Author's Note: First of all, I truely didn't write this. While the rough draft and concept where done by me, the story itself was actually written by LonePhantom756. This idea was crafted before Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, but I just never did any ideas until now. As usually, I don't own Sly Cooper.

Sly Cooper: Return of the Thieves

Prologue

Bentley leaned forward in his upgraded wheelchair, a thing of mechanized wheels and hidden compartments that housed a wide variety of gadgets. His diminutive hands worked a set of analog controls set into the arm-rests, and a pair of sleek mechanical arms extended from the rear of the chair to reach over his head. One produced a handkerchief in segmented metal fingers to wipe sweat away from his scaly brow; the other extended to the complex apparatus in front of him and extended to into an access panel, reaching farther than his own arms ever could. A few deft manipulations with the joystick, a careful tap of a button, and there came a clicking sound from within the machine as the robotic hand made a few minute adjustments.

Satisfied that his work was done, Bentley pulled back on the joystick to recall the flexible robot arm, then leaned back his seat and let out a sigh of relief. Over a year of preparation, design, and testing, he thought, And it's all led up to this.

After the Kaine Island job a year or two back, he had devoted himself to re-building the Cooper Vault, which had been lost in the collapse of Dr. M's fortress. Working together with his girlfriend, the lovely Dutch mouse Penelope, he had constructed an artificial underground complex to house the vast fortune of the Cooper family—as much as they'd been able to recover from the ruins, anyway—along with as accurate a recreation of the Ancestor's Gauntlet as they had been able to manage. Afterward, the two geniuses had found themselves looking for another project to occupy their spare time. One evening, over a cozy cup of hot chocolate, he had brought up the possibility of Sly returning to the gang. Penelope had shrugged and remarked that only time would tell—especially since Sly had seemed pretty content with living out a new life as the "amnesiac" partner of Carmelita Fox, the Interpol detective who'd been chasing him for so long.

Undeterred, Bentley had jokingly suggested that he might build a time machine to find out. What he hadn't expected was that Penelope would take it seriously…but when she'd looked at him with that interested gleam in her eyes, he knew that they'd found their next big project. And so the work had begun—slowly, at first; after all, no one had ever made a serious attempt at building a time machine before. But Bentley and Penelope hadn't been willing to give up—working together, they had researched obscure theories, refining them, and performing small experiments. Eventually, they had begun to make breakthroughs. And now, almost a year or so after they'd begun the project, they were finally on the verge of—dare Bentley hope—success!

Having trouble hiding his grin, Bentley turned to look at Penelope, who was wiping grease from her forehead with the cloth rag that she usually used to bind her hair back. "This is it," he said with barely-contained excitement. "All the time spent, all the hard work we put in…it's time to see if they finally paid off." He turned back to the machine in front of him, rubbing his hands together. "Tweak a few switches, crank up the power full-blast, and we'll finally get to see what the future holds!"

Penelope returned his smile, though she looked a little uncertain. "Assuming it works, " she pointed out in her nasal squeak. "You do remember the problems we've had with it in the past, right?"

"Kind of hard to forget," Bentley admitted with a sheepish grin. "The kitchen appliances are still on the fritz, and I don't think we'll ever get the smell of ozone out of the living room. But still, we've tested every part with every possible situation since then. Nothing could go wrong."

"Never forget Murphy's Law," Penelope reminded wryly, "If anything can go wrong, chances are it will. "

Bentley gave a shrug of his narrow shoulders. "Well, only one way to find out." Taking a deep breath, he cracked his knuckles and reached for a nearby control panel. "Powering up…"

With that, Bentley grabbed a switch and threw it. A loud hum emerged from a nearby power generator, rising in pitch by the second. On a display screen, a detailed schematic of the generator showed power flowing from a thick cable towards the time machine. On the machine itself—an almost spherical chamber—a host of lights flared to life, bathing its sleek contours in layers of color. Behind a perimeter of windows that stared into the machine, a sleek focusing lens built into the floor of the machine began to glow with an eerie bluish-green radiance.

Meanwhile, Penelope quickly crossed over to a bank of computer screens to take in the information they were displaying. "Systems remaining stable," she reported in a matter-of-fact voice, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at the monitors. Colored lights from the displays cast swirling hues across her canary-yellow jumpsuit, its baggy folds now stained with motes of scarlet, cyan, and green.

At his control panel, Bentley drew in a breath as he saw a host of blue particles gathering around the time machine. "Chronotons stabilizing," he noted with glee. "I think it's working!"

"Still not out of the woods yet, hon," Penelope reminded him as she observed the schematics currently displayed on the center monitor. "Okay…the Frequency Tower is running at 100%."

Bentley nodded as he twisted a knob, and a small bar on his screen rose to its maximum. "Flux Capacitor powering up—a few more moments, and we'll be able to open a rift in space and time."

Penelope stared at the readouts on her screens, her expression of dawning wonder bathed in artificial light. "I think…I think you're right," she breathed. "I think we're about to have the breakthrough! Everything's checking out in the green—you can open the rift when ready!"

"All right, let's make history!" Bentley exclaimed as he grabbed a prominent lever. "Opening time-space rift in three…two…one! "

Then Bentley threw the switch, and there was a crackling, galvanized hum as the time machine came to life. Looking through the reinforced glass windows, Bentley watched as motes of vibrant greenish-blue light came swirling together, swiftly coalescing into an amorphous blob of temporal energy. The collection of chrono-particles seemed to warp and collapse upon itself, only to resume its shape mere seconds later. Minute bolts of silvery-white lightning danced over the rippling sphere, lending a hint of ozone to the air. It was like looking at a globe of translucent gelatin that had taken on a life of its own, crackling with an otherworldly energy.

Penelope looked from her monitor array to the time machine, the glowing light making the lenses of her glasses flat and opaque as she glanced between her readouts and the glowing anomaly taking shape in the circular chamber. "Readouts are stable," she said in quiet amazement. "It…it looks like…I think…we just might've done it, Bentley."

Turning away from his command console, Bentley wheeled himself over to the time machine and leaned forward to press his hands against the window, feeling a wild surge of exhilaration run down his spine. "Think? There's no question about it!" he exclaimed with glee. "A rift in time-space! All we have to do is use the machine to manipulate it, and all of our questions can be answered!"

Penelope nodded. "Let's try it out now, while the rift's still stable," she suggested. "I mean, if it junks out now, there's no telling when we might get this chance again." Striding over to the main console, the mousette began pulling switches and twisting dials. "Okay, I'm refining the time rift. You should be able to get a look through it and see another time period…see anything, Bentley?" Another pause, and the mouse looked over her shoulder. "Bentley? Bentley?"

But the turtle didn't seem to hear her. Leaning forward with his palms pressed against the glass, Bentley was staring into the time portal with a look of dread on his face, focusing on something only he could see.

"No," he stammered, shaking his head in denial as he drew back from the glass. "It…it can't be. It can't be. The past…y-you did set it to the past, right Penelope? Th-this can't be the future…!"

Her concern spiking, Penelope walked over to the time machine and rested a paw on Bentley's narrow shoulders. "What is it? What do you see—?"

Without warning, the piercing shriek of an emergency klaxon filled the air, and a red light mounted on the wall began to paint the room in flashing strobes of garish color. Penelope yelped and drew back in alarm as the rhythmic screeching continued unabated, wincing as she clapped her paws over her rounded ears. "Now what?!" she yelled.

One look at the time machine rendered that question moot. Crackling bolts of electricity had begun to dance along the spherical frame of the device, and jets of steam and smoke erupted from every access port and outlet. Beyond the windows, the bubble of solidified time-space that was the temporal rift was fluctuating wildly—spikes of translucent energy shot out of the seething globe, only to be sucked back inwards as quickly as they came. Bolts of silvery chrono-particles leaped out and struck the windows, causing hairline cracks to spread across the reinforced Plexiglas. Without warning, one of them exploded outward—and before the glass shards even had a chance to fly, they became a spray of fine, glittering sand. Then a metallic rumble rose into the air as the whole apparatus began to shake, trembling in its heavy mountings.

The ensuing chaos snapped Bentley back to reality, and he wheeled himself over to the main control panel with a speed that Penelope wouldn't have expected. Hunching over the panel, the turtle stabbed keys and twisted knobs wildly, panic etched on his lime-green features. "No. No, no, no, no, NO! " he wailed. "Not now!"

At that moment, Penelope saw a current of electricity dancing along one of the heavy cables that led from the time machine to the control panel, and felt a jolt of dread realization. "Bentley, get clear!" she screamed. "It's gonna blow!"

Then she hurled herself forward and flung her arms around Bentley, tackling him to the ground, wheelchair and all. His startled squawk was lost in an explosion of electronics as the main control panel erupted in a spray of sparks, throwing the sharp stench of ozone into the air. Sizzling motes of shredded plastic came raining down on them, singing Penelope's yellow jumpsuit and Bentley's shell as they covered their heads. An ominous hum rose from the depths of the time machine; looking up, the genius couple could see shafts of eerie blue-green light blazing out to paint the room with a frantic intensity. Looking at each other, a moment of unspoken understanding passed between Bentley and Penelope, and they pressed themselves flat against the ground.

The explosion that followed was so powerful that sound alone couldn't cover it—if anything, there seemed to be an absence of sound; a dull, hollow thundering that resonated within the eardrums and blocked out all other noise. Streamers of temporal energy crackled through the air, scoring trails of darkened matter across the ground as everything they touched was aged rapidly into dust and ash. An invisible wave of force sent Bentley and Penelope skidding across the floor, tumbling into the main control panel with a bone-jarring impact. The ground lurched as pieces of machinery flew, the temporal storm raging inside the time machine grew even wilder—

—And suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. For a moment, Penelope was aware only of a loud ringing in her ears, and the pungent smell of ozone and atomized metal. Then she shook her head, and everything swam back into focus. Pushing herself upright, the mouse winced as she looked back at the time machine…or what was left of it. The chronoton-laced explosion had ravaged the time machine's frame, turning it into a twisted construct that looked like some form of post-modernist sculpture. Parts of it had just plain vanished—perhaps thrown across time and space by the wayward energies that had surged through the device.

But that didn't matter at the moment. Kneeling by Bentley, Penelope grasped the frame of his wheelchair and carefully pulled it back upright. As the brainiac turtle slumped back in his seat with a low groan, the Dutch mouse shook him gently. "Bentley? Are you okay?"

Bentley groaned and rubbed his temples. "For now," he muttered. "But if what I saw was for real, then not for much longer."

Penelope felt a chill run down her spine. "What do you mean?" she asked in a worried tone of voice. "What did you see in the time rift, anyway?"

Bentley sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking towards the wreckage of the time machine with trepidation and worry etched on his reptilian features. "Something I thought I'd never see again," he said at last. "Something I hoped would never come back to haunt us."

"What? What's coming back to haunt us?" Penelope exclaimed.

Bentley looked back at Penelope and steepled his fingers together, looking at her thoughtfully over the pyramid his digits formed. "An old enemy of ours," he explained gravely. "Although it might be more accurate to say that he was the arch-enemy of the entire Cooper family. He was a monster that haunted anyone connected to the Coopers…their friends, their family, their loved ones. It's because of him—more or less—that I ended up in this wheelchair to begin with." Taking a deep breath, the turtle pushed his glasses up on his beak and looked at Penelope inquiringly. "Remember when I told you about an owl named Clockwerk?"

Penelope blinked a couple of times, trying to place the name. "Huh? Oh, right…now I remember," she said slowly. "But wait…I thought you told me that you guys ended up destroying his Hate Chip, or something? That he ended up rusting and aging into dust? As in gone for good? "

Bentley nodded, looking worried. "That's what I thought," he agreed nervously. "But from what I saw in the time rift, I was wrong. I don't know whether it's in a year, a decade, or even centuries from now, but…" He let out a quiet sigh, his voice low with dread. "…Clockwerk's coming back, Penelope. Someone rebuilt him. And he's gonna be deadlier than ever."

Penelope gasped. "What? But…I mean…are you sure it was really Clockwerk?" she asked hurriedly. "I mean, it could just be a robot built to look like him…not that that isn't scary on its own…" Then she trailed off, snapping her fingers. "Hang on…the time machine!" she exclaimed. "If we can fix it, we can use it to look into the future and figure out just how Clockwerk becomes a threat!"

Bentley nodded, looking relieved to have a plan of action. "It's worth a shot," he admitted. "Come on, Penelope; we've got some repair work to do…

…

…

A Few Hours Later:

Bentley sighed as he sat at the desk he had come to call his Nerve Center—a tri-segmented tabletop with a pair of surround-sound speakers mounted at the extreme sides of the desk, a trinity of separate computer monitors, a pair of keyboards, a motion-sensitive touchpad, and a mouse; all of which were hooked up to a heavily-customized computer tower that had been tucked neatly underneath the table, a thing of sleek black framework and transparent plastic that gave a view of inner workings illuminated in fluorescent green. The monitors presented a triptych of separate information that combined into a broader whole—one screen showed a map of the world with a series of GPS coordinates; another screen showed data that had been compiled from the time machine's black box; and the third showed a series of profiles under a dossier marked "Cooper Gang."

Repairing the time machine hadn't gone as well as Bentley had hoped—by the time he and Penelope had finished scouring the room, it had become clear that several of the most integral components—the chronoton stabilizer, the flux capacitor, the main turbine, to name but a few—had simply vanished. Careful analysis of the time machine's black box had revealed that they'd been caught in the spatial rifts that had been torn open as the time machine overloaded. Ostensibly, they could have been flung anywhere across the globe—not necessarily lost in time, but certainly across space. But even that, in and of itself, was like trying to find a set of needles in a vast haystack.

Or at least, it would have been. But Bentley was a cautious and meticulous thinker whose experiences with Sly had taught him to prepare for anything—that's what separated the brainy turtle from the common genius. And so he'd taken the most key parts of the time machine and fitted each of them with a set of sophisticated tracking devices. Each one was linked up to Google Maps via pirate frequency, allowing Bentley to trace their signals anywhere on Earth. It was still going to take some time to narrow each location down, but at least it was something to start with.

That was the good news.

Running his fingers along his temples, Bentley turned to the monitor that displayed the information from the time machine's black box—strings of code, temporal telemetric data, diagnostics on the time machine's components and systems, and so on. Taking all that separate information and putting it together had led the turtle towards a grim conclusion: what he'd seen through the time portal hadn't been the past, called up by mistake. It was the future. Which meant that, in some form or another, Clockwerk would return.

While the exact time and circumstances of the malevolent owl's return remained a mystery—that particular data hadn't been narrowed down—the consequences were clear. So long as Clockwerk or his legacy survived, the Coopers—and anyone they called friend or family—would never be safe. And since the data pertaining to the exact date of Clockwerk's return hadn't been gathered before the time machine overloaded, Bentley found himself with the proverbial sword hanging over his head—by the time he and Penelope might have succeeded in securing the materials necessary to replace the lost parts of the time machine, it might already be too late.

Which meant that there was only one thing to do.

Bentley and Penelope would have to find the missing pieces. And the best way to get them all back in time—perhaps the only way—was to reunite the Cooper Gang. And that meant tracking each of them down. Considering that they had all scattered across the globe, that was going to be a tall task in and of itself. And even once they'd managed that, they'd still have to track down the missing pieces of the time machine…and somehow, Bentley got the impression that it wouldn't be as easy as just finding them. That kind of technology would be interesting to anyone who happened to get their hands on it, even if they didn't necessarily use it for its intended purpose.

Wheeling away from his "Nerve Center," he rolled his wheelchair towards a door that led to the balcony, with the skyline of the city visible just beyond. Steepling his fingers together, the brainiac turtle took a deep breath, and thought about Sly and Murray. His childhood friends. His brothers.

It wasn't going to be easy. But if it meant protecting his friends and loved ones from Clockwerk, it would be worth it.

To Be Continued…