Sly 4: The Way of The Thief

by Grimm Gun

After a vicious attack on one of their own, the gang reunites to lay the Cooper line's true inheritance to rest. Thrills! Chills! And Romance!

14. Bolder Than Bullets P2

And you're back with Mikey C and The Bee. Here on WXRT, The Undertow! We're coming up on the nine o'clock hour, and today we're talking with one of today's trend setters of the comic book world, graphic artist Kevin Slang, and his new book; Chapter the Thirteenth, in which lines are drawn, discoveries are made, clubs are crushed, and deals with devils about angels occur.

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"Okay," Bentley began, "here's what we know so far." CLICK. General Red. "Out of all the members of the Fiendish Five, after Clock-la herself, the most high profile member is General Red. He is the pinnacle of loyalty and duty, a man who never says never, die, give up, give in, blah, blah, blah. In short taking him out will levy a serious blow to the cult. The question is how do we accomplish this?" CLICK. General Red bench pressing the trucks. "Clearly meeting him head on in physical confrontation might end in disaster. Not to mention, even if we succeed in that venture, there's a strong possibility that the event will be taken as a mere beat down and nothing more." CLICK. The troops. "Taking out the base would be a nice touch. If they had a few hundred less soldiers, I might say that we'd stand a good chance of doing just that, but sadly, no. We need to strike General Red in the one place he can't fully defend with his impeccable strength or soldiers at his command; his reputation." CLICK. Clock-la. "We've got to work to discredit the General, with enough attacks on Bullet Bay, finishing up with a grand finale on the day Clock-la herself is to come to inspect the base and give a speech to inspire the troops. We need to make The General look so bad that Clock-la will have no choice but to oust him." CLICK. Bullet Bay. "So, to start the games and fun." CLICK. The "grizzly" Panda King. "The Panda King will procure the sewer schematics from the base's records storage, and send 'em to me via binoc-u-com. After which," CLICK. Dimitri. "Dimitri gets to become the proverbial wrench in the works of the base's plumbing." CLICK. A poster showing two pictures of a monkey in cult uniform, one where he's sad, downtrodden and tired "before", in the second he's happy, buff, wearing sunglasses and surrounded by chicks "after". It had the words "QUIT THE CULT!" posted in bold red print along the top. "Also I've been working on some posters with more than a few choice messages I'd like to send to the cult and it's members. It's too dangerous to post these puppies by hand, so it'll have to be an air drop." CLICK. Sly in his bed on the ship. "Since, once again, Sly has gotten gratuitously injured during the first phase of our plans," CLICK. The Black Baron. CLICK. Penelope. "Penelope will…*sigh* have to take his place and pilot the plane to drop the poster payload." CLICK. The base's AA weaponry. "Which means I want these things out of commission by the time she makes her pass over the bay. I'm serious, if any of these things gets a shot off, you'll have me to answer to. Trust me, just because I wear glasses, it doesn't mean I can't handle any one of you guys." CLICK. Colonel Cobalt. "Which brings me to this man, Colonel Cobalt. From what I gleamed from the meeting, this is a man with whom we need to strike a line of communications. Despite being an outspoken member of the cult, he's ambitious, and absolutely despises General Red, I don't think negotiations will be too terrible. Reviling though he may be, if my calculations are correct, we cannot make a final crush on the General without his aid. Apparently, the Colonel strikes out for a secluded cave off base, that's where we'll start talking. I just hope the slime's too stupid to try to take me in." CLICK. General Red. "With any luck, we'll be set to take the General down and out, and remove him and countless other cult members from the equation. Regardless, as they say in the military, it'll all be over by Christmas."

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The Conflicting Flush

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Gabon coast, Africa 10:14am

It had been an interesting morning so far, to say the least. The Panda King was beginning to suspect that the title of squad leader only meant that those above you blamed you for everyone's poor performance, whilst those below you blamed you for part of their misfortunes.

That particular morning had been filled with weapons drills, the General deciding that Alpha Zero should forgo marching drills because, in General Red's words, "Marching never taught no one to kill nothing no how. 'Sides, it's stupid and useless, and the lot of you are so much of both as it is that it's sickening." So they were brought to the rifle range to improve their shooting. Of course, General Red, being the ever imaginative person he was, spent quite a bit of thought on the matter, cooking up ways to make the event interesting, and ultimately came across a recipe that stuck.

You can imagine the surprise and apprehension the two squads that made up Alpha Zero felt when they were met at the rifle range by a grinning General Red who sat atop several crates filled with weird collars. The Panda King inquired about the extra neck wear, but General Red waved it off, saying, "You guys remind me so much of dogs, that I thought you mutts'd be comfortable in these." Shying away from further verbal abuse, The Panda King didn't question when after ten minutes of shooting, General Red ordered special targets to be placed out onto the range. It was during those first ten minutes that The General spent nine minutes and five seconds informing them that they were doing so badly that their targets were the safest things on the base, were probably laughing at them, and that he personally would order them to place the barrels of their rifles to their heads and pull the trigger, but he couldn't bear to see them miss that target too, there of course were other insults, but those were the ones that really stuck.

The first round of shots levied against the round, multicolored targets was a rather out of the ordinary scene. They all aimed and fired at the "well rounded" opponents (ha ha ha! it's funny 'cause they're shooting at targets, of course they're round! HA HA HA! (inside, I'm actually crying)). After they all fired, some hitting, some missing, none getting bullseyes, a strange feeling over came them, an odd tingling sensation about their necks. They of course briefly looked up and around towards their fellow squad mates to see if the sensation was shared, but the investigation was cut short when The General ordered them to continue with the exercises, and order which they reluctantly followed.

It was about this time, after they levied a second volley of shots against the targets that they all realized they felt a severe, yet swift pain that spread out from their necks and beyond. Hurt, confused, and panicky, the troops were about to say that they demanded to know what was going on, when the General took it upon himself to answer their collective question before it's asking. He informed them that their brand, shiny, new collars were in fact shock collars, which they were of course ordered not to remove, and that the targets which they were shooting at had special sensors that could tell where they were hitting; if they missed the bullseye, they would be shocked. And so it went, load, aim, fire, scream or grit your teeth in pain, load, aim, fire, scream or grit your teeth in pain, and so on and so forth, etcetera, etcetera. It wasn't until they were twenty minutes or so into this new and exciting treatment (which most gents usually have to pay an extra lot for), that a slightly perturbed crawdad recruit politely took his time to inform The General that after four consecutive bullseyes, "THE DAMN THING'S (the collar) IS STILL SHOCKING THE S***" out of him. General Red then took his time to explain to the invertebrate recruit and all other members of Alpha Zero that unless all members of the squad hit a bullseye, all members of Alpha Zero will share in their comrade's failure. Throughout the four and a half hours of rifle training, there were only three times when they were not shocked.

This brings us to our current situation, in which The Panda King was miserably tromping away from the rifle range. He walked shoulder to shoulder with his just as hurt and miserable as squad mates, all of his fur standing comically on end, with occasional arcs of static electricity jumping from one hair to another. The General had let them off the hook for one hour to return their rifles to the supply store room they got it from, which was across the base and shaved off fifteen minutes from their hour. He suggested they used the remaining forty-five minutes to shower, eat, and immediately see the doctor about any involuntary twitching about the neck, arms, and, well, just about any other part of the body. Once their time was up, they were to report to The General on the outer edges of the jungle for, as he put it, and others dreaded the sound of, "Eight hours filled with fun and adventure."

With the list of activities set before The Panda King, he started a mental list for their completion; first being to return his rifle, third being to see the medical pavilion about the involuntary twitching in his feet, fourth place took eat, with shower bringing up the rear. The second place slot of course had been to procure the sewer lay out for Bentley and Dimitri, for whatever dark purpose the turtle had cooked up. This task would've been the first on the bear's list, but breaking away from the group was sure to raise suspicion, he'd surely get spotted and reported on by someone. And when he said someone, he meant Law. The Panda King looked over his shoulder to discover that despite sleep deprivation, small food servings, and over four hours of electrocutions, Kitsune Law still had the energy to scowl at him behind his back, lovely. Although he had admit, she was a far better, and much more humorous sight to see, with her hair all frayed out and staticky as well.

Sadly though, The Panda King's list was torn asunder by an unfortunate turn of events. Alpha Zero's path to the rifle store house took them past the motor pool, where several wildebeest guards stood waiting by two trucks.

"ALRIGHT YOU MAGGOTS!" The biggest and meanest looking one said, pointing towards Alpha Zero, "GET ON THE TRUCKS! WE'RE GOING FOR A RIDE!"

"Where are we going?" a coyote recruit asked.

"Don't worry about it," the guard said, visibly annoyed that the order was not followed the first time, "just get on the trucks."

"But our rifles," one billy goat recruit started.

"Will be needed," the guard finished through gritted teeth, getting angry that his order was being ignored, "Now, get on the trucks."

Not wanting to see the result of asking a third question and ignoring the order once more, the recruits reluctantly began to file onto the backs of the two trucks. There were fourteen to each truck, and the Panda King was amongst those picked out and shoved aboard, he looked back to see that Law was not among those who were carted aboard as the trucks began to drive off. The two trucks wove in and out between the base's buildings until finally pulling onto the road that went through the front gate, or at least where the front gate would be if the rhinos hadn't done such a perfect job of abolishing the fence.

The journey to wherever they were going was not at all a pleasant one. The path the drivers took down the old jungle roads went through some particularly swampy parts of the jungle. The Panda King pensively sat in thought throughout the ride, trying to piece together what exactly was happening to them, but despite his best deductions and meditations, he could not come up with an answer he was one hundred percent sure of. But, this might be partly due to the fact that his train of thought was constantly interrupted by the other recruits on the truck, asking if their squad leader knew what was going on, which of course he didn't and told them as such. He silently listened to the various conversations of those around, the general feel of which supported a somewhat low morale, with topics ranging from "I'm hungry" to "The General's probably going to punish us for being late". The fact that the back of the trucks were uncovered, leaving the recruits exposed to the elements, did not help much to improve the mood. Suffice to say, insects, foliage, and other aspects of the jungle had become an issue.

However, after twenty minutes or so of driving, the trucks pulled onto the edge of a clearing, at the opposite end of which there stood a small array of huts and whatnot, a village. Tired, dejected, and covered in mud, the recruits got off the trucks to be met by none other than Colonel Cobalt, who stood by his own jeep with a three man wildebeest entourage. The drivers of the trucks ordered the recruits to line up and stand at attention, before they themselves joined their other lackey buddies.

The guards kicked back and shared devious smiles, and Cobalt had his eyes closed, deep in thought, probably imagining himself as ruler of the world. So with nothing immediately important going on, The Panda King returned to doing the standard of any situation he found himself in, take a gander at his surroundings. The most eye catching item of course being the village. The Panda King felt nothing but confusion at being near a place such as this, for all intents and purposes this place looked to be a peaceful village, poor but peaceful, there were even barefoot lemur children engaging in a game of soccer, these weren't the sort of people who could afford to start any trouble. This of course logically led The Panda King to believe that their task, whatever it may be, lay within the jungle. He felt rather alarmed and confused however, when one lemur woman walked out of one of the huts, took one look at the troops, screamed and ushered several children into the clay and straw house. The Panda King was about to ask what it was exactly they were there to do, but that's when Colonel Cobalt began to speak.

The Colonel smirked as he marched forward to address the recruits, his walk and stance reeking of self satisfaction. He smiled greedily as he raised one hand and pointed towards the village, saying only two words before walking off back to his wildebeest friends. "Kill them," the words rolling easily from his lips, as if he'd asked someone to pass the salt.

Now, whilst Colonel Cobalt had no moral reservations about his order, the recruits of squad Alpha Zero had just one or two small hang-ups about slaughtering women and children without a reason why, recruits who, for the most part, lacked a killer instinct, hence the reason why they were in Alpha Zero in the first place. This however, was a concept that seemed to be lost on Colonel Cobalt.

Upon seeing that his order was not being carried out by the recruits, who simply stood looking either confused and disbelieving what they'd just been told, The Colonel marched back over to the troops and addressed them with a much more firm demeanor. "…What is wrong with you all? Are you deaf?"

"Umm, sir?" said the dalmation recruit from the day before, "Do you want us to-"

"Kill them, yes. I gave you an order."

Then a skinny necked ostrich recruit piped up, "But sir, what did they-"

"You're not here to ask questions, imbecile! I gave you all an order, and as your commanding officer, I expect you to follow it. Or at least go down there and make sure that all the villagers are secured in their hovels whilst real followers of Clock-la," Cobalt said, indicating the wildebeest guards, "set fire to them with the enemy trapped inside. Understood?"

They understood alright, there was no doubting or pussyfooting around about that. The orders were clear and concise, but the recruits just stayed rooted to the spot, staring at the world numbly, horrified by the prospect of what they'd just been ordered to do.

Well Colonel Cobalt would have none of that. "Why are you all just standing there!?!" The Colonel yelled, his face starting to turn from blue to purple in rage, "DO AS I SAY! I GAVE YOU AN ORDER! STOP STANDING THERE AND DO IT, DAMN YOU!!! DO WHAT I SAY!!!" In a blind rage, the Colonel began to painfully hit and kick some of the recruits, to get them into action, causing some of them to bleed. Finding no results or satisfaction in this course of action, the panther marched over to his wildebeest guard and procured a guard's revolver. He ran back to recruits, pressing the barrel of the weapon to the ostrich recruit's, a Private Sedgewick, head. The Colonel thumbed back the hammer of the gun, and oblivious to the tears that'd begun to well up and form in the fearful recruits eyes, Cobalt coldly addressed the recruits once more, "Do as I say, now!"

Despite appearances, Private Sedgewick was a very lucky ostrich, even though he couldn't tell from where he was standing. As it turned out, Private Sedgewick soon found himself to be a minnow in a rather large fish fry, and brother, they were frying up sharks that day. In a move of unimaginable heroism and bravery, The Panda King stepped forward and aimed his rifle…right at Colonel Cobalt's head.

The situation became tense, and understandably so. Several clicks were heard as the wildebeest guards readied their revolvers and aimed them at the Panda King. Colonel Cobalt for his part did not truly understand what was happening at first. He merely turned his head angrily towards The Panda King, and began to demand things. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE-"

CLICK.

The Colonel's words were cut short by the Panda King as the rifle clicked to signify that he'd just cocked it and it was ready to fire.

Beginning to understand that the situation might not be in his hands anymore, Colonel Cobalt took a deep breath to keep from saying something he might regret, for very obvious reasons. "Grizzly isn't it?" Cobalt began, taking a more even tone with the bear than he previously had, "Do you realize what you're doing?"

"Aiming a deadly weapon at your head," The Panda King answered easily, as if he were asked what's two plus two, "with the intention of pulling the trigger and killing you should you upset me…sir."

"You are standing against Lady Clock-la," Cobalt said, trying reclaim control of the situation, "The people in that village have sworn war upon her. And at any time, probably tonight, they will make their way to Bullet Bay and probably try to kill-"

"You're lying," The Panda King corrected the panther.

A grunt from one of the wildebeest guards seemed to comfort Cobalt, and lend him some bravery. "There are six guns pointed at you Grizzly," the panther enunciated in a low tone to the bear, "These are my finest men, and with a mere utterance they will quickly make it so that you are no more than a perforated and unpleasant memory."

"Before or after I shoot you?" the bear answered calmly, unafraid, because out of the two of them, it was the panther who was sweating despite his cool façade.

"…This isn't a situation you can win Grizzly," Cobalt stated firmly, "However, if you give me your gun, you have my word; no harm will come to you."

"…No." the bear replied, deciding against informing the colonel as to where exactly he could take his offer and shove it.

"Do you think that you'll walk away from this situation alive?"

The Panda King replied by pressing grey metal to dark blue fur, allowing sweat to dance across the barrel of the gun. "No,…do you?"

It was at this moment that the Panda King saw the twitch. Now, truth be told, The Panda King was never much of a poker player, but over the years the Panda King has learned how to be able to see the twitch. The twitch is, as it's name suggests, a small, almost unnoticeable movement on the body, most commonly in the manifesting in the face or fingers, in this case the corner of Colonel Cobalt's eye. It is a move primarily made by undercover cops, cowards, or morons, and is the last and final calm before a storm resulting in a chaotic and horrifying bloodbath.

The Panda King saw the entire series of events unfold before his mind's eye, milliseconds before they occurred. The panther will try to dive to the side and get shot by the bear. The bear's victory will be short lived as the wildebeests proceed to shoot the bear. From there, the situation has a fifty-fifty chance of ending or provoking more violence in an unpleased response from the bear's former squad mates. No matter how he saw it, and what happened, this whole thing was going to end in bloodshed, and no matter what he did, The Panda King would die, and it was all going to happen now.

At the doorstep of his unavoidable death, The Panda King's hearing turned up all the way to topnotch, allowing him to hear the crunch of the dirt beneath Cobalt's pristine and polished boots, as the man wearing them shifted his feet in preparation for the grand and unsuccessful dive to the side which would act as a match for a veritable powder keg of death and carnage. However, just when it seemed as though all hell was about to break loose, a savior arose to stop this travesty, and it was heralded be the sound of automotive engines.

"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING COBALT!?!" Instantly, all eyes turned to the jungle road, the main attraction of course being a slightly perturbed (which is a fancy way of saying "pissed off") General Red riding shotgun in the first of three jeeps that aside from the General, were positively filled to the brim with hyena guards. Being in the presence of The General, everyone made an effort to at least act like they had sense, the wildebeest guards lowered their weapons, Cobalt made his own borrowed weapon simply disappear, even the Panda King took a few steps back and eased up on the trigger, although not by much.

However, this collective cool down was not felt by all, as an enraged General Red jumped out of the jeep without even waiting for it to come to a full stop. He rushed for gathering of troops, not entirely within his own mind, many of his personal inhibitions gone for the moment, again, this was a concept that was lost on Colonel Cobalt.

"Ah General," the panther began, foolishly pushing recruits out of the way so he could meet The General more quickly, "I'm so glad that you're here. Would you please tell this oaf to lower his, wait, what are you doing? STOP!"

For the moment, General Red had become deaf to the colonel's words, seeking solace in the idea of ripping the panther in half. The ant rushed up to a somewhat confused and panicked Cobalt, having to jump to grab the panther's shirt front with his lower arms, pulling the colonel down to his eye level. In an effort to free himself from The General's powerful grasp, Cobalt foolishly placed his own hand on one of The General's, his wrist was quickly grabbed by the adjacent upper arm of the General. Cobalt screamed out in intense as the bones in his wrist painfully rubbed against one another and began to crack under the pressure exerted by The General's powerful grip. General Red raised his one remaining arm, curling his hand into a rock solid fist, with the express intention of taking Cobalt's head clean off.

Cobalt realized that once again he stood upon the precipice of his own demise. So in a last ditch effort to console the enraged General Red, or at least keep him from performing a coup de grace with his bare hands, the panther shouted two words through the cries of agony, "RAGH! YOUR ARRGH! ORDERS!"

Now, as if the panther had uttered some powerful sorcerer's enchantment, General Red released him and stepped back as if waking from a dream. Somehow, against all odds, defying all logical possibilities, in a one in a million stroke of luck, the words "your orders" had fought their way through the thick fog of adrenaline, betrayal, and bloodlust, to ring true to the dutiful soldier that General Red was. However, just because Red wasn't going to kill Cobalt, and there were now hyenas on hand to hold him back should he change his mind, it did not mean the panther was completely free from The General's retribution.

"What are you doing here Cobalt?" General Red began, emotionally drained, his breath coming in slow and haggard drags.

"I am doing what the lady Clock-la wills me to do," Colonel Cobalt answered, rubbing his sore and bruised wrist.

"Really? And what is that exactly?"

The panther gave a small smile of relief, glad that The General was willing to hear him out. "I have evidence that this village," Cobalt began, pointing towards the very reason they were all there in the first place, "has not embraced the kind light which Clock-la shines upon us all. But not only that, they have harbored defectors to our noble cause, and are responsible for the rhino stampede-"

"That's a load of garbage!"

"…Excuse me?"

"You heard me," The General's voice devolving into little more than a menacing snarl, "I am so tired of you."

"Sir, that village-"

"Is under my personal protection! They help me smuggle weapons into Bullet Bay you f***ing idiot!"

"…Sir, I didn't know."

"Didn't know or didn't care?"

"Sir, I only act in the best interests of lady Cloc-"

"STOP THAT GOD DAMN IT! Do you think that praising her name, and thumping the bible will absolve you of everything you do?! Why don't you just cut the crap?! Let's drag it all out into the open! The REASON you're here is that you were going to kill a bunch of innocent women and children, then when you reported it to Clock-la, you were probably going to spin some crap story about how they were a danger to us, and that you "bravely" risked life and limb to stop them, all in her name. But the worst thing is, you were going to use MY recruits to do it! MY RECRUITS! You're a gutless God damn coward is what you are, a nasty little bug who lives off others. A sneaky, slimy, sack of crap with severe delusions of grandeur, and everyone, even your lackeys, knows it."

Cobalt cast a quick glance to his personal guard, thugs who he treated like kings, and for some reason, all of a sudden, they couldn't bring themselves to look him in the eye.

"Well," The General began, breaking into a vindictive smile, "I think it's about time that you got to understand what the order of things are, allow me to remove some doubts you've had, so please listen closely. I am your commanding officer, from now on, you do as I say! Or I'll kill you. If you ever order my recruits about to do your bidding again, I'll kill you. If you dare pull anything like this again, I'll kill you. And if I hear that you've so much as looked at this village ever again, I'll kill you. Now you've really got to pay attention, because this part concerns something that's not only near and dear to your heart, but also something you've had a long time coming. You will never take my place, you will never take Dr. Burger's place, and as long as I have a single breath in my body, I will see to it that you will never become one of The Fiendish Five. And by the time Clock-la takes the world, I'll see to it personally that for all your lies, your scheming, and ludicrous aspirations, your one and only reward is a bullet in the head. Is that understood?"

Colonel Cobalt said nothing, he simply stood there, shaking in anger. There was a long silence, and it was apparent to everyone that Cobalt intended to kill General Red, he was filled with an inconsolable hatred for the ant. However, as much as he wanted rip The General's throat out and leave him to bleed and die, the hyenas who stood at the General's back, and the severe pain which continued to ring out through his own arm stood as solid reminders of whose head it was exactly he wanted to take. Any attempts on The General's life right then would not only be foolish, but futile.

"Well?" The General asked, starting to become impatient, "Is that understood?"

"…Yes…sir."

General Red then turned to address all of the troops, "Alright! We're heading back to base, everyone in the cars and let's move out!" He then rounded on Cobalt, "Except for you, you get to go back to base on foot." Then he addressed the wildebeest guards, "And you seven are to escort him, and while you walk back to base, through the slime, mud, and mosquitoes, why don't you think about where your loyalties should lie." General Red was about to make his way back to his own jeep when he noticed something, The Panda King still had his rifle aimed at Colonel Cobalt's head.

General Red walked over to the bear, having to stand on tiptoe to calmly place his hand on the tense trigger arm, "Lower your weapon Grizzly."

"…" No response, Red suspected as much.

"C'mon, it's over now son, there ain't no reason to keep brewin' about it, I'll make sure he gets his."

Then, slowly, yet surely, The Panda King lowered his rifle, strapped it to his back, and got on the back of the truck he rode in on.

"You did good son, real good," The Genral said, patting the Panda King's arm encouragingly, guiding the bear to his truck.

The journey back to base was about as eventful as the journey away from it, same trees, same roads, same seats. The only differences about this trip was the direction it was headed, the recruits got even more mud on them, and, well, the fact that no one said anything. The recruits simply sat quietly, all problems such as hunger and cleanliness were dwarfed in comparison to what had happened by that village. They all sat and stared numbly at their feet, still terrified by the prospect of what they'd nearly been forced into doing, and even more so shocked and appalled by the reasons why. The only one not sitting silently plagued by demons of doubt, shame, and fear was the Panda King, his demons were of rage, disgust, and conflicting feelings.

Putting all of his hang ups to the curb, aside from his anger, he had a feeling it'd come in handy, The Panda King had devised the perfect plan to retrieve the sewer schematics; he'd just take 'em. So, getting off the truck, The Panda King set himself on the straightest path to record's storage, the look on his face saying that old slogan, "try to stop me and I'll snap you in half". And being the large and generally frightening gent that he was, no one wanted to see if he actually would follow through with the slogan.

When The Panda King finally found the building known as records storage, he entered to find only one zebra guard on duty at the relatively small building's front desk, lazily reading an "inFAMOUS" comic book. Somewhere deep inside of the Panda King, there was a part of him that felt sorry for the unsuspecting sap at the desk, thus he promised himself that he'd feel bad about anything particularly horrible that he'd do to this man…eventually.

If the horse cooperated, nothing bad would occur, but that was still an "if". But first things first. "Excuse me," The Panda King began, trying to retain some sense of civility.

At first the zebra said nothing, he simply continued to stare at the colored pages which depicted some epic, grandstanding adventure. The Panda King began to suspect that the guard had not noticed his arrival, however, all doubt was removed when the zebra uttered the words, "…Man…it'd be cool to have lightning powers."

"Excuse me," The Panda King said once again, using a louder and far more gruff tone of voice.

"…Yes?" the zebra said, still not taking a look at his visitor, but merely flipping the page of his book.

"The sewer schematics."

"*yawn* To get access to that, you'll need to have the proper documents to approve for me to get those, after which you'll have to sign a registry that-"

The Panda King reached across the desk and grabbed the zebra by the front of his shirt, the bear bringing him up to eye level, "Now."

I don't know if you know this, but sometimes saying "no" can be a real problem for some people, as peer pressure tends to cloud our better judgment, especially if one of those peers happens to be a ticked off and mud covered bear with both a rifle strapped to his back and a visible desire to probably eat you, then yell at you for giving him indigestion. So, and as shocking as it may seem, the zebra wisely decided to forgo the preapproved methods for document release, giving the bear what he wanted rather than face probable dismemberment. Once the papers were in the Panda King's hands, he exited the building, feeling that the zebra's silence was assured by the sounds of sobbing the bear heard as he exited the building.

From there it was just a quick jaunt to a rest room to send Bentley photographs of the sewer schematics, thus finally completing a long and arduous task that the turtle had coined as supposedly being "easy as pie".

I suppose it would not stand to surprise you that roughly forty minutes or so later on an unspecified strip of beach, Dimitri was sitting in the sand, doing something completely unrelated to the mission. He wasn't too far away from the base, in fact if he were to stand up and place his hands in the air, there was the possibility that whoever was manning the bay guns at the moment could see his fingertips over a nearby sand dune. It was about this time that Bentley informed the iguana that it was time to begin his part of the mission, being ever so tactful and polite.

"Alright! Time to get off your butt and get to work!" The turtle shouted over the binoc-u-com.

"Yes, yes, work," Dimitri said in a driven tone of voice, "I must work."

"Well, that's a certainly productive statement, more productive than I would've given you credit for."

"Credit yes , productive yes, work, yes, yes, yes, zat is all I do."

"Now on that I'll have to say we're in a bit of a disagreement," Bentley said bluntly, "Anyways, strap on your mask, you're going diving."

"…Diving?...Diving! No diving, no, no. I must not let her down."

"Let her down? Let who down?"

"Her. Can you not hear her? She is here with me, she speaks to me, she sings to me, she whispers to me of what I must do."

"Okay, now I'm completely lost, and I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of how you spoke. What are you doing? Have you been chugging cough medicine or something?"

"Cough?! I have no cough. I have hands, and with these hands I am giving her form, I am giving her shape, I am giving her breath, I am…she is done."

"Oh, fantastic, she's done…WHO THE HECK IS SHE!?!"

"Oh, scuse, scuse, my rad bad bro," the binoc-u-com camera for Dimitri whenever he was in his wet suit had it's camera on the iguana's diving mask, which was currently lying face down in the sand, hence the confusion Bentley expressed about Dimitri's activities. The iguana picked up the diving mask and turned it towards the source of his toils, even Bentley had to admit he was impressed.

Using sand and water in classic sandcastle style, Dimitri had created a knee high replica of his former club in Paris, everything flawlessly recreated from the bird shaped sign that ran up the length of the building from the front door to the wire lights strewn about the club's garden, which as far as Bentley could tell were made with fishing wire for the purposes of the sandcastle club. It was a perfect scale model, except for the moat and fortress wall with several protruding spikes, Bentley was fairly certain those hadn't been there during that his stay in that particular area of Paris, but other than that, it was perfect.

"Wow Dimitri, that's amazing," the turtle admitted, genuinely amazed at the iguana's aptitude for the sand castle arts.

"Yeah I know," Dimitri admitted, never being the modest type, gleefully accepting any and all praise, "I got ze spruce to make the juice, no?"

"Okay, I'm not even going to pretend like I know what you were saying."

"Is good, no?"

"Oh yes, very good no."

"Right," Dimitri said, his voice somewhat strained as he stood up, giving Bentley and even more magnificent view of the impressive sand castle club, "Time to smash."

"Time to smash? Smash what?"

"I must snub ze club, to preserve ze fond memory forever, lest she gets fat, old, smelly and unattractive like milk into cheese, zen I will despise ever having ze relationship at all. To make me happy, I must destroy ze sand club."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't do that!" Bentley exclaimed out of genuine fear and appreciation for the sand sculpted work of art, "At least let me take a picture and-"

PWOOSH! PWOOSH! PWOOSH!

"Say hey, sorry bro, I didn't hear, what you singo da lingo to me?" Dimitri asked, wiping the sand off his legs from the savage destruction of his own creation.

"…*sigh* Nothing," Bentley lied forlornly, the turtle's heart splitting clean in two as a single tear ran down his cheek at the Godzilla-esqe destruction of the work of art, "…Just get into the water."

"Alright! I gots ze drive to dive, and ze moves zat grooves! Who's hotter zan ice and colder zan flame? DIMITRI!"

"…Poor little sand club."

"What?"

"…*sigh* Nothing."

Dimitri strapped his mask on and picked up a small bag, containing three of Bentley's bombs, marked; "just incase", and he went into the water. Dimitri wasn't too enthusiastic about this mission, not that he was too enthusiastic about any work, it's just that he was less thrilled about this task than most others he'd been a part of. With the last mission, they'd gone up against a man with such a wonderful sense of taste and style, it almost hurt Dimitri to do the things he did, but he did them anyway because they were really, really, really fun, plus Dr. Burger had robots, and who doesn't love those things? Sadly, this General Guy, he had no taste, he had no style, and absolutely no dress sense, what so-to-the ever. Ruining this General guy was like throwing having a party in your mouth where everyone's invited, except you that is, your place is in the nose, listening to the music coming from the super sweet party that's in the mouth, feeling left out, so in an effort to try to come across as having a good time yourself you order pizza. So yeah, taking out General Red was like waiting for pizza, minus all the fun and excitement that comes when the pizza arrives.

Dimitri rounded a bank of sand to find something quite amazing. The sea gate to Bullet Bay had a small field of balloons underwater. They were all kinda spiky, and tethered by chains to the sea floor, but they were certainly balloons, there was no question about that. Now, since he wasn't on any specific time limit, Dimitri happily swam up to one of these balloons to touch it, and imagine his surprise and joy when it moved in order to touch him back, oh happy day!

"DIMITRI!" Bentley shouted over the mike, "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THAT MINE!"

At this shock revelation, Dimitri high tailed it away from the explosive ball o' death.

"Geez, what were you thinking!?!" Bentley berated the iguana, "That it was a balloon or something?"

Dimitri was very glad that he was unable to reply, and vowed that the truth of his stupidity will be a secret that'll be taken with him to the grave.

"Okay," Bentley assessing the information at hand, "Mines…this could be useful…it purposefully moved towards you, so it's magnetic. Could you look at the base of the chains?" Dimitri obliged, the camera in his mask offering the turtle a view at the base of the chains, the mines being held down by anchors dug deep into the sand.

"Huh, anchors not winches," Bentley continued to muse, "Then how do they lower them for boats to pass? Or how did the boats with the recruits get by for that matter? Unless of course they don't need to lower, but that still doesn't, unless…of course it's so simple. Okay I got it. Dimitri!"

The yell of his own name alerted the iguana, keeping him from falling asleep whilst listening to the turtle's mumblings.

"Listen the mines are magnetic, but they have no winch, so they can't be pulled down when a boat passes. So how do their own boats pass without getting blown up?...Riiiight, you're, um, underwater, you can't answer, my bad. Anyways, I suspect that their boats give off the same magnetic polarity. So therefore the proper, blah, blah, blah…

Not that Bentley actually said, "blah, blah, blah", but as far as Dimitri was concerned it's what could've been said. That isn't to say that Dimitri didn't care about what Bentley had to say, it's just that…okay, he didn't care about what Bentley had to say in this instance.

"…so all you have to do is shoot the mines and their polarities will be reversed."

'Shoot the mines, see? That's all he had to say' Dimitri thought, obviously not word for word, but that was the general idea. He pulled out his harpoon gun, express intention to plug everyone of the treacherous balloons and get on with the mission.

"But you can't shoot 'em straight on."

Or maybe not.

"Your shots have to skim the sides of the mines, else-wise they'll, y'know, explode."

Skim them, no dead on shots. It was at that moment Dimitri figured out the perfect way to freak out Bentley, and get himself laid if a chick should ever see him pull it off. First, Dimitri took a good hard look at the mines and how they swayed and were positioned. It'd be impossible to pull it off, not with one shot anyways, three would do it, but even after that, he'd need an extra hat trick to give it that Dimitri flare, but how could he, ah! Then he got it. He reached into the "just in case" bag and pulled out one of Bentley's bombs, it's reflective surface perfect for what he had in mind. Turning away from the mines, Dimitri held up the bomb, making sure that Bentley got a full view of what Dimitri saw, which were the mines in the reflection of the bomb. He took his time, he'd long since figured out there was no need to rush, so long as you pull the trick off completely. Once he was sure, he closed his eyes, and did his job.

Bentley of course was completely oblivious to all that Dimitri was thinking, so as you can imagine, he was quite confused. "Dimitri, what're you-"

KRRT! KRRT! KRRT!

Dimitri fired off three shots, which skimmed and ricocheted off of three mines and then off of three more mines, and so on. In three shots, Dimitri had hit every single mine in the underwater field, Bentley was speechless.

"I…wh…how…oh…You're getting a Christmas gift for that one."

'You're damn right I am,' Dimitri thought, again, obviously not word for word, but that was the general idea. With a job well done, Dimitri swam off to get another job well done. He swam off towards the opening of the bay, only to find his path closed off by a chained net which spanned the mouth of the bay.

"You won't be able get past here," Bentley called in, "A circuit runs through these chains, if you try to cut through it, the whole base'll be down your throat in a matter of seconds. And trying to climb over it in broad daylight is just asking for a bullet in the head. Luckily, The Panda King's given us a way past this. Got to the left, stick to the wall, and you should find a run off drain for the base. Swim up the pipe until you hit a filtration wall, jump over that wall, and I'll instruct you further from there."

Doing as he was told, Dimitri swam to left, and although he saw a really shiny rock, on the bottom, he stayed the course and stuck to the wall. He found the pipe, and although it was covered in algae, barnacles and other nasty muck-a-mucks, Dimitri swallowed his pride swam up it. For once, Dimitri did his job, no side tracks, no wrong addresses, no nothing, and how was he repaid? Well Dimitri jumped the filtration wall, as per Bentley's instructions, and while I won't tell you exactly what he landed in, I can tell you that it was thick, it was brown, it was smelly, and it was everywhere.

Horrified at what he was now covered in Dimitri broke to the surface and tore away his mask so that he could properly scream and swear vengeance upon the untrustworthy turtle who'd betrayed him.

"ARRRGH! YOU EVIL, EVIL…ROTTEN, YAGGH! …YOU CRACKER-BOX!"

"Dimitri," Bentley called over reassuringly, seeing that this could get out of hand, "Now it's not that bad."

"NOT ZAT BAD!?! YOU DARE TRY TO BALM CALM DIMITRI AFTER YOU HAD HIM ROOT SHOOT INTO, INTO-"

"It's just mud Dimitri."

"MUD!?! ZIS IS NOT MUD! ZIS IS…Zis is…Zis is mud?"

"Yes, what did you think it was?"

"I uh, thought it was, uh, no never no mind bro. What's zis cat's next tap dance?"

"You should be able to get access to a walkway, I'll set up holographic markers for you to follow along, place my bombs at the desired locations, and save my bug for when you reach the central flow center. Even after they repair the damage the bombs will do, I'll have full reign over their water supply and flow. With the normal supply cut off, water usage is bound to become tight, the use of bathrooms and showers is sure to be banned, as well as most drinking fountains. In a day or so, this place will start to stink something fierce, and with the scorching heat that's been going around, everyone is sure to be edgy and irritable, setting Bullet Bay to pop like a big ugly zit."

"I gots the spruce to make ze juice! Zese pipes are as good as done. Something else I should swing?"

"…Yeah, what did you think I had you jump in?"

"No never no mind."

Dimitri found the walkway Bentley had told him about, and he trudged his way over to it. Getting up and out of the sludge, Dimitri took a minute or so to clean the gunk off of him as best as he could, the stuff was obscuring his awesomeness, and that just wouldn't do. Mud, heh, talk about you close calls.

The job was a relatively simple one, but Dimitri guessed that was because the hard part was being handled by the turtle back on the boat, which was fine by him. It was like his Grandmother used to say, "HEY! All My Children's on in three minutes, now shut up and help me find my teeth." In hindsight, it wasn't a very good saying, although All My Children was fun to watch so long as the other choices were infomercials and Mr. Rodgers.

As mentioned above, his job was indeed relatively simple (which was a fancy way of saying "easy as hell"). All Dimitri needed to do was follow the markers and plant the bombs, it was so easy a caveman could do it (that line is so much funnier when Geico uses it). However, when it came to the flow control room there was a slight hitch. The word's "slight hitch" are a different way of saying "four wildebeest guards, armed to the teeth, discussing which Bill Murray movie was the best". One said Stripes, another said Scrooged, they all were in firm agreement that Lost in Translation sucked. They then of course reconciled such a harsh statement, because Lost in Translation was a good film, it explored themes of loneliness, alienation, insomnia, and culture shock set against the backdrop of the modern Japanese cityscape. However, it was far from what they expected to see when they saw a Bill Murray film, and that really was the audience's failure, not the film makers.

Regardless of which movie was best (because they were all wrong, the right answer was Ghostbusters), the people discussing the movies were still four big mean thugs that were armed to the teeth and more than capable ripping a certain iguana in half with no real effort, so Dimitri needed to call this one in.

"Hey bro, I's got sitch zat needs sewing."

It took a second or so the turtle's voice to crackle over on the binoc-u-com, "…Yes?"

"I gots four cats here with me holding bags, and zey's big bags homes, big bags with bricks."

"…Why thank you Dimitri, your speaking is a firm reminder of why there are English classes, and we should probably sign you up for one when this whole Clock-la thing blows over."

"I need no class, I need violin shop."

"Violin shop?"

"Si bro, for ze cats."

"Okay, you know what, let's start from the top. What is the problem?"

"Ugh! I gots four-"

"Cats, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard all that. Could you show me?"

Dimitri removed his diving mask and slowly poked it around the corner where the camera on it was able to catch a glimpse of the guards who had now began to discuss the possibility of Caddy Shack for being the best Bill Murray movie. "See?" Dimitri whispered as he put his mask back on, "Cats with bricks."

"Okay, I got it?"

"Kay che?"

"You remember that one movie where the three little kids were ninjas?"

"All to ze well, bro, all to ze well."

"Yeah, that movie sucked."

"Hey! I's ze screw loose, you's ze brains, let's keep it zat way."

"Well what do you want out of me? It's a pretty simple situation."

"I's needs ze brains man, you's gots ze brains, use ze brains."

"Um…okay, this may sound like a crazy idea, but bear with me on this, I just might be on to something, so here goes; did you try shooting them?"

"Whoa, hey, I thought you wanted me to go all sneaky samurai on zis one bro."

"Normally, yes, but we're not trying to steal anything this time. We're trying to horrifically destroy a solid gold reputation. So much so that he'll be forced to flee from his former allies or face horrific torture and murder. It's all very simple."

"Sos I can boogie down and go banga dang bang?"

"Well I would jump out and go, "Hey, look at me" and leave the Cooper logo everywhere, but yes, banga dang bang all you want, just get my bug into that control room."

Meanwhile, the wildebeest guards were completely oblivious to all that was being conspired against them, and were happily discussing their movies.

"Wait," one said, revelation striking him, "I got it! Oh man, I can't believe I didn't think of this in the beginning, the best Bill Murray movie is Ghost-"

"HEY! LOOK AT ME!" KRRT! KRRT! KRRT! KRRT!

Dimitri rounded the corner, his battle cry and attire taking the guards completely by surprise. He downed them with an ample supply of electric volts, the guards were still alive, but they were far from happy, or capable of standing and making coherent and well made decisions, like say, staying conscious, or stopping the gun toting iguana. Dimitri smiled and holstered his harpoon gun, "Zis town ain't big enough for ze two of us."

On the binoc-u-com, Bentley's clapping and praise was to be heard, "Nice job, finishing off with an old western movie quote and everything. What would we do without you?"

"Send in ze trippo hippo or ze scary scowl bear dude to eat zere heads?"

"Yeah, probably. Anyways, plant the bug, I mean, the sooner you do that, the sooner you go back to sitting around and doing nothing."

"I lika ze way zat tune sings." Spurred onward by fantasies of laziness, Dimitri reached into the bomb bag for the last item in the bag o' tricks that he'd brought along, removing the only piece of Cooper gang gear that didn't have the raccoon's logo. Making use of the already abundant wads of gum found under the master control station. All that was left was for Bentley to give confirmation.

"Aaaaannnd, we're in," the turtle confirmed, "I now have complete control over Bullet Bay's water control system. Sadly my bug is sure to be almost immediately discovered. Oh, if there was only someway to distract attention away from the central flow station so that the bug isn't immediately discovered. Oh wait, there is. Click."

Dimitri turned his attention towards the few scant security cameras that peppered Bullet Bay's sewer system, the reason for his own undetection would probably warrant thanks to Bentley. Regardless, the once peaceful, albeit dirty, views of the pipelined tunnels soon became a chaotic burning light show. Pipes burst, burnt, and otherwise became unusable. The sewers soon began to flood profusely.

"And zat's my cue?" Dimitri asked.

"Yep, head on back to base."

"Reals deals?"

"Well you could wait for more guards to show up and explain why they can no longer flush."

"Really? Ohs cools bro, I'll wait here then."

"Get back to base!"

Incidentally, Bentley was unable to recreate that awesome sand castle club, it was sad indeed.

---

Law of Liars

---

Gabon coast, Africa 5:44pm

"Okay," Bentley said into the mike, cleaning his glasses for the umpteenth (not an actual number, I know) time during the setup of this mission, "Is everyone in position?"

It didn't take long to get a response.

"I am ready," The Panda King confirmed. Whatever training Alpha Zero was slated for in the jungle was cancelled, because frankly, after the incident with Cobalt, General Red had bigger fish to fry.

"Yeah, uh, like quick question dude," Suzy Q buzzed in, sounding a bit out of it, which was normal I suppose.

"Yes?" Bentley replied quizzically.

"Yeah, okay, so like, here goes. Y'know that one thing you want? Well what's the other thing? "

"Not in position?"

"No, no, no, like, the other thing?"

"In position?"

"Yeah that, I'm that…I think…I don't know."

Bentley rubbed his eyes in frustration, he was seriously considering calling Suzy Q back in and sending Sly out there in her place. Now when one starts to contemplate resending the super deadly killer robot with deadly eye lasers in order to replace it with a hospitalized raccoon with cracked ribs and missing teeth, the state of affairs has become what most Oxford textbook scholars refer to as being an "oh s***" situation. However, despite these misgivings, Bentley took a deep breath, opened his mouth like he was about to say something, stopped, thought about the 'send Sly in' option, decided against it, got ready to talk to Suzy Q, stopped, thought about the alternative, admitted it did look pretty good, ultimately decided against it, asked himself what the hell he doing, vowed that he'd get his head checked as soon as possible, and finally asked, "Are you where I told you to be?"

"Oh yes man, totally!"

"Then you're in position."

"Aw sweet dude! Thanks man, you're a lifesaver. You are so totally getting a hug and cookie when I get back."

"*Sigh*, Murray?"

"Oh you know it!" Murray crowed over the binoc-u-com, "The Murray has never known failure, only destruction. Except for that one time at Happyland, where he could not fit into the small space provided for what they pass as a seat these days for the Space Fountain coaster, The Murray dropped the ball on that one."

"Okay, last one. Guru?"

"Ara sheeha," The Guru began, "Hashou hee hatoo."

"WHAAAT!?! Pfffft, AH HA HA HA! OH MAN! Oh man. The others have to hear this Hold on I'm switching everyone to your signal…Okay, guys listen to this, go Guru."

"Hashou hee hatoo," The Guru repeated, what followed was a great chorus of laughter from all members of the Cooper gang out in the field.

"HA!" The Panda King laughed, for the first time in recorded history, (there were one or two rumors, but everyone was more interested in finding Big Foot, it was honestly the easier of the two jobs).

"OH MAN!" Suzy Q exclaimed, "Dude, if I was drinking milk right now, it'd be coming out of my nose."

"That was awesome master!" Murray spoke out amazedly, "You should do stand up."

"Yeah that was a good one Guru," Bentley reaffirmed, "In fact I'd say that whoever didn't understand what you were saying at that particular juncture is probably a sad and lonely individual, who'll probably develop some nasty disease, and die cold, cold alone and hungry in a gutter somewhere."

(A/N: The views and commentary of Bentley The Turtle are not necessarily the views and opinions of Sucker Punch of America or in fact those of the author pen named Grimm Gun. (That means none of you can sue me or get angry…I think).)

"Anyways," Bentley said, taking a much more business like tone, "That's enough joking around, it's time to get to work."

"Excuse me, Mr. Bentley," The Panda King interjected, "But before we begin, might I have a word with you?"

"Sure thing Panda King, I just need to-"

"BENTLEY!" came a voice from behind the turtle.

"Find out why I'm being yelled at. I'll be right back." Bentley shut off his mike and turned his chair around.

Currently, he was below decks in the Cooper Gang's pirate ship, which for some odd reason had remained nameless, mostly because no one had thought up a name cool enough for it yet. He was in the section of the ship where the Cooper Gang's other two vehicles were stored, which so far have also remained nameless. Bentley was now staring up towards the cockpit of the Cooper Gang's biplane, which had been custom fitted with an insane amount thing-a-ma-bobs, doodads, and what-cha-ma-callits of various shapes and sizes, yet still no name, it's sad really. However what demanded Bentley's attention wasn't so much the plane itself, but the mousey mechanic (or mechanic mouse, whichever you prefer) giving him a stern look from the plane's cockpit.

"Bentley," Penelope began, "exactly how smart are you?"

"It's been quite some time since I've had my IQ checked, but Id' say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of one-seventy, one-ninety maybe. Why do you ask?"

"Well it's just amazing that how someone with such a remarkable intellect has managed to completely botch the plane's control set-up."

"Oh-HOO! That's a zinger!" came the sound of Dimitri's voice from further down the compartment area, where he sat on a lumpy sofa, watching TV.

"Hey!" Penelope snapped, "I don't need back up from the likes of you."

"Yeah," Bentley doubled, "Besides, isn't there something else you could be doing?"

"You's rights homes," Dimitri admitted. He then promptly reached over the edge of one of the couch arms, grabbed the bag of potato chips lying there, opened them and began to eat the contents therein. "Et voila! Now my life, she is complete! Thank you squinty eyed turtle meat thing!"

"…There is something strange about that lizard," Bentley muttered before returning his attention towards Penelope, "Okay, now what were you saying?"

"Oh nothing much, just that your control designs are completely whacked," Penelope reminded him.

"Alright, what's wrong with my control set up?"

"Well first off, as opposed to having all the attack buttons routed to the control rudder, you've have this lousy button panel. What do you think this machine is, and arcade game or something?"

"Yeah well-"

"I'm not finished yet. You've also got the missile button all the way over by the emergency eject button, I don't think I need to go into detail the problems that could arise from that one. There other such mix ups too, a lot of them, I can hardly understand how you got this failed tinker toy to fly."

"Hey, this is the same failed tinker toy that managed to shoot you clean out of the sky. Not to mention if everything goes according to plan, which it will, you'll just be making a few quick fly bys and then it's back home for tea and TV."

"Okay first of all, I've told you over and over that I had the flu that weekend, and have you ever tried to fly a plane in thick foam rubber with two little eyeholes for your line of sight? It's like try to perform open heart surgery with a monkey wrench. And secondly, your plans have had decent track record of not going accordingly. Sly told me about the Anubis head job."

"HEY! THAT WAS BOTCHED BECAUSE HE DIDN'T FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS!"

"…You told him to grab an innocent girl and throw her out an eight story window Bentley."

"Well when you say it in that tone of voice, you make it sound like it was a bad idea."

"It was a bad idea."

"Murray was pulling up with the mattress truck, she would've been fine!"

"And didn't you set fire to the building at some point?"

"It was an accident! Why does everyone keep referring to that job!?! I mean there were other times when I screwed up even worse y'know!"

At these words, Penelope stopped dead in her tracks with what she was going to say, allowing a highly amused smile to snake it's way across her face.

Bentley blushed, having realized his mistake, "…Okay, that came out wrong. Anyways, do you want to call off the mission?"

"…No, I'll tough it out with your lousy controls I guess, it shouldn't be too hard."

It was at this point Bentley assumed a more serious demeanor and tone of voices, knowing all too well the dangers this life and line of work could bring, the chair he was strapped in bore full proof of that, he still remembered how bad things got when he sent her out on simple recon back in Antarctica. "Listen Penelope, it's not too late to back out. If the controls are that bad, we can wait to do this mission, or have Sly do this when he gets better."

"Naw, we gotta hit 'em now, hard and fast, whilst memories of what happened between Cobalt and Red, along with the sewer troubles are still fresh and new in everybody's mind. Not to mention, once upon a time I used to be the greatest pilot in the world, I made a nice pile of money and trophies being just that. If anyone's going to blast me out of the sky, it's definitely not going to going to be to be some slack jawed Clock-la cult drool monkey. Get on the horn, with the others, let 'em know everything's a go."

Obliging, Bentley turned around and "got on the horn" as it was so sophisticatedly put to him. "Okay guys, let's hit a home run."

"Oh wow," Suzy Q cut in, "You play baseball?"

"…Yes Suzy, I'm actually play a great deal of sports. I'm not actually crippled for life, I just happen to love wheel chairs."

"Oh man, that's amazing!"

"…You don't pick up on sarcasm well, do you?"

"Sarcasm's a kind of surfboard, right?"

"…Hey, did you ever get around to writing that recipe for the pancakes?"

"No, why?"

"No reason."

"If I may interject," the Panda King cut in, "I believe I was entitled to a quick word before we began."

"Right, right, right," Bentley said distractedly, "Switch over to frequency three, I'll talk to you there." Bentley switched to station three and waited for the Panda King's que.

"I'm here Bentley," The Panda King began, "Now-"

"Yeah, hold on a seconds. Hey Murray, Suzy Q, get off the line." There was a low "Aw man" and two clicks before Bentley spoke further, "Okay, it's all you. What's on your mind?"

"It is…difficult to explain. I'm not really confident about this mission."

"It's simple, just stay out of sight and everything should be fine."

"No, not that, I don't feel too well about the purpose of this mission."

"…What are you saying Panda King?"

"Today I was going to die, and soon after the blood of many innocents was sure to be spilt, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."

"Panda King, he's Clock-la Cult."

"He's also an honorable man."

"…Look, you have more to fear from the cult more than any of us. You have a kid out there that they're gunning for."

"I am fully aware of that."

"Look, it's not like I'm asking you to sneak into his house and put a gun to his head. We're ruining his reputation."

"And after that, what's to become of him? I doubt the cult will be so forgiving and content that he'd be allowed to simply resign."

"Hey, he made his choice. If there's some way we can end this thing without leaving him to twist in the wind, I'll do it. But I'm not putting his safety over our lives. He may be a good man, but he's a good man looking to put a bullet in our backs. Now, I need your help if we're going to pull this thing off. Now are you with us on this?"

"…The safety of Jing King is paramount."

"Okay, let's switch back to the others." Bentley switched the frequency back over to the rest of the team, talking loud to overcome the roar of the plane's engine and the whir of the gears the opened the and deployed the ship's built in hangar and runway respectively. "OKAY GUYS! EVERYTHING'S A GO! MISSION START!"

The field members, consisting of Guru, Panda King, Murray, and Suzy Q were stationed atop the roofs of the four weapons stations designed to defend Bullet Bay from an aerial assault. Tucked away in four seemingly normal hangars at the four corners of Bullet Bay, they were of the few scant fruits of Dr. Burger's labors to reach cult hands before his imprisonment. Should the base come under attack, from out of the top of these hangars would come the most sophisticated anti-aerial combat systems on the planet; computer operated, motion sensing, heat seeking, and laser guided gunnery platforms outfitted with SAMs, AA guns, and heat lasers (Dr. Burger was always a big fan of lasers). The Platforms were rendered nigh indestructible from the air, due to them being equipped with energy shielding. All that was needed to activate the platforms and their deadly onslaught was the single push of a button. The buttons to these platforms were located inside their respective hangars, guarded by four guards at any time. It was the field members' mission to make sure that button was not pushed.

The reason for them striking at this particular time was that it was the end of the day. At sunset many guards, recruits, and officers went off duty, they all were more than glad for the moment of leisure, it was paradise after a grueling day of whatever torturous work they underwent during the day. If sending the fliers down at that time of day didn't demoralize the troops, the fact that General Red was most likely to crack down on the troops because of it certainly would. Not to mention, at that time of day, the troops tended to get a bit rowdy, the sounds of a few punches and kicks would certainly go unnoticed.

Hangar A

"So there I was," one zebra guard began, talking to his three compatriots (which is a fancy way of saying two hyenas and a wildebeest guard, as standard for every hangar), "Surrounded by the entire Cooper Gang. Sly Cooper, with his eyes glowing red and his fangs dripping slime pointed his razor edged hook at me, and says, "Tell us where Bullet Bay is, and we may let you live." And I go, "What!?! I ain't never telling! You're dealing with an all original Kung-Fu master! Better recognize!" So I pull back my fist, all Bruce Lee style, and I-"

POM! POM! POM!

For a moment, all the guards were speechless, 'til one of the two hyenas spoke up. "Wow, man, that's pretty good sound effects."

"No, stupid," the other chastised him, "Someone's at the door."

"I'll get it," the zebra groaned. He got up from his chair and made his way to the hangars only entrance and exit, a single door at the end of the hangar, it stood as the only exit since the other end was blocked up by the gunnery platform, it's control panel, and well, any other machine that was required to make the platform work. The zebra was annoyed that anyone would interrupt his awesome and totally true story. Whoever did it had better have either a good reason or a higher rank than him, or it was their ass. However, those feelings of malice vanished when it appeared the visitor was a cute cat chick in a low cut green dress with a teddy bear book bag and, for some strange reason, was wearing mime make-up on her face.

Hangar B

"I swear to you guys," a hyena guard said to the other three, "There is something freaky going on here. I think Bullet Bays haunted or something."

"Oh yeah, sure thing, we all understand, it's this ghost that only you keep seeing, but none else, and only you can hear, yet no one else. We believe you," said the wildebeest guard in a reassuring tone, miming the action of drinking from a flask.

"I'm serious man! Last night, something came up to me on the roof and knocked me off from it, and the night before that, something said "Gesundheit," right before ripping the tiles out from under me."

"Dude!" exclaimed the zebra, "I…I think believe you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, cause just the other night, and you won't believe this, but I was sitting down, talking to bigfoot and this unicorn, when all of a sudden-"

"Oh screw you!"

POM! POM! POM!

"Oh no!" said the other hyena in mock fear "He's here to knock you off the roof again! Whatever shall we do!?!"

"Go get the door Egon," the wildebeest ordered.

"Hey guys," the zebra began darkly, "Who you gonna call?"

"NOT HIM!" The other two not being made fun of chorused.

(A/N: THREE! THAT'S THE MOST GHOSTBUSTER REFERENCES MADE IN ANY SLY COOPER FANFIC IN HISTORY! I'M SO PROUD! Okay…my God, this is so overwhelming, gimme a sec *awesome tear wiping sound fx*…Okay…I'd like to thank the academy, and of course the children, specifically Korean children, they made my shoes for this occasion, and um, Satan, he's always been there for me, buying my soul off me so I could get super shredding guitar skills, I don't think I would've gotten this far without him. And of course, you the fans, it's you nonexistent monetary contributions that makes all this possible. So all you out there, give yourselves a pat on the back and play some GTA, because GTA is awesome.)

Grumbling and wishing all sorts of ill will towards his compatriots, hoping that something, it doesn't matter what it is, something royally steps off in their collective behinds, the hyena guard went to open the door. After standing there for some time, he closed the door and sluggishly returned to meet further jeers from his friends.

"Okay, let me guess," the other hyena began as the former walked toward the light, "on the door handle, there was a hook right? Hee, ha ha ha! Ah…Hey, where'd you get that purple hat from?"

Hangar C

"Okay," The wildebeest began mystically, wearing a black hood (it was his turn to be Dungeon Master that night), "You're all part of The Ye Olde Neighborhood Watch. Recently there'd been a rash of vandalism in the village, some fiend or fiends unseen had been painting satanic and otherworldly imagery on the sides of people houses. It's up to you heroes to uncover the dastardly person or persons responsible. You see a werewolf loitering near a Ye Olde Convenience Store in from of you and a path leading into the woods."

"My half-orc monk has forty-four wisdom," one hyena began.

"Ah, I see you have some understanding of how my dungeon mastery works. Okay, your wisdom has allowed you to uncover another path into the woods, different from the path you had seen before, do you all choose this path?"

The answer was a unanimous "yes".

"You follow the path with no obstacles obscuring your path. Eventually your path takes you to the back of the village skate park, where you find the culprits, seven hobgoblins and a drider, caught red handed in the middle of their fiendish act, all while smoking under age. What do you do?"

"HA!" the zebra burst out, "Some wannabe goblins and a big spider? Short work for my elf mage. She casts a spell of eternal winter upon the enemy, all are affected."

"Roll for damage," the first hyena said, handing the zebra a twenty sided die.

The zebra rolled, his eyes became filled with triumph when the result was eighteen. "Eighteen! That times eleven means…?"

The wildebe-, I mean dungeon master was silent for a moment, he needed to consult the charts regarding the monsters' stats. "You have vanquished them all. Now you have to watch out for the police."

"Wait, WHAT!?!"

"Dude, you killed a bunch of kids over some graffiti. What'd you think was going to happen?"

"Man, this sucks. I hate it when you're dungeon master."

"Hey, now no one's seen you yet. If you're careful, you can still hide the bodies and leave town."

SHRREEEEK!

The sound of metal being torn startled the guards, the cry after that didn't improve their collective moods.

"THUNDERFLOP!"

Hangar A

"So babe," the zebra said propping himself up against the side of the door frame, using his free hand to swiftly styled out his 'do, (or to at least style it out a much as one's hair can be on such short notice), "What's your name?"

"Hi!" the cat began enthusiastically, "I'm Suzy Q, my favorite food is cordon bleu. And I,uh…forgot what I was supposed to do…"

"Yeah, I have that effect on women," the zebra said, not really listening, flexing what little muscle his string bean arms actually had. "Look, I'm going to lay it on the table; you, me, dinner and a movie, we go Dutch."

"Ooh!" Suzy Q exclaimed, "I like movies! And-wait, wait, wait. I'm supposed to be doing something, the turtle guy will get super shouty if I don't do it. It's just that, oh! Now I rember! I'm supposed to bust in, beat you and your buddies up and wait for further orders! AH HA! Yeah, I'm really sorry."

"Aw look, that's so cute. But look babe, I know you might be scared, I have that smooth mysterious aura about me, but you don't need to make excuses to come see-ULP!"

Incidentally, "ULP!" was not the way the zebra was originally going to end that sentence, but I think we can safely assume he was going to make a reference to himself and why she should go on that date with him, despite the nearest movie theater being two-thousand miles away. There is some debate about the reasons concerning the reason as to why he could not finished the sentence as intended. This narrator stands of the opinion that it should be attributed to the fact that the zebra partially breathed through his mouth and therefore inhaled a bad speck of dust. Most historians, however, tend to look back on the situation and claim that it was all due Suzy Q lashing out with her killer robot hands, lifting the guard up off his feet by the stranglehold she held around his neck, but what do historians know? Not a damn thing apparently, because it was totally the speck…I think…maybe…not really…no.

Anyways, speck or no, Suzy Q then curled her free hand (the one that wasn't wrapped around the guard's neck), into a fist and slammed it into the zebra's gut, knock the rest of the wind out of him, what little there was, as well as some blood. She then casually threw the guard's bashed and beaten body towards the center of the room. Now as you can imagine, the other guards were quite shocked at what had occurred, I mean it's not every day that you see your buddy get completely trashed for no reason out of the blue, and as such, each of the guards reacted in their own special way. The wildebeest pulled out his revolver at aimed it at the crazy cat chick who walked in and casually closed the door behind her with her foot, one hyena guard removed his walkie-talkie in order to call in back-up, whilst the other stared open mouthed at the zebra who wisely decided it best to simply curl into a ball and play possum.

"Oh, that's so totally not happening," Suzy Q said softly at seeing what was going on.

PTEEW!

Suzy Q activated her eye lasers that superheated the gun and walkie-talkie, forcing their respective owners to drop then, the wildebeest sporting a half cooked and blistered palm after taking too long. Now normally, after seeing some chick come in, waste one of your friends and start shooting laser beams out of her eyes, most guards would go, "Screw this," bravely run away. Unfortunately for this group, they were in a hangar with only one entrance and exit, and Suzy Q was standing in their way of using it, they had to fight. Not to mention they shuddered to think of what a freak like her could do when left all alone with a huge platform armed to the teeth with guns, and cannons and the like.

They got up and cautiously made their way over to the crazy killer eye laser chick, who seemed genuinely amused and really happy at her surroundings, but they strongly felt that was a preexisting condition. The two hyenas went to either side of her, while the wildebeest took front and center…out of arm's length, but front and center nonetheless. They each prayed silently to Clock-la that they'd live through this before rushing Suzy Q at once. As they ran forward, Suzy Q became a whirling dervish of pain, well technically it was only the upper half of her to spin and bring the pain, but that's not important. What is important is the fact that at forty miles per hour, she knocked the poor saps into the walls of the hanger.

Trying his best to recover from this, and silently hoping that the ringing in his ears was just a temporary thing, one of the hyenas tried to get up when he was quickly grabbed by his shirt front and thrown into the other hyena, it was about that point they decided it was best to call it in and succumb to the mild concussions they each bore. With three outta four guards down, that only left the wildebeest for Suzy Q left. Said guard got up and quit trying to stem the flow of blood that was pouring from his nose. He looked up to see Suzy Q coldly and calculatingly stepping towards him. Not wanting this to be a simple slaughter, the guard ran at her and through a punch at her, which she caught. Everything became a blur for the guard. He realized he was in the air, falling, still inside the hangar. He fell and spun at just the right speed and angle to see Suzy Q wind back a fist which flew and became a black blur. After that, he didn't remember much, mostly because he was unconscious.

"Yo little turtle dude," Suzy Q said, accessing her binoc-u-com.

"It's Bentley," the little turtle dude replied, "Honestly, it's not a hard name to remember, and it's very easy to pronounce."

"Okay whatever dude, anyways, guess what."

"*Sigh*…I'm afraid to ask, but, what?"

"I did everything you told me to."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Oh yeah, totally."

"Wow, you get a gold star for that one."

"Awesome!"

"Now you remember the bug?"

"…What you talkin' 'bout Willis?"

"The green thing that I told you not to break, no matter what."

Fearful, Suzy Q reached back and removed her backpack, briefly unhooking the car batteries which powered her laser eyes. She was relieved when she found Bentley's bug. "Got it dude."

"Good, now place the bug on the control panel of the gunnery platform."

Doing as she was told, Suzy Q followed her instructions to the letter, placing the small green technological wonder top of the panel. She then waited for further instructions.

"Aaaaaand, we're done here," Bentley began, "We now have complete control of this gunnery platform. Head back to the ship without being seen."

"Cool. Wait a second, can I break this bug thingy?"

"Well…I suppose you could but-"

Crunch!

"But what?"

"…Nothing, just get back to base."

Hangar B

The guard floated in darkness, he had no idea where he was. Suddenly, shapes and forms came into play, and the hyena found himself deep in the Australian outback, and he saw the wonder and beauty of it all. Then something caught his attention, a smell. He turned around and saw the largest plate of jelly doughnuts he'd ever seen. Doughnuts of every shape and size, filled to burst with jams from fruits the names of which he couldn't pronounce, flown in from countries so mysterious and foreign that they didn't even have names. Now that's a doughnut. The doughnuts were so filled jelly in fact that they began to overflow, not that the guard minded much as he dove for the nearest he could get his hands on. However when some of the doughnut burst open and began to gush like opened fire hydrants, flooding the landscape. Soon, the hyena was swept away in a sticky flashflood of red, he found himself drowning in his very own strawberry shaded hell. After that, everything went from red to black.

The hyena guard then opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the hangar he'd been stationed that night, he was standing over the control panel for some reason, his hands hurting. But something was missing from this picture. Then it occurred to him that his buddies had stopped laughing at him. It's funny, he didn't even remember walking over to the panel, last thing he remembered was looking outside and staring down at a steam cooked lobster on a platter, then he was standing there. But guard work'll sometimes do that to ya, it starts to blur, and it hits you hard when it does. He turned around to ask his buddies why he was by the control panel, when-

"OH MY GOOOARRRGH!"

When he turned around to find that his buddies had been beaten to within an inch of their lives, their bodies blackened, blued, and left on the floor. The guard came close to suffering a nervous breakdown, freaked out, and ran out of the hangar screaming bloody murder.

In regards to sabotage in Hangar B that night, no one heard anything, no one saw anything. All that was known was that four guards walked in, one ran out screaming. No one even bothered to ask if there'd been sabotage on gunnery platform B.

Ninjas wish they were as smooth as The Guru. (Suck it Naruto! Suck it hard!)

Hangar C

Murray's landing knocked the four guards on their collective buts, as well as obliterating the tables legs, sending them on to table leg heaven, a wonderful and happy place, where table legs no longer have to stay clustered in groups of three or four, they are separated, free from the tyrannical chore of supporting an oppressive space of wood. No, they are now in a place where they are varnished every day, and continually polished to be brighter than any star in the sky. Do not feel sad for the table legs which Murray so carelessly destroyed, they aren't dead so much as they are going home (but seriously, they were dead), amazingly the table itself was fine

Murray jumped up and carefully decided which foe to pummel first by using a very strict, logical, and extremely selective process of elimination (he ran at the first guy he saw). The guy he saw was one of the hyenas, so Murray reached out and grabbed the guard by his shirt front. Lifting the man up, Murray was in the mood to try out a few new battle cries, so he shouted out, "THE MURRAY DECREES THAT YOU GIVE HIM YOUR LUNCH MONEY!" feeling it needed something, added, "FOR JUSTICE!", then proceeded the punch the hell out of the guy.

The other hyena, trying to get over his mild shell shock and still not quite sure what was happening shouted, "Quick! Cast a spell of instant flame!"

This, as you can imagine, gained him several confused looks, even from Murray and the guy he was holding up that had just recently lost some teeth.

Realizing his mistake, the hyena then shouted, "SHOOT HIM!"

The message being heard loud and clear, the zebra and the wildebeest, who'd been sitting across from one another, reached for their side arms.

As it turned out, bullets were The Murray's only weakness (along with fire, knives, falling from tall buildings, incurable diseases, really the list goes on). So reacting, moving with a surgeon's speed and precision, Murray lashed out with both hands to grab the gun holding hands of the two guards, and while their intention had been to put the weapons to his head, he pulled them so that the barrels of their respective pistols were jabbed into the heads of each other. The two guards were shocked that they almost shot each other in the head, so much so in fact that they were unable to do much of anything as Murray became a pink blur and performed a perfect sweep, knocking the two off their feet. Still crouched low, Murray reached for the wildebeest guard's feet, he then swung the guard through the air and used him like a pro-wrestling chair to slam him into the zebra, take the striped shooter out. Unfortunately, things for the wildebeest weren't over yet, to finish up his daily wrestling fix, Murray picked up the guard used him to powerbomb the first hyena guard who was still a bit preoccupied spitting up his teeth. After that, the two groaned and decided that passing out at this point was a good move (not that either of them actually chose to take a nap at that point, but you get the idea).

Murray dusted off his hands, proud of his handiwork, when he felt that he'd forgotten something. That something came back to him when the other hyena leapt on his back and got him in a choke hold. Murray tried to shake the little nuisance off, but to no avail. He reached at the guard, but this proved useless as well since the hyena was just small enough to be out of the hippo's reach.

Murray was starting to run out of air, his breathing cut off, when the hyena began to celebrate his victory. "How does it feel fatman? You must really be the weak link in The Cooper Gang, to think that you'll get done in by someone as lowly as I. Not even one of the great Fiendish Five were required to take you out, that is how pathetic you are."

Unfortunately, with his air supply low, Murray's response was somewhat slurred, "Rhevhess Flehp."

"What was that fatman? Your last words?"

"Reverse Flop."

"What?"

Murray then quickly bent forward and readied his legs. He leapt into the air and fell backwards on to the hyena. Now I don't know if you've ever had a several hundred pound pink hippo land on you, but let me give you a little hint as to what it felt like; it hurt…a lot. With his ribs thoroughly cracked, nearing broken, the hyena decided to let the hippo go. Murray got up and turned to look down at the hyena.

"Shoot him?" Murray said questioningly, "Now I'm no head shrinker, but I'd say that was downright rude."

"Laugh agh, while you can hippo," the guard said, "Clock-la shall see to it that you get your end."

"Hey that was pretty good. Did you ever think of doing kiddie shows?" Murray as before delivering a swift kick to the side of the guard's head. With all the guards taken care of, Murray removed Bentley's Bug and attached it to the Platform Terminal. He wondered what was for dinner that night.

Hangar D

The Panda King moved quickly trying to decide his best course of action. The how he went about securing the bug to the panel was important. Being seen was, of course, not a course of action that he intended to take. There was no telling how this operation could go, so it was important to make sure that a mole was still in place. He checked his watch. This all needed to be timed perfectly to ensure that this was done without error, he only hoped that the fuse he'd put on the rockets was long enough. He made it to the hangar he was supposed to hit. After leaving a small a bag of what Bentley had marked as "presents" in a trash can next to the door of the hangar, The Panda King went across the way and stood behind one of the buildings opposite the hangar. His hangar was more on the outer perimeter of the base, part of the older stuff, aside from the hangar, this are was something of a ghost town, especially around meal time, so hopefully his action would be unnoticed.

He reached into his pocket for the small pile of rocks he'd collected there, he'd need to be swift about this. He removed three and threw them in quick succession at the door to the hangar, (hopefully) sounding like someone knocking upon the door. It took a moment or so, but the door was opened by a wildebeest guard, who opened the door wide enough for The Panda King to see a table topped with a small pile of cash, at which a zebra and two hyenas sat, they were playing a card game. The guard looked around, not seeing anyone (including the Panda King peeking around from behind the building across the way), shrugged it off, turned away and closed the door.

The Panda King waited a moment before throwing three more. More quickly than before, the wildebeest guard opened the door and looked around more persistently than before, his comrades at the table were visibly annoyed at this point. However, finding no one, the wildebeest snorted annoyance and closed the door. Right on the ball, The Panda King threw three more rocks at the door, striking it before it even properly clicked shut. Reacting as quickly as a whip, the door flew open, nearly being torn from it's hinges by the wildebeest guard, his ire truly raised at this point. The guard looked around quickly, even going so far to step outside and look around the sides of the hangar, before yelling a threat to whoever was messing with him, suffice to say, keywords in said statement were "rip," "brain," "stomp," "mail," and "mother". The looks on the faces of his partners at the table showed that they shared the sentiment.

The Panda King waited a second before throwing one more stone, it struck the door which flew open immediately. The guard was fuming at this point, but finding no one, he closed the door. In the instance that it was open, The Panda King saw the three at the table get up and walk towards the door, it was time. He reached into another pocket for the detonator that Murray had delivered to him at the rendezvous, courtesy of Bentley.

Suddenly the sky lit up with color, as the fireworks that had been placed by each of the Cooper Gang field members prior to heading towards their respective hangar went off. The Panda King threw one more stone, the door flew open with all hangar guards inside standing there, ready to kick some ass. The Panda King pressed the detonator, causing Bentley's bag of presents to ignite, blasting a hole in the wall of the hangar, the sounds of the large explosions above, masked the sound of the smaller one below.

The Panda King hurried forward. He checked the guards briefly, they'd need medical attention, but they'd live, the wall took most of the brunt of the blast. He reached into his pocket, moving his hand past the last stone for Bentley's Bug. Mission accomplished, all he needed to do was to place the bug momentarily on the control panel and the turtle would have full control of the gunnery platform, leaving Penelope completely safe as she did her run ov-

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

The Panda stopped dead, his blood ran cold at the voice. Turning ever so slowly, The Panda King made sure to make no sudden movements as he turned to face whoever was shouting at him. He turned to find Law standing in the hangar as well, she held a shock pistol and had it leveled right at him, with a look of pure murder in her eyes.

"Law!" The Panda King exclaimed, "Thank goodness you're here! Someone has sabota-"

"Cut the crap Panda King!" the bear's heart nearly jumped through his throat at having his cover blown, "I'm going to break the rules this one time. Tell me where Sly Cooper is, and I'll let you go."

The Panda King knew time was short, Penelope was due for her fly over any second, and people would start asking why the platforms weren't kicking in. He needed to take out Law and fast. "…Alright. Cooper rarely meets with me in person though."

"…That's a lie."

"It's true, I'm the one who helped kill his parents remember? He values my talents, but nothing more." The Panda King slowly moved his hand in his pocket, letting go of the bug and wrapping his fingers around the rock. "I have the location for our next rendezvous right HERE!"

The Panda King swiftly threw the stone and ducked to the side. The stone struck Law right between the eyes. The pain and surprise from this caused her to misfire, it only went downhill from there. Her shot from the shock pistol hurtled towards one of the SAMs on the gunnery platform, causing it to go off. This caused a chain reaction which lit the entire platform up like a roman candle.

KA BOOM!

The force of the blast sent the Panda King hurtling forward, he collided with what remained of the hangar wall, after that everything went black.

He didn't know where he was at first, but it soon donned on him that he was face first in the dirt ominous orange glow let him know that something was burning. Painfully, he turned himself over.

"Give him some room."

The Panda King looked up to see that he was surrounded by a circle of guards and recruits. The ground was littered with anti-cult propaganda, the dust and rubble on him informed him that he'd been blasted through the wall of the hangar. It took him a bit, but he finally found his footing and he stood up, the crowd backing off. He looked around to find medical and anti fire staff on scene, putting out the burning hangar. The medics fought through the crowd to see to The Panda King. The entire scene was nothing but mass confusion.

"DID YOU HEAR ME!?! I SAID GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!" came an unmistakable yell that was able to break through the sounds of the chaos the scene had become. The crowd parted to allow General Red a wide berth. He was heading towards the scene of the blaze when he caught sight of The Panda King. "GRIZZLY! TELL ME WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!"

All eyes were upon the Panda King. Being put on the spot, the Panda King hurriedly tried to think of something that wouldn't get him arrested, and he went with the first story that seemed believable.

"It was, uh, Law! Yes, I was, uh, that is I saw her sneaking around, so I, er, followed her. She, uh, sabotaged the gunnery platform…sir."

General Red looked like he didn't believe this for a second. He looked like he was about to yell for The Panda King to be taken away, when suddenly.

"Sir!"

General Red stopped and turned as the crowd parted for two zebra medical officers holding up what the Panda King recognized as Pt. Law, only it wasn't Law. The white and black of her face had been smudged somehow. The zebras used a rag to wipe away at Law's face, the white and black giving itself away as mere face paint as it disappeared to allow orange and yellow fur to shine through.

Once this became clear, so did many other things for the Panda King. Law's intent staring, her unwarranted hostility, how she quickly deduced his true identity. The fact that she was caught slinking around the same area around the same time that Bentley's radio bug was destroyed and replaced, the blue hair, it was all right in front of him and he kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. The zebras finished their work and it became all too apparent to The Panda King that he just ratted out Inspector Carmelita Fox.

"Son of a bitch," Red said, his voice was rife with feelings of betrayal and homicidal rage. He marched up and grabbed Carmelita by her unconscious face. "I you thought this was pretty f***ing funny didn't ya? So hilarious. Well I got a few jokes for you. Let's see how funny you think this is when you're missing a leg or two, HUH!?! I'm going to torture every God damned secret you have right out of your head, YOU'LL THINK TWICE ABOUT MESSING WITH ME!"

Seeing that Inspector Fox was in trouble, The Panda King moved forward, to try and see if there was some way to stop this. "Excuse me sir, if I may speak freely."

"WHAT IS IT GRIZZLY!?!" the ant yelled, turning back to the bear.

"This is something of a rare opportunity. Sly Cooper is known to care for this Interpol officer, to whatever extent is unknown, however the two have been known to work together in the past. Knowing The Lady Clock-la's deep resentment for Cooper and his allies, it would perhaps be for the best to see to it that such a prize remain…unspoiled?"

Red thought about this for a moment. He was mad alright, he was more than mad, he was furious. However, no matter how he felt, General Red always put his job long before whatever anger and hang-ups he felt. Letting reason and rational thought break through the thick fog of anger he felt, he began to cool down. "Alright," he said, addressing the two zebras, jamming a stogie in his mouth and lighting it, "…Hell. See to any wounds she's got. Then take her to the detention area, my armed guard will escort you." He then took a long drag and turned to one of his hyena entourage, "I want regular rations sent to her as well, along with an armed guard. No scratch that, I'll have my chef cook for her, I don't want any of the kitchen staff getting glory hungry and poisoning her food. I'll let Cobalt be in charge of the guard, it should keep him from scheming too much, and he ain't stupid enough try anything. But just in case, set up extra sniper guards, no one other than her and my chef are allowed inside that building, understand?"

"Yes sir," the hyena confirmed. He then ran off to do as he was ordered.

"ALRIGHT LADIES!" General Red shouted to the crowd at large, "UNLESS YOU GOT A GOT SOME BANDAGES, FIREHOSE, OR EVEN A BAG OF MARSHMALLOWS ON YOU, I EXPECT THAT YOU GET YOUR SORRY CARCASSES OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW, UNLESS YOU'RE IN THE MOOD TO DO PUSH-UPS ALL NIGHT!"

The crowd quickly dispersed, soon the only unauthorized person there was The Panda King, this fact was noticed by General Red immediately. The ant walked over to the bear and gave him a good nudge in the arm. "You did good son," Red complimented, "You did good."

However, as the Panda King stood numbly, watching Inspector Fox get dragged off by two zebras and an armed guard detail, he didn't feel like he did much good at all.

---

Banging Plots and Plans

---

Gabon Coast, Africa 8:23pm

"Get out of my way!" Sly shouted. He was currently grappling with The Guru in order to make it to the deck of the ship. Considering The Guru was a pacifist, and that's in a loose sense of the term, this would normally be no problem for Sly, except that his arm was in a sling and his chest was heavily bandaged, restricting his movements, and oddly enough, the one being capable of fixing this problem in a hurry was the same one he was feebly wrestling with to get to the deck. He'd just found out that Carmelita had been taken in by the cult, and he was not thrilled to say the least.

"Get offa me!" Sly shouted, desperately trying to shake the koala off of his leg.

"Ah meeha, me hee shapa," the Guru berated.

"And I'll deal with that problem when it comes along, but right now we need to get Carmelita, that's the important part."

"Huru shama sheepa!"

"I said I don't care!" Sly shouted as he threw open the door that lead to the ship's deck. Sly was disappointed at what he found, which was of course nothing, he'd been searching the ship for Bentley, for some reason his, nor anyone else's binoc-u-com was turned on. And to add further annoyance to his dismay, the ship was no longer moored at the beach and was quite a way from shore. He really needed to get some swim lessons one of these days, or at the very least a set of floaties.

"Where is everyone!?!" Sly shouted.

"They's long gone."

Sly's head snapped to the Guru who was still wrapped around his leg. "Did…did you just talk, like, normal talk?"

"Here's clear, cracker-box," came a voice from above. Sly looked up to find Dimitri wrapped up in the rigging.

"What are you doing up there?" Sly asked, thoroughly confused.

"I had sniffeded my feetsus and nows in the retrospect, I ask myself, "le why?"."

"Okay scratch that, why are we away from shore?"

"Oh yeah, bent Bentley had ze Dimitri do that."

"Why?"

"Something about keeping you from going on suicide flob job to save angry shooting cop person after Guru flab blabs the latest info."

"Hata mura hema!" The Guru shouted defensively.

"Is was joke bro."

"Hana heema," The Guru replied sourly.

"Yeah, buts zat's because I le lied! The lie's ze joke man!"

"Heru shap papa!"

"Ohh! Diss!" Sly shouted at the severe burn.

"You take zat back short snuff!" Dimitri shouted angrily, "My mother was a saint, she just had zis problem about laughing ugly babies."

"Ata chupa cha, hasa heep huran," The Guru said apologetically.

"Okay, cue sad song count, zis is bonafifide family moment."

"Oh yeah, were probably going get the daytime emmy for this," Sly said, "Anyways, where's Bentley and, well, everyone else who can speak English."

"Hey, I's cans-"

"Properly!"

"Ooh hoo! Aren't we's choosy today? Turtle face and friends is all out negotiating."

"With who?"

"The police," Penelope answered. She and Murray were currently traversing the jungle to a clearing some ways away from the base, heading towards a thick forested area they saw through satellite imaging. "See, way Bentley has it all figured out, if we didn't have the boat, it's the best possible place to stage a land based assault upon Bullet Bay. He figures that it's probably where Carmelita's ape mercs are stationed, or at least somewhere near by."

"Yeah, okay, I follow you," Murray said, nodding his head, "But what's to stop them from flatout arresting us?"

"That's a very good question," Suzy Q answered delightedly, "And I shall answer it through song."

"Please don't," Bentley pleaded from his place on Suzy Q's back. They were heading to Colonel Cobalt's secret hideaway off the base, using secret in a rather loose sense of the term. It was rather close to Bullet Bay, but sadly it lead them through a particularly swampy part of the jungle. So rather than having to fight through the mud, it was easier just to strap himself to Suzy Q's back and leave his chair behind on the ship. Of course, this left him virtually defenseless and about as dangerous as a sack full of super fluffy kittens.

"Okay fine. Anyways, Parliament was traveling around one day, on the mothership, fooling around with The Funk, when George Clinton kicked The Funk clean overboard. The was July the second, nineteen seventy-nine…The Day The Funk Died."

"…What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing really," Penelope answered honestly, "I mean, aside from you ripping them in half, nothing at all. But I'd think we'd all feel better about the big job if we had a little extra firepower backing us up."

"Okay, I get it," Murray said, catching on, "We get the chimps to work with us to spring Inspector Fox, as well as bust a few heads when the time comes."

"Let's just hope her black and white view of the world hasn't wiped off on them."

"Geez, you are like the most uptight guy I've ever met," Suzy Q lamented flatly.

"Uptight!?!" Bentley shouted, flabbergasted.

"Yeah, you're totally like some old guy who's all "Hey, you kids get off my lawn!"."

"Hey, they have no business being on my lawn!"

"See! You admit it!"

"I am not uptight!"

"Ah ha! That's exactly what Golgotron, uptight overlord of dimension twelve would say, and that's the most uptight dimension there is."

"I am not, wait, what!?!"

"So how would we know when the ape mercs have shown up?" Murray asked.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. BOB. CLICK.

"Probably when this happens," Penelope said unsurprised as seven ape mercenaries sprang from the thicket and pointed their shock rifles at the two Cooper Gang members.

"You're completely surrounded," The wildebeest guard said, coming out from behind a tree as Bentley and Suzy Q drew near.

"We already knew that," Bentley said, he was well aware of their presence, he's lived with Sly almost his entire life, he ought to. It annoyed the heck out of him that it took them ten minutes to get the stones to finally come up and talk to them.

"For security reasons," one of the apes began, taking out two white rags, "you'll need to be blindfolded."

"Riiiiight," Penelope began reassuringly, "Because you guys aren't hiding in the almost miniscule clearing a quarter of a mile in the direction we were heading, right?"

"…Just shut up and come along."

"Why?" Suzy Q asked, "Bentley, I don't think we should go anywhere with this guy."

The Wildebeest guard then began, "Col. Cobalt humbly reque-"

"Save your breath," Bentley cut in, "I'll give her the short version. Cobalt wants to talk."

"Why?"

"Because we want to talk," Murray said, answering one of the ape mercs' questions.

"Why else would we come to see you in person when we could've just had our man on the inside sick a bunch of Clock-la goons on you?" Penelope continued.

"So can we take these lame blindfolds off?" Suzy Q asked, as the air became warmer and the sound of her footsteps on stone made it all too obvious that they were walking in a cave now.

"Not a bad setup," Penelope admitted, as they were lead into the ape merc base camp. It was fitted with every necessity, imaginable; working showers, satellite relay and communications, everything required to stage a small assault, there was even a corral where some of the missing Bullet Bay soldiers had been tied to posts. This was the pinnacle of guerilla warfare (no pun intended).

"This way," one of the mercs ordered, leading the two to a dark, dimly lit tent.

"Take those off of them, they're our guests," came a rolling and demanding voice from the darkness.

The blindfolds were removed Bentley and Suzy Q, allowing them to get a full view of Col. Cobalt's secret lair, which is a fancy way of saying a large chamber with portraits of Col. Cobalt and Clock-la. There were a few portrait of the full Fiendish Five here and there, but they featured certain "improvements, which is another way of saying that General Red's image was torn from them and Col. Cobalt's own was plastered in.

"Nice set up you have here," Penelope complemented, as she and Murray were seated to a large table, across from another ape merc. The difference with this about this one as opposed to the others was that he was quite a bit bigger than the average ape mercenary, by at least half a head or so, and any part of his arms that wasn't covered was positively riddled with scars. This was the leader of The Flying Ape Mercenaries, and infamous right hand man of Inspector Fox, the ever reliable Lt. Gronk.

"Okay," Bentley whispered, do exactly what I told you to do.

Upon hearing the command, Suzy Q straightened her stance and slowly turned around, allowing Bentley to face Col. Cobalt who was sitting in a make shift throne also adorned with pictures of himself.

"So we meet again, Mister Bond," Bentley said sinisterly.

"*Snicker* Lame," Suzy Q heckled.

"Shush."

"I'm sure you are well aware of your surroundings, as well as the current situation," Col. Cobalt began.

"Inspector Fox is captured by The Church of Clock-la, a.k.a. The Clock-la Cult, a group known for it's violence, savagery, and zealotry," Penelope began, running down the situation, "Chances are that she's waiting for orders from her captors that state she is to be sacrificed in some grandstanding and terrible manner. And it's due to the efforts our man in the field that she isn't being tortured right now. Did I miss anything?"

"Without our help, Inspector Fox is doomed," Murray completed.

"Ah yes there is that. So let's chew the fat and…we aren't going to chew you Murray, sit back down."

"NO!" Bentley exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes," Col. Cobalt corrected, "Your fool in disguise was captured by an idiot private who caught her sneaking around. Inspector Fox's days are numbered, and that number doesn't even need both hands to count up to. That fool, General Red, made the infinitely wise choice to place yours truly in charge of guarding her. I have devised an impenetrable and potent security array around her that not even the fabled Cooper Gang can get by."

"They've placed a solid wall of guards around her," Lt. Gronk, informed the two across the table from him, a couple of bazooka rounds and it's over."

"Naw, with the way things are planned to turn out, we've got an even simpler plan to get her out of there," Penelope answered.

"Absolutely impenetrable," Cobalt finished smugly, "So! Lowly minion, tell your sneak king master that if he wishes to save his one true love, my impenetrable net would gladly loosen quite a bit if he were to relinquish himself into my custody."

"I'm not here on Sly's orders," Bentley answered.

"Oh really?"

"Really," Penelope answered, "Inspector Fox is as good as saved. Actually, to be honest, I'm rather surprised that you guys are so willing and ready to work with us."

"We know that the Inspector would not care for us allying, but we generally don't care that she doesn't care, her life's in danger. Inspector Fox saved my life, saved all of our lives, with no help form your gang," Lt. Gronk said, the last few words were said while he glared at Murray, having lost several teeth to the hippo in the past. "We'd be willing to do anything, provided that she comes out of this alive."

"You know what bugs me?" Murray began, "Why Inspector Fox was dudied up in Clock-la gear to begin with. She's never gone all super spy to try and take us out before, why now?"

"This time, she wasn't after you," Lt. Gronk began, "She was aiming at Bullet Bay, General Red and the cult itself."

"So that explains why Inspector Fox was in the Antarctic," Penelope said, amazed.

"No," Murray corrected, "Inspector Fox just does that."

"Correct," Gronk conceded, "We were gunning for you. However, after what we found there, from what was under the ice before it was swallowed by lava, as well as some of the ravings the lion cried out when we finally managed to take him down, frightened Inspector Fox quite a bit. So much so to the extent that she switched her sights from Cooper to Clock-la."

"Wait a minute," Penelope said, "Fox is gunning for Clock-la, and this is what you guys come at her with? No tanks or helicopters?"

"Don't think she didn't try, but technically The Clock-la case isn't hers to handle or be a part of, it's being headed by a bunch of halfwits and morons. They've probably been compromised. If the head of the team isn't a card carrying member of the cult, whoever's heading it almost certainly is."

"So why not raid Bullet Bay under some pretext? Say that's where we are."

"They ain't sending any army at us," Murray said cynically, "Although they need to if they ever hope to contain The Murray, he is still but a mere thief."

"That's exactly what Inspector Fox deduced," Gronk said, "However, the reason we were allowed to get this close is because we were here under the pretense that we were hunting you guys down here. The plan was that Inspector Fox would obtain evidence that this place was a hotspot for The Cult. Unfortunately, Inspector Fox lost track of that when she recognized your man on the inside and, well, Cooper did lie to and use her."

"Hey! Sly's nothing like that!" Murray jumped in, "Sly thinks the world of Fox. Don't ask me why, but in spite of her shooting at us, yelling at us, and locking me in an electrified cage, Sly's had us jump for her."

"That's something his accomplice would lie for him on."

"What'd you say?" Murray said, getting up and out of his seat, prompting Gronk to do the same, and the ape mercs in the tent to aim their shock rifles at the hippo.

"Alright, everyone, let's just calm down and remember were on the same side here," Penelope said, sweating profusely at the fact that there was a shock rifle aimed at her as well. Murray swallowed his pride and sat down.

"…For now," Gronk said, cooling off and returning to his seat as well.

"So what was the plan from there?"

"Once the evidence was obtained, Inspector Fox would return to Interpol with it. Unfortunately, due the spy, we wouldn't get any major players, but from the surveillance we have, they wouldn't be able to hide all those troops and weapons, so we'd get the ball rolling in the right direction."

"What sort of photos has she obtained so far?"

"Soldiers, weapons, soldiers with weapons, and several missiles, along with a few documents here and there, nothing to warrant immediate action though."

"And if we were to doctor those photos, making it seem as though they were ours as well as supply bogus evidence that we're going to use them in a diabolical manner?"

A shark like grin snaked it's way across Gronk's face to match the serpentine ones on the hippo and mouse. "…And at what time would you be using these evil weapons f mass destruction?"

"Probably the day after Clock-la makes her big speech next week," Murray said sinisterly.

"Then we'd have to pull out all the stops, and take no chances in taking down the Cooper Gang, probably the day before."

"And since this is a Cooper Gang case," Penelope continued, "no one working The Clock-la Case would need to be informed, right?"

"I suppose they wouldn't. That is if I'm hearing this correctly."

"I said it loud and clear," Bentley shot back.

"Oh ho?" Cobalt sounded, "And you expect me to believe that you, Sly Cooper's right hand man, suddenly turned on him?"

"What does Clock-la say about the guy?"

"He's a fetid, cowardly, horrid little scum who despises all things good and is responsible for everything bad in the world. It's because of him that the world needs to be changed, and by Clock-la's grand hand, a beautiful new eu-"

"Focusing on the raccoon," Bentley said, bringing the conversation back to why he was suddenly betraying Sly (a.k.a. telling the panther what he wanted to hear), "He's all that and more."

"He also snores," Suzy Q quipped.

"I mean, he named the gang after himself."

"Yes of course!" Cobalt exclaimed, "Sly Cooper is a narcissistic egomaniac, it was only a matter of time before his lackeys realized that as well. I can't stand people like that, idiots who are so wrapped up and in love with themselves. It makes me sick," He said as he leaned back in his throne with pictures of himself plastered all around it. "But there must be more to it than you simply wanting to see the evil Sly Cooper get what's coming to him."

"Hmm?" Bentley began, caught unawares, he had thought that Cobalt would be too preoccupied with dreams of power to even consider if Bentley wanted anything. Regardless, the turtle was able to improvise, "But of course, I, uh, realize that I stand no possible chance against such terrifying forces as Clock-la and yourself."

"Well…I am rather terrifying, aren't I?"

"Right, so in addition front row seats to Sly Cooper's execution, I want amnesty for all past crimes."

"Hmm…that would be something I could do, provided I was a member of the Fiendish Five."

"Then I shall make it so that it is you who captures Sly Cooper, that will certainly gain you entrance into those higher ranks."

"Excellent."

"However, there is on small problem."

"What?" Cobalt asked sourly, his voice coming close to a snarl.

"I, being just a lowly and weak cripple, stand no chance at subduing Sly Cooper, however, if someone as cunning and brilliant as you were to get to him, then he'd stand no chance." It was amazing that Bentley was able to keep from vomiting during that last sentence.

"Yes, you set up the trap and I, the brilliant Colonel Cobalt,shall close it. Cooper is mine!"

"Also, there is a chance that General Red will steal the glory."

"General Red. Just hearing the name of that old fool boils my blood, especially after the things he said. He's not even a true believer to the cause, I AM! He's just hire help."

"We were working to discredit him through sabotage, however, with you handling security, it'll be impossible to-"

"Say no more. If it's sabotage you need, then it's sabotage you'll get. I'm sure my guards are more than capable of making sure one or two "accidents" occur. Tomorrow marks a new day of incompetence for Red's beloved Bullet Bay." Colonel Cobalt then reached for a bottle of champagne that rested at the side of the throne, raising it in a toast. "To the success of The Clock-la world order!"

"To Cobalt, soon to be member of The Fiendish Five!" Bentley, continued.

"To peace man!" Suzy Q entered.

"To the death of General Red," Cobalt chuckled sinisterly before chugging down the bottle.

"To the only door on the top floor," the hyena told the Panda King.

"Thank you," The Panda King said, grateful for the directions, having become lost in General Red's expansive home. Now knowing the key to where he was going, he just kept heading up. Upon reaching the top floor, The Panda King tried to enter General Red's office, but was held up by the guards outside.

"LET HIM IN!" came the ant's signature shout. The guards parted and allowed the bear through the door.

The Panda King walked through the door, and instead of finding General Red sitting at his desk, he was standing at the window across the room staring out of it to gaze out at his base. The Panda King closed the door behind him and stood at attention. "Sir!"

"At ease soldier," General Red said, without turning around, "…Y'know, I've run this base for over five years, and nothing ever blew up until I had to watch that commie scientist equipment."

"Permission to speak freely, sir."

"Granted."

"With all due respect, why did you call for me sir?"

"You've got a lot of moxy Grizzly. Earlier today, at the village, what you did was downright heroic. Most soldiers would've let that bird get shot and then go torch that village. You didn't. Instead, you did things the hard way and put your life on the line for those innocents and your subordinates. You put your life up for theirs, and not the other way around, you looked death right in the eye and hawked a lugi. It took a lot to do that. You never see that anymore. Not only that, but you also pulled my bacon out of the fire by uncovering that spy, you've learned to trust no one, and that's good."

"Sir?"

"Right, right, getting to why you're here. You're a good man Grizzly. Cobalt's planning something, I don't know what it is or when it is, but when he does it, this base is gonna pop like big, fat, ugly zit. It's gonna tear itself apart. When that time comes, I'm going to need men I can count on to make the right decisions." General Red turned around to stare the Panda King right in the eye, "What I'm saying is; when that happens, can I count on you Grizzly?"

"…Sir…yes sir."

---

And that's the notorious chapter thirteen boys and girls! It's been a long haul, I know, believe me, I know. It's been a long road, with it's many twists and turns, rife with all the unexpected things life tends to bring, college…it's an adventure, and not one to be taken lightly. And while I was busy, setting up my future, believe me when I say I was often thinking of you guys. And on that note, please let me say that I am deeply, truly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, sorry for taking so long. It WILL NOT happen again, ever. You have my solemn vow on that one.

Now, it's time for me to kiss ass and suck toes. It's time to give a hand to those folks who were kind enough not to threaten me with anthrax, letter bombs or Sarah Palin, even though lords knows that they have every right to. It's time to give a shout out to the often unsung heroes of the site, the ever lovable, and always irreplaceable crazy kids, who inspire us to update, even when we're sick, the ones, the only, the reviewers:

Green Phantom Queen: Don't worry, at this point, it's me who hoping to be forgiven by you. As for dying, well, I think this chapter shows the fowl ups and pitfalls that arise from simple body paint. Wouldn't you say? It's great to hear from you.

Wolvmbm: Well, I'm pleased as punch that you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well, from every "*sigh*…Nothing." to "*Snicker* Lame." Sorry this chapter wasn't as action packed, but it did have a decent amount of prelude to what's to come. As for the whole "Law/King" thing, I'm going to tip my hand and say that ain't happening. I'm mean, they're from two entirely different worlds, he's a cat person, she's a dog person, it's doomed from the start. As for another Sly/Ruby meeting, you can bet your bottom dollar on that one.

Kurieo Parnok: I'm going to assume that your feelings toward the Colonel have not improved due to the content of this chapter. And yes, I gotta admit, I was way too transparent with the whole Carmelita=Law thing, but hey, I'm not M. Night Shamylan (thank god). As for the ventriloquism thing: really? I thought it was PG13 stuff. Truly. As for my wit, well, you got a good enough sense of humor, and the world will always appear smiling, even as you rob it at gunpoint. I'm glad I could make you smile.

Kindom Rider92: Hell yeah dude! I need a job! Being broke sucks! Wait a minute, who's Private Law? Yeah, they were running yellow (is joke, but not good one, will be better next time, I sorry, I sorry). As for Mz. Ruby, well, c'mon, it's Star Wars, how can anyone not like it? And I'm talking THE REAL Star Wars, with Luke and Han and stuff. Not this second trilogy with Jar Jar Binks and an emo, child killing Vadar, and certainly not the horrid family friendly Clone Wars garbage (seriously, Anikan gets an apprentice? Bullcrap! I ain't buying it! BRING BACK CHEWIE DAMN IT!) Okay, rant over, sorry for taking so long.

pasta16: "She's going to jump!" "What happened!?!" "She gained five pounds!" "Dios mio!" Actually, to be honest, the button would've probably gotten me too. Well in that case, I ought to give Bentley a standing ovation. I'm sorry, that was messed up, maybe it's best if I just walk away from those sorts of jokes altogether. (Yes, I know it's inappropriate, but that's what makes it funny). No way, King Kong would totally lay the smack down on Stay Puft's candy ass (literally, his ass is made of candy). What, have even heard "Paradise By The Dashboard Lights", it'll change your life man! Yeah, I know, I need to get better material. But without surprises every so often, life becomes predictable and safe, and who really wants that? The next line is "E-I-E-I-O!" right? Yeah, my writing seems to be riddled with weird little things like that. IN THE YEAR 9595: "…Honey. *Snicker*" Yup, because nothing perks a caramel apple up better than razor blades. Mmm-mmm, internal bleeding. Yeah about that, SORRYFORTHEWAITPLEASEDON'TKILLME! AAH! Well, I hope you had real good tunes for this one as well.

R and C Stroyteller: Awesome like a possum (and they are so awesome!).

The Good Thief: Thanks dude! Listen, sorry for the wait, and trust me, I do intend to become professional, I just don't intend to starve while I make that happen.

TheAlmightyHachu: I'm glad you think so, and don't worry, the wait won't be so long this time around.

The True Elemental Alchemist: So is cheesecake, and bacon, although not necessarily together. Anyways, thanks man.

Moorage: That's the difference between comedy and tragedy; "Did it happen to you or someone else?"

okami009: We have a punching pink hippo, a telekinetic shapeshifting koala, and a laser powered android, talking animals of various shapes and sizes, but that's what you single out? Is it that hard to believe?

Bookworm Gal: Thank you kindly, that's what I was aiming for. You're the only one to pick up on "Kitsune" being Japanese for fox, so gold star for you! (Don't spend it all in one place). And trust me, I'm way ahead of you on that front.

Giana Nora: Sorry dude, but to be honest, I'm not that into Naruto, in fact I'm part of the opposite camp (One Piece! PIRATES! Go Strawhats GO!). So sorry, but thanks all the same.

randomFanXD: Well I'm glad you feel that way! Thank you and come again!

smashbrawlguy: Well thanks for the compliment, I'm flattered that I'm able to satisfy such high class standards and taste. It's a real feather in my cap. As for Bentley, I noticed that too, but the words felt right for some reason, odd. I see, it's a thought that's duly noted. As for errors and grammar, I do what I can, but I'm only human (for now). Thanks for the review!

Alright kids, admittance time. Part of the reason why it took so long to update this is because I got roped into co-authoring another story here on fanfic. Now don't go asking me how or nothing, because I'm still a little sketchy on that myself. However, it won't get in the way of me updating this story (at least not too much). So if you got some time to kill, why don't you boogie on over and check it out. His penname is and the story is called The Ultimates. Yes I know that's a Marvel comics title, but he's the one who came up with the idea for the story, so he got to title it. Getting past that, it ain't half bad, if I do say so myself (and I do).

Anywhosits, it's been a gas, and as much as it pains me to say it, it's high time to hit the road. So! Join me in a personal pledge of mine: I swear to live strong, die free, always leave 'em laughing, and to never spit in front of women or children.

Good night everybody, and take care of yourself, 'cause there's only one you.