Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ever feel like something's missing in your life? Yeah, that's me in a nutshell. At least I know what's gone.

My memories.

Of course, that's a pretty big thing to be missing.

Any information about my past, my family, any friends I had before… gone. Complete blank.

All I know is some cold hard facts. I know I was orphaned when I was young until I aged out of the system, somehow got through the police academy, and climbed the ranks until I eventually became a constable for Interpol.

Constable Sly Cooper, that's me.

Or, at least, that's what it says in my file… It's a pretty bare-bones file. Guess my life up to this point was pretty boring.

At least even without my memories there's one thing I can count on. My amazing partner, Inspector Carmelita Fox.

She's been a great help ever since I woke up not knowing who I was. Helped me get to a doctor for my injuries, found me a good therapist for my memories, and even took care of all the paperwork while I was in the hospital

Thank goodness, I hate paperwork enough when my head is screwed on right. I can't imagine how much torture it would be to do with a concussion.

But Carmelita handled it. She's been giving me so much support and was with me every step of the way as I try to put my life back together. A life I'm pretty sure she's the love of.

So here I am, Constable Cooper, about to bust another case with the greatest partner in the world.

Life may not be perfect, but it was still pretty good.

Standing outside an old nondescript warehouse, Constable Sly Cooper stood with his shock pistol at the ready. Across from him, Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox had hers in her hands as well. "Ready?" she whispered.

Sly nodded in agreement, his eyes narrowed in determination.

With that confirmation, Carmelita kicked the door in, with a shout of, "Interpol! Freeze!"

To their credit, all the weapons dealers in the warehouse did freeze at her words.

For about five seconds.

Then the weapons dealers all grabbed their weapons and started firing.

Unphased, Carmelita darted behind some crates and returned fire, and it was clear her aim was far better than theirs. Weapons dealers began slumping over, stunned.

With all the attention focused on Carmelita, none of the dealers were expecting more shots to rain down at them from above.

High up on a catwalk, Sly smirked as his shock pistol picked off the weapons dealers at the back of the warehouse that were trying to escape before long all the soon-to-be arrested criminals were unconscious on the ground.

Carmelita stepped out from behind her cover and glanced up at him. "How did you even get up there?" she asked.

Sly shrugged back down at her. "There was an easily climbable pipe outside. I couldn't resist."

Carmelita arched an eyebrow and leaned back out the door to take a look at the pipe in question. It was rusted, rickety, and looked ready to fall off the building. She clearly couldn't even imagine touching it, much less climbing it.

"Troublesome Ringtail," she muttered to herself, but her tone was fond as she turned back to her partner again.

Sly was still smirking as he let himself drop down from the catwalk to meet her. "But you love me anyway," he said with a grin.

Carmelita gave him her own smirk and leaned up to give him a peck on the lips. "What do you think?"

Sly's smile immediately turned dopey, and he was so distracted he almost didn't hear the movement behind him.

Almost.

The faint sound behind him had Sly tackling Carmelita to the ground, just barely avoiding the bullet that shot over their heads.

Immediately, the partners returned fire, but whoever had shot at them was already out the door.

"Get back here, Criminal!" Carmelita shouted as she took off after them, with Sly at her heels.

The fox and the raccoon burst out of the back of the warehouse and looked around, but it was clear whoever it was had already escaped.

"Well, that's one less arrest tonight," Sly muttered, searching the alleyway and even looking up towards the rooftops with no sign of their assailant (he didn't know why he always made sure to look up, but he always did).

"We'll catch them eventually," said Carmelita, turning to go back into the warehouse and begin cuffing the other crooks. "We always do."

"Yeah," said Sly, pulling out his own sets of handcuffs. "Still, gotta wonder who it was." He then glanced over from the squirrel he was cuffing to the futuristic-looking gun he'd been peddling. "Sure hope it wasn't whoever made these things. Someone's been watching too much sci-fi"

Carmelita snorted. "Sci-fi or not, they're illegal. And these crooks will be put away for a long time for selling them."

"And for shooting them at us," added Sly.

"That too," said Carmelita in agreement as she cuffed the last one. "Now we just need the warrant to-" she trailed off when she must have seen something on Sly's face.

Her eyes then narrowed in suspicion. "Sly," she said slowly.

Sly tried his best to avoid her gaze. "Uh, yeah?" he asked as he busied himself checking everyone was handcuffed properly.

"We do have a warrant to be here, don't we?" Carmelita asked slowly, her tail flicking in irritation.

Sly was quiet for a little too long before, giving her a nervous grin. "I saw them carrying the shipments in, so we have probable cause."

"ARGH!" Carmelita let out a wordless noise of frustration upon hearing that and slapped her forehead. "COOPER!"

"There wasn't time for a warrant!" Sly protested. "You know there wasn't. By the time the judge signed it, these weapons would be halfway 'round the world, and we'd never find them or these mooks ever again. Who knows who would have been hurt by then."

"There are laws for a reason, Sly," said the fox.

"What good are laws if people get hurt while we follow them?" the raccoon shot back, falling into what was now a familiar argument.

Carmelita pressed her hands together as if praying for patience as she took in a deep breath and let it out. "Sly," she said in a sharp, no-nonsense tone, having given this lecture countless times before. "I understand you are trying to do the right thing, but we are officers of the law. You have to do the right thing the right way, otherwise we are no better than these criminals."

"I think there's a slight difference between them smuggling illegal weapons and us taking them down," said Sly sarcastically.

But Carmelita was unswayed. "The law is there for a reason," she said again firmly.

Sly sighed, knowing that was the end of the argument he would never win. "Fine," he said. "I'll take the fall for any problems. Worth it to get these guys off the streets."

Carmelita's expression thawed at that, pecked him on the cheek, and said, "We'll see if you still think that after Barkley gets ahold of you."

Hearing that Sly winced. Director Barkley did not like him. This was going to be painful.

Four Months Later…

"Put me out of my misery," Sly groaned as he slumped over.

He'd been right, it was painful.

When Barkley learned of how he'd bent the rules, he'd blown a gasket. It was only the multiple arrests and that Sly was right about probable cause that saved his job, but despite that he'd still put Sly on desk duty.

For! Six! Months!

It was cruel and unusual punishment if you asked Sly. Especially when to add insult to injury, Carmelita was being sent off on cases to all the fun places while he was stuck in the office.

He glanced at his phone and a selfie Carmelita had sent him from Guam. They never assigned him a case in Guam.

He still saved the smiling picture of her lounging on a beach as his lock screen.

As he did that, a stack of files taller than him was dropped onto his desk. "This all needs to be done by Friday," said the goose who put them there.

Sly looked at the stack of files, then back at the goose. "But it's Thursday."

"Then you better get to work," the goose said, before turning and walking away without a backward glance.

As he left, a few other coworkers around them snickered at Sly's misfortune, and made no offers to help.

Ever get the feeling your coworkers didn't like you? Sly had that feeling nearly constantly. As it stood, Carmelita seemed to be the only one in Interpole who could even stand him.

It always made him wonder just what he'd done to make them hate him in the past, but whenever he tried to ask, the dirty looks promptly increased and the subject was quickly changed.

Six months at his desk and having to endure his coworkers' hostility only added to the punishment.

Sly sighed. Catching bad guys was great and he didn't regret a minute of it, but sometimes he really hated his job. It was suffocating in a lot of ways.

Feeling like he'd combust if he even looked at any more paperwork, Sly glanced around if anyone was looking at him before closing his case file and pulling up a private chat room on his phone instead.

Time to take a break.

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Hey, Spex, Pinkie, you online?

:Spex_Guy

Present

:PinkTornado

Hi! Hi! 😀

Sly grinned and cast around one last cautious glance to make sure no one saw him shirking his work.

Still, even if they did, he could always claim his therapist mandated it.

It had been lonely after he'd lost his memory. He had Carmelita, of course, but apparently, they had never talked about their lives outside of work before, so she wasn't able to get him in contact with any of his old friends, and none of them seemed to have tried to contact him either.

Or maybe he just didn't have friends before. Now that was a sad thought.

Either way, he'd been surprised when his therapist emailed him out of the blue (Dr. Gray almost never emailed) with a possible solution. An anonymous group chat with her other patients.

He'd been skeptical at first, but surprisingly, he had hit it off instantly with Spex_Guy and PinkTornado. Even if he'd never met them or even knew their real names, he still felt like they were some of the best friends he had.

: Spex_Guy

Aren't you supposed to be at work right now?

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Im on break from my nose to the grindstone. Has it been 6 months yet?

:PinkTornado

Uh I think its only 4

:Spex_Guy

Four months and 5 days to be exact.

One month and 25 days left to go.

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Kill me now BP

:Spex_Guy

What did you even do to be on probation for so long?

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Classified ;)

:PinkTornado

Really? Cool!

:Spex_Guy

You know, sometimes I wonder if everything you say is classified is ACTUALLY classified

Or if you just like saying everything you do is classified because it sounds cooler that way.

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Why Spex, I'm hurt. Would I ever do a thing like that?

:Spex_Guy

Yes.

:PinkTornado

Yes

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Et tu, Pinkie.

:PinkTornado

Sorry 😣

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Ah, I can't stay mad at you.

:PinkTornado

😀

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Anyway, Hey Spex how's Air_Heart_Babe Doing?

:PinkTornado

Yeah, how is she? You said shed been upset lately.

:Spex_Guy

She seems happier recently. I think she found a new project to work on.

Although, hmm…

:PinkTornado

Hmm?

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Hmm?

:Spex_Guy

It just occurred to me I hadn't seen her in a few hours.

She said she was going out to get some parts, but I guess she got distracted at the store.

:PinkTornado

Happens to me all the time

Especially at the donut shop

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Donuts ARE very distracting.

:PinkTornado

Right!

:Spex_Guy

Speaking of distracting, you're using us to avoid work, aren't you?

You'veBeenStruckBy:

Me? Why I never.

:Spex_Guy

Right.

Well, I guess you're gonna have to find something else to 'not' distract you.

I need to go cal my girlfriend and see when she'll be home.

*call

:PinkTornado

And I'm gonna go out and get some donuts. I've got a craving all of a sudden.

You'veBeenStruckBy:

NOOOoooo! Don't leave me!

Spex_Guy has logged off

:PinkTornado

Bye!

PinkTornado has logged off

Sly sighed as he closed the chat. Well, that had been fun while it lasted. Guess he better get started on that paperwork.

He stood on his desk chair to reach the top file, but just as his fingers closed around it, he let out a strangled choking sound, and the stack of files scattered to the floor.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" demanded a passing koala, as the papers nearly fell on her, but Sly barely heard her.

All of a sudden, an incredible pain had punched right through his chest. It felt like someone had just shoved a poker that was both freezing-cold and burning-hot straight through him, making him quake as if given an electric shock.

The angry koala's expression quickly turned to alarm as Sly Cooper suddenly fell off the chair and collapsed at her feet in a dead faint.

The ambulance was called only moments later.

Chapter Text

"Tell me another one, Dad! Please!" asked the eager voice of a young child.

A fatherly chuckle answered and there was the sound of a book page being turned. "Alright, son. Here's one I think you'll love…"

Sly blinked sleep from his eyes to see the bleary face of Carmelita staring down at him with an expression of utter worry.

"Oh no," he said.

Despite his blurred vision, there was no mistaking how Carmelita's eyes widened in alarm. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I've died and gone to heaven," Sly replied with a grin. "Complete with a beautiful angel."

The concern on Carmelita's face softened into something warmer. "Cheesy, Ringtail," she said, leaning over to kiss him.

"Are you saying you don't think that was gouda?" Sly quipped back when she broke the kiss.

Carmelita rolled her eyes, and it was Sly's turn to frown. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what are you doing here, Carmelita?" he asked. "I thought you had a case in Guam?"

"I got myself reassigned to a different case," Carmelita said. "One closer to home."

"Why?" asked Sly, confused.

Carmelita gave him the same look she always did when she thought he'd said something particularly stupid.

It was then Sly finally looked away from her (beautiful) face to see just where he was.

In a hospital bed.

Well, that wasn't a good sign.

It was then he remembered what happened to land him here.

"Ah, Mr. Cooper, I see you're awake," said the doctor as he stepped into the room behind Carmelita. "Would you mind telling us what happened?" asked the kindly looking kangaroo with a name tag that said 'Dr. Rue'.

Not wanting to worry Carmelita even further, Sly tried to brush it off and sit up. "I don't know, but I'm sure it was nothing. I've been overworking late-"

He was cut off when the same pain as before shot through him, causing him to collapse back onto the bed, clutching at his chest.

Carmelita was at his side immediately, and the doctor bound over to him as well.

Fortunately, this time the pain didn't last as long, and Sly managed to stay conscious but was still panting like he'd just run a marathon.

"Want to try that again, Mr. Cooper?" asked Dr. Rue.

Reluctantly, this time Sly complied and explained what he'd felt, and answered the doctor's questions as best he could.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Carmelita once they were finished, her worry making her words sharper than she probably intended.

Dr. Rue was still dutifully writing down all Sly had told him, and replied, "We won't know for sure until his bloodwork comes in. At the moment it could be any number of things, but I assure you we'll begin treatment as soon as we can."

After taking a few more tests, and determining Sly should remain in the hospital overnight, the doctor took his leave of them to continue his rounds.

Once he was gone, Carmelita looked at Sly, her expression troubled. "Is there anything else?" she asked. "Anything at all that is out of the ordinary?"

Sly frowned thoughtfully as the brief dream he'd had before waking flashed through his head. "Well, there is one thing," he said, thinking about the exchange he'd heard. "I… I think I might have remembered something."

Carmelita's eyes widened as an expression of shock (And… was that fear? Nah, couldn't be.) flashed across her face. "You remembered?" she asked slowly. "What did you remember?"

"Not much," said Sly, shrugging off her concerns. "Just a few words. I think it was me when I was a kid asking my father to read me a bedtime story."

Rather than be happy for the sweet but simple memory, Carmelita's frown only deepened. "It may be for the best that you do not try to remember any more than that," she said.

Sly looked at her in confusion. "What? Why? Don't you want me to regain my memory?"

Carmelita frowned like she was trying to find the right way to put something into words. "It's just that I know you lost your parents when you were quite young, and I'm sure that was quite traumatic for you. I just worry you might accidentally trigger something and make your condition worse."

Sly smiled softly at her, touched that she was so concerned for him. "Don't worry. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll be fine. We'll be back to solving crimes in no time."

"I'll hold you to that, Cooper," Carmelita said, giving him another peck on the lips as she stood up. "Excuse me a minute, I need to call in that you're not dead yet."

Sly flopped back onto the bed with a dramatic huff. "Not for long if I die of boredom being stuck in bed."

Carmelita rolled her eyes and handed him his phone. "Here, entertain yourself," she said before stepping out of the room.

Sly snickered and used his phone to open his friends' group chat and saw that he'd missed quite a few messages. Apparently, there was currently an intense debate going on about the best donut flavor.

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Hey guys!

Pinkies right BTW. Chocolate with sprinkles are the best.

Can't beat the classics.

: PinkTornado

HAH!

: Spex_Guy

There you are! I would have thought you'd chime in an hour ago.

What happened?

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Oh, nothing much. Just in the hospital.

: Spex_Guy

WHAT?

: PinkTornado

WHAAAAAT

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Don't worry about it. I'm fine.

: Spex_Guy

If you're in the hospital it doesn't sound like you're fine.

: PinkTorndo

ARE YOU OKAY?

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Guys, I'm fine really

The doctor just needs to do some bloodwork

I'm sure it's nothing.

It wasn't nothing.

Sly's bloodwork came back saying he was perfectly healthy. The doctors tried every test they could, but nothing appeared to be wrong with him.

Despite that, he continued to have attacks about once a day. At seemingly random intervals, the same pain would hit him like a freight train and leave him shaking on the floor. Some were quick, others lasted several minutes and caused him to pass out. No one could find the cause of it.

Sly hated to see Carmelita so worried. She barely left his side except when she had to go to work, and even then she did that quite reluctantly.

"It's not the same without you as my backup," she said once as she left for work.

"Please," said Sly from where he was camped out on the couch for the day. "If anyone can catch that art thief singlehanded, it's you, Lita."

She'd kissed him for saying that, but her worry was still there.

Sly had quickly grown to hate these attacks. But despite them, he refused to be confined to a hospital bed and managed to convince the doctors to let him do his bed rest at home. They reluctantly agreed only because he and Carmelita were living together, and she could keep an eye on him.

And she wasn't the only one. Even if they weren't there physically, Sly was constantly being checked in on online by PinkTornado. His concern was touching, if a bit excessive.

As if to only add to the bad news, Spex_Guy soon confided in them that his girlfriend (whom Sly only knew as Air_Heart_Babe) hadn't just gotten caught up at the store, but instead had vanished without a trace. Spex_Guy was trying to keep his cool but was clearly growing more frantic with worry about both her and Sly's condition as time went on.

Sly hated that he was stuck at home with her missing. He'd be out there helping Spex_Guy look for her if he wasn't sure Carmelita would tie him to the bed if he even tried to leave the apartment. As fun as that sounded, he didn't think it'd be of any help to anyone.

Still, he offered what Interpol contacts he could to Spex_Guy to help him find her. It was the least he could do, and Spex_Guy appreciated the effort.

So, yeah, things were not looking good all around.

Which is why it was so surprising when one day out of the blue, Spex_Guy sent a message.

: Spex_Guy

We need to meet IRL

You'veBeenStruckBy :

What?

: PinkTornado

FINALLY! I've really been wanting to see you guys!

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Wait Wait Wait! Is this even allowed?

I thought Dr. Gray said that we needed to remain anonymous.

Patient confidentiality and all that.

Not that I wouldn't love to meet you both.

: Spex_Guy

It's not-

This is more important than that.

I found something.

: PinkTornado

Found something?

You'veBeenStruckBy :

What?

You mean about your girlfriend?

: Spex_Guy

No

Well, actually possibly yes, but not just her.

I also found something about you, Sly.

Sly jerked back and stared at his phone for a long minute. Long enough that the others were clearly concerned he'd had another attack.

: PinkTornado

ARE YOU OKAY?

DO I NEED TO CALL A AMBULANCE?

PLEASE ANSWER?

: Spex_Guy

Sly! Answer me!

You'veBeenStruckBy :

…

How do you know my name?

It was their turn to have a long pause.

: Spex_Guy

I'll explain everything.

I promise.

Just, please, meet us here at 2 o'clock

(Link)

Sly checked the link and saw it was the address to a picnic table in a small park near the art museum Carmelita was staking out for her case.

Convenient.

Maybe a little too convenient.

Still… Sly hated to think he'd been catfished this entire time. Spex_Guy and PinkTornado had grown to be his closest friends, he balked at the idea it all might have been faked.

Besides, if anything went wrong, Carmelita would be there in an instant to back him up.

And then yell at him for the next several hours for leaving the apartment when on bed rest.

Worth it.

Besides, Sly wanted answers.

So as the time drew near, Sly got dressed, made sure he had his shock pistol on him, and with a quiet mutter of, "Don't try this at home, kids," he walked out the door to meet them.

Chapter Text

Sly didn't think anything else could surprise him that day after Spex_Guy revealed he knew Sly's name while asking to meet IRL.

It looks like he was wrong about that.

The moment he reached the picnic table it had only taken him a second to clock Spex_Guy and PinkTornado from where they were sitting at it.

And the reason it was so shocking was because… they looked exactly like he'd imagined them when reading their messages in his head.

There was no way Sly could have known Spex_Guy was a short turtle with thick glasses any more than he could have known PinkTornado was a massive pink hippo. But he'd pictured them exactly down to Spex_Guy's high-tech wheelchair and PinkTornado's luchador mask. The fact he instantly knew which of them was which was also very telling.

What was going on here?

They, apparently, knew what he looked like too, as PinkTornado spotted him walking up and gave a friendly wave. "Sly! Over here! We saved you a seat!" he called loudly.

Spex_Guy waved a little more shyly. "Hi, Sly, good to see you," he said.

Sly could only weakly wave back. They even sounded like he'd imagined.

Seriously, what was going on here?

Supremely confused, Sly made his way over to sit down at their table, eyeing them suspiciously.

Seeing that, PinkTornado seemed to deflate and look like a kicked puppy. "You really don't recognize us?" he asked sadly.

"Recognize you?" Sly asked in bewilderment. Then his eyes widened before narrowing again. "I knew you before I lost my memory, didn't I? Were we acquaintances? Friends?"

Spex_Guy and PinkTornado exchanged a glance before the former reached into his pocket and pulled out an old photograph. "You knew us… a bit more than that," he admitted.

Sly took the photo and gaped.

There in the picture was a young raccoon in a blue shirt wearing an impish grin and being hugged like a teddy bear alongside a small bespectacled turtle in the arms of a large and cheerful pink hippo.

Sly didn't need his memories to know this was him as a child.

"Then, you're… what? My childhood friends?" Sly asked.

PinkTornado beamed at him and pulled him into a hug. "Oh yeah, best friends. We're basically your brothers."

Spex_Guy coughed and waved for PinkTornado to tone it down, and the hippo reluctantly set Sly back into his chair. Turning to address the raccoon, the turtle said, "My name is Bentley, and he's Murray.

"The Murray," Murray corrected.

"The Murray," Bentley repeated. "The three of us grew up together in the same orphanage after you lost your parents. We've stuck together ever since."

Sly looked between them and the picture again. They certainly seemed close in the photo, but still… "If we're so close, why didn't you reach out to me after I lost my memories? I was starting to think I was some kind of loser with no friends."

"You're not a loser, Sly," Murray was quick to assure him. "And we did reach out. We've been talking to you this whole time."

Sly opened his mouth but then shut it again as he realized Murray was right. "But why the secrecy?" he asked. "Why not tell me we knew each other? Did Dr. Gray say you couldn't for some reason?"

Bentley squirmed uncomfortably in his wheelchair. "Erm, actually, your therapist never set up our group chat. I hacked into her email and sent it to you instead."

"Ah," said Sly. That explained why Dr. Gray had never mentioned the group chat in their sessions. "Again, why the secrecy?"

"We didn't want to get you or us arrested," said Murray as if it was just that simple.

"Wait, what?" asked Sly in bewilderment, feeling like he was missing something. Why would he, an Interpol officer, need to worry about being arrested?

Bentley sighed. "Sly… There's something important we need to tell you. Something I'm not sure you'll believe, but, well… here." A mechanical hand attached to his wheelchair reached into a pouch on the back and pulled out a large old book.

Sly didn't know why, but his heart skipped a beat at the sight of it.

He didn't know how or why, but one thing was for sure.

That book was important.

Upon seeing Sly's eyes glued to the tome, Bentley handed it over, and Sly held it like it was something delicate.

It didn't look like much on the outside. It was incredibly old, though it looked like it had been rebound within the last few years. There were gold clasps on its brown cover that held its pages shut, and emblazoned on the cover were two words over a caricature of a raccoon's face.

"Thievius Raccoonus," Sly read aloud, running his hands over the words.

"That book has been passed down in your family for generations, Sly," said Bentley. "It has records going back pretty much as far as writing has existed. In it, your ancestors have told all their history about their lives, their achievements… and details what it takes to be a thief as great as you are."

That snapped Sly out of the spell the book had him under. "Wait, what?" he asked in shock. "A thief? I'm not a thief."

Bentley and Murray exchanged a look.

"Uh," said Murray. "Actually, Sly… You kinda are, and we're your gang."

Sly stared at them for a long minute, before forcing out a chuckle. "Okay, haha, you got me," he said. "Nice joke to break the ice IRL."

But both the turtle and the hippo were dead serious. "It's not a joke, Sly. You really are a Master Thief."

But Sly shook his head in denial. "No, just no. There's no way. If I was a thief, there's no way Carmelita would even stand to be in the same room as me without arresting me, much less have me as her partner. Unless…" Sly paled beneath his fur. "Oh no, please tell me I didn't used to be a dirty cop!"

"No, no, you weren't a dirty cop, Sly," Bentley was quick to assure him.

"You weren't a cop at all," Murray added, making Bentley elbow him in the stomach.

Sly's head slowly rotated between the two of them as he gaped. "What?"

Bently sighed. "The truth is Sly, you were never an Interpol agent before your amnesia. Your entire history with them is a fabrication to keep you from the truth and put your skills to use for their benefit."

But Sly was shaking his head in denial. "No, Carmelita told me herself when I woke up that I was her partner. She wouldn't lie about that."

"I mean, she probably would to protect you," said Murray.

"And keep you from escaping her again," Bentley muttered under his breath, soft enough that Sly was pretty sure he hadn't been supposed to hear that.

"Protect me from what?" asked Sly.

The other two exchanged another glance. "We have a lot of enemies, Sly," said Bentley seriously. "Stealing from thieves doesn't exactly give other criminals the warm fuzzies."

Sly put down the book and began massaging his forehead with his hands. "Okay, say I believe you and I was some thief before I lost my memories and got conned into becoming an Interpol agent by one of the most straight-laced inspectors I know. Now what? Why not leave well enough alone? Why-"

He was cut off as he felt another attack hit him like a truck.

With a whimper, he practically collapsed onto the table, grabbing at his chest and praying he stayed conscious through it. He had a strong suspicion these two would just kidnap him if he passed out now.

They might just kidnap him anyway, as he felt Murray's strong arms pick him up, but instead of making off with him somewhere, the hippo gently laid him flat on the grass by the table until the pain finally passed.

When he could finally open his eyes again, it was to the sight of Bentley and Murray looking down at him with fear and worry rivaling Carmelita's in their eyes. Having only heard about the attacks before, witnessing one in person had to be pretty scary.

"That's why," Bentley said quietly as he and Murray helped Sly sit back up, before settling beside him on the grass. "Your condition is getting worse, isn't it?"

Sly didn't meet either of their eyes. He hadn't even admitted that to Carmelita yet.

"And I think I know why," Bentley continued, seeing the truth on Sly's face.

That got Sly's attention. How could Bentley know what was going on? Did the book say something about it being a hereditary illness or something?

Bentley glanced over at the book still sitting innocently on the table. "Since you lost your memory, I've been guarding the Thievius Raccoonus for you. And recently I noticed something strange." He then cast a glance at Sly, and added, "Now this is going to sound crazy-"

Sly gave a slight laugh, "Please, I'm pretty sure we're long past the bar of crazy at this point in the conversation."

"I believe someone is using time travel to go back in time and erase your family line and you along with it," Bentley said bluntly.

Sly's jaw dropped. "I stand corrected," he said.

Seeing he was once again losing him, Bentley quickly tried to explain, "It's the pages. They're all suddenly turning blank like someone's undoing history. I've noticed it most strongly in Rioichi Cooper's section, but I've seen similar inconsistencies elsewhere, and since it's affecting your ancestors in the past, it's also affecting you here in the present."

"Are you hearing yourself?" Sly asked in disbelief. "Time travel doesn't exist!"

"Does too," Murray said, defensively. "Bentley invented it. He's the smartest guy there is."

"It's the project I'd been working on that I've been telling you about," said Bentley bashfully at the praise. His face then fell. "The one Penelope and I had been working on together before she disappeared."

"Penelope?" Sly asked before it clicked who he was talking about. "Oh, Air_Heart_Babe."

Bentley nodded. "I'm worried someone kidnapped her and used her to get our technology to do this. But with your help, we could go back in time and find who took her and help you stop having those attacks."

"So whaddya say, Sly?" asked Murray eagerly. "Will you help us?"

Sly was pretty sure the best way to help them was into a mental institution, but before he could form any kind of answer-

ZZZZAP!

All three of them jumped as a shock blast fired over them and singed a tree near Murray's head.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" came an angry shout, and they all looked up to see Carmelita racing out of the museum in their direction.

It was then it occurred to Sly that this probably wasn't the best way for her to see them, with him sprawled on the ground, and Bentley and Murray looming over him like they were threatening him.

That seemed to occur to Bentley too. "Oh man, it's Carmelita!" he said. "We gotta go!"

Murray nodded in agreement, and picked Bentley up, wheelchair and all, onto one of his shoulders, then held his other hand out to Sly. "Come on, Sly!"

But Sly could only shrink back and wordlessly shake his head.

Murray drew back his hand and looked hurt, but with Carmelita closing in, he only had time to reaffirm his grip on Bentley and then hightailed it out of the park.

Carmelita reached Sly a moment later, glowering after the fleeing figures with fury in her eyes.

She then looked down at Sly with the same worry and fear he'd seen when he told her about the memory of his dad. "What were you doing with them?" she demanded, reaching out a hand to help him up.

Sly reached out and took it, trying to think of how to explain it to her.

Everything Bentley and Murray had told him was still turning around in his head. According to them, Carmelita had lied to him, used him, and had been using and lying to him from the start. But… no, it couldn't be. It was Carmelita. His partner. The vixen he was head over heels for. There's no way she would do that to him.

… Right?

Chapter Text

Needless to say, the ride home was uncomfortable.

Mostly because Carmelita drove recklessly when she was angry (though still obeying the traffic laws to the letter), and when she heard Sly recount what had happened that afternoon, she was furious!

"Oh, those two! I never thought they would sink so low!" the vixen growled under her breath. "When I get my hands on them!"

"So you do know them, then," said Sly in realization. Carmelita only got this angry when it was personal. "I knew them."

That made Carmelita quiet for a long moment, her eyes glued to the road before she finally said, "Yes. You knew them. They weren't lying when they said you were friends as kids. But while you joined Interpol, they took up… less legal practices."

"They're criminals?" asked Sly, not totally surprising given they'd openly admitted to being thieves (along with him, apparently), but it was good to hear Carmelita confirm it.

"Yes," said Carmelita. "Not entirely dangerous ones. Or, at least, I didn't think they were. But to try and take advantage of you when you're vulnerable like this! I never thought they'd do something like that!"

"So it was a lie, then?" said Sly, wanting to hear the words from her lips. "That I'm a criminal too?"

Carmelita glanced at him and then back at the road. "Oh, of course it was a lie, I mean time travel? Bentley should give up crime and begin writing science fiction. To think something like that is real, it's loco!"

Sly felt a smile spread across his face even as he gripped his seat tighter as Carmelita took a sharp turn. "I know, right? They almost had me going for a bit."

"And that is why you have me, to keep you on the straight and narrow," Carmelita said with a nod to herself as they pulled up in front of their apartment.

It wasn't until later that Sly realized she'd never really answered his question.

It took some convincing for Sly to talk Carmelita into going to work that night.

Bentley and Murray resurfacing had her spooked and she was worried they'd come breaking into their apartment to take another chance at Sly. It was only when Sly promised to keep his shock pistol in reach and to fire at them on sight that she finally agreed to head out. It wasn't like she could take the night off anyway. Not when she felt she was so close to a break in her case.

It wasn't until he was sure she was gone, that Sly sat on their couch and finally pulled out what he'd been hiding and placed it on the coffee table in front of him.

The Thievius Raccoonus.

Bentley and Murray had left it when they'd fled, and Sly had managed to snag it and sneak it back home without Carmelita noticing.

He knew he really shouldn't have held onto it. He should have given it to Carmelita as evidence and be done with the whole mess.

But something in him just couldn't do it.

Besides, Bentley said the book was his anyway.

For what felt like hours but was probably minutes, Sly just stared at the book before him. Something inside him told him that opening it would be the point of no return.

But still…

That story Bentley and Murray had told was crazy.

(The fear in Carmelita's eyes when he remembered something.)

There's no way he was some rehabilitated criminal.

(The constant resentment from his other coworkers.)

Did this book really hold his family history, or was that made up too?

(He always wondered why his personal file was bare of his history.)

They couldn't really all be thieves, could they?

(No one would tell him how his parents died or let him see their file. Claiming it was stolen.)

He couldn't actually be a thief, could he?

(The ease with which he could sneak around and his willingness to bend the rules.)

Sly sighed and reached up to ruffle his fur, before deciding to bite the bullet.

He reached out… and opened the book.

He was shocked to see the first page written entirely in what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs with translations scribbled on sticky notes in the margins.

According to this, his earliest known ancestor was an ancient Egyptian raccoon named Slytunkhamen, and it detailed his exploits robbing booby-trapped temples in Egypt.

Also, he could apparently turn invisible… Huh…

Fascinated, Sly picked up the book and flipped through the pages, seeing more and more depictions of raccoons with his last name detailing their thieving exploits.

At least, until he stumbled upon a page written mostly in Japanese kanji detailing the history of one Rioichi Cooper in the seventeenth century.

Rioichi… isn't that the name Bentley mentioned?

Oddly, unlike the rest of the book, Rioichi's page was surprisingly blank. Maybe Bentley had seen these blank pages and assumed the words had disappeared for his time travel theory. There was no way-

Sly turned the next page in Rioichi's section and froze.

The words on the entire page were growing fuzzy. Before his very eyes, the kanji started to lift off the page and vanish into thin air.

But he didn't get a chance to do much more than register that before the pain came roaring back.

Sly choked and collapsed off the couch as it felt like someone was trying to rip out his heart with their bare hands. The book fell open on the floor beside him, and he could only watch through the pain as even more words disappeared. Reaching out for the book to try and do something to stop it, Sly saw something even more horrifying than the pain and the vanishing writing.

His entire arm had turned transparent.

Sly watched in horrified fascination as his arm seemed to flicker in and out of existence, the flickers corresponding to more agonizing shocks of pain. It was excruciating.

Then, suddenly, it stopped.

Gasping for breath, Sly slowly pulled himself back up and looked at the book. Almost the entire page had been erased, leaving only a few words on the aged parchment.

Having no idea what was going on, Sly strained to reach his phone and pull up the group chat he'd been debating on deleting.

You'veBeenStruckBy :

I'm not saying I believe you about the time travel

But I'm willing to give you a chance to prove it exists.

: PinkTornado

SLY! I knew you'd come through.

: Spex_Guy

You seemed pretty against it before.

Did something happen?

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Have you ever seen Back to the Future?

: PinkTornado

YES!

You'veBeenStruckBy :

Remember what happens to Marty when his parents don't meet

: PinkTornado

YES!

Oh

Oh no

Sly!

: Spex_Guy

We'll come to you.

You'veBeenStruckBy :

I'll send you my address.

: Spex_Guy

Appreciated.

You'veBeenStruckBy :

… You already know it, don't you?

: Spex_Guy

I do. But I still appreciate you being willing to give it to me.

Sly sighed as he put down his phone and tried to regain his strength for their arrival.

He just hoped he wasn't making a huge mistake.

Chapter Text

Sly was at least able to stand when Murray practically broke down his door to get in, but he was still in rough shape.

Upon seeing Sly's disheveled appearance and the clear lingering pain he was in, the hippo raced forward and yanked Sly into a massive but gentle hug.

"Don't you worry, Sly," he said into his ear a little too loudly, but with earnestness bleeding through with every word. "We're gonna fix you up no problem. The Murray promises that."

"I'll hold you to that one," Sly replied, appreciating the gesture.

Murray hurried to pick up the Thievius Raccoonus and escorted Sly out the door to a large and loudly-painted blue van with some strange mechanics and even what appeared to be rocket boosters grafted onto it.

There, Bentley appeared to be fusing the last of the odd parts into place and lifted his welding mask up when they approached.

"Describe what happened?" he said, clearly in full science mode.

While still in disbelief despite having seen it himself, Sly explained everything that had happened, from the vanishing page, to his pain, to beginning to see even himself start to disappear along with the writings.

At his words, Bentley looked grim. "It's as I feared. Despite my machine, time is something we are very quickly running out of."

"Yeah, about that time machine," said Sly, eyeing the crazy van in front of him. "Mind explaining that."

"Certainly," said Bentley, hopping his wheelchair into the van and gesturing for Sly to join him. "But I think it'd be better if I just showed you instead."

Swallowing his skepticism and instinctive worry he was about to be kidnapped, Sly climbed into the van after him, and Murray moved over to the driver's seat.

"Now Sly, can you tell me what this is?" asked Bentley as he sat in his wheelchair next to a large jar-shaped mechanism in the back of the truck and held something up for Sly to see.

Sly sat down beside him looked at it and quirked an eyebrow. "It's this evening's paper."

"Precisely," said Bentley. "This newspaper didn't exist before today. Specifically, when it was printed this afternoon. My time machine requires objects originating from different points in time and uses them to take us to those times. So, if I were to put this paper in like so…"

Bentley put the newspaper into the jar, and the whole thing sparked with electricity, and the machinery around them began to hum.

"Punch it, Murray," the turtle called to the front.

Murray gunned the engine, and the van began shooting down the road at breakneck speeds.

Sly had to grab the side of the van just to keep from being jostled about. Outside the van's windows, he was shocked to see everything blur together until nothing was left but a blue vortex swirling around the van.

They were only in the vortex for a brief moment before reality reasserted itself.

Or at least, Sly thinks it did. He was pretty sure it was nighttime a few seconds ago.

As the raccoon tried to make sense of what he was seeing, Bentley made it even more confusing by opening the van's door and gesturing for Sly to peer out.

Following his gaze, Sly's jaw dropped.

They were back at the park.

Not only that, across the grass ahead of them near a picnic table there was already a Sly, Bentley, and Murray chatting on oblivious to their onlookers, and if he listened closely he could just make out them having the exact conversation they'd had earlier that day.

"So, time travel doesn't exist, huh," said Bentley, crossing his arms smugly.

Sly forced his jaw up off the ground even as he watched Past Carmelita arrive at the scene and chase Past Bentley and Murray off.

"Murray was right," he said finally.

The Bentley next to him made a noise of confusion, and in the driver's seat, Murray pointed at himself as if to say 'Who? Me?'

"What he said earlier, or, I guess it's just now he said it," said Sly, glancing over to the turtle. "You really are the smartest guy there is. You'd have to be to come up with this."

Bentley sputtered bashfully and Murray laughed.

Glancing between the distant Sly and Carmelita who were now leaving the park and the van around them, Sly asked, "So how are we going to use this to both save my ancestors, save your girlfriend, and how can I help?"

Bentley cleared his throat to get ahold of himself. "Well, to start, we need you to rob that museum."

For the umpteenth time that day, Sly did a double-take. "Wait, what?!"

Sly had no idea how they had talked him into this.

Standing in a criminal hideout and staring at himself in a mirror dressed in blue with a matching hat, black cloth mask over his eyes, and a logo belt like he was some kind of superhero. Sly wondered if it was too late to call it quits and go back to his apartment.

Was he seriously about to rob a museum?

"Can't we just, I don't know, order an antique on eBay?" asked Sly, turning to face Bentley and Murray, who were looking at him with nostalgic expressions on their faces. "There's gotta be a less insane way to do this."

Murray clapped a hand over his mouth at that and giggled. "I'm sorry," he said between snickers. "Just, it's you saying a heist is crazy."

Bentley chuckled at that too, before turning back to Sly and actually answering the question. "It would take a lot of time to find one that's both authentic and comes from the proper time period that we could purchase through legal channels."

"Yeah, but still, stealing from an innocent person?" asked Sly. "It just sounds wrong."

Bentley frowned. "If it makes you feel better we can return it afterward, but for the record, Cyrille Le Paradox is far from innocent. I don't know fully what he's up to, but he's definitely behind a lot of that recent string of art thefts. He's been selling them on ThiefNet to the highest bidder."

Sly's face pinched at that. While hearing the guy was crooked did ease his conscience somewhat, he was disappointed to finally get the tip Carmelita had been needing for her case and was unable to tell her about it. She'd want to know where he'd gotten that info when he was supposed to be in their apartment, and explaining it was not a conversation he was looking forward to.

Seeing Sly needed more convincing, Bentley's expression then grew concerned and he added, "Not only that, and forgive me for saying this, but that attack you had that convinced you to come with us. That was the second one you had today, wasn't it? And it was the worst one yet."

"Well, yeah but-" Sly started to say before another attack hit him in the gut like it had been just waiting for them to talk about it. Thankfully, it was a relatively minor one and he shook it off quickly, but still needed Murray to steady him as he swayed.

Still, Bentley's point had been made. "And that's attack number three. On top of them getting worse, they're growing more frequent. Whatever's going on with Rioichi, I don't think it can wait for shipping and handling to get another artifact to us. We need to get to the past pronto. For your sake if nothing else."

Sly took a deep breath to steady himself. "And do you really think I'm in any shape to pull off a heist?"

"You'll have to be," said Bentley grimly. "Neither Murray nor I have the acrobatic skills required to get to the roof undetected. It has to be you."

Sly sighed. "Great, no pressure or anything."

"Aw, don't worry Sly, you'll do great!" said Murray encouragingly. "Me and Bentley have been casing this place all week, and we'll have your back the entire time."

"He's right," agreed Bentley. "My plan will get us through no problem, and you've trained yourself for this your entire life. It'll be just like riding a bicycle." The turtle then snapped his fingers as something occurred to him. "Speaking of…" he said, turning to another part of the hideout and using his wheelchair's arms to pull something out of a crate.

A long cane with a gold stylized hook at the end of it in the shape of a C.

Sly's eyes widened as he caught sight of it.

Like with the Thievius Raccoonus, something deep inside him told him that this was important. Something he was always meant to have. And when Bentley held it out to him, the raccoon couldn't help but pick it up reverently as if it were irreplaceable.

The cane immediately felt more at home in his hands than his shock pistol ever did.

Instinctively, Sly spun the cane around in his hands, finding himself doing tricks that should have taken years of practice, but instead felt as easy as breathing.

When his impromptu routine was finished, he held the cane up to the light with an awed expression. "Like riding a bicycle, huh?"

Bentley and Murray exchanged a grin. "Yes!" the hippo whooped. "The Cooper Gang is back in business."

Sly wasn't so sure about that, but he adjusted the hat on his head and nodded anyway.

This would be interesting if nothing else.

After leaving the Thievius Raccoonus with an… interesting but apparently trusted friend (who had been thrilled that Sly was about to go steal something. Well, Sly thinks that's what he said. Dimitri's lingo was hard to translate) the three were off to the museum.

Sly had been certain Bentley's plan wouldn't work. There was no way he could do even half the stuff the turtle was asking him to do. He was already planning his apology speech to Carmelita for when he inevitably tripped an alarm it all crashed and burned.

Except… it didn't crash and burn.

The entire plan went off without a hitch.

In fact, it had been easy!

Sly was pretty sure being perched on a skylight while waiting for Bentley to turn off the laser grid was not the best place to have an existential crisis, but he was pretty sure he was having one right now.

Nothing made sense anymore.

One minute he was an Interpol officer on sick leave, with a gorgeous girlfriend/partner in crime fighting. All normal things. The next he was apparently a thief from a long line of thieves, and he and his old gang were about to rob a museum in order to travel back in time to save his own ancestor.

How was this even his life?

And more than that, what did this mean about his past? As crazy as it all was, so far Bentley and Murray seemed legit. They honestly seemed to see him as a friend. The worry Bentley expressed for both him and the still missing Penelope could only be genuine. Murray's earnest care wasn't in doubt. They really seemed like they knew him better than he even knew himself, and the evidence was backing up everything they'd said so far.

So what did that mean about Carmelita? About his job with Interpol? About everything he'd thought was his life?

Was it really all a lie?

Before Sly could come to any conclusions, Bentley chimed in over his earpiece. "Okay, Sly, the security system is down. You're all clear!"

Shaking himself out of his funk, Sly said, "Uh, right, I'm on it."

Propelling himself down from the skylight until he was level with the Japanese dagger. Staring at it for a long moment, wondering if he was really going to do this, he finally reached out and took it.

"Don't forget to leave your calling card," Bentley reminded him in his ear.

Sly twitched at his words and thought of the raccoon-shaped card in his back pocket Bentley and Murray had insisted he take. "Really," he asked, "is that necessary?"

"Well, no," Bentley admitted. "But it's what you've always done before."

Sly shook his head and decided not to place it. He still wasn't sure about this whole thief thing, no matter how naturally it came to him. He was doing this to save people, not show off.

Just as he was about to climb back up to the roof, a door burst open and a shot rang out, slicing his line in two, and sending him falling to the floor.

"What the-?" he asked in confusion.

But when he looked up, silhouetted in the doorway was one Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox.

And she. Was. Furious!

"You didn't really think you were going to get away with this, did you Ringtail?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice, her shock pistol pointed right at his head.

"Carmelita?" Sly said in surprise (and hearing Bentley and Murray begin to panic through his earpiece). She shouldn't be here. She was supposed to be off work by now. Of all the days to stay late. "I can explain!"

"Explain what, you no-good lying thief!?" Carmelita hissed as she stormed closer to him, the shock pistol never leaving him for an instant. "I should have locked you up the second I got my hands on you!"

Sly sucked in a sharp breath at hearing those words, but Carmelita wasn't finished. She was on a roll.

"Why am I not surprised you'd go back to this!" She ranted, almost right on top of him now. "How long have you remembered your past? Or did you even forget it in the first place? Was this all a trick to make a fool out of me?"

She then paused as she seemed to notice he wasn't trying to run away, but was instead just staring up at her with his face ashen beneath his fur.

"Well?" she demanded. "Out with it!"

Sly just stared at her for a very long moment as it all fell into place.

"They were right," Sly finally said in a very quiet voice. "You've been lying to me this whole time."

That took some of the wind out of Carmelita's sails and her eyes widened as she realized that, no, Sly hadn't tricked her and actually didn't remember anything. She'd just blown a hole in her own story and confirmed everything Bentley and Murray had told him.

Still, that didn't change the fact she'd caught him in the act.

"That doesn't matter! What matters is me finding you committing a crime!" she snapped, still angry at what she'd caught him doing.

And you know what, maybe Sly was starting to get angry too.

"Well, gee, Carmelita," he said, standing up and glowering at her. "I happen to think that it matters a lot that my partner, the woman I love, the person I'm supposed to trust to watch my back, has been lying to me about something as important as my entire life!"

Carmelita did not like his tone. "Oh, what, are you trying to tell me this whole stupid heist you're pulling right now was just an act to catch me in a lie?"

"Of course not!" Sly said, clutching the dagger in his hand tightly. "Do you really think I'd be doing something like this all for a petty reason like that?!"

The look Carmelita gave him made it clear she absolutely thought he could be that petty.

"I didn't!" insisted Sly. "I didn't even want to do this!"

"Then why, Sly?" demanded Carmelita, who still had her shock pistol aimed at him but not as high as before and a desperate edge creeping into her voice. "You were out of this business. You were doing good. We were-" she cut herself off and steeled herself. "Why would you throw that all away?"

Sly knew she wouldn't believe his reasons. But fortunately, or rather unfortunately, before he could even open his mouth to try, another attack crashed through him and his words instead came out as a choked scream.

Carmelita actually dropped her pistol in shock as Sly collapsed onto all fours and pain worse than any he'd felt before wracked through him.

And, to his horror, he was once again beginning to flicker. But not just his arm this time, instead his whole body began turning transparent right before his and Carmelita's eyes.

He was literally running out of time.

When the attack finally ran its course, Sly was left panting on the ground with Carmelita standing over him looking horrified and reaching out for him as if she wanted to help but didn't know how.

Finally, Sly managed to pull himself up into a crouch, his cane clutched in one hand and the stolen dagger in his other. "That's why," he said in a hoarse voice. "Turns out the whole time travel thing isn't as loco as we thought it was."

Carmelita just gaped, too shocked to do anything.

Her shock then turned to alarm as Murray's van suddenly crashed backward through the nearby window, the rear end of the vehicle bashing through the glass and setting off every alarm in the building.

The second it was inside, Bentley threw the back door open and his metal arms shot out of his chair to grab Sly by the collar of his shirt and yank him inside. "We have to go!" he shouted, slamming the van doors back shut the instant Sly was inside.

It took a second for Carmelita to register they were getting away, but soon enough she was diving for her shock pistol, but the van was already gunning it away.

Then, before her very eyes, the van drove even faster as the rocket boosters attached to the back activated. Soon it was so fast it was nothing but a blur before it suddenly blinked out of existence entirely.

The only evidence it had even been there in the first place was a license plate that had fallen off when it crashed into the museum.

The Cooper Gang were already off on another adventure.

Well, needless to say, my relationship with Carmelita was probably over.

I didn't want it to end the way it did, with both of us hurt by each other's words and actions, but a relationship built on a lie… is that any kind of relationship at all?

I should have known Carmelita would stay late at work. I've never known anyone else who could be more dedicated to her cases.

I just never realized one of her cases was… me.

I guess I should have known better than to underestimate Inspector Carmelita Fox.

I definitely knew I needed some time to think things over since my entire life had been turned upside down  again . I guess being centuries in the past and on the other side of the world was distant enough.

I was almost hoping it would be a long trip.

Chapter Text

A young raccoon bounced eagerly in his father's lap. "Come on, Dad. You said you'd tell me a story about Rioichi! You promised!"

His father chuckled. "I did promise that, didn't I?"

"Yes!" said the child exasperatedly. "You said you'd tell me one of his ninja adventures!"

"Did I say that?" asked the father in a teasing tone. "I could have sworn it was one of his cooking adventures. Rioichi is the person who invented sushi after all. Yum."

The child made a face at the thought of raw fish. "Daaaad!" he whined.

His father chuckled. "All right, a ninja adventure it is. Here's one I'm sure you'll find exciting…"

Sly slowly opened his eyes.

He had no idea how he managed to fall asleep while the van was careening through the time vortex, but it seemed somehow he'd managed it.

Then again, after that last attack he'd gone through, he was honestly surprised he hadn't passed out sooner.

Still, from the looks of things, it seems like they made it. He was still inside the van, but its doors were open to reveal the inside of an old abandoned Japanese house filled with cobweb-covered furniture and leaves growing over the entrance. Both Bentley and Murray were out of the van, shifting the furniture around to make the place more inhabitable.

Despite some lingering soreness, Sly slowly moved to get up and help them.

But at the sight of him getting out of the van, Murray immediately shoved the ancient dresser he'd been carrying aside and rushed over to pick him up and set him back in the van.

"No way, Sly," he said. "That was a nasty attack you had. You should rest."

Sly looked up at him in confusion. "Wait, how do you know about that?" They hadn't busted in until after the attack had ended.

"I saw it on the security cameras," Bentley called over to him from where he was setting up his computer equipment on a table. He grimaced, "That was… that was bad."

Sly could believe it from the way the turtle was gripping his laptop like a vice and the shudder Murray gave at the mention of it.

"Besides," Bentley said in a forced cheerful tone. "We're just about set up here. All that's left is for me to get my tech situated, and no offense, but I don't want you or Murray touching it."

Seeing how complicated everything Bentley was holding looked, Sly nodded in understanding. "Got it. I'll stay far away from the beeping things."

Bentley shot him a smile before turning back to his work.

Seeing there was nothing to do yet, and not really wanting to move again, Sly leaned back against one of the seats in the van.

After a moment's hesitation, Murray climbed into the van to join him. "You okay?" he asked.

Sly glanced up at him and gave a smile. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I told you, the attacks hurt when they happen, but it fades soon enough."

"No, I know that," said Murray with a nod. "I mean, I'm still worried about you, but no, I was asking about, uh, well, when we saw you having your attack we also saw what happened with Carmelita too."

All Sly could say to that was, "Ah," and try very hard to avoid Murray's gaze.

Murray carefully scooted a little closer to Sly like he was approaching a wounded animal. "I know how much she means to you."

Sly just nodded. He and Bentley had often gotten into good-natured arguments in their group chat about which of them had the better girlfriend where the two would gush openly about how amazing they thought they were with Murray as their somewhat impartial judge. Or, rather, their very partial judge, given he liked both of them.

"And, you know, if you want to talk about it, I'm here for you Sly," Murray said, settling himself next to Sly, making it clear he was ready and willing to back up that offer.

Sly's gaze turned down towards his feet as he thought it over.

What the heck, it's not like he had anything more to lose. And it wouldn't be the first time PinkTornado had been there to let him rant.

"I… It's just…" Sly said as he tried to find out where to start. "Was anything between us ever even real?"

"Well, you really like her. I know that much," said Murray.

"I do," Sly admitted, knowing that was true even now. "But does she…? Was I ever really a partner to her? Or just her pet thief she could keep on a short leash."

Murray hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I don't know Carmelita as well as you do, but she's been chasing us for a long time so I do know some things. And one thing I do know for sure is she's always had a soft spot for you, Sly, even as a thief."

Sly looked up at him in surprise. "She did?"

"Yeah, you two kept kissing when on heists, and she would actually save us when we were in trouble with the bad guys. Also, any time she was involved you'd stop following the plan to go talk to her. Bentley hates that."

"I still do!" Bentley chimed in from where he was hunched over his computer. "Nice to know some things never change."

Sly chuckled at that, realizing that is what just happened in their recent heist.

"Bentley also checked your hospital records after what happened at Kaine Island,' Murray continued in a more subdued tone. "You were in bad shape."

Sly winced remembering that hospital stay. There hadn't been a single part of him that wasn't battered, broken, or bruised. Not a great thing to have as one of your first memories.

"Carmelita may have lied when you lost your memory," Murray said. "But she also saved your life. If you tried to run from her that day you probably wouldn't have made it. There's no way we would have gotten you to a hospital in time in the van."

Sly conceded that point. "Still, I wish she hadn't kept up the lie after I recovered. No wonder I never fit in at Interpol."

"Yeah," said Murray, scratching his head. "It was so weird thinking of you being a constable. What was that like?"

Sly considered his thoughts before answering. Like with Carmelita, he was pretty sure his career in law enforcement was over too. "It wasn't that bad. I liked working with Carmelita. I liked stopping bad people before they could hurt anyone else." He let out a frustrated sigh. "Though it hasn't been as much fun lately. Don't even get me started on all the paperwork." He shuddered. "So much paperwork."

Murray nodded. "Yeah, I can see why you'd hate that," he said understandingly. "It's why you were a thief before instead of a cop. That way you could give Carmelita an excuse to arrest those guys."

Sly blinked in surprise at him. "I did?" he asked.

Murray seemed to realize something. "Didn't we tell you? Sly, we didn't steal from just anybody. You, me, and Bentley always made sure to only steal from bad guys. Then, with Carmelita chasing us, she could see what they were doing and catch them."

Sly stared at him, stunned. "So, wait, we weren't just thieves, we were more like vigilantes?"

Murray frowned at the word. "That's like what superheroes are, right?" he asked, looking a little confused.

Sly chuckled. "Yeah, big guy. Most superheroes are vigilantes."

"Then that's exactly what we were like," said Murray proudly, flexing a muscle as he did so. "Just we also stole the bad guy's stuff while we were at it."

Well, at least made Sly feel better about his own past. Good to know he wasn't a terrible person even if he was operating outside the law.

Besides, who didn't want to be a superhero?

"Thanks, Murray," Sly said sincerely.

Murray just reached over and pulled Sly into another hug. He'd been giving Sly a lot of those since they'd met.

Guess it was a pretty sure sign that he'd been missed.

Unfortunately, the warm fuzzy feelings didn't last as Bentley came wheeling up to them with a grim expression.

"We have a problem," he said, holding up a sheet of paper he'd found outside.

On the paper was a drawing of a raccoon with a topknot alongside a slew of Japanese writing.

Even in Feudal Japan, Sly knew a wanted poster when he saw one.

It seemed his ancestor was in more trouble than they thought.

It turns out, Sly was wrong. What Bentley found wasn't a wanted poster.

It was an arrest announcement aimed at ruining a reputation.

According to it, Cooper Rioichi was now imprisoned in a new high-security jail for serving bad sushi to the shogun. Something Bentley insisted had never happened according to the writing of the Thievius Raccoonus. Apparently, Rioichi was famous among the Cooper Clan not just for never getting caught, but for never even being suspected in the first place. Whatever was messing with time, Rioichi getting captured was probably caused by it.

At least the way to start fixing it was clear. Busting Rioichi out of prison.

Easier said than done. The entire village was crawling with guards, and the security at the prison was no joke. It would take some serious doing to get Sly's ancestor out.

Thankfully, Bentley was on the job and talked Sly through what he would need to do to help plan their jailbreak.

To start, he gave Sly a high-tech pair of binoculars (called a binocucom apparently, Bentley's own invention) and asked him to sneak around to take some pictures. It gave him a great chance to explore and take in the amazing fact he really was in a Japanese village in the 1600s.

Even with him being distracted by sightseeing, the job was easy enough, though it did lead to Sly catching sight of someone who clearly didn't belong in this village.

A tiger with a Spanish accent smoking Cuban cigars didn't really fit in the ancient Japanese era, and given he was apparently in charge of things around here it only added to his suspicious nature.

More than that, Sly recognized him.

"What the heck? What is El Jefe doing here?" he wondered aloud as he took a picture of the tiger for Bentley from a rooftop near the geisha's house.

"He does look familiar. El Jefe, where have I heard that name before?" Bentley asked.

"Let's just say the folks back at Interpol would give their eyeteeth to be here right now with a pair of handcuffs," said Sly. "The guy's bad news. If I remember right, he's a mercenary general with quite a few conquests to his name. The guy specializes in hostile takeovers of small countries for the highest bidder. Great strategist, but a coward in combat. Anytime Interpol began closing in, he'd run for the hills."

"Wow, Sly, how do you know all that?" asked Bentley, impressed.

"I have been working at Interpol all this time, you know," said Sly with a shrug. "His file was in the paperwork I had to process when stuck on desk duty."

"Well, some good came of that, at least," said Bentley, now sounding less enthusiastic. "Now we know who we're dealing with, and we know we're definitely not the only ones with a time machine."

Sly nodded in agreement. If crooks started escaping arrest by traveling to the past, then the future would be in a lot of trouble.

But that was a problem for another time. Freeing Rioichi took priority for now.

Bentley murmured to himself thoughtfully as he poured over his notes and pictures to try to work out the best way to get Rioichi out of the prison.

Finally, he sighed and pushed himself away from the table. "Welp looks like this place is locked down tighter than… well, tighter than something."

"Carmelita's grip on her pistol? Barkley's 'secret' stash of imported coffee?" Sly offered up possibilities.

"If it's secret, how do you know about it?" asked Murray curiously.

"Everybody knew about it," said Sly. "The guy threatened to fire anyone who even dared ask to try some."

Murray gave him a knowing look. "You stole some, didn't you?"

"Just a sip. He left his freshly brewed mug unattended, what was I supposed to do?" said Sly with a 'what can you do' kind of shrug.

"Can we focus, please," said Bentley, getting them back on track. "I've checked everything, and there really is no way in except for the front door. I think there's only one option."

"The doorbell?" Sly couldn't help but quip, earning a laugh from Murray and an eye roll from Bentley.

"Nice to know memory loss didn't affect your humor," Bentley muttered.

"Good to know I've always been hilarious," replied Sly with a grin.

Even Bentley snorted at that. "Okay, funny guy. To get into the prison you're going to need a disguise. If you can get a suit of armor from the guards, that's our way in."

"So, what? Do I rob the armory or something?" asked Sly.

"Unfortunately, that's guarded even tighter than the prison, and the armor going missing would be noticed. Instead, you're going to have to pick their pockets."

Sly stared at the turtle in disbelief.

How many guards could possibly carry suits of armor around in their pockets?

Three of them, as it turns out.

Soon enough, Sly was standing outside the prison in armor he was swimming in and demanding to be let in.

The boar guard at the prison door gave him an unimpressed look. "Hmmph. A little short to be a commander, aren't you?" he said, taking in the armor Sly was wearing. "Who are you?"

Sly scrambled to say the first name to come to mind. "Why, I am… Major Muggshot."

"Huh?" asked the guard, looking confused at the very non-Japanese name. "Muggshot? I've never heard of you."

Channeling his inner Carmelita, Sly snarled up at the guard. "How dare you question me, you overstuffed, airheaded moron! Don't blame me for your poor memory and lack of attention span! I'll be sure to tell the general about your incompetence! I heard he loves pork chops!"

Sly turned like he was about to leave, and the boar paled at his words.

"WAIT!" the guard said desperately. "I'm very sorry, Sir! I didn't recognize you! Please, go right in."

With that, the guard stepped aside with a quick respectful bow, and Sly strode on in through the front door.

"Yeesh, you have definitely have been spending too much time with Carmelita," said Bentley in his ear. He was then quiet for a long moment before asking, "So, does that mean you remember Muggshot? If so, should I be insulted you remember that two-bit gangster but not Murray and me?"

Sly stopped dead in the middle of one of the prison's hallways. Fortunately, there weren't any guards around to see it. "Wait? There's actually someone out there named Muggshot? I thought that was something I made up on the fly."

"No, he's an old enemy of ours," Bentley explained. "We've faced him a few times now, and each time we do Carmelita ends up putting him away." He then paused before adding in a softer tone. "He's… also one of the crime bosses who killed your parents when you were a kid. Needless to say, you've hated his guts for a long time."

Sly let that sink in for a moment, before forcing himself onwards through the prison. Rescue Rioichi first, freak-out over the fact his parents were murdered later.

Still, why did no one tell him that sooner?

It took some sneaking both in and out of the armor, but eventually, Sly made it to where Rioichi was being held in a cage hung high up over a massive pit.

After checking to make sure no guards were in earshot, Sly called out to his apparent ancestor. "Hey! Cooper Rioichi! Are you okay?"

The raccoon in the cage spared him a glance just long enough to take in the samurai helmet Sly was wearing before rolling his eyes and looking away. "You guards all seem to make very poor jokes," he said bitterly.

"What?" Sly asked, before realizing he'd somehow forgotten he was wearing his disguise, and quickly reached up to pull off his helmet. "Oh, no, I'm not with them! I came here to bust you out!"

Now Rioichi turned to him with more interest hearing that. "Oh, have you now?" he asked, looking Sly over with a more critical eye. "You will have to make your way to the Dragon Bridge to reach this cage. Go, quickly."

"Okay, I'll be there soon," Sly called back. "Just stay put."

Rioichi let out a dry laugh at hearing that. "Are you sure you are not a guard? What did I just say about the poor jokes."

"Got you to laugh, didn't I," Sly replied as he put his helmet back on and began making his way towards the bridge.

Only to stop and hunch over in pain.

Another attack? Now?

That's not fair. He was trying to fix history. Why was he still feeling these?

What was surprising was that Rioichi seemed to be affected by it too. He didn't visibly react to the pain, but a sudden sharp intake of breath and the way his form tensed in his cage gave it away.

Thankfully, it was only a minor attack and passed quickly.

"Daijoubu desu ka?" Rioichi called to Sly once he'd straightened up.

Sly took a deep breath as he tried to get his bearings. "I'll… I'll be fine," he called back as he forced himself to keep moving towards the bridge though the armor now felt like lead. "The sooner we get you out of here the better."

Rioichi only frowned at that response but didn't call out again for fear of alerting the guards.

Sly very quickly found out just why it was called a 'dragon' bridge. Apparently, the whole thing was boobytrapped so that if someone stepped on the large mosaic at the entrance of the room, most of the bridge would collapse into the pit, and the dragon statues decorating it would start spewing fire.

So guess what Sly stepped on the second he walked in. He could see Rioichi facepalming from his cage.

Thankfully, among the tricks Sly didn't fully remember learning was the ability to jump from the tips of stalagmites to the remaining chunks of the bridge, though he nearly slipped off a few and barely managed to dig his claws into them before he fell into the abyss. It was also a very good thing the armor he stole happened to be fireproof. Though given the other traps he'd seen in this prison, it probably was for a good reason.

When Sly finally reached the cage, Rioichi was looking at him with a knowing expression as he studied Sly's appearance more closely. "Hmm, I do not know you, but only a true Cooper could have reached this cage." He then smirked and added, "Even if that Cooper appears to be out of practice."

Sly flushed beneath his fur. "Uh, yeah, that's a big part of why I'm here. Apparently, we're related. It's a long story."

Rioichi nodded. "One I would be happy to hear. But first, perhaps you could open the cage so that we may escape certain death?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Sly as he used his cane to bash in the lock on Rioichi's cage.

None of the guards could get past the booby traps Sly had set off and it was causing the entire prison to crumble around them, making their escape a clean getaway.

In all, the entire prison break was nerve-wracking, death-defying, and hazardous in every possible way.

Sly couldn't wait for the next one.

Chapter Text

After rescuing Rioichi we returned to the hideout and explained everything.

Surprisingly the guy was totally not surprised to hear I was his descendant from the distant future. Apparently with all the other crazy things that were happening around town, the idea of his time-traveling, many-times, great, great grandson coming to help out had become totally believable.

We were all alarmed to hear that Rioichi had also been suffering from the same attacks I've been feeling recently. Not as many, and not as badly as mine were back in modern day Paris, but he had been getting them too. Bentley speculated it was because he lived further in the past than me, so there was less of the timeline to be affected. However, for that to happen, it meant we likely had other ancestors even further back in time who were in trouble too.

It was a scary thought.

But before we could go even further back in time, we had to get Rioichi's life back on track, starting with taking back Rioichi's sushi restaurant and ending with us taking down El Jefe.

Sly wasn't surprised that he fell asleep the moment his head hit a futon when they got back to their hideout. After all that, he was exhausted, and definitely needed the shut-eye.

What wasn't he hadn't expected was for Rioichi to drag him out of bed at the crack of dawn. Murray and Bentley got to sleep in, thanks to them having a mission to replenish Rioichi's fish supply later.

"Any particular reason we're out here so early?" Sly asked as he fought off a yawn.

"Yes," said Rioichi as he led Sly across rooftops towards and into the forest outside the village. "While your skills when retrieving me from my cage were admirable, you still made many mistakes. You are out of practice." He said once they reached a clearing by the river where they wouldn't be disturbed.

Sly flushed at the reminder. "Yeah, and the reason for that is another long story," he said. "Short version, I apparently used to be a thief who was up to snuff, but then I lost my memory and didn't even know I could do half these things until Bentley and Murray drafted me to save your life, and by extension mine."

Rioichi's eyebrows climbed higher and higher at that story until they couldn't be seen under his hood. "Interesting," he said. "Then the tanuki has forgotten he is a trickster, yet still transforms on instinct."

"Uh, yeah, something like that," Sly confirmed, not really getting the comparison.

Rioichi nodded. "I see. Then this training is all the more imperative. To not know fully what you are capable of can be just as deadly as any guard's crossbow."

Sly got the feeling this entire morning would be packed with a whole lot of metaphors and proverbs. Then again, with where they were it already looked like he'd stepped onto the set of a samurai movie. Might as well roll with it.

What followed was a long arduous day of relearning all the things vital to being a thief. Even with Sly's muscle memory aiding him instinctively, he still had to practice every move over and over again until they reached Rioichi's satisfaction.

Although, on the flip side, Sly also was able to stumble across a few moves to teach Rioichi that he didn't know, as they were developed by Coopers in the generations between them in the family line. Rioichi made sure to learn all he could but swore not to write about them in his Thievius Raccoonus so as to preserve history and allow the proper Cooper to get due credit for their hard work.

It was exhausting, but the good kind of exhausting. The kind where you start something new and find you're a natural at it, and then can't stop.

As the sun began to set, the two tired raccoons sat beside the river to relax before heading back to the hideout.

"Thanks for this, Rioichi," said Sly after a moment of meditative silence. "There's so much I can't remember. To know at least this much, I appreciate it."

Rioichi nodded sagely. "No thanks is necessary. It is your birthright as a Cooper to know these things." He then frowned contemplatively at the waterfall. "Although, I must ask, is our family creed among the things you have forgotten?"

Sly looked over at him in surprise. "We have a creed?" he asked, answering that question well enough.

Rioichi bowed his head, as if sorry to hear that, before standing to look at Sly with a stern expression. "You are a Cooper thief, Sly-kun. And as such, there is one rule you must always abide by, as it is our code of honor that sets us apart from the common rabble who plague this world."

Feeling this was important, Sly stood as well so he could look Rioichi in the eye.

"There is no honor, no challenge," Rioichi said, before smirking and adding, "no fun in stealing from ordinary people. To be a true Master Thief, you must only steal from other thieves."

Sly's eyes widened, certain he'd heard those words before. And not just from Murray saying they only stole from 'bad guys', he could swear he'd heard that exact wording somewhere in his past. Then, for a split second, he didn't see Rioichi standing there, but instead, another raccoon that Sly recognized from the few dreams he'd been having about his past.

His father. No doubt the first time Sly had heard those words before, it had come from him.

Sly blinked the vision away and smiled at Rioichi. "I promise," he said sincerely.

Rioichi nodded approvingly. "Good. Now we had best reunite with your friends and reclaim my restaurant. After all, a bird who waits too long will find no worms." And with that, he darted into the forest back towards the village.

Sly grinned and raced after him. "Hey, I actually recognize that saying. Though in the modern day, we've really trimmed it down."

Rioichi shot him a deadpan look. "This is 'the modern day', future grandson," he said.

Sly laughed at that. From Rioichi's perspective, he was right.

Meanwhile, in a nearby secret fishing hole, Bentley sat with his wheelchair at the edge of a lake, holding out a fishing rod with a high-tech magnet instead of a hook, but was catching fish all the same.

Behind him, Murray was diligently practicing a dance routine with a fan and humming to his own rhythm. One of Bentley's proposed plans had him disguising himself as the local beauty, Madam Geisha, and he wanted to play his part well. And to do that, he needed to be able to dance everyone's socks off. He couldn't wait.

The atmosphere was calm and quiet, but despite that Bentley couldn't find it in him to relax.

Murray eventually noticed how tense he was, and stopped dancing. "What's wrong, Bentley?" he asked. "You miss Penelope?"

Bentley jumped at the question. "Of course I do, I'm worried sick," he said. "But we've searched this time period from top to bottom, and I'm certain wherever she is, she's not here. We'll have to keep looking."

"We'll find her, Bentley. Don't you worry," said Murray with a flourish of his fan.

Seeing his dance moves failed to cheer the turtle up, his face fell again. "There's something else, isn't there?"

Bentley was quiet for a moment as he reeled in another fish before answering. "Doesn't it bother you?" he finally asked.

"Does what bother me?" asked Murray.

"That Sly doesn't remember us?" Bentley replied as he cast his line again. "That he looks at us like we're crazy whenever we tell him a plan? That he doesn't trust us like he used to?"

Murray frowned thoughtfully. Clearly, this was something that had really been bothering Bentley.

"Of course it does," the hippo replied honestly. "It's not the same, but at least we've got him back, right?"

"Do we really have him back if he doesn't trust us?" asked Bentley.

"He does trust us," Murray assured him. "Maybe not like he used to, but he does trust us. He wouldn't have come with us if he didn't."

"He came with us because his other option was vanishing into oblivion," said Bentley bluntly.

"He came with us because we told him we had a time machine that he didn't believe in, but he gave us a chance anyway," said Murray. "Heck, he might have given us a chance sooner if Carmelita hadn't shown up."

Bentley sighed sadly. "I just want my brother back," he admitted morosely.

"So does The Murray. But we do have him back," Murray insisted. "He may not remember, but he's still Sly."

Bentley cracked a small smile at that. "He is still Sly," he agreed.

Murray moved over to sit at the water's edge next to the turtle. "Just give it some time," he said encouragingly. "All this has been a lot for him to take in, but he'll bounce back. He always does."

"I hope so," Bentley said quietly.

At that moment, a big fish decided to get caught on Bentley's magnet hook, and the turtle yelped as his wheelchair suddenly jerked towards the lake. It was only Murray's quick reflexes grabbing the back of his chair that kept him from being dragged in.

"Whoa, you caught a whopper!" Murray said excitedly.

"I think the real question is, have I caught him or has he caught me?" Bentley replied as he held onto both his fishing rod and his chair for dear life.

It took the strength of both Bentley and Murray to reel that fish in, but once they did, they were pretty sure they had all the fish Rioichi would need.

Now he just needed a restaurant to serve it in.

Chapter Text

The next few missions passed quickly with Rioichi breezing past the security on his restaurant to reignite its sign and send a message.

("Woah, he's good," Sly said from over Bentley's shoulder watching Rioichi's progress on his computer screen.

"He was always your favorite of your ancestors," Bentley said, though his eyes remained glued to the computer screen. "You thought his stories were just the coolest."

"I can see why," Sly said, wishing Rioichi's pages of the Thievius Raccoonus hadn't been so sparse so that he could have read them. "Whatever his stories are, he sure lives up to the legend."

"Indeed," agreed Bentley.

"Your admiration is appreciated, but there is a contraption here, and I would like to know what it does," came Rioichi's voice over the radio, making the two realize he could hear them the whole time.

The two shared an embarrassed look and Bentley quickly got back to work.)

A minor heist to steal a geisha kimono for Murray to use to gather information.

("I was not aware your large friend was such a good dancer," Rioichi commented into his com as Murray had the guards eating out of the palm of his hands with his routine.

"I wasn't either," Sly admitted and wondered if he'd known that before.

"I was," said Bentley smugly.)

Gathering even more intel straight from the tiger's soliloquizing mouth through the use of Bentley's RC car with a camera and microphone attached to it.

("There's no way that should have worked," Sly said as Bentley fooled yet another guard by disguising his toy car with a silly-looking chicken hat.

Bentley gave him a look. "Sly, we are in ancient Japan, before even regular cars were invented. What's more likely to these guards? That they just saw a piece of futuristic technology drive by them, or that they just saw a very weird-looking chicken."

Sly held his hands up in surrender. "Fair point. You win."

They then watched on the screen as El Jefe fell for the chicken hat as well.

"Okay, in that case, he has no excuse," said Bentley dryly as El Jefe shrugged off the disguised car and continued talking to himself about his plans. "He should definitely know better."

"Guess he's just an idiot," said Sly.)

And getting ahold of some poisonous plants to knock out the guards to make their job a little easier.

("Should I be concerned that you're so good at mixing poisons?" asked Sly, as he and Bentley watched Rioichi prepare his spiked sushi.

"You are quite good at it," Bentley agreed.

"How many times must I remind you all that I am a ninja," said Rioichi in reply, rolling his eyes as he did so.

"That… didn't really explain anything," said Bentley.

Instead of Rioichi, the answer, instead, came from a surprising source."Ninjas know tons about poisons. It's one of the ways they use their environment to their advantage so they can take down their enemies as quickly and quietly as possible," said Murray as he chowed down on some un-spiked sushi Rioichi had made for him.

Sly and Bentley stared at him in surprise, and the ninja in question passed Murray another clean sushi roll as a reward.

Seeing the looks he was getting, Murray shrugged. "What? I watch a lot of anime," he said before shoving the entire sushi roll into his mouth and eating it with one bite.)

Until finally they knew all they needed to to take El Jefe down.

As they made their way to their assault on El Jefe's fortress, Sly was actually feeling a lot more confident. Though he may have only had a recent reintroduction to thieving, this he definitely knew how to do. Taking down bad guys was one of his favorite parts of working at Interpol. Well, that and working with Carmelita.

That last thought made Sly grimace, remembering how he and Carmelita had left things off, but he did his best to shake it off. He may not have Carmelita to watch his back, but he did have Rioichi, Bentley, and Murray. Their plans may seem crazy, and the trust he had in them may be new, but those crazy plans worked and that trust was growing stronger by the day.

Though speaking of crazy plans, there were still things that he questioned about them, namely- "Are you really going into this fight in that kimono?" Sly asked Murray, who was still in full geisha garb and hadn't taken it off since they'd gotten it.

Murray beamed and flexed his muscles through the kimono's long sleeves. "Of course," he said confidently. "The Murray is not above playing mind games when taking down scum. When the guards see me they both won't want to hurt such a ravishing beauty as myself, and they'll underestimate me. That will be their mistake."

Sly snickered. "Makes sense, Carmelita would use that trick too."

"Indeed," agreed Rioichi. "Such is a valuable weapon in any kunoichi's arsenal."

"See," said Murray proudly. "Works every time."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Bentley as he checked that his explosives and darts were all in working order. "Pretty sure they'll stop underestimating you once they see you bench press three of them at once."

"Doesn't matter," said Murry. "By then The Murray will have them right where he wants them."

"Love the confidence, big guy," said Sly.

They were almost to the Dragon Gate when they could hear all the snoring of the guards. Looks like Rioichi's spiked sushi was delivered successfully.

Upon hearing that, Bentley waved for them to stop. "You're up first, Sly. You need to get that gate open."

"More pickpocketing and getting the switches inside the statues, got it," Sly said as he went ahead first.

And he did just that, but seriously, why did everything here have to spew fire? It was a good thing he still had that samurai shield, otherwise his goose would have been cooked, literally.

He got the front door open and then it was a quick trek up to the palace which now had a massive (and in Sly's opinion, tacky) statue of El Jefe looming over it.

Though they didn't get a chance to look at it for long, as from out of a nearby gorge a massive zeppelin began rising up until it loomed over their heads.

Most of the group were stunned speechless at the sight, but Bentley reached up to adjust his glasses and squinted at the zeppelin. "Wait! That's my time travel technology!" he exclaimed.

Sly looked closer, and sure enough, littered along the side of the massive balloon were the same mechanical enhancements as were now set onto Murray's van.

With that thing in the air, it would only be a matter of time before they were spotted. They needed to finish this fast.

Or, maybe it was already too late, as El Jefe was waiting for them at the palace bridge.

The tiger gave them a nasty grin. "End of the line, Coopers!" he shouted over to them, before ordering his guards to attack. "Get them, you fools!" before turning and leaving, slamming the entryway doors shut.

With a nod to the rest of them, Rioichi ducked out of the fight to open the way, while Sly, Murray, and Bentley distracted the guards in an all-out brawl.

Turns out Murray was right about his disguise, though, apparently the knowledge that 'Madame Geisha' could pick any of them up like a sack of flour and toss them several yards only made 'her' more attractive. Guess the real Madame Geisha better start working out once she gets back from vacation so she can live up to the hype. Should shake up her routine.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before Rioichi managed to get the gate open, but it was still plenty of time for them (well, mostly Murray) to knock all the guards out cold.

Unfortunately, Rioichi was the first to walk through the gate and was immediately pounced upon by El Jefe.

Next thing any of them knew, El Jefe had Rioichi by the throat and was ripping his bamboo cane from his hands with a cry of, "HA! It's mine!"

Sly wanted to do something, to move and help his ancestor, but he found he couldn't. As Rioichi struggled to breathe it honestly felt like the tiger had both of them by the throat at the same time, and already Sly could see his hands begin to grow hazy. He struggled not to let El Jefe know about this little effect, but something must have shown, as Bentley was giving him concerned side-eyes, and Murray looked ready to throw himself at El Jefe to get him to stop.

Thankfully, El Jefe was oblivious and quickly tossed Rioichi at their feet.

As the ninja raccoon gasped for air, Sly felt his hands solidify again and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

He didn't get a chance to relish that relief as Rioichi shot back up and yelled, "MY CANE!" like he'd just lost something priceless.

And considering the brief lesson on Cooper history Rioichi had given him, Sly knew that cane meant more to him than any treasure he could steal.

But El Jefe was already on the run and setting fire to the bridge behind him to keep anyone from following.

Anyone who didn't still have a fireproof shield and armor, that is.

Taking a brief moment to get his feet into the Samurai armor's boots, Sly leaped after El Jefe with a shout of, "Don't worry, I'll get it!"

Behind him, Rioichi looked relieved at the offer, but Bentley frowned. "We've gotta go after them," he said, his eyes scanning their surroundings for another way across.

"Why?" asked Murray, "Sly's been in tougher fights than that chump."

"But he had all his memories then," Bentley replied worriedly. "One day of catch-up isn't enough to bring back a lifetime of experience… Er, no offense, Rioichi."

"None taken," said Rioichi as he searched for a way across as well. "The wolf is only the mightiest hunter because he does not hunt alone." He then spotted something that looked promising, and said, "This way!"

Bentley and Murray hurried after him, and with some difficulty managed to get across and catch up, only to see Sly in what looked like a standoff with the tiger atop one of the scaffoldings for building El Jefe's statue. Sly had his cane in hand, and El Jefe was gleefully swinging around a pair of twin katanas, just waiting for Sly to come in reach of them.

Which is why everyone was surprised when instead of trying to hit him with his cane, Sly instead pulled out a shock pistol and zapped El Jefe unconscious before he could even register the weapon.

That was not a method Sly had ever used before.

"Wait, have you had that this whole time?" Bentley shouted in shock.

Sly, who was already pulling out a pair of handcuffs of all things, looked over at him in surprise. "Of course, do you know what Carmelita would do to me if I went out unprepared? She made it clear that if I was going to be her partner at Interpol, then I'd better have my gear with me at all times. That means always having a shock pistol and a few pairs of cuffs in my back pocket."

That made sense, but still, "You were supposed to be on bed rest when we came to get you, and Murray said you'd barely recovered from your attack when we'd arrived. When did you get the chance to grab those?" Bentley asked, not exactly thrilled at this sudden change.

Sly looked away, uncomfortable. "Ah, right, uh, after that afternoon, well…"

Reading what he wasn't saying, Murray's face fell under his geisha makeup. "You were going to use it on us?" he asked, looking hurt.

Sly winced and tried to explain. "Look, I didn't want to, and I'm not now, but-"

But whatever he was about to say was cut off when he noticed movement behind him. Sly wheeled around to see a mouse in a gas mask and yellow hazmat suit standing over El Jefe's unconscious form to steal Rioichi's cane.

With the shock pistol and handcuffs in his hands, the instincts he'd been honing in recent years took over, and Sly aimed his pistol and shouted, "Interpol! Don't move!"

Bentley felt something inside his chest grow cold at the sight of Sly of all people saying those words and meaning them. He and Murray knew conceptually that Sly had been working for Interpol since his memory loss, and Bentley had even been keeping tabs on his cases to make sure Sly was okay. Even so, actually seeing Sly Cooper act like an officer of the law was a hard pill to swallow. It was just so… not him!

Sadly the mouse didn't listen to Sly's warning and instead threw a bomb before he grabbed a rope that pulled him up towards the zeppelin still hovering overhead.

"I said stop!" Sly shouted, jumping out of the range of the bomb and firing off shots to make the mouse let go of the rope or at least drop the cane.

Sadly, between his vision being obscured from the explosions, more bombs being tossed his way, and the way the rope was swinging the shots went wide and soon the mouse was safely inside the zeppelin along with Rioichi's cane. But even as the long hairless tail vanished into the cockpit, Sly noticed something small and gold come tumbling out of it and bounce along the ground until it came to a stop at his feet.

Sly paid it no mind as he stared up at the zeppelin, and through a large front window, he could swear someone up there was glaring back.

Then, before his very eyes, the entire zeppelin sparked with electricity and then disappeared in a blink, leaving nothing but the open sky and the still unconscious tiger to show for it.

It was gone.

Disappointed, Sly finally looked down to see what the small gold thing had been and was surprised to find a golden sheriff's badge looking like it'd come straight from a Western, but those wouldn't exist for centuries.

Pocketing it for later, Sly finished cuffing El Jefe and worked on getting both of them down from the scaffolding.

He reached the others without fanfare, Bentley too busy staring at his shock pistol with distaste, and Murray still looking like a kicked puppy.

Seeing this, Sly quickly put the pistol away, hoping he hadn't ruined whatever camaraderie they'd been building. "Look, I promise I'm not going to use it on you," he said to both of them. "It was only just in case you two turned out to be crazy catfishing kidnappers, which you obviously aren't so don't worry about it."

Murray perked up slightly at that, but Bentley's frown only deepened at the reminder that Sly didn't know or trust them as completely as he used to.

"And I'm sorry I couldn't get your cane, Rioichi," Sly said, turning to his ancestor apologetically.

"You tried your best, but I can not expect you to grow wings and fly," Rioichi replied sagely, though still clearly disappointed. He then took in the awkward tension between them all, and asked, "Is this miscommunication of yours connected to that long story you summarized for me."

"Yeah, it's a big part of it," Sly admitted.

"Come on, Rioichi," said Murray as he slung El Jefe over his shoulder to carry him. "The Murray will tell you all about it on the way back."

"Much appreciated, Murray-san," Rioichi said as he followed the hippo, leaving Sly and Bentley behind.

Sly looked over at the turtle, wondering what to say. "Look," he started. "I didn't want to arrest you guys, but I just… I didn't know you. To me, we'd just met."

But Bentley just turned his wheelchair and began rolling away. "Come on," he said sullenly. "We need to plan our next move."

Sly reached out after him like he wanted to stop and talk, but had no idea what else to say and dropped his hand.

Needless to say, it was a very awkward walk back to the hideout.

Chapter Text

One quick stop back to Paris, and we got rid of big, orange, and stripey. It seems Carmelita hadn't yet told Interpol about me 'going back to my roots', so we were able to hand over El Jefe with no problems.

I just… pretended not to notice how uncomfortable Bentley and Murray were in their hiding spot while I made small talk with the officers.

Unfortunately, that was the only thing that seemed to be going right. Rioichi's cane was gone, and we had no idea where or when our foe was, only that someone else had time travel technology and they were using it to come after my family.

That… did not sound good for Penelope.

Still, we had a clue where to search next. The sheriff's badge that fell out of the zeppelin. It was perfect to get to the time period of another infamous ancestor, Tennessee Kid Cooper, outlaw of the Wild, Wild West.

Which was fortunate, as Dimitri informed us that his pages were the ones that were getting erased next, and we left the present quickly in hopes of me avoiding another attack because of it.

Still, something didn't make sense. Rioichi was getting the same attacks I was, but Tennessee wasn't born until over two hundred years after him. Whatever happened to him shouldn't affect Rioichi too. Bentley said it was likely there were other ancestors in trouble further back in time, but for now, Tennessee was the one we were in the best position to help.

We left Rioichi with another communicator like the one we gave Dimitri (and thorough instructions on how to use it) so we could keep in touch in case anyone tried to come back and finish what El Jefe started. Then we packed up our gear and headed for the 1800s.

Time to save another ancestor.

Another time period, another ancestor already in jail.

After setting up shop in an abandoned clocktower at the edge of an old west mining town named Cotton Mouth Bluff, Sly, Murray, and Bentley had gone to wander around and listen in on the local gossip.

It didn't take long to find out about Tennessee. His arrest was the talk of the town. Everyone blamed him for robbing the town's bank (which, if some were believed, had been swindling people out of their money) despite him having been put in jail the day before the robbery.

Thankfully, it also didn't take long to find out who was responsible for this twist in history.

Sly looked at a picture of an ugly armadillo in a sheriff costume riding a rearing horse that was advertising the upcoming 'Toothpick Appreciation Festival' and sighed. "Guys, I know who we're dealing with," he said into the com in his ear.

"You do?" asked Bentley in surprise.

"Wow, that was fast," said Murray, sounding impressed.

"Yeah, well, hard to forget this ugly mug, especially when it graces the wall of our most wanted list," Sly said dryly. "It's the local sheriff, Toothpick. He's a European mobster who was always trying to live out his cowboy fantasies in the modern day. Sounds like he decided to take that fantasy to the next level."

"Huh, it's good he lived his dream, I guess," said Murray.

"But not at the expense of the time stream," Bentley disagreed.

"Expense is an understatement," Sly said grimly as he headed back to the hideout. "The guy's an insane loose cannon, and incredibly dangerous with a gun. I've known Interpol Officers who didn't come back after facing him. If he's here, it's entirely possible I'm not the only one in danger of having my family erased from existence. He'll shoot anyone who looks at him funny."

"Right," said Bentley in a suddenly more subdued tone. "All the more reason to get Tennessee out of jail. Meet back at the hideout and we'll compare notes."

Sly winced as his com seemed to shut off with more force than usual. Bentley was clearly still upset about his shock pistol and why he'd had it. To avoid poking that particular bear, Sly should probably avoid mentioning Interpol for a while.

This mission was off to a great start.

The next morning, after staying up all night putting together a plan, Sly had to wonder if Bentley was even more upset than he'd anticipated.

It sure seemed that way, given his brilliant plan to break out Tennessee involved Sly getting arrested.

"Are you serious?" asked Sly incredulously once he heard that.

"Dead serious," said Bentley. "Which is what Tennessee (and by extension, you) is gonna be tomorrow. They're already prepping the gallows for him as we speak. We don't have time for a more complicated plan."

"And, what, breaking out is somehow easier than breaking in?" Sly asked, still in disbelief.

"Yes," Bentley said bluntly, daring him to argue.

Seeing Sly's continued skepticism, Murray wrapped an arm around his shoulder and said encouragingly, "Aw, don't worry, Sly. Bentley knows what he's talking about. He can break you out of that place no sweat. Don't forget, he once busted both of us out of the Contessa's maximum security prison all on his own before."

"Uhhhh," Sly said, reminding them of the fact he did forget about that actually.

Realizing that, Murray said, "Well that totally happened, so if Bentley can get us out of a prison full of high-tech security, armed guards, a giant attack robot, and a scary spider lady, then he can totally get you out of an old fashioned wild west jail."

Sly glanced between them and swallowed down his skepticism. "Well, can't say no to a glowing endorsement like that," he said. "So how do I get myself thrown in the clink."

Bentley shot him a brittle grin at the vote of confidence. "Well, actually, I think you're going to like that part."

Sly and Murray exchanged confused looks.

As it quickly turned out, Bentley was right once again.

Getting himself arrested should not be this fun.

But between defacing posters, stealing lollipops, and now knocking a large banner off a bridge, Sly was having a blast.

"I was a delinquent in high school, wasn't I?" Sly asked in amusement as he pried the clips holding the banner off with his cane.

"Officially, nothing was ever proven," was Bentley's reply carrying a clear smile. Sly's glee at his mischief-making was infectious.

"But the teachers were mean and they hated us," Murray added with a laugh. "They planned a whole party for when we finally graduated."

"A whole party, just to be rid of us?" Sly asked as he worked on another pin.

"Well, there would have been a party," said Bentley. "Except for the fact we stole the cake as one last hurrah. I guess they still could have had the party without it."

"But if there's no cake at the party then what's the point?" asked Murray.

"Absolutely none," Sly agreed as he finished the last pin and watched the banner fall away into the gorge below.

At the edge of the cliff, he could already hear Sheriff Toothpick howling in rage.

"Looks like I made him angry enough," Sly said as he climbed back down from the bridge awaiting his arrest. "Think this will get me locked in with Tennessee?"

"Absolutely," said Bentley. "With his ego, he won't stand for anything less."

"Right," said Sly as he eyed the approaching cowboys and the steaming Toothpick. His hand itched to go for his shock pistol. It wasn't too late to make an escape.

As if sensing his unease, Bentley spoke up, "Sly."

"Yeah," Sly said, now having to whisper so no one approaching would hear.

"We WILL get you out of there," Bentley said, his voice full of dead serious conviction. "I promise you that. We WILL get you out."

Sly took a deep breath and let it out, then put the hand that had been going for his pistol down. "Alright," he said quietly as he became cornered. "I trust you."

And that was the last thing he managed to say before one of the approaching cows raised up the butt of his gun and brought it down hard on the raccoon's temple.

After that, Sly's world went black.

Chapter Text

"Come on, Sly, please!" said a young husky voice.

"You did promise," added a high-pitched nasally voice.

"Alright, alright already," said the voice of a raccoon child, and with a click of a flashlight, his face was illuminated inside the blanket fort, allowing him to see the small turtle and hippo just as young as he was huddled beside him. "Which story do you want to hear?"

"Tell us the one about the cowboys!" said the hippo child eagerly.

The little raccoon glanced at the turtle. "That sound good to you, Bentley?" he asked.

"Sounds great, Sly," the tiny turtle said, leaning forward so he would miss a word.

"Alright," said the young raccoon as he sat back to spin his tale. "This is a story about my ancestor, Tennessee Kid Cooper…"

"Hey, are you alrigh'?" a voice asked.

Sly snapped awake from his dreams, seeing the face of another raccoon staring down at him in a bowler hat and black and white striped suit, but he was still too woozy from the blow to his head to really comprehend it.

Whatever face he was making must have tipped the other off, as the other raccoon clicked his tongue, then took hold of Sly's face to tilt it and better see the bump. "Shewt, them guards must'a hit you good," he said. "Whad'ya do that was so bad they knock you flat and toss you in 'ere?"

It was then Sly noticed he was now dressed in matching black and white stripes, and from the clinking of metal, saw there was a chain linked to a metal ball as big as he was clipped to his ankle.

Oh, right, he'd purposefully let himself get arrested.

"Carmelita would bust a gut if she could see me now," Sly muttered mostly to himself.

"What?" asked the other raccoon, who could only be the ancestor he'd gotten arrested to save.

"It's nothing," Sly said as he slowly got to his feet. His head was clearing quickly, and he didn't feel dizzy, so the hit couldn't have been too bad. He then turned to face the other raccoon. "Uh, howdy," he said.

The raccoon, Tennessee, looked bemused. "Howdy yourself," he said. "Looks like you musta ticked ol' Toothpick off pretty good. Ah like that. You got a name?"

Sly shook off the rest of his brain fog, and said, "It's Sly. Sly Cooper."

Immediately any friendliness was gone from Tennessee's face. "Now Son," he said hotly. "You should know not even that lump on yer head will stop me from startin' something if yer funnin' on my family name."

Sly immediately put his hands up in surrender. "Woah, I'm not joking, I swear. I can expla-"

But before he could even start explaining, Sly's words died in his throat and came out as a scream as another attack ran rampant through his systems.

And it wasn't just him. Tennessee was screaming too and curling in on himself in pain.

Then, to Sly's horror, the flickering was back, this time on both of them. Before his very eyes, he could see straight through his own hand to Tennessee, and then through Tennessee to the wall behind him.

The attack soon faded, leaving Sly on all fours panting for breath, and Tennessee shouting out some of the most colorful swears Sly had ever heard.

Outside their cell, a guard rapped on the door and yelled, "Shuddup!"

Tennessee cut off from his curses to send an icy glare back at the guard, who sneered in return before moving on down the hallway and out of sight, grumbling all the way about noisy raccoons and going to guard someone quieter.

"What in tarnation just happened?" Tennessee demanded, rounding on Sly. "Them pains an-and lookin' like Ah'm about to disappear! Here Ah'm thinkin' Ah might not even make it to my own execution, and then you come in and the same darn thing is happenin' to you!"

"It's happening to a lot of Coopers," Sly said grimly, picking himself back up. " I'm trying to fix it, but it's a really long story."

Tennessee blinked in surprise before his expression grew determined. "Well, talk ain't worth spit, boy! Ah don't know what those pains got to do with bein' a Cooper, but there's one surefire way to prove you are one'a us- Bust us out of here!"

"Right," Sly agreed, having been in that jail cell for five minutes and already being sick of it. "I've got a friend who's working on it… I hope."

"I heard that," said Bentley's voice in his ear. Guess the guards had missed his communicator.

"Sorry," Sly said into his com and getting a strange look from Tennessee. "I was worried that me getting knocked out and my clothes stolen might throw things off."

"It did," Bentley admitted. "Thankfully, those guards also provided the perfect alternate solution. Pick up that ball attached to you."

Tennessee watched in bewilderment as Sly crouched down and did as Bentley instructed.

"Now throw it at that weak point in the wall. It'll make a great battering ram," Bentley continued.

Sly hefted the ball up as high as he could (man, was that thing heavy) and tossed it at the part of the wall with the most cracks.

The wall shattered on impact, giving Sly and Tennessee a wide-open hole to escape through.

The two raccoons gaped at the hole, then down at the ball, then at each other, and then back at the hole. "Why would they provide prisoners with something with enough weight to do that?" Sly asked incredulously.

Tennessee chuckled as he climbed out of the hole. "Well, Ah don't know if you noticed, but most'a them folks workin' 'round here ain't that bright."

"All the better for us, I guess," Sly said as he climbed out after him, hefting the ball along with him.

It took plenty of sneaking, some snooping around to find their clothes and gear, many more creative uses of the ball and chain, and a whole lot of dynamite, but soon enough the two raccoons were out of the building.

"Ah just want to say Ah knew you was a Cooper the second Ah laid eyes on you," Tennessee said, giving Sly a hearty slap on the back as they ran out of the jail with a hail of gunfire behind them.

"Uh, when I was thrown in unconscious after getting arrested?" Sly had to ask as he shrugged on the backpack Bentley had given him that they'd thankfully been able to find.

Tennessee threw back his head and laughed as they ducked behind a rock at the edge of a cliff to avoid more bullets. "Alrigh', maybe not the firs' second, but the second second Ah knew for sure."

"Thanks," said Sly, glancing around the rock at their pursuers. "But we really need to go."

"Go?" asked Tennessee, looking around and seeing nothing but the sheer drop in front of them. "Go where?"

Sly didn't answer and instead tackled Tennessee off the cliff towards the river below.

Tennessee yowled and clung to Sly for dear life, which was fortunate, as it left Sly's arms free to open the paraglider inside his backpack.

His ancestor's scream turned into a cheer as they drifted down to where Bentley and Murray were waiting on a boat, and soon they were up the river and home free.

Chapter Text

After high-tailing it to their hideout, Sly and Tennessee finally got a chance to change the rest of the way out of their prison outfits.

Once they were out of stripes, the Cooper Gang explained everything they could about time travel, the attacks, and what they knew about Toothpick, while he confirmed all the rumors going around town about him getting arrested before his heist, only for it to still happen and Tennessee getting the blame. The gold hadn't been seen since.

After comparing notes, it was decided the first thing they needed to do was get Tennessee's gun (which doubled as his cane, and therefore pretty important to him) back.

After a bit of sneaking around, spying and Bentley disguising himself with the biggest handlebar mustache Sly had ever seen, they managed to work out that Toothpick had stashed it in the mines, and got Tennessee in to get his gun.

When the local raccoon had come grinding out of the mines hooting and hollering and holding his gun/cane up like a trophy, it felt like they were back on track.

Which is why none of them should have been surprised when a new wrench got thrown in the works.

They'd only just bugged Toothpick's office when Tennessee called in over their binocucoms.

"Huh, that's not good," Tennessee said. "Looks like Toothpick rustled himself a pruddy lady."

Worried there was someone needing a rescue, Bentley snatched up his laptop to pull up Tennessee's feed and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

"SWEET JUMPING JACKRABBITS!" he shouted, making Sly and Murray jump from where they were playing Go Fish to pass the time. "THAT'S NO LADY! THAT'S CARMELITA!"

Sly's head snapped around so fast Murray was concerned for him. "WHAT?!" he shouted.

"What is she doing here?" was all Bentley could say before his laptop was snatched by Sly.

The raccoon's eyes widened at the sight of his ex-girlfriend struggling against the ropes she was bound in as she was forced inside a carriage. "Carmelita," he said in a stangled whisper.

"You know her?!" he barely registered Tennessee asking in surprise. "Wait, you said Carmelita? Ain't she the one you said'd be tickled pink at you bein' in jail."

"Uh, yeah, she's…" Sly tried to explain but was coming up blank at trying to find a way to describe the utter mess that was his relationship with Carmelita currently. "Yes, we know her, and she's in danger," he finally settled on. "Could you go after her? We'll catch up as quick as we can, but if she doesn't get out of there soon..."

"You got it," Tennessee said, sounding cheerful at the idea of rescuing a damsel and his camera feed was already racing after the carriage. "Leave this to me!"

Sly sighed in relief. "Thank you, Tennessee," he said emphatically. He may still be angry, hurt, and not know where he stood with Carmelita anymore, but the thought of something happening to her wasn't something he could bear.

He turned to the others to see Murray looking worried for Carmelita's sake, and Bentley was once again giving his closed-off expression. "We've got to go!" Sly said.

Bentley just nodded and hopped his wheelchair into the van, and Murray raced to the driver's seat with a cry of, "The Murray will get us there faster than lightning!"

Sly climbed in just as the van peeled out of their hideout and down the dusty desert roads, worry gnawing at him all the way.

Good news, Tennessee managed to save Carmelita before they caught up to them on the other side of the river.

Bad news, Carmelita was still angry at them for robbing the museum and shouted as much across the gorge when she saw them.

Worse news, Sly, Bentley, and Murray had been so distracted by everything that they didn't notice Toothpick and his goons get the drop on them until Sly felt the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his head.

Toothpick may be a phony sheriff, but he certainly enjoyed playing the part while arresting them and impounding the van.

As such, Sly once again found himself locked in a Wild West jail, and this time Bentley and Murray were with him and couldn't help him escape.

Unless Tennessee could get them out (with how angry she was, Sly wasn't holding his breath for Carmelita's help), they were very likely stuck.

"Stuck in the same jail twice in as many days," Sly commented dryly as he looked out of their cage bars. Because instead of a cell, Toothpick had them trapped in a cage dangling from a chain above a courtyard crawling with guards. That was one way to keep them from escaping. "Must be some kind of cosmic joke."

"The Murray is not laughing," Murray replied, looking glum.

Bentley was quiet and staring out the cage as well, but didn't appear to be taking in the view.

By that point, they'd been stuck in the cage long enough that it had stopped being intimidating and started being boring, but while Sly and Murray had attempted to make small talk, Bentley's continued silence had put a damper on any conversation they tried to have.

Worried he'd upset the turtle again, Sly decided to bite the bullet and said, "Bentley?"

"Hmm," Bentley said non-committedly, still not looking at Sly.

"Are you okay?"

"... I'm fine."

Sly frowned. "Somehow, I don't believe that."

Bentley's shoulders tensed. "Well, how would you know?" he asked, his voice growing sharp. "You don't know us, remember." He then rolled his eyes and added sarcastically under his breath, "But you know Carmelita."

Sly winced. Yep, he was upset again.

Misinterpreting that wince, Bentley continued, "I bet you're going back with her now, aren't you? Why need me and Murray if Interpol can do the job instead?"

"Hey," Murray tried to intercede. "Come on Bentley, Sly wouldn't do that."

"Our Sly wouldn't do that. But this one? Really?" Bentley asked bitterly. "Because from what I've seen he's been more comfortable being a constable than a thief."

Murray's shoulders slumped hearing that, having noticed the differences in Sly as well.

Oh, so that was it. Well, that wasn't hard to clear up. "Actually," Sly cut in, "I've… been enjoying this whole thief thing a lot more than I thought I would. Way more than I ever enjoyed being Constable Cooper."

Murray perked up and turned to look at him. "Really?" he asked hopefully.

Bentley looked at him too, but his expression was more cautious.

Sly nodded because it was the truth. "Being an Interpol agent, well, I can't say I didn't enjoy doing good and stopping bad guys," he said. "But everything else about that job always felt so stifling. It was just so restrictive." He let out a huff. "It's always 'You need a warrant' or 'follow procedure', or 'it doesn't matter if you know he's guilty we can't do anything without hard evidence'. And if I didn't follow the rules to the letter I was stuck on desk duty, and you both know how much I loathed the paperwork."

Murray let out a chuckle at that, and Bentley was beginning to look more thoughtful.

Sly flashed them a grin. "But with you guys, it's been so much more freeing. Not only did we take down El Jefe a lot faster than any Interpol sting I've been in, but we also left him high and dry with egg on his face in two time periods. It was great! And now, we knew Tennessee was innocent, well, of the gold heist at least. But instead of going through all that mess with lawyers and courts we just went and got him because he didn't belong in that cell. We knew what was right and we just did it!" Sly said enthusiastically. "We weren't following the law, but it was still the right thing to do."

A small smile slowly started to crack across Bentley's face again, but he wasn't totally sold yet. "And what about after we save your ancestors?" he asked slowly. "Will you go back to Interpol then?"

Sly barked a dry laugh. "I highly doubt that's even an option anymore. Not once Carmelita tells them about this."

"Aw, I'm sure she'll understand if we tell her it was to save your life, Sly," said Murray. "We'll even tell her how you tried to talk us into something other than a heist, but we didn't have time for it."

Sly gave him a grateful look but shook his head. "Even if, and that's a pretty big if, she did that, I just… I don't know. I don't think I could go back to that. It was good but it didn't feel right."

"And does this?" asked Bentley. "Feel right, I mean."

Sly looked at him and said, "It feels more right than being a constable, and being anywhere with you two definitely feels right, but… I don't know. Something is still missing."

Bentley's face lit up at him and Murray being described as 'right' but then fell. "Your memories," he said knowingly.

Sly nodded.

Murray reached over to pull both Sly and Bentley into a hug with one arm and punched his fist into the air with the other. "Well, even if you don't have your memories, you still have us. Not even amnesia can break up the Cooper Gang."

Bentley nodded in agreement and looking more cheered up than before from where he was being squeezed against Sly and Murray. "He's right, Sly. If you don't abandon us even with no memories, then there's no way we'll abandon you either." His face then turned wistful. "I just… still wish you could remember us, is all."

There were definitely some warm fuzzies in Sly's stomach at those declarations, before Bentley's words reminded him of a recent dream. "Actually…" he said slowly. "I think I may have remembered you two."

Murray actually dropped him and Bentley as the two stared at Sly wide-eyed at that remark. "You- you remember-?" he struggled to say.

Bentley's expression was one of pure hope.

Praying he wasn't about to smother it, Sly motioned for them to calm down. "It wasn't much, but… I've been having these dreams lately. Dreams about hearing the stories of my ancestors as a kid, usually from my father telling me bedtime stories, but this last one was different."

Bentley and Murray leaned in, giving Sly their undivided attention, and he couldn't help but notice their positions mirrored what he'd seen in his dream.

Sly lifted his hat to run his hand through his fur at their scrutiny, and explained, "In my last dream, I was the one telling the story. Mini-me was in a blanket fort with these two other kids, a cute little turtle, and a hippo. The hippo was begging me to tell them a story about Tennessee." He glanced over at Bentley, and added, "I remember asking the turtle by name if that's what he wanted too. You said yes."

Murray let out a delighted squeal and yanked Sly up into another cruising hug.

Bentley, meanwhile, looked like he was about to burst from the wide grin on his face. "That happened!" he exclaimed. "That happened more times than I can count at the orphanage we grew up in! Your family's histories were our favorite bedtime stories as a kid! Your memories are coming back!" His face then filled with wonderment at those last words. "Your memories are coming back," he said again.

"Slowly and nothing more recent, but… yeah I think so," Sly said from where Murray was squeezing him.

They were in a small cage surrounded by guards centuries in the past, and in copious amounts of danger, and yet despite that all three of them couldn't stop beaming.

Below them, Sly was pretty sure some of the guards in earshot were tearing up at hearing their drama unfold.

Finally, Bentley cleared his throat. "Now then. Let's see, how do we get out of this cage?" he said, rubbing his hands together thoughtfully.

"Not happin' ya soft-shelled ninny," called over one of the cow guards on a nearby landing, one that hadn't been moved by their conversation.

All three in the cage glared down at the guard. "Oh, and why's that?" Sly asked wryly.

The guard snorted and made a sweeping gesture at the entire courtyard. "Look around here, Ringtail. It's goin' to take an army to get the likes of yous outta here."

"Excuse me," said a new voice brimming with false sweetness.

Everyone looked towards the hole Sly and Tennessee had left in the wall from their last escape.

Standing on the rubble framed by the hole was Carmelita with her shock pistol charging up. "I'm the only one who calls him 'Ringtail'."

And with that, she blasted the guard off the landing and the courtyard erupted into chaos.

Despite his mixed feelings, Sly couldn't help but chuckle as Carmelita started taking all of them down. "It may not be an army, but I'd argue she's equal to one."

"Ah do think you're right about that," came another voice, and they looked over to the landing Carmelita had shot the guard off of to see Tennessee now standing there, completely unnoticed while Carmelita was taking names below. "That was some fine shootin' she had gettin' us here. Speaking of which…"

Tennessee lifted his own gun and pointed it at their cage, and with a rapid set of shots, the locks were off and their cage fell to the ground, breaking apart as it did.

They were free.

And by then, Carmelita had cleared the courtyard and all the remaining guards were shocked unconscious at her feet.

Sly picked himself up from the wreckage of the cage and helped Murray pull Bentley free of it, but then felt eyes on the back of his head.

He turned around to see Carmelita glaring at him with fire in her eyes. While he was happy Tennessee had saved her, that didn't mean he was entirely thrilled to see her either.

"Carmelita," Sly said, forcing his voice to stay even. "Are you alright?"

Carmelita had no such qualms. "I am, no thanks to you!" she snapped, gesturing at him with her pistol. "I should leave you in that cage after what you pulled, Sly Cooper!"

Sly stood his ground and his eyes hardened. Well if that's how it's going to be. "Oh? What I pulled? That's rich coming from you," he said dryly.

Carmelita scowled even more fiercely at his attitude and went for the throat. "Why if it wasn't for this handsome and charming gentleman, I wouldn't even be here," she said, striding over to drape a hand on Tennessee's shoulder.

Tennessee blushed under his fur and tried to hide his face under his hat. "Aw, shucks…"

Something ugly twisted in Sly's gut at the sight of Carmelita with Tennessee. Handsome and charming? Really? He didn't want to insult his ancestor, but in his time knowing him Tennessee was scruffy, loud, and smelled like he hadn't bathed in days. Still, if that was Carmelita's preference…

"A gentleman, huh? Well, then why don't you just club him over the head and make him the new sheriff while he can't tell up from down!" Sly snapped, some of his anger starting to leak into his voice.

Carmelita winced before putting her hands on her hips and snapping back. "Maybe I will!"

Tennessee looked between them now very alarmed. "Uh, if it's all the same to you, Ah'd rather that not happen," he said.

Sly took a deep breath to try and steady himself, before turning to stride past Carmelita for the exit. "Oh darn, looks like you're not conning another Cooper into being a cop after all. So then let's just get out of here before someone tries to shoot us again," he said bitterly… Okay, so that deep breath hadn't really worked.

Carmelita looked like she'd been slapped, before stomping over to stand between him and the exit. "That's it, Cooper," she snapped. "Since you clearly think you're too good for Interpol, so be it." She held out her hand with an expression that left no argument. "Badge and pistol. Now!"

Oh look, now he was fired for real. He'd wondered when it would happen.

Looking Carmelita directly in the eye, Sly reached into his pocket for his Interpol badge and dropped it into her waiting hand. But as he reached to do the same with his shock pistol, Bentley of all people spoke up.

"Uh, no offense Carmelita. But given the circumstances, wouldn't it be better if Sly had all the means to defend himself that he can?" the turtle asked, looking a bit silly with Murray hiding behind him as if that would save him from the argument.

"Oh, and I'm just supposed to trust him with it?" Carmelita asked in disbelief.

Sly was very close to snarling at her. "Oh, you have a lot of nerve bringing up 'trust'," he snapped.

Carmelita rounded on him again, but before she could say anything else Sly and Tennessee both started screaming as another attack hit them out of nowhere.

"SLY!" Carmelita cried out in alarm, reaching for him, but her hands passed straight through him as he toppled over. She, Bentley, and Murray watched in horror as both raccoons collapsed to the ground in pain. Their horror was only magnified when both raccoons turned transparent and even almost blinked out of existence for a brief second all while screaming in unimaginable pain.

Finally, the attack ended and both were solid again, and Tennessee was once again swearing up a blue streak at the event, though Sly agreed with his sentiment profusely.

Bentley hurried over to help Sly back to his feet while Murray did the same to Tennessee. Carmelita reached out like she wanted to help Sly too, but stopped herself before she could, as if afraid her hands would only pass through him again. Instead, she only stood there staring at the two raccoons looking pale and terrified.

Sensing the argument was over (for now, at least), Sly resumed his trek for the exit on unsteady steps, with Bentley rolling beside him so his chair could be used as a crutch.

Tennessee was leaning heavily against Murray as they followed. "What in tarnation just happened?" Tennessee asked the hippo, looking incredibly lost.

"It's a long story," Murray replied and started explaining as they walked.

Carmelita watched them go before noticing a strange pain in her hand. She looked down to see that in her fright she'd been clutching Sly's badge in a vice grip, and the metal shield was now digging into her palm.

She stared at it for a long moment before noticing her eyes were wet. She wiped them furiously not about to let anyone see, before hurrying after the criminals that had all the answers she wanted and were probably her only way back to present-day Paris.

She was an officer of Interpol. She would be pragmatic about this and do her job.

Whatever feelings she had about it (anger at Sly for going back to his old ways, hurt at his words towards her, and terror at the thought of losing him to something she couldn't even see), they didn't matter.

She would carry on regardless.

Chapter Text

To say I was not happy to see Sly stealing again is a vast understatement!

The thought that he could lie to me. That he might have faked his amnesia. That he would play me like a fool for years while working alongside me! OH, it just made me want to wring his neck!

But then I confronted him, and it became clear he hadn't lied. Instead… he found out I was the one who lied and he now knew the truth… It was not a pleasant conversation.

Then, to top it all off, he had another one of his recent attacks. But that one was worse. That one seemed to make him start to disappear! I was so stunned I couldn't react in time to stop the newly reformed Cooper Gang from escaping.

But once they were gone, I decided to follow my nose. Sly may not remember his own thieving pattern, but I did, and I knew Bentley and Murray would make sure it was upheld.

If Sly was stealing from here, then that had to mean there was more going on than I was aware of.

I'd almost forgotten how the Cooper Gang's heists made it so easy to get into places and look around. I'd barely turned a corner before I came upon a room filled to the brim with all the stolen art and antiquities I had been searching for. Of course, it took Sly coming out of retirement to crack my case.

Not that I had the chance to arrest that stinking weasel, Cyrille Le Paradox. Instead, I was so shocked by everything that had happened between Sly and this discovery that before I'd had the chance to react, I was surrounded.

Now, obviously, Le Paradox was not about to let me go on and tell everybody what I'd found, and it seems having a time machine was a convenient way to make people disappear. Trap me in the past, and it won't matter what I know. I'd be long dead before the present ever came around to stop him.

Then, the next thing I knew, I was playing Cowboys and Criminals. I knew my life wasn't normal by any means, but it was never this completely loco.

So now, here I am, trapped in the Wild West with no way home until the Cooper Gang recovers Murray's van, and in uncomfortably close quarters with Sly while we were both (justifiably, I'll admit that) mad at each other.

To make matters worse, when Bentley explained why they had pulled Sly out of retirement, well… Stealing is wrong. I wanted Sly at my side, or at least see the Ringtail arrested for the crimes he can't seem to quit or even talk to me about, to find a better solution. I don't care if Bentley says there was no time. There had to be a better way!

… But, still, I don't want to see him erased from existence either, nor his gentleman of an ancestor. No one deserves that…

… I need to get back to Paris. If I do, I can stop Le Paradox and this whole crazy scheme.

And it looks like to do that, I will actually need to help the Cooper Gang pull a train heist to get history back on track.

*Sigh* Working with criminals as a criminal. How has my life come to this?

Getting back to the hideout was rough. Neither Tennessee nor Sly were as steady on their feet as they could be. That last attack was definitely the worst one yet.

To make matters even worse, when they reached the hideout, it was just in time to receive a call.

"Oh, please don't tell me Dimitri has more bad news," Bentley muttered as he moved to their communicator and activated it.

But instead of the iguana, a hooded raccoon appeared over the communicator's green gem instead. "Ah, I see you… Is this contraption finally on?"

"Yes, Rioichi, we hear you," said Bentley.

Carmelita looked confused, but Tennessee's eyes widened when he heard that name. "Well, Ah'll be!" he exclaimed, moving over for a closer look. "Rioichi Cooper as Ah live and breathe! Ya know yous was one of my favorite ancestors to hear about when I was a kid. You're a legend!" He tipped his hat respectfully and said, "Tennessee Kid Cooper, at your service."

Rioichi smiled at the praise and bowed to Tennessee. "Your words humble me, Tennessee-kun, and it is an honor to meet another of our family."

"Same to you, Rioichi," said Tennessee, sounding a bit star-struck.

However, Rioichi's expression then sombered. "Unfortunately, welcome as it is, I did not call to meet our family tree, " he said. "Before Bentley-san left, he asked me to contact him if more pains occurred, so we may map when in time our family line is in danger. I am sorry to say I felt an attack on myself recently, and a violent one at that."

"Yeah, we felt it too," Sly confirmed. "So whatever happened was before you in the time stream."

Rioichi nodded. " Indeed. However, I am pleased to add that I have seen no sign of El Jefe's ilk since you left."

"That's good to hear," Bentley said. "We'll try to finish things here and then go further back in time to find what's happening. Take care of yourself, Rioichi."

Rioichi gave a nod, and the call ended.

"Well, that's a fine little doohickey," said Tennessee, still examining the time communicator with interest.

"Thanks," Bentley said. "I built it to be able to talk to people across time, no matter where or when we go. Speaking of…" He reached under the table and brought out another communicator to hand to Tennessee. "This one is for you after we leave. If Sly has any attacks but you don't, we'll know we need to locate a time period closer to our present."

Tennessee lit up excitedly as he examined the little green gem on the transceiver. "Fer me? Aw shucks, ya shouldn't have," he said, sounding like a kid at Christmas.

Bentley chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Come on, I'll show you how to use it."

Meanwhile, Carmelita was still stuck on something she'd heard."El Jefe? The mercenary general?" she asked in surprise.

"Yeah, we had to take him down in the time period we stole that dagger for," Sly said dully. "Guess my last act as an Interpol officer was to arrest him. Good to go out on a high note."

"Oh," was all she said as Carmelita avoided his gaze, not that he noticed, as Sly was avoiding looking at her too.

Murray glanced between the two of them and slowly backed away. "Um, I'm gonna go see if I can help Bentley teach Tennessee," he said before beating a hasty retreat.

There were just some things you did NOT want to be in the middle of.

Thanks to the bug in Toothpick's office, they knew the armadillo was about to skip town soon with all the gold he'd stolen and their van, so they needed a plan and fast.

And if part of that plan involved taking part in some local festival games to fleece some keys off Toothpick's top goons, Sly wasn't going to complain. The look on that jackalope's face when he won that race was priceless.

It all culminated in a massive train heist, where they all had to work together to stop it and get the gold that Tennessee was supposed to have stolen originally.

Now it all came down to putting their plan into action, and they all waited on a bridge above the train tracks to make that happen.

"Ah almost wanna thank Toothpick for this," Tennessee said as they waited for the train to approach.

Everyone else looked at him like he was crazy.

Seeing that, Tennessee's grin widened. "Originally, Ah was just gonna steal that gold from a crooked swindlin' bank, but now-" He spread his hands out in a grand gesture. "It's a whole train heist from a crooked swindlin' sheriff. Any ol' fool can rob a bank. It takes guts to go for a locomotive. This is one for the record books."

Murray and Bentley nodded in complete agreement, Sly could see his point, and Carmelita looked sour at the idea of making history this way.

However, before she could make any comment about it, the train came barreling down the tracks towards them.

Knowing they couldn't miss it, all five of them immediately prepared themselves and then jumped the second the train passed under the bridge.

Thankfully, all of them made it. They quickly hurried to play their roles. Murray was at the back of the train getting his van back (which he did gleefully). Carmelita was watching Bentley's back as the turtle hacked the train's computer system and activated its whistle (Toothpick apparently had very sensitive ears and hated whistles). Tennessee would be making his way through the rest of the train, stealing all the gold he found along the way, with Sly watching his back from the train's roof.

"This is more fun than square dancin' with a donkey!" Tennessee cried gleefully as he climbed along a pipe from one train car to another after tossing one wagon full of gold to the van.

"I'll take your word for it," Sly called back as he followed him from above. He then noticed movement up ahead. "Heads up! More incoming."

"Ah see 'em," Tennessee called back, raising his gun. The guard made the mistake of popping out from behind a barrel of dynamite, which Tennessee quickly shot, sending the goon flying off the train.

Sly winced at the thought of the road rash that the guard was sure to feel in the morning. He was relieved that their bug had picked up that Toothpick's thugs were from the present day and brought with him for their loyalty. He'd hate if they made anyone else go through the pains he and his family had been feeling.

But there wasn't time to focus on it, as even without the guards, there was still plenty of danger between them and the gold, and there was still Toothpick to deal with.

Still, Tennessee seemed to be in his element. He ran, jumped, climbed, and shot his way through any obstacle in his path, and seemed to be having a blast doing it.

And like with Rioichi, it was amazing to watch him in action.

Sly may have been a little too caught up with watching, as he almost didn't notice some of the guards had caught on to him, and were climbing up onto the roof of the train to come after him. Not good, as he could hear Tennessee confronting Toothpick on a train platform just ahead of them.

Unfortunately for them, fighting atop the train took a good sense of balance, something Sly had a lot more talent for than the guards, and it wasn't hard to knock them back off the roof.

But by the time Sly could focus on Tennessee again, he was alarmed to see the other raccoon was now being pinned between two more of the hazmat suit-wearing mice like the ones that had been guarding the museum and Paris, and stole Rioichi's cane off El Jefe.

Realizing they might be here to do that again, Sly sprinted towards them.

But before he could reach them, Toothpick rolled up and caught Tennessee right in the gut, winding the raccoon and knocking his gun/cane from his hand.

"My GUN!" Tennessee cried as he tried to regain his breath, but the mice had him pinned in a vice grip, and there wasn't anything he could do but watch as a cackling Toothpick caught the gun and handed it over to another mouse.

"Thanks, Kid," Toothpick taunted, striding closer as the mouse ran off. "Le Paradox sends his regards."

The mice holding Tennessee forced him to hunch over so he was closer to Toothpick's short height, and the armadillo pointed his revolver directly at Tennessee's forehead. "Adios, idjit."

Sly Cooper was no quick draw. He'd never even been able to even touch Carmelita's score at the shooting range. He was just good enough that she didn't see him as a total embarrassment…

And yet he'd never drawn his shock pistol faster than he did at that moment.

The two mice hit the ground before they'd even realized they'd been shot, and Toothpick's revolver went flying after stinging his hand with several volts of electricity.

Toothpick jumped back and screeched in rage, but seeing Sly getting closer with his shock pistol still in hand, the fake sheriff beat a hasty retreat.

With the armadillo gone, Sly turned his attention to his ancestor and holstered his pistol to go help him. "Are you okay, Tennessee? Anything hurt?"

"Jus' my pride," said Tennessee from where he'd fallen after the mice were zapped unconscious, having gotten some electric feedback from their shocks on top of the hit to the gut he'd taken. "And a few other things," he added as he tried to stand, but fell back with a wince.

"Sorry," Sly said, knowing he was the cause of some of it.

"Now, don't apologize, son! Ah'd much rather be sore than what ol'Toothpick had planned," Tennessee said with an amused roll of his eyes. "Thanks fer savin' my hide."

Towards the front of the train, they could hear Toothpick still cackling at getting one over on Tennessee.

Sly scowled at the sound and said, "Just stay here until the jitters wear off. I'll go get your cane back."

Tennessee opened his mouth to reply, but Sly was already running ahead.

He caught up to Toothpick at the front of the train on a flat, empty car right behind the engine.

Toothpick grinned nastily as if he'd been waiting for him. "You know, Cooper?" he said almost conversationally as he played with a new pistol before holstering it. "You're actually not too bad a shot. My gun went whoosh, right out of my hand." He grinned in a way that would be wistful if it wasn't so bloodthirsty. "Ah, reminds me of when I was young. As a kid, my favorite thing to watch was the cowboy movies."

Sly glared back at him but didn't see Tennessee's cane anywhere. "Oh, what? Is this the part where you tell me your life story?" he asked dryly. "Can't say I'm interested."

Toothpick laughed at his words, before he cut himself off with a sharp, " No! " He then grinned nastily and took a pose that anyone with even a passing awareness of Westerns would recognize. "This is the part where you make my childhood dream come to life," he said, his hand hovering over his gun like he was ready to draw in an instant. "This town ain't big enough for the both of us!"

Sly immediately cursed himself for holstering his own weapon before and not having it already in hand.

Well, if Toothpick wanted a Mexican Standoff, he'll get one.

And thus there was a long, tense moment as they both waited for the other to make the first move. The slightest hint that the other was about to draw their firearm.

Then, the com in Sly's ear cracked to life.

" Sly! I hacked the train's whistle controls. All you need to do is hit the button next to them and give Toothpick a screaming headache!" Bentley said excitedly, before yelping as Carmelita followed the rest of their plan and threw him off the train into the van, which Murray was driving alongside the tracks.

Sly made sure he gave no visible reaction to the news, but his eyes couldn't help but flicker towards the button Bentley spoke of.

Toothpick saw this minute distraction and snatched up his gun.

Realizing what he was doing, Sly dove to the side while drawing his own shock pistol.

The bullet barely grazed past his ear, where his head was a second ago, but instead of focusing on that, Sly aimed his pistol at the whistle button and fired.

The train's whistle went off with a deafening blast that had Toothpick clutching his ears and yowling. Sly ignored the ringing in his own ears as he now aimed his shock pistol at Toothpick. The electricity didn't seem to do much harm to the armadillo's tough hide, but the force of it was enough to send the already off-balance sheriff falling backward and getting his butt caught in the train's furnace.

Toothpick screeched again at being stuck in a literal hot seat, but Sly didn't give him a chance to escape. The raccoon rushed forward and this time used his cane to smack the armadillo over the head hard enough to knock him out.

Toothpick popped back out of the furnace as his body went limp, and Sly sighed in relief, thinking it was over.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Tennessee, who had gotten back to his feet in time to see the grand finale, smirked as he walked over to look down at Toothpick. "Well, well, lookee what the cat drug in," he said, before turning to Sly. "Did'ya find my gun?"

Sly shook his head. There had been no sign of Tennessee's weapon or the mouse that had likely taken it.

Tennessee grumbled a curse, hearing that before hefting the unconscious Toothpick up. "Looks like this here's our stop," he said before drop-kicking the armadillo off the train and taking a running jump to land himself in a passing bale of hay.

Sly chuckled and began looking for his own hay bale to land on when the entire train jolted and seemed to speed up.

"Uh, what's going on?" he asked. At the speed the train was going now, there was no way he could safely jump off like his ancestor had.

" Sly!" Bentley cried in alarm in his ear. " We got a real problem!"

"Yeah," Sly agreed, bracing himself as the train picked up more speed. "This thing just started going too fast. I don't know how I'll get off."

"It's worse than that!" Bentley said, still sounding frantic. " Toothpick has better cybersecurity than I thought. Someone is remotely making the train speed up, and it's headed directly for a broken bridge."

Sly paled beneath his fur and looked over the train's engine to see the bridge Bentley was talking about looming up from the distance before a flash of blue caught the corner of his eye. He looked down to see that Murray's van was now speeding parallel to him with its rocket boosters at full power.

Bentley threw the side door open. "Sly!" the turtle shouted, waving his arms frantically. "You have to get off that train! Jump to the van!" He then yelped as the van went over a bump and nearly made him fall out, but Carmelita managed to catch the back of his wheelchair in time, and she pulled Bentley back in. But while she did that, the gold they had collected for Tennessee came spilling out and scattered across the ground in their wake.

But there was no time to worry about that now. Sly hurried to climb across the engine until he was as close to the van as he could be.

Seeing this, Carmelita secured Bentley inside before leaning back out and extending her hand to catch him.

Sly backed up a few steps before taking a running jump to reach her.

His hand caught hers, but at the speed the van was going, she had to hold on tightly to both him and the van's interior just to pull him in.

The two landed in a heap inside the van, groaning from the effort.

However, the second Sly realized he had landed on top of Carmelita in a compromising position, he quickly pulled himself off to give her some space. It did nothing to quell her glaring.

With everyone accounted for, Bentley yelled, "Murray! Hit the brakes!"

But everyone quickly grew terrified as the thumping sound of Murray stomping on the brake pedal to no avail hit their ears.

"They're not working!" Murray shouted in a panicked voice. "And I can't stop the rockets!"

"WHAT?" Carmelita shrieked as she realized what that meant. "You idi-!" she was cut off as Sly clapped a hand over her mouth, knowing she'd been about to go on a tirade.

"Not the time," he hissed to her before she could give Bentley and Murray an earful. "Find a solution now, tell us we're idiots afterward."

Carmelita glowered at him and shoved his hand away as she grumbled about how she knew she should have had them send her back to Paris, but her complaints were short-lived, as both she and Sly instead had to brace themselves as the van jolted again, and nearly sent them flying out the still-open side door.

"Bentley?" Sly called, hoping the turtle once again had a plan.

Fortunately, it seems he managed to come up with one on the fly.

"Sorry, Murray," he said, sending one of his chair's arms up to the driver's seat. "This has to work!"

"Hey! That's my necklace!" Murray yelped as the robotic hand returned with a string of fossilized seashells that he'd plucked off Murray's neck.

Bentley wasted no time in tossing the necklace into the time receptacle. "Here goes nothing!" he said even as the van launched itself off a cliff next to the broken bridge.

With the train crashing down beside them, everyone in the van screamed as the van took a nosedive down the gorge.

But just when it looked like they would crash to the ground, the entire van vanished from sight.

A few minutes later, a very out-of-breath Tennessee came running to the edge of the ravine, having seen what was happening, and chased after them.

"What in tarnation?" he said, peering down into the gorge, almost afraid of what he would see.

But to his surprise, while he saw plenty of wreckage from the train, he didn't see any sign of the Cooper Gang's ride at the bottom. And with the van's bright blue sides and painted-on flames, he would think something like that would be easy to spot.

He quickly scaled down the edge of the cliff until he reached the bottom. But no matter how hard he searched, there was no sign of his future descendant or his strange friends. It was like they'd vanished into thin air.

Tennessee breathed a sigh of relief. If they weren't here, then chances are they weren't dead. Maybe that odd machine Murray was so fond of was actually a flying machine of some sort. Or, wait, Bentley said it was their way of traveling through time. With all the odd doohickies that turtle could come up with, the raccoon honestly wouldn't be surprised.

Wait… doohickies! That's it!

Bentley left him one of those doohickies that let you talk across time. If he could get it working, he could talk to them himself no matter where they'd vanished to.

With more spring in his step, Tennessee quickly climbed back up the cliff.

He had a call to make, but first he needed to collect up that gold he'd stolen and get Toothpick turned in to an actual lawman.

Wherever Sly and his friends were, he was sure they'd be alright.

Chapter Text

New rule. From now on, anytime they time traveled, all doors and windows on the van had to be closed first.

The vacuum from the van speeding through the time vortex was causing a very strong suction that was sending things from inside the van to go flying out of it, and it was all Sly could do to keep him and Carmelita from doing the same.

As it was, his claws, on one hand were currently dug into the upholstery as he kept Carmelita in a vice grip against him with his other so both of them wouldn't go flying out. A few days ago, he'd have been thrilled to be this close to her. Now, neither one was enjoying the experience for a multitude of reasons.

Unfortunately, his grip wasn't good enough, and they both went flying out the van's door.

Thankfully, their fall wasn't a long one, and they landed in a soft snowdrift.

Any relief they felt at that landing was short-lived, as a growing shadow made them quickly realize the van was about to fall on top of them.

This time it was Carmelita who grabbed Sly and leaped them out of the snowdrift and out of the crash zone. Though, not out of the splash zone, as the van's landing sent a wave of snow over top of them.

Brushing off the snow, Sly hurried to the van. It was in rough shape. Dents covered it all over, and the door that Sly and Carmelita had flown out of had been ripped off and landed several yards away. In fact, all around the crash sight were scattered pieces of the van and the things that had been inside it.

But when he ran to the driver's side, it opened and Murray fell out, dazed but okay. In the back, Bentley was still tightly fastened in place, but he looked more than a little windswept.

Sly sighed in relief. They were all okay, but this was going to take a lot of work to fix.

If they fixed it.

Sly shook the negative thought away and turned to Carmelita. "Okay, we're not in danger anymore. You're free to yell at us now," he said to her.

But Carmelita wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was looking downhill with eyes the size of dinner plates. "You sure about that, Ringtail?" she asked and pointed ahead.

Sly walked to her side and followed her gaze, at first he didn't see anything but more snow, rocks, trees, and the odd penguin. But then a large shadow passed overhead and his jaw dropped in shock.

That was a dinosaur! That was a whole freaking dinosaur flying above him!

A dinosaur that was honestly flying a little too close for comfort.

Suddenly a bazooka poked itself between Sly and Carmelita and aimed for the flying lizard. Both were surprised to see Bentley at the other end looking ready to blast the pterodactyl out of the sky.

"Whoa! Whoa! Easy there," Sly said, yanking the bazooka away from the turtle. "That's a little extreme."

"Where did you even get that?!" asked Carmelita in bewilderment. "I didn't see it in the van."

"Hidden compartment," was all Bentley replied. "Just in case something thinks we look like dinner."

Sly and Carmelita exchanged a glance before looking back up at the approaching dinosaur.

Thankfully, the pterodactyl didn't seem to think they looked appetizing, and continued its flight elsewhere, making them all sigh in relief.

"MY VAN!" Murray's cry of dismay echoed off the trees around them and knocked the snow off their branches. The poor hippo looked heartbroken at the state his beloved vehicle was in, and the rest of them all felt pretty grim at the sight.

If they couldn't fix that van, they might be stuck in a place that was prehistoric. Something none of them wanted, especially Carmelita.

"Now what was that about me yelling at you?" she said sardonically. "Oh, right. YOU IDIOTS! HOW DO WE GET BACK TO PARIS NOW!" she shouted, scaring off several nearby penguins.

How indeed.

The bad news just kept getting worse.

While we had managed to find an abandoned cave to use as a shelter (one that had been previously occupied judging from the furs within it, but long abandoned at this point), getting the van into it was a literal uphill battle. Pushing it through the snow was a heck of a chore.

And then once we got situated, Bentley confirmed what all of us had guessed. Not only was the van in bad shape, but the time machine wasn't functional either. Apparently parts had flown off in the crash and were scattered all around the area.

And, on top of all that, our communicator was busted as well, so we had no way of contacting Dimitri, Rioichi, or Tennessee, and the extras Bentley had brought had gone flying out the same way me and Carmelita did.

Worst of all, we still didn't know anything about the whereabouts of Penelope. It seemed likely Le Paradox had captured her to force her to make him his time machine, but did that mean she was back in Paris, or had she been trapped somewhere in the past like Carmelita was?

Speaking of Carmelita, she was not happy about any of this and made sure we all knew it. It was all I could do not to start another argument with her, and Bentley and Murray have been beating a hasty retreat whenever the two of us are in the same vicinity.

Our only chance to get back on track was to find the parts that were scattered when we crashed so Bentley could fix the time machine... Hopefully... Or else we'd have to get used to living in a cave, permanently.

After they'd managed to get their cave as cozy as possible (which wasn't very, but still better than being out in the snow). Sly noticed one person wasn't huddled around the campfire trying to get feeling back into their toes.

He looked out of the cave mouth to see Carmelita standing in the snow, still looking as tense and furious as before. Still angry, and still not wanting to have anything to do with them.

Guessing what she was about to do, Sly stood with a groan, grabbed some of the extra emergency cold weather gear Bentley had stashed in the van (that miraculously hadn't blown out like so much else), and walked out to her.

When Carmelita saw him coming, she scowled and turned away.

Looks like Sly was right, she was about to storm off in a huff.

"Carmelita, wait," Sly called after her.

Carmelita wheeled around and drew her shock pistol. "Don't you dare tell me what to do, Ringtail!" she snapped.

Sly stopped a few feet from her and rolled his eyes. "Oh, right. I forgot, telling people what to do and who they are is your job," he said sarcastically.

Carmelita's expression was thunderous and she lowered her pistol to start yelling again. "Why you little-!" she started to say but broke off when Sly took the chance to dart forward and shoved the supplies in her face.

"Look, I know you want space, but if you're going to go off on your own, at least take these with you," he insisted.

Carmelita shoved the supplies away and glared at him. "Back off! I don't need anything from you!"

Despite all the frozen water covering everything, Sly gave her a look that was drier than the Sahara. "Really," he deadpanned. "Look around, Carmelita. We're in the Ice Age! You're wearing a mini skirt!"

Carmelita flushed, knowing he had a point, but still looking like she would stubbornly refuse.

Sly reached up and pinched his brow. "Look, I get it," he said. "You're mad at me, I'm mad at you, but that's still no excuse to go wandering around the snow without the proper supplies. At the very least please just take the pants."

Charmelita let out a frustrated huff, but reached over and snatched the supplies and then turned to stomp away.

Sly sighed as he watched her go. As steamed as he still was at her, he didn't want anything bad to happen to her.

"You know those were your set of extra supplies right," Bentley said, wheeling out to stop beside him. "Any clothes in there will probably be yours."

Sly had figured when he'd seen the sizes, but they were better than the alternatives. "Let's not mention that to Camelita," he said as he turned to walk back into the cave. "So long as she has plausible deniability she won't come storming back here to throw them at my head."

Bentley nodded in agreement. "That's probably a good call. Besides, it's not like we had anything specifically for her in our supplies, and no way anything of mine or Murray's would fit her. Well, maybe Penelope's supplies would also work…" Bentley trailed off and looked glum at the mention of his still-missing girlfriend.

Sly crouched down so he could look Bentley in the eye. "We'll find her," he promised. "From what I've seen, you can probably fix that time machine in no time."

Bentley cracked a small smile at that. "Well, to do that, we're going to need to find all the things that fell off in transit. That, or find something else to substitute."

Sly straightened up. "Well, start on a shopping list. We'll get right on it."

Bentley brightened up even more and wheeled over to where Murray was working on the van to take inventory.

This was going to be a lot of work, and Sly could already tell that shopping list was going to be big.

He just hoped his ancestors could wait that long.

Chapter Text

After taking a thorough inventory of what they had and what they needed, Sly left the cave to begin his hunt for the parts for Bentley and made sure to move quickly in the hopes the exercise would keep him warm.

It didn't, but it was better than sitting in the cave. He did not envy Bentley and Murray for their tasks, trying to start the repairs with what they already had.

Thankfully, Bentley had calculated where the parts would have landed, so he knew where to start, but for the most part, he was going exploring.

He was surprised to find the area was actually fairly populated, mostly with a tribe of mammoths, sabertooth tigers, and even some dodo birds whose speech was understandable if garbled. Unfortunately, they weren't that friendly to outsiders. He learned that the hard way.

Still, the icy area was amazing to explore, or at least it would be if there wasn't the looming possibility of being stuck there hanging over his head.

And as Sly watched a pterodactyl fly overhead with a piece of metal clutched in its talons, that possibility was growing stronger by the minute.

"Well, I found your thingy," Sly remarked into his com.

"Great!" Bentley said brightly until he saw the view Sly had through the binocucom. "Oh…"

"Yeah, oh," Sly agreed. "I guess we have to hope that thing drops it eventually. I mean, it has to at some point, right?"

"Erm, yes, but most likely where she drops it will be her nest," Bentley replied.

"Great," Sly sighed. The previous two parts he'd looked for hadn't been any easier to reach, scattered among the unfriendly locals and some even swallowed by a colony of penguins that Bentley insisted were the spawn of Satan.

Bentley, meanwhile, was still observing things through Sly's binocucom as he panned it around. "Wait! Sly, go back!"

Sly turned the binoculars back the way it had been, and it didn't take much to see what had caught his eye. "Hold on, is that a conveyor belt?" he asked, staring up at the contraption winding around the icy mountains.

"It certainly looks like one," Bentley replied, sounding baffled. "See if you can get a closer look."

Sly obliged, and as he drew closer to the apparent conveyor belt he came upon something else out of place.

"Okay, I'm pretty sure ice sculpting like this won't be around for a good long while," Sly said, staring up at a towering statue of a bear with a scepter and crown.

"Well, to be fair, any ice sculptures that exist in this time wouldn't last until the present day so there's no way to know for sure," Bentley replied. "But you're right. That sculpture looks far too modern for this era."

Sly, who was already scaling the statue for its view of the conveyor belt, paused at the face and squinted at it. "You know, there's something familiar about it too," he said before continuing to the top.

Once he was perched on the tip of the bear's crown, he brought up his binocucom for Bentley to get his view of the belt.

"Interesting," the turtle muttered. "It seems to be harvesting pterodactyl eggs. But why? And how did these ice age denizens come up with it?"

"Something tells me they had help," Sly said, glancing down at the statue again. He couldn't shake the thought he knew the subject from somewhere.

Bentley hummed in agreement before seemingly noticing something. "Sly, there's something going on over by that arena you found. You better go check it out."

Sly nodded, and with a quick series of jumps, uses of his paraglider, and some tightrope walking across vines, he had the perfect view on a snowy ledge without being spotted. "I'm getting better at this," he muttered to himself.

"It is a marked improvement from the museum," Bentley agreed.

Sly could read between the lines what Bentley wasn't saying. That before his memory loss he was even better. Oh well, always good to have a goal to strive for.

But no time for that now, as he finally got a look at the cause of the commotion.

Whatever he'd been expecting, a rapping black bear in a vibrant purple tracksuit and crown painting on the wall was not it.

Yet another familiar face.

"Seriously?" Sly asked in disbelief. "The Grizz?"

"The Grizz?" asked Bentley, and in the background of the turtle's audio the sound of Murray coming over to see what was going on could be heard.

"Is he another guy you know from Interpol?" the hippo asked.

"No, I mean, yes, he's very wanted, but that's not how I know him," Sly replied. "He was at an art gallery I took Carmelita to on a date."

There was a long pause over the coms.

Finally, Murray said slowly, "Er, Sly, The Murray doesn't mean to judge you and Carmelita, and maybe that painting he's doing isn't finished, but uh…"

"I wasn't aware memory loss could affect your taste in art," Bentley remarked. Unlike Murray, he was absolutely judging him.

Realizing what they were thinking, Sly quickly said, "No, no, no, we didn't go to the gallery to see him. We were there for that abstract artist, what's her name, Poppy Dada. While we were there he showed up to complain to the gallery manager about why they wouldn't display his art there too. Apparently, he had some success in the art world before, but then tastes changed and he was not taking rejection well. He made such a scene that when he took a swing at the manager, Carmelita and I were set and ready to arrest him."

"Wow," said Murray.

"Why am I not surprised a date with Carmelita ends with someone going to jail?" Bentley remarked dryly.

Sly managed a slight chuckle at that. "Unfortunately, that arrest seems to have been the last straw," he continued. "After he got out on bail he got into the art theft business, and has been running from the law ever since."

"Well, he ran so far he landed in the ice age," said Bentley as they watched The Grizz finish his painting and enter the arena.

"Wait! Then that means-" Murray said in realization.

"Yes, it seems Le Paradox's time travel schemes extend even this far back. We need to find out what he's doing here. You should follow him, Sly," Bentley deduced. There was a pause as he waited for Sly to answer. "... Sly?"

But Sly couldn't answer. He was too busy shoving his fist into his mouth to muffle any cries of pain so the guards wouldn't hear him screaming as another attack washed through him. It had hit him almost as soon as The Grizz had left and was already lasting far longer than any previous one had.

"Sly!" shouted Bentley through the com, growing alarmed.

"Is he okay?" asked Murray, just as worried.

Sly forced himself to answer despite the pain. "Another attack," he said hoarsely. "And this one doesn't seem to be ending."

"I'm going to get him!" Murray shouted, and the sound of him rushing out the door could be heard.

"Sly, talk to me," Bentley said in concern.

Sly took a deep breath in a vain attempt to steady himself. "It's… It's different from the other attacks. It almost feels like that time in Japan when El Jefe had Rioichi by the throat, but more prolonged."

"It's like- Oh no! I think I know what's happening. Just hang on, Sly! Murray's almost there!" Bentley said.

A few moments later, a loud whisper of, "Sly!" could be heard below him.

Sly just barely managed to pull himself through the snow to the edge of the ledge and drop over the side into Murray's waiting arms.

The hippo wasted no time in hightailing it back to their cave hideout.

As Sly blacked out, he hoped Bentley once again had the solution.

Well, Bentley had the start of a solution, if only that solution would cooperate. So he proceeded to annoy it into submission.

"Carmelita! CARMELITA! I know you can hear me! Pick up now!"

The fox in question let out a frustrated growl and finally answered the binocucom stashed amongst her supplies.

"What is it?" she demanded. "I swear, Bentley, if Sly put you up to this-!"

"Sly's unconscious at the moment, so no, he didn't. He's not even aware I'm calling," was Bentley's blunt reply.

That puffed out a lot of Carmelita's anger like a candle flame. "What happened? Is he alright?" she asked.

"He's having another attack, this one prolonged," Bentley replied grimly. "The last time this happened was when an ancestor was in serious danger while we were in the same time period. I suspect that means Sly has another ancestor nearby and right now they're in real trouble."

Carmelita gritted her teeth and said, "What do you need me to do?"

There was no mistaking the relief in Bentley's voice as he replied, "Over on the west side of this valley there's a big arena. Given all the guards and the commotion over there, I suspect that's where the ancestor is being held. Not only that but before he passed out, Sly spotted someone you both know making graffiti art on the walls. Does the name 'The Grizz' ring any bells?"

"That loud-mouthed, foul-tempered, egotistical hack who fancied himself an artist?" Carmelita asked in surprise.

"Yeah, that description fits," Bentley agreed.

Well, at least there was someone she could shoot at. "I'm on my way," she said.

Following Bentley's directions, Carmelita soon arrived at the door to the arena. Outside it, she found piles of unconscious mammoth and sabertooth guards, and a very worried Murray trying to force the door open to no success.

The hippo's eyes lit up at the sight of her. "Carmelita! You came!"

"Of course I did," said Carmelita in a no-nonsense tone, because as angry as she was, that was never in doubt. "So how are we getting in?"

"Well, I'm still working on the door, but Bentley says that there's a crack around the corner that is the fastest way inside. And fast is what we need right now," Murray said, pointing in the direction of the crack.

Stepping around the corner and looking it over, Carmelita could see why Bentley had called her in. The crack was far too narrow for Murray or Bentley's wheelchair to get through, and with Sly apparently down for the count she was the only one who would fit.

With a nod to Murray, she squeezed through the crack and began creeping her way through the icy tunnels inside, keeping her shock pistol in hand if she ran into any more guards.

Fortunately, most of the guards were in the arena's pit tormenting what looked like an injured prehistoric raccoon with their spears. And given they were surrounded by magma, and the raccoon was being held down by heavy chains anchored to tall spires, it didn't look like they had any intention of letting him leave in one piece, but they were also planning on taking their time killing him.

"Sly's ancestor, I presume," Carmelita muttered.

"Yes," Bentley confirmed. "Between Sly, Rioichi, and Tennessee, I believe I've managed to isolate the common Cooper genetic traits, and can conclude without a shadow of a doubt that this is Sly's ancestor."

"There's also the fact he is a prehistoric raccoon and is likely a common ancestor to a lot of if not most raccoons in the modern day," Carmelita had to point out. Which was honestly horrifying to think that the death of this cave raccoon could possibly bring an extinction to all raccoons.

"Au contraire," said Bentley smugly. "Look!"

Carmelita looked just in time to see one of the mammoths finally manage to wrench something free of the cave raccoon's hand and hold it up for the jeers of his friends.

It was a long stick with a large hooked piece of bone tied tightly to one end.

While not as streamlined as any she'd seen before, it was still instantly recognizable as a Cooper Cane.

"You have got to be kidding me," Carmelita said as the mammoth passed it to The Grizz. The bear smirked as he took it before leaving the pit for the tunnels below.

"I know," said Bentley, excited at this discovery. "It may very well be possible Sly's family has been thieves even this far back!"

"We don't know he's a thief. It could be, I don't know, a shepherd's crook," Carmelita protested, but it sounded hollow even to her ears. She shook her head and took a few steps back. "Oh, whatever. He won't be anything if I just stand around."

"My thoughts exactly," agreed Bentley. "Here's the plan. You'll need that sabertooth tiger skin to- Wait, what are you doing?"

But Carmelita wasn't listening anymore, and instead took a running leap off the arena edge and managed to grab hold of the edge of the closest spire. Climbing quickly to the top, she immediately shocked the sabertooth guarding it unconscious and destroying the anchor for the chains. A quick series of jumps to the other spires yielded similar results, and soon enough she was turning her shock pistol onto the guards below. Said guards quickly cut and ran screaming about invoking the wrath of a lightning goddess, leaving the cave raccoon still tangled in chains below.

Carmelita climbed down and helped the struggling raccoon get free.

"Easy," she said calmingly as she worked him free. "I'm here to help."

With the last chain falling to the floor, the cave raccoon stood, mindful of his injuries, and said in the same garbled speech as the locals, "Thank you, Lightning Goddess."

"Oh, I'm not-" Carmelita started to say, but then again the idea of being seen as a goddess appealed to her. "I was sent here by a relative of yours," she said instead. "You being trapped here was causing him pain, but he should be safe now that you are as well. What is your name?"

The cave raccoon looked horrified to hear this but diligently replied that his name was an incomprehensible string of gibberish.

Carmelita faltered at the sound of it and latched onto the last part of the name which was all she heard clearly. "I see, may I call you Bob for short?"

"I would be honored, Lightning Goddess," said the newly named Bob. "Thank you for saving me and my kin."

She was right, she definitely liked the sound of that.

At that moment, Murray finally managed to get the front door open. "SUCCESS!" he bellowed. "The Murray is victorious!" He then noticed the sight before him, and said, "Oh, hi Carmelita! Looks like you did great! Bentley says Sly's attack finally ended."

Carmelita smiled in relief at the news and turned back to Bob. "Go with him. He'll take you to your relative." And with that, she turned to leave.

"Aw, you're not coming?" asked Murray, both he and Bob looking disappointed.

Carmelita shook her head. The thought of facing Sly… she wasn't ready yet. "Later," was all she said before making her way out.

Bob looked sad to see her go but did as she said and made his way over to Murray.

"Hi there," Murray said at the sight of him. "I am The Murray. Nice to meet you. What's your name?"

At that question, the raccoon beamed. "The Lightning Goddess named me Bob."

Chapter Text

"So Slytunkhamen was your first super great grandpa?" asked the little hippo as the young raccoon finished telling a story of his ancient Egyptian ancestor.

"No way, Murray," said the little turtle, jumping up to lecture the other. "Slytunkhamen had to have a mom and dad too at some point. That's how babies are made."

"I thought the storks made them?" the little hippo replied, looking confused.

"No, Slytunkhamen had parents too," the young raccoon said. "I remember one of the first things in the book said that he was writing about what was taught to him by his dad, and his dad before that, and his parents before that, and so on. Slytunkhamen wasn't the first thief in my family, and not the first to get his cane, he's just the first one to write about it."

"Whoa!" said the hippo.

"And who knows how many generations back it goes," said the turtle, pacing back and forth looking fascinated. "For all we know, your family could have been thieves since the dawn of time."

The raccoon beamed at the idea. "Maybe they were. Now that would be a legacy."

Sly opened his eyes slowly as he registered he was no longer in pain. In fact, he felt better than he had in a while.

Bentley, who was next to the bedroll he'd been sleeping on, and had clearly been waiting for him to awaken, grabbed Sly up into a hug the second he sat up. "Don't ever do that again!" he ordered.

Sly smiled and patted Bentley on the back of his shell. While he no longer had any doubts that he, Bentley, and Murray had been close before he'd lost his memory, it was at times like this he could see just how much they must have meant to each other, and he could only hope he could remember that closeness someday too. But even without his memories, both the turtle and the hippo were easy to grow fond of.

"I wasn't planning to do that this time, but I'll do my best," he replied.

Bentley gave him one last squeeze before pulling away. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Any residual pain? Loss of motor skills, vision, hearing, or appetite?"

"None of the above," said Sly as he stood from his bedroll and stretched. "In fact, I actually feel like, well, like I felt before I started getting attacks."

Bentley looked thoughtful. "Really? Interesting. Perhaps it's because we're so far back in time that there aren't any more ancestors to be put in jeopardy, and your health has improved since your ancestor here is out of danger as well."

Sly stopped his stretches and looked at the turtle. "Wait? Ancestor?"

Before Bentley could explain, Murray's voice rang out from the entrance. "Hey guys! We're here!"

Sly and Bentley turned towards the entrance to see the hippo walk in, and a massive cave raccoon followed in his footsteps.

At the sight of them, Bentley grinned and waved a presenting hand in the cave raccoon's direction. "Sly, may I introduce the new record holder of your earliest known ancestor and the possible inventor of the Cooper Cane. I've heard he goes by Bob."

Sly and Bob stared at each other in bewilderment. "Oh, wow," Sly stumbled to say. "I have to say, it's quite an honor."

Bob, meanwhile, looked Sly up and down. "The goddess said you were in pain. Are you alright?" he asked in the local garbled speech.

"Uh, goddess?" Sly asked, confused.

"Carmelita helped free him from The Grizz's goons," Bentley explained.

"Ah, that makes more sense," said Sly. Leave it to Carmelita to make enough of an impression that people started worshiping her.

Not to Bob, however, he still looked confused. "Were you sick because you're so small?" he asked.

Bentley and Murray snickered at that remark. There was indeed a notable size difference between the two raccoons, in that Bob was massive compared to Sly.

What followed was the three time travelers trying to explain how they got there, what Sly's connection to him was, and the basic concepts of time travel itself.

Needless to say, most of it went over Bob's head, and Bentley tried to prove it by showing him future technology, which only served to make the cave raccoon go gaga over all the shiny things.

In the end, they managed to get Bob to understand that they were from far away and that Sly was indeed related to him, and if anything bad happened to Bob it would also happen to Sly and several other raccoons in their shared family. Bob looked rather terrified of the concept and wondered aloud who had cursed them.

With their own explanation out of the way, it was time to find out what was hot in the ice age.

"That bear just showed up one day with lots of shiny things," Bob explained. "Lots of people liked getting those shiny things, and he'd give them out to anyone who helped him with things. Now people trade shinies more than anything else"

Bentley slapped his forehead hearing that. "I don't even want to know what the repercussions history is going to have now that The Grizz has introduced capitalism early."

Bob looked confused at the big words but shrugged it off and continued with his story. "It wasn't so bad at first. Mostly he'd just get people to build things or let him paint on their cave walls. But then he also started taking eggs I would brave death to steal for the tribe's food. And now he's taken the tool I created to fetch them."

"Eggs?" asked Sly in confusion. "You mean like penguin eggs?" There had certainly been a lot of the little birds around. Although, 'braving death' to fetch them seemed to be a bit dramatic (unless Bentley was right about them being evil).

But Bob shook his head and looked pointedly out of the entrance of their cave.

The rest of them followed his gaze just in time to see a massive pterodactyl swoop by with a hunting cry.

Oh, those eggs. Well, at least now they knew why he'd brave death to get them, and needed to create the first Cooper Cane to do it.

Bob nodded, seeing they'd understood, and then looked ashamed. "I was the greatest egg thief the tribe had ever known. But now, there are so few left I can't find enough to feed everyone. No one respects me anymore, and some even…" He broke off and just looked depressed. Understandably so, given it was likely several of his own tribe members had just tried to kill him on The Grizz's orders.

Hoping to cheer him up, Murray said, "Uh, well, a goddess did just step in to save you. Maybe that's a sign your egg-stealing slump is over, and those people should respect you more."

Bob didn't look convinced. "Maybe if I was still at my peak, but now…" He reached down and patted his bloated stomach, making it clear he'd packed on some extra weight recently. "It's only a matter of time before they stop again."

But that didn't stop Murray's optimism. "Oh, please, that bit of flab can be burned off in no time!"

Now Bob was starting to look hopeful. These people had been directed to him by a goddess, they had his descendant from far in the future among them and had many shiny things the likes of which he had never seen before. Maybe getting him back in shape was something they could do.

Bentley and Sly exchanged a glance as Murray began excitedly dragging Bob back out of the cave chattering all the way about training schedules and how to use their environment as exercise equipment.

"I guess Murray missed his calling as a personal trainer," Sly remarked as he watched them go.

Bentley chuckled and shook his head. "Nah, he'd be bored to tears if he tried to do it full-time. But he'll help out a friend when they need it."

Sly glanced at Bentley. "Did he ever do that for me?"

Bentley shook his head. "No, thankfully you've never been injured enough to need it, and heaven forbid you ever get out of shape. Your memory loss is probably the closest you've ever come, but that was a matter of not knowing your own moves instead of needing to exercise more."

Sly nodded, but something about Bentley's reasoning stuck out to him, and he couldn't help but look down at the high-tech wheelchair the turtle was sitting in. It hadn't occurred to him before, but…

The little turtle in his dreams didn't have a wheelchair…

Bentley gave him a nod at seeing his gaze. "Yeah, Murray's the one who jumped on my physical therapy right after, well, when I started needing this," he said softly, gesturing to the chair. "You helped too, of course, but no offense, Murray was better at it before he went on his walkabout. He's better at being motivational… mostly because you don't want to disappoint him."

Sly nodded, "Yeah, I can see that being the case."

They fell into an awkward silence as Sly was suddenly dying to ask, but didn't want to offend the progress he'd made with his newly rediscovered friend. Especially when he had a sinking feeling the answer had something to do with him.

Either his poker face wasn't as good as he thought it was or Bentley just knew him that well (probably the latter). "I don't want to talk about it, but what happened to me was not your fault, Sly," he said firmly, before turning away to begin making more plans now that they had Bob in the picture.

Somehow those words only made Sly even more sure he had something to do with it, but knew better than to ask.

So he instead made small talk while Bentley worked. "So you said something about Carmelita being a goddess now. How did that happen?"

Grateful for the change in subject, Bentley replied, "Well, let's just say she rained fiery judgment down on those villagers that were imprisoning Bob, and that fire looked a lot like shock bolts…"

Bentley had not been underselling Murray's fitness training skills. When he and Bob returned to the hideout it honestly looked like Bob had lost thirty pounds, and was looking more confident than ever.

With him on their team, getting the parts back became a lot more doable, but it was still no cakewalk. Between Bob scaling sheer cliff sides to get parts back from the pterodactyls, to chasing down penguins to Heimlich other pieces out of their stomachs, to picking a lot of loincloth pockets, soon enough they managed to cross off all the items on Bentley's list.

And so, with the parts to get out of the ice age squared away, now they could turn their attention to stopping The Grizz, which meant getting into his egg harvesting factory and finding out what he was doing with them.

But Sly wasn't expecting the answer as he eavesdropped on a conversation the Grizz was having with Le Paradox over the phone. "Paint?" he muttered to himself. "What do eggs have to do with paint?"

"Actually, egg yolk makes a great binder for paint to keep it from fading," Bentley replied over the radio as he worked furiously to hack into Grizz's phone. "Some paintings with an egg yolk tempera have lasted for centuries. It's possible pterodactyl eggs are especially good for that very preservation. Makes sense then, that Grizz wants to use it to make sure his paintings here last to the modern day and their ingredients add to their validity as ancient, you know, given pterodactyls are extinct in our time."

"Well, sounds like Grizz is just hurrying their extinction along, from what I'm hearing," said Sly as Grizz complained loudly below him about running low on eggs. "What a scumbag."

"All the more reason to stop him," said Bentley. "Just keep trailing him, I've almost hacked it."

Unfortunately, at that exact moment, Grizz was hung up on. He smashed his phone in frustration and disappeared into his factory, making Bentley wail in despair.

Sly sighed in disappointment as well. Getting those codes would make taking Grizz down so much easier.

"I guess the bear got away, huh?" asked a familiar voice behind him.

"Carmelita," said Sly in surprise, and he wheeled around to see her standing behind him, one hand on her hip, the other holding her shock pistol in a lazy grip.

Carmelita looked him up and down with a scrutinizing eye. "Well, you look better than what Bentley and Murray told me."

"Uh, yeah," Sly said, a lot of his anger having fizzled out at the knowledge she'd taken on an entire arena of goons to save him through saving Bob. "Better than I have in a while. That cold mountain air and having just one ancestor to keep track of does one a world of good."

Carmelita nodded thoughtfully.

"How… how about you?" Sly asked. "I see the pants are working out for you."

Carmelita glanced down at what they both knew was Sly's clothes but only shrugged. "Yes, well, you were right before," she admitted with some reluctance. "As cold as it is, proper gear is a must. I would have managed without them, but… Anyway." She shook her head, and her expression was all business. "I have some information for Bentley," she said. "I've been tailing Grizz on my own, and I have the security codes and full schematics for his mountain base."

"Wow," said Sly, impressed. "Thanks!"

"You're welcome," she said and turned to start walking back towards the hideout.

"Seriously, Carmelita," Sly said as he moved to stand in front of her. "Not just for the intel. Thank you, you saved my life. Heck, my entire bloodline." He gave her his most grateful look. "I appreciate it."

Carmelita took in his expression, then turned her head so as not to look him in the eyes. "You're welcome," she said again and resumed her trek through the snow.

Sly followed after her at a more sedate pace, allowing her to put as much distance between them as she wanted.

He got it. While he was still hurt by all the lies, he knew the vixen better than anyone. Sly may be ready to start working towards burying the hatchet, but Carmelita needed more time to sort through her thoughts before they were ready to have that talk.

But it was only a matter of time before it all came out. He just hoped they would both be ready to weather that storm when it did.