Well I'm going to win the award for 'most tired person ever', but I am happy to bring you your regularly scheduled chapter! I know you're all here for Tennessee, so don't let me hold you up. Enjoy!

This trip didn't last nearly as long, probably because I didn't have nearly as long to travel.

I sprawled across a hot surface because landing after time-jumping could apparently not be done with style.

"That was graceful."

I groaned, spat out some of the dirt I'd inhaled, and glared up at Sly, who was crouched in front of me, grinning. I'd apparently landed nearer to the van this time than I had before. "I just jumped four centuries, Sly. I think a little grace can be forgiven."

Sly helped me up and I looked around, spotting the van, Bentley, and Murray, "Huh, I landed much closer this time." We looked to be in the middle of a desert canyon area. It was pretty sparse of any vegetation besides cacti, despite the fact that I could see a river a ways down in one of the canyons.

"Any injuries?"

"Other than to my pride? No."

"Good. We have bad news."

"That was fast."

Bentley rolled up to us and handed me a wanted poster, "Tennessee was arrested. That bank heist he pulled that was in the Thievius Raccoonus? Someone interrupted it. The local Sheriff has him locked up tight."

"I really hope this is an artist's rendering and not a photograph."

Sly tilted his head in confusion, "Why?"

I held up the wanted poster, "Because he is ridiculously attractive."

He gave me a blank look.

I shrugged, "Hey, you flirt with anything in a skirt when they aren't actively trying to kill you and sometimes even when they are, I think I'm allowed to say, objectively speaking, that one of your ancestors is particularly good looking."

Bentley seemed to be having some kind of aneurysm trying not to laugh, "I've located an abandoned clock tower we can use as a Safehouse, we should make our way there."

We skirted a small... town? I didn't really know if it could be called a town, but I had no idea what else it could be called- to get to the clock tower. Unlike many Safehouses of old, this one actually had stairs to get to the entrance instead of necessitating a climb or cleverly-disguised trampoline/entrance, so it wasn't as big a chore as usual to get all of Bentley's tech inside.

By the time Murray lugged up the last box, Bentley had a holographic layout of the prison Tennessee was being kept in rotating slowly in front of him.

"I have good news and bad news," Bentley said immediately, pulling out a pointer.

"This never ends well," I dropped into a chair next to Sly and kicked my feet up on top of his.

He twitched, which I decided meant he agreed with me and didn't want to admit it, "What's the good news?"

"After carefully analyzing the blueprints, I've come up with a way to get Tennessee out of prison."

"And the bad news?" I asked, fiddling with my baton.

"It has to be done from the inside."

Dead silence.

"Called it!"

"So let me get this straight," Sly said, "I have to get arrested?"

"I know, I know, it's gonna be hard. But they're already rigging a noose for Tennessee, we don't have time for a complicated plan!"

"I trust you Bentley, but I'm not sure about getting locked up in this town."

"Sorry, Sly. But it's the only way to reach Tennessee in time. We don't have the luxury of doing a lot of recon and coming up with a better plan."

"Wait a sec," I interjected, "I thought Tennessee was a bank robber, why are they hanging him?"

"Kaia, we're in the eighteen hundreds. They take bank robbery very seriously."

"Yeah, I got that impression from the ten thousand dollar reward! How much is that with inflation?"

"About two hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars, give or take."

I let out a low whistle.

Sly pinched the bridge of his nose, "Bentley. How am I supposed to go about getting arrested?"

"Well..." Bentley started, leading me to believe there was another piece of bad news he'd totally failed to mention, "That's the other thing. They're holding Kid Cooper in the Maximum Security wing. To get yourself in there, you're going to need to get 'Outlaw' status. So you're going to need to build a rep before they catch you. Otherwise, they'll throw you in with the common criminals."

"Ugh, you mean like jaywalkers and litterbugs? Not gonna happen."

"Well, around these parts it's more like goat thieves and tobacco spitters, but you get the point."

"How did this become my life?" I muttered to Murray, "I used to be a fairly respectable member of society."

"Yeah, but this is more fun."

Bentley looked at some notes he'd scribbled down and said, "For starters, why don't you try defacing all those posters of the sheriff around town? That ought to put a burr under his saddle... get it? Because we're in the Old West?"

I sighed loudly. Sly coughed and gave Bentley a look.

"... Anyway, I'll just let you get started."

"See you in a few." Sly swung his cane up onto his shoulder and strode out of the Safehouse.

Bentley nodded to himself and pushed his laptop my way, "Kaia, man the Binocucom feed. Murray and I are going to do recon."

"I thought you said we didn't have time for recon?" I said, but was already pulling the laptop closer.

"We don't have time for a lot of it, but Sly's getting arrested. So I'm going to make as much time as possible to make as good a plan as I can to get him out the best way possible."

I nodded and put on the headset.

"Sly, where did you even get all that paint?"

When Jinx's voice came over the binocucom, Sly couldn't help but give a small smile. Sure, he didn't have to have her in sight at all times to believe she was alive any more, but it was still a huge relief to hear her, "You'd be surprised what that replicator Bentley rigged in the back of the van can come up with."

"Replicator? Like, Star Trek? Is that where Murray keeps getting all the food?"

"I can't believe you didn't know that."

"Hey, when you're done getting arrested, I'm going to make about fifteen grilled cheese sandwiches just because I can."

"Sounds about right," Sly said, coming to the first poster and cracking open the paint cans, "Find a poster, make it look goofy, and move on." He let out a nostalgic sigh, "Just like Junior High."

"... Why am I surprised you were a delinquent?"

"Got me. I was a bored, maladjusted teenager. I don't know why you thought any different."

But it was kind of flattering.

He hopped across the tracks to the next poster, snorting at it, "Wow, I bet the original artist damaged his vision looking at this guy..."

"This guy specially orders bean and rice lollipops from Cuba and they made him the Sheriff?"

Bentley rolled his eyes, "This is the Old West, they probably didn't do it through democracy."

"He left those lollipops unguarded, on a platform, in an open case."

"Hey it makes my job easier." Sly said over the binocucom as he swiped the lollipops, "I'm sure Murray'll like this lollipop."

"Great job!" Bentley said, "You just became a 'criminal', Sly!"

"Because he definitely wasn't that before."

"Alright," Bentley said as Sly climbed to a rock outcropping near the train bridge, "This is going perfectly! You'll be locked up in no time!"

"You know, you're a little too excited about sending me to the slammer, Bentley."

"It's all about the job, Sly," Bentley insisted primly, "Speaking of which, in case you hadn't noticed, this Sheriff Toothpick is his own biggest fan."

"It's kinda hard to miss, what with all the banners and posters and everything."

"Yeah. You'd think initiating the celebration of yourself would take some of the fun out of it, but he doesn't seem to mind."

"He really doesn't." Bentley agreed, "In fact, it looks like he's throwing himself a festival and it's in full swing! If you take that banner down, I'm sure it'll be the final straw."

"Why do the bad guys always have really immature reactions to taunts?" I wondered aloud.

"Let's go rain on this guy's parade." Sly chirped, running off to do just that.

It took Sly less than five minutes to take down the banner. Even from the other end of the microphone, we could hear Toothpick's enraged shouts.

"He is very loud for such a small person."

"I concur."

"So, they're coming my way. Do I just... stand still? Let them catch me? How do people get caught anyway?"

Bentley sighed, "At least look like you're trying to get away. And stash your gear somewhere, we'll find a way to get it to you in the prison."

"You got it."

Sly signed off and despite the fact that everything was going to plan, I couldn't help but be a little worried for him.

Then I saw the look Bentley was throwing my way and started to get a little worried for me, "What?"

"I couldn't help but notice you've gotten better at climbing."

"... So?"

I didn't really mind the desert heat too much. I'd gone to summer camp in Texas for six weeks every year since I was eight, so I was actually kind of used to it.

What I did mind was climbing up a tall tower, over a cliff, with just climbing hooks and hope, in said heat.

"Bentley," I hissed into the binocucom mic, "I am going to get heat stroke and die."

"You are not, keep climbing."

"If I die, Tate gets all my stuff, you get nothing."

"I'll be sure to archive that sentiment."

I was pretty close to the barred windows now and I could hear Sly.

"My friends are working on that... I hope."

Rolling my eyes, I latched my climbing hook around one of the bars and used it to pull myself up to the window. I could see Sly easily, but he was blocking the rest of the room with a giant ball and chain, "Thanks for the vote of confidence. By the way, loving the outfit."

Sly refused to even jump at my appearance, choosing instead to lift his hands, "What can I say? I look good in stripes."

"Son, who're you talkin' t- oh."

Tennessee had pushed his way around Sly and was staring at me and I had just enough time to think 'crap, it really was a photograph, wasn't it?' before he whipped off his hat and held it against his chest.

"Howdy there, ma'am. Pleased to meet ya!" He greeted with a charming smile.

Part of me was incredulous, but the other part thought this was hilariously amazing and that was the part that took over, "I'm sure the pleasure is all mine."

"Wow, okay, this makes me really uncomfortable. Can I have my gear?" Sly asked, a touch desperately, "You two can get better acquainted later."

"Spoilsport," I carefully shrugged off my backpack, which I'd stuffed full of Sly's gear after I located it and strapped his cane to, "I'll see you guys back at the Safehouse. Try not to get shot or otherwise horribly killed."

"You can count on us!"

"Now..." I muttered to myself as Sly broke down the wall of the tower, "How do I get down?"

Climbing up something is always the easiest part. Getting back down is something else entirely. I took my sweet, sweet time getting down, all at once hyperaware of both how high up I was, and the sound of pretty much every single alarm in the prison going off at once.

The sun was setting by the time I got my feet firmly planted on solid ground. This was good because, since the air was so dry, the setting sun took most of the heat with it and the sunset was something to die for. It was also bad because I could already feel a chill start to come in and, if I didn't hurry, it was going to be dark before I got back to the Safehouse.

I knew Sly and Tennessee had a massive head start, I'd seen them glide out across the river, they were fine. They probably hadn't taken a direct route back to the Safehouse, though, if they knew what was good for them. Bentley would have been livid.

I liked the current Safehouse. It was easy to spot and there were plenty of ways to get there that didn't force you to sneak around guards. It wasn't long at all before I was jogging up the steps and slipping inside.

"A plus plus on the impromptu jailbreak, Bentley," I threw the turtle a thumbs-up.

He tried not to look too pleased with himself. I had no idea why he even attempted modesty anymore. He was probably more proud of the gang's reputation even than Sly and everyone knew it.

A noise from above us sounded suspiciously like two raccoons tumbling in through the window, "That's probably them."

"You don't say," Bentley drawled, looking up as Sly and Tennessee scrambled down the ladder to join the rest of us in front of the mass of moving gears that made up the clock face.

"Tennessee, this is the gang: Bentley, Murray, and Jinx," Sly said, pointing to each of us in turn.

"Sly, that's not my name." I rolled my eyes, stepping forward and offering my hand, "Kaia Jenks. Nice to meet you. Please don't fall into Sly's bad habits."

Tennessee chuckled slightly, taking his hat off again and reaching out to take my hand, "My pleasure, ma'am."

I was expecting him to shake my hand, not kiss it, but I guess that made sense given the time period. Plus, the weird little twitches Sly was doing out of the corner of my eye were hilarious.

"Tennessee," Bentley said, coming to the rescue, "I'd like to hear your side of the story of your capture."

Tennessee snarled, dropping his hat back on his head, "Toothpick," he growled, with utter hatred, "that low-down, no good-"

He ranted for a while, which was perfectly entertaining given his repertoire of colloquialisms, but I got distracted by Sly sidling up to me with a weird look on his face, "What?"

"What was that?"

I blinked at him in confusion, rewound the last few minutes in my head, didn't find anything weird, then did it a couple of more times just to make sure, "Wh- oh, you mean the hand thing?" I raised an eyebrow, "What were you expecting me to do, smack him?"

"Yes."

I was legitimately surprised by his certainty, then remembered that he'd really never seen me interact with anyone outside of the gang, "It's the time period, Sly. I swear, it's like you forget I'm not asexual."

He spluttered while I sauntered back over to the table and plopped down, which was weird and funny, and told me that I had a whole new and exciting way to mess with him now. I knew it didn't mean anything of course, I'd learned that last year. And I'd made my peace with it. I wasn't even sure I had feelings for him anymore, but I wasn't going to look at it too hard. That way lay madness, too much chocolate, and Doctor Who marathons, as I'd figured out last time. It had been a sucky lesson so my plan was to just stomp down any and all feelings into the deepest, darkest part of my soul where only the bravest dare enter.

And I was by no means brave.

"... arrested me 'fore I even got to the bank!" Wow, Tennessee was still going, "An' then- then! The bank got robbed anyway! And guess who got blamed, even though he was already in jail?"

"Uh... you?" Murray ventured.

Tennessee just stared at the hippo for a second before apparently deciding to roll with the fact that Murray didn't always get rhetorical questions, "Darn right! And it's not like any lawman would put in a word for me, so it was straight to the noose. 'Till y'all showed up, that is," he tipped his hat gratefully.

"Did you tell anyone when and where you were going to pull the heist?" Sly asked, pulling up a chair beside me and sitting on it backwards.

"'Course not! But you mark my words, it's Toothpick that's got the gold stashed away somewhere."

"That seems completely likely," Bentley said, fingers flying over his laptop, "Since the tech in the prison told us he was from our time, I looked up Toothpick's Interpol file."

"Good reading?" Sly asked, propping his chin on his folded arms.

"The best. Got everything from medical records to psych evals in here." Bentley turned his computer around so we could all see what was on it. "Says here Toothpick's actually a two-bit gangster from Eastern Europe. Grew up on cowboy movies and masterminded some of the greatest gold heists of our time period. Seems like he always fancied himself a gunslinger."

Sly pulled the laptop closer and started going through the psych evals. He let out a low whistle, "We're gonna have to be careful, this guy sounds like a real loose cannon."

"Uh, someone wanna fill me in on how that box is doin' that?"

The look on Sly's face when he realized he'd totally forgot to fill Tennessee on the whole 'we're from the future' thing should have been photographed and framed, it was so priceless.

Bentley sighed, "Well, this should be entertaining. Kaia, want to give Kid the cliffnotes?"

"Heheh, sure," I spun in my chair to face Tennessee, "Okay, you know the Thievius Raccoonus?"

"'Course I do."

"Alright. We're from a hundred and thirty years in the future, give or take. Sly," I jerked a thumb in the raccoon's direction, "Is your descendant. He inherited the Thievius Raccoonus. One day the writing on the pages for certain Coopers just up and vanishes. Bentley here, the brains of our operation, figures out something is messing with time so those pages never got written. Your pages disappeared, so we knew something had happened to you. So, we hopped into our handy dandy time machine and came back in time to figure out what was messing up the past. We've got lots of neat technology you've never seen before, but will almost certainly like. Got all that?"

He thought on it for a second, "Sure."

"Awesome," I turned back around and gave Bentley a thumbs up, "Okay, we're good."

The turtle twitched slightly, presumably my 'oversimplication of the facts' was killing part of his soul again, but continued nevertheless, "Right. Well, obviously the first order of business will be to steal back Tennessee's guns."

"Well, actually," Kid piped up, "It's just the one gun now. I upgraded. But yeah, I need my shootin' iron back!"

"Agreed," Bentley nodded, "I'm checking some sources right now to uncover the gun's location. I should have answers by morning."

"Okay, so, just for clarification, does that mean we actually get to sleep? At nighttime?" I asked.

"Yes, Kaia, though I have full faith you could sleep any time and any place you wanted to," Someone put on their sassy pants today.

"Just checking. Hey Sly?"

"Mmm?"

"I'm stealing your sleeping bag."

"Ok- wait no!"

Someone was poking me awake. I briefly considered biting them, but that seemed to be too much effort, so I just grunted and flapped a few fingers in their general direction.

"Come on, missy, up and at 'em. Everyone else is downstairs already."

I froze for a good second before I could process who that voice belonged to and groaned when I realized the subsequent adrenaline rush and the light coming in the window were going to keep me from going back to sleep, "'d they dare you to come up here?"

"Naw, but they were laughin' so I guessed this was pretty dangerous business," Tennessee chuckled as I yawned and stretched, popping sleep-stiff joints, "Don't know what the big joke was. You're just like a cat curled up in the sun."

"Yeah, well I'm part cat, so that makes sense," Looking down at the mess of bedding under me, I found myself trying to solve the mystery of whether Sly had somehow managed to dump me out of his sleeping bag onto my own or if I'd just migrated there by myself. The sleeping bags were right next to each other and kind of tangled together, so it was difficult to tell.

"Figured y' might be," Kid Cooper smirked when I looked up at him in surprise, tapping the corner of his eye, "It's the eyes. My ma always said, no matter what mix you are, it can't be hid if you know what to look for, so you gotta own it. I'm part coyote myself." My mouth fell open in surprise, but he was already scampering down the ladder, "C'mon down or we're gonna start without ya!"

Scrubbing at my eyes, I untangled my leg from Sly's sleeping bag and tugged on my shoes before following Tennessee down the ladder much more slowly.

"Good of you to join us," Bentley said from the table. I just yawned and flapped a hand at him before making my way toward the van to get breakfast.

"So, what's the plan, Bentley?" Sly asked, feet up on the table and hands curled around a cup that had probably once contained coffee, but was currently empty and being stared at with a vague sense of betrayal by the raccoon. I mixed milk and sugar into a mug of my own and sat it on the table a fair distance from his boots before returning to the van to acquire a bagel.

Bentley looked up to make sure I was paying attention to the slideshow before beginning, "According to my sources, Toothpick shut this old gold mine down several months ago, declaring it 'unsafe'. In fact, he's converted it into a storage facility for his stolen goods, including Tennessee's gun-"

"That is not coffee." For once it wasn't me who interrupted Bentley's slideshow, but Sly. He was glaring at my mug like it had personally wronged him.

I rolled my eyes, dropping into the chair next to him and snatching my mug back, "That's because it's tea. Good to finally know who the mysterious coffee-drinking ghost is and how to defeat it, though."

"Is this an alternate reality?" Sly asked, "Since when do you drink tea?"

"Possibly," I muttered to myself at Sly's first question, remembering my conversation with Tennessee a few minutes ago. Louder, I answered the second, "I had to learn to make it for Tate. It's actually okay, once you know how to make it right."

"Who's Tate?"

"Okay!" Bentley interrupted and- wow there was actually a vein twitching over his right eyebrow. I did not think that was a thing that actually happened, "Clearly you two haven't completely caught up yet. Why don't you set a specific time to do it that isn't in the middle of one of our briefings?"

Catching the looks on Tennessee and Murray's faces (amused and worried, respectively), I deliberately sat back and sipped my tea. Sly settled in too, swiping half my bagel because he apparently had to salvage his breakfast-stealing dignity. I resolved to steal his cane at some point in retaliation.

"Thank you. We'll need to take measures with this job, so as not to arouse suspicion. So, employing a masterful disguise," Bentley gestured at a pile of worryingly bright cloth and- oh God, was that a fake mustache? "I'll tail Toothpick to the mine's entrance and mark it with a homing beacon. Murray, you'll then use the beacon to find you way there. Toothpick's sure to have secured the entrance so we'll need your... 'formidable skills' to get it open. Then, once we have access, Tennessee can get in and get his gun back. Let's get to work!"

"I think we're grounded," I said morosely, tugging the straps on the paraglider I was assembling- Sly's last one had been torn when he and Tennessee made a less-than-elegant landing after their prison break. I was a master at putting those things together, after all this time.

"Yeah," Sly agreed, lugging the last of the ping pong equipment from the van and setting it near the parts of the table he was going to put together, "But Bentley can't hold a grudge, so we should be good by the time he gets back."

"Well, thank God for small favors," I muttered, tightening a strap with my teeth when I ran out of hands.

"So," Sly started, faux casual as he reached for a bag of screws, "Who's Tate?"

"Ahanu and Ritsuka's kid. Six years old, sugarglider, adorable wrapped in cute. Likes tea and The Lion King."

"Oh," He sounded like that was not the answer he'd been expecting, but he preferred it. I squinted at him, wondering what he could possibly have thought-

The tangle of cloth I was working with fell from my hands, "Oh sweet Lord, you thought I got a boyfriend and didn't tell you!"

He didn't even bother to deny it, he just shifted uncomfortably and pretended to be really involved in setting up the ping pong table.

"You did!" I laughed and chucked an empty cream cheese cup at his head, "You're a moron."

He caught it without even looking, making me highly suspicious that Rioichi had given him secret ninja lessons while the rest of us weren't looking, "Oh, well, thanks for that information."

Shaking my head at him, I concentrated on properly folding the paraglider into his backpack, "Trust me, I'd have mentioned."

"Well, it's been ages and Bentley was right. We haven't really caught up."

Smirking, I shifted my chair so I could see him better as I worked, "You just want the juicy gossip about Ahanu and Ritsuka."

"Where'd the kid come from?"

We swapped theories on exactly that after I filled him in, until Bentley, Tennessee, and Murray came back.

"Bentley," I said, dumping the completed paraglider onto the table, "I promise, we learned our lesson, no more conversations during the slideshow. Can we stop being grounded now?"

Bentley made a big show of thinking about that before deciding, "One at a time. Sly, while I'm still conveniently in disguise, I need your help finding out what Toothpick's up to. Help me get sarsparilla out of the van."

"What do you need sarsparilla for?" Sly asked.

"All in due time." Bentley cackled to himself.

Tennessee came over to sit next to me and I got my first really good look at his cane. I let out a low whistle, "If I knew anything about guns, I'd probably be really impressed right now."

He shot me a look, "Missy, I'd be much obliged if you'd tell me you're jokin' and you actually do know how to shoot."

I shrugged, waving as Sly and Bentley headed outside, "Grew up with an overprotective dad and, after that, never really got a chance to learn."

"Now that ain't right." Tennessee was up and bouncing on the balls of his feet, "Everyone's gotta know how to shoot. Come on, get that doohickey over there to give us some cans. We're gonna have a little lesson."

As cool as Tennessee was, I was a bit concerned by the smug way he said 'little lesson', "Murray," I made my way over to the van and tried to figure out how to get it to cough up empty cans, "You coming with us?" I had a feeling backup would be good to have.

"I've almost got this arcade game working, but I'll see you when you get back!" So much for that.

Well, maybe when I got back I could use the video game to repair my ego after being terrible at shooting wounded it.

There we go, another one bites the dust! I'm off to go resist the urge to set fire to my Spanish class and eat ice cream. You know the drill!