Grrr... I just typed up this chapter, then lost it. ANGER! But yes, hallo again everyone! This chapter comes to you as a product of frost bite and sleep deprivation. And because a lovely regular reviewer, Versia Aremis, messaged me and asked hopefully if the chapter would be long, since it was taking forever.

Well played. And yes, it's 2000 words longer than the last chapter.

Let's see, after this chapter there's... two or three more and an epilogue! We're getting down to the end, people!

"You're evil, Kaia."

"Aw, Murray, that's mean!" I carefully placed another Band-Aid over a scratch on his forehead. "I had to disinfect the cuts, who knows where General Clawfoot, quite an apt name, given the circumstances, has been walking?"

"You're also not allowed to work the Binocucom Station anymore." Bentley chipped in, carefully transferring 'Bad Mojo' from the collector he'd used while running all over the grounds, to a slightly more stable-looking set of cylinders.

"What? Why not?" I asked, gathering the Band-Aid trash and letting Murray up off the couch. He was so massive that, for me to get to his head, I had to be standing up and he had to be sitting.

"Because, while you're laughing at our misery, Bentley would be giving us advice on how to get out of our situations." Sly grumbled, scratching at his own new bandages.

I hid a smile behind my hand, "Oh, please, you were never in any real danger. Besides, if you'd just given me a job to do, none of this would have happened."

"Oh, trust me, I've learned my lesson," Bentley said, having set aside his cylinders and instead set up the all too familiar slide machine, "Have a seat, everyone."

Since I was already at the couch, I just hopped onto the arm rest. This was a bad idea, as it tempted Sly to reach out, drag me down next to him, and start a tickle war.

And Sly was apparently crap at resisting temptation.

"But wait!" I exclaimed from behind the fort I'd made out of a table and one of Murray's spare shirts. I'd created it as soon as I'd managed to escape Sly, "I'm not in that plan either!"

"You just said you needed a job to do," Bentley pointed out, hefting a canvas bag and tossing it to me. I caught it with surprise; it was heavier than it looked. "You get to put together the paraglider Sly's using for the heist. It just came in from ThiefNet."

"It still worries me that the police haven't found this thief-supplying website. What are those cyber-cops doing all the time, playing World Of Warcraft?" I said as I set the canvas bag on the table. When I unzipped it, thick cloth and plenty of odds and ends came tumbling out, "Are you sure you want to put me in charge of putting this stuff together?"

"Yeah, that's what I was wondering." Sly said, eyeing me like I'd set the supplies on fire, "You usually put everything together, Bentley."

Bentley reached into a side pocket of the canvas bag and pulled out a small booklet. "Don't worry, there're instructions. There's absolutely no way she can mess this up."

"Well," I said, looking at the tangle of cord and cloth in front of me, "It can't get any worse… I hope."

I leapt up happily when I heard Sly talking to Bentley through the binocucom station.

"… complex, medieval, gauntlet of death."

"What's a complex medieval gauntlet of death?" I asked, coming up behind the chair where Sly was sitting, leaning against the back and snagging his hat, twirling it around the tips of my fingers.

"The crypt Bentley has to hack into." He said, before tripping me with his tail and catching his hat as it flew out of my hands mid-fall.

I pried myself off the floor and had a look at the screen Sly was staring at, whistling when I saw what he was talking about. "Bentley, why'd you assign yourself this job if there were so many booby traps?"

"I thought they'd be subtle, you know, trip wires and pressure sensors and spike pits. I didn't think they'd be so…" he directed his binocucom at the center of the room, "Excessive."

And excessive they were. Think 'medieval torture chamber' excessive. There were rolling spike logs that, interspersed with the spikes on the floor, would put more holes in you than a submachine gun if you weren't fast enough. We couldn't even see what was in the rooms beyond.

"Yes, well, while the idea of jumping down a crypt filled with whirling, razor sharp spikes, might scare me, in fact terrorize my every fiber, it's the only way to power up that old computer in the 're-education' tower. Without that thing online, we'll never get at the Clockwerk eyes or free Carmelita." Bentley explained, knowing just how to play on Sly's emotions.

Said raccoon sighed, "You're a good man Bentley… just make sure those traps don't rip you into a hundred little turtle pieces."

"… why'd you have to say that?"

I laughed at the look on Bentley's face, but something caught my eye in the hallway behind him. Those logs had a pattern… and there were a couple of safe patches, you could tell from the lack of gravel around them. I perked up.

"Uh-oh." I heard Bentley say, "Sly, Kaia's got that look again."

I dodged Sly's one armed grabbed easily, "I can help, Bentley! I'll be there in a few minutes, don't do anything!"

"If you can escape Sly, I'll see you here."

"No you won't!" Sly said, sounding scandalized. I grinned, knowing he couldn't catch me. When he was installing the voice modulator, he'd rolled his ankle. It hadn't been bad, especially since he'd been so close and I'd been able to wrap it and have him stick it in a bucket of ice immediately. He'd be fine in time for the heist… if he didn't put any weight on it between now and then.

I smothered a giggle. Sure, he was between me and the door, but I was feeling kind of giddy. Probably had something to do with the sleep deprivation, or the adrenaline. Besides, he was being really careful with his hurt leg. I could get around him.

"Don't even think about it." He growled, but I was already plotting. Let's see… how to get him away from the door?

I darted toward where his cane leaned against the wall, by the beat-up couch that had been in that room for only God-knew-how-long. He lunged to protect his precious cane, as I thought he would, and I darted past him, grabbing his cap again.

"See you in a few, Sly." I threw the door open, paused for a second to readjust the hat on my head and wink at Sly, who was still hobbling after me, then darted back out into the rain.

"Hey, you actually made it." Bentley only sounded half surprised when I met up with him in the crypt.

"Yeah," I said, wringing out Sly's hat of rainwater. I twirled a crowbar I'd picked up along the way in my hands. "He's gonna kill me later, though."

"I don't doubt it." The turtle stood. "So, I'm guessing you were going to volunteer to help with the 'complex medieval gauntlet of death'." He gestured the hall and I nodded.

"Yup! I saw a pattern in the traps and I can jump farther than you anyhow."

"And how do you propose to know what you need to collect?"

I grinned and crouched down, gesturing to my back.

"No."

"C'mon, Bentley! You weigh like what- fifteen pounds?"

"Fifty-six, but that's not the point!" His face was a particularly dark shade of green. "It's-"

"What? Demeaning? Maybe, but it's also the safest way to go about this. Besides, I'm more stubborn than you are."

"You wanna bet?"

I bet. I actually won, too, much to Bentley's dismay.

"Slow down!"

It had been awhile since I'd done gymnastics or tumbling of any kind and it was actually pretty fun. Sure, one misstep or wrongly timed jump and Bentley and I would be skewered, but it could have been worse, I'm sure.

The adrenaline didn't hurt either.

First was the room with the rolling spike logs and the few squares of tile that weren't interspersed with spikes that would rise at the first sign of pressure to impale whoever was standing on them. We checked, we threw a rock.

Once I'd convinced Bentley to stop complaining and get on my back, I headed for the left of the room. I waited for a log to roll by, then ran out, jumping over another to land on a middle tile, then around the last one, following the log closely, then another leap and I was safely on the other side.

"See, that wasn't so bad, Bentley! … Bentley?"

The turtle seemed too traumatized to speak.

"Glad you agree. Onward, then!"

Down a short, dark, spiral stairwell that made me think of Hogwarts and into another, larger room, with more rolling logs and spikes.

Bentley whimpered something indiscernible, but I cut him off with a whoop brought on purely by adrenaline and leapt into the whirling fray.

I laughed at Bentley's horror-struck expression after we emerged, victorious, "C'mon Bentley! It's just like DDR, just with blades!"

After this room came a hallway of swinging blades. There were only a few patches of stone to stand on that didn't have spikes protruding from them, which turned it from trying to time a jump so we didn't get cut in half to timing it so we didn't get cut in half and landed on a patch of flooring that wouldn't kill us.

"I felt the wind from that one," Bentley complained.

"No you didn't, it was on the other side of the hallway, stop being such a baby."

Up another winding staircase, to a room that only had two rolling logs that would begin on opposite side of the room and crash into each other, then went back to their previous positions.

"Oh, this one's easy."

Run, ignore Bentley screaming in my ear, jump just when the logs are about to crush my ankles, land, and jump again to clear the room.

Then another rolling log room. Cake.

The last room was filled with dark, murky water, broken only by a few boards floating in it for passage across. I frowned, thinking it seemed a bit too easy, and told Bentley to hold on tighter. Then I jumped.

Yeah, I really hadn't expected the sea monster.

At least, that's what I assumed it was. All I knew was that when pink tentacles twice my size shot out of the water and tried to grab my tail, seven years of gymnastics kicked in.

"So…" Sly said sourly as Bentley and I trudged into the Safehouse with the expressions of those hunted by the damned, "How was it?"

"Why are there sea monsters in the crypts?" I grumbled, depositing a traumatized Bentley on the couch next to a snoring Murray. "Seriously, we're land-locked. How did it even get here?" I dropped Sly's hat next to the keyboard and sighed, cracking my back, "I do not envy you guys the work. The fame, I get. The treasure, I get. The life-threatening monsters and traps? Not at all."

"So many spikes…"

Sly twisted to give his reptilian friend a moderately concerned and amused look, "Did you break Bentley's mind?"

"… no…"

"…"

"Well, not on purpose." I finally managed to get my back to crack and sighed, "The adrenaline was pretty awesome though. It was fun, in hindsight." I grinned nervously, "Sneaking by the guards terrified me though."

Sly grinned too, but there was an odd expression on his face. I frowned at his glassy eyes and crossed the distance to the desk quickly, placing my hand gently on his forehead.

"You're burning up! Why aren't you asleep anyway?" A thought struck me, "You weren't waiting up, were you?"

He stood and gave me a sarcastic smile, "Who, me?"

I realized uncomfortably how close he was and took a step back, "You should get some sleep! You're not allowed to die on the heist."

"I'll keep that in mind," We'd been whispering since I came in, but this time he whispered right into my ear, tickling the fur on my neck. I turned to give him a confused look, but he was already hobbling out of the room with his makeshift crutch.

I probably would have been more worried… if I didn't catch sight of the tangled mess of what was supposed to be a glider on the table… that was right, I still had to finish it.

I sighed and rubbed at the lingering feeling on my neck. I headed for the table, checking the time on one of Bentley's laptops as I did…

Five in the morning. Awesome. When I got home, my sleeping schedule was going to be so screwed up…

Come to think of it… when was I going home?

I frowned as I took a seat and pulled the tangled mass of canvas and cord towards me. That was a good question. Here I was, nearly on the other side of the world, and had no idea when or how I was going to get home. I mean… I guess I could just go to the police whenever I wanted and I'd get home but… That would be like telling the guys I didn't like them.

I could just explain that I wanted to go home, I guess, but I didn't really, not yet at least. I missed my friends and dad, sure, but… this was fun, running around the world without a care, doing some seriously good stuff. But the longer I was gone, the more school I missed, the more I fell behind, the more I fell out of my life.

And I knew in my head this couldn't last forever, but I didn't want to cut it short either.

And would I ever see them again, after I went home? Bentley made my head hurt after a while and talking to Murray was like talking to a mentally handicapped six-year-old, but it was hard to spend so much time in adrenaline-pounding situations and close quarters with people and not bond with them.

And Sly was already a great friend of mine. He wasn't like anyone I'd ever met. Most people were concerned with the future so much that they missed out on the present. Sly was all excitement and happiness and taking things day by day. But he wasn't stupid either and I knew that he and the gang had to be hoarding their spoils for the someday when they 'retired'. He could be serious when he needed to be, like when his friends were in danger, or at least people he perceived to be his friends. That was easily seen in how insistent he was

It was hard to imagine my life without the guys now. Really hard.

I sighed and rested my head in my hand. I didn't like thinking seriously about these things. I was tired and the pouring sky was a shade lighter, which meant the sun had risen, which meant it was long past bedtime.

I looked back at the table and found that I'd somehow managed to assemble the paraglider. Um, when had that happened? Seriously, the instruction booklet was across the table, unopened.

I shook my head and stood to go to bed. I didn't even want to know.

The plan for the heist was for Murray to sneak in and turn off the castle's defenses, then for Bentley to take over the radio channel the mercenaries operated on and get them to attack the castle. An elaborate distraction, which made it all the more effective.

Meanwhile, Sly would paraglide Bentley and I over to the blimp, an experience I immediately blocked from my memory, and we'd highjack that too, as a means of transport and escape from the estate. The process of 'acquiring' the blimp in itself showed me something new. Sly could fight. He could fight well. Kind of frighteningly well, to be honest. I wondered what his cane was made of not to show the dents…

We used the blimp to fly up to the 're-education tower' and I stayed on it to make sure nothing went wrong and Bentley and Sly ran inside to free Carmelita and snag the Clockwerk Eyes.

All was going to plan… until I heard the explosion. I adjusted my earbud and listened closely. Since neither Sly nor Bentley were speaking into their mics, their voices were faint, but discernable.

"Bentley! You okay…?"

"cough cough… This is no place for an asthmatic… but I've managed to locate one of the Clockwerk Eyes! Can you find the other?"

"No worries, chaps. It's safely in hand."

Oh son of a-

"Neyla?"

"Thanks for clearing out the Contessa. Nothing I did could pry her away from the Clockwerk Eyes. Hmm… one should be enough for the old bird… Ta ta!"

"Bentley take the Eye and escape on the blimp; I'm going after Neyla!"

"But- the plan! It… this wasn't in the plan!"

I silently agreed with Bentley, but started going over the blimp to make sure nothing would impede our escape. In seconds, Bentley came barreling out of the tower and leapt onto the blimp, passing the (heavy!) Clockwerk eye to me to be stowed in my backpack and running over to the helm.

Just as we started to pull away from the tower, we heard over the radio, "Attention all bombers, target your fire on the Contessa's blimp!"

"Heads up, guys, you're about to come under fire! Get to the blimp's turret and stay sharp!"

I would have said something sarcastic, but Sly's slightly breathless and genuinely worried tone gave me pause and I replied into the binocucom mic, "Just get that other Eye, we'll take care of this one!"

"Kaia!" Bentley waved me to the turrets, focusing himself on getting the blimp to safety as fast as it could possibly go, which wasn't very fast, even for a blimp.

The turret, through sheer luck and good fortune, was the same model as the one I'd piloted in the helicopter in Rajan's temple, seemingly forever ago. It was located on the underside of the blimp and made me feel like I was in the Millennium Falcon, gunning down tie fighters.

The wind coming through the gaps stung my eyes and I used the precious few seconds before the bombers descended on us to pull Ahanu's goggles (which had until then been hanging around my neck) up over my eyes. Then I gripped the turret and started firing.

Fortunately, the greenish color of the bombers stood out very starkly against the bleak landscape and the purple-orange sky, making them easy to spot. I'm not gonna lie and say it was easy. I'm certainly not gonna say the blimp didn't suffer a few hits, but it was still flying when the last mercenary bailed out of his plane.

"Get back here Contessa! That getaway blimp won't save you!"

At least, it was still flying until a shock pistol bolt peeled out from the towers and blew up something on the back of the blimp that was apparently flammable

"Merciful Hades!"

I could safely assume from the sudden tug of gravity and the fact that Bentley was calling on the Greek god of the dead that we were in trouble. I started to scramble up the ladder, his voice screaming in my ear, calling for Sly.

"Sly, can you read me? Carmelita shot out the guidance system and the blimp's descending at a decidedly unsafe rate! We're going down! Down! Doowwwwwww-!"

"… is anyone there… I'm alive! Wha-!"

"Hands up, turtle."

The binocucom crackling in my ear mixed with the close voice of Bentley and the much closer voice of Carmelita.

"You've got the Clockwerk Eye? Give it here."

I wrestled my eyes open and saw Carmelita, shock pistol trained on Bentley, eyes scouring the wreckage for the telltale shine the Eye would give off. My head was fuzzy and I tasted metal. Shock, probably. That could also explain why nothing hurt.

I staggered to my feet, Carmelita whirling and pointing her gun at me until she recognized me, then she pointed it right back at Bentley, who appeared to be relatively unharmed. I shrugged off my backpack and opened it, showing the contents to Carmelita, "I've… got the Eye." Just get that pistol away from the nerd.

Her gaze flicked rapidly between Bentley and I. She finally favored the turtle with a Death Glare. He swallowed loudly, "Keep your hands up for ten minutes after I leave. I'll be watching you…"

She grabbed my hand and tugged me over to a tank she'd apparently acquired herself, pushing me inside before I could think twice. She closed the hatch and settled into the seat, gripping the control sticks on either side of it.

"You okay, Kaia?"

The question caught me off guard for some reason, "I… think so."

"Good."

A weak voice filled my ear, Bentley was talking to himself, "Carmelita has the Eye and Kaia… Oh man, the guys are gonna kill me…"

"Okay…" Carmelita muttered to herself, pressing buttons and jerking levers at random. "How's this thing work? What's this thing do… and this?"

I was thrown back and forth from the sudden stops and starts and muttering, "I'm gonna die…" when she finally gained a tentative grasp of how to drive the thing.

"Guys, help! Carmelita took the Eye and she's trying to get away in one of the Contessa's tanks!"

"Don't worry about it, little buddy. I won't let her get away."

Hey, there was Murray! Having not heard from him the entire heist I'd kind of assumed he was dead.

Wait- how was he planning on stopp-

BANG!

Was he shooting at us?

"Keep shooting at the tank to stop it! But be careful, Carmelita and Kaia are both in there!"

"Yeah, Murray, be careful!" I hissed as Carmelita swore and tried to maneuver out of the hippo's line of fire, with varying degrees of success.

He took out the treads with surprisingly precise shots, forcing the tank to halt. While Carmelita was wrestling with her restraints, I scrambled out of the tank, taking the Clockwerk Eye in my backpack, and scrambled across slick cobblestone to Murray's tank.

"Greetings, fair maiden! Are you-?"

"Talk later, Murray, drive now!"

I winced when Bentley applied evermore antiseptic. "Bentley, how on Earth did you get out of that crash unscathed?" I was sitting cross-legged in the back of the van while Murray drove aimless circles around the police blockade, waiting for Sly to come out. We'd managed to slip away before the authorities hit full-force, but the thief had yet to emerge. Bentley was applying various antiseptics and ointments to my many scrapes and burns. He himself only had a few bruises.

"You got me. I'm not questioning it, though."

The passenger's side door opened. "Probably a smart move."

I perked up immediately. "Sly, you made it out alive!"

"You sound so surprised." He teased, wringing out his cap. Murray revved the engine and we took off, away from the scene, "Guess what I got to do?"

"What?" Murray interrupted before I could guess something ridiculous.

"Okay, so I has heading out to find you guys… and I saw a bunch of police officers crowded around this random spot. I went over to check it out and it turns out they were surrounding Carmelita! I got to help her escape! It was awesome!"

I cracked up, trying to imagine the look on Carmelita's face. "Oh, I bet that stung!"

"As entertainingly jocular as this is," Bentley drawled, "We need to lay low for a while and I don't have a new Safehouse set up!"

I yawned, toying with the goggles around my neck as I listened to them brainstorm. Then I grinned.

"I know a place!"

Knock, knock…

"It's three in th- Kaia? What are you-"

"Hi, Ahanu!" I pushed past the stunned fox and made a beeline for the living area, "Hi, couch!" Flop. "Goodnight, moon."

The until-recently-asleep fox passed out coffee, tea, and soda to the three thieves sitting at his dining room table and began to question just when his life had gotten so insane. He glanced over his shoulder at the slate-grey hybrid that he clearly remembered being white, passed out on his couch and drooling slightly.

He looked at the LED light on his oven and ran a hand through his hair when he saw the cheerful green lights blink 5:30 at him. He flopped down in his own chair, gripping his coffee cup like a life preserver. "So, let me get this straight. You guys are the infamous Cooper gang that has Interpol chasing their tails?"

The raccoon, turtle, and hippo in front of him did not look older than he was by a long shot. And he was twenty-four. The turtle nodded, the hippo was falling asleep in his chair and the raccoon, the famed 'Sly Cooper', apparently, appeared to be trying to divine the secret of the universe by inhalation of coffee fumes.

"And you just pulled a heist and are looking for a place to lay low because Interpol is going over the countryside with a fine-toothed comb?"

"Look," Cooper himself finally spoke, looking Ahanu dead in the eye, "Normally, we wouldn't ask something like this, we're relatively self-reliant. But Interpol came down a lot harder and faster than we thought they would. Frankly, we don't have another option and…" he looked over at Kaia with an expression that Ahanu could relate to, before turning back, "Jinx seemed to think you were trustworthy."

Ahanu smirked a little. Jinx, huh? He'd have to hear the story behind that one. "Well," he stood, making his way to his bedroom, "So long as you guys don't do anything to draw attention to yourselves and get me arrested for aiding and abetting, you can stay. Guest room's over there, you can fight over the bed. Bathroom's there. I'm heading to work."

There was a beat of silence, then a mad scramble for the guest room. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, noting absently that he needed a haircut. The things he did for that cat…

I woke up with the feeling of grogginess and stiffness that accompanies a deep sleep. Also, to the feeling of someone poking around my cuts from the night before.

I opened my eyes a sliver and, once my blurry vision cleared, saw a familiar black face and violet eyes.

"Ritsu-?"

He held a finger to his lips and pointed to my right. I frowned and shifted slightly to see the Sly was sprawled out on the remainder of the couch, mouth open, one leg propped on my back, the other dangling off the couch.

So that was why I was warm.

I grimaced when I realized how close his foot was to my face and gingerly slid out from under his leg and onto the floor. With Ritsuka's help, I managed to get him situated a little better and then drew the curtains so the sunlight wouldn't wake the nocturnal beast.

I then followed Ritsuka to Ahanu's room when he beckoned. I groaned aloud when I saw a first-aid kit open on the bed, but everyone's favorite nurse had managed to get between me and the door and pointed to the bed with a no-nonsense expression.

"They're just a couple of cuts and burns," I grumbled, crawling onto the bed, "They already got treated and everything."

Ritsuka pulled a face, then rummaged in a backpack by the bed, pulling out a laptop and handing it to me once he'd brought up Google Translator.

I took the laptop, but said, "You know, I'm tempted not to even use this just to annoy you." He started to make vague strangling motions and I sighed, "Fine, fine."

After filling Ritsuka in (he'd pretty much just come after Ahanu called him, telling him that we'd crashed at his apartment), he told me that the hospital had been in chaos when my disappearance was discovered. Fortunately, he told me, he had been able to avoid implication. Mostly because Neyla thought he was one of the patients when she tore through the pediatric ward, looking for the culprit.

I cracked up upon hearing that and Ritsuka glared at me with a martyred expression, but his lips were twitching a little.

Then he produced a little cloth-covered box and handed it to me.

I tilted my head to the side, inspecting it. It was a little smaller than a CD case might have been, and soft to the touch. I opened it, nearly dropped it, then leapt on Ritsuka, throwing my arms around him.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Sly was standing in the doorway, smirking like a crazy person, tail idly waving behind him. Ritsuka was trying his very, very best to get out of my grasp, and I was grinning so much it hurt.

He squeaked and doubled his efforts when he saw Sly and I laughed, tightening my grip. "Aw, don't make fun of our loooovveee…."

Ritsuka may not have known English, but at my tone he slipped out of my hold and practically teleported himself across the room, putting a chair between the two of us, red in the face.

"What was that all about?" Sly asked, coming over and rubbing at his eyes. He obviously wasn't completely awake.

I held up the box, "Looky, looky!"

It was the necklace Sly had given me, the one that had been left at the hospital. I didn't know how Ritsuka had gotten it back and, quite frankly, I didn't care.

Sly blinked slowly, not comprehending. "It's your necklace?"

"It got taken away from me when I got to the hospital. Wearing jewelry interferes with I don't know how many tests. My stuff was seized as evidence, but Ritsuka managed to get this back for me." I wrestled to get the clasp to work behind my neck.

There was a quick 'click-clack' of keyboard keys and then Ritsuka was back on the other side of the room. I glanced down.

"Apparently, my clothes were torn up and really dirty, so they were thrown away. Awesome. I really liked that shirt."

"Does that guy not speak English?" Sly asked, indicating Ritsuka with his tail.

I shook my head, "Nope, he lives here and is friends with Ahanu, that's how I knew him. Ritsuka was one of the nurses at the hospital I woke up in and we got to talking this way." I tapped the laptop with a finger, "He also helped me sneak out when Neyla was coming to get me on behalf of Interpol."

Sly looked across the room at Ritsuka, "Děkujeme vám."

Ritsuka blinked slowly in surprise, "N-není zač."

"What the hell, you know Czech?"

The raccoon smirked at me, "What, you thought you knew all my dirty little secrets?"

"In perfect honesty, Sly, I think if I ever claimed to know everything about you, you'd do or learn something ridiculous just to screw with my head, wouldn't you?"

"… Maybe."

We wound up staying with Ahanu for three days. That was how long it took the hubbub of the Contessa's arrest to die down. Evidently, as a part of Interpol's PR management of the incident, they promoted Neyla to Captain. It set my teeth on edge just to think about it, so I dug around in Ahanu's closet until I found some old games and the gang and I spent the rest of our time playing old versions of Mario Party.

Well, most of our time, anyway. Surprisingly, Ritsuka got along really well with Sly and Bentley, well enough to convince them to submit to a routine physical, during which we found out Sly had walking pneumonia.

Yes, you read that right.

Of course, after Ritsuka had had a fit and Bentley had translated to Murray and I (well, just me really. We had to explain what was going on to Murray with small words and crayon drawings), the turtle and I proceeded to berate Sly for not telling us he was sick.

The raccoon simply raised an eyebrow, kicked his feet up on the couch, and grinned, "Didn't know you were so concerned, Jinx."

It took the combined force of Bentley, Ahanu, and Ritsuka to pull me off the raccoon when I attempted to smother him with a throw pillow.

Thankfully, it only took Sly a couple of days to completely recover, especially after Ritsuka showed up with a bottle of shiftily-obtained antibiotics, since apparently he'd already been sick for something like a week and a half.

By that time, we were all getting pretty stir crazy. I'd never had the urge to be doing something at all times before I met the Cooper gang, I'd been more than content to laze about all day or simply hang out with friends, but now I just wanted to be doing something.

So when Bentley finally declared the location of the next Klaww Gang member, we were a bit excited.

Okay, a lot excited.

We packed up the van, said goodbye to Ahanu and Ritsuka, and hit the road. Then and only then would Bentley let us know where we were headed, he hadn't wanted to clue us in if there was a way that Ahanu and Ritsuka would learn of it, not because he thought they'd rat us out, but because the less they knew, the better.

Utilizing a small portion of the gang's illegally-obtained funds, Bentley had procured a small boat that was capable of taking us to, of all places, Canada.

Another chapter over!

Ah, we're getting towards the end, guys! Don't worry, there will be a sequel, but I probably won't put it on here until Sly4 comes out. I want to play it before posting the sequel, just in case of conflicting plots.

But, anyhow, I hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think, and God Bless!