Wow, guys. I seriously don't know what to say. I guess I should leave you on cliffhangers more often, I've gotten more reviews for my last update in seven days than I have for any of my other chapters that were up twice as long. And all of you were so nice about it! I thought that was a cheap excuse for a cliffhanger, I'm just glad so many of you liked it!

And I got several requests for this so, as promised, here is your Christmas update!

On with the chapter!

Sly felt a brief instant of overwhelming, crushing panic; a terribly familiar feeling he remembered from twelve years ago, when his father had thrown him in the closet and seconds later been cut down by Clockwerk.

Bentley was saying something, but the raccoon couldn't hear him. He was numb. He couldn't feel anything- arms, legs, anything.

He waited patiently. He knew what came next.

There it was.

A cold, almost physical presence in his gut. He remembered this too.

Despair.

His head snapped up from where it had been staring blankly at the binocucom half-buried in snow when he heard… something.

He wasn't sure what it was, voice, natural sound, animal… but it sounded familiar to him.

"Do you guys hear something?" he asked, shattering an nearly tangible air of apprehension between himself and his two friends.

They waited in silence for a moment.

"I don't hear anything," Bentley said tentatively, looking at his friend as though he wasn't sure whether or not he was all there.

But Sly had been sure- "There it is again!" He took off up the slope, stumbling several times in the still-powdery snow but not slowing down.

It sounded like…

He stopped at a large rock, buried in the snow. He flattened, pressing his ear to it.

It was her voice! He couldn't make out the exact words, but it was definitely her and it was a safe bet she was calling for help.

"Murray!" He stood, calling the hippo that was lumbering with difficulty up the mountain after him. "She's under here!"

For about twenty seconds, Murray was a star athlete. He reached Sly and plunged his fists into the snow, gripping the rock and heaving.

Sly could practically hear his friend's already-strained muscles tearing, "You got this buddy," he encouraged, wound tight with apprehension.

Bentley had to duck when the large slab of stone finally popped free of the frozen earth and flew from Murray's grip.

Curled in the space between where the rock had been buried in the soil and the wall of snow formed by the avalanche, Kaia's teeth chattered audibly.

"Ok-kay… It's-s of-fficial. I h-hate N-N-Neyla."

"Ok-k ay, Sly, seriously. You can put me d-down. My legs aren't injured. I can walk-k."

Usually, any practice that can contribute to my laziness is wholly acceptable and encouraged, but Sly hadn't put me down since they found me half an hour ago. Initially I wasn't complaining, cause he was nice and warm and stuff, but it was just getting awkward now.

He looked down at me, eyebrow raised, a smirk hovering about his lips, "You wanna stand knee-deep in the snow while Murray digs out the van?"

I looked down to see that the snow was, indeed, up to about the middle of Sly's calves, which meant it would be knee-deep to me. Sly was a tall bugger when he wasn't slinking around in the shadows. "Admittedly n-no, but my feet are falling asleep and your arms have g-got to be getting tired."

His eyebrow went higher up, "Do you have any idea how light you are? Especially after that stint on the ocean."

I sighed and stole his hat, tugging it down over my face and crossing my arms, "You're ridiculous."

"And you're portable."

"Bentley's p-portable."

"Hey, I heard that!"

I peeked under the brim of Sly's hat and saw Bentley, sitting on the hood of the van, glaring at us over the lid of his laptop, slightly darker than normal. The van hadn't actually been buried by the avalanche, but it had gotten a snowdrift several feet high as a result, which Murray was currently shoveling away.

"Any news, Bentley?"

"The police are closing in on this location. We need to move out."

"Done." Murray huffed, clearing away the last bit of snow from the van's undercarriage. "Let's go."

I was more than happy to leap out of Sly's arms and hop into the back of the van, "You guys need to get some seats back here, seriously." I said, climbing over the many and varied Clockwerk parts. "I'm gonna s-stab myself on something someday."

"Well, you might get your chance here in a bit." Bentley was already in the passenger's seat, typing away, "My data says that Jean Bison is still in possession of the Clockwerk Talons."

"Seriously?" I hit my head on the top of the van and grimaced, "Can't we go to Texas or something? It's w-warm there! Hey- where'd Sly go?"

"He went to go see if Inspector Fox needed help escaping again. She doesn't have the resources we do and the arrival of the authorities is probably going to take her by surprise."

"Oh yeah… poor Carmelita." Geez… she was probably having some serious issues with this whole fugitive thing.

"As soon as he gets back, we need to take off. The irregularity of the Northern Lights has had some serious effects on the temperaments of lots of people and animals." Apparently, the Northern Lights had been off lately. I hadn't borne witness to this as I was never able to stay up late enough to see them, to my great chagrin. "Jean Bison and Arpeggio are probably behind it somehow with that 'Northern Light Battery' they were talking about." Bentley continued as Murray warmed up the engine.

"So? What are we g-going to do?"

"We're going to follow the lights."

Sleeping in the back of the Cooper van is actually surprisingly easy once you manage to sandwich yourself and a sleeping bag between two Clockwerk Tailfeathers and a Clockwerk Wing.

Well, it is until Sly wakes you up at one in the morning, at least.

"Jinx. Wake up."

I grumbled and swatted at his hand, but he kept shaking me until I opened one eye and glared blearily at him, "What?"

"Come on, you have to see this."

I grumbled at him a lot, but he wouldn't let up, so, with his help, I draped myself over the back of the passenger's seat to look out the window and see what he was on about.

And boy am I glad I did.

With the back of the seat digging into my stomach and my elbow propped on Sly's shoulder so I could see out his window, I looked outside and gaped.

"Can we roll down the window?" I asked after a moment.

Sly obliged and I reached over, gripping the door and pulling so I could put my head out the window and look up at the sky.

Beams of multicolored light lit up the black-blue sky, making the multitude of stars look inconsequential. It was mostly greens and some pinks, but I saw a couple of bands of gold, red, and violet. It looked too beautiful. The lights writhed and moved like a living thing, casting colored hues on the landscape around us. The snow reflected and magnified the illumination, sending it back to the sky, making the whole world light up in rainbows.

"Is this real?" I half expected Sly to tell me that I was dreaming.

"Yeah. Yeah it is."

"Wow," I breathed, feeling tears prick at my eyes because I refused to close them against the slipstream caused by the van.

I snapped out of my reverie when I heard a 'click'.

I turned and gaped at Sly when I caught him hastily trying to shove his binocucom away, "Did you just take a picture of me?"

He grinned, I would have called it sheepish but there was also a smugness about it, "A picture's worth a thousand words?"

After a long night of lights-watching and trying to strangle snarky raccoons, we arrived at a logging camp in Northern Canada, the sheer number of fallen trees advertising Jean Bison's presence.

Knowing that Arpeggio was coming to pick up a 'Northern Light Battery' in a blimp ("What is it with this gang and blimps?") in a couple of days and that sneaking aboard would be the only way we'd get a crack at his Clockwerk Brain ("EWEWEW!", "And she's back to being loud.") and that in that time we had to snag the Clockwerk Talons, tensions in the Safehouse were running high, especially when Sly came back from running recon with an announcement.

"The only way to get the Clockwerk Talons in time is to win them from Jean Bison in the lumberjack games he's hosting."

"Anyone else get the feeling that this guy might be a bit too proud of being a lumberjack?"

I was ignored.

"Fortunately," Bentley took over with his slide projector, "Due to frequent avalanches, a log chopping guide has surfaced not too far from our camp."

I squinted at the picture of the glacier, "Is that a mammoth in there with it! Why didn't you mention the mammoth?"

Bentley blushed, "I was hoping to study it someday when we aren't on a timetable. Anyway," He cleared his throat, "Sly, you're in charge of acquiring the book. I'm sure it'll prove invaluable. Now, we're all aware that Arpeggio's blimp is coming to pick up the Northern Light Battery. In order to sneak aboard, I recommend we pull a Trojan Horse and stow away inside the battery."

I opened my mouth to ask how that was possible, but Bentley and Sly exchanged looks and I decided it was in my best interest to stay silent.

Well, silent until they mentioned that they were going to be stealing radio tags from local bears. Radio tags located in the fillings in their teeth.

"What?" I gaped at Bentley, "You're gonna go pry out bear teeth?"

"No, Sly's going to go pry out bear teeth. Weren't you paying attention?"

"Wouldn't it be safer to jerry-rig a listening device? Why do you always gotta steal a device or use an actual bug?"

Bentley seemed a little insulted, "In Paris I forged a painting from Dimitri's office and installed a listening device in the frame."

I hurriedly backtracked, "Okay, I get it, but why are we sending Sly after hungry bears?"

"Worried, Jinx?"

I jumped and whipped around, hitting Sly in the chest on reflex. He'd somehow managed to sneak across the room completely silently and come up behind me. He coughed and wheezed, caught off guard by my hit and holding on the back of my chair to support himself, "Ow."

Bentley cracked up in the background while I was torn between being worried that I'd actually hurt Sly and still being mad that he'd scared me. I settled for throwing my hands up in the air, "Fine! Go play bear-dentist, see if I care!"

The turtle genius wiped away tears of mirth, "It's because the bear tags are already hooked into Bison's network. Despite his antique mind, he's no fool. He's had a state-of the art firewall installed into his system. I could crack it, but it would take more time than we have to spare."

"Oh… okay."

"Seriously, Jinx, who taught you how to hit?" Sly wheezed, slipping back into his own chair, rubbing the point of impact.

I gave him an evil grin, "Never sneak up on a girl raised by the FBI."

After Sly grabbed the bear tags, Murray ran off to do some undercover work and the raccoon headed back out to defrost the log-chopping guide. Meanwhile, Bentley showed me how to modify the bear tags to relay information to his laptop.

After I got over the fact that I was handling bloody bear teeth, it wasn't actually that hard. Besides, I got to eavesdrop on the binocucom conversations Bentley was having with the guys.

"You'll need a disguise. That old moose head should do the trick."

"Don't you find it weird that you're advising Murray to stick his head into another creature's skull?"

"I'm always up for bugging someone's home."

"Bentley, where can I buy a bug sweeper?"

"It's useless, Kaia. The current most advanced sweeper is one I patented and know how to circumvent."

"Bentley, please never let Sly bug my house."

"No promises."

"Heheheh…"

"I've never seen a creature so full of life, so ready to live-" SPLOOSH! "-So much for that, he's back in the deep freeze."

"Poor mammoth."

"After reading the log chopping guide it has become painfully clear," Bentley said at the next slideshow, "That we'll have to cheat."

"Why would we do anything different?" Sly asked, sitting backwards on a chair with his often-present smirk.

"Ever heard the phrase, 'Honor amongst thieves', Sly?"

He reached over without looking to pat me on the head, "You adorable naïve thing, you. OW!"

"If you don't want me to bite you, stop patting my head!"

"Ahem, can we do the briefing now, if you two are quite done?"

"Hugs and kisses, Bentley."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Now, I've constructed a plan, which hinges around us acquiring an eagle's egg, which is more difficult than you think."

"Tell me we're not going to kill a yet-to-be-born chick."

"No, Kaia. If all goes well the egg will be returned to its nest unharmed."

"Yay!"

"Now be quiet."

"Aw…"

"First, Murray needs to lure a bear into taking out the local oil mains…

"Ummm…" I wasn't sure quite what to do when Sly handed me a white speckled eagle egg the size of my hand, "Thanks? What do I do with it?"

If possible, Sly's smirk got even creepier than usual, "Ask Bentley."

"Bentley? Why does Sly look like a predator?"

"HEY!"

Bentley bore my question with the kind of calm that is envied by saints. "Due to your hybridization, your average body temperature, according to your medical records, is perfect for keeping the egg at an ideal temperature."

"… I've never been more creeped out than I am at this moment." I muttered, tucking the egg into the crook of my arm. "Bentley, you could build an incubator out of an old battery and a barrel. This is just a ploy to keep me busy while you guys go do fun stuff isn't it?"

"How about we tell you when we get back from breaking into that old lighthouse?"

"I hope you get electrocuted."

The next day was the lumber jack games. My job was to sneak the egg out to Bentley during Bison's turn at the log-chopping event.

After that I was sent back to the Safehouse to 'keep an eye on the Clockwerk parts', which had been transferred there because we'd had to park the van on some ice in order to keep it out of sight. While the ice was strong enough to hold the van, it wasn't strong enough to hold the van and half a ton of Clockwerk parts.

And by 'keep an eye on the Clockwerk parts', they meant 'get out of the way so we don't have to worry about you slipping on the ice and falling into the ocean'.

Which was clearly an overreaction.

… It only happened once.

Anyways, after getting back and changing into the jeans and T-shirt I'd been wearing when this whole crazy thing started, which were the only still-clean clothes in my backpack, I amused myself by building a card house out of Sly's calling cards, which was really a lot harder than you'd think.

The card house collapsed immediately when Jean Bison broke the door down, though.

I had about a half a second to react. Fortunately, in that half a second my brain kicked into high gear.

Jean Bison was here, so that meant the guys' cover had been blown. If I was lucky, they were still alive. Bison was here because he'd probably figured the rest of the Clockwerk parts would be here, which, given the fact that I was sitting on the Tailfeathers, was a fair deduction. That meant I couldn't count on the guys to come help me out, so I'd have to get out of this on my own.

No way could I take any of the guards, let alone Bison himself, in a fight. That meant I'd have to take page out of Bentley's book and use my brain. I barely had any information… but all I needed to know was that Jean Bison was a working-class man from the 1850's.

Time started up again and as my card house hit the wooden floor of the Safehouse, I gave a yelp and leapt back, making my eyes wide and scared as I stared up at the brick-red bison filling the doorway.

"W-who are you?" I didn't like playing damsel in distress, but hey, if it got me out of this…

Bison looked just as surprised as me. "Oh, um, I'm sorry for startling you, miss." He rumbled, then recognition dawned on his face, "Say, you're that gal that that varmint raccoon and his gang snatched back in Cairo, aren't ya?"

I grimaced, "'Varmint' is right." I had to play my cards very, very carefully here. It had been two months since I'd joined up with the Cooper gang so it would be a bit of a stretch to convince anyone that I completed hated them after so long, "Being a captive is not how I planned to start my final year of school. That turtle is far too crafty to let me escape either. Apparently every good thief gang needs a pet hostage to keep the police from taking aggressive action."

"Er…" he looked confused, but seemed to get that I was not a happy camper with my current situation. "Well, why don't you come with me, ma'am, and I'll help you get to the nearest town while my men take care of these here Clockwerk parts?"

Well… that was easier than I thought it'd be. Either I was really good at playing damsel in distress or Jean Bison was just really gullible. I was going to vote for the latter for the sake of my pride.

It was half an hour before I was able to slip out of sight of both Bison and his guards. It was kind of amusing how easy it was to fool them. Jean Bison had 'assured' me that the Cooper gang was being kept in the most secure room of his logging facility, the master control room.

Apparently it didn't occur to him that putting them in the master control room… gave them control of all the logging equipment.

And by 'them' I mean 'Bentley'.

The poor sap.

Still, it wouldn't matter how many saws they had control of if they couldn't get the door open.

It didn't take long to find the master control room… especially after I stopped and asked for directions from a very nice Canadian moose.

What did slow me down was the six digit coded keypad on the solid steel door.

I realized what Bison meant by 'secure' then. I could hear Murray struggling to open it on the other side, probably to keep himself busy, but no way was he getting that thing open, he'd just tire himself out and he'd need his strength. We all would, to reach the Northern Light Battery; Arpeggio's ETA was only minutes away.

After beating my head against a nearby wall for a few minutes, trying to figure out I was going to get the stupid thing open, I started thinking away from how to trick the guards into opening it for me and to trying to figure out what the code was originally.

Bison was not good with the technology, it just wasn't his century. He'd have to pick a relatively simple code that he'd be able to remember. Okay, what was the most important thing to Bison?

Well that was easy, being a lumberjack.

Lumberjack… the lumberjack games… were there any numbers associated with that?

The answer slipped into place with a nearly-audible 'Click!' in my mind.

I punched in: 101010

The light above the pad shone green and gave a short series of beeps and the door slid upwards to reveal a panting Murray and a startled Sly.

"Kaia?"

"Where's Bentley, guys?" I asked, throwing my glance around the room and praying that the turtle's absence didn't mean something terrible.

"Here."

I jumped and actually screamed when I heard the voice behind me. Bentley was standing there, wheezing and dripping sweat. I clutched my heart and leaned against the doorframe, "Don't scare me like that!"

Sly strode over and took my arm, "How did you escape Bison?" He looked torn between being relieved or suspicious.

"He's a guy from the 1850's, Sly. Chivalry was still around then. I played damsel in distress. Now come on, we have to go!"

"Kaia's right." Bentley said, wiping sweat from his brow, "We have approximately one minute before Arpeggio's blimp arrives."

"What?" I gaped. I thought we had longer than that! "What about the other Clockwerk parts? And the Talons, we can't leave them!"

"Bison sold them to Arpeggio," Murray said as we sprinted out the side door.

I stumbled in the snow, losing a shoe but unable to slow down to pick it up again, especially when Sly grabbed my hand, "What- all of them?"

"Yup."

"Oh hell."

The short spring to the Northern Light Battery seemed much longer than it should have. Sly did not let go of me the entire time which made me run a lot faster than I thought I was capable of simply in order to not slow him down.

We managed to avoid all the guards, by some miracle. Sly and I scaled a small tree beside the battery, Murray tossed Bentley up to the hatch on the top and followed quickly.

In moments, we were sitting in the complete blackness of the empty battery. Hardly moving, hardly breathing, waiting to see if, somehow, Arpeggio could tell from his blimp that something was up.

Then there was a clang, a shudder, and a jolt. My stomach plummeted and we were airborne.

They had been in the air for five minutes and Sly already wanted to start breaking things.

No one was talking. If they felt anything like he did, they were pondering the sudden sense of loss they were faced with. Their purpose had been stolen from them, just like that.

Bentley was drawing up meaningless plans, trying to make sense of it all. Murray was just staring out the window, big, fat, crocodile tears running down his cheeks as the team van floated out of sight on an ice floe. Sly himself was twitchy, ready for action, battle, anything to take his mind off the feeling of failure.

And Kaia…

He looked over at her. She was curled into a ball, shivering, her tail resting on the top of her shoe and curving around the foot that had lost its, the soaking wet sock creating a small puddle on the floor of the battery, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

No, she wasn't shivering… she was trembling. Her bottom lip was pinched between her teeth, her eyes squeezed so tightly shut that he caught himself wondering if that didn't hurt.

For a split second his mind went completely blank.

Sly carefully made his way over to her, aware that shifting too quickly could pitch the battery in any direction. He placed a hand on the hybrid's arm, but she made no move to acknowledge him. "Jinx?" One of her ears twitched, but that was the most reaction he got. "Kaia? …Are you afraid?"

Her slight 'no' was almost inaudible.

Faced with another situation where he had no idea what action to take, Sly cast his gaze around, but Bentley was in no position to help him and Murray was still sobbing over the speck of blue in the distance.

Slowly, more unsure than he'd ever been in his life, he eased into a sitting position beside the teenager, gently sliding an arm around her hunched shoulders. From this angle, he could make out the faded spots on her shoulders and neck, undoubtedly from the leopard genes buried in her DNA.

After a moment, her shaking lessened, but she was still stiff as a stone. He sighed, leaning his head back against the cold, metal interior of the battery.

What were they going to do?

Well, that's... a cheery, Christmas-y note to leave y'all on. Just one chapter and an epilogue to go! Utter insanity, how close this is to being over.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone! If you could take some time to review, I'd really appreciate it. Be safe in your travels and God Bless!