Well... this is a teensy bit late (sorry, Shannyrox101!). I don't really have a good excuse for that. I thought last night 'Oh, I need to put up the new NS chapter!' and then when I got home from work I thought it again. And then again about three hours ago. And now here we are.

Oh, also, a LOT of people seemed enthusiastic for a scene in which Kaia and Dimitri plot together. That's not actually in this chapter (because writing Dimitri is like pouring angry beetles into my brain), but since everyone seemed to like the idea so much, I'll try and write a scene and put it up on the blog sometime soon. It'll probably be dialogue-only, but we'll see!

Thanks for your patience and enjoy the chapter!

Being arrested wasn't a new thing for Sly, not really. It wasn't fun, but it happened.

Okay, that was a lie, that one time Carmelita had arrested him after finally defeating Clock-La had been alright. He got a good bottle of wine out of it, anyway. Well, part of a bottle of wine. And he'd given the rest back.

Whatever.

Then there'd been that whole thing with the Contessa and the brainwashing and solitary confinement, which sucked.

Still, this was probably the worst arrest yet. And not just because Carmelita was so mad at him she was lapsing into Spanish every few sentences.

He was actually looking forward to the prison transfer, at least then old co workers would quit 'accidentally' running into him at a pace slightly slower than a dead run.

Not to mention Jinx's dad was about as gentle about dragging him around by the arm as Sly would have anticipated. Though, he had yet to be deliberately run into any walls, so he counted that as a plus.

The armored car was formidable, the amount of locks on it were even more so. If he had some picks it wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but they'd all been confiscated. He remembered the Kaia used to keep some in her braid and spared a moment to wish they were being transferred together.

But he'd overheard an officer saying she'd been released, or was going to be, and he was still trying to figure out what to do with that knowledge.

Carmelita was about halfway through getting the armored car open when something shifting caught Sly's ear and he started to turn back to the Interpol building.

A sharp whistle cut through the air, but before he could even react to it another sound had him ducking his head and squeezing his eyes shut on instinct. It was impossible for him to have forgotten what that sound meant so quickly.

The floodlights were searing even through his eyelids and Carmelita was shouting at whoever had turned them on and Inspector Jenks had let go of Sly apparently entirely on reflex to cover his eyes.

Sly was judging whether or not to make a break for it when light, quick steps interrupted his thought process and something crashed into his middle, tackling him to the ground.

Or would have tackled him to the ground, anyway, if the ground was where it was supposed to be.

He didn't dare open his eyes until they'd been falling for ten seconds and had yet to actually make any sort of impact.

The familiar blue of the Time Vortex swirled around them, distinct and a very welcome change.

"Did it work? I'm too scared to look."

Looking down, he just saw white in the brief second before the Vortex spat them out into a dark night and onto very damp grass.

Blinking rapidly, forcing his eyes to adjust to the darkness for what seemed like the thousandth time that night, he glanced up just in time to see Kaia sit up a few yards away.

"It worked?" she asked, stunned, looking around at the huts of the small village, the large walls around the nearby castle, and the distant circus tents. She then looked over at him, her eyes and grin widening into maybe the most genuine display of joy he'd ever seen, "Holy crap, it worked! I'm amazing!"

"What...?" was all he could really put together as she scurried over to pick the locks on his cuffs.

"I stuck around after they released me. I found out when they were going to transfer you and called Dimitri, he was the one who made sure we could use the lights against Interpol and turned them on," with a quiet sound of triumph from the hybrid, Sly's hands were freed, "I used my belt, I thought maybe I could take you with me if I held on tight enough, but I wasn't sure. Plus, I had to time it, since there's a three minute delay after activation. I still can't believe that worked!"

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she grinned again. Something twisted in his chest and he wasn't sure what it was, but it made him pull her down into a tight hug, "Thanks for sticking around."

This time Kaia's smile was shyer and she scratched at her cheek while refusing to make eye contact when she answered, "Yeah, well, together or not at all, right?"

He was about to comment on that when he saw the tip of his cane sticking out from her backpack, "Did... did you steal my stuff from the cops?"

"Technically, yes. But since it is, in fact, your stuff, I like to think I'm just returning it to its rightful owner."

"Jinx, we'll make a thief out of you yet."

"Keep talking like that and I'm not giving you back your lockpicks."

Tensions at Interpol had probably been higher at some point, but for the life of her Carmelita could not remember when.

Even in massive, far more serious cases, there'd been a sense of urgency and need for speedy efficiency and a few all-nighters, but this was something altogether different. This was a department singularly united and divided by frustration.

The trap for Cooper had been effective in its simplicity, hinging on the need for surprise, and had been triggered perfectly. Kaia Jenks's involvement had been unexpected, since, by all accounts, she was still meant to be in Sweden, but they'd improvised and had both in custody within the hour.

And then, after two hours, they'd lost them again. Because of their own trap.

Infuriating didn't even begin to cover it.

It didn't help that everyone in the department was giving each other suspicious looks. An inside job would make this look bad, but the idea that two fugitives had slipped out so easily might be even worse.

One of the techs that they'd called in was going over the footage from the security cameras and trying to compensate for the blinding light that made the recording of Cooper's escape so hard to view. He was the best tech they had, but Carmelita wasn't holding her breath.

She never thought she'd see the day where she actually wanted Inspector Garter around, but he was much better at this sitting and waiting thing and seemed to banish tension from the very air just by making it feel silly.

Garter's absence was also a huge part of the reason such drastic measures had been taken to hunt down the Cooper gang. He'd snagged temporary control of the case, which had made Carmelita furious, set up the museum stakeout, and then completely disappeared.

No one had seen him since the gang's van had zapped out of existence outside the museum, which had to have been some kind of illusion because there was no way Bentley had perfected teleportation yet. Probably. Nevertheless, it had incriminated Cooper.

Even though Carmelita was mad at Sly, she couldn't imagine the gang had done anything to Garter. She was just about the only one who thought so, though, and even she had to admit that kidnapping wasn't exactly absent from their case file. And she hoped whatever had happened to Garter was kidnapping and not something worse.

So she'd collaborated fully with Inspector Jenks, possibly the biggest expert on the Cooper gang's criminal history outside herself and Garter. Her knowledge of the gang combined with his insistence that simplicity shouldn't be underestimated was what had led to Cooper's apprehension.

And now that maddening ringtail was gone again. That left them with no leads as to Garter's situation and a trap the gang was far too smart to fall for twice.

Though they had apprehended the Grizz as well, it felt cheap when she hadn't found him herself.

Pacing through the halls was pretty much what she'd been reduced to. Technically, everyone was supposed to regroup tomorrow, but very few people had actually left. This was personal. Cooper had been one of them, if only for a short while, and now Garter was missing. They were going to have to send for more coffee soon because very few people in the department would be getting any sleep tonight.

"Inspector Fox!" a kestrel called, rounding the corner. He was newly promoted to Interpol, what was his name again? Eli? "The technician sent me to find you, he says he's got something."

"Thank you, Constable, I'll meet him in the computer room with Inspector Jenks."

Constable Eli nodded and took off again while Carmelita turned and entered her office, which she'd been sharing with both Jenks and Garter as a sort of impromptu Cooper-gang-finding war room.

Inspector Jenks was sitting at the far desk, turning something over in his hands. The look on his face made Carmelita approach cautiously, "Inspector?"

He looked briefly up at her, then turned his glance back to the object in his hands. It was a key, printed with a pink camouflage pattern, faded and scratched in places.

"After my wife and I divorced," the husky said, rubbing his fingers over the key, "Kaia and I moved to a new house. She'd been really quiet for ages, so I had her pick out her house key. She picked this. She was... six? Seven? She left these," he held up the key and gestured to a creased piece of paper before taking a deep breath, "I think I may have made a mistake."

The paper just read 'I love you, Dad'.

Carmelita honestly didn't know much about Kaia. She'd met the hybrid a couple of times before she got involved with the Cooper gang and the then-teen had seemed fairly normal and well-behaved. In the interim years she'd become snarky and sarcastic, but that piece of paper reminded Carmelita that that wasn't all Kaia was.

Carmelita doubted the Cooper gang had taken Kristian. Adding Kaia to the picture, she was certain they hadn't. But whatever was going on, she was equally certain the gang was involved and, therefore, was her best lead.

"Tech has something for us," she said softly. Jenks nodded, stood, and pulled on his blazer. As Carmelita turned toward the door, she pretended not to see him fold up the note and slip it into his wallet. And she was equally blind to the fact that he pulled a chain with a ring on it from under his shirt and slid the key onto it.

The only tech specialist that had been reachable this late at night was an armadillo, a Texas native that events had conspired to have born on French soil, ensuring that he enjoyed dual citizenship. His name was Sawyer and Carmelita had never successfully made eye contact with him. She privately believe he thought computers were people and everything else was a figment of his imagination.

"I don't know what this is, but it's not possible," was what Sawyer greeted them with.

"Try again and explain this time," Jenks said. He'd slipped his law enforcement persona over his parental emotions flawlessly.

Sawyer sighed and pushed away from his keyboard, gesturing at the screen in frustration, "See for yourself."

When Sawyer tapped the play button, a video clip started playing on the screen.

Carmelita clearly recognized the lot at Interpol. She watched images of Jenks, herself, and Cooper approach the car. The flash of the floodlights whited out the camera for a moment. Sawyer's handiwork had managed to return the next few frames to the visible, though still bright, spectrum. A multicolored blur streaked toward Cooper who... wasn't making a break for it.

The blur collided with Cooper and they both vanished into a flash of... blue?

"Is this a joke?" Jenks growled.

"I wish," Sawyer grumbled, rewinding the video and pausing it just before the blur collided with Cooper.

Carmelita took a closer look at the blur, "Is that Kaia?"

"I was thinking that," Sawyer agreed, "but I haven't been able to enhance it further and it's not possible to say for sure right now."

Inspector Fox looked over at Jenks, who was clenching his jaw tightly.

What was going on?

"You know, I did already check everything for bugs," I groused as I handed over my gear for Bentley to wave a little metal wand over.

"There's some really hard tech to detect out there," Bentley said, "and I developed this bug sweeper myself."

"Yeah, I remember. Patent pending?"

"That it is. The best bug sweeper on the market can't detect my bugs. I'm going to take the feature that can detect my bugs out of this one before manufacturing starts. Otherwise that's just shooting myself in the foot."

"I'm forgetting everything I'm hearing," Kristian declared loudly, tossing Sly an ice pack for his eye. The thief nodded gratefully and I had to wonder again what Bentley had said to Kristian to make him so suddenly amicable.

"That's probably for the best," I kicked my feet up on the table and looked around, "I do like this Safehouse. I'm impressed you were able to get it on such short notice."

"You just like it because it's pretty much a massive tree house," Sly said, throwing a grin my way.

That was true, but it was also true that the place looked like an old tavern and that was pretty awesome. There was a roaring fire by the table, which helped given the fact that the roof leaked, but other than that? Wall hangings and windows looking out on the tiny town around the castle walls made it a massive improvement on living in the hollowed-out corpse of a dinosaur in the snow. Perspective certainly helped with the optimism.

"You say that like that makes it less awesome."

He tilted his head to concede the point before turning to Bentley, "So, what's the situation here?"

"We didn't have time to do any recon beyond observing what we saw between landing and setting up the Safehouse, but that actually gave us a pretty good picture." Bentley typed a few lines into his keyboard, then leaned back from the screen.

"Is that an advert for a circus?"

"Is that one of my ancestors?" Admittedly, Sly's priorities were probably better than mine.

"Sir Galeth Cooper," Bentley confirmed. "Sounds like Le Paradox has a hand in things here as well. And did you see any of the guards around here?"

I shook my head and saw Sly do the same out of the corner of my eye. We'd landed close enough to the Safehouse that we didn't have to wander through the village proper at all. There'd been the usual sweep of flashlight beams, but we didn't really get a good look at any of the guards.

"They're robots!" Murray said, waving a hand around.

"Wha- really?" I glanced quickly over at Bentley, who was looking a bit sore that Murray had stolen his thunder.

"Clockwork wolves, mostly."

"Wait," Sly straightened minutely in his chair, but that little shift spoke volumes, "do you mean regular clockwork or the owl?"

"Regular clockwork," Bentley assured him quickly. Sly slumped back in his chair with a wry grin and a little wave to continue and I wanted to use the time machine and go back to kill Clockwerk a second time. I forgot a lot of the time that I'd never actually seen the owl, the real owl. I'd only seen the bastardized Neyla-hybrid of the creature. But I saw the scars that Clockwerk had left on Sly, physical and otherwise, and they made my skin crawl.

"We need more information," Kristian said, finally settling into a chair next to Bentley. It was so weird to see everyone actually getting along harmoniously, but I resolved not to question it too much as long as it continued.

"Yeah," Sly stretched a bit and put his arms behind his head, "Recon?"

"No use," Bentley said, "we don't even know where to start looking. No, I think the best place to start is with Sir Galleth. He's supposed to be a knight by now and found the Cooper Order within a few years, not be a jester at a circus. Our first order of business should be getting him out of the big house or, heh, the big top."

Kristian drily provided the expected "Buh-dum-tssh" to accompany that statement.

"I had no idea you could sew, but somehow I'm not surprised," I said, propping my face up on my hands to watch as Bentley finished up the latest of many seams.

"I am a turtle of many talents," Bentley agreed mildly, examining the seam he'd just sewn, making a frustrated sound, and reaching for the seam ripper.

I frowned. It was the third time he'd redone that particular seam, "Are you okay?"

Sighing, he set down the mess of cloth in his hands, "Sorry. I'm just worried."

When he took off his glasses and pressed his fingers against his eyelids, I hazarded a guess, "About Penelope?"

He nodded, "We're still not exactly sure what happened to her. I know it's probably related to the timeline and correcting it will bring her back, but," he gestured to his laptop, where a photo of the two of them was pulled up, "if that were true, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any pictures of her."

The sad thing was, he was right. When the Cooper ancestors had started being arrested or otherwise kept from making their marks on history, their pages of the Thievius Raccoonus had disappeared. If something had happened to Penelope because of the timeline, wouldn't her pictures have done the same?

Reaching out to put a hand on Bentley's shoulder, I gave him my best hopeful smile, "One thing at a time, right? First we fix the timeline. If Penelope's still not back, we go and find her however we need to. We can only do what we can only do and I'm sure you scoured that lab top to bottom to see if there was any evidence of foul play."

That got him nodding and I repressed my sigh of relief. "You're right, thanks," he picked the cloth back up and sewed the seam perfectly this time, "Sly, it's ready!"

"Awesome!" Sly bounded over from where he was watching a surprisingly intense ping-pong duel between Murray and Kristian. "What do you think?" he asked, holding the tunic up in front of him, "Is green my color?"

"It really brings out your eyes," I said in my sweetest voice. He stuck his tongue out at me.

"Try it on and make sure it fits," Bentley said, running his hands over the wheels of his chair idly.

Shrugging, Sly quickly changed shirts. "There," he said, tugging the fabric into place, raising his hands and turning in a circle, "Thoughts?"

"It'll look better with the hat," Bentley said, tossing a small piece of fabric to the raccoon.

I couldn't help the immediately correlation my mind made when Sly put that hat on. Coupled with the green tunic, it was all too much, "You look like Robin Hood. From that old Disney movie."

Face lighting up, Sly practically bounced in place, "We watched that all the time at the orphanage!"

"Okay, I need to separate you two before you start singing," Bentley said when I started humming the intro to 'Oo-de-lally'. He reached under the table, "If you're really going to be Robin Hood, you'll need this."

"Is that a bow?" I said at an octave that really should have been lower. Bentley didn't even respond, he just gave me a sarcastic look as he passed the bow and a quiver over to Sly, "Where did that even come from?"

"I am a turtle of many talents," Bentley repeated, looking me dead in the eye.

"This is going to be fun, I can tell already," Sly said, situating the bow on his back.

"I can't believe I never saw it before. You and Robin Hood from that movie are pretty much the same person."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Sly said with a grin and a wink. Then he paused, "Wait, then who's Little John?"

"Well, he's like a weird combo of Murray and Bentley. Kristian can be Sheriff Nottingham." A ping pong ball whizzed dangerously close by my face.

"Does that make you Maid Marian?" Sly asked with wry smirk.

"No way, are you kidding me? I mean, from what I remember she was actually pretty awesome, but I'm not that patient and there's no way I could pull off that thing she wears on her head. I'll be Friar Tuck."

"Okay, I can't handle this anymore," Bentley stuck a fistful of arrows into Sly's quiver with one of his robot arms and pointed toward the door, "Go get your ancestor so we can figure out what's going on here!"

"Farewell, my dear lady," Sly said with a sweeping bow, backing out the door while Bentley glared and I snickered.

Yawning deeply, I laid my head on my arms and let my eyes close. The pitter patter of rain on the rest of the tree house was melodic and soothing. It was a struggle not to let myself fall asleep.

"Maybe you should take a nap," Bentley suggested, keeping an eye on Sly via the binocucom station. "You've got to be exhausted."

"I'll sleep after I meet the new Cooper," I promised, stretching a bit in my seat to try to wake myself up. "Ugh, why isn't Sly this tired?"

"Because he's nocturnal." Seeing said raccoon had reached his mark, Bentley turned on the microphone, "Alright, it seems like Galleth is being held somewhere inside those circus tents. Sly, I've spotted a small opening at the top of that far tent. What I don't see is how you're going to get up there."

Sly was not paying any attention at all. "Ah... the circus," he sighed wistfully, "I could have been the greatest trapeze artist."

"Uh-huh, sure. Anyway, the tent-"

"And, with your shell, you'd be a natural for the guy they shot out of the cannon every night!"

I smirked into my arms, "So would Murray run the clown car then? I'll be the ringleader."

"Nuh-uh, you're on the trapeze with me. The best routines always have two people."

"Sly, you've made a grave miscalculation if you think I'm getting on a trapeze willingly. I don't care if there's a net under it or not."

"Oh, come on! I'll catch you, I promise!"

"How have you not committed murder yet?" Kristian asked Bentley wonderingly, pulling up a chair.

"The answer to that is beyond my comprehension," the turtle answered through gritted teeth, adjusting his glasses and waiting until he was positive he had our attention."Look, Sly, you'd better go check out that tower. It's a good vantage point and we can assess the situation from there. Get on that tower and you can break out your new toy."

Somewhere between wondering why the guards left so many arrows around and when Sly climbed into the big top, I accidentally drifted off.

"I say, what a delightful contraption!"

I jerked awake at the booming voice that carried through the Safehouse, having to grab onto the table quickly to keep from falling out of my chair. A hand steadied my chair and I looked up to see a bemused Sly. Yawning, I stretched my arms a bit, "Did I really sleep through the circus?"

"You did, but don't worry," he tapped my arm with what looked like a rolled-up banner, "I got you a souvenir."

Absently taking the roll of cloth, I looked over to the source of the commotion that had woken me. A raccoon dressed as a jester was poking at Bentley's laptop while the turtle tried to shoo him away, "That Galleth?"

"Yup. I should probably get him before Bentley strangles him."

"Probably smart. I've got the feeling him dying would be bad for the timeline."

"Most likely," Sly put two fingers to his lips and whistled loudly. Galleth and the robot arms that had been coming up to strangle him froze.

"You have to teach me that trick," I told Sly under my breath, unwittingly drawing attention to myself.

"Ah, greetings!" Galleth bounded over to us and made a sweeping bow. His jester's hat slipped off his head and he gave it a contrite look before kicking it under the table. Back to beaming, he took a knee and plucked my free hand from where it hung at my side, "It is my upmost honor to make your acquaintance, my lady!"

"Er..." I ignored Sly snickering at my shoulder and extracted my hand as politely as possible. "Nice to meet you too? I'm Kaia."

"Ah, a lovely name!" Galleth bounced right back to his feet, undeterred. "Might I inquire as to its meaning?"

"Yeah, Kaia," Kristian cut in with a smirk. He had a pocketknife and a chunk of wood and- was he whittling? "What's your name mean?"

"I will steal the van and leave you all in the past," I hissed. "Don't think I won't." At Murray's wounded look, I amended, "And by that, I of course mean that Bentley and Murray will be coming with me."

Galleth cocked his head, "Whatever do you mean, 'leave us in the past'?"

"And that's a perfect transition to what we need to talk to you about," Sly said, motioning his ancestor to sit down at our table.

"First things first," Bentley said, rolling up and placing his laptop nearby, but safely out of Galleth's reach, "how were you captured?"

Galleth's face deepened into a scowl as he took his seat, "A dishonorable knight has come to this land. He has mechanical guards that are able to patrol without change, needing neither food nor rest. His weapons are great, unlike any I have ever seen. This Black Knight has used them to take control of the nearby castle and all this land. When my men and I tried to oppose him, I alone made it inside the castle walls." He averted his gaze, "It shames me to say it, but the battle was short. Neither my lance nor my sword could harm him and there was no fault in his armor. My lance was taken, I was captured and found myself in dire straits until your arrival."

"That fits the pattern," Bentley mused, typing away at his computer, "But none of my database searches are turning up anything on any 'Black Knight'."

"What databases are you checking?" Kristian asked.

"Multiple history databases, Interpol, everything." Bentley rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "The records from this time period aren't that great. Is it possible that Le Paradox made an ally from here that isn't in any records?"

"I would be much obliged if you would explain yourselves," Galleth said sternly. "Your speech indicates you are from another time?"

He sounded skeptical, but after exchanging glances with Bentley, Sly started in on the explanation anyway. "We are from another time. I'm Sly Cooper, your descendant several hundred years from now. Someone in our time got the technology to travel through time, someone with a grudge against the Coopers. We don't know what he has against us, but he's recruited criminals to imprison Coopers all through history and steal their canes. We're trying to stop him, it sounds like he's allied himself with this Black Knight as well."

Galleth had looked skeptical right up until Sly started to explain Le Paradox. From there, Galleth's expression became more and more thunderous until he leapt from his chair onto the table, drew his sword, and started shouting, "This cowardly fiend must not be allowed to prevail! We shall strike at the heart of this matter and take the fight to the enemy! He has picked the wrong name to sully, we shall restore the Cooper honor by destroying this knave!"

It seriously looked like he was about to go storm the castle with only a sword and half a jester outfit. Sly barely got to the door in time to keep Galleth from running out of the Safehouse. That didn't phase the knight, because he immediately assessed the Safehouse and dove for the window.

Kristian passed me some popcorn he'd made halfway through Galleth's rant as we sat back and watched Sly, Murray, and Bentley's robotic arms wrestle with Galleth, "I don't know what's happening, but it's hilarious."

I took a handful of popcorn and smirked, "Starting to see the appeal in hanging around?"

"I am doing no such thing. I'm still going to arrest the lot of them when we get back to the present.

I laughed as Galleth briefly got free and had to be rugby tackled by Sly before he could reach the door, "Don't think you can fool me. Once you start laughing, there's no hope."

Kristian took his popcorn back with a sneer and I snorted, munching happily on what I'd preemptively grabbed while Bentley bribed Galleth to stay put with promises of 'futuristic armor'. From what I could tell, he planned to synthesize it from scratch.

It took new armor, a lot of talking, and a mild tranquilizer before we got Galleth to sit calmly in his chair again. At the very least he seemed please to be out of the jester's outfit.

Running a hand down his face, Bentley pointed to me and Sly with his other hand, "You two. I need more information. The databases still have nothing. Recon photos and a lot of them."

"I bet I get better photos than you," I challenged with a grin, strapping on my belt and checking for my binocucom, baton, and emergency knife.

Sly grinned back, like I knew he would. I really needed to stop putting myself in situations where that look would be directed at me, it did unhealthy things to my heart that needed to stop immediately. "Bring it on."

That's all for today, folks! Thanks again for your patience and I will see you soon!