Wow, this is insanely overdue, isn't it? I said I'd try for two chapters in November, but didn't even get this one up. I am apparantly the Queen of Procrastination.

But here it finally is! I decided that from here on out, certain parts that Nyx isn't involved in will be written in third person, so that we can see all the action that she's not there for. There are entirely too many italics in this chapter, and when you're stuck on mobile and have to use the Copy and Paste method, italics become public enemy number one.

This chapter thus concludes Paris, so next chapter we'll be moving onto India!


Chapter Four: The Adventure Begins

"How do they not notice you taking things from their pockets?"

Sly gave a breathy snicker, and pocketed the key he'd just lifted from the nightclub guard in front of him, whom was sleeping in front of a television. A television that wasn't getting any reception, at that. The guy looked dead asleep, so Sly decided to not bother with knocking him unconcious, he pretty much already was.

"I'll have to show you sometime," Sly replied once he was away from the sleeping guard, just to be safe.

"Sly, no," Bentley's voice was faint and sort of muffled, he obviously wasn't in front of the computer like Nyx was, but Sly could still hear the exasperated annoyance in his tone. "She's not here so you can corrupt her,"

"I thought we already went over the fact that media has corrupted her? I'd be doing a civic duty by enlightening her on how criminal activity really works," Sly teased. With all six keys now in his possession, he began making his way back to the control panel they belonged to.

"A simple explanation will do, y'know. I don't need a hands on lesson," Nyx said plaintively. She'd probably said or thought something similar when she'd asked about the binocucom system, and Bentley had invited her over to see for herself. That's how she'd ended up watching Sly collect the fan control keys. She'd been pretty nervous about it at first, but once Sly and Bentley had both insisted that it was fine if she watched, she seemed to loosen up a little.

Sly honestly didn't mind Nyx watching him, he wasn't the sort of person to get nervous when observed, and he didn't mind if she was curious, either. He wasn't exactly used to being around someone who was a virgin to the world of crime, though, and he figured that Nyx was probably sort of nervous about getting involved somehow. She'd most likely been taught that crime was a dark and dangerous thing to get caught up in and that the people were ruthless and immoral (like the Klaww Gang). With that in mind, she might even have been scared of various aspects of the Cooper Gang's work...

"The problem with you, Sly, is that you'll make committing crime sound fun in hopes of turning her," Bentley sighed, sounding closer to the microphone this time.

"Is being a criminal like being a vampire? Like, you become infected and then you transform painfully?" Nyx sounded so downright honest about the question, that Sly had to choke back laughter as he started unlocking the control panel. At least she wasn't too nervous or scared to make jokes, that was a good thing. And she obviously had to trust them if she'd agreed to stay, right? Hopefully she was just conflicted about their line of work and how much she was allowed to know, and not scared of them. Sly honestly wouldn't know what to do with that problem, if it became one.

There was silence on the other side of the binocucom line for just a moment, and if Sly knew anything about how Bentley reacted to awful jokes, he was probably staring at Nyx with a deadpan look. Then Bentley gave a long sigh that seemed to fade off, and Sly guessed that the turtle had probably just walked away.

Sly contemplated his next words a moment before saying, "I vant to steal your goods!" in a horrible impersonation of Dracula.

Nyx sounded like she almost spit soda and instead choked on it, as she tried to not laugh. And behind her coughs and wheezing giggles, Sly could just barely make out Bentley's groan of, "Oh my god, Sly,"

"Has anyone ever told you that you are a dork?" Nyx asked through her choking.

"Yes, I'm well aware," Sly grinned and turned away from the control panel, having slowed the fans down so that he could now walk on them to climb atop the main chandelier.

Sly assessed the positions of the fans, and decided that the easiest way on top of one was from the tarps on the left and right of the walkway. The raccoon made a careful and precise leap onto the nearest one, and then turned to look towards the fan. As he did so, Nyx spoke up, having stopped choking so that she could ask another question. "So... You're actually going to walk on those fans? And not fall?"

"Yup. Watch and be amazed," Sly secured his cane in his hand and then leapt from the tarp (which he was glad was pinned down quite taught) to land on a blade of the nearest fan, perching on it's edge without tipping it more than slightly. Distributing his weight evenly to balance was practically instinct now, like breathing. It came naturally and he didn't have to think about it.

"Holy crap, how do you do that?" Nyx sounded absolutely mystified. "I didn't think real people could actually do stuff like that..."

"Lots of practice and skill. I'll add it to the list of things I might teach you someday," Sly chuckled. As he sprung to the next fan and hooked his cane on it's suspending rope, he heard Bentley give another 'Sly no' in protest.

"Sly yes," the smug raccoon replied. "There's no harm in showing her how things are done. There's a difference between knowing how to do something and actually doing it," he purred as he climbed the rope and then dropped down onto the chandelier.

Bentley groaned again. "Just insert the splice clip, Sly..."

Sly grinned to himself and introduced the splice clip to the spotlight security gun, and then stepped back to watch the show.

Bentley politely asked Nyx to get up so he could use his computer, and then there were a few clicks and whirrs as the spotlight gun began to move. And then it began to rapid-fire, as Bentley pretty much went crazy aiming at the two generators bolted to the walls.

"Woah,"

Over the sound of the gun blowing the generators to the printing press room (and anything else in their path) to bits, Sly just barely heard Nyx's proclaimation of amazement.

"That should do it. No more security in the printing press room!" Bentley declared as he stopped shooting.

There were a few beats of silence as Sly hopped off the chandelier, before Nyx spoke again. "What kind of idiot puts generators to his printing press room in the theater?"

Bentley sighed, an overexagerated, dreamy-like sigh. "Finally, your logic returns to you,"


Sly was taking his time getting back to the safehouse, looping around the streets looking for guards to pickpocket for cash. Nyx had gotten bored of watching, and had decided to sit and draw. So the binocucom line had been pretty quiet, and Sly was off in his own personal world of pickpocketing.

Therefore, when a magenta figure dropped down in front of him, Sly was certainly a bit startled, and almost dropped into a battle stance.

"Hold it, Cooper!" the tigeress demanded. Upon hearing her voice, Sly knew who this was, and he stood back up straight, and relaxed.

"Constable Neyla, another police woman hot on my tail," Sly slipped into a flirtatious tone nearly instantly, almost entirely letting his guard down. He couldn't feel all that threatened around law-inforcement officers, especially ones as attractive as Neyla (though she wasn't as attractive as Inspector Fox).

"Please," Neyla scoffed. "I led you here,"

"So that Klaww Gang slip was a clue... Why are you helping me out?" Sly asked. This was a new sort of concept for him, but an interesting one.

"I'm not as black and white as Carmelita," Neyla crossed her arms and shook her head. "I know what a menace those Clockwerk parts are, and I don't want the likes of the Klaww Gang putting them to use,"

"Soo, what? It takes a thief to catch a thief?" Sly found it almost flattering that a law inforcement officer was practically asking for his help.

Neyla nodded. "Something like that," then she met Sly's eyes with a serious look. "But if I'm going to trust you in this case, I need to know if you can keep up. Literally,"

"Literally?" Sly questioned.

"Don't fall behind," Neyla warned.

And then she was sprinting across the roof and jumping down into the streets. A second later, and Sly was following her.

"Sly, forget about being quiet and not alerting the guards, and just sprint. You're going to need to if you want to keep up with Constable Neyla!" Bentley's voice came over the binocucom line as soon as he noticed what was going on. Neyla was quick, but Sly was pretty sure he could easily keep up.

"Is he chasing a police officer?" Nyx sounded so bemused by the concept that Sly had to smirk.

"Yes. Yes he is," Bentley replied, before shutting off the binocucom line so that Sly could focus.

Neyla probably wouldn't have wasted any time waiting for Sly had he fallen behind, but she didn't need to, because the thief was pretty much right behind her the whole way. The Constable was fast and nimble with quick reflexes, but so was Sly, and he kept up with her every step.

But Neyla wasn't impressed quite yet. So she began taking a scenic route, leading Sly on the most roundabout way to their destination. Not to mention using various methods to go from the streets to the rooftops, visa versa, and roof to roof, with no discernible pattern to her path.

When Neyla reached Dimitri's back door, she turned to find Sly right there behind her. Now, maybe she was a little impressed. "Well done, Sly. We should work well together,"

"Glad you approve," Sly returned the compliment with a cocky grin.

"Now, legally I can't enter Dimitri's nightclub without a warrant... But I happen to have obtained a key to his back door..." Neyla gestured to the large double doors they stood at. "...Which a person such as yourself can use however he pleases," Neyla held said key out towards Sly.

Sly smiled almost ear to ear as he took the key. "Oh, we are absolutely going to work well together,"


I turned towards the door when Sly walked back into the safehouse, looking very pleased with himself. He'd not contacted Bentley since taking off after that Constable Neyla woman, but Bentley was confident that Sly would be fine. And he'd been right, which I got the feeling was something that happened often.

"So, how was your date with Constable Neyla?" Bentley asked, not sounding enough like he was joking.

"Wonderful. I think a second date might be in order," Sly replied smoothly, and then held up a shiny key. "She gave me this key to Dimitri's back door," he twirled it around and then set the key by Bentley's keyboard.

Bentley regarded the key, and then began typing into his computer. "Hmm. This is a fortunate turn of events. That key unlocks the door to the discotheque, which is exactly where we need to go!" and then he reached for... A crossbow? That was totally a crossbow!

Bentley hopped out of his chair, and headed for the door, strapping the crossbow to his back. "Wish me luck," he said, sounding awfully nervous.

"Good luck!" Sly called after him, and then slid into the chair where the turtle had previously been sitting. He started clicking and doing things with Bentley's computer as he relaxed into the chair.

"Does he know that you play with his computer while he's gone?" I asked, glacing up at him from over my glasses.

"Of course. I would never purposely invoke the wrath of Bentley," Sly very sarcastially proclaimed. "I've got to monitor him on the binocucom, like he does when I'm out there. Just to make sure nothing awful happens,"

"Ah. Makes sense," I nodded.

"So, are you having fun getting a look into the life of a criminal?" Sly asked, very, very smugly, as if he expected a wholehearted 'yes'.

"If I say yes, then you'll never shut up about it. But if I say no, you'll also never shut up about it, right?" I asked, looking at him skeptically. I'd spent enough time with him to safely make that conclusion.

"Oh no, I've got to stop leaving you with Bentley, he's turning you against me," Sly gasped dramatically, feigning offense.

"Mhm, sure," I couldn't help but snort a small laugh at the dorky look on his face. "If I'm being honest, though, it is pretty interesting. You've already proven wrong many criminal sterotypes, and we've barely known each other two days," I casually gestured at him with the pencil I was holding (Drawing hadn't exactly been as fruitful as I'd hoped).

"Well, then I'm happy to be the one to open your eyes," Sly beamed. I couldn't tell if he was legitimately that full of himself, or if he was just making awful jokes. There was also the possibility that he was making jokes about being full of himself, because he actually was.

I snorted and shook my head. "I also can't believe that someone as dorky as you hasn't got arrested yet," Perhaps it was the rest of my 'brainwashing' via media that was talking, but Sly was such a dork who didn't seem to take much of anything all that seriously. How was he a master thief who ran a gang of internationally wanted criminals who'd aparantly evaded the cops for years? How could he be so carefree, yet so skilled? I really didn't think that such a combination was even possible, but yet here he was, grinning at me like an idiot.

"Skilled doesn't mean uptight, y'know," Sly said, and then turned his attention to Bentley's computer, because said turtle was now inside the discotheque (which was a word I really didn't know how to say...).

Sly turned on the microphone and leaned towards it. "Hey Bentley, how're you holding up out there in the field?"

"Fine, fine, I'm just fine," Bentley did not at all sound fine. He sounded quite nervous, actually. "I just need to bomb all the pillars supporting that disco ball and I can get out of here!"

"So, what's with taking out the disco ball?" Sly asked, glancing at some blueprints on the table that neither of us could read.

"It's impact will shake the Nightclub's front peacock sign loose from it's moorings... Look I can't talk now, I've got to keep moving, keep safe!" and with that very panicked sounding statement, Bentley cut the binocucom feed.

"Yoouu sure he's gonna be okay out there?" I asked. "He sounded like he was about to have a panic attack..."

"Yeah," Sly replied, sounding not at all concerned, and entirely casual. "Bentley might be scared about being in the field, but he's brave and smart, he'll be just fine," and then Sly moved the laptop so that I could also see it, and moved his chair around to sit next to me.

"M'kay, I'll trust your judgement," I shrugged and then went quiet as we watched Bentley begin his job. Unsurprisingly, there were guards about (though I questioned if they were actual 'guards' and not mercenaries or something hired by Dimitri. They obviously weren't cops), and at first I was concerned about how such a small turtle was going to deal with them. Even if he could sneak by, they'd hear it when he started destroying those support pillars, right?

Then he pulled out the crossbow. And shot a very well-aimed dart into the neck of the closest guard. And within seconds, the guard dropped to the floor, out like a light. Then he moved to aim around some security lasers at the only other guard in sight. Once that guy had dropped, Bentley moved back down the ramp he'd come up, and to the right of the opposite ramp that led to the passageway he came in from.

From his pocket, Bentley produced a small round device that began to glow red when Bentley stuck it onto the support pillar there. And then he moved far, far away from it.

I realized just as it exploded, that it was a bomb. "He's good with computers and explosives?" I asked in amazement.

"It's a surprise he hasn't taken over the world yet, I know," Sly laughed.

Bentley regarded the first unconcious guard warily as he blew another pillar nearby, followed by the laser security system. Then he headed down the steps that were now accessible, carefully stepping around the second guard he'd knocked out.

After the third pillar went down, I noticed that the disco ball was really swinging quite a bit, and I suposed that Bentley was lucky that the disco ball had it's own independant support pillars, otherwise the ceiling probably would have come down by now.

When the final support pillar came down, it surprised me that we could feel the impact all the way at the safehouse. It wasn't much, but the ground definately shook as the disco ball crashed down.

Sly checked a few things on the computer before eagerly contacting Bentley. "Wow, Bentley! We felt that all the way at the safehouse! And you were right, the peacock sign had half it's bolts pop off on impact!"

"You know," I stated matter-of-factly. "You're supposed to count down to one before the ball drops,"

Bentley groaned, obviously having heard me over the binocucom, while Sly laughed. "We're not in New York, but I'll remember that next time we drop a disco ball,"


Bentley had returned to the safehouse around 3:30 in the morning, announcing that with the bolts on the peacock sign loosened, they were all set for the big heist; Operation: Thunder Beak.

Bentley put the finishing touches on his slideshow, and then sat Sly and Murray down in front of it. Nyx watched from the table, having put down her pencil for the time being.

"Okay, fellas, the dominos are all in place," Bentley dove into his presentation, but upon seeing that his 'Operation: Thunder Beak' title card was backwards, he gave his projector a glare, fixed the slide, and then proceeded as if it never happened. "Time to pull off the big heist!"

A picture of the water tower was first in the slideshow. "First, Murray will help me break into the old water tower," the turtle drew a square around the tower. "From there, I should be able to shut down the plaza fountain," the slide then changed to one of the fountain, which Bentley quickly scribbled out.

"Dimitri is sure to send someone out to get the repair truck. Sly, you'll pickpocket the truck keys off this guy, once he shows up. Then hand it off to me and Murray in the plaza," a generic photo of one of the larger boar guards was next in the queue, and Bentley highlighted the guy's pocket.

The slide switched to a shot of the peacock sign. "We'll go steal the truck, while you climb to the top of the Nightclub's peacock sign,"

"When you're in position, Murray will fire the truck's winch line up to you, and we'll use it to pull down the sign. If my calculations are correct, the impact should create an entrance to the printing press room. Then, Sly, you jump in, grab the Clockwerk tail feathers, and we all get the heck out of here!" a final series of images plus gesture drawings illustrated how Bentley hoped this heist would go.

"Sounds like a plan, pal. Let's do this!" Sly twirled his cane in his hand, eager to get this heist on the road. The final heist was always the most exciting.

"One more thing," Bentley added, and then turned to their feline guest. "Nyx, I want to make sure you're okay with all this. You can wait for us in the van, and I'll leave my laptop with you so you'll know if anything goes wrong,"

"Yeah, that's fine," Nyx nodded. Waiting in the van sounded like the most logical option, so she had no objections.

Bentley nodded to her, and then turned to Sly and Murray. "Alright, let's move out, guys!"

Bentley and Murray were very cautious about making their way to the water tower. While getting in a fight with the guards wouldn't matter much now, Bentley wanted this to go as smoothly as possible.

Luckily, the coast to the tower was pretty clear, and hopefully none of the guards would hear Bentley bombing open the tower hatch. He looked both ways, as if he were about to cross the street, before tossing a bomb up to the hatch. He and Murray then stepped back and shielded their faces from the blast.

Per usual, Bentley's explosives did the trick perfectly, and the hatch was open.

"Jump into my arms, I'll toss ya up there!" Murray declared, holding his arms open for the turtle. Bentley did not hesitate in doing so, pulling his limbs into his shell. He entirely trusted that Murray would not throw him into the side of the water tower.

There was a brief moment of being airborne for Bentley, and then he was inside the water tower. "I need to focus... Which valves do I turn to divert water pressure from the plaza?"

It took a moment, but Bentley and his brains made quick work of the water tower (apparantly the answer was 'All of the valves'), and the fountain went off seconds later.

"Sucess!" Bentley cheered, and then hailed Sly on the binocucom. "Sly, the water pressure to the fountain should be disabled!"

"It's off, alright. They're already sending out the repair guy to fix it up," Sly answered quietly as he watched the large boar from his rooftop perch. Two rats were following him, apparantly as some kind of protection detail.

"Pickpocket the keys to his repair truck, without being seen," Bentley instructed. Sly snickered to himself, not being seen was pretty much the cornerstone of his work, if there was one thing he could do, it was not be seen.

Sly vaulted himself off the roof and landed next to the out of commission fountain. He figured this would be pretty easy. All he had to do was eliminate those two rats tailing the repairman, and then take the key. He'd done this all a million times.

And easy it was, as not even twenty minutes later, the clueless guard had been relieved of his truck keys. The raccoon gave a triumphant grin, and pocketed them. He should probably knock out the repairman, he figured. Didn't want him reporting back to Dimitri that that repair truck had been stolen, after all. So with two quick swings of his cane, the much larger guard was rendered unconcious.

Sly looped back around to the fountain to hand off the keys to Murray and Bentley, and then he began climbing atop the wobbly peacock sign to wait for them to arrive.

Bentley and Murray headed back towards Dimitri's back door, where the repair truck was (illegally) parked. "I'll take the wheel. I know how to drive a stick-shift!" Murray announced, climbing into the driver's seat.

Bentley had no argument there, and climbed into the passenger's seat. Murray then started the engine, and pulled a hard left to head to the fountain, very impressively driving between two suitcases that someone had left in the road.

"I'm in position," Sly's voice radioed in over the binocucom just as the truck was turning the corner to the plaza.

"Great, we're just driving up right now. Get ready to grab the harpoon!" Murray announced as Sly saw the truck drive up and park on the opposite side of the fountain.

Murray aimed the winch and aligned it with Sly's position, and then shot it off. Sly caught one of the hooks with his cane, and then attatched it to the peacock sign.

"Hook's on!" Sly called. "Pull away!" and then he hopped onto the winch rope, and slid down it.

Before Sly's feet touched the ground, Bentley called to him from the truck. "Sly! The guards are onto us, protect the truck!"

Sly leaped off the rope and landed in front of the truck, taking a battle stance and assessing the odds. The rat guards were numerous, but small. Sly figured that this would be pretty fun. It wasn't often that he got a fight all to himself.

People had the bad habit of underestimating Sly, due to him often being much skinner and smaller than they, but if you asked any one of them, they'd tell you that Sly is a great deal stronger than he looks, and you honestly don't want to pick a fight with him.

Something that those rat guards probably wished they'd been told beforehand... The fight was shortlived, and the score was Sly: 1, Rats: 0. Sly gestured to Murray that the coast was clear, and the hippo whirred the winch into action, bringing the peacock sign down with a loud crunch of concrete.

Sly fliched away from the crash and the debris from it, and then stood to watch the dust clear. Bentley exited the truck to observe as well, and once the dust was gone, it was obvious that his plan had worked, and they had a direct entrance to the printing press room.

"Behold! The wonders of gravity and inertia!" Bentley exclaimed, holding his arms up to the sky.

"That was real subtle, Bentley," Sly chuckled.

"Okay, you jump in, grab the Clockwerk tail feathers, and we're out of here!" Bentley instructed.

With a quick salute to his partners, Sly hopped into the hole and down into the printing press room. His eyes imediately locked onto the tail feathers, but his attention was quickly grabbed by the tall purple iguana who was also standing in the room.

"Gahh! So, raccoonus-doodus... You're like totally bumming my house up and bringing me down, so very uncool. Why can't you let birds and bees be free, bro?" Dimitri seemed more than a little pissed that they'd blown a hole in his roof. Actually, he was probably just pissed at Sly in general. He seemed to have that affect on a lot of people like Dimitri.

"Listen, Dimitri, you have no idea what you're playing with, and it's gonna bring more than your house down," Sly figured that he'd have to fight Dimitri for the tail feathers, but he got points for trying to be civil, right?

"Look, bro, I see you are a tough cowboy. A man with taste, style, vision, a conneseur of finer things, like me. Look, I'm sure that two cats in a bag like us can work something out, yeah? We smoove, yeah?" Dimitri then gestured to the printing press. "Look, seeeeee the money? You like the money? You can take all you want, I can-"

Sly interupted Dimitri before he could finish his proposal. "No deal! You and the rest of the Klaww Gang have to be stopped! Clockwerk will never again see the light of day. Just hand over the tail feathers and we can-"

"What is this with clocks, bro?!" now it was Dimitri's turn to interupt Sly. "Have you no vision? Are you hearing what I beam to you? You think you have juice? Don't show me a little mind when talking about such big things. You think you can swing the bat? Show your bling, and let me shine you!"

"I have no idea what you're saying..." Sly shook his head. Trying to make sense of what Dimitri had just said would have probably given him a headache. So he added, "And your suit sucks," to his statement, as a last resort to getting this coversation to go anywhere, even if that meant it was going to progress to a fight.

Dimitri let out a high pitched shriek that was not unlike a petrodactyl. "Let's dance!"

And then Dimitri had sprinted across the room, and was brandishing a shock pistol that was definately some counterfeit off-brand or bootleg.

Sly ducked as a bolt flew over his head, and he moved towards the safety of a support beam. Bootleg or not, he guessed that those bolts would definately hurt if he got hit. So Sly made a mental note to just not do that.

After quickly assessing the room, Sly leapt from behind the support beam, to hide behind a collection of glass containers. Dimitri fired off a few shots at him, but missed. He attempted to fire again, but his gun overheated and refused to fire, protesting by sparking violently.

That's what Dimitri got for using bootleg weapons, Sly figured. He vaulted over the containers he was hiding behind to begin assaulting Dimitri with his cane. He wasn't exactly expecting Dimitri to be good at hand-to-hand combat, as well.

Or rather... Tail-to-body combat... Before he could figure out what was going on, Sly found himself tumbling down the stairs, because Dimitri had decided that he was a dragon, and had whipped the raccoon with his tail.

Sly barely had enough time to regain his bearings before he had to roll out of the way of another bolt from Dimitri's gun, which had apparantly cooled down. Sly was back on his feet in seconds, and taking cover behind another cluster of containers.

Those containers were not going to stand up to being shot forever, though, and Sly made a quick dash for another support beam, lest the exploding glass be allowed to cut him. Dimitri shot off two more bolts, and then his firearm began to spark and protest again.

Sly was more cautious in assaulting Dimitri this time. He kept a bit more distance, and watched out for Dimitri's tail, making sure to jump out of it's way. Dimitri was pretty pissed about getting beat up and not being able to get another hit in, so when his gun cooled down enough, he just angrily shot towards where Sly stood, barely giving the raccoon time to jump out of the way.

Despite the relatively even match, Sly was having fun with this fight. Dimitri was over-enraged, and it was actually pretty comical. Sly was confident that he'd win any fight he got in, and this one was no different.

His current strategy of waiting until Dimitri's gun overheated seemed to be working pretty well, and Dimitri hadn't changed up the formula yet, so Sly decided to stick with it.

They rinsed and repeated a few times, so to say, until Dimitri had had enough of being beaten up, and made an atempt to call for backup. But before he could get anywhere with that plan, Sly delivered a final blow with his cane, sending Dimitri flying... Into his non-functional printing press... Sly chuckled as the lizard struggled to not be crushed by the paper roller, and once he sucessfully climbed out, fell directly into a trash can.

"You take Clockwerk feathers, and my counterfeiting operation... It's past tense!" Dimitri complained.

"I'm doing you a favor. What kind of thief prints money, anyways?" Sly shook his head. "There's no honor in that,"

"You... Cracker box!" Dimitri hissed, and then proceeded to lose conciousness.

Sly could hear the Interpol sirens in the distence slowly getting louder, so he wasted no time grabbing Clockwerk's tail feathers, and locating the proper exit to the printing press room. Once outside, Sly made a beeline for the van. The added weight of the tail feathers was a bit akward to carry, and was definately slowing him down, but he was pretty sure he had enough time to reach the van before Interpol showed up.

The van doors were open when Sly got to it, and he shoved the tail feathers into the back (being careful to not hit the startled-looking Nyx whom was in the corner by the driver's seat), before hoisting himself up inside, and closing the doors behind him.

"Floor it, Murray!" Sly exclaimed. Murray obliged, and the van lurched forward and began it's high-speed dash down the streets.

Sly let out a breathless laugh, and leaned against the side of the van to catch his breath and do a physical inventory of his possible injuries. He felt a bit sore, but nothing was actually hurt. Maybe his side would be bruised where Dimitri's tail hit him, but nothing was fractured or broken.

"That was great work, Sly!" Bentley commended, leaning over the passenger's seat with his hand open for a high five.

Sly leaned forward to clap their hands together. His attention then turned to Nyx, who wore an odd expression that was somewhere between startled and relieved. "So what'dya think?"

"That was uh... Really amazing. Nothing like what's in the movies," Nyx shook her head. She was probably having a hard time processing the whole thing she'd just witnessed. Sly hoped that she'd get used to it, for her own sake.

"Aw, thanks," Sly teased. "We know we're awesome,"

Nyx laughed and shook her head again. "You are so full of yourself,"

"Nothing wrong with flaunting what I've got, now is there?" perhaps the kind of flirtatious look Sly tried to give didn't look quite so much so when he was sweating and still trying to catch his breath, but he made an atempt nonetheless.

Bentley rolled his eyes, embarassed for having to listen to this whole exchange. And Nyx practically choked on her own spit as she tried to not laugh.


True to Bentley's word, Interpol showed up practically instantly, after Sly had taken down Dimitri. The gang was lucky that they hadn't been caught. Actually, we were lucky that we hadn't been caught. Because I figured that if I was caught with a gang of criminals while they were pulling a huge heist, it would be 'arrest now, ask questions later,'. And even if they believed me when I said 'This one gang of violent criminals wanted me dead, so another less-violent criminal gang offered to protect me, and I said yes,' that probably wouldn't be very good for my criminal record, I realized.

Also. My previous assumption about the back of the van and a getaway drive? That had held true, and maybe I'd even jinxed myself by thinking about it. Even though we weren't be chased, Murray was driving way above the speed limit, probably trying to get as far away from the commotion as possible. I just hoped that no cops along the road saw him driving that fast.

I was not at all familiar with where Murray was driving, so I couldn't say exactly where we were, nor where we were in relation to Paris. But the more we drove, I realized the farther away Paris was.

And with this, I realized that there was no going back now. I was comitting to this 'running with the Cooper Gang' plan, for better or for worse. I supposed that somehow getting arrested definately wouldn't be as bad as getting killed, and I was actually slowly becoming convinced that Sly's gang wasn't going to get arrested any time soon.

But there was still that inherant fear of the unknown. I had no idea what sorts of things might happen while I travelled with the Cooper Gang, and all I could do was hope that it was going to be good things.

Bentley leaned around the passenger's seat to look at Sly. "So, I was thinking about a vacation in Monaco. How does that sound?"

Sly laughed. "You just want an excuse to try out that new card counting formula of yours,"

"So what if I do? Monaco is a beautiful place," Bentley retorted.

I couldn't help but snicker. Looking on the bright side of things, I could definately have been in that situation with less pleasant people. And for the fact that I wasn't, I was thankful.