~Location: Unknown Apartment Room - Paris, France~
~Date/Time: Present Day, Morning~

"Damn... I think I used too much. You're kind of a lightweight for a wolf, you know." The mouse's voice was slightly distorted, along with the structure of the room that Grimm found himself in. He awoke on a couch, sitting up and rubbing his temples with a light groan.

"Where... am I?"

"Mr. Hund? That part doesn't matter."

"You sound familiar..."

"Well, it might be hard to believe, but we've met before."

The wolf found his sight realigning to see the mouse clearly. He smiled a bit when he recalled how friendly she was to him but frowned when he remembered the events of last night. "Why'd you bring me here like this?"

"Well, I wasn't gonna get anywhere with how you were last night. Oh and... I wouldn't stand yet if I were you. You have plenty of juice left in you to keep your body sedated. Have any other questions?"

"What's happening to me?"

Penelope had a smile on her face as she sat back in a chair. "Ah... Good question. One thing we learned about you, Mr. Hund, is how you lived all those years."

"Wasn't I possessed?"

"Well... I would say that... Considering that the machine that did the deed had a soul that wouldn't rest."

"A machine... That's why his voice was so cold to me... What else do you know?"

"You remember Sly Cooper and the rest of the gang, yes?" Penelope received a nod in reply and continued. "Your 'Machine Devil' practically hunted Sly and his family. He got really close to erasing his lineage at one point."

"Who was Connor Cooper to Sly?"

"Connor?" Penelope sat up, shifting to the edge of her seat with interest. "He was Sly's father. Do you... happen to know that name?"

"Never met him... But... I..."

"Go on."

"No."

"Do it."

"I don't want to. It's a horrible thing."

"It can't be that bad."

"I killed him."

"Wh-What?"

"I... saw his throat slashed and... he breathed his last breath on the floor. I saw it all."

Penelope shifted in her seat, becoming interested in this new information "That's impossible. You weren't there. You fought in the war, remember? Prisoner in Germany and France at the time... Unless..."

"Unless?" Grimm glanced at the mouse and saw that her brown eyes lit up in interest. Penelope saw that Grimm's vibrant blue eyes were fading to a dull color.

"Unless you... have his memories! Yes! I was right! Oh, this can work out for us both, Mr. Hund!"

"His memories? That would explain why something that I keep seeing haven't happened to me at all. Are you saying that you can help me?"

"I know what's happening to you. 100% sure now."

"Oh... That's great... Maybe you can explain why I was kidnapped in the first place..."

"That... That part was kind of improvised. I followed you and Diana around as casually as I could be all afternoon."

"You followed us?" Grimm sat up abruptly and was starting to get defensive. His pose faltered as he started to sway in his seat. "Why?"

"Well... now here's the part we had unsolved... What do you know about the concept of time travel?"

"Science fiction. I've read a novel on the subject a few times."

"Well... It's not fiction anymore..."

"How would you know that?"

"Well... I helped build a time machine, or two, technically."

"You're bluffing. Show me them."

"I can't. One was destroyed and lost and the other is... property of the Cooper Gang."

Grimm huffed as a remark but ended up in a cough. "What does this... 'nonfictional' concept have to do with you drugging me? It still makes no sense."

"Right... Well, when we first found you, there was something that we discovered that was very odd. You were involved in... a temporal anomaly. Something just felt very odd about you as if you were a paradox on your own."

"I didn't feel odd then... Is that what's happening to me now?"

"No because... We made machines that could detect such things and find them and now... You are normal. I wanted to find out why you're not giving any temporal distortion, so I followed you and Diana."

"I feel anything but normal now." Grimm groaned in discomfort coughed violently into a closed fist, withdrawing to see specks of red on his hand. "That's not a good sign..."

Penelope's eye's widened at the sight of the color, shifting back in her seat. "You're sick! Like, really ill!"

"I thought you knew why..." The wolf groaned, his voice weak in tone.

"I do know! But, I think you're dying, Mr. Hund!"

"I know that... Just... tell me why you brought me here then..." Grimm coughed again, more red specks appearing.

"I won't have time to explain it all if we just sit here. You'll just have to trust me. I can help you."

"Very well. What do you need me to do?"

###

Penelope had Grimm lay back on the couch as comfortably as he could while she fetched a cool wash cloth to drape over his forehead. The mouse had to work fast as she set up some computer equipment by him and attached sensors to Grimm to monitor brain activity and heart rate.

"If I'm right, I can find the key to solving both of our problems. I want you to close your eyes and try to remember."

"What am I to recall?"

"I need you to remember something that you've never done or experienced." Penelope said, sitting at the array of monitors with the keyboard of an emerald-green laptop at her fingertips. The mouse was armed for her hacking war with an unknown opponent.

"I see..." Grimm sighed and gently closed his eyes, falling into a dream state. Penelope closely monitored his brain waves for signs of a deep sleep or trance before she began.

"Alright... Where are you right now?"

"I... I'm following someone... It's someone I feel like I serve... He has higher power than me."

Penelope was baffled at first when she couldn't locate the significant brain activity involved with memory. It was then she was certain that the memory wasn't Grimm's at all and needed to search digitally. "Yes, go on..."

"We're dining together with other important figures. The one I followed has more power than all of us... I know this style. I think I know. I recognize clothing..."

Penelope found little memory recalling from Grimm but her equipment discovered a foreign signal. She attempted the access the signal from her laptop.

Grimm started to growl in pain and gripped at his necklace, the pendant still a crescent moon. "Something's wrong... It's becoming hard to breathe."

"Just hold on... Keep going... I've made some progress, but I need time." Thus began Penelope's attack: lines of scripted code running rapidly on her screen. For a moment, she saw Grimm's eyes light back up to a vibrant blue. Closer inspection revealed that the iris was rotating. It stopped and his eyes faded back to a darker grey, Penelope nodding for Grimm to continue.

"I see something. I've seen it before! Cooper... I see his cane!"

"Cane? Sly's cane? How..." Grimm's mental state was ablaze with his natural memory but she questioned his comment out of curiosity.

"No mistake about it... I've seen it before... Cooper beat me with it. It's golden at the crest and shaped like a shepherd's crook. He gripped it at the wooden handle just under the crest."

"Tell me about the person holding the cane. Is it Sly?" Penelope was more furious in her typing, lines of code representing a foe that fought back.

"He's... It's Sly! I saw his eyes. He has brown eyes like your own hidden in a black mask and he has the ringed tail that I've seen before!" Grimm's pulse was elevated and there was definitely a vibrant amount of brain activity now, a mix of the electronic signal and Grimm's own memory.

"Keep going... I think I have it... It's crude and outdated, but a stable and secure system. I might be able to disable it." Penelope's eyes widened as she furiously typed on Bentley's old laptop.

"My chest... it hurts... I can't go on... Do it now!" The wolf cried out, clutching his torso as if he thought that would ease the pain.

"Just a little bit longer, Grimm. Focus on where you are for me. Stall just a little bit longer."

"I'm in... a sandbox now... It's a big and empty sandbox. Wait... There's a building in the distance." There was a rapid decline in brain activity. This was not Grimm's original memory either.

Penelope gasped and turned to a large series of knocks, turning back and not stopping her frantic attempt at digital surgery.

"Penelope! I know you're in there. I know you have Hund. You can't drag a wolf places without people noticing!" The voice was female, but certainly authoritative.

"Describe the building. Can you recognize it?" Penelope was panicking now, knowing exactly who was at the front door.

"Are you close to stopping it? I can't hold on..." Grimm cried out again, his voice weak and pleading for whatever was happening to end.

"I can stop it. I will. Tell me where you are!"

"Penelope! Unlock the door! Dios... I'll break this damn door!"

"I see a pyramid... Yeah... Large pointed building... Lots of sand... I'm in Egypt!"

"Egypt? That's where he is! Hold on! I'm gonna disable it. I have it in a trap!"

"Do it already!" Grimm coughed some more of the red spots, the next sound was wood splintering as the first few thumps had went unnoticed.

"Penelope! You're under arrest for kidnapping and escaping your prison sentence!"

"Wait! Give me a second! I need to fix this!" Penelope managed a few key strokes before being pulled out of her chair and tackled against the wall by none other than Inspector Carmelita Fox.

Penelope glanced back as lines of code passed on her screen in rapid sequence before the prompt went black. As if he can feel the death of the digital programming as his own death; Grimm was wailing in agony, his irises a pale grey and the wolf thrashing about to stop the horrid pain.

The prompt went blank and Grimm went nearly motionless simultaneously, staring up at the ceiling.

"I see a lot of white now... I don't feel any pain anymore..." He said softly, his hands relaxed to rest on chest while his heartbeat was rapidly slowing.

Carmelita turned to Grimm after succeeding in handcuffing Penelope. "It's over Mr. Hund. We found you."

"Yeah... It's over..." Grimm chuckled calmly at a small joke while the sensors that he was connected to were frantic in alarm. The heart rate monitor was gradually getting more and more delayed in playing the monotonous sound that it needed to play. The monitor displaying brain activity was slowly getting dimmer.

"Mr. Hund?" Carmelita called again, her strong-willed tone cracked a bit as if she knew what was happening before her.

"I... I see Mira now..."

"Mira... Your wife, Mira?"

"Mhmm... She looks surprised to see me... No... She's shocked... I thought she'd be happy."

Three people watched in utter silence as one of the monitors made its necessary sounds almost once every second. The third person had entered a bit too late and ran over to tackle a body that wasn't moving much anymore.

"G-Grimm? Don't go. You promised you wouldn't go."

"Diana? I promised to last the night... and I did."

"But... It wasn't with me! I wanted you to spend it with me!"

"Asleep? I'd have passed peacefully right next to you."

"No, Grimm! I love you, you big fluffy mutt! I've loved how kind you were to me when I got hurt and I fell for you without realizing it. I... wanted to give myself to you tonight... That's what the second surprise for you was, Grimm. I was hoping that we would've been together... as a true couple... sincerely honest about it this time. I would've settled with being one with you for that night if I lost you the next morning...Just as long as I told you how much I wanted you."

"D-Diana... You made my last night a night to remember... My story finally has a written ending... I'm glad my last chapter... was with you. I love you." Those were the wolf's last words before she silenced him with a kiss. The golden retriever clinging to the wolf was mortified to hear them. Everything was still in silence for a long time after that, the wolf making no other sounds or movement after the retriever broke away.

To be honest, the room was mostly silent. One of the vital sign monitors made a low monotonous hum while the other did nothing vibrant like it had been doing earlier. The screen on the laptop blinked its cursor and awaited user input. The sound that had dominance in the room was that of a lover crying for her departed mate.

All three screens went black. Diana never stopped crying.