Chapter 1: The hypnosis

Another new idea for a story I randomly got. This time I was playing Sly 2, episode 5, the first job. When I got to the re-education tower and listened to the dialogue between Carmelita and the Contessa, this idea suddenly struck me. There's gonna be only one chapter for a while, unless I get a sudden burst of inspiration like I did with Isabelle and Sly.

This story starts from the part of the Operation High Road where Sly and Bentley have just entered the R-E tower and Bentley is hacking the old terminal. There's a not-so-slight edit to the plot as here, Neyla doesn't get to the tower in time and Bentley darts the Contessa. They get the Clockwerk eyes and get out.

In the dark confines of the Contessa's re-education tower, Sly Cooper was impatiently waiting for his tech wizard friend Bentley to hack the old terminal. This impatience was mostly caused by the growing anxiousness towards Inspector Carmelita Fox, who was currently being hypnotized using a semi-magical device and the eyes of a four-thousand-year-old robotic, psycho bird. Sly did his best to prevent himself from running to help the vixen shackled to the old Irontech. His friend assured him that he had everything under control and that Carmelita wouldn't get brainwashed.

"Could you hurry it up?" Sly hissed from the corner of his mouth.

"I'm working as fast as I can" Bentley hissed back with annoyance.

The raccoon was about to give a reply, but sudden conversation from the room in front of them made him forget his friend for the moment.

"Almost ready" the Contessa muttered, "You and I are going to be the best of friends very soon, Inspector"

"We'll see about that" said Inspector growled back at the spider who rolled her eyes.

Had the situation been different, Sly would've laughed at the vixen's retort, but the fact that she was about to be hypnotized made things look grim. He turned to Bentley, who had apparently gotten through the firewalls of the old terminal.

"Bentley!" Sly whisper yelled, "She's about to brainwash Carmelita! Do something!"

"I'm trying. The Irontech isn't responding" the turtle ranted, "I can't free her"

"Try something else then. Disrupt the Mindshuffler or... I don't know, you're the tech-guy do something" Sly pressed, his panic growing by the second.

He returned his gaze to the room and wished again that he could just jump in there and free Carmelita and help her put the Contessa behind bars. Granted, the Inspector would probably try to imprison him in the process, but Sly would just escape as always and Carmelita would be left fuming at another failed arrest attempt.

"Aha!" the Contessa exclaimed victoriously, "There it is! Are you ready to become my friend, Ms. Fox?"

Contessa's hand was hovering over a button. An ominous, red button. Sly knew that with just one press of that button, the Carmelita he had come to love in their years of cops and robbers would be gone. She would be replaced with mindless slave for the Contessa to command as she wished.

"Bentley!" Sly almost cried out in his desperation and panic.

"I'm doing my best, Sly" he replied.

The next ten seconds were even longer than the ones on the platform in the Russian volcano. Bentley was typing furiously next to him and at the same time, the Contessa's finger was nearing the red button.

"The Mindshuffler is responding!" Bentley announced suddenly, "I think I managed to reprogram its hypnosis protocol"

"You think?"

But Bentley didn't respond as the red button was activated and Carmelita's screams filled the rooms. Sly watched in horror as the vixen writhed and twitched in pain. A cruel smile played on Contessa's lips as she watched the Inspector wriggle in agony. She didn't even notice the little sleeping dart pierce the skin of her neck before it was too late.

(A/N they didn't dart her sooner because... reasons and plot convenience...)

"Huh! What!?" she exclaimed, pulling the dart from her neck and examining it.

She didn't get very far however, as the spider tumbled to the floor, completely senseless. Sly kicked the bars separating them from the other room and they tipped over as if on hinges. He jumped down without delay and ran to the now unconscious vixen. She was lying limp on the Irontech, only evidence of her still being alive was the steady rise and fall of her chest. Sly immediately set to work to pick the locks of the cuffs holding her to the wooden board.

"Bentley-" Sly was about to ask why Carmelita had screamed and fallen unconscious, but he was cut off.

"Look out, Sly. It appears that this might be a bit more violent than I had anticipated" Bentley warned as he inserted the Bad Mojo collector to the Mindshuffler.

Sly quickly grabbed the comatose vixen from the Irontech and ducked her along with himself behind the restraining device. He heard Bentley run for cover as well. The turtle dove under a table just in time, as the Mojo collector blew up. The explosion was deafening. A red haze filled the room, blocking their vision almost completely.

"Sly! Sly!" Bentley shouted from somewhere, "Are you alright!?"

"Yeah, we're good!" he called back, "You?"

"Well, this isn't a place for an asthmatic, but I managed to locate the first Clockwerk eye! Do you see the other one?"

Taking a quick look around, Sly spotted the yellow, faintly glowing orb a few feet away from him. He went to retrieve it, leaving Carmelita behind for a moment. The raccoon disdainfully grabbed the eye from the ground and glared at it before slipping it into his leg pouch. It felt surprisingly heavy for something so small.

(A/N I won't even try to think how big the eye is. There are so many different version in the game. In one animation, they almost fit Sly's palm and in other, they cover a large part of Neyla's back)

"I found it! Let's get out of here!" Sly called into the red mist.

"Coming!" Bentley responded.

He had been examining what remained of the Mindshuffler in fast fascination. Sly went back to Carmelita and picked her up. He made his way back to the window from where they'd originally entered the tower. A few second later, Bentley emerged from the redness filling the rooms and went to open the window, but froze for some reason.

"What are you waiting for?" Sly demanded, "We need to get out of here, before the mercenaries ransack the whole place"

"What are you going to do with her?" Bentley asked warily, eyeing the unconscious Inspector.

Sly knew what was coming, but responded anyways: "She's coming with us for now"

Bentley's jaw dropped at these news and it took him a moment to regain his composure.

"You can't just bring an inspector of Interpol to a gang of thieves!" he exclaimed, waving his arms frantically

"We have no other choice, Bentley" Sly tried to reason, "She's a wanted fugitive, just like us. We can't leave her here, she'll get arrested!"

Just then, the tower shook from an explosion coming from the outside. It cut off whatever argument Bentley was about to deliver and had Sly looking at his friend with appealing look.

"Fine, she'll come with us, but we'll discuss this further in the van and I am putting the cuffs on her"

Sly nodded as Bentley again moved to open the window. They slipped out only to experience another quake caused by heavy fire from the various mercenary tanks and bombers. They waited for the trembles to die down and once they did, the duo jumped onto the blimp. Bentley immediately darted for the turret at the front, leaving Sly to look after Carmelita and steer the whole thing.

Unsurprisingly, the bombers targeted them, giving Bentley hard time warding off the whole squadron of bombers.

"Seven o'clock!" Sly called as he saw another bomber approaching them.

But Bentley shot it down handily and they had almost reached safety. Thank God the blimp was at least quick! The bombers, having experienced too heavy losses at Bentley's hands, gave up, at least for a now, and the turtle left the turret. He ran to Sly and grabbed the rudder from him. The blimp began descending towards the safe house and Sly could see Murray there, driving the van out of their temporary garage. Once they were close enough, Bentley slid down the rope that was tied on the blimp's railing. Soon followed suit by Sly with Carmelita slung over his shoulder. She still hadn't come to and despite himself, Sly was getting a bit worried about the vixen.

"You're in the back, Sly" Bentley called out, climbing to the front seat "I'm not riding there with her"

Sly just rolled his eyes at the turtle and said nothing. He didn't really mind. The backdoors of the van opened for him and he jumped in. He carefully lowered Carmelita on the floor and pulled the doors shut. Murray took that as his cue to step on the throttle and speed away from city.

"Sly, catch!" Bentley suddenly called, tossing Sly a pair of handcuffs.

With his reflexes, the raccoon caught them with ease and looked at them briefly.

"She won't be happy to wake up in these" he pointed out.

"Better her unhappiness than our skins" Bentley retorted.

Sly couldn't help but agree with his friend for once. Carmelita had her temper and perhaps it was for the best that she was restrained for now...

"But what are we doing with her?" Murray asked.

"Let's think about that later" Sly said, before Bentley could start another argument, "First, we need to find a new place to stay and plan out our next move"

Murray nodded while Bentley closed his mouth and swallowed whatever argument he'd had ready. They drove for a few hours, before finally settling in a small town they came by. The whole gang was far too tired to try to start looking for a safe house, so they decided to book rooms from a hotel. Bentley had right away announced that Carmelita wouldn't be staying in the same room with him and so Sly, with another roll of his eyes, announced that he could share the room with the Inspector. To avoid any suspicions directed at them, Sly was forced to slip in his room through the window while carrying Carmelita, who was still unconscious. After that, he returned to the lobby and took the stairs to Bentley and Murray's room. In there, the trio decided to leave the planning for tomorrow and everyone went to bed.

Sly returned to his room and fell to his bed without any formalities. In his exhaustion however, the raccoon forgot to secure Carmelita to the bedpost and she was now cuffed, but still able to move around...

Something was tickling Sly's nose when he woke up and there was an odd pressure on his chest. It felt almost as if someone was lying on him. He sluggishly forced his eyes to open and was met with a mortifying, yet lovely sight.

Somehow, during the night, the Inspector, who Sly thought was cuffed to the bedpost, had uncuffed herself and was now sleeping on him. Why, was beyond him, but the panic that settled into him almost made the raccoon jump up and run away as fast as possible.

"Am I still dreaming?" Sly questioned himself, utterly flabbergasted.

He pinched himself, just to be sure. When he didn't seem to wake up again, Sly could only draw the conclusion that he was indeed awake and the stunning vixen on him was indeed the volatile Inspector Carmelita Fox.

Sly had no idea what to do now. There was no way he could've ever prepared for something like this happening. Although, after the first shock passed, Sly realized that it felt quite nice to just lie like this with Carmelita hugging him and her head resting on his bare chest-

"Wait! Where's my shirt?" Sly realized with a startle that he was shirtless and didn't recall undressing last night.

After a short moment of searching the room with his eyes, they found the blue sweater carelessly thrown a couple of feet away from his bed.

"But how...?"

His eyes focused on Carmelita's sleeping form and a sudden suspicion emerged in his mind. Had she removed his shirt?

"Why the heck would she do that? What's going on!?"

Sly was utterly and completely confused. Everything felt so unreal. Why was Carmelita there and why hadn't she already tried to arrest him? Why was he shirtless and why did it look like the vixen had been the one to remove his shirt?

"This doesn't make any sense!"

Suddenly, Carmelita stirred a bit and adjusted herself on the raccoon. However, she didn't continue sleeping. Her eyes fluttered open and she raised her head a little.

"That's it" Sly thought, panicking, "I'm dead"

Carmelita laid her eyes on the raccoon who swallowed audibly and tried to stutter some manner of excuse.

"Heyyy, Carmelita... fancy seeing you there... hehe..."

She regarded him for a while with a strange look. It was far too calm for someone like Carmelita. Her steady gaze made Sly feel most uncomfortable. He did his best not to squirm under such scrutiny. But then, completely out of nowhere, Carmelita's face broke into a bright, love-struck smile. She leant in without a warning and gave Sly's lips a quick peck.

"Good morning, Ringtail" she wished airily and laid her head back down.

"Uh... Uh... Uh... BENTLEY!"

What the heck has happened? You're gonna have to wait to find out! Review and stuff...