A/N: I'll be honest… I figured the last chapter would receive more reviews because it was over the top. I expected a lot of hateful ones. I didn't get them; it's not that I'm disappointed, just surprised. XD … btw has anyone seen Mishie? Canada must have eaten that writer. :-O

However, the chapter was popular enough to have 56 hits in just a few hours of putting it up and I've also broken 5000 hits after posting Chapter 18 and now, I'm at the verge of 6000 hits… so THANK YOU! For those that were confused, I'm going to detail what just happened in this chapter because Carmelita and Bentley are going to reflect on it, piece everything together until THEY can understand it… I wanted the last two chapters to be a LITTLE confusing because I want readers to identify with a confused character that's on the verge of screaming "WHY?"

This particular Chapter is going to help people piece together what they just read in the last chapter… and I didn't want to release this chapter until I was on the verge of being finished with Chapter 20. Which… I now am. :D

Everything you thought you knew about that chapter is about to change because our heroes are going back in time to re-write history several days in the past. THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH THIS STORY! Like I said, I wanted to go OVER THE TOP… I know some people are going "are you kidding me? A clone of Sly? How stupid." But I want to make him a realistic and detestable enough character to have substance…

Also, what kind of repercussions does one face for breaking the barrier of time? Who is directly involved and are there any super naturals that have the same ability naturally? Let's find out! Here we go.

Chapter 19: "A different set of consequences…"

Carmelita felt terrible and yet, in a sense of the word, she felt numb. She'd commandeered a leer jet without doing anything more than flashing a badge that was suspended. It was a souvenir piece of metal, at that. She thought about going back before her suspension and stopping these super-naturals before they could suspend her but Bentley warned that taking a legal fight to those freaks in Prague was dangerous without having the team already there. He also reminded her that they suspended her to keep her from causing them trouble; if she went active against them prior to a suspension, they would have done far worse. The best bet for success was to go back only one week.

Bentley had to sit down and figure out when Sly was abducted and what time Carmelita arrived on the scene. They wanted to arrive right before Bentley's doppelganger shows up with Penelope in the beat up pickup truck. Timing would prove to be crucial leading all the way up to arriving in Prague. Inspector Fox surmised that a public plane flight would be the best way to travel. For now, they took the 'borrowed' Leer Jet west, towards Paris.

Bentley placed a hand on her shoulder watching her fly the plane with much the same ease as she piloted the chopper when she and Sly took down Clock-La, years ago. "Think of it this way," Bentley told her. "We're changing time so you'll never actually be stealing this plane and everything will be happening differently. There's no reason to feel guilty."

Carmelita paused then finally replied with a simple, "Thanks." She thought better on offering a flat, rude reply and so she added, "I'm not a thief. I'm a good cop." After another moment of silence, she reached forward and touched the autopilot engage switch. She punched in some coordinates then pressed the button again, causing it to go from flashing to a solid-lit illumination. Intentionally changing the subject, the Latina face-faulted then asked, "What happened back at the Museum? I thought Sly had backup?"

Someone other than Bentley replied. "There was no way to stop the ceiling from collapsing," Came the voice from behind them. Carmelita narrowed her eyes but remained silent. Donovan Loupe stepped from a shadow cast on the floor by Bentley's wheelchair shadow. He folded his arms, slumping into the Co-Pilot seat. His fur had fallen out in patches, showing his aggravated injuries and flesh that had bubbled up from beneath his shirt, over his neck and the bottom of his jaw. He looked awful and it was obvious that a man of shade was clearly vulnerable to fire attacks. Also, this is the first time since attacking him with the shotgun that he wore something light and less than constricting.

Loupe shook his head, appearing as though it was twice as painful for him to be making an excuse. Regardless, he had to tell them what happened. "Once the shadow surrounded you …when the chandelier was falling through the air, it was too late," He explained. "I'm too injured to have stopped it from happening. If I hadn't been shot with an incendiary round, I may have had the ability to stop it in mid air, however it's not your liability; there's no way we could have known that my injury would lead to this moment. All we know is that I tried to use that shadow to throw the chandelier and I was powerless to move it in this condition. Racked with guilt, I stayed in the darkness and watched the unfortunate turn of events unfold."

Carmelita clinched her paw. "So you're saying this is my entire fault? I inadvertently killed Sly and supposedly myself by plugging you in that back alley?" She stood up from the pilot seat and began to walk out of the cockpit. "I need some space. Let me know when we're within 100 miles from Paris, the Auto-Pilot will do the rest." She simply stormed into the cabin, leaving Bentley alone with the injured wolf.

"You must realize how awkward this is, sitting here with you," Bentley simply stated. "But I'll be quite to the point: What we're about to embark on has not been tested and it has not been done. Carmelita claims to have seen herself killed with Sly so it's possible that we could screw this up and get ourselves into trouble. Time Travel is foolish, risky; it's dangerous and changing the course of time could alter history in a way that's beyond comprehension, theoretically."

"Then why build such a machine…? Why build something capable of ruining the past?" Donovan growled softly.

"To know the future," Bentley said, shaking his head. "At any rate, you were there… was that really the future Carmelita with Sly that night?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact it was, from what I could gather. She came straight to his apartment, filled with grief. Then, she healed her heart in a way that was most inappropriate." Donovan could see the naïve confusion in Bentley's facial expressions. He shook his head then added, "They made love. What I cannot fathom is why I wasn't warned this would happen in the past so that we could have utilized my help to avoid this, already."

"Perhaps it was… I mean, maybe we just…" Bentley sighed. He didn't have an answer. At least not at first… He gave the situation some thought then tapped his lower lip. The tortoise was too afraid to close his eyes and think because he knew if he did, he would see Penelope taken from him again. Tonight, he preferred to think with his eyes wide open. Finally the tortoise just… sort of… shrugged. "Maybe this turn of events caused her to think about seeking you out, this time. I don't know; this whole situation is a bit out there. I don't know why we didn't ask your help in the first time loop, where Carmelita ends up …getting… killed… with Sly."

"I do not comprehend," Donovan muttered.

Bentley ran his fingers over the keyboard on the front of his wheelchair. He'd been so used to having legs again, even bionic ones, that he was beginning to hate sitting all over again. "First time, Carmelita saw only Sly die. Somehow, you were unable to help him. She went back in time and had one thing on her mind: Stop Clockwerk from killing Sly. Her thoughts never turned to you because she was too focused on that one occurrence. This most recent loop of events caused her to be killed as well and the Carmelita from the Present showed up just in time to witness herself, her future self die with Sly. This gave her such a pause for reflection that she thought of more angles than the last loop and this time, she thought to mention that, 'Hey! Sly should have already had help on scene.' When you heard her mention you, it was your cue to appear, yes?"

"Perhaps that is so," Loupe agreed. "I had no plans to show my face out of shame for my inability to help. I planned to stay quiet until just a moment ago, when I felt the need to defend myself, having heard my name mentioned. For that shame, I apologize. I realize that such shame may have caused me to stay silent in the last… loop… and that caused two deaths. Shame is inexcusable and accepting faults is part of being a better person. I hope being humbled helps in some way. May I inquire something of you?"

"Go ahead," Bentley said off handedly.

"If you've built a machine capable of going into the future, why didn't you know that all of this would happen?" The wolf asked.

The turtle lowered his eyes, reaching to take his glasses off and squint at the now-blurry cockpit floor. "I only tested it out by exploring the very near future then the very distant future, when our names were all but forgotten. I never thought to sit down and research the history books of the future and I never had the time to test this machine by going only a few years into the future or anything like that. Funny huh? I had a time machine and yet never found the time to give it a solid trial. I simply tested the machine and never got the chance to peer into the future of my gang's lineage. A great deal of things could have helped to stop this from happening. But for the first time, we'll be using it to re-write history. It's dangerous but… Well, I suppose it chalks up to being selfish."

"This time travel will teach us all a valuable lesson," Donovan concluded finally.

"What's that?"

Loupe glanced back to Bentley and offered a very thin smile. He finally replied with, "We've all learned humility and that we're not as immortal as we had all hoped. Now we'll be able to save ourselves and impart that information on to them without risk of harm."

"This could go very wrong," Bentley warned with a soft, reverent tone. One could only know to have respect for something as powerful as time itself. "Temporal and sequential changes have the ability to become the undoing of us all. If we fail, we may not have the ability to go back in time and change things or warn ourselves of doing things differently. Worst of all, we stand the chance of making poor decisions that get us killed in both loops and all of this would end in a flash. A chronological paradox can be very dangerous."

"We face a different set of challenges," Loupe mused.

"We face a different set of consequences," Bentley added. The two of them grew silent. Finally, Donovan stood up and left the cockpit. Bentley watched him depart but remained in the front of the leer jet, trying to plan out how to begin their mission once they enter the past, later on.

Donovan Loupe stepped into the passenger cabin, approaching Carmelita slowly. "Miss Fox, you have the ability to save your future with Sly Cooper. You have the power to secure your love for him."

"Who said I love him?" She snapped, narrowing her eyes. Donovan sighed, coming to take a seat in one of the posh corporate style chairs near a window. She turned to face him, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm serious, who says I love him? This is a sense of duty and the ability to stop these fiends from ruining my career and my life."

"No, you love him. You told him so, the night you both died. You're not doing things over the same way but if you had, you would go back in time, see him in the mid afternoon at his hotel and the two of you would consecrate your intimacy and passionate feelings for one another. Then you would go to the Museum and you both perish. Now you're not going back one night but instead, one week. But you still love him enough for that romance to happen, if you 'play your cards right'."

"You're being absurd, I'm serious," Carmelita said, lowering her ears. She was leaning towards an emotional relapse and Donovan knew he had to tread carefully when she was so fragile-hearted at this point of time.

Loupe shook his head, placing his padded palms upon the cushy arm rests. "Please, knowledge is power and I want you to know what would have happened if you and Bentley went back one day. If you refuse to listen, that is one thing but if you wish to know, I'll tell you."

"Make it short and quick, I don't have the stomach for this right now. It's too fresh," She said. For the first time, she found that she wasn't in the mood to hear the facts. Of all her years as an inspector, someone was willing to give her the story she was missing and she simply didn't want to hear it right now.

"You went back one night and arrived at Sly Cooper's hotel shortly after noon," He began, lowering his eyes for a moment before lifting them to set his gaze upon her. "The two of you talk, make love and reengage your romance. You go to the museum together and Clockwerk apparently changes his attack plan, as he is a super computer who analyzes every factor… and because the pieces were set upon the board differently, he reacted differently. It's all chess to him."

Carmelita lifted her paws, "Wait, what? Make love?" She blinked rapidly. "How do you know?"

Donovan simply confessed everything. He lowered his head then told her, "I was watching over him, remember? Shadows. I don't mean for that knowledge to make you uncomfortable but now you know. Everyone wound up dead except for the future Bentley. As you arrived, in time to see Sly and your future death, you told yourself to go back further. That altered the course of history and changed the loop. You saw Bentley disappear? Bentley disappeared because it would become fate that he never goes back a mere 24 hours. Your future body disappears. You collapse at Sly's side. Change begins but the real change will begin with actions that we are about to take."

"Do you realize how confusing this is?" She snapped in rebuttal. "Please, just leave me be for the remainder of this trip. You're not invited to travel through time, three people increases the chances of someone screwing things up. You're useless to us until we go back and I stop myself from harming you."

The lupine nodded to her words. He paused then replied, telling her, "If you kill Karla, you'll go into a Coma again. You'll fight her in Limbo again. Your best bet is to find a way to place her body into suspended animation using Steven's equipment. I've said my bit; I'll not remain where I am not wanted. Good luck, Inspector Fox."

"This wouldn't have happened if you didn't abduct Sly and bring him back to Prague," She returned, looking angry again.

Donovan raised his voice in a defensive protest, telling her, "I was manipulated into believing that he was attempting to steal the Clockwerk chip from Interpol so that he and his friends could rebuild Clockwerk for their own purposes. I never knew you people were out to stop Clockwerk."

"You were working in the same building as Clockwerk's hulking frame! How could you not see it right in front of your nose, if you could so easily see everything else, including what happened between me and Sly in an alternative time line?" Carmelita shouted back.

"Steven explained that he was building a robot to defeat Clockwerk should the monster be brought back to life! I didn't know! That's something you'll have to change next time!" He hollered in retort. He then grew quiet and in a soft tone, added, "My apologies, Inspector. It's difficult not to believe The Sire when he speaks to you under his influential powers."

"Don't make excuses for yourself. You were gullible. An intelligent fool; that's all you are. I can't believe you had followers who sought to attack us in the streets of Prague for killing you," She said.

"I do not have followers. I do not have henchmen who sought to attack you on behalf of my intimate brush with death, after you defeated me," Donovan told her.

Carmelita blinked rapidly. "But there were several tough wolf-dogs who attacked us in the streets of Prague after I beat you. They were claiming that I was your murderer and they wanted revenge. Ultimately, Karla had to defeat them while we ran."

"She probably waited until you were out of the picture," Donovan thought out loud, "Then gave them their next orders. They were most likely working for her."

"Or the sire," she added. After thinking about his last statement, she added, "Really? She transported us a few blocks away and finished the combat alone."

"Inspector Fox," Donovan groaned. "You were being naïve and gullible. She didn't have followers… she had suitors. They did whatever she asked. Most of them were Czech mutts, one of which had exceptional sniping abilities. Another group of about four were business-clad bruisers with the ability to break the necks of just about anyone. Finally, another group was at her disposal which was given orders to patrol the outer provinces on the country border. They were a large enough brood to split off into sub-groups and easily smart enough to organize something as complicated as setting up a train shut down, a road block and radioing back to base if anything is out of the ordinary, which they did when Bentley and Penelope came through."

Carmelita nodded slowly then said, "Now that we've put all the pieces together, Bentley and I can go back and shut down this real Steven's cloning operation. We'll deal with Karla and I'll ensure that you're recruited to the team early on, so that you can help us re-write this history."

The wolf nodded slowly. "Be careful. Changing the course of history is dangerous I hear. I'm sure you'll receive the same warning I've already heard. I can only hope that when I open my eyes next, Sire and Steven will be dead and Clockwerk will cease to exist." With that, Donovan faded into the shadow on the carpet, beneath the seat he was just sitting on. Carmelita stood up, wiped her eyes then approached the Cockpit.

"Bentley, I told Donovan to stay behind. This is up to us; we're the ones who have lost loved ones and we're the ones who should pay the consequences of this danger we face. Don't be upset," She told him, standing in the doorway.

"I'm not. But I am worried that changing the past will have serious consequences on our futures. Let's be careful with our actions. They could have a devastating impact on what happens next," He said to her. She nodded in agreement then sunk back down into the pilot's chair, slumping almost dejectedly. "So you really loved Penelope, huh?"

Bentley nodded in reply to her question. "Yeah. What about your feelings for Sly? Don't worry, I won't…. you know… tell anyone."

"Who's to tell?" Carmelita muttered. "Nobody is left… Yes, I can't imagine my life without him sometimes. Now that I've seen him parish, I know what it's like to lose him and it's incredibly painful. I know I'm going to save him and I'll never know what it's like to see him taken from me but the truth is… he's my criminal. Mine alone. I don't know how I'll react when I see him again, in person. All I know is that I feel empty right now."

"We can only do our best to re-write history," Bentley said with a firm nod. "I know we'll do our best. We still have an hour left before we're in Paris. Why don't you try and rest your eyes for a bit? I'll call you if something comes up."

"Funny," She half-chuckled, "I was just about to suggest the same thing. Your mind needs to be at its sharpest. You go rest. I'll be fine. I can't seem to close my eyes right now."

"Funny," Bentley repeated, off handedly. "I can't seem to close my eyes either. At least, I'd rather that I didn't."

"Then it's settled. We stay awake together." Carmelita slumped back in the pilot's chair. Bentley watched her for a moment then smiled softly when he heard her beginning to breath deeply. It was obvious that she passed out without any trouble. He turned his attention back to the laptop computer built into the wheelchair. It was time to crunch some probability numbers and finish planning.

Carmelita Montoya Fox woke up and felt surprisingly well rested. Perhaps her faith in Bentley's intelligence helped her to stay relatively optimistic concerning the ability to save Sly from an untimely fate. Either way, when she woke up, even after only an hour, she felt great. Of course, her body was running on a restored bit of adrenaline from not having had sleep in a while, but it didn't matter. She had cried all night on the train back to Prague and felt numb for most of the jet ride back to Paris. But now she felt a little recovered and that was better than nothing at all.

Everything felt so ominous, as if a portentous fate was waiting in the rafters. Without proper clearance to land in Paris, they set down at an abandoned airstrip less than an hour from the city line. The Privately owned strip was something Carmelita knew about from helping the local cops to bust a corporate white-collar bigwig who owned two jets that would take off from behind his corporate headquarters. No longer in use, she set the jet down on the old runway and wheeled Bentley out of the cockpit and down the unloading ramp.

The jet was forgotten and the two of them crossed the crisp autumn lot. Leaves fell about them, red and gold in flavor. They approached the main gates which were chained up by the authorities. Once they managed to get around the barbed wire and other metallic annoyances, the two headed for Paris, in the distance. Carmelita flagged down a local police officer and they bummed a ride to Bentley's laboratory.

Carmelita couldn't help but admit that she was impressed with the building he owned. A privately owned building that had popped up in downtown Paris was always a mystery to her until now. She turned to the turtle as they stepped from the police cruiser. "I see you could retire in style after finding Sly's family piggy bank."

"Yes, well, he did leave it to us. I guess he knew we'd take good care of that wealth. I built him a new vault," Bentley admitted. Carmelita turned back to the cop car and thanked the officer then the two of them proceeded to approach the gates on the east end of the building. The grand brick wall that surrounded the rest of the laboratory building was constructed of fine French masonry and the gates seemed to open with but the simple knowledge of Bentley's approach. They creaked softly on their iron hinges, only to shut once the two were within the courtyard. "But I did use a few dollars to build a nice place. Just like Murray used a few dollars to build racing vans and Sly…" Bentley was cut off by the Inspector. He suddenly frowned. "Sorry, I forgot. Don't worry; we'll have him back in no time."

"I hope so," She muttered.

They approached the main doors only for Bentley's breath to catch. Carmelita quirked her brows at the turtle then turned her attention to see what caused his reaction. Her heart stopped when she saw what the problem was… the doors to the Lab building were ajar. Somebody beat them here…

X-

A/N: OH NOOO! But surly, they've already gone back in time once, what is this hiccup and what in the world is going on? Find out in Chapter 20! This story doesn't have much longer to go… For those of you interested in the sequel to Reflections Of the (the distant) Future, my starfox "next generation" story, I've got good news: I'm already in the third chapter. I beat Sly3 the night I finished writing THIS chapter, like two weeks ago, now, XD… well it's 57 Percent finished but I saw the ending … I guess the master thief trials are left? Ah who knows… anyhow… wee! Chapter 20 of this story is gonna be so clutch. Well, it's looking that way so far. Lol. I've just been doing a lot at once. Oh… and I got laid off last Friday :( Ah well, GM just wasn't bringing the traffic for the job to need salesman. Time to collect unemployment and write some more:D

-KitZi.