A/N: Welcome, welcome! To any new readers, I hope you enjoy what you're about to read. To any readers returning from the original, I truly hope that you agree I've done the story better justice this time. And to you both, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for reading (hugs).

Prologue: Snatched

As much as it irks me to admit it, even to this day I'm still not sure how exactly it happened.

Allow me, briefly, to set the scene as I recall it.

I was 16 years old, home alone on a Saturday, and lounging on the couch in my dad's seat while I played Sly 3 on my old, old PS2. My dad's seat was the best one on the couch―it had the best view of the TV, the most comfortable cushion, and the less uncomfortable of the two armrests to lean against―, so it stands to reason that that was where I would be holed up for what was sure to be a long few hours before either of my parents arrived back home from work. I was expecting them back nearing six or seven, and it was only barely noon. I had the entire day to myself, and, frankly? I was in the market for a free day where I could relax and just play some games until I felt up to doing my Geometry homework.

Now, the thing about my trooper of a PS2 and my pre-owned copy of Sly 3, is that both of them were prone to freezing up at odd intervals, with or without the intervention of the other. Sly 3, in particular, was guilty of randomly freezing, and if nothing else both had fostered a much more obsessive method of saving my progress.

At this moment, one or the other decided it was right about that time, and the game froze. Sometimes it would unfreeze on its own, others I would have to reluctantly press the reset button in order to fix it. After a long moment of waiting, I sighed and stood, picking my way across the short expanse of living room between myself and the PS2. Kneeling before the thing, I had only lifted my hand to reset it before everything went black and I felt everything pitch sharply to the left. Then I felt nothing.

When I opened my eyes, my first thought was that I had no memory of closing them. This was not terribly uncommon, I supposed, as I often had strangely realistic dreams and woke from them unsure of when I fell asleep.

The second thought to enter my mind was that something was very, very wrong, and that thought only cemented itself as I finally got my bearings and realized I had no idea at all where on Earth I was.

The ceiling above me was that nasty popcorn crap you find in older houses, littered with water stains and interspersed with some distinctly not promising cracks. The bed beneath me was far too big and far too soft. It was all very distinctly unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

The thing is, back home, I had slept on an old, fold-out cot (by choice, as it left more room for other things and could be easily packed away when I needed to clean) and this was definitely not that cot. And also, with permission from my parents' landlord, a friend and I had painted the ceiling in my room with a mural of the night sky that we routinely touched up and had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to… And you can't paint even half-decent murals on popcorn ceilings.

Reaching deep within myself for some of the unnatural calm I had learned from watching my mother work retail, I slowly sat up and took a better look at the room around me.

"Oh," A voice said nearby, as I was gazing uncomprehendingly at the bare, cracked plaster wall opposite me, "I think she's awake."

I had just scarcely begun to turn to see who had spoken when, quite suddenly, someone was standing before me. "How are you feelin', hon?" She asked, and she was not the one who had spoken first.

For a moment, I could only stare, dumbfounded. My first rational thought, staring at her, was that she had to be in a fursuit. Except, really, I'd never seen an elderly mouse fursuit before, and the eyes had far too much depth. And the hair piled into a bun on top of her head was all-too natural.

"Um." I managed, weakly, as I attempted to process the fact that I was face-to-face with a rather kindly-looking, elderly female mouse. "I'm okay, I guess."

She nodded in a sagely sort of way, reaching out somewhat before drawing her hand back a little sheepishly. She'd probably intended to feel my forehead―but seemed to sense that touching me may not be something I was alright with. I appreciated that.

"... Where am I?" I finally asked, deciding that anthropomorphic mouse-grandmas were the least of my worries, considering I'd woken up somewhere other than my living room or bedroom.

"The Happy Camper orphanage." The first voice said, a younger, not-so-kindly mouse stepping into view with crossed arms and an unimpressed frown and drawn eyebrows, "Somebody brought you 'round last night, asked us to take care of you. Only told us your last name was Cooper. Just who are ya, girly?"

That gave me significant pause. Me? A Cooper? At the Happy Camper orphanage? What kind of bizarre dream was this?

I knew I wasn't able to hide my confusion, and who could blame me? Everything that had happened since I woke up here was like consecutive punches in the gut―I was having trouble processing the information I was receiving at all. Making sense of it was a goal I would not manage just yet. But, thing was, I had to give her some sort of answer. Just staring at her in perplexed silence wasn't going to get either of us anywhere.

After a long moment of going ahead and doing the staring thing, I managed to work my jaw open and summon my voice. "I haven't the foggiest clue," I said, "Aside from being pretty sure my name's Sophie, nothing you're saying rings any bells for me."

Chancing it while they exchanged a concerned look, I glanced down at myself and only just barely managed not to shriek when I realized I was, currently, quite fuzzy. But, if nothing else, the sight of gray fur and a twitching, striped tail served to drive home the whole "Cooper" thing.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

This was fine.

I was apparently in the universe of Sly Cooper.

Cool.

No way at all that that could go wrong. No way at all.

Ha.

"He said it could be possible you had amnesia," The younger woman said slowly, drawing my attention back to her, "Something about a gang attacking your house and knocking you unconscious? Does that sound familiar?"

"A…" I trailed, brows knitting together as I become only more confused, which I hadn't really thought was possible at this point, "A gang." I said. "Um. Yeah, no? I don't remember anything about any gangs or break-ins or anything else and frankly I'm starting to freak out a little? So yeah probably got amnesia that's cool, okay, I can work with that…"

Now, the panic that crept into my voice was not a result of realizing I had amnesia, but it was not hard to play it off as such as I trailed off and swallowed hard, wrapping my arms around myself.

Both of the mice nodded.

"Okay then, hon, don't strain yourself." The older said with a kind smile, patting my leg very gently, "We'll bring you up some food soon―you just let us know if you remember anything."

The younger gave me a half-smile, seeming to become a little less unkind now that she had it in her head I was amnesiac and, apparently, the victim of a gang attack.

And then both left.

I sat on the bed for a long moment, half-hyperventilating, and eventually managed to calm my breathing.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

I was a Cooper. I was in the universe of Sly Cooper.

This was fine.

I could do this.

I could stick this out until I was able to figure out a way to get home. That wouldn't be so hard. Right?

… Right.

I heaved myself off the bed once I felt truly calm again and decided I may as well get a good look at the room I was apparently going to be occupying for now. Who knew how long I was going to be here, after all? I'd need to get acquainted with my surroundings sooner or later.

The walls were barren, as I've mentioned, with only one decrepit bookshelf with a few books on it pushed against the wall next to the window. A closer look showed none of the titles were of any interest to me. That was disappointing―if nothing else, I'd been hoping I could read something while I was waiting for food, and then maybe when I could steel myself enough to leave the room I could go looking around.

The room was… Bigger than my room back home, and another look around showed several bedframes piled atop each other in the far corner, and several mattresses next to them. A spare room, maybe? One they'd used in the past, clearly, but not one that was currently in-use.

Now, I'd never been in an orphanage before, so I wasn't sure what their organization system was for sorting out which kids went where, but I thought it safe to assume that they separated the boys from the girls, and possibly had the older kids in different rooms than the younger ones… Though that seemed less likely. If they had enough younger kids or older kids, maybe it'd be necessary to do that, but… Eh, I had no clue.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the entire room was the complete lack of any reflective surfaces. I knew I was a raccoon, of course, but I really wanted to see myself. Get used to my current look, you know?

With a start, I remembered I kept a hand-mirror in my three-ring binder, in my book-bag.

Then, with disappointment, I realized my book-bag probably hadn't made it here with me. It had been nearby, sure, but so had a lot of other things that clearly hadn't come with me. Still, it was something to hope for.

So I turned back toward the bed and nearly whooped for joy when I saw my bag sitting right next to it, unscathed by the apparent dimension-hop. That thing contained a lot of my belongings―at least belongings I tended to think needed to come with me wherever I went. Like my hand-mirror, or my laptop.

I crossed back to the bed and dug into the bag immediately, laying out my stuff to be looked through after I'd crossed looking at myself off the to-do list.

Unzipping my binder, I was still relieved to find my mirror right where I'd left it yesterday. I hesitated before reaching for it, staring at the reflection of the ceiling. Was I ready to see this? Was I ready to cement this in my mind as the truth? After a moment I decided I had to be ready. I had to look. This wasn't something I could hide from, and if I had a panic attack afterwards? Well, that was how it was meant to be.

I picked up the mirror and closed my eyes.

When I peeked them open, staring back at me from the reflection was a tired and scared-looking raccoon with a thick mop of black hair falling around my face and shoulders. I now understood why Carmelita always had hers braided―it was heavy, which I'd already known, but with all the extra fur it had to get hot.

Setting the mirror aside and giving myself a moment to see if I was, in fact, going to have a panic attack, I was thankfully able to process what I'd seen peacefully. No hyperventilating or crying… Which was a relief. This let me move on to checking through everything else.

Some of the items had changed to be more suited to the fact that we were now in a video game―symbols and icons changing to what was apparently the in-game equivalent to companies and popular media, rather than what they'd been before. It made everything I owned feel like I cheap off-brand version of the real thing, and thankfully, that made me laugh. My laptop for instance, smattered with stickers, had had several of them change―the most jarring of them all was probably my RedBubble sticker, which now apparently proclaimed the company's name to be BlueBubble, with appropriate color-changes to the sticker. My guess is BlueBubble, at least, with the BB symbol and the fact that all of the red bits had been changed to blue.

Needless to say that one shook me a bit.

Thankfully, however, all of the important stuff (like my sketchbook and the files on my laptop) had gone unchanged.

Which was, of course, all too weird to think about, because it kind of ruled out the possibility of someone just messing with me. Who would go to this much trouble? And how in the world had the necessary items to make me think I looked like an anthropomorphic raccoon, anyway?

The mice returned to my room as I dug out a book I'd been reading in my spare time lately, and although I'd intended to read some more their appearance made me change that plan. I flipped to the page I'd been on, pretending to not notice them, frowned at the bookmarks sitting there, then sighed and removed them, snapping the book closed.

"That's going to get annoying." I grumbled, mostly for their benefit.

The older mouse chuckled, and I lifted my head to look at her. "Tomorrow we'll have you eat with the others, but we thought you may want some time to figure things out before interacting with too many people," She said, setting a bowl of soup on the table next to the bed, "Find anything in all that?"

"I found this," I said with a small smile, holding up a bookmark from my stack of them I'd had in the book, showing off the back to her, which proclaimed, in bright red ink, Sophie A. Cooper.

She laughed a little, nodding, and patted my head, "Well, go ahead and eat then, Sophie. You'll need your strength."

The two of them left quietly, and I quickly flipped back to my place in the book and crammed the bookmarks back in. No way was I letting go of my spot. Not when I was only ten chapters from the end!

Then, pausing, I pulled the single written-on one back out of the book and stared at it. The last time I'd seen it, it had said Sophie A. Caldicot instead. But there the name Cooper was, written in my own handwriting. That was… So weird. I really, really didn't like it.

But I'd have to learn to deal with it.

Replacing the bookmark again and setting the book aside, I turned to the soup.

She was right, I needed my strength… Especially since I'd have to eat around other people tomorrow. Might as well enjoy my privacy while I had the chance.

While I slowly ate the soup, I mulled over the events of the day. The light from the window implied it was around sunset, so I'd essentially lost a whole day. Wasn't it just noon a few minutes ago? Wasn't I just in my living room? Gods above, this was… Oh, this was weird. How in the world did I end up here? What did I do?

Nothing I'd done this afternoon was any different than any other Saturday spent playing video games.

I soon gave up trying to figure it out, pushing the now-empty bowl away and laying down rather heavily on the bed.

Welp. I thought, Looks like I've been snatched.

A/N: Okay, so this note can be skipped and I won't mind if it is, but just real quick I wanna say thank you again. Here's to six years of Sophie Cooper and her ragtag, unstable gang (hearts). Also, happy New Year 2020!

Now I just wanna talk for a minute about this rewrite, because admittedly I wasn't ever going to give the Ringtail series a rewrite. I didn't think there was a reason to. I figured I did pretty okay the first time around, and the original version of SAR ended up being the first multi-chapter ordeal with a fully comprehensive story that I ever finished writing. I had only just barely turned 14 when I started it, and if I could go back to the approach to writing I had when writing it (write what you want, consequences be damned, and if people like it that's pretty cool) I would finish so much more than I do at this point in time. The entire original fic was like... A first draft that I published. I didn't edit, I didn't really care if there were inconsistencies. I was just happy to write a chapter every day and upload it and have a couple people pop in to say they liked it here and there. Trying to rewrite it or do something more with it never even occurred to me, because why would people like it if it wasn't already as good as it was going to get?

But, you know, six years on, you can kind of see how things might need to be fixed or changed or just generally improved on. My writing style, for instance, has gotten more descriptive and my dialogue has gotten more genuine, so those are two key elements involved in the original that... Could use work. I've also taken a turn toward longer chapters as a result of those things changing, so while the original fic's prologue was less than 1K (not counting A/Ns), this one stands firm at a little over 2.5K. I'm fairly certain the overall wordcount of the rewritten version will more than double from the original even without A/Ns... Of which this one will be the longest. I'm trying to get stuff out of the way in the first chapter. So let's move on to other stuff!

First off, now that I'm rewriting it I'm working on fixing up some of the timeline discrepancies and the general timeframe of the fic, and the characters have all been aged up 2 years from their original ages because I felt it was probably best that the whole Rajan/Sophie thing take place when they're a little more mature. Re-reading and seeing them act Like That at 14/15ish was uncomfy, but since I was acting that way with my boyfriend when we were 16/17ish it was a little less uncomfy to have them be closer to that age... And I kinda just felt it made more sense in general for them to be older, especially considering I'm 20 now, and looking back a 14 year old wouldn't get up to the junk that these guys did and wouldn't be self-sufficient enough to survive almost completely on their own - lord knows that even as a highly self-sufficient 14 year old myself I wasn't ready to live on my own the way they are, but by 16 I was at least ready to be left alone for long stretches of time with occasional adult check-ins by my parents.

Second, me messing around with the general timeframe of the fic will not change the overall story drastically at all! I've left everything in the same order, it's just that the story itself has slightly better pacing and I've spaced some events closer together or further away from each other depending on what felt more authentic. The original fic took place over the span of (I think) about a year and a half. This one spans closer to two - nothing extreme.

Third, some important plot points have been reimagined to make more sense. I mean, seriously, I was 14 the first time around, and my grasp of conflict was... Off. So this time around any big conflicts hopefully make more sense to everyone else haha

Fourth, no it's not beta read this time either haha, but thankfully I'm 20 years old and I usually catch my mistakes, but if I don't the first time around I'll get it on a re-read later on down the line and edit it.

I had more stuff to say but I forgot so! I'll go ahead and cut this off here. Thanks for reading, again, and Happy New Year!