Wooohooo, here we are with chapter seven! This one was a bit of a pain in the ass, as I originally intended for the entirety of episode three to be in this chapter, so that I could start up chapter eight with the action of episode four. But as I fleshed out everything, I realized that just wasn't going to happen.

At least Nyx sort of starts getting involved with stuff in this chapter! Even if it's only because Bentley left her with no choice. That part was really fun to write lol Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter! I've already started working on chapter eight, because I kept getting ideas for it while still writing this one, so maybe it'll be done sometime relatively soon.


Chapter Seven: Advice On How To Not Die

After my harrowing near-death experience with the Clockwerk wings, Sly offered to sit in the back and deal with them until we reached a hotel for the night. You could not have paid me any sum of money to decline this offer. I made sure Bentley knew that once this was all over, and they'd rounded up all the parts and knew how to destroy them, I wanted to be the one to do away with those wings.

Getting to sit in the front was a very welcome change to being thrown around the back of the van. It wasn't so awful back there when Murray was driving within the speed limit and not making turns going at Mach 5. But that's unfortunately what a getaway drive is composed of, and it was much less than pleasant. ...I was totally calling shotgun next getaway drive.

Sly had eagerly decided that while we were in India, we should totally go spend a weekend in Bollywood. I had no idea what was in Bollywood (I didn't even know it was an actual place until then; I'd thought it was made up for children's media or something), but I didn't argue and decided to give it a chance. In reality, I didn't argue mostly because I was half asleep with my face pressed against the cold glass of the passenger's side window when Sly brought the idea up. I don't think I actually even said anything during that conversation, considering that I barely remember it...

I also don't remember getting to the hotel in Bollywood, nor do I remember getting out of the van and walking up to the room. But when I woke up the next day, I was buried under the fluffy covers of a hotel bed.

I rolled over and rubbed my eyes to focus them, trying to make out the details of the room. There were no lights on, but there was faint sunlight seeping in from under the drapes. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I could see that Sly was curled up in the other bed in the room, and he looked dead asleep. I had no idea how heavy of a sleeper he was; He'd always somehow been awake before me when we were in Monaco. I was therefore hesitant to think about getting up, in case I disturbed him.

I fished my phone out of my pocket (making note of the fact that aside from my shoes I was still entirely dressed from the day before) and ducked under the covers to check the time. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. Well, so much for a proper sleeping schedule... I contemplated trying to get up really quietly to go see if Bentley or Murray were awake, but then it occurred to me that I had literally no idea where we were. I didn't know if we were even in Bollywood yet, and I had no idea what this hotel was, or what room I'd find Bentley and Murray in. And I didn't speak Hindu, so I couldn't go and ask someone to get answers to any of my questions. ...Maybe I'd have to take Sly up on that offer of learning more languages...

So, I supposed it looked like my only real option was to just stay under the warm covers, and wait for Sly to wake up. Which honestly didn't seem like a very bad idea, since the hotel bed was quite comfortable, and I was very aware of the soreness all over my body; A side effect of wrestling with Clockwerk's wings... So that's what I did. I hibernated underneath the fluffy blankets and read random internet articles for the next hour and a half. It was roughly at four when I heard Sly groan and shift.

I emerged from under the covers, to watch the raccoon drag himself into a sitting position and vigerously rub at his eyes. "Good morning- Err... Afternoon?" I greeted him.

Sly looked over towards me, looking almost as if he didn't understand what I'd said to him. He honestly looked like he was still more than half asleep. After a moment of just staring at me, he raised a hand in greeting, and mumbled something that was most definitely not any word I knew.

Apparantly Sly isn't much of a morning person. Who'd have thought?

Sly proceeded to practically roll out of bed, and then headed for the coffee maker on the table at the other side of the room.

I sat up to watch Sly fumble with the coffee maker as he figured out how this particular one functioned. I couldn't help but laugh at him. "So are you one of those people who don't function in the morning without liquid caffeine?"

"Good guess," Sly mumbled, sounding like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"How is it that we spent an entire week in Monaco, in the same hotel room, and I've never got to see you like this until now?" I asked, not even trying to not look amused.

"I'm a pro at keeping my condition a secret," Sly tiredly chuckled, leaning back against the table as he waited for his coffee to brew.

I tried to supress a laugh that, despite my efforts, still came out as an audible snort. Sly had this dorky way of always making people laugh, even if he wasn't trying to. It was one of the things about him that made him so easy to be around.

"Y'know, you're lucky you've gone this long without seeing me first thing in the morning," Sly laughed, brushing his messy hair away from his face.

"Yeeaah, you do sort of look awful," I teased, pretending to look him up and down with a judgemental gaze.

"Speak for yourself, you should look at your hair," Sly jested in return, turning to the coffee maker as it finished brewing his coffee. He poured a cup, and wasted no time in starting to drink it.

I couldn't keep from laughing. "It took you this long to notice that my hair looks awful in the morning?"

"No, but I wasn't going to point it out at first. I'm not a jerk," Sly replied, looking at me over the rim of his cup, with a smirk on his face.

I snorted and laughed again. "I beg to differ,"

Sly laughed and finished his cup of liquid caffeine, and then went to search through his suitcase. He eventually came up with a black tank top and pulled it over his head, and then ran a comb through his hair to make it look a little less like he'd just rolled out of bed. He didn't seem interested in changing out of the gray pants he was still wearing from the day before. "You gonna get out of bed and join me for breakfast or no?"

"Eh, why not?" I'd been awake long enough, time to vacate my fortress. I swung my legs off the side of the bed, and sort of bounced to my feet. I instantly regretted that action, however, as the pain of many pulled muscles throughout both my legs made themselves known. I hissed, and shifted my feet to make standing less painful.

"You alright?" Sly asked as he pulled on his shoes.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied, slightly limping over to my suitcase (Which I did not remember bringing in, either). "I feel like I've been hit by a train though..."

"Yeah, I'm still sorry about that. We didn't think that Clockwerk's wings would try to kill you and Bentley," Sly couldn't exactly keep from laughing a little as he spoke.

"Technically, it was gravity that tried to kill us," I said, coming up with shorts and a blue t-shirt with white lettering on it. "But yes, let's say that Clockwerk's wings are at fault here, I like that idea better,"

Sly laughed and tossed me a comb as I headed for the bathroom. If it weren't for Sly's incredibly accurate aim landing the comb right on the pile of clothes I was holding, I probably wouldn't have caught it. "You're going to need that,"

I stuck my tongue out at Sly before closing the bathroom door. I then changed out of yesterday's clothes, and into the shorts and t-shirt I'd picked. I spent a while untangling my hair with the comb, and making it look relatively okay. The heat was making it frizzy, and there was only so much I could do to help that.

Once my hair was presentable, I emerged from the bathroom and tossed my dirty clothes on top of my suitcase, threw the comb back at Sly, and then pulled my shoes on.

"Okay. I'm ready to be dragged all over India, let's do this,"

Sly laughed. "Let's start with breakfast, shall we? I know a really good resturaunt not far from here,"


Sly had been right, India was incredibly exotic and beautiful. After taking me to a resturaunt with a complicated Hindu name that there was no chance of me remembering, Sly and I hit the streets of Bollywood. I decided to not resist being drug around under the ruse of tourism; There was no winning against Sly and his insane extroverted personality.

While hot climates and thick fur don't mix, I actually ended up really enjoying all the sights that Bollywood had to offer (Though the snake charmers scared the living daylights out of me). The culture was really amazing to see up close. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't a bright modern city with movie camera crews around every corner. It felt pretty surreal to actually be there; Under any other circumstance, I would never have been able to.

While the sights were really breathtaking, so was the heat, and I eventually forced Sly to stop at some little shop to try the Indian equivalent of ice cream, called Kulfi. Normally I'd be hesitant to try new foods, especially ones from other countries, but it didn't sound all that much different from American ice cream, so I decided to give it a shot because at the very least it would be cold. That being said, I ended up actually liking the stuff.

Murray and Bentley caught up to us while we were stopped at this shop, and Murray and I conspired together to stay there for as long as we possibly could. We attempted to achieve this by taking our sweet time in trying every flavor available. I wasn't too enthusiastic about going back into the heat to do more sight-seeing just yet, and Murray was more than happy to help me postpone it a little bit.

Sly eventually caught on to our ploy, and proceeded to talk us back into sight-seeing. ...Though he had to promise us that we could come back for more frozen treats later; Something we silently agreed to hold him to.

Later in the day during our sight-seeing adventure, we came across a film set for a musical movie, and paused to watch as everyone worked. Murray made a comment about how being in a musical looked really fun... And that was all it took to get the gears in Sly's head turning.

The next thing I know, Sly is off locking some actor into a broom closet, and Bentley is stealing a copy of the movie's script. Meanwhile, Murray broke into the actor's dressing rooms, and stole the outfit he was going to need to wear.

That left me standing on the bridge that looked down over the movie set, watching as this mini-heist unfolded, and I had to try really hard to not laugh as I stood there by myself. There were moments when these guys were really serious, and they were pulling serious heists in dangerous situations. And then there were apparently times like this, where they were sneaking themselves onto the sets of movies, just for the sake of having done so. It was even more amusing to think about the fact that regardless of what kind of heist he was on, Sly always seemed to have this cocky, sarcastic, and almost carefree attitude towards it. This gang really was something, I thought to myself as I forced back the laughter.

It took a while, but eventually I saw Murray, in some kind of Indian outfit with a fake mustache on, slip onto the set. It was only moments later that Sly and Bentley joined me up on the bridge.

From there we observed as the musical number began on the set below us. Considering that Murray didn't have much time to review the script, it was pretty impressive that he'd memorized it pretty well, as far as I could tell. And it looked like he was having a lot of fun with it, too. I supposed that was why they'd done the whole thing in the first place. Some part of me somehow kept forgetting that despite being a criminal gang, these three were just normal people a lot of the time.

As the sun began to set, Murray and I forced Sly to keep his word about going back for more kulfi. It was cooler out by then, so we sat outside this time. Bentley took the opportunity of this quiet moment to do some research on what had happened at Rajan's palace after we'd left.

Carmelita had - Apparently - furiously blown her cover, and started making arrests 'left and right'. Rajan was not one of those arrests, nor were the other two Klaww Gang members that we'd seen during recon. After a bit more research, Bentley decided that the most logical possibility was that Rajan was now in hiding somewhere deep in the jungle. Exactly where was another subject entirely. But he was still out there, somewhere...

"I don't suppose we can just ignore Rajan and he'll just stop being a problem?" I asked hopefully, biting into some vanilla kulfi.

"No, I'm afraid we can't," Bentley replied, shaking his head.

"Well that sucks," I mumbled, propping my head up with my left arm, making it clear that I was dissapointed.

"I wish we could, too, but it looks like wherever he is, he's got the Clockwerk heart with him," Bentley informed us with a sigh.

I deadpanned and stared at Bentley. "Are you kidding me?"


After doing a lot of 'detective work' (as Sly put it), the gang had discovered where Rajan was hiding. And as the opposite of luck (unluck?) would have it, he was deep in the Indian jungle, in an abandoned temple that he'd converted into his spice production facility. And to top it all off, he was using Clockwerk's heart to produce the illegal spice at breakneck speeds.

I wouldn't have exactly minded this new destination too much (I was slowly getting used to India), if it weren't for the fact that we'd not been on the road an hour when we came to the realization that there was literally no way to get the van through the incredibly dense jungle...

So we packed up everything into backpacks, and set off on a forced death march through the Indian jungle. The Indian jungle that was full of venomous snakes, quicksand, and god knew what else...

These potential dangers, combined with the sticky heat of the jungle, made me hating the trip pretty much unavoidable. Trudging my way through a deadly jungle was the last thing I ever wanted to do with myself. With that thought in mind, another came to me; Why even was I here? I certainly didn't have to be, there wasn't much reason for me to be following the Cooper Gang into the deep Indian Jungle in search of Rajan and the Clockwerk heart he possessed. By now, the Klaww Gang probably knew that I was with Sly's gang and wouldn't be looking elsewhere for me, or had forgotten about me entirely. I figured that it was probably safe to say that I didn't have to worry about them anymore. And therefore, there really wasn't much actual reason for me to continue being with the Cooper Gang.

But then... I also didn't exactly want to leave, either. That was the part that confused me the most. I certainly didn't like marching through the treacherous Indian jungle, miles away from proper civilization, but I didn't dislike being with the gang. They were actually really fun to be around.

Regardless, the fact remained that there was still no logical reason for me to feel like I should follow these wanted criminals to hunt down Rajan. But yet there was certainly some reason for it, or I wouldn't have been there. The issue laid in the fact that even I didn't know what my own reasoning was.

I didn't even know why I had said yes to running with these guys in the first place. In hindsight, I couldn't imagine myself ever making that decision, under any circumstance. But yet somehow I had. I figured that maybe I'd still been shaken up from the whole alleyway incident, and my judgement was clouded. That was the only reason I could think of for why I would have agreed to hanging around criminals. There was also the question of why Bentley had even offered me refuge in the first place; What had been going through his mind at the time that made him think it was a good idea?

I was really starting to confuse myself by trying to pick apart my reasoning, and everyone else's. Analyzing myself and my own choices is always a messy business, and I eventually decided to just leave it alone. For whatever reasons everyone had, I was here with the Cooper Gang, and I wasn't unhappy with that. I was going to try to let that be enough for now, and not think about all the logical reasoning. If I was lucky, it would all make sense eventually.

And so I tried to keep my thoughts elsewhere for the rest of our hike through the jungle. Bentley had his nose in a map literally the whole way, and that didn't make me very convinced that he knew where we were going. Everything looked the same to me, and I had no idea how he could tell where we were.

Let's also not forget that the enviornment was deadly; I already mentioned the snakes and quicksand. I had honestly thought that the snakes would be a bit more of an issue, but instead we ended up contending with quicksand, when Murray lost his balence and fell down a ravine and into a pit of it.

The next twenty minutes or so were very high on adrenaline as Sly, Bentley, and I attempted the task of using a rope to haul Murray out of the quicksand, and away from certain death. It took a lot of work and a little bit of quicksand knowledge from Bentley, but we managed to get Murray out of the quicksand before he entirely sank. I ended up with mild rope burn on my right hand, but we actually managed to free Murray from the quicksand. I wasn't sure what the quicksand survival rate was, but I was pretty sure we'd just acomplished something relatively tricky.

As soon as he was free, Murray promptly drug us all into a giant group hug as thanks for rescuing him. We appreciated the sentiment, but getting covered in quicksand was not something any of us enjoyed too much. I supposed it was a good thing that I thought to bring clean clothes with me.

After our little quicksand encounter, we all elected to take the rest of the trip a little slower, and a million times more carefully. Bentley said he wasn't sure how many more strikes they had before they couldn't cheat death anymore.

When we finally broke through the thick foilage and found Rajan's temple, I practically jumped for joy. I actually would have, if it weren't for the fact that we'd walked literally right into the middle of the temple grounds, and guards were absolutely everywhere.

Therefore, we had to immediately be quiet, stay low, and slip around the edges of the place to find a safehouse. I'd never actually been outside of the safehouse, where all the action happened, and it was then that it struck me; These guys really risked their lives every time they stepped out of the safehouse. And it must take a lot of courage and dedication to keep doing it over and over. This realization only made my respect for them all continue to skyrocket.

Bentley quickly found a safehouse at the edge of the temple grounds and began setting up shop, but. There was... One little snag...

I looked up at the tall tower that housed our safehouse... And then down at the oversized mushroom that Bentley and Murray had just used to bounce themselves up to the tower. I wasn't so sure if I trusted this makeshift trampoline to not kill me, or if I even trusted myself to not somehow mess up.

"Oh, don't tell me you're scared of heights?" Sly teased, though he kept his voice low, lest any guards hear him. They'd already had to take out a few of them that were near the building we were standing on.

"No..." I replied slowly. "I'm just scared of falling..." I added, still studying the tower and the mushroom, trying to decide if I actually wanted to try this.

"It's not that high up," Sly said. "Besides, don't cats always land on their feet?"

I narrowed my eyes and turned to glare at Sly for a moment. And then I sighed. He was right, it wasn't that far up. And I really didn't have much of a choice, I couldn't stay out here with all the guards. One way or the other, I had to get up into that tower.

"Would you like me to carry you?" Sly offered, warily eyeing a guard off to his left that was getting sort of close to us.

I was starting to feel sort of silly, now. Sly risked his life daily, doing things like performing ridicuous acrobatics, going undercover in a room full of police officers, and taking on bad guys twice his size, and he never bat an eyelash at any of it. Then here I was, scared of using a makeshift trampoline. ...Yeah, I was really starting to feel silly, now.

I gave a defeated sigh. "No... No I can do it myself..." If we stood out here any longer, that guard was probably going to see us, and I didn't want to be the reason for that. It really wasn't that high up... And cats do always land on their feet, right?

I stared at the bright red mushroom with something like contempt, before taking a deep breath, setting my jaw, and jumping onto it.

I consider it an achievement that I didn't scream on the way up, and actually managed to land on my feet. ...Sort of... I couldn't manage to keep my balence after my feet found the floor, and so I had to kind of roll onto the ground, but hey! I'd gotten up there on my own, and I didn't manage to injure myself!

Sly followed me up (and landed on his feet, the little showoff), and helped me off the floor. "See? Was that so bad?"

I brushed the dust off my clothes, and pushed my glasses back up to their proper place on my nose. And then sighed. "No, I suppose it wasn't..."

"That's the spirit!" Sly beamed, and then held open the door to this new safehouse.

"What I want to know is what kind of mushroom grows so large that people can use it as a trampoline..." I said as I headed into the safehouse.

Sly shrugged and followed me inside. "I dunno, you'll have to ask Bentley,"

I made a mental note to ask Bentley later, and took a look around the safehouse. It looked like it might have once been an observation tower for the temple. When it was an actual temple, and not being used to produce illegal spice by a criminal maniac, that is. There were windows facing the temple that had once had glass in them, but by then only fragments of it remained. Bentley was in the process of nailing blankets up over the majority of this hole in the wall.

This safehouse was a little less like a house, and more like just a room. Which made sense; It was an old observation tower, people weren't intended to live there. At least there was a seperate bathroom area so I could change out of my sweaty and dirty clothes... Which is exactly what I did, before doing anything else at all.

When I came out of the bathroom, Bentley was busy setting up his laptop and other supplies on a very rickety table, that was surrounded by equally rickety-looking chairs. Aside from these old pieces of furniture, there was really nothing else in the room.

There was also a distinct lack of electricity in this tower. Which unfortunately meant no air-conditioning... Bentley foresaw this lack of power, and thought to bring some kind of battery/charger contraption to keep his laptop from dying. I was pretty sure that he'd made the thing himself, considering it's personalized and complicated design.

I dumped my backpack and dirty clothes into a corner of the room, and then headed to the table to sit down. I didn't exactly trust the chair I'd picked, and I was very careful about testing the stability of it before putting all my weight on it. I wasn't quite in the mood to be dumped on the floor by a chair. Mostly because I knew that Sly would laugh at me...

As soon as I was sure that my chair was not going to break, I let myself relax into it. I did not intend to get up anytime soon. After wrestling with Clockwerk's wings, and then being taken on a death march through the jungle, I was incredibly sore and incredibly tired.

I took my glasses off and rubbed at my eyes. If I was this tired now, I didn't want to imagine how I'd feel after hiking back to the van... Maybe I'd try to take a nap before we left?

"Water?" I looked back up to see Murray offering me a bottle water, which I very graciously took.

"Thank you, praise the lord," I groaned as I opened the bottle, and gulped down as much of it as I could without choking. I generally hate the taste of water, but after over three hours in the horrible jungle, I really just didn't care.

"Okay, Sly," Bentley said as he set up his laptop. "Let's figure out what we're up against, shall we?"

"Recon. I'm on it," Sly took a moment to drink nearly an entire bottle of water, and then headed out of the safehouse. I stared at him in awe as he went. How in the world did he have so much energy after a three hour jungle hike?! I decided to blame all the coffee... There was no other logical explanation for it.

While Sly made his way over to wherever he was going, I rested my head on the table. Apparently I was the only one who was dead tired after that terrible hike... Resting my head on the table accidentally lead to taking that nap I'd considered, as I later reawoke to the sound of Bentley's voice.

"Check it out!" he was exclaiming. I lifted my head up to look at him. "Rajan's carrying half the Clockwerk heart on that stick!"

I stared at Bentley as I reorganized my brain. Half of the Clockwerk heart? Well, where was the other half?

"Ah, welcome back to the land of the living," Bentley greeted me, as he noticed I was awake again.

"How are you guys not tired after the ordeal of getting here?" I tiredly demanded, rubbing my eyes to make them focus.

"We've been doing this for years, we're all pretty used to the labor," Bentley replied, and then his attention was returned to the pictures Sly was sending in. "Hmm... That crane is keeping half of the heart suspended,"

"So wait. Rajan's got half of the heart on a stick? And the other is just hanging up? Like a decoration or something?" I was not fully awake and this did not make any sense...

"Yes, and then no. Since the heart is such a strong and tireless pump, Rajan is using the second half to super-irrigate the spice he harvests," Bentley explained.

"Uh. Okay..." I decided not to question how half of a heart could pump anything, let alone super-irrigate spice, and instead opted for cleaning the lenses of my glasses with the rim of my shirt, and just observing.

Bentley's expression changed to one of confusion as Sly took another picture. "There's the entrance to this level..." Bentley clicked a few times and looked at some of the blueprints that were on the table. "...Only I can't figure out how to get in here from the temple's exterior..."

He was quiet a moment, as he shifted through blueprints and clicked on things. "Hmm. Head on back to the safehouse, Sly... We'll really need to think about this one,"

Then Bentley got up, taking some of his notes and blueprints with him, and began working with the ever popular projector, no doubt setting up a slideshow about how this was all supposed to go down.

While he did this, Murray and I shared a bag of chips, and played a few rounds of a game called 'Guess Who?' on my iPad. When Sly returned to the safehouse, he joined us, and we all wasted time waiting for the slideshow to be ready.

When the slideshow was finally done, Bentley cleared his throat to call his friends to attention for it. So we put our game aside, and listened to Bentley's plan.

Said slideshow took off with some of the recon photos of Clockwerk's heart. "The Clockwerk heart is under some serious security. Heck, Rajan is carrying half of it at all times! To get at the goods, I'll need to gather some more information,"

"Sly will plant a bug in Rajan's office, while I lift the spice operation blueprints off the spice lord, while he makes his rounds," the slideshow cycled through various shots of Rajan's office, and the man himself. Rajan looked just as threatening as I remember him being, and I was sort of nervous about the guys going up against him... But they'd robbed him once, they could definitely do it again, couldn't they?

"Unfortunately, while we're collecting intelligence on him, he'll be collecting data on us, with an elephant driven sattelite array," pictures of said device came up, and Bentley drew little radio waves around it for emphasis. "Take it out, or he'll be able to intercept all our communications!" and then he scribbled it out, for even more emphasis.

And then that was that; The slideshow was over. That one had been pretty short compared to the others, probably due to the lack of much information. Phase one of all this was pretty much rectifying that lack of intel. Which didn't really sound too dangerous, in theory.

"I'll start with the sattelite array," Sly decided, already heading for the door. Starting with the sattelite sounded like a pretty good idea; The less time they gave Rajan to watch them, the less he'd know, and the less prepared he'd be.

Bentley put away all the projector equipment, and then returned to his laptop post to tell Sly the plan, once he'd arrived at the sattelite.

"So Rajan can monitor all our communications with this sattellite array, huh? That's pretty grim. You got a plan for shutting it down?" Sly asked. I moved my chair over a little bit, to see that Sly was staring up at the elephant going around in circles to power the array.

"Don't I always?" Bentley replied. "Now, the local spice plants are illegal for good reason. Eat too many and you'll go into a fit of uncontrolled rage,"

"Keep that stuff away from Murray..." Sly chuckled. "Oh wait, wait! I get it. I put some spice plants in the elephant's feed bag, he chows down, gets all... Crazy, and then presto! The satellite's in pieces," he sounded way too enthusiastic about destroying things. Was that even healthy?

Bentley nodded. "A crude interpretation of the plan, but accurate. The trick here is harvesting the spice plants. You'll have to do some serious climbing, as they only grow high up in the jungle canopy,"

Sly looked up towards the incredibly high tree tops, where the spice plants thrived, and then set off towards the nearest one, not seeming worried at all by how high up he'd have to climb.

While Sly ran around the whole temple, playing Tarzan, Murray and I attempted to build a house of Uno cards. This didn't exactly work, because neither of us knew anything about making strucurally sound... Structures... Nor how physics work. Bentley seemed personally offended by this, and so we took pity on him, and instead decided to go back to playing mindless games on my iPad.

Perhaps forty-five minutes later, Sly's voice came in over the binocucom again. "Sayonara, sattellite array!" and then there was the sound of a very angry elephant breaking out of it's restraints, and the wooden sattelite array splintering into pieces. This was followed by the sounds of the elephant rampaging away to god knew where.

I silently wondered to myself if that elephant coming back to cause trouble was something that we'd have to worry about... I decided not to mention it, because the last thing I wanted to do was jinx it.

I was initially waiting for Sly to return to the safehouse, but instead, Bentley started talking to him again after a while, as he was apparently taking on his next job now. I contemplated forcing Sly to sit down and take a break when he got back, because at this point I was starting to get a little concerned about him working too hard. Though he probably wouldn't listen to me if I tried; It's been established that Sly is stubborn as a mule...

"Sly, the insect in that pool is a rare Indian Water Bug. If you can carry it into Rajan's office, it's wings will transmit local soundwaves at a frequency I can monitor!" Bentley explained, as Sly looked down at the weird-looking bug that was happily sitting in a pool of water. Let it also be known that this pool of water was situated on some kind of stone platform that was just barely held up by a decrepid stone tower. The whole thing was swaying back and forth, and it was a literal miracle that it hadn't fallen down yet.

"Let me get this straight..." Sly said slowly, sounding amused. "We're going to bug Rajan's office... With a bug?" I shared his amused, yet confused, outlook on this plan. The English language had evolved in just the right way to allow for this little pun.

Bentley smiled and nodded, apparently finding the pun a bit humorous as well. "It is an elegant plan, I agree. Now, pay attention. That water bug can only survive in stagnant pools... If kept out of water too long, it'll become unhappy and likely draw the attention of nearby guards,"

There's always a catch, isn't there? Sly didn't really seem to mind it much, though. "Hmm. Looks like there's a few pools along the way to Rajan's office. A short swim every now and then should keep our little friend quiet,"

With the plan established, Sly picked up the bug, and began making his way towards Rajan's office. As he did, I started to think about how these three were absolutely nothing like how movies portrayed thieves... And if Hollyood ever made a movie with dorky thieves who came up with ridiculous plans like this, I would totally watch it.


After Sly had successfully bugged Rajan's office, I actually managed to get him to sit down and take a break. During this time, Bentley got out in the field, with the goal of pickpocketing Rajan's spice operation blueprints off of him. The brainy turtle acomplished this by using sound and watermelons to lure and subdue the giant tiger. I thought Bentley might be a bit crazy for getting that close to Rajan, but he pulled the job off without a hitch.

However, apparently getting into Rajan's personal space like that had crossed quite the line. As a result, the now paranoid tiger had decided to go into hiding somewhere in the temple. If the gang wanted to get at his half of the Clockwerk heart, they'd have to force him to come back out.

Bentley decided that the best way to do this was to piss Rajan off. Which did not sound like a very good idea from my perspective, but I had to trust that Bentley knew what he was doing.

In order to pull off the feat of pissing off Rajan, Bentley put together a little list of things that had to happen. First, destroy his spice grinder to ruin his operations, and then destroy the dam above the temple to see if flooding him out might work.

And if all that failed, then Bentley had made contact with another group of thieves in the area, who would pay him via some very hefty explosives, if the gang could manage to get them one of the giant flawless rubies that were embedded into the temple walls. Apparently they were going to need it for the big heist...

Unlike the last plan, this one sounded just as dangerous as it probably was, and I was definitely a little bit worried about the guys getting hurt... But I tried to not think about it. They knew what they were doing, and I had to trust that.

While Sly made his way to the spice grinder, Bentley researched ways to take out that dam. His bombs weren't strong enough for the job (and there was no way up there, anyhow), so he was going to need some extra firepower. The question was, where to get it?

"Aha!" the turtle suddenly exclaimed, after quite a while of silence. "This is perfect!"

"Care to enlighten us?" I asked, looking up from my game of digital solitaire.

"Rajan just received a new auto-pilot attack helicopter. If I can get ahold of it, it'll be perfect for blowing the dam!" Bentley explained enthusiastically.

I nodded. "Well, that's one less thing to worry about,"

"I'm going to head out there now, and take care of it, before Rajan sends someone out to pick up the helicopter," Bentley decided, getting out of his chair and arming himself with his crossbow, before heading for the door.

"Hey, hold on, wait!" I called after him. "What if Sly needs help with that spice grinder thing?" I motioned to the laptop. Wasn't he going to need Bentley to tell him the plan once he got there?

"Oh, of course," Bentley moved back to the table, shuffled through his papers, and then handed me a stack of them. "Here's all my notes on the plan, I trust you can read them to him?"

I spit out a series of confused noises as I tried to form words. Bentley expected me to relay the plan to Sly?! My brief speechlessness gave Bentley the chance to leave the safehouse before I could stop him.

I stared at the notes in my hand, and then at Murray, who didn't really seem worried about the fact that Bentley had basically just left me in charge, and just shrugged at me.

I slowly stood up and switched chairs to sit in front of Bentley's laptop. I began flipping through the notes in my hands, almost not believing that this was happening. Bentley had just entrusted me with telling Sly what to do on a job, so that he wouldn't get killed painfully, and I was very incredibly nervous about it. It felt like he was trusting me with a whole lot, and I had no idea what I'd done to deserve it.

Sly's voice broke me out of my confused trance. "Alright, Bentley, what's the plan?"

I took a quick moment to organize my thoughts before trying to say anything. "Uh... Bentley isn't here right now... But he left me his notes..."

"Bentley's not there? Where is he?" Sly asked, sounding mildly concerned, but mostly just curious.

"Well, he discovered a helicopter that's perfect for blowing up the dam, apparently. Aaand he wanted to go do that before Rajan sent anyone out to pick it up," I started explaining, still flipping through the notes. "Sooo, that's what he's doing. And for some reason, he's trusted me with telling you what to do,"

Sly was silent for a moment. But then he didn't question anything I'd just said, and just moved right along. "Well, what do Bentley's notes say?"

Apparently I was the only one who was freaking out about being left in charge of something so important. I sighed. "Um. Welp, it says that if Rajan's blueprints are anything to go by, you're near the spice grinding facility. But then you already knew that, because that's what you're there for..."

"And, as you can see, the passageways are blocked by those laser fence things... And er," I paused to gawk at Bentley's notes. "...See that TNT barrel there?" I couldn't believe I was about to tell Sly to do this.

"Yeah, looks like they're using it to create these catacombs. ...Maybe I can 'borrow' some to destroy the fences. Do Bentley's notes say anything about that?" Sly asked.

"Unfortunately, yeah. That's exactly what he wants you to do, it seems..." this sounded horribly dangerous and I did not like it. "I guess you've just got to take the TNT to whatever you wanna explode, light the fuse, and then get the hell out of dodge,"

"...Bentley's notes also say to be careful of those floor lasers, 'cause they're set up differently and the TNT won't destroy them... Uh... I think that's... It... For now?" I still wasn't past being weirded out by the job I'd been thrust into, and I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I hoped I was doing it right...

"On it," and then Sly just. Grabbed a barrel of TNT, took it over to the laser wall on his left, lit the fuse, and ran to the other side of the room before it blew the laser wall's curcuits to bits. He did not at all seem bothered by working with explosives. ...Bentley had been right, this raccoon definitely had no self-preservation what-so-ever.

Sly repeated the process with a second laser wall, and then made his way past some floor lasers and pivoting vertical lasers that he could dodge between if he was fast enough. He couldn't get to any TNT to explode the laser wall that was now across from him, so he opted for going right, sneaking past a set of three searchlights that were searching that hallway.

Then he turned left and ducked under two sets of horizontal lasers that moved vertically, and found himself in the spice grinder room. "Uh, okay, let's see here..." I fumbled through Bentley's notes to find the intel I wanted. "So I guess Rajan won't come out of hiding if spice is still being manufactured. So if you blow up that grinder, he'll be out of business, and have no reason to stick around the temple. Y'know, other than you guys being out to get him,"

Sly smirked. "Great, we do the world a favor, and Rajan is forced out into the open,"

"You're obviously going to want some more TNT for this job, and luckily there's some more over there on the floor," Sly looked down and to his right at the TNT barrel that was just barely visable around the corner. "You'll probably have to clear out another tunnel of security to get back up to that walkway, though,"

"Bentley's notes say that if you get a TNT barrel directly into that basin of spice dust, it'll all be blown to bits," I flipped through the notes once more, to make sure I didn't forget anything. There was so much stuff on those sheets of paper, it wouldn't surprise me if I overlooked something. Luckily, it looked like I hadn't.

"Consider it done," and then Sly was off, jumping down in the blind spot of the guard patrol below to snag a barrel of TNT, and then take it to the downstairs hallway, where he blasted through another set of lasers there. This gave him a direct path back upstairs with another TNT barrel. He would just have to get past the searchlights and last two horizontal laser sets.

Both of which proved to not be an issue for someone as quick and experienced as Sly. It wasn't long after that he was slipping past the guards on the upper walkway, and over to the spice grinder. With an audible smirk, Sly lit the fuse on the TNT he was carrying, and dropped it into the basin of spice dust. And then quickly leapt back down to the area below, away from the spice grinder, lest he wanted to get blown up.

Sly looked up as the TNT went off, and the spice grinder exploded into a glorious shower of splinters, sawdust, and spice dust. And with that, spice production came to a screetching halt.

"What's going on down there?" Rajan demanded over a loud speaker somewhere in the room. "It looks like spice production has fallen behind! ...Wait! It's completely stopped!"

"Great work, Sly! You ignored possible death, and exploded Rajan's spice grinder!" I drawled sarcastically. "And y'know. Come to think of it, you guys demolish stuff way too much,"

"What can I say? We like destruction and mayhem," Sly laughed as he headed for the exit. "I'll see you back at the safehouse,"

I let out a long sigh after the feed cut to silence. Okay. That was over with. I'd advised Sly on how to blow up Rajan's spice facility, and hadn't gotten him killed by giving bad advice.

Wait a moment. I almost physically stopped in my tracks as I realized what this meant. I'd just helped Sly on a job, and didn't once question the fact that it was an incredibly illegal job. Instead, I was more worried about getting him hurt because I didn't know how to properly do the job.

That was certainly something that, had this been happening a little over a month ago, I would not have done. A month ago, I wouldn't have even considered putting myself in any situation that involved wanted criminals.

But like I'd realized on the hike into the temple; I'd still somehow ended up here, in the middle of the Indian jungle, mostly on my own terms, with a gang of wanted criminals. And while I was incredibly confused about the reasons why, I was actually rooting for these criminals now, and maybe even considering myself on their side? But if I was on their side, what exactly did that say about me?

Just over a month ago, I thought that I knew myself, and had myself all figured out. But the more I thought about where I was at the moment, I started to wonder if maybe I'd somehow had myself figured wrong?