"That was close. Too close."

Sly was leaning on a brick wall in an alley way. He ran all the way here after escaping through Carmelita's window. In no danger at the moment, Sly rested, catching his breath.

"I must be out of it today. That was so weird. Who was that voice?"

"You mean my voice, Sly?" Bentley called back.

"Hey pal," Sly panted. "Are you saying that you didn't hear it?"

"I heard you, panicking." The turtle said.

"Before that, someone told me that the window was rigged."

"You heard a voice other than mine?"

Sly groaned. "Yes. I heard someone else's voice talking to me."

"Hmm... Come back to the Safe-house. You still have the file?"

"Yeah. I can be there in a few minutes."

"Alright, see you soon."

"He thinks I'm crazy." Sly thought as he climbed a pipe along the wall.

From the roof-tops, Sly had a remarkable advantage. From here, he could avoid guards as they patrolled the city. Of course, there were no guards here. Sly only saw casual people, living casual lives.

"Safe, but boring."

Out of instinct, Sly looked back over his shoulder.

"Why isn't she chasing me?" He wondered. If she wanted to, she could catch up to him in an instant.

"If she wanted to..." For Sly, this meant one thing. It meant that Carmelita no longer wanted anything to do with him. That explained why she wanted him to stop running. There was no need to run if she wouldn't be there to chase him.

"Then, why was she crying?" It didn't add up.

He shook off the thought for now. It only confused him. It took him a while before he realized that he had been pacing on the same roof-top for several minutes. Once he cleared his head, he arrived to the Safe-house a few minutes later.

Inside the Safe-house, the rest of the gang was waiting for him. Bentley was at the table and Penelope was behind him. She was dressed in her usual mechanic's attire. Her yellow hair was now brushed and wrapped in her signature red bandana. She must have gotten bored because she was leaning against a nearby wall, doing something with her RC controller. Sly sat down and slid the file to Bentley, who started reading it immediately. Curious, Penelope sat down next to Bentley and started reading it too.

While the genius duo looked over the case file, Sly idly sat there. He was about to get up and leave them alone when he remembered about the necklace. He took the chance to examine it. The necklace itself was a simple silver chain. What interested Sly more was the pendant. It was shaped like a crescent moon. It too was silver.

"Hey Bentley," Sly said, catching both his and Penelope's attention. "What can you make of this?"

"Hmm..." Bentley hummed in thought as he was handed the necklace. "The metal is definitely sterling silver. The design is a simple crescent moon shape. Perhaps there is a hallmark to identify it."

"A hallmark? What do you mean?"

"Well," Penelope explained, pausing from reading the file. "It's- Well..." She paused in thought. "It's like a signature."

"A signature? You mean it's a signature of the person that made it?"

"That's exactly what it is, Sly." Bentley said. "The only problem is the maker has horrible penmanship."

"Really?"

Bentley held out the necklace for Sly to see. "There is some engraving along the edge of the shape here. It doesn't seem to be a pattern, so I assume it to be a distinct mark of some sort. It just happens to be illegible."

While Bentley was studying the pendant, Penelope was still focused on the case file. She nudged his arm, handing him a page and pointing at it.

"Hmm. what is this? A personal report? That's unusual." Bentley said, holding the page. He took a glance towards Penelope. She had a look of confusion. From Sly's point of view, he saw her pull out a page, read it, replace it, and pull out another one. The truth was that Penelope had pulled out the same pages multiple times.

"Sly... You didn't drop anything, did you?" Bentley asked, his attention now drawn to the case file.

"Almost. The necklace fell out while I was hiding. I don't think I dropped any papers. Why?"

"Because there are only a few pages in here and they're all personal notes. Take this one for example." He said, adjusting his glasses to read.

"Murray, get in here, big guy." Sly called into the hallway. "You might want to hear this."

Murray came bounding into the room where the other three sat.

"What is it? You guys find something?"

Bentley waited until everyone was seated before he began.

"Here I am, stuck with closing duties. Staplers are filled, doors are locked, and all of the computers are turned off for the night. All I had left to do was move a box of empty folders downstairs to the storage room. Boring... Just as I was about to leave, I heard something from the cells. Someone was here. Fearing a break-out, and my boss' evident overreaction to this, I grabbed a flashlight and checked it out. Nothing was broken or damaged. I checked all of the locks. None of them had been tampered with. I ignored it and left for the night."

Bentley paused to clean his glasses. Sly was becoming impatient.

"That's it?"

"Not necessarily. There are a few more reports, but they all are formatted unprofessionally. There doesn't seem to be anything of use here."

"Well, that was a waste of time..." Sly said, sulking.

"Perhaps not." Penelope said, preparing for her turn to read.

"I checked the cells when no one was looking. I could've done it sooner since no one even noticed me disappearing. I heard the sound again. I knew exactly what it was. Someone coughed. I must have been blind to not see a lump of fur wrapped in cloth. I was alone with whoever this was, so I didn't bother whispering. He must have been sleeping because he moved very slowly. He sounded very annoyed that I woke him. I was curious. How long had he been there?"

"Now we're getting somewhere..." Bentley said, pulling out another page to read.

"All he really needed was some food. All I did was offer leftovers from lunch today and he started worshipping me. He was thanking me, telling me that he hadn't seen such generosity in years. We finally breeched the name barrier. He told me his name was Grimm Hund. Although I told him my name, he always referred to me by my rank."

"Ah, we have a name... Bentley, listen to this." Penelope said, pulling one of the last few pages to read it.

"His plan was insane. He wanted to be free as soon as possible. I suggested that we wait until later tonight. Grimm did not want to wait. He was gone by this morning. I am utterly confused as to how he did it. If he wanted to get out so easily, what kept him from doing so? The night before he went missing was a night full of story-telling. He told me a love story between a 17th century blacksmith and his wife, the current blacksmith's daughter. The romance between the two was so strong that each of them made a wedding gift for the other. They both agreed to make necklaces, but they each had the choice of what to make for the other. The young blacksmith gave his wife a gold necklace with a pendant in the shape of a star. He explained that it represents the first time that they met. According to him, she shined with such radiance and light. Her gift to him was a necklace with the pendant in the shape of the moon. She explained that the moon was a symbol of guardianship, as the moon was guardian of the night. The edges of the crescent moon represented his arms that held her gently, but firmly. He then told me that the blacksmith held on to his wife during their wedding ceremony, promising never to let her go."

"That's actually kind of a cute story." Penelope said.

"Cute, but fake." Bentley stated. "It sounds like just a fairy tale to me."

"Then how do you explain the necklace? Wouldn't that mean that the story's real?" Sly remarked.

"It would be coincidental that two similar people existed some 300 years ago, but we don't have any proof to confirm that the story is 100% accurate. I'll bet that there is no proof at all."

"Really? No proof at all?"

"Yes, really." Bentley remarked, acknowledging Penelope's challenge. "$5 says that you can't find any proof that they existed."

"You're on!" Penelope dashed to her room and came back with Bentley's old laptop. Since Bentley installed a computer-like unit in his chair, Penelope gladly accepted the hand-me-down. She set up in a chair next to him and began her search.

While the two of them had their competition, Sly pulled the case file towards and skimmed through it, pulling a random page and reading it. Unlike the others, this one had a photo attached. It was a picture of an old wolf covered with a large, black cloth. The wolf looked to be in his 60's. Sly could also see that the wolf was wearing torn and faded camouflage shorts. The cloth was open near the wolf's chest, revealing light-gray hair. The wolf's torso was riddled with scars and marks, but there was a distinct scar on his left breast.

In perfect unison, the geniuses exclaimed. Apparently, both of them were successful in their search.

"You first," Bentley said to Penelope. "What do you have?"

"Well," Penelope said. She hit a few more keys, turning on the projector. When the image loaded, it was a painting of a court room. The accused was a young female wolf, no more than 23-years-old. In the picture, she's clinging to her husband's hand as the judge is speaking to another person, most likely a member of the jury.

"I have this." Penelope stated

"That's it?" Bentley teased.

Penelope hit a few more keys and zoomed in on the couple. With more detailing, they were able to depict a gold necklace on her neck. The shape was blurred, but the color was correct. The husband had a similar necklace, only his was silver.

Penelope read the inscription that accompanied it: "Trial & Conviction."

"That's not enough proof. We don't know who those two are."

"I have one more thing." Penelope said, changing the image. The image of a trial was replaced with something different. A single tree stood out in the image. The leaves of the tree were different shades of orange and brown and were starting to fall. A lone figure was lying below the tree, resting. This painting also showed a necklace on the wolf's neck. Like the previous image, his was silver. But unlike the previous one, the shape of the necklace was clearly visible. The necklace that was around his neck held a pendant shaped like the crescent moon. Beside the sleeping wolf, a stone sat out-of-place. In front of that was another necklace. This one was golden and was shaped as a circle with a star in the center.

The inscription below this photo read: "A Resting Place."

"My source tells me that both paintings were done hundreds of years ago."

"So someone happened to be there to paint this image? Or did he happen to be sleeping there when someone wanted to paint a simple tree?" Bentley remarked.

"I know, the details are sketchy... So what do you have?"

"Well," Bentley said, connecting to the projector. "I have an auction in France that proves that the silver necklace was sold about 20 years ago. The details for the auction say that the necklace belonged to a German prisoner of WWII. The rest of it, I can't translate. I also have a receipt of a golden necklace that was sold from a pawn shop in Massachusetts about 5 years ago.

"That doesn't prove anything! They still could've lived 300 years ago!"

"You don't even have a name to prove that!"

"Neither do you!"

Sly decided to break up the argument by giving the table a solid tap with his cane.

The duo stopped to turn towards Sly. Murray bolted upright from his chair.

"What'd I miss?" The hippo exclaimed. Apparently Bentley and Penelope's story-time had put him to sleep.

"Sly, would you mind filling everyone in?" Bentley said as Sly set his cane back on his chair.

Pulling a page from the file, Sly began to read:

"I doubted that his story was true, that it was just a story and nothing else. I went through the files and pulled his out. (No one even cared because the case was so old.) An old personal profile said that Grimm was arrested after WWII. I did some searching and I finally found a WWII antiques auction. One of the items up for sale was the necklace. Well, I didn't know if it was the necklace or not. If he only waited, I would've known."

"Wow..." Penelope gasped.

"There's more." Sly read on:

"I bought the necklace anyway. He seemed to have taken my advice. No one could find him. His name did sound German, but he denied ever being German. Where ever he is, I hope he went home. Maybe one day we could catch up like old friends."

"That's impossible," Bentley stated. "If the necklace did belong to Grimm, then that would imply that he is..."

"Over 300 years old." Penelope finished the comment.

"Impossible."

"Bentley... It's possible... You know that." Sly said. "We all know that."

Bentley frowned, definitely knowing what he was talking about. "It can't be possible... How could another immortal pass right under the public's eye?"

"Well... He'd have to be made of metal, right?" Murray said, getting everyone's attention.

"Correct. That's the only way that we know of."

This prompted Sly to pull out the photo of Grimm. "That also means that he can't actually age, right?"

"Again, correct. Signs of aging would render immortality useless."

"Well, maybe we have something different on our hands. Something new," Sly said, passing the photo to Bentley.

"Bentley, they're on to something." Penelope said, urging him.

"They are indeed. This photo proves that something is indeed strange. But Sly, do you really want to do this?"

"If there's any connection between Grimm Hund and Clockwerk, then we need to find out what it is and stop it. Please, I need your help." Sly said, placing a hand onto the table.

"Count me in! I'll pound this old dog into the dirt." Murray said excitedly, joining Sly's hand.

"That's great, but where do we start?" Penelope commented.

"Good question. We'll figure it out. We always do." Bentley said, placing a hand on the table. "I'm in."

"In that case, I'm going too. You're not leaving me behind." Penelope squeaked, resting her hand on Bentley's.

"The Cooper Gang's back in action!" Sly said.