HEY!

So, thanks to slydog148, this story is back!

Now, even though Tennessee Kid and Sir Galleth's are first and their stories have the same plots, they are ALTERED a little bit. You'll see some alteration in this story, trust me.

I'm so happy that this story is back and is staying! If it wasn't for slydog148, The Cooper Adventures may not ever come back!

So, without further to do, here's The Cooper Adventures!

The Cooper Adventures

Tennessee Kid Cooper

Year: 1884 A.D.

The Good, the Bad, and the Raccoon - Chapter 1: The Ring-tailed Bandit

Dusk was nearing across the hot Nevadan desert as the bright sun slowly set behind the large mountains surrounding the bustling western town of Cotton Mouth Bluff. As the citizens began to return to their homes for the night, others began to emerge from the shadows with some rather unlawful thoughts on their minds. As the sun began to set further, a hole in the ground opened up in the ground in the alleyway behind the town's bank which a large brown bear climbed out from while carrying a large bag of stolen loot over his shoulder. As he pulled himself out of the hole, he was followed by his partners, a short black-furred bat wearing a bowler hat and a prairie dog wearing suspenders and a mining helmet, who followed the bear to the end of the alleyway and stopped alongside him to see if the coast was clear.

Setting his bag down and greedily eyeing its contents, the bear laughed to himself, all too pleased with the success of their heist.

"We did it, fellas!" he exclaimed, though not too loudly so as to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. "The gold's ours! Now all we gotta do is make it outta town and we'll be home free!"

"We'd better." The bat commented irritably as he cracked his back while he and his comrades quickly and quietly made their way across the town's square. "My back is killin' me from havin' ta spend all day in that tunnel and I sure as hell ain't gonna make it worse by sleeping on one of those damn wooden beds the Sheriff has in the jail."

"I hear that, partner. Those wooden beds can be a real killer to lie down on!"

Alerted by the sound of a new voice, the trio of robbers spun around and looked up to see a figure looking down at them from the roof of the town's general store, smiling casually as he leaned against the sign on the roof. Said figure was a slender male raccoon with grayish-brown fur wearing an orange buttoned-up shirt with a black vest and yellow bandana around his neck. He also sported a pair of brown boots and bowler hat, completed with a belt and brown gloves over his hands. His right ear had a distinguishing bullet-shaped notch and in one of his hands, he held a long-barreled gun that appeared to be a cross between a rifle and a revolver, with a peculiar golden crook at the end of the wooden handle.

"Uh, who are you stranger?" The prairie dog asked stupidly, clearly not sharing either of his partners' feelings or expressions of concern or suspicion towards this mysterious raccoon.

The raccoon only smirked and tipped his hat as he replied, "Tennesse Kid Cooper, at your service!" The raccoon, now identified as Tennessee, then turned his attention towards the bags of stolen cash the trio had as he continued, "And it looks like you boys've been busy today."

The bat immediately became worried as he followed Tennessee's gaze to the bag of stolen gold he held in his wing, which he then tried to hide behind his back as he stuttered nervously, "W-what, this? This ain't nothing! This is just eh… it's…" The bat paused, eyes darting back and forth as he frantically tried to conceive a believable lie. "it's uh… our laundry! Yeah! We like to hang our laundry out all day to dry and take it back at night so…" The bat then trailed off as he noticed the deadpan look and the raised eyebrow on Tennessee's face. Realizing the raccoon wasn't buying a word he was saying, the bat dropped to his knees and begged frantically, "Please don't arrest us!"

Tennessee merely snickered in amusement at the bat's display as he tipped his hat up and responded calmly, "Keep yer hat on partner, I ain't no lawman, matter of fact I'm probably higher on the Sheriff's most wanted list than all three of ya!"

Upon hearing this, the bat immediately felt the fear flush out of his body as relief flooded through his veins. Standing up as he wiped the sweat from his brow, he remarked with a relieved smile, "Oh, thank god! For a second I was worried you were gonna blast us and send our loot back ta the bank before leavin' us tied up like Christmas presents on the sheriff's front porch!"

"Well, lucky for you, I'm only interested in gettin' my hands on what ya'll have stashed up in those there bags of yours." Tennessee replied with a smile. The bear, who had remained silent during the whole conversation with a suspicious frown plastered on his face, tightened his grip on his own bag as he felt his free paw slowly make its way towards his holstered pistol.

"Kid, you must be either plum crazy or dumb as a doorknob if you're thinkin' about takin' on the three of us an' takin' away our hard-earned loot." The bear snarled as he began to find the prospect of putting a bullet between this cheeky raccoon's eyes more and more appealing.

Tennessee merely grinned like a Cheshire cat as he replied, "Well, if yer talkin' about a master thief like myself takin' on a trio of nitwits who spent most of the day hidin' in the dirt, then that's exactly I'm thinkin' about!"

The Bear was momentarily shocked by the raccoon's insult before his face twisted into an insulted glare as he quickly drew his pistol and shouted, "Blast him!" before firing rapidly at Tennessee, which his partners soon joined in on as they drew their own weapons and firing shots at the raccoon.

Tennesse reacted just as quickly as leapt behind the sign he was leaning on and fired a few shots of his own before breaking into a sprint and leaping from the rooftop of the general store to the next building over, dodging bullets left and right as he fired back and leapt from rooftop to rooftop while either insulting his attackers' aim or laughing mockingly at them.

It came as a wonder to the four outlaws that nobody was alerted by the gunshots enough to at least look out their windows to see what was going on. But that didn't matter to them as the bat spread out his wings and flew up over the rooftops in hopes of bettering his chances of getting a clear shot at Tennessee, but found he could not fire his pistol while airborne since he needed the use of both wings to remain in flight, so the best he could do was stop every few feet to hover in place as he took a shot at the raccoon.

Eventually, Tennessee skidded to a halt after seeing there were no more buildings for him to leap to, yet he was completely unconcerned as he saw his attackers approach the building he was standing on with malicious grins plastered on their faces. "Give it up ringtail!" The bear called up to him. "Might as well come down here and face the music, cuz' you've got nowhere left to run!"

Tennessee merely smirked back and tipped his hat up as he replied, "Partner, when you're a Cooper, there's always somewhere left to run!" Then, to the astonishment of the three robbers, Tennessee sprinted towards the edge of the building's rooftop and leapt off before doing a small spin in the midair and landing gracefully on a telephone wire that stretched over the town's square. Grinning widely at his attackers' dumbstruck expressions, Tennessee began running across the telephone line as he continued firing at the robbers, which they returned after shaking off their disbelief and continued firing their own shots.

Quickly shaking his head, the Bat flew over to Tennessee in hopes of knocking the raccoon off balance and making him plummet to the ground so as to make it easier for his partners to shoot him, only for Tennessee to spin around and knock him downwards with his the handle of his rifle, causing the bat to plummet headfirst onto the prairie dog and effectively removing both of them from the fight. Turning around to see if his comrades were okay, the bear suddenly caught the sound of something springing off the wire above him and spun around to see what was happening…

The last thing he saw before falling unconscious was a grinning raccoon swinging his gun handle-first into his face.

Grinning to himself as he dusted himself off and stepped off the now-unconscious bear's form, Tennessee then hauled the three robbers over to a nearby telephone pole and tied them up with some nearby rope before gladly hauling the bags of stolen gold over his shoulder.

"Well boys, it was a pleasure doin' business with ya, but I'd better blow this party before ol' Johnny law comes ta crash it!" Tennessee told the robbers as he turned back to them with a smile and a tip of his hat. "Why… why are ya doin' this ta us?" the Bat groaned in both pain and confusion as he gazed at Tennessee as though he was being betrayed by an old friend. "We're all on the same side of the law, ain't we? Whatever happened to honor among thieves?"

At that last question, Tennessee frowned in disgust as he responded, "Partner, I'll have ya know that everyone in my family knows honor when we see it, an' I can tell right away that you ain't got a scrap of honor in yer bodies." The grin returned to his face as he continued, "Besides, it's like I always say about my family's way of thevin': there's no better way ta prove yer a great theif than by stealin' from other crooks an' leaven' em for the law. Adios!"

And with that, Tennessee fled from the scene. With the stealth and agility only a Cooper could possess, the raccoon leapt from rooftop to rooftop, making good use of flagpoles and telephone wires as he jumped and dashed on them until he reached the edge of a ravine on the south side of town. Glancing into the ravine, Tennessee noticed a group of rock formations jutting up from the bottom of the ravine which were spaced a short distance away from one another and as Tennessee observed, each pillar was shorter than the one before it, making a "staircase" that safely led down to the ravine.

Tennessee smiled to himself, grateful that Mother Nature was kind enough to provide him with a means of escape.

Rolling his neck and arms, Tennessee took a few steps back before breaking into a sprint and leaping forward off the cliff's edge before landing on the first rock formation. Tennessee smirked. This was too easy! All he had to do was make it safely down these rock formations into the ravine and he would be home free!

"Hold it right there, Ringtail!"

After he dealt with this

Tennessee smirked and rolled his eyes as he turned to his right and glanced upward. Standing on the top of a railroad bridge that stretched to both ends of the ravine was none other than his longtime rival and the current Sherriff of Cotton Mouth Bluff, Sheriff "John" Fox. He was a tall male fox in his early twenties like Tennessee, sporting a brown jacket with a white undershirt, as well as a pair of dark brown jeans with black boots. He also wore a brown hat that matched his jacket, a black belt with a golden buckle with a familiar star imprinted on it while his actual badge was attached to his jacket.

"Howdy yourself, John Law..." Tennessee replied, not at all concerned by the sight of a pistol being aimed straight at him. "I was startin' ta think you wouldn't show up."

"That's Sheriff to you, Cooper!" Sheriff Fox snarled. "And you're out of yer mind if you think I'd let you get away with that bag of stolen loot you have there!"

Tennessee cocked an eyebrow up. "Oh, this here loot?" He lifted the bag up some, showing it off with a smirk. "Why Sheriff, I didn't steal this... entirely. I just so happened to acquire it from some other crooks I saw tryin' to flee town with it, who I left tied up and knocked senseless in town square, just so ya know. This here's just a reward I thought I'd take for myself for doin' a public service."

"An' you think that'll be enough reason ta convince me not to arrest ya?"

"I'm just expectin' you ta thank me for doin' yer job for ya."

"Thank you?!"

"Yer so very welcome, Sheriff!" Tennessee replied with a cheeky grin.

At this point Sheriff Fox's knuckles were as white as paper due to him squeezing the handle of his gun so tightly in anger. "Why you…! Don't try to make yourself look like a hero here Cooper!" Sheriff Fox snapped aggressively. "Wither you stole it or not, it still belongs in the bank; to the people of Cotton Mouth Bluff. You criminals are all the same, and none of you can escape justice!"

As if on cue, Sheriff Fox's men revealed themselves as they stepped close to the edge of the ravine with their pistols and rifles pointed straight at Tennessee. Though most people in the raccoon's situation would surely panic at the sight of several firearms being aimed at them, Tennessee was not most people and simply smiled. He knew exactly how to get out of this.

"I'll ask you again Cooper," Sheriff Fox repeated sternly. "Put your hands up where I can see 'em! Come quietly or I'll let my men fill ya full of lead. So just surrender, already, you've got nowhere to run!"

"Ya know what Sheriff? You're right..." Tennessee said in mock defeat. "I don't have anywhere to run..." he then reaches for the back of his belt, pulling out an orange object. He then smirked, his face suddenly showing confidence. "Which is why I guess I'll have ta ride!"

Tennessee then threw the carrot high into the air before letting out a loud whistle. Before the members of the posse could react they suddenly heard the sound of galloping hooves quickly approaching them, and as they turned to see what was making the sound, they barely had enough time to duck down as a horse with jet-black fur leapt over them and grabbed the carrot between its teeth. As it was about to land on the same rock formation as Tennessee, the raccoon leapt off towards the Cliffside and landed gracefully on the branches of a dead tree jutting out from the side of the cliff. "Right on cue Dash!" Tennessee called out to his horse with a grin. "Now let's get outta here, why don't we?!" Dash whinnied in agreement and began leaping down from pillar to pillar as his master began making his way down the Cliffside by running along the branches of numerous trees that grew out from the side of the cliff.

Shaking off his shock, Sheriff Fox growled as he leapt down from the bridge onto the rock pillar that Dash had landed on and began firing shots at Tennessee, which the raccoon was able to dodge easily while firing off shots of his own. Leaping from pillar to pillar as he dodged his rival's shots, the sheriff then watched as Tennessee leapt onto another tree, though unlike before where simply ran along the branches, the raccoon actually slid down the branches until he got at a safe enough distance from the ground to land safely onto Dash's back, after which the horse began galloping at full speed alongside the river that flowed in the opposite direction through the ravine.

Leaping onto another pillar that jutted up from the river, Sheriff Fox fired a few more shots at Tennessee until he and Dash disappeared into a grove of trees growing next to the river. Leaping down next to the river, the sheriff gritted his teeth in fury as he holstered his pistol and cupped his hands over his mouth to yell at the escaping outlaw.

"I'll find you, Cooper!" Sheriff Fox bellows. "You can't run from the law forever!"

Sheriff Fox then heard the sound of numerous footsteps approaching him, and turned around to see the exhausted members of his posse jogging up to him after precariously making their way down into the ravine. Stopping a few feet behind him, the sheriff heard one of his men remark, "How the hell is he able to pull that tree-slidin' thing off? It's gotta be his boots that let him do that."

The sheriff said nothing as he pinched the bridge of his nose, and tightly gritted his teeth together in suppressed anger. How could this keep happening? He had spent lord knows how long chasing after that smug raccoon and yet despite having learned from his previous failures, Cooper always managed to evade him! It just wasn't possible!

"Sheriff?"

Hearing a voice coming from right next to him, Sheriff Fox turned to see one of his most faithful compatriots, a short elf owl named Beaks who was wearing a light brown jacket and matching hat, gazing concernedly yet comfortingly at him.

"I-I'm sorry Cooper got away from us again," Beaks continued softly so as to avoid worsening his leader's already dour mood. "But at least we got three other crooks waitin' for us back in town. And that's good for us ain't it?"

Sheriff Fox merely growled as he bitterly responded, "Let's just head back to town. It's gettin' late and we'll have a better chance of findin' him in daylight". Not wanting to further agitate their already deeply-frustrated leader, the posse began following Sheriff Fox back to town for a good-nights rest as the law-abiding vulpine continued wondering how he would manage to catch the ring-tailed outlaw that had evaded him for so long.

As Sheriff Fox and his men headed back to town lamenting their newest failure, Tennessee rode back to his hideout all too pleased at the success of his latest heist. Riding Dash towards a large waterfall at the far end of the ravine, Tennessee and his horse went behind the waterfall into a tunnel that was hidden behind it, and after a short travel through it, they entered a large cavern that contained an old wooden cabin, a small pond with some vegetation growing around it, and a small stable for Dash. Most people would find this an unusual place to settle down in, but as far as Tennessee was concerned, it was home.

Hopping off of his horse and walking him over to the sable, Tennessee got off his horse and tied him up for the night before heading over to a nearby support beam to retrieve a satchel that was hanging from it by a nail.

"Here ya go, boy," Tennessee said kindly as he pulled out a handful of carrots from the satchel and showing them to Dash, which the horse gladly seized in his teeth. "You deserve somethin' extra after saving my tail out there."

After making sure his horse was comfortable for the night, Tennessee entered his cabin with his Cooper shooting iron and bags full of gold in hand before throwing his newly-stolen loot next to a trap door in the living room that was overflowing with the amount of already-stolen riches he had acquired over the years. With an exhausted sigh and roll of his neck, Tennessee hung his cane up by the knob of his bedroom door and got comfortable on his bed. As much as he was pleased with himself for making it through another successful day of stealing from other crooks in the area, he could not help but think that he'd been doing this gig for a long time. Currently twenty-two years old, Tennessee forgot the last time he'd taken a break from thievery and simply let himself relax for a while. He was starting to feel the need for a vacation.

"How long has it been since I've taken a trip outside of town?" Tennessee asked himself.

Thinking back, Tennessee realized that he had not ventured outside of Cotton Mouth Bluff since he was about thirteen years old. In fact, the closest he ever got to having a vacation was when he isolated himself in his hideout to eat, sleep, and perfect his aim for at least two weeks before getting back to thieving.

"Well, that's sure depressin'..." Tennessee said to himself as he placed his hat on the bed stand next to his bed and stood up. "It's been too long since I've actually given myself a break, hasn't it? Hmm..." he then began to think of a plan as he headed over to his dresser to get out his sleepwear. "I guess it wouldn't hurt ta take a little break from this town..." Tennessee shrugged as he removed his vest and shirt to put on his nightshirt. He then slipped his boots off as he put on his pajama pants and smiled, "Aw, what am I sayin'? I've been workin' so hard, I'm long overdue for a real vacation! Tomorrow morning, I'll just pack up an' head outta dodge! There's bound to be another town close by, anyway! Maybe even a little pickpocket here and there wouldn't hurt, either..." He then let out a yawn as he headed back to bed and got comfortable between the covers.

Tennessee then reached over to his alarm clock and set it to go off at 9AM before he blew out his candle, then turned over to fall asleep. "I'll be sure to be gone before the town wakes up,"

This was exactly what Tennessee needed: a break from all the gun violence aimed at him (no pun intended) by people working both inside and outside the law.

"And besides, what could go wrong? It's just one small vacation..." Tennessee yawned before letting himself fall asleep.

Famous last words.

BOOM! There you have it! :)

Chapter 2 will be up soon! I hope you all are taking a liking for where this is heading, because thanks to slydog148, this story is a lot more action-packed and has more stuff in it than the original. The next chapter will prove that! ;)

Also, I'm starting to feel a lot better and I'm all caught up with my school work, so expect some more updates on this and The Thief Chronicles: Son of a Thief. However, we're getting our house ready to move this month, so things may still be a little hectic during the day for me to write. That doesn't mean I can't continue writing at night before bed, though! :)

Until next time, happy reading and writing!

See ya soon,

~Nixter97~