other men are blocking off the front doors, so you’ll come out right behind the cops.”

Every dog grinned at that, and the raccoon suddenly found himself swept up in the frenzy of the full pack as they all went running for the front lobby.

None of the officers looked back when the doors swung open behind them, assuming it was more of their own. It was the last mistake they’d ever make.

Eleven burly dogs bum-rushed the group, swinging furniture and balls-and-chains and their own fists. What had been a stalemate very quickly became a one-sided fight as the officers were overwhelmed from two different sides. It didn’t take long for every blue uniform to fall, and a disturbing quiet fell over the room the moment the bullets stopped.

The civilians who had been caught in the middle of everything cowered under their chairs, absolutely terrified now that their defenders had all been laid to waste. Muggshot only seemed to realize they were there as he holstered his machine gun and scanned the room for any survivors in blue.

“Whaddya all gawking for?” He growled, pointing towards the exit. “Scram!”

They did not need to be told twice. His men all moved out of the way for the terror-stricken group to flee without incident. No one noticed or cared that the raccoon who had once been part of that group did not follow.

Instead, he meandered over to the bulldog, who celebrated the victory by flinging the upended counter clear across the room.

“Now that’s what a city takeover looks like, boys!” Muggshot whooped. “As the new top dog of this joint, I give all of ya’s permission to loot whatever ain’t nailed down - and then some!”

The gangsters all howled in excited response, then wasted no time running out of the lobby and into the rest of the building. The raccoon watched them all leave impassively, half checked-out, until there was suddenly a giant hand coming down on top of his head.

“Not bad, runt,” Muggshot said with a grin, patting him roughly but with just enough gentleness to keep from actually hurting him. “Keep this up and you might actually become part of the pack.”

“My greatest goal in life,” he muttered sarcastically, stiff under the touch.

The mobster growled and smacked him upside the head, knocking his hood down over his eyes. “Don’t get smart with me or you’re joinin’ the pigs on the floor.”

“Sorry.” The raccoon avoided his gaze as he pulled it back so he could see again.

“That mouth is gonna get you into trouble one ‘a these days, y’know. Yer lucky I’ve got the patience of a saint.”

“I already said I was -”

The front doors slammed open.

Police officers swarmed inside, shooting without aiming as they tried one last desperate attempt to take back their station.

“You wanna play hardball, chumps?!” The bulldog roared, firing back just as indiscriminately and mowing down uniforms left and right. “Let’s play!”

A bullet whizzed past the racoon’s head, whistling by his ear way too close for comfort. Before he had the chance to duck, that same meaty hand grabbed him at the nape of the neck and practically slammed him to the ground.

“Keep yer head down! You tryin’ to get shot or what?” Muggshot growled above him while he unloaded a stream of bullets into the cop who had dared shoot at his favorite runt.

The raccoon laid flat against the ground under the mobster, arms covering his head as gunfire deafened his senses. He kept his breathing as controlled as possible, ears ringing and face stinging, while Muggshot took down the entire surprise wave without any back–up.

It was over in minutes.

He was hauled back up to his feet by the back of his shirt just as the rest of the gang came rushing back into the lobby in alarm, having missed the fight by mere seconds.

“I took care of it,” the bulldog said gruffly. He wiped away the blood on his forearm where he’d been nicked by a stray bullet - the only injury he had. “Cops on patrol must’ve finally come back, but none ‘a them could aim for squat. I’d say that was the last line of Mesa City’s defense. City belongs to us now, no question about it!”

As that declaration sank in among his dogs with excited murmuring, the raccoon carefully touched his nose, still throbbing painfully from his impact with the floor. His gloved hand came back red. Muggshot eyed him.

“Broken?”

“No.”

“Then I better not hear any whining about it.” He turned back to the rest of the mobsters, who were waiting for new orders with slobbering jaws. “Alright, boys, it’s time to take things up a notch. We got a lotta ground to cover if we’re gonna secure our new turf. I want you goin’ door to door to ‘persuade’ the fine folk of Mesa that it’s in their best interest to clear out till my operation’s done bein’ built.”

His men all began to head out, brandishing the weapons they’d ransacked from the station or pulled straight off cop corpses. The raccoon started trailing after one of the groups only to be stopped by a powerful grip on his shirt collar.

“Ah, ah, ah.” The bulldog leader glared suspiciously down at him. “Where do you think you’re goin’?”

“Out with everyone else – or do your orders not apply to me all of a sudden?”

He flinched when Muggshot pulled him close enough that he could feel hot breath on his face. The few remaining dogs all stopped just inside the doors, sensing the shift in their boss and watching the interaction carefully.

“You’re on thin ice today, pally. Don’t forget yer place.”

The raccoon’s ears flattened against his head. He didn’t dare meet the mobster’s eyes. “I haven’t.”

“Good.” He let go and motioned for him to follow. “Now come on, somethin’ tells me this cop building is just full of locks beggin’ to be busted open. What are the rest of you still doin’ here? I said, get goin’!”

The last of his men went running outside, although one dog’s gaze lingered on the raccoon just a beat too long to be comfortable. He pretended he didn’t notice it and began following Muggshot deeper into the empty police precinct.

Then he stopped when he caught sight of the officer who had confronted him just half an hour before. They were slumped up against a wall, eyes wide and empty with their gun still gripped tightly in their hands. The raccoon looked at them for a long moment.

“Cooper!”

He shook his head and kept walking, and did not look back again.

Chapter Text

There was something grim and urgent in the air when Carmelita stepped through the front doors of Interpol HQ the next day. Officers and office workers alike hurried back and forth without even glancing her way, and she felt a ball of unease settle in her stomach as she made her way up to the floor where her office was situated. Everyone was frantic around her like a hive of bees that had just lost their queen.

She turned a corner and nearly collided with Winthorp, who jumped a meter into the air with a squeak.

“Winthorp, what’s going on?” She asked. “Why is the entire department up in arms?”

“Ah - well - you see -” the otter stammered, and now that she was really looking at him, she could see the same lines of stress across his face as with everyone else. “I’m not - not really at liberty to say but - oh, yeah, about that! Inspector Barkley wants to s-see you right away!”

The inspector blinked, confused and concerned. “Again?”

“Yes! He wanted to see you as soon as you came into work!” Winthorp gave her an apologetic look. “I was - I was supposed to call to let you know but with - with everything going on I just -”

“It’s fine,” Carmelita cut him off before he could start rambling. She pivoted in place and started walking without looking back. “Thanks.”

“A-Anytime!”

The idea of returning to her boss’s office right on the heels of a major dressing-down had the woman’s stomach turning, but she kept her head high and tried not to let her nerves get the best of her. At the very least, he’d be able to tell her what the hell was going on around here without any sugarcoating.

Barkley didn’t even look up from his computer when Inspector Fox entered the room. He took a long puff of his cigar, baggy eyes illuminated by the small red glow, and smoke curled around his white mustache, giving the illusion of it being even bigger than it was. Smoking in the office meant he was beyond stressed- an even worse omen than everything else she’d seen this morning.

“You wanted to see me again, sir?” She asked as soon as the door was shut behind her.

“Fox,” he grunted, waving a hand towards the empty chair in front of his desk without looking up. Carmelita sat down immediately and resisted the urge to speak until he was done with his private train of thought.

Finally he pulled his eyes from his screen and set a thick manilla folder between them, flipping it open until it landed on a picture of a giant muscular bulldog sneering at the camera.

“What do you know about this man here?” The badger asked, steepling his fingers together as he squinted at her.

She glanced down at the photo. “Muggshot. Aliases “Two Gun Tony”, also known as “Meathead” Muggshot. Member of the Fiendish Five. Wanted in five countries with ten outstanding warrants for his arrest.”

Inspector Barkley didn’t move a muscle as she recited details from the criminal’s case file without having to read it. His brow drew even heavier down over his eyes.

“Sir, what’s this about? Why is everyone so frantic out there? Is it related to Muggshot? Did we finally pinpoint his location?”

“It’s less that we pinpointed it and more that he’s announced it,” her boss said, grim and gruff and angry. “Fourteen hours ago, Mesa City in Utah, USA experienced a coordinated attack on its police force by a gang of canines. As of 2 AM our time, they’ve completely taken over the city and have driven out all its civilians. Muggshot has declared it as his territory.”

Inspector Fox’s mouth fell open.

“He - that’s - that’s ludicrous!” She exclaimed, unable to keep her total disbelief out of her tone. What kind of police force couldn’t keep a group of criminals from taking over an entire city?

The badger growled and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. It was clear he was fighting a headache. “I’m well aware. And instead of sending in state or even federal officers, the US government wants us to take care of it. I was contacted barely an hour ago and told that we ‘needed to handle the situation as quickly as possible’.”

Ah. That explained the frenzy throughout the entire building. Carmelita pursed her lips and squared her shoulders.

“What do you want me to do, sir?” She asked, knowing that he wouldn’t have called her into his office just to bring her up to speed on something that even Winthorp could have told her.

“Right now, we need information. We don’t know how many people Muggshot has hired to defend his claim, what kinds of weapons or other resistance we’d be facing, or even where he’s stationed his base of operations. It’s a large city and I do not want my officers walking into a slaughter. The last thing we need on top of a takeover is a damn turf war.”

Her fists clenched in righteous rage, even as her head was spinning. “You want me to be a covert operative.”

“I do.” Barkley gave her a harsh, critical stare. “I know most of the cases you’ve taken have been raids or following criminal trails. This is an entirely different ball game. Subtlety is crucial here, and we can’t afford to screw this up. People’s entire lives and livelihoods are on the line. Do you understand, Fox?”

The inspector’s tongue felt like sandpaper inside her mouth as she answered. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“Good.” Even so, her boss did not look entirely convinced. “Now get out of this office and go pack. You’ve got a plane to catch.”

Mesa City was famous even outside of its own country. It was a thriving “boom town” that saw a lot of tourists, a lot of traffic, and a lot of wealth, and crime had always been remarkably low for such a large city. Now, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that it was anything other than a ghost town.

It turned Carmelita’s stomach as she killed the engine of her car and stepped cautiously out onto a deserted street. In fact, the entire city was devoid of anything that would normally classify it as a city; quiet and empty and completely dark. It left a chill in the air much deeper than the wind already whistling through the buttes and plateaus around it. There wasn’t a single other soul to be found here.

Except for one lone officer with something to prove.

The fox shivered and wrapped her beige jacket a little more securely around her, hiding her shock pistol at her hip and her Interpol badge at the base of her throat. Even so, she felt like a Christmas tree lit up in a dark void of light-sucking leeches, and every shadow and noise stood her fur on end as she took her first proper steps into Mesa City.

Covert ops. She’d run simulations in the academy and done a few simple cases here and there, but nothing on this scale, and she could already feel the oppressive hand of expectation weighing heavily on her shoulders.

Valedictorian, prodigy, expert marksman, youngest ever Interpol graduate - none of those pretty words of praise mattered when faced with ten to twenty years of hard experience dismissing her input on cases or cornering her in the break room to interrogate her about how she would respond to increasingly outlandish scenarios. Her most recent failure - the entire string of recent failures - was just the icing on the cake. If she messed this one up, none of the senior officers would ever take her seriously again.

Not even Barkley would be willing to back her up anymore.

No. No, she shook her head to clear the cloud threatening to dull her thoughts. You can do this. You will do this.

Second only to the Diva Diamond case, this was her biggest chance to show everyone just how capable she truly was. Muggshot was an infamous criminal, almost above her shiny new pay grade as a detective inspector. All Carmelita really needed to do was get the intel asked of her without getting caught, relay it back to HQ, and wait for backup to help in the raid proper.

All too easy. And if she was lucky enough, she might not even have to use her shock pistol.

Back straightening at the mental pep talk, Inspector Fox’s stride quickened into something a little more confident.

She could do this.

Tony Bull-Mastiff took a long drag of his cigarette as he picked up another card from the deck. It was a bunk card to go with the rest of his bunk hand, and he huffed an irritated smoky breath out between clenched teeth. The dalmatian across from him, Inkspot Jackson, gave the slightest smirk in response.

“You’re cheating.”

“Nah. You just suck.”

The mastiff growled, but it did nothing to faze his opponent, who only stared coolly back at him without so much as a blink. The same could not be said for the third player at the table - a jittery little terrier whose name he didn’t care enough to learn - because he startled so badly he bumped the table enough to make it rattle.

“Watch it,” Tony snapped at him. The terrier jolted again but didn’t make it a problem for the rest of them, and they all settled back into their playing.

After a few more minutes, he leaned back in his chair, thoughts more preoccupied with something other than the game he was losing.

“So…what’s the deal with the kid?”

“What kid?”

“The raccoon. Why’s the boss carting him around with the pack? It’s pretty obvious he ain’t one of us.”

The other two dogs stared at him like he had just asked why the sky was blue. He stared them down, daring them to tell him he was an idiot for asking a simple question.

“Oh, right. I forgot you’re new to Muggshot’s crew.” Inkspot passed his cards back and forth between his hands with the grace of a professional dealer. “That ringtail has been around on and off for years. He’s Muggshot’s livin’ lockpick.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up his forehead in interest. “Is he now? Where’d the guy find him?”

“No idea, and I’m not paid enough to care. You gonna play your turn or not?”

Instead of picking up another card he knew was going to lose him more money, the mastiff laid his hand down and leaned forward to pull the others into a conspiratorial huddle.

“Is he still here? You said he’s only around sometimes.”

Both dalmatian and terrier shared a look. It was the latter that piped up.

“Yeah, he’s still here. As soon as I finished setting up that special elevator to the penthouse, the boss carted him upstairs and hasn’t brought him down since. Why?”

“You helped with the elevator?” Inkspot asked, surprised.

“Forget all that,” Tony waved an irritated hand in the air to keep the conversation on topic. “That means he’s still up there, right?”

It took only a moment for his real question to register. The terrier shook his head adamantly.

“Don’t even think about it. He’s on the top floor.”

Nothing else needed to be said. No one, not even Mugshot’s favorite lackeys, stepped a foot higher than the ninth. Top floor was reserved for the bulldog and the bulldog alone.

That also meant, of course, that their boss’ special guest was off-limits, too. But off-limits had never stopped Tony “The Killer” B. before, and it wasn’t going to stop him now. He stood, picked up his cards, and offered it to the dalmatian with a scheming grin.

“Well. The boss is out on the town tonight and I got a job that could use a safecracker. How's about we stop playing for chump change and get our money’s worth for our fine work on this big job?”

The terrier started to protest, but Tony’s looming figure shut him up real quick. Inkspot eyed the offered cards with a greedy gleam in his eye that was only offset by a healthy dose of fear.

“What happens if Muggshot finds out about any of this? He’s shot men for much less than stealin’ from him, in case you didn’t know.”

“We’re not stealin’. We’re just borrowin’ without permission. We’ll get what we want and put the kid back in his cradle before you can finish a round of Texas Hold’em. Whaddya say?”

The dalmatian still hesitated, having been in Muggshot’s gang for far longer and well-aware of his infamous temper. But ultimately, the promise of money won over, and he took the cards with his own creeping grin.

“Spark,” he said to the terrier, who looked like he was going to have an aneurysm, “do you know how to get into that special elevator?”

Spark whined as they both turned to him. “If you think I’m goin’ along with a stupid scheme like this -”

“C’mon, ‘Spark’,” Tony gave a laugh that was more of a growl, wrapping one burly arm around the other dog’s much tinier frame. “Do you really wanna let this city’s pretty things go to waste? What’s the point in scarin’ everybody away if we can’t take advantage of their absence?”

“I wanna not be shot to pieces,” he replied, exasperated and stressed, but the slightest squeeze of the mastiff’s hand made him grimace. “Okay! Fine! Only if we’re in and out as fast as possible.”

“Look who you’re talkin’ to here, pal. Between the three of us, it’s gonna take twenty minutes tops. Now what was that about gettin’ into the special elevator?”

The terrier led them unwillingly to the hotel’s front lobby, where he pulled a shiny blue key out from one pocket.

“I’m one of the only guys who knows maintenance,” he explained when Inkspot’s mouth fell open at the sight of it. “The boss trusts me cause he has to.”

“Then it sure is a good thing we found ya first, huh?” Tony grunted, getting impatient. “Go on, then.”

Spark unlocked the cubby and pulled the lever to call the elevator down; all three dogs watched with different levels of respect as it appeared out of its genius secret hiding place and opened for them without any hassle or opposition.

They went straight up to the top floor and began searching rooms. Inkspot’s nose worked double-time to pick up the raccoon’s scent and it had him leading the others down one specific hallway.

It didn’t take long to find what they were looking for. A single suite door was barricaded from the outside with a thick wooden plank nailed horizontally across it, sticking out like a sore thumb among a dozen other untouched doors. Tony grinned and made short work of ripping the plank right off.

The door itself wasn’t locked, and they all barged in as one large, muscular group. Just as expected, there was a raccoon inside, who sat up quickly where he’d been lying on a fancy plush bed, staring at the three of them in surprise. When they advanced into the room, the kid got to his feet and tried to keep his distance.

“Who are you? What do you want?” He asked, prickly in every word.

Tony grinned. “We’re here to collect ya for a job. Boss’s orders.”

The raccoon looked each of them up and down and then took another step back. His eyes shifted to the red backpack at the foot of his bed, just out of his reach.

“What, don’t believe us?”

“No,” he said, curt, “because Muggshot always comes for me himself. What do you really want?”

The mastiff’s lip pulled back in an irritated snarl. “Fine, brat. We're enjoyin’ a night out on the town and we'd like you to join us.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” The raccoon spit back, inching away from the trio as Inkspot circled around towards his left side.

“Not whatever you think it is.” Already impatient, the dog crossed the room in two strides, forcing his target to flatten himself against the wall just to avoid touching him. “This city is officially ours, so I figured that includes anything shiny that catches my eye.”

He shot one arm out to catch the raccoon by the front of his hoodie before he could even think of trying to duck under him in retreat.

“And from what I hear, you got a special little talent for getting into things yer not s'pposed to.”

The kid's expression darkened and he looked away, tense as a bowstring. His next words came out in a mumble - a last ditch effort to dissuade the pack.

“Muggshot isn't going to like that you took me out of my room without permission, you know.”

“What the boss don't know won't make him mad. And besides, we won’t be gone long. No one’s gonna notice that you’re gone.”

The other two dogs shared an apprehensive glance, but they didn’t say their concerns out loud. Tony grinned and lifted the raccoon to his eye level.

“You ain’t gonna cause no trouble for us now, got it? Muggshot ain’t gotta know ‘bout your little late-night outing. We’re just takin’ ya for a walk. Seein’ the sights.”

The kid’s gaze flickered between the three of them. It was clear he was weighing the immediate danger of their presence against the potential danger of Muggshot. And while they all feared the bulldog’s wrath, it would only come to pass if he found out. These three could and would do very real damage, very fast. Their unwilling guest seemed to understand that, at least, because he eventually wilted in the bruiser’s hold.

“Good boy.” Tony dropped him, and he stumbled to catch himself. “Hurry up and get yer shoes on. The sooner we leave the sooner we get back.”

After shooting a nasty look at the dog, he crouched to slide on the shoes sitting at the end of his bed. His fingers closed around the handles of his red backpack as he stood up, but Inkspot pulled it out of his hold before he could sling it across his back.

“What's in here?” He asked, giving it a suspicious sniff.

“My lockpicking stuff. I'll need it if I'm going to help you get what you want.”

“Hmm…” The dalmatian unzipped the largest compartment and started rummaging through it. He pulled out a golden hook, which made the kid stiffen. “What’s this? Doesn’t look like a lockpick to me.”

“It’s - it’s like a crowbar. I use it to pry open heavy doors.” His hands twitched at his sides as the dog turned it over and over. “I don’t exactly have the strength that you guys do.”

Tony snorted. Inkspot smirked. Even Spark let out a strange little squeak that could have been a laugh. The hook was dumped back into the backpack and it was pushed into the raccoon's arms, who zipped it up and clutched it close before any of them changed their minds.

Tony grabbed him by the arm and steered him out of the room.

“Let’s go.”

Carmelita’s ears perked up at the sound of shattering glass and the excited holler of criminals. She peered around the corner of a building to see three muscled dogs sauntering out of a jewelry shop, draped in silver and gems and god knew what else.

“Not a bad haul, eh, boys?” The largest of them crowed, patting another hard at his back with diamond-encrusted bracelets wrapped around his fingers like brass knuckles. “Can’t argue with results, can ya?”

The inspector felt her hackles rise at the sight. How dare these men flaunt their violence and disrespect of the law while thousands of people had to flee their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods?

Before she got the chance to even take a step out from the shadow of the building, one of the dogs turned back and pulled a fourth member out through the shattered front door. A raccoon, looking somewhere in his late teens, who stood uncomfortably between the three like he would rather be anywhere else.

He’s not wearing any jewelry, Carmelita noticed with narrowed eyes. The police reports had claimed that all of Muggshot’s followers were canine, and almost all with criminal records already. But this…kid, looked more like a civilian than a crook.

He murmured something that she was too far away to catch. Whatever it was, the biggest dog – the leader of this posse, she was guessing – didn’t like it at all. With a snarl, he lunged for the raccoon, who made a valiant attempt at avoidance but hit a brick wall of muscle as the other two dogs corralled him.

Large meaty hands grabbed the kid by his shirt collar, lifting him off his feet. He kicked the air uselessly with panicked eyes as the dog spit a nasty threat an inch from his face.

Inspector Fox decided she had seen enough.

“Halt!”

Everyone froze as she finally revealed herself, shock pistol loaded and raised.

“Put him down right now and put your hands in the air,” she commanded, turning her body so that the light of the nearest street lamp caught the badge at her throat. “The three of you are all under arrest.”

The dogs blinked at her in simultaneous shock. Then the biggest one threw his head back and began to laugh, letting his hostage slip between giant fingers and land on his feet with only a small stumble.

“Like any of us are scared ‘a you, doll,” the mastiff sneered. “Don’t know why you raided the local cop station for that gun and badge, but it won’t do ya any good here. You should’ve run with the rest of the city.”

Carmelita’s lip curled in disgust. Her raised arm remained steady and focused. “I’m giving you the count of three to surrender before I shoot.”

“Try us, bitch.”

“One.”

The inspector prepared herself for a fight as the pack all began squaring their shoulders and pounding their fists in a pathetic attempt to intimidate her.

“Two.”

The safety on her pistol was clicked back as she locked eyes with the raccoon. Saw him hesitate. Saw him calculate.

Saw him make a decision.

“Three!”

He rushed forward, ducking past the startled dogs as he booked for her. The dalmatian made a grab for him and met a direct hit from Carmelita’s pistol instead. The goon went down as the other two caught up to what was happening, just in time for the kid to reach his would-be rescuer.

Instead of stopping, however, he grabbed her wrist and kept running, forcing her to stumble after him when he gunned for the nearest alley. The criminals roared behind them, far too close for comfort, so the inspector whipped her pistol around and shot the smallest dog who fell like a rock. His larger companion tripped right over him, hitting the concrete just as hard as the other two had. Satisfied, she turned back just as the raccoon veered off the street and out of sight with her in tow.

The alley held a dumpster and an opposite exit and not much else. Just as Carmelita took a step towards the other street, her rescue-e surprised her once again by scrambling up onto the dumpster and pulling her with him with his still-iron grip on her wrist.

“What are you -”

“Sh-sh-sh!” He hissed, pointing up at a low-hanging ledge on the building’s roof above them. Her eyes lit in understanding.

With a single leap she sprung up and grabbed it, pulling herself up with a grunt of effort. When she turned over to offer her hand to the raccoon, she was startled to see him scaling a water pipe as if weightless. She hauled him up the rest of the way and he slammed into her with his tail barely clearing the wall in time. They flattened themselves against the rooftop just as the dogs came running into the alley barely a second later.

“Where the hell did they go?!” Growled a voice right below them. Carmelita stopped breathing.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Another voice, more panicked. “We gotta find ‘em fast! If the boss finds out we lost –”

“Shut up! I know!” The leader yelled. “Go check the alleys down south. You, go east. I’ll go west. They couldn’t‘a gone far.”

Three sets of footsteps trotted off in different directions, and it was only then that Carmelita felt safe enough to exhale. She could feel the kid shaking with his arm pressed tightly against her collarbone. Neither of them dared move, just in case.

They waited ten seconds. Thirty. A minute. No one came back.

Finally, the inspector removed herself from the ground and pushed the raccoon off of her. He gave no resistance, scrambling up and away a few feet as if she might keep pushing him if he didn’t, and watched while she wiped grime off her jacket with a grimace.

“That was close,” she muttered, more to herself than to him, then met his eyes. “Thank you. That was quick thinking to hide up here.”

He was staring at her. Studying her, she realized. Sizing her up.

“You’re welcome,” he said, very softly, just when she was starting to worry that he might jump her.

Now that they weren’t fleeing for their lives, she got a better look at him. He wore a dark blue hoodie, as if unbothered by the afternoon Utah heat. Scuffed sneakers, black gloves, a red backpack, and what looked to be some kind of black cloth barely peeking out behind the front of the hoodie’s collar filled out his ensemble of looking distinctly out of place.

"Are you looking for something?" He asked flatly, snapping her out of her analysis.

"No, no. Sorry." She looked away with an embarrassed blush, then realized he had been doing the exact same thing to her and wondered why she should feel bad for it.

Squaring her shoulders, she met his gaze again. The raccoon raised an eyebrow. Then he turned on his heel and began walking away.

“Bye.”

Carmelita blinked.

“Wha - wait!” She lurched after him as her brain caught up to what was happening. “Wait, you can’t just leave! Not with those criminals looking for us!”

“Watch me,” he retorted without turning around. Upon reaching the edge of the building, he peered down at the street below in an obvious gauge for a jump.

“Would you just - listen to me for a second!” The inspector growled, panicked and aggravated. “I can’t let you go on your own after all that! Not in a city full of gangsters! Do you even have a safe place to go?”

He paused. She took it as the opening it was and continued.

“Look, all of Mesa is deserted right now. Muggshot and his thugs have overrun it. Everyone else has fled, and there’s no police station or shelter around where you can hide. Even if those three don’t find you, someone else will.”

Carmelita stopped talking only to take a breath. The kid still hadn’t turned around, but his ears were swiveled towards her. He was listening.

“I have a safe house just outside of the city in the next town over,” she said just a little softer, a little less forceful. “I could take you there for the night, you can get in touch with whoever you need to get out of the area, and then I’ll let you go.”

He finally turned from the ledge, expression dubious as he looked her up and down. “You’ll…let me go.”

“That was just a - look, you know what I meant, okay?” The inspector grimaced, then held out her hands in an unarmed invitation. “So? What do you say?”

The raccoon stared at her with that careful, studying scrutiny again. Carmelita resisted the urge to shift her weight under its potency. After a long, tense moment, he slumped just the tiniest bit and stepped away from the edge of the roof, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. There had never been anything in training about having a rescued hostage leaving their rescuer halfway through the actual rescue.

That was the first thing she was going to make Barkley add as soon as she got back from this crazy case.

Scanning the buildings around them, the fox tried to pinpoint which direction her car would be in relation to the street they were on. Eventually, she figured out a rough estimate and gestured for the raccoon to follow her towards another side of the building to drop down from. He did so almost as easily as she had despite his rather svelte form, and near soundlessly at that.

She wondered what his story was, that he as a civilian could do so effortlessly what took Interpol rookies months to learn.

They walked in silence at first, both alert for the slightest whiff of canine. As streets went by without hide nor hair of any of the goons on their tails, Carmelita allowed herself to relax just a little bit. Her hand still stayed on the holster of her shock pistol.

“So…” She finally said, hushed but curious. “Are you a – a local? Some kind of hostage?”

The kid eyed her, then glanced north where Muggshot’s name glowed like a bright green warning beacon on a distant building. His mouth pressed into a thin line. “Something like that.”

His voice was so, so quiet, with a hint of an accent she had noticed before but couldn't place.

“Well, I’m glad I was able to get you out of there. I’m Inspector Carmelita Fox. What’s your name?”

There was a long pause.

“…Sly.”

“Sly? That isn’t really your name, is it?”

The raccoon shrugged and didn't look at her.

“Sly. Dios mío,” she huffed, wondering if perhaps she’d misread the situation she’d stumbled upon. What kind of law-abiding citizen had a name like that? “Okay, Sly. Do - did you live close by? Maybe we can come back for more of your stuff later, when it’s safer.”

“I don’t live in Mesa,” came the unexpectedly curt reply. His gloved hand curled tight around one strap of his backpack. “And I already have all I need.”

Carmelita frowned. “I was just asking.”

“You were being nosy.”

“I was not being - that’s a good question to ask in a situation like this!”

“Uh huh. Was your next one going to be ‘what’s your exact address so I can write it down in my police report later’?”

A muscle twitched in her jaw. She hated that he had guessed right. “Forget it. I was just trying to help.”

If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he had rolled his eyes, but his face betrayed nothing at her sharp glance. The inspector blew a frustrated breath between clenched teeth and tried another peace offering. It was more for her benefit than his.

"It's just a few more blocks to my car and then we're out of here."

"You brought a cop car into the city?" Sly seemed both shocked and impressed by the stupidity.

"It's not a police cruiser," she said, irritation rising again. "I'm not dumb enough to plaster my status all over a city overrun by criminals without back-up."

"Could've fooled me, the way you were waving your badge and gun around earlier."

"It got you rescued, didn't it?"

The raccoon had nothing to say to that.

Carmelita sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Silence fell thick between them all the way back to her car.

Sly whistled at the sight of the red convertible with its hood up. "Damn. You're lucky no one's looted this side of Mesa yet, or that thing would be long gone."

"Give me a little credit, kid." The inspector unlocked the doors and swung into the driver's seat. "I staked out the movement here all morning. I know what I'm doing."

"Not a kid."

"What?" She glanced over at the raccoon, who climbed into the passenger seat with a sullen expression.

"I said I'm not a kid."

"Oh yeah? How old are you?" The skepticism dripped off every word. He didn't look a day over seventeen to her.

"Nineteen."

"Really," Carmelita said in disbelief. "Even if that's true, nineteen is still a kid."

"It's really not."

"Yes, it is!"

"Then what about you?" He challenged. "You look like you haven't even finished cop boot camp yet."

"It’s called a police academy, I graduated from it with honors, and I'm twenty-two, for your information."

Sly snorted. "Congratulations, you can buy alcohol here in America. Is that your only requirement for being an adult?"

"Legally, it is. Why, what do you consider being one? Smartassery?"

The raccoon went quiet, staring at the desolate street ahead. A long moment passed without another word from either of them. Just when Carmelita thought that was the end of the conversation, she heard him speak again. It was so soft she almost didn't catch it.

"I'm not a kid. I haven't been a kid in a long time."

She glanced over. His face was blank and his eyes were distant. Something about it sent a shiver up the fox's spine, and she pursed her lips before starting the car.

It wasn't her business, anyway.

Chapter Text

It was close to sunset when Carmelita arrived in a town about twenty minutes away from Mesa. A lot of people had fled from here too, fearing the gangster dogs would target the neighboring towns next, and so they were completely alone when she pulled into the parking lot of the place Interpol had paid for her to stay at.

“Here we are,” she said, killing the engine as they both stared up at a dingy old motel washed out under neon lights.

Sly didn’t move a muscle. His expression was unreadable. “Nice place.”

There was nothing in his tone to suggest he was judging her temporary living space, but she felt self-conscious anyway. For some reason, she got the distinct feeling that either he’d never stayed in a motel before, or he was used to much nicer accommodations. Which made little sense, as she glanced over at the sorry state of his clothes and the scruffiness of his fur.

“Well, come on. No use sitting here any longer.” The inspector left the car abruptly before he could catch her looking at him. “I’ve got some phone calls to make, and you should probably – get something to eat, or something.”

She hadn’t heard him moving behind her as she stepped up to her door, and nearly dropped her keys when his voice came up softly from right over her shoulder.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Jesus!” The fox whirled on him. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry,” he said sincerely. “Force of habit.”

“Habit to give people heart attacks?”

The raccoon shrugged. Carmelita counted to ten in her head as she unlocked the door and let them both inside. She wasn’t a paragon of patience on a good day, and this civilian was finding a way to push at all her nerves simultaneously.

The motel room wasn’t much better than the outside. Sly looked at the suitcase sitting open but unpacked on the bed, and once again the fox felt heat rising under her fur.

“I went straight into the field as soon as I got here,” she rushed to explain for some reason she couldn’t name. “Didn’t really have time to settle in.”

“I thought you said you’ve been in the area all day.”

“...I was.”

If she hadn’t been painfully aware of his reaction, she might have missed the faint, almost-upturn of the corners of his mouth. It was gone before she could blink, and she was left questioning whether she had imagined it.

Then he glanced back at her suitcase, and suddenly averted his gaze with a clear, uncomfortable shift of his weight. Carmelita started to ask what was wrong, when she too glanced at her open suitcase, and was mortified to see a bra sitting almost innocently on top of everything else.

“Shit!” The fox practically dove for her luggage, slamming the suitcase shut with enough force to make the bed shake. “Shit. Um. Sorry. I’ll put everything away immediately.”

“All good,” Sly replied very quietly as he stared at the nearest wall. His entire face was visibly flushed. “I’ll, uh, I’ll just wait outside until you’re done.”

Carmelita wanted to kick herself. “No, it’s okay, really. Why don’t you just…freshen up in the meantime? The bathroom should be fully stocked and I haven’t touched anything in there yet.”

She realized, belatedly, how rude she probably sounded by implying he needed a shower. There wasn’t anything to suggest he even had spare clothes in that backpack. But the raccoon took the suggestion immediately before she could retract the statement, with nothing more than a quick nod and an even quicker disappearance into the other room.

With speed unparalleled by any other, Inspector Fox unpacked her stuff and put it in the motel drawers in what had to be a new world record. Her ears twitched at the sound of running water, and she sank down on her bed to stare at the closed door.

The events of the last hour hit her all at once, and anxiety spiked in her stomach. Barkley had asked for subtlety on this mission, and here she was with a rescued stranger in her apartment after practically screaming her status to multiple mobsters. She hadn’t completely botched the job – she’d gotten a lot of intel before fate and her overwhelming sense of justice interfered – but the thought of calling her boss to relay the sudden change in plans had her clutching the mattress with dread.

Surely, he’d understand that she had no other choice, right? It was one thing to let criminals have their way with an abandoned city without lifting a finger to stop it, but this was someone’s life on the line. If she hadn’t stepped in when she did, the raccoon could’ve gotten seriously hurt – or worse. Carmelita knew she would never be able to live with herself if something had happened to him when she could have stopped it.

But she also knew that she’d put the entire mission at risk when she’d been told in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t let that happen. If those goons went scurrying back to their leader and Muggshot put two and two together about the kind of law enforcement Inspector Fox represented, things would go very sour very quickly. Barkley was going to have a cow over her failure, and no one in the office would take her seriously ever again.

The woman was so lost in her spiraling thoughts that she almost missed the quiet click of the bathroom door being unlocked just before it opened. Out stepped Sly with damp fur, albeit in the same clothes he’d worn before. His hood was down and he was tousling his hair with a hand towel.

Carmelita might have thought the tangled, springy mop on his head was a funny sight if she weren’t so caught up in a tangle of worry herself.

“Hot water is the greatest invention ever,” he announced. She caught the subtle glance he did around the room to make sure there were no more surprises to be had. Seemingly satisfied by the lack of police officer personal garments, the raccoon finally gave up on taming his hair and folded the towel neatly before setting it down.

His backpack was still on him, she noticed.

“Oh, definitely,” she murmured distractedly, just to show she had heard him.

Sly looked at her. He didn’t comment on whatever he saw. Instead, he said something that surprised her.

“Thank you for rescuing me.”

Carmelita blinked and finally gave him her full attention. “You’re welcome. I’m here to serve and protect, after all.”

He wrinkled his nose in a way she didn’t particularly like, but then he relaxed and considered her thoughtfully. “Work must be your passion, huh?”

“It’s everything to me.” This was something she said with her head high and her eyes full of pride, despite the terrible anticipation in her gut. “Speaking of which, I need to get on that phone call. I’ll let you use it as soon as I’m done.”

“Kay.”

Sly sat down at the single-chair corner table, back to the wall and facing the door as he pulled his backpack around from behind to tuck under his chin as a head rest. His eyes never left her, and he was so quiet and so still that she might have forgotten he was actually there if not for the fact that she was staring straight at him.

Once again, the fox found herself wondering what his story was.

Carmelita shook her head to clear the distracting thoughts and pulled out her phone, stepping over to the other end of the room where she could have some relative privacy. Her finger hovered over Barkley’s number without actually pressing it.

She must have been standing there for a good ten seconds like an idiot before Sly cleared his throat, making her jump.

“Everything okay?”

“Y-Yep. Absolutely.”

Swallowing the lump in her chest, the inspector wasted no more time and finally dialed her boss.

He picked up after two rings, voice as gruff as always. “This call better be a status report, Inspector.”

“It - it is, sir,” she said in a low voice, glancing back at the raccoon who didn’t seem particularly interested in eavesdropping. “I have a lot to report.”

“Get on with it, then.”

“As expected, the entire city has been deserted by its citizens and overtaken by criminals. Muggshot has already started setting up shop - I saw a building near the center of Mesa with his name up in big neon letters. I can’t be sure yet, but I think he’s building a casino.”

“Gambling is prohibited in Utah,” the badger pointed out. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he was doing that. It would be easy revenue for a criminal until he’s busted.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too.”

As her mind slipped into the familiar flow of investigation, Carmelita allowed herself to relax just a little bit. She looked out the window at the distant horizon. Mesa City wasn’t visible but she knew it was out there.

“A lot of stores have been looted or at least broken into, but most residential houses and apartment buildings were untouched. He’s probably planning to entice the civilians to return to their homes and make them into paying customers, either voluntarily or by force.”

Sly’s eyes prickled the fur on the back of her neck. She half-turned to look his way, but all he did was give her a tilt of his head. He still hadn’t moved from his spot.

“– know where this potential casino is located?” Barkley continued, unaware that she’d tuned out for a few seconds.

“Oh – not – not exactly,” the fox scrambled to respond before her boss could notice. “I haven’t gotten close enough to find the street itself. There were a lot more of his hired men the deeper I went into the city.”

“How many would you estimate?”

“Anywhere from thirty to eighty. Maybe even more. I counted about twenty or so today but I could hear alarms going off just about everywhere from break-ins and robberies the entire time. Actually…I have more pressing news related to that.”

“Oh yeah?” Barkley’s tone shifted from neutral to wary in an instant. “What would that be, inspector?”

She took a deep breath and braced herself.

“Well…about an hour ago, I encountered three criminals looting a jewelry store, and they had a civilian hostage with them. I was able to rescue the hostage.”

There was a pregnant pause between them, and Carmelita could practically hear the badger putting the pieces together.

“Fox,” he finally growled, “please tell me you didn't blow your cover and jeopardize your mission for that. Please tell me you were still able to remain unnoticed.”

The inspector closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t stand by and watch an innocent person get hurt without doing anything.”

Across the room, Sly’s eyebrows shot up. She didn’t see it.

Inspector Barkley was silent for a scarily long amount of time. The only way she knew he hadn’t hung up on her was by the short, angry puffs she could still hear through the phone. When he spoke again, every word was clipped and cross.

“...Inspector, you had specific orders not to reveal yourself. This was a covert operation until we had enough information to move forward with the lowest possible risk.”

“I know, sir.”

“You’ve only been there for one day and you’ve already done exactly what I asked you not to do.” The badger’s voice steadily grew louder and louder, as did his anger. “Not only have you jeopardized your position and the lives of every Interpol officer who’s supposed to help take back the city, but also the nearly five-hundred thousand residents of Mesa!”

“I - I know, sir.”

“Don’t “I know, sir” me! I trusted you to do your job right when I assigned you to this case – I put my neck out on the line when almost all of my colleagues believed you weren’t suited for such a delicate undercover mission! Do you have any idea how many ways this whole situation could go sour just because you got caught up in the moment playing hero?! A hell of a lot of ways, Fox!”

Carmelita clutched the cellphone close to her ear, flinching at every reprimand – and not just because her superior was screaming louder than a howler monkey. She inhaled and exhaled in practiced measures.

“Sir, I swear, I can fix it –” she started to plead.

“You’re damn right you’re going to fix it!” He yelled. “I’m sending a team out this instant, and if you don’t have a direct line straight to Muggshot himself when they arrive, consider yourself officially demoted!”

Barkley hung up before she could even think to say anything to that, and she was left staring at her phone as it beeped mockingly at her. Her vision started swimming as panic set in at the threat of losing the title she had worked so hard to reach. If she was demoted, that fleeting respect she had fought for would be gone forever. If she was demoted, those high-profile cases she finally had access to would only reach her desk when they needed extra bodies for backup.

If she was demoted, then everything she had ever done up until this point was –

“Well, he sure has a set of lungs, huh?”

The voice came a meter from her right side but it felt like it had been a millimeter. Carmelita whirled on emotional, startled instinct, swinging her fist wide in a sucker punch. Her target – the raccoon, the civilian – barely danced out of its range by the end of his fur, eyes wide and hands up in a gesture of surrender as it only just missed colliding with his face.

She realized what she’d done the very next moment in a mix of shame and anger. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to –”

“It’s fine,” Sly said in a careful, neutral tone. He still had his hands up and was watching her like she might take another swipe at him. “I scared you again.”

“Of course you scared me again! Hostia, I could have broken your nose! Why on earth did you sneak up on me like that when I was making a confidential call?!”

“In my defense, I didn’t actually come up to you until it was over.”

“Doesn’t make it any better,” she retorted bitterly, turning away from him to hide the embarrassed blush under her fur. The disastrous call with Barkley came back full force and she sagged, completely overwhelmed. “God, this might be one of the worst days of my entire life.”

“Why, just cause your boss yelled at you for one mistake?” He gave her a look that was definitely judgmental. “I’d say your life’s been pretty great if that’s the worst thing that’s happened to you.”

The fox shook her head. “You don’t understand. I wasn’t supposed to risk my cover for anything. It was a recon mission to learn as much about Muggshot and his hired hands as possible; just flashing my badge could put our entire plan to take back Mesa in jeopardy. I’ll probably get demoted at best and fired at worst for what I did today.”

“Huh. So…why did you do it?”

“Because I saw you in trouble,” she said honestly, turning back to him. “I couldn’t sit back and watch someone innocent get hurt.”

“Think you said that already when you were talking to your boss,” he replied. “Still doesn’t explain why you’d risk your ‘mission’ for it.”

“The whole point of my mission, my job, is to protect those that aren’t able to protect themselves from criminals like Muggshot. Even if I failed in the bigger picture, turning a blind eye to injustice isn’t something I can just ignore. You don’t deserve that.”

Sly cocked his head, studying her in that specific way that made her feel like he was peering into her very soul. She couldn’t read the emotion behind his eyes.

“...You’re the weirdest cop I’ve ever met,” he finally said.

Carmelita resisted the urge to ask him what he meant by that, and instead decided to take the compliment for what sincerity he seemed to offer it with.

“Thanks? I’m just doing my job.” She grimaced. “My job which is now on the line.”

“Oh, yeah, that guy was yelling so loud I heard that whole last bit at the end there. Something about clearing a path straight to Muggshot, right?”

“Basically.” The inspector rubbed her face, feeling exhausted just at the thought of doing something like that. “But considering the heart of the city is crawling with criminals and I don’t even know where their leader is, I might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystack where every piece of hay has a weapon.”

The raccoon snorted. “Not far off with that analogy.”

Then he went silent for a moment, and she had the sudden sense not to say anything else just yet. There was that same calculation there that she’d seen in him right before he’d risked his life to run for her. Now that she was getting a really good look at it, it was almost chilling. It looked like the kind of calculation she might see in a criminal.

Ridiculous. She needed to get out of this damn city before it made her suspicious of everything.

“I think I can help you.”

His quiet, certain words snapped her out of her thoughts. “What?”

“I could help you reach Muggshot,” Sly repeated, looking her dead in the eye. “If you want.”

Carmelita stared at him. The offer was so out of left field that she was struggling to even comprehend it. Instead of a reasonable response like “I’m not going to let a civilian get involved in an Interpol case”, what came out of her mouth was –

“I thought you wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Changed my mind,” he said without missing a beat.

“Why?” She pressed.

“Think of it as returning the favor for rescuing me.” The raccoon lifted his backpack up from where it had been sitting on the ground at his feet and tugged it over his back. Carmelita hadn’t even noticed it there. “Besides, it’s not every day you meet a co - an officer with actual integrity these days. It would suck to see you kicked out of such a respectable, honorable organization like Interpol.”

Something about how he said that last part had her squinting at him, but all he did was smile at her in a way she couldn’t quite pick apart. The fox sighed and gave a resigned nod.

“Alright, fine. It’s not like I’m risking anything else at this point.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The dogs searched the streets, the alleys, and every abandoned building they could break into for nearly an hour with no luck. It was like the raccoon and the cop who'd stolen him had disappeared into thin air. By the time they regrouped by the racetracks, Spark was a nervous wreck, Inkspot was struggling to light a cigar with trembling hands, and even Tony could feel his unshakeable confidence starting to crumble.

“What do we do? What do we do?!” Spark whined, pacing in a panicked circle and pulling at his ears. “That kid is important! When the boss finds out he's gonna skin us alive!”

“Stop talking. Let me think.” The mastiff pinched the bridge of his snout.

“What’s there to think about?! We’re screwed! Muggshot is going to fit us with cement shoes if he doesn’t just shoot us first!”

Tony began to growl in warning. It went unnoticed by his wound-up companion.

“I never should’ve let you two talk me into this! Oh god, I’m not ready to die yet! I had so many plans for my life, I never even got the chance to –”

“Shut your sniveling trap!” The mastiff roared, whirling around to jab a finger at his chest. The force of it nearly sent the smaller dog falling backwards. “If you’re just gonna whine about it like a newborn pup then yer in the wrong damn job, pal.”

The terrier closed his mouth with an audible click of teeth. The only sound between them was the distant siren of the cop car someone had hotwired for testing the track down below.

Finally, Inkspot broke the silence with a shaky exhale of smoke. “What if we just don’t tell him?”

They shot him mirroring looks of disbelief.

“I’m serious. There aren’t any cameras in the hotel, and no one saw us leave with the kid. We can tell Muggshot that we ran into a cop, and just…not say anything else.”

“That –” Tony stopped himself from saying it sounded like a stupid idea. Honestly, it was awfully tempting. “That’s…we could work with that. And if the boss is all focused on a cop sniffing around, he’s not gonna notice his living lockpick going missing too, right?”

“Exactly.” Inkspot took another puff of his smoke, much steadier than the last one. “So how’s about this – you two go make sure the kid’s door looks just like it was when we got there, and I’ll break the news to Muggshot."

“Hang on, hang on!” The terrier squinted at him suspiciously. “How do we know you aren’t just gonna rat us out, huh? Would be pretty easy to do when you got the boss alone.”

“Because if we get the kid back, he might snitch on all of us,” Inkspot snapped. “Who do you think Muggshot’ll believe more - the three of us against a ringtail, or just me when he’s already got proof of two dogs who stole from him?”

Spark huffed and Tony let out a low rumble, but neither could think of a good argument to that. Even so, the mastiff stepped forward to get in Inkspot’s face.

“Fine. We’ll go ahead with your plan, but if you sell us out, you’ll be sorry you ever double-crossed Tony “The Killer” B. Got that?”

“Loud and clear, pal,” the dalmatian replied coolly without so much as a twitch. Tony growled and backed away from him. Stupid poker player and his stupid poker face.

“Come on, wimp,” the mastiff pushed Spark ahead of him, but not without sparing another glare at Inkspot. “We got a job ta do.”

For such a large city, it wasn’t hard to find Muggshot if you knew where to look. If he wasn’t in his penthouse suite, then he was either watching homemade race cars burning rubber at the track or overseeing the conversion of the neighboring building into his shiny new casino.

Case in point – when Inkspot entered said casino, he could see his leader clear as day. The bulldog was standing in the middle of a carpeted bridge, arms folded as he watched a nervous construction team carefully screw a giant wooden cutout of himself over a doorway.

“Hey, boss.” The dalmatian sauntered up to him with his hands in his pockets, trying to play off the bead of sweat along his brow. “Sorry to bother ya while you’re busy, but there’s something I gotta tell ya.”

The massive dog didn’t even glance his way.

“If it ain’t about how to get paying customers coming in or that someone finally fixed the plumbin’ and electric in here, then beat it. I got more important things to do right now.”

Inkspot steeled himself. “What if it's about a cop?”

“Cop?” Muggshot craned his head back to stare him down with narrowed eyes. “Whaddya mean, cop?”

“Me and a few of the guys ran into one on Main. Came out of nowhere screamin’ for us to put our hands up. Had a badge and a gun and everything.”

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in an instant. The construction crew all froze mid hammer swing. Muggshot turned fully around, and the dalmatian was reminded of how the top dog had become top dog as he was suddenly face to face with a wall of muscle.

“When was that?” The bulldog asked, all growl.

Inkspot had to fight to keep the unbothered expression on his face. “About an hour or two ago. We chased her through half the town but she got the slip on us, so I figured I should let ya know.”

“Yer damn right you should’ve!” One giant hand shot out and grabbed the dalmatian by the shoulder, dragging him along as Muggshot stalked off in the direction of the exit. “You mooks keep building. It better be done when I come back!”

He practically half-carried Inkspot out of the casino, across the parking lot, and into the hotel that had become his personal base of operations. They passed Tony and Spark on the first-floor stairway, who shuffled nervously but went completely ignored by their boss. Inkspot struggled just to keep his feet under him as Muggshot crammed them both into his secret elevator.

They reached the top floor and the dalmatian nearly had a heart attack as his leader made a beeline for the raccoon’s room – which, thankfully, had the giant plank placed back across its front. Instead of opening it, however, the bulldog pounded on the door several times.

“Hey, runt!” He shouted through the heavy wood. “Guess what! You’re getting an extended time out till I deal with some personal biz.”

Without even waiting for a response, which Inkspot was incredibly grateful for, Muggshot continued on towards his own room. He shoved his crony inside and slammed the door behind him.

“Now, you better tell me every detail about this cop of yours,” he said, standing over Inkspot like the impenetrable barrier that he was. “Because lemme tell ya, pally - I’m all ears.”

Chapter Text

This cop was nuts.

That was the only reasonable explanation Sly could come up with as they drove back towards Mesa City. Her hands were tight on the steering wheel and she stared down the road ahead like it might get her to destination faster if she intimidated it enough; never mind the fact that she was going the exact speed limit and not a mile over.

Like he'd called her earlier – weird.

But being a stickler for driving rules or even going back to a city that would gun her down in an instant weren't what made her nuts. What made her nuts was risking her entire job for a stranger like him. Her boss hadn't exactly been quiet on the phone even before he'd started yelling, and Sly had heard pretty much all of it. She hadn’t been lying about what was at stake.

What kind of cop put their badge on the line for that? Certainly not any he'd ever met. Which, admittedly, was not all that many, but he could still attest to the fact that law enforcement was corrupt across the world.

The thought made his expression twist in bitterness, and the fox must have noticed because she finally glanced his way.

“If you’d rather not go back to Mesa, I understand,” she said gently, like he needed comfort or reassurance. He nearly rolled his eyes.

“I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Now he did roll his eyes. “Nothing that’s any of your business.”

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” she huffed. “You don’t have to be so difficult about everything, you know.”

Difficult. Sly clenched his teeth even as his tone came out completely unaffected. “Everyone I’ve ever met has called me difficult. Difficult is practically my middle name.”

To his surprise, the quip brought out a tiny breath of a laugh from her. The cop seemed just as caught off guard by the reaction, but leaned into it instead of backing off.

“That sure is an interesting middle name,” she quipped back with a hint of a smile on her face. It was enough to make him relax in his seat just the smallest amount.

“What can I say? I’m an interesting guy.”

“I’ll say.” There was a brief pause as she tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “I should have expected that from someone named Sly.”

Sly couldn’t read the tone in which she’d said that, but he could hear the emphasis she put in it, and it had him tensing all over again. It was very rare the Five used his first name, and even rarer it was for any good reason. He crossed one leg over the other despite the lack of room in the car and tried not to show how uncomfortable hearing the word out loud was making him.

“What, you don’t like my name?” He asked, hiding the jitter in his voice under a thick layer of teasing.

“It’s not that!” Inspector Fox hurried to say, as if she’d upset him somehow. “It’s just – an unusual name. Unique. ‘Sly’. Do you have a last name just as unique to go with it?”

Yes.

"Nope," he said, popping the "p" as loud as he could just to be extra annoying. “And I’m not telling it to you, so don’t bother asking.”

“Why not?”

She asked it so sincerely, like she truly didn't understand why someone wouldn't want to give their full name to a cop. As if she’d never been faced with the danger of her identity being known by someone who could and would do her harm over it. It should have pissed him off, but instead it left him wondering once again how she'd gotten so far in her career without knowing the way the world worked.

"Names have power," the raccoon eventually settled on. God, he was already regretting telling her what little he had about himself, innocuous as it was. “Truth be told, I’m not the biggest fan of mine.”

And yet here he was, telling her more. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t usually this careless.

She glanced at him again, surprised and searching, but he was done letting anything else slip. All she’d find was a stone wall of emotion.

“Well…” the fox said, more hesitant than he would have expected. “I’ll try not to use it too often, then. How’s that sound?”

He shrugged and leaned farther back in his seat. “You can do whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”

The conversation petered out as they passed a giant "Welcome to Mesa City" sign that had been vandalized to say "Muggshot City" instead. After a few minutes of grim silence, the cop spoke up again.

“Ugh. Why do criminals always advertise their location in the dumbest, most obvious way possible?”

Sly couldn’t help the almost inaudible chuckle at her words.

“Because guys like Muggshot are always more interested in bragging about themselves than keeping things on the down-low. I doubt he even knows the meaning of the word ‘subtle’.”

Inspector Fox gave him a look as she parked against the street. “You say that like you’ve met him.”

“I’ve met his goons,” he replied without missing a beat. “You saw how they were.”

“True,” she admitted with a hum, stepping out of the car and clicking the safety off of her shock pistol, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the same way…even though one of his aliases is Meathead Muggshot.”

“Pretty sure you don’t earn a name like that if you’re the gold standard of criminal intelligence.”

“Can’t exactly argue with that.”

They both took a moment to look up and down the street, paranoid that someone else might be out here despite the fact that they were still on the outskirts of the city. When no mobsters came rushing out of abandoned buildings, Sly rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.

“So, what’s the plan?”

He watched as the inspector slowly scanned the skyscrapers ahead of them. Her eyes fell on something in particular and he didn’t even have to follow her line of sight to know what she was looking at.

“We start there,” she announced, pointing at the giant, green, gaudy neon sign of Muggshot’s own name in the far distance. “Sometimes the most obvious place is where the target really is hiding.”

“Can’t argue with the detective on that one.”

It was a little relieving that despite her being dense on some things, she still had enough awareness to follow the big green beacon that was the mob dog’s place of residence. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to nudge her in the right direction at all, and then they could both go on with their lives peacefully and separately before the night was over.

But he still mentally came up with some excuses for the knowledge he had, just in case she asked.

“Are you coming?” Inspector Fox asked, throwing him a glance from over her shoulder. She was already walking with purpose in the direction of the distant hotel.

“Yeah, I am. Just zoned out for a moment.”

Sly jogged until he was on pace with her and flipped his hood up over his ears. It was a familiar comfort.

“Why are you covering your head?”

“Aesthetic,” said completely expressionless. The mask sitting at the base of his neck, he decided to leave down for now. There wasn’t much of a point in hiding his face when everyone in the city already knew what he looked like.

She stared at him with an arched eyebrow. “Is your ‘aesthetic’ supposed to make you look like some kind of crook?”

“I dunno,” he drawled right back, “is your crop top supposed to be a good representation of Interpol dress code?”

The raccoon watched with great satisfaction as her face went red. She turned away from him and they walked on in silence.

Said silence was soon broken by a very loud, very familiar voice calling from some distant outdoor speaker.

“Yo! Hey, yo, yo, it’s the boss!”

They froze simultaneously at the sound of Muggshot himself and ducked into the nearest alley together. Sly's entire body was stiff like a springboard and he watched Inspector Fox hold her pistol close to her chest at the ready.

“Ya know, I’m the first to admit that maybe driving everyone out of town, while necessary to set up shop, mighta taken a hit outta the business. So!” The mob boss paused a moment like he’d lost his train of thought in the middle of his speech. “Now, I’d hope you mugs would be o-bli-ged to any visitors that come here to lose their money in my casino. But!”

Another pause that made Sly’s hackles rise under his hoodie. He knew that kind of pause all too well – it was the kind where Muggshot was barely keeping himself from caving the nearest wall in with one angry punch.

“I got a reliable tip that a cop might be snoopin’ around the operation. So from now on, greet any “visitors” you see with a hail ‘a lead! Capiche?”

The speech ended abruptly with a shriek of microphone feedback, and the streets fell quiet once more. The raccoon physically forced himself to loosen up so he wouldn’t jump at the next smallest thing. He locked eyes with the cop, who also looked like she had just been three bad beats away from a heart attack.

His mouth twisted upwards in a wry smile. “Well, guess we know that they know you’re here, huh?”

“Guess so,” she replied with a tense exhale. He was amazed to see that despite knowing the entire city now had a hit out on her, her hands were still steady as they held her weapon. “That just means we’ll have to be extra stealthy from here on out.”

“Stealthy is practically my middle name.”

“Your other middle name, you mean?”

“I’m a man of many talents.” He jerked his head in the direction they were heading, pretending not to see the tiny smile on her face at the same time that she rolled her eyes. “Come on. We should get going before we’re caught standing out here like a couple of idiots.”

They kept moving after that with very little talking, intimately aware of how much they stuck out and how trigger happy the criminals would be after their boss gave them the go-ahead to shoot first and ask questions later. Alerting even one dog to their presence could easily alert the entire pack, and neither were eager to face a fox-and-raccoon hunt anytime soon.

It took over an hour of sneaking and hiding and taking alternate routes to avoid mobsters by the time they finally reached the crime boss’s personal hotel.

The front doors of the building were boarded up – not to ward off any potential trespassers, Sly knew, but because Muggshot had broken them wide open in a fit of rage and just hadn’t gotten around to fixing the gaping hole. He leaned against a rusty old truck in the parking lot as the cop went to examine it.

“The lights are on inside,” she noted, peering between the cracks of the wooden planks. “And I can see a few dogs, too, but not their leader.”

Sly shrugged even though she wasn’t facing him and folded his arms. “I doubt he’d be easy to find after learning you’re here. Not to mention, if this is his base…”

He glanced up at the tall building. There was a window on the topmost floor with bars across it, barely noticeable unless one knew where to look.

“....He’s probably not going to be on the first floor. He’d keep his valuables a lot higher up than that.”

Inspector Fox let out a contemplative hum, still checking out the barricaded front for any sign of weakness and barely paying him any mind. He watched the way the dim street lights made her dark hair seem to shine as it bounced against her back with every move she made, and thought about how bizarre it was that she was so unconcerned with having her back turned to him. It would be very easy to pull his cane out of his backpack and take her down from behind before she even knew what hit her; a quick, simple getaway before she could learn anything about him.

Sly exhaled quietly through his nose instead of doing that, and eyed the empty parking lot for incoming mobsters. Idiot, arrogant cop.

“I could break through this without too much trouble,” she said to herself, oblivious to the raccoon’s thoughts. She placed her palm against the makeshift wall. “But I don’t want to risk alerting anyone inside of my presence if I can’t guarantee Muggshot is in there, too.”

She wouldn’t find her target in that building without outside help, he knew. The bulldog might be a meathead, but even he had enough braincells to make the only way up to the top floor of the hotel a secret one.

Before he could even think about how to tell her what she needed to know without incriminating himself, there was a sudden cacophony of voices in the distance. Both of them were quick to hide behind the truck Sly had just been leaning against, right as a group of five dogs came walking across the nearest bridge towards the parking lot.

The mobsters were arguing amongst themselves in a way that it was impossible to tell whether they were actually being aggressive or just needling each other; more than a few snarling jaws and clenched fists were being shaken. Raccoon and fox both watched from where they were crouched behind the truck as the group stopped as one for a smoke break.

Then Sly saw a terrier. A terrier he recognized. One of the dogs who had pulled him out of his room and unintentionally set him on the path to freedom.

That dog was in charge of maintenance in the hotel. He had one of only two copies of the keys to the secret elevator; the other would be snug in Muggshot’s pocket. If Inspector Fox was going to have any chance at reaching the mob boss, she’d need that key. He nudged her and pointed as carefully as he could towards the terrier once he had her attention. He watched how her eyes widened, then narrowed, as she too recognized one of the goons who had attacked her.

The group finished their break and began to split up – a few headed back up the bridge while the terrier and two others went into a building neighboring the hotel. Sly knew without looking that it was the casino Muggshot had been diligently working on for months.

“We need to follow that terrier,” he said once they were sure the dogs were long-gone. “He knows how to find Muggshot.”

Inspector Fox gave him a sharp, suspicious look. “He does? How do you know that?”

“I heard him bragging about it to his buddies when they were hauling me around the city.”

It was a tiny lie, but it worked. The cop accepted it with nothing more than a determined nod.

“Right. Then we better hurry before we lose him.” She vaulted over the truck’s hood and started running for the casino. Sly ran after her, startled by her sudden gung-ho after all her careful stealth through the rest of the city.

There weren’t any guards outside or inside the casino’s front doors, which was a small relief, but the moment they passed the front lobby onto the open floor, they could see dogs all over the place. Most were gambling at slots or playing cards, too distracted to have noticed the newcomers, but the sight of so many enemies still made Sly’s heart beat like a drum.

He wasn’t going to get caught. He couldn’t afford to get caught. Never again.

The two of them ducked behind an unattended slot machine, scanning the area for the terrier. The layout of the casino was strange; although they had entered it at ground level, there were balconies overlooking rooms below them. Either this place had been built on the side of a hill, or Muggshot had sunk a lot of money into spelunking.

Inspector Fox tensed in anticipation, peering over the side of the railing.

“Down there,” she whispered, pointing to one such lower level. Sly followed her finger to see their target pacing back and forth in front of a comically huge jackpot machine that rotated round and round in a circle.

It wouldn’t be too difficult to find the stairs from here, he figured. There were plenty of things to provide cover, and most of the dogs were so absorbed in their gambling that it would be child’s play to sneak past them. The raccoon was already putting together a plan in his head, when his “partner” suddenly shifted her weight beside him.

He turned just in time to see her vault herself over the balcony.

What the hell?! Sly scrambled to the edge of the platform, watching in horror as the cop landed heavily right behind the terrier.

The dog jumped three feet in the air but she was already barreling over him, knocking him flat and pinning him down with her full weight. Before he could even think to yell or bark, the fox covered his mouth with her free hand. Her other hand she used to jam her shock pistol against his back.

She was too far away for Sly to hear what she was saying, but he could see her lips moving rapid-fire as she spoke to the stunned terrier. In all honesty, the raccoon couldn’t blame the guy for the reaction; he was just as shocked by her audacity.

What was she trying to do with a stunt like that – announce herself to the entire casino and get them both caught?!

He forced his pounding heart to slow down, if only so he could stay fully alert. None of the other dogs on either floor had seemed to hear the fox’s loud entrance, or they had brushed it off as nothing. No one came running to check on the commotion. Sly exhaled, long and slow, and looked over the railing again to find his own quick, preferably quieter way down.

It was only as he was lining himself up for a drop that he saw the shadow fall over Inspector Fox from behind.

There was no time to even think to call out a warning – a large meaty fist slammed into the side of her head with all the force of a truck. The fox crumpled like a soda can, falling limply onto the carpeted floor as Tony, the bullmastiff who had led Sly’s kidnapping, stood triumphantly over her with a snarling smile. His terrier buddy crawled out from under her looking white as a sheet. Neither of them had even noticed the raccoon balanced on the railing above and behind them.

Sly had a sudden, perfect moment of clarity.

He could leave, right now, and no one would ever know he’d been here. He could leave the cop to her fate and flee like he should have when she’d first offered to take him with her. He’d be free of her, and her incoming Interpol squad, and these mobsters, and Muggshot, and the Fiendish Five, and maybe even –

His chest ached.

The raccoon looked down at the scene beneath him. He stared at Inspector Fox, and for a single second he wasn’t seeing the cop who’d rescued him laying dazed on the floor. He was seeing the cop who’d confronted him slumped against the wall of a police station, surrounded by fallen comrades and their own lifeless blood.

Sly took a deep breath and jumped before he could change his mind.

He landed silently on a slot machine right behind Tony. Neither dog picked up on his presence, too preoccupied by their catch. Their ears didn’t even twitch as the raccoon slowly reached behind him into his backpack and pulled out a gleaming golden hook.

“Can’t believe she came back,” the terrier muttered, still very much shaken up if the nervous twitching of his nose was anything to go by. “Who’s stupid enough to come back to a city that wants you dead?”

“A cop, that’s who.” Tony crouched next to the fox and wrapped his hand around her neck just as she was starting to come back to herself.

A button at the base of the hook was pressed. It unfolded into a cane with the tiniest ‘click’.

“Don’t move!” The bullmastiff growled when Inspector Fox began thrashing under his grip. “We got orders to shoot you on sight, but I think the boss would love ya hand-delivered on a silver platter. Course, if ya struggle too much, I just might think you’re not worth the effort.”

“Do you think the raccoon is still with her somewhere?”

Said raccoon sank into a crouch, taut with energy.

“Doubt it. If that brat’s smart, he already ditched the cop and high-tailed it outta here. He’s probably long gone from Mesa.”

Hello irony, my bitter old friend.

Sly shot forward like a rocket, swinging his cane down as hard as he could in a perfect, practiced motion. It smashed against Tony’s skull so hard the vibrations ran right back up through the cane and into his arm. The bullmastiff was out cold in an instant and dropped to the ground with a loud thud.

The terrier stumbled backwards with wide eyes, hands reaching to his belt for a weapon, but he was too slow. Sly leapt at him with a sideways swing, and the smaller dog went down just as easily as his comrade had.

Inspector Fox coughed on the floor beside him, on her hands and knees with her hair shrouding her face and hiding him from view. Sly immediately folded the cane back up and put it away just in time for her to look up at him with cloudy eyes that were already clearing at a rapid rate.

“Sly…? What just –”

“We gotta go.” He rooted through the terrier’s pockets and closed stiff fingers around a large, heavy key. Then he grabbed the fox by her forearm and hauled her to her feet. “We got what we came for but we gotta go!”

Luckily, she didn’t need any more prompting. The two of them hurried out of the room and through the nearest doors they could find, which lead them into a back alley surrounded by skyscrapers. Sly let go of Inspector Fox and watched as she leaned against a stack of tires, trying to catch her breath and reorient herself.

“Are you – okay?” She asked between gulps of air.

“I should be asking you that. You’re the one who got a nasty blow to the head.”

“You’re shaking.”

The raccoon looked down at himself. Tremors were running through his hands where they sat limp at his sides.

“Huh,” he said, distantly, as the adrenaline subsided and realization caught up. “Guess I am.”

Inspector Fox pressed a hand to her head, running her fingers carefully along where she’d been struck. There wasn’t any blood in her fur but she still grimaced at her own touch.

“I’m definitely going to have a big knot here in a few hours,” she muttered unhappily, “but I think I was just dazed by the hit. No concussion from what I can tell.”

“You can tell with that kind of thing?”

“I’m not as disoriented as I should be. No drowsiness, no loss of balance, and only a little dizziness. The headache is the worst part and I can shrug that off.”

“If you say so.” Sly looked up past the tall buildings, where a monstrous parade balloon of Muggshot was tied to some distant place, silhouetted against the evening sky. He closed his eyes and willed his shaking away.

“I asked that dog where to find Muggshot,” Inspector Fox interrupted his brief meditation, making him crack one eye open. “He said something about a secret way to the penthouse from the first floor, but I didn’t get the chance to ask anything else before his friend knocked me flat.”

“Oh, yeah, that. Here.” The raccoon held out the comically large key. “Pulled this off of him after I saved you. Pretty sure it’s for whatever he was talking about.”

She took it and turned it over in her palm, studying it. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’d bet you’re right, that it is for that secret way up. Nice quick thinking.”

“It was nothing,” he said, because it was the truth. “Easiest thing in the world.”

“Well, thank you.” The cop paused. “And…thank you for rescuing me.”

“Oh – yeah. No problem.”

“You shouldn’t have had to put your life on the line for me,” she continued. “I was reckless and put you in harm’s way. I promise I won’t let it happen again.”

Sly shifted, uncomfortable. “Yeah, well…it’s fine. It wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t going to just let them kill you.”

He very pointedly did not meet her eyes, opting instead to look around the alley they’d found themselves in as he tried in vain to make the strange, sudden knot in his chest go away.

“We should probably get going before those goons wake up,” he said quickly, before she could fill the silence with questions he didn’t want to answer – or even think about. “Don’t know how much time we have before they sound the alarm and this place gets swarmed.”

Inspector Fox opened her mouth, then closed it, then nodded. She pocketed the special key and they started making their way back towards the hotel. Sly was content to let the silence linger between them, but after a few minutes of not running into any other dogs, the cop seemed to have a different idea.

“You know…” she started, almost hesitantly, “I was thinking about that conversation we had earlier about names and you not liking yours.”

Oh, we’re on this subject again. “Yeah, I remember.”

“What about nicknames?” The fox asked. “Are you a fan of those?”

“I’m familiar with them.” If insults and derogatory words counted as nicknames. “Why, you got something in mind?”

“How does…how does ‘ringtail’ sound?”

That made him stop walking to stare at her. Inspector Fox stopped as well, looking suddenly a little uncertain.

“I don’t mean anything offensive by it,” she was quick to say. “It’s just – you mentioned earlier that you’re not a fan of your name, and I saw the way you tensed every time I used it.”

Dammit. His poker face needed serious work, it seemed. He could practically hear Mz. Ruby hissing over his shoulder about how easy he was to read, even now.

“And since you saved my life – since we’re doing this together,” the cop continued, snapping him out of the thought, “then some familiarity is in order. It’s a bit of a habit I have with the people I work with.”

“You saying I’m a c – an officer now?”

“Associate. You’re an associate,” she stressed like it would physically hurt her to even joke about him being a cop. One thing they could agree on, at least. “So…ringtail, if that’s okay. And you’re welcome to come up with something for me if you think of anything.”

Ringtail. Not as common as things like “runt” or “brat”, but not so unfamiliar it felt foreign on his ears like his first name did. Sly shrugged and pretended the knot in his chest wasn’t loosening from something as stupid as a nickname.

“Ringtail works.”

“Really? You don’t mind it?”

“Nah. If it works for you, it works for me.” He put his hands in his hoodie’s front pocket and made a point to turn his walk into a saunter. “As for you, I’ll probably just stick to ‘Inspector Fox.’ It rolls off the tongue too nice to ditch.”

“As much as I appreciate the respect for the title, you don’t have to be so formal. You can use my first name.”

“….Eh. I’ll think about it.”

They fell back into silence, broken only by the occasional distant gunshot. Inspector Fox, apparently recovered from her little mishap faster than expected, took the lead with steadfast steps, and the raccoon easily kept pace behind her like a shadow.

Something about the conversation was tugging at him in an odd way, and it took him a moment to realize why; she was treating him as an equal. This cop who’d known him for only a few hours had given him a nickname like she did for anyone she worked beside. It had only happened because he’d saved her, sure, but the fact still stood.

Sly kept his eyes locked on the back of her braided hair and pushed the thought firmly away. What one random cop thought of him didn’t matter when they were only going to know each other for another hour at best. He’d show her the way to Muggshot, she’d wait for her team to come sweep up the place, and he’d disappear during the confusion with pages of the Thievius Raccoonus and his own hard-earned freedom.

One naïve, well-intentioned cop wasn’t going to change that. Not for all the respect in the world.

Chapter Text

Muggshot’s hotel lobby was quiet. A few dogs lounged about on the center stairs, bored out of their minds but stuck on guard duty; the most excitement they’d seen in the last hour had been their boss hauling a cowed dalmatian out of the building before retreating back to his penthouse suit.

Then the front doors got busted in by the force of a single, powerful kick.

The guards all jumped up at once, but they had no time to react before the intruder made her first move. Inspector Fox shot three rapid electric bullets at point blank range and with pin-point accuracy. Her targets hit the ground almost simultaneously, and the lobby turned quiet once more.

Behind the cop who was now reloading her weapon, a raccoon carefully stepped over shattered wood as he made his way into the room. His eyes trailed up the stairway, falling upon the giant model of the bulldog’s face in all its self-centered glory where it had been built into the wall like a bulbous growth.

“Ugh.” Sly hated it. He wanted to rip that stupid cigar out of its mouth and then use it to burn the whole thing down. “Look at that ugly mug.”

“It is…certainly a very bold statement,” Inspector Fox replied with a wrinkled nose, not entirely knowing the reason for his disdain but obviously agreeing with it. “Even among all the egotistical types I’ve come across in the past.”

He made a face and turned to his left, where what used to be the hotel’s front reception desk now sat empty, devoid of practically every room key in the building. There was a noticeable closed-off cubby among the shelves behind the desk with a heavy-duty padlock keeping it shut.

“I think we found our secret way to the penthouse,” the raccoon said, gesturing to the spot.

She followed the direction of his hand and raised one eyebrow. Taking out the key they had gotten by the skin of their teeth, she walked around the side of the desk and carefully inserted it into the lock.

It turned with a loud click. The padlock came undone and she pulled open the rough wooden cover to reveal a remarkably shiny metal lever. The fox made a move as if to yank on it, then paused and drew her hand back cautiously.

“What if it’s a trap?” She stared at the lever as if it might grow teeth to bite her if she touched it. “That criminal could have said anything to make me let him go. It might be an alarm or something.”

“It’ll work.”

The cop shot him a look. “How can you be sure?”

“I just am.”

He met her gaze head-on, completely unfazed in the wake of her suspicious squinting. Let her try to crack through his poker face – she wasn't the first and she'd be as unsuccessful as all the others before her.

Then, as if taking his calm assertion as a challenge, she reached over and pulled the lever without breaking eye contact with him. There was a loud rumble and suddenly that giant bulldog face at the top of the stairs opened its mouth to reveal the promised secret elevator.

“Would you look at that,” Sly said coolly while Inspector Fox gaped. “Guess I was right and the dog wasn’t lying after all.”

“Yeah, well.” She closed her mouth and folded her arms in an obvious attempt to save face. “I suppose even criminals can tell the truth. Sometimes.”

He snorted, beginning to turn away. “Uh huh. Anyway, that should lead straight to Muggshot’s personal rooms. Now that you’ve got your straight path, you can wait for – what are you doing?”

The fox was heading up the stairs towards the open passage. She paused to look back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to apprehend Muggshot if he’s up there!”

“But – you –” Now it was the raccoon’s turn to gape. “Why? All you need to do to keep your job is lead your buddies straight to him, not try to take him down alone!”

“I risked this entire case and potentially the lives of my fellow officers. I can’t only do the bare minimum for reparations. If there’s a chance to apprehend such a dangerous individual with as few casualties as possible, I have to take it.”

She explained it so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if she was talking about writing a heartfelt apology letter instead of taking on the physically-strongest member of the Fiendish Five without backup or even a proper weapon. It was stupid, and foolish, and practically suicidal.

It made Sly angry.

“Are you sure it’s not just to show off to your boss so he doesn’t demote you?” He accused. “Trying to get all the glory before anyone else does to heal your wounded ego?”

The cop’s face pinched up in shock and anger, and he wondered with a touch of smugness if this was the first time a “civilian” had ever called her out.

She turned abruptly on her heel before he could dig that in, too. “Believe whatever you want. I’m going to confront Muggshot. Stay here where it's safe.”

Sly shook his head with a scoff. The blind, overconfident arrogance of this woman was on a whole other level. He should have known she was no different than the rest of them.

Inspector Fox stepped into the elevator, then turned to look at him one last time before the doors closed. He hadn’t moved an inch, watching her hold her head high like she was really about to make a difference.

The exact moment they disappeared from each other’s sight, the raccoon shot off like a rocket, taking the stairs two at a time as he started ascending the hotel floor by floor as high as he could go. “Stay here”, she’d said to a civilian. But Sly wasn’t a civilian, and he definitely wasn’t going to let this golden opportunity go to waste.

Technically, only the secret elevator could reach the top floor, but that was from inside the building. There were still windows up there, just as there were on every other floor, and Sly could see them as he climbed onto the outside ledge and craned his neck upwards. There was his old room in the same place he’d clocked it when he’d first come here with the cop, obvious by the bars Muggshot had installed the minute he’d settled on this being his base of operations. And two windows to the left of that, easily reachable with some careful scaling, was the mobster’s personal office.

Sly pulled his cane out of his backpack and extended it to its true length for the second time in one night. The Five had let him keep it all these years as a form of mockery, taunting him for his clumsiness with it, daring him to learn how to use it without any help from his father or his book. Daring him to impress them.

Well, here I go, assholes, he thought as he aimed the hooked end for the ledge above him in preparation for a jump.

Eat your fucking hearts out.

Carmelita wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting when she reached the top floor. Piles of guns and cash everywhere, maybe, or more of the gangster’s imagery strewn about. What she hadn’t expected was to step into a large open room of what had probably once been a ballroom or club, expensive crystalline lamps scattered all across the purple carpet, and Muggshot himself sitting on a stolen plush chair on the other side of it all. She froze as they locked eyes, and her shock pistol was whipped out of her holster in an instant to aim up at him.

For his part, the bulldog looked just as surprised as she was.

“Wha?” He leaned forward in his chair, sounding completely bewildered. “My boys have been yapping about some big scary cop runnin’ around taking them down and, heh, and…and this is it? You’re the monkey wrench in my operation? Some scrawny chick with a pea shooter?”

The inspector inhaled, deep and steadying, and took a few steps forward. “Muggshot. You are under arrest. Put your hands up where I can see them and don’t make any sudden moves.”

Her free hand flashed her badge by the light of a nearby lamp. The mobster squinted at it, unbothered to even consider complying to her command.

“Ey, wait a second…I’ve seen that logo before.”

“I should hope so,” she snapped, quickly losing patience, “considering it belongs to me – Inspector Carmelita Fox.”

“Inspector? Wow. You’re with Interpol?” Muggshot leaned back again as if physically struck with offense. Still, his body language remained relaxed. “They really just let any average joe have a badge these days, huh?”

“Not just anyone – someone who is about to apprehend you for multiple instances of grand larceny, domestic terrorism, illegal gambling, and a whole other list of charges. Now, are you going to give yourself up?"

Now the bulldog finally tensed, but not in fear or worry. In fury.

“Wha-ha-ha-ha-what, are you kidding?” He stood up, staring her down, and she could see his raised hackles clear across the room. “You break into my place, attack my boys, trash the joint – I feel transgressed and violated!”

Carmelita tensed herself as he unholstered two huge, custom-made pistols.

“Let’s rock!”

Muggshot’s private office was filled with a lot more paperwork than one might expect from the meathead mobster, but most of what was probably juicy evidence that would have Interpol salivating was completely ignored by Sly as he started sweeping aside papers and pulling open drawers. The bottom drawer of the desk was full of stacks of cash, and the raccoon poached a strap of twenties without even slowing down in his search.

When the desk proved fruitless for what he was really after, he moved ahead to the nearest bookshelf and began flipping through binders filled haphazardly to the brim with God knew what – tax evasions schemes and casino renovation plans, probably.

A booklet fell out between the pages of one such binder, hitting the floor with a solid enough sound to catch Sly’s attention. When he glanced downwards, his own face stared back.

It was the passport the Five had forged for him, back when they had still used public airlines to ferry him between them before Muggshot had eventually gotten his own private plane. Sly picked it up and quickly leafed through it; the expiration date wasn’t set for another two or so years, which meant it was something he could use. He pocketed it alongside the appropriated cash and kept moving.

Almost a minute had passed from when he’d started ransacking the room, and nothing was turning up. The raccoon could hear bullets flying from down the hall, and his fur prickled with the knowledge that any moment those sounds would stop and he’d be fully out of time. He needed to get out of here, but he couldn’t leave without finding what he was looking for, but he couldn’t find any hint of where –

His eyes alighted on a giant portrait of Muggshot’s mother hanging on the wall behind the desk chair. As if compelled by some ancient instinct, Sly made a beeline for the thing. He lifted the heavy metal frame with no small amount of difficulty and set it carefully aside, revealing a hidden safe embedded into the wall.

It would have been laughable to see one of the only things Muggshot had learned from Conner Cooper’s legacy being how he’d hidden the Thievius Raccoonus, if it weren’t even more infuriating. The raccoon gritted his teeth and clenched his cane tight in his hand a moment to dispel the familiar wave of rage threatening to cloud his mind. He could be angry later, when he had stolen his pages back and was safely out of Mesa. Right now, he just needed to focus.

It was a fairly standard wall safe with an old-fashioned dial lock. Sly spun it several times to wipe it, then pressed his ear against the safe’s side and placed careful fingers to the knob. He closed his eyes as he slowly began turning the dial to the right.

Tuning out the world around him to hear only the slightest clicking beneath was second-nature by now. Numbers were passed one by one in a careful, gradual method, oblivious to the time crunch he was on. Haste makes waste – and gets you wasted. Even after all this time, his father’s voice was a powerful echo in his head. An echo that was right, to boot. He couldn’t afford to rush these things.

The first number of the combination was hit with a nearly imperceptible click of inner gears. Sly stilled his hand, made sure he could still hear Muggshot’s gun going off, then started running the dial counterclockwise for the next one.

A bullet whizzed through the air, cleaving the space Carmelita had occupied milliseconds ago as she ducked behind another crystal lamp. She didn’t know why the mobster had so many of these things, nor why they were bullet-proof, but she wasn’t about to question the only thing protecting her in this fight.

Halfway across the room, Muggshot growled when his shot missed, and began closing the distance between them way too quickly for someone his size. The inspector felt her heart pounding in her chest with every thump of his fists against the ground.

“You got a lotta nerve comin’ after a guy in his own home!” He hollered, firing again when she sprinted for more cover farther away. It ricocheted into the nearest window and shattered the glass into a thousand shards. “Ain’t there something in the cop rulebook about needin’ a warrant to do that?”

“Only if it was your rightfully owned property to begin with!” She couldn’t help yelling right back despite knowing that heckling criminals always made things worse. At least it gave her a little time to reload her own weapon as he sputtered and raged like an angry toddler.

Her original strategy when she’d come here was to intimidate Muggshot into surrendering quietly, and hitting him with a powerful shock or two if he refused. But he’d tanked four of her shots already without even flinching, and all it would take was one stray bullet from his end to put her down for the count. She was surviving on a mix of adrenaline, training, and pure dumb luck, and they both knew it.

Briefly she considered trying to flee for the elevator, to escape to the ground floor where it’d be easier to hide and snipe from an actually safe distance, but that idea was nixed as she remembered the raccoon waiting for her in the lobby. Even if she made it all the way down there unharmed, he didn’t have the instincts to survive a shootout, and she was not going to put the civilian she’d rescued in danger for a second time tonight.

Another bullet hissed just over her head. Inspector Fox took the cue to throw herself forward into a sprint for the next nearest lamp, aiming and firing her pistol wildly in his direction. The sounds of a grunt and electricity sparking against flesh weren’t very satisfying when it was followed by an almost literal hail of gunfire right on her heels.

She needed a new plan fast. There was only so much ammo she had on her, compared to Muggshot who seemed to pull spare bullets straight from thin air. Additionally, her breathing was labored, going on ragged, and at this rate it was only a matter of time before she was too slow to dodge a shot.

Rounding another crystal lamp - why were there so many lamps?! - Carmelita nearly tripped on something thin and long. It was an electrical wire attached to the base of the appliance, trailing out into the dark corners of the huge ballroom. Now that she had noticed, they were spread all across the floor, connected to every lamp and no doubt plugged into various outlets.

The lamps were all turned off, but if those outlets were live…

Muggshot growled, much closer than before, and there was no time to make a different decision. The inspector grabbed the wire, snapped it off the lamp, and jammed the newly-free end into the charge port of her shock pistol. She locked her jaw, steeled her nerves, and threw herself out in the open.

She could see the mobster react almost in slow motion – the bobbing of his head and the swivel of his body as he turned to aim both guns at her. But she had already been aiming when she’d jumped out from behind her cover, and those precious few seconds were all she needed to pull the trigger with Muggshot’s colossal chest directly in her crosshairs.

Her pistol lit up as if on fire, burning under her hand, and the kickback was enough to knock her flat on her back. She gasped for air as color exploded somewhere down in front of her, followed by a flickering of the chandelier above.

The fox lifted herself on one elbow just in time to watch Muggshot hit the floor like a sack of bricks. Smoke steamed lightly off his clothes and he twitched with electricity – then went still.

He was down for the count.

Carmelita heaved a sigh both relieved and exhausted, and let her head fall back against the carpet. She’d get up to properly disarm and restrain him in a second.

Right now, she just…needed a moment to catch her breath.

They were in his hands. The pages were actually in his hands.

Sly crouched against the wall under the safe, overwhelmed with contradicting emotions as he stared down at the eight or so pages held between trembling fingers. They were crumpled, and stained, and torn violently at the edges, but they were here. Real. In his possession again.

His free hand came up to his mouth as nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He was ecstatic. He was spellbound. He was – he was –

Eight years old and they’re tearing apart the book why are they doing that why isn’t dad getting up –

Ten years old and they’re taunting you with it laughing at you saying you’ll never read those pages never be a real Cooper –

Thirteen years old and gold eyes are staring you down and your chest hurts and let’s make a deal, Sly Cooper, you and I –

The lights suddenly flickered, startling him out of his head and into the real world again. Sly fumbled for his backpack, stuffing the pages as quickly but delicately into the front pocket as he could, and managed to stand on only slightly-shaking legs. The sound of bullets had stopped.

If there had ever been a sign that he was out of time, it was that.

Scaling back down the outer side of the building was a lot harder than going up, mostly because he was still on some terrible, wonderful high of elation and terror. The raccoon clambered back in through a lower-level window, then started a light jog down the stairway until he was on the first floor again. He could hear sirens somewhere in the distance. It was impossible to tell whether those were Muggshot’s goons sounding an alarm or the actual cops finally arriving to help their Interpol inspector.

Didn’t matter much either way when he was going to be long gone before they ever showed up.

Sly passed the bulldog’s giant head-elevator without a second glance, but he began to slow as he reached the lobby’s front desk where he’d been told to wait. He didn’t know why he stopped when his eyes landed on that lever, but he did.

She was probably long-dead. No one went toe-to-toe with Muggshot and came out the other end without several bullets in their chest. He’d seen it firsthand, too many times to count. Even so, the raccoon found himself standing there, looking up at the elevator entrance, as if waiting to confirm the outcome for some reason he couldn’t name.

Maybe it was because she was one of the few people who’d shown real kindness and respect to him in the last eleven years, even if it was under the false assumption that he wasn’t a criminal. Maybe it was because the realization still hadn’t quite sunk in that he was finally free, finally able to go where he wanted and do what he wanted without it being at the beck and call of someone else.

Maybe he was just morbidly curious.

Whatever the reason, Sly decided to wait a minute. Just one minute. Sixty seconds to count down and see if anyone would come out, and then he’d blast out of here.

With fifteen seconds left to spare, the elevator started rumbling. The raccoon’s heart leapt into his throat and he jumped over the lobby desk to hide behind it, peeking carefully over the counter as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened.

Sly stared, and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Out came Inspector Carmelita Fox, fully alive if not extremely worn-out, and without so much as a scratch on her body. She trudged down the shallow stairs and stopped only when she realized that her temporary ally wasn’t there to greet her. She lifted tired yet triumphant eyes to meet those of the raccoon who was still crouched behind the desk with his mouth agape.

“I did it, Ringtail,” she said, with an exhausted smile. “Muggshot’s reign over Mesa is no more.”

For the first time in years, Sly was at a loss for words.

Chapter Text

The sirens had started blaring not long after the fight between Muggshot and Inspector Fox, and the latter recognized them instantly. They weren’t criminals calling for backup or store security systems going off from a break-in – they were real police sirens, which meant her team was on their way.

Carmelita ultimately decided that leaving the mobster up on the top floor was a bad idea. He was unconscious and properly cuffed, sure, but there was no telling how many other secret passages out of the building he might have already built, and she didn’t want to risk going out to meet her fellow officers, then coming back up to an empty room.

So, she decided to lug the giant bulldog downstairs.

Sly, strangely, seemed to go back and forth about helping her do so. He nodded along when she explained her plan, but the moment they went back up and he saw the man lying on the floor, he suddenly became very skittish about actually touching Muggshot. It took the inspector snapping at him to either start pulling or clear out of the way for him to reluctantly grab a fistful of the criminal’s wife beater.

The rest of the dogs in the hotel were either preoccupied elsewhere or had fled entirely, as they encountered nobody else all the way down to the ground floor. Carmelita was secretly grateful for it, because she was, quite frankly, exhausted. Then she felt guilty immediately afterwards, because those were still dangerous criminals who could do a lot of damage if left unchecked.

When Muggshot was finally sitting at the foot of the bottom stairwell, wrists cuffed to the handrail, the two spared a moment to catch their breath.

“I can’t believe you actually did it,” the raccoon said between gasps. He pulled his hood back to wipe the sweat over his brow. There was a strange quality to his voice that was hard to identify, and it took a moment for her to realize it was amazement.

“Of course, I did it! I mean…” She suddenly felt self-conscious. Not many people had ever been amazed by her in a way that wasn’t tied to a crush. “It was my sworn duty. I had to at least try.”

He shook his head and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “suicidal.” The fox gave him a sharp glance, but he was staring too hard at the limp body of the mobster to see it. In fact, that seemed to be all he could focus on.

Carmelita wondered what he was thinking about.

“In any case, my team will be arriving soon, so we should probably go out to greet them.”

That, at least, appeared to jolt him out of his bizarre mood, and he followed silently after her as she walked out into the hot evening air. The way she was intensely aware of his presence was the only reason she noticed the moment he was no longer right behind her. When the fox turned, it was to see him standing just outside the entrance to the hotel.

“Aren’t you coming?” She asked, watching the way he almost seemed to blend into the shadows of the building.

“Nah. The spotlight isn’t really my thing, and I sure wasn’t the one who took Muggshot down with my bare hands.”

The inspector frowned and considered telling him that she had much more than her bare hands in that fight, but she knew that the most she’d get for her troubles were rolled eyes and a sarcastic remark.

“I didn’t do all the work, you know. I wouldn’t have been able to even find him in the first place if it hadn’t been for your help.”

The raccoon shrugged, leaning against what was left of the wooden barrier she had splintered on her way inside. “I’m fine right here. You probably shouldn’t keep your team waiting, Inspector.”

He was right, and that was the only reason she left him behind, albeit reluctantly. Crossing the bridge into the lower half of the city, Carmelita followed the shrill sound of police sirens until she finally turned a block corner and saw a group of armored squad cars making their way down the street. She waved her badge in the air, knowing its flash would be seen easily in their headlights.

Sure enough, they all slowed to a stop. The nearest one rolled down its window as she approached to reveal a pig in a United States police uniform.

“Inspector Fox!” He said. “We’re with the Utah State Police. Chief Inspector Barkley contacted us as backup to help you storm Muggshot’s hideout.”

“Thank you for the support, but that won’t be necessary.” The inspector opened the passenger side door and climbed into the open seat. The vehicles all began moving as one unit again towards the hijacked hotel. “I’ve already successfully apprehended the criminal leader. All that’s left is to capture his remaining hired men.”

The pig gave her a startled glance. “What? Really? How did you manage that?”

She could hear the skepticism in his voice; the doubt that someone as young and small as her could have possibly taken on the bulldog and won. It was a far cry from the genuine recognition Sly had shown her just minutes earlier, and she gritted her teeth in frustration.

“It wasn’t an easy fight, but with the use of my training and instincts I was able to come out on top. He’s currently restrained on the first floor of the hotel we’re heading to.”

“If you say so…”

It took a Herculean effort not to snap at the other officer to respect her word. Carmelita settled on folding her arms and sitting stiffly in her seat until the group parked in front of the hotel. As everyone stepped out, covered head to toe in body armor and weaponry, she started to lead them across the lot – and then stopped short.

Sly wasn’t in front of the entrance anymore.

She blinked and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Painfully aware of the group at her back that probably thought she was stalling for time, the inspector took them all inside, hoping that perhaps the raccoon had simply decided to wait in the lobby.

He wasn’t there either. Only Muggshot, still just as unconscious as when she’d left. She could hear the shock ripple through her team at the sight of the incapacitated gangster as they all realized that she had, in fact, been telling the truth.

For some reason, it wasn’t as satisfying as she’d expected. She chalked it up to exhaustion-induced indifference.

“Well, ma’am, I don’t know how you did it, but I can’t say I’m not impressed,” said the pig as he came up to stand beside her. The rest of the officers were already starting to maneuver the bulldog onto an outlandishly large stretcher in order to carry him out to the waiting vehicles.

“It was really nothing,” she replied distantly, still scanning the room in the hopes to catch even a glimpse of that striped tail somewhere. There was nothing to find. “I was simply doing my job.”

No one came out to greet or confront them, and Muggshot was securely loaded into the biggest armored car they had. Most of the team began combing the streets to find the mobster’s men – those who hadn’t fled the city at the sound of sirens, at least – and Carmelita led the rest in searching the entirety of the hotel to retrieve stolen goods and look for hiding criminals.

Besides the remodeled ballroom where the fight had taken place, there were three other rooms of major interest. The first was one that had been boarded up from the outside, but all the furniture within was still intact, and they found signs that someone might have been staying there until very recently. The problem was that the bed – in fact the entire room was most definitely too small for someone of Muggshot’s stature to fit in. Additionally, there were freshly-installed bars on the window; whatever this room had been meant for, it certainly wasn’t for the mobster.

It was a specific oddity among regular oddities, and they all made a note of it for later.

The second room was Muggshot’s bedroom, filled to the brim with guns and ammo and stolen loot. The third was his office – ransacked to pieces.

Inspector Fox and her team stopped short at the sight. Papers were scattered all across the desk and the floor. Binders had been pulled off the bookshelf and left haphazardly open, clearly dropped wherever the intruder had been standing once they had stopped looking through each. A wall safe had its door swinging open idly, completely empty, and the window overlooking the city had been shattered.

“Wow…” Said one of the other officers. “Was Muggshot getting ready to flee cause he heard we were coming?”

Carmelita opened one of the desk drawers with the butt of her pistol. Countless stacks of money sat tightly packed inside. Her detective mind was whirring, trying to connect the dots to the puzzle before her.

“I don’t know,” she replied, looking around the room again. “He was more surprised than worried when I showed up to apprehend him – it might’ve been one of his men who did this.”

“Okay, but who bothers with a safe when there’s plenty of cash to steal if you’re planning to run?”

“Someone who knew that whatever was in that safe was valuable.”

“More than whatever’s already here?”

“It’s possible.”

She motioned them all back so that the officer with the camera could take all the necessary pictures. As he did so, her attention drifted back to the broken window. The glass littering the carpet implied it had been broken from the outside, but that was impossible. This floor was easily twelve stories high, and for all his physical prowess, Muggshot would not have been capable of such a feat; nor were any of his goons, for that matter.

Carmelita chewed her lip as a particular thought came to mind about the raccoon who had been helping her. One who could keep up with her as easily as if he’d done the same training she had; who had saved her from two incredibly dangerous dogs within seconds; who had disappeared into the night without so much as a witness statement or even a goodbye.

Who hadn’t even told her his full name.

No, that was ridiculous. It was a conspiracy theory as laughable as if Muggshot had been the one who’d broken into his own office, and she refused to entertain the idea any longer. Sly had open disdain for the police – it made sense that he wouldn’t want to stick around an entire investigative force…even if it did make him look incredibly suspicious.

She closed her eyes and banished the thought immediately. There were much more important things to worry about than one lost ringtail when an entire city still needed to be saved. She wasn’t going to let herself get distracted by the small details again.

It was time to focus on the big picture for once. Just like Barkley said.

The next few hours passed in a blur.

Muggshot’s hired men were completely unaware and unprepared for the SWAT teams that came for them, and while a majority fought back to no avail, some fled or hid and had to be flushed out. The sun was peeking out over the distant buttes by the time Mesa City was officially declared clear of criminals.

Carmelita helped until they were done, refusing every suggestion that she stay behind and rest. She had to borrow an extra weapon as her own pistol was a smoking, sparking mess, and she was practically dead on her feet when the “all clear” was called, but it was worth it. She would have hated herself if she’d sat out on such a crucial clean-up.

It was around that time that another armored car rolled in, and out stepped Chief Inspector Barkley with a cigar between his teeth. He caught sight of the fox nursing a cup of black coffee on the front steps of the hotel, surrounded by police tape, and made a beeline for her.

“Inspector Fox,” he grunted as she quickly stood up to greet him, “I heard you managed to take down our wanted mob boss all by yourself. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said breathlessly, bracing herself for the reprimand she knew was still coming.

“That being said,” – and here it was – “you still have a lot to answer for your behavior earlier today.”

“I – I know, sir, and I apologize for everything. It was wrong of me to put the mission in jeopardy.”

“Damn right it was.” He took a long puff of his smoke, then turned to stare out at the flashing lights of the police cruisers all around them. “Luckily for you, there were very few casualties tonight, and we were still successful in recovering the city. I don’t know why your blunder didn’t put the entire wasp nest on high alert, or how you managed to pull off everything you did, but you were lucky. Very, very lucky.”

She thought back to Muggshot’s casino, and resisted the urge to rub the bump on her head hidden under her hair.

“Incredibly lucky, sir.”

“Anyway, I didn’t come all the way out here in person to confirm that Mesa City is officially safe. I came to give you some important news.”

Carmelita looked at him. “News?”

“Yeah. Word has already spread fast through our department about what you’ve done.” When she winced, he hurried to clarify. “The part about apprehending Muggshot without any help, not the rest of it. Frankly, I hadn’t even worked up the nerve yet to tell my colleagues about your mistake when you called in with that new update. You should have seen how many jaws hit the floor.”

The way he said it was incredibly pleased, and she knew without having to hear it that his jaw had not been one of them. She couldn’t help but smile at his confidence in her, as gruff as it was.

“So, because you performed above and beyond in the field today, there’s been a group decision.”

Barkley paused. He seemed both proud and wary of what he was about to say next.

“You’re being placed on the Fiendish Five case. Lead detective. You start effective immediately.”

Inspector Fox felt like the wind had been knocked straight out of her. She stared at her boss, uncomprehending, as he tapped his cigar to let ash flutter down to the concrete in a tiny pile. He met her astonished gaze and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, Fox? Are you going to say anything, or just stand there like an idiot?”

“I’m not – I mean – I – the whole case?” She asked incredulously. “With all due respect, sir, Interpol has been trying to apprehend the Fiendish Five for at least fifteen years – there’s no way I’m qualified enough to –”

“It was an almost unanimous vote yes,” Barkley interrupted, “and the only reason the Contessa voted no was because she thinks she can find the rest of that gang herself when she gets her hands on Muggshot. Now, I know you’re not exactly used to these people giving you the credit you deserve, Fox, but trust me when I say that what you did tonight has turned a lot of important heads for the better.”

Carmelita suddenly felt faint, and not just from exhaustion. She sank back down onto the steps again in shock. An hour ago, she had been afraid she would lose her rank or even her job by the end of the night. Now, she was the head detective of a case for some of the highest-priority criminals of the last twenty years – barring perhaps the late Conner Cooper himself.

“I…really don’t know what to say,” she murmured, dumbly, staring down at her chilled coffee.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just take the offer. The case information has been sent to you already, and I’ve brought equipment that you’ll most likely not need, but better safe than sorry. Get some guys to help load it into your car before you go back to wherever your safehouse is around here.” He looked down at her with a crooked smile. “Then go take a shower and a nap, because you look like hell.”

Her head was still spinning, but she still had enough brain power to huff out an offended breath. “Thanks, sir.”

“Anytime.”

Half an hour later, Carmelita was on the road with highly sensitive information on her laptop in the passenger seat and about twenty pounds of shiny new equipment in the trunk. An armored vest, an encrypted radio, night vision goggles, an evidence-gathering kit, camping equipment, and a freaking jetpack, just to name a few.

She had no idea why they thought she needed a jetpack to arrest the rest of the Fiendish Five, but she certainly wasn’t about to question their line of thinking.

The motel was still just as sad as when she’d last left it, but now she felt Sly’s absence all too keenly. Why had he disappeared? He’d told her that he didn’t live in Mesa. They could have helped him go home after he’d given them a witness statement. Maybe even a commendation for the assistance he’d given an Interpol Inspector. She was all too aware of the fact that the night would’ve gone very differently had he not been with her.

With a shake of her head, Carmelita tucked her laptop under her arm and stepped out of the car. There was no use thinking about someone who was probably long-gone. Especially not when she was so tired that she could barely get her keys out of her pocket. Right now, what she needed to do was get inside, get some well-earned rest, and then start working on a game plan for this new case.

Heavens knew she already had her work cut out for her; Muggshot might have boldly announced his presence, but the rest of the Five had disappeared into obscurity within the last few years. It was going to take a miracle to find any kind of lead.

There was a sudden, loud thump on the roof above her. Inspector Fox froze, heart beating out of her chest, and quietly looked up. Her shock pistol was still broken in her holster, and all that fancy new equipment was halfway across the parking lot.

If this was one of Muggshot’s men who had slipped through the cracks and was now looking for revenge, then she was potentially in a very dangerous situation.

The sound had all but disappeared from above, replaced by a gentle pitter patter across the roof that she had to strain just to hear at all. It was coming towards the edge of the overhang, so Carmelita flattened herself against her apartment door with her keys held defensively in her hand. She held her breath, trying to stay as quiet as possible, as the sound stopped altogether.

For a terribly long moment, there was absolutely nothing. Just when she was starting to think she had imagined it all, a dark shape dropped down and landed on the railing right in front of her. The fox tensed, ready for a fight –

And then stopped short as a familiar pair of brown eyes in a black-furred mask locked with her own.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Sly said, straightening out of his crouch and sliding off the rail onto hard ground. “I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

Carmelita stared at him, completely gobsmacked.

“Was starting to wonder if maybe a stray dog had gotten to you,” he continued, apparently oblivious to her shock – and growing anger. “But then I figured, nah, you probably just stayed behind to wrap the entire city in that yellow tape you guys love so much.”

The raccoon finally seemed to realize he was the only one having a conversation. He tilted his head and looked her up and down.

“Uh…are you –”

“Where were you?”

It was, admittedly, not the first question she should have asked him, but it was all the fox could think to blurt out as she finally processed the fact that the impromptu partner she had written off as gone forever had, in fact, come back. He blinked, and she could practically see the lightbulb go off in his head right before he relaxed with a nonchalant shrug.

“I told you I don’t do spotlights, didn’t I? Sorry if you wanted a proper notice of evacuation, but I wasn’t exactly keen on sticking around in a city that was still full of people who’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

The explanation was accompanied by a significant look, and it took Carmelita a moment to realize it wasn’t just the criminals he was referring to. She bristled and stepped towards him.

“I don’t know what you think you’re implying –”

“Nothing about you, so don’t get so worked up.”

The inspector gritted her teeth and moved past the insult to her profession with no small amount of effort. “Fine. Next question – what are you doing here?”

Now Sly looked a little less sure of himself.

“Well, I never really took you up on your offer.”

“What offer?”

“The one where you’d let me stay the night and get some food. We sorta booked it straight back to Mesa after your phone call, remember?”

She had forgotten all about that. It was an eternity away now.

“It’s - it’s morning, Ringtail,” she reminded him, as if she wasn’t two seconds away from collapsing on the floor and sleeping through the day herself.

He shrugged again. “Yeah, well, I'm more nocturnal anyway.”

They stared at each other, and suddenly he couldn’t quite meet her eyes anymore, hunching in on himself just a little bit as his sneaker scuffed at the ground. Carmelita was struck with the sudden thought that he might not have anywhere else to go. She closed her eyes, exhaled through her nose, and prayed that she wouldn’t regret this.

“Alright. You can stay one night. But don’t try anything funny, or I’ll shoot you point blank.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The raccoon stuffed his hands in his pockets and acted like he hadn’t just been looking like a kicked puppy. She started to doubt herself a moment, worried that maybe this was all some kind of act he was putting on to – to manipulate her, or take advantage of her kindness somehow, but when he didn’t try to jump her the moment they both entered the room, she relaxed marginally.

“Okay, um, there’s re-heatables in the fridge, but you can help yourself to anything you like.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

Carmelita watched him make a beeline for the kitchenette. He opened the fridge, pulled out two boxes of TV dinners, and started microwaving them while swiping an orange from the little fruit bowl on the counter. Then he leaned against said counter and began unpeeling the orange as he waited for his food to be done.

She didn’t have the energy to be miffed at how fast he seemed to make himself at home after a second invitation, so instead she set her work laptop down on her bed and turned towards the dinky couch on the opposite end of the room. Supposedly, it could turn into a pullout mattress, and she began messing with it with an inner hope that no false advertising had been involved.

When the furniture finally unfolded after a few minutes of frustrated wrestling, the fox let out a quiet noise of triumph. Sly had been watching her the entire time, and he tilted his head with an amused twitch of lips.

“Finally tamed the couch into submission, huh?”

“I could have done it a lot faster if I had a little help,” she said pointedly. His upturned mouth became a fully smug smile.

“And make you feel like you’ve failed your guest as a hostess? No way.”

The microwave beeped. He pulled out his pre-packaged food and began eating without even giving it time to cool. Carmelita watched him do so with no small amount of envy; she was incredibly hungry too, now that things had calmed down enough for her to notice, but she couldn’t rest just yet.

Not until she at least had the rundown on her brand-new case.

Sitting down on her bed, facing her guest as he ate like a starving man, the inspector put on her reading glasses, opened her laptop, and found the files Barkley had promised had been sent to her. The members of the Fiendish Five were listed alphabetically, so she clicked the first one and started reading.

Clockwerk. Owl. Exact species unknown. Exact age unknown and un-estimated. Exact size unknown, but estimated to be at least ten feet tall. Leader and strategist of the Fiendish Five. Whereabouts unknown; last known sighting six years ago in China.

There were photos when she scrolled past the laughably short description, but they were all blurry and dark. A large silhouette caught under the light of the moon; a shadow blocking most of the frame of a corrupted security camera feed; the glint of bright yellow eyes and what seemed to be a metallic beak – aesthetic, or augmentation, perhaps?

Not enough information for a lead. The fox blew out a frustrated breath and clicked on another member’s file at random.

Sir Raleigh. Bullfrog. Forty-six years old. Five-feet, nine inches tall, not including attire. Chief Machinist of the Fiendish Five. Whereabouts unknown; last known sighting three years ago in Wales, United Kingdom.
• Living relatives
• Criminal activity previous to affiliation with Fiendish Five

Her mouse hovered over the additional links without clicking them. Three years was a lot closer than six, and Raleigh had actual photos identifying him. She’d have to check every member, of course, but as far as starting points, this one sounded awfully promising.

“What are you doing?”

Carmelita jumped, having forgotten all about the raccoon. He was standing in the middle of the room, munching away nonchalantly at a piece of bread but watching her with such intensity she nearly closed her laptop on instinct.

“Nothing, just – looking at a case. Which is confidential, so don’t even think about coming over here.”

“I won’t,” he said, still watching her in that strangely focused way. She frowned at him from over her glasses.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Sly’s expression shifted, but not because of her question. It became more tense and closed off, and his gaze flickered up to hers where before they had been settled on –

Her reading glasses. Her eyes widened as she realized that in the dark room, the brightness of the laptop screen was reflected in her glasses. Photos of Raleigh’s sneering face danced just below her line of sight as if to mock her.

She shut the laptop fast, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Are you going after the rest of the Fiendish Five?” He asked. There was none of the previous playfulness in his voice – only something incredibly cold.

It nearly made her shiver.

“Whether I am or am not is none of your business,” she snapped, fighting back the dawning horror that she had leaked confidential information to a civilian, albeit unintentionally. “You shouldn’t have been looking at any of that! Do you even realize how much trouble we could both get in?”

Instead of responding to the question, the raccoon slowly sat down on the end of her bed, staring at her the entire time. His eyes were sharp and shrewd.

“I’m going to help you.”

That…what?

“What?” The inspector asked, not sure if she’d heard right.

“I’m going to help you take down the Fiendish Five,” he repeated with a tone she couldn’t read at all.

“Absolutely not. You’re a civilian. I was pushing the line already letting you help with Muggshot, and the only reason I did that at all was because I didn’t have much of a choice. This,” she gestured to the closed laptop, the thing that had betrayed her so thoroughly, “is a far cry from any of that.”

Sly’s eyes narrowed. Whether in frustration or something stronger, she didn’t know. “You’re saying it like I haven’t already proved I can hold my own. I kept up with you just fine in Mesa, didn’t I?”

“You got lucky.”

“Bullshit,” he growled, and it was enough to make the fur rise on the back of her neck. “I saved your life and helped you get that key. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me.”

“And I appreciate that, Sly, I really do, but this is different! I’m not working blindly or under a time crunch, I have resources at my disposal, and I will be able to approach it however I want to, now. I can’t let you risk your life for something you wouldn’t even be allowed to be a part of in the first place! There’s a reason this information is confidential!”

“Confidential, huh?” Without breaking eye contact, the raccoon reached over his shoulder into his backpack, and pulled out a set of papers to wave at her. “Does any of that ‘confidential information’ have stuff like this?”

Her breath caught as she saw exactly what he was taunting her with – printed emails between Muggshot and other members of the Fiendish Five, and probably recent to boot. Those papers could very well name where any or all of the rest of their gang was hiding, depending on how smart they were about letting that kind of thing exist on something recordable.

And the bulldog was not very smart.

“Where did you get those?” She breathed in shock. Something ugly twisted in her gut as she thought about the ransacked office. The broken window.

The opened safe.

“Doesn’t matter,” he shot right back. “What matters is that you need them, right? I skimmed over them earlier, and I know for a fact that there’s evidence here that would have you and all your buddies salivating. Not to mention, all that police procedure is gonna make looking through Muggshot’s stuff take forever. Could be weeks, maybe months before they send stuff your way. If you want to see this information anytime soon then you’re going to take me with you.”

Carmelita stood up abruptly, trembling in anger and indignation, and he stood as well to match her height. How dare he try to coerce her like this – how dare he! To think so lowly of her that she would accept what was practically blackmail just to solve her case and bring in a gang of criminals.

A gang of highly dangerous, world-infamous criminals with stolen goods worth millions and a collective body count in the triple digits, who had gone uncaught for nearly two decades.

“...Let’s just entertain, for a moment, the idea that I’d say yes to that,” she ground out with her fists clenched tight. “Why the hell would you even want to go along with me? What could you possibly hope to gain by risking your life and going up against such a powerful group?”

Sly’s eyes flashed with some terrible, deep pit of emotions that was impossible to parse out. The only thing she knew for certain was that all of it was layered with a barely restrained, almost primal drive, the reasons for which she was not privy to.

“Because I won’t feel safe until every single one of them is gone or behind bars, and I’m going to go after all of them to make sure that happens.”

Inspector Fox stared at him. She stared at the papers in his hand. Stared at the way he shook almost imperceptibly, the same way she did. There was something else she could see, something just on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it with visible difficulty.

“I’m going after them,” he finished, quiet and absolute, “and if you really want me to ‘stay safe’, then you’ll let me come with you. You’re the only cop on this planet that I think has any kind of chance to actually succeed.”

Her knuckles were white from how hard she clenched her fists at her sides. The urge to tell him no, to strike down his offer-slash-blackmail almost overwhelmed her. But she knew, just from looking at him, that her words would not stop him. He would follow her against her will or go after the Five by himself with whatever evidence he was holding onto, and there was only one way she could minimize the danger he was throwing himself into.

She closed her eyes and made her decision.

“Fine. It’s your funeral, Ringtail.”

Sly lifted his chin in triumph, but there was no self-satisfied smirk on his face. Only grim victory and steely determination. She met that gaze unflinchingly.

“But before anything else…we need to make a pit stop.”

Chapter Text

The pit stop turned out to be a tiny store in Nebraska an eight-hour car drive away, sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a private attorney's office on a quiet street in a quiet town. “Wiseturtle Tech” was emblazoned over the front. Sly stared up at the blocky, faded lettering and was thoroughly unimpressed.

“I don’t understand why you don’t just ask your boss for a new weapon,” he said for the hundredth time since they’d started the impromptu detour. “Seems a lot easier than going out of your way to a podunk place like this.”

“Shock pistols aren’t manufactured en-masse,” the cop admitted. “They’re custom weaponry that only higher ranks like inspectors can have. I didn’t want to ask Barkley for a new one right after he gave me so much expensive equipment already, and it would have taken a while for them to ship a new one, anyway.”

“What about a regular gun, then? Doesn’t Interpol have those?”

“They do…” Her lips thinned. “I just don’t like using them.”

“...Right.” He gave the storefront another once-over, then turned to look at her holster where her broken pistol was tucked safely away. “So, what makes you think some random tech guy can salvage a mess like that?”

“You'll see.”

Inspector Fox pushed open the door to let them both inside. A little bell overhead chimed in response, but no one was actually at the desk to greet them. The counters behind the desk were covered in dismantled machinery – phones, laptops, kitchen appliances, and a million other things Sly couldn’t identify. The one intact computer sitting on the desk had a screensaver of a little green turtle head bouncing aimlessly off the edges of the screen.

There was a wall offering various tech and accessories, so the raccoon wandered over that way. “Great customer service. Really selling me on this place.”

“Oh, shush.” She stepped up to the counter and rang the service bell. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A large pink hippo in a gray uniform shirt poked his head out of one of the back doorways. His eyes widened and a big goofy grin grew on his face as he recognized the person who had called for him.

“Hi Miss Fox!”

“Hi, Murray,” she greeted him with a warm smile. “Is Bentley here? I could really use his help.”

The hippo nodded emphatically. “Yeah! I’ll go get him right now for you!”

He disappeared from sight again, and she gave Sly a smug look, who only shrugged and went back to studying the wall of stuff. It was a bizarre mix, really – half of what was on sale looked brand new, state of the art and built for the latest tech trends, while the other half looked like it had been lifted from a RadioShack in the eighties. Even if the single camera he’d noted in one ceiling corner was just for show, nothing here was really worth taking. Not for his needs, anyway.

There was a clatter as Murray bounded back out from his hiding place, followed by a tiny turtle with giant spectacles and a little red bowtie over his shirt that matched his coworker’s. He climbed onto the chair across the desk from where the cop stood and only gave Sly a brief glance.

“Hello, Inspector Fox. It’s been a while,” he said in the most nasally voice the raccoon had ever heard. “Is your computer having issues again?”

“No. I’m here for something else today.” She lifted her ruined shock pistol and placed it carefully onto the counter.

Bentley’s mouth fell open. “What did you do to it?”

“Work-related. It was overloaded with electricity, but I can’t really share any more details than that,” she hurriedly dismissed with a wave of her hand. “Do you think you can fix it?”

“I can…certainly try.” The turtle picked it up by the handle between two fingers, as if afraid it might explode. “You know, every time I think I’ve seen every way someone can destroy their tech, you always manage to surprise me.”

“I will take that as a compliment!” She shot a glare at Sly when he snorted. “So, how long will you need?”

“A few hours at least. And that’s if I already have all the parts to replace anything damaged beyond repair. Otherwise, it could be anywhere between a few days to a few weeks.”

The inspector grimaced and shook her head. “If you can’t fix it within the day, don’t bother. It would be faster to get a new one.”

“Alright.” His gaze flickered over to the raccoon, who stared back impassively. “I’ll, uh, give you a call when I know for sure what the time estimate will be.”

“Thanks, Bentley.”

As they left the store together, Sly met Murray’s curious gaze. The hippo gave him a smile as wide as he had Inspector Fox, and Sly couldn’t help but give an awkward attempt at one back.

“Well, it looks like we have some time to kill,” he said the moment the doors swung closed behind them. “What’s the plan while we wait?”

She chewed her lip. “I need to figure out which member of the Five to go after first. And you still haven’t given me that evidence yet, Ringtail.”

“I will, don’t worry. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t high-tail it out of that apartment and leave me stranded.”

The two of them got back in her car, and the fox gave him a long, searching stare. “You’re really going through with this, huh.”

It wasn’t entirely a question. He’d let his emotions slip a little more than he’d wanted the other night, and she had seen his conviction because of it. Even so, he’d had a day and a half since then to think over his decision to rub shoulders with a cop – one from Interpol, no less – and although he had plenty of misgivings, Sly still believed it was his best option for now.

He might know where most of the Five were holed up these days, but that would only get him so far on his own. She had resources, and a seemingly genuine interest in seeing justice served, and it would be so much easier to let her blaze through their hideouts and move stealthily in the chaos she created than trying to break in by himself – especially once they realized he hadn’t been arrested like the rest of Muggshot’s goons. The last place they would ever expect to find him was at the side of the cop who was out to bust them all.

And, after seeing how she had miraculously won a one-on-one battle against the bulldog, he almost dared to believe that he’d be safe with her even if they did find him.

“Yeah, I am,” he answered, honest for once in his life, before pulling out the precious information she so desperately wanted. “Here. For your peace of mind.”

The cop grabbed them and began reading immediately. Her lips moved without sound as she did so; it was a small, almost endearing detail that made his mouth twitch just a little bit upwards.

“These are emails,” she finally said in hushed excitement. “Emails between some of the Five. Muggshot, Sir Raleigh, and Mz. Ruby. But…why would he print them out?”

Because they always wipe their communications but Muggshot has the memory of a gnat, he didn’t say out loud. “Probably because he doesn’t know how to tell the difference between ‘print’ and ‘delete’. You’ve met the guy.”

Inspector Fox hummed, only half listening. Her nose was buried in papers. Sly had already read them while waiting on the roof of her motel, and he knew what she was going to find. He pulled the car seat back until it was nearly horizontal, flipped his hood up over his eyes, and laid his linked hands behind his head like he was going to take a nap.

“The most recent communications are between Muggshot and Mz. Ruby,” she mumbled to herself, “from the same day that I busted him. And the ones between him and Sir Raleigh are from two weeks ago. That’s interesting.”

“Mhm.”

“They all seem to be talking about the same thing,” the fox continued, in a slow, thoughtful tone. “Some kind of special package they’d been ferrying back and forth. Raleigh to Muggshot, and then Muggshot to Mz. Ruby.”

Sly stared at the tiny threadbare stitching of the inside of his hood.

“But…” She tapped a line on the page. “It looks like the latter two settled on a transfer date that’s still another week away. Whatever they were smuggling between them, it never made it to the alligator before Muggshot was arrested.”

He was so still he was barely breathing. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I wonder what that package was. These emails are so vague, all I can really tell is that it was probably fragile and priceless, and with all the stolen stuff we found in his penthouse, almost anything could fall under those categories.”

“Well, no use getting our tails in a twist over something they’re never going to get their hands on again,” Sly said, a little curter than he meant to.

She shifted next to him, obviously surprised by his blunt brush off, but then went back to reading without saying anything about it. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, the cop straightened in her seat.

“We’ve got locations!” She exclaimed. “The last transfer point was in Wales, and the next scheduled one is supposed to be in Haiti. That must be where Raleigh and Mz. Ruby are hiding out right now. I wonder what kind of awful schemes they’re involved in. Everyone had been speculating that the Five had gone into hiding in some kind of criminal retirement, but these clearly indicate otherwise.”

“I dunno a single thing about any of that, but between Wales and Haiti, I vote we go to Haiti first.”

“Why Haiti?”

The raccoon finally lifted the fabric from his eyes to look sideways at her. “Two reasons. Number one is that Haiti is way closer to the States than Wales is, and if Mz. Ruby hasn’t heard about Muggshot’s arrest by next week, then you have a chance to catch her at the exact time and place she’s planning to make that exchange with him.”

An exact time and place he was going to avoid like the plague if he could help it.

“Number two is that Mz. Ruby has premonition. The longer you leave her out there, the more likely she’ll look into the future, see her own arrest and disappear, or see her partners’ arrests and warn them to disappear. Then you’re screwed either way.”

“That’s true, but –” she paused suddenly, and narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. “Wait. How do you know about Mz. Ruby’s powers?”

“Are you kidding? It’s one of the things she’s most famous for besides literally summoning the undead. Just because Interpol has its special top-secret info doesn’t mean some stuff doesn’t reach public knowledge.”

Sly held her gaze without blinking until she backed down with an acknowledging nod. Her wariness was frustrating but understandable, especially because of how she wasn’t wrong to have it.

Just for all the wrong reasons.

“Okay. Haiti, then.” Inspector Fox pulled out a tiny notebook from her jacket’s front pocket and began scribbling down notes as she scanned the printed emails again. “That’s going to be a long flight, so I need to book plane tickets for the earliest possible flight I can find for two people.”

He must have let something show on his face about that, because she huffed and gave him an impatient look.

“What now?”

“Nothing. I just – I didn’t think we’d be flying.” As soon as it left his mouth, he regretted it. She stared at him like he was an idiot.

“How else are we supposed to get there, Ringtail?” She asked sarcastically. “By car?”

“No. I just…I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. You don’t have to be crappy about it.”

The cop began to open her mouth again, and he just knew she was going to pry into things she had no business knowing. With an irritated sigh, Sly readjusted his seat into something actually vertical again so he could be level with her in more ways than one.

“I’m just not the biggest fan of flying, alright?”

The sharp retort prepared on her tongue vanished in the wake of confusion. “You’re not? How come?”

“Consider it a phobia. It paralyzes me.”

She squinted at him. He met her eyes without hiding anything. The truth was the truth, and he could see her defensiveness easing away as she realized it.

“Oh. Well, I’m sure we can get you something to help. Over the counter anxiety meds, maybe.”

The raccoon let out an audible snort. “Nothing short of Klonopin is going to help me with that. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

Before the inspector could respond to that, her cell phone suddenly went off. She answered it immediately albeit with a sharp glance his way, as if to say their conversation was far from over.

“Hello? Oh! Bentley, thanks for calling back, I – okay. Okay. But you – you can? Great! Thank you so much! Yes, we’ll come back later.”

Sly picked at the seams of his gloves, waiting patiently until the fox ended the call.

“He says most of the damage was in the charge port, and he has the spare parts for it,” she told him the moment she hung up. “But it’s going to take the rest of the day even if he skips the other projects that were in line before mine.”

“All day, huh? Pretty sure we’ll have figured out a route to Haiti way before then. That’s a lot of time to kill.”

To his surprise, she shook her head. “Not for me. I have to check in with my superiors about my plan to go after Mz. Ruby first, and get an update on the evidence they’ve been sorting through from the bust on Muggshot. If there’s any new information about his cohorts, I need to know as soon as possible.”

“Sounds…fun.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” The cop gave him a particular look that he decidedly didn’t like. “But it’s all confidential, and I can’t risk you eavesdropping on my phone calls again.”

“I thought we’d already established that it wasn’t actually eavesdropping if your boss was yelling so loud I could hear him across the room.”

“Regardless,” she continued, irritation seeping into her voice, “you can’t be around me for that. I’m not risking it happening again.”

Sly sat up straighter in his seat, not liking at all where this was going. “What, so you’re just going to kick me out of the car for the next six, seven hours ‘til you’re done? What am I supposed to do – sit on the curb with my chin in my hands all day?”

Inspector Fox began working her jaw; a tic he was starting to notice meant she was deep in thought instead of merely frustrated. Her eyes drifted up and down his hoodie.

“How prepared are you for a long-term trip?”

And that was how Sly found himself standing in front of a general merchandise store, watching his cop companion drive away, with the two-hundred US dollars she’d handed him in his pocket and explicit instructions to buy everything he needed for travel.

It didn’t bother him that she could tell he didn’t have many belongings to his name – the fact that he was still wearing the same clothes nearly two days after they’d first met had probably clued her in – but it did bother him that she seemed to think he didn’t have any money. It made sense, because to her he was just a civilian who’d probably been robbed and then captured by Muggshot’s men, but it still smarted his ego as a thief.

With a huff, the raccoon entered the store, grabbed a shopping cart, and made a beeline for the aisle with portable suitcases. Then he made a beeline for the clothing section.

It had been a long time since he’d been able to pick out things for himself. Clothes were always a necessity provided for him by the Five, and only when his previous stuff was starting to get threadbare. A few new shirts, and pants, and a pair of shoes if they were feeling generous. The hoodie he was wearing was courtesy of being stuck in stormy Wales for nearly a month before he’d come to Mesa, because as much as Raleigh hated spending money on the “orphan waif”, he hated having to deal with a sick orphan waif even more.

Even with his newfound freedom, Sly found himself following the same patterns he’d been forced to follow for over half his life; three shirts, three pairs of pants, and a single new pair of shoes were all he put in his cart. He only realized what he was doing when he compared the amount of clothes to the size of the suitcase he’d chosen. There was still far too much space left even if he added his backpack and what he was wearing.

That realization prickled his fur and made his cheeks burn, and so he doubled back and forced himself to pick another two of each despite the voice in his head screaming that he was being greedy for it.

Next up were toiletries.

The raccoon’s toothbrush was already safely tucked away in a side pocket on his backpack, something he’d always done just in case there was ever a chance for him to make a break for it, but everything else had been left behind when he’d been unexpectedly forced out of his room. He began pulling things off the shelves at random as he saw them – toothpaste, shampoo, a fur brush, nail clippers, a pack of razors, and so on and so forth. At one point he passed a jumbo first aid kit and added that to the growing pile as well, knowing that if he got hurt, he would have to rely on himself instead of the cop. She probably didn’t even know how to properly pack a stab wound; much less reset a broken bone or build a makeshift splint.

After that…Sly wasn’t really sure what came after that.

Inspector Fox had promised to be back to pick him up in a few hours, but he still had quite a lot of time to kill. He’d already gotten all the essentials he needed, and there was really nothing else to get that wasn’t wasting space and money.

For a brief minute he toyed with the idea of swinging by the pharmacy and swiping someone’s anxiety prescription meds if he could find something strong enough to last him the upcoming plane ride he was already dreading, but quickly nixed the thought. That was a particularly scummy thing to do even with his skewed ideals. He’d just have to suck it up.

He ended up wandering store aisles, looking at things that held no interest or use to him. So many frivolous, stupid things that people bought. Why buy a toaster and a toaster oven? Why get more than one bed spread unless you absolutely needed a new one? Why spend money on three different kinds of the same food?

Muggshot and Raleigh both loved to do things like that. Sly had lost count of how many times he’d watched the frog import wine worth thousands of Pounds a bottle, or the bulldog order glitzy chandeliers to hang from the ceiling of every room he spent more than an hour in. As a kid who had lived middle class until the night his world was shattered, it had confused him. As an adult who had spent the last eleven years surviving off what little he could get, it infuriated him.

At least Inspector Fox didn’t seem to be like that. Her accommodations were cramped, and a little dingy, but he would take it over glittering fakeness any day of the week. Well, except for maybe that shiny red convertible. That thing stuck out like a sore thumb and he very much hoped she’d ditch it before getting any further in this case.

Something caught his eye in the electronics section.

It was a digital camera, small enough to fit in his hoodie’s front pocket, advertised for taking quality pictures for scrapbooking needs and family vacations. SD card and charger port sold separately but at a bargain, it claimed, and the raccoon didn’t realize how long he’d been looking at it until he noticed an employee approaching him from the corner of his eye.

“That’s a really nice camera,” the deer said, giving him a smile perfected for customer service. “Are you interested? I can take it out of the case for you.”

Sly looked at them, then at the price tag. Two-hundred dollars with all the added accessories. He had nearly four-thousand from what he’d swiped from Muggshot. This would barely put a dent in that. But it still made him hesitate.

Greedy little thing, hissed the voice in his head, a familiar croak with a British accent. Always asking for more than you deserve.

“Yeah, actually, I am interested,” he said louder than necessary, ignoring the weird look the employee gave him as a result. “I’d love to buy it.”

What was he even going to use a camera for? No idea. But it shut up the stupid voice in his head for the time being and that was all that mattered.

When Inspector Fox pulled up to the sidewalk twenty minutes later in her dumb fancy car, Sly was waiting for her with a mostly-full suitcase, turning the camera over and over in his hands. She helped him load his luggage into the trunk alongside her own and all the strange cop stuff she had – was that a jetpack? – and appeared to be distracted by something that she didn't share.

“Why don’t we get something to eat?” She suggested.

“Sounds good to me.”

They ordered takeout and ate in her car instead of inside, at her request. It was quiet for a few minutes as she seemed to be lost in her thoughts.

“How’d your check-in go?” He asked after a while, surprising them both that he was the one to break the silence first.

“Good. It was good.” She hesitated. “They haven’t found anything useful for my case, though. Just stuff to help put Muggshot away for a very long time. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

“’S fine. I’m not really interested in all that cop mumbo-jumbo, anyway.”

“I figured you wouldn’t be.” There was another heavy pause as she studied him.

“Something I can help you with?”

“Sly…” The use of his first name made him tense. “Did you…”

The inspector stopped, took a deep breath, and steepled her fingers together. The look on her face was pinched and intense.

“I think we need to clear the air before this goes any further.”

Sly slowly brought his fork down from his mouth and eyed her cautiously. There were only a few things that would warrant a statement like that, and all of them made him nervous. “Uh, okay. You have something specific in mind?”

“A few questions.”

“Ask away,” he said, leaning back in his seat as nonchalantly as he could manage. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Okay. First question, then – you said you didn’t live in Mesa. Where do you live?” Before he could open his mouth, she gave him a sharp look. “Honest answer, Sly. I want to know.”

The raccoon tapped one finger against his thigh, thinking for a moment. “Honest answer? I don’t have a place.”

Her brows furrowed together in an expression he couldn’t read. “You’re homeless?”

“I mean, I’d personally describe it as ‘between homes’ right now, but…yeah. Essentially.”

The strange look morphed into something that he definitely recognized as pity. He would have challenged it if not for wanting very much to keep his cool as she worked through…whatever it was on her mind.

“But you don’t live in Mesa.”

“Nope. Was just passing through. Really unlucky timing on my part, I guess.”

“Fair enough. Second question – do you have any family you could go back to?”

Sly blinked. “No. I don’t.”

“Any living relatives at all?” She pressed. “People who will worry about where you are or what happens to you?”

“Does it look like I do?” He snapped, tail curling around his ankle. “What’s with the twenty questions all of a sudden, huh? Having second thoughts about this whole thing?”

The cop held up her hands placatingly. “I didn’t mean to dredge up anything! I just wanted to make sure this is really something you want to do.”

“I’ve already told you twice that it was.”

“You did,” she conceded. “You’re right, you did.”

“What’s this really about, Inspector? You were just fine this morning and now it sounds more like you’re trying to come up with an excuse to get me off your back. Did –”

A thought occurred to him.

“…Did you tell your boss about this deal of ours? Did he tell you to ditch me, or persuade me to quit?”

She shifted uncomfortably, clearly called out, and a spike of icy fear shot straight through Sly’s heart.

“What did you say?” He demanded. “What did you say about me?”

“Nothing specific,” she was quick to say, watching him in that very peculiar way again. “I told Bar – my superior that I had found a civilian consultant who could help me get to my next target faster than expected. I didn’t tell him your name, or your species, or anything else. But I had to tell him I was traveling with someone, Sly!”

“Why? Is he your dad? Got a curfew you gotta follow, too?”

“He’s my boss, Ringtail. I have to be transparent in this profession or else no one would trust me. I know you have a weird – thing about the police, but I promise you I didn’t share anything that you didn’t consent to.”

He had most certainly not consented to being put on Interpol’s radar, but he kept that rebuke clamped down under an angry locked jaw. He should have expected this from someone like her; of course she would be as by-the-book as possible. The raccoon folded his arms and pointedly stared out the front windshield.

“What did he have to say about your little escort?”

“To do a background check on you and make sure you knew the danger you were getting into,” she told him. “So here I am, trying to do both before dragging you out of the country on a wild goose chase.”

He wondered if she’d tried to do a formal search on any raccoons named Sly. If she had, he knew without a single doubt that she would not have found anything.

“You want a background check? I’ll give you a background check.”

“That’s not –” she started to say, but he cut her off hard.

“I have no living relatives. My parents died when I was young and I’ve been on my own ever since.” He pulled his forged passport out of his backpack and flashed it just enough so she could see what it was but not the full name on it. “I can travel globally anywhere I want. You can do a search on me but you won’t find anything because I don’t have a criminal record. I don’t have any ties to any family, or friends, or anything in this country, so you don’t have to feel bad about ‘dragging’ me along.”

“Sly –”

“And since you’re wondering how I got those emails – because I know you’re wondering – I got them well before you saved me. I went snooping around in Muggshot’s casino while he was clearing out the locals and stumbled onto them right before those mutts you met came across me. They decided that I needed a full tour of their handiwork of the city since I obviously wasn’t scared enough of them and they were too fucking stupid to actually search my backpack because I gave them all the money I had on me when they demanded it.”

Inspector Fox was staring at him with wide eyes. He kept his chin held high.

“Well?” The raccoon challenged. “What do you have to say to that, Inspector?”

Her body seemed to catch up to her brain, because she suddenly leaned forward and locked her gaze with his, searching for deception. He didn’t even flinch.

“…Okay,” she finally conceded, backing down both physically and mentally. “Okay. Thank you, Sly. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot like that, but I appreciate the honesty. Honesty is important if we’re going to work together for the foreseeable future.”

It was a foreseeable future he was already starting to regret, but he wasn’t ever going to let her know that.

“Yeah, well…I’m just glad you’re satisfied. It’s not every day I spill my guts like that, especially to –”

“To cops. I know.” She finished for him, and there wasn’t as much annoyance over the barb as he would have expected. “You’re starting to get predictable, Ringtail.”

“Am not,” he grumbled, without quite as much bite in his voice. The confrontation had drained all his energy and left him tired more than anything else. “So did you get a flight planned out, or were you too busy gossiping about me?”

“Yes and no. I was mostly setting up hotel accommodations and making contact with the local Haitian police so we could jump right into work once we get there.” She checked her phone. “We’ve still got another hour to kill before Bentley estimated he’d be done, so there’s plenty of time to look at flights.”

“Great. I can’t think of anything more fun than that.”

At 5 PM on the dot, with a route established and a flight to catch the next day – which Sly was pointedly not going to think about until he absolutely had to – the two of them reentered Wiseturtle Tech to see Bentley putting the finishing touches on the now-fixed shock pistol. Murray was sitting on a stool nearby to watch him work, idly swinging his legs and making the seat rotate back and forth.

Both employees looked up at the jingle of the doorbell, and both waved. Inspector Fox returned the greeting while Sly just nodded his head.

“I’m almost done, I swear,” the turtle mumbled as he went right back to crossing wires. “I just want to be sure I’m not missing anything.”

“Take your time,” she replied. “I’d rather you triple-check everything than rush a job.”

Her eyes trailed over to the wall of tech, then to Sly, then back. She grabbed his hand very suddenly, startling him.

“Come over here,” the fox said, leading him towards a row of simple flip phones. When he looked between them and her with a raised eyebrow, she sighed as if greatly inconvenienced. “Pick out a burner phone.”

“Why?”

“Since it’s clear we’re doing this together, we’ll need a way to communicate in case we ever get separated, and something tells me you don’t already have one of these.”

He gave her a flat stare, but she carefully avoided looking at him or any aspect of his appearance by gesturing to the electronics instead.

“Go on. It’d make me feel a lot better if I’m going to take you with me.”

Rolling his eyes without any heat behind it, the raccoon picked the cheapest one he could find. The thought of picking a more expensive one since she was paying for it popped up for about half a second, but he squashed it right away. There wasn’t any point in taking advantage of her generosity and potentially making her resent him.

Greedy, hissed Raleigh.

Sly gritted his teeth and practically slammed the phone onto the counter, making Bentley jump and Inspector Fox give him a disapproving look.

“I’ll take this one, please,” he said to the hippo, who had scampered back to his post as an actual employee so he could ring them up for their charges.

“Is this your first ever phone?” Murray asked, sounding strangely excited about the concept.

“Maybe,” he answered warily, watching out of the corner of his eye as Inspector Fox pulled her wallet out while Bentley handed her the fixed shock pistol. “Why?”

“Can I be your first phone number?”

Sly swiveled to look at him, confused. “Uh…why? I’m a stranger to you.”

“Well, sure, but – I mean, the first number in your phone should be someone you can rely on, right? And you can always rely on us to help, no matter the problem!” The hippo started playing with his hands, gaze dropping to the ground. “And – and it’s just…you seem like a really cool guy, too.”

That was…not anything he’d expected to hear at all. Sly blinked, completely caught off guard by the compliment and its sincerity, and didn’t immediately respond.

“...Sure,” he finally said, if only because Murray was starting to wilt like a dying flower as the seconds ticked by without an answer. “I don’t see why not.”

He doubted he’d ever call the guy, or even remember he had his number, but there really wasn’t any harm in letting him plug it in, was there?

The hippo beamed at him, wasting no time in doing so, and then passed the phone along to Inspector Fox, who deftly did the same thing with her own number.

“There.” She handed it to him with a smile. “Now we’re both all set.”

Sly watched her set her fixed weapon back into its holster, and thumbed the new device that was now hiding in his hoodie pocket right next to the camera. “Guess we are.”

“Thanks again, Bentley! And you too, Murray.” The fox waved goodbye to them, and this time the raccoon did the same.

“Bye! Don’t be a stranger!” Murray called after them enthusiastically. His turtle coworker watched them go with a pinched, pensive brow.

The moment they were outside, Inspector Fox pulled her pistol out to weigh it in her hands. She seemed satisfied by whatever she felt, because it went right back where it was supposed to without any further fanfare.

Sly watched her, still feeling the weight of the phone on his person. He’d never had a phone before. He’d never needed one before.

“Okay,” she said, turning to him, and all the levity she’d shown in the tech shop disappeared under determination and anticipation. “Next stop: Haiti.”

“Right.” He could do this. He was ready for this.

“Right after a six-hour flight.”

“.......Right.”

Or maybe not.

Chapter Text

Airports, it turned out, sucked almost as much as flying itself.

Sly drummed his fingers against the check-in desk as the flight attendant looked over his passport. When she gave him an irritated look for it, he stilled his hand and started tapping his foot instead. His gaze jumped back and forth through the crowds, avoiding eye contact as much as possible while scanning everyone around him for the slightest hint of danger. Inspector Fox had left to get them both some confections, having already checked in, and he found himself sorely missing her presence if only because she was the only face he could trust in this entire bustling building.

He hadn’t been in a public airport since he was fourteen, but they had always been practically empty – not filled wall-to-wall like this. Someone hollered angrily nearby about bad customer service, and the raccoon tried and failed to keep his leg from bouncing as he winced. Thieves weren't built for crowds. They stuck to the shadows or at least traveled in disguise if they really had to, but here he was out in the open without anything to cover his natural mask.

A raccoon’s mask was unique and unidentical to anyone else’s, like fingerprints, and it made him twitchy that airport rules dictated he couldn’t even wear his hood to shadow his face. The Five had spies everywhere; or, more accurately among them, he had spies everywhere. He would recognize Sly’s face in a heartbeat, never mind the fact that the raccoon was supposedly still in their group's custody. If he saw him out and about like this, then it was all over.

The attendant gave his passport back and directed him to a seat to wait for the boarding call. He sat down, struggling to keep his legs from bouncing anxiously, and continued to glance all around the room. Restlessness had always been his nervous tell, and he hated that he still couldn’t help it.

Another flight-goer met his eyes on accident, then lingered there. The raccoon averted his gaze immediately, feeling cold dread creeping up his spine. Shit, did they know? Would they tell? His hands gripped his knees, looking for the nearest restroom and calculating whether it’d be safer to hide there or just run –

“I’m back!”

Sly did not jump. He absolutely did not do that. “Oh, h-hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” The inspector looked him over and frowned as she handed him a miniature bag of chips and a water bottle. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy.” His eyes darted to the person who’d been staring at him; they had lost interest and had started reading a book. He forced himself to look as relaxed as possible.

She pushed something else into his hands. He blinked and looked down at a box of Melatonin.

“There’s a pharmacy here, but they don’t offer anything for anxiety without a prescription,” she explained when he stared at her. “So, I figured a sleep aid might be the next best thing.”

“Huh. Thanks.” It wasn’t going to help much at all, he knew; the Five had to practically sedate him to get him on a plane. But he popped three tablets into his mouth anyway, at least to try and take the edge off.

The cop watched him do so with a furrowed brow. “Is there a reason you hate flying so much? Did you have a bad experience on a plane?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The intercom announced that their flight was ready; the people around them began getting up. “Can we please just get out of here and board before I lose my nerve?”

“Okay.”

His legs felt like jello all the way across the boarding bridge and onto the plane itself. He staunchly refused to look out any of the windows and sat stiffly in a middle seat with Inspector Fox in the window side on his right. The sleep meds were making him dizzy but doing nothing to combat the sick sense of dread in the pit of his stomach.

As the last of the passengers found their seats, he felt the plane start up all around them. It rumbled like a jolt of lightning up his legs and into his chest. He sat, petrified, staring at the back of the seat in front of him and trying not to think about the fact that any minute now they’d be taking off into the air.

Into the air, thousands of feet above the ground, with nothing but the hum of machinery and the bitter wind and then he’d be falling, falling, falling –

“Okay, you need to relax. Seriously. Otherwise, we’ll be paying for damages.”

“What?” The voice snapped him out of his doom spiraling for just a moment, if only to register what it was referring to.

The fox at his side stared at him, then turned a pointed look down at their shared armrest, which Sly was currently gripping so hard that his claws, under his gloves, were digging into the upholstery. He pulled his stiff fingers off with more than a little embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, trying not to let that embarrassment turn outward into snappishness. The last thing he needed on this godforsaken six-hour trip was to anger his traveling companion.

“You really weren’t kidding about that aerophobia, huh?”

“Why would I be?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been making me think you weren’t afraid of anything all this time, willing to go after some of the most notorious criminals still alive. I was starting to wonder if fear was a foreign concept to you.”

Well, wasn’t that a funny notion that he didn’t have any fear. The raccoon breathed in and out through his nose, ready to make a retort, but then went rigid as the plane began moving towards the runway. His hands went right back to their armchair chokehold.

“Hey, take it easy, it’s fine.” Inspector Fox tried to calm him. “Is it harder being in the aisle seat? We can switch if you want the window –”

“I can promise you right now that would be the absolute worst decision to make,” he said in a single stressed breath. “If I see the ground disappearing from under us, I’m going to call this whole damn thing off.”

She fell silent, and he could see her contemplative expression when he risked glancing at her. Suddenly he feared she might go through with it so he would call things off – what a perfect way to lose the civilian who had coerced her into letting him follow her on her worldwide chase.

But she surprised him again. She was getting into a habit of doing that, it seemed.

“How would you like to hear about my very first case?”

The non-sequitur was enough to make him fully turn his head and stare at her. The inspector smiled, then coughed into her fist.

“It’s not as exciting as everything we did in Mesa. And I was a lot younger back then. Younger and more, um…inexperienced.”

Sly let out a tiny breath of a laugh despite himself and the terrible place he was in. “What, you’re telling me that you weren’t always Little Miss Perfect Cop?”

“Oh, far from it, trust me.” Now that she had his full attention, the fox relaxed in her seat and began to talk more animatedly. “I was eighteen years old and fresh out of the police academy. The Chief Inspector, Barkley, had approached me himself about a case, because he’d been impressed with my work and wanted me to eventually become his successor. I was stunned, excited, and completely terrified.”

“It sounds like the stuff of nightmares.”

“It was! My worst nightmare and greatest dream all wrapped up in one single case where I was going to prove I had what it takes to jump straight into Interpol’s line-up.”

“Well, obviously you managed to do that, or you wouldn’t be here right now,” he said, following her cue to lean back in his own seat. Just a little bit.

“True, but it was still by the skin of my teeth, Ringtail. You see, it all started at the Parisian Opera House. We’d been asked to secure a famous jewel, the Diva Diamond, until its owner was ready to perform…”

It was snowing outside.

Sly pressed his cheek against the cold car window, watching snowflakes drift down like a billion tiny, hopeful dancers. They didn’t stick to the ground but instead melted the instant they touched it. They were doomed to fail, and yet they were still falling, trying so hard to make some kind of impact, some kind of mark, before they disappeared off the face of the earth.

“Cooper.”

Mz. Ruby’s voice jerked him out of his zoning. He lifted his head and sat up straight.

“Yeah.”

She stared at him from the front passenger seat with narrowed eyes. On the driver’s side, the Panda King was watching their target unlock the front door of their home before disappearing inside. He didn’t acknowledge Sly’s presence, and Sly didn’t acknowledge his.

“Stay focused,” the alligator growled. “If this leads back to us cause you messed up, we're leavin’ you in that house.”

“I know. I won’t screw up.”

“The lights are off inside,” the Panda King said to his partner.

“Alright.” She turned back to the raccoon. “Two minutes, Sly. A second more and you ain’t coming back out.”

He was already out of the car. The chilly winter evening immediately made him shiver through his thin sweater, but it didn’t slow him down at all as he took off across the street from where they were parked and into the front yard of their target. On the second floor was a window cracked for air – why anyone would want that this time of year, he didn’t know – so Sly took a running leap to grab onto the edge of the overhang and haul himself up onto the first-floor roof.

The raccoon opened the window just enough to shimmy through into what looked like a private study. He padded out to the hallway nearly silently, and his eyes landed on a smoke detector blinking harmlessly halfway up the wall.

Sly climbed a low-end bookcase and breathed a soundless sigh of relief when he was barely able to reach the thing by his tiptoes. One hand removed the covering, then the batteries, while the other pulled out an identical pair from his pocket, which was then replaced into the smoke detector.

Identical except for the fact that these batteries were dead.

Two upstairs, and one downstairs. That was what Mz. Ruby had told him. Sly hurried through the rest of the house like a gray-and-blue ghost. On his way to the one in the kitchen, he made a pit stop at the fireplace to drop two cigarettes and a handful of crumpled paper inside. More paper was scattered to cross the threshold between brick and carpet.

The countdown in his head was at a minute-fifty when he finally crawled back out onto the roof, closed the window, and dropped down onto the cold wet grass.

He wasn’t lucky enough to melt away like the snowflakes.

Mz. Ruby pushed open the door for him from the inside when he reached the car. The moment the raccoon slid into the backseat again, the Panda King aimed a tiny rocket out his open window. It hissed as it went off, flying up into the air in a beautiful display of golden sparks. Then it died, right above the house’s chimney, and all three criminals watched as those sparks trickled down and disappeared within the smoke stack.

As a final touch, the alligator twisted her hands, conjuring up a shimmering purple barrier around the house. It was almost impossible to see to the untrained eye.

“That will stay up about twenty minutes,” she said to King. “Plenty of time to get the job done. You sure those sparks got all the way down?”

“My craft is second to none,” the panda rumbled as he started the car and they began to drive off. “If there is any fault tonight, it will not be with me.”

Mz. Ruby hummed, already looking into the near future. “Nah. No failure. That house is going to burn, and that nosy Interpol officer ain't never gonna do any detective work again.”

“I don't know why you had to make it look like an accident,” Sly murmured to himself, watching roads and buildings go by behind a blur of white specks. “Didn’t know ‘subtlety’ was our M.O.”

“And I don’t know why you are speakin’ when I never asked for it.” The alligator turned around in her seat to jab a threatening claw at the teenager. He closed his mouth immediately, and she shook her head in annoyance. “Disrespectful little thing. I don’t know how you put up with him for so long, King.”

The Panda King gripped the steering wheel tight, eyes forward, and didn’t say a word.

“Anyway,” she continued with a warning glance in Sly’s direction, “we still have an appointment to make tonight, so you better be on your best behavior or else you’ll be scrubbin’ chicken coops for a month. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stay in the car,” was the only thing Mz. Ruby hissed at him before she and the Panda King got out. Sly watched them walk out into the dark snowy night, but his nocturnal eyes easily kept track of them.

When they stopped several meters from the car, another figure stepped out of the distant shadows, flanked by two hulking forms.

Sly cracked his window and listened.

“Is it done?” Asked the stranger in English, with a German accent.

“Yeah, it’s done,” Mz. Ruby replied, crossing her arms. She stood with her back to the car, but Sly could see every tense muscle in her body. “That detective won’t be sniffing around your dirty laundry ever again, so you better keep up your end of the deal.”

“Of course, of course. I never back out of a contract. Consider all traces of him gone from our database.”

The raccoon sunk down in his seat to stare up at the inner roof of the car, not caring about the conversation anymore. They’d taken the keys when they’d left and the chill of the night was starting to creep back inside. He watched the way his breath puffed out in a mist, and how it disappeared almost immediately afterwards. Here one moment, gone the next, just like the snowflakes.

A sudden loud tap on the window jolted him to awareness. He looked up to see the Panda King standing just outside.

“She wants to meet you,” he said without any emotion in his voice as he opened the door.

Confused and nervous, Sly slid out of his seat and into the cold. He shrank away from the panda when his giant hand moved as if to touch him. King paused, let his arm drop, and the two walked to the strange little gathering without another word or gesture towards the other.

The snow beneath Sly’s shoes crunched loud despite his best attempts, and he winced when it brought the stranger’s red-eyed gaze down on him. It took all his willpower not to curl in on himself as the five huge adults surrounded his tiny, lanky form. Instead, he held his head high and pretended the trembling was because of the cold.

“This is him?” The stranger asked. There was amusement in her voice as she looked him up and down like he was a piece of art to be appraised. One clawed hand reached up to flick snowflakes out of her hair, and the raccoon realized with a start that she was a spider.

“I know he doesn’t look like much,” Mz. Ruby said, reaching out to loop two clawed fingers at the nape of his neck, “but he helped us out on the job tonight. Did his part flawlessly.”

Sly’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. The alligator almost sounded proud of him. She was never proud of him. None of them were. Well…

He glanced at the Panda King, who didn’t glance back.

Not anymore.

“How quaint,” the spider practically purred. “How old is he?”

“Fifteen, now,” the mystic continued. She barred her teeth in what could be mistaken for a smile. “And already moves like a little wraith, don’t he? Could barely hear him in the snow.”

Sly would’ve argued otherwise. Sly wisely kept his mouth shut.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed, and she began to step forward with her followers – vulture bodyguards, it seemed – right behind her. Mz. Ruby’s grip on his neck tightened just a fraction, but she didn’t pull him backwards like he knew she wanted to. They both stood where they were until the stranger stopped barely a meter from him.

“Hello, Sly Cooper,” she said quietly, as if sharing a secret only with him. “I am the Contessa.”

Sly held very, very still. Something about this woman’s gaze made him feel like he was not allowed to do otherwise. He stared up at the Contessa, who stared back with such intensity he wondered if she could see straight to his soul. Her eyes flickered up to Mz. Ruby, and whatever passed between them made her give a thin, unpleasant smile.

“Have you ever asked him what he knows of his legacy?” She asked the alligator even as she looked back down at him. “Does he know about the things his father stole? Or where they might be now?”

“Ain’t ever asked,” the mystic replied, voice curt. “Do you have a point you’re tryin’ to get to?”

“I could find out.”

A chill went up Sly’s spine.

“It wouldn’t be so hard,” the Contessa continued, already lifting one hand towards the raccoon’s frozen form. “With a mind as young and tumultuous as his, it would be like cracking an egg. If he knows where Conner Cooper hid his fortunes, I can make him tell us right now, and we could split it between the three of us.”

Without waiting for permission, she lunged for him.

Sly didn’t even get the chance to blink before everything that happened next. One moment he was trapped in place, helpless to do anything but watch as the Contessa reached for him, intending to break his mind open. The very next, he was yanked back with such force it had him gagging as Mz. Ruby pulled him clear of the attack at the exact same time the Panda King caught the Contessa’s wrist, stopping her in her tracks.

There was the sound of crossbows being drawn as the Contessa’s bodyguards aimed at the two Fiendish Five members for daring to lay a hand on their boss. Everything came to a standstill; the vultures ready to shoot, King’s fingers still wrapped tightly around the Contessa’s wrist, the spider herself frozen and contemplative, and Mz. Ruby holding a gasping raccoon almost possessively against her stomach.

“You will not touch him.” The Panda King’s voice was a growl. His hand sparked in warning of an incoming inferno. “We have fulfilled your requirements for this deal, and now you must fulfill yours. Cooper’s only involvement is in the records we have asked you to erase.”

Tense silence filled the air as the Contessa looked at him, then at Mz. Ruby, then at Sly. Her red eyes narrowed for a few harrowing seconds before she bowed her head in assent, a sign which prompted her bodyguards to lower their weapons. King let her go and she skittered away from the three with as much dignity as she could manage.

“They’ll be gone by this time tomorrow,” the spider stiffly promised. “So long as I do not hear any news of foul play in that officer’s death.”

“You won’t hear a single word,” Mz. Ruby hissed, daring her to argue otherwise.

The Contessa didn’t take the bait. She simply gave a curt nod, left one last lingering look at Sly, then turned and disappeared into the night with her entourage. Neither member of the Five relaxed.

“We’re leaving now,” the mystic said, pulling the raccoon along and practically shoving him into the backseat. “King! We’re leaving.”

The car was silent for a long time as they began making the long drive back. Sly’s heart was still pounding out of his chest, and he accidentally made eye contact with Mz. Ruby through the rearview mirror. Instead of ignoring or snapping at him, she puffed air through her snout and shook her head.

“That snake-in-spider’s-clothing works for Interpol,” she explained. Contempt dripped off every word. “Fancies herself an ‘expert’ in hypnotism and dark arts.”

“She is not someone to be taken lightly,” King said to her, not to him. “We should not underestimate someone like that.”

“Don’t patronize me! She don’t even know the difference between a ghost and a ghoul.” The alligator’s lip curled as she rubbed the space between her eyes like she had a headache. Then she pointed at Sly. “You’d do best to remember this night, child. Police are as corrupt as the rest of us, and Interpol is the worst of them all. Count your blessings that you got picked up by us and not by the likes of her.”

With that warning solidly in place, Mz. Ruby cranked up the heat in the car and began grumbling to herself. The Panda King looked back, once, with an unreadable expression, but Sly paid him no mind. He drew his legs up to his chest, laid his head against the cool window, and stared at falling snowflakes.

Solid land had never felt so good in all of Sly’s life. He wobbled like a newborn kit as he hurried off the plane and into Haiti’s Aeroport International Toussaint Louverture. It didn’t matter that this airport was even busier than the one in the States to the point he was practically brushing elbows with three other people at all times; what mattered was that he was finally out of the damn sky and back on safe ground.

Inspector Fox was just as eager to leave as he was, and after grabbing their luggage and flagging down a taxi, they were well on their way to the hotel she’d booked. Sly watched the bustling streets and busy people with rapt attention while the fox furiously scribbled in her private cop notebook.

“How are you feeling?” She asked after a few minutes, chewing on her pencil as she worked out a thought in her head.

“Loads better,” he said and meant it. “Who would’ve thought my own personal story-time about Interpol’s Funniest Cop Bloopers could do the trick?”

The dig made her look up from her work and narrow her eyes at him, but there wasn’t any real heat to his words and she seemed to realize that, because all she did was nudge him roughly with her shoulder.

“Ha, ha, very funny. Maybe next time we can distract ourselves with some of your most embarrassing close calls, hm?”

“My life isn’t nearly as exciting as yours. I’d run out of things to tell within ten minutes.”

“I highly doubt that, Ringtail. But even if that was the case, I’d listen anyway.” There was a half-smile on her face as she went back to her notes, and he was surprised to find he was happy to have caused it.

The hotel that Inspector Fox had chosen was in much better shape than the dingy motel on the outskirts of Mesa, but thankfully not anywhere near gaudy. Sly eyed the door leading to the stairwell as his partner got their keys, then followed her into the elevator and up to the fourth floor.

“I get my own room this time?” He joked as she handed him a key card. “I feel spoiled.”

“I think it will be easier for both of us to have our own space this time,” she said with the slightest tinge of pink under her fur. “That way I don’t have to worry about you seeing anything confidential, and you don’t have to worry about accidentally seeing, uh…”

“Yep.” The raccoon swiped the card against the door it belonged to and began dragging his suitcase inside so she couldn’t see his own growing blush. “Love the arrangement. Great foresight, Inspector.”

“Sly, wait, don’t disappear on me just yet!”

She put her foot in the door before it swung shut behind him. He turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“We have about five days until –” the cop cut herself off, glanced up and down the hall, then leaned towards him with more of a whisper, “until the date and time where the exchange is supposed to take place. I’ve already been in contact with the local Interpol branch and we’re going to set up a plan for infiltration. You won’t be allowed to join those meetings…unless I introduce you as my civilian consultant.”

His mouth thinned. “I don’t want my face put out there, Inspector.”

“I know. I just wanted to give you the option anyway.” She hesitated. “This will probably end up being another covert operation, but there’s a less-than-zero chance I’ll go in with a team. If that’s the case…”

Then he wouldn’t have much of a choice unless he wanted to sit this one out. Sly grimaced as he considered the situation.

“We’ll figure it out when it becomes a problem, if it even does,” he finally said.

“I figured you’d say something like that.” She shook her head with a conceding shrug. “Alright, well, I promised I’d meet up with them as soon as I got settled in here. Will you be alright for a while?”

“I’m sure I’ll find some way to occupy my time.”

“Okay. Great.”

The fox lingered another moment, as if wanting to say something else – or perhaps not wanting to leave just yet – but then she gave him a firm nod and turned on her heel. He could hear her boots thumping harshly on the carpet all the way back to the elevator. Noisiest person I’ve ever met in my life.

The thought was not entirely irritated.

Once she was gone, Sly quietly closed the door, did a quick sweep of the room for surveillance, just in case, and then closed the window blinds. He sat down with his backpack in his lap and pulled out both his cane and the loose pages of the Thievius Raccoonus. He hadn’t dared bring them out at any point after rejoining the inspector, and holding them now was like quelling a deep ache he hadn’t even realized he’d had until it was gone.

Sly thumbed the pages almost reverently, just appreciating the fact that he had them at all. Then he stood up, determination in every line of his body.

Time for a bit of practice.

Five days passed in the blink of an eye. Inspector Fox was gone more often than not, and more often than not she came back stressed as hell. Sly didn’t know what kind of simple planning caused a reaction like that and he was almost afraid to ask. It wasn’t like she could tell him, anyway.

He, meanwhile, had taken full advantage of his alone time to practice the precious moves he’d gleaned from those pages. Tennessee Kid Cooper’s rail walk and rail slide were incredible but difficult, as he’d had to learn how to completely redistribute his weight when walking along thin wires and fragile branches. Most of his practice during the day was up and down the hotel’s stairwell railings, where he could be undisturbed for hours. At night, with the dark as just a bit more cover to hide him despite the never-sleeping city, he risked scaling rooftops to run across telephone wires, clotheslines, and anything else he could think to try.

The day before the infiltration was supposed to happen, the raccoon was woken up early in the morning by Inspector Fox stomping down the hall, cussing out a storm in Spanish. He waited and listened as she stopped in front of her door, went quiet, then shuffled over to his room. Her shadow darkened the crack under the door and he could practically hear the internal battle she was probably having with herself over whether she should knock and risk waking him.

With a wry pull of his mouth, Sly got up and padded silently over to open it before she could run back to her room.

“Can I help you?” He asked, leaning against the doorframe with his hands folded over his chest.

The cop looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh – uh – I’m sorry, I didn’t – mean to wake you, um –”

“Didn’t wake me,” he lied, studying the bags under her eyes. “Did you need something?”

For a moment, it looked like she was going to retreat anyway, but then she slumped.

“I came to ask if you were superstitious,” she mumbled, in a tone he couldn’t tell was embarrassed or frustrated.

Sly blinked. He had been expecting a lot of things out of her mouth, but that was not one of them. “Uh…why?”

Inspector Fox seemed to suddenly get back some of her spark, because she grabbed his wrist and tugged him in the direction of her room. Knowing she wouldn’t spill the beans until they were out of a “public” area and not about to offer his own room when he knew his cane wasn’t currently tucked out of sight, the raccoon followed her. The moment the door was shut behind them she threw her hands up in the air.

“What is wrong with the officers here?!” She whisper-shouted, looking like she wanted to punch something. Sly took a step back just in case. “They were so excited to help me apprehend Mz. Ruby until I told them about the location of the planned exchange, and then suddenly they were all acting like children hiding from the monster under their beds! They’re supposed to be Interpol, for god’s sake!”

He pretended to be surprised. “What, they’re that scared of her?”

“They’re scared of the place she’s in,” the fox stressed. “Apparently there’s a lot of bad blood in that whole area, and it’s pretty much uncharted because of it. Which, fine, that might be a little cause for concern, but every single one of them has refused to come with me because of it! No matter what I say, no matter the reassurances, it’s like they think stepping one foot out there will pull their souls straight from their bodies and down into hell!”

It had been a long time since Sly had been in Mz. Ruby’s territory. He wondered how many of those fears were legitimate, and how many were the mystic’s insiders spreading rumors everywhere they could. Probably a mix of both.

“Maybe there’s corruption inside the force,” he offered, because it was the closest thing to the truth he could think of.

The inspector’s eyes flashed in an almost manic kind of anger. She spun around to face him; her braided hair spun in a wide arc behind her like a second tail.

“That’s what I think,” she hissed conspiratorially. “I think that alligator has a lot of these officers in her pocket, and they’ve been using all the scary stories to keep people from finding her, even accidentally. The lead detective has at least offered air support by helicopter, but only after I can guarantee we can apprehend Mz. Ruby quickly and without ‘disturbing the local forces’ there.”

“Huh.” Sly would have laughed at the incredible sense of déjà vu if it didn’t risk the cop biting his head off for it. “Sounds really familiar, doesn’t it?”

It took her a second to connect the dots. When she did, the fox heaved a giant sigh and rubbed her face.

“I’m starting to wonder if this is why it took so long to find any of the Fiendish Five,” she muttered. “Am I the only competent officer on this damn force?”

“I’d certainly say so.”

“That was a rhetorical question, Ringtail.”

“I know.”

Inspector Fox sighed again, then ran a hand through her hair. Standing here in the middle of a dark room, looking like she had no options except borderline suicide, all alone with no one to back her up again…

Sly took a step forward.

“Well, I may not be an officer,” he said, when her eyes lifted to his. “But I’m not exactly incompetent, either. Hopefully that counts for something.”

Slowly, the fox’s hands fell from their stressed fidgeting. She looked at him a long moment, took a deep breath, and somehow found it in herself to smile.

“You’re right,” she replied. “We did this once already with even fewer resources. We can do it again.”

“Exactly.”

And this time, with a little more confidence and two new moves under his belt, Sly smiled back.

Chapter Text

Carmelita had never put much belief in superstition. She knew certain supernatural things existed, of course – the clause in the World Peace Accord of 1971 about banning the production of zombies hadn't been made on a whim, after all – but she was still skeptical of the vast majority of things that supposedly went bump in the night.

Still, even she could feel something distinctly off about this place they had just started trekking through. Beyond the dark sky and the creak of trees and the endless swarms of bugs, there was something else here. Something ancient. Powerful.

Malevolent, even.

Sly seemed to feel it too. He was twitchy and on edge, constantly scanning their surroundings as if expecting an assailant from the brambles or even the water. His hands gripped the straps of his backpack like they were his only lifeline.

“I didn’t mean to scare you with what those other officers were claiming,” she said quietly, almost afraid to disturb the natural silence of the swamp. “It's not too late to turn back and wait for me at the hotel.”

“Oh, it definitely is,” he mumbled, sending a sharp look towards a cluster of trees that swayed a little more in the wind than the rest. “We might not have alerted anyone living to our presence yet, but it doesn't mean other things don't know we're here.”

“You believe in ghosts?”

“Of course I do,” the raccoon replied, like it was incomprehensible to do otherwise. “You don’t?”

“Some stories, I guess. I’m a little surprised, though, Ringtail. I would have pegged you as more of a skeptic.”

“You haven’t seen the things I’ve seen.”

She tilted her head at him, intrigued. “Like what?”

“Like –”

He cut himself off when they came upon a giant spiked wall that looked more suited for a fortress than a swamp. Its gate was in the shape of some kind of bat-like creature, wings spread menacingly as if to encircle any unwelcome guests.

Sly thumbed up at glowing red eyes that seemed to follow their movement despite having no pupils.

“Like that.”

The inspector stared at the bizarre barricade. Although the walls were easily ten feet high and without any obvious weaknesses, there were a few cracks in the gate itself, and the wood looked like it was starting to rot in places. When she squinted, something about the closed doorway almost seemed to gleam; a purple shimmer in the reflection of the dim moonlight.

Mesmerized, Carmelita lifted her hand and began to reach out.

“Don’t touch it!”

She jerked back, startled by the raccoon's command. “What! What’s wrong?”

“It’s not safe. Look.”

He picked a branch off the ground and tried to press one end of it against the gate. Before it could hit wood, the subtle shimmer suddenly lit up like a flare, and the branch caught fire. Sly dropped the stick to stomp on it until all the embers disappeared.

“How did you know it was going to do that?” The fox asked, startled. “Actually, how did you even know that thing was there? I barely saw anything.”

“You have to know what to look for,” he said, edging as close as he could to peer through the tiny cracks. “With magic like this, there’s always some kind of color that shouldn’t be there, and once you’ve seen it then it becomes obvious. It’s like using dust to reveal invisible lasers.”

“Huh, okay. You still haven’t answered my first question.”

“Personal experience. I told you I believe in this stuff for a reason, Inspector.”

An awkward moment of silence fell between them as she waited for him to elaborate and he didn’t. Eventually she pinched the bridge of her nose in a frustrated sigh.

“Okay, so…how do we get past this…‘death barrier’? I left the jetpack back in the hotel room because it’d be too dangerous to use among all these trees, and neither of us has any magical equipment…I think.”

She accompanied the remark with a significant glance at her partner’s backpack, but he only shook his head.

“Unless you count a change of clothes and some personal effects, then I’m afraid I have to disappoint – oh! Here we go!”

Sly gestured for her to look through the same crevice he was. When she leaned forward to take his place, she could see several candles placed in a semi-circle on the ground on the other side. A significant purple glow radiated off the entire set-up.

“Those right there are what’s keeping the barrier up. We snuff them out, and then it’s gone. The gate will be easy to get through after that.”

Carmelita bit her lip, and looked the entire wall up and down. “I don't like this.”

“Don't like what? The spooky psychic fence?”

“No – well, yes but…I’m starting to see why those officers were so nervous about coming here, even if it’s not for the reasons they’re scared.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, turning to blink at her. “How do you figure?”

“This isn’t anything like Mesa, where Muggshot and his men were running around an abandoned city. This feels like we’re breaking into an established territory. There’s no telling what could set off an alarm. What if turning off that barrier alerts Mz. Ruby to our presence, or you jabbing it with the stick already did?”

The raccoon got a funny kind of look on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to have second thoughts already.”

“I’m not. I just…I wish I had come better prepared. I don’t have any experience with anything supernatural.”

“That’s why you’ve got me,” he said sincerely. “I might not have all your confidential Interpol knowledge, but I’ve been around the block. I guarantee that whatever we encounter here, I’ll probably know how to deal with it.”

“You can’t guarantee something like that, Ringtail. Not when we’re dealing with someone like Mz. Ruby.”

Sly shrugged in the most nonchalant concession she had ever seen anyone make in her life. Carmelita wanted to grab him by the shoulders and demand to know how he was so sure about any of this. How could he act so unfazed by something as outlandish as psychic booby-traps but then be scared silly by something as mundane as a plane ride? Why was he so confident he could handle all these supposedly-supernatural hazards? What kind of ‘personal experience’ did he have that made him wary of ghosts, or recognize glowing barriers and how to remove them?

The kind of personal experience that she needed, apparently.

The fox made a face and gestured towards the obstacle before them. “Okay, well, what do you suggest we do here? We’re still stuck. I can't even touch the gate to try and get to those candles.”

He was staring at the top of the wall, where trees towered over it on both sides like specters.

“I have an idea.”

Before she could say anything, Sly began scaling the nearest tree. Once he was high enough to see over the gate, he started edging out onto a branch that looked far too thin to hold him.

“What are you doing?!” She called, afraid with each step he took that the branch would snap and he would plummet.

“Just trust me. I’ve got this.”

The raccoon inched forward carefully with a level of focus that she suddenly didn’t want to risk breaking. When he reached the end of it, he eyeballed a branch hanging just over the top of the gate from a tree on the other side. Carmelita’s heart leapt into her throat as she realized what he was about to do.

“Don’t –!”

Sly jumped.

He landed on the other branch in a forward crouch, arms pinwheeling as it bobbed up and down dangerously under his weight. After several terrifying seconds of bracing for the worst, he found his balance and looked back at her.

“Told you I’ve got this.” His voice was steady but she could still see the nervous flickering of his tail.

The fox pursed her lips as he climbed down the other tree and disappeared from sight behind the gate.

It only took a minute for him to extinguish all the candles on the other side, and the strange, shimmering barrier dissipated like smoke. Carmelita tentatively pressed her palm against the now-normal gate. When it didn’t zap her, she pushed hard at it until the wood splintered enough for her to slip through.

Sly was leaning against the base of the tree he’d jumped to when she joined him on the other side. The fox glanced up at the branches above them, which looked even more precarious than the ones on the first tree.

“How did you do that?” She asked him.

He shrugged. “Gymnastics.”

“Ringtail, I’ve taken gymnastics. I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that.”

“Advanced gymnastics.”

The inspector shook her head and decided it wasn’t worth the energy. “Well, whatever it was, it was impressive – and you got us in safely. Nice job.”

Sly paused in the middle of turning towards the path ahead. At this angle, she couldn’t see his face.

“My pleasure,” he said at last. “Let’s get going before someone notices the barrier is down.”

“Good idea.” She wasn’t exactly keen on finding out what kinds of things Mz. Ruby or her hired men were capable of after that entire display.

Past the barricade, the swamp started showing real signs of someone living there. Paths had been carved along the hard ground for vehicle use, man-made structures began popping up here and there, and lamps were scattered all over to provide just enough light to see what came next. It probably looked different during the day, but in the middle of the night it was both the perfect example of covert operations and brought a supreme sense of dread that the two of them were not supposed to be part of it.

Inspector Fox turned off her flashlight, afraid of drawing unwanted attention when they really didn’t need to use it anymore. It was just in the nick of time as a bobbing, moving glow suddenly broke around the corner of a nearby building. Sly pivoted on his heel and practically pushed Carmelita flat against the wall as they hid and waited.

A large brown rat shuffled by with a lantern atop a large walking stick. He yawned as he walked, just far enough away that the two trespassers were not caught in his light. Carmelita could see the white flash of his teeth before he covered his mouth with a hand.

Neither of them moved until the guard was well past them. She could feel the raccoon’s fur puffed like a blowfish where his arm was stretched across her shoulders. The familiarity of the position made her smile despite the situation.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she whispered once they finally felt safe enough to pull away from the wall. Sly blinked at her, then jerked his arm back as if she’d burned him.

“Sorry,” he whispered back. Even in the dark she could see his face had gone red. “Didn’t mean to shove you.”

“It’s fine, Ringtail. You were just looking out for me.” The fox nudged him, and smiled when he seemed to relax. “Good reaction time.”

She took the lead again, feeling his eyes on her from behind, and pretended that she didn’t notice it.

Another ten or so minutes of walking and they found themselves at the edge of a large, artificial clearing; the most well-lit of anything they’d come across before. A large abstract statue of sorts – or perhaps it was a shrine – sat in its center, covered in candles, and there were multiple buildings and gated pathways circling the entire area. When Carmelita strained to listen past the natural sounds of the swamp, she could faintly hear voices chatting on the other side of the fences.

They had found the center of Mz. Ruby’s operation.

“See any obviously illegal activity?” Sly mumbled in her direction, eyes locked on a huge skull-like structure in the distance.

“No, but I don’t need to.” She pulled out a hand-held GPS in one hand and her radio in the other. “I just have to relay this exact location back to the local Interpol detective, and then he’ll know it’s a good place to send in a team to help me catch Mz. Ruby during her supposed rendezvous with Muggshot.”

“Why didn’t you do that before we started trekking through the swamp?”

“Because he’ll need a safe place to land a helicopter, and we sure as hell haven’t found anything open enough for it besides this spot.”

“Good point.” He stepped up to the bizarre statue, and she thought for a moment he was going to try and climb it, but he crouched at its base instead. “I’ll be the look-out while you do your cop thing.”

“My ‘cop thing’,” the inspector repeated, exasperated but not quite as irritated anymore. “What’s it going to take for you to show a little respect for Interpol procedure?”

“Something worth showing respect for.”

Carmelita’s muzzle scrunched up and she rolled her eyes, then switched on her radio and spoke into the receiver.

“Inspector Fox to dispatch. Come in, dispatch. Over.”

Static answered her.

“Dispatch, are you there?”

The static was replaced by a burst of crackling loud enough for both of them to glance around in alarm. It seemed to have gone unnoticed, however, as no guards came rushing out to investigate.

“Maybe the reception is bad where you’re standing?” Sly offered, ears pinned back from either nervousness or the grating sound.

“It shouldn’t be. We’re in a clearing, not in the middle of the trees.” The fox walked a few paces to her left just in case, then tried again. “Inspector Fox to dispatch. Please respond if you hear this, over.”

They watched the little radio struggle to do anything other than spit more static. It was enough to make her grit her teeth in frustration.

“What on earth is wrong with this –”

“Wake up, you lazy bags of swamp gas!”

Mz. Ruby’s voice rang out of the device so suddenly and clearly that Carmelita nearly dropped it in shock. She held it out at arm’s length, afraid to touch any buttons for fear that it would give away her unintentional eavesdropping as the crime boss continued.

“The voodoo vibe is thick tonight. Let’s take advantage of this powerful mojo and step-up production. Keep piling those shiny bones into the soup. We’ll have an army of ghosts by morning, and take over Mexico by the end of the week!”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sly stand up, fully alert. Her own fur was bristled to sharp points all the way down to her tail.

“Hear that, voodoo children?” The alligator practically crooned. “Our family is about to grow, grow, grow-ho-ho-ho!”

The transmission ended, and the radio went back to static as if nothing had happened. Inspector Fox stared at it a moment as everything hit her all at once.

“An army…” She whispered in growing horror. “She’s building an undead army! We have to stop her before she can make any more!”

Her partner, although clearly agitated as well, seemed almost more distracted than horrified. He was watching the distant skull with a flickering tail and an unreadable expression.

“Sly, did you even hear me?”

“Of course I did,” he replied, finally tearing his eyes away to look at her instead. “I just don’t exactly know how we’re supposed to do that when you can’t even call for back-up.”

Carmelita bit her lip as she glanced down at her radio. She put it away quickly and straightened her shoulders before she could second guess herself.

“We’ll just do it all ourselves. This will be a…a two-man operation, just like in Mesa. Don’t –” she cut him off as he started to open his mouth, “give me any snark. I didn’t ask for any and I don’t need any.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the raccoon mumbled, sounding more amused by the command than anything else.

“Okay. Good. We currently have…” she checked her watch, “almost three hours until the rendezvous. That should give us plenty of time to scope out exactly what Mz. Ruby is doing to create her army and put a stop to it.”

“Works for me.” Sly spared one last glance at that distant structure. Carmelita wondered what was so fascinating about it – it was unusually shaped, yes, but so was just about everything around them. “Lead the way, inspector.”

Said inspector gave a resolute nod, self-assuredness growing with her partner’s trust. She had no idea how the two of them were going to stop a supernatural assembly line, but surely they’d be able to find a way without too much hassle…right?

Without giving the doubt a chance to take root, the fox approached the nearest building and began testing the doors. Most were locked with actual, physical padlocks, but she kept a careful eye out for any purple shimmering just in case. When she glanced back to see where her companion was, it came as no surprise to see he had indeed decided to climb the statue and was now perched atop it with his legs swinging idly like he was on a jungle-gym.

As ridiculous as he looked up there, it was obvious he was using the height to be a better look-out, and she felt safe enough to turn her back to the clearing.

It didn’t take very long before she finally found an unlocked door, with the added luck that the windows around it were dark, giving her hope that the building would be vacant while they snooped. She waved Sly over who slid off the statue and was at her side in an instant.

“Found something?” He whispered, turned away from her to continue watching their six.

“I think so.” Carmelita turned the knob and opened the door as quietly as possible, relieved that the hinges didn’t squeak. She slipped into the dark room, the raccoon right behind her, and was suddenly hit with the overpowering smell of poultry.

“Oh, man,” she heard Sly say with a whistle, and when she clicked her flashlight on to see why, she was inclined to agree with him.

Chicken coops lined every wall, nook, and cranny, stacked on top of each other to create an entire maze of countless unevolved birds. Many of them only gave a few curious clucks at the evening disturbance, while the rest remained watchful or asleep. Inspector Fox’s snout scrunched up as she realized the coops hadn’t been cleaned in what was probably a good while; the smell was almost enough to make her gag.

“Why are there so many chickens?” She asked, completely confounded by the sight in front of her. Of all the things she’d expected to find – stored body parts, or zombie production equipment, or a room full of voodoo dolls, maybe – this was not one of them. “What is she even going to do with all of them?”

“An army gets hungry, I bet. Even a zombie one.” The raccoon took a few steps forward and began trailing his gloved hand along the closest cage. “The real question is what we can do with them. You think if I let them all out, it would ruffle some feathers?”

The tone in which he said it was downright gleeful as he threw a mischievous look at her over his shoulder. Carmelita gave him a flat stare in return.

“We’re not setting loose an entire room of chickens, Ringtail.”

“Why not?”

“Because – uh, because…”

She did not have an immediate answer, and that seemed to egg Sly on. Without breaking eye contact with her, his hand wandered over to the first coop’s latch and slowly began to undo it.

“Sly,” she warned.

“What?” He asked in faux innocence. “You said we need to stop Mz. Ruby’s plans. I think this is a pretty great place to start, don’t you?”

Once again, Carmelita didn’t have a rebuttal. She could only watch in a mix of dread and almost inappropriate curiosity as the raccoon opened the coop. He pulled the hen out with surprising gentleness, and it cooed as it woke from his touch. Then he set it on the ground, paused as it blinked up at him…

And lunged at it with a loud growl.

The chicken screeched, startled, and fled in a flurry of flapping feathers. Its panic woke its sisters, and soon the entire room was filled with hens freaking out and trying to escape their coops from the threat. Sly’s snarl settled back into a smug smile as he stared at Inspector Fox’s wide, shocked eyes.

“Most number of released chickens wins!”

And he went straight for the next coop.

Carmelita stood frozen a moment, torn between her learned professionalism and her instinctive competitiveness. Then her partner looked back at her as he opened his third cage with a shit-eating grin across his face.

Oh, it was on.

She ran for the opposite wall and started opening coops one-by-one, ducking wings and beaks and talons as the birds barreled past her in their frenzy to escape. Feathers smacked her in the face when one hen tried to jump into her hair, and she could hear Sly laughing at her as it sent her stumbling backwards, throwing her arms up to try and dislodge the disheveled bird. One quick glance showed he was a few meters away, and she cut off his laughter quick by throwing the chicken at him; suddenly he was the one having to deal with a frantic chicken on his body as it attempted to climb up and into his hoodie.

Carmelita used the distraction to close the small lead he had, and soon they were literally neck and neck, fighting for space to see who could reach the next coop before the other. Chickens screeched and flapped all around them – on the ground, in the air, on top of cages – and it became just as much a part of the game just to avoid tripping on a bird as it was to let them out.

By the time every cage was empty, both of them had lost track of who had opened the most and they were completely surrounded by fowl and feathers. As a final way to add insult to injury, Sly opened the door they had come through and scared the entire flock into a frenzy again, sending chickens outside in what could only be described as a hen hurricane. The two went running out after them, booking it for the nearest cluster of swamp overgrowth to hide in just as one of Mz. Ruby’s men finally realized something was not as it should be.

Sly had the biggest grin on his face as they watched several frantic rats try in vain to corral dozens of poultry back inside the building, and even Carmelita had to admit it was a hilarious sight. She struggled to put her professional mask back over her emotions so they could get back to the real task at hand; it was significantly harder to do when she glanced at her partner and saw feathers poking out of the space between his hoodie and his head.

“You look like you’ve been tarred and feathered,” she couldn’t help but snort as he began plucking them out of his fur one by one.

“And you look like you decided feathers make good hair extensions.” His eyes were twinkling and his teeth were gleaming in the dim glow of the nearest camp lights.

The inspector huffed and started combing her fingers through her hair. “I can’t believe we just did that. That was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It felt like we just TP-ed her front yard.”

“Think of it as calculated sabotage,” the raccoon said cheerfully, in the best mood she’d ever seen him in. “Now all those guards will be too busy catching lost chickens to notice us poking around in the more important parts of this operation. We were just giving ourselves a window of opportunity.”

For the third time in a row, Carmelita found that she could not argue. She rolled her eyes, stood up, and brushed the remaining feathers off her body.

“Come on. We shouldn’t dally here any longer if we’re going to take advantage of that ‘window of opportunity.’”

She held out her hand to help him up and he took it with only a little hesitation. They hurried to the nearest fence, scaled it with no issue, and left behind the lightest of footprints and the screeching of chickens as the only proof of their presence.

Chapter Text

The swamps where the mystic of the Fiendish Five had hid herself were just as cold, wet, and clammy as the last time Sly had been here. He understood the want for privacy from prying eyes, but god was he almost starting to miss Muggshot’s stupid penthouse as he trudged after Inspector Fox through mud and slime and swiped at mosquitos almost as big as him.

At least their impromptu chicken heist had lifted his spirits. It was like a catharsis after so many years of having to clean coops and feed hens and dodge aggressive roosters every time he was dumped here.

After a few minutes of prowling around buildings, tents, and fences, the two of them found themselves on the edge of a drop-off overlooking another large clearing, where trees had been cut down in swathes to make room for what Sly knew was Muggshot’s personal plane. Besides a few lit tiki torches along the outer perimeter, the area was almost untouched by anything man-made or supernatural.

“That must be where the exchange is supposed to take place,” the fox said as she stared out at the empty clearing. “I wonder why the Fiendish Five would ever drop off such a precious object all the way out here. Wouldn’t they be afraid of it getting dirty, or lost?”

Dirty? No. Lost? Absolutely, but the alligator had certainly known how to scare her captive into staying close to “home” over the years – he had witnessed far too many unexplainable things out here to work up the courage to make a break for it as a teenager. In the distance, he could still see Mz. Ruby’s skull temple even through the swamp’s dark haze. It seemed to follow them everywhere no matter where they were in this accursed place.

Fear and uncertainty suddenly prickled Sly’s skin. If she knew he was coming, she could already be lying in wait for him. He could be walking straight into a trap, right back into the metaphorical jaws of hell. The mystic would snap him right up and then there’d be nothing left of him to ever find again.

“– can’t risk compromising this place.” The cop’s voice filtered into his awareness, still talking despite his silence. “We’ll see what else we can find and come back here when it’s time for Mz. Ruby to show her face.”

Oblivious to the raccoon’s tumultuous thoughts, she turned on her heel and practically marched off to her right, eyes on a cluster of glowing lights a ways away.

“Over there, you see that? I bet that’s something worth checking out. Let’s go see what it is.”

Sly didn’t find it necessary to tell her that he knew this area on a personal level he would have really preferred not to. He knew exactly what had caught her attention and why, but at this point anything was better than the place where he was supposed to be handed off between members of the Five like the stolen goods they liked to pretend he was.

So, he followed her away from the clearing, back into the trees and into a place that was probably not great for two trespassers to encounter, and did so without a single word of protest. He could only hope that Mz. Ruby was too busy to notice any disturbances in her territory until it was too late.

Inspector Fox, to her credit, seemed to pick up on the fact that there was something considerably more off about the area than the rest. Maybe it was because of the strange lack of artificial architecture in what was the heart of Mz. Ruby’s base, or that her superstitious partner had gone from “solemn quiet” to “nervous quiet” the more they walked.

Or maybe it was the sudden appearance of all the gravestones.

She stopped again after a few minutes, when the air had grown thick and almost suffocating around them. Sly stopped behind her, watching a nearby cluster of graves that he thought he had seen glow for the quickest blink of an eye.

“What…what’s wrong with this place?” She asked in barely a whisper, having the actual foresight not to disturb the atmosphere that seemed ready to strike at any disruption. “It feels like we’re being watched, but I can’t see or hear any guards around…”

The raccoon leaned in close, careful not to touch her at all even as his mouth came right next to her swiveling right ear. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

His eyes remained locked on those tombstones.

“Um…” Her gaze followed his, just in time to see a ripple split the air above them. “…Why?”

“Because if you don’t, you’re about to.”

As if on cue, the gravestones glowed a violent turquoise, and a horrible, bone-chilling wail broke across the swamp and through their cores. A blue ghostly body erupted out of the nearest stone, vaguely feline-shaped, moaning with arms outstretched as if its only goal was to turn the trespassers into the thing that it itself had become.

Inspector Fox shouted in shock, swinging her shock pistol up automatically to shoot at the attacker before it could come any closer. The electric charge exploded on impact with the ghost’s chest – and the ghost exploded in turn.

It was quiet for all of three seconds as they tried to process what the hell just happened, and then suddenly every grave was conjuring up ghosts, all dead set on harming the intruders. Sly didn’t have time to think as he grabbed the inspector by the wrist and yanked her backwards before they were surrounded with no escape.

A dozen haunting screams followed them in an octave that shouldn’t exist in the living world.

The fox barely stumbled at his pull; she twisted every which way and shot as rapidly as she could at each and every specter coming after them, either unphased by the supernatural or running on autopilot just to survive. For every ghost that she blasted apart, two more took its place. Sly knew that the only way to stop the onslaught was to either destroy the tombstones they were coming from or escape the ghosts’ “territory”, marked by the glowing lights that had drawn in Inspector Fox in the first place.

A ghost’s breath chilled the fur of his tail from behind and he turned around as fast as he could, backpack sliding off his shoulders into his right hand just in time to slam it into the translucent jaw of the specter before it could grab him. The blow was enough to burst it apart, but he didn’t have time to be grateful for it as he immediately had to swing his pack at another attacker. He didn’t know if the backpack was actually strong enough to blow them up or if it was the Cooper cane tucked inside, but he wasn’t about to question it.

His back hit that of the inspector’s, who was still shooting wildly to keep the worst of the swarm at bay.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” He yelled over the howling around them.

She shook her head and he could feel it against the back of his skull. “No! We have to destroy them all! They’re part of her army!”

“They’ll just keep coming forever! There’s no way we can –”

His eyes landed on a glowing gravestone spewing up ghosts at the exact same time her own body stilled behind him. She had seen the same thing he had.

“Separate on three!” The fox called out. “Break as many as you can, I’ll cover you!”

He nodded, knowing she would feel it, and slammed another ghost out of existence.

“One!”

His body coiled into a spring.

“Two!”

She shifted her weight with a growl.

“Three! Go!”

Sly took off running for the nearest gravestone just as Inspector Fox’s pistol shot an opening for him through the wall of specters. He ducked furious swipes, all his fur standing on end, and smashed his backpack into the stone with all his might and momentum. It shattered with a force that sent tremors up his hand.

But he didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down.

“Left!” He screamed, veering that very direction towards the next tombstone. The fox took his directional cue perfectly, cutting another swathe down just in time for him to reach it and break it into as many pieces as the previous.

With every step he took he could hear his partner shooting, keeping ghosts off herself and off of him at a speed that must have been a sight to see. But he didn’t dare even turn his head to risk a glance while he kept moving, darting between ghosts in the spaces she left and taking down gravestones the moment he was close enough to swing. Slowly, amazingly, the discordant wailing fell from an overwhelming cacophony to a handful of screeches as Inspector Fox mowed down ghosts and Sly took down their sources.

Finally, after a minute and eternity, he broke the last glowing stone before its final ghost could even pull its moaning head out of the ground. It disappeared instantly, and the dark swamp went quiet.

Breathing heavily, feeling a sheen of sweat on his brow, the raccoon didn’t allow himself to relax until he turned a full circle, looking for any sign of supernatural strays ready to grab him while his guard was down. His companion did the same, and their eyes locked as nothing came up between them. She heaved out a long breath and came up to him with her weapon still halfway raised for more combat.

“That was insane,” she huffed as she began checking the pistol. “I never thought in my life that I’d fight a horde of ghosts. I think that was the most I’ve ever had to shoot this thing at one time.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you know how to use it, or else we would’ve been toast.”

Sly did another glance around just to make sure they’d destroyed every single glowing gravestone. He saw a non-glowing one a few feet away, picked up a large rock, and threw it at the harmless thing. It crumbled just as easily as every other one. Inspector Fox eyed him as he did it.

“What?” He asked, already defensive, “you got a problem with me desecrating graves all of a sudden?”

“No. Just wondering if you’re alright.”

“Course I’m alright. Didn’t get grabbed once thanks to you.”

“Yeah, but it was still intense, even for me. Most people have never experienced anything like…that.”

She gestured to the wreckage around them, seemingly at a loss for words for how to describe it. The raccoon snorted.

“Trust me, inspector, it’s going to take a lot more than a tangle with the supernatural to shake me. I’m not going to be dead weight for you.”

“That’s not what I meant, Ringtail.” Her hand came up and clamped down haltingly onto his shoulder. She patted him a few times, rather awkwardly, before stepping back out of his space. “I’m just checking in. That’s what partners do.”

Something twisted in his stomach that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He pushed it away to think about when he wasn’t in the heart of Mz. Ruby’s territory. “Sure. I know that. Thanks.”

“Of course.” The fox gave him a small smile before turning back to survey the area. “Now that we’ve gotten that whole ghost…army…thing, out of the way, shall we keep going? There’s probably more of those ghost generators out there.”

“Ghost generators?”

“Don’t start getting snarky! You know what I meant.”

He slid his backpack over his shoulders again as they began to walk. “I know what you meant. I just think it’s funny.”

“It’s an apt description!”

“And it’s funny.”

They went back and forth like that for a few minutes, letting the familiar ribbing smooth their hackles and stop the mild tremors that were still going through both their bodies. One could deal with the supernatural for their entire lives and still feel they were going to have their souls stolen after such a close encounter.

Just as Inspector Fox suspected, there were a few more tombstones that spit up ghosts when they came too close, but all were too scattered to bombard them like the first wave had, and they were easily taken care of by a few of the fox’s well-placed kicks. The pervasive thickness over the whole place lessened with each removed ‘generator’, until eventually they could start to hear the natural sounds of the swamp around them again.

“Well, I think this whole area is probably free of hauntings now,” she announced after another five minutes of leaving no gravestone unturned. “I don’t see any more glowing and we’ve gone pretty far from the camp. Do you think we should turn back now?”

Sly looked ahead, where he could just faintly see the outline of the mystic’s spiky perimeter fence in the distance. Then he looked behind them, where her skull temple loomed in the darkness – still visible even from out here.

“Probably a good idea. We don’t want to stray too far off-course before your rendezvous with Mz. Ruby. Might make you late to your date.”

“Please don’t ever call it that again.”

“No promises.”

A companionable silence fell between them after that. The inspector kept her pistol out of her holster, but she walked with loose shoulders and assured steps that hadn’t been unsettled by what was probably her first real experience with the supernatural, if Sly had to guess. He caught himself looking at her out of the corner of his eye more than once as they began making their way back towards the center of the base. It was the way she carried herself; the way she was simultaneously on-guard for danger and yet so confident in her abilities to fight that danger that she seemed almost relaxed.

A week ago, he wouldn’t have even bothered studying her, much less take note of anything that wasn’t important to his own wellbeing. Now, he found that there was something almost calming about it. Knowing there was someone here who could not only handle herself but also look out for him, who had already been looking out for him. It made the impossible task he was facing feel a little less daunting.

Not a whole lot. But a little. Just enough that maybe he could get used to the idea of referring to her as “Carmelita” in his head instead of “cop”. Since they were partners and all that.

He’d just never admit that to her out loud.

It didn’t take much longer for man-made lights to begin popping up around them again, and they both began trekking more cautiously for fear of alerting any guards in the area. Strangely, however, there was still no sign of any other life despite the fact that all the ghosts were long-gone. It made something itch under Sly’s skin, and he started glancing around more often only to still come up with nothing.

Then they came across the river.

It wasn’t a very large or fast-moving river by any means, but it was thick with green and looked a lot more like a bog than what it actually was. The raccoon poked at the water with a long stick while his companion squinted into the foggy distance.

“I think I see something out that way…” she mumbled, pulling out a pair of fancy night-vision binoculars to help her look. “Yep. There’s a huge compound on the other side of this river, and I can see a bunch of…uh…”

The way the fox trailed off sounded more like she wasn’t sure how to describe something than that she couldn’t see it. Sly held out a hand and was mildly surprised when she gave the binoculars to him without any hesitation. He put them to his face and caught sight of what she was talking about; a group of buildings surrounded a bog not too different from this one, but what really grabbed his attention was the thing in the center of it.

It looked like a giant egg beater. Rotating machine parts in an unnatural combination of technology and the occult, stirring up the soupy liquid making up the bog that most definitely could not be called “water” anymore.

“I see it,” he replied, keeping his eyes trained on the odd contraption. Two guards were perched on a platform in the center, safe from the equipment while they made sure everything was going smoothly. Every now and then, one of them pulled gunk from between the gears while the other checked a large, bouncing lid that seemed to want to jump out of place without the rats’ constant attention to keep it in check.

Sly wasn’t an engineer by any means of the word, but he’d spent a lot of time doing dirty work with Raleigh’s machinery, and he knew how much the frog loved to use pressurized steam on everything he touched. He’d recognize a place for potential build-up in his sleep.

The skull temple’s snout, he also noticed, was looming almost directly above the enormous stirring machine.

“Ringtail?” Carmelita said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “What do you think?”

He handed her binoculars back to her. The way the temple shadowed over that whole area was beginning to ruminate in his head. Not unlike the egg beater, actually. “I think we should head that way. It looks important to Mz. Ruby’s plans.”

“Agreed.” She put her gear away, then grimaced as she looked out at the river in front of them. “Bleck. I’m going to smell like swamp for a month after this.”

The raccoon hesitated as he too looked down at it. “How, uh, how deep does that look like to you?”

The inspector stopped with her boots already ankle-deep in the water. She turned to him with a pensive expression.

“Sly,” she said, very slowly, “please don’t tell me that you can’t swim.”

“Okay. I won’t tell you that.”

“This is not the time for jokes. I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and ignored the growing irritation on her face. Ignored the way it made him feel inadequate. “Look, it’s fine, alright? I’ll just find another way across.”

“How? We haven’t seen a single bridge and I don’t want you to have to walk until you find one. We shouldn’t split up this deep in enemy territory.”

Sly gestured up towards the trees around them. “I’ll do what I did at the gate. It won’t be hard.”

Despite the dubious look she shot him, Carmelita seemed to accept that he was capable enough to pull it off, because she turned back towards the river and began wading forward with only the slightest hesitation. The raccoon, meanwhile, started climbing the nearest tree.

Once he found his footing, he took a moment before hopping each branch to simply enjoy the fact that he could. Being able to use a technique from the Thievius Raccoonus as it was truly meant to be used – and to use it successfully – made him feel like he was invincible. Up here, surrounded by opportunities on all sides, he could practically feel the itch to move in rhythm with a kind of music that was ancient and extraordinary; a legacy that was so much greater than him, that he was lucky enough to just be a part of at all.

Sly jumped from branch to branch with ease, giving into that hypnotic feeling and being rewarded with a flow of movement that gave him more assurance than anything else he’d ever done before. For the first time in a long time, he felt confident in himself despite everything the Five had done to prevent it.

“Estúpida agua turbia!”

Of course, he couldn’t give the Thievius Raccoonus the entire credit for that.

The raccoon paused on a particularly long branch to glance down in amusement at the inspector, who was cursing out the water that currently sat up to her waist. She wrinkled her nose as she picked a long trail of green slime out of her tail and tossed it away, oblivious to her partner who was silently snickering above her.

“Having fun down there?” He called.

Carmelita threw him a withering glare that only had him grinning wider. He made a show of lightly stepping across his natural wooden tightrope like it was the easiest thing in the world – because it was.

“Lovely weather up here. You should join me next time.”

“If I go up there it will be to knock that smug smile off your face by knocking you off your stupid perch,” she muttered without any heat behind her words. “And then we’ll see if you still feel like laughing.”

“Oh, come on, Inspector! Lighten up! It’s not every day I can say I have the high ground over someone as morally perfect as you!” He reached the end of the branch and angled himself for a jump for the next tree. They were both over halfway across the river, now.

“You’re not going to have the high ground in a minute if you keep goading me, Ringtail. Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase ‘pride comes before a fall’?”

“Sure, but I never fall.”

Sly jumped.

And landed.

There was exactly one moment, as his feet hit what should have been steady wood, for the wrongness to burst up his spine in a familiar chill of dread right before the tree began to move of its own accord.

It came to life under him like some twisted fairy tale straight out of a nightmare – two hateful, glowing eyes opened centimeters from his face as the “tree” let out a noiseless snarl and suddenly there were branches reaching for him from all sides. Sly backpedaled as fast as he could, barely avoiding the angry swipe that would’ve taken off his arm entirely if it had hit, but the thing kept reaching, kept coming, looking to ensnare him in its countless limbs and either tear him apart or trap him forever.

He didn’t think twice. He couldn’t.

He dove for the river.

“Sly!”

It was deceptively warm, the water. He plunged into it expecting the cold and nearly choked when it felt instead like a thick soup, bogging down his body and turning his movements sluggish. He twisted in a circle, trying to find the surface or at least a foothold at the bottom, but the murky water held him tight in its suffocating limbo.

Then there was an arm around his neck.

Sly stopped flailing as Inspector Fox pulled him close against her chest, letting her propel them upwards with speed and power he could never hope to match. Their heads broke through the grimy surface together, but he remained limp as she swam towards the opposite shore, knowing that any attempts to help would only make things harder for her.

As soon as they touched solid ground, the fox sat them both on the muddy bank as they caught their breaths together. Waterlogged and miserable, Sly carefully removed himself from her hold so he didn’t have to feel her heart beating rapidly against his skin.

“Are you okay?” She asked, running a hand through her hair to pull out muck as if she hadn’t just carried him halfway across a river. Good compartmentalizing or trying to get rid of nervous energy; he didn’t know which.

“I’m fine.”

And he was fine, even if his nerves were shot to hell. He glanced up at the trees, but the monstrosity among them had gone back to blending in so seamlessly that he couldn’t pick it out no matter how hard he looked. All of a sudden it didn’t feel like such a good idea to be climbing trees anymore.

“Just got a little spooked. What about you?”

“I’m alright. Also just a little spooked.” The fox peeled her jacket off to shake it out, and he decided he should probably do the same with his own hoodie when he felt slime sticking to his stomach fur.

“Well, at least now we know why we haven’t encountered any guards around here,” he said as he began lifting it up towards his head. “They probably didn’t want to tangle with –”

His shirt rode up with his hoodie before he could realize what was happening.

She gasped.

He froze for half a second, brain stalling on her stunned face, before understanding hit him like a freight train and he hastily brought his clothes right back down again.

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t thinking,” he spoke rapidly, slipping a crooked smile into place with a dismissive wave of his hand like it might erase what he feared she’d seen. “Didn’t mean to flash you.”

Carmelita’s mouth opened, then closed, seemingly at a loss for words. When she finally spoke, it was with a voice softer than anything the raccoon had ever heard from her.

“Sly…what happened?”

Fuck. His hands clenched the hem of the shirt he was still holding onto. “Just slipped and took a tumble in the swamp. You saw it. I’m not hurt.”

The inspector locked her jaw in that way he’d learned meant she was about to be stubborn. “What was that on your chest?”

She took a step forward, and although there was no indication she’d reach for him, he shied away regardless.

“Probably some swamp gunk. It felt like I was wading in a big pot of –”

“The scars, Sly.”

“Oh. Those. Right.” He laughed. The pitch was all wrong. “Accident with a machine years ago. It’s been so long, I pretty much forgot about it. I don’t even notice they’re there anymore. Don’t worry about it.”

His skin burned under his soaked shirt, just like her eyes did as she stared at him with a pinched expression he couldn’t figure out.

“That doesn’t…look like a machinery accident,” Carmelita said tentatively, carefully, like he was a fragile thing about to shatter under the wrong words. “That looks more like a –”

“What can I say!” Sly cut her off a little too fast. “I was young and stupid. It was my fault, anyway.”

The edge in his voice left no room for argument, and the raccoon stood up and pushed past her before she could make one in spite of it.

“We shouldn’t waste any more time. The longer we dawdle, the more likely Mz. Ruby will know we’re here.”

He didn’t turn around when he heard her get to her feet. He didn’t turn around to see if she would follow. He didn’t turn around at the quiet way she called his name again, the plea and worry and apology all wrapped up in one dangerous word that he pretended not to hear. Sly kept walking, ignoring the burning eyes on his back and the burning scars on his chest.

So much for feeling confident.

Chapter Text

They didn’t speak again for a long time after that.

Sly wanted to pretend it was because they were trying to be quiet. They’d finally starting encountering guards again and it had slowed their travel considerably as they worked their way towards the supernatural factory and all its untold horrors. But he could feel Inspector Fox’s gaze on him whenever she could spare the risk, and he knew the lack of chatter was because she was thinking about what she’d just seen, waiting for the right moment to broach the subject when his guard was down.

Unfortunately for her, he never let his guard down – and he wasn’t going to give her the moment she was hoping for. He stayed a few paces ahead of her at all times, eyes forward, and put all his focus into traversing the treacherous terrain. It wasn’t safe to be vulnerable out here. Not here and not ever.

Eventually, the ground went from wet and spongy to hard and compact, and the two saw the dark shape of something ahead of them. It was roughly the size of a building, but calling it one implied that it had a definable shape or obvious purpose. No, the thing ahead of them could only be described as a structure, and the pure malice emanating off of it was enough to give the ghosts from earlier a run for their money.

The fox crouched at the base of some foliage a few meters away from the entrance, whipping out her night vision goggles again so she could better watch the three people milling about in front of it. A rat and two turtles, Sly noted as he joined her. They all seemed to be enjoying a break together and weren’t actually guarding the place.

He lightly tapped his partner’s shoulder and gave her a questioning look when she turned towards him. What’s the plan?

She pursed her lips, glancing back at the loitering guards, and risked whispering as quietly as she could. “I don’t know yet. There’s not a lot of cover between here and over there, and if I start shooting then it could cause others to come running.”

The raccoon eyed the landscape. Most of the plant life was low to the ground, leaving very few shadows they could hide in, and the distance was just far enough that the guards would still have enough time to yell or sound the alarm if they rushed them. If it were only him, he could probably slip by them all without too much trouble, but the inspector was another matter entirely; he knew without asking that she would refuse to wait outside, either.

But if they used their strengths together…

“I think I have an idea,” he said, studying the layout of the land. “If I can get over there on my own, I can take down at least one of those guys. I just have one question first.”

She shot him a sharp look. “What’s that?”

“How fast can you run?”

“I –” Carmelita glanced at the eight or so meters separating them from the goons and the entrance. Her eyes were bright and calculating as she considered the situation. “I can get there in five seconds, tops.”

“Good.” Sly rolled his shoulders and neck, then got down even lower until he was flat on his stomach. “Get ready to go as soon as I jump out of hiding.”

“Are you sure?”

The question made him pause – not for the words but the tone of voice. He looked up to gauge her expression, and wasn’t so surprised anymore that no doubt was there. Only determination and the slightest tint of worry for his wellbeing. He gave a crooked smile in return.

“Yeah. We’ve got this.”

With that, the raccoon started belly-crawling across the dirty ground. The plant cover left a lot to be desired, but he worked with what he had and began slowly making his way towards the goons, silent as a proper thief should be. The night sky was cloudy and there were just enough torches to aid in his stealth instead of hindering him, casting long shadows that he slipped into when the foliage wasn’t enough on its own. As he moved at a snail’s pace, he mulled over which guard to target and the best way to do it successfully.

His cane was a no-go. Even if he was willing to risk the sound of pulling it out of his backpack, he knew Inspector Fox was watching, and there was no way in hell that he’d ever let her see what he was carrying. His father had probably been on every Interpol watchlist in every corner of the globe; the chances of her not recognizing the Cooper Cane was just as likely as the chances that the Fiendish Five would have let him live if he hadn’t started working for them.

That was to say, no chance at all.

So, he was going to have to improvise on the sneak attack, but he wasn’t too worried. Thinking on his feet was what he did best.

The three guards were none the wiser as Sly crept close enough to touch them. He sized each of them up and decided that if this plan was going to work, he’d have to take out the rat, who was considerably bigger than the other two and looked to be their higher-up. Slowly, he slunk around behind them until he was staring at the rat’s back. He’d have only one shot, and he had to make it count.

Like a striking snake, Sly launched off his heels and into the guard. The force of his tackle was enough to send the startled goon toppling forward, but the raccoon didn’t let himself get cocky. He clung to the rat’s back, wrapped his arms around his neck, and squeezed with all his might.

The others had been caught so off guard by the unexpected assault that they gaped for a few precious seconds before snapping to attention with twin snarls. Before they could even think to grab Sly or call for help, a boot cracked into the jaw of one turtle as Carmelita appeared to make a spinning heel kick with all the force of her sprint put into it. They dropped like a rock, and the final guard didn’t even have time to register that fact before the inspector took him down, too.

Sly saw the whole thing out of the corner of his eye as he struggled to slow the rat’s desperate thrashing beneath him. The guard was gasping for breath, pawing frantically at the arms choking him, getting weaker and more sluggish with each passing second. Finally, the man went limp, and he released him with a quiet sigh of relief.

“You didn’t just kill him, did you?”

“No.” He hopped off the unconscious guard so Inspector Fox could cuff the guy. “He’ll probably feel like garbage when he wakes up, though.”

“Hopefully that won’t be anytime soon.” She finished securing the others, then looked down at all three of them while biting her lip. “Dammit.”

“What?”

“I didn’t think this through – I’m used to having a team ready to cart criminals away after I detain them. What happens if they wake up and make a ruckus before the rendezvous? My best chance to catch Mz. Ruby will be gone.”

“Oh, that’s an easy fix. Just gag them and drag them out of sight. That should give you plenty of time to do what you need to do.”

The fox fixed him with a flat, disapproving stare. “That’s inhumane. I’m not doing that.”

“You are if you don’t want your cover blown before it’s too late,” he fired back immediately. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that. Besides, it’s not like you’re leaving them to die. You’re just…putting them on a timeout for a few hours at most before your buddies come to help arrest everyone. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

Carmelita made a face, but the way she kept glancing down at the men sprawled out around them told him she was actually considering his words. After a very obvious internal battle, she slumped her shoulders like she’d just lost an argument – which she absolutely had, in Sly’s opinion – and they began the process of getting the guards safely out of the way.

There was a keyring on the rat’s belt, glinting in the nearby lantern light, that caught the raccoon’s eye. He unclipped it and hid it in his hoodie’s pocket without a word as he dragged the man behind the nearest tree. His companion, too busy with pulling both the turtles at once, was none the wiser.

Once that was done, they headed through the entrance to the bizarre structure.

“You’re a terrible influence, Ringtail,” she muttered with not nearly as much heat as he would’ve expected. “I hope you know that. A terrible influence.”

“Pleasure to be of service,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk. It was fantastic to see such a hard-assed cop skirting her moral code, even with something as benign as that.

“You could at least pretend to feel bad about it, you know.”

“Nah. I’m the little devil on your shoulder.” Just to be facetious, he sidled up next to her and bumped said shoulder with his own.

The inspector rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say died in her throat as they entered an enclosed space that almost resembled a factory. A dark, half-organic, filled-to-the-brim-with-swamp-water-and-supernatural-elements kind of factory, but a factory nonetheless.

There were two levels from what they could tell. The ground floor, which they were on, had more of the same strange machinery as the giant soup stirrer had been, whisking away at the thick water in slow but measured motions. Above them was a series of suspended bridges where guards with flashlights watched the whole operation and intermittently checked clipboards.

And bridging the gap between levels, gushing green liquid in a never-ending spout, was a waterfall. A waterfall overflowing with –

“Oh my god,” Carmelita whispered in horror. “Are those – are those body parts in there?”

Sly stood stiffly at her side, feeling more than a little queasy at the sight of bones and corpses bits falling down into the soup below with audible, disgusting splashes. “Looks like it.”

They stood together for a whole minute staring at the entire operation, taking in every detail because they had no other choice. The smell of death and decay was almost overpowering, and combined with the sight it felt like they had just stepped into the scene of a horror movie.

“We’ll take over Mexico by the end of the week,” had been the mystic’s exact words, but while Mz. Ruby had always been a realist with her goals, the raccoon had thought that announcement sounded more like a pep talk than an actual, achievable thing.

He wasn’t so sure anymore.

“We have to find a way to shut it all down,” Carmelita said with a growing drive that was strengthened by revulsion. “This can’t be allowed to continue any longer.”

“Okay, but…where do we even start? This is – I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Sly had never been allowed here before; he’d been told that it was for his own health and not because the alligator thought he’d ruin something. He hadn’t believed that at all back then, but now, looking at the wrongness of everything before him, he was suddenly grateful for one of the few small mercies Mz. Ruby had spared him.

She had said it herself, after all: she didn’t find much pleasure in tormenting children.

“We can’t even go any further than this. There are guards and searchlights everywhere. We’d be caught before we could blink.” It stung to admit it, but it was the truth. There was no way they’d sneak past all those watchful eyes.

The fox looked frustrated by his words. “I can’t just let this – this travesty exist without doing anything to stop it! She’s making zombies!”

Neither of them had any idea how the alligator was making zombies out of the mess before them, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was just the fact that she was.

“I know. We’ll stop it somehow.” He tentatively began creeping forward, gaze flicking back and forth and up and down across the entire expanse. Carmelita followed his lead, snout twisted in disgust.

Hey there, Sly Cooper!

Sly stopped in his tracks. All his fur stood on end. Ice prickled through his limbs and straight into his heart at the voice that was suddenly in his head.

That’s right, I know you’re here! Mz. Ruby taunted gleefully. I’ve seen it in the stars; it’s all over my tea leaves.

“Everything okay?” The inspector asked, turning to look at him with concern.

“Y-Yeah,” he stammered, flexing his hands in a conscious effort to hold back the shroud of panic coming down over his thoughts – or maybe that was just the alligator herself, snaring his mind into her hold. “The smell of this place is just really getting to me. Feeling a little –”

I’m in your mind, raccoon!

“…Lightheaded.”

Mz. Ruby couldn’t hear his thoughts. She could project her voice into the minds of others, but she couldn’t read them. That was the only thing that kept him from becoming absolutely hysterical.

You think I wouldn’t notice sabotage in my own backyard? The mystic tutted, as if reprimanding him for tracking mud on her carpet instead of actively halting her operation. I have to say, though, I wasn’t expecting you to be so bold. When I heard Muggshot had been taken down, I’d assumed you’d either been caught too or run off with your tail ‘tween your legs.

“Why don’t we go back outside for now?”

Sly barely registered his companion’s suggestion, nor the touch of her hand at the crook of his elbow as she led him out of the factory. He walked as steadily as he could, struggling to focus on two very different voices at once.

But here you are, tryin’ to get my attention. Well, darlin’, you’ve got it! And now that you’ve got it…

The fresh, humid air on his face was a blast to his senses, and he wished desperately that it would drown out her words.

You’re gonna sorely wish you never had it.

“How’s this?” Carmelita asked, watching him with worried eyes.

“Fine. It’s fine,” he croaked, finding a rock to sit on before his legs gave out under him. He hung his head low and began taking long, shaky breaths. “Just – just give me a minute.”

If I was you, I’d think long and hard ‘bout my next choice, Sly. I know your game. I know what you’re after. If you give up now and come meet me at the usual place, we don’t gotta tell no one ‘bout your little adventure. I’ll even let you keep what you took from Muggshot! Only fair when you beat him all by yourself. Don’t know how you did it, but you did it.

The realization hit him with nearly the same force as the mystic’s voice in his head had, cutting through his panic like a beam of light through fog. She didn’t know about Inspector Fox. She thought he was doing this by himself, without any outside help. And why would she think otherwise? She’d been the one to drill the fear of cops into his soul in the first place.

But if you keep makin’ a mess of my place… Mz. Ruby hissed. All amusement dropped from her tone in an instant. Then me and my voodoo children are gonna sign you up for an eternity of zombie servitude!

The raccoon let out a harsh exhale through his nose when the intrusive weight left his mind. He shook his head as if to clear it of whatever awful psychic residue might’ve been left behind, and looked up at his partner, who was still hovering like she was afraid he’d keel over. He managed a shaky smile.

“It’s alright. I’m feeling a lot better, now. I think the worst of the wooziness has passed.”

And it had. Mz. Ruby’s threat bounced in the back of his skull, keeping his fur stiff, but he had far too much practice in shrugging off her mind games once they were done. The terror he’d felt initially had been because he thought she’d found them – found him – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She’d told him to come to her, at the rendezvous point, because she couldn’t find him. And, to top it all off, she didn’t know he wasn’t alone.

It was crucial knowledge she didn’t have. It was crucial knowledge he could exploit.

That didn’t mean that he had recovered completely. His body was still trembling with adrenaline as he made himself stand up. “Yeah, see? Perfectly fine. Quick question, though – how much time do we have before you go ‘meet’ Mz. Ruby?”

Carmelita’s eyebrows came down heavy over her eyes, clearly not buying his claim that he was okay, but she dutifully glanced at her watch instead of calling him out on his false bravado.

“About half an hour, give or take,” she said. “Not a whole lot of time to find a way to destroy that factory.”

Sly grimaced. No, not enough time at all. “I think we’re going to have to cut our losses and find something else to break.”

“I can’t just –”

“We have to, Inspector. You’d need an entire squad of cops to dismantle this place, and I don’t see either of us pulling that out of our packs anytime soon. Besides, you need to think about travel time, too. How long is it going to take to trek back to that clearing from here?”

He watched the fox’s protests die on her tongue. She huffed, clearly torn between the want for immediate justice and the patience for a long con.

“…Small details, Fox,” she muttered to herself, clenching her fists at her sides as she looked back at the dark structure. “Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.”

Sly blinked, wondering where that had come from, but she squared her shoulders and jutted out her chin before he could ask.

“Alright, Ringtail. We’ll start making our way back, but if we find something worth stopping then I’m going to stop it.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to stop you from stopping it.”

“That was terrible,” Carmelita groaned, even as some of her frustration left.

“Sure, but it made you feel better, didn’t it?”

“Oh, hush.”

They left the zombie factory behind, and Sly shrugged off the lingering dread of Mz. Ruby’s presence in his head with a little less difficulty than usual, which he begrudgingly chalked up to the presence at his side. The waning time limit, however, loomed over them both no matter how they tried to distract themselves from it.

Until they came across the wall.

It wasn’t just a wall; it was practically a fortress. Made of solid stone and easily four meters high, it curved in a large arc that they followed until finding a gate that was eerily similar to the one they’d encountered on the outskirts of the alligator’s territory.

“What’s with this industrial-strength gate?” the inspector asked, craning her neck up high to stare at the blockade towering over both of them. “Not even the one surrounding Mz. Ruby’s base was this massive. Is she trying to keep something specific out?”

Sly eyed the innocent-looking swamp beyond the wall with more than a little unease. He had never been allowed back here, just like he’d never been allowed inside the factory. He was going in as blind as his partner now, and it made him nervous.

“Maybe…she’s trying to keep something in.”

The fox looked at him, then at the gate again. She seemed to be considering his words.

“Well, whatever the case, it’s in our best interest to find out what’s behind it, especially if it has to do with her zombie production.” Carmelita jerked a thumb at a nearby tree that was just tall enough to barely clear the top of the wall. “Think you can do some of your fancy footwork and get up there for me?”

“Easily.”

“Good. Then, here –” she reached behind and into her backpack, pulling out a long coil of wire rope. “Take this up with you and find something sturdy to tie it to. I’ll do the rest.”

“Aye-aye, ma’am.”

He took the rope and approached the tree, then hesitated. The tree looked normal. It looked like any other tree in the swamp. But remembering glowing eyes and reaching tendrils had him almost afraid to come too close. His partner seemed to guess why he was apprehensive, because she put a hand on his shoulder and held up her shock pistol.

“Just to be sure,” she said firmly, following the statement by shooting straight into the tree. Sly gaped as electricity crackled against bark and brambles, but other than a brief light show, nothing else happened. The thing didn’t come to life, or attack them, or react in any other way than a tree that was just struck by lightning.

“Ah…thanks.”

Without giving her a chance to respond, the raccoon started climbing. He reached the top in no time at all and looked down at the inspector, who mimed tying the rope into a knot. Nodding, he wrapped one end around the trunk, tied it as securely as he could, and dropped the other end down the side for her to grab. She wasted no time pulling herself up with it, and soon they were standing on the top of the circular wall, surveying what was inside.

It was mostly just more swamp. Sly scanned the enclosure, but there was no sign of the supposed thing that Mz. Ruby wanted under lock and key. The water was still, the plants were lush, and bugs buzzed as if to say they were silly to find any danger at all.

“It doesn’t look any different than the rest of the swamp,” Carmelita murmured, confused. “I don’t even see any supernatural stuff. What do you think?”

He didn’t respond verbally, instead opting to begin inching his way down the other side of the wall by the gate. As soon as he touched the ground, he began creeping towards the edge of the water as carefully as he could. A quiet thud behind him told him that she had followed his lead.

“There has to be a reason for this thing to exist,” he said more to himself than to her. “It doesn’t make sense for her to build something so big without a purpose to it.”

He turned his attention back to the gate, and noticed a large silver lock at its center – another difference from the voodoo-powered one of several hours ago. Almost out of habit, with a glance at the fox who was still staring out at the contained swamp, he pulled out the keyring he’d stolen earlier and began testing keys one at a time.

Why keep a gate locked from the inside? He wondered. That doesn’t make any sense.

Inspector Fox walked a little further away out of the corner of his eye, climbing onto a large tree root to better look around her. He watched her in his peripherals as he worked methodically at his own task.

“Maybe this place is some kind of containment for all her zombies when she doesn’t need them,” she suggested.

“Then why all the water? Why not a place with solid ground?”

“I don’t know!” Carmelita threw up her hands and kicked at the bark under her heel.

A few chunks flew off into the water below with a splash, leaving ripples that steadily grew across the surface. Sly’s eyes tracked the sudden movement for a moment or two before returning to his keys.

“I’m just trying to make sense of all of it! Why would she make an undead army in the first place, huh? She’s the kind of criminal who steals, and murders, and bribes the local police force to keep it quiet! Not – not the kind who takes over a quarter of Latin America!”

A quiet click made the raccoon’s ears perk at the second-to-last key. He pulled away and was satisfied to see the gate begin to creak open at his light touch. Then he turned around, about to show her what he’d done –

And froze as he caught sight of the swamp. There were still ripples there, lasting far longer than they should have with just a few pieces of bark. And they were growing.

“Inspector…” Sly said, eyes locked on the unnatural movement.

“And that’s another thing!” She continued, not hearing him at all. “Why not do something that draws less attention to yourself? That woman has to be in her fifties now, right? I’d think she’d want to look more into retirement like most of the rest of the Five! She’s not a meathead like Muggshot!”

Something was bubbling under the surface of the water.

“Inspector Fox.”

“I thought she was one of the smartest members of the group! Why this? Why any of it? Why be a criminal in the first place?”

There was no time to be bitter about the ignorant words she was spewing. Not when a dark shape was rising ever so slowly out of the swamp behind her.

“Carmelita!”

“What!”

The puff of breath over her shoulder made her freeze. She stared at Sly, who stared at the thing that had just appeared behind her. A giant serpentine head, full of teeth, with one yellow eye fixed on the two petrified intruders in its territory. Its forked tongue flicked the air and suddenly its lazy gaze turned sharp and focused.

Sly’s mouth moved without sound.

“Run.”

Inspector Fox launched forward just in time for the swamp monster to snap its jaws shut around the tree root she’d just been standing on. She rushed for Sly, and Sly turned and slammed into the gate with all his might. They tumbled through, barely caught their footing, and kept running as the giant snake made a terrible noise too loud to be a hiss and too wrong to be a roar.

They ran blindly, terrified of the thing nipping at their heels, feeling its hot breath at their fur and hearing the crack, crack, crackling of the swamp being crushed under its colossal belly as it followed them out of its cage and into the open bog.

Sly’s mind was barely his own amidst his panic. Ancient instincts screamed at him to escape, to run until he couldn’t run anymore, knowing that death was right behind him and that once it had him in its clutches then his life was forfeit. It was a feeling far too familiar, one that he’d experienced two other times in his life – once on the night he’d been abducted, and the other –

His chest ached at the memory, snapping him into a single moment of clarity where the world seemed to halt around him. He could sense Inspector Fox in a similar frenzy beside him. He could sense the monster at his back.

And to his right, far ahead, he could see the zombie factory.

Time started moving again. So did Sly.

He grabbed Carmelita’s wrist with his left hand and pivoted on his right foot, jolting forward with as much strength as he could to keep them moving when she almost tripped. The giant snake let out another hissing scream and changed its direction to keep following.

“This way!” The raccoon cried out, breathless, pulling her with all his might until she understood.

He could feel the second she did, too – her head snapped up towards the dark structure in the distance and suddenly her weight was shifting, she was no longer lagging, she was surging forward with their hands still linked.

Their race to survive had suddenly become a game of tag.

Up one slope and down the next, and suddenly it was right there before them. A few guards turned at the sound of the commotion only to scatter like roaches at the sight of the huge serpent barreling towards them.

The swamp monster’s attention drew to the screaming goons like a moth to the flame as they all ran inside, and suddenly its focus shifted to following them instead. But it was so big that even as it turned, its body threatened to squash the fox and raccoon as mere collateral in its curious rampage.

Sly’s eyes darted everywhere for a place safely out of the snake’s reach before that could happen, and found one at the top of a rock cliffside covered in vines to their left.

“Over there!” He shouted, pointing to the treacherous escape plan. “I can make it if you can!”

“Yes!” She yelled back without any hesitation.

He didn’t need to be told twice. The raccoon let go of her wrist and jumped for the closest vine, gritting his teeth as slime coated his gloved hands and almost made him lose his grip. He managed to get his feet under him and began scaling the cliff as fast as he could. The vine was so slick that he was slipping with even the slightest pause, but he pushed through with thoughts of Tennessee and his father and the Fiendish Five all daring him to succeed.

And just like that, he was up and over the side of the cliff, and the serpent’s giant body was no longer a threat.

He didn’t give himself a chance to be relieved; instead, he whipped back around and leaned over the edge just in time to see Inspector Fox reach the top from where she had been climbing the rockface itself. Her chest heaved with the force of her breathing and he could see the muscles in her arms bulging under her jacket as he grabbed her arm to help pull her to safety.

They sat there on the dirty ground a few moments, letting the adrenaline die down while the giant snake continued on, breaking through the factory wall sitting just above the water like it was made of paper. The sounds of screaming and shouting and screeching machinery intertwined with the monster’s hideous call, creating a terrible melody of destruction.

Their eyes finally met, and they shared a bewildered, exhilarated grin.

“Holy shit,” the fox said. Sly felt inclined to agree with her. “Holy shit!”

“Yeah…yeah,” he breathed, because what else was there to say? They’d just outran a monster! “That thing was terrifying.”

“Not just that!” She shook her head with that amazed grin still in place, and he was startled to see her looking at him with respect. “You! You got us out of that cage, and you lead that thing straight for this place, and you just scaled what had to be a six-meter cliff like it was nothing!”

The raccoon shifted, uncomfortable and unused to the praise. “Thanks, but we both did that. Also, pretty sure it was just my fight-or-flight kicking in. Y’know, that thing that everyone’s got.”

“Well, if even half of my fellow officers had one like yours, Ringtail, we’d get twice as many cases done in half the time.”

His face was most definitely red now. The only silver lining was that she didn’t seem to notice it. Yet.

“Nah. What they really need is more of whatever you’ve got,” he found himself saying, if only to chase away the weird squirming in his gut. “Outrunning a giant snake and picking up on a plan in the middle of it? Saving me from drowning despite a big tree monster being right there? First time seeing a ghost and your first instinct is to shoot it? You’re the only one I’d say who makes that badge actually mean something.”

It was supposed to be said flatly, like usual – half a concession to her abilities and half a barb at cops, like always – but for some reason it came out a lot more sincere than he'd meant. The inspector went still, and he did the same.

They looked at each other with mutual wide eyes. Then she cleared her throat, stood up, and offered him her hand.

“Come on,” she said, not unkindly. “We should probably get out of here before someone sees us – or before that creature gets bored and comes back out.”

Sly looked at her outstretched hand, then at her. The grin on her face had been replaced with something subdued but still warm, and there was no trace of condescension where he expected it to be. With cheeks still warm under his fur, he took it and let her help him to his feet.

“You used my first name back there.”

His tail twitched. He couldn’t figure out why, and he couldn’t read her tone of voice, either. “Did I? Don’t really remember in all of that ‘fleeing for my life’ stuff.”

She let out a quiet huff of a laugh, then suddenly turned her face away to look at the distant trees, where they both knew the clearing was waiting beyond them.

“I don’t mind it, you know. You can keep using it.”

Again, with the tone he couldn’t read. Sly hesitated a long moment, following her gaze but mostly just watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ll think about it,” he finally said. An echo straight from Mesa, but no longer with any of the casual bite. “As long as you never tell anyone I just complimented someone from Interpol.”

“Ringtail, who would I even tell that to?”

“Look at that! You’ve already got a head start.”

Carmelita laughed, then, clear and candid and unabashed, and it would have knocked the wind straight out of him if all the running hadn’t already done so. She shook her head and began to walk, motioning him along with a welcoming hand.

“Let’s get out of here, Sly. I’ve got a date with a criminal coming up very soon.”

For some reason, hearing the phrase he’d teased her with earlier was not nearly as hilarious when she was the one saying it.

Chapter Text

“I’m starting to feel bad about what we just did.”

It had been five minutes since they’d accidentally let loose a monster on the swamp grounds and then left it to its own devices while they made their way back towards the rendezvous point. Truth be told, Carmelita had actually been feeling bad for the entirety of that time, but she knew it was pointless to clarify what was too late to undo.

Her partner side-eyed her without a word in response. He’d been having random bouts of silence throughout the whole night, and it was bothering her almost as much as the snake incident. It was bizarre, the way he’d be at ease and joking with her one moment, then tense and looking ready to bolt or faint the very next. She found herself hoping it was just the dangerous place they were in and not anything she was doing.

Knowing him, he wouldn’t tell her even if she asked. So she didn’t ask.

“I’m just – I’m worried a lot of people might’ve gotten hurt,” she continued when he still didn’t answer. “Maybe we should go back and check…”

“Too late for that,” the raccoon finally said. “If you turn back now, you’ll miss your chance to catch Mz. Ruby out in the open.”

It frustrated her that he was right. They were running dangerously close to the meeting time, and the mystic probably wasn’t going to wait long before retreating to wherever she’d been hiding all this time. Carmelita took a deep breath and resisted the urge to glance behind them towards the factory. The screams of guards had long since stopped; she didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing.

“Hey. Look at me.”

She looked at him. His eyes were a little softer than they’d been before.

“No point in speculating on something we can’t change. We’ve got a job to do, remember?”

The fox’s eyebrow’s shot up, amused. “Careful, now, Ringtail. You’re starting to sound like me.”

Sly opened his mouth, probably to make a sarcastic remark, but then he closed it without a word and turned away. Even in the dark, she caught the tinge of pink lining his cheek fur.

Huh.

“I think this is as far as I should go, actually,” he said abruptly, still not looking at her as he found a fallen log to sit down on. “Wouldn’t want to make you lose your chance at stealth by accident.”

“Um. Sure, this seems like a safe spot. But…” She blinked down at him, surprised. “I don’t know why you’d think you might get us caught. You’re way quieter than I am.”

His lips thinned. “I’d rather be safe than sorry. Go ahead without me, I’ll be right here.”

“Okay…”

Carmelita began walking away, but not without a few glances back at him. He sat on that log with his hands on his knees and one leg bouncing almost nervously, watching her go with an intensity she couldn’t figure out. She stopped and gave him one final smile.

“I’ll be fine, Ringtail. Don’t worry.”

The raccoon managed a small smile back. “I know you will. Go kick her ass for me.”

With reassurances in place, the inspector turned around and marched off, and didn’t look behind her again. For now, she was going to chalk her partner’s strange behavior up to his fear of the supernatural and leave it at that. She could pick apart it later, when they were both safely out of here.

It didn’t take long to come across the clearing again. Carmelita crouched behind a tree right on its outskirts, checked her watch, and began to wait patiently for Mz. Ruby’s arrival.

Sure enough, it was only five minutes before the alligator and two guards showed up from the direction of the giant skull-shaped temple that Sly had taken such an interest in before. The inspector made a mental note to herself to sweep that entire place for more evidence once she had secured the criminals.

The group came to a halt just a few feet away from the center of the clearing, and the guards’ gazes turned to the skies above. Mz. Ruby, however, was scanning the tree line around her.

“Ma’am, are you sure he’ll be here?” One of them asked her boss, wringing her hands. “I saw in the news the other day, about Muggshot –”

“He’ll be here,” she coolly interrupted. “I know him better than anyone. He’ll come.”

Inspector Fox breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were expecting Muggshot; she still had the element of surprise. Plus, Mz. Ruby wasn’t a fighter. She was known for working in the shadows, and out here there was nothing but her tiny entourage to protect her.

Emboldened, the officer stepped out of her hiding place. All three pairs of eyes snapped down to stare at her silhouette in the dark.

“See? I told you he’s –” the alligator cut herself off as she got a better look at their visitor. Her eyebrows flew up in surprise and she drew herself up to her full height. “Who are you?”

“I’m Inspector Carmelita Fox.” Her shock pistol came up to aim at the guards before they could take a step towards her. “I’m here on behalf of Interpol to take you into custody.”

Mz. Ruby tilted her head and looked the younger woman over like she was one of the bugs in the air around them. Her snout twisted in an angry sneer. “Mmm…so you’re behind these strange vibes I couldn’t pinpoint around my swamp. Most distastefully bad juju.”

“Yeah, well, this whole place has given me the creeps, too – especially seeing illegal activities like creating an undead army!” Carmelita clicked the safety off her weapon. “Mz. Ruby, you are under arrest. Come quietly and without resisting. I have been authorized to use force if necessary.”

“Oh, cher,” the mystic laughed. Her hands began to glow a sickly purple. “I see your mouth movin’, but all I hear is ‘blah, blah, blah!’ Well…if jaws need to flap, then let them flap!”

Before the fox could react, her opponent clapped her hands together in a brilliant flash of awful colors. The ground rumbled menacingly beneath them. As her guards struggled to stay on their feet, Mz. Ruby stared down the officer who dared to challenge her on her own turf with contempt and amusement.

“See you in the next world, Inspector!”

Carmelita’s pistol wavered in shock as the first zombie burst out of the earth.

There were two rats watching the giant stirrer. Sly crept along the outer rail under the shadows of moving machinery while he studied them. They were too strong to fight head-on without getting overpowered, but too close to each other to take one out without alerting the other. He pursed his lips in frustration and continued his circular path, looking for an opening.

The opportunity was suddenly given to him when the ground began to shake, startling both guards and nearly unbalanced the raccoon off the railing.

“What was that? An earthquake?” Asked one of the rats, hurrying over to the far side of the platform they were both standing on.

“No,” said the other, who stayed where he was with folded arms. He didn't hear the light landing of the silhouette behind him. “That's all Mz. Ruby’s doing.”

The first guard stared out at the dark trees as if trying to gauge where her boss had created such a dramatic occurrence. There was a heavy splash behind her, and she started to turn around.

“What's –”

She saw nothing but a flash of gold before she, too, was knocked out and sent sailing into the muddy waters below.

Sly didn't stop to catch his breath once he was alone on the platform. He rushed for the machinery with the large staff he had just swiped from the first guard he’d ambushed. Jamming the end of the staff between two gears made them stall with an awful screech, and the machine ground to a forced stop.

The raccoon stepped onto the lid that now sat unmoving in the middle of the platform. As the stirrer groaned and strained to get itself unjammed, he used his weight to angle the lid as vertically as he could towards the giant skull temple looming above him. An alarm blared in warning about unreleased pressure.

He held his breath and sent a silent “good luck” to Inspector Fox for whatever she was facing.

The staff snapped. The pressure burst. And he was sent flying upwards like a rocket.

It was by some miracle that he didn't hit the outer stone teeth of the fortress; instead going narrowly through one of the tight gaps between with barely enough reaction time to duck and roll as he hit the ground. His momentum kept him tumbling until he slammed upside down into a stone wall. Feet in the air and head against the cold floor, he hissed through his teeth as the world spun.

That’s definitely going to leave a few bruises, he thought wryly, flipping over to get his legs back under him. His backpack was still snug on his back, but there was a large tear in the side of his hoodie where it must have snagged on jagged rock during his jump. He grimaced at the sizeable hole and hoped his partner wouldn’t notice when they met up again.

The raccoon started making his way through the cavernous space, trying to figure out which direction would be the most promising to find where Mz. Ruby had hidden her portion of the Thievius Raccoonus. He’d been up here many times through the years, but never anywhere close to her personal quarters – but not because she thought he was a threat. She had told him, once, that his tumultuous energy would “muck things up” for her more spiritually sensitive belongings.

He'd responded by asking her if it was really his energy she was so afraid of, or the man she had killed in cold blood who might be haunting his son. She had popped him across the mouth for it.

Sly’s lip curled at the memory, and he lifted his cane a little higher in anticipation. Time to show that woman exactly how much he could muck things up.

Zombies. Freakin’ zombies.

Carmelita slammed the butt of her pistol into the chin of an undead lizard, closing its gaping jaw with a loud crunch before it could take a bite out of her arm. It wasn’t a death sentence if she was bitten – zombification wasn’t contagious, thank god – but that didn’t mean they couldn’t still tear her apart if she wasn’t prepared.

Something bright and colorful flashed in her peripherals. The inspector ducked on instinct just as a huge glowing projectile shot overhead. It slammed into the zombie she had just fought off and sent it sprawling in a charred, smoking mess.

“What the hell!” She yelled, whipping her head around to face the alligator who had thrown it. “What was that?!”

Mz. Ruby smirked, entire body swaying in a rhythm only she could hear. Her guards huddled at her side to avoid the zombie horde that seemed to have no interest in the mystic who controlled them.

“Just a little game I like to play with all my annoying guests,” she scoffed. “If you repeat what I do, you’ll dodge it just fine. If not, you’ll get zapped!”

The mystic cackled when her opponent tried to aim her weapon at her and was forced to retreat by several undead assailants.

“You’re playing dirty!” Carmelita growled.

Mz. Ruby bared all her teeth at the fox in a terrible grin. “Life ain’t fair, child. Better learn that lesson while you’ve still got breath to breathe.”

She made a motion as if to lunge to her left, and the inspector jumped sideways towards her own left. The projectile sizzled the air almost like the electricity of her shock pistol – except she knew that this kind of shot would do a hell of a lot more damage than a simple stun.

There was no chance to fire back or even catch her breath as three more zombies rushed her. Carmelita yelled in frustration as she shot two and took the third down with one well-timed roundhouse kick. She still had a lot of ammo left over after the ghost fight, but that didn’t mean much when enemies kept rising from the dirt without any sign of stopping while her real target danced around and kept her too busy to even aim at her.

The alligator lunged low out of the corner of her eye. She jumped over a set of hands breaking out of the ground that were trying to trip her, and they blew up into pieces as the mystical attack hit them instead.

A lightbulb went off in her head.

Carmelita’s feet hit soil and she immediately went running for the nearest, larger group of zombies. A plan was forming in her mind, and she hoped with all her might that it would be enough to turn the tides in her favor.

Ultimately, Sly couldn’t bring himself to ransack Mz. Ruby’s lair.

It wasn’t out of any lack of animosity – his hands tightened around his cane in a near-overwhelming urge to smash every precious, breakable object he came across – but for two other reasons.

The first was that he had no idea what kind of traps the alligator might have put up in her own space. She loved using a mix of modern tech and her own magic, and while he hadn’t yet encountered any of the former, the latter wasn’t something he was keen on discovering, either. No, the last thing he wanted to do was tip her off to his presence before he got what he came for.

The second reason, well…he was finding it was a little more complicated.

Sly told himself that it was to keep his name clear when Inspector Fox inevitably won and did a sweep of this place. Muggshot’s office getting broken into could easily be explained away as a robbery by one of his own men. It probably had been explained that way, because the fox had accepted his story about finding those convenient emails without ever mentioning the office at all.

Here, in the middle of nowhere where most of Mz. Ruby’s guards had probably never even stepped foot in her private quarters, he didn’t want to risk garnering suspicion. He couldn’t let Carmelita leave him behind on her globetrotting case to catch the Fiendish Five – or worse, arrest him.

An arrest meant game over, both literally and figuratively. Not to mention, he couldn’t bear to think of the look in her eyes if she saw what he truly was.

Sly stopped in his tracks in the doorway to the alligator’s bedroom.

Where had that thought come from? Since when did he care about what a cop thought about him? What anyone thought about him? He could count on one hand the number of people whose opinions about him mattered, and two of them were dead. The third, he doubted he would ever see again anyway, and the last was –

His chest ached under his clothes. The raccoon grimaced and forced himself to keep moving. Idle hands are a thief’s greatest vice, son.

Mz. Ruby’s bedroom was large and ornate, with furniture along every wall and huge tapestries hanging from a high ceiling. Sly started searching the bed, thinking it was as good a place as any to hide such a small, precious object. It wasn’t enough of a distraction to keep his bizarre thoughts at bay.

So, he resigned himself to letting them flow as he worked.

The inspector was nice enough, he supposed. As nice as a cop could possibly be. Not everyone would let a stranger tag along on such a big, important part of their job like she had. It would have taken him twice as long to reach Haiti without her resources, which he could appreciate. Plus, not only did she let him travel with her, but she wasn’t overbearing about the favor she’d given him.

Actually, no, that wasn’t quite true. She was incredibly overbearing, and nosy, and pushy, but for some reason it didn’t irritate him to quite the same level anymore as it had before. She was still all of those things, but she had given him space, and was finally learning how to back off when he wasn’t in a mood for conversation.

And then there was what she’d said on that cliff…

There was nothing under the pillows, nor the mattress, nor even the bed itself. Frustrated, the raccoon began going through drawers and bookshelves, testing for false bottoms or hidden cubbies. He didn’t want to be here any longer than he absolutely needed to be.

Somewhere along the last week of being around Carmelita – Inspector Fox, don't do this to yourself, call her Inspector Fox – the impression of her in his mind had gone from “naive cop who’s going to get herself killed with her ridiculous morals” to “naive cop who might actually be strong enough to back up her ridiculous morals.” And that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if it didn’t come with the realization that he was starting to enjoy her company.

His stomach flipped, and not in a good way.

Sly was a thief by necessity. He couldn’t risk attachments to anyone, especially not a member of Interpol. Not to mention, he had been a part of the Fiendish Five, even if it was completely unwilling and more as a lackey than an actual equal. If or when she found that out, the inspector wasn’t going to be lenient with him. He needed to get these dangerous feelings out of his head before one of them – namely him – got hurt.

He couldn’t let that happen again. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

The rest of the furniture in the room was a bust, so Sly stepped up to the nearest hanging tapestry and brushed it aside, looking for another wall safe or a secret entrance to a hidden room or anything to indicate the presence of the stolen section of the Thievius Raccoonus. He finally found success when his hand went to press against the third wall he checked and phased through it like it didn’t exist.

Stepping through the illusion into a little nook of a room, the raccoon stared at the sight of the missing pages, covered in another purple barrier and sitting on a pedestal in a tidy little stack. Lit candles surrounded the pedestal in a semicircle.

Sly raised his cane without any hesitation. If he was going to stay impartial throughout his mission, this weakness couldn’t be allowed to continue existing.

That was just how it had to be for both their sakes.

Dodging magical projectiles and undead hordes at the same time became infinitely easier when one realized that the former very easily mowed down the latter. In fact, with the new strategy in place, Inspector Fox had finally managed to graze Mz. Ruby twice with her shock pistol. It was enough to make the mystic lose a bit of steam in summoning more of her personal army, and now the clearing was more littered with unmoving body parts than moving body parts.

On the flip side, however, it also meant that she was growing more desperate to end the fight before Carmelita could fully gain the upper hand. Glowing bullets shot at the fox with a speed almost comparable to real bullets, and she was too busy avoiding getting zapped into oblivion to fire her own weapon again.

Gone, too, were the exchanged words from either party. Sweat was breaking across Carmelita’s body in rivets. The alligator wore a pinched frown and her breath was coming out in pants. One of the guards had been knocked clean unconscious, and the other had long fled the battle.

The inspector’s heart pounded with adrenaline as she sidestepped a mystical attack by a hair’s breadth, feeling its crackle deep in her bones as if it had still managed to touch her. She could out-last and out-gun this criminal. She knew that with absolute certainty, watching the way her opponent’s movements were starting to get sloppy and just a tad bit slower. All she needed was a single opening, and she’d have it in the bag.

Mz. Ruby’s head suddenly snapped up and away, swiveling around almost one-hundred and eighty degrees to stare up at her skull temple in what could only be described as astonishment. Her expression morphed into something almost unreadable even as she let out a single incredulous laugh.

It was for only a split second of broken focus, but a split second was all Inspector Fox needed.

She got the mystic fully in her crosshairs and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

“Dispatch, come in. This is Inspector Fox. Mz. Ruby has been successfully apprehended. Requesting back-up for retrieval and area sweep, over.”

Static answered back, just like the last four times she’d tried. Frustrated, Carmelita waved her radio back and forth in the air to try to catch a better signal. She sat on a tree stump in the clearing next to the incapacitated alligator, using her other hand to shine her flashlight over the disturbed ground around her – just to make sure there weren’t going to be any more unwelcome “guests” popping up for a surprise visit.

“Dispatch, are you there? Do you copy?”

More static. Fantastic.

A branch snapped. The fox whipped the light up, in high alert, only to be greeted by gray fur and blue clothes and a familiar pair of brown eyes.

“Oh my god, Sly!” She exclaimed, trying to get her hackles to drop as the raccoon stepped into the clearing. “Warn me you're coming next time; I almost shot you!”

He eyed the scorch earth and rotting bodies surrounding her and her apprehended criminal. “Looks like you had a rough go of things.”

“A little bit,” she admitted, “but ultimately nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m just trying to get a signal to call for an extraction.”

The radio blared another round of static as if to mock her. Carmelita groaned and resisted the urge to put her face in her hands. Her partner edged closer by a meter or two with his gaze locked on the mystic.

“She’s unconscious for real, right?”

“What?”

“Mz. Ruby.” He gestured to the criminal at her feet. “You’re sure she’s down for the count?”

The inspector gave him a confused look. “Of course I’m sure. If she wasn’t, there’d still be zombies everywhere.”

Sly quirked an eyebrow and made a dramatic show of glancing around the bedraggled clearing. She rolled her eyes with an exasperated yet fond sigh.

“There’d still be moving zombies everywhere, smartass.” It was then that she noticed the stiff way he held himself, with his left hand gingerly wrapped around his right side, and she frowned. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“A guard showed up where I was waiting for you and got a few hits in before I put him in his place.” He fiddled with his hoodie, and she realized with a start that there was a large tear in its side underneath his fingers. “Figured it’d be safer to see if you’d won yet than hang around back there.”

“Good thinking, but are you sure you’re okay? You look…”

Carmelita couldn’t quite describe the emotion on his face. Guarded was probably the closest to being right. In fact, his entire body language was awfully closed-off for someone who’d just given her his full confidence barely fifteen minutes ago, even if it had been tinged with nervousness.

“I’m fine,” the raccoon insisted. Snapped, really. He gestured to her radio before she could address it. “If that thing isn’t working when it’s supposed to, it means she’s still messing with it somehow.”

She frowned at that a moment before standing up and taking a few steps away from Mz. Ruby. Her eyes never left her partner as she brought the transceiver back up to her mouth.

“Inspector Fox to dispatch, are you there? Can you hear me?”

The receiver crackled a moment, before a voice finally answered through the static. “Copy. This is dispatch. Inspector Fox, what is your status? Over.”

Carmelita heaved a giant sigh of relief. She watched as Sly found another tree stump to crouch on, staring at the unconscious alligator with the same level of intensity as he had with Muggshot.

“I’ve apprehended Mz. Ruby. Requesting pick-up immediately for transfer, over.”

“Copy. Helicopter en route now. ETA twenty minutes. Stay where you are so we can get a clear reading on your GPS tracker.”

“Copy that.” She lifted her finger off the transmitter and looked at the raccoon, who was practically a statue where he sat. “How did you know that would work?”

“Your radio went screwy earlier, remember?” He replied softly. “When you were in the middle of a call and she interrupted it with her own broadcast?”

“Well, yes, I remember that, but…how did you think of that if she’s unconscious?”

Sly shrugged and folded his arms. “Mostly just a hunch. She is famous for breaking both the laws of man and nature, after all. Thought it was worth a shot.”

“Pretty good shot, I’d say.” The fox pocketed her radio and checked her watch. “I don’t know if you heard, but we have twenty minutes before Interpol arrives to get us out of here. This long night is almost over.”

“Twenty minutes, huh? Thanks for the heads up.”

He stood up – and began walking away. Carmelita jumped to her feet, completely caught off guard.

“Wha – where are you going? They just told us to sit tight!”

“They told you to sit tight,” he said without turning around. His stride remained confident and unwavering, even as he still clutched his waist. “Not me.”

“You – but –” she spared one glance at Mz. Ruby’s unconscious form before bolting after her partner. “Ringtail, they’re bringing a helicopter. There will be plenty of room for you. There’s no need for you to walk all the way back to town!”

The raccoon stopped at the edge of the clearing. He looked back at her just as she reached him, and his expression was firm with the decision he’d made. “I’d really rather walk, if it’s all the same to you.”

Those words stopped her in her tracks. She stared at him, uncomprehending the idea of choosing to trek miles through a swamp when there was an easy ride to be had. “What? Why not? Is it your aerophobia?”

He eyed her for a bit, then looked up at the night sky. “Nah. Not this time.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I just don’t trust Interpol.”

“This again?” She was so irritated she almost missed the slightest narrowing of his eyes. Almost. “You’re seriously going to skip out on me again at the last minute like you did in Mesa?”

“I’m not skipping out. I’m just getting out of your way,” he replied without ever losing his mellow tone. His gaze, however, was getting harder with each passing second.

“But I’m not asking you to get out of my way! It’s just a helicopter ride – you wouldn’t even have to talk to anyone. I understand you don’t like police officers, Sly, but this is ridiculous! What reason could you possibly have to not want a ride out of here?”

“I’ve got a lot of reasons, and none of them are your business, Inspector.”

Carmelita took a step back, hackles raised at the way he’d suddenly just spat her title like it was a bad word. Exhaustion and frustration and that distant, nagging suspicion she’d stamped down since Mesa City swirled in her chest and overwhelmed any patience she might have otherwise had.

“What is your problem?!” She finally snapped. “Why do you have such a chip on your shoulder about law enforcement? Did you have a bad experience with an officer? Or did you have a bad experience with the law?”

Somehow, during her rant, she found herself just a few centimeters from him, and made to jab her finger at his chest. His hand intercepted it before she could touch him. It was not a gentle parry.

“Listen, Inspector Carmelita Fox.” His eyes had turned piercing, and his voice was ice cold. “It’s cute that you think your job is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It really is. But some of us average people don’t have the overwhelming trust in police that you do. I am not getting on that helicopter with a bunch of cops I don’t know, and I do not need to give you a reason that satisfies you. So how about you just drop it before one of us says something we might regret, yeah?”

Inspector Carmelita Fox was not someone willing to ‘drop it’ on the best of days. And right now, the doubts in her head were echoing into a terrible crescendo as they stared each other down. She felt the words leave her mouth almost without her consent.

“Are you a criminal, Sly?”

The world went quiet around them. The swamp was hushed. The air was suffocating. And her partner simply looked at her. Looked at her with a broken kind of triumph, like he had just won a battle he had not actually wanted to win.

He looked at her like he’d been expecting the accusation for a very long time, and yet had still been wounded by it.

“Would you arrest me on the spot if I said yes?” He asked, oh so very quietly. “Question me? Brutalize me until I confessed? Or would you turn a blind eye to it until you’ve solved your case and you don’t need me anymore? Turn the other way to your so-called ‘moral code’ because it benefits you in the moment?”

They were nearly touching. She could see the whites of his furious eyes as he stared her down and dared her to answer. She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Sly pulled out of her space with folded arms. The anger fell away under something closed-off and numb, and he turned his head to glare bitterly at Mz. Ruby’s prone form.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what you’d do,” he continued, even quieter now. There was heavy resignation in every line of his body. “Cause at this rate, you probably wouldn’t believe me even if I said no.”

His eyes locked onto the holstered pistol at her hip. It was with sick understanding that she realized he was waiting for her to pull it out and use it on him.

“I’m not – I wouldn’t –” Carmelita struggled to say, sucker-punched of all her words by that realization; of the way his hands were still limp at his sides even as he seemed to have braced himself for an attack. “I’m just – Sly, I’m not like that.”

He looked at her for a long time. There were a lot of things in those eyes of his, but above all else she could see that he was tired. Something like a sigh left him, and it sounded like a decision.

“I know, Carmelita. I know you’re not.”

Sly stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned towards the trees.

“I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

This time, she didn’t try to stop him from leaving.

Inspector Barkley wasn’t there to greet her in person again when the helicopter finally arrived, but he was waiting for her call through the pilot’s secure radio line, as she was told the moment she climbed into the passenger seat. The fox answered it with only the slightest bit of hesitation; instinctually expecting a reprimand after so many past cases despite there not being any real reason for this one.

“You’re doing fantastic work, inspector,” her boss’ voice came through clear and crisp, crackling only slightly when Mz. Ruby was carried into the back of the copter, separated from the front by a thick wall of metal. “I thought it would take you at least a month to even catch the trail of the next Fiendish Five member – and here you are bagging another in a week.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, you can thank Muggshot for the quick turnaround, sir,” she replied, watching the flashlights of her fellow officers bobbing up and down in the distance as they slowly flushed out the remainder of the alligator’s men. It was an incredible sense of déjà vu. “I found correspondences between him and several of his associates that detailed a rendezvous with Mz. Ruby at this exact place and time.”

“He’s not called ‘Meathead Muggshot’ for nothing,” the badger mumbled with a gruff laugh. “Nevertheless, you still did some fantastic sleuthing to reach this point. Not to mention shutting down her operation, and taking down the boss by yourself again. Is it true there were zombies involved?”

“Very much so. She was growing an undead army in her own backyard – I saw her raise the dead with my own eyes.”

“Couple that with the list of all her past crimes, and that woman is going away for a long time.” He let out a muffled yawn. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. It’s nearly 4 AM here and I’d like to get a little more sleep while the sun’s still down. Keep up the good work.”

“Will do, sir.”

She hung up and leaned back in the plushy chair, mind cycling through a million different things and none of them enjoyable. The suspicion was still there but now steeped in guilt – which made no sense. He hadn’t answered her question. He’d told her a week ago that he didn’t have a criminal record, but that was very different from being a criminal. Not having a criminal record only meant he hadn’t been caught yet.

If he was actually a criminal. Which she felt guilty about accusing him of, but there was no reason to feel guilt when it was an honest question, if maybe a little aggressive. But he hadn’t answered the question, and that should’ve made her more suspicious, but all she could think about was how hurt he’d been. Hurt yet unsurprised.

Carmelita groaned and ran a hand through her hair as she stood up and climbed out of the helicopter. Her thoughts were just going in circles now, and they weren’t going to help her for the time being. What she needed was a distraction.

So, she grabbed a handful of cuffs and went out to join her fellow officers.

Clean-up was a lot quicker than in Mesa. They didn’t have an entire city’s worth of ground to cover this time, and most of the guards had either felt the disconnect from their psychic boss going down or had been so terrorized by the giant snake still roaming free – or both – that they accepted arrest without any trouble.

Said snake was still at large, having disappeared deeper into the swamp if the criminals’ witness accounts were to be trusted, but her fellow officers decided that was a problem for another day. She certainly didn’t feel like protesting; if they wanted to wrangle a monster by the time she was already out of town and flying to another country, then that was their prerogative.

Overall, it was far easier, and it had also calmed the fox’s jumbled mind by the time they’d hauled the last few people into the clearing along all the rest. Multiple helicopter trips were going to have to be made but, again, that wasn’t her problem anymore.

The lemur detective who’d offered to send in the copter in the first place approached her after she finished reading rights to a group of twelve or so criminals sitting miserably on the mossy ground. He’d been just as superstitious as the rest of his team about coming here, but he’d also been the only one willing to do some aspect of his job, so she gave him a neutral nod instead of the stern frown she’d been shooting at everyone else in uniform.

“Yes?”

“Just wanted to say we appreciate you cleaning up this place,” the lemur said in an accent similar to Mz. Ruby’s, albeit a little lighter. “It was impressive, what you did. Sorry we couldn’t be of more help.”

She shook her head, not about to get snippy while in earshot of so many of Mz. Ruby’s goons. “You came through when I called, and that’s what matters.”

“Well, I can assure you that we’ve got things handled from here on out.”

His gaze trailed across the gathered criminals, then stopped on one turtle who glared back with open fury. Carmelita watched, curious, as her associate strode up to him with a harsh expression.

“You got something to say to me?” He demanded, staring down his snout at the other man.

The turtle wrinkled his nose and shook his head, then spit at the ground at the officer’s feet. The lemur’s face twisted in a snarl and he unclipped a baton from his belt. Inspector Fox’s eyes went wide and she lunged forward in shock.

“Wait, don’t–!”

She wasn’t fast enough. The crack of wood against the turtle’s head was so loud it ricocheted across the clearing, leaving a terrible ringing in the silence that followed. No one moved a muscle as the detective stood over the crumpled criminal with his baton still held high as if to follow through with another blow. The turtle moaned with his bloody face pressed into the dirt, properly cowed, and the officer finally put his weapon away. He spit at the ground, barely missing the criminal’s head, and sauntered back to Carmelita as nonchalantly as if he’d just swatted a bug on his arm.

“Can you believe that?” He asked with a disbelieving scoff, ignorant of the way she stared at him. “Absolutely no respect for the law. It’s a good thing you came around to help nip it in the bud before it could get any worse.

Her mouth was open, completely shell-shocked, and she looked towards his associates, but none of them seemed bothered by the blatant brutality they had just witnessed. They’d all simply gone back to work, and some even began talking jovially amongst themselves as if their coworker hadn’t just committed assault.

“You okay, ma’am?”

Inspector Fox forced her jaw closed and struggled very hard not to grind her teeth together, stunned and furious and without any real power to address it. They were all Interpol, but she was the outsider here, and it had never become so apparent as in that moment.

“Just peachy,” she growled. “But I think it’s time I get out of this place.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you at all,” he said, completely oblivious. “But are you sure you don’t want to wait until they drop off Mz. Ruby first? It’ll only be another hour, tops.”

“No, thanks. I’ve seen enough depravity tonight.”

As she climbed back into the helicopter and watched the ground shrink away beneath them, Carmelita thought about Sly being here with her, and what he might have thought about being proven right about officers for once. What he might’ve said about that horrible scene. What he might’ve done. He did not strike her as the kind of person who would have let it happen unchallenged, and those officers did not strike her as the kind of people who would have let him interfere, civilian or not. Suddenly she was very, very thankful for his absence.

They dropped her off at their headquarters – partly because it had a safe landing place for the copter, mostly because she was now very keen on not sharing where she was staying – and she took a taxi back to the hotel with the incident playing over and over in her head. The sound of it…

Would you brutalize me, Inspector?

Carmelita’s hands were trembling as she made her way up to her and her partner’s shared floor, and she couldn’t tell if it was from anger or adrenaline, or shame, or something else entirely. Whatever it was, she forced herself to steadiness as she approached Sly’s room.

“Hey Ringtail, I’m back. Can we talk?” She called with a quiet knock.

Silence greeted her, and there was no light seeping in through the crack under the door. The fox bit her lip, wondering if he was asleep, and tried again a little louder.

“Sly? Please tell me if you’re in there. I – I really need to talk to you.”

Still nothing. She knew he was a light enough sleeper to have heard her by now, which meant either he was deliberately ignoring her or he wasn’t here. Carmelita hoped it was the latter and headed for the hotel’s nearest common area.

She ended up searching the whole building, top to bottom, and came up empty-handed. Not a single sign of him anywhere. The inspector returned to the hallway with no small amount of frustration, racking her brain about where else the raccoon might be.

He’d told her he’d see her back at the hotel. It had sounded like a promise even after their argument, and even on his rudest days, he never deliberately ignored her. But if he wasn’t in his room, or the lobby, or the tiny dining area, then where on earth could he possibly –

The detective turned on her heel and began to march.

Sunrise was threatening to peak over the horizon when she stepped onto the fire escape balcony outside, chasing away the stars and leaving the moon shrouded halfway between the sleeping and waking worlds. Carmelita leaned over the railing to scan the balconies below her for any glimpse of her missing partner on the off-chance her hunch was wrong. When no familiar gray fur or blue clothing presented itself, the fox heaved a sigh and turned her attention to the roof above.

You’d better be up there, Ringtail, she grumbled to herself, because I’m not about to do something incredibly illegal for nothing.

She leapt for the overhang, catching it easily and hoisting herself up no differently than if she were doing a pull-up at the gym. The only truly dangerous part of it was the way the metal creaked under the force of her, but it didn’t do more than bend a few centimeters as she hauled herself onto the roof of the hotel.

No one shouted at her to get down, either, which she took as a win.

The inspector looked up, half-expecting her efforts to be in vain, but there was a dark silhouette sitting several meters away in the very center of the roof. His knees were drawn halfway up to his chest, and he clutched his backpack close like it was a life preserver.

He was staring up at the moon.

Carmelita approached him, trying not to let irritation at him for making her climb a damn roof to find him drown out the things she’d been working up the courage to say.

Sly turned his head just slightly at her presence, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye even though his attention was still on the sky.

“Back already?” He asked. His voice was distant and almost contemplative. “Didn’t realize how much time had gone by.”

She sank down slowly to sit next to him, watching him as he watched the moon. The ringing in her ears from that terrible act was so loud she was amazed he couldn’t hear it too.

“Sly –”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology halted all her thoughts. Even the ringing nearly faded in the wake of her surprise.

“You’re…what?” She asked. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“For being an asshole.”

“You weren’t being an asshole.”

“Yes, I was. I was dodging questions and then goaded you into a fight. I was looking for a fight. I’d say that’s pretty asshole-ish behavior.” The raccoon picked at the hole in his hoodie. “You didn’t deserve that, so…I’m sorry.”

Carmelita considered that for a minute.

“…Thank you. I’m sorry, too,” she said after a while. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about you.”

“It’s fine,” came the brief, expected response. “It’s nothing I haven’t already heard before.”

“From…from police officers?”

The raccoon shrugged without looking at her. She folded her arms to warm herself against a cold that wasn’t from the open air.

“I mean it, though, Sly,” she continued before the quiet could settle too heavily between them. “I know you have your reasons, and it’s not like you were in any danger. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“You were just doing your job.”

“No. I was being an asshole.”

He finally looked at her head-on, blinking in that way he did when he was caught off-guard. After a moment, the smallest of smiles curled across his snout.

“Yeah, you were.”

This time, when they both fell silent again, it wasn’t so uncomfortable. Carmelita watched as the sun slowly crested in the distance beyond the city, bathing everything in golds and purples. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, mirroring his own posture.

“I just don’t understand, Sly. Please help me understand.” The inspector leaned her cheek on her knee as she studied him. “If you’re worried about – police brutality, or being treated poorly for not having a badge, I won’t let that happen. You know I won’t let it happen.”

His face went through a series of subtle emotions, all of them unreadable. “I know. But you’re just one person, Carmelita. It’s been hard enough just learning to trust you as much as I have.”

She bit her lip, surprised by how much the admission stung, but he continued before she could say anything.

“But that’s the thing – I do trust you, and I want to keep trusting you. And that…in some ways, that’s almost scarier than not trusting anyone at all. The last time I risked that, it…”

One hand started rubbing against his chest almost unconsciously when he looked back up at the disappearing moon, at the scars she hadn’t been meant to see. She wondered if he even knew he was doing it.

“There’s not a lot going for me these days,” he said quietly. “Hasn’t been for a long time. I can’t risk losing the freedom I finally have.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like back in Mesa City,” she replied just as softly. “I understand being fearful after that entire ordeal, not trusting anyone but yourself.”

Her partner looked at her, carefully blank. For some reason, Carmelita got the deep-seated feeling that she had just said the wrong thing.

“Yeah.” He said after a moment. “Mesa was really rough.”

You’re missing something, nagged a voice in her ear. But it was too late to ask as the raccoon stood up and offered her his hand. She took it and let him haul her to her feet, and they stood there a moment to watch the sunrise together.

“We should probably get down from here before someone sees us,” the fox said, turning towards the side of the roof with the fire escape. “Wouldn’t want to be banned.”

“Or arrested,” he replied with the light amusement she was used to, following her as silently as he always did. “Although that would be pretty funny. Imagine the headlines – ‘Cop Who Arrested Infamous Fiendish Five Member Mz. Ruby Immediately Arrested For Standing On Hotel Roof’.”

Carmelita began carefully climbing down past the overhang, chuckling despite herself. “That headline’s too long, Ringtail. Try again.”

“Illustrious Inspector Imprisons Immoral Invader; Caught Climbing Caravansary.”

“Too much alliteration. You sound like a wannabe playwright.” Her boots hit solid ground and she moved out of the way; he shimmied down a pipe and balanced himself on the balcony’s railing, crouched in front of her with a shit-eating grin.

“Latin Hottie Busts Big Bad Voodoo Mama –”

“Finish that sentence and I’m locking you out here until we leave.”

His laughter was the most genuine sound she’d ever heard from him. It floated across the air as an accompaniment to the beautiful sky, and it was the first thing to finally quiet the ringing in her head for good.

Chapter Text

After that night on the roof, things felt a little different between them.

They stayed in Port-au-Prince for three more days. Mostly so that Carmelita could complete all the paperwork necessary for confirming Mz. Ruby’s capture, but partially so that they could recuperate from everything they’d seen that night – criminal, supernatural, and otherwise.

There was a subtle shift in Sly during that time, she could see. A looseness to how he interacted with her; an authenticity to how he spoke to her. In return, she found herself inviting him out with her more often than not, and sharing thoughts and feelings that she rarely did with any of her fellow officers. They toured the city together instead of apart, exploring shops and visiting landmarks and hunting for the best restaurants, and for the first time in a long time, the fox wasn’t antsy to get back to work.

She suspected her partner was feeling much the same way, because when she told him she’d finally booked a flight to Wales the next day, he had given her a cool smile and a thumbs up – and then proceeded to hole himself up in his room for the rest of the afternoon and didn’t come out even for food.

The raccoon had recovered from his close call in the swamp, but he was still wearing the torn hoodie and didn’t seem to have a spare or the money for a new one. So that evening, having not seen hide nor hair of him for nearly six hours, Carmelita decided she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. Armed with a shopping bag, she strode confidently up to his room, knocked three times, and waited.

After a minute or so, the door opened a crack to reveal a pair of glittering brown eyes. The inspector was a little surprised to see no lights on behind him despite the sun having already set.

“Why is it so dark in there? You’re not part bat, are you?” She teased, holding up the bag in an unspoken offering.

“If I was, I would’ve pranked you with echolocation by now,” Sly replied as he opened the door a little wider, having relaxed at the sight of her. “The dark is nice when I’m thinking about things.”

Her eyebrows jumped up. “Would I happen to be one of those things?”

“Maybe.” He nodded down at what she had brought. “What’s that? Food?”

“No, although I would have gotten you something if I knew you were so hungry.” Carmelita handed him the bag and watched him peer into it.

His expression changed from curiosity to surprise as he slowly pulled out a brand-new hoodie. It was a slightly lighter blue than his ripped one, with yellow sleeves all the way up to the shoulders, but still just as baggy.

“I couldn’t find one that was the exact same size and color as your other one,” she said a little hurriedly, when he looked back up at her. “So sorry if it’s not quite your style. I just thought you’d like one that didn’t have a huge hole in it.”

Sly held the clothing out in front of him, looking it up and down for a long minute without saying anything. Then he wrapped his arms around it and pulled it gently against his chest as if he were cradling a child.

“Thanks,” he whispered, sounding genuinely stunned by her gift. “You didn’t have to do that.”

The fox rolled her eyes and gave him an amused smile. “Please, Ringtail, of course I did. Someone has to look after you if you won’t.”

He seemed unable to come up with a response to that, so she took pity on him by holding an arm out towards the hallway.

“On that note, how about I treat you to one last dinner in Haiti? Since you mentioned being hungry.”

“I don’t recall saying that at all, actually.” In one quick movement, the raccoon slipped out of his torn hoodie, threw it back behind him into his dark room, and put the new one on. He fidgeted with the sleeves a bit as he closed the door behind him and began to follow her.

“No, but you were about three seconds away from salivating when you thought I’d brought food.”

“I think you’re imagining things.”

“Too late for denial, Ringtail – unless you don’t want to take me up on my offer?”

“Slow down, Carmelita. I never said that, either.”

They spent the night out in the fanciest restaurant they could find, at her insistence, and ended up more than a little tipsy after Sly learned he was above the legal drinking age and they started sharing a bottle. Then he claimed he could hold his wine better than her, turning a playful game into a serious challenge neither was willing to back down from well after their meals were finished. The two of them stumbled out into the street afterwards with his arm slung over her shoulder and her arm secured around his waist, giggling over stupid jokes about Muggshot and Mz. Ruby as they made their way back to the hotel.

She could feel the heat of his body under his fur where he was pressed against her, and she knew she wasn’t drunk enough for her own body to be as warm as it was from alcohol alone. But she also wasn’t drunk enough for the courage to do anything about it, and they parted ways for the evening with nothing more than slurred goodnights and the lightest of shoulder pats.

The next morning, they were nearly late for their flight because he was suffering a hangover much worse than she was, and it took almost twenty minutes just to wake him up. The raccoon came out of his room with his suitcase packed and the hood of his new outfit over his eyes, muttering vague threats at her, anyone who interacted with them, and the sun itself.

“You brought this on yourself, you know,” she gently scolded him as they found their airplane seats. “I warned you that I couldn’t be beat in drinking games. I’ve drank coworkers twice my size under the table.”

“Oh, shut up,” he grumbled, still shielded from the world by his hood so that all she could see of his face was his twitching nose and grimacing mouth. “I’m already miserable enough. Stop bragging.”

“I’m just saying. Hopefully you’ll think twice next time before doing something like that.” The inspector started rummaging through her handbag. “I’ve still got some Melatonin in here, I think.”

“Does it cure hangovers?”

“Probably not, but it’ll help once that wears off and you remember you’re flying.”

Sly growled something particularly nasty under his breath that she tactfully ignored and swiped the sleeping aids from her outstretched hand in the blink of an eye. Carmelita watched, unimpressed, as he swallowed a handful without actually counting them.

“Pretty sure those things can cause liver failure if you’re not careful.”

“Fuck off.”

The venom in those words made her bristle, then gave her pause. She looked him up and down more carefully, noticing for the first time how rigid he sat in a way that had nothing to do with being hungover. It seemed different even from his aerophobia.

“Are you okay?” She asked, working very hard to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

“Peachy. Perfect. Totally –” he flinched as the plane began to move, gripping his seat just like he had the first time they’d flown together. “…fine. I’m fine. Just this damn plane.”

Carmelita hesitated, and decided to take a risk. “I believe you, but…it feels like more than that. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

The raccoon didn’t answer for so long that she thought he hadn’t heard her, or had fallen asleep. But as they made it into the air, and as she watched Haiti disappear into the distance through her tiny window, his voice suddenly filtered between them like a shared secret.

“Had a lot of bad dreams last night,” he confessed, quiet and sullen and tired. “Bad memories, mostly. Thought alcohol would help, but all it did was make things worse.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

He huffed a bitter laugh. “Not particularly, no.”

“Then…” She remembered what had helped take his mind off of things the last time. “Do you want me to talk about something?”

The offer was enough to make him glance over at her, and she finally saw his face for the first time all morning. There were dark bags under his eyes, pronounced by his natural mask, and he looked absolutely wretched. Whatever had been plaguing him last night – and potentially yesterday, too, with the way he had disappeared for most of the day – must have been a doozy.

“Have I told you yet about the time I was assigned to protect a museum exhibit of the rarest stamps across the world?”

He shook his head mutely. Carmelita continued.

“This one was also in Paris, funnily enough. A group of stamp fanatics who fancied themselves criminals decided it would be a smart idea to try breaking into the place the night before the exhibit was supposed to open for the public. They had a decent hacker among them, but I don’t think they accounted for the lasers…”

By the end of her third story, Sly had dozed off either from the hangover or from exhaustion; slumped sideways until his head was lying on her shoulder. Carmelita’s words trailed off as she studied him, and eventually, carefully, she laid her cheek against his hooded forehead while he slumbered.

Sly closed his eyes as hot steam smacked into his face, barely not hot enough to singe fur but definitely enough to hurt. He was wedged within a cluster of pipes, armed with a wrench and covered in grease as he methodically tightened bolts to keep that very steam from escaping again. Through the cracks between pipes, he could see the bright sparks of a walrus welding nearby.

Doing this kind of work sucked. The raccoon was sweating buckets through his clothes and he could feel his skin crawling under all the oil and gunk in his fur. No one on the crew was small enough to get into those hard-to-reach places, though, except for him, and he wasn’t about to complain out loud about it while his tail was sticking out and in easy reach of anyone who might take it personally.

All of a sudden, the lights flickered before going out completely, followed by an abrupt, eerie silence as the machinery followed suit. The walrus started cussing at her welder as the raccoon began shimmying backwards out of the pipes.

“What’s going on?” He called out to her once his head was back out in the open.

“Hell if I know!” She growled back. “Bloody thing just upped and died! Whole place did!”

Before either of them could speculate about why, the walrus’ radio on her hip crackled to life.

“I want all employees working in the boiler room to report to the central hub immediately,” came the voice of the squid who oversaw them all, sounding absolutely irate. “No exceptions!”

Sly blinked a few times, then turned back towards his pipe sanctuary. Whatever had just happened – was happening – it definitely wasn’t his problem. Before he could retreat into relative safety, however, the walrus grabbed him by the arm and started hauling him with her.

“Come on,” she huffed. “That means you, too.”

“But I’m not an employee.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the walrus said flatly. “If the boss says no exceptions, then that means no exceptions.”

He decided not to argue on that.

They walked further into the great mass of machinery, and it wasn’t long before he could hear arguing echoing off the walls. As the two of them turned a corner into the heart of the operation, the raccoon was struck with the sight of a dozen workers grouped around a huge, smoking engine. The two of them pushed their way to the front of the grim mass to see another walrus leaning stiffly against his oversized mallet as the squid craned their head to get in his face.

“Idiot! What on earth were you thinking?!” They shouted, so agitated that the tentacles on their face wriggled in a downright disturbing display.

The hammer-wielder began to protest. “It was just one mis-swing. Accidents happen!”

“It halted production entirely!” His superior exploded, throwing up their hands to gesture at the room around them. It was true; all the machinery in here had come to a complete stop, just like it had in every other room. “Raliegh is going to realize the storm machine has stopped, and what do you think is going to happen when he does? I’m not taking the fall for your incompetence!”

Sly looked over at the broken engine. It was large, but not nearly as large as one would think for how important it was in keeping this whole charade going. Honestly, even someone like him could probably do enough damage to stall it.

The thought crossed his mind, and then he watched in sick alarm as that very same thought hit the worker who had actually screwed it up.

“Why not let him take the fall?” He asked, jabbing a thumb towards the raccoon who tried and failed to remove the vice grip still around his wrist. “If there’s anyone here who will survive the boss’ wrath, it’s him.”

The squid looked Sly up and down, eyes narrowed and tentacles twitching with contemplation. He tried again to yank out of the welder’s hold, to no avail, as a bubble of panic lodged itself in his chest.

“...It’s worth a shot,” they finally said, pulling a cell phone out of their pocket. They dialed Raleigh’s number, put it on speaker, and every worker fell silent with trepidation as they all waited.

The phone barely had the chance to ring before it was answered by a sneering voice that had everyone tensing.

“Oh, good, I was just about to call you,” growled the frog on the other end of the line. “I couldn’t help but notice that the storm outside has stopped. And wouldn’t you know it, I received an alarm that my beautiful ship wasn’t running anymore at the exact same moment. What a stunning coincidence, hmm?”

“We had a situation,” the squid started to explain. “There was an accident –”

“Don’t bother with your excuses! I don’t want to hear them! I’ll be down there within one minute and every single one of your useless laze-abouts had better be waiting for me with an explanation, or I’ll tie your tentacles to the ship’s anchor!”

The call went dead, leaving a loud, foreboding beep as the only sound in the room. Sly inhaled, slow and grounding.

Then he hurled all his weight into the welder’s leg. Her knees buckled and she toppled over with a startled shout; her grip on his wrist loosened just enough for him to slip out of it. He took off running for the nearest exit as the others all yelled and clambered to go after him. Sly’s feet pounded across the metal floor as he ran like his life depended on it.

Because it very much did.

A force slammed into him so hard he lost his breath. The raccoon fell heavily against the ground under a weight that felt like it was crushing the spirit out of him.

“Not so fast, you little shit,” hissed a gruff voice in his ear. His assailant stood, grabbing Sly by the back of his shirt to haul him to his feet.

The raccoon was still fighting just to get air back into his lungs, unable to do anything as he was half-dragged back to the group of workers. They all glowered at him, but none so much as the hammer-wielder and the overseer. Two burly sets of hands wrenched his arms behind his back as he was held between two men.

“Listen, kid.” The walrus who had broken the machinery stepped forward and grabbed him by the chin to make their eyes meet. “Someone has to take the fall for this, and we all know you’re the only one he won’t kill over it, so suck it up and take it.”

Sly glared at him between gasps, and was almost tempted to spit in his face if it wouldn’t have made his situation exponentially worse. He hung his head instead, forcing himself to remain calm and get his breath back while they all waited for the inevitable storm.

It didn’t take long. Raleigh’s furious hopping could be heard a mile away as he stomped down into the bowels of his great ship. The workers all straightened their shoulders and squared their stances, including the two holding Sly. When the frog came barreling in like a harbinger of doom, not a single sound was uttered by anyone.

Raleigh’s eyes darted over his precious, sparking machinery, expression growing more and more thunderous with every second. He marched up to the squid with his teeth audibly grinding.

“Name. Now.”

The overseer pointed at Sly. Every single employee did, leaving him at the center of a damning picture.

“Little whelp,” Raleigh seethed, waddling up to the caught raccoon who flinched away as best he could. “Little orphan bastard.”

He grabbed Sly by the collar to pull him close.

“I trust you with one job. One job, which you surely could not possibly screw up, and yet you managed to do it anyway! You’ve managed so greatly that you’ve halted my entire operation!”

Sly didn’t see the slap coming. One moment he had the frog screaming full-volume an inch from his face, and the next his head jolted sideways by a blow so powerful it had him seeing stars. He gasped, then locked his jaw to keep himself from biting his tongue as Raleigh raised his hand again.

“I am going to beat you to within an inch of your life!” The promise was hissed right before another slap came, sending Sly’s head snapping the opposite direction. “I’m going to keelhaul you across the length of this ship, and then I’m going to tie you to its bow until Muggshot comes for you! You will be begging for those talons to put you out of your misery by the time I’m done with you!”

The third slap rattled his entire skull. The taste of copper oozed across his tongue. He was so dizzy that it took a minute to realize that Raleigh had let go of him and had finally turned away.

“Hold him while I take care of the damage,” the frog growled at his subordinates. “The sooner I fix this, the sooner we’ll be back on schedule.”

The rest of the workers shared uneasy looks. One was brave enough to ask the question on everyone’s mind.

“Do you, uh…” She faltered when her boss’ smoldering glare fell on her. “Do you want us to help?”

Raleigh gave a short bark of laughter without any amusement in it as he began undoing the cufflinks of his gloves. “Help? From you beastly buffoons? I would sooner trust an unevolved fly with my delicate work.”

He handed his gloves to the squid, who held them as delicately as possible, then hopped over to start inspecting the damaged engine. A few employees clutched their tools close and shifted restlessly as he thrust his bare hands into the metal guts without regard for oil, rust, or his own safety.

“Should we…get back to work, then?” She tried again.

“No.” The frog didn’t even turn around. “The last thing I need is for another crucial component to break because you plonkers are scrambling to prove useful and do something monumentally stupid. No, all of you will stand right here until I’m done. Learn how to have some bloody patience.”

Sly, still sagging between men, slowly blinked the stars out of his eyes and began running his tongue over his teeth, looking for looseness and only mildly relieved to find none. He swallowed blood from where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek, head hung low but still watching the Fiendish Five member as best he could with the way his ears were ringing. Terror made his tail curl tightly around his ankle, knowing that the threats spit at him were very, very likely to happen.

“Why do I even bother hiring these louts?” Raleigh muttered to himself as he pulled out parts and reconnected wires. “Can’t keep my precious machines running, can’t do their own jobs, can’t even stop one sabotaging little stray from ruining –”

Instincts made Sly go as still as a statue when the frog cut himself off in the middle of his personal monologue. Slowly, ever so slowly, Raleigh pulled his hands away and began running them along the outer shell of the engine instead. Green fingers stained with oil tapped at a large dent in the metal. He studied that dent, then the raccoon at his mercy, and the look on his face was dangerously thoughtful.

“Would one of you be so kind as to bring that giant hammer over here for me? It appears I need to buff out a few unsightly dimples.”

The walrus with said hammer approached him, visibly nervous, and offered the tool. Raleigh gripped its handle and attempted to heft it, letting out a grunt of exertion when he failed to lift it more than a few centimeters off the floor.

“Hm…” He made a dramatic show of tapping at his chin as if puzzled. “Seems I’m having a spot of trouble. Don’t have quite the brutish strength that you do, chap. Would you be a sport and take care of it for me?”

His tone remained calm and even, but there wasn’t a single person in the room who wasn’t holding their breath. They all watched as the larger man gave an uncertain nod and began doing as instructed.

Sly only had eyes for Raleigh.

The frog leaned back on his legs, expression calculating while he stared at his employee who could wield such a heavy tool with so much ease. It took only a few minutes until the walrus was done, and he looked towards his boss with only a bit of sweat beading his brow.

“That good enough, sir?”

“Yes,” Raleigh practically purred as he took two short hops to reach his squid manager’s side, “I do believe I have seen enough, now.”

And with that, he reached over, pulled the squid’s gun out of its holster, and shot both them and the hammer wielder point-blank.

Two bodies hit the floor simultaneously. The sound of it echoed the gunshots like thunder following lightning, leaving ten workers and a raccoon paralyzed by the aftermath. Raleigh tossed the gun onto its deceased owner with a disgusted sneer.

“Let this be a lesson the next time you lazy sods see fit to pass your mistakes off onto someone else,” he said, wiping his hands on one of the bodies at his feet before picking up his gloves and putting them back on as nonchalantly as if he’d just swatted a bug out of the air. “I don’t tolerate mistakes, but I tolerate lying even less – especially by those who are supposed to corral the lot of you.”

His eyes landed on Sly, who averted his gaze. The frog clicked his tongue in revulsion and gave a dismissive flick of his hand, and the two holding the raccoon released him without a word.

“Now, all of you – get back to work!”

Wales was just as wet as Haiti but with half the humidity. Rain greeted the two of them as they stepped off the plane into Rhoose, stayed through their road trip to Swansea, and refused to let up long after they’d found local lodgings.

It was absolutely miserable. Sly was absolutely miserable.

He tried not to snap at his partner for it, he really did, but it was difficult between the long flight, the stupid rain, and the awful reminder of where they were headed next. He’d been under Raleigh’s “care” for several months before getting shipped to America to help Muggshot with his city takeover, and the memories were still strong with recent hurt. The only things keeping his mood up were the newest treasures in his backpack and the precious gift he now wore as much as possible.

The hoodie the inspector had bought for him was more colorful than his old one, and probably too flashy for a thief who wanted to stay out of sight, but it was a gift, and it was his, and he wasn’t about to waste warm clothes while in Wales, anyway.

Carmelita was similarly preoccupied. The minute she got situated in her hotel room, she checked in with the local authorities – not Interpol, this time – and was already running off for an impromptu meeting with them to discuss recent sightings of the frog and how best to catch him. She had apologized to him for having to leave so soon, a first, but promised to share anything new she learned when she returned – also a first. He spent an inordinate amount of that time wondering when the inspector had gone from being a hard-ass about confidentiality to suddenly being willing to update him on the details of her case.

When she finally came back less than two hours later, it was with a dejected air that he wasn’t fond of at all.

“Don’t tell me these guys are too afraid to go storming the keep, too,” he joked, trying to lighten her mood.

“It’s nothing that dire, thank god, but none of them know where Raleigh is.” The fox sat down on the two-seater beside him and began pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I thought he’d been sighted along the coastline in Wales.”

“He was. Three years ago. There’s been no sign of him anywhere in the country since.”

Uh oh. Sly played his nervous fidgeting off as shared disappointment. “What about those emails of yours?”

“I already checked the coordinates.” She simply shook her head. “Muggshot supposedly landed about a mile out in the ocean, but the officers here have already scoured the whole area over several times and come up empty, so there was probably a boat involved to hide any evidence of whatever they were ferrying. Swansea is the closest coastal city to those coordinates, which is why we’re staying here until I find a better lead.”

“Huh. Makes sense.”

Carmelita gave him an apologetic look. “We might be here a while. Hope you don’t mind that.”

“I don’t mind at all.” His leg started bouncing. He forced it to stop. “Do you need any help with sleuthing? I bet we could figure this out in no time between the two of us.”

He counted it as a personal success when she finally cracked a smile.

“Thanks, Ringtail, but it’s probably going to be pretty boring. I won’t subject you to that.”

Sly wished she would. He really wished she would, if only to preoccupy his mind from who they were going up against next. Mz. Ruby was scary for her powers, for her premonition that could have halted his mission before it could even get off the ground. Other than that, her ghost friends and the giant snake – which he was still disturbed by whenever he thought about it – she wasn’t all that intimidating. She had never been nice to him, by any stretch of the word, but she had been mostly interested in using him for heists and keeping her place clean and not paid him mind otherwise.

Muggshot was a lot scarier than her, but Sly had long-since learned how to work around him; he had simply kept his head down, done his job, and didn’t piss the bulldog off. It had been a hard balancing act sometimes, but one he was well-versed in.

Raleigh, however. Raleigh was a different story entirely.

Luckily, this time he had an ace up his sleeve that would hopefully keep him safe. Or, more accurately, a few more pages of the Thievius Raccoonus.

And so, the two of them fell into a rhythm, day by day. In the morning, Carmelita would visit the local officers to compare notes and work out ideas together, while Sly used his alone time to practice the newest ability from one of his earliest ancestors. Invisibility was a tall claim, even for the Cooper family, but the raccoon approached it with the seriousness that he had with Tennessee’s additions. If Slytunkhamen believed he had mastered such an unbelievable power, and every descendent since then had believed it, then Sly had no choice but to believe it as well.

The afternoons they spent together; talking about the case, talking about the new location and all its quirks, talking about themselves. She asked him questions no one had in a long time – his favorite foods, the music he most listened to, what kinds of hobbies he had. It was startling, almost embarrassing, to realize he didn’t have immediate answers to most of them, but the fox had taken it in stride and simply stated that she’d be happy to help him discover those things, instead of calling him boring.

And for most evenings, the inspector shut herself in her room to pour over her notes and every conceivable scrap of information she could find to parse out more clues on Raleigh’s location, while Sly went back to practicing his abilities and pretended he didn’t know exactly where to find the frog.

It wasn’t like he could just tell her that Raleigh was hiding out on the Isle of Wrath, after all. He didn’t have an excuse for knowing that like he had with Mz. Ruby, and even though he could feel the metaphorical clock ticking away at his chance to recover more of the Thievius Raccoonus before it was too late, something in him prevented him from going off towards the island by himself.

They were a team now. Partners. He wasn’t going to do this without her – not after all the hard work she had done to get this far. That would just be cruel for the sake of cruelty. And besides, he still hadn’t mastered Slytunkhamen’s skill yet. He couldn’t be certain it was safe enough until then.

At least, that was what he told himself.

Nearly two weeks into their stay, Carmelita was very clearly at her wit’s end over the wall she’d seemingly run up against, and so Sly decided to surprise her with a takeout dinner the way she had surprised him with his hoodie. He found a seafood restaurant right by the docks with food he knew she liked, ordered something for them ahead of time, and went inside when it was done with a quiet hum in his throat.

The hum died immediately as he saw two terrifyingly familiar walruses at the counter.

He froze just inside the doorway, but they didn’t turn at the sound of someone entering the restaurant. It gave him enough time to swerve into the side hallway leading to the kitchen before they thought to glance his way.

Out of everyone’s line of sight, Sly carefully peeked out around the corner. The two walruses were picking up their food, it seemed, as they waited patiently for the nervous employee to ring them up. Thoughts racing, he pulled out his camera, made sure the flash was off, and started taking photos. An opportunity had presented itself to solve his little dilemma and he was going to take full advantage of it.

They got their food and headed out the door without another word. Neither noticed the raccoon tail they had suddenly gained as they walked with quite a bit of purpose. Sly followed at a distance, watching the beeline the two were making towards the docks proper. He froze when they stopped, and slipped into the nearest building’s shadow.

Just to be safe, he closed his eyes and attempted invisibility.

There were two tricks to it, he had been finding. The first was that he had to hold his breath for it to work, which had not been mentioned in the book at all so he was pretty sure it was just a him-thing. The second was a certain mental fortitude that took some getting used to – not just silent sure-footedness but the confidence of it, which he was also finding was the hardest part to do. Sly struggled with confidence at the best of times, but he willed all self-doubts away as much as possible and focused on simply not being.

He held his breath. Opened his eyes. Watched as one of Raleigh’s men looked his way and then looked elsewhere without so much as a double-take.

The raccoon’s heart jumped in his chest, amazed and overjoyed, but he didn’t dare exhale or let his guard down. There was still work to be done. He started moving again when they did, dropping the invisibility so that he could breathe and then immediately pulling it back up with a quietly-caught inhale whenever one of them so much as shifted in his direction.

Further across the docks they went, passing boat after boat of all sizes, until the walruses finally stopped again at a tiny fishing boat tied up as close to the open ocean as they could reach. Sly stood out in the open, completely unseen and unmoving, as they climbed into it while passing their takeout back and forth. There was a familiar symbol on the side of the boat in place of a name, and he carefully brought his camera up to snap one more picture of it.

Raleigh’s men rode off very shortly afterwards, and as soon as they were completely out of sight, the raccoon turned tail and sprinted all the way back to the hotel.

Then he doubled back to the restaurant, because he’d forgotten to pick up his order.

Carmelita sounded distant when he made his presence known outside her room and she told him to come in. The raccoon opened the door armed with food, only to stop short at the papers and photos strewn all about the carpet in front of him.

“I see you’ve decided to take a page out of a conspiracy theorist’s handbook,” he noted with great amusement, sidestepping the unorthodox obstacles to reach the fox kneeling in the center of it all. “All we need now is red yarn to connect things at random.”

“I’m so close to a breakthrough, it’s not even funny,” she said, distracted and not even glancing up when he sat himself down next to her with the bag of food the only thing between them. “I’ve pulled every heist, past sighting, and background info I could get my hands on to try and find a pattern of behavior. All I need is one more clue and I’m sure I can pin Raleigh down.”

Sly made a noncommittal noise as he tried to think of how to bring up what he’d “discovered” in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. In an effort to stall, he began pulling out boxes of food, and watched with a smirk at the way her nose twitched in response.

“Do you think he’s hiding further inland somewhere?” He asked carefully.

“Not really,” she admitted, finally tearing herself away from her work to take the food he was offering. “Thanks. But we can’t rule out every possibility. That's just bad detective work.”

“I agree. On that first part, I mean.” The raccoon bit into a curry pie, mind still turning. “I think he’s still around here somewhere, too.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just a hunch.”

“You and your hunches.”

“Hey, don’t discount a raccoon’s intuition,” he said with a grin. “It’s helped us a lot so far, hasn’t it?”

Carmelita rolled her eyes and nudged him with her own smile. “Sometimes a little too well. I’m starting to think you’ve got insider knowledge, Ringtail.”

“Nah, I just have some personal experience dealing with pompous windbags,” he quickly dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Shouldn’t be all that different from this guy, right?”

“He could be that, but he’s also a criminal,” she pointed out. “And besides, you don’t know him any better than I do. He might not be anything like that at all.”

Oh, how sorely he wished that were the case. Instead of saying that, though, Sly picked a page off the ground and started reading it aloud. “‘Born to a wealthy aristocratic family. Began piracy at age thirty on a whim.’ If that doesn’t sound like a pompous windbag, then I don’t know what does.”

“Point taken,” she said with a huff, holding out her hand so he could return the paper to her. “But you really shouldn’t be looking at any of this just to prove that point. These are confidential documents.”

“If you didn’t want me looking at it then you shouldn’t have invited me over while you had it all out. Surely you know better by now.”

The inspector’s tail flickered back and forth behind her, clearly peeved that he had called her on the carpet. Instead of responding, she turned back to her work.

“That frog is pushing fifty, and most of his colleagues have faded into obscurity the last few years as well…barring Muggshot. Either he’s planning something big like Mz. Ruby was, or he’s setting up for retirement. As someone with as fickle a mood as Raleigh, it could go either way.”

“What’s so special about Wales, anyway?” It was a question that had always bugged him, but one he had never dared voice. “If he’s going to retire, why not do it in England or somewhere more populated?”

“Wales is where he was raised,” she told him. He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “If he’s choosing to lay low for a while, for whatever reason, then it makes sense to do it on his home turf.”

“Wow. You’ve really done your homework, huh.” Sly looked at the scattered papers in a new light. “Pretty impressive detective work.”

Her cheeks turned a funny shade of pink. “Thanks. It’s just basic guesswork, though.”

“Speaking of guesswork,” he said, seeing the opportunity and pulling out his camera, “what do you make of this?”

The fox squinted at the photo on the tiny screen for a few moments. Then her eyes widened and she grabbed the camera out of his hands to take a closer look, which he let her do without any resistance.

“When and where did you take this?” She asked, nose a millimeter from the screen.

“About ten minutes ago at the docks. They were at the place I got this lovely meal from and something about them felt off, so I snapped a few quick photos and tailed them to their boat.”

Carmelita jerked her head up in alarm. “Sly, you followed them? That was a dangerous thing to do! If they noticed you doing that, they might have thought you were threatening them. They could have hurt you regardless of whether they’re civilians or criminals!”

“Give me some credit, Inspector.” He leaned back until his back was against the end of her bed, and folded his arms behind his head. “I know how to stay unseen. And if I hadn’t tailed them, then I wouldn’t have seen them get on this boat you’re suddenly so interested in. What’s up with that, by the way?”

“This, right here. See this symbol that looks kind of like a top hat?” She pointed it out for him, and he pretended to be clueless. “That’s Raleigh’s personal mark. We’ve found it on every piece of his tech we’ve managed to recover since he made his debut as a criminal.”

“So it’s like a calling card?”

“More of a watermark, but that works, too.”

“Sweet. One more question, then – does ‘the Isle of Wrath’ mean anything to you?”

The inspector nearly dropped the camera at those words and swiveled to face him. “There were rumors of Raleigh being seen out there years ago, but they were dismissed with no evidence. Where did you hear that name?”

“Those guys on the boat mentioned it.”

“Sly.” She placed her hands on his shoulders with an excited gleam in her eye. “You just gave me exactly what I needed.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you did!” For a heart-stopping moment, it looked like she was going to hug him – or worse, kiss him – but she let go of him instead and he let go of the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I know exactly where Raleigh is, now!”

“That’s great. You willing to let me tag along again?”

“Absolutely. Better pack a raincoat, Ringtail, cause our next stop is the Isle of Wrath!”

Chapter Text

It was cloudy but devoid of rain that following morning when they headed out, and Carmelita took it as a good sign. She contacted the chief constable she’d been working with to let them know that she’d found a good lead and would keep them updated, then contacted the first boat rental she could find to secure passage to the Isle of Wrath for her and her partner.

The two of them stood on the docks, watching the rental employees set the boat up for them. Sly, she noticed, kept glancing between her and the boat.

“You know you can ask me anything, Ringtail. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m just wondering…” He hesitated and looked back towards the town. “Why did you rent a civilian boat? Don’t the cops here have one you can use?”

“They do,” she acknowledged, “but asking them for it would’ve made them want to come along. I’d rather just us two go ahead and scope the place out first.”

“Because you don’t want to alert our frog friend that he’s got someone gunning for him?”

“That, and also because I know you don’t want to interact with other officers if you can help it.”

He blinked at her, surprised, and she gave him a smile.

“We make a pretty good team, Ringtail. I’d rather have you at my side for something like this than a team of strangers. Not that I don’t trust my fellow officers!” The fox hurried to clarify. “But you’ve more than proven yourself to be just as capable as me, and I know I can rely on you no matter what’s thrown at us.”

Sly sat on that for a minute, and she let him. He always seemed to take a little longer to process genuine compliments. She found it almost endearing. “…Yeah, I guess after a giant swamp monster, there really isn’t anything that we can’t handle by ourselves. So, same plan as before, then? Go in quiet and careful, and then launch a surprise attack?”

“More or less, although this time I’d like to call for reinforcements before I get into another big fight, not after.” She gestured to the boat. “Hence another reason for getting this – so you have a guaranteed way off the Isle if you’re not willing to get on a police boat with me.”

“Huh. Thanks.”

He sounded like he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her change of heart, even though she’d already long-apologized for Haiti, and Carmelita couldn’t blame him. She still hadn’t told him about what she’d witnessed that night to make her reevaluate her judgement, after all.

Speaking of the boat, however, the two employees were taking longer than expected to finish prepping it. They kept muttering to themselves – hadn’t stopped muttering to themselves since the inspector had said it would be a trip to the Isle of Wrath. Carmelita strained her hearing but couldn’t pick up what was putting them so on edge.

“They’re nervous to send us out that far,” Sly said quietly as if reading her mind. “They’re afraid a storm is going to sink the boat.”

“What? Why are they worried about a storm?” She whispered back, confused and irritated. “It’s not even raining today, and all the local forecasts say it’s going to be clear skies for days. That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Don’t shoot the messenger; I’m only saying what they’re saying.” The corners of his mouth lifted up ever so slightly. “Maybe ‘storm’ is actually code for ‘inspector’. Maybe they think you’ll sink the boat cause you don’t know how to handle one.”

“Very funny.” She pushed lightly at his shoulder in mock offense. “But there’s nothing to worry about, because I’ve been out to sea before. I’m going to talk to them.”

“Good idea. Go prove me right.”

All her eye rolling couldn’t stop the warmth rising in her cheeks at his smug little smile as she walked off. What a terrible gift he wielded to be able to get under her skin in a way that was both infuriating and charming. She hoped, after this was all over and the rest of the Fiendish Five were behind bars, that they’d stay in touch – if only because she was going to miss that feeling.

Professional thoughts, Carmelita. You’re on a mission here.

The fox stepped up to the edge of the dock right by the boat and cleared her throat. One of the employees, a seagull, lifted her ballcap to look at her.

“Everything almost good to go?” Carmelita asked as politely as possible.

“Yeah. You’re all set.” The gull hesitated, then leaned forward so she could lower her voice. “But are you sure you want to go to the Isle of Wrath? It’s a treacherous area, you know.”

“If you’re talking about the Welsh Triangle, then don’t worry. I’m well aware of the dangers and I have boating experience.”

The employees shared a glance, but whatever doubts they had weren’t voiced. The seagull only shook her head and handed Carmelita the boat keys.

“Whatever you say, ma’am. Just be careful, yeah?”

“Of course.” She turned and waved Sly forward, and he climbed onto the boat. “Everything will be just fine.”

Everything was not, in fact, just fine.

An hour out from Swansea, the sky suddenly grew dark and gloomy, and the ocean began getting choppier around them. By hour two, Carmelita was silently cursing out every weather reporter she could think of as what was supposed to be a calm, peaceful morning at sea had suddenly turned into a game of tug-of-war against powerful currents and what was practically a monsoon falling from the thick clouds above.

A tumultuous wave crashed into the side of the boat, nearly knocking her off her feet, and she barely managed to keep herself upright with her hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel in the tiny bridge. Her partner was huddled in on himself against the wall furthest from the door, body language tense and miserable.

“This is insane!” She shouted over the sudden crackle of lightning in the distance. “Where the hell did this storm even come from!”

Sly didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect him to. They both just kept their eyes locked on the ocean ahead and hoped that the waves wouldn’t get big enough to capsize them.

Seeing a dark shape in the distance that wasn’t more water was one of the most relieving things the fox had ever experienced. She turned the boat towards the shrouded isle, praying that they’d make it to land safely before the storm could get any worse.

They landed not-so-gently on the shore, but Carmelita was happy to take a potential beaching over losing the boat entirely. Her legs were more than a little shaky as her boots hit the sand, and she shielded her face with her arm against the rain that was still drenching them while she looked for any sign of Raleigh’s presence.

A prickling at her left side told her that Sly was now standing next to her. Within the noise of the storm, she hadn’t even heard him jump down.

“I should’ve brought that stupid raincoat after all,” she grumbled. “Now I’m never going to get dry.”

“I’m just glad we made it to the island,” the raccoon said.

He looked as wretched as she felt, which was more comforting than she expected. The inspector squared her shoulders and looked out at the dark landscape. What should’ve been a bright, midday sky was instead a gloomy dusk that made it feel like it was the middle of the night.

“Let’s turn this bad luck on its head and find Raleigh. This isn’t a big island, so it shouldn’t take long.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

The storm seemed to let up just a little bit as they made their way deeper into the Isle of Wrath; the wind was chilling but no longer knocking the breath out of them, and the downpour became regular rain that they didn’t have to squint through just to see where their next step was. Carmelita thanked her past self’s foresight for wearing a windbreaker instead of her usual jacket, which she wrapped tightly around herself.

Sly still hadn’t taken off the hoodie she’d gotten him. He crossed his arms close to his chest but otherwise made no complaints about the cold.

Eventually, they stumbled onto a beaten path that had long been turned to mud, almost as difficult to walk along as off of it. The two followed its trail as it circled around the isle until they were on a tall cliffside with the ocean far below on their right.

And up ahead, tucked away in a bay, was a giant ornate ship.

Carmelita’s mouth fell open as she stared at it. Even from this distance, she could tell that it was on par with some smaller cruise ships. It reeked of exorbitance and aristocracy.

“Look at the size of that ship,” she breathed in disgusted awe. “How did Raleigh get away without being seen for so long with that thing?”

Sly’s eyes scanned the giant eye sore until he found what he was looking for. He pointed. “Probably because of that.”

She followed his finger to a miniature blimp hovering over the bow of the ship. It would have looked innocent – as innocent as a blimp belonging to a criminal could look – if not for the swirling vortex of clouds billowing out of its top.

“What the hell is that?”

“Well, I’m not exactly an engineer,” the raccoon said with his mouth in a thin, grim line. “But between the stuff coming out of it and how wrong the weather has been, my honest guest would be some kind of…storm machine.”

Carmelita groaned and flicked wet hair out of her eyes. “Why would someone even want a storm machine? Why can’t any of these people be like normal criminals?! Storm machines and city coups and zombies! I feel like I’m in a cop soap opera.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re the main character who’s going to outlast all the supporting cast, huh?”

“Oh, shush. If anything, this is a buddy cop show – so we’ll outlast them together. You and me against the scum of the world for ten seasons and a movie.”

The fox began descending the path in the direction of the ship, waiting for Sly to continue the joke, but all she heard was his own footsteps on the rocky terrain behind her. When she glanced back at him, he looked lost in thought.

They made their way to the bottom of the cliff where water lapped at their feet, and Carmelita could see a single, lonely dock at the end of the bay with one single, lonely boat tied to it. She motioned for her partner to follow her over that way.

It was the same boat that Sly had taken pictures of back in town. No one could be seen anywhere, so they climbed onto the deck and began poking around. Barrels lined the railing – some empty, some filled with what looked like scavenged tech and miscellaneous comfort things like curtains and bedding and books. Everything was waterlogged to some degree, but it didn’t look to be from the rain.

“The keys aren’t in the engine,” the raccoon called out to her when he came out of the bridge while she continued to search through barrels. “Those two guys must park it here when they aren’t harassing poor food service workers.”

“Where do you think they got all of this?” She asked, gesturing to the containers she’d opened. “None of this looks store-bought, and I can’t find any correlation – it’s all too different.”

He looked over the stuff, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Dunno, but –”

The words cut off as they saw a light on the water in the distance, at the base of the giant ship still sitting farther out in the bay. It looked like a lantern, and it was slowly creeping towards the dock.

“Looks like those guys are coming back for it,” Sly finished.

Carmelita inhaled sharply through her teeth and began putting the barrel lids back in place. Before she could finish, her partner stopped her with a gentle touch of his hand.

“What are you doing? We have to hide any evidence that we were here before they show up!”

“Yeah, but we also have to find a way onto that ship.” He looked meaningfully at her, then down at the barrel between them. “And I have an idea as to how.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Shh.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“It is going to work, but only if you stay quiet.”

Carmelita grumbled and shifted her weight so that the plush rug she had wrapped around herself didn’t feel quite so suffocating. The two of them were each hiding in a barrel, which was perhaps the dumbest plan she had ever tried in her life – that she had ever heard in her life. But she didn’t complain about it again for fear that whoever was coming back might be in earshot, and they both waited for something to happen.

They waited five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Just when Carmelita was ready to throw up her hands and start climbing out of her hiding place in impatience, a sudden thud that made the boat rock under them had her going still. A pair of gruff, masculine voices announced the arrival of the walruses to whom the boat belonged to.

The fox didn’t move a muscle as the men turned the engine on and began driving the boat off. She could see through a tiny hole in the wood that they were moving towards Raleigh’s ship. Once it was lined up parallel to the giant eyesore, the walruses bustled about the deck out of her line of sight.

Then, suddenly, one of them lifted the barrel she was in.

Carmelita held her breath, staring out at nothing but blue overalls while the man held the barrel against his chest. He placed her on – something, and then she felt gravity bottom out from under her as her view told her she was being raised up, up, up into the air.

Once that stopped, another set of hands hoisted her again from behind and took her off what she could now see was a pulley-driven lift covered in other full barrels. She was placed roughly on the ship’s deck, left to do nothing but watch as the walruses spent the better part of ten minutes emptying the boat below.

After they were done, the two took a moment to catch their breaths before walking off, leaving their cargo alone and unattended. Even so, the inspector waited until she was certain they’d be out of earshot to carefully remove herself from her hiding place, and she saw Sly do the same nearby.

They replaced the lids and darted off together until they could safely slip into the shadows of one of the dilapidated miniature houses seemingly built right on the deck. No one shouted after them and no alarms went off.

“I can’t believe that worked,” she huffed, equally impressed and annoyed by the silliness of it all. “We got extremely lucky, you know. If they’d opened their cargo as soon as they’d unloaded it, things would’ve gone very poorly.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t,” the raccoon pointed out, peering around the corner to look for other goons who might show up unannounced. “No use dwelling on how things could’ve gone wrong when there’s no point to it.”

He was right. She sighed and nodded, knowing he probably couldn’t see it, and joined him in scanning the area. It was rather empty for such a large ship; there was no sign of anyone but them on the deck. The deck itself was built to look more like a residential street than what one usually expected to see on a ship – there was even a fountain with a little angler fish centerpiece surrounded by a small field of grass, like some kind of miniature decorative park or garden. The inspector wrinkled her nose at the shallow extravagance of it all.

“This place looks like a maze. I don’t even know where to start looking for Raleigh.”

Before her partner could offer any suggestions, there was a now-familiar screeching of a loudspeaker coming to life all around them.

“I say, chaps, my heartiest congratulations to you all!” Raleigh’s voice was difficult to understand through the abysmal feedback and his own loud volume. “The storm machine has sunk its fiftieth ship last night, and the loot has already been unloaded. Our operation has been moving along splendidly!”

Carmelita’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and she looked over towards the cluster of barrels they had just been hiding in. Suddenly, the odd variety of contents made perfect, terrible sense.

“With the possible exception being…” The frog continued, and if he’d been hard to hear before, it was nearly unintelligible now. “The grounds negligence displayed below decks. And, I demand the boilers stay at full pressure at all times! If you lazy, low-brow, technically incompetent pack of guttersnipes did your jobs right, we'd have sunk one hundred ships by now!”

She felt more than saw Sly tense up beside her at the venom in the crime boss’ words. Then, just as abruptly, Raleigh switched right back to being cheery and proud.

“But of course, fifty boats is a fine, fine achievement. Carry on, my boys, carry on.”

The announcement ended, thankfully not as jarringly as it had started, and the two stowaways spent a moment looking at each other as they processed this new information and how it could help or hinder them.

“Explains the sudden bad weather,” she said, and he bobbed his head in agreement. “And it also explains why no one has found him even though he’s hiding so close to Wales.”

“What’s the plan, then? Ready to call in reinforcements and wait for them to show up?”

There was a surprising amount of genuineness to his statement; when she looked at the raccoon, she could see that he was completely serious about the suggestion. In fact, he seemed almost more nervous to be here than in Mz. Ruby’s territory.

“…Not just yet,” the inspector replied, slow and thoughtful, and watched with confused interest how her partner didn’t seem as thrilled about working alone as she had come to expect. “If Raleigh is deliberately sinking any ships that come out here, then there’s a good chance he’ll do that to any officers who come to help.”

“We made it, didn’t we?”

“By the skin of our teeth, Ringtail,” she reminded him. “And ironically, us being in a smaller boat is probably what saved us, if these criminals using one as well is any indication. The police boats are going to be a lot bigger and bulkier than that.”

Sly grimaced, which made her head spin. Since when was he the one eager to get authorities involved while she was more reluctant? It felt as topsy-turvy as the rest of the day was shaping up to be.

“What about a helicopter?”

That made her give him a long, flat stare, letting the rain pour down on them both until he realized how incredibly stupid that idea was. He coughed once and rubbed the back of his head when it hit him, clearly embarrassed, but she didn’t tease him for it.

“I’m still going to contact them, but first we need to find a way to shut down that storm machine.”

“Should probably stall the ship, too,” he added. “Otherwise, Raleigh might haul off into the ocean and make it impossible to find him again.”

“Good point. Plus, it would really suck to be stranded here, carried off to who-knows-where for who-know-how-long, huh?” Carmelita said it as a joke, but from the way the raccoon visibly paled under his fur, he wasn’t finding the humor in it. “I’m kidding, Ringtail. We’re not going to let that happen.”

“…Right. Of course not.”

Plan in place, she squared her shoulders and looked about the ship. There was no indication of where the bridge could be, or whether they could rely on something as simple as an anchor to ground such a giant craft. In fact, the longer she studied the deck and all of the things crammed across it, the more she realized that it might be a case of finding a needle in a haystack.

“Any, uh, ideas?” She asked as nonchalantly as she could. “A direction that’s enticing to you, maybe?”

“I don’t know a lot about how boats work,” he admitted quietly, clearly seeing through her ruse.

“Neither do I,” the fox sighed, giving up on subtlety. She eyed the large blimp hovering above the ship’s bow. “Nor do I know how to stop something like that.”

They both watched the miniature maelstrom that seemed to rise straight out of the top of the floating machine. An idea occurred to her that she almost didn’t voice – not because she didn’t think it was a good one, but because of her partner’s nervous energy. She wasn’t entirely certain he wouldn’t shoot it down without hearing her out.

“I might have an idea…” Carmelita started, tentative as she watched him for any negative reaction. “But let me know if you’re not comfortable with it.”

Sly raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“What if we split up?” When he didn’t immediately respond, she continued. “We can search the grounds in half the time, and it’ll give us more of a chance to achieve both of our goals before Raleigh or his goons catch on to our presence. What do you think?”

The raccoon looked at her for a long moment where she couldn’t read what he was thinking at all. Just when she thought he’d veto the plan, he tilted his head and gave a cautious nod.

“…That works for me,” he said with a tone she could hear the reservations in.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. The sooner we bring this ship down, the sooner we can get out of this awful place – this awful rain, I mean.”

Carmelita took one look at the expression on his face and decided not to press the strange slip of his tongue. She clapped him once on the back reassuringly, gave him her brightest smile, and hoped it was enough.

“It’ll be fine, Ringtail. If anything goes wrong, you know I’m just a call away.” She gave him a pointed look about that. Her number was in his phone, but he hadn’t yet bothered to call her to give her his number.

He offered a wan smile, not quite strong enough to be coy but definitely a lot closer to the Sly she was used to. “I know. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that, though. Gotta prove I’m capable of being on my own at least once, right?”

“You don’t have to prove anything, Sly. Not to me.”

With that, she reached over and gave one quick, encouraging squeeze of his hand with her own, and felt his fingers twitch in response. Then they both let go at the same time and turned in opposite directions.

“Meet here in half an hour regardless if we find anything or not?”

Her partner nodded.

“Great. Then I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon.”

Inspector Fox went off, taking one moment to turn and watch Sly's tail disappear behind a set of buildings, and ignored the strange, sudden worry in her stomach.

Chapter Text

Sly scaled one of the ramshackle buildings on the deck and crouched on its roof, taking a moment to scan the area for anything different from the last time he’d been here. He could see Carmelita making a beeline for the front half of the ship from his perch; her silhouette was obscured in the dark of the storm but the way she moved was like a bright beacon compared to everyone else he knew was onboard. He waited until she was gone from his line of sight before turning his attention towards the stern.

He had told her that he didn’t know much about boats, and that wasn’t a lie. But he did know a lot about this one, and that was going to make all the difference.

Without any further dallying, the raccoon dropped down the other side of the building and sprinted for a large iron door tucked far out of sight that led to a descending stairwell. It was unlocked, just like he knew it would be, and he slipped inside and started heading downward.

The temperature increased tenfold from freezing outside rain to sweltering machinery air the deeper he got into the bowels of the ship. It was a heat he was both very familiar with and didn’t miss at all, and immediately his brow broke out in sweat as he dashed through steam-filled rooms and shimmied between scalding metal and open flames. There were a multitude of workers down here, too, but avoiding them was the easiest part – most of them were too absorbed in their work to even notice him, and he held his breath to slip by those that were a little more observant.

After only a few minutes of sneaking and dodging and hiding, Sly found himself in a place he hadn’t been to in weeks: the boiler room.

He stopped just inside, surprised to see the place empty, and looked around to make sure he was well and truly alone. All the engines were humming in a state of standby, ready and able to be pushed into overdrive at the single press of a button. They weren’t what he was here for, though – that prize was in the center of the room, larger than any of its kin and chugging along at max capacity.

Sly ran his fingers along the tiniest of dents in its outer shell. His eyes trailed to the ground, but no red stains could be found. Those dents were the only physical reminder of what had happened here only days before the raccoon had been picked up and sent to the States. He wondered, morbidly curious, whether the bodies had been disposed of in one of the open furnaces or if they’d been thrown out to sea.

There was no use dwelling on bad memories when he had a job to do, so he pulled out his cane and raised it over his head.

Heavy footsteps from behind him. The raccoon stiffened and turned around to see the walrus welder he had once been paired with standing just inside the doorway. She stared at him in shock before her expression hardened and her hand started going towards the radio at her hip.

“Wait! Just – wait,” he pleaded, holding his hands up like there was nothing wrong with the picture in front of her. It wasn’t quite as effective with his cane out, and he could see it in the way her eyes kept darting between it and his face with visible, suspicious confusion.

The look on her face suggested she wasn’t sure if he was going to jump her. If she were just a little bit closer, he probably would have.

“What are you doing here, kid?” She asked warily. One foot was bouncing erratically as though she was torn between retreating or advancing. “The boss never said anything about you coming back.”

“You’re right, this wasn’t planned. I wasn’t supposed to be back yet.” Lies were always more convincing with a grain of truth to them, he’d long ago discovered. The raccoon hoped with all his might that it would be enough this time. “But Raleigh brought me here because some of his colleagues have gotten caught, and he didn’t want me accidentally leaking info if I was caught, too.”

For a few seconds, it seemed like his deception was going to be successful. The walrus was starting to relax, bit by bit, and he slowly put his hands down in response. But then her gaze drifted to the machinery behind him, and her confused frown grew deeper and deeper.

“Isn’t that…” The moment realization hit her, the welder’s eyes went wide with shock and anger. She raised a finger at Sly that trembled with rage. “You’re trying to stall the ship.”

“What are you talking about?” Sweat trickled down his temple. “I’m just doing my job down here, same as you and everyone else.”

It wasn’t enough. She snarled – but instead of rushing forward to stop him like he thought, she turned on her heel and fled the room, and Sly’s entire body was flooded with ice in the middle of an inferno.

“Shit! Fuck!” He started to run after her, then stopped and glanced back at the chugging engine. It had to be destroyed, and this might be his only chance to do so safely – but if the walrus got away from him before her could stop her from making a call, then Raleigh was going to learn there was an intruder onboard.

Raleigh was going to learn he was onboard. He couldn’t let the frog know he was here, couldn’t be found, couldn’t be caught – because if he was caught then there’d never be a chance to escape again.

But the only way to truly escape was if the ship was trapped in the bay.

Sly inhaled and turned back around, swinging his cane with all his might at the machinery. The jolt of the impact ricocheted up his arms not unlike the tombstones in Mz. Ruby’s swamp, but he couldn’t afford to be unbalanced by it. He swung again, and again, and again, until the engine was a smoking, sputtering mess and he could hear everything around him start to power down.

Then he sprinted after the woman.

Through rooms, between furnaces, dodging heat and smoke and startled workers, the raccoon ran for all he was worth. There was only one way out of the engine room, which he raced for while praying to anything that might listen that he could catch her before it was too late. The stairwell was empty as he took the stairs two at a time, and his heart was in his throat when he burst out onto the deck.

Nothing. Not even a fleeing shadow. The walrus was gone.

Fuck! Fuck! Cào! Fuck!

Overwhelmed by terrified failure, Sly’s knees gave out beneath him and he was forced to prop himself up against the iron door as static crept up his limbs and into his lungs. It was over. She was going to tell Raleigh, and Raleigh was going to find him here. The frog would drag him kicking and screaming back into hell – if he was feeling forgiving about everything the raccoon had done to his colleagues.

And if he wasn’t feeling forgiving, if he decided to treat Sly like the thief that he was, then it was over.

You’re caught you’re caught you’re caught you’re dead –

His chest was burning.

Somehow, through a haze of panic, he reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out his burner phone, shaking so hard that he nearly dropped the tiny thing. As if on autopilot, staring out at the empty deck and the ocean waves beyond, he found one of two saved numbers and pressed the dial button.

“Ringtail?” Carmelita’s answering voice was a shock to his system, but not nearly enough to break him out of his distress. He held the phone close and struggled to stop hyperventilating. “Is that you? What’s that sound?”

“It’s – it’s me,” he managed between shallow gulps of air. “I’m – it’s – there’s a – a problem, I can’t…”

“A problem?” The sharp uptick in her tone made him flinch. “What kind of problem? Did someone see you?”

seen seen seen caught caught caught dead dead dead

“Yes! Seen, I was seen, we have to get out of here, kāi zǒu, we need to –”

“Okay, whoa, first you need to calm down. I’m going to count to ten and I need you to breathe in and out along with me. Okay?”

He wanted to scream. They needed to leave immediately, not stop to make him feel better!

“Sly. I need you to listen to me. We can’t make a plan until you’ve stopped panicking.” Her words left no room for argument. “I’m starting now. One.”

“Inspector –”

“One.”

Sly promptly shut up and inhaled as deeply as he could.

“Two.”

He exhaled.

“Three.”

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. By the time she uttered “ten”, the raccoon felt like he could actually move his body again. The explosion of panic in his head had lessened to a storm he could almost weather by himself.

His chest still ached.

“How are you feeling, Ringtail?”

“…Better.” It shamed him to admit it. How stupid he must look now; how unreliable he was when just the threat of getting caught had him shattering into pieces.

Even if it was over a very justified threat, it was still absolutely pathetic.

“Good.” There was no scolding or even mocking him for his weakness. The fox was all business, like usual, and he was eternally grateful for it. “Now, you said something about someone seeing you?”

“Yeah…” He tried to swallow the dryness in his mouth. “One of Raleigh’s goons saw me and ran off, and I lost track of her. She’s probably already told him or is on her way to.”

“Shit. Okay, we’re going to have to expedite our process, then. I’m going to call for reinforcements and warn them about the storm. Hopefully, either they’ll be able to make it through regardless or we can find a way to shut it down before they come.”

She sounded stressed but not angry, which threw him for a loop. She should’ve been furious over the sudden change in plans. That he had probably put the entire ship on red alert any minute now and forced them to improvise and risk more lives was enough reason to tell him to get lost until she cleaned up his mess.

But she didn’t do that, and she wasn’t angry – as much as he could tell over a call, anyway – and he pressed the phone a little closer to his ear in silent, secret gratitude.

“I…I don’t think they’ll have to worry about the storm for too much longer,” he tentatively added, looking up at the giant blimp. “The reason I was caught was because I stumbled onto what I think was an engine room, and I sorta…destroyed a machine or two.”

Even now, he could see the artificial vortex beginning to abate. It was more gradual than he’d thought, but it was still a victory, and he knew for a fact that the ship itself was dead in the water for the time being.

“Oh, great job! You sure got a lot done in fifteen minutes. I found a way into the bow where I think they haul in wrecks straight into the ship itself, but this place is so big that I’m probably going to be here a while.”

The idea of the inspector trapped below deck when the frog sounded the alarm sent a spear of worry straight through his chest. “What about Raleigh knowing we’re here? Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Please, Ringtail, give me some credit.” Her voice was nothing but teasing. “If I can handle mob bosses and voodoo priestesses all by myself, I can handle however many lowlifes who are scavenging stolen parts. As long as you keep yourself safe and out of sight, which I know you can, I think we’ll be okay.”

She sounded so sure of it all; their new plan and their safety and his capabilities. The underlying stress was still present, he could hear it no matter how much she was probably trying not to let it seep through, but just the fact that she could stay so level-headed made him both envious and awed.

She was so much better than him, he was beginning to realize. So much better in so many ways. Maybe she had been right to try to refuse his help back in Mesa.

“Cào, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, not noticing the lapse as he was too busy wrestling with sudden, crippling inferiority. “I told you I’d be fine and then I screwed things up for you.”

“It’s…it’s fine, Sly. Mistakes happen and we plan accordingly.” There was a significant pause. “I have a question, though – what was that language you were speaking earlier?”

“What? What did I say?”

“When you were saying we had to leave, you said something I didn’t understand, and also right before you apologized just now – it sounded like…ta-ow?”

The butchering of the pronunciation made him wince before he even registered that he had just slipped into another language in front of her, and that she had caught it. Of course, she had; she caught everything.

“Oh, you heard that, huh?” He began walking, now filled with nervous energy on top of the inadequacy and desperately needing an outlet. “That was Mandarin. You probably shouldn’t repeat that last word out loud. It’s, uh, not very nice.”

“Is that the source of your accent?”

Sly’s eyebrows jumped up and he stopped in his tracks. “I have an accent?”

“You do. It’s very faint, but I noticed it the first time we met. I couldn’t place it.”

“…Huh.”

“You didn’t know?”

No, he very much did not. Another aspect of his identity, stripped away against his will by the monsters who had raised him. The raccoon’s stressed walking turned into an angry trot as he stopped pacing aimlessly and instead headed for a part of the ship that he knew for a fact had something he wanted.

“It’s not my first language,” he said curtly as he moved. The haze of bitterness kept him talking, too heated to stop himself from blurting out the words. “I lived in Kunlun as a kid for a while. Picked up enough to get by.”

Immediately he regretted it – if she was even half the detective he knew her to be, she’d start connecting dots as soon as they went looking for the Panda King. Maybe if he was lucky enough, he could convince her it was just a coincidence. Kunlun was a big area, after all. It was merely chance he had been in the same place that a crime lord had set up shop.

That had worked in Mesa City, hadn’t it?

“Anyway, sorry to give you a heart attack. I promise I’ll be more careful until your officer friends show up. Are we still meeting up again soon if nothing else changes?”

“Wh – yeah, we can do that.” His abrupt change in topic had clearly thrown her for a loop, but the fox recovered quickly like he knew she would. “Just look out for yourself, okay, Ringtail?”

“I will.”

Sly ended the call before he said anything else incriminating, and crammed his phone back in his pocket. His cane he gripped tightly in his right hand as he laid eyes on a particular set of doors belonging to a particular building on the left side of the deck.

They were on a real time crunch, now, and Raleigh probably already knew he was here. The time for subtlety was gone. If any of those incoming cops questioned him about the mess he was probably going to make, he was simply going to tell them that there had been a struggle, he had panicked, and he had feared for his life.

Carmelita would vouch for him. He was almost completely sure of that, now.

Raleigh’s “treasure chamber”, as he liked to call it, was a long ornate hallway that led to a large room filled with water. The walls were filled floor to ceiling with shelves full of stolen goods and decadent prizes. It was the frog’s tailored art gallery of ego while he immersed himself in his personal swimming pool. Sly had been in that room exactly once in his life, the very first time he had stepped foot on the ship – forced to get a good look at each and every item on display as Raleigh bragged about his vast collection and taunted the young kit with something he could never hope to achieve.

It had been both a dare and a threat that day. Daring him to prove his worth as a Cooper by stealing even a single item in that room, and threatening him with a fate worse than death if he so much as tried. Sly, barely thirteen and terrified out of his wits, had not been willing to risk his life to protect his self-worth, and the memory of the frog sneering down at him had stuck so strongly in his mind that he hadn’t ever worked up the courage to attempt it in all the years since.

There had been one other thing about the treasure chamber that had stayed with him, though, and that was the sight of a heavy iron safe on a raised platform in the very center of the pool. The raccoon had no doubt that safe was where Raleigh’s stolen pages of the Thievius Raccoonus were being held.

He pushed through the doors into the fancy hallway and almost immediately was forced to freeze, vanishing from sight just in time for a spotlight to illuminate the exact spot where he was standing. It swung away a few moments later, giving him just enough space to take a better breath and inch forward until it returned, and then he was still again. The thing seemed to be automated, sweeping back and forth down the length of the hall with no room for even the smallest of rats to skirt around the edge of its light.

Sly didn’t know whether being seen by the thing would trigger an alarm or shoot him down, but he wasn’t eager to find out. He moved cautiously, not daring to take any risks, and slowly worked his way down the hall that suddenly felt a lot longer than it looked. Just as he remembered, the walls were covered in shiny baubles and lavish wealth, but none of them caught his attention. None of them were worth anything to someone who was after something truly irreplaceable.

At the other end of the hallway, the room opened up into the swimming pool. It was untouched and seemingly unguarded, but the raccoon knew better than to underestimate the chief machinist of the Fiendish Five. He took the deepest breath he could manage and readied his reflexes as he crossed the threshold, and his foresight paid off when his movement triggered an entire wall of yellow lasers that barreled down on him too fast to blink.

The raccoon turned invisible just a hairs-breadth faster, unable to even wonder if it would work on lasers, and watched wide-eyed as it passed over him just as harmlessly as the spotlight had. He would have breathed a sigh of relief if it didn’t put his life in danger and stealthily continued without letting himself appear visible again. It was only when he reached the edge of the pool that he exhaled, and only because no other security measures had been triggered. He eyed the deep water, then looked past it to the safe that was still where he’d last remembered it, sitting innocently quite a ways away from where Sly was standing.

What the raccoon hadn’t remembered – and what he was very grateful for now – were the lily pads. A dozen or so large, round, green cushions floated on top of the water, looking a lot more stable than they had any right to. After a moment of hesitance, knowing there would be no one nearby to save him this time if he fell into the water again, he made a running leap onto the closest pad. It bounced a little under his weight but otherwise was unbothered, and Sly wasted no time aiming for the next one.

Hopping from lily pad to lily pad was not something he had pictured himself doing in his mission to put the book back together, but it was a far easier task to focus on than the security lasers, and he didn’t dare complain even in his head, afraid to jinx it. The only thing that would have made it even more interesting was if Carmelita was jumping alongside him. No doubt, she would have gotten a kick out of the unusual situation at the exact same time she would’ve taken it extremely seriously. It was one of her odd little contradictions that he found himself liking a lot.

As soon as he made it to the center platform, Sly got on one knee next to the safe and pressed his ear against the door, repeating the technique he had used in Muggshot’s office. Every subtle difference in sound seemed to echo through the cavernous room, which made his job feel easier at the same time it made him paranoid. None of Raleigh’s goons were allowed in here, but that didn’t mean their boss might not decide on an impromptu visit to ensure his treasure was safe when he learned Sly was causing problems.

The frog didn’t show up, thank god, and the raccoon heard the last number fall under his careful hand. His heart swelled with triumph as he opened the safe and began rummaging through it. There was an entire pile of centuries-old gold coins that were probably each worth a fortune, and a series of blueprints of the ship and the storm machine, but when Sly sifted beyond all that, he was shocked to find nothing else. Not a single page of the Thievius Raccoonus had been stashed here.

He had come all the way here only to turn up empty-handed.

Stress began creeping back up his spine, threatening to seep into his skull and into his mind, but he gritted his teeth and smothered it down with sheer willpower and Carmelita’s helpful breathing technique. The worst thing right now was for him to panic again. It wouldn’t help him, it wouldn’t help his partner, and it most certainly wouldn’t find what he was looking for.

With a growl that was teetering dangerously close to a whine, Sly closed the safe door and spun the dial a few times to reset it, then tapped the end of his cane against the concrete floor as he wracked his brain for any idea of where the missing pages might be. There were only so many places on a ship like this that were safe enough to keep such old, delicate artifacts, and although Raleigh was an arrogant windbag, he was not the kind of person to lose something priceless through a careless mistake.

But the only other place as feasibly secure enough as this room wasn’t technically part of the ship. It was floating several meters above the ship, and it never came down for anything. Anything, of course, except for a high-and-mighty frog deciding to grace his crew with his temporary presence before returning to his reclusive lair for weeks at a time.

Sly dissected the dilemma for a solid minute, trying and failing to think of a way to reach the storm machine while it was still in the air. Short of shooting himself out of one of the cannons along the outside railing – which he might have been tempted to do if it wasn’t going to draw the wrong kind of attention from his partner – there was really only one solution.

They’d have to bring the blimp down somehow.

His phone was already coming out of his pocket as he began his trek back towards the deck.

Chapter Text

At first, when Carmelita parted ways with Sly and headed towards the ship’s bow, she didn’t really have a plan in mind beyond “poke around until you find Raleigh or more proof of his wrongdoing.” She only went the way she did because she wanted to get a closer look at the blimp hovering above everything, and she craned her neck upwards to study it when she reached the front railing.

It was about as big as she’d estimated it to be up close. Almost the entire front half was covered in lit windows that would’ve made it stick out like a beacon if not for the rain and fog it kept pumping out, helping to obscure the light within. A large, long chain was hooked at its tail, anchoring it to the ship from some place in the port side she couldn’t see from where she was standing.

Searching for the other end of that chain seemed as good a starting point as any, so the fox began walking in that direction with her hand on her holster and her eyes darting between the blimp and her own surroundings. Getting seen out here because she was too focused on her own goal would be a very careless mistake that she wasn’t keen on making. Her partner would never let her live it down.

Eventually she found what she was looking for – on the outer hull on the port side, the chain disappeared into a hole screwed directly into the ship itself. Carmelita eyed how far down it was from the deck, then began scanning for a hatch or a door nearby; it stood to reason that there had to be a way down into that part of the ship to adjust or remove the chain if need be.

The sound of footsteps made her crouch behind the nearest cannon as the two walruses whose boat they’d stowed away on came by with barrels over each of their shoulders. The inspector watched them stop at one of the more ramshackle buildings and push their weight against a wall; the thing swung open with ease and the two entered without a single glance around them.

It should have surprised her that even on his personal ship, Raleigh still had secret entrances to more secure locations, but it didn’t. He wasn’t the world’s most infamous engineer for nothing.

Carmelita ran to the hidden door and slipped inside before it could close, afraid that it might lock her out if she didn’t. The room she ended up in was dark, but she could see stairs in front of her and the goons’ flashlights bobbing up and down as they made their way down farther ahead. After waiting a full minute for the sound of them to disappear, she followed. The further she went, the chillier the air grew even though she was out of the rain. It puzzled her until she reached the bottom of the stairwell and found a most bizarre sight to greet her.

It was the entire front hull of the ship, but where space and volume should have been there was instead seawater filling up a majority of the great expanse. Inspector Fox gaped as she stared at an assortment of broken boats of all kinds: wooden and metal, commercial and recreational, small and large – although never large enough to ever compete with the monstrosity whose belly they had ended up in. Every single one had either been stripped down to bare frames or were in the process of it, as she looked and saw dozens of people swarming about them like wasps picking a carcass clean. Others retrieved parts and cargo to be carted off to who-knew-where, no doubt to be repurposed into whatever mad machinations the frog had in mind.

It was a graveyard for ships. There was no other way to describe it.

She spent a full minute just gaping at it all in disgusted shock. There had to be at least ten boats that she could see, and that was just from here. Countless stolen boats, countless stolen goods – countless stolen lives – and all the evidence was right here. Instead of being thrilled for what she had just found, the fox furiously ground her teeth. All this wickedness and death because one rich asshole had gotten bored.

Well, he damn well was going to learn what true boredom was after she had put him behind bars. That was a vow she made to herself right then and there; Raleigh was going to face justice come hell or high water, no matter what.

Just as Carmelita had finished making that declaration in her head and started working her way deeper into the hull, there was a sudden silent vibration in her pocket. She sidestepped into the most unnoticeable place she could find, wedged between the wall of the ship and a large piece of scavenged metal, and pulled out her cellphone.

It wasn’t a number she recognized, but she knew, almost implicitly, exactly who it was.

“Ringtail? Is that you?” She asked as soon as she answered. There was a strange, gulping sort of hiss on the other end that set her on edge. “What’s that sound?”

“It’s – it’s me,” Sly answered, voice flimsy and frail, and she realized that the unusual sound was his breathing. “I’m – it’s – there’s a – a problem, I can’t…”

It was hard to make out what he was saying, but the single word made her stiffen, assuming the worst. “A problem? What kind of problem? Did someone see you?”

“Yes!” He whined. He whined, which floored her more than anything he was saying. “Seen, I was seen, we have to get out of here, kāi zǒu, we need to –”

“Okay, whoa, first you need to calm down.” Her head was spinning as he babbled, as it hit her that they were in now a lot of trouble, but it would do neither of them good if she started spiraling as well. “I’m going to count to ten and I need you to breathe in and out along with me. Okay?”

He didn’t answer. Only more of that shallow, hissing breath as he struggled through the throes of a panic attack.

“Sly. I need you to listen to me,” the inspector repeated as calmly as she could manage, fighting her own dread with all the police training she’d ever received. “We can’t make a plan until you’ve stopped panicking.”

The raccoon made a sound like he was being strangled. Carmelita desperately wished she could find him to soothe him in person, but there wasn’t enough time for that.

“I’m starting now. One.”

“Inspector –” He begged, and for what she didn’t know.

“One.” She cut him off with as much authority as she could muster.

It seemed to do the trick. He gave an audible and incredibly stressed inhale, but he was doing as instructed. The fox could have breathed her own sigh of relief for it, and continued talking him down from his terror even as her own limbs were shaking and she peeked around the corner of her hiding spot to make sure no one was close enough to hear her quiet voice.

At the end of the countdown, she could no longer hear anything on the other end of the line, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

“How are you feeling, Ringtail?” She asked tentatively.

“…Better.”

There was exhaustion and something else laced in his tone, but he sounded genuine, and it made her breathing a little easier. She glanced out at the open hull again as the second-most pressing matter reminded her that it needed to be dealt with.

“Good. Now, you said something about someone seeing you?”

“Yeah…one of Raleigh’s goons saw me and ran off, and I lost track of her. She’s probably already told him or is on her way to.”

“Shit.” Carmelita ran a hand through her bangs, biting her lip while she sped through all of their options. “Okay, we’re going to have to expedite our process, then. I’m going to call for reinforcements and warn them about the storm. Hopefully, either they’ll be able to make it through regardless or we can find a way to shut it down before they come.”

It wasn’t going to be safe for them to stay on the ship as soon as word got to the frog, but she was hesitant to suggest they leave immediately when she had just found the proverbial gold mine of Raleigh’s criminal operation. She half expected her partner to ask for them to do so, anyway, and she couldn’t say she blamed him.

“I…I don’t think they’ll have to worry about the storm for too much longer,” the raccoon said instead, surprising her. “The reason I was caught was because I stumbled onto what I think was an engine room, and I sorta…destroyed a machine or two.”

“Oh, great job! You sure got a lot done in fifteen minutes,” she replied sincerely. Even scared, he was just as competent as any officer, and it put her at ease despite the situation. “I found a way into the bow where I think they haul in wrecks straight into the ship itself, but this place is so big that I’m probably going to be here a while.”

“What about Raleigh knowing we’re here? Are you sure that’s safe?”

Sly sounded more worried for her than for himself, and she smiled to herself despite knowing he couldn’t see it, checking her surroundings again.

“Please, Ringtail, give me some credit. If I can handle mob bosses and voodoo priestesses all by myself, I can handle however many lowlifes who are scavenging stolen parts. As long as you keep yourself safe and out of sight, which I know you can, I think we’ll be okay.”

It seemed to reassure him, and for a moment she thought he was going to end the call from the long silence. Just as she was about to suggest it, he spoke up again, much more subdued and miserable – and using a word that she didn’t recognize at all.

“Cào, I’m sorry. I told you I’d be fine and then I screwed things up for you.”

“It’s…it’s fine, Sly. Mistakes happen and we plan accordingly.” She frowned thoughtfully, preoccupied, as she realized that he’d also slipped into a different language during his panic. It intrigued her. “I have a question, though – what was that language you were speaking earlier?”

“What? What did I say?”

“When you were saying we had to leave, you said something I didn’t understand, and also right before you apologized just now – it sounded like…” Carmelita knew she was going to butcher the word, but she tried anyway. “Ta-ow?”

“Oh, you heard that, huh?” There was a funny note to his voice that told her very clearly he had not meant to do that. “That was Mandarin. You probably shouldn’t repeat that last word out loud. It’s, uh, not very nice.”

Mandarin was not commonly taught in schools in the States, as far as she knew. It piqued her curiosity about his life and family again, but she knew she had to tread carefully so as not to step on his toes. “Is that the source of your accent?”

“I have an accent?” It sounded as though the mere idea was a shock to the raccoon.

“You do. It’s very faint, but I noticed it the first time we met. I couldn’t place it.” And truth be told, she hadn’t really noticed it since. It was simply another part of him just like his masked face and sarcastic nature.

“…Huh.”

“You didn’t know?” The inspector prodded, surprised.

“It’s not my first language,” Even through the phone, she could hear bitter bite in his tone. “I lived in Kunlun as a kid for a while. Picked up enough to get by.”

Kunlun? That was somewhere in China, right? Carmelita wrinkled her nose as she wracked her brain for where she’d heard the name in her geography studies – she couldn’t remember if it was a city, or a province, or something else, but it still plucked at her mind like an irritating, out of tune instrument.

“Anyway, sorry to give you a heart attack. I promise I’ll be more careful until your officer friends show up.” Sly’s voice cut through her thoughts, calm and collected and…flat. It was as if he hadn’t started the call in the middle of a mental meltdown. “Are we still meeting up again soon if nothing else changes?”

The fox blinked, caught off guard by his sudden disinterest. “Wh – yeah, we can do that. Just look out for yourself, okay, Ringtail?”

“I will.”

Carmelita stared down at her phone as Sly hung up without any delay, absentmindedly plugging his number into a proper contact while she considered his switch in mood, the tiny glimpse into himself that he’d just shared, and the predicament they were now in. She didn’t blame him for getting seen, nor his appropriate reaction to it, and she wondered if maybe that had been his impression; if maybe he had been so embarrassed once his emotions had calmed that he didn’t want to talk to her. She wished that they had been together when this had happened, or at least closer, so that she could reassure him that everything truly was fine.

So, they were on a time limit to stop a member of the Fiendish Five before it was too late, with reinforcements too far out to be of immediate help, and only their own wits, skills, and each other to protect themselves. Third time around, the inspector found she wasn’t as upset as she probably should have been. It was becoming a legitimate pattern now, but one she knew they could beat.

God, her life was weird.

Afraid to push her hideout’s luck with a second phone call, she shot a text to the local chief constable she’d been working with to triangulate Raleigh’s location telling her where she was, that she’d found the frog, and that she was requesting back-up as soon as possible. After a moment of hesitation, she sent a follow-up warning to beware of stormy weather. She fully believed that her partner had found a way to stop the storm machine, but it was always better to take precautions. And besides – she was determined not to let the pirate take down another ship.

Just as she was starting to creep back out into the open again, as if having been summoned by her thinking of him, there was another loudspeaker announcement that rang through the entire hull.

“Ahoy, dock hands! Capital job unloading that cargo today. You're the crown jewel of my operation.”

Raleigh’s voice was marginally more understandable this time, which Carmelita wasn’t sure was because his speaker system was actually decent down here or because the acoustics were simply that strong. She flattened herself against the metal sheet she’d been hiding behind, watching the distant lantern lights of the workers around her all stop at once to listen to their boss’ new message.

“Do me the service of proving your worth yet again by taking care of a little rodent problem I seem to be having.” The frog inhaled, deep and nasally and irritated. “It appears there's a prowler on the premises. I want him caught within the hour and hand-delivered to me, alive. But if any of you let him slip through your fingers…”

A frenzied mix of rage and glee seeped into his tone, making the inspector’s lips curl in repulsion.

“I'll personally flog the lot of you for an entire fortnight!”

The instant it became quiet again, the entire hull exploded with activity. Carmelita darted back into her safe place and watched as nearly half of the goons broke off from whatever they’d been doing to march up towards the deck. Their faces were hard with fear, clearly taking Raleigh’s threat dead serious, which made her stomach churn.

She waited until the burst of movement among the crew died down before daring to step out and begin exploring the place. The men all seemed to believe that they’d find Sly elsewhere, and she was going to take advantage of the thinning in their ranks to find as much evidence as she could – and perhaps where that damned chain to the blimp was.

It was a perfect opportunity, and yet…she couldn’t get Sly’s words, his terror over being seen out of her head. How so many people had just rushed off to search the rest of the ship for him, and how Raleigh had wanted him captured alive. She knew her partner could take care of himself. She knew he was stealthier than her despite her extensive training, that he could probably circle all of the criminals looking for him without a single one of them realizing he was even there.

He'd be fine. He could handle it. He’d already stalled the ship and the storm machine, and proved himself just as capable a fighter as she was – well, almost. The inspector was pretty sure she could beat him in a fight on the very slim chance they ever ended up sparring. But the fact remained that she trusted the raccoon to look after himself, and so she refused to go back up until the hour was through. Sly would let her know if he was actually in danger.

Repeating the self-reassurance like a motivational mantra, Carmelita made her way further into the unusual “graveyard”, searching for the hull of the ship to find the chain. Just as she expected, it was laughably easy to slip around the depleted crew as they kept at their jobs with single-minded determination. At one point she paused, watching several of them use giant hammers to knock pieces of boat right off their frames and into waiting arms, and wondered whether the sweat on everyone’s brows was from the hard work or from the shadow of their oppressive boss looming over everything they did.

She shook her head and moved on. There wasn’t any pity to be had for these people; they had chosen their profession, they had known the risks of their trade, and they should have known better than to work under a man as sadistic and unpredictable as the Fiendish Five’s chief machinist.

After another ten minutes of careful hiding, sneaking, and spying, painfully aware of the half-hour limit they’d given each other before meeting up again that was rapidly approaching, the fox finally found what she was looking for. Threaded through the inner metal wall of the ship, a solid three meters above her head, the chain anchoring the outside blimp swayed and rattled in rhythm with a storm she couldn’t see but could definitely feel. It trailed down past her view into ocean water she couldn’t gauge the depth of.

Carmelita looked around for a crank, or some kind of lever that could change the length of the chain, and blinked in surprise when instead she saw an odd contraption at the far end of the dock she was standing on. It was round and compact, floating easily in the water, and she realized that it was a miniature submarine. When she glanced down the length of the hull, she could see at least four more of them docked and waiting to be used – no doubt for retrieving wreckages that the boat crews had not been fast enough to reach before their targets had completely sunk.

When she approached the one she’d first noticed, it was with dumbfounded excitement to find the keys were still in its engine. With one last glance around to make sure no one was noticing the hijacking, the fox climbed into the sub, closed the glass hatch, and began to sink into the dark water.

This was the exact moment her cell phone rang for a second time.

She pulled it out to see Sly’s name lighting up the screen again. Confusion turned to panic and she answered immediately, assuming the worst.

“Sly! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Inspector.” She could hear his surprise over the frantic use of his name, but otherwise he sounded as cool as when he’d last dropped their call. “Why, did something happen on your end?”

“Raleigh made an announcement to his crew down here to go after you.”

His sharp intake of breath was a crack in the façade he seemed to want to maintain, and there was a definite shake to his voice.

“What – what did he say, exactly?”

The fox’s gaze went back and forth between the view through the sub’s window and the litany of buttons in front of her. She had taken a crash course in piloting contraptions like this during her time at the academy, but it was hard to focus when she was worrying about her partner’s safety.

“He said there’s a ‘prowler’ on the ship and that he wanted you delivered to him alive.”

She expected a sound of relief, or maybe his assurance that he’d be fine, but there was only a distressing silence in response to her words.

“…Ringtail?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Did he say anything else?” Sly’s tone implied he was trying very hard not to fall apart over the phone again. “Any other details?”

“Not really? Uh – just that he’d beat his crew if they couldn’t catch you.”

“Fucking figures…” He muttered, making her frown in bemusement, but then continued before she could say something. “Okay. I appreciate the heads up and I can handle a bunch of moronic goons, but that’s not why I called again. I was going to tell you that I think Raleigh is hiding in that storm machine. I’ve been searching this ship up and down and haven’t seen a single webbed foot the whole time.”

The submersible landed gently at the bottom of the submerged hull. Carmelita turned the searchlights on as the raccoon kept talking.

“We should figure out a way to bring the blimp to ground level so we can search it.”

“Already one step ahead of you, Ringtail,” she said, guiding the sub forward slowly if a little unsteadily. “There’s a chain connecting it to the ship. I’m searching for the other end as we speak.”

“Wow. You…have I ever told you that you’re actually amazing?”

The inspector flushed scarlet, nearly dropping her phone in her sudden fluster. “Uh – no, no, you haven’t told me that.”

“Well, you are. I thought I should…let you know that. Just in case you didn’t already know.”

Alongside his endearment, there was…a note, to his words. Something self-conscious, and shy, and – and she stopped herself from thinking about it further because she was supposed to be piloting a very heavy piece of underwater machinery and she did not need the distraction.

“Thank you, Sly,” she answered, hoping to convey all of her gratitude with none of the other thoughts. “And I want you to know that I think you’re amazing, too. In case you didn’t know.”

The silence that followed indicated that either he didn’t know, or he didn’t expect the admission to ever leave her mouth. As Carmelita began searching for a way to break the sudden, unusual awkwardness that was settling between them, the sub spotlights landed on a very familiar chain.

“Oh! I think I found the blimp’s anchor!” The fox exclaimed. Sure enough, she could see the chain looped around a winch that was welded to the metal ground, with a large crank sticking out of its side. All the metal was shiny and polished even in the water, which was a bizarre discrepancy. Why maintain something so far removed from everything else?

Someone as eccentric and paranoid as Raleigh, apparently.

“I’m going to try to bring the blimp down.” The message that she would hang up the phone to do so went unspoken but understood. “I’ll meet you at the front of the ship as soon as I do, because we’re probably not going to have much time to get inside before they catch onto where we are. Sound good?”

“Works for me.” Sly sounded relieved, and she couldn’t blame him. The sooner they got this nightmare over with, the sooner they could leave this forsaken ship and be out of danger. “Just be careful, okay, Carmelita?”

“Of course, Ringtail. Same to you.”

This time, ending the call felt less like a weight in her stomach and more like the temporary goodbye it was meant to be. The inspector turned her attention back to the winch, then started examining what the sub was equipped with. Seeing a control panel for a pincer-like gripping tool was a relief – she had not wanted to entertain the idea of having to physically climb out into deep ocean water just to interact with the contraption at all.

After a little bit of finagling, she learned how to move the claw – for lack of a better term – and began directing it towards the winch…

Only to be stopped completely as something slammed into the submersible.

Carmelita jolted sideways in her seat and swiveled the searchlights to her left, where she came face to face with an orange crab that was almost as big as the machine she was piloting. It stared her down with beady little black eyes on long, reedy eyestalks, but without any clothes, jewelry, or otherwise manmade things on its body, it was impossible to tell if the crab was like her or just an abnormally large, unevolved crustacean.

When it made no attempt to communicate or move towards her again, she turned her craft back towards the crank, reaching out with the sub’s claw – until the crab slammed into her again.

“What the hell?!” She yelled, seeing a flash of orange in the corner of her eye through the window and barely jerking the submarine out of the way before the crab could clamp its gigantic claw around her own. It narrowed its eyes at her, made another grab – which she deftly avoided again – and that was what made her realize that the terrible thing was trying to stop her from touching the winch.

It was guarding it.

“Ohhhh no, you don’t. Not today,” the fox growled as she backed the sub out of the crab’s range before it could swipe at her again.

It scuttled forward after her, both claws reaching out in what was definitely a threatening gesture, but Carmelita refused to be intimidated. Compared to brick-wall bulldogs and zombie hoards, this shellfish security guard was only serving to piss her off. They circled each other, sizing each other up as it kept trying to close the distance and she kept maintaining it.

Through the entire stalemate, her eyes darted all over the control board, looking for something to give her an edge if not an instant win. She didn’t have the experience nor the finesse to wrestle the crab into submission with the submersible’s claw, even though it was her first instinct to try. Instead, she held her patience until she found something she could use, and then continued holding on until she had a real opportunity.

That opportunity came when her enemy darted suddenly towards her, aiming its claw straight for her window. She swept her own pincer sideways in a large arc, and the clang of it striking the crab’s claw was loud even underwater. It sent the shellfish reeling backward, momentarily unbalanced, and the inspector took advantage of the opening.

She slammed her hand down on a large green button, and the machine jolted forward very quickly as its speed boosters jumped to max power. It happened so fast that the crab had no time to move before the submarine slammed into it head-on, propelling it backwards until it hit the metal hull of the ship and crumpled in an unconscious heap.

Carmelita didn’t give herself a moment to celebrate, afraid that the crab would wake up or that their fight had drawn attention from elsewhere. She grabbed the crank and began turning it as fast as she was able, watching the chain shorten around the winch with immense satisfaction. Only when it stopped moving with remarkable resistance did she let go and putter back up towards the surface,

The submersible had barely come out of the water before she was already opening the hatch and scrambling out of the seat. Miraculously, no one had noticed that one of their subs was missing – nor did they notice its reappearance or the outsider climbing out from within it and onto the docks. They were a well-oiled machine of labor, from loyalty to or fear of their leader, and thus the fox was able to slip back the way she’d come through all the way to the stairs.

She spared one last, scathing glance back at the gunboat graveyard and its damning evidence, and vowed to make the Welsh Triangle safe for innocent people again.

And that required putting a pompous, puffed-up polliwog in his proper place.

Chapter Text

The ship was crawling with guards. They swarmed the deck and the hull and had even started spilling over the side of the ship to search lifeboats and the waters below. Flashlights, lanterns, and even welding torches bobbed and weaved all around to turn the relentless hunting into a deadly, mesmerizing light show.

Sly watched it all from his safe perch on top of the highest chimney of the tallest building he could find. Smoke curled up and around him, thick enough to obscure him in case anyone thought to look up but not so heavy that it was choking. He curled his rigid tail a little closer around his legs as the radio in his hand – swiped off the first person he came across before it became too dangerous to try – crackled to life.

“Any sign of him?” Asked whoever was the newest overseer over these men.

A chorus of no’s was the answer, and the first person growled.

“Keep looking. We’ll find him – there’s only so many places he can hide.”

The raccoon would have been amused by that if there was any room for it alongside the fear. For all that people claimed to be observant, they never thought to look up until it was too late. He glanced up himself, reflexively, and stared at the sun barely starting to peek out through the waning storm clouds. There was no dark shape in the sky; no prominent shadow present that wasn’t supposed to be there.

It did little to ease his mind as he looked back down at the deck and its light show.

When the storm machine began descending without any warning, a cacophony of confused voices shouted so loud that he didn’t even need the radio to hear them, and multiple searchlights turned towards the blimp’s windows as it touched down a little roughly at the ship’s bow. Raleigh’s goons were startled by the strange turn of events – and Sly could hardly blame them, since the frog almost never let his prized machine drop that low – until a new, horribly familiar voice quelled all questions instantly.

“No need for concern, chaps,” Raleigh said completely unphased, as though it was his decision to land the blimp and not Sly’s hopefully-unnoticed partner. “If our little intruder wants to confront me directly, why should we deny him the privilege? Continue searching the rest of the ship in case this is a diversion, but otherwise leave my storm machine alone. We’ll soon see if this is an act of courage or cowardice.”

Sly gritted his teeth, equal parts angry and afraid, and took it as his cue to move. He crushed the radio against the brick beneath him with the blunt end of his cane, then dumped the broken tech down the chimney before heading across the rooftops towards the downed blimp. No one heard him and no one thought to look up just in case.

Just as their boss had ordered, there was not a single person hovering around the door to the blimp’s interior. The raccoon tested it and found it unlocked, which only served to spike his anxiety even higher. If there had been any remaining doubts about where Raleigh had hidden his portion of the Thievius Raccoonus, they had been banished straight away by this open invitation.

Mere moments after he had the thought, rapidly approaching footsteps made him whirl around with his cane at the ready, just in time to see the shadow of Inspector Fox hurrying around the side of a nearby building. Eyes wide, Sly folded his cane and frantically stuffed it in his backpack – just in time for her to turn the corner and see him waiting for her.

“Thank god, you’re still alright!” She breathed, audibly relieved as she came up to him with wary glances thrown over her shoulder. “I was worried the guards might’ve caught you before I could find you.”

“Nah, they’re too busy running around like headless chickens. It’ll take a lot more than that to catch me.”

Carmelita nodded like she hadn’t expected anything else. It made his heart swell dangerously. “Back-up is on their way, hopefully within the next hour now that the storm is winding down. I thought I should go ahead and try to nab Raleigh before he has a chance to do anything. Feel like joining me this time?”

“I think I’ll help you another way, actually. Those goons will come sniffing around here now that the blimp is grounded, and I don’t want them going inside and overpowering you with numbers. When they show up, I’ll play decoy and keep them away so you can stay one-on-one with the big guy.”

The lie fell a little more sluggishly off his tongue, but he didn’t let himself stumble over the words or why it was suddenly harder. Just to be sure he’d sold it, the raccoon made a meaningful scan of their surroundings as if worried someone might pop out any second, and he saw from the considering expression on his partner’s face that it was a successful play.

“…Okay,” she conceded, giving him a searching, concerned look. “I trust you to handle yourself, but don’t hesitate to get off the ship if it becomes too dangerous. I don’t want you getting yourself caught because you’re playing hero.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“Good.”

Carmelita turned towards the door, hesitated, then turned back around to pull him into a hug. It startled him so bad that he let out a strangled squeak…but didn’t push her away. She seemed to realize what she’d just done, because she let go of him almost immediately with her cheeks blazing red through her fur. They stared at each other in the silence that followed until she ran her hand through her bangs and pivoted on her heel, leaving him stunned and unable to do nothing but watch her disappear inside the blimp.

It took almost an entire minute for his brain to reboot, and that was just enough time for him to deem it safe to slip in after her.

Sly followed the fox at a distance, unable to see her but not needing to with the way she barreled down hallways and up stairwells on a single-minded mission. His face was aflame and his thoughts were racing, and the only thing keeping him silent through his distraction was hard-trained instinct.

She had hugged him. She had hugged him. Surely, it didn’t mean anything. Surely that was something she did with all her work partners, just like the nickname thing. Surely, he was reading too much into it and turning it into something it wasn’t.

But what if he wasn’t reading too much into it? What if she – what if the hug actually meant something? The hug, and the compliments, and the sideways glances he’d been noticing lately that had seemed so weird at the time but now almost felt like –

He stopped moving. Took a few deep breathes, pulled out his cane and extended it, closed his eyes and grounded himself. It didn’t matter what he thought it all meant. Right now, what mattered was that she take down Raleigh, and that he steal back his book without either of them noticing. He could tangle himself up in knots over her intentions afterwards, when they were both out of danger and with an actual chance to talk.

Newly concentrated on the more important, more dangerous task at hand, Sly hurried to catch up to his partner – or at least, catch up to the distance he had been maintaining behind her. One final doorway ahead, he heard her voice echo out, angry and resolute. It made him slow to a stop just outside the new room so that he could peek inside and gauge the situation.

Carmelita, standing on a large lily pad on the outskirts of another huge indoor swimming pool, with her shock pistol in hand and the blimp’s windows forming a half ring behind her. Sir Raleigh, elevated at the far end of the room on a grandiose velvet throne with a sneer on his face as he spoke, letting the raccoon catch the very tail end of their back-and-forth.

“–obviously, I should have snuffed you out the minute I learned you had taken Muggshot down. So, without further ado, let me make amends by, what…?” He placed his hands together in gleeful anticipation and screeched, “bloating to gargantuan size, and squashing you like the insignificant bug that you are!”

Ruthless declaration made, the machinist’s throat swelled up so fast that he was suddenly three times his original size before either Inspector Fox or her unseen partner could even blink. The fox shouted and began shooting at him as he launched himself off of his throne towards the lily pad closest to her.

Sly took that as his cue.

He inhaled as deeply as he could and concentrated, feeling the effects of invisibility shimmering across his body like an inverse stage trick, and edged into the room by the outer walkway circling the entire place. His eyes darted all around the area, trying not to get distracted by the sight and sound of the fight taking place when he had very limited time. Carmelita could take care of herself; she had already proved that twice over, and he was no longer worried.

What was infinitely more important was finding those missing pages before either of them realized he was here.

The raccoon darted around to the platform the throne was sitting on, hauling himself up to it and somehow not exhaling through sheer willpower. Only once he was safely hiding behind the gaudy thing did he drop the technique to catch his breath, listening to his partner’s shouting alongside shock pistol shots and Raleigh’s occasional grunt of pain. Just to reassure himself, he risked glancing around the giant chair to study the situation.

Carmelita was jumping from lily pad to lily pad, dancing out of the way of the frog’s deadly hopping with ease and timing it with a barrage of electric bullets every time her feet hit solid ground again. Raleigh was tanking them surprisingly well, bloated as he was, and it was clear that endurance would be the winner of the fight.

It was…remarkable, truly, to see one of the monsters who had controlled his life for so long forced to cede ground to the whirlwind of a woman who was Inspector Carmelita Fox.

He crouched back down before he could be mesmerized by her actions, kicking himself for getting distracted, when he noticed a knob in the base of the throne. Daring to hope, Sly ran his fingers carefully around it until he found confirmation – four barely-perceptible lines formed a rectangle around the knob. It was a hidden safe, and there was only one thing he could possibly think of to be inside.

It was so much harder to open this one than Muggshot’s, and not only because of the battle raging just outside his flimsy cover. Raleigh, the paranoid tinkerer that he was, had turned the damn thing from a simple built-in safe to a complex mess of gears and locking bolts. Sly laid down on the cold metal floor and pressed his ear against it, forcing himself to block out everything that wasn’t the imperceptible click of a hundred tiny pins.

When he finally found the last gear and felt the lock give under his touch, Sly silently swung it open and could have cried in relief to see the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus sitting inside. He pulled them out, holding them just as reverently as all the others he’d retrieved, and started putting them into his backpack as he pushed the safe door closed with his foot. The sounds of fighting were still ongoing, and he glanced out to watch again.

Raleigh was significantly worse for wear; he was barely keeping his enlargement beyond his regular size and even at a distance, the raccoon could see the sheen of sweat and stress-mucus across his entire body. Carmelita, breathing heavily but looking mostly uninjured, had put distance between them again to reload her weapon. The former was shaking with exhaustion and rage, and the latter was shaking with tired triumph.

It was too far for the frog to jump to reach her before she could. The battle was almost over, and it was clear to both fighters and their hidden audience that the inspector was probably going to win it. Sly inhaled, half out of relief and half to trigger his invisibility again to sneak back out –

And then lost his breath entirely as Raleigh’s tongue flew straight out of his mouth, hitting the fox’s pistol with perfect accuracy.

The weapon was ripped from her hands by the sticky, muscular force, sent flying to the other end of the room and landing on an empty lily pad too far for her to reach in time as the machinist took advantage of her shock to bear down on her. He slammed into her so hard that she went flying as well, and Sly could only watch in horror as Raleigh cackled and poised himself for a jump that would surely squish her.

His cane was suddenly in hand. A scream crawled up out of his throat – a single, begging, terrified word.

“Carmelita!”

Carmelita watched her shock pistol disappear from her grip as though it had happened to someone else. She had been so close to winning, so close to knocking the pompous criminal out for the count that his surprise attack had genuinely caught her off balance. She gasped, brain stalling on her lost weapon’s trajectory like a rookie fresh out of the academy for half a second too long, and half a second was all it took.

The full weight of the bloated frog rammed into her, sending her skidding backwards until she was forcefully stopped by the nearest wall. Her head smacked against metal and stars exploded across her vision. As the fox struggled to get her scrambled senses back under control, she felt rather than saw the shadow that fell over her from above.

“Carmelita!”

Sly’s shout was like a shock of static in her mind. She rolled sideways out of reflex, just in time for Raleigh to slam the ground beside her with enough force to make the ground shake. A cold, slimy hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat before she could react again, hoisting her up to the tips of her boots.

“Do my ears deceive me, or did I just hear our lost little vagabond?” He sneered, holding her aloft as he looked around the deceptively empty room. “I wondered how you could have possibly made it out here alone. Have you been gallivanting around with this trollop while she’s been taking us out one by one?”

He shook her. Carmelita grunted and clawed at his grip to no avail. It was getting hard to breathe.

“I don’t have time for games, Sly. Come out, now, before I pull this wench’s innards out through her –”

There was a flash of gold and blue out of the corner of her eye, moving with the speed of a bullet as Sly came flying down like a targeted missile – and that target was Raleigh. The raccoon swung – something, in his hand – in an arc, and it made contact right between the frog’s eyes with all the force his lithe body could muster. Raleigh staggered backwards, dropping Inspector Fox with a disoriented shout of pain and anger, who got her hands under her just before her head could hit solid ground for the second time in minutes.

She looked up, vision no longer swimming, and saw Sly half crouched in front of her, a protective barrier between her and Raleigh. The fur all along his neck was stiff and prickly, and she could now clearly see the thing he was holding; a golden cane with a long brown handle, at the ready for another swing. It was familiar in a way her mind refused to process, too delayed by the blow to her head, and the fact that he was here, had just saved her life, and…

And that Raleigh…knew his name?

The frog had deflated from the blow, and now he stared at the spectacle before him with a hand at his head. His expression twisted from furious pain to cold, calculated understanding in seconds.

“So that’s how it is,” he sneered. “I knew Muggshot and Mz. Ruby had been brought down way too easily, and now I know why.”

Raleigh somehow sounded both angry and delighted. It sent a shiver up Carmelita’s frozen spine, and she could see Sly beginning to minutely tremble.

“You traitorous little whelp. What did they offer you to sell us out, hmm? Money? Reduced sentencing?”

His eyes danced with terrible joy.

“Freedom?”

It was like a spell had been cast; Sly went completely stiff, and the criminal smirked. Inspector Fox struggled to make sense of everything as her eyes darted between Raleigh, and her partner, and the cane he was holding.

It was familiar. Why was it so familiar?

“Do you really think they’re on your side? That they won’t turn on you for who you are and what you've done? Do you think that she –” he gestured to Carmelita, still uselessly gaping, “– won’t cast you to the sharks as soon as you outlive your usefulness?”

The raccoon didn’t turn his head to look at her. But she could see his cane lowering, bit by bit, and she would have yelled at him to keep his guard up if not for the way her gaze couldn’t seem to leave the thing in his hands.

It looked like…

“You’re lying.” Sly’s voice was shaking.

“Am I?” Raleigh gave him a pointed, smug look, then made a show of looking the fox up and down. “I recognize you. You’re that new inspector Interpol has been toting around. What was it they called you? A ‘perfect paragon of law and justice’? Please.”

The frog turned back to Sly.

“Someone like her isn’t going to give you what you want.”

“And I’m supposed to think you are?” He asked, a hysterical edge to his voice even as they both watched the fight slowly drain out of him. “I know what you’ll do to me. I know I won’t get any mercy from you.”

What the fuck is going on? Her mind screamed for an answer as if either of them could hear it. What are you talking about? Why do you know each other?

Why does that cane look like –

“Oh, quite right, I won’t be merciful in the slightest. But at least I’m honest with you, brat, and I can honestly say that I’ll let you live despite the stunt you’ve pulled. We both know your fate will be so much worse if you keep doing what you're doing. Or did you already forget what happened the last time you tried to –”

“Don't,” the raccoon whispered. He sounded on the verge of a breakdown. Carmelita could relate.

“Then stop pointing that bloody cane at me and come here.” Raleigh snapped his fingers like he was summoning a butler. “If you do that right now, I promise I won’t let it slip about your little…escapades. Give me the cane, and all the pages you’ve stolen, and the status quo continues without a word of your failure to my dear old friend.”

Stolen. Sly had stolen something from the others. He had stolen from these criminals with that cane.

Realization was a bullet hole through her heart.

Inspector Fox watched in disbelief as her partner – the raccoon – the thief – began to shuffle towards the grinning frog, tail limp and body resigned. Closer and closer, never once looking back at her, until he was nearly in Raleigh’s reach. Then he finally looked at her, and she wondered what expression was on her face for his to close off so thoroughly.

Then, with whatever fight was left in him, Sly swiveled around and swung his cane so hard and so fast that it was a golden blur that collided with Raleigh’s temple. The machinist crumpled where he’d stood, the last of his strength spent with that final blow, and the raccoon stood over him looking white as a sheet.

Finding it hard to get her feet under her with the way her legs had turned to jelly, Carmelita forced herself to stand up as everything around her bled away except for Sly in front of her and the perfect clarity now inside her head.

“…Sly,” she said, if only to finally find her voice. “What was that.”

It wasn’t a question. He didn’t respond.

“What the fuck was that?” She repeated, as clarity drained into shock into anger into heartbreak into anguish. “You knew each other. You knew each other. He called you by name. You – he – you worked for him. You’ve been working for him! You’ve been working for all of them!”

His fingers clenched tighter around that cane, but he still didn’t answer. Didn’t even look up.

“And then you – he said you stole something. What did you steal?!”

Silence.

The fox could feel tears gathering in her eyes. “All this time. All this time! All this goddamn time we’ve been working together, and you acted like you wanted to help me! You acted like you weren’t just playing me like a fiddle this entire goddamn time!”

She curled her hands into fists, digging nails into skin, trying desperately to keep the tears from overflowing and wishing they were only there because she was so angry.

“Was I just a means to an end for you? Some – some overly-trusting cop you could use to do the dirty work while you stole from your fellow criminals?”

Sly stared down at the frog at his feet. Carmelita wanted to scream; to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he at least gave her the courtesy of looking at her.

“Tell me right fucking now, Sly!” She growled. “Was it all just some elaborate con?!”

“.................At first it was.” And oh, how she had to strain just to hear that whisper. “When I first helped you find Muggshot, in Mesa, I thought I could just wait for your raid party to show up. Get what I needed during the chaos while you were all too busy killing each other to notice.”

He finally looked up at her, and suddenly she wished he wouldn’t.

“But then you went in and fought him on your own, and – and you won.” The awe in his voice was just as potent as that night in Muggshot’s hotel lobby. She didn’t know whether to cry or curse. “So then I thought, “maybe I’ll stick around her for a little while”. Just a night or two until things had cooled down. Until I was sure it was safe. It was better than being out in the open, right?”

The fox wasn't sure if he was talking about Interpol, or the gangsters, or the Five themselves. And the way he said it – as if he expected her to sympathize with his deception – made her want to vomit. When she didn’t respond, Sly made a twitchy movement with his head like he was a marionette. Like he was the one who’d been strung along all this time, and not her.

“You have to understand,” he pleaded, a desperate edge to his voice while she could slowly but surely feel herself turning to stone. “Carmelita, it was about survival. I had never met anyone strong enough to stand up against them and come out alive. When I saw you coming down those stairs that first night, I thought – I could get out with you. I wouldn’t have to do anything they said ever again.”

You’re saying it like you didn’t already have a choice, her thoughts rang out in her head. If they got loud enough, maybe he would hear them. You’re saying it like you couldn’t just decide to stop being a criminal and turn your life around.

Carmelita’s eyes broke from his to fall on the disastrous aftermath of the fight with Raleigh.

Her shock pistol, halfway across the room.

“Then why come with me?” She asked, quick, before he could see where her attention had gone. “If you were so desperate to get away from…‘everything’, why didn’t you just leave after Mesa? Why join me on a case that would put you in danger if you really wanted out of it?”

Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Sly flinched under it.

“Because they all took something from me,” he said, and she could see stained papers just barely peeking out of his half-unzipped backpack that surely had not been there before. “And with you, I knew there was a chance to get it back.”

An open wall safe and a broken window. Snuffed candles surrounding an empty pedestal. Private, printed emails. Insight about the Five that the public had not been privy to. Stealth and surefootedness and secrecy.

That cane. That cane. That cane.

Sly was staring at her. Waiting for her to say something, or do something. Absolve him of guilt, perhaps, for the part he’d played in all of this. He was staring at her and waiting – hoping – for her to save him, like she had on an abandoned street in Mesa.

But he had been a civilian back then. And now…

“I…I have one more question, Sly.” It came out as a whisper, but it rang through the still air like a gunshot. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding in her chest.

He looked at her.

She looked at his cane.

“What’s your last name?”

It was like she had slapped him. His expression was perhaps one of the worst things she’d ever seen. Slowly, his arms – that cane – fell to his sides, and the reeling betrayal twisting up his face fell away into the cold, flat stare of the criminal he truly was.

“I think, Inspector,” resigned, deadened eyes met her own, “that you already know the answer.”

She ran.

Ran for the other end of the room towards her weapon. The whistle of something flying through the air was her only warning to duck as a golden blur swung right where her head had just been. She used the momentum of the dodge to turn the forward stumble into a roll, narrowly avoiding another swing that had been aimed at her legs.

Her pistol was right there. She stretched for it, desperate, when he physically collided with her and sent them both sprawling. They wrestled in a tangle of furious limbs, each grappling for the upper hand and terrified of what might happen if they didn’t get it.

She was stronger than him, with more hand-to-hand combat training. Her legs wrapped around his knees like a vice to stop his kicking, and she rolled them both over to press her full body weight on top of him. Her hands reached for his left arm –

Cold metal touched her neck.

Carmelita froze, staring down at the heaving raccoon who had hooked the crook of his cane around her throat just under her chin. He was still pinned, but his hand was tilted at just the right angle that a single jerk of his wrist could snap her neck. Time stopped as they stared at each other.

“Let – let me g-go,” he commanded quietly, voice trembling but devoid of emotion.

She gave a shaky exhale.

“Let me go or I’ll kill you.”

She wanted to call his bluff. She wanted to roll her eyes and tell him he wouldn’t ever do anything like that, and then they’d both get up and laugh about it and move on like they always did. Forget this moment and this day and every decision she’d ever made to step foot on this godforsaken ship.

Neither of them was laughing now; she could see the fear and desperation in his eyes under that careful layer of blankness. There was no joke about this.

He would kill her.

Slowly, the fox pulled herself off of him, painstakingly aware of the metal pressed flush against flesh. Their eyes never separated as he shimmied out from under her, and his taut grip on the cane never wavered. Once they were no longer touching, she sat back on her heels and carefully raised her hands in the air.

“Put them on your head.”

She did so.

Everything about Sly was robotic. His eyes were bottomless pits of nothing. “I’m going to stand up, and you’re going to stand up with me.”

They got to their feet together. Her neck was starting to ache. She didn’t dare move further.

The raccoon, the criminal, finally broke eye contact to look down at the ground. The shock pistol was sitting practically at their feet. She had been so close to beating him, to catching him. He looked back up at her and she almost swore she saw some of that detachment in him crumble.

Just for a moment, he looked sad. So very, very sad.

“Goodbye, Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox,” he said, and she tensed as she felt the shift in him. Her instincts screamed as she prepared herself for the worst.

He drew his leg back.

“It's been fun.”

Sly kicked the shock pistol as hard as he could. It skipped across two lily pads and slid to a stop right on the edge of a third one, teetering over Raleigh’s personal pond. His cane came off her neck at the exact same moment, and he bolted.

They both did.

Inspector Fox ran after her pistol a second time, but the raccoon didn’t follow her. She jumped on the pad her weapon was balancing on and immediately dove to catch it before it could fall into the water. The sound of shattering glass rang in her ears as she turned with her weapon held high, just in time to watch him throw himself through the broken window of the blimp.

She sprinted for the gaping hole, staring down at the dark ocean waters below and searching for any sign of the partner who had betrayed her on every conceivable level.

But there was nothing to find.

Sly Cooper was gone.

Chapter Text

It was no secret that the Panda King was a ruthless, dangerous criminal.

Born penniless, the man had grown up fascinated by fireworks and had spent a decade learning the art, hoping to impress the rich business that set up shops every New Years to sell only the highest quality products. When they had instead proceeded to ridicule him and ruined his already-meager reputation, he and his sister had been forced to relocate halfway across China just to find work under people who did not share the connections with the men that had made a laughing stock out of his work.

“Inspector Fox.”

Humiliated, King had eventually returned to take revenge on those who shunned him by using the very tools of his art for crime, destroying both their livelihoods and their lives with his fatal fireworks. The Fiendish Five had recruited him as their demolition’s expert within a few short years afterwards, and from then on, his explosive touch became feared worldwide.

“Inspector Fox.”

The panda was well-known for returning to his home country after a completed job with his cohorts. His last sighting had been a year and a half ago at the eastern border between China and North Korea. But no one seemed to know where, exactly, he holed up in, and local police provinces were either unhelpful or unwelcoming towards every Interpol effort to find information about him.

If only there was one clue they could get, one tiny piece to jumpstart the puzzle, then –

“FOX!”

Carmelita jolted out of her train of thought to see Inspector Barkley standing in the doorway to her office. His arms were folded impatiently with an unimpressed look on his face, and she hunched up her shoulders in embarrassment as she turned away from the world map on her corkboard wall that was littered with little red pins. A few in Europe, another several in Africa, one or two down the coast of South America.

An entire cluster across the whole of China.

“I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just so focused…”

“So I’ve noticed,” he said gruffly, stepping up beside her to study her wall map and the chaos of tacks all over it. “Just wanted to check in and see how things are going. You’ve been holed up in your office since you’ve been back.”

The fox swallowed. It had been nearly two weeks since the…since she had returned from Wales. She had come back to France out of a blinding need for familiarity and security, but nothing seemed to help calm her scattered thoughts. Staying home felt lonely and unproductive. Working in the office felt crowded and confining. She was stuck in a limbo where all she seemed to think about was the worst day of her life and all she wanted to think about was anything but that.

What made it even worse was that she couldn’t fall back on her main case to distract her. With only two members of the Five left to find, no strong leads for one and practically zero information on the other, the inspector had hit a brick wall that left her frustrated on her best days, and nearly depressed on her lowest.

Barkley seemed to have caught on to that last fact, considering he was standing here when she couldn’t remember the last time he had sought her out willingly instead of summoning her to his office. He continued to eye the mess across the wall, stroking his mustache almost thoughtfully.

“Finally hit a wall on the Fiendish Five case, hm?”

“Not a permanent one!” She rapidly replied, fighting the urge to fidget like a child scared of disappointing their teacher. “Just…a minor bump in the road. I’ll be right back on track soon, I swear.”

“Relax, Fox. We’re not going to boot you from the case for getting stuck. Considering you’ve taken down more than half of them in the last month when we couldn’t even manage one in fifteen years, it’d be foolhardy to even entertain the idea.”

Guilt made Carmelita’s tail curl behind her out of her boss’ line of sight. She didn’t deserve that praise. Not when she had been unknowingly relying on help and info from a traitorous, heartbreaking criminal.

“I appreciate your faith in me, sir,” came her response anyway, because it was what she would’ve said in any other circumstance. He couldn’t know about what she’d done. Who she’d trusted.

The badger grunted, still stroking his mustache, then appeared to come to a decision. He motioned for her to follow him out the door and down the hall. “What you need is a change of pace, I think. Something to keep your mind sharp while you’re working through this rut so you can return to the case with a fresh pair of eyes.”

“Did you have another case in mind, sir?”

“Not quite.” He led her down a set of stairs, down to the floor where they questioned those they had arrested. “Let me ask you – when was the last time you helped out with an interrogation?”

“Since before I started working on the Fiendish Five case.”

She was intrigued despite her melancholy; interrogations were usually boring or unfruitful, but she knew how to cast an intimidating presence and it had often yielded results when her coworkers were unsuccessful. It would probably be less likely to make her want to bash her head against the wall, at any rate.

Then they entered the observation room adjacent to the holding pen, and she got a clear look at exactly who she was supposed to be questioning. Sir Raleigh sat in his chair with perfect posture, picking idly at whatever perceived dirt he could find along his cuffed hands. Even from the other side of the one-way mirror, the fox could practically feel his boredom for the situation he’d found himself in.

Barkley started talking about everything they’d tried to make the machinist speak against his still-free cohorts, but all of it went in one ear and out the other as Carmelita stared at the man who had pushed the tiny metaphorical snowball into the cascading mess that was currently wrecking her life. There was not a single part of her that wanted to go into that room.

“Well, Fox? What do you say? Think you can get your most recent quarry to finally crack?”

What left her mouth was almost automatic. “Of course, sir.”

She had no way of saying no without having to explain herself. She didn’t want to talk to Raleigh, with every fiber of her being, but even more than that, she absolutely did not want to share any of the events that had transpired from the moment she’d stepped foot onto a certain ransacked street in Mesa City.

Mechanically, distantly, the inspector entered the room. Raleigh didn’t even glance up from his fingers.

“I want my phone call,” he said, sounding both curt and unconcerned. It was a disturbing talent he had, truly.

Carmelita took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she sat down across from him. “Did someone promise you a phone call?”

The sound of her voice finally got the frog’s attention. He looked at her, surprised for all of two seconds before a downright catty grin curled across his visage.

“Well, well, well. To what do I owe the honor to be graced by your presence?”

“I’m here because I’ve heard you weren’t cooperating with our other officers.”

“’Cooperate’ is an awfully generous term, Inspector. I’ve merely been exercising my right to general silence and I have been harassed immensely for it.”

The grin had stricken fear in her heart, but she forced herself to relax when he didn’t act on whatever was obviously going on in his head. So long as he remained indignant about how he was being treated, there was a very good chance she could get through this encounter without him bringing up the elephant in the room.

The raccoon, to be more precise.

“There are standard procedures in place for these interrogations,” she said, trying to appear the no-nonsense inspector that she was. “Whatever injustices you believe you have experienced, we will make note of it.”

“If I recall, allowing a prisoner at least one phone call is also standard procedure, but no one has given me that courtesy yet. Interpol certainly doesn’t practice what it preaches, does it?”

"We'll see about getting you your phone call once our discussion is over. Your cooperation will speed things along."

Raleigh scoffed and folded his arms, looking at her like she was a bug to squish. “Bloody get on with it, then.”

“Very well. How long have you been a member of the Fiendish Five?”

“No doubt since you were in diapers, little wench.”

She ignored the insult. This was much more familiar territory now. “Can you give me any specific dates? Even just a year?”

“How bizarre. I can’t seem to remember. Next question.”

“Fine. We’ll come back to that one later, then. What kind of technology did you provide for your fellow colleagues?”

“I’m sure you lot have enough neurons to share between yourselves to figure it out from the private residence you ransacked when you assaulted me.”

Another jab that was easy to sidestep. The sooner she asked her questions, the sooner she could get out of this room and back to relative safety. Extending their time together by getting riled up was only adding risk to herself.

“Where are the rest of the Fiendish Five located?”

“Do I look like a rat to you?” He sneered. “Why are you even asking me that? Don’t you already have a –”

Raleigh broke off suddenly, staring at her in a way that made her fur bristle. He sat back in his chair with a rising smirk.

“Ah. You lost him, didn’t you?”

The fox stiffened where she sat, feeling Barkley’s eyes through the one-way window. She took a deep breath and put on her best poker face of puzzlement.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’d like to stay on topic.”

“Of course, you would. Someone like you doesn’t want to be reminded of what she let slip through her fingers.” How desperately she wanted to wipe that awful grin off his face. “I can’t say I blame you for it, though. He’s trickier than even I realized. A sly little thing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Carmelita’s fingers twitched against the table, but the frog didn’t acknowledge it beyond a widening of his smile. She prayed to all that was holy that he didn’t go any further – that this was just a dig to get under her skin, that he wouldn’t expose her secret to her fellow officers.

Her terrible, terrible secret.

Raleigh opened his mouth again and she braced herself for the worst, knowing he was a criminal, knowing he’d relish a chance to throw her under the bus and ruin her reputation, blow her credibility as a detective to smithereens entirely as a form of revenge –

“I’m done answering pointless questions. I want my phone call now. I won’t speak to anyone again until I get it.”

“...What?” She asked dumbly, thrown completely off balance.

“Phone call, Inspector,” the machinist scoffed. All traces of amusement had disappeared under impatience and contempt. “Are you daft? Just as moronic as those other rozzers who were in here earlier? Tell your boss that either I get my call, or you’ll be stuck in this pissing contest you’re so eager to have forever.”

“I’ll – I’ll see what I can do,” came the lame response as Carmelita struggled to comprehend the fact that he wasn’t going to expose her deeper involvement with one of his fellow criminals.

Raleigh refused to answer anything else, and sat in irritated silence until the inspector finally gave up and retreated out of the room. Barkley was waiting for her.

“I’ll have someone else work on him for a while,” he promised, studying his subordinate as she ran a stressed hand through her hair. “He’s probably more likely to cooperate with someone who didn’t have a hand in bringing him in.”

“Right,” she murmured, staring out the one-sided window at the criminal who was still sulkily lounging in his chair.

“Raleigh seems to think you had another Fiendish Five member within your grasp, though,” the badger pointed out. “Know how he reached that conclusion?”

“I…I thought I had a decent lead on Clockwerk.” The lie rolled off her tongue so smoothly. She hated herself for it. “I had found something in the boathouse that seemed connected to him. Raleigh saw me with it when we were fighting. It turned out to be a...waste of time.”

That last part was true, at least, but her gut still twisted into a pretzel as her boss accepted the story without question. He stroked his mustache in thought.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea – looking into Clockwerk until you get over that wall you’ve hit on the Panda King’s case, I mean. How much have you delved into on him?”

“Not much,” Carmelita admitted. “I read his file along with the rest when you first sent them to me, but there wasn’t much to go on. I haven’t touched it since.”

Barkley exhaled harshly through his nose. “He’s definitely the most elusive member. We were damn lucky to even get photos, and those are barely identifying at all.”

A traitorous thought drifted across her skull; wondering if Sly had ever seen their leader in person. Would he have described him if she’d asked? Her jaw clenched tight as she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to banish him from her mind yet again.

“I’ll keep you posted on any new progress I make,” she said, trying and failing to sound less exhausted than she felt.

“Good. And I’ll let you know if anything changes here.”

The two of them looked through the window. Neither had particularly high hopes.

“Keep up the good work, Fox,” he dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

“Thank you, sir.”

The walk back to her office felt twice as long as the walk away from it. Every time the inspector passed a coworker by, she could feel the respect and recognition in all of their gazes – things that had been in short supply before she had taken on her most recent case. Instead of feeling happy and welcome, all she wanted to do was shy away in shame, knowing that it had been earned through a farce. Secluding herself from those looks did little to help, but she did it anyway.

Carmelita collapsed in her desk chair and put her face in her hands. No matter what she said or did, thoughts about Sly – Cooper – kept coming back to her like weeds rooted in her brain. She bared her teeth, pressing her fingers harshly against her temples, and warred with her broken heart to please, please focus on anything else.

But no matter how hard she tried not to, the picture of Sly’s face and the sound of his voice was stark in her mind. Teasing her for her struggles on a mission; getting infuriatingly quiet when he felt like being obtuse to her questions; sending biting words her way that got her blood pumping with the urge to bite right back and prove him wrong.

The way he’d screamed her name when she was nearly crushed by Raleigh.

The inspector shook her head, trying to clear it all away, but it warped into other memories instead. The way he had listened to her stories on their long plane rides. His laughter growing less and less reserved every time she was actually able to make him laugh. That night on the roof together when he had admitted he trusted her; wanted to continue trusting her.

Empty eyes and cold, hard metal against her throat.

She growled and stood up so abruptly that her chair nearly toppled. Enough distractions – there was work to be done, locations to find, and criminals to catch. If she couldn’t banish the thief from her mind, then she’d just push him to the side to deal with later. The fox went back to her corkboard, pretending that there was a detail there she hadn’t already scoured ten times over.

It didn’t work.

Records were kept in the building’s basement.

Inspector Fox made her way down there the very next day, moving with a purpose she didn’t actually feel after another wasted day of not finding a lead on the Panda King. She had told herself that having a physical copy of information to study would be more stimulating than staring at a computer screen any longer, and she kept that thought firmly in mind as she plucked King’s file from the appropriate cabinet and then made a beeline for another.

Down an aisle or two, she found the cabinet with the “C” listing, and from there it was short work to find Clockwerk’s remarkably thin folder. The fox pulled it out, started to close the drawer, then stopped. Considered.

There was no point trying to be sneaky when there were cameras mounted everywhere. Even so, Carmelita couldn't help glancing both ways down the aisle to make sure she was alone as her hand slid past "Cl" and into "Co".

Cooper, Conner.

She pulled the file out carefully, afraid to spill its contents. It was far heftier than Clockwerk’s, she noticed – and then wondered why she was comparing them. They had nothing to do with each other. There was no connection between the Fiendish Five and the master thief.

Except for one young raccoon who wouldn’t stop plaguing her.

It felt like she was stealing something priceless as the fox hurried back to her office with Cooper’s folder tucked under her arm, hidden from sight under Clockwerk’s. The moment her door was shut safely behind her, she rushed to her desk to flip through it.

Page after page of Cooper’s countless heists, robberies, and suspected crimes were laid out before her. The man was a legend in his time with barely more than a glimpse caught of him by the many detectives who had chased him for nearly twenty years. They hadn’t even been certain that the male raccoon found in the massacre of that couple in the U.S. had actually been him until his DNA came back a match from one of his earliest heists. It was the first time they’d ever seen his face.

Carmelita let out a quiet noise as she found the police report on Conner’s death. She had studied it as well as the criminal himself during her time at the academy, but it had been a required subject that had only delved into his criminal escapades. His murder had been a footnote at best, and there had certainly never any mention of him having children.

She slipped her reading glasses onto her face and began looking.

At 8:36 PM local time, a police dispatch had received a call about a domestic disturbance. Two officers had arrived at the scene ten minutes later and discovered the bodies of Conner Cooper and his presumed-spouse, Charlotte James-Cooper. Charlotte had been found in the dining room with three bullet wounds across her body. Conner had been found in the living room with severe chest trauma.

Manner of death: Homicide
Perpetrators: Unknown

There were pictures tucked under the page. Carmelita pulled them out – and immediately regretted it. She had never actually seen the photos of the infamous scene, and even though she was no stranger to the often-graphic aftermath of crime, these were…particularly brutal.

“Severe chest trauma” was an understatement. The man had had his chest ripped open from sternum to hip. She’d have those images stuck in her head for weeks.

Swallowing hard, the inspector put them back and started skimming through the rest of the documents. Autopsy reports, police and witness accounts, press conference transcripts – but nothing about a child found or rescued or even reported. No mention of relatives or other known family that had been contacted after death, either.

That last one had been unlikely, anyway. The only attachments the master thief had ever been known to have were his fellow Cooper gang members, and one of them had turned himself in as soon as news of the murders had been made public. Briefly, Carmelita considered the idea of interviewing Jim McSweeney to find out if he knew of any other Cooper relatives, then nixed it immediately. She highly doubted that Conner, secretive and cautious as he was famous for, would have let his fellow criminals near any potential children he might have had.

Not to mention, the walrus had no affiliation with the Fiendish Five. Barkley would want to know why she was pursuing a completely unrelated case when her hands were already full with this one, and she didn’t want him asking questions she didn’t know – or want – to answer.

Not until she had a better understanding of just how Cooper’s supposed son had started working for one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the last century, barely out of his teens.

More photos of the crime scene, thankfully with less violent imagery. The fox thumbed through them one by one, noting the ransacked rooms and particularly the open wall safe in the living room, so reminiscent of the state of Muggshot’s office way back when. It wasn’t anything more than a coincidence – certainly not enough to prove a connection between the bulldog or his associates with Conner Cooper’s death. Honestly, there wasn’t even really proof that Sly was who he’d said he was. Doppelgangers had popped up for years after the master thief’s death; a tribute by some criminals who had admired Cooper, and an attempt to ride the infamy of his name by others. He could have simply lied about his heritage to get into the Five’s good graces and happened to have enough talent to back it up until he no longer could.

Maybe that was why he had suddenly wanted to get out.

Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t even be sure that the cane Sly had used was the real deal. It had felt like the real deal when it had been looped around her neck, but it could have easily been custom-made. Nothing to suggest it was actually Conner Cooper’s original cane, despite the thing still being missing to this day.

Something caught her eye in the wide shot of the living room. Carmelita squinted at the photo, noticing for the first time that there were several broken picture frames littered about the floor. The details were too tiny to make out, but the shapes in them picked at the detective instincts in her mind.

She started flipping through the rest of the photos, grateful for the evidence team’s thoroughness when she found one that showed a close-up of those frames and the contents within them. Most were, bizarrely enough, pictures of previous Coopers who had also been famous for their thieving exploits – Tennessee Kid Cooper and Thaddeus Winslow Cooper III were two she immediately recognized, among others.

But they weren’t the ones that had grabbed her attention. That belonged to a single photo that must have been ripped off the wall incredibly violently, because its frame was broken and there was a huge, jagged crack in the glass right down the middle. Even then, she could still make out what that picture was.

Conner Cooper on the left, his wife on the right. Both were cut off above the shoulders because they were not the focus of the image. The focus of the image was a grinning child holding a balloon between them who barely even reached their hips in height.

Even ten years younger, she’d recognize Sly’s face anywhere.

Carmelita fell back in her chair, clutching this photo of a photo that held the proof she had been looking for. There had been a child. Cooper had had a child, and it had been Sly. What had happened to him after the homicide? How had he started working with one of the most infamous criminal syndicates of the modern age without first making a name for himself elsewhere?

And why wasn’t there a mention of his existence in any of these reports? Surely, a new descendant of the Cooper line would have been a very big deal regardless of whether he had survived the massacre that claimed the rest of his family.

She stared at that picture for a long time, mind whirring as she tried to make sense of it all. Something wasn’t quite adding up no matter what angle she tried, and it was frustrating her that she didn’t have anything else to go on. If she just had a little more information, she’d be able to piece it all together. She was sure of that.

The inspector glanced at the door. Then she glanced up at her corkboard, littered with sticky notes and pins and question marks about the two remaining Fiendish Five. She found herself wishing her partner was with her to help find them, then immediately banished the thought from her head. He hadn’t been helping her at all. He’d been playing her. He’d probably known where every single one of them had been and was just stringing her along to make her feel like she’d figured things out herself.

Well, she could figure those things out all by herself from now on. She didn’t need him anymore or ever again.

But maybe a quick detour to solve a smaller mystery first wouldn’t hurt.

Armed with Conner’s file, Carmelita left her office and walked with purpose across the hall and down a floor, where most of the employees stationed here were more office workers than actual investigators. There was one person she was looking for in particular, one she’d never sought out of her own free will before, and it took a minute to find his name on his office door.

She gave three rapid knocks.

“Come in!”

And entered immediately with no further fanfare.

“Winthorp, is this all there is in the Conner Cooper case?”

The otter looked up from his laptop just in time to watch her lay the heavy file on his desk. He opened his mouth as if to greet her, then saw the no-nonsense look on her face and seemed to realize she wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Instead, he glanced back down at the case.

“Which part of it?”

She opened it to the section about the master thief’s death, swiping a photo of the destroyed living room and waving it in front of his snout. “This part. The homicide and robbery. Were there ever any other reports or notes made about it beyond what’s here?”

“Uh…” The poor man was clearly struggling to catch up. He scanned what was in front of him as quickly as he could, but Carmelita still fought the urge to cross her arms or tap her foot in impatience. “I can check. Give me just a few minutes.”

He began typing rapidly at his keyboard while the fox waited with bated breath. She almost hoped he didn’t find anything new; that the revelation she found herself on the cusp of wasn’t truly there.

“Looking into a few cold cases, huh? That’s a great idea! I’ve heard a lot of detectives say it helps them break out of the slump they’re struggling with in their main cases – not that you’re in a slump, ma’am! I’d never say that, absolutely not…”

Carmelita was so caught up in her own thoughts that it took her far too long to realize he was talking. She shifted her weight and finally did fold her arms, more out of awkwardness than anything else.

“Yeah, I, um…needed a break from the Fiendish Five case for a bit.”

“Oh, I completely understand!” He chirped, very clearly not understanding at all while he obliviously typed away. “It must be awful having to go after such horrible people. I’ve been reading up on them lately – not for, uh, any particular reason – and just hearing about the terrible crimes they’ve committed was enough to make my stomach turn. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever – huh.”

His awed rambling cut off in a distinct noise of confusion, breaking her out of her rising exasperation. The fox zeroed in on the pinched, bemused expression suddenly on his face.

“What? Did you find something?”

“…Yes?” Winthorp answered tentatively. “Or…I guess, no? I’m not really sure.”

Frowning, she walked around his desk so that she could see what had him so stumped. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; in fact, it looked like the exact same information that was in the physical file.

“Walk me through what you’re seeing,” she said, knowing that he would fill in the blanks she couldn’t even find.

“Well, I noticed when I first pulled up the report that the Interpol officer assigned to the case was Francine Pennington. She retired a few years ago, but she was a really amazing detective when she was here for like, twenty years.”

“I know; she tutored a class I once had about the importance of detailed record-keeping.”

“Okay! So then, you probably know how she liked to make her own personal entries about every case she was assigned to, regardless of whether she solved it or not.”

Carmelita didn’t actually know that, but she didn’t question it. If there was anyone in the entire department who could recognize the difference in paperwork between individual officers, it was Winthorp. The guy practically lived in Records.

“I can see here that every time she encountered Conner Cooper or reported a successful heist he did, she left an additional side report – usually rehashing what she’d already formally said but with her personal thoughts and questions as well.”

“She added her own case notes to the official records?”

“Pretty much! Since she was usually the only detective assigned to the cases she worked on, it probably left an easy way to pick things back up whenever she returned to them.”

“As fascinating as this is, Winthorp, I’d really like to know where you’re going with it.”

“Her personal report about the night of Conner Cooper’s death is missing.”

That pulled the inspector up short. “What do you mean? She just didn’t write one?”

“I mean that it’s completely gone.” He gestured to some small detail on his screen that she couldn’t decipher. “It used to be in our system, I can see the submission date for it along with everything else right here, but it’s just…not there anymore.”

“Was it moved? Deleted?”

The otter bit his lip and began pecking at his keyboard. His frown grew more and more pronounced until finally he leaned back with a sigh and a shake of his head. “I don’t know. Whoever messed with it knew how to cover their tracks. I’m not a tech guy, unfortunately.”

Someone had tampered with Interpol evidence. The weight of that knowledge hung heavily in the air between them. Carmelita restlessly drummed her fingers against the Clockwerk case file she was still holding, disturbed and struggling to make sense of it.

Was Sly mentioned in that report? She wondered. Did he find a way to have it erased to make it easier to move around the world unnoticed?

“Could you do me a favor, Winthorp?” She asked. “Do you think you could find that missing report for me, or at least see if there’s a copy of it? I’m, um, really curious as to why it’s disappeared.”

“You and me both,” he replied in a surprisingly candid mutter. “I’ll see what I can do, Inspector. If I do find it, what’s the best way to contact you?”

The fox hesitated, then decided that the pros outweighed the cons. “I’ll give you my number.”

To his credit, he didn’t get weird about it – although it might’ve just been because his snout was practically touching his computer screen with how absorbed in this new conundrum he was. “Thanks. I’ll let you know as soon as I find it.”

“…Sounds good.”

As soon as she left Winthorp’s office with Conner Cooper’s file back in her arms, Carmelita looked up and down the hall before slowly pulling out her phone. She opened her contacts and scrolled down until a recent, damning name stared back at her.

She’d saved Sly’s number after the first time he’d finally called her, right before everything had gone to shit. It had burned in the back of her mind for two weeks, but she hadn’t dared do anything with it. She couldn’t; she didn’t know how or have the equipment to track a phone, and asking someone who did would only lead to questions that she was still afraid to answer. But she hadn’t deleted it, either, for reasons she knew were there but didn’t dare think about.

He'd probably ditched his phone at the Isle of Wrath, anyway. All she was setting herself up for was more devastation.

But she didn’t delete the number. Instead, she pocketed her cellphone and started walking almost aimlessly as her thoughts whirled over everything she had just learned.

So caught up in her thoughts, the fox turned a corner and nearly ran right into Inspector Barkley. He raised an eyebrow at the no-doubt haggard look on her face, but something more pressing seemed to be on his mind.

“Oh, there you are. I was just looking for you.”

“Is something wrong, sir?”

“No, but we’re about to let Raleigh have his phone call. I thought maybe you’d like to witness it in person in case it gives a new clue to your case.”

She subconsciously tucked the Cooper file a little closer under her arm even though its title wasn’t visible. “I definitely want to be there. Is it happening right now?”

“Just about. We’ll have to hurry if you don’t want to watch a video recording later.”

They wasted no time returning to the interrogation room, where another officer could be seen through the one-way mirror letting Raleigh know that his call could be recorded or traced. The frog looked just as bored as ever, but Carmelita could see the way his fingers tapped impatiently against each other, the only tell to his eagerness.

She leaned up as close to the glass as she dared, watching every minute detail in the criminal’s body language as he was finally handed a cellphone. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, studying it, and then proceeded to dial a number so quickly that she couldn’t even catch the area code.

He put the phone up to his ear and waited.

The call had been set up to play in the adjacent room so that the observing officers could hear everything that was said on either end of the line. Both fox and badger waited with bated breath as it began to ring.

After almost half a minute, just when they thought there’d be no answer, someone finally picked up. There was no greeting from the other side; not a single sound could be heard at all.

Raleigh was not unnerved by this. He cleared his throat loudly, staring directly at the one-way mirror as though he knew exactly where Carmelita was hiding behind it.

“He’s all yours.”

Then he promptly hung up and laid the cellphone on the table.

No one moved at first, collectively confused at the cryptic message and such a short interaction for someone who had been demanding a call for two weeks. Raleigh kept his eyes locked on the mirror, gaze leering and knowing, and the inspector resisted the irrational urge to retreat from the window.

“That was…anticlimactic,” Barkley muttered next to her, sounding just as baffled as she felt. “Did that phrase mean anything to you?”

She shook her head, unable to turn away from the machinist’s piercing eyes.

“Hmm. Alright, well, I suppose you’re dismissed?”

It was a rare moment for her boss to be so perturbed, but she didn’t find any hilarity to it. With a final nod in his direction, almost afraid to turn her back to the other room, Carmelita pressed the Cooper case file close to her chest and began trudging back towards her office, turning the bizarre scenario over and over in her mind.

You’re missing something. C’mon, Inspector, it’s all right there in plain sight. I know you can put it all together.

The voice in her head sounded infuriatingly like Sly, which derailed her inner deliberating and scattered all potential connections to the wind. Suddenly angry at him for dominating her thoughts, again, and at herself for letting it happen, again, the fox stomped back to her office, slammed the door closed, and practically flung the case files onto her desk before whirling on her stupid corkboard.

Sly’s voice mocked her for being a terrible detective as she tore down every pin, every flag, and every interconnecting red string in a blind rage. Every time she was about to put the pieces together, every time she was close to making a breakthrough, he just had to worm his way back into her brain and destroy her progress. She was just – so – sick of it!

Her fingers curled around an entire cluster of pins stuck into the east side of China, venomously ripping them out and throwing them to the ground in pure, furious spite. It left a large empty space of map in its wake, revealing cities and marked landmarks that had been buried for weeks. Carmelita reached forward, ready to tear out another handful, when two words jumped out at her.

Kunlun Mountains.

The inspector froze, staring at that name.

“I lived in Kunlun as a kid for a while.”

Something clicked into place for the first time since she’d had her heart ripped out in Wales, and the fox let out a bitter laugh. Of course, he was still leading her on. Of course, he’d found a way to subtly push her towards his next planned destination. Even in the aftermath of his panic, he’d been trying to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.

Whether it was true that the raccoon had actually grown up in Kunlun didn’t matter; what mattered now was that she finally, finally had a lead on her next target, and she was going to run it into the ground until she had her criminal.

And whether that criminal was the Panda King or Sly Cooper didn’t matter. A criminal was a criminal, and she was going to show no mercy.

Chapter Text

The shadow of the Kunlun Mountains shrouded everything and everyone as a car rolled to a stop at the entrance of a giant temple. From the driver’s seat, out stepped the Panda King, who surveyed the area for a long moment before moving to the back half of the car.

He paused with his hand on the door handle, bracing himself. Then he opened it.

A little gray blur came shooting out of the backseat, but King was faster. He caught the boy by the collar of his shirt and hauled him into the air as he flailed in a pitiful, desperate attempt to break free.

“Cease your behavior,” the Fiendish Five member said, staring down the struggling raccoon. When nothing changed, he shook him once in warning. “Cease, or I will make you cease.”

The young Cooper finally seemed to get the message, because he stopped trying to swing and kick at his captor’s arm. Instead, he glared at him with all the hate and hostility an eight-year-old could possibly hold.

The Panda King was well aware how deceptively large that amount could be.

“I am going to put you down now,” he told him, watching the way the child tensed in anticipation, “and we are going to walk inside together. Do not think you will be able to escape so easily – my employees are all loyal to me, and will not hesitate to shoot a trespasser on sight, no matter your age. You will only be safe here with me.”

The kit eyed the temple ahead of them and the shine of spotlights going all the way up each floor.

“Do you understand?”

A sullen nod was his answer without even a glance in his direction. Familiar anger curled in the panda’s chest like the trapped smoke of a raging fire at the open display of disrespect, but he did not release it. All he did was place the raccoon gently back onto his feet, keeping his fingers on a tight grip at the back of his neck.

It was fortuitous he had the insight to do so, because the young Cooper immediately tried to bolt again the instant his shoes hit the snowy ground. King jerked him back so powerfully he collided with the man’s leg.

Insolent child.

He pushed the boy forward through the entrance. Employees and guards alike snapped to attention at his presence with not even a glance at the child at his side. The Panda King nodded to each in turn as he made eye contact with them.

Deeper into the heart of the factory the two of them went. The fireworks master didn’t necessarily need to take this route to reach their destination, but he wanted to show the boy that it was futile to fight back. The power and respect he commanded in these mountains were second only to some of the oldest family lines in the entire country. Even the local government feared his wrath, and they worked around each other in a begrudging truce.

His methods appeared to be working, too – the child was staring at everyone around them with wide, wide eyes, and seemed to walk a little faster with every new guard he saw. As they exited the factory back into open air, a large gorilla nearly walked right into them, who backed away quickly as he realized his mistake and bowed low.

“Forgive me, my lord,” he said in Cantonese. “I should have been paying more attention. I hope I did not cause offense.”

The Panda King opened his mouth to respond when he suddenly felt resistance at his side. He glanced down to see the young Cooper trying to edge behind him. A pang of irritation shot through him until he realized the reason why – the guard’s flashlight was shining directly at the kit and, at the angle he was bowing, their gazes were locked. His gun was easily visible on one hip, and a large dagger glinted in the evening light on his other.

In the stark, unavoidable face of danger and confrontation, the raccoon’s fragile bravado was cracking to reveal the true terror underneath. He wasn’t ignorant or dismissive of his situation like the panda had first believed; if anything, he was all too aware of it. So afraid of his new fate when faced with it, the boy couldn’t help but try to hide behind his own captor. Seeking some form of comfort and protection, bare as it was, from one of the very people who had helped slaughter his family.

He was still only eight years old, after all.

King stared at him for a long moment before turning back to his waiting guard. “It was not your fault. You did not know we were coming. Please, continue with your duties.”

The gorilla gave another bow and hurried along, leaving the panda and his ward alone in the cold dark. The child shivered, still half-pressed against him.

“...Let us move on,” he said at last without addressing it. Sly didn’t nod or even look up at him, but he went without resistance when they continued walking.

Past more temples, residencies, and dozens of watchful guards, they finally arrived at their destination – a great stone fortress carved into the mountain itself. It was still largely hidden from the outside, but the fireworks master had been considering changing that lately. Perhaps something based on his likeness to show the unquestionable claim he had over this region.

The moment they stepped inside, there were attendants appearing at the Panda King’s side ready and waiting for orders. He regarded them, still holding tight to the young Cooper’s shirt.

“I want one of the empty rooms to be cleared out for living,” he announced, “with reinforced walls and an outer lock on its door. Choose a room with no windows.”

Over half of his servants broke away to begin immediately. He turned to two more.

“Bring me my ten best guards. I require a meeting with them within one hour.”

The boy glanced back and forth between him and his servants with a confused frown as he spoke. King ignored it; he would learn Mandarin to communicate with the staff in due time.

Once every attendant had a job to do and had left them alone, he finally acknowledged the child again.

“You will live here as a personal servant to me and my family,” he said, switching to English. The kit’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “Do not be ungrateful. I have decided that you will have a simple vocation, but I will not hesitate to give you hard labor if you continue to scorn the mercy that has been shown to you. Do you understand?”

He glared at the floor, so King kneeled to get on his level and forced him to meet his eyes. If looks could kill, the panda knew he would have stopped breathing in an instant.

“Do you understand, Sly Cooper?”

The child’s tail curled tightly around his legs. His breaths came out in quiet, angry huffs, and there were tears growing in his eyes. But he eventually nodded without a word in protest. Not a word at all, in fact, which the fireworks master had noticed had been the case as far back as the States. Ever since Clockwerk had forced him to tell them his name mere centimeters from the corpse of his father, the kit hadn’t made a single sound afterward.

Tucking away the peculiarity to ponder over at a later time, the panda got back to his feet and began to turn around with the young Cooper’s shirt still in his grip – and was only mildly surprised to see his sister standing in the nearby doorway. Her expression was shrewd as she laid eyes on the raccoon fidgeting at his side.

“Who is that?” She asked.

“A servant for Jing.”

“You took a local from a nearby town?” The other panda gave him a sharp glance. “His family will want him back, surely. They will cause a stir.”

“No one will do that. He is not a local, nor does he have any family. He is…the child of a former rival.”

He had phrased it carefully, but he could not stop the real meaning from shining through.

“He’s what?!” Now she stared at the child with disdain and disgust, who flinched and tried to hide behind King to no avail. “What were you thinking, bringing him here? He will smother your daughter in her sleep! He will burn this entire place to the ground if given half the chance!”

“He will not get that chance.” When the woman scoffed in disbelief, King reached forward and gently took hold of her shoulder. “My dear sister, please listen to me. I would never do anything to put Jing or us in harm’s way. I saved this boy from death, and he will repay that debt until he is old enough to fend for himself.”

“We were never given that courtesy,” she muttered, crossing her arms and refusing to meet his eyes. “I don’t like this. You think you are showing mercy to an innocent soul, but your bleeding heart will not see the danger until there is a knife at your throat.”

The panda considered telling her of the Cooper Cane hidden away in his luggage, then decided against it. The boy would not be allowed access to it for several years at least. There was no need to worry his sister further.

Before either of them could continue their argument, a third, younger voice cut in that sent joy through his heart to hear.

“Daddy! You’re back!”

A little panda girl darted out from around her aunt, who tried and failed to stop her from advancing, and ran towards King with her arms outstretched. Then she saw the boy at her father’s side and stopped in her tracks with big, curious eyes.

“Who’s that?”

The young Cooper had frozen as well at the sight of the other child, and the fireworks master studied the open shock on his face a moment before pushing him forward.

“Dear daughter, this young man will be a personal servant to our family. Please treat him with respect as you would the rest of the staff.”

The Panda King turned to the raccoon and gently grabbed onto his chin to force him to look at him instead of his daughter.

“Sly Cooper, this is my daughter, Jing King.” He watched the way the kit’s eyes widened, and let the words sink in before continuing. “If you ever do anything to cause her harm, then I will not hesitate to strike you down where you are standing.”

The child swallowed, his gaze darting sideways to glance over at Jing again. King could no longer read the emotions on his face, and he did not know how to feel about that. For not the first time, he wondered if he had made a mistake.

But he had already chosen this path, and he would see it through to whatever end lay ahead. There was no stopping fate’s course. All he could hope for was that his daughter would remain safe.

Safe, and happy.

A snowstorm was due soon.

Jing King could always tell when one was on its way – not from the shifting weather or her own innate senses, but from the way the staff at her aunt’s house began hustling and bustling more than usual every time. Their daily schedule flowed like water, accounting for even the slightest changes and working around them with professional grace to appease their employer.

That schedule was how Jing measured the monotony of the weeks, nowadays. After nearly a year of living with her aunt, not allowed out of the house for more than a few hours of carefully monitored shopping where an entire entourage followed her like she was the next heir to the Chinese monarchy, all she could rely on for interest and comfort was watching how the people around her went about their busier, more interesting lives.

The only other thing that made them as busy as an incoming storm was when her father came to visit. Today, from what she could tell by how frantic they had been since dawn, seemed to be a day for both.

Her father never announced ahead of time when he was coming, but the staff always seemed to know anyway, well before his family could see his shadow arriving in the archway of the outer garden. Jing watched from her high room window as he stepped up to the house with a large bag slung over one shoulder, hearing hurrying footsteps up and down the hall outside her closed door as servants put the finishing touches on polishing the floors.

This, too, she felt detached from – as if she were not actually here, but a ghostly specter witnessing the events around her without ever being acknowledged.

Her father stopped just outside the front door, eyes casting upwards until they locked onto hers, and she felt her expression pull into something as close to a glare as she dared to make. His mouth thinned, visible even two stories down, and he entered the house with a hunch to his form.

How she wished she would not be acknowledged. It would be so much easier than this state of limbo she found herself in after all these months.

After all these years.

Jing waited, unmoving, at her window, and three minutes later there was a firm knock on her door. She didn’t answer; didn’t even turn around as it was gently slid open and her father’s shadow darkened everything in her room.

“Dear daughter, you will not even greet me at the door anymore?”

She finally turned to look at him, her face as blank as she could possibly make it. “I wasn’t aware it was such a momentous occasion to warrant leaving my room.”

The Panda King was such a large man that he had to duck to get through the doorframe. It would have done little to affect his intimidating presence if he were not moving as timidly as he was right now.

“Such callous words greatly wound me,” he said, coming to a stop in the center of the room with the bag between his hands. “I do not understand why you say these things instead of what is truly on your mind and in your heart.”

Jing couldn’t help the way her hands clenched into fists where they sat in her lap. Her tone was clipped and icy as she answered. “I tried that once, Father, and it didn’t matter in the end. How can you expect me to think the outcome will be any different this time?”

They stared at each other in silence for a solid minute. The chasm between them was deep and frigid and uninviting, and the younger panda waited to see if this was finally the day that her father would attempt to cross it.

She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed when he did not.

“…I brought gifts from my time in Sierra Leone,” he said after a moment too long, setting the bag on the end of her bed. “There are many beautiful clothes and keepsakes in here. All for you.”

“Thank you, Father.” It was empty gratitude, and they both knew it, but they had fallen so far into this routinely charade that it felt wrong to do anything else. “Did you take any pictures of the places you visited?”

That question, too, was part of the routine – as was the way he shook his head in what she dared to believe was still a genuine apology.

“You know I cannot ever risk knowledge of where I’ve been to exist, my dear. Photographs are too dangerous a tool to wield in the wrong hands.”

She gave a wooden nod and turned back towards the window. “I will look through the things you’ve brought me later. For now, I’m going to stay here to watch the oncoming sunset.”

Instead of hearing his retreating footsteps like always, there was a concerning lack of movement behind her. Jing held her breath and waited for the break in routine that her father was about to make, and wondered if it might shatter her world.

Again.

“I will not be staying for much longer. I have urgent business higher up on the mountain tonight.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders relaxed; she didn’t know when they had tensed in the first place. “How long will you be?”

“I don’t know. At least several days, and I will probably not return here on my way back down.”

The invitation, the plea, was clear as day, but Jing refused to stop looking out the window. She kept her gaze resolutely on the distant, waning sun.

“Then…I hope your travels remain safe as always, Father.”

She closed her eyes at the sound of the sad sigh at her back, pretending it didn’t hurt to hear even now. The Panda King began to slowly make his way towards the door. When he stopped, she still didn’t move a muscle.

“I love you, qiān jīn. I hope you will not forget that.”

“I know you do, Father.” Jing hesitated a moment, but only to make sure her voice would remain steadfast. “And I love you, too.”

After he had finally left, after she heard his footsteps fade away and then watched him walk out of the front garden until he disappeared from sight, the young panda felt tears shimmering in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away before they could fall and put her head in her hands, aching from a loss that she didn’t know how to fix.

She stayed there at the window until the sun set without really seeing it, and continued to stay there until the sky finally grew too dark to see the vast mountain landscape. Snowflakes were starting to fall, barely visible even as they danced right in front of the glass. Jing opened the window to let them land on her windowsill, ignoring the sudden biting chill, and finally got up to turn on another lamp at the other end of the room.

There was a thump from outside her window.

Jing turned around, confused by the sound, and watched with shock and alarm as a hand appeared to grip at the windowsill. She stood there, frozen, as the hand was followed by a hooded head and a lanky body and a ringed tail.

“Sly?!”

The figure pulled himself fully through the window and hit the floor of her room with an audible thud. She winced at the sound, staring at him in worry when he didn't move other than to violently shiver. He looked soaked head to toe from snow, and his eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

His lips were blue.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Who she was seeing. Words escaped her as she tried to process what to do; what to even say.

“Sly –”

A knock at the door made her gasp and clap her hand over her mouth.

“Ma’am? Is everything okay?” Called an attendant from out in the hall. “I heard something loud.”

“Everything’s fine!” She replied quickly, picking up the limp raccoon as gently as she could. He weighed practically nothing to her. “I accidentally dropped a book. Please do not come in!”

There was hesitant silence from outside. Jing prayed they didn’t open the door as she carefully laid Sly on her bed and pulled a heavy blanket over him.

“Alright, ma’am, if you’re sure…”

“Very sure! Completely sure! Please do not bother me again unless I ask for you!”

Something about her tone must have gotten harsh at the end, because the attendant hurried off with only a quiet “yes, ma’am” to accompany their departure. For once, she couldn't bring herself to feel remorse.

Not when a specter of her past life was lying in front of her for the first time in six years.

The panda pulled her desk chair out next to the bed and sank slowly down onto it, watching the slow rise and fall of Sly’s chest as he curled up in her blankets and fought to get warmth back in him. She bit her lip, afraid to break the silence for fear that he might disappear the moment she spoke.

It seemed he had read her mind, however, because that very moment his eyes cracked open to stare at her.

“Hey, xiǎo mèi…” He murmured, exhausted and toneless. “Been a while, huh?”

The sound of his voice was nearly enough to bring tears back to her eyes. After all this time, he was still so similar in so many ways.

“It has been a very long time, indeed,” she managed to say without letting those tears fall, wringing her hands. “I thought…I mean, I wasn’t sure if…”

If I would ever see you again.

“...Where have you been all this time?”

“Oh, you know, around.” The raccoon sat up with a wince with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, trying not to look as though he had just trekked up the mountain on foot. Which he probably had, she was starting to realize. “Got to do some traveling, saw the world, that kind of thing. I even got pictures for you – you were always talking about how much you wanted to get out of Kunlun.”

When Jing didn’t react except to continue wringing her hands in worry, his neutral expression softened just a little.

“Hey. I’m okay. Just need to warm up a bit and I’ll be back on my feet in no time. It’s…it’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too,” she whispered. “I missed you so much, Sly. I was so scared for you.”

He wilted back against the mattress a bit, and she knew it had nothing to do with him being exhausted. “Yeah, I…yeah. I missed you too.”

The wind howling outside her window was the only sound that passed between them for a long moment, as Sly shivered and struggled to stay awake and Jing watched him in forlorn silence. An idea came to her suddenly and she stood up, making him jump.

“I’ll be right back. Please don’t go anywhere.”

“You say please, but I don’t think you’ll give me much of a choice either way,” he joked. Then he grew tense as she made a beeline for the door. “Where are you going?”

“To get you something to eat.”

“Jing, you don’t have to –”

“I want to.” She paused with her hand against the sliding door, and glanced back at him with a pleading look. “Please let me do this for you.”

The raccoon seemed to have an internal conflict at that, but he didn’t call after her again when she left, and she paused only to flip the sign on her door to “do not disturb” before hurrying down to the kitchen.

Dinner had already been made and cleaned up hours ago, so there was no one to bother her as she found one of the industrial refrigerators to poke around in. Leftovers were never thrown away in this house – a habit of both her aunt’s and father’s childhoods that she was now very grateful for – so it only took a minute to find some simple noodle soup, reheat it, and head back to her room with the warm bowl and an additional glass of water in tow.

Sly was right where she’d left him, huddled in blankets but watching the door with the same level of intensity she’d remembered him having even as a child. When the panda sat back down beside him and passed him the soup, he barely even bothered with the chopsticks as he began eating.

The sound of slurping was a loud echo in the room while Jing tried to figure out which of the countless questions in her head would be most likely to actually earn an answer. Sly was someone who often sidestepped truthful answers on the best of days, and right now he looked like talking was the last thing he wanted to do.

Her eyes fell to his chest, covered by clothing, and knew that the things she wanted to know above all else were things she would not dare ask in a thousand years.

“…How did you find this place?” She finally landed on, unable to stop from sounding a little bit incredulous. “You have never been to my aunt’s house before.”

“One of your servants was out shopping and I recognized the family crest on her uniform. Followed her back.” The words were quiet and spoken between rapid swallows of soup.

“Sly…you did not even know whether I would be here. What if it had been my aunt who saw you at the window instead of me? What – what if it had been my father?”

The raccoon stiffened with the chopsticks halfway up to his mouth. “Is he here?”

“No, but –”

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about,” he said curtly, leaving no space for argument as he went back to eating.

Jing bit her lip. “How did you get here?”

“Walked.”

“From where? For how long?”

“Why does that matter?”

“You look like a drowned rat.”

Sly snorted into his soup. “Real nice, Jing. First time we’ve seen each other in years and you’re making fun of me.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.” Something was creeping into her voice; a mix of fondness and frustration that only he had ever been able to bring out. God, how she had missed it. “I am worried for your health.”

“I’m fine.” He refused to meet her eyes. “Made it here in one piece and I don’t even have frostbite. Probably. No need to worry.”

The panda could feel it in the air – this thread of conversation was over. Pushing him would only end poorly. She sighed and looked for a new, safer topic.

“You mentioned you had brought pictures for me?”

“Oh, yeah.” His expression was still shadowed, but a genuine smile crossed his face. “Here.”

The raccoon reached behind him into his soaked backpack and pulled out a small digital camera, which he held out towards her. When she took it from him, it struck her how much bigger her hands were compared to his. The last time she’d seen him, he’d still been taller than her, although she’d been very close to catching up.

Now, she was practically twice his size.

With a long, slow breath to quell the rising wave of lament in her heart, Jing turned the camera on and began looking through the pictures Sly had taken as he watched her for a reaction. There were hundreds of them – places and people and things she never would have imagined – and after the first several dozen she looked up at him with the biggest smile she could manage.

“This is incredible, Sly. Thank you so much for this gift. I will treasure it for as long as I live.”

He returned the smile, clearly relieved that she had liked it, and set his now-empty bowl aside. “Got pictures from all over the world in there, you know. Haiti, the United Kingdom, pretty much the whole expanse of Europe and China. Made a few detours in Russia and Kazakhstan, even. All for you.”

Jing kept her face carefully blank, mind whirling as she tried not to make him realize what he’d just let slip. Which country had he been in when he had slipped free? How long had he been running before he’d found his way here? Surely, they had not let him have a camera if he had been with them in all those places.

Had he been alone all that time, in all those places? Had he been afraid that entire time? Was he still afraid?

“…Jing?”

She startled, and realized that her cheeks were wet. Sly stared at her with visible alarm – alarm over her, worry over her, but not for himself. Never for himself.

The dam in her heart finally burst. Jing began to cry, muffled behind a hand in fear of alerting someone outside her room, and leaned forward to grab his hands in her free one.

“Sly, I’m sorry,” she cried, wanting nothing more than to pull him into a hug but terrified it would hurt him somehow. “I am so, so sorry!”

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay!” He looked torn between drawing closer or giving her space as the best way to comfort her – or maybe, he was torn between wanting to draw closer or securing an escape route for himself, just in case. The thought made her cry harder. “Jing, look at me. What on earth do you have to be sorry for?”

So much. There was so much for her to be sorry for, but she focused on the new guilt instead of the old.

“You should hate me!” The panda wailed, clutching his hands as tight as she dared. “I spent all this time hoping I would get to see you again, but I knew how selfish that was, and I knew that – that if you ever got out, it would be safer for you to never come back, but you did come back, and I – I – I hate how happy I am for it!”

Silence greeted her. She didn’t dare look at him.

“You deserve to be selfish,” she continued between sniffles. “I don’t know if you came back just to see me, or because you have nowhere else to go, but this place isn’t safe for you. Kunlun isn’t safe, Sly, we both know my father’s word is law here. If you felt obligated to come here for my sake, then…then you should allow yourself to be selfish, and do what you want instead of thinking about me.”

There was a sharp intake of breath that finally made her glance upwards. Sly was staring down at her, his face pinched with guilt and his eyes endless pools of regret. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to pull his hands away from her.

“I am being selfish, Jing,” he whispered. “Everything about me being here is selfish. I – I didn’t climb this mountain just for a chance to see you.”

He stopped, and for a terrible moment she feared that he wouldn’t elaborate. But then he closed his eyes and pulled his backpack around to pull something else out. An old, tattered book, full of ripped pages, all in a large ziplock bag to keep it safe from getting wet.

“I climbed the mountain for this.”

She didn’t open the bag when he handed it to her, both out of respect of this thing he clearly held so dearly and fear that her touch might make the fragile pages crumble to dust.

“A book…” the panda murmured. “I remember…I think I remember you once mentioned this book. A book and a cane.”

“Yeah. They gave me the cane back, but not this.” Sly gingerly took it back and put it away again, then wrapped his arms around himself. “They split the pages between themselves, and I’ve been getting them back one by one since I got out.”

“How much more do you have left?”

“Just what your father’s holding onto. I already got the rest from the other three.”

Jing frowned, confused. “Other…three? Aren’t there five –”

“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off. “I’ve already got everything figured out.”

“…Okay.” She looked down at her hands, perfectly still in her lap, then at his, twitching against the blankets. “So, you…you followed that servant back here because you hoped it would lead you to the rest of the book?”

“I did. I was hoping I’d find it all here and then I wouldn’t have to climb the mountain any further to your father’s place.” The raccoon rubbed his face with one hand, unable to meet her eyes. “I didn’t stop to think about whether I’d run into him, or your aunt, or even you. I, uh, wasn’t really thinking about much of anything beyond getting here.”

“I believe that. You looked half-dead when you arrived. In fact, you still do.”

Sly didn’t answer. The silence lapsed between them as Jing slowly sorted through this revelation, deciding how she felt about it.

“Do you…regret seeing me again?” She asked after a few minutes, almost afraid of the answer but needing to hear it anyway. “After everything that happened?”

He gave her a startled look, which then grew into something soft and weighted.

“Not one bit,” he said, and she trusted the honesty there. No one in her life had ever been as honest to her as he had, for better or for worse. “The camera was a real gift for you; I was going to leave it somewhere you’d find it if I didn’t see you in person. But my motives for coming here are selfish, Jing, and I’m sorry for that.”

The panda shook her head. “No. Do not apologize. I told you already that you deserve to be selfish. You deserve to do whatever you want, especially now that you’re finally free.”

There was a strange tightening around his eyes that she didn’t like, as though he didn’t actually yet believe he was free. She did not ask, though, and he did not correct whatever error she had made.

“Well, if you’re giving me permission to do what I want, I should probably get going before someone else catches me here. I need to go looking for those pages, after all.”

“What?” Jing straightened in her seat, caught off guard by both the suggestion and how unaffected he sounded as he made it.

“I won't ransack the place, promise,” he said, misunderstanding her alarm. “No one will even notice I’ve been here. Just give me a few hours to get through the house and then I’ll be out of your hair before you can get in trouble for it.”

“No, don't leave yet!” She jumped to her feet even though he hadn’t made any move to get out of bed. “Please stay. You’ve only just arrived here, and a snowstorm is coming tonight!”

“It’s fine,” he said dismissively without really looking at her. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“You’re not a burden, Sly. You’ve never been a burden to me. You’re fa–” she stuttered on the word as his sharp eyes caught hers.

Family, the panda was afraid to say in the face of his intense, inscrutable expression.

“...You’re important to me,” she finished lamely when the raccoon continued to give her an unreadable look.

“Your aunt would say something very different if she saw me here,” he pointed out with a bit of a sneer.

“Well, she’s not here. I am. And – and I am telling you that you’re not allowed to leave until you’re fully rested and the storm is over. I will look for the rest of your book until then, and you will focus on recovering. That is final.”

They stared at each other; him in shock and her in a valiant attempt to make herself look as no-nonsense as her father. After a few moments, Sly yielded with an incredulous chuckle and a shake of his head.

“Man, you haven’t changed a bit, have you? Just as bossy as the day we met.” There was nothing but fondness in his voice as he hunkered down among her blankets. “I never thought I’d miss it so much.”

“And you are as cryptic and infuriating as always,” Jing teased back as a way to hide her relief that he wasn’t going to disappear on her again so suddenly. “Which I would not trade for anything in the world.”

“Not even the chance to travel said world?”

“It is a tempting thought, but not even that.” She reached over to smooth down the unruly fur on his head, mildly surprised that he held still enough to let her. Either he had grown less fidgety over the years – which she highly doubted – or he was just that tired. “Rest, dà gē. If those pages are in this house, I will find them.”

Three days later, and Jing was certain that the pages were not in the house.

It had been easier than she expected to go through rooms, as she told anyone who saw her that she was searching for something she had misplaced, but preferred to do it by herself – they all knew how bored she was, and took her words at face value. Her aunt did not care where she looked so long as she did not completely tear apart the rooms for staff to have to redo, and so she was left to her own devices.

At Sly’s suggestion, on the second day when she had returned empty-handed after going through drawers and cabinets and bedding, she had taken another pass through the house for safes and secret stashes, hidden behind walls or under floorboards or even in the ceiling. This, she passed off as thinking she had heard rodents, and soon had the staff tearing through hard surfaces for her, always under her watchful eye.

What guilt she felt at first for making them work harder than necessary was put to rest the moment she thought about the raccoon hiding in her room. The sooner she found those pages, then the sooner he could leave without getting caught here, and finally make his life his own.

By day three, still coming up short, Sly had been insistent on helping her for her third check, claiming he was fully recovered and it would be easier with two pairs of eyes knowing what to look for. The panda had been afraid to let him leave her room for fear of being seen, but he had amazed her with his stealth – already impressive when they were children and yet so much more impressive now – as well as the truly incredible trick he possessed to turn invisible for short periods of time. She knew magic existed in this world, but to hear about it was very different from seeing it, and she had marveled at his talents while he had awkwardly deflected all her compliments as best he could.

They hadn’t found anything that day, either, and the two of them retired back to her room extremely frustrated. Jing noticed, belatedly, that the staff activity was busier than usual, and noted the likelihood of another oncoming storm in the back of her mind.

“I do not think they are here, Sly,” she finally admitted that night, looking out the window at the clear, calm sky as the raccoon changed clothes behind her. “I think my father is keeping them in his stronghold further up the mountain.”

“I think you’re right.” The inflection in his voice was hard to read. She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder to tell her he was done, and they switched places. “Guess that means I’ll have to find some good snowshoes.”

The panda stopped in the middle of stepping into her nightgown. “You’re not planning to travel up there tonight, are you? There is another storm coming.”

“This damn mountain and its storms.”

“Sly…”

“I won’t leave tonight, Jing. Promise. I’ll wait the storm out first.” He ran his finger along the frame of the closed window, stopping just short of the latch as though it was locked even though they both knew it hadn’t been since he’d arrived. “It’d be pretty stupid after spending all this time recuperating. I’d ruin all your hospitality.”

“You have done stupider things, no doubt.”

“Hey. You have no proof of that.”

She giggled, tapping the raccoon’s shoulder, and they both retreated to her bed. She had been grateful these last few days that it was as big as it was; it fit both of them with plenty of room to spare. Neither of them were particularly touchy people, even with the only one they trusted.

After they had settled in for the night, back-to-back, Jing looked at the camera sitting on her nightstand. She had been going through it the last few days, savoring the details in each and every photo, but there was a pattern in them that she had started to recognize that had been bothering her.

Well, not a pattern, per se. A person.

“Sly?”

“Mm?”

“About those pictures you’ve taken…I’ve noticed something. A lot of the early ones have this woman in them.” She felt him tense up even though they weren’t touching. “She is usually in the background. Was she…following you?”

Sly had practically ceased to exist behind her; so much so that she nearly turned around to see whether he’d suddenly turned himself invisible. After several strained seconds, he forcibly relaxed in a way that fooled neither of them.

“Oh, yeah, her. Just some cop I was helping after I first got out. She wanted to cut a plea deal for what I knew about the Five, but she slipped up and let me out of her sight after a few days. Sorry, I forgot to delete the ones with her in it.”

Jing thought about the fact that almost a third of the photos on that camera had the woman in them, and some had been taken with her as the obvious focus. She wisely did not speak up.

“I can get rid of them right now, actually,” he continued, turning over to stretch his arm over her body as he reached for the camera.

“No!” The panda caught him at the wrist as quickly but gently as possible, wincing as he flinched anyway. She let go immediately and he pulled away. “Sorry. No, it is alright. I barely noticed her. I’d much rather keep everything that you saved.”

“…Fine. Sure.” Sly turned back around, his voice clipped and curt. “Just, uh, do me a favor and don’t bring her up again, alright? I don’t feel like being reminded of some dumb cop who doesn’t matter anymore.”

Anymore. She wondered at everything behind that word. “Okay. I won’t.”

“Thanks. Night.”

“Goodnight, Sly.”

Jing stayed thinking about that mystery woman, staring through her window at the cloudless skies outside, until her eyes finally grew heavily and she drifted off into uneasy sleep.

Sly’s terrified gasp woke her right back up.

She sat up quickly, worried he was having a nightmare, only to see him also sitting upright, all his fur on end while he stared at her door.

Her open door, where a familiar, giant shadow loomed as the Panda King studied the sight before him.

Jing stopped breathing.

Her father opened his mouth, closed it, then took a step into the room. Immediately, Sly scrambled backwards until he fell off the bed, while Jing remained frozen where she was. The larger panda stopped moving, but Sly didn’t – he grabbed his backpack off the floor and jumped to his feet in one swift motion, sprinting for the window mere meters away.

His hands had just found the unlocked latch when King’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“You have been looking for the remainder of the book.”

It was like a switch had been flipped. Jing watched, bewildered, as the raccoon stopped trying to flee and instead slowly turned around to face the older man. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t already out the window – what did the book matter compared to his life?

Sly’s hands remained on the windowsill behind him. She could see his fingers shaking even as he put an unbothered look on his face. “Oh yeah? What made it so obvious?”

“My sister told me that you have searched the house for days for something you refused to name.”

His eyes slid over to his daughter, who remained stock-still. She couldn’t read his expression, and that was so much scarier than if he had been angry.

He turned back towards Sly. “You are on a fool’s errand. This will not end the way you think it will.”

The raccoon visibly bristled. “What do you know? Not a goddamn thing!”

“I know that you think completing that book will set you free. That everything you’ve endured for the last six years – eleven years,” he amended, when Sly snarled, “will be worth it once you have all the pages. But I can promise you, Sly Cooper, that the only thing you will find at the end of things is death.”

“Is that a threat?” The younger man demanded, reaching into his backpack to pull out a long, golden cane. He pointed it at the Panda King, who did not react. “Cause if it is, I think you’ll find I’m no longer the frightened child you used to manhandle to get your kicks.”

“I would never think of underestimating you. You have proven your worth and capabilities a thousand times over.”

“Fuck you!”

Jing saw the tremble in the arm that held the cane, and heard the fear under the bravado and fury. Sly knew he was at a disadvantage, terrified of being killed or dragged back into servitude, but he refused to run away. In fact, he sounded like he was about to launch himself at her father. She didn’t understand, but she refused to let things play out any longer without trying to stop the worst from happening.

What that “worst” could be was not something she dared think about.

“Give him what you have, Father.”

Both heads swiveled her way. Sly looked like he’d forgotten she was there; the Panda King only gave her a grim look.

“You have the rest of the pages he is looking for, surely,” she continued, voice coming out steadier than she felt. “If you have them here, then give them to him now. If they are at your stronghold, we are willing to wait until you return with them.”

He hesitated, eyebrows drawing together in what she knew very well was him considering his options. “…I do not have them on me, Jing.”

“Then go get them,” the younger panda repeated, watching Sly slowly begin to back down from an aggressive stance to general wariness. “Sly will not hurt me. He plans to leave as soon as he gets them back. Am I correct, Sly?”

“Right as rain,” the raccoon growled. “I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with the news, Panda King. You know what’s been happening to all your buddies. It’s not going to happen to you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I was just using her to get what I wanted, and she did the rest on her own, but that’s all over. I’m – I’m alone, now, and this is as close as I’ll ever get to begging. Give me what’s mine and I’ll march right off this mountain. You’ll never have to see me again.”

They waited in dreadful anticipation for the man’s answer. He looked between them, solemn and somber, weighing things back and forth in his head that they were not privy to. Just when it seemed as though he would cave and give them what Sly wanted, he looked over at Jing, and his expression hardened into a resolve that made them both tense up.

“…No. I will not.” He drew himself up to his full height, and Jing had never been more afraid of what her father was capable of than in that moment. “Sly Cooper, you must leave immediately. Leave this place, and this mountain. If my men see you anywhere around here, in any capacity, by sunrise, then their orders will be to shoot you on sight. It will be the most merciful death you will receive on this path.”

“Father–!”

“Jing, you are not to follow nor remain in contact with him. You and your aunt will join me in my stronghold until further notice, and I will tolerate no disobedience.”

Her mouth clicked shut despite herself; the tone of his voice left no room for argument even in the midst of her righteous fury. She sat there, trembling, as her father and her surrogate brother stared each other down in what she surely thought was the prelude to a fight.

But then Sly sagged, as though he realized such a thing would lead him nowhere, and instead turned towards the window.

“Fine. Should’ve expected you to betray me one last time before everything changed. Again.” Pure hatred filled each word as he looked over his shoulder to shoot one last venomous glare at the Panda King. “Enjoy the rest of your cowardly life, King. Hope it’s been worth it.”

His eyes drifted over to Jing, and she greatly hoped it was not a trick of the evening light that they seemed to soften even in his spite.

“It really was good to see you again, xiǎo mèi. If this is the last time we see each other, then I want you to know I never blamed you for what happened. It wasn’t your fault. I hope you find it in yourself to be selfish, because you’re the only one of us who deserves it.”

With that, Sly slid the window open with gentility only betrayed by the fuming flickering of his tail. He did not look back again as he disappeared into the cold night.

The Panda King padded silently across the room to the window. Jing stared down at her crumpled blankets, still shaking from adrenaline and a hundred other overwhelming emotions.

“…He isn’t going to leave by morning. He will search all of Kunlun for those pages, for as long as it takes.” It was the most certain she had ever been of anything in her life. “Will you really go through with your promise to kill him for it?”

The man did not respond. He continued to stare out the window, staring up at the bright moon in the sky instead of whatever path Sly had taken out of the grounds.

“Why couldn’t you simply give him what he asked for? Why draw this terrible game out any longer? He has no ill will towards me; he will leave you alone once he gets what he wants! Are you truly so heartless?!”

Her father remained motionless with his back turned towards her. “It is more complicated than that, Jing. You do not understand.”

The calm, detached way he stated it – as though she were simply a child too young to comprehend an adult issue – brought her right back to the day her life had shattered, six years ago, sobbing at the foot of a bed occupied by a bloody, unconscious raccoon wrapped in bandages who she had fully believed would die within the night. The emotionless statue of a man she had called father who had stood in the doorway, less upset with the sight in front of him than the fact that his daughter had seen it, who had refused to answer any questions except to tell her that she would not understand.

Jing King finally snapped.

“Then make me understand!” She screamed. “What is so complicated about this that you would let my br – my best friend suffer with this false hope of a life he wants but cannot have, which you dangle in front of him like a cat with its prey? I was afraid of the monster I saw all those years ago, but now – now I know beyond all doubt that the monster I should clearly have feared the most was you!”

Her voice cracked on the last word, all desperate anger and the underlying fear that what she was yelling might actually be true. The Panda King flinched so violently that she almost wondered if she had hit him and not realized it. He turned around and she could see he was on the verge of tears.

That cut through to her core deeper than any other words or actions ever could. In her eighteen years of life, she had never, ever seen her father cry. She fell silent as he sat down heavily on the ground, staring at his hands as though he despised everything about them.

“You are right,” he whispered, wavering like she’d never heard before, either. “I am a monster and a coward, Jing. I…I had hoped that you would be shielded from the evils of the world – the evils that I have done, and continue to do, but that is not fair to you. You deserve the truth. About Sly Cooper, the true reason he is after what we’ve taken from him, and…the decision I made, six years ago, to protect us. To protect you.”

Jing slowly sank down from the bed onto the floor across from him. She felt no joy or relief that she was finally going to have an explanation for everything – only dread for the unknown, and the understanding that this was something she would never be able to return from.

But she would not back away from it. She owed Sly that much, if nothing else.

“Start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

Inspector Fox double-checked the straps of her bullet-proof vest. Took a deep breath, waited a minute. Made sure her shock pistol was fully loaded. Waited another minute.

She was standing in the snow in front of a large armored truck, trying not to show impatience as she waited for the rest of her team to finish getting ready. They had made their way to the Kunlun Mountains that morning and had spent the entire day traveling deep into the range. Night was falling now, casting a shadow over their brief pit stop for food while the weather was still mild and the roads were still smooth. There were twelve officers joining her on her mission to storm the Panda King’s territory, but while she appreciated the extra help and firepower – as well as the fact that over half of them were fluent in Mandarin; a language the fox knew next to nothing of – she couldn’t help but wince at how far their voices seemed to carry over the wind and how unconcerned they seemed to be about how long their break had taken.

Carmelita would never, ever claim anyone in Interpol was anything less than perfectly competent, but did they have to be so slow and…and loud? She could have probably gone up the mountain and back without them even noticing by now.

Eventually, they had put everything away and were finally loading up into the back of the truck, and Inspector Fox climbed into the passenger side as the driver started the engine and they were finally moving again. She turned around in her seat to survey her team, pushing aside her irritation over the wasted time as they all gave her their full attention.

“Alright, team, this is it. We’re going in as quickly and quietly as possible, and we’re going to come back with an apprehended criminal.” She paused, mulling over the patterns she had encountered at each of the other Fives’ hideouts. “Remember, the goal is taking down the Panda King and halting his immediate operation – there will be plenty of time to do a thorough sweep of the mountain for his men over the next few days after we’ve captured him. He’s still our first priority, and we’re not letting him get away for anything.”

A dozen heads nodded in sync to her speech, and she turned back around to stare down the oncoming road. Her ears twitched backwards as the officers began to talk amongst themselves again. Most were in a good mood, speaking animatedly or cracking jokes or taking bets on who would be the one to put the handcuffs on the crime lord. A month ago, Carmelita would have rolled her eyes at it all with a hidden smile on her face, pretending that the anticipation of an oncoming raid was not also boosting her with excited energy.

Now, it was taking more willpower than she cared to admit not to snap at them to be quiet despite the fact they were in a moving vehicle.

All that she could really do was keep her eyes forward and wait until something else happened, and she was not particularly good at that. Any tentative plans she made about how to take down King were interspersed with the traitorous question of whether Sly Cooper would be found with him – helping him, fighting him, stealing from him. The thought of having to confront him surrounded by her team sent her stomach rolling in apprehension, terrified once again of being outed for her role in aiding and abetting the thief, but she knew there couldn’t be any second-guessing the choice to bring them with her. The fireworks forger was no doubt going to avoid capture by any means necessary, and she was going to need all the manpower she could get to protect herself and successfully finish her mission. If one raccoon stood between her and completing this case, then she was going to have to suck it up and deal with it like the inspector she was.

The higher up into the mountain they drove, the more nature seemed to dominate the area. The road became bumpy and uneven, scattered trees grew into a sparse wood and then into a denser forest. That wasn’t to say that all traces of manmade life had disappeared, though – they could sometimes make out crumbling walls, old shrines, and even a distant tiny town or two through the thickening snow. Just when Carmelita was starting to think it might take a week or longer to catch even a whiff of King’s hideout, they turned a corner on a hilltop and came across a truly awful sight: an entire part of the inner mountain had been carved into to create a giant stone panda, clearly made in the fireworks forger’s image.

Several of the officers muttered in surprise and disgust at the blatant disregard for being caught, and the fox was inclined to agree with them even as she kept her own thoughts silent. It was truly heinous how much the criminal had been able to get away with up here in plain sight, and no one had ever bothered to even hint to Interpol that the man they had been after for so long was in such an obvious place.

Disrespectful, but at least now it made their immediate jobs a little easier. The driver altered their course and made a beeline for it.

The road grew steeper, narrower, and started curving along cliffsides the closer the truck got to that egotistical eyesore. Everyone could feel how slick the icy ground was even with how careful the driver was being, and it was making the whole team nervous as they were forced to turn their ascent into a snail’s crawl for safety’s sake. It felt like an omen much like when Inspector Fox had made her way across the treacherous, stormy sea towards the Isle of Wrath.

She immediately halted that train of thought, painfully aware that there wasn’t much to occupy her mind while they were moving so slowly. Instead, almost resigned to the fact now that she was going to think about the raccoon to some degree, she redirected it to that day at Interpol HQ when she’d finally had her breakthrough on the Fiendish Five case.

Barkley had been visibly impressed with her confident assertion that the Panda King was in Kunlun, and had begun, well, barking orders to his associates to get together all the resources she could ever need or want for her new trip. He hadn’t asked how she’d made her discovery, completely trusting her intuition after so much success, and she had refused to let the now-familiar guilt overwhelm her joy of it.

Right before she had taken off for China with her team in tow, Winthorp had approached her with Conner Cooper’s casefile in his arms.

“I’m going to keep looking into this,” he had promised her before she could say a single thing. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out what was on that missing report, or at least where it went.”

The fox didn’t know how long it would be before he found an answer, but she had been grateful for the diligence and had told him as much. It was one less mystery to solve in this awful, tangled mess that her case had become.

She wondered if he was working on it right now, whatever time it was in Paris at the moment. She hoped he was losing less sleep over it than she was over everything else.

Eventually, a change in scenery drew her attention – a small village nestled between towering hills, just a few kilometers to their left. From this distance, she could see a few lights flickering out of windows, which was a nice change of pace after so many miles of darkness.

As if reading her mind, something suddenly lit up the dark sky.

Carmelita and the rest of her group watched in shock as a gorgeous firework came shooting out of a distant point in the mountain, illuminating a dozen tall buildings tucked away at the foot of the Panda King’s godawful statue hideout for a single moment before its glow was too far away and they disappeared in the night again. The firework left a brilliant, almost bloody red trail in its wake as it weaved and circled straight towards –

The village.

Bewilderment turned to horror as they could do nothing but watch the firework strike the hills above the town, hitting with such deadly precision that it loosened great swathes of snow that came tumbling down in fatal force. Houses and streets were buried within seconds.

The Interpol team gaped for all of a single shared moment before springing into action. The driver swerved the vehicle off the road and straight for the buried village while everyone in the back hurriedly grabbed packaged blankets and first aid kits and anything they could use as shovels. Carmelita’s heart pounded in her chest, in shock at the sinking realization that they had just witnessed the Panda King decimate an entire town for no apparent reason.

The truck came to an abrupt stop in front of the nearest buried building and they all swarmed out, minds on autopilot as they took in the sight before them.

It was downright horrific.

Destruction and devastation everywhere they could see – Inspector Fox directed her men to act without orders because every direction they could see held people buried or digging or injured or already dead, and there was no time to do anything else. She had to swallow a pit of nausea as she sprinted further up the road and came across a body that had been crushed by a car upturned by snow, and instead narrowed in on signs of life.

There – someone else trapped but alive in another car. The fox dashed over and began scraping snow away from the windows as the person stuck inside pounded desperately against them. The moment she could see their terrified eyes, she made a motion for them to back away and then smashed her boot against the glass, shattering it in one solid move. They crawled out carefully with her help, followed by a young child no taller than her hip, and Carmelita wished she could erase the blank, distant look in their eyes.

She pointed back the way she’d come where the truck was still running where it sat, miming wrapping herself in a blanket and hoping they understood what was being conveyed before she rushed off towards the next disaster with adrenaline pumping in her veins.

It went like that for time she could not track; pulling someone out of snow, or wood, or metal, checking them over quickly for injury, then directing them back towards the safety of the Interpol vehicle with a mix of miming, simple English, and the few Mandarin words she knew that mostly involved “sorry” and “I’m police”. The fox did not feel the crunch of ice under her feet or the snow in her hair or the sweat on her back all making her shiver. All she knew was focus, focus, focus on saving lives, surrounded by grisly deaths that she was forced to stay numb to just to keep it from paralyzing her.

The town had not been particularly large, but it felt like an eternity had passed by the time she and her team had gone through the entire area before returning to the truck to check on the survivors and do a head count. The interpreters helped confirm who was accounted for, alive or dead, and who was still missing, and half the team stayed to help handle injuries while the rest broke off for another sweep through the ruined streets and buildings.

By the end of things, they had saved maybe two-thirds of the people living there, and the air was thick with grief and despair as the final missing person was found; suffocated under snow at the top of the hill. Inspector Fox only sat down once the survivors had all been attended to, and suddenly the freezing cold hit her all at once. They had saved as many as they had because they had been right there to help, and it was still an immeasurable loss. Horrified exhaustion weighed down her shoulders as she was forced to survey everyone sobbing and holding each other under shock blankets, huddled together in and around the back of the truck.

One of her men sat down next to her, looking just as harrowed as she felt. “Jesus Christ…what kind of monster is this man?”

“One we’re going to stop before he can hurt anyone else,” she said quietly, feeling familiar fury bubbling up her chest and making her hand twitch towards her pistol. “We’re within walking distance to that fortress; I’m going to leave the truck and most of the team here to tend to these people, and take four others the rest of the way.”

The other officer shot her a glance, but there was no trepidation in his gaze. The only worry he seemed to have was for the team’s overall safety, and not that she would abandon them or lose sight of their target like she had in the past. With a firm nod, he turned to their squadron.

“I need at least one person who speaks Mandarin to go with Inspector Fox, and the rest to stay here,” he called out to them. “She’s taking four of you further up the mountain. Either pick amongst yourselves who is staying or going, or leave it up to her. ETA, Inspector?”

“Five minutes. We’re not wasting any more time.”

“You heard her!”

The officers began hurrying amongst themselves, passing equipment off and survivors to each other so that they could join their leader on her trek. She watched the display of comradery and function with a detached thankfulness. There was no room for pride tonight – not until the Panda King was no longer a threat.

As soon as they’d split themselves up, the smaller team waited for her new orders. Carmelita took a deep breath and looked up towards the distant temples.

“If we encounter any other civilians, we’re directing them back down here,” she announced, “but we are not stopping for anything. We’re going to keep going until that son of a bitch is apprehended. Who’s with me?”

A cacophony of growls was her answer. No one was joking anymore; all the excited energy had been sucked clean away by tragedy, leaving only solemn anger and determination in its wake. The inspector nodded, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and began to march with a quarter of her team on her heels.

The farther away from the decimated town and makeshift refuge camp they went, the quieter it grew on the mountainside. Everyone’s shoes crunched against snow, marked with the occasional shift or grunt or cough, but no one spoke a single word as the fox lead them all deeper into the Panda King’s territory. They stopped once, if only to make sure they were going the right way, but otherwise kept up a steady, speedy pace.

When they came to the large wall separating the heart of the criminal’s operation from the rest of the mountain, Carmelita wasted no time. She and two others rammed through the locked wooden door like a collective battering ram, and came through shooting at the handful of guards who were waiting on the other side. None of her men were even grazed as they took all the goons down, and after securing everyone, they continued on without barely a pause.

Not far past the gate, they began seeing towering shrines, temples, and other buildings, and Carmelita knew they had found the fireworks factory responsible for King’s immeasurable firepower. Everything had been built to match traditional Chinese architecture, but she wasn’t entirely surprised by this; the Panda King was known for his pride in his country’s history almost as much as he was known for his fireworks and his ruthlessness. It made sense that the place he had called home for years – decades, even – had been built to represent that pride on every level.

Flashlights bobbed up and down almost frantically up and down one of the towers down the road. She wondered whether the massacre on the mountain was what had gotten them all so worked up, or if they had seen the tiny Interpol hit force coming their way.

“We’ll sweep through each building as we come to them,” she announced when her team looked at her for guidance. “We have no guarantee that the Panda King isn’t in them, and the more of his support we take down until we find him, the better.”

Four intense faces stared back at her, all in agreement.

They began creeping along as stealthily as they could. It was surprisingly easy to catch singular guards unaware and knock them unconscious before they could even think of sounding an alarm, and Carmelita was grateful for the silver lining in the nightmare this night had become. At one point, downing a particularly young-looking monkey, the inspector paused a moment to study her face and wondered if she had lived in the village that was no longer standing. If she had any friends or family there.

If she even knew what had happened, or if she had gone along with the carnage without so much as a blink.

Without dwelling on it any further, Inspector Fox moved on, leading her men into the closest building. From there, it was almost methodical how they began clearing each floor one by one, dropping goons and removing alarms as the team worked their way up the giant temple. The one they’d chosen first appeared to be used as a barracks as well as a training ground, which made it all the easier to catch distracted and sleeping men off guard without any issue.

Somewhere around the fifth floor, a hidden intercom speaker came to life, and the Panda King’s deep, booming voice reverberated through everything. It was enough to make the fox and her team come to a halt and duck into an empty room to listen.

“Attention, valued employees.” He sounded solemn and sad. “It has come to my attention that a thief is loose somewhere inside the fireworks production facility.”

Carmelita’s heart leapt into her throat. She very nearly missed the firework forger’s next words because of it.

“Please do your part to pitch in by killing this intruder on sight, and inform me as soon as you do. Thank you, that is all.”

None of them immediately moved when it ended; her team, no doubt, were waiting to make sure things were safe, but she was struggling just to remain grounded. A town buried alive, survivors to look after, a criminal overlord still at large – and now, confirmation that Sly was here somewhere, too.

There was a gentle tap to the inspector’s shoulder, making her jump and turn to look at her tiny team. They were all staring at her with concern, and she realized that she had started to shake just the tiniest amount.

“Keep going,” she whispered somehow, despite her whole body seemingly out to betray her. Everyone obeyed without a single question, and she was very grateful for it.

They reached the top floor without encountering more than a handful of guards after that, and the fox stepped out onto a balcony to scope out their next location and try to regain her composure. To their left was another, similarly-shaped temple; to their right was a shorter building that looked much more industrial in nature – no doubt one of fireworks facilities that King had mentioned. Ahead, overseeing everything with cold dead eyes, was his great stone fortress.

Carmelita glared at it, using her wrath as a beacon to keep herself grounded on what was most important. She could hear her team mumbling among themselves, sounding as agitated as she was but for very different reasons.

“Did you hear how he sounded in his announcement?” One growled. “He was more upset about someone stealing his stuff than all the people he just murdered.”

“Absolutely monstrous,” another joined in. “I’ve heard about how soulless the Fiendish Five are, but to see it in person…”

“Inspector?” Asked a third. “Are you alright?”

“I’m – I’ll be fine,” she ground out. “Just. A lot to process at once.”

They all muttered their agreement, and she wished she could say in full honesty that the upheaval in her head was one-hundred-percent from the same thing as it was for them. Just the fact that it wasn’t was making her even more distraught.

And of course, it was at that moment that the universe chose to mock her even further.

The shorter building to their right promptly exploded.

“What the fuck?!” Someone cried out as the roof burst into flames; a blazing, destructive fireball cascaded up and outward like a mushroom cloud as stones cracked and wood splintered and smoke poured out of every window. A whine like a boiling kettle split the air, and the officers could only gape for the second time that night as dozens of tiny fireworks came flying out of the cavernous hole at the top of the factory, adding their own miniature, colorful explosions into the mix of the first.

Guards screamed for water and extinguishers while they ran around the outside of the burning building like panicked ants. An alarm had started wailing somewhere in the middle of the fireworks going off that was only growing audible now that they were dying down, and the enormous fire was not hampered at all by the falling snow.

And as Inspector Fox stared at all the chaos, trying to wrap her mind around what had happened – what was still happening – she saw something else. In the great shadows cast by the even greater flames, illuminated like a specter caught in the flash of a camera, she saw a small, lithe figure leap through an open window and hit the ground running in the opposite direction of the frenzied guards. Between the dark and the snow and the overwhelming fire, it was impossible to make out most details.

But she saw the ringed tail. And that was all she needed.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!” One of her officers yelled, startling her out of whatever world she had just entered. “What do we do?”

There was enough time to make a single decision, and only if she made it now. Carmelita didn’t even hesitate. She couldn’t allow herself to.

“Use this distraction to sweep the area!” She barked, climbing onto the railing of the balcony and gauging the distance to the next roof beneath her. “Take out as many of King’s men as you can! We’re getting that criminal and we’re getting him tonight!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The simultaneous response, without any mistrust or question about her own actions, would have – should have snapped her out of her single-minded focus. It was the first time her fellow officers had ever given her the respect of her title and her talents. And perhaps some part of her registered it, on a subconscious level.

But the rest of her had already thrown herself off the balcony.

Inspector Fox landed on iced roof tiles and kept the momentum of her fall to keep skidding towards the next drop. She hit snowy ground in a roll that jarred her teeth and rattled her skull, but she didn’t stop moving. Sly was nearly out of her line of sight and she’d be damned if she ever let that happen again. She got to her feet and sprinted after him for all she was worth.

Down the road, between buildings, slipping in and out of sight of guards with barely a break in pace, Carmelita never relented in her chase after the raccoon even as he finally began to slow down. She saw him scale a drain pipe less than a block away and found her own rooftop to climb onto, pulling her pistol out of its holster and disengaging the safety.

She pointed her weapon.

Their eyes met.

“Freeze, Cooper.”

Chapter Text

When Sly had jumped down from Jing’s window that night, he didn’t immediately leave the estate.

He’d been shaking with rage and adrenaline and a thousand other things that clouded his thoughts. Distracted with how the Panda King had condescended to him – pretending to care with his so-called warning, but only waiting to pull the rug from under his feet and knock him flat like with every other honeyed word he’d ever spoken – the raccoon knew that trying to climb the rest of the way up the mountain as agitated as he was would probably lead to him falling off a cliff and breaking his neck. There was just enough presence of mind amongst his turmoil to remember his sense of self-preservation.

Not to mention, it would ruin all the hard work Jing had put into nursing him back to health. That wouldn’t be fair to her and everything she had risked for him.

He had ended up finding an eave along the house that couldn’t be easily seen from either the ground or any windows and camped out there for the rest of the night, huddled out of the snow and wind as best as he could as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to go about things from here. He had to get the rest of the missing pages and complete the Thievius Raccoonus, no matter what King implied his fate would be for trying. There was absolutely nothing the man could say to deter him.

Not when he was so close to finally winning this twisted game.

Sometime in the late morning, well after the sun had risen, he was woken up by the sound of people walking in and out of the house beneath him. He peered over the edge of the roof to see King and his sister directing staff and luggage to a series of large vehicles where they packed everything away. Everyone’s faces were solemn, and not a word was spoken between any of them.

When the raccoon scanned the entire scene a second time, he saw Jing sitting in the passenger seat of one of the smaller cars near the front of the procession – no doubt waiting for the rest of her family to join her. From this angle and with the windows heavily tinted, he couldn’t make out where she was looking or what her expression was. His mouth twisted as his eyes drifted back to King.

The staff moved so efficiently that they were ready to leave within ten minutes. The panda and his sister went to join Jing and they began to drive as a single long line of around six cars. Sly couldn’t help but think that there were more discreet ways to go about returning to his mountain stronghold, but they seemed to be prioritizing speed over stealth.

He wondered what had King so spooked, then shook his head before the obvious conclusion could plant itself in his mind. There was no way that she could possibly find her way here if she hadn’t already. She had probably forgotten his slip of the tongue and was now stuck on a dead trail back in…wherever it was her cop headquarters was.

Without giving himself time to think, because thinking was only going to lead to awful things, the raccoon backed up and took a running leap from the house roof to the roof of the last vehicle in the procession, landing so lightly he doubted there had even been a thud to hear from inside. Even so, he flattened himself across the top and focused on remaining quiet for the entire ride up the rest of the mountain.

As they finally approached the enormous gates leading into the Panda King’s stronghold several hours later, Sly dutifully held his breath to disappear from sight. Spotlights swept over the car’s roof harmlessly and they all went in without issue. He watched tall, familiar buildings come into view all around; places he had not seen since he was much younger. King hadn’t allowed him back here once he’d started officially working for the Five, always taking him to other places across the country and the world instead. The raccoon didn’t know if he just didn’t want to risk him running into Jing, or if it was for some other reason, but he honestly had never cared to know.

It was better that he hadn’t come back, anyway. It would have hurt too much. It hurt too much even now, but he couldn’t let that distract him from what he was here to do.

Before any of the cars got very far into the base, he carefully slid off the roof of his makeshift ride to land in the shadow of a shrine and regain his breath. Everything looked much the same as he had remembered with the exception of a new building or two, and it was almost eerie how he could see the exact path he had once taken from the giant stone fortress to the outer wall.

He wondered, if he retraced his steps after all these years, whether he would find his blood still staining the snow.

Sly shook his head and pulled out his cane, turning his attention to the guards going up and down the temples around him instead. He needed to keep his mind clear. He couldn’t get distracted by the past, or by Inspector Fox, or even Jing anymore. It was time to start searching.

He had a pretty good feeling that the rest of the Thievius Raccoonus was stored away in the stone statue, but that had been the direction the Panda King had gone with his family and his staff, and he knew the place would be buzzing with activity until they arrived and settled in. Security would also be on high alert for the raccoon, and as much as he silently scoffed at the idea that any of them would ever see him – much less kill him like the fireworks forger had threatened – he would rather not take any unnecessary risks.

So, he began searching the grounds for any sign of the missing pages, and tried to figure out the best way to break into the fortress short of climbing into an open window. The trick that had worked at Jing’s aunt’s house would definitely not work this time around.

Several hours into the day, turning afternoon into evening, Sly hadn’t had any luck in his main goal, but instead stumbled across a group of King’s men bustling about with heavy-duty fireworks outside one of their factories. He climbed a tree as close as he dared and nestled in its branches, watching the commotion below him with curiosity.

“Is that everything?” One of them asked in Mandarin.

“Yep. Best of the best, just as the boss requested.”

The group grunted as one and began sorting through the three or so boxes of fireworks, tossing aside the smaller ones until they had dwindled the count to a mere handful. These, larger than any Sly had ever seen, were picked up by a burly gorilla who began walking in the direction of the fortress.

Just as the raccoon was debating whether to follow him for an easy trip past security, he heard a few members of the group below continue their conversation.

“What is he going to do with those?”

“You didn’t hear?” Another asked, incredulous. “Hinkau Village has yet to vacate when our lord ordered them to do so days ago. He has been left with no choice but to force them out.”

Sly’s mouth twisted in a horrified grimace. He knew what constituted “force” by the Panda King. Immediately, he jumped from his hiding place and took off running after the guard who had carted off the giant fireworks. None of the others heard or saw him leave.

He ran as fast as he could until he finally saw the gorilla just as he disappeared inside the base of the stronghold. There were guards and spotlights lighting up the entire entryway, and when Sly slowed down to get a better look, he realized with mounting irritation that he could also see the faintest of red lights glittering across everything.

Sensors for motion, or heat. Whichever one it was, there was no way he could follow the man inside.

Just in case there was a path he was missing, a place where he could sneak in without being caught using his invisibility, the raccoon crept in a wide circle around the very edges of the spotlights, taking care to stay just out of the guards’ lines of sight while he studied the setup before him. No matter where he looked, however, there was not a single weak spot he could find. The Panda King had expected him to try and break in here, and had made every effort to prevent it.

Frustrated, Sly found a rooftop nearby where he could sit and consider the situation without any risk of being snuck upon. The infrared sensors went up a solid twenty meters of the stone statue, and there wasn’t a building close or tall enough that he could feasibly leap from to reach above that threshold. He began scanning the fortress from the top down, looking for another way inside.

As he was debating whether it was possible to disguise himself as a guard and simply walk through, there was a glint above him that drew his attention. The raccoon looked up just in time to see a firework come flying out of one of the eyes of the giant statue, streaming through the sky until it exploded into the side of the mountain. Transfixed and horrified, he watched it cause an avalanche so massive that the ground trembled even where he was standing. He couldn’t see what was in the avalanche’s path nor where it stopped, but he felt the tremors stop the moment it was over, barely thirty seconds later.

Sly gaped, unable to do anything but hope that that firework had not been one of the ones he’d seen being taken back to the crime lord, and that Hinkau Village was still standing and safe.

He didn’t have a lot of hope left anymore.

There was no use dwelling on what he just witnessed, because there was nothing he could do about it. Just another horrible injustice he was forced to turn a blind eye to for his own sake and safety. The raccoon turned back towards the statue – or more specifically, the eyes of the statue, which he could now see were made of two large tinted windows. King had sent that deadly rocket flying from there, which meant they could be opened. That also meant they could be infiltrated.

With an entry point discovered, Sly started trying to work through the next problem in his plan – how to reach said entry point. It was impossible to climb the smooth stone of the fortress, and the mountain it had been built into was a sheer rock face. Short of flying, there was no feasible way to reach those fake eyes.

…Flying…

He turned his attention back to the fireworks factory he had come from. An idea began to form in his mind; one that was completely insane the more he thought about it, but what other choice did he have?

Shooting one last venomous glance towards the entrance at the base, the raccoon began jumping from rooftop to rooftop, using the ropes connecting them with paper lanterns as an easy way across when the distance between them was too great for a single jump. He would have scoffed at how easy it was to make his way across the crime lord’s territory if not for the reminder that he had placed the best of his security in the one place it mattered most. That reminder turned his disdain into anger all over again, leaving him in an even darker mood than before.

The factory wasn’t nearly as tall as most of the buildings around it, but it made up for that fact by sheer width – taking up easily twice as much space on the ground than anything else Sly had come across in here. He landed in the same tree by one of its doors and began studying the guard lineup. There were two posted just outside, armed with guns and knives and god knew what else. From this vantage point, he could also see the occasional shift of movement from a shadowed balcony on the second floor; obviously a hidden post meant to add unexpected back-up at the drop of a hat.

And of course, the ever-present automatic spotlights lighting up the whole place like a circus stage.

Sly chewed the inside of his cheek while he considered the best path to take. He could slip past those ground guards without any trouble, but getting through the large heavy doors behind them without drawing attention was a real gamble. There were several windows along the factory’s wall, but all looked to be reinforced glass that he wasn’t entirely certain he could break through with his cane – not to mention the sound it would make if he were successful.

As much as he believed King a coward, he knew to take the man at his word. There would be no mercy shown to the raccoon if he were caught tonight.

Finally, his eyes drifted up to that second floor with the hiding guard. There was no way to know if it was only one person up there or half a dozen, but so long as he landed on the balcony completely invisible and without a sound, the actual number wouldn’t matter. All he’d have to do was slip inside and he’d be golden.

Path set, Sly found another tree closer to that balcony that was considerably taller. He shimmied down his current one and booked it for the other as loudly as he dared. Once he had scaled the second tree a little higher than was safe under his weight, he estimated the distance for a jump from tree to railing.

It would be a close one, but not impossible so long as he kept his head. The raccoon held his breath and let invisibility shimmer across his body before carefully inching out onto a precarious branch towards the balcony. It creaked under his weight, bringing him back for a moment to the swamps in Haiti, but there was no monster waiting to snare him out here, nor someone below to catch him if he fell. Just the branch and the snow and himself.

The end of the branch was pointed towards the sky, and Sly decided to take a risk. He sprang forward to land on it in a Ninja Spire Jump, holding the technique perfectly even as the entire limb bobbed dangerously up and down from his action. It held, miraculously, and he thanked Rioichi Cooper for his help from beyond the grave, just like every other Cooper whose skills had gotten him this far.

He was still invisible, and up this close he could see that it was indeed only one guard waiting on the balcony for something to happen. The monkey picked his teeth with a toothpick, leaning against a large bo staff and looking incredibly bored. He hadn’t seemed to notice or care about the branch that had suddenly dipped deeper than it should have in the wind, and that was his own fault as Sly launched forward and landed right on top of him. He didn’t even have a chance to blink before he’d been knocked unconscious with one cane swipe by a silhouette he couldn’t even see.

Sly pulled him out of sight of the balcony doors and tied him to his bo staff with twine from his backpack, then used the monkey’s pants belt as a makeshift gag so there was no chance of him alerting anyone if he woke up while the raccoon was still in the factory. Then he slipped quietly inside, and the chilly air was replaced immediately by cozy heating. He crept out of the room and into the manufacturing ground floor, where he could see dozens of employees working diligently on assembly lines, constructing fireworks piece by piece as they passed through. Most were small and simple, all meant to overwhelm with sheer numbers despite not packing much of a punch individually. He watched the scene below for a few moments, gaze taking in every possible detail, before he turned towards the hall to his left that led to the proper second floor of the factory.

This was another series of assembly lines, but not nearly as large nor as populated. Almost half of the number of employees below were up here, working on fireworks that were considerably larger and more dangerous-looking. These, Sly had no doubt, would be a lot more deadly by themselves when lit.

There was one more set of stairs leading to the third and final floor, on the opposite side of the room. The raccoon climbed into the rafters and began delicately jumping across light fixtures above the workers, leaving them none the wiser to the intruder in their midst. He landed right in front of the stairwell and took them two at a time, keeping his ears perked for the slightest sound of someone coming his way.

Third floor turned out not to be a place for building firepower, but instead a storage facility for many of the more specialized rockets – all placed inside locked glass boxes. Sly knew without really looking that every single box most likely triggered an alarm the moment they were tampered with, and he weaved between them without ever getting close. They were all large and clearly powerful, and he even recognized a few models that the panda had used on heists in the past.

No guards were up here from what he could see or sense, which was odd, but he didn’t dare look a gift horse in the mouth when his luck had been so utterly shitty for weeks now.

As he made his way around the room, trying to figure out which rockets would work best as a makeshift jetpack, the raccoon passed an open window and glanced out of it, towards the stone fortress. Then he slowed, stopped, and turned back around to get a proper look.

There was something perched on the head.

Sly stopped breathing. He froze at the window, staring at the unidentifiable shape in the distance and squinting through the falling snow in a desperate bid to figure out what it was. His fingers tightened on the windowsill and his chest began to ache against the frantic beating of his heart.

He was seeing things. It wasn’t real. His exhausted, paranoid mind was playing tricks on him. There was no way he was here – he couldn’t be. Sly had been so careful this entire time! He had been doing everything perfectly! He was playing the game perfectly!

Sudden, bright light blinded him from below. He jumped and looked down, only to meet the eyes of a guard on the ground who had just happened to shine his flashlight onto the startled raccoon standing exposed at the open window like an idiot. They stared at each other for all of two seconds before the other man turned around and ran off, pulling his radio off of his belt to hold it to his mouth as he shot a look over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner of a building.

Shaking, but not from the cold nor the fact that he’d just been seen, Sly looked back up at the Panda King’s statue, but the snow made it impossible to tell whether the shape was still there. Or maybe he had just imagined it the first time and it had gotten him caught for no reason.

Whatever the situation, he couldn’t let himself get distracted anymore – not when there was now a time limit before guards began swarming this building and he lost his narrow window to get what he needed.

Blinking back a surge of desperation that would do nothing to help him do what needed to be done, he turned away from the window and looked across the wide variety of rockets before him. His hand clenched tightly against his cane at the thought of all the lives these things had taken while he could do nothing but watch.

Well, not anymore, they wouldn’t be. If there was one thing he could risk taking the time to do before he left, it was to stop being a useless, helpless accomplice in the countless crimes these monsters had forced him to partake in.

He ran back down to the second floor and looked over everything again, making note of where the finished fireworks were being put once they had reached the end of the assembly line. Most were packaged neatly into large crates, which were then stacked along the walls in an intimidating display of prepped firepower. He crept down to where all the employees were working, hiding behind machinery and barrels of gunpowder and parts until he reached one of the walls containing the countless rockets. With a quick glance around to make sure no one could see, Sly reached into the nearest box and grabbed an entire armful of fireworks, then ran invisible back up the stairs.

There was still no one on the third floor, so he dropped the technique to get his breath back and began implementing his plan – placing a few rockets across the room at random, then finding a place against a wall to dump the rest in a large pile. He pulled his backpack around and rummaged through the front pocket until he found what he was looking for: a small, slightly damp pack of matches.

The fuses of the fireworks were long enough that he would have probably a minute max from the moment they were lit to when they went off. That was more than enough time to get everything he needed and get out before it all blew sky-high.

Probably.

Not giving himself a chance to second-guess this plan, Sly struck a match and pressed the tiny flame against the first fuse he could reach, waiting only to make sure it was truly lit before turning back around to the rest of the room, where the closest giant firework taunted him through its guarded glass prison. He raised his cane and swung it as hard as he could, shattering the box and sending glass everywhere. An alarm began ringing overhead, shrill and loud, but the raccoon paid it no mind as he grabbed the firework inside and made a beeline for the next one, looping his prize over his shoulder by its ridiculously long fuse.

Another shattered box; another blaring alarm. In a matter of seconds, seven rockets had been nabbed – all clanking against each other and his backpack as he sprinted between pedestals. Thundering footsteps from ahead made him flatten against the wall, just in time for three gun-wielding guards to come barreling up the stairs and towards the source of the alarms. In the moment that they all skidded to a stop at the sight of the robbery before them, Sly began to maneuver around them towards the empty stairwell –

The fuse he had lit found its rocket almost twenty seconds earlier than he’d predicted.

The explosion from the firework set off a chain reaction of the pile it was trapped in, and suddenly that explosion increased tenfold as King’s goons were tossed straight off their feet and slammed into the opposite wall, knocked out cold instantly. Sly himself barely managed to throw himself to the ground the moment he realized what was about to happen, and that was the only thing that saved him from the same fate as the blast tore straight through the roof in a vortex of heat and flame.

He could hear the piercing alarms dying down, replaced instead by countless fireworks getting launched into the new open space the hole in the roof now provided. Smoke filled his lungs and his eyes, threatening to overwhelm him, and he knew he had to get out of here before he either suffocated or the rockets on his back caught fire as well.

There was an open window just a few meters to his left – the same window that had betrayed his presence earlier, but was now his only chance at escape. Sly struggled to his feet, head ringing, and ran for his very life.

As soon as he felt open, fresh air on his fur, he twisted his body forward to catch the oncoming ground at a roll, feeling the impact right to his bones and knowing he wasn’t going to walk away from this without serious bruising. But there wasn’t any time to stop and catch his breath as he heard shouting all around him; he got his feet back under him and kept sprinting as fast as he could without even daring to look back.

It wasn’t until he could no longer hear the commotion he had left behind that the raccoon finally began to slow down. His lungs were burning and his legs felt rubbery, but with seven giant intact rockets strapped to his back, an entire factory of King’s going up in flames, and his main plan still in the cards, he barely noticed it. He found a short, small building that would make a good place to rest until his body stopped feeling so stiff, and climbed up to its roof feeling awfully pleased with himself.

He should have known better. The universe truly was out to get him.

There was a sound behind him, the familiar sound of shoes on roof shingles, but it did not belong to him. He turned around just in time to see it.

See her.

“Freeze, Cooper.”

Sly’s heart stopped in his chest. She looked exactly as when he’d last seen her – posture rigid, ready to fight, and sheer fury in every line of her face. Her shock pistol was aimed straight for him from where she stood on a roof of similar height just a few meters away.

Her hands were trembling.

Swallowing all the physical aches from the last five minutes plus every emotion he’d ever had in his life, the raccoon made a show of leaning on his cane as nonchalantly as he could look. He knew it worked from the way she immediately bristled.

“Inspector Fox,” he greeted, a blank stone wall. “Fancy seeing you in a place like this.”

“Shut up, Ringtail!” She growled. The use of the nickname sent his mind reeling from whiplash. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but from what I’ve already seen, I know it can’t be good.”

Sly’s mask cracked just a bit. “What, you have a problem with a little property damage all of a sudden? I don’t recall that being the case when we were visiting every other lowlife on our list.”

“My list. Mine, that you used for your own personal gain.” Her gaze wandered over the cache of fireworks slung over his shoulder. An assumption clicked in her eyes that he decidedly did not like. “How many buildings have you blown up already with those? Did – did you start the avalanche that buried that poor town?!”

The raccoon recoiled, stunned by the accusation. Of all the ways he expected her to view him, mass-murderer had never once crossed his mind. It stalled his thoughts to a screeching halt.

Then it made him furious.

“You must only have eyes for me if you’re too blind to see what’s really going on around here,” he snarled, throwing his arms out wide in a sweeping gesture. Seeing the way she tracked the movement of his cane pissed him off further. “Open your eyes, ‘Detective’: we’re in the home of a homicidal pyro-maniac who blows people up for looking at him wrong, but you accuse me of causing that avalanche? What would I even hope to gain by doing such an awful thing?”

He watched as she started to lower her pistol just a little bit, clearly considering his words. It wasn’t enough to calm him down, so he took a step forward and continued his rant.

“Do you think I’m here by choice? That I just swung by to say hi and indulge in a friendly chat with the Panda King with a bit of murder on the side? Do you really think that low of me?!”

“I…”

Inspector Fox hesitated and glanced towards the giant, distant statue. Her lips thinned as she lifted her weapon again and stared him down with hardened resolve.

“Maybe you had nothing to do with that, then,” she admitted, sounding as if it was a difficult thing to do, “but it doesn’t mean you’re not causing harm. A lot of people have probably gotten hurt from that explosion you just made.”

“Anyone who did, deserved it. No one on this mountain is innocent, Inspector.”

“Not even you?” The fox challenged.

“I think you and I have very different definitions of that word,” he said, quiet and bitter, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet as his gaze darted every which way for a clean escape. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

It would be impossible to outrun her in the condition he was in; his muscles were still shaking from adrenaline, and he could feel the urge to cough with every rise and fall of his chest. What he needed to do was outmaneuver her. Down his immediate line of sight over the fox’s shoulder, he could see a large, dilapidated stone statue of a dragon. It looked ready to fall apart at the slightest breeze – or, perhaps, the slightest shock.

“We’re here right now because you lied to me,” Inspector Fox growled again, looking like she was one wrong word away from pulling the trigger. “You used me, Cooper. I don’t care what your reasoning was or whether you actually started caring about me by the end; you still built this partnership on a falsehood.”

The sound of his last name coming out of her mouth felt like talons across his chest. It made his insides twist up in knots, and a deep, mechanical voice whispered across his brain as he struggled to keep his expression blank.

You’ll only ever be known for that name, it taunted. You’ll only ever be worth that name.

“You’re right,” he said. To her. To him. “You’re right.”

She began to lower the pistol again, seemingly unconsciously this time as she stared at him in surprise.

“It was all a falsehood. Everything. I never saw you as more than an easy tool to dispose of the Fiendish Five while I got what I wanted. It’s just my nature as a Cooper. That’s all we’re known for, you know. Falsehoods and thievery.”

He met her eyes, and wondered if she could see that no matter how much she hated him, it was nothing compared to how much he hated himself.

“We’re not worth anything else.”

Sly threw himself off the roof.

He jumped forward, down onto the street between both of them, banking on catching her off-guard just long enough to get out from her line of sight before she could start firing at him. It worked, as her enraged yelling followed him a second after and she jumped off her own roof to chase him.

The whine of her shock pistol was the only warning he got to move, and move he did.

A bullet of pure, concentrated electricity slammed into the wall so close to him it lifted the fur on his arm. Sly swerved in the opposite direction from the blackened brick and took off running, desperate to just get away in time as another blast nearly singed his tail.

“Stop running!” Inspector Fox screamed behind him. “There’s nowhere you can run anymore, Sly!”

The raccoon didn’t answer. He dodged a third shot that tore up the ground under his feet, feeling the crackle of lightning brush up against his skin, and veered sideways down another street to throw her off so that she couldn’t catch up to him. It worked when he heard her overshoot the new direction with a very loud curse and the skidding of boots in snow, but he didn’t slow down for a moment.

With the precious few seconds that he had just bought himself, Sly reoriented back towards the stone dragon and ran for it with all the stamina still left in him. He heard the terrifying whine behind him again and ducked, unable to be awed as the charge arced over his hooded head in brilliant blue like its own kind of firework. He just kept sprinting, and dodging, and weaving, and his eyes remained locked on that statue even as his pursuer got louder and louder in her frustration at not being able to hit him.

The dragon had been built in such a way that it seemed to loom over an entire street, with angry claws poised to strike at anyone who dared get under its shadow. The raccoon took a running leap and landed on one such claw with enough force to jostle his bruises. He dragged himself up onto its wrist with gritted teeth, then began scaling its arm with what little energy he still had. Inspector Fox slowed down at ground level as she saw where he’d gone, and he could see her begin to take careful aim with her weapon out of the corner of his eye.

He kept climbing, seeing his target within his reach as his hands gripped the spikes on the dragon’s back. Instead of hoisting himself onto its long, thin back, however, he turned around from where he was perched just in time to see her shoot.

The electric bullet buzzed straight for him, dangerous and beautiful, and he had a single second to think about her fights with Muggshot and Mz. Ruby and Sir Raleigh. Wondered whether they had seen this before they had fallen, and if it had been as harrowing for them as it was now for him.

He let go of the spikes right as it was about to hit him, making a dead drop towards the ground while it crashed into the neck of the dragon with enough force to crack the fragile stone straight through. Sly barely caught himself when he hit the snow, avoiding injury by some miracle, and rolled out of the way just in time for the entire statue to come crashing down behind him. It barricaded the street and sent plumes of dust and dirt into the air, obscuring everything in a ten-meter radius around it. He could hear Inspector Fox coughing and yelling for him from the other side of the debris, but he couldn’t see her and he knew that she couldn’t see him.

Entire body screaming in pain, Sly turned and ran, and didn’t stop until he was certain he had lost her for good.

He did not look back. He feared that if he did, even once, then he would not find it in himself to keep going.

Chapter Text

It was a long, shameful walk back to the ruined village.

Carmelita trudged through snow and wreckage, only aware enough of her surroundings to avoid the lights of guards and the occasional patch of ice. She was covered in dust, powder, and rubble that together created a grimy film to her clothing and her hair and her pistol. Everything she touched was left dirtied, marked by her presence as well as her failure.

She barely noticed any of it; her mind was still dead-set focused on the encounter she had just had with Cooper. Frustration over him slipping away warred against the discrepancies she had seen that made her analyze every second of their interaction. The way he had acted towards her at first, so unaffected by their falling out, had been an obvious diversion that had nevertheless gotten her blood boiling and falling right into it. His legitimate anger over her assumption that he’d had anything to do with the avalanche was not nearly as surprising, but what had convinced her he wasn’t involved – begrudging as she was to admit it – was the legitimate hurt in his eyes that she knew from experience he could not truly fake. And his last words to her…

A distant flash of light caught her attention. She squinted into the dark and realized it was a Morse Code signal from one of her officers, telling her where it was safe to return to. Well, telling her and her team, but guilt sunk in deep as it struck her that she had no idea where they were or if they were safe. She hadn’t seen any sign of them since she’d abandoned them on top of that temple to rush after Cooper.

Already-swirling emotions suddenly had a heaping dose of dread in the mix as the fox headed for the blinking light. When she was close enough to start making out buried buildings, she took her own flashlight out and began turning it on and off in a return signal, waiting until the other light changed to affirmation before continuing any further.

The last thing she needed in this shitty night was for one of her own to accidentally shoot her because they thought she was an enemy. That would really just be the cherry on top.

“Inspector Fox!” Three officers approached her with speed, all looking relieved to see her. The one who had called out paused a moment to take in her haggard, dusty appearance. “Are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” she managed to say without any bitterness. The same could not be said for exhaustion. “I just got caught up in the outskirts of a collapsing statue. It – I got separated from the team I went in with. Have any of them come back this way?”

They all shook their heads, but the leading officer clarified before her heart could drop into her stomach. “We’ve been maintaining radio updates from them since your separation. Everyone is accounted for, and they’re still working through the Panda King’s territory. It’s been slow-going success, though, and we were debating whether to send more people in.”

Carmelita could hear the fishing in the tone; now that she was back, they were hoping she would make the decision for them. She stalled for time by brushing stone powder off her coat sleeves and peered past them towards the truck where town refuges were still being tended to.

“What’s the status here?”

“All injuries have been stabilized, but there’s only so much we can do with limited resources. Some of the civilians have started asking if we’ll take them down the mountain to a hospital, or at least into the nearest city that isn’t under King’s direct hold.”

She started doing the math in her head. There was enough room for about twenty people in the truck if they were packed shoulder to shoulder, which meant several trips. “How long would it take to ferry everyone down?”

“The driver estimated at least three or four hours with the return trips, but that will depend on road conditions.”

Everyone reflexively glanced up at the sky. It was already starting to snow again. Inspector Fox rubbed her gloved hands together to stave off the chill in her stiff fingers.

“Let me go see for myself how they’re all doing,” she announced after a moment. “Our priority is to get these people to safety. Has anyone called the nearest police department, Interpol or local or otherwise?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Someone get on that right away, then.” It was easier to walk with less shame when she was giving simple orders. The fox could almost ignore it entirely. “Ask for more manpower to come up the mountain with first responders, but don’t mention anything about the Panda King. Just a natural disaster with survivors that need tending to.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Two of her subordinates branched off to do as instructed without any hesitation. It made her terrible spirits lift just the tiniest amount. The one who remained stayed at her side as she approached the truck and the makeshift refugee camp surrounding it.

As reported, none of the survivors seemed at immediate risk of death anymore, but they huddled together against the chill of the deepening night and there was not a single face that didn’t look absolutely miserable. Carmelita recalculated travel time against the growing snowfall. The conclusion she came to was what her instincts had been leaning towards since the beginning – the lost time searching for King was a loss they were just going to have to take for the sake of these civilians.

“I need someone who can translate for me,” she called to the remainder of her team. “Tell everyone here that we’ll start taking people down the mountain. Start filling the truck with those that are most injured.”

As the decision was relayed and the villagers started doing as instructed, directed by officers, there was a sudden flash of light in the sky. Everyone turned at once to see a giant mass of fireworks speeding through the air, and immediately the survivors began crying out, understandably terrified that the crime lord was aware of their presence and had decided to finish what he’d started.

Carmelita believed it too for a single heart-stopping moment, right up until she realized that instead of coming towards the buried town, the rockets were heading towards the Panda King’s distant fortress instead. As it arced upwards to avoid hitting the head of the statue and exploded harmlessly in a flash of uncoordinated color, she saw a dark shape illuminated by the blaze careen through one of the statue’s eyes.

This far away, there was no way to see the same ringed tail that had tipped her off the last time, but she knew it could be no one else. The fireworks strapped to his back had been part of a plan after all, and not just for the sake of stealing from King.

Sly had made it inside the fortress. She was running out of time to catch up before he disappeared again.

Before she could do a single thing about her heart now beating rapidly in her chest, an officer appeared in her line of vision with a confused expression.

“There’s a call for you from Interpol HQ, Inspector.”

The fox looked over, blinking in surprise at the radio being offered to her. Suddenly afraid that Barkley was waiting on the other end to chew her out for doing something wrong – or for somehow finding out about Sly Cooper – she took it gingerly and held it up to her ear with trepidation.

“This is Inspector Fox.”

“Hi Inspector, it’s Winthorp!”

Never in her life did she think she’d feel relief at hearing that voice, but here she was. “Winthorp. What time is it over in Paris right now?”

“Not important,” he dismissed, sounding excited and impatient. “What’s important is that case you asked me to work on – the one about Conner Cooper?”

Carmelita’s breath caught in her throat. She turned around to face the destroyed town as if to ward off anyone who might be eavesdropping even though her entire team was busy.

“Uh, yeah. Did you find out what happened to that missing report?”

“No, but I have better news! I got in contact with Inspector Pennington, and she still had her own copy of it! Turns out she always kept records for herself and never tossed anything, even after she’d retired from the force. Crazy, right?”

“With that woman? I can believe it.” She pressed the transmitter a little closer against her ear. “What was on it?”

“You’re not going to believe this.” Winthorp paused, probably for dramatic effect, but all it did was make her want to reach through the radio and strangle him until he finally continued. “Conner Cooper had a kid!”

It took a lot more acting talent than she probably possessed to act shocked. Thank goodness the otter couldn’t see her face. “Oh – wow. What happened to hi – to them?”

“According to Inspector Pennington’s notes, her team found a birth certificate and a bunch of homeschooling records, as well as several framed pictures. It was a son who had just turned eight when the murder happened. Apparently his legal name was ‘Sly’, which is just nuts. Who names their kid that?”

(“It’s just – an unusual name. Unique. ‘Sly’. Do you have a last name just as unique to go with it?”

“Nope. And I’m not telling it to you, so don’t bother asking.”

“Why not?”

“Names have power. Truth be told…I’m not the biggest fan of mine.”)

Carmelita bit her lip. “Yeah. Crazy. Was there anything else? Do we know what happened to him?”

“I asked the retired inspector about that, cause nothing was mentioned in the report. She told me she theorized that Cooper’s son either escaped the night his parents were killed and ended up on the streets somewhere, or that the intruders found him and killed him too. She said it’s always puzzled her why they never found his body, though.”

“That’s…a lot to process.”

“I know, right? Could you imagine if there was another Cooper out there, continuing the family’s thieving legacy, and we didn’t even know?”

The fox looked back up towards the Panda King’s fortress. Then she looked towards the truck, where other officers were pulling infiltration equipment out to make room for more civilians to sit inside.

One of the things that was set out and aside was her jetpack – still fully stocked with fuel.

“Hey, Winthorp? Thanks for the update, but I have to go.”

“It’s my pleasure! Good luck taking down another Fiendish Five member!”

She hung up and made a beeline for the jetpack. The officers who had put it down in the snow looked up at her approach.

“Ma’am?”

“I have an idea,” she said, already picking the jetpack up to strap it against her back. “But I need you all to trust me, and I need to know I can trust you.”

The rest of her team grouped around her, hearing the no-nonsense tone to her voice. They all waited patiently for her to elaborate without ever asking their own questions, and she was grateful for it.

“I think I know exactly where the Panda King is, and I want to go after him while we still have the element of surprise.” The lie came easily, and with less guilt this time. Carmelita refused to think about why. “If I can trust you all to take care of the survivors here, then I’m going to infiltrate that giant stone statue by myself.”

A few glances were shared, but none looked dubious or worried. Just Interpol officers processing their superior’s plan.

“You can trust us, Inspector Fox. We can handle things on this end.” Someone finally spoke up, sounding confident both in themselves and in her. The nods of agreement to that statement almost made her teary-eyed. “What should we tell the team that’s still in the criminal’s territory?”

“Tell them to head towards the fortress at its base,” the fox answered without hesitation. “If they come in from there and I come in from the top, we’ll cut off all of King’s escape routes at once.”

“Roger.”

“Thank you for your belief in me, men. I’m proud to work with you all.”

A radio was tossed her way. She caught it with ease and clipped it to her belt beside her holster. Then she lifted her head high, surveying the officers who had finally come to respect her.

“I swear to you: one way or another, this ends tonight.”

After successfully losing Inspector Fox, Sly had doubled back three times just to be sure there was no chance for her to pick up his trail again. It had been a tedious but necessary process, and by the time he was certain he was safe from being tailed, he had already started searching for the best place to put his plan into action.

The spot he chose was a tall, secluded bluff that was as close to the stone statue as he could manage without risking a guard’s flashlight swinging his way. Snow was falling at a rapid pace, but he paid it no mind as he pulled all seven fireworks off his back. One by one he stacked them on top of each other, binding the fuses together in a tightly-woven knot. Once he was certain all of them were secure, he began carefully positioning the amalgamation of firepower in the direction of the fortress.

It took nearly ten minutes for him to be satisfied with his aim; he wasn’t an engineer or even very good at math, but this stunt couldn’t afford any cut corners or he’d be dead before he ever reached his target. When the rockets had been pointed as accurately as he could possibly eyeball them, the raccoon took the matchbox out of his pocket and lit the knotted fuse. Then he wrapped his hands around the body of the biggest firework, held it above his head, and sprinted towards the sheer side of the bluff.

He had timed it perfectly – just as the hiss of every fuse disappearing simultaneously into the rockets’ bases made his ears perk, he jumped off the edge. There was a single second of freefall before his arms were jerked into the air above him so harshly that it nearly dislocated them. He held onto the homemade jetpack for dear life as it flew in a beautiful, deadly arc straight for the stone head.

And went higher. And higher. And higher.

Sly swung his dangling legs forward and let go of the fireworks, falling in an arc towards the left eye window of the statue. It was barely in time as there was a sudden explosion of noise and heat at his back, propelling him even faster than he’d estimated as the rocket bundle finally blew itself apart in a blinding light display. He was headed towards the window – the closed window – like he himself was a rocket, and he had just enough time to throw his arms over his face as his body shot straight through it. Glass pelted his fur and ripped at his clothes, and he tumbled head-over-heels onto hard, cold ground, skidding to a stop on his side while curled into a ball.

It was with a painful sense of déjà vu that he uncurled and began to stand, reminded of his rough jump into Mz. Ruby’s lair as his body immediately protested all movement. Shallow cuts lined the skin of his head that he hadn’t been able to shield from the violent entry, evident both in pain and the feeling of wetness in his fur, and he could see tears in his hoodie sleeves when he glanced down to make sure his hands hadn’t suffered similar injuries. A pang of remorse ran through him at the sight of the yellow fabric ruined by the broken window. This had been a gift, and here he was destroying it.

Then he forcefully reminded himself that it didn’t matter what happened to it; not when the gifter no longer mattered to him.

The room he had landed in was devoid of people or alarms when he finally had the sense to look around. The raccoon counted his blessings for the sudden turn of luck as he did a quick three-sixty spin and saw a large, bulky safe on an opposite wall. Immediately he rushed over, ready to repeat the process of cracking it like he had all the others, but his fingers froze a centimeter from metal as he stared at a keypad instead of a dial. Even worse, the keypad wasn’t made up of numbers but of an unusual set of symbols. They nagged at the back of his brain, familiar yet undecipherable, and the raccoon let out a quiet curse as he realized that he’d seen something like them before in the Thievius Raccoonus.

Notes from his ancestors of an ancient language that was just as incomprehensible to them as it was now to him. Speculation of it being some kind of bird dialect that was lost to time and lack of speakers. Rioichi and a few other intellectual-type Coopers had tried to interpret it, but they hadn’t gotten very far without basic sentences or even a full alphabet to go off of.

There was no doubt in Sly’s mind who this language benefited, or why he was seeing it on the massive safe here and now, and it made that cold fear creep up his spine again. He stuffed it down before it could paralyze him for a second time.

Frustrated but not deterred, his eyes landed on the single door leading to the rest of the fortress, and he checked it without any hesitation. When it proved unlocked, he quietly slipped through with his cane in-hand, choosing a direction at random to search for the Panda King’s private chambers. If there was ever a place that held the code to open that safe, it would be there, and if he were really lucky then the panda’s own stolen pages would be right next to that code.

King’s, and Clockwerk’s. Only two left and then this would all be over. It would be worth the heartache, and the pain, and the constant terror of being caught. Sly clung to that sentiment as tightly as he did his weapon as he crept through the heart of his enemy’s lair.

There were no guards to be found in the fortress. Even the staff had been reduced to a skeleton crew, making it all too easy to avoid them while the raccoon picked locks and searched rooms and overturned every conceivable hiding place. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout of the place, and his memory of everything was foggy, but he consoled himself with the reminder that he didn’t have a timer on his back like when he’d been with the Inspector. Sure, she was already traipsing about King’s territory, but the chances of her knowing he was inside the statue – and finding a way up herself without getting caught, to boot – were slim to none. It was better that he’d shed the dead weight of her presence for this last stretch. It made things so much less complicated.

He clung to that sentiment, too.

Another turn or two, and Sly was finally in familiar territory. He nearly stumbled as he halted in place, staring at the wallpaper and hanging portraits and Chinese décor that hadn’t changed since the last time he’d been here five years ago. Entranced, he pressed his left hand to the wall and traced the groove there where a ten-year-old him had punched it in a fit of anger. No one had been there to witness it, and apparently no one had noticed the dent it had left. It was probably one of the only remaining reminders of his life here. No doubt King had removed everything else after the raccoon had gone to officially work for the Five.

A few meters down, he could see the door to his old room. Sly shuffled over to gape at it with a pit in his stomach that he couldn’t identify. The door was devoid of the heavy-duty lock that had kept him trapped inside at night to prevent escape; more evidence to his theory that the panda hadn’t wanted Sly’s past presence to linger in his precious stronghold.

Against his better judgement, he began to quietly slide the door open – and then stopped immediately as his keen eyes caught the dark interior.

Jing was in his room.

Sly stilled halfway through the doorway, but she had not noticed him. She was facing away from him, kneeling in front of a small shrine she had placed on his old dresser to which she seemed to be praying to by the clasp of her hands and the bowing of her head. Her eyes were closed, but he could see clearly the troubled pinch of her face as her lips moved rapidly in a silent request.

For a long moment, he simply watched the panda while she prayed with his foot still hovering where he had been about to place it in his old room. It wasn’t fear of disrupting her actions that kept him from getting her attention, nor was it why he remained perfectly still as he studied every centimeter of her body language, committing it to memory as best he could.

When he finally did move, it was only to slip carefully back out into the hall and silently slide the door closed behind him again so that she would be none the wiser to his presence. The raccoon stared at the shadow cast by her silhouette through the thin wall. Then he turned on his heel and continued onward, fighting every fiber in his body to go back.

It was better this way. For both of them.

When Carmelita touched down on the other side of the shattered window and powered down her jetpack, she was a little surprised to find a completely-intact safe sitting in the room with her. Sly Cooper had definitely come through this way, so why had he left such an enticing prize alone when it was in such easy reach?

She shook her head and refused to examine the bulky thing. There was no use trying to rationalize the irrational mind of a criminal. Finding the answer to that question could come after she had apprehended both him and the Panda King, and they had too much of a head start for her to stop and scrutinize every discrepancy in the environment. Instead, she left the empty room to begin prowling the grounds in search of the ringtail.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before she found herself hopelessly lost. Inspector Fox didn’t know whether the long hallway she turned a corner into was one she’d already been in before, or if the layout was simply identical to the last four she’d passed, but it was doing nothing to help her nerves or her confidence as she continued to find the exact same décor over and over again while encountering not a soul. Not a hide nor hair of Cooper, or King, or any of the latter’s employees. It was eerie, like she’d stepped into a nightmare or the setting of a ghost story.

Just as she was starting to wonder whether there was any merit to backtracking to the room with the safe to regain her bearings, the sudden heavy arrival of multiple footsteps somewhere nearby had her tensing up. She had forgotten to reload her shock pistol before running off for the statue, blinded by her determination to stay on the raccoon’s trail while it was fresh, and while she wasn’t at risk of running out of bullets any time soon, it still meant she had to be frugal with her shots until at least the Panda King was incapacitated.

A large group of guards, or staff, or whoever was coming this way would only deplete her resources and cause enough of a ruckus to bring even more along. Carmelita quickly found the nearest unlocked door and slipped past it, closing it behind her and holding her breath as she listened to the unknown gang travel by unaware on the other side of the wall.

The fur on the back of her neck prickled. Someone else was in this room.

The fox whirled around with her weapon at the ready, prepared to bark orders for surrender at whoever she came face to face with. Then the words died abruptly on her tongue as she stared at who had startled her.

A teenage girl stared back.

“Who are you?” The young panda asked in a quiet voice with the same accent that Sly had, albeit much stronger. She clutched her hands to her chest as if to protect herself from the weapon pointed at her.

“I’m – I –” Carmelita lowered her pistol, dumbfounded by the turn of events and struggling to figure out the best course of action. Of all the things she’d expected to find in King’s personal hideout, it wasn’t anything close to this. “I’m an Inspector from Interpol.”

The girl tilted her head at the title but otherwise didn’t seem surprised. She looked Inspector Fox up and down as though she were staring directly into her heart. “You’re the woman from Sly’s pictures.”

That statement jolted her so badly that her weapon came right back up, on full alert again. Amazingly, the panda didn’t even flinch.

“What the hell does that mean? How do you know him?” Carmelita growled, unable to help herself. She was sick of getting more questions than answers when it came to that damn raccoon. “Who are you?”

The teen stared at the gun before her eyes slowly lifted to meet Carmelita’s. “My name is Jing King. I assume you are here to arrest my father.”

Father bounced around inside the fox’s skull like a lit firework. For some reason, it didn’t stun her as badly as the knowledge that this girl – the Panda King’s daughter, apparently – knew Sly.

“Okay. Jing. Yes, I’m here to arrest your f-father.” The word was strange to say. Never in her life would she have pictured the homicidal, pyro-loving criminal to have a child. “But you still haven’t answered my other question; how do you know Sly Cooper?”

There was a long pause, and the inspector could practically see the calculations running through the panda’s head – determining how much information to reveal about herself that wouldn’t put her at risk. It was a hesitancy Carmelita knew all too well from a very different source.

“…He is my brother,” she finally said. “In a manner of speaking.”

Inspector Fox blanched. “What?”

“It was not by his choice, however.” Despite her shock, Carmelita caught the hard, protective edge to the younger girl’s voice. “Sly was brought here against his will and raised by my father for a time. If he had been allowed to choose his own path, he never would have gone down this one.”

Jing was speaking rapidly, sounding almost desperate to say her piece before the fox could recover from being blindsided. The inspector registered her words on a level separate from the rest of her mind; a mind that was currently spinning so badly she was amazed it hadn’t flown right off.

“– actually in his old room,” the teenager continued, unaware that she had been almost completely tuned out. “You are welcome to look around to confirm my words if that would help you believe his innocence.”

Innocence. It was like a magic password had been spoken – Carmelita blinked back to herself, face setting into a pinched frown as she finally glanced around the room for the first time. There was no believing in any innocence when it came to Sly Cooper. He had already shown his true colors.

But still, she humored the girl, if only to lower the risk of her alerting her father to the inspector’s presence.

They were in a bedroom, almost completely cleared of anything except for a stripped futon on the floor and an old dresser covered in photo frames. She could feel the panda’s eyes on her as she carefully padded over to see what was in those frames, curiosity momentarily overriding her callousness, and picked up one to wipe away the dust obscuring the picture inside.

She nearly dropped the thing.

It was Sly – the young Sly she had seen in that single cracked photo frame from the crime scene of the Cooper home, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of smiling with a balloon in his hand and his parents on either side, this Sly – around the same age, as far as she could tell – was standing straight-backed with bags under his eyes and a scowl on his face. He seemed to not have realized the picture was being taken, as his gaze was off to the left side towards something out of frame. One arm was curled around his middle, and the other was wrapped protectively around a much younger Jing King, who was peering over his shoulder at whatever had caught his attention. She looked tired but not unhappy; a stark contrast to the raccoon beside her.

Carmelita was so engrossed by the details in the photo that she didn’t even hear the teenager come up next to her, and almost dropped the frame again when she spoke.

“That picture was taken about a year after he came to live with us.” Jing’s voice was mournful and tinged with wistfulness. “I had just recovered from being very sick, and that was the first time I was allowed out of my room in weeks. Sly refused to leave my side the whole day.”

The fox looked down at the photo again. The anger in the young raccoon’s eyes was visible; just as potent back then as it was in the brief glimpses that she’d seen from him in the present.

A missing body at a crime scene. Missing records from a secure case file. An entire missing existence that should have been documented as soon as it was known. A few things clicked into place all at once.

“…You said something about him being here against his will,” Carmelita began slowly, not because she was having trouble putting the pieces together but because she could already see the picture it was forming, and it was starting to make her sick. “How old was – how long ago did that happen?”

“It was eleven years ago that he was brought here. He was eight.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to shoot something. She wanted to march right back to Interpol and demand to know how they had lost the knowledge of the continuation of Cooper’s bloodline. Why they hadn’t worked harder to find him all those years ago.

How deep did this go? Who had removed confidential reports just to ensure Sly remained off the radar? How many people did the Fiendish Five have on the inside? Why had they gone out of their way to keep a child alive for all these years when it had never, ever aligned with their modus operandi?

How much did Sly know? Why did he risk getting caught by his kidnappers with every step he took back into their domain? What exactly was it –

“They all took something from me. And with you, I knew there was a chance to get it back.”

– that he was so desperate to get back?

Inspector Fox whirled on Jing King so fast it made the teenager flinch, but there wasn’t enough time to care. She grabbed the girl by the shoulders, staring up at wide, startled eyes that reflected her own wide, manic ones.

“Whatever you know, tell me.” She demanded. “About Sly and your father and his cohorts and anything else.”

Jing was frozen, gaze darting back and forth across the older woman’s face in a desperate attempt to read it. “What…what would you do with such knowledge?”

“Everything I can to see that justice is done.” The fox lifted her chin, deadly serious in every line of her body. She had never been so sure of anything in her life as she was in what she was promising now. “To right every wrong that has been done by the Panda King, and the Fiendish Five, and even beyond that. I will not rest until they can never harm anyone ever again, but to do that, I need to know exactly what is going on. I need to know about Sly Cooper.”

The girl still looked uncertain. Carmelita closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally let out what she had not dared to since the confession that had shattered her heart.

“Please, Jing.” When she opened her eyes again, the wetness there was as real as her conviction. “You mentioned his innocence. I want to believe that, but I’m not – I can’t – I’m an officer of the law, and I’ve seen him break it several times over. I need to be convinced that there’s a good enough reason he’s done all of that. You have to convince me, or else I can’t help either of you. Please convince me.”

Her fingers tightened against Jing’s shoulders.

“Please.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the panda as they stared at each other; one who deeply loved Sly Cooper because of her upbringing, and one who wanted to in spite of it.

“…Okay.”

Giant hands reached up to grasp her own. The look in Jing’s eyes was haunted, and yet there was an iron will hiding behind it; the same unyielding spirit that Sly had held in all the time Carmelita had known him.

“Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”

Chapter Text

“I suppose I should begin by asking how much you know.”

Jing said the words carefully, studying the woman in front of her and trying desperately to find reasons to trust her – or to not. She had said she wanted to help Sly, but the panda had learned the hard lesson that what one wanted to do and what one was able to do were two very different things. It was just a single night ago that her own father’s confession and revelations had reaffirmed that lesson, and her heart ached as she remembered the way he had begged her forgiveness for failing both of them.

She shook her head with a pursing of her lips. This was no time to be distracted by any of that; not when there was someone here who could still be a threat to her family.

“I know that Sly had been working with – for the Fiendish Five before I met him.” The slip of the stranger’s tongue had been corrected without Jing even having to glare at her for it. The panda hoped it was a good sign. “I know that there’s something he’s stealing from each of them. Something they took from him…I think?”

Jing waited a moment longer, seeing how the inspector seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Sure enough, she continued with a pinched brow.

“And…I know now that they were the ones who murdered his parents, and then kidnapped him afterwards. I hadn’t been certain of that until what you just told me.”

“All of those things are correct,” the younger girl said, slow and thoughtful while she determined how to explain a lifetime of hurt within a short window of time. “And that was everything I knew, nothing more, until very recently as well. But there is so much more to this story, and I am still uncertain to tell you the rest.”

Inspector Fox gave her a sharp, upset look. “I already told you I need to know if I’m going to help both of you. Do you still think I’m lying?”

“No. Your conviction convinced me. It is just…” Her eyes drifted towards the dusty dresser, to the other picture frames which also contained cherished snapshots of her time with Sly. “It is not really my story to tell. I am trying to reassure myself that I am not betraying my brother by sharing these things with someone without his permission.”

So much had already been done without his consent by so many people. She hated the idea that she would be another, but she saw no other way to help him. If this woman was truly able to do what she claimed, then it was more than Jing had ever done.

She took a deep breath and then took the plunge.

“The Fiendish Five invaded Sly’s home and killed his family eleven years ago, and decided to let him live because they believed his skills as a Cooper would be useful when he was older.” She watched the fox shift her weight across from her, no doubt as to prepare herself for what they both knew was going to be a long and terrible story. “There were two other things that the Fiendish Five stole that night – the Cooper cane, and a special book called the Thievius Raccoonus.

“According to my father, the Thievius Raccoonus is a book containing notes from many people in the Cooper bloodline. It was passed on to each new generation to teach them the ways of thieving. He told me that the Fiendish Five used the knowledge they had gained from that book to great effect even in the modern age. It was split into five equal sections for each member of the group to use as they saw fit when working separately. The Cooper cane was kept in this stronghold, and they gave it back to Sly when he began officially working for them. The book, he was not allowed to see in any capacity, and they taunted him with that fact quite frequently.”

Jing stopped. Inhaled again, deep and slow, and continued.

“My father brought him to live with us so that he could grow up relatively safely until he was old enough to work for the Fiendish Five. He was with us for five years, primarily as my personal servant and playmate. I am amazed, now, that Sly did not harbor hatred for me as he did my father and the others who irreparably altered the course of his life. I do not know if it was because I was so young, or because he had no one else, or for a different reason, but he decided to trust me. We learned to love each other as we grew together – first as friends, then as siblings. But in all that time, he only mentioned the book and the cane once to me, and did not seem interested in them compared to his bigger goal of escaping the fate that loomed ahead of him.”

Inspector Fox frowned, a question clearly on the tip of her tongue, but she remained silent. It was a small relief, because Jing was starting to realize that if she stopped talking, she might not be able to start again. Already, her hands were beginning to tremble as bittersweet memories rose with her recounting.

“When he finally found the courage to tell me about the monstrosities that had been committed against him, I did not believe him at first. I knew he was working for us against his will, but I thought he was telling falsehoods because he was so angry at his own circumstances and wanted someone to blame. I could not imagine my own father partaking in such horrors. We had a terrible falling out and did not speak to each other for quite some time. I imagine I still would have remained stubbornly ignorant if not for what happened after that, on the anniversary of his arrival to this place.”

Jing paused again, not to find words that evaded her but to stop her body from betraying her with a shudder. It had been years since she had seen her father’s cohorts in person, but even the memories were strong enough to flood her heart with fear and fury.

“I suppose I should explain a few things about my father, first,” she said when at last she continued. “For most of my life, he would spend long periods of time away on ‘business’, as he called it. Sometimes it would be weeks, sometimes it would be months, but never more than a few consecutively. He was always very careful to leave me in the dark about the nature of it, and he never brought strangers here. When Sly came to live with us, my father stayed home for that entire first year, and I was overjoyed. I know now that it was to ensure that Sly wouldn’t hurt me or find a way to leave, but I was too young to understand or even care about the reasons behind his extended stay. Then, at the end of that cycle, he informed me that he would be entertaining guests for a weekend and that I was not to leave my room the entire time.

“You see, the Fiendish Five would meet once a year as a single group to exchange information and discuss business, among other things. The locations they chose always alternated between one of their personal hideouts; I do not know if my father’s stronghold was one of them before I was born, but I know that he refused to let them visit afterwards. I also do not know what reasons he gave them to refuse his home. Most of them did not know of my existence for many years, except for their leader.”

She bit her lip. Clasped her shaking fingers together in an attempt to calm them. Did not look up to meet Inspector Fox’s intense gaze.

“After Sly joined us, those annual meetings always took place here. I was ordered to shut myself in my room and never show my face until I was told my father’s ‘guests’ had left. Sly…was not given the same luxury. He was forced to join them for every meeting during that timeframe, acting as their only waitstaff. I do not know if the intent of this was to ensure his obedience or to slowly integrate him into the world that they were planning to force him into, but he was always stressed and distant for weeks after they had all left. He refused to speak of what went on except to reiterate that they were the ones responsible for his parents’ deaths, and that he was afraid they would finally decide for him to face the same fate. Sheltered as I was, I still could not wrap my mind around the belief that my father had anything to do with such things, but the change in routine and Sly’s behavior made my unease grow with every passing year.

“I desperately wanted to believe in my father’s innocence, but I also desperately wanted to help my dearest friend. I began looking for ways to help Sly escape as we grew older. I naively thought that if he left, he would be able to build his own life away from those wicked people, that things here would return to the ‘normal’ that I had known before, and I would not have to face any uncomfortable truths about my father. We started planning together; he taught me how to be quieter when I moved, as well as…other tricks, and I in turn used that knowledge to further our plans. I visited places he could not, learned the schedules of staff and guards alike, and searched for the easiest, safest path for him to get out. I asked my aunt to take me outside as much as possible, and I committed the layout of this entire place to memory.”

Jing closed her eyes.

“There was always one roadblock that we faced no matter what we tried, however, and it was that my father always had eyes on Sly. When he was home, it was his own eyes, and when he was out on business, it was those of his security which was always doubled for as long as he was away. We could never find a safe time for Sly to sneak out without bringing attention to himself – except for that single weekend every year when the Fiendish Five came to call. Security was lax because my father did not want to imply that he distrusted them, and he himself was too busy with them to watch Sly. It always seemed too dangerous for us to try at such a time, however, because of these powerful people present. The leader, in particular, was one who Sly was terrified of crossing. So, we planned and bided our time, hoping to find a different opening.”

She opened her eyes and finally looked at Inspector Fox again. Her voice was steady with resignation to tell the truth to its very end, as her father had a night and an eternity past.

“The choice was made for us anyway, six years ago, on one of the annual visits. And the fact that it failed was all my fault.”

The Panda King opened the door of his daughter’s room to what had now become a standard sight – Sly Cooper, son of his former enemy, curled against Jing’s side under the strange shelter they had made out of spare sheets and blankets. He blinked, taking in the sight of bedding messily draped over furniture that turned the entire room into a mismatched tent, before turning his attention to the two children who had disappeared from sight of the door as soon as it had opened.

“No one is home today!” His daughter called, gentle even in her scolding. “Come back another day!”

“An exception will have to be made today,” he said, squatting in front of the entrance of the fort to peer inside. “You know why I am here. I cannot leave this room by myself.”

Both raccoon and panda huddled further away from him; the latter did the best she could to shield the former from his sight. She was nearly Cooper’s size, now, King noticed wistfully. Within the year she would be taller and then someday perhaps catch up even to her father. So much time and growth slipping out of his reach like sand between his fingers.

“Please do not make things harder than they need to be, children,” he chided softly. He waited without reaching inwards, knowing that patience was the best course to take at times like this. Forcing Sly Cooper out against his will often made him cagey and flighty, which put King in a bad mood to have to deal with; neither of which they could afford tonight.

His daughter looked crestfallen as her friend slowly uncurled himself from behind her and began to crawl out into the open side of the room. The child’s bushy tail was flicking in agitation as he got to his feet in front of King, betraying the blank expression already sliding into place on his face.

“It will be a short meeting tonight,” the fireworks master promised both of them, placing a heavy hand on Cooper’s shoulder as he began to lead him out into the hall. “My guests arrived later than expected today, and plan to retire early. You will be able to return soon.”

The raccoon didn’t say anything. He simply threw a glance over his shoulder at Jing before the door slid closed to separate them, then shuffled along obediently when King prompted him forward. There were no more words exchanged as they walked – a tentative acknowledgement of each other had formed between them over mutual love of Jing, but the crime lord knew that some wounds scarred too deep for real reconciliation. Sly Cooper no longer looked at him with hatred whenever they interacted. Just wariness and tired resignation.

That did not extend to the rest of the Fiendish Five.

They were all waiting in the large conference room that King had long ago built for this exact purpose, and barely spared the panda or his young partner a glance before returning to their food and hushed conversations with each other. Mz. Ruby and Sir Raleigh seemed to be having a quiet argument about the logistics of their next heist, Muggshot was spearing chicken on the ends of his chopsticks between great gulps of alcohol, and Clockwerk watched it all from his place at the head of the long table without engaging in either meal or speech.

The Panda King gave the boy a nudge towards the large food cart that had been placed against one wall, waiting until he was situated beside it with a drink pitcher in hand before taking his own place at the owl’s right side. He was very careful to stop paying any attention to the young Cooper and instead tuned into his cohorts’ heated debate.

“We don’t have that kind of reach,” Raleigh hissed at Ruby across the table. His tongue slipped out of his mouth in irritation, more reminiscent of a reptile than the amphibian he was. “If I wanted to become a shipping baron, I would have learned trains instead of ships. This idea is asinine.”

“You just ain’t thinking big enough,” the alligator shot back, picking up pieces of her meal and swallowing them whole without a single press of her jaw. “Ships have plenty of reach. We can easily form an agreement with the folks that have land on lockdown. Twice as much power with a simple business venture!”

“Dealing in spice is beneath us! I am not stooping to the level of such low-brow, brain-dead scum that are just as often doped up on their own product as they are selling it!”

“I dunno, it sounds like a pretty good deal ta me,” Muggshot finally chimed in. King watched a bead of alcohol slide down his chin and drip onto his plate with a single pull of his mouth. “What’s not to like about more money and more power and all that? I ain’t above anything that gives us more of that.”

Raleigh snapped his fingers and held his empty wine glass out to the side. Sly was there in an instant to refill it, and the frog sipped at it again without even glancing in his direction. “Of course, you would think that we should do it. Trust a dog to chase the next easy target like he chases his own tail.”

“Say that again and it’ll be your legs on my plate next!”

King looked over at Clockwerk, who was idly tapping his foot against the floor in thought as he considered the points being made on either side. Whatever the leader’s opinion was, he kept it to himself, leaving the rest of the group to squabble without coming to an immediate resolution. Eventually, the idea was shelved for tomorrow’s fuller discussion, and everyone turned their full attention to their meals. It was clear they all were tired from travel and this evening meeting was only a formality until they could retire for the night.

Out of the corner of his eye, the fireworks master watched Sly Cooper stand silently against the wall as far away from the table and its inhabitants as possible. The stress around the edges of his mask betrayed his carefully-neutral posture every time one of the Five snapped for him to refill their drinks, or clean a spill, or retrieve more food from the cart. It was a yearly routine that he had learned to form himself into, and King resolved to himself to ask the head chef to make the kit’s favorite food in the morning as a subtle recognition of his obedience.

Of course, it was at that exact moment that the routine was disrupted and everything subsequently fell apart.

Clockwerk, who always kept his eyes trained on Sly for as long as the boy was present, had never called him over. Not once in the five years that they had done this annual performance had he ever addressed the raccoon in any way, shape or form except to stare at him with that cold gaze that he had only ever reserved for Conner Cooper. Tonight had been shaping up to be that way as well, right up until the owl suddenly lifted a claw and crooked it towards the child.

All activity stopped. No one uttered a word nor continued to eat as they watched their leader command the boy to approach him without a sound. Sly’s fur puffed up within a single blink, but he didn’t dare disobey. Slowly, he began to shuffle forwards towards the owl, still silent even in his terror.

When they were about a meter apart, Clockwerk turned his talon around in a gesture to stop, and the kit froze. With a calculating tilt of his head, the ancient bird leaned forward until he was so close to the trembling child that one wayward movement from either one would make them touch. The raised claw lifted Sly’s head by his chin.

“He has grown more than usual since last we were here.”

The Panda King removed all traces of emotion from his entire being. It was never a good omen when the owl spoke without outside prompt. “He is thirteen now, as of this morning.”

Clockwerk let out a low, metallic hum. The raccoon remained deathly still under the touch of that talon.

“Damn. Has it really been that long already?” Muggshot asked, really looking the young Cooper over for the first time in the entire meeting. “Dunno how you could tell, boss. He still looks like a scrawny little runt ta me.”

“Everyone looks like a runt next to you, Tony,” Mz. Ruby said, watching the interaction between Clockwerk and Cooper as raptly as King was. It was impossible to read her, as always. “But Clockwerk is right; our little kit has definitely had a growth spurt or two. He hit puberty yet, King?”

“He is in the process, yes.” The panda did not like the sudden gleam in their leader’s eyes. Neither did Sly, who was starting to tremble under the weight of it. “…But I can assure you that he is not ready to join us just yet.”

Four heads turned to look at him, Sly included. Even Clockwerk tilted his gaze sideways towards his right-hand. The question burning in that gaze felt more like a challenge than anything else.

Convince me that he’s not ready, it said. Give me your best excuse, and we shall see if I find it good enough.

“It is true that he is growing faster than usual, but that growth has come at a price.” King’s words were slow and steady, and he was careful to keep his eyes on the ancient bird and no one else. “He has been clumsier as he has struggled to coordinate his longer limbs. Last week he dropped a stack of plates and shattered most of them.”

That was only half true – plates had indeed been shattered, but it had been from a cook’s carelessness as she ran into the boy. In fact, if Cooper hadn’t been the one holding them, they would have lost the entire stack. He had caught many before they could hit the ground.

The only person here who could call out his lie appeared to be wishing he could turn invisible instead. The raccoon’s eyes were squeezed shut; head tilted almost up to the ceiling by the claw at his neck.

“Once Cooper has adjusted to the changes in his body, he will be ready,” King promised. He hesitated only a moment before pushing his luck. “I am certain that will be the case by our rendezvous next year.”

Clockwerk narrowed his eyes, and for several agonizing seconds, it seemed as though he could see through the panda’s indifferent façade straight into his heart. Just when King feared that he would be called out for his weakness, the bird removed his talon from under Sly’s chin and returned to his previous posture at the head of the table.

“Very well. I trust your judgement in this matter, King. If you believe Cooper is not yet ready, then we will wait.” Those burning yellow eyes turned back to the boy who appeared afraid to retreat. “But no more than a year. We do not want him to think he does not have a debt to repay for the courtesy of sparing his life.”

His giant wings nestled in closer to his body, a sign of relaxation, and the raccoon took it as a safe dismissal to finally back away to the wall. His fur was still standing on end down to his tail and he was clearly struggling to maintain his blank expression in the aftermath of the heart-stopping scrutiny. The Panda King turned back to his food, as did everyone else after a few more beats of silence.

They all retired soon after that. He did not dare give Sly Cooper a single glance for the rest of that time.

Jing looked up at the knock on her door, right before a servant slid it open and gently pushed Sly back into her room. He stumbled forward with an unsteadiness she had never seen before, his face pale under his fur and his hands gripping his elbows so tightly that she was afraid he was hurting himself.

“Sly?” She stood up and rushed over to him, terrified that he had finally been harmed by those scary strangers like he had always feared. “What is wrong? Are you injured?”

When she touched his shoulders, he flinched as if hit and gave a sharp, shaky inhale. “No. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

The trembling of his body under her fingers said otherwise. Carefully, the panda led him over to their blanket fort and steadied him as he slowly sank to his knees to enter it. He was still hunched in on himself and she wondered if there was an injury there.

“Please don’t lie, xiǎo gē,” she pleaded, starting to gently pull his arms out so she could make sure he wasn’t hiding anything he shouldn’t be. “I want to help you, but I cannot do that if you lie.”

The raccoon grimaced, eyes squeezing shut for a long moment. When he finally opened them again to look at her, his shoulders drooped in resignation.

“I’m not hurt, I promise. But you can’t help me with this, Jing. It’s – they’re going to – I’m running out of time.”

She frowned, not understanding his meaning. Sly’s grimace grew deeper and he looked down at the bedding beneath them.

“They’re starting to talk about taking me away,” he murmured. “They think I’ll be old enough to join them. To…work for them. Your dad convinced them to wait a little longer, but it’s…it’s still going to happen soon. Within the year, they said.”

Jing’s breath hitched in her throat. “That is…why would they do such a thing? You do not like them, and they do not like you. I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter that they don’t like me. They think I owe them for letting me live.” The raccoon wrapped his arms around his knees and drew them up to his chest. “They’re going to make me do horrible things for them, and if I refuse, or I mess up, then they’ll just – they’ll –”

He swallowed. She did not ask for clarification.

“I don’t know what to do.” His confession came out as a whisper as he buried his face into his knees. “There’s no way for me to escape this place, no matter how much we try. They’re going to take me away. I’ll be trapped like this until I die.”

The panda felt tears welling up in her eyes and blinked them away before they could fall. Crying wouldn’t help her friend when he was already in despair. She wracked her mind, desperately trying to think of how to help him in the face of such a terrible fate.

A plan came – one that they had always considered impossible, but now seemed like his only option.

“…Not if you leave tonight,” she whispered back, as if afraid that saying it out loud would bring her father to the door. “We could do it tonight.”

Sly lifted his head to stare at her, looking shocked by the very idea. There were stains on his cheek fur. “I thought – that’s too dangerous, Jing. For both of us. We can’t risk –”

“It is very dangerous,” the girl admitted, “but what other choice do we have? It is the only time that my father lets his guard down, but if we wait until next year, it is very likely they will simply come and take you immediately. They will expect you to run in your last few days here, but not right now. And – and I am willing to take the risk for you, Sly.”

He swallowed, seemingly torn by her reason versus his terror of being caught escaping with all of the scary guests visiting. Eventually, the realization that his fate would be unchangeable within a year if he did not take the leap now finally won out, because he gave a shaky nod. She did not smile as they crawled out of their fort together, for there was no reason to; this was not a victory until he had gotten away forever.

The raccoon stood behind her as she carefully opened her door and peeked her head out. A staff member was waiting at attention, as she knew would be the case. Someone was always there to retrieve things for her during these times to ensure she had no reason to leave the safety of her room.

“Excuse me?” She asked him in a timid voice, making her eyes big and pleading like what she knew worked with her father. “Can you please find me something to eat?”

The servant nodded and walked off, leaving the hall blessedly empty. Jing felt Sly wriggle forward under her arm to listen for the man’s retreating footsteps and anyone who might be incoming. When he confirmed it was safe, they both crept out and tiptoed off.

At every corner they came across, they would both stop short of it so that the raccoon could make sure there was no one ahead. They made slow but steady progress this way – waiting out distant sound, hiding wherever they could to avoid approaching staff, and keeping their senses sharp for signs of the Panda King’s guests.

The entrance at the base of the fortress was the only official way in and out, and it was always watched over carefully by a dozen armed men. With the Fiendish Five present, however, that number had been dropped to four. All were still alert and attentive, which would normally make slipping through impossible.

But Jing had another ace up her sleeve; one she had discovered just a few short weeks ago on one of her outings. A series of vents ran through the entire statue to heat it during the coldest months. Most were only connected to two or three rooms at most, and did not have an external exit. There was a single place, however, that did do such a thing – she had watched a group of guards standing under it as they smoked, letting the smog drift up and through the small opening to the outside. It was small and very high up, and Jing didn’t know exactly where it led out, but it was the only option they had.

All four men were standing just inside the entrance and staring outwards. No one thought to look behind them, because there was no reason to. Even so, the panda was as careful as she could be with every step she took, following Sly’s exact path as he crept to the single vent that would be his way out.

When they reached the wall it sat in, they shared a glance and came to the same conclusion. Jing was still a little shorter than the raccoon, but she had filled out considerably in other ways and could easily carry him. She did so now, helping him scramble up her back and onto her shoulders where he stretched his arms in an effort to grab the vent’s grating. It wasn’t quite enough; he was still a few centimeters short.

Gingerly, hyper-aware of the guards right around the corner, the panda grabbed Sly’s ankles and began to lift him higher. He wobbled at first, which made her wobble, which nearly toppled them, but then he found his balance and corrected himself before disaster struck. His fingers found the vent and he pulled out the makeshift lockpicks he had created out of a few of her hairpins, starting to pick at each individual screw in the grating.

All too soon and yet an eternity later, he was able to remove the cover and carefully opened it. With a single glance downward to give her warning, the raccoon crouched and jumped out of her hold and into the vent. His lower body wriggled wildly as he fought to pull himself inside the rest of the way. The entire time, Jing wrung her hands and listened for oncoming footsteps, terrified that they had made too much noise and would be found out.

But no one came, and Sly made it into the vent. She watched as he turned around to close the cover behind him – impossibly small in an already small space – and gave a shaky smile when he pressed his palm against the grate in a silent goodbye. He disappeared out of sight, completely silent as he headed towards the outside.

And that was that.

Jing headed back the way she’d came, trying to be mindful of every trick Sly had used to sense others and avoid detection. The elation that she’d just helped her best friend escape his prison was overwhelming. It overrode all the other messy emotions she was still avoiding about her father and the entire situation, and she couldn’t help beaming with pride at what she had just accomplished.

She was just turning into the hall where her room was when a different kind of thought occurred to her.

When her father and his guests realized that Sly was gone – hopefully not until tomorrow, when he’d have plenty of time to run away – they would be searching everywhere for him. Her father would be furious with her if he learned that she had helped, and he would probably not let her outside again for weeks after the guests left. Going outside was her favorite thing in the world; she couldn’t bear the idea of losing her best friend for probably forever and then immediately being trapped in the fortress until her father’s wrath finally subsided.

Everyone was supposed to be asleep by now. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to visit one of the big windows before she returned to her room. One last glimpse of the mountain before she was in trouble for the rest of her life.

Mind made up, Jing turned the opposite corner and headed instead for the observatory at the top of the statue. It didn’t take very long to get there as she found she didn’t have to avoid anyone the entire time; these halls were strangely empty of both guards and staff, even for this time of night. Instead of unnerving her, however, it only made her certain that fate was smiling down on her and wanted her to reach her destination.

When she finally crept into one of the two rooms that made up the observatory, the panda ran straight for the giant windows at the other end, where she pressed her nose up against the cold glass so that she could stare down at her father’s territory. It was always active down there no matter the hour, and she could see tiny people moving under the glow of spotlights. It was like watching ants, and the thought made her giggle.

A sudden, strange feeling went down the back of her neck. A foreboding sense of danger, as though she were being watched, and Jing turned around with her heart pounding in her chest; afraid that her father had caught her where she was not supposed to be. When she looked, though, there was nothing in the doorway, and no one else in the shadowed room.

Still feeling uneasy, she slowly looked back out the window, past the lights and buildings to the dark mountain beyond. She couldn’t see Sly from here no matter how hard she squinted, which she supposed was the point. He needed to be very sneaky indeed if he was going to escape. She wondered if he had made it past the outer wall to the trees yet.

It hit her, then, that she would probably never see him again. He would run away and never come back, and he’d finally be able to live his own life, but that meant he would no longer be in hers. Tears grew in her eyes and fought to fall past her eyelashes. She kept them trapped because she was supposed to be mature, and to cry over someone leaving would be incredibly selfish.

“Oh, Sly,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against the window, “I hope you’re safe out there.”

“I believe we both share that sentiment.”

Jing gasped and whirled around as a great shadow fell over her from above. She looked up, and up, and up, until her eyes met those of a burning, terrible yellow. The person – no, the thing – standing in front of her was so tall that its head nearly brushed the high ceiling. Its body looked like nothing she’d ever seen before, all metal and shiny and so, so big. She shrank back, pressed to the glass, and had never felt so small in her life.

The thing tilted its head. “You are Jing King.”

“I…” the girl swallowed. “How – how d-do you know that?”

“I know many things. Despite what your father may think, his home is not as secure as it could be. I have known about you for quite a few years.” The thing let out a sound that Jing thought could be a laugh, before it leaned down towards her until its frightful eyes were all she could see. “What I don’t know, however, is why you seem to think that Sly Cooper is currently outside. Would you care to tell me what I’m missing?”

Jing trembled under the weight of the monster staring her down. She opened her mouth, not knowing what to even say, and found that her voice had fled from her entirely.

“How curious. I had expected my associate’s child to resemble him, but it appears that only extends to the physical. Since you seem to have lost your courage, perhaps someone else can return it.”

The thing lifted its head and opened its beak, letting out a screech that had Jing throwing her arms over her ears in pain. It was loud and metallic and so very ghastly, and for a moment the panda wondered if this thing cornering her was actually an evil spirit. Nothing could make a sound like that – nothing could exist like that – and be of the living.

Within minutes, several pairs of feet came running up into the observatory. The girl couldn’t see them because of the thing blocking her sight of the rest of the room, but she could hear her father’s labored breathing among the rest.

“What’s goin’ on, boss?” A gruff voice called out, sounding the least winded out of all of them. “I ain’t ever heard you screamin’ like that before.”

Jing was so focused on the thing’s eyes that she did not see the giant clawed foot until it clamped around her shoulders. The grip was cold and firm yet somehow gentle, as if it knew exactly how to hold the panda without hurting her. She was pulled away from the window to stand next to the monster, where she saw the rest of the guests that came here every year, all out of breath and looking confused and irritated.

And her father among them, who had just gone very, very still.

“Cooper may no longer be in the fortress,” the monster announced. It was speaking to everyone but was staring at her father. “I found this child wishing him well as she was looking out at Kunlun.”

The Panda King took a halting step forward with his eyes locked on the talon around Jing’s shoulders. “I can send for someone to find him. He was locked in his room for the evening. He should still be there.”

Jing held her breath, shocked by her father’s small lie. Sly never slept in his own room when these people visited; he stayed with her until long after they left, when the nightmares finally stopped. She didn’t understand why the older panda wouldn’t tell them the truth, but she did not dare challenge it in front of the monster.

“It would be much easier to simply ask her, wouldn’t it?” The thing sounded like it was about to make the laughing sound again, but the girl didn’t know what was so funny. “Unfortunately, I have already tried, and she will not tell me what she knows. I think one of you would have better luck.”

Her father took another step forward, steadier this time, but she could see the fear in his eyes even though his face was very stern and angry. The people behind him were watching, and something about them was almost as scary as the monster.

“Jing,” her father started, very quiet with a tone she’d never heard from him, “Tell me why you are out of your room, and where Sly is.”

She stared up at him, feeling eyes on her from everywhere and suddenly afraid in a way she’d never experienced before. These were the ones who had hurt her best friend; who he was so scared of that he had risked the harsh mountain at night just to get away. If she told them the truth, then they would hurt him again.

Jing didn’t answer.

“Daughter,” the Panda King said, even quieter than before, and he kneeled in front of her to put his hands on her shoulders, in the space between where the giant claws sat and her bare neck. “You must tell me. It is the most important thing I will ever ask of you.”

Jing didn’t know if the way she was shaking was from her own body or her father’s hands. He looked at her as though it would be the last time that they’d ever see each other. She felt the talons squeeze very lightly against her skin as if to encourage her instead of scare her.

“I…I’m scared, father,” she whispered, hoping that the monster could not hear her. “What is going to happen if I tell you?”

“Everything is going to be alright.” One hand reached up to cup her cheek, and this time she knew for sure that it was him who was trembling so terribly. “Please, qiān jīn. Do this for me, and I will take care of things.”

The girl stared at him. He looked as afraid as she felt, but there was also the promise of safety in his gaze. He would fix things, surely. He would protect her, and Sly, and not let these people harm them.

She trusted her father. She had to. She still believed he was different.

“I helped him leave the fortress,” Jing said, not looking away from him even as the claws around her shifted at the confession. “He wanted to leave, so I helped him. He is not going to come back.”

The talons squeezed, so sudden and painful that the young panda cried out, before releasing her entirely and pushing her into her father’s waiting arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder as he enveloped her as completely as he could.

“I suggest you take your daughter back to her room and then return here immediately, Panda King.” The monster’s voice was icy with fury. “We have a very short window of time to fix this mistake, and I will not let the sentimentality of others ruin that.”

Jing’s panicked breathing hitched as her father picked her up for the first time in years. He held one hand to the back of her head to keep her face tucked away as he left the observatory, but she could still hear one of the others jeering at their backs.

“This is what happens when you show mercy to children, King! Even the bloody waif knew to exploit you for it!”

The Panda King did not respond, nor did he say anything to his daughter as he hurried away. He did not put her down all the way back to her room, and she could feel the haste of his wide, quick strides. When they finally arrived, he set her carefully down just inside the doorway, looked her up and down very briefly for injury from the monster’s claws – her arms were bruised beneath her fur, but the skin had not been broken anywhere – and then shut the door without another word. She didn’t even have the chance to say anything before she heard the clink of him locking her in from the outside, and then he was gone.

Jing stood there, stunned by everything that had just happened and struggling to process it. She shivered, still feeling the touch of that freezing metal, and then shivered again as she realized Sly had to face the monster every single year.

The monster.

It had been so angry over what she’d done. Her father was very strong, but he had seemed so scared, and she was suddenly unsure whether he would be able to win if they fought each other. If the panda won, then Sly would be safe, but if the monster won, then what would happen?

The chill was still in her body and her heart was practically in her throat, but Jing forced shaking hands up to her hair, where several tiny pins had been stuck just out of sight. She had promised her brother that she would help him escape, and she had to make sure she didn’t break that promise even if she didn’t know how. She would just have to take things one step at a time.

Growing up with someone like Sly meant that she had learned things. He had taught her how to get herself out of trouble, and no one had ever suspected that Jing could do any of the things that he could. It had worked to their advantage before; it would work for her now.

A locked door was child’s play to the sister of a thief.

The Panda King returned to the observatory with the speed of a runner and the dread of a man on death row. The Fiendish Five were waiting for him at the window, which had been swung wide open in his absence to let in the cold evening wind. None of them said a word to him, although it was clear that they all wanted to, and instead looked towards their leader, who was perched on the windowsill to stare out at the mountain.

“It seems you’ve lost Cooper.”

King tensed as Clockwerk swiveled his head around to look at him without ever moving the rest of his body.

“I have not lost him,” he said, watching him carefully. “He has escaped.”

“Is it not the same thing? You took responsibility for him, and he has fled from under your care. Of course,” the owl turned his head back towards the open air, voice dangerously unreadable, “if you truly want to argue semantics, it was your daughter who caused this.”

King closed his mouth and glared at his leader’s back. His fingers twitched at his side, wishing desperately to reach for the fireworks stashed under his belt, but he did not dare turn on the ancient bird even if he were not outnumbered by his colleagues.

“Should we continue this argument, or would you prefer to rectify the mistake you’ve let happen?”

“…Let us move on,” the panda replied through gritted teeth. “Allow me to contact my men down below. They will find the boy within the hour; there is no way he has left my territory yet.”

Clockwerk didn’t immediately respond. He had leaned forward to study the compound, and the windowsill creaked under his weight. When he finally spoke, it was razor sharp with triumph.

“No need.” His wings began to unfold from his body. “I have already found him.”

The owl launched off of his perch and into the air, leaving the rest of the Five to rush to the open window to watch. King tracked his movement with a terrible sense of foreboding.

“How much you wanna bet he’s gonna kill the kid?” Muggshot said as he elbowed Mz. Ruby in the ribs, making her scowl at him.

“It would be a waste of time if he does,” she growled. “All of us thinkin’ of things for him to do when he finally joins us and then it doesn’t matter in the end. I might as well bring him back as a zombie to get some use out of him.”

Clockwerk was making lazy circles in the air, high above any of the buildings. It went silent for a few moments as they watched their leader hunt. Cooper wouldn’t know he had been found until the owl was already bearing down on him, and by then it would be too late.

“You’ve made yourself look like a fool, you know,” Raleigh hissed at King. “Giving us some bollocks speech about the waif not being ready while he’s slipping out from under your nose. If I had been the one raising him, this never would have happened.”

“If you had raised him, he would cower at the slightest raised hand.” The panda gave him a frigid look, aware that now was a dangerous time to throw barbs but needing to turn his anger at a target. “He would have been useless in our line of work.”

The frog’s lips curled up into an awful smile. “Better than him being dead, right?”

Before King could respond, Clockwerk finally dived. Everyone fell into a hush. The bird disappeared farther out than expected, somewhere just inside the northern wall of the compound. When he came up again, he was clutching something small and struggling between his talons. Clockwerk rose into the sky, higher and higher until he was nearly eye-level with the fortress.

Then he dropped his cargo.

The cry that rang out across the air was young and terrified. King watched in horror as Cooper went plummeting. He was too far away to see his face, but it did not take any imagination to picture it; Clockwerk had employed this technique many times with many enemies. It was one of his favorites for the disorientation and torment it caused.

Just as it looked like the boy was going to hit one of the temple roofs, the owl swooped down and plucked him right out of the sky. Cooper went silent again, but they could all see the way he kicked and flailed in the iron hold. Clockwerk lifted his prisoner high into the air a second time.

King closed his eyes before he could see the second drop. It did nothing to tune out the second scream.

When ancient bird caught Cooper again, he dropped down out of sight, right where he’d first dove after the raccoon in the midst of his escape attempt. The Five shared confused looks, unsure of why he hadn’t just returned to the fortress now that his fun was seemingly over. Just as Mz. Ruby began to lift her hands in an effort to contact their leader telepathically, a sound stopped her instantly and made King’s blood turn to ice.

It was not a shriek. It was not even a scream. It could only be described as a wail that tore across the compound, so loud that the panda’s employees all stopped in their tracks below to look for the source of it. It went on and on and on, rising in pitch and agony in an impossible climb.

And then it cut off in a chilling finality, leaving the world silent with horror in its aftermath.

Clockwerk lifted into the air for the third and final time, heading towards the observatory with a limp body in his claws. The Five did not speak another word until he landed and laid the bloody form of Cooper onto the floor among them.

King was no stranger to the atrocities committed against children. He had killed many in his efforts to build a ruthless reputation, and never once had he flinched away from it – not even after the birth of his little girl. But there was a stark difference between cruelty with a purpose and cruelty for sport, and he had never found satisfaction in torture even to his enemies.

The sight that gripped him now – this child with wide, unseeing eyes and blood leaking from his mouth, his chest torn from one shoulder to opposite hip by three colossal, hideous slashes – was not one he would wish on his worst.

“If you want Cooper to survive, I suggest he get medical attention,” Clockwerk said, emotionless, as he stalked off without another glance at either his motionless team or the motionless boy. His bloodied talons left a red trail across the floor all the way to his exit.

It was Muggshot who picked the boy up, the gentlest they had ever seen him act, and began to carry him out of the room. “King, you gotta first aid kit somewhere around here?”

“I – have an infirmary,” he stumbled on the words only once before finding his steel again. “I will take you there.”

They walked out as a group, each silent for very different reasons. Well, perhaps not all that different – the bulldog had a pensive pinch to his brows that mirrored King’s own face – but he did not assume mercy from any of them. What had happened tonight was a natural consequence of crossing the owl, no matter how gruesome it was, and they had known those consequences for as long as they’d been a team.

The Panda King’s personal medical staff was exceptionally trained and exceptionally loyal. They did not panic at the arrival of Cooper bleeding out in Muggshot’s arms, nor did they ask questions as they found him a bed and began working to save his life. The canine was directed elsewhere to wash the blood off his body, and the remaining members of the Five were ushered out of the infirmary to give the team space to work.

“Raleigh.”

Clockwerk’s voice from down the hall startled all of them; they had not seen him there among the shadows. He extended a claw still covered in red towards the frog.

“Come with me. We need to talk.”

Raleigh didn’t question it or even hesitate. He hopped off after his leader, throwing a single sneer over his shoulder at King as a final reminder of his utter disdain over the situation. They both disappeared out of sight, leaving the panda alone with Mz. Ruby.

“You really fucked this one up, cher,” she told him. It was matter-of-fact, with no inflection in her voice to betray her real thoughts. “You’ll be lucky if he lets you join a job within the next year.”

“I am well aware.”

“Cooper ain’t gonna be able to hide behind you after this.”

“He will not.”

The alligator squinted at him. Just as she was hard to read, so now was he. Eventually she sighed and gave up on the scrutiny with a shrug. “Well, here’s hopin’ you don’t get kicked off the team entirely. You’re the only one worth good company, far as I’m concerned.”

He stared down the opposite hall in the direction of the observatory and didn’t respond. Truth be told, the possibility had already crossed his mind. It would not be a blessing if the Five decided to cut ties – either he would be killed for the knowledge he carried out of fear of betrayal, or they would take something precious from him to keep him in line for the rest of his days. He did not need to put much thought into what that would be.

“Never seen Tony so shaken up,” Mz. Ruby changed the subject, seemingly callous to his inner turmoil. “Didn’t think he still had a heart inside that big muscled –”

The way she suddenly cut herself off caught his attention, right before the sound of tiny, rushed footsteps appeared and the door behind him slid open. He turned around just in time to catch the tail end of his daughter’s nightgown as she disappeared into the infirmary.

“Mā de!” He swore, hurrying in after her while Mz. Ruby remained motionless in the hall. “Jing! Do not go in there!”

But it was too late. He stopped in the doorway at the sight of her, frozen, standing at the foot of Cooper’s bed. The boy had been bandaged thoroughly, but blood was already seeping in through his dressings and he was laying slack and unconscious, dead to the world around him.

“Sly!” His daughter sobbed, falling to her knees at the end of the bed. Her hands hovered over the raccoon without touching him, and that restraint was the only reason he did not immediately remove her. “I’m so sorry, Sly! I’m so sorry!”

“Jing.”

She cried harder at King’s voice, shaking her head furiously against a request he had not even asked yet. “No! I won’t leave him! You cannot make me!”

The older panda hesitated. He glanced backwards once, where his colleague stood with her back to him – standing guard in an unspoken agreement until he solved the problem he had found himself in.

“Jing, you must leave him be.” He tried again, careful to keep his tone calm in the face of her despair. “He needs rest if he is to recover.”

She shook her head a second time and looked up at him. “What happened? What did they do to him?”

King could not find an easy answer. He remained silent. It was the wrong thing to do when she shakily got to her feet to face him fully with her hands balled into fists.

“Tell me, Father!” The girl cried. Anger began seeping into the grief. “What did that monster do? Why didn’t you stop them? Why – why are you so calm?!”

“You would not understand.” It was all he could say in the face of her accusations. Nothing would quell her furious judgement in this state. She would not believe him even with the truth. “Please, return to your room where you will be safe. I will let you know when he wakes.”

Jing glared at him with more venom than he had thought her capable of holding. She trembled head to toe in rage; a startling mirror image of the boy he used to be, who had once directed that poison at the nobles who had looked down on him. He drew a breath, shaken by the comparison, but before he could explain that it had been to save her life, she was already running past him out of the room.

He followed her out to the hallway and watched her flee in the direction of her room, hoping that she would come to realize the reasons for his actions on her own. Beside him, Mz. Ruby clicked her tongue in a way that could mean either disapproval or sympathy.

“She’s gonna remember this night for the rest of her life,” the mystic warned as he stared after his daughter but did not follow. “Them childhood scars last forever.”

King shook his head. “Not her. She is different from us. Loving and forgiving.”

“Here’s hopin’, cause otherwise you’re just perpetuatin’ that cycle all over again. Same as it ever was.”

He hoped desperately that she was wrong, but he found that he did not have much faith. There had never been a prediction by Mz. Ruby, supernatural or not, that had not turned out exactly as she promised.

Sly Cooper remained bedridden for two weeks. He woke up sporadically and only for minutes at a time, and his health wavered on the brink more than once as the medical team did everything in their power to stabilize him.

Within that time, Mz. Ruby and Muggshot returned to their respective territories to further their criminal exploits while waiting for further news. Raleigh remained both a constant guest of King and a constant visitor of Cooper. Clockwerk came and went periodically – never once checking in on the raccoon but always keen to hear updates of his condition.

Near the end of the second week, when the boy’s injury-induced fever broke and it was clear he would pull through, the owl disappeared for four days and returned with a large, unusual safe, which he placed in one of the observatory rooms – along with a single slip of paper holding the code to it, which he gave to King with no explanation except to keep the code well-protected and to never open the safe. The panda took it without complaint or question, painfully aware of the precarious state of his leader’s trust in him.

When Sly began to awaken for longer periods of time, cognizant of his surroundings, Clockwerk cornered the Panda King outside the infirmary with the Cooper cane in his talons. How he had found it when King had never shared the knowledge of where it was hidden in the fortress was another thing he dared not ask about.

“Once Cooper is able to move on his own again, Sir Raleigh will take him with him when he leaves. Cooper will work for us from now on. You will tell him this yourself.”

The owl paused, waiting for potential protest. King supplied none.

“Make no mistake, Panda King; this was fated to happen eventually. If not to you, then to any of the others. It may yet happen again. The Coopers have always had such a troublesome habit of crawling their way out of what they deserve.” His eyes were warm like molten lava as he held the cane up to study it. “But in the end, fate always catches up to them. It will be no different for this one.”

The fireworks master did not say a word. Clockwerk was never finished with his musings when one first expected it.

“I must admit, the only part of all of this that caught me by surprise was you. I knew of your child from the day she was born, but I had assumed it would not affect the way you handled yourself. You certainly had me fooled for longer than I would like to admit. I suppose that is just as much on me as it is on you. I know the trappings of empathy on the average man, and I did not look hard enough for the signs in you. That being said…”

He loomed over the panda, all pretenses of a non-threat gone in an instant.

“If you ever jeopardize the plan I have in place for the very last Cooper, I will burn down your precious fireworks factory from within until you have nothing left. I will ruin your criminal reputation so thoroughly that even the pettiest of thieves will scoff at the idea of working with you. I will destroy everything you built in a fraction of the time it took for you to make it. And then, at the very end, I will tear your precious daughter limb from limb while you are helpless to stop me.”

The Panda King held perfectly still under his leader’s promise. He did not shake. He did not even breathe. All that existed was Clockwerk and the horror that was his very existence.

“Do we have an understanding, Panda King?”

“…Yes,” he said, thinking of a bloody mess of fur that was not gray but instead black and white. “Yes, we do.”

“Excellent.” The owl backed off and pointed the cane towards the infirmary door. “Let us visit our disobedient child, then, shall we? I believe we have kept him waiting long enough.”

King entered the room with Clockwerk right behind him, feeling just as much a hostage as the boy sitting in bed. Sly’s eyes widened straight out of tiredness the instant he saw the ancient bird, and he began to tremble. The blanket around his lap he clutched high against his bandaged chest as if it could shield him from further harm.

“Sly Cooper,” the panda began slowly, feeling rather than seeing his leader settle in a corner of the room to watch. “The doctors have told me that you are recovering well, and are no longer at risk of death. They estimate that you will be able to leave this place within another week.”

The raccoon’s gaze remained locked on Clockwerk. There was no indication he had even heard the words spoken to him.

“Sly,” he said, harsher than intended, but it finally pulled the child’s attention towards him. “Once that milestone is reached, you will no longer live here in Kunlun. Sir Raleigh will take you for the foreseeable future.”

“Take me…?” Sly whispered, hoarse and confused and clearly struggling to connect the dots in the midst of his pain and fear. His eyes darted back and forth between King and Clockwerk; the former saw the exact moment realization set in.

“W-Wait. King, wait,” he pleaded, sounding every bit his age instead of the front he often put up. “I can’t – I’m not ready!”

“He will wait until you are well enough to travel.”

“That’s not what I meant! You know it’s not what I meant!”

The panda did not close his eyes in his attempt to block out the stressed pleading in the other’s voice. He remained the perfect representation of stoicism. There was nothing else he could be under the watchful eye of the ancient thing in the room.

“Rules have been established in anticipation of this change,” he finally continued when he was certain his voice wouldn’t waver. “You will follow every order given to you by all of us. You will not attempt to sabotage our work in any way. If you are ever questioned by outside forces, you will not share any details about us. If you are separated from us for any reason, you will endeavor to return to us immediately so we do not think you have tried to escape again.”

“No…no, no, I can’t do this! Please tell them I’m not ready yet!”

Sly was so beside himself with fear that he seemed to have forgotten Clockwerk’s presence entirely as he begged for more time When he made a move as if to climb out of bed, King lunged forward and pressed his hand flat against the raccoon’s collar bone with his thumb sitting just above his bandages.

The boy froze. There were tears in his eyes.

“It is not up to me anymore!” The Panda King’s voice rumbled through the room, loud and angry. “You did a terribly stupid thing and must face the consequences. We have all decided that if you are so ready to risk your life to flee, you are also ready to work for us.”

Sly was actively crying now. He searched King’s face – the man who had spared him from death, who had trusted him with his own child, who he had finally, finally started to trust on some level even if it was clear he would never fully forgive him.

He looked at him, searching for any kind of compassion.

And found none.

The raccoon slumped back against the bed, and the panda removed his hand. It was obvious to both of them that the fight had left him. The reality of his situation had fully set in.

“You will stay here and recover,” King said as he stood up to leave. “And next week, you will be a member of the Fiendish Five.”

Sly looked away as the man headed for the door. He didn’t turn his head even when he stopped in the doorway. The panda wanted to apologize for everything he’d done. Everything he didn’t do. He wanted to promise that Jing would see him one last time before he left, even if that was a promise that he wouldn’t be able to keep.

He wanted to say many things, but he didn’t dare in the presence of his leader. Instead, he walked out of the infirmary with all the steadiness of the heartless crime lord that Sly would now see him as.

Clockwerk did not come out with him. He remained in the room for quite some time afterwards, and when he finally left as well, the Cooper cane was no longer with him.

“If he escapes again, he will return to try to steal back the Thievius Raccoonus from each of us. I have already informed the rest of the Fiendish Five about this. It is a courtesy that I am telling you now.” His eyes burned as he stared at King. “If he is caught by us or arrested in the meantime, that will be considered failure, and we will kill him for it.”

“And…if he succeeds?”

Clockwerk was not capable of smiling. But somehow, looking at him now, the panda could tell that he was.

“He won’t. I have already ensured that.”

With the finality of that statement in place, the owl walked off, leaving King with a deep-seated uneasiness that he would never be able to expel.

Just over a week later, as predicted, Sly was considered healthy enough for travel. He swayed on his feet, leaning heavily on his father’s cane just to remain upright, but it did not concern Raleigh in the slightest as he stood beside him and said his goodbyes to the fireworks master.

“Oh, don’t look so glum!” The frog jeered, pinching the boy’s cheek in a mockery of affection. “I’m not taking you to your death. Only a lifetime of servitude! Think of it as switching custody with a new guardian!”

Sly flinched under the touch and tried to pull away, but Raleigh kept hold of him with a snarl. The raccoon looked up at King one last time; one last plea for him to change his fate before everything changed forever.

The Panda King felt cold yellow eyes on him from afar, and turned his back instead.

He regretted it six months later, when he was finally allowed to work with Sly again and saw a dark bruise ringing his masked face. He regretted it the year afterwards, as the begging in the raccoon’s eyes slowly changed to a burning, constant hatred towards him. He regretted it for every mission where the boy was forced to do more heinous crimes under colleagues who were either indifferent or gleeful about it.

He regretted it all the way to the news of Muggshot’s arrest, where the first spark of hope ignited for the young Cooper in a long time. And then he regretted it again, not long after that, sitting on the floor of his daughter’s room as he told her every shameful detail of the last six years and his part in cultivating it.

Most of them had come from broken lives, falling into the criminal world because it was the only place that accepted them for everything that they were. But Sly Cooper’s life had been broken by them and then shattered completely when he was forced into that dark world against his will, playing a game he could not win, all on the whims of a creature who saw him as nothing more than the name that he carried.

And no matter the circumstances behind it, the Panda King would carry that regret for the rest of his life.

Chapter Text

The Panda King’s bedroom was deceptively modest compared to the rest of his fortress. There was no glamor or declarations of wealth; the furniture was simple and functional, the walls were bare, and the only real indication that this room belonged to him was the bundle of fireworks propped up against a corner. Fireworks were forbidden inside the stronghold for everyone except the crime lord, and these were ones that he always carried for personal protection.

Sly didn’t give a damn about them. What he was scouting for, as he slipped inside and began tearing the room apart, was much more flammable.

The dresser yielded nothing after scattering its contents, so he turned to the futon – ripping sheets away, flipping the mattress, checking the lining for secret pockets. When that proved fruitless as well, the raccoon began banging his cane against the floor and walls with growing frustration.

There – a hollow sound in the seam between two wood panels in the wall closest to the bed. Sly pressed the cane more firmly into the hidden pocket to find the very center, then pulled back to swing at it with all his might. It cracked apart easily, leaving a large hole for him to stick his hand into until his fingers closed around a small metal box.

Its lock came undone with just a few turns of his lockpick. He opened it to the sight of the Panda King’s portion of the Thievius Raccoonus, and when he gently pulled them out, there was a separate paper underneath that did not belong to the rest despite looking just as old. The raccoon felt relief flood his body as he recognized the symbols matching those of the safe he couldn’t crack.

This was the last thing he needed. He could go back, get those last few pages from Clockwerk, and then the game would finally be over.

He’d be free.

The sound of heavy, familiar approaching footsteps made him hold his breath. He pressed himself up against a wall and disappeared from sight just in time for the Panda King to slide open the door. The panda froze at the sight of his room turned upside down, then hurried inside to gape at the hole in the wall that blatantly told him what had been robbed. Sly was still holding the box and its precious contents; his grip tightened possessively when King’s gaze passed unknowingly over his imperceptible form.

“No…” The crime lord muttered in horror. “No, no!”

He turned and rushed from the room, leaving the raccoon alone with his prize. Sly waited until he was certain that the other wouldn’t return before exhaling to drop the invisibility and creeping towards the open door. He peered out cautiously, still hearing King’s heavy footfalls heading in the direction that he himself was planning to go.

Well, there was little point in stealth now. It was obvious what Sly had taken, and it was obvious that the panda expected to intercept him there. If this was going to be a confrontation, then he’d face it as the final hurdle to this entire ordeal that it was.

He closed the box and stashed it in his backpack, retracing his steps to the top of the statue at a much slower pace. His heart was pounding in his chest and his hands were sweating under his gloves, but his mind was crystal clear with what he had to do. Any shred of fear was replaced by adrenaline and grim determination.

As expected, he was not alone when he reached the observatory. The Panda King stood in the center of the room, blocking the safe from sight of the only entrance. Sly’s lip curled as he stepped out from the shadows and into the light, making his presence undeniably known.

“Move,” he growled, hefting his cane to add weight to the command.

King did not move. He was stiff and rigid, staring the raccoon down with a face pinched in pity. It riled Sly up even more.

“Move, King, or I’ll make you.”

“You are welcome to try,” the panda said solemnly. His hands came up in a pacifying gesture. “But I will not go easy on you, Sly Cooper. I have warned you that this path was not a good one to take.”

“And I told you that you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sly yelled. “What gives you the right to act like you care now? You never cared about me. You never had a conscience about what happened to me, no matter how much you pretended you did.”

“You are welcome to believe that, Cooper. I know there are no excuses to my actions – but please, if there is a single thing in which I can convince you, let it be that opening this safe will not save you. It will only doom you.”

The man was trying to placate him. His voice was soft and stressed, and he was looking at the raccoon like he was having a tantrum; like he was still the tiny terrified child constantly trying to escape while King was right there to stop it every step of the way.

Sly felt his lips curl back into an ugly snarl. Two could play at this game.

“You think you’re so high-and-mighty,” he said, voice low. “You think you’re so much better than them because you never laid a hand on me, but you’re not. You hurt me in ways that scarred just as deep as what he left on me. You’re not a hero, you’re not an innocent bystander – you’re not even a good villain, because at least they never deluded themselves into thinking what they were doing wasn’t evil. You’re just a frustrated fireworks forger turned homicidal pyromaniac who’s convinced himself he still has the moral high ground so he doesn’t have to face reality!”

King’s expression contorted in a flash of anger. Whatever nerve the raccoon had struck, it had struck hard; flames began to spark against his palms and up his arms. He shifted, placing one foot behind him to form a defensive position as his hands began to burn. Sly tensed with his cane at the ready.

“Since you are so intent on rushing blindly to your death, I see I can no longer convince you. To honor your life, your struggles, and your tenacity, I will give you a proper, glorious end with the beauty of my firework technique – Flame Fu!”

He launched the first fireball.

Sly was already running.

She was crying. When had she started crying?

Carmelita touched her hand to her cheek and was startled to feel it come away wet. She blinked until she was certain it would stop, then looked at Jing King, who had no such qualms about hiding her emotions. Tears flowed freely down the poor girl’s face as she finished recounting everything her father had told her about Sly Cooper.

The inspector still remembered seeing the scars. There was no way she could ever forget them – those three jagged marks across Sly’s body that he had insisted was nothing more than a machinery mishap. His careful sidestep of that truth had matched every other lie by omission he had fed her for all their time together, but now she had all the missing pieces Jing had placed before her. How they lined up perfectly to form a picture she had been almost willfully blind to.

Different emotions warred within her; horror at what he’d gone through, rekindled anger at the Fiendish Five for the compounded list of atrocities they had committed to no one’s knowledge but their own, her own sense of justice struggling to drown out everything else to shout at her that he was still a criminal who had to answer for the things he’d done.

And beneath all of that, quiet and concerned and persistent – confusion. Hurt. They had worked together. He had trusted her; had told her how difficult that was for him to do, and now she knew exactly why. He had even told her, in the midst of their terrible falling out, that he’d believed she was strong enough to take down the Five for good.

So why hadn’t he told her any of this? Had he still thought so lowly of cops – of her – that it didn’t cross his mind? If she had succeeded in arresting everyone in the group before their blowout had happened, would he have realized he was safe enough to share those secrets without risk of them coming after him, or would he have kept up his lies as long as he could regardless?

She didn’t know. And now, after seeing the way he had looked at her the last time they met, she doubted she’d ever get the chance to learn.

“…Inspector Fox?”

Jing King’s voice was soft and uncertain. She wrung her hands nervously, watching the fox and waiting for a proper response to all the secrets she had just shared.

“I – give me a minute,” Carmelita said, eternally grateful she didn’t sound as shaken up as she felt. “It’s just a lot to process. Did you – can I ask a few more questions?”

The panda nodded, setting her hands down in her lap as she patiently waited for the follow-up. She looked considerably calmer than she’d been when she’d first started talking. Inspector Fox was envious.

“Did you ever see him again after that? After – after they took him away, I mean. Not the…you know.”

“I did not see him while he was working for them, no,” she replied somberly. “If he was ever brought to my father’s territory here in Kunlun during those six years, I was not aware of it. After he escaped, he found his way to my aunt’s house where I was living at the time, and stayed with me for a few days to search for pages of the Thievius Raccoonus…and to recover.”

She gave her a long, slow once-over as she said it, and Carmelita wondered what she was being judged for. Had Sly told her about their fight, or did the girl simply blame her for his condition in the aftermath? She chose her next words carefully, mindful of the layer of mistrust that still persisted between them.

“You mentioned earlier that he wasn’t interested in getting the book back when he was first trying to escape. What changed?”

Jing pursed her lips. “I am uncertain. My father does not know, either, but he suspects it has something to do with Clockwerk’s original prediction that Sly would go after it, and the conversation he had with him that my father was not privy to. Whatever was said between them changed Sly’s priorities.”

The fox thought back to the moment Sly had declared that he would come with her after the rest of the Five. He had told her that he was doing so because he wouldn’t feel safe until they were put away, but she still remembered the look on his face, and even back then had known that there was something else to it. He had been almost manic in his reaction, as though his entire life hinged on convincing her to let him join. After learning he had been part of their team, she’d thought the root of that obsession was revenge – and perhaps some of it still was, knowing the full story now.

But there was something she was missing, something they all were, and as theory after theory crossed her mind as to what, she couldn’t help but wonder, once again, why Sly would willingly throw himself back into the line of fire for the sake of a single book.

“Jing…do you know where your father is now?” She asked as a different thought suddenly occurred to her. “Because I was following Sly when I made it into this statue, and I haven’t seen him since.”

The girl looked up at her sharply. “He has been alternating his time between his room and the security station. Do you think they will encounter each other?”

“If the Panda King still has what Sly is looking for, then it’s very likely. In fact, it might have already happened.”

That statement seemed to terrify Jing. She stumbled to her feet as if to run off, but stopped immediately as she caught eyes with the inspector again.

“…You have yet to tell me what you plan to do,” she said, looking as though she wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room to find her family. The fact that she stayed put was a testament to her will, and Carmelita couldn’t help but respect it. “You said you want to help him; to right every wrong and ensure justice is done, but what does that mean? What will you do if we find my father? If we find Sly?”

“I…”

Honestly? She didn’t entirely know.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, hoping the truth was enough for now. “This is a more complicated situation than I realized, and Sly might not – well, he isn’t exactly trusting me anymore. But I’m hoping that he’ll at least be willing to talk. If we find him alone, I’m not going to threaten him. I just want to talk and – and figure things out from there.”

Jing studied her. “And…if we find my father instead?”

For that, there were no reservations. “I’m going to arrest him. I know you care about him, and it sounds like he has a lot of regrets, but he’s still done terrible things, Jing. Just today, even, he buried an entire town under snow. I can’t let him walk away from that.”

The girl took a deep breath and bowed her head with her eyes closed. When she seemed to come to terms with whatever future was in store for herself and her father, she opened her eyes, squared her shoulders, and held her hand out to Inspector Fox.

“I will help you find them,” she promised as the older woman took the offered hand. “I’ve been complicit in all of this for far too long, even though I was not aware of it. I refuse to be a pawn for evil any longer.”

Carmelita nodded, feeling a surge of her old resolve return for the first time since Wales. One way or another, it was time to make things right.

Flames singed the fur along Sly’s cheek as he ducked a fist covered in fire by a hair’s breadth. He took advantage of the brief window in the Panda King’s defenses to slam his cane into his knee, watching with vicious satisfaction as it buckled under the blow. Then he was forced to dance out of range again when King’s other burning hand almost caught him around the waist in retaliation.

They were both breathing hard, slick with sweat from the heat and the fighting. Sly was fast but inexperienced in combat; his left arm throbbed from where the panda had grabbed it and nearly snapped it in two before he’d slipped out of the deadly hold, and shallow burns peppered his hoodie and his body. King, meanwhile, was struggling from the toll of old age; his hulking frame kept his endurance strong against a dozen harsh impacts by the metal cane, but it could only last so long as his energy waned more and more as the minutes ticked on.

Sly hurried to close the distance before the panda could gear up to start throwing fireballs and rockets and god knew what else, slipping in out of reach like a persistent butterfly and waling on his enemy at every opening he could find. The fight had led to them circling the room so that the safe was at the raccoon’s backside, but he dared not turn around to sprint for it until the threat was down for the count. King had not been bluffing about killing him, and he threw everything he had at him.

In some sick, twisted part of Sly’s mind, it almost felt good to be taken seriously for once in his life.

Finally, the fight hit its apex. He feinted right as though he was going to take aim for King’s knee again. The crime lord lunged low for him – and Sly jumped instead. He vaulted onto his giant outstretched arm, for a single moment, and sprang into the air again with the added height to bring his cane down directly over his head.

The Panda King collapsed with an audible thud.

Sly landed light as a feather in front of him despite the heave of his lungs and the burns across his body. He looked the panda over to make sure his fall wasn’t faked, then looked over at the safe still waiting for him. With one last venomous kick to the Five member’s side, he walked towards his prize while pulling the stolen box from his backpack.

It was child’s play to translate the code from paper to keypad; perhaps, ironically, the easiest thing to overcome among every trial he’d faced in the months it had taken to get here. With his heart practically beating out of his chest, feeling the rising hope that this game was finally over, the raccoon entered the final symbol and opened the safe door.

It was empty.

Sly stilled. No, that couldn’t be right. He put his hands inside, searching for an illusion or a hex that must have made the final pages invisible. When that yielded nothing, he felt about the inner walls for hidden compartments. Something cold and acidic began creeping its way up his throat and into his brain as the seconds ticked by and he couldn’t find the secret to the safe.

He closed the door. Opened it to the same sight. Closed it again and relocked it, then re-entered the code and swung the door open a third time.

Nothing. There was nothing there.

Static pressed into his nerves. His fingers were numb. Sly felt his legs give out beneath him and let them, collapsing to his knees in front of the farce of a safe as his cane slipped from his grip. It couldn’t be true. There had to be something there, or else he’d come all this way for nothing. He’d succeeded again and again, facing death and worse over and over to reach this ending, this promise – and it had led only to failure. He had failed.

No. No.

No.

A groan behind him redirected all his panic into rage in an instant. Sly picked up his cane and turned towards the Panda King, who was struggling to get to his feet with one hand against his head.

“Where are they.” It was a demand, not a question.

King looked up blearily, confused until his clouded eyes fell on Clockwerk’s open, empty safe and the dangerously motionless raccoon beside it. He shook his head, fighting another groan as he did so.

“Don’t give me that shit!” Sly stalked forward to jam the wooden end of his cane hard into the other’s shoulder. The firework forger lost his balance and what little ground he had gained, falling to his hands and knees almost instantly. “You’ve had this thing sitting here all these years, holding onto it for him. Going on and on about my goals having no good ending. There’s no fucking way you don’t know where they really are!”

He shook his head again in silence.

“Tell me where the last pages are, King!”

“I do not know,” the panda finally said in the face of his shout, looking just as lost as him. Sly didn’t buy a word of it. “I was tasked with keeping the safe protected and told never to open it. I know just as much as you.”

The raccoon snarled and hooked the cane around the man’s neck. He yanked it forward, forcing King to remain kneeling as a shocked gaze met a blazing one. They were pressed nearly snout to snout.

“No more lies,” he growled. “No more mind games. No more turning a blind eye to what’s around you for your peace of mind. Tell me where Clockwerk hid his portion of the Thievius Raccoonus in your stronghold, or I’ll show you exactly how those talons felt across your own body.”

Sly stared at the Panda King. The Panda King stared at Sly. Nothing was said because nothing needed to be said as it hit him all at once. King wasn’t lying. He didn’t know any more than the raccoon did, but one truth had made itself clear between them.

The last of the book was not here. It had never been.

The weight of that comprehension nearly staggered Sly. He stared down at King’s remorseful form, still caught precariously by the weapon around his throat, and struggled to think through the sudden haze of a mocking, metallic voice in his head.

Oh, how stupid he was. How very, very stupid.

A delirious, frantic laugh bubbled its way out of his mouth. It was a single sound, one loud horrific realization that echoed around the room, as Sly Cooper looked back at the game he had played for over half his life and finally understood that he had never been another player to begin with. He had been its prize, that coveted thing that the Five had played for and used and fought over until it had finally slipped out of their greedy hands and into patient, waiting claws.

And those claws would not make the mistake of letting him live a second time.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t cry. He didn’t even get angry again. A heavy sort of finality settled over him in the wake of this revelation, scrubbing away all emotion and leaving only emptiness. Sly stared down at the Panda King, who stared back with wide eyes that – for the first time since he had ever met him – suddenly recognized the sight of someone well and truly having nothing left to lose.

They found the crime lord’s room torn completely apart.

Jing stood in the doorway, shocked, while Carmelita searched the area just long enough to figure out what the path of destruction had been. Neither of them had to guess as to who was behind it.

“He must have found the rest of the book,” the inspector said grimly as she studied the empty hole in the wall. “He’s probably long-gone by now.”

“I hope so,” the girl replied, stepping aside to let her out of the room and into the hallway. “I hope he found everything he was looking for, and that he never has to return here again.”

Carmelita frowned, hearing the melancholy in her voice and unsure of whether it was her place to comfort the panda. Before she could decide either way, there was a sudden, distant shout from somewhere above them.

“Tell me where the last pages are, King!”

The fury in Sly’s voice startled her just as badly as the fact that she had heard it at all; never in her time knowing him had he ever been so loud. She whirled on Jing, who was staring up at the ceiling with her mouth agape.

“We need to find them now – where are the nearest stairs?”

The girl snapped out of her bewilderment and grabbed Carmelita by the wrist, hurrying towards the opposite end of the hall and around another corner until they found the way up. They both sprinted for all they were worth, making their way higher and higher until at last they came to the very top.

It was the room Inspector Fox had come in through with her jetpack when she’d followed Sly. That was the first thing she registered upon entering. The second thing was that of him standing over a kneeling Panda King, both looking banged up and exhausted.

The third thing was the Cooper cane wrapped around King’s neck.

Carmelita froze. Jing, behind her, did as well. Sly didn’t even seem to realize they had arrived; all his attention was on the crime lord at his mercy.

“I could kill you like this.” His voice was soft as a fallen snowflake and just as chilled. It sent a shiver down the fox’s spine. “I should kill you. After everything you’ve done, you don’t deserve mercy.”

The Panda King remained silent, head bowed and eyes closed. He appeared to have accepted his fate.

But Carmelita did not.

“Sly.”

Later, she would be surprised by how quiet her call to him had been – how it had sounded more like she was pleading with someone standing on the edge of a bridge instead of being about to kill a man. But right now, all she could focus on was the raccoon standing perfectly still in front of her.

“Sly, don’t do it.”

His head swiveled her direction first. His eyes followed at a delay as though detached from the rest of him.

“Oh. Carmelita. Hey.”

The way he looked at her was like nothing she had ever seen on anyone. Even in Wales, it had still been him under the walls he had put up. Right now, there was no sign at all of the ringtail she’d grown to care about.

There was nothing there at all.

“Funny seeing you here,” he continued without any inflection, as if they were simply conversing about the weather while he was two seconds away from snapping King’s neck. “You missed all the action, I’m afraid. Didn’t make it in time to kick ass and make arrests like you’re so good at.”

His blank gaze bore holes into her. She could see his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the handle of his cane.

“Or maybe it’s not too late for that. I’m still here, after all. You could always go after me again.” His voice remained toneless, but his body began to shake. “You’ll probably catch me this time if you do. I’d call it a draw, since I won the last round, but I think you’ll win regardless in the end. What do you think?”

“Sly,” Carmelita repeated, slow and cautious. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s not worth it. Please don’t do it.”

The raccoon tilted his head at her words, bizarrely similar to the way a bird would. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

There was no accusation there like she expected. Just a fact, stated simple and blunt.

“You’re right. I don’t know.” Her hands came up in surrender. His eyes tracked the movement with a lazy, deceptive precision. “I’ve been learning that more and more tonight – I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know how hard it must have been for you. I don’t know what you’ve had to do to survive. I’ve made a lot of assumptions about you all this time, and I have no excuse for the way I’ve treated you.”

Slowly, broadcasting every move she made, the inspector reached for the belt around her waist. Sly didn’t blink a single time as she removed it – and by extension, the holster containing her shock pistol – and dropped it to the ground. She picked the gun up by the toe of her foot and kicked it away, keeping her gaze on him as it skittered out of both of their ranges.

His expression did not change. The hold on his cane squeezed even tighter.

“I met your sister tonight, and she told me a little bit.” Carmelita leaned back on her heels to acknowledge the panda standing silent behind her, and she saw the moment Sly realized she was there too. For the very first time, his face flickered out of its emptiness, in and out in a blink, and she almost missed it. “She set me straight on all the things I’ve been wrong about.”

Next came the jetpack. It was harder to take off as smoothly as her pistol had been, but she tried her best. One strap off of one shoulder, the other off of the other, and she let it fall the same way. It clacked harshly against the hard ground, but neither of them flinched.

“What have you been wrong about?” He asked without any real weight to the question. “I’m a criminal. I’m a Cooper. I’m not worth anything except for how much I can get into trouble. That sums it up pretty well, doesn’t it?”

She swallowed. Searched the deepest parts of her training for every de-escalation tactic she had ever learned. Searched even deeper for the truths she had not allowed herself to face until now.

“You’re worth everything to me, Sly. I wouldn’t have even made it out of Mesa without you. I’d be dead countless times over without you. You believed in me when no one else would. I was a failure before we met. Everyone thought I was too impulsive, and a screw-up, and – and that I didn’t deserve my title or even my badge. I wasn’t just getting into trouble; I was getting everyone around me into trouble. That includes you. I made you believe you could trust me, and then I destroyed that trust out of stubborn ignorance.”

Carmelita held her hands out again – not in placation, but in welcoming. Recognition. An offer of peace between two equals.

“I’m sorry, Sly. I’m sorry for making you feel like you weren’t worth enough. You are. I –”

She hesitated, and then refused to do so any longer.

“I care about you, Ringtail. I have for a long time. And that’s never going to change, because you know how bull-headed I get when I set my heart on something. So please, please don’t do something that you’ll regret. Don’t do something that will make you hate yourself more than you already do. You deserve better than that.”

It was silent for a very long time. She didn’t know if her words had sunk in, if they had made a real impact, but it was all she could hope for as she continued to hold her hands out and waited for the reaction. Sly stared at her, studying her in that way that pierced to her very soul, and she held her head high to show that there was nothing left to hide. She had said her piece.

Whatever happened next, she would face it without any regrets.

When Sly finally pulled his gaze from her, it was to look instead at Jing. The fox didn’t know what she was thinking, or even the expression on her face – she was still standing behind her – but nearly a full minute passed as they shared a conversation known only to them. Eventually, as if waking up from some far-off dream, he looked down at the Panda King still waiting for his verdict.

The raccoon startled like he’d been hit. He took his cane off of King’s neck and backed away skittishly, eyes darting back and forth between both pandas and the inspector as though they might turn on him anyway despite his moment of mercy. Before anyone could say a single word, he turned tail and ran out the shattered window, where he disappeared from sight in the dark night.

Carmelita nearly collapsed where she was standing. The only reason she didn’t was because she sensed Jing about to do the same, and instead turned to grab her arm to steady her. The girl gave her a grateful look before running straight for her father.

The inspector wanted to do the same, to go after Sly before he was gone again, but she couldn’t. There were still people counting on her to do her job. She wasn’t going to let them down again.

Her radio was clipped to her hip at one of the belt loops; the only piece of police equipment she hadn’t dropped during her intense stand-off with the raccoon. She pulled it up to her mouth and somehow found her voice to be steady.

“Inspector Fox to Team Alpha. I’ve successfully infiltrated the fortress and have taken the Panda King into custody. What is your current position?”

It took a few seconds to gain a reply, but the officer who answered only sounded mildly distracted. “Team Alpha to Inspector Fox. We have just reached the base entrance and have overtaken King’s men here. ETA to sweep the fortress for remaining hostiles: fifteen to thirty minutes. Where should we meet you?”

“I’ll be waiting at the top right observatory.”

“Copy that. Over and out.”

As she attached the radio back onto her jeans, Carmelita looked over at the infamous crime lord and his gentle daughter. The former had yet to stand from his place on the floor; his expression was thoughtful as he absently rubbed at his neck. The latter kneeled beside him, running her hands over his body to catalogue his injuries.

“The rest of my team will be here soon, you know.” It was not stated as a warning, as neither seemed willing to flee, but she still watched them both with more than a little tension.

“I know,” Jing said, looking out at the open window. She sighed, quiet and watery, before giving the inspector a soft, sad smile. “We will wait for them and face whatever comes together. It is the most honorable thing we can do.”

“It is the only thing I can do,” the elder panda added. His voice was full of resignation and regret. “Nothing else will atone for the things I’ve done in this life. Perhaps that isn’t even enough.”

He finally met her eyes. She was startled by how cold they were towards her despite his heavy words. Despite everything she’d learned about him, he was still a ruthless, terrifying man even in defeat.

“Go,” he told her. “We will not flee when your back is turned. Go, and find him. Do what I…what I could not.”

For the first time in her life, Carmelita fully believed the words of a criminal. She gave a single, firm nod, turned on her heel, and rushed for the broken window.

He’s probably long gone, she told herself as she reached the empty frame. He’s probably halfway down the mountain without a trace, just like last –

He was sitting just outside.

Carmelita froze for half a second, almost afraid that the raccoon would disappear like a mirage if she made another move. His ear flicked backwards at the sound of her, but he didn’t turn around. She took it as a tentative sign to approach.

Carefully, the inspector came over and sat down next to him. His cane was draped across his lap, as was a handful of old, tattered papers, and he stared at them without really seeing them.

“...Sly?”

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”

It was said so quietly that she almost didn’t catch it. The fox wrapped her arms around her knees as she waited for him to elaborate.

“I thought I knew what I was doing,” he continued after several moments of silence between them. “That first night we met, when I offered to help you find Muggshot…I didn’t give a shit about you or your job. I just saw an opportunity to get what I needed, and a chance to screw over at least one of the monsters who made my life hell in the process.”

Sly started turning the cane over and over in his hands. Carmelita didn’t move a muscle to take it away or even stop him. She wasn’t as surprised as she figured she should be to realize that she didn’t fear him anymore.

Not like this.

“Then, when you started going after the rest of them, I joined you because it was an opportunity to steal my family’s book back. It was what I was supposed to do. It was what was expected of me. I steal the whole book back and then I’d finally be able to escape for real.”

He lifted those worn pages just enough for her to catch a glimpse of old drawings and even older handwriting.

“But getting it back didn’t do that. All it did was tell me that I was an idiot for ever believing otherwise. Going after this thing meant either getting caught by them again, or ending up dead. I don’t know why I ever thought my life would go any differently.”

At the base of the fortress, they could both see other Interpol officers making their way up, visible by their flashlights even in the pitch black of the night. It would probably be ten minutes tops before they reached the observatory.

The raccoon wasn’t making any move to leave. He stared at the incoming team down below with despondent eyes.

Carmelita shivered and rubbed her arms, but not from the cold. “But – but it doesn’t have to be either of those options, Sly. You got out. You’re free of them now.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves, Inspector,” he said quietly. Bitterly. “I’m not free. You’re going to arrest me, or your team will, and I’ll just be in a brand-new kind of cage. Maybe an even worse one, once word gets out that I worked with the cops to save my own skin.”

“We can – figure something out,” she responded, struggling to think of some way, any way, to help him without compromising her job or her morals. “You could get representation, make a case for your – your unusual circumstances. If you testify against the Fiendish Five and explain everything, surely a judge will understand –”

He was shaking his head before she was even finished speaking. “You know that’s not how it works. They’re going to hear my last name and then it’s all over. And even if that’s not enough to doom me, it will only be a matter of time before I’m caught by the one person who will never let me go.”

Before she could ask what he meant, Sly carefully folded the pages of his family treasure and tucked them in his backpack. Then he stood up, gaze on the distant horizon. She did the same if only to stay at his eye level.

“I’m done, Carmelita. I tried to get out, and I couldn’t. I tried to get revenge, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even put the Thievius Raccoonus back together all the way. I’ve failed, and it’s over. So I’m going to choose that end on my terms, because it’s the only choice I have left.”

He turned to look at her. His expression was tight with pain and exhaustion, but there was the smallest, genuine smile on his face.

“For what it’s worth, though, I did have fun with you. Traveling the world, having someone actually watching my back, taking down scumbags who deserved it. It was nice. And if you meant even half of the things you said back there…”

The raccoon held out his cane to her, wrists up as if waiting for her to cuff him.

“Then let me make it up to you for all the trouble I’ve caused. One last member of the Fiendish Five to put away.”

Carmelita stared at him in shock.

“…Sly, I –”

A shadow fell over them.

Both their heads snapped up. Coming down from the sky like a speeding bullet was a set of giant wings that glinted in the moonlight. Talons sharp as death were aimed right for them – aimed right for him.

Sly was rooted to the spot, staring up at the incoming monster in pure transfixed terror. The horror in his eyes was matched only by hers as she realized that he was too petrified to try to run.

Petrified, and then resigned.

Instincts took over. Carmelita moved.

Her body collided full-force with his, sending him tumbling from the statue’s eyes to its nose and into deep snow right before deadly claws swiped at the place he had just been standing – and closed around her instead. They squeezed tight enough to make her lose her breath and the world lurched around her as suddenly she was in the sky.

The last thing she saw before the lack of air consumed her and her vision went dark was Sly’s stunned face, watching helplessly as she was carried away.

Chapter Text

Murray had no idea what time it was when his phone startled him awake. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, hand reaching blindly for the thing that was blaring like a siren on his nightstand. Squinting at a number he didn’t recognize, the hippo silenced the call before laying it back down, then rolled over towards the wall in the hopes of falling back asleep quickly.

No such luck. After barely twenty seconds of blessed quiet, the phone lit up again just as obnoxiously loud as the first time. Murray groaned in irritation as he realized that this was still that same strange number and they weren’t going to go away any time soon. What kind of telemarketers called multiple times in the middle of the night?

The most stubborn ones, apparently.

Against his better judgment, the hippo answered it with a groggy “hello?”

“I need to talk to your coworker right now.”

“Whuh…” He sat up with a frown. That voice was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t for the life of him place it. “I’m sorry, what? Who are you?”

“It’s Sly – the, the raccoon with Inspector Fox. You gave me your phone number, remember?”

It took a few moments for him to remember the quiet guy who had come in with Miss Fox several weeks back. He sounded impatient and stressed, and that made Murray sit up in bed just as much as recognizing the caller did.

“Oh, uh, yeah, hi Sly, it’s good to hear from you? Why are you calling in the middle of the night?”

“It’s not night where I’m at right now,” Sly said, still impatient although now he seemed a little apologetic about waking him up. “Look, I need to talk to your coworker. Do you have his number so I can call him?”

“Uh…”

The hippo glanced at his shut bedroom door. He and Bentley were roommates, and it was more than likely that the turtle was still awake and working, but he wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to tell this stranger. Everyone always told him he was too trusting for his own good, and that it wasn’t polite to share personal information about other people without asking them first.

“…Why do you want to talk to him, exactly?”

Sly let out a loud, frustrated huff. “It’s really important. I need – I – it’s – Inspector Fox and I were working on a case together, but she’s in danger. I can’t help her without your friend’s help.”

Murray’s eyes went wide. He clutched the phone closer to his face. “Wait, Miss Fox is in trouble? Is she okay? What happened?”

“I don’t know if she’s okay.” The stress in the raccoon’s voice was even stronger now. “I can’t tell you what happened, but the more time I waste, the more likely it is that she’s – that I can’t help her. So I need to talk to Bentley. Please, Murray.”

He bit his lip and began making his way to the door. “Okay, um…hang on just one second, okay?”

Sly made another noise, like he was being strangled, and that got the hippo moving even faster. If it was true that Miss Fox was in danger and only Bentley could help, then he couldn’t waste any time!

He headed down the hall to his roommate’s room and was relieved to see light filtering through the crack under the door. When he knocked, he heard Bentley jump in his chair.

“Murray?” The turtle asked as he opened the door to squint at him. There were large bags under his eyes beneath his glasses and he looked like he hadn’t even tried to go to bed the whole night. “What are you doing up this late?”

There would be time to scold him for not sleeping later, after they dealt with whatever scary thing Miss Fox and her friend were involved in. He shoved his phone into Bentley’s hands, making him blink rapidly in surprise.

“That raccoon guy who was with Miss Fox just called me,” Murray told him as fast as he could. “He said she’s in danger and he needs your help! You gotta help him, Bentley!”

“I – wha – hold on…” He put the phone to his ear. “Hello? This is Bentley. Why did you call Murray in the middle of – what?”

The hippo watched, anxious, as his friend’s expression changed from confusion to shock to concern in seconds.

“Well, that’s awful, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to…her tech? You’ll have to be more specific; I don’t even know what you have – okay. Uh huh. Shock pistol and a…a jetpack? What model? You need to find the serial number! It – yeah, it should be somewhere on there.”

Murray twiddled his thumbs while Bentley began talking about special technology and how to use them and other things that just went completely over his head. He tried very hard not to shuffle in place, afraid that it might distract him.

“…Okay, that covers everything, I think,” the turtle finally said after several minutes of back-and-forth. “Are we finished? Cause I’d really like to go back to bed. I know you’re worried about Inspector Fox, but I’m sure you’ll be able to – pardon?”

He got quiet very suddenly, eyes growing wider and wider over whatever Sly was saying.

“You want to make a – hang on, hang on, I need to –”

With one quick, nervous glance at his roommate, Bentley turned around to disappear back into his room, still on the phone. His door slammed shut before Murray could join him. The hippo stood there in shock for a minute, unsure if he should follow or not, before deciding that his friend had closed the door for a reason and probably wanted some privacy.

Why he wanted privacy was a mystery, but there were a lot of things the turtle did that were mysteries to Murray.

Almost half an hour later, Bentley finally came out of his room. He trudged over to the tiny kitchen where the hippo had started making a midnight snack while he waited, and gave the cellphone back with a glazed look in his eye.

“Uh, Bentley? Everything okay?”

“I sincerely hope that was a trusted coworker of Inspector Fox,” he said, slow and anxious, “because if he isn’t, I might have just done something incredibly illegal.”

Murray gasped. “You mean he might have stolen her stuff and you just helped him figure out how it all works?”

“No. Well, yes, but also…”

Bentley gulped.

“…I just helped him build a bomb.”

Sly watched the Panda King turn his back and leave the medical room without looking even the slightest bit upset, despite the fact he had just dropped a bomb on the raccoon’s life and destroyed it in a single instant. He should have known not to trust one of the people who had attacked his home and killed his family, who had helped kidnap him, but after all these years, he’d thought – he’d hoped – that things had changed. He’d really thought that the panda would protect him when it came down to it.

He should have known better. He should have known that the Panda King was just as much of a monster as –

“You cry over false hope.”

The kit froze with tears still streaming down his face.

He had not forgotten who had perched in the far corner during that fight, but that presence had not felt like the most pressing threat while he had been pleading with King to delay his fate. Now, as his wide eyes slid from the door to the yellow gaze burning straight through him, he felt very stupid for ever thinking otherwise.

“The Panda King was never interested in your wellbeing, and you are foolish to have ever believed otherwise,” Clockwerk continued. He had not moved a metallic muscle from his spot since speaking. “There are no allies for you here. Even his daughter, who you thought cared for you, has turned her back on you. She was the one who told me that you had fled. She is the reason you were caught.”

Sly didn’t dare protest; he didn’t even think of doing so. This creature had always cut to his core by speaking only the truth. He had taken great pleasure in it on the night he had told the raccoon that he belonged to the Fiendish Five, long before he fully understood what that meant. Even now he could feel it – under the hatred still radiating off of his metal shell, the monster bird was delighted that the few people Sly had cared for in this nightmare had betrayed him.

He took a deep shuddering breath and did his best to remain perfectly still. His chest ached horribly under its bandages. The owl studied him in silence for several agonizing seconds.

“Our conversation from here out does not leave this room.”

It was a statement, not a command, and the boy swallowed alongside a stiff, terrified nod. Seemingly satisfied by the agreement, Clockwerk stepped forward until he was standing at the foot of Sly’s bed. He had to hunch heavily forward, too big for the room’s ceiling; it made him loom even more over the tiny, trapped subject of his attention.

“As the Panda King said, you will join the rest of my team in their criminal exploits beginning next week. The consequences have already been laid out for if you refuse, or attempt escape again. These parameters will always remain in place.”

The raccoon didn’t close his eyes in despair like he wanted to. He continued to stare at the monster, paying attention for all he was worth.

“It is clear how much you despise us. You would run from us again if given the chance. The only reason you will not is that as much as you hate working for those who killed your parents, you fear death and pain even more.”

Clockwerk leaned down until his beak was an inch from Sly’s face. Now, there was nothing but hatred in those terrible eyes.

“Make no mistake, Sly Cooper: your survival from my attack was deliberate. I could have killed you as I did your father, and no one – not the Panda King, not the rest of the Fiendish Five, not anyone – would have dared to stop me. You despise all of us, but it is nothing compared to the loathing I have for you. Your name, your blood, your heritage, everything. You live by my word alone, and you will die by my claws. Sooner or later, you will become bold enough to retaliate against the others, or think you are capable enough to slip out of their grasp. And even if it is neither of these things, you are not infallible. You will eventually outgrow your usefulness to my team. They will tire of your presence, and they will ask me to relieve them of the burden that you are. It is not a prediction; it is a fact.”

The child could feel his breaths coming out faster, shallower, but it was as though all his panic was locked deep in his body as he stared into that yellow gaze while the owl told him exactly what his fate would be. He couldn’t flee, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t even blink as the words sank into his brain and his heart. All he could do was clutch the blanket in his lap for all it was worth, waiting for things to end.

Finally, miraculously, Clockwerk pulled away, giving just enough space for Sly to feel in control of himself again. He let out one single, quiet choked sob, trying desperately to keep his body from falling apart for how much it had started shaking. Never once, though, did he take his eyes off of the threat still standing before him.

“There is one exception to this outcome, however.” The monster shifted so that he could lift one of his clawed feet into the air. Sly’s eyes locked onto the Cooper cane he was holding. “I told you, five years ago, that we would see how well you would measure up to your father. The Fiendish Five all believe that this referred to how useful you would be to them as a criminal, but that is not my true intent. Only you will have that knowledge. You have made yourself known as a Cooper, now, and thus you have earned my utmost honesty. Do not take it for granted.”

The raccoon gave another stilted nod, unsure if he was even supposed to respond but not willing to risk it.

“You see, I play a very different game than the rest of them. When we stole the Thievius Raccoonus, they saw it only as a means to an end; they have been using the book as a mere tool without understanding what it truly does. It does not simply give you a better way to achieve your criminal goals, but instead makes you a better criminal. The fools in your bloodline have flaunted this book of secrets, of betterment, for centuries upon centuries with no struggles in their lives. They inherited it through the ages, as if not thieves but kings, until this chain of arrogance and ego was finally broken with your very existence.”

Clockwerk placed the cane on the bed in front of Sly. He leaned forward again, scrutinizing the boy as if daring him to take it. The kit didn’t move.

“Let’s make a deal, Sly Cooper. You and I,” the owl said. His tone was unreadable. “I want to see what becomes of a Cooper who is forced to rely on his own raw talent instead of the Thievius Raccoonus. I want to see if you can keep up with the Fiendish Five, but more than that, I want to see if you can surpass them. I want to see if you can prove that a Cooper is worth more than the falsehoods and thievery that they are known for.”

He tilted his head, and the expectation was clear. Sly Cooper picked up the cane.

“I want you to steal back your Thievius Raccoonus from every member of my team. If you are caught in your attempts to do this, it will be treated as a betrayal, and we will kill you. However, if you succeed in restoring the book completely…you will be free. Free of the life you are living, and free of the name that you carry. Do you accept these terms?”

The very idea of freedom from all of this made his heart beat out of his still-bloody chest. He thought about the deal this monster was offering. This monster who had killed his father – the strongest person he’d ever known – and had hurt him so terribly. He was no more trustworthy than the rest of the Fiendish Five, and yet…

And yet, what other choice did the raccoon have? He was condemned no matter what. At least in this way, there was the tiniest bit of hope for a future he no longer dared to have.

Sly Cooper took one deep breath, then another, and held the cane out towards Clockwerk. His voice, thin and raspy from screaming, did not waver.

“I accept.”

Clockwerk took the offered hook by two talons. He shook it with deadly honesty, gentle as could be, then released it and turned towards the door.

“I have left my portion of the Thievius Raccoonus here with the Panda King to give you a sporting chance,” he said, staring at Sly as though he was a powerful rival and not an injured child. “My home is in the Krakarov Volcano, but I do not expect you to make it that far. In fact, let us assume that the only time you will ever see it is if and when you fail in this game we have begun. I think it would be a fitting place for the death of the very last Cooper.”

When Carmelita woke up, it was to the loud, constant hum of machinery.

She groaned as she gingerly sat up, aching from head to toe as if she’d just been hit by a car. The ground beneath her was metallic, but deceptively warmer than she would have expected. When she looked up, she was surprised to see the slightest reflection of light in front of her. She did a slow three-sixty to the exact same sight at every turn.

She was in a large, glass…thing.

The inspector pressed one hand against the glass. It felt warm as well. Realization set in that it wasn’t just the container that was like this; the very air itself was thick with heat, despite the room she was in having no obvious source for it beyond the half dozen computers and their ridiculously-sized monitors lining the walls. From every top corner, four cameras were trained on her, and she could see heavy-duty vents embedded all over the floor outside her odd cage seemingly at random.

The single exception to all the fancy technology was one wall-to-ceiling mirror, which mocked her as she stared at it and her own face stared back. Her winter coat was in tatters – probably ripped to shreds by the talons of whatever had carried her off. Her hair was a knotted mess of a braid, and there were tiny grey flecks scattered about in it that was definitely not snow. Carmelita began lifting her arm to investigate and immediately regretted it as her body protested with pain.

She pulled up the rim of her shirt, mysterious hair dirt momentarily forgotten, and grimaced when she found a dark purple bruise wrapped around her entire midsection. It was visible through her fur, in the exact shape of the crushing grip that had stolen her breath and knocked her unconscious. Holding back the full-body shudder that threatened to overtake her at the memory took more willpower than she would ever admit.

Aside from the bruising, she was unharmed. The fox viewed it as a silver lining in this terrible situation she had found herself in, and next began cataloguing what she had available for escape.

Her jetpack and shock pistol were missing; it took a moment to remember that she had removed them while talking Sly down from his near-homicide and hadn’t picked them back up before finding him outside of the observatory. Taking them off was something she didn’t regret, even though she kicked herself for her lack of foresight after the immediate threat had ended. The only thing still on her was her radio, but, as she scrambled to turn it on, it was a hope quickly dashed when all it spit out was static.

Without the radio working, she had no way to contact Interpol. Her GPS tracker had been left in the truck with most of the rest of her stuff for the sake of mobility and speed over anything else. None of her team knew where she was; she doubted any of them had even seen her get carried off. Clockwerk – because it had to be Clockwerk, who else would it have been? – had ambushed her and Sly so silently that she hadn’t even heard his approach until it was too late. No one else would have thought to look up while they were preoccupied with securing the Panda King’s fortress. The inspector was on her own when it came to getting out of here.

She had the thought, for a moment, of her former partner – and then firmly pushed it away before it could give her false hope. There was a good chance he had no idea where she’d been taken, and even if he did know, he was terrified of the Five’s leader. Expecting him to follow her to the ends of the earth with his worst nightmare waiting there was expecting far, far too much.

Even if he didn’t hate her anymore.

Mind made up, Carmelita began testing the glass to see if it was thin enough to shatter with her feet or even the radio. It didn’t give no matter how much force she hit it with, so instead she turned to the floor where it met metal. There wasn’t the slightest weakness she could find in the entire circle. The glass rose high above her, capped by a metal cover, but the diameter of her container was too wide for her to climb up the cylindrical walls.

Frustrated and sweating up a storm, she began taking off her shredded coat, then paused as she realized there was a slight weight to one of the pockets that she hadn’t noticed before. The inspector pulled the thing out quickly, hoping it was something she could use.

It was Sly’s camera she held in her hands.

Carmelita’s mind stalled with surprise. She hadn’t seen this thing since Wales. She remembered it, of course – the raccoon had gotten it somewhere between the USA and Haiti, and she’d often catch him taking pictures of just about any novelty he saw while they traveled, which had been a lot.

In hindsight, maybe she should have taken more note of the fact that he considered mini-marts and migrating birds to be among such novelties.

Thinking about Sly and his terrible lot in life made a rush of righteous anger flow right through her. The fox tucked the camera safely away back in her coat, deeming it a mystery to solve at a later time, and turned towards the open room beyond her odd prison.

“Hey!” She yelled up at the ceiling. “Is anyone there? What’s the meaning of this?”

There was no response except for that continued, constant hum of machinery. Carmelita worked her mouth before taking a step closer to the nearest barrier.

“I know you’re watching me. I can see those cameras. What do you want? Is this a ransom for Interpol? Some kind of retaliation? What demands do you have?”

Still nothing. The inspector let out a frustrated growl and kicked at the reinforced glass. All it gave her for her troubles was a smarting toe.

“You’re Clockwerk, aren’t you?” She called out one last time, hoping to get a reply through that. “Kidnapping doesn’t fit your known MO. Is it because I’ve arrested all your colleagues? If you were afraid of getting caught too or wanted revenge, why not just kill me?”

The cameras all stared at her in mocking silence. She bit her lip, running over the few facts she had. Clockwerk didn’t do things like this. He worked in the shadows, never revealing himself except to help his fellow Five escape at the very end of a heist. The bird was as elusive a criminal as Conner Cooper had been.

Cooper.

Inspector Fox stiffened as she remembered that night in Kunlun. Sly, dejected and certain his life was over. Offering to let her arrest him because he thought it was the only choice of fate that he could make for himself. The pure horror on his face as he looked up at what had felt like the grim reaper bearing down on them both, and then even worse – the resignation that he had clearly fallen into without even trying to run.

She thought about Jing’s story of his failed escape and the price he had paid for it. His strange shift from just wanting to get away for good, to going back over and over to steal his family’s book back for no rational reason.

“This isn’t about me at all, is it?” She asked, as much to herself as to her absent captor. “It’s about Sly Cooper.”

It was like the name alone had flipped a switch of a long-dormant machine. The computer screens all over the room turned on, and Carmelita was suddenly, finally, face to face with the dark silhouette of the leader of the Fiendish Five.

“It has always been about Cooper.” The giant owl said. His voice was cold. Emotionless. Robotic, even. It sent a shiver up her spine. “From the very beginning to the very end.”

“But why?” She questioned, understanding the actions but not the motive. “You killed a rival criminal in Conner Cooper, and then kept his son alive because he was useful. But why the – why toy with him all this time? I know he was trying to take back what you’d all stolen from him, but…he doesn’t actually care about that, does he?”

Clockwerk didn’t respond. He simply stared at Carmelita, his yellow eyes the only detail she could fully make out in his shrouded visage.

“I asked him why he kept risking getting caught by you guys, and all he could say was that he needed to get his book back. He told me right before you attacked us that he had to do that, and then he’d be able to ‘escape for real.’ It sounds like someone obsessed with fixing their family’s reputation, but that’s not what was going on at all, was it?”

Her voice came out louder and louder as the revelation hit her in full, terrible force.

“All he’s ever wanted was to be free, but he knew you’d come after him. He’s terrified of you because he fully believed it wasn’t possible to escape while you were out there. You made him think that you – that you’d let him go if he stole his book back? That you wouldn’t chase after him if he, what, if he humiliated your team enough? Is that what this is all about?”

The owl’s head twitched to the side in a perfect forty-five-degree angle. “I suppose I can indulge in this thread you’ve managed to untangle, just this once. It has been a very long time since someone who wasn’t a Cooper discovered one of my plans, after all, and you are certainly not in a position to do anything about it for much longer.”

Carmelita suppressed another shiver, and refused to look anything other than the confident, collected Inspector she had become over the course of this entire affair.

“While it is true that I allowed Cooper to believe he had any fate but death waiting for him by recovering the Thievius Raccoonus, you are only half-correct about my motives. I do not care about such shallow, insignificant things as the Fiendish Five’s reputation. Any failure on their part to protect their stolen pages of that book was entirely on them, but I would never allow the world to assume that I would let Cooper go if he were successful. It is not possible for him to succeed, you see. Even though the rest of my cohorts disappointed me, I expected it. I planned for it.

“I wanted to show the world that without their precious book, the Cooper line was nothing. It has been their crutch for thievery for as long as I have known them, and now that I have taken it away, the proof of that is known to all. Sly Cooper was not even able to get this far on his own; he was so weak that he was forced to seek aid from you.”

The dark glee in his voice made her skin crawl. Her tail twitched without consent while she absorbed his twisted words and motives.

“I don’t understand,” she said, very slowly, as every alarm in her mind suddenly went off at once. “You keep talking about the Cooper family, like – like you’ve been around as long as they have. How old are you?”

Clockwerk regarded her for a long, silent minute. Eventually he tilted his head in the opposite direction, almost as if amused by the inquiry – or perhaps deciding she was worth an honest answer for her part in the game he had been playing without anyone else knowing.

“Perfection has no age,” he finally said. “I have kept myself alive for hundreds of years with a steady diet of jealousy and hate.”

Carmelita couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What are you saying? That you’re…immortal?”

“Revenge is the prime ingredient in the fountain of youth. I have been patiently awaiting the day when I would finally eclipse the Cooper family’s thieving reputation.”

The glee was gone. All that was left was the darkness and the spite. It was so powerful that the inspector nearly averted her gaze even though she wasn’t the target of it.

“Those arrogant Coopers dared to claim they held the title of master thieves, but they were always inferior. I am a master thief. I was the master thief. The original. The antecedent. And I have proved it, time and time again.”

“How…how would you prove something like that?” She asked, dreading the answer but compelled to learn.

“By achieving the ultimate crime.”

Soulless yellow eyes burned into hers. The eyes of a predator.

“To steal the lives of such master thieves – that is how I prove my superiority.”

Carmelita recoiled, appalled and horrified by the thing she was talking to. “Criminal” was too kind a word to describe him, even among his Fiendish companions. He was nothing less than a monster.

“How many?” The question came out in a whisper against her own will.

“Nearly all of them. Those who did not succumb to sickness, or injury, or unfortunate circumstances. I hunted entire family trees through the generations. I diluted their sprawling lineage across the entire world, narrowing it down meticulously until only one pitiful, struggling bloodline remained. I nearly completed my goal with Conner Cooper, but he evaded me for too long and became too well-known through his exploits and his book. So, I found fulfillment in his son instead.”

She finally let herself shudder. Sometime in their “conversation”, her fur had begun standing on end and hadn’t stopped. It was no wonder Sly had believed himself out of options the last time she had seen him. She had no doubt that if she hadn’t intervened, he would not have survived the trip to wherever Clockwerk had taken her.

That thought gave her pause.

“…What about me?” The fox dared to ask. “I stopped you from doing what you wanted to with him, and now I’m…here. Why let me live when I wasn’t even your target to begin with?”

“Your actions are inconsequential. Your life is inconsequential. You are alive only because I found a use for it.”

“And what use is that?” She demanded, drawing her shoulders up as high as she could to hide the way her fur was still puffed out in fear.

“Bait.”

The word caught the inspector completely off guard. Her bravado faltered just a little bit in the wake of confusion.

“I’m…what?” She blinked. “For Sly?”

Clockwerk’s answer was the slightest tilt of his head back to a vertical position. Carmelita would have pretended to scoff if not for the sick pit growing in her stomach.

“That’s not going to work. We were only partners for a month before I found out who he was, and I’ve been trying to arrest him since. He hates me.”

“Does he?” It was asked with something actually bordering on an emotion other than hatred and delight; the first he’d shown. The fox had been starting to wonder whether he was even capable of it.

And yet, that emotion was one she couldn’t identify at all.

“Of course he does!” For some reason, convincing Clockwerk of this suddenly felt very important. “He nearly killed me in Wales. And – and in Kunlun, I tried to gun him down when we ran into each other again.”

She pushed the last interaction they’d had out of her mind. Even if they had made some tentative form of reconciliation in the moment, it wasn’t enough to repair the chasm of hurt she’d caused him. Surely not enough for the raccoon to risk his life for her.

“If you truly think so, then perhaps I’ll simply kill you right now.”

Carmelita froze. The owl continued.

“You won’t survive either way, of course, but maybe a different lure would work better if you’re so certain you won’t be enough to draw him out. Considering the Panda King was the only of my former colleagues he had any attachment to, and has since been…compromised, his daughter may be an ideal substitute.”

“Don’t you dare harm that girl!” The inspector slammed her hands on the glass in thunderous, instinctive fury. “She has nothing to do with any of this!”

Clockwerk cocked his head. “What a peculiar response. I would have thought you’d beg for me to spare your life if I were to switch your places.”

“I will not let you threaten an innocent person,” she growled. “Not her, not Sly, not anyone.”

He chuckled. It was a low, terrible sound. “It’s too late for empty platitudes, Inspector Fox. We shall see whether Sly Cooper is willing to come and save you. If he does not, then I will dispose of you and find a better lure.”

And with that promise made, the ancient leader of the Fiendish Five disappeared from every screen. Carmelita collapsed to her knees, knowing she was still being watched but pretending otherwise as she stared at the giant mirror across the room and wondered whether it was worse to wish for Sly to save her or not.

Eventually, almost without thinking, she reached for her discarded winter coat and found the camera within. She ran her hands over it but didn’t turn it on, thinking over everything that Clockwerk had just confessed to. Her mind spun over the utter depravity of the creature she was trapped by. Knowing that Sly, or Jing, or any other number of people would be at his mercy was as bitter a pill to swallow as knowing that regardless of what happened from here on out, her life would probably not last long enough to witness the aftermath.

For the first time in a very long time, Inspector Carmelita Fox felt well and truly helpless.

She didn’t know when she finally began looking through the camera. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but at some point, her brain snapped out of its stupor long enough to realize that this inconspicuous little device was all she had left of her former partner. She didn’t know how it had gotten into her coat pocket, but she didn’t care – right now it was the most precious thing she had ever owned, right next to her lost shock pistol.

At first, they were exactly as she expected: pictures of stores and streets and cities, pictures of scenery, pictures of the occasional oddity that stuck out more than usual. But as they moved from the U.S. to Haiti to Wales, she began noticing herself popping up more and more. What had started as a sporadic appearance of blue hair or orange jacket in the background started moving to the foreground, and then became the focus completely.

There were pictures of her admiring the street vendors at a farmer’s market; pictures of her arguing with an officer over whether her parked car was a registered police vehicle; pictures of her up close, clearly looking at Sly behind the camera with a bemused yet open smile. Almost every single one was without the fox knowing the picture was being taken, and the few that weren’t featured the same slightly confused, honest happiness as Past-Her seemed to find it funny that her partner had wanted photos of her.

She’d had no idea. All the time they’d spent traveling together, that month or so of his snark and irritability and gradual trust, she had thought he surely couldn’t have felt the same way about her as she had started to feel about him. Whether he was aware of it or whether it was a subconscious thing, Sly Cooper had gone from seeing her as the cop who could be his means to an end, to someone he seemed to truly care for.

Carmelita cycled through all of them slowly, drinking in every detail so that she could commit them all to memory as she sat curled up against the wall of her glass prison and waited for her fate to be decided. This camera and its contents had been a candid snapshot into the raccoon’s mindset; she wanted to hold on tight to the feathery feeling in her chest every time a new picture of herself came up for as long as she possibly could.

And then, very suddenly, all pictures of her were gone. It was back to scenery and cities again, as it had started out, although she recognized very few of these locations. The personality he had started to grow in his photography – both with her as the subject or without – disappeared just as abruptly. All the new photos were almost clinical; no longer snapshots of lives and what it was like to live, but simply back to the basics of seeing something and taking a picture of it just to show he did.

Understanding hit the fox like a freight train, but she still gave the new batch her full attention. There were hundreds of them stored on the thing from when Sly had first bought it all the way to Kunlun; she recognized some of the scenery at the base of the mountain as the exact same that she had passed with her Interpol team probably days later. By the time she reached the end, her throat was dry from lack of water and her muscles nearly cramped every time she shifted.

And then, she came to the last one.

It was Sly – the only picture of him across the entire gallery – sitting on a bed, in a room that Carmelita didn’t recognize. He had his chin propped up in his hand and he was staring out the nearby open window at the night sky, obviously unaware of the camera aimed his way. There were bags under his eyes and he looked both contemplative and melancholy.

She could see historical Chinese décor all over the room, and the reason for the picture clicked in her head – as well as how the camera had ended up here with her. Either the raccoon had left it out where Jing had gotten ahold of it, or he had given it to her directly. She wondered when the teenager had slipped it into her coat pocket and couldn’t help but be impressed for not noticing it. Clearly, she had not been lying about learning a few things from her surrogate brother regarding sleight of hand.

Just as the inspector began working her way through the photos a second time, the screens in the room booted to life again, startling her to her feet in preparation for fight, flight, or another harrowing conversation.

This time, Clockwerk did not waste any time before cutting to the chase.

“Sly Cooper is here.”

Carmelita swallowed and flexed her hands at her side. She fought the icy panic and the dangerous hope that were both creeping across her mind, pretending instead to be indifferent to the announcement.

“He knows you are alive, but not where you are. I am curious if he will be able to find you before my security measures overpower him.” If the owl had seen through her bluff, or was worried that Sly would succeed, he did not show it. His metal countenance was as unreadable as always.

“I believe in him. He’s made it this far on his own,” she dared to say over the fear that her captor would take it as a challenge that he was underestimating her former partner.

“Indeed, he has. His luck has certainly held out longer than expected.”

Clockwerk leaned forward, and she very much did not like the sudden gleam in his eye.

“But this time, Inspector, you are not going to be his savior. You are going to be his doom.”

Chapter Text

Krakarov was perhaps the world’s only forgotten volcano.

Officially declared too dangerous for public access for well over two hundred years, it sat amid an uninhabited stretch of land in the northwest corner of Russia, so far from civilization that it had quietly slipped out of collective memory. Scientists did not study it when there were much more accessible ones. Local and international governments found no need to warn people about it because it was only taught in the most thorough geological studies. Any thrill-seekers looking to climb it were few and far between, and those few who tried never came back. It was a mystery among mysteries, so obscure that the only agreed-upon thing was that it was to be left alone for reasons lost to time.

There were only a handful of people who knew what those reasons actually were, and not a single one of them had ever actually entered the volcano itself.

Until now.

Sly was exhausted. He had left Kunlun by Interpol escort, posing as one of the town survivors and given a ride down the mountain until they reached a proper city. He’d slipped easily away with all of Inspector Fox’s gear, hid in the first abandoned building he could find, and had promptly had a breakdown. Then, he’d locked everything down in the same mental vault that held his parents’ deaths and the source of the scars on his chest, looked over the stuff he had stolen, considered his options, and began planning.

Leaving Carmelita to die at the hands of his greatest nightmare had not been an option. Even if Clockwerk had killed her the instant he’d realized he hadn’t grabbed his real target, the raccoon couldn’t handle the uncertainty of not knowing. If it turned out she was still alive and he had turned tail and ran without even trying to save her, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

And so here he was nearly fourteen hours later, standing at the base of a forgotten volcano, armed with his cane and an assortment of Interpol equipment, running on what little sleep he’d managed to get on the airplane he’d snuck onto to get this far north, and feeling as though he’d just taken a beating from every Fiendish Five member at once.

It was a small price to pay for the quelling of his conscience.

The outer perimeter of Krakarov had a large metal fence wrapped around it, almost two kilometers from the volcano proper. Faded warning signs detailing hazards like falling rocks as well as threats of criminal fines and detainment for trespassing littered the fence in both directions as far as the eye could see, but there were no security measures to reinforce it. No barbed wire, no electric currents, no cameras or guards or anything of the sort.

Just a single, taller than average fence, and for some reason that alone scared him more than anything. Either Clockwerk was that adept at defending his home, or he had anticipated Sly’s arrival and was holding the metaphorical door open in invitation.

Well, if it was an invitation, then there were going to be a lot more visitors than the owl expected. Sly reached into his backpack, slightly smushed underneath the jetpack strapped to his back, and pulled out the GPS tracker he’d stolen from the Interpol truck. He turned it on, stared at it a moment to make sure it was working, then tucked it away again. With any luck, Interpol would come running the moment they realized it belonged to their missing inspector.

Maybe, if he was really lucky, they’d arrive in time to save her before Clockwerk finished him off. She deserved to survive this mess he had gotten her into, even if he didn’t. Especially if he didn’t.

Sly looked the fence up and down with both his hands curled around the jetpack’s harness. There were no signs of life here; not a single person, unevolved animal, or even plant to be found. Everything around him was dust and dark rock in the shadow of the volcano ahead.

With one last glance to the left and the right just to be certain that he was alone, the raccoon began climbing. It was difficult with all the equipment weight, and he winced with every rattle of metal as he had to sacrifice stealth just to be able to scale the thing at all, but after a few minutes he had finally cleared the top and jumped down to the other side. Here, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and wipe away the sweat that had been creeping up his neck for far longer than it took to climb that fence.

Then he began to walk towards the volcano.

It was eerily quiet as he picked his way through the rocky terrain. The air was still and thick with distant heat; there was no wind to blow relief against his fur or his clothes. He kept his stress clamped tight under a lid and stayed alert to the slightest changes around him. The sky was a gloomy grey but devoid of clouds – and concerning silhouettes – and he periodically looked up to scan it in his vigilance. No one ever looked up until it was too late, and he’d made that mistake twice in his life.

Never again. Nothing was going to catch him off guard anymore. He refused to let it until he knew for sure what had happened to –

There.

A change in the landscape.

Among the cracked, uneven ground, he saw a shred of orange. Sly approached it, confused and then immediately alarmed as he realized it was a small tattered piece of Inspector Fox’s heavy coat she had worn in Kunlun. Eyes wide, he dropped to his knees to pick it up, terrified that he would find blood – or worse. It was clean, thank god, but it did little to ease his fear for her safety. All it meant was that she had been here at some point, alive or dead.

Clenching the cloth tightly in his left hand, the raccoon began to stand, but a strange glint between the rocks nearby caught his attention. He tilted his head, catching the light of the shrouded sun just so to find its source. Then his heart stopped for a completely different reason than when he’d found the scrap of coat.

It was a camera. There was a camera embedded in the ground.

Panic seized Sly’s chest. Before a single conscious thought could cross his mind, he had already jumped to his feet and started sprinting away, back towards the fence – back towards that flimsy physical barrier outlining the ancient owl’s territory. Clockwerk knew he was here. He knew he was here and he was going to come after him again if he stayed here, those claws would come after him again, he’d be dead and Carmelita would be doomed –

Carmelita would be doomed if he ran away, too.

He skidded to a halt. Looked down at the ripped fabric in his hand. Looked at the fence, then to the empty sky. Closed his eyes and forced all his panic away, stuffed in that familiar box with the rest of his emotions until he did what he had come here to do.

Turned around and began walking again.

It didn’t matter if Clockwerk had confirmation that he was here. Clearly, he had expected Sly to show, because leaving such obvious evidence out in the open was sloppy at best, and to insinuate that about the owl was an insult of the highest degree. Everything he did was calculated. Everything he did was for a reason. It was a taunt, plain and simple, and it had worked.

It didn’t stop the raccoon from glancing up more often, though.

When he finally reached the base of the volcano, his eyes jumped across the harsh rock to look for a way inside. He found it about five meters to his right; the rock curled inward in a way that was definitely not natural. It was a cave, and it led straight to the heart of Krakarov if the sudden spike of heat was any indication.

The cave opening was deceptively large – it was wide, not tall, so that someone like Muggshot or bigger would have to duck their heads as they entered it but could easily stretch their arms horizontally. For Sly, who was small in both ways, there was no issue at all. He pressed himself against one wall, held his breath to turn invisible just in case of more hidden cameras he couldn’t see, and headed in.

It was slow going. The ground was hard to walk on and often dipped both uphill and downhill for long stretches of time. Every few minutes he paused and crouched to catch his breath, holding perfectly still and perfectly silent in fear of detection until he was ready to move on invisibly again. The temperature was rising steadily the farther inside he got, and all the extra stuff he was carrying – the jetpack, the GPS, Carmelita’s shock pistol and radio, and the two “special” homemade gadgets in his hoodie pocket – added to his fatigue and the sweat trapped under his fur.

It felt a little like he was going into hell. Not too far from the truth if he thought about it too hard, and he was doing everything he could to avoid that.

Nearly half an hour into his trek, the slope evened out into something manageable for once. It was his only warning before he came upon a giant double door blocking him from continuing. The raccoon stopped, craning his head upwards to study the sudden obstruction. It was embedded in both walls and the ceiling, similar to how the camera had been, with no cracks to shimmy through to get around it. In the center of the door were two large handles – built for someone with talons to grab ahold of – and locking them in place was a single, bulky padlock.

The most straightforward barrier ever, and yet Sly was wary to take it at face value. He approached it cautiously, still invisible, and scrutinized it for any sign of unseen security measures or even some of Mz. Ruby’s magic, but no matter where he looked or how much he strained his eyes, there was nothing to be found. For all intents and purposes, it really was just a simple gate.

Still not trusting the circumstances of this first true roadblock set up by the Five’s leader, he pressed into the corner where the wall and the gate met, making himself as small as possible as he became visible again, and stared up at the padlock. It looked standard and easy to pick, but it was too high to reach while his feet were on the ground, and he refused to use the jetpack for fear of draining its fuel prematurely.

That left only one option. The raccoon did one more cursory search for traps, cameras, or anything else, then shoved himself off the wall with as much speed as he was capable of. He took a running leap towards the gate and hooked onto one of the handles by his cane; the momentum of his jump was enough to swing him high enough to grab the padlock with his free hand. With his shoes braced against the metal of the door, he began working the lock suspended a solid three meters in the air.

When it clicked open, he carefully pulled it free of both handles before twisting around to throw it as hard as he could down the tunnel he’d come from. It landed out of sight with a quiet clang, which made him wince, but he wasn’t going to touch anything of Clockwerk’s for more than strictly necessary. There was no telling what might or might not be boobytrapped.

Padlock discarded, Sly turned back to the door he was still clinging to like a barnacle. It hadn’t budged much under his weight until he’d removed the lock, but he could feel how it seemed to want to move inward instead of outward. Crouching with all his weight coiled into his legs, he launched himself off the door with a powerful two-footed kick. It did the trick; the gate shifted open just enough for him to shimmy through after he picked himself back up, and he continued further into the dark cave.

For the first time since Kunlun – since Wales, really – the shaky confidence that had built itself up during his time with Inspector Fox began to trickle back. He had successfully gotten through the first of the ancient owl’s obstacles, simple as it seemed, and that made his heart beat a little faster for different reasons than fear. It was only the first step, but he’d done it.

So caught up in his momentary victory, he very nearly walked onto death.

Sly froze with his foot hovering a centimeter above the ground, having barely caught the glint of metal with his sharp nocturnal vision. He looked down at the slightest displacement in the earth – uneven dirt that had been dug up recently, covering a lump that seemed just as natural as every other lump along the bumpy cave floor if not for that tiny, damning bit of metal that had made itself visible. Feeling suddenly sick as he realized how close he’d been to stepping on it, he backed up and very gingerly pushed aside the dirt with the tip of his cane, careful not to touch the metal. It revealed a round device big enough that he’d have to hold it with both hands, with a red blinking light in its center.

He’d almost just stepped on a land mine.

Nausea growing ever deeper, he looked up towards the path ahead, where he could now pick out more of those unassuming mounds scattered across the ground, just waiting to be triggered by one careless intruder. The raccoon swallowed, hard, and began to reach for his backpack – for the shock pistol tucked safely away within. Then he aborted the action before even touching the zipper. There was no telling how powerful these things were; if he shot one, it could cause a cave-in or set off the rest in a fatal chain reaction. And even if neither of those were to happen, the noise alone would surely be enough to bring the owl swooping in. Using Carmelita’s equipment would have to wait. Again.

He crouched in front of the bomb he had unearthed, taking a mental measurement of its size and comparing that to the litany of still-hidden ones in his way. They had all been placed with just enough space between them that he could theoretically maneuver through so long as he was sure-footed and precise, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it had been set up that way on purpose. Clockwerk had goaded him inside his lair with evidence of the inspector’s survival, and now he was deliberately testing him. Seeing how far he had come on his own; pushing him to prove that he hadn’t just stolen back the Thievius Raccoonus, but was actively taking its lessons to heart.

It was time to trust his ancestors. Sly stood up, backed up a few paces, then sprinted forward and took his first jump.

It became a dance. On the world’s deadliest stage, not a single audience member to witness his act, the raccoon flitted across the landmine field with the grace of a ballerina. His feet barely touched the ground when he found a safe place to land, only there for seconds until his gaze had found the next one, and then he was already leaping again.

By the time he finally reached the end of the buried bombs, there was a thin sheen of sweat down his back and he was panting from exertion, but it was accompanied by the bittersweet sting of success. Bittersweet, because he’d proven himself as capable as any other prior Cooper – had been proving that for weeks – but it was at the cost of his former partner. He had wanted the confidence, but not at this price. Never, ever at this price.

After a few minutes of catching his breath, he shook his head to clear his lamenting and continued on. Every second he wasted was less of a chance to fix his mistakes.

One sharp turn left, another right, and then very suddenly, the tunnel opened up and Sly found himself standing over an enormous pit of lava. He nearly staggered at the sudden spike of heat, strong enough to steal his breath, and could only gawk at the very heart of Krakarov.

Rock paths – either naturally formed or intentionally carved – twisted out from where he stood for as far as the eye could see in a dozen directions. Some veered off in towards other caves in the inner cliffside of the volcano, while others went on and on beyond the limits of his vision. There was no ceiling or cover above him, yet the open sky seemed confined from inside the crater. The glow of lava overpowered everything to the point that it was almost painful to look at directly.

And on the opposite end, easily two or more kilometers away, was a cluster of metal structures that could, technically, be classified as buildings. They looked more like the owl had dragged an entire scrapyard into the space, then smashed it all together to save space.

The raccoon scanned the sky for a solid minute, nervous about how much he was now out in the open even with all of his precautions. Then, he took another minute to study all the branching paths ahead of him. There were a lot of places here that could be hiding a kidnapped inspector, and there was no clue as to which direction to search first. If it took all night to find her, he’d do it without a second thought, but the longer he was here then the more likely it was that Clockwerk showed his face in one way or another.

Wasn’t anything to be done about it except to push on. Taking as deep a breath as he could manage, Sly began walking along the biggest path in the vague direction of the distant metal architecture. Every time he came across a particularly large boulder or an especially deep crack in the ground, he hunkered down behind or in them to get his breath back, and never took his eyes off the sky while he did so. It was excruciatingly slow going, even worse than traversing the landmines had been, and he could practically feel the minutes ticking away from whatever remained of Carmelita’s limited safety.

Halfway across the crater, a familiar sense of foreboding made him stop. Up ahead, the path continued towards the metal buildings, and he could finally see another cave that presumably led straight to them. Nothing had changed since he’d started his trek, nothing was out of place and now shadow loomed from above, but instincts honed from half a lifetime of tiptoeing around volatile people kept him from moving another centimeter further. On a whim, knowing all too well how much Clockwerk loved his patterns, the raccoon began suspiciously sweeping along the ground with his cane like he had done in that first tunnel.

It was with expectation, not surprise, when he uncovered metal and tiny blinking lights for a second time.

Sly inhaled quick and sharp through his teeth, painfully aware of the fact that he had become visible from the reaction, and peered farther down the path. Unlike before, there were no identifiers for where the bombs had been buried here. No bumps in the ground, no glints of metal, not a single speck of dirt out of place. Without a metal detector or some other tech he didn’t have, nothing could tell him what was safe to walk on and what would blow him sky high.

He glanced behind him, where the rocky ground had branched off to the left a few meters back in a diverging pathway. It had led to another tunnel in the cliffside; he had ignored it – along with every other separate path – in favor of heading towards the most obvious man-made structure, but now it was looking far more tempting in lieu of walking through another literal minefield.

Sly doubled back to the other path after only a moment of consideration. He’d chosen his original route because it had seemed logical to head that way, but Carmelita could be stuck in any of the dozen other caves. There was no way to know for certain without checking each until he found her – or at least another clue pointing him in the right direction – and he wasn’t in the mood to test his luck with hidden mines a second time just yet. He was careful to sweep the ground for them on this new road, but nothing came up no matter how much he checked, and that innate sense of danger rapidly disappeared the farther he walked.

When he reached the opening of the new cave, he ducked just inside the shadow of it to get some air, a mild reprieve from the heat, and to scan the open crater. Still no sign of Clockwerk, which was either really good or really bad, but so long as he stayed alert, the raccoon was sure that the Five’s leader couldn’t catch him off gua–

Two bright red lights flickered to life within the pitch black of the tunnel. Then a second pair. A third. A fourth.

Six. Nine. Fourteen.

Sly stared in mounting horror as things began to move and shift in the dark. Metal clanged against rock, against other metal, and the raccoon backed out into open space again with his hackles raised and his cane at the ready. So startled that he’d remained visible, his reaction caused every set of lights – eyes, they were eyes – to zero in on him immediately. A synchronous chorus of screeching was his only warning to turn and flee before an entire flock of robotic birds exploded out of the cave after him.

He ran for all he was worth as they chased him. Panic sent his thoughts into overdrive, his mind desperately trying to come up with an escape before they could catch up. He swerved right towards the cave he had arrived into the crater by, hoping that they had a limit to how far they could follow, or at least make it harder for them to fly in the confined space.

Movement flitted in and out of the corner of his eye barely ten steps in; Sly pivoted on his heel on instinct and whipped around with his cane arcing outward in a defensive swing. His reaction saved him from being disemboweled. A silver falcon, much smaller than Clockwerk but still deadly by the glint of its talons, screeched as its body was struck and swerved backwards in the air to right itself before it could fall into the lava below. Three more took its place immediately, cutting him off from moving any closer to his goal and forcing him to backpedal. He ducked raised claws by the skin of his teeth and turned left instead towards the metal structures.

Towards the landmines he couldn’t see.

There was no time to do anything else. There was nowhere else to go. Over a dozen frenzied robots bore down on him with intent to kill, and only one path was clear. He had to risk death to avoid a certain one. Sly barreled into the minefield –

And something strange happened.

Blue erupted across his vision; a spattering of sparkles that were sprinkled seemingly at random throughout the path ahead. Something about them tugged at his soul, urging him closer, to connect with them wherever possible. The raccoon didn’t think twice about it – he let that pull lead him forward and he leapt.

He landed perfectly on a cluster of sparkles. Nothing exploded under his feet. A screech to his left gave him enough forewarning to keep running, to jump to the next array while he still had momentum, and he narrowly avoided two falcons trying to slam into his shoulder. The way ahead was free of robotic birds as they came at him from behind and both sides, trying to snatch him up or knock him off balance and onto a waiting landmine.

The odd twinkles protected him from the ground, his dexterity protected him from fatal claw strikes, and his cane made up for those that veered too close in attempts to body-check him. Somehow, miraculously, Sly kept going through the bombardment from above and below without ever getting a scratch, and when the blue sparkling finally faded away, he stopped leaping and went right back to sprinting. He had no idea if he was clear of the bombs, but something in him said that he was, and that same something had just kept him from being blown into a hundred little raccoon pieces. He couldn’t slow down to question it when there was still an entire bloodthirsty flock gunning for him.

Up ahead, he could see the tunnel entrance that surely led to the buildings he’d been so focused on before, but it looked large enough to welcome the robots on his tail. Already, Sly could feel his adrenaline waning under heat and his low reserves of energy, and he knew that he’d be either caught or mauled within minutes if they continued their chase unless something changed. Another screech and whoosh of hot wind made him whirl around to block claws with cane. He continued his three-sixty turn to redirect the screaming falcon sideways into one of its brethren, then stuck his free hand into his hoodie’s front pocket as he righted himself to face forward again.

His fingers found one of the two devices hidden there – as well as the button on it. He pressed down on it at the same time that he pulled the device out, coming closer and closer to the yawning cave mouth. Right before he rushed through, Sly threw the thing as hard as he could at the rocky overhang looming over his dark escape.

It hit its mark. The device – the bomb exploded above him as he threw himself forward, narrowly missing the tumbling rocks that instead came down on the robotic birds right behind him. He hit the ground but staggered back to his feet, not daring to stand still in the blast radius of the cave-in he had just caused. Dust kicked up the air around him so thick that he could barely see even with his nocturnal vision, and the entire tunnel shook as boulders fell in an overwhelming cacophony of noise.

As suddenly as it had started, it was over just as fast. The last of the rocks hit the ground, the rumbling ceased around him, and silence took its place save for the strained breaths of one frazzled raccoon. He leaned heavily against a wall and risked a glance back, grimacing when he realized that the entire opening had been completely blocked off by the cave-in. There was not a single shred of light from the outside crater he could see, and he wasn’t about to tempt his tenuous luck further by trying to move the rocks aside.

The robo-falcons weren’t anywhere to be seen or heard, which he hoped meant they had either all been crushed or had given up pursuit now that their target was impossible to reach. Even so, he kept his cane at the ready and remained alert to the point of jumpiness as he began walking down this new tunnel that he’d trapped himself in.

It occurred to him, belatedly, that they might have been leading him down that single path and not letting him stray for more reasons than killing him with landmines. It was very possible that they had intentionally funneled him this way because it was where he needed to go to find Carmelita. The realization made him nervous at the same time that it gave him hope; if she was dead, they’d have no reason to do this. Clockwerk could have let him wander aimlessly through the volcano until he collapsed from exhaustion or the heat, and then finished him off without any effort. Surely, the fact that he was going to all this trouble to string Sly along meant that she was still alive, and he was still on the right track.

But it also meant the owl was lying in wait for him somewhere or somehow, and he had just wasted one of his precious few means of fighting back. He didn’t know if bombs even worked on whatever Clockwerk was made of, but having some semblance of perceived power in his hands had given him courage. Now, he only had a single chance left to leave a dent in the monster’s armor.

There was nothing to do but keep going and hope that it didn’t come to that. If he could find Carmelita and free her before Clockwerk bared down on them, there was still the jetpack. They could still make a clean getaway into the night, and then she could come back with the full force of Interpol to take down the final member of the Fiendish Five for good. As for what happened to him, well…he doubted the inspector would let him go free after putting her life in danger. If she wanted to arrest him for the part he played in this entire mess, he’d already given her his word that he wouldn’t run anymore. Before, it had been out of despair from the realization that his life was forfeited no matter what he did. Now, even if he made it out of here alive, he didn’t have anything left to return to. A criminal, raised by other criminals, who only knew how to steal and lie and cause problems; there was no “normal” he could even pretend to mimic, and he was done hurting innocent people for his own survival.

Sly was either leaving this volcano in cuffs, or he wasn’t leaving at all. His only goal was living long enough to save the person whose life had been irreparably damaged just by knowing him, just by trusting him.

His train of thought halted as his surroundings caught his attention.

Something was different about the walls. He frowned, unable to place what it was with the limited details his gaze could provide in the dark, and moved to the nearest one to press his hand against it. The fabric of his glove threatened to snag on the craggy surface as he trailed his fingers along it while he walked; until suddenly, it became smooth under his touch. Semi-cool rock had cut off into warm metal instead, and continued that way ahead as far as he could tell. Cautiously excited in the change, the raccoon picked up the pace, grateful to feel the temperature slowly dropping the farther he went.

Then, in the distance, there was light at the end of the tunnel – literally. He trapped the air in his lungs and disappeared from sight before it came anywhere near him, and then stepped out into the blinding glare.

As his eyes adjusted to the harsh light of the new room, the first thing he noticed was machinery everywhere. Computers and processors lined the walls, cords of all shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling, and the ground was alight with security lasers and overhead spotlights. Perches large enough for a particular owl to land on were littered everywhere, and a quick glance up showed a giant metal door that no doubt would have led out into the sky if it had been open.

And then he saw Carmelita.

She was in another, smaller room, separated from this one by a layer of glass, and he could see even from here that she had been trapped there in a tall, see-through cylinder. Her back was to him as she pounded on the glass, clearly trying to break out of her prison, and his heart swelled to see that she was still alive, still fighting.

Sly didn’t shout or whistle to attempt to get her attention. Even if she could hear him through the distance and multiple barriers between them, Clockwerk had eyes on her. He could see cameras in the room that was holding her – although, bizarrely, not in this one – and if she reacted to his presence too early, it would alert the owl. Nothing to do but hope she could hold on a little longer while he made his way through the maze in front of him. The most straight-forward path was a death trap. Even without the lasers and the spotlights, he could see metal tiles across the floor that he recognized from his time working on Raleigh’s ship; they were pressure plates, highly sensitive to touch and guaranteed to set off alarms at best and automated weapons at worst. Invisibility was no help against that.

His eyes trailed left, where one of the large iron perches sat several meters above him and the traps ahead. The faintest hint of blue began to creep across it the longer he stared. It wouldn’t get him all the way across the room to where Carmelita was being held, but it was certainly a start. The raccoon rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, readjusted the weight of the jetpack, and started running.

He jumped for the perch and caught its end by his outstretched hands, dangling for only a moment before pulling himself up onto it. It was round and precariously slippery, threatening to send him falling with the slightest misstep, but he kept his mind on everything he’d learned from the Thievius Raccoonus instead of letting the nerves overtake him. Centimeter by centimeter, he edged along the perch until he reached the other end without so much as a teeter.

Here, he could see the rest of the room and all its hazards very clearly. But with the addition of those sparkles popping up everywhere, he could also now see all the possibilities, too. Sly’s gaze jumped back and forth, calculating the best way to work around the security and reach the glass separating him from the inspector.

A spire jump here, a rail slide there – he’d done this a million times. Now he just had to do it a million and one.

Onto a hanging cable he latched, scaling up it like a monkey on a vine. From there, a leap to land delicately on top of a roving spotlight. Springing off of crouched legs to throw himself halfway across the room, to a second perch several meters from Carmelita’s “room.” Flattening himself against a computer to avoid a rotating laser that could probably saw him in half, then taking advantage of the gap in its cycle to find and move towards the next waypoint.

On and up and down and around he went, until finally his feet touched lightly down in front of the glass wall through which he could see the fox. She had turned around sometime in his maneuvers so that she should have caught sight of him, but her eyes remained fixed on the container she was still trying to get out of, and never once glanced his way.

The raccoon had a few guesses as to why she seemed unaware of his presence, but they didn’t matter when he was about to make himself known. After one quick glance behind and above to make sure nothing robotic had snuck up on him through his complicated balancing act, he pressed his hand to the glass and tested it with his bodily weight. It shifted under the sudden force. Emboldened, he took a few steps back, braced himself, then swung his cane into it with all his might.

It shattered instantly. Carmelita’s head whipped around to stare at him with wide eyes as he picked his way through the glass-littered ground and into the room with her. Before he could do anything – say anything, even – she slammed her hands against the last barrier separating them with more panic than he had ever seen on her face.

“Sly, you can’t be here!” She cried. “It’s a trap!”

There was a strange hissing in the air as something green and noxious began spilling into the room from the vents all around them. The raccoon whirled on his heel at the sound of a reinforced metal door slamming shut behind him, sealing the hole in the glass he had made. He pulled his mask out from beneath his shirt collar and pressed it against his nose and mouth, heart hammering in his chest, just as every screen in the room lit up to reveal Clockwerk’s hateful, patient gaze.

“You sentimental fool!” He chuckled, sounding more like he had just won a bet than any stronger emotion. “Empathy has always been the downfall of the Cooper clan.”

The thin layer of protection Sly had tried to give himself wasn’t enough. Already, dizziness was overwhelming him and he felt the treacherous urge to cough as the fatal gas filled both the room and his lungs. Carmelita, momentarily spared from the trap because of the container she was trapped in, began throwing her shoulder against the glass, screaming at him to find a way out before it was too late. His eyes darted all over the room, trying to do exactly that, but there was only one exit, surrounded by machinery and the mocking camera feed of his worst nightmare.

He turned around to swing his cane at the door that had sealed him in. The reverberating shockwave that traveled up his arms and through his body staggered him instead, sending him to one knee as he gasped on instinct. The gas greedily took advantage of his mistake, and suddenly the entire room was spinning. The raccoon tried and failed to stand back up; he could barely hear Inspector Fox’s desperate voice through the ringing in his ears. He lifted his head just enough to lock eyes with her.

There were tears in her eyes. She was crying. She was crying over him.

It was like a stream of ice down his neck, jolting him to just enough awareness to remember the second bomb still in his pocket. With fumbling fingers and spotty vision, Sly pulled it out and somehow managed to turn it on, already feeling his brief energy bump disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. He looked back at the metal door, reinforced and impossible to penetrate, then forward, beyond Carmelita’s glass prison to the handful of computer screens where Clockwerk watched everything with cold, detached delight.

Blue sparkles.

Sly didn’t think twice. With the last of his strength, choking on his own breath, he threw his last trump card.

The resulting explosion flattened him even further than he already was. His head hit the metal floor and it would have made him see stars if his vision wasn’t already going dark. He didn’t know if it had worked. He didn’t know if it had broken open the wall, or Carmelita’s prison, or if she had even survived. All he knew was that he couldn’t breathe, he was choking, he was dying –

Warm hands wrapped around his middle, hoisting him up against a warm body. His cheek lolled into the crook of a shoulder – her shoulder – and he decided that this was a very nice place to be.

“C’mon, Ringtail, don’t give up on me yet. We’re almost out. Stay awake. Please.”

Stay awake. That sounded so hard, but her voice was so very nice. Sly moaned in protest but forced himself to open his eyes, watching wisps of green gas disappear around him as Inspector Fox carried him through the hole in the wall and into the unknown.

Chapter Text

When Clockwerk had announced that Sly Cooper was here and then given his ominous statement that Carmelita would lead him to death, the owl had disappeared and left her alone in her isolated prison. She didn’t give herself a moment to panic as soon as he was gone – instead she threw all her energy into trying to escape again, knowing that it was only a matter of time before her partner was either caught or killed in his attempt to rescue her.

She re-tested the glass with punches, kicks, and – after gently removing the SD card to pocket in her jeans – even the camera. It was bashed into the cylindrical walls to no avail over and over again until it broke in her hands, but she didn’t dare stop trying while her ringtail was at risk.

When the mirror wall was abruptly destroyed by said ringtail, her heart had plummeted into her stomach at the sight of him looking haggard, determined, and utterly unaware of whatever trap had been set for him. When the poisonous gas began spewing into the room and he fell coughing and choking to his knees, her pleas for him to run became sobs as she remained helpless to do anything but watch him die.

And when he looked up at her and she saw his lucidity return long enough for him to throw something round and blinking into the wall behind her, Carmelita didn’t waste another second.

She dropped to the ground and covered her head with her arms just in time for the device to explode, shattering the glass around her in an instant and nearly blowing out her eardrums in the process. The fox staggered to her feet; hand pressed tightly against her face to deter the gas as much as possible as she found Sly lying face-down a few meters away. The blast had ripped a huge hole in the wall where she could see rock and a faint orange glow beyond, and either it had also destroyed the vents containing the deadly vapors or the hole was enough to filter it out, because already the green haze around them was rapidly disappearing.

Still afraid to draw breath but even more afraid that the raccoon had already drawn his last, Carmelita crouched beside him and grabbed him by the waist, relieved beyond all measure to feel the stuttering rise and fall of his chest. As she hoisted him up in a position she could carry him by, his head fell forward against her shoulder and she could see cloudy eyes drifting shut.

“C’mon, Ringtail, don’t give up on me yet,” she pleaded, unable to shake him awake as she walked them both towards escape. “We’re almost out. Stay awake. Please.”

Miraculously, it seemed to do the trick – he opened his eyes with a moan and even began trying to drag his feet in step with hers. It didn’t technically help, but she was so grateful that he was lucid enough to understand what she was doing that she didn’t care. He could be dead weight in her arms so long as he remained alive.

When they crossed the surprisingly-thin barrier from death trap to hopeful escape route, the fox paused only a moment to look around and take in the fact that they were apparently in a volcano. Everything around her was rock and, in the distance, she could see lava pouring out of a metal pipe and into an enormous fiery pool that she wasn’t keen to get close to. Somehow, it wasn’t as surprising to learn as it felt like it should have been, and it certainly explained the heat.

She chalked it up to the strange saga her life had become. Nothing else was likely to faze you when you’d already encountered storm machines and swamp snake monsters, after all.

Eventually, Carmelita felt safe enough with the distance they’d made to slow down a bit, debating whether to stop to properly take in the state of her partner. Sly answered her inner turmoil for her when he began to shift and fidget against her back.

“Hey, Inspector…” He whispered, only audible because he was right next to her head. “You hurt?”

“That’s my line,” she answered immediately, stopping mid-step to look at him. He blinked back at her, weary but aware, and that was all the cue she needed.

The fox propped him up in a crevasse in the wall that was just big enough to hide both of them from sight, then began to carefully catalogue him for injuries and lingering effects from the gas. The Cooper cane was gripped tightly in his hand and she did her best not to glance at it while she studied him. He didn’t so much as twitch under her touch; she wasn’t sure how to read that.

“…Feels like I should be the one doing this,” the raccoon murmured after nearly a minute of silence between them, “since I was supposed to be the rescuer and all.”

Carmelita pursed her lips at the ragged sound of his voice. “Please don’t speak if it’s straining to do. You inhaled a lot of gas and I don’t know what that means for you yet.”

She found scrapes, bruises, and a bump on his forehead from where he’d hit the ground after his bomb had gone off, but nothing life-threatening. The rhythm of his chest was growing stronger with every passing second, and it showed as his words became louder and steadier.

“The fact that I’m still breathing at all means I’ll survive. Clockwerk doesn’t do anything in half measures; he calculates everything perfectly. He wanted me to die choking on poison, not from any aftereffects.”

The inspector didn’t ask him how he knew that for sure. The look in his eyes was answer enough. Her hand trailed down to the front of his dirty hoodie. He was still wearing the one she had bought for him in Haiti. She realized, with a start, that he’d been wearing it in Kunlun, too, but she had been so focused on him that she’d missed it.

Hundreds of photos flashed through her mind in an instant, accompanied very quickly by overwhelming guilt. Carmelita sat back on her heel and wrapped her arms around her middle.

“Thank you for saving me, Sly.” Shame made her want to avert her eyes, but she kept her gaze firmly on him. She needed to be open and honest with him about this. “After everything I said and did to you, you would have been well within your rights to wash your hands of me. I’m practically your enemy, but you still came.”

He sat up a little straighter, no longer relying on the wall to keep himself upright, and his own eyes were soft. “Carmelita, you’re not my enemy. You never were, even when I was too stubborn and afraid to realize it.”

“Even when I was gunning you down on the Panda King’s turf?” She countered, in genuine disbelief over his statement.

“Especially then,” the raccoon confirmed. There was a grim set to his mouth. “I’ve been surrounded by enemies for half my life, and I know what that really looks like. That night in Kunlun, I was more afraid of what would happen to me when I was taken to Interpol than when you specifically caught me. I knew you’d never hurt me the way my real enemies would, no matter how angry you were.”

What a sobering thought that was. The fox vividly remembered her fury while chasing after him, willing to hit him with enough shock pistol shots to take down someone twice his size. He had clearly considered the threat real and reacted accordingly, but even then, it had not been anywhere near the dangers he’d lived under for so long.

The danger he was still in, so long as they remained in this volcano.

She turned her attention to the giant bulky thing strapped to his back. It had registered in the back of her mind when she’d carried him out of the gas trap room, but only now did she realize that it was hers.

“How did you get ahold of my jetpack?”

“Oh, uh…borrowed it from your Interpol friends. Figured you – we could use it to get out of here once I found you.”

He gave her a careful look. Carmelita knew what he was searching for and was quick to push all her instinctive judgement out of her mind and off her face. Instead, she smiled at him.

“That was smart thinking, Ringtail. I knew I could count on you to have a plan.”

The raccoon blushed, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet as he looked away. It was so reminiscent of their earlier time working together that her smile nearly faltered. Now, she had context for why he struggled so hard to take a compliment – before, it had been endearing, but right now all it did was make her blood boil. Her right hand twitched as if to grip tighter at a weapon she no longer had.

His eyes caught the movement and he brightened. “Oh! I didn’t just get the jetpack, actually. I also got all of – here.”

He reached behind him, to his backpack that she hadn’t realized was hidden under the jetpack, and began pulling out equipment one after the other. The inspector’s jaw dropped as her shock pistol, radio, and GPS were all offered to her nonchalantly; as if it had been an easy task to just steal from an elite team of officers.

She realized that, for him, it probably was.

It was only a delay of a few seconds that she stared at them, but it was a delay too long. Sly’s ears fell back and he began to hunch in on himself, still offering her stuff but looking ready to disappear the moment she took them.

“I mean – I didn’t – I just thought…”

“Thank you,” she said, firm and honest, before he could spiral into an assumption that she very much didn’t want him to make. “This will be crucial to our survival, Sly. I wish I had even half the foresight you do. You’re still the best partner I ever had, and I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Carmelita reached out and clasped her hands around his, holding the equipment between them – and his cane – as she looked him squarely in the eye and tried to make it clear that she wasn’t angry over what he’d done. He tensed at the touch at first, then slowly began to relax as it sunk in that he hadn’t done something terrible in her eyes. That she was accepting him for who and what he was.

Later, she would kick herself for her inattentiveness in enemy territory.

A screech echoed through the air and that was all the warning either of them got before suddenly a pair of talons latched around the jetpack from above. Sly could only stare at her in shock before he was hoisted off the ground and her equipment clattered to the ground. Another screech behind her was all the warning she got to throw herself sideways – just in time as a second pair of talons made a grab for her and missed.

The robotic falcon didn’t change course when it failed to snatch her; instead, it made a beeline for Sly, who had already gotten one of his arms out of the jetpack straps in his attempt to escape. The bird wrapped its claws around his flailing legs, holding him tight as they all began to fly away.

“No!”

Carmelita didn’t even realize she’d yelled as she dove for her shock pistol lying on the rock floor. She didn’t know if it was loaded but didn’t dare waste precious seconds to check – her arms swung towards the birds and their struggling hostage, eyes desperately searching for a way to shoot Sly down without shooting him.

She wasn’t finding her window and they were getting away. There was no more time to look for something safe. The inspector set her sights on the one holding her partner’s legs, fired, and watched the sizzling bullet impact.

The falcon screamed – as did Sly as the current flowed through its talons and into him – and seemed to lock up from the electricity. Its wings halted mid-beat and it began to plummet towards the ground. Its hold on the raccoon didn’t stay; he slipped out of its grip just in time for it to fall out of the air.

And fall it did. The robot bird crashed into stone and the resulting crunch was loud enough to confirm it was out of commission for good. Carmelita looked up to the other falcon still holding her partner hostage only to see him finally remove himself from the jetpack’s harness and fall as well. He angled himself towards a high ledge and tucked into a roll right before hitting it, tumbling over and over until he came to a stop on his back. The remaining falcon, unaware it had lost its prize, clutched the jetpack close and flew higher and higher into the volcano.

Inspector Fox aimed carefully, waiting until she was certain the bird was over rock and not lava, and pulled the trigger a second time. It hit its mark perfectly; the falcon screamed and froze just like its brethren had, landing in a heap out of sight on a distant rocky shelf. The smoke from its broken body was the only indication of where it – and the jetpack – now was. Threat neutralized, she sprinted towards the ledge Sly had landed on.

“Sly! Are you alright?” She called, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the cliffside to look for footholds to climb. “I’ll be right up there, just give me a minute!”

A black-ringed face peered over the edge down at her. In the low light, she couldn’t tell if he was hurt, but the sound of his voice coming down was a stark relief.

“I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me for a bit. Don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come up, though.”

“Why not?”

“It’s completely exposed up here. Nothing to hide under or even against if something attacks us again.”

The raccoon began sliding down the rocky wall, slowly and carefully, until he was low enough for her to help him down the rest of the way. He cracked his back with a grimace.

“Fuck me, that was close. ‘S what I get for forgetting to look up. Sorry for losing the jetpack.”

“The important thing is that you’re alive,” Carmelita pointed out. “That’s all that matters to me.”

His lips thinned. “Yeah, well, if we don’t get it back soon, there’s not going to be much of either of us left to think anything matters. I had to block off the way I used to find you, so this is all new territory for me. The longer we’re stuck here, the more likely it is that Clockwerk finds us.”

“Then let’s not give him more time than he already has.” She holstered her pistol, picked up her radio and GPS to clip onto her belt, and began walking in the direction of the smoking husk. “We’ll retrieve the jetpack, fly out of here, and then contact Interpol for a rescue.”

He kept pace with her without any hesitation. “I already did that.”

“You –” the fox tripped over nothing, then turned to gape at him. “You contacted them?”

“Yeah.” Sly gestured to the GPS. “Turned that on before I entered the volcano. I figured that since you’ve been missing almost a full day in the middle of an important raid, they’d probably be on high alert for any sign of where you went.”

Sure enough, the signal was still going strong when she checked it. Carmelita felt a weight lift off her shoulders knowing that Interpol was already on their way. If nothing else, they moved with incredible speed when one of their own was in danger.

“I didn’t try the radio, though,” he continued before she even had a chance to thank him. “Doubted they’d take me seriously since they have no idea who I am. Was kinda banking on the tracker being enough.”

“It probably is, but it wouldn’t hurt to let them know I’m alive.” As she pulled the radio up to her mouth, she paused and looked at him. “Is that okay with you?”

“What kind of question is that? ‘No, I have a problem with you increasing our chances of being rescued’? Call them while you’ve still got battery left in that thing, Inspector.” The raccoon turned his eyes to the skies. “I’ll be on bird watch in the meantime.”

There was an odd note to his voice. It wasn’t anger, or wariness, but neither was it excitement. Watching him cautiously, unsure what he was thinking but knowing he was right, she flipped the radio on and began tuning for viable frequencies through the static. They walked together for a few minutes with nothing but that static and the occasional loud crackle that made them both wince, until finally she could make out muffled, proper sound on the other end.

“Inspector Fox to Interpol! Come in, Interpol!” She said as loud as she dared into the receiver. “Requesting immediate assistance!”

For a full twenty seconds, there was no response. Carmelita gripped the radio a little tighter, waiting and hoping, and very nearly touched the tuning dial again when suddenly a voice rang through.

“Inspector Fox, this is Interpol’s Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.” The voice was distant and dangerously close to cutting out at points, but still audible despite all odds. “Please state your badge ID and your reason for using this frequency.”

The inspector did so immediately, so relieved that tears nearly sprung to her eyes. Beside her, Sly continued to watch the air, but his ears did a strange back-and-forth of flicking forward to listen and then pinning against his head. When she shot him a questioning look, he briefly met it with a persistent nod.

“We’re making contact with the French branch now, Inspector. As soon as they corroborate your story and your location, we will send a team out to retrieve you. Stay alive as long as you can. We’ll be there soon.”

“Thank you,” she said. Her partner leaned subtly into her shoulder. “Thank you so much.”

“Over and out.”

With the call for help successfully made, she turned the radio off to conserve battery, and they continued their climb towards the lost jetpack. Sly remained concerningly quiet for a long time, but Carmelita was almost afraid to break the silence first for fear it would drive him away from whatever he was working through in his head.

When they ducked under a rock outcropping to avoid being spotted by a group of robo-falcons, he took a deep breath as soon as they were gone. She could feel his heart beating where he was pressed up against her.

“I need to take Clockwerk down.”

The fox looked at him, thoroughly surprised. They were nose to nose in the tight space, and she could see every line of stress in his face. She could also see the determination in his eyes that refused to back down no matter what.

“I don’t know if Interpol can do it,” he rushed to add, as if afraid she would try to dissuade him. “They don’t know anything about him, not like I do. And when they show up, there’s a good chance he won’t even engage with them. He hates direct confrontation unless he’s orchestrated it, so he might just take to the skies and disappear. If he escapes tonight, then he’ll never let any of you find him again. This is the best chance we’ll have. It’s…it’s the only chance I’ll have.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. This wasn’t just about them getting payback; it was about Sly Cooper getting his life back.

“He’ll expect something like that from you,” she warned. “He already knows we’re here and he’ll be taking precautions.”

Sly shook his head. “No. He expects me to run, or surrender. He knows I brought that jetpack, so he’s probably waiting for us to use it to try and escape, and then he can just pluck us out of the sky. As far as he’s concerned, we’re not even worth being considered a threat.”

At that, the raccoon paused, looked her up and down, then let a crooked smile cross his face.

“Well, I’m not considered a threat,” he amended. “You, on the other hand, have probably pissed him off so bad that he hates you almost as much as he hates me.”

She thought about the conversation she had with the owl right before her rescue. The single-minded interest he had only in Sly was still enough to make her want to shiver. “I highly doubt that, Ringtail.”

“…Yeah.” The smile disappeared. Exhaustion was all that remained. “It’s nice to pretend I’m not alone sometimes, though.”

“You’re not alone.” Carmelita grabbed his wrist; the one holding the Cooper cane. He startled but didn’t pull away. “If you’re going after Clockwerk, then I am, too. No – don’t say anything. You went through hell to save me, and I’m going to make sure you never have to do it again. Besides, I promised you back in Mesa that we’d do this together, didn’t I?”

Her partner stared at her for a long moment, so much so that she reflexively glanced up to make sure they weren’t ambushed again. When he finally found his words, his voice was soft and his eyes were wet.

“Inspector Fox, believe me when I say that you’re the only person in the world I trust to be able to do that. You’re so strong, so much stronger than me, and I don’t –” he cut himself off, and she would forever wonder what he was really about to say. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through. I meant what I said right before you were abducted, you know. After this is over, if we both survive…I’ll still turn myself in. You can bring me in…well, if not as part of the Five, then as the last Cooper. Cement your legacy as the best officer at Interpol, because it’s what you deserve.”

She opened and closed her mouth, unable to form a response that could truly show him the turbulent emotions in her head. Part of her, the part that upheld the law to an iron T and demanded justice from the world around her, wanted greatly to do exactly that. It was a small voice, drowned out and made tiny from everything she’d learned about Sly and the twisted conspiracy that made up his life, but it was still there all the same, and she doubted it would ever fully leave. Another even smaller part whispered traitorously about recognition and respect, and how she’d never have to worry about either of those things ever again if she did what he was suggesting.

The rest of her, though, did not want that. The rest of her wanted to tell him that none of this was his fault, or that he had been forced into crime against his will, or even that the law and her reputation could shove it. She wanted to tell him about the camera, and his feelings for her, and her own feelings for him. She wanted to ask him to join her when Interpol arrived – not as a detainee, but as her friend. Her confidante.

Her partner, declared to the world.

Carmelita wanted to do all and none of these things, but she didn’t, because there was no time and she could see the self-loathing in his eyes that wouldn’t be swayed by kind words, no matter how heartfelt they were. So, instead, she held out her hand to him in an offer of a handshake.

“After this is over, when we both survive, I’ll give you a ten second head start.” She didn’t know why she picked ten seconds, when it should have been ten minutes or ten hours or forever, but she refused to falter on her promise once she’d made it. “And after those ten seconds, I’ll do exactly what I should have done a long time ago.”

Sly took her hand with solemnity. “It’s a deal.”

With that agreement in place, they scaled the last few cliffs to reach the jetpack without much more conversation. The fox’s mind was racing, wondering if she’d made the right decision, or if she’d change her mind when it was time for that head start, or if they’d even survive the inevitable confrontation with the leader of the Fiendish Five. For all that she had asserted that they’d be fine, it was obvious to both of them that this was bordering on a suicide mission.

But Sly didn’t have any other choice, and Carmelita refused to abandon her partner when he needed her most. So, on they went together.

It wasn’t much further before the two of them helped hoist each other up to the miniature plateau that the robo-falcon had crashed onto, and both were relieved to find that their precious means of flight had skidded only a meter or so away from the center of impact. As the raccoon approached the broken, smoking body, Inspector Fox crouched beside the jetpack and began looking it over for signs of damage. They each kept one careful eye on the sky for aerial enemies.

“This thing is definitely busted,” Sly confirmed, kicking at one taloned foot while knocking the end of his cane against a metal wing. “Your pistol really knocks them out quick. Hopefully it didn’t signal where we were to its maker before it died.”

“Let’s hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she replied, standing back up with her equipment slung across her back. “Jetpack is a little banged up but otherwise functional. I think it’s safe to use as long as it has fuel.”

When she offered it to him, the raccoon began to shake his head no. Carmelita was having none of it.

“Take the jetpack, Sly.”

“No offense, Inspector, but I’m a lot more agile than you. If something goes wrong, you’ll need it more than I do.”

Her eyes narrowed, seeing right through the excuse. “I have a weapon that shuts down those robots with one hit. How effective has your cane been against them?”

He didn’t immediately answer. She pushed the jetpack into his chest.

“We’ll treat it as a last resort, okay? On the odds that my shock pistol doesn’t work against Clockwerk like it does on his minions, you’ll be quick enough on the draw to maneuver us out of here with it. It’s supposed to be strong enough to carry weight that’s way more than the two of us combined, so this isn’t me giving you the only avenue of escape. I’m trusting you to have my back with it.”

That seemed to finally do the trick. Sly took the jetpack and begrudgingly buckled himself into it again, staring at her in a mix of frustration and reluctant agreement the entire time. The fox folded her arms and met his gaze unblinking.

“Almost forgot how stubborn you are,” he said. The words were equal parts biting and fond. “I hate that I missed that.”

“Get used to it, Ringtail, because my stubbornness and I aren’t going anywhere until we take this bird down. Speaking of…any ideas on how to do that?”

Sly’s expression sobered. “Nothing concrete. That bomb I used to free us was the only thing I’d had enough time to make before coming here. I’ve been winging it since I got here.”

Carmelita drummed her fingers against her holster in thought, eyeing the landscape around them. Her gaze fell on the destroyed robo-falcon, and for the first time she noticed there was some kind of weaponry built into its body that looked completely intact. She looked at it for a long moment, then down at her pistol.

“Well, since winging it has pretty much been our thing from the very beginning and we’ve still made it this far…” She said, slow and thoughtful, “…then we might as well make our last stand something truly special, don’t you think?”

He followed her gaze, silent and calculative, before baring his teeth in an almost manic grin.

“You know what? I think I can get behind that. Let’s show Clockwerk what happens when you mess with the two of us.”

Chapter Text

They were going after Clockwerk. They were going to take down Clockwerk.

Just thinking about it felt like treason; something Sly had dared not voice even in his own head for years after the Incident. Actively trying it would have once been enough to send him into a panic at the slightest hint of something going wrong. Two months ago, if he’d considered something like this, he probably would have given up and turned himself back in to the Fiendish Five for the sake of his own survival – freedom be damned. It was an impossible task against an untouchable foe, and one beaten-down failure of a thief would never have been able to get even this far on his own.

But he wasn’t beaten-down anymore, nor was he a failure like he’d been led to believe for too long. And, most importantly, he was no longer alone.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless, though.

Sly flexed the fingers around his cane in a constant, nervous tic as he followed Inspector Fox into one of the caverns littering the volcano’s inner walls. She was dragging the robo-falcon she’d shot behind her, but it barely slowed her down at all, and once again he marveled at how incredible she was. Once they were sure the cave that they’d picked was free of birds, cameras, mines, or any other security, the two of them hunkered down in the shadows and began working out the details of their haphazard plan.

As the raccoon watched the crater in case of a sudden appearance by the Five’s leader, Carmelita pried apart the metal shell of the smaller, downed bird and pulled out the weapon inside of it – along with the tangled mess of wires that made up half its innards. She let out a contemplative hum as she examined what she’d found.

“Just as I thought; this is a military-grade British gun turret. Lightweight and small enough to hold for easy use and transport, but still deadly with even a single direct hit. It’s supposed to be highly regulated, classified technology. How the hell did Clockwerk get his claws on this?”

“You said it’s British? I’d bet all my money on Raleigh either having someone on the inside or just stealing the blueprints himself. The guy was obsessed with recreating anything machine-related he could hear about, especially if it was outside of public knowledge. He and Clockwerk loved to talk shop and haggle over tech information.”

She looked at him with surprise, and his shoulders drew up subconsciously.

“What?” He nearly snapped, defensive.

“No – nothing,” the fox was quick to reassure. “I just…I didn’t expect you to be so forthcoming about that. Stuff about the Fiendish Five.”

“Well…yeah. The cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it? I don’t really have any reason to be secretive about it anymore.”

“I guess not.” She began untangling the cords and wires around the miniature turret, speaking absently as she worked. “I thought about that a lot while we were separated, you know. How much you knew about where we were going, and about the Five.”

Sly turned his gaze back out the cave entrance to continue watching the skies. “I knew approximate things. I knew Mz. Ruby lived in a swamp and that it was somewhere in Haiti, but they always dropped me directly in her territory, so I didn’t have the exact location down. Same with Raleigh, and the Panda King.”

“So…those emails from Muggshot weren’t just for my benefit?” Her tone wasn’t confrontational, only curious, but he still gave her a brief sideways glance.

“No. I swiped them from his office when you were fighting him – back when I didn’t think you’d come out of it alive.” He snorted and shook his head. “If only I’d known it’s literally impossible to put you down.”

“You flatter me, Ringtail. I was just extremely lucky.” Carmelita paused long enough that it was obvious she had thought of something. “Wait. That ‘special package’ they were talking about. Was that…?”

“Yours truly.”

“I’m so sorry, Sly.”

He would have closed his eyes to avoid the pity on her face if he wasn’t currently playing lookout. “I said it then and I’ll say it now: there’s no use getting our tails in a twist over it. It happened, it’s over, and now we’re going to make sure it never happens again.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” Another, longer pause. “Hang on, you didn’t know exactly where most of the Five were hiding, but what about Clockwerk? How did you find him?”

“I mean, it’s a lot easier to find someone who lives in a single volcano compared to, say, an entire mountain range. But, yeah, I knew where he was. He told me when he dared me to win my freedom back. I always thought it was a weird throwaway comment, but…” The raccoon gestured around them. “Guess I should’ve known him better than that.”

“Don’t give him credit he doesn’t deserve. There’s no way he could’ve predicted something like this, and we both know he wasn’t aiming for me on that statue.”

“Sure, but we can’t underestimate him either, Carmelita. He’s the leader for a lot of reasons beyond his size and strength.”

Her fingers snagged on an exposed wire. She let out a quiet curse as it shocked her. “You know what? I’m done talking about him until we have to. Let’s change the subject. How long has it been since Kunlun? I was unconscious for a while, and it hasn’t been easy to keep track of time since I woke up.”

“Uh…”

Sly shot her another glance, noticing the angry pull of her mouth and the way she was glaring at the turret in her lap like it was the evilest thing in the world. It was very clear what – who – she was actually directing her fury towards. He wisely did not bring it up and followed her lead instead.

“Sixteen hours, give or take. Sorry it took so long.”

“Sixteen –” the inspector’s head shot up to stare at him. “Sly, Krakarov is a long way from Kunlun. Forget the apology, it’s amazing you got here as fast as you did! How on earth did you do it?”

“Hitched a ride on whatever plane got me the closest, then hiked the rest of the way.”

Carmelita stopped working entirely. “You got on a plane.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You flew here to find me.”

“How else was I supposed to get here? By car?” He asked, making her huff in good-natured exasperation. The reason for her shock wasn’t lost on him, however, and his sarcasm dropped in favor of something more genuine. “Listen, I’m not saying it was easy. It actually really fucking sucked, but I wasn’t going to leave you in the claws of that monster any longer than necessary. Rescuing you was worth the trip. Hell, I’d board the longest flight in the world if that’s what it took.”

“Sly, that’s…”

A sudden chill ran down the raccoon’s back – a preemptive warning for something all too familiar. He took a few steps further into the shadows of the cave, planting himself between the exit and where Carmelita was sitting on the ground with the falcon corpse. When she looked up at him, confused, he put a finger to his lips and turned his attention to the crater beyond.

He felt rather than saw Clockwerk approaching from a distance, sweeping the area in search of them. With a nervous, protective hiss, painfully aware of the fact that the cave ended in a rock wall just a few meters back, Sly curled protectively around the inspector and held them both still, watching the sky. The owl’s giant silhouette blotted out the stars above as he circled the crater once from a great height, then swooped low for a second, more discerning pass.

The raccoon risked tilting his head just enough so that his mouth was right next to Carmelita’s ear. His eyes never left Clockwerk’s silent, deadly form, terrified that the minuscule movement had tipped off their enemy to their location.

“Hold your breath as long as you can,” he whispered to his partner. She obeyed without question, inhaling deeply and quietly, and he had never been more grateful for her trust in his life.

Immediately, Sly became invisible, hoping beyond hope that the ability extended to who he was holding and not just what. The fox stiffened against him but didn’t exhale, thank god, and he wordlessly apologized for catching her off guard with this unexpected thing he could do. He didn’t dare look to see if it had worked on her. All he could do was stay motionless, breathless; watching and waiting for the owl to make the next move.

Clockwerk did a third and final circle through the area. He passed so close to the rock wall and the cavern the two were huddled in that they could hear the mechanical whirring of his body for the briefest of seconds before he moved on. The sound set all of Sly’s fur on end; his chest burned in rhythm to terrible memory.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d arrived, the ancient bird flew off over a distant ridge and disappeared.

Neither of them moved for a solid minute afterwards. The raccoon held his breath until he couldn’t any longer, releasing it only when his vision started going spotty. Carmelita did the same against him. They remained that way, panting silently together and watching the dark skies.

When it finally felt safe enough, he began to uncurl from around the inspector only for her to grab him by the shoulders and swivel him so they were nose to nose.

“What was that?” She whispered as she stared at him. “Sly, you were invisible. I was invisible! How the hell did you do that?!”

“It’s a technique I learned from the Thievius Raccoonus,” he murmured, feeling a prickle of fear pass through his mind at the intense look on her face. He couldn’t read her expression, and that was the scariest thing of all. “I don’t – I’m not really sure how it works, just that I have to hold my breath to do it. I’m just glad that it worked on you; that was a gamble I was making when I grabbed you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Carmelita continued to stare at him, still clutching his shoulders, then released him with an incredulous shake of her head. “Increíble. You really are something special, Sly Cooper. I hope you realize that.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Seemingly taking his silence as agreement or at least acquiescence, the fox picked up the turret she had been working on before their scare.

“I think I got this thing figured out. We can definitely use it against Clockwerk. Now all we need is a proper plan.” She peered out at the open crater, then over at him. “I have an idea, especially now that I know you can disappear at will, but…I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

“I doubt I’ll like any plan that’s going to put us at risk, but if it’s enough to take him down, then it’s worth it. Hit me with your best shot, Inspector.”

So, she did exactly that – and she was right, he didn’t like it. But they had precious few options and precious little time, and it was the only real chance they had. Against all his instincts screaming at him to forget about this, to flee before it was too late, Sly agreed with the grim understanding that it was now or never.

It was finally time to end the Fiendish Five once and for all, and earn his freedom back.

For however much longer that was worth.

This was what they were going to do:

Sly, armed with both the jetpack and the mini-turret, would climb as high as he dared along the cliff walls above the lava pits, visibly and openly, in an attempt to goad Clockwerk into appearing. Inspector Fox would remain on the rocky paths below, out of sight and waiting for anything to attack her partner. The moment the owl arrived, she would shoot him with her shock pistol in an effort to stun him and send him plummeting into the fatal pools below. If the electricity wasn’t enough right off the back, the raccoon would unload the turret into him to finish the job and get the hell out of dodge before any retaliation could happen.

Best case scenario, all it would take was one hit from the pistol to down the bird. Worst case, Sly was supposed to flee using the jetpack and his invisibility while Carmelita disappeared back into the caves around her, and they’d try to regroup outside of the volcano or hunker down and hide until Interpol arrived to deal with the furious owl.

It was a messy, impromptu plan that relied on luck just as much as their own skills, but they were going to bank on Clockwerk’s obsession with the Coopers to blind him to the assault until it was too late. The leader of the Fiendish Five thought himself untouchable; tonight, the two of them hoped to prove otherwise.

Sly huddled between two large cracks in the wall for a quick breather as he worked his way up the side of the crater. For all that he was only pretending to try and escape, there was no acting in the way he constantly scanned the scenery and pressed himself tightly against the rocks in paranoia. He couldn’t allow himself to be caught off guard by Clockwerk before Carmelita could do her part. His heart hammered in his scarred chest and his tail flicked about in uncontainable stress.

He double-checked the jetpack straps to make sure there was no chance they’d come loose on him if he took to the air. His partner had checked the fuel tank and assured him that it had several hours’ worth of constant flight, which was a minor relief, but he had only gotten a crash course from her about how to adjust his height. There hadn’t even been time to test its speed. One bad maneuver and the owl could clip him with a wing or a talon.

Send him falling out of the skies and straight to his –

The raccoon shook his head and continued climbing. Catastrophizing was pointless, now. It was time to trust Inspector Fox.

Himself, too.

Just as his foot found another crevasse to hoist himself up further, foreboding hit the back of his neck down to his tail. Sly twisted in place to face the crater, catching the faintest glimpse of that familiar silhouette high above before it dove straight for him. He froze, hypnotized by the glowing yellow gaze trained on him, and found himself unable – unwilling – to move.

“Found you.”

The owl’s beak was open in a twisted grin of triumph as he came down at his prey. His claws came out from under his body, open and ready to grab, to take, to break, and his eyes were alight with hateful glee. Everything else disappeared under the great and terrible presence of Clockwerk.

I’m going to die.

Pure, concentrated energy arced up in the shrinking gap between them. It hit the bird square in the head with an eruption of blue. He reared back in a flurry of flapping wings as if blinded, and that was all the cue Sly needed. The raccoon came back to himself just in time to turn the turret on and fire – right where the shock pistol blast had just connected. Clockwerk screeched, loud and pained and furious, and crashed into the volcano wall where his quarry was flattened up against.

Sly stopped firing and leapt instead, narrowly missing the enraged owl by the skin of his teeth as he began to freefall. Amidst his fear and the horrible scraping of metal to rock, he barely had the presence of mind to fumble with the jetpack controls, turning his rapid drop into a midair float. Holding his breath against the urge to hyperventilate was done through sheer force of will; he disappeared from sight just as the owl regained his bearings and launched off of the wall back into the sky.

“You cannot escape me, Cooper Raccoon!” Clockwerk roared. His eyes glittered with loathing as he searched for his prey. “You’re the weakest Cooper I’ve ever encountered. My intellect is refined; my experience is greater! I will thwart this pitiful attempt at fighting back and show you what true terror looks like!”

He made several wide swipes into the air around him, hoping to catch the raccoon with sheer reach alone, but Sly had already fallen as low as he dared above the bubbling lava pits. The heat was so strong he could feel it through the soles of his sneakers, but he remained invisible underneath the ancient bird as he hunted him.

A second electric bullet slammed into Clockwerk’s talons from below. The digits went momentarily limp; the owl’s head whirled towards Carmelita, who stood out in the open on the rock path beneath the battle with her pistol at the ready. His beak opened in a silent approximation of a snarl as all his murderous intent zeroed in on the inspector who’d dared get in the way of his goal.

Before he could even dive-bomb after her, Sly reappeared in his line of sight long enough to shoot at him again. Bullets ripped into the vulnerable metal around his claws until two of them were hanging by a thread. There were no nerve endings there to further debilitate the owl; he course-corrected without any hesitation and aimed for the raccoon while he was still visible.

“Enough, Sly Cooper! It ends here. I’ll finish you like I finished your father. Then the Cooper line will be erased, and the only master thief will be Clockwerk!”

Sly yanked on the jetpack controls, sending him rocketing skywards so fast it nearly gave him whiplash as Clockwerk followed right behind. Each wing beat matched the throbbing in his chest.

“You can’t dodge me forever.” It was a promise, not a threat, as the ancient bird began to close in on his prey. His damaged talons rose in preparation to snatch him straight out of the air –

“Sly! Behind you!”

The owl swerved, suddenly losing control of his flight as Carmelita shot out his tail feathers. He spiraled leftward, attempting a desperate grab for the raccoon that was easily avoided right before crashing into an outcropping of metal and machinery that had been embedded in one of the walls. Sly turned and stared in disbelief at the monster who had plagued his life; the monster who had now found himself momentarily trapped as his shredded claws caught against his own contraption.

Bizarre didn’t even begin to describe it. It was downright surreal. And it was all thanks to the force of nature that was Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox.

A force of nature that wasn’t done yet.

As Clockwerk struggled to free himself and regain the upper hand, the fox found her mark a fourth time. His right wing lit up from electricity, and its frantic flapping slowed considerably. Sly didn’t waste the opportunity given to him – he laid into that wing with the last of the turret’s ammunition. Metal feathers were ripped from their master’s shell in flaming shards, plopping into the lava pool like dozens of tiny comets.

All at once, the wing went limp, as did the rest of the ancient bird. Sly hovered high and uncertainly above him, clutching the empty weapon while waiting for the next thing to dodge or react to. Far below them both, he could see Carmelita taking advantage of the brief reprieve to begin reloading her pistol.

He looked in her direction a second too long, and that was all it took.

Clockwerk lurched, sudden and startling, and dropped dead weight towards the lava. What seemed like a victory at first became horrifying realization as the owl twisted midair to turn his freefall into a glide with the last bit of control he still had – aimed straight for Inspector Fox in her distraction. Her eyes went wide and she dropped the shock pistol in her panic, turning tail and sprinting for all she was worth from the creature determined to slaughter her.

Time slowed to a crawl. Sly felt himself move in slow motion; turning off the jetpack, throwing aside the useless turret, pulling his cane out as he rocketed down towards Clockwerk. Sparkles flashed across the broken metal frame and he followed them, landing on the plummeting owl’s back as easily as if it were solid ground. As the ancient bird made one last bid for an attack, the raccoon brought the cane down against the back of his skull.

Clockwerk screamed. His head twisted in place to fix loathing eyes on the last Cooper, and it was just enough to save Carmelita’s life. He crashed into the lava centimeters shy of the fox’s rocky sanctuary, thrashing wildly as molten liquid poured into his body. Even in his flailing, even as he began to sink further and further into the lava, Sly did not jump off of his back.

He slammed his cane into the owl’s head again. And again. And again. For every garbled sentence Clockwerk said as his brain failed him, for every twitch of dying machinery, for every part of him that was still impossibly alive, Sly Cooper struck him over and over. There was no blind rage or even blind terror to the onslaught; just the crystal-clear understanding that if he did not stop until this monster was well and truly dead, then he would never have the chance again.

Within the battered, broken head of the owl, a single coherent word rang out.

“Cooper!”

The sound of his last name was enough to finally make the raccoon pause. He stilled with his cane raised, prepared for one last trick.

“You will never be rid of me,” the monster declared. “Clockwerk is superior–!”

His voice cut out as the cane cracked his head clean off.

Yellow eyes dimmed to blank black and wings drooped into lava as the struggling stopped in an instant. Sly stood there on what little was left of Clockwerk, staring down the body slowly melting beneath him. His own body felt heavy, and his senses were behind a wall that he could not pass through. Distantly, he heard Inspector Fox call out to him, pleading for him to get off of the owl and join her, but registering it was a delayed process.

When he finally began to turn towards the safety of the nearby rock, something under his foot caught his attention. The raccoon looked down to see papers jammed in the open hole that now made up Clockwerk’s neck. He crouched, picking them up before they could be burned to a crisp, and jumped from the husk of his previous life to the uncertainty of his next.

Carmelita was waiting for him there. She looked at him for a long moment, then at the pages held almost reverently in his hands.

“Are those…?”

“Yeah.” He answered without really being there, staring down at the thing he’d worked so hard for that had been a lie all this time. “The rest of the Thievius Raccoonus. It’s complete again.”

Saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any more real. Sly continued to stare at them, and suddenly had the urge to put them back where he’d found them. Watch them dissolve into nothing along with Clockwerk.

Maybe he should just let the whole book burn.

A pair of hands wrapped around his own, where he was clenching the pages so tightly that they seemed ready to tear. He startled, unsure when he’d started doing that or how long he’d been looking at them.

“Let’s get out of here, Ringtail.” Her voice was calm and quiet and left no room for argument. “Before you do something you’ll regret.”

She began pulling him along with her as she walked away from Clockwerk’s corpse. He followed without resistance – except for a single glance back which was intercepted by her gentle touch to his cheek before he could complete the movement. The raccoon blinked, surprised to feel cool wetness there in the space between her fingers and his fur.

The two of them walked for an indeterminable amount of time, only stopping to climb ledges or pick a different direction. Sly’s mind slowly began to escape the fog it had found itself in, and by the time he finally stopped dissociating, they were standing on a catwalk overlooking the entire volcano. Far below, the owl’s body had seemed to stall in its melting; it sat in the lava, half-submerged, and did not sink any further. Above them, countless stars twinkled, reminiscent of the blue sparkles that promised endless possibilities limited only by himself.

Beside him, Inspector Fox spoke quietly into her radio before setting it back on her hip. She met his gaze with a cautious expression, as unsure about his thoughts as he was about hers.

“Interpol will be here within the hour,” she said, watching him carefully. “How are you feeling?”

The raccoon took a long, deep breath. He looked out at Krakarov and the great expanse beyond. The pages in his left hand and the cane in his right didn’t feel quite as volatile anymore. With another, longer exhale, he stuffed the rest of the Thievius Raccoonus in his backpack and ran his fingers along the edges of his cane.

“Not great,” he admitted. “But…not the worst, either. I think…I think I’ll be okay.”

“Good.”

An awkward, expectant silence fell heavily between them. Neither moved or looked away, each waiting for the other to say or do something first. Finally, after a full minute of quiet studying, Carmelita pulled her shock pistol out of her holster and pointed it at him.

“Ten.”

She said it softly yet firmly, as if convincing herself as much as she was him that she was really going through with this.

“Nine.”

Sly stood frozen for a moment. Then he took a step forward.

“Eight.”

He moved slowly, bit by bit. There was no hurry for what he was about to do. Or, more precisely, what he wasn’t going to do.

“Seven.”

The raccoon came to a stop right in front of her, close enough for either of them to reach out and touch each other.

“Six.”

Without breaking eye contact, Sly leaned forward until his chest was pressed up against the barrel of her weapon.

“Five.”

Inspector Fox didn’t respond to the action. She didn’t react at all beyond the briefest furrow of her eyebrows, as though unsurprised that he was choosing this.

“Four.”

He reached for her right hand; the one holding her weapon.

“Th-three.”

Now she stumbled over her words, finally caught off guard by what he was doing. Even then, she didn’t flinch when his fingers intertwined with hers.

“Two.”

Sly never stopped staring at her. He committed every detail of her face to memory for the precious last second that he had it. The touch he’d dared to steal from her would forever be the only thing he stole from her.

“One.”

It was his voice that finished the count, barely a whisper of a word as he let go of her hand. They were nose to nose, neither blinking. He closed his eyes and began to back out of her space, waiting for the pull of a trigger.

But she surged forward instead.

Faster than he could react, her lips pressed to his. He made a startled noise against her, stiffening for a moment before melting into the unexpected kiss; her free hand came up to hold his cheek, and his hands burrowed into her hair. The trust, the heartache, the need for each other was shared in one simple, desperate gesture of love.

And then, just like that, it was over.

They pulled away from each other at the same time, both trembling with emotions they couldn’t contain and yet couldn’t express. The pistol remained a barrier between them.

“Get out of here, Sly Cooper,” Carmelita murmured, gaze bright and burning. “Go show the world that you’re worth so much more than a name.”

She closed her eyes. Opened them.

He was already gone.

Chapter Text

“…States it has the resources to remove the body, questions still revolve around what would be done with it afterwards. Several countries have attempted to lay claim to the remains; the president of Egypt recently announced that ancient documents have been found tracing Clockwerk’s heritage back to them, although these documents have not been presented publicly. Meanwhile, negotiations with the Russian government for complete access to Krakarov has remained a constant barrier to Interpol’s ongoing investigation into the former crime leader’s activities…”

A single click of a button ended the news broadcast and turned off the TV, leaving the room in sudden silence. Inspector Fox tossed the remote on her desk with a sigh.

It had been two months since that night in the volcano. Two months since Interpol had showed up expecting a rescue and instead found their lost inspector waiting patiently by the corpse of the leader of the Fiendish Five. Two months since she had returned to Paris HQ as a hero, with superiors praising her and coworkers clamoring to work with her and Barkley expressing an emotion other than anger or stress every time he saw her. Two months of clearing loose ends and working through red tape and finalizing paperwork in order to close out a decades-long case so she could finally move to a new one.

Two months since Sly Cooper.

Every morning, the fox woke up before the sun rose and got ready for work in the same efficient routine that she’d kept for the entire time she’d been on the force. Since Krakarov, however, there had been a single change to this routine that she now did before anything else. Each and every morning, the moment she had opened her eyes, she now grabbed her phone and checked its messages instead of waiting until she was already out the door.

Each and every morning, the one number she hoped to see but never dared contact remained distant.

Today, however, was different. Because although there was no message or call or anything other than radio silence from the person she was waiting for, there was something big waiting for her at work.

Jing King had been declared innocent, and today she was finally to be released from custody.

Carmelita hadn’t seen much of the panda since Kunlun. She had been called in to testify at one of her many trials, where she had stated the facts as she’d witnessed them – that Jing had helped her find the Panda King and that she hadn’t found any evidence of her participating in her father’s crimes – without so much as glancing the girl’s way. As much as she wanted to plead for Jing’s sake, it wouldn’t have made sense for her to do so; as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Inspector Fox and Jing King were strangers with absolutely nothing connecting them.

And so, the fox had kept her nose out of it on a professional level and tuned into updates on it on every other level. Today, all she could think about was that girl and the long, private conversation they’d had. Holing herself up in her office under the pretense of getting work done until the designated time for Jing’s release was the only thing her distracted thoughts could manage.

At 3:58 PM right on the dot, she finally came out of isolation and followed a group of coworkers who were also heading out to watch the procession. Normally, such an occurrence didn’t draw much attention, but the Panda King’s daughter and her supposed innocence had been the main subject of gossip for weeks. At the very least, the crowd of curious, wary officers waiting and watching for Jing’s release provided a good enough excuse for Inspector Fox to be there too.

As people milled about in the lobby and pretended to be doing anything except loitering, Carmelita found herself left alone in HQ’s public space for the first time since her triumphant return. She was grateful for the little time she had before someone inevitably approached her, as they always did nowadays.

Which happened, as expected – but by someone very surprising.

“It’s been remarkably difficult to catch you alone lately, my dear. You seem to have quite the reputation now.”

The Contessa’s calm, rich voice filtered in from her left side. The fox turned to look at her in surprise.

“Contessa! How long have you been in Paris? I hadn’t heard anything about you visiting us here.”

“I just arrived this morning. Impeccable timing for such a popular event, it seems.” Her dark red eyes drifted slowly yet sharply across the large scattering of people in the room. “What happens to be the occasion for so many officers to be shirking their duties this afternoon?”

“Jing King is being released today. She’s –”

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard of her. It’s a pity she’s being let out of custody so prematurely; I would have expected a more thorough investigation for someone so closely tied to a member of the Fiendish Five.” The spider finally glanced her way, expression unreadable. “What do you think?”

“It’s not up to me.”

“No, but surely it stings at least a little bit. For them to dismiss your hard work in bringing all these criminals to justice with such a hasty declaration of innocence.”

A lifetime ago, Carmelita would have wholeheartedly agreed with more than a little righteous frustration. Now, instead, she simply shook her head and hoped her grimace would be taken at face value.

“I made my testimony, and the judges made their decision. It’s not my place to question that. If they say she’s innocent, then she’s innocent.”

“Hm...” The Contessa looked back out towards the rest of the lobby. “Barkley was right – you have changed since this case.”

Before the inspector could ask what she meant by that, a hush fell over the room as one of the elevators touched down, and a group of armed guards stepped through its open doors with a familiar panda between them. Jing King looked exhausted, but she kept her head high and her stride purposeful despite the many eyes on her. She did not even glance Carmelita’s way as her procession passed by.

She just kept walking, silent and stoic and the spitting image of her notorious father, until they were out the door and out of the building entirely.

Immediately, everyone began whispering among themselves about the sight. Some were angry at Jing’s declared innocence, as the Contessa had expected Inspector Fox to be. Others sounded disappointed in the girl’s lack of reaction to her onlookers, with snide comments about how long her façade would last against the paparazzi waiting outside. A rare few expressed sympathy, drowned out by their more worked-up associates.

Carmelita didn’t contribute to any of these conversations. She stared at the front doors, chewing her lip and wondering how conspicuous it would look to head out after them. Questions burned in her mind – how Jing was holding up; what she was going to do now that everything she knew had changed; if she had somehow been in contact with her surrogate brother despite the constant monitoring.

If she knew where he was. If she knew whether he was okay.

Beside her, the Contessa was also watching the doors. She let out a quiet, indecipherable hum, and said something under her breath.

“I wonder how much she knows about him.”

It was nearly inaudible; the fox only picked it up after so much time with a partner whose natural speaking voice was often just shy of a whisper. She turned to her superior with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing, my dear. Just pondering out loud.” The spider patted her shoulder in an almost maternal gesture, then began to walk away. “It was lovely to see you, as always. I look forward to what other great feats you achieve in the future.”

Within seconds she was gone, and Carmelita was left wondering what she’d just missed.

The rest of the day passed without incident. She went home, thinking about Jing King and her father and the rest of the Fiendish Five until she couldn’t any longer, then fell into an uneasy sleep over worries she couldn’t name. When she woke up the next morning, the inspector diligently checked her phone, hoping that Jing’s release would be a catalyst for…something. Anything. Coming up blank was a sharp pang of disappointment.

So she went back to work, and then came home, and went and came and went and came, and never stopped waiting for a message that she was beginning to think might never arrive.

Until a week later when a buzz from her nightstand woke her up in the middle of the night. The fox groggily reached for her phone, angrily squinting at the name of whomever had dared wake her up. All anger fled immediately at the sight of a familiar nickname staring back.

It wasn’t so much of a proper text as it was an invitation – a single address and nothing else. But that was all that was needed for her to fly out of bed and start making travel plans.

Within a few short days, armed with an obscene amount of paid vacation time and an unassuming camera SD card clutched tightly in one hand, Carmelita stared up at the blocky, faded lettering of a tiny store in Nebraska. The chime of the bell over the doorframe was a welcome one as she stepped inside, as were the two employees sitting behind the desk.

“Inspector Fox!” Bentley exclaimed, nearly falling off his chair at the sight of her. There was a solid sheen of sweat across his forehead despite the cool interior. “What are you – I mean, uh, how c-can I help you today?”

Beside him, Murray stared at the fox with wide eyes and his mouth agape. Words seemed to be failing him the longer they looked at each other; his smaller coworker was not faring much better.

“It’s such a surprise to see you – I mean, n-not that it’s not great, too! Just! It’s just a surprise, is all I mean, um –”

“It’s okay, guys. I called her here.”

All three gazes snapped towards the back doorway, where a familiar masked face stepped through with a set of boxes in his hands. He wore the same uniformed shirt as the other two did, albeit with a certain blue and gold hoodie tied around his waist. Piercing brown eyes that were no longer quite so tired met the inspector’s own.

He gave her a tentative, genuine smile.

“Hey, Carmelita.”

Carmelita couldn’t help but laugh as she smiled back.

“Hey there, Ringtail.”